Career dilemma-Are you getting into 'One-way'​ to a 'No road ahead'​ trap?

 We all have heard of "fake it till you make it"! Lot inspiring and fills us with indefatigable self-belief!

I heard, the best home for us is actually our body! We all have heard, 'I was

made to feel so uncomfortable in my own skin!Not a sexist statement!

Irrespective of gender affiliations or leanings, this statement shakes us! All

due to external factors intruding, invading, ripping-off, at times just trashed! Painful!

Such feeling do occur at workplace to all of us at some point in time! We feel so

ordinary, so useless and almost a liability and burden to the system! People in

great 'looking' jobs feel so miserable, so helpless and ignored!

Prabir's quote above in pic, has shaken me to think about the moment that visits people in their career and profession; from glory to gloom, spotlight to dark lanes! History is replete with stories of fade-outs, greatest empires where sun never set, greatest of businessmen, kings of good times, world-class players, greatest politicians, greatest authors, movie stars, they all had a date with their most unsavory truths-fade out!

Does this truth strike you, completely unaware, with no sign of it coming? Actually

not! We all know it but we ignore it, we refuse to accept any reality! It is no

less than a Schizophrenia!

schizophrenia/ˌskɪtsə(ʊ)ˈfriːnɪə/noun

1.   a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation.

2.   (in general use) a mentality or approach characterized by inconsistent or contradictory elements."Gibraltar's schizophrenia continues to be fed by colonial pride"

We have seen big businesses failing, celebrity businessmen on the run, biggest

civilizations ending to obscurity! Most respected brands losing credibility!

Prabir's reminder is quite timely, especially, when we see business leaders, political

parties and their leaders, nations meeting the same course as Prabir stated;

"you business, your politics, your leadership style, does not need you as

much as you need them! Wake up time, realize, it is not working, rules of games

have changed, you may be facing geriatric problems and still whistling in the pipe-dream, "Hafeez Jallandhari's legendary nazm, 'Abhi to Main Jawan Hoon'!

अभी तो मैं जवान हूँ!

The only way to keep relevant is keep changing! Trees change to face changing

seasons, birds migrate to save life, brands reinvent or die (Xerox,Kodak,

Hindustan Motors,etc) Careers are no different! Jobs that are hot and sexy today will lose all sheen tomorrow. Sometimes, changes are too fast and they sweep in a whiff! Don't be a dodo! Don't live in the twilight with gravity defying belief..

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. ---Theodore Roosevelt

My most favorite quote!

"Work at changing the equation"-

We all forgot that at MBA, we were sent to learn to run business and what most of

us learnt, is this; "work for an entrepreneur"! 'Join the party, fly business class, drink scotch, speak stolen English content in fake accent! What we learn is become "ghar jamaai"!/घर जमाई! (Wikipedia definition-live-in son-in-law) And everyone knows how shameful this term is for a chauvinist male!

Women folks, "bhawanaon ko samjho/ भावनाओं को समझो !"

In professional life, the biggest inhibitor to learning new skills and trade is a tag called, "premier B/T/etc school"! This is such a feudal tag that has made us prison in our own delusional world! Remember, Bahadur Shah II the descendant of great Mughal emperor Akbar, was captured and imprisoned in his own fort, the mighty Red Fort at Delhi and later even a worse fate , extradited to Burma in exile!

Wake up, change equations, as Prabir exhorts, be smart, dynasties do not last beyond their expiry dates! We live in a rapidly changing world! VUCA is for everyone, who repeats it to train others, everyday at their management training sessions!

Be smart, or else your jobs are at stake! Work at changing equations means the following-

1.   Choose alternative career path, be HR analytics and delivery expert. Google uses ~60% TVC staff (Temps, Vendors and Consultants)! and CHROs to HR Managers must think what is this magic combination of FTEs vs TVCs? How it brings the 'core' business to a strategic and innovation inflection point! Think of using the most expandable resource, people in the most disruptive manner! The way, HR or Delivery managers have thought of TVCs in India is quite rudimentary! This is for HR leaders as said.

2.   Start bidding /lobbying for business roles, especially where company is looking for new areas of operations and new businesses, or new geographies, prepare and build new skills. This is not insider trading so keep working on under currents, win confidence of business leaders who can risk to invest in you, 'coz you show immensely infectious determination!

3.   Become a partner to change-Look for possibilities to become vendor, consultant or a techno-business-consultant specialist to help support your principal company an ecosystem expert helping company make leaps! For example, Redington India ($2 Bn) and Ingram Micro ($43 Bn) became billion dollar companies as they saw opportunity in becoming Apple's distribution and then IT distribution for other IT majors! World's best consulting firms have come to solve pains of the behemoth, who needs a catalyst to change and win, keep winning! Most problems can be viewed better from outside! Insiders have limitations, we all know.

Don't get disheartened by people telling you hard-hitting realities but they also suggest a remedy, e.g. HR will be dead by 2020 video by Vineet Nayar.

I believe, like poetry is a concoction of a poet's condensed thoughts, some tweets having the blessings of the mighty goddess! (No bias, just remembering #IWD :))

Thank you Prabir for igniting some thought process!