“This is a Seven Part Series, you are reading Part I”

“The person who is the star of previous era is often the last one to adapt to change, the last one to yield to logic of a strategic inflection point and tends to fall harder than most.” Andrew S. Grove Only the Paranoid Survive

Job security

Is your company growing? Is it becoming more competitive by the day? Is its market share increasing? How has the share value performed over the last couple of quarters? What prevailing threats and weaknesses your company faces today? Is there a threat to survival for your company and its business offering?  As working individuals, we seldom get time to ponder over these questions as these questions are something that a CEO of the company would worry about. As long as we are getting our salaries and are reasonably appraised, there is no need to worry. This is natural; all of us have just enough time to grapple with our own routines than worry about these profound questions. But all hell breaks loose when one fine morning, your company hands you the pink slip, leaving you off guard – Why now and why me?  Let us have a look at some of our traditional beliefs (myths about job security) and ground realities.

Do you read – “nothing of traditional approach”, will secure my job? – You read it right and I mean it. In essence, your job is not permanent. How can anything be permanent in this impermanent world? Let us start here!  I am not pointing towards the end of the world, rather pointing out some bitter realities of life itself. ‘Change is constant and so is the truth’. The truth is, that ‘the world is impermanent’, and we have taken refuge here for some time. Why lace our stay with fear? Fear of impermanence?

Fear is an impediment for freedom, and bondage is impediment for growth.

Many people opt for government jobs; reason is ‘job security’. This marks the beginning of end of a dream. I mean the reason, not the entity.

Job insecurity is a breeding ground for resistance to change. Only change can produce a change!

Why resist change? Secure what?

A change in perspective

Looking for job security is to let others decide your destiny. So take your destiny in your own hands. The wise have said ‘if there is no here, there is no hereafter’. This is the path to freedom.  Recession or no recession, job cuts or no job cuts, stop thinking of ‘job security’; change your perspective to ‘job change’. It is a significant shift in approach but one that can be rewarding. I am not preaching here to become disloyal to your organization. Loyalty is never between an individual and an organization; it is between an individual and his way of life.

The connect between any individual and company is ‘Business’ and in this material world, ‘Business’ is only loyal to profitability. If you don’t find it profitable anymore, you quit the company; if the company doesn’t find it profitable anymore, it quits you.  Faster career growth takes place only with a change in outlook. Reasons you choose for a job change are crucial. Take time, don’t rush; base them on nurturing strengths and not weaknesses. It is like nurturing a plant in your backyard. You have to sow the seed, plough the soil, and add manure to begin with. You have to add water every day, and expose the plant to sunlight.

Fear often surfaces by restraining forces deep within us. Every person in this world has only one friend and one enemy – Mind. It is a paradox; how can our mind be friend and foe at the same time? Have a look:

And the list goes on…… No one is perfect here. We are all travelers on the path; if the journey is perfect, the result will be perfect. The need is to plan and focus on the journey.

While taking a walk in the park, I look at every tree with awe, wondering at the power the seed brought with it to enable it to grow into a size that is beyond imagination. Similarly, both friend and foe mind sows the ‘seed’ every day; it is we who choose which ones to nurture. Once the seeds grow into a big redwood tree, it is near impossible to axe it, be it the tree of strength or weakness.  As a seed does not grow into a towering tree in a day, change in perspective doesn’t come easy, not at least by reading an article or so. It is a persevering path. Nature puts perseverance to test over and again. The meaning of the word perseverance is having undergone many ordeals and yet standing firm on the path.

Wise men suggest three ‘D’s help in the path of freedom:

  • Discrimination
  • Determination
  • Detachment

DiscriminationTo garner a shift in perspective, you should first start discriminating your seeds, the thoughts that you silently witness every day. Be analytical and spend some time with them and classify them in two buckets: seeds of strength and seeds of weakness.  Seeds of weakness make more noise than those of strength and gather much attention and votes by sounding incredibly practical in the present context.

You should be discriminative and act on the thoughts that give you strength alone. It is your destiny, not of someone else. You should decide what means ‘promising’ future for you, and discriminate between what you would define as strength and weakness. Thoughts that prevent you from trying something new, that compel you to act considering your benefit alone by hook or crook sow the seeds of weakness. The thoughts you nourish today will either harness weakness or strengths that you will carry tomorrow, hence choose them carefully.

DeterminationScore yourself on determination on a scale of five; what do you find? Disallow gloom to descend on you if you fail to score five of five here. There are many other travelers on the path; you are not alone, if it offers little solace!

Determination is a character; you need it only when you are chasing a goal. No goal, no need for determination. Your thoughts and actions lay the foundation to build determination.

Nature reserves toughest tests to test your determination. Tests become tougher with every test that you pass but remember it produces unparalleled results.

Ask someone who has just managed to walk the tightrope between two sky-scrapping buildings – why do you do this, bare-handed? Aren’t you afraid of death? A likely response would be – death if I fail! Years of practice go behind it, and for all you know it would have involved several falls.  ‘Do for the heck of it’, attitude works. If you don’t understand or know how to fail, determination is building. Extraordinary feats come only with extraordinary efforts, and commitment to rise and walk again, no matter how many times you fall.

Detachment: The number of attempts you plan based on the result of the last trial, will help you score yourself on detachment to results!  Analyzing what worked and what didn’t in last trial, and designing the next try based on it is one view, not making any further trials owing to last failure is another. Hopes dwindle and journey ends in latter case. It has become our nature to look at failure alone, and not ‘what caused failure’.  When I set out from my house around 10:00 pm to buy something from a shop, foe mind reports, ‘the shops will be closed’. I ignore and go to the first shop if it is closed, to a second shop, if closed, to third … as long as time and energy allow. Usually I succeed sometimes I fail, but failure doesn’t stop me from trying when I am in need.  Why 10:00 pm? This is what I could afford! There is a need and I need to try my best in given scenario. If I fail, I come back and plan for tomorrow.  Failure leads to judgment, judgment leads to condition, and condition brews attachment. It is a vicious circle.

Work done with attachment to its result brews error in the approach. Having a goal is different from attachment to an actions result. Goal directs thought and act and result is an outcome of thought and act. Series of such results lead to achievement of final Goal.  We sow a seed in soil with a goal to see it flourish into flower and fruit bearing plant. If we uproot the seed every day, how is the goal to be achieved at all? When you drive back home from work, the goal is to reach home, but focus is on the road and travel, if we take our sight off the traffic flow we could meet with an accident, let alone reaching home safely. Do you ever get a doubt, whether you will reach home today or not, when you travel from office to home?   That is all, focus on journey you are bound to reach home in any case.

It is the journey that is important, not the destination.

To sum up, begin with a paradigm shift, a change in perspective. “Don’t look at your company for your survival; let the company look at you for its survival.”  Let us now go through these seven steps which may help you to discover the power you carry within.

Step 1 – Be Discontent

Puzzled? What we are discontent with are the ‘end results’, it is an effect only and not the cause. Effect is proportionate to its cause, “We are what we choose to be and get only what we have worked for”.  Do we know enough of what we want? We face something and then decide this is not what we want! This goes on. Worst is we are only discontent with the result, and not with the effort that we put behind to achieve that result.

For instance, we desire for at least 50% hike this year and we get only 10%, we are discontent. Put this question to yourself – ‘Why should you get 50% hike at all? Did you ever plan and align your actions to demand 50% hike? Did you ever go to your supervisor and asked, “what does it take for me to get at least 50% hike?” and if your supervisor said no matter what you achieve, 50% hike is impossible, what action did you take? If you stayed on, why you did so?

Once I came across a senior executive whom company had recently denied promotion to ‘section manager’. He quit his job…, I met him when he was serving his notice period.

I asked “why did you quit your job? Is it because your company didn’t recognize you as ‘Manager’?

He said “Yes”.

I asked, ‘what makes you think you should be a ‘Manager’? He got struck and couldn’t answer! After a long pause he said “I have served for five long years in this company now, so I think I deserve this tag.’

I said, “How if I get another person from outside, and put him in your job, who has seven year of experience, willing to achieve better results than you ever achieved?” “Good to know you are discontent, but imagine if you ask your supervisor, ‘what does it take to get ‘section manager’ tag? Tell me the numbers and time-frame?

“Set a goal, plan the battle and fight it out” don’t seek anyone’s help; self help is the best way, and fight to finish.  If you are not recognized at the end, brace to change the battlefield, promote yourself and choose worthy opponents to fight with.  Here is a list which covers most areas of discontentment, if not all.

  • Pay package
  • Work location
  • Designation
  • Appraisal
  • Bonus
  • Relocation policy
  • Insurance coverage
  • Fringe benefits
  • Team size
  • Sponsorship policies
  • Company culture
  • Performance goals
  • Work pressure
  • Peer pressure
  • People and their ways which includes, boss

The list above is only end results of our perceptions, thoughts and actions. We are what we chose to be, and get only what we have worked for.  If you think of becoming a CEO one day, you will become one; it is just a matter of time. But thought alone doesn’t help. To become a CEO, you must be ‘discontent’ with what you are today, what you have today, and put up what it takes to become a CEO one fine day. There are no accidents in any journey, everything is by design.

A dream remains a dream till a thought remains a thought, when a thought produces action laced with perseverance and commitment, dream transforms into destiny.

Let me now bring two perspectives to discuss:

  • Accountability
  • Accomplishments

How often do you take accountability for the failures? How often you admit to the lack of accomplishment in assigned work area? To others and to yourself?  It is not uncommon to see, when results are fine many come forward to take accountability, when results prove disaster, there are no takers. One who comes forward to take accountability for failures, he/she has begun to make a difference, ending to be a ‘common guy’, with common traits. However don’t take accountability for everything that went right or that went wrong, take accountability that aligns with nurturing strength.

Taking accountability when you shouldn’t have and not taking accountability when you should’ve nurtures weakness. By doing so, you perhaps managed to survive the current round, but remember there are many more rounds to come. To fight several rounds in the ring you need strength and endurance.  Worst is when we try to convince ourselves that what happened was fine! This way we make a fool of ourselves and knock at the door of degradation.

How you handle accountability and accomplishments decide what you receive in long-term, if not short-term.   When you are discontent with assigned work, you ask for more. When you are discontent with current accomplishments you seek more. When you dare to take accountability, you deserve more. Discontent is the ‘starting point’ of any journey.

If your Key Result Area is to complete 100 transactions a day, you focus on achieving 100. Why not 200? It is because ‘Foe mind’ at work suggests – ’why risk failure? Why commit something you don’t even know how to achieve! Even if you do, you will set an expectation’ and you will have to achieve it every time. ‘Why get into trouble at all?’ Your pay check is intact, you are somehow achieving given targets, so why get into hassles? Let the need arise then decide… and the Foe Mind succeeds.

The seed sown this way bears the fruits of:

  • Complacency
  • Lack of conviction
  • Low confidence level
  • Lack of experiential knowledge to achieve breakthrough results
  • Fear of failure
  • Fear to start
  • Failure to learn

Your contentment level lays foundation for your accomplishments; what you hold yourself accountable for, lays foundation for your position.

Though you may be the commander in chief, but in warfare you will have to win over trust, respect and care of fellow soldiers or even generals. Trust others and others will trust you, include others you will feel belonging, respect others and others will respect you, and care for others so that others will care for you and do all of these in professional context.

However, use your maturity levels to draw a line between under or overdoing any of the above, lest you will be distracted from your course. If you are discontent when:

  • your role is not clear,
  • you don’t have a measurable goal,
  • you are unable to achieve measurable goals consistently,
  • you can achieve measurable goals ‘somehow’ and not sure if you or someone else can reproduce them,
  • your goals seem too easy to achieve,
  • you hide your failures and look for ‘what to hook’ during calamity,
  • you don’t take accountability when you should have taken, and
  • you don’t volunteer to take additional responsibilities,

You have made the right beginning! It is a matter of time; you will reach your dream destiny. Focus on the journey, believe in yourself and tread the path. Have patience and commitment, journey will take care of your other needs.

To be continued … Part II – Step 2 – “Cherish Extraordinary Desires”

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