Whose Career Is It Anway?

Everyone wants a successful career. Many even seem to have one. And yet the reality is that most look back at their career as one that never fulfilled them. Many seem to be losing steam mid-way on their journey. I have often wondered why people do not design their careers and are comfortable in just plotting and planning.

It all starts with our own socialization : There is an inherent sense of the herd from childhood. One struggles to think beyond the beaten track. Each of us is born for a certain greatness but we end trying to be someone else. Imagine a squirrel trying to be a fish! The middle class virtue is a play safe mind set. No wonder, we kill our natural instincts and inclinations early in life. A choice of career is thus typically circumstantial, not one sustained by life interests.

Education is an accident: As we move up the education system, everyone wants to acquire a higher degree. It is another thing that many such qualifications are merely a piece of paper and do not substantially add to the career trajectory of thousands. As a country, we struggle still to make people employable, forget entrepreneurial. Careers cannot be a victim of an accident of education. How do we dare challenge this mind set? Nurture your passion if you need to sustain a career. Otherwise, you will join the ranks of many who on their retirement day rue the fact they spent a lifetime on something they were never born to enjoy or excel in.

Lateral Moves are Few:The ability of people to make lateral moves, often in very diverse functions and industries, is typically constrained. Many leaders and hiring managers also tend to be very stereotypical about the profiles they want to hire. The reality is that if one does not widen the catchment, you will never get new fishes to sample. While one must accept that certain niche jobs indeed have their constraints, it is equally true that only when organizations hire for learnability and leadership can you offer a variety of better mapped career opportunities beyond the obvious. We just do not think laterally enough. The same applies to individuals. People prefer to play in their own comfort zones, typically moving for a higher title or a few extra slivers of silver. Both do not automatically lend themselves to a career trajectory. We need to take risks. We need to do something we have never done. There is always the danger we will fail. But there is the guarantee we would have learnt something new. We would have differentiated ourselves from our herd. We would have possibly risk mitigated our careers from just the one option we hitherto had.

Stuck with the past: While mind sets of organizations and individual candidates need some fresh thinking, another possible career derailer is Mr Icarus. What got us here will surely not get us there, as someone put it straight. However, we continue to believe that what worked in the past, done again and with more vigour, will take us further. Alas, Icarus discovered it does not, to his own peril. We must step back and ask some uncomfortable questions on what should we let go. No two situations area like. Handled well, each is an opportunity for career lustre.

Repudiation or Reinvention?:It is ironic that initially people who excel as individual performers move up in their careers, often as managers. Not every good singleton is a star manager or leader. Not too many have been shown the mirror or have actually recognized the face in it. Careers need repudiation and reinvention at various stages. How do we work at it? Does our ego get in the way? Do we indeed try and do something we have never been? How do we work with our blind spots? How do we seek and work on feedback? These questions offer dramatic career insights.

The answer then is simple. Who owns your career? You or someone else? If you, then wake up and smell the beans. This in itself is a good starting point, even today.

(Prabir Jha is President & Group CHRO at Reliance Industries and writes, speaks and tweets extensively on Careers, Leadership, Organizational Culture & Transformation . His Twitter handle is @prabirjha )