Conflicting priorities in Career Management

Career Management, as distinct from succession planning, supposedly takes care of aspirations of employees. Hence it is from the point of view of the employee.

But is an employee the only party involved in the process of shaping his career? There exists a number of ‘lenses’ – organizational lens, lens of the parent hierarchy (as manifested by immediate boss), lens of the ‘receiving’ hierarchy, and lens of the employee himself.

What are the interests of these different lenses and how do they interact to shape the career of an employee?

Organizations might have different definitions of career growth. Vertical as well as horizontal movements might be seen as growth avenues. There also might be an assumption that all individuals want vertical/horizontal career growth.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to career planning comes from the immediate superior of an individual. The immediate superior has a primary interest –that of ensuring performance of his team. It becomes easier for him to ensure team performance if an individual stays longer. This primary interest at times is at odds with the interest of the individual. Sometimes you will find superiors not sharing details of career opportunities with their subordinates, as they do not want to let go of them. This is where mechanisms like Internal Job Portals come in. But even when you provide visibility of career opportunities to individual employee’s, a boss still wields significant power. He may actively dissuade an employee from applying for certain positions. I wonder whether this kind of behavior is over the board. He may also act very difficult in letting go of an employee who has been selected for another position (‘He is working on important projects. I can’t relieve him from his current role for next 6 months.’)

Even within the same company you find some departments/functions where employees from non-traditional backgrounds do well, and other departments/functions where a non-traditional profile struggles to perform. Career Moves involve making moves outside your own specialization areas. A recipient function plays a large role in setting up a cross-functional mover for success or failure. From an organizational perspective, it is important to recognize which functions are hostile to incoming career movers and work with them to change their behaviors. From an individual employees perspective, it is important to factor in what kind of support systems would be available in a function the employee is considering making a movement into. The recipient function also faces a challenge of figuring out on what basis to select/reject internal candidates – a sensitive issue.

What about the individual employee? Career Management/Planning is meant to take care of his aspirations. What happens if an employee wants to specialize but the company believes in general managerial competence? What happens if an employee wants to work in different functions in a company that believes in specialization? Many a times employees equate growth with promotions – how does a company ensure that even horizontal movements are seen by employees as growth opportunities? Career Management is based on the assumption that employees are aspirational. There are different life stages when an employee may not desire movement. Would such an employee not be considered ‘career oriented’ and subsequently ‘discounted’? For an employee his career is enmeshed with the other roles he plays outside work in his family/society– what happens when there are clashes between these different roles?

Career Management/Planning is necessary but there are multiple and conflicting priorities that tug at the process. At the end of the day, the ‘employee lens’ is what a Career Management/Planning process is supposed to cater to. But this can be done effectively only by identifying and managing the conflicting priorities of all stakeholders.

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Sourav

Workforce Diversity in India!

Ensuring diversity of workforce is a prerogative for most companies worldwide. In USA, the historic origins of diversity lie in part in Equal Opportunity Employment Act. In one of the Scandinavian countries (Norway if I am not wrong) there is a mandate that 50% of the board members of all companies have to be women. There is currently an intense battle happening in UK between the government and Industry on issue of increased representation of women in the workforce.

What does diversity of workforce mean in Indian context?

Reservations in government services and in public educational institutions are the first overt measure we have seen towards this end.

India is a country of cultural diversity. This also gets reflected in the cosmopolitan nature of its cities – Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, etc. A company in India which broad-bases its recruitment from different parts of the country and different kinds of institutes usually has cultural diversity.

Meritocracy based entrance examinations for most institutions of higher education in India also ensure there is representation of people from different socio-economic backgrounds in companies.

The challenges in India seem to be around ‘gender diversity’, and ‘international workforce diversity’. ‘Gender diversity’ problem is something many companies have tried to consciously address for sometime. Many industries, specifically service industries, have seen significant increase in participation of women in workforce.

But what about ‘international workforce diversity’? Many Indian companies today are becoming multi-national. Do we see representation of their international (non-Indian) workforce in the company’s leadership? Is this international workforce considered a source of top leadership talent pipeline?

I don’t see much of ‘international diversity’ in manufacturing industries in India.

Maybe a good starting point for this would be ‘Skill based jobs’. In a survey done by Manpower in 2011, R&D jobs were found to be the ones for which companies in India faced most severe talent shortages.

Pharmaceutical companies and leading edge technology companies may soon become the torchbearers for ‘international workforce diversity’ in India.

Indian companies which are looking at using R&D capabilities as a source of competitive advantage might also turn to be the first to adapt an ‘internationally diverse workforce’ manpower model.

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Sourav

Can You Show me the Way?

A few months back a colleague had shared an article on health status of Developmental processes in different companies.

The article laid out a framework for a robust developmental process – evaluation, feedback, and planning. It subsequently elaborated on what the study had found about the existence/effectiveness of these sub-processes in different companies.

While most companies seem to do a good job of evaluation, lesser number of companies focus on providing feedback to their employees on the basis of evaluation. A miniscule number of companies focus on providing adequate developmental opportunities and on the effective usage of these opportunities, on the basis of the evaluation shared.

Is this framework complete? Does it cover all important aspects required to ensure effectiveness of developmental processes?

I think it does but it doesn’t flesh out some important aspects of the Developmental Planning and Execution phase. The presence/absence of these aspects can ensure the success or failure of the process.

Firstly, individual ownership for his/her own development. If i am not interested in my development, the efforts of others on my development would not result in any progress.

Secondly, I might know that I need to develop but how do I go about doing it? If I were to look back at the times I have developed/not developed can I pinpoint the reasons for it? This certainly is not an easy task.

There is a risk that a developmental planning discussion degenerates into one blind asking the another blind to draw the way out for him. The intention of both the parties (even though positive) would not fructify into results.

Hence an evidence generating procedure (evaluation and feedback is one manifestation of it), developmental opportunities (identification and deployment), individual ownership, trust in the relationship, and a shared understanding of how an individual develops (and this understanding has to be at the individual level) seems to be the crux of the matter when it comes to Developmental processes.

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Sourav

Job Descriptions – Standards of Excellence or Minimal Required Standards?

What does a Job Description tell us? How does an employee respond when s/he sees job description for her/his role?

Job descriptions do tell us what is expected of the role. But what is the nature of these expectations? If a job description says A,B,C, and D needs to be done, should role incumbent just do A,B,C, and D and nothing else? A similar dilemma exists for Key Performance Indicators agreed on to for a role at the start of the year.

I would argue that job descriptions and Key Performance Indicators are minimal required conditions at the best. They define the skeleton.

To put flesh on that skeleton, is left to us. How much flesh we put on the skeleton and what contours the body takes depends on our willingness to exert ourselves.

This is a different way of looking at work. If we were to equate job descriptions and KPIs with something akin to accounting or quality standards, then meeting ‘job standards’ doesn’t necessarily lead to excellence. What is required is positive deviation over and above ‘job standards’ specified. How much deviation and in what direction – that is something which ‘individual energies’ would determine?

The question to ask oneself is ‘What am I going to do today which is over and above what my job description or KPI demands?’

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Sourav

Career Choices

For the past few weeks, there is this question which I have been mulling over - Why do people make the career choices they make?.

I frequently find students making career choices on basis of elimination. ‘I am studying Commerce because I don’t like Science’. ‘I want to do Marketing because I don’t like numbers – hence Finance doesn’t suit me.’ I find this process of selecting something because other options are not acceptable intriguing. But then maybe that’s a reflection of our maturation process. We first figure out what we don’t want. Some of us, over time, manage to realize what we want. Even amongst those who realize what they want, a miniscule number seem to be able to gather the energy to pursue what their dream.

Edgar Schein does talk about 8 Career Anchors – Technical/Functional Competence, General Managerial Competence, Autonomy/Independence, Security/Stability, Entrepreneurial Creativity, Service/Dedication to a Cause, Pure Challenge, and Lifestyle.

But I find Edgar Schein’s model static. I don’t feel it captures the intra-personal and individual-environment dynamics involved when a person makes a career decision.

As per Schein’s model every individual has a Career Anchor which influences how the person makes his/her career choices. Let’s say a person has Pure Challenge as his Career Anchor. Does it mean that he would always opt to work in jobs which have Pure Challenge irrespective of other costs involved?

There are a number of things which are important to us at any point of time. These would be all or a combination of the 8 different career anchors. We may value them differently. So it’s perfectly possible that I may have Entrepreneurial Creativity as a Career Anchor but that doesn’t mean I would take up an Entreprenurial Creative role which has no Lifestyle or Security involved.

There are some things which are important for us at the hygiene level. Then there are other things which are motivators for us. What constitutes hygiene factors and what constitutes motivational factors is individual dependent. So money may be a motivational factor for one person while being a hygiene factor for others.

I feel our Career Decisions are based on an evaluation of what motivates us given presence of minimum acceptable quantity of hygiene factors. Take away hygiene factors and relevant career option would not be acceptable anymore.

Hence what is applicable to an individual is a network of career anchors – some of which are hygiene factors and some of which are motivation factors. The minimum acceptable levels of different hygiene factors might change from time to time. Preference order of motivators may change from time to time. Given presence of hygiene factors, we would work towards maximizing our motivational factors.

Also, this entire network of career anchors for an individual exists within the larger phenomenal field within which an individual lives. It hence influences and is influenced by this phenomenal field. Only if we were to accept this, would we be able to make sense of those situations when an individual takes career decisions which can’t only be explained by his network of career anchors.

As individuals what we can do is to reflect on the times we have taken critical career decisions, to understand what our career hygiene and motivation factors are. As Managers we should encourage our team members to engage in similar reflections.

Answers may not be straightforward, but the journey itself may be revealing and fulfilling.

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Sourav

A Clean Canvas!

I was having a discussion with a friend over the weekend. We were exchanging notes on the most hilarious campus interviews we have been part of either as an interviewee or an interviewer.

Here are excerpts from 2 such interviews:

Interview 1

Panelist 1: Are you an extrovert?

Interviewee: I am an extrovert.

Panelist 2 (to himself): Which dud would tell you a no? Every interviewee who has undergone some form of interview preparation would proclaim himself to be a people’s person. And hello - what happened to non – leading questions?

Panelist 1: How do you say that? Prove it!

Interviewee: {Has a weird expression on his face which is a combination of intrigue, shock, disbelief and deep concentration}.

Panelist 2 (to himself): Wow! What a deep and insightful question? Would the interviewee now pull his chair closer to us? I hope not!

Interview 2

Panelist 1: What is your favourite book?

Interviewee: Book XYZ

Panelist 1: So what does it tell me about you?

Panelist 2 (to himself): That he is a geek! What else do you expect to hear?

Talks like these abound, especially when interview of a fresher is being taken. It reminds me one of the famous quotes I use to describe aimless interviews:

“A blind man asking a deaf person to show him the picture.” J.

What do you think the candidate goes through when asked such questions? (and here I let loose a bit of my rhyming abilities J)

“He fumbles and then mumbles, follows it up with bumbles and stumbles and finally expectantly tumbles. All this while the heart of one panelist crumbles while the brains of the other panelist rumble.”

This according to me is a manifestation of a lack of clarity on what to select a candidate on. Now when it comes to an experienced candidate, we have the canvas of prior work experience to fall back upon, viz: similarity of work experience or industry, our judgement on the candidate’s performance on the job, etc. This happens to be a large canvas on which we can let our biases loose (e.g: Retainability of this candidate may be an issue, this candidate is not committed or serious) and it also allows us to camouflage our lack of clarity on what we should be hiring a candidate for. But when it comes to interviewing a fresher we don’t have this camouflage at our disposal and in the face of lack of clarity, even the best of us, tend to fumble (and pretty obviously at that).

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Sourav

When do Self Evaluation Tools Work?

Do self evaluation tools help in an organizational context?

Or rather the question should be ‘When do self evaluation tools help in an organizational context?’

There are 2 requirements for ensuring effectiveness of self evaluation tools. Firstly, respondents must be willing to mark choices which genuinely characterize them instead of marking ‘more socially acceptable choices’. Secondly, respondents must be willing to identify areas for action and act on them. Often the usual response after taking a self evaluation tool is ‘I am of this type and that explains why I behave the way I do. I am ok with this and I don’t think I need to change anything.’

As Managers and Facilitators at workplace what can we do to make self evaluation tools more effective?

It is easy to say that we must administer these tools to individuals only when they are ready for the same. There is merit in this school of thought but there is also a danger. This danger is of managers/facilitators being passive spectators in the entire process; of absolving oneself of any responsibility to actively shape their workplace.

The question is ‘When are individuals ready to answer genuinely to self evaluation tools, identify action areas, and act on the same? What can managers/ facilitators do to create relevant environmental conditions?’

There are two ways of addressing this situation. You either create conditions for ‘safety’ or of ‘discomfort’. Do you remember the times when you experimented or when you felt you changed significantly? These would have come either from situations where ‘discomfort’ with status quo was so high that you had no option but to change, or from situations characterized by ‘safety’ where you chanced upon a better way of doing things while experimenting and adopted the same.

Which one is a better environmental condition to create – Discomfort or Safety?

Would you want to be in discomfort 7 days a week, 365 days a year? I am fairly sure most people would not want to be in discomfort continuously.

I do feel the challenge for managers/facilitators is to create conditions of ‘safety’ at the workplace. When an employee feels safe, he is willing to experiment. Self evaluation tools can work under such circumstances. Feeling safe is a state of being we are okay being in continuously – rather we would want ‘safe conditions’.

Does this mean there is no place for discomfort at the workplace? There is place for discomfort – but not continuous discomfort. You would not want your adrenaline pumping 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

What should a manager do if he realizes there is no sense of discomfort within his team ever? I would contend it does not matter as long as from the safety domain within which the team is working, it is extending itself and performing well. And if you really want individuals to answer genuinely to self evaluation tools and act on identified areas, I doubt whether conditions of discomfort/non-safety are effective.

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Sourav