The Authentic Swing

Have you found your authentic swing?

When you are ONE with everything, the grass, the ground, the sky, the wind!

That is when you are onto the Career you wanted for yourself.

Search for your authentic swing, let it take 100 hours, a 1000, a 10000?

- Bagger Vance adapted

Annie Helps

Question: “I am tired of working for greedy and arrogant bosses who make bad decisions and everyone below suffers. I am thinking about starting my own business, but I have to provide for my family. It’s scary, but I don’t know what else to do.” – Posted By Vince, Los Angeles, CA

Helpful Response: I say go for it!

The only thing worse than failing in life is not trying. I would rather see you fall flat on your face and learn something than to go from job to job being miserable.

At some point, you have to throw “safety” to the wind and do something that will give you a shot at a better future. Too many people spend their whole lives working at jobs that they hate and NEVER take a chance at fulfilling their dreams.

Most people that have started their own businesses later in life had families to take care of. You would be surprised to learn what your family could go without if they needed to. What if you and your wife both lost your jobs? You would have to make some major modifications to your lives but you would survive.

I think the best thing to do is to ask some SUCCESSFUL people who have started their own business how they did it and how they became successful. Again, I stress SUCCESSFUL. Do not ask people who are too scared to do anything or those who are bitter about their failures. They will discourage you and make you feel hopeless.

Take action, my friend! You can do it!

Low Base Effect

A senior often commented, "It would take at least 50000 years for the society to evolve".

The media hype over last few decades and the surge in visible technological progress (primarily in 18th-19th century with post-world War II phase) has given common man a wrong impression, an impression that MUCH of what mankind had to do has been done, and merely itsy-bitsy incremental enhancements are needed.

Nothing could be farther from truth. The society is still driven by:

- feudalism...the enterprise owners put a pretext of caring for people, all the while keyed into exploiting via long timings at work place, manipulated psychological stroking etc;

- you look at a person's physicals and then decide to relate/ employ;

- talk of CSR is pretty crap;

- democracy (in deed) is a sham, hugely manipulated; and what not.

Medicine has no clue of human body's dynamics; it has learnt to suppress pain, perform mechanical intervention, and this way allow time for the body-system to recover.

Jurisprudence is pretty formative, with no idea of deeper compulsions, and apposite reform mechanisms.

It seems engineers are doing fine (though purse sciences is still nascent, looking at what all is expected).

What is being hinted is the fact that we are, in social evolution, at a 'beginner's level' and whatever happens is significantly tipping; almost like a lagging African economy experiencing a low absolute GDP growth, but high enough in percentage terms. This is not to say what all has been done is inconsequential; it is not. It is quite significant, but we are still afar from the higher echelons mankind can do. Dinosaurs lasted 600 million years, we have lasted 4 million years. We have done more than they could, shall we do even more?

What is Appraisal

A newly joined trainee engineer asks his boss "what is the meaning of appraisal?"

Boss: "Do you know the meaning of resignation?"

Trainee: "Yes I do"

Boss: "So let me make you understand what an appraisal is by comparing it with resignation"

Appraisal	Resignation
In appraisal meeting they will speak only about your weakness, errors and failures.	In resignation meeting they will speak only about your strengths, past achievements and success.
In appraisal you may need to cry and beg for even 10% hike.	In resignation you can easily demand (or get even without asking) more than 50-60% hike.
During appraisal, they will deny promotion saying you didn't meet the expectation, you don't have leadership qualities, and you had several drawbacks in our objective/goal.	During resignation, they will say you are the core member of team; you are the vision of the company how can you go, you have to take the project in shoulder and lead your juniors to success.
There is 90% chance for not getting any significant incentives after appraisal.	There is 90% chance of getting immediate hike after you put the resignation.

Trainee: "Yes boss enough, now I understood my future. For an appraisal I will have to resign ... !!!"

A Framework to Evaluate A Candidate

The profile generated ought to measure four quotients, wherein each quotient has three components:

EQ... Emotional Quotient:
         EQ1- self-esteem and identity
         EQ2- relationships
         EQ3- values and paradigms

IQ... Intelligence Quotient:
         IQ1- analytic abilities
         IQ2- number crunching skills
         IQ3- creativity and spontaneity

WQ... Workplace Quotient: 
         WQ1- awareness and maturity on career dynamics
         WQ2- awareness of industries and corporates
         WQ3- awareness of work functions

CQ... Communication Quotient:
         CQ1- conceptual processing
         CQ2- expression and syntax
         CQ3- presence and impact

See where you would stand on these, on a scale of 0-10.

Building and Managing Career Branding

What happens when you look at and hear about names like: Tata, Nike, Sony, IBM, Wipro, Infosys, Microsoft, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Lux, Dove, P&G?

A mental image of something well-known conjures up, an image of a company or a product that can be trusted. Also usually positive feelings one has experienced while interacting with that brand come up. 

In contrast, what image is invoked when you think of Satyam, Lehmann or Arthur Andersen – a negative image.

Brands and their brand power or brand equity decide how well their products or services would sell in the market place. In a competitive market, different brand equities are what set apart almost generic offerings. 

Sameways, just think, what image is excited by your name in your company: a superlative performer like Sachin Tendulkar, or an off-and-on performer like Virender Sehwag or a non-performer like any of the faceless cricketers. Your seniors, colleagues and subordinates: how do they perceive you. In short, what is your own person brand power in your organization and in your career.

You would agree, this is a very vital facet of career. And just like companies spend lots of money to build brands, you too need to invest extra efforts to build you-as-a-brand.

Branding is your reputation. Branding is about building a name for yourself, showcasing what sets you apart from others, and describing the added value you bring to a situation. 

You as a brand can be constructed and nurtured on the following principles:
1. The Core Promise: It is a good idea to introspect and determine your Enneagram (there are 9 types) after taking a RHETI test (available freely on internet). You must determine what is your personality type and then work on knowing it more.

2. Co-Labels: A good brand has multiple constituent labels, which are brands by themselves. For example, a refrigerator may say it excellent because it is ISO certified, uses PUF, uses some XYZ latest technology etc. Sameways, your CV should speak of multiple reliable labels, for example:
a) Educational institutions are well-known kind b) the marks in various courses are above average c) the companies you have worked at are well-known ones d) the certifications you have earned are famous ones

3. Span: From work perspective, a very important brand element is your span of work. This implies:
a) how large a revenue contribution are you making to the company, the more the merrier.
b) how large a team are you handling, and if possible, is this team distributed, or is it all under your visible sight
c) how large a geography are you managing, a smaller one means you aren’t that potent a force in your role 
All these span elements decide cumulatively whether you are a strong band ore a weak one.

4. Linkages: This implies how good and deep are your relationships:

a) with your seniors, are you reporting to a Manager, to a Senior Manager or to the Executive Director
b) with media people, with suppliers-vendors, with customers; can you get things done on force of relationships alone
c) with colleagues, they sweet talk about you or indulge in back-biting
d) with subordinates, are you seen as a mean boss or as a mentoring father figure or a friend-guide-philosopher

5. Situations Stretch: Herein it is assessed whether you can manage only repeat situations in your work, or even new situations too; how well do you cope up with ad hoc stuff, with exigencies.

6. Visibility: A powerful brand is talked about, so are you taking lots of mindshare of people around you, your senior management, or they see through you. Now modesty or loud splashing of yourself should be as much as your organizational culture allows. Some organizations hate too dominant people, and some snub the too modest ones, so take a call on what your environment indicates is the better policy.

Finally, a leading brand has to be actively managed, otherwise trailing brands would overtake. So just like USA is a powerful brand, and is so a natural target for terrorists, you too must have defensive measures to protect your brand equity.

Happy career brand building!