Where's "My Life"?

One evening, I sat down thinking how long I have come, what "I was" and what "I am" and stopped at the question --- "Am I doing what -- I -- want to do?", the answer was "not everything I do is what I want to do", which led me to another question, "Where's -- My -- Life?". To seek the answer, I started out evaluating my life 5 years at a time, starting from the day I was born. Here's the train of my thoughts...

Age 0 to 5 -  For the first 5 years of my life I slept when I wanted to, ate when I wanted, played when I wanted. My home was my world. Everyone I knew, my parents, my grand parents were all special, the person I was with, was the most important at that moment in time. I tore up news papers, broke my toys, learned to stand and walk, learned to talk, learned that I can attract attention by throwing a tantrum, realized that I can melt mom, but dad was tougher. I learned to use my mother's lap as my bed, learned to make a mess, I learned that I can pinch my younger brother to make him cry and I could quickly run to the other room and run back in looking all concerned as my little darling brother was crying . There was nothing I cared about, and I was not expected to, I did what my heart said, I guess, my brain was only helping me with instant non sense.

Age 5 to 10 - I went to school, don't know what was happening, teacher said "A for Apple" and "Two Times Three is Six", and I believed it. Learnt to make friends, learned to complain, learnt that there is a variety of food beyond what my mother cooked. I learnt to use a fork to eat noodles. My teacher helped me discover the world, various continents, cities and it's peoples. When I came home to tell my dad that we live in a continent called Asia, he said he already knew about it!.

Age 10 to 15 - Learnt that I had stage fear, realized the friends can be enemies too, dad said "work hard and be competitive, you got to top the exams", I liked literature, I liked art, dad said "no way, there is no money in it, how are you going to feed your family", teachers told my parents that I was a good student, but I must work harder, dad said, "10th standard is the most important milestone and you get only one chance at it, so don't waste time". I wanted to learn to play the guitar, my dad wanted me to get trained on vocals, issue is unresolved to this date!. This was my initiation into Peer Pressure and the Rat Race.

Age 15 to 20 - "What are you going to do now? Engineering? Medicine? you must take up Science and prepare for the Entrance Tests", I told dad, I want to be a mechanic as I love automobiles, dad completed my admission formalities to study Electrical & Electronics Engineering in an Engineering College. New life, new friends, new freedom, professors are not bothered if I am present or absent in their class, they were there to do their job, i.e., deliver their lecture and get going. It is here I learnt that "teachers were working for money too", the picture of a teacher, a Guru who was preparing us to change the world was shattered. Staying in a college hostel, I realized, I have to live on a budget, bills had to be paid in time. I learned how to make five hundred rupees last for a month.

Age 20 to 25 - "Hey, you know this great IT company, they pay a big salary, they depute you around the world to work, you get to earn in Dollars, we should get IT jobs", another line of thought, "who cares for a job anyway, let's get done with Engineering first and then think what next", get a CV ready, do a software course and be ready when Companies come to the Campus, got a job, realized that it takes 10 days of work to earn Rs.1,000 and I have pay 10% of my earnings to the Government as Tax, but in college, all it would take is a phone call to dad, a cheque would arrive in 3 days. Learned that there is something called "Job Satisfaction" and I also learned that I was not satisfied!, learned to switch jobs, learned that interviews are just meetings where my interviewer is telling me that I am unfit for the job and I am trying to convince him otherwise!.

Age 25 to 30 - Have to earn more money, have to buy that cool red bike, just like my friend's, need a bigger room to stay, need a computer so I can browse the net when I get home. Have to try out swanky restaurants, watch movies, "Friday Dressing" sounds cool, I need a new wardrobe, hey you checked the new mobile phone? need that as well. How do I fund all this, it's easy, switch jobs. I wanted to make a statement that I had arrived and I needed a lifestyle to prove it. "Dad, I earn more than you!", I said, dad smiled.

Age 30 to 35 - Got married, disposable income got multiplied by 2. Need an apartment now, buy one, get a promotion, buy a car, daughter is born, watch her grow. Wife is busy taking pictures, making albums and shopping for the kid, while I tagged along figuring out what it would take to keep up with the expenses. As new parents we are trying to teach the kid to walk, to talk, to behave and what not, I now realize what my dad did for me. It's time to settle down, my outlook changed from a "Job" to a "Career", I am looking for stability, I am looking for work-life balance.

Age 35 to 40 - Which school is she going to go? Planning for my daughter's education, buy insurance polices, save for her education, plan for our retirement, "spread the risk", said the investment consultant, he said I should invest in stocks now, wife wants to buy jewelry because prices of Gold dropped by Rs.20 per gram, "what the hell? you want me to spend over Rs.100,000 to save Rs.800!, it's ridiculous", man will this ever end? Where's "my life"?

~ o ~ o ~ o ~

I don't know what life has in store for me. For once I have concluded that I won't have "my life" again, at least not in the next 3 decades or so, that is if I live that long!. The only time I did what I wanted to do was when I was less than 5 years old, I was living "My Life", but I didn't know it then!, after that it was predominantly doing what my parents wanted, what my teachers wanted, what my friends wanted, what my boss wanted. what my wife wanted, now it is what my daughter wants...

Now that I realize that "My Life" is my family, my friends and my work, then why complain? I should try to be happy to live for others in my life...

My Goals and my Thankless Job!

The difference between being an employee and being an entrepreneur is that an entrepreneur chooses his own path to achieve his/her goals and an employee chooses to contribute to the goals set by an entrepreneur.

I have chosen to be an employee and have been one for the last 15 years and I hope to continue for a few more years....

At work, my boss sets goals for me on a periodic basis and measures my performance against these goals...

Many a times, I have wondered how does my goals relate to my company goals, what difference does it make to the company if I don't achieve the targets set out for me, of course it affects my promotions and my annual salary increases, but other than that, what difference does it make?

On one beautiful rainy evening, I watched raindrops falling, I remembered a saying that I learnt at school, "Little drops of water make the mighty ocean, Little grains of sand make the mighty desert".

I found the answer to my question...

Small contributions by all employees add up to the achievement of a big goal.

For example: if the sales goal for the company for a certain product for the day is $100,000, then 100 sales staff bringing in $1,000 sales each, adds up to a $100,000. See the difference!

Now if one salesman says, I will take a break as I have to paint my house or I need a vacation or he is just upset with something that his boss said and decides not to turn up for work, we lose $1,000 for the day, so the daily sales total is now on $99,000. Overall picture, the team did not achieve the target.

See the effect of the "Rogue Salesman" --- He has successfully prevented 99 others from achieving the target. This guy goes scott free, but the others feel bad for not having achieved.

Most times, in companies, we never get to know of these rogue salesmen, because, some people over achieve and somehow help make up for the deficiencies of the rogue salesman. These stars keep the company going and protecting from the rogue salesmen. It is sad, but true.

Being an employee, I am obliged to achieve the goals set for me by my Manager. Whether the value of my contribution to the Organizational objective is big or small, I must do my best to achieve my goals. Even if the target is "mission impossible", give it a shot. If I succeed, I have a sense of achievement, if I fail after an honest attempt, I have some satisfaction of having tried at least, hence the experience. Trying and failing is a better than not trying at all.

I have heard a lot of people saying "I am doing a thankless job, there is no incentive for achieving my goals". I wonder why someone should be thankful to me for doing my job. Should my company be thankful? no way, they paid me, so we are even. How often have I thanked my maid for doing house keeping? How many times have I thanked the taxi driver for dropping me off to my destination? How many times has the sales clerk thanked me for picking up grocery at the supermarket? Unfortunately, the answer is "never". So, why should my company be thankful to me for doing my job?

The relation ship between the employee and the company is a mutually beneficial relationship. Company earns some revenue by the work I do, and I earn a salary.

Often times, I have heard employees saying, "I have brought in $1,000 sales today, but I get paid only $200 per work day, that is only 20% of the sales I have brought in". I asked myself is this a fair statement? I came to conclusion and an answer for this employee: "who pays for your transportation and food while you are on your sales call? who pays for your work desk? who pays your telephone bills? who pays for the air conditioning of your workplace? who pays for the cost of acquiring the product that you just sold? who pays for the marketing?" After paying all the bills, I doubt if the company makes even $200 from a $1,000 sales revenues. Even if it does, it helps buy new equipment, rent a new sales office, hire some new staff and everything that helps grow the company.

JFK had said, "Think not what the Country has done for you, Think what you have done for the Country", a very powerful statement indeed, now if I replace the word "Country" by "Company", does this statement still hold good? I think it does.

Being an employee, I try and achieve the targets that the company has set for me and that is the best I can do for the company and for myself. The company will still run with or without me, and I will still be going ahead with or without the company. Now that I am working here, I must contribute positively and go on.....

Stages in Professional Life

I read somewhere a few years ago, that professional life goes thru' the following stages...

ASSOCIATE >> INVOLVE >> SUPERVISE >> MANAGE

Initially, I read this again and again to understand more, but was unable to understand the concept. When I read each word independently, it made sense, but when I put it all together, it was more complex than the individual words. After many hours of thought, I was able to decipher the meaning of the words when read together and it all started making sense.

Here's my understanding...

My company makes creative content products. When I joined this company as a Manager, I was not having a deep understanding of how the product was made and the kind of effort that went in to deliver a product that the CEO was so proud of, the team was thrilled developing and customers loved it (the Forums section in the company website talked all about it).

How am I to get an greater understanding of these awesome products? I thought.

The only was for me was to ASSOCIATE with the product development life cycle. So, I talked to each member in the team to understand how the products were developed, I documented each stage, created a workflow, defined the quality control processes, got these documents reviewed and approved, and published this as a handbook. I was proud of this document because this helped me understand and was used in all the induction programs in the next 5 years. To achieve this, I had to ASSOCIATE with the process, I had to spend time to understand what the team was doing and not worry about how it was being done.

The next stage was INVOLVE. Another tough one. I concluded, to INVOLVE means to CONTRIBUTE. I had to make a contribution to the Product Development Lice Cycle. I did not possess the skill required to develop the product, I was supposed to Manage this team, so the skill was not important, I had planning skills, but this was only appreciated by the Management and not the team. This set me thinking again, how to I CONTRIBUTE? I looked thru my Process Handbook again to figure out how I can make that contribution. I got my answer, Quality Control, this did not need any special skill, but an eye for detail, I could do it, so I started my discussion with some of my senior team members, to understand what an error is and ways to catch it. I got started with testing each piece of creative content, each time I had a doubt on an error, I would take that up for a discussion with the senior team members and they would confirm if it was actually an error or a special effect. 500 animations later I was acting independently, logging bugs with animations and team members would accept these bugs as "bugs". From the team perspective I was CONTRIBUTING, from the management perspective, I was contributing with the production plan, schedules and status reporting.

Now that I had passed thru' the ASSOCIATE and INVOLVE stage, I moved naturally to SUPERVISE stage. I could talk the team's language, I could understand when the CEO described the new product, and could teach a bunch of new joinees how to test the product and catch defects. In short, I was able to earn some respect from the team, new team members would respect me because I had interviewed them and also trained them. I had demonstrated my potential to the management of my company.

After having gone thru' the ASSOCIATE, INVOLVE and SUPERVISE stages with multiple teams, it was time for me to MANAGE. I was managing multiple teams and processes, I was orchestrating the delivery of multiple products simultaneously...... finally, I was the MANAGER.

This is not the end....

After a few months, I realized that I was performing at the SUPERVISE stage and the MANAGE stage at the same time, I was having issues with meeting my goals and targets. I thought, I am the Manager, so why should I supervise?

I had 2 choices to solve this problem: 1) go to the management and complain that I need more resources to do the Supervise role and 2) train up one of my current resources to take on that responsibility.

I chose option 2 because, it was easier for me to elevate someone from within the team instead of hiring a new resource and have him go thru' the ASSOCIATE, INVOLVE and SUPERVISE stages. Now, I can get a resource within the team, who has already gone thru' the first two stages, so I have a ready made solution on hand. This results in one more problem, loss in productivity. To resolve this, I can hire two new resources at the bottom of the Pyramid. Each of these new resources will contribute 50% of the lost of productivity and will cost 1/3rd the cost of the more experienced resource. This is results in making up for the lost productivity completely at a net saving of 1/3rd the cost of the experienced resource.

This worked well for me as well as the company.

Every professional/employee must go thru' these stages during his/her career. This is applicable to every individual from a trainee to the CEO.