This morning I met an ex-colleague who sought my help in furthering his career. I usually have such talks over long, early morning walks in Lalbagh as it helps me see things objectively (For the same reasons, I meet my Bangalore based mentors too in Lalbagh luring them with a treat at the famous MTR post the walk). This person, lets call him John, is an individual contributor with 20+ years in the industry. John in very articulate, sincere and grounded. He is well aware of his own strengths, limitations and options. A great character any manager would love to have in the team.
I was surprised when he sought my help. But quickly understood his problem. He is in the current organization now for 10+ years and gotten into some kind of a comfort zone. He still is highly rated and enjoys his work. The problem is that he feels his influence is declining after he moved to a different vertical by choice, though he still is their senior most and best architect. Moving to this vertical (automotive) is his personal choice. However, he is unable to engage his customers in meaningful discussion. He said he has read everything on automotive domain from internet and played around with tools available easily. Everything appeared fine and I asked him to contrast his new experience with his previous domain (wireless). He said he never had such issues in his previous domain. It then suddenly stuck to me that in the wireless domain he literally grew with the technology - starting with 2G, all the way upto LTE-A. Naturally then the connect was easy. Whereas for automotive his knowledge is bookish and his customers sense it quickly, no matter howsoever his skills are transferable, he is not able to connect. After brainstorming on several options we both decided it is best for him to move to an automotive hub like Detroit and work with one of the big names there for atleast an year to improve the odds. We both felt good and were able to enjoy our breakfast at NMH, an old, but charming restaurant near Lalbagh.
This was easy. John is so open to feedback and always looking at increasing his value-add to the system. I was quickly able to convince him that while he aspires to be an architect in Automotive, the company really needs someone that is extremely well versed. Atleast here the needs were matching, he had built his credibility and the company therefore was patient on him, and above all he was willing to do whatever it takes to get there. Not even once did he blame his management, or customer or economy or anything (he is one of best folks I've ever worked) and throughout the conversation his focus clearly remained on "what he could do". Infact, when he called he explained his situation and said "Prasad, I want your help to identify few areas that I can work on to get where I want to go".
It was so refreshing. Natural tendency of most of us is to blame someone/something, for it becomes easy to not take any action to move forward. People even with modest ambitions would not be willing to pay the price (I met a senior leader who told me how throughout his career he has taken odd/tough/jobs-no-one wants to do, to become valuable and therefore increased his influence and also got what he wanted - more on it in a separate post). Invariably it is our manager's fault that we are stuck!! Responsibility is lying all over the place waiting to be picked up.
Take Action - Wanting is not enough. Act on your goals; An inch of movement brings closer to your goals than a mile of intention - Steve Maraboli.
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