Virtual CEO…
1 ) Komisar claims that a career is after all what you make it. Do you agree? If so, are you ready to take up the non-career career path? To make things simple, would you only do things you are passionate about and call it a career like Komisar calls himself as a “Virtual CEO”? On the contrary, Kartikey claims that his marketing job where he spent 14 hours a day as ridiculous pursuit and decides to call it a day! Do you think Kartikey has taken a right step in his career? If you were his friend, what would have advised him? How would you related Bagchi’s ideas on Job Satisfaction with Kartikey’s experience?
ANS: Komisar was brave and bold enough to do what he was passionate about.This type of boldness is not prevalent in every individual.I personally feel I would not have done things purely based on my passion to make things simple. Though I am a person getting bored with the routine nature of the job still I would have still taken time in jumping jobs and would have tried my maximum to stay with an organization till both are at a benefit.
And Karthikey’s claim about his present job and his dissatisfaction is welcome. But this point arises in each one’s life during some point of life. But I think I would have advised Karthikey to bring his dissatisfaction under control and to see at the brighter side of his job rather than quitting his well paid job.
Both the case are rather differet. Komisar ‘s nature is of a very restless type of person who cannot stay in a single job but he enjoys wherever he goes. Whereas Karthikey is totally frustrated about his job and feels he is not living his life to the fullest.So both are different cases about 2 different personalities and in both the cases there are different levels and types of dissatisfaction.
2 ) Komisar claims that by conventional standards, his resume is a disaster. Eleven companies in 25 years. On the other hand, I have heard people saying, “if you tend to stay with one company for more than two to three years, you are seen as incompetent”. Do you agree? Few years back, one of our PGDM participants was offered a job where he had prior experience. But our quintessential XIMB participant insisted on a job profile in unrelated domain. When asked by the recruiter as why he wanted a different profile, he told the recruiter, “Sir, I want to work in as many verticals as possible”. The immediate reply from the recruiter was, which I liked the most, “too many verticals make your life horizontal”.
ANS: Staying in the same job for more than 3 years means you are incompetent is a very wrong notion. In fact I believe it will differ in every organization. Most of the organization will prefer that you stay with them for a long time. It is because you know the job well and the people and your familiar with their policies. Teaching a new person once you quit is a tedious job as the organization has to once again groom the new person. So it’s always wished that the employee stays as long as he can in the organization.
And also for the employee satying more than 3 years is a good deal. He creates a name in the organization in three years and then if he continues there he would be at an advantage because his chances of getting promotions and increments will be quite high then.
3) Changing jobs, that too very often in unrelated domains, is it good for one’s career? How do you see them? What do you think as the role of today’s organizations in providing career choices to individuals?
ANS: Changing job in unrelated domains may or may not be challenging at times. Its better to have a change always but only if the employee is smart enough to grasp the changes he has to face in the new work. Only then it would prove to be beneficial. This is my view.
In today’s organization I feel people are given huge opportunities to work in different domains inside the organization.They are given a different domain to work with where they can expand tehri scope of knowledge. But yes the choices are to be given keeping the employee’s interest in mind.
4) Subrato Bagchi, the Gardener (???) and COO of Mind Tree Consulting, once wrote “People don’t leave organizations, they leave only Managers”. Do you think managers / bosses influence the careers of their buddies? What is your experience / opinion? Further, do you think career choices for an individual in a relational society like ours is largely influenced by parents, friends and colleagues more than the forces acting within organizations?
ANS: For the first question I definitely agree that managers and bosses influence the careers of their buddies. I have had my own experience of not getting to work with a good manager and the difficulties I had due to this. It was very difficult to justify my work in front of my colleague’s of similar experience and age group because they were blessed with good managers to groom them.
But it can be argued that what if the boss is not effective, the individual should be able to groom himself and take his career forward if he has the will to do it. But this natural instinct need not be strong in every other individual. Thus for the rest I strongly feel a good boss is a must to influence the career of their buddies at least at the beginning of each person’s career.
In a society like ours parents’, friends and colleagues influencing an individual‘s career choices may not be true in every case. It depends on each person‘s family background and their way of looking at things. There are families who leave the decision of the individual’s career on him and are ready to face the constraints or benefits due to that. And there are opposite cases also where the individual is forced to think about the family before thinking about his career.
Colleagues and friends also influence an individual’s career but as I said it need not be a generalized statement. It can differ according to the people and their attitude.
Yes, I agree with Pranati that manager/bosses do influence career of their buddies. I will also take pleasure to express my experience regarding the same. I work with a company where talent is less important than loyalty as people from outside see this organisation but as a lower/middle level manager we see exactly opposite. Here we find that the employee should be loyal enough to his/her boss instead of organisation. Once upon a time there was less demand of talent in this organisation but not now. Now a days talent are much more employed and their career is purely depend on their so called loyal boss who decide the fate of their buddies.
ReplyDeleteI started my career in electrical/electronic maintenance in this organisation. I got an offer of doing cross functional assignment for about one year where I was very successful. My unit head as well as I wanted to switch over and continue to new assignment but my immediate superior did not and as a result I had to come back to maintenance once again. The very reason behind the leg pulling is not that I am indispensible to this department instead the reason is loyalty to my immediate boss.
Now coming to the influence of family, friends and colleague: Yes, all they have very big role to decide one’s career. Family or specifically parents sometimes just impose their want or need to their children. Sometimes children also get influenced to see their parents the way they live. The act of playing in childhood sometimes becomes the real life role when children mature. Same thing happen to Mr. Randy Komisar. He saw the seriousness of his father regarding career. Moreover the socioeconomic condition of the individual plays a vital role. The way people grow up in developed country, the facility they get, the environment they surrounded by, the culture they swim into are totally different in developing country like ours and the developed country like Mr. Randy Komisar. Mr Komisar had the luxury of studying at Harvard, working with apple and floating the life as he wanted. To him life is not to struggle but for willingness to see himself/herself as the individual want. To him, he is the virtual CEO and least bother to the way world think.
Friend and colleague pressure is the one which never ending force sometime decides one’s career. This pressure force to take some career path where individual satisfy their ego by comparing economic status, social status, positional status and sometime self satisfaction with the view of ‘grapes are sour’. Mr. Randy Komisar never thinks of others though he needs not to be but in our society, it is very difficult to suppress the external forces. Living beyond all expectation and isolating private life and professional life is not so easy in our society where individual work for 16 hrs a day and merely get 8 hrs to spend for rest of the activities. This horse racing is not only to achieve the target one set for his career but also sometime to sustain in present global competitive market. I think, most of the cases, least likely we get an opportunity to opt for career path rather than we force-fit ourselves where sustenance is a big question in our society depending on demography, race, caste, age and educational background.
When we talk about friend pressure, I can remember one of my friends who could not join in IIT instead did BE from regional engineering college, still he desires to get a MBA degree from Harverd to compete his friend who did B Tech from IIT
I see career is not independent of variables like family, friends, relatives, surroundings, culture, race, demography rather it very much sensitive to the external factors where we need to manage career instead of making career.
Yes, I agree with Pranati that manager/bosses do influence career of their buddies. I will also take pleasure to express my experience regarding the same. I work with a company where talent is less important than loyalty as people from outside see this organisation but as a lower/middle level manager we see exactly opposite. Here we find that the employee should be loyal enough to his/her boss instead of organisation. Once upon a time there was less demand of talent in this organisation but not now. Now a days talent are much more employed and their career is purely depend on their so called loyal boss who decide the fate of their buddies.
ReplyDeleteI started my career in electrical/electronic maintenance in this organisation. I got an offer of doing cross functional assignment for about one year where I was very successful. My unit head as well as I wanted to switch over and continue to new assignment but my immediate superior did not and as a result I had to come back to maintenance once again. The very reason behind the leg pulling is not that I am indispensible to this department instead the reason is loyalty to my immediate boss.
Now coming to the influence of family, friends and colleague: Yes, all they have very big role to decide one’s career. Family or specifically parents sometimes just impose their want or need to their children. Sometimes children also get influenced to see their parents the way they live. The act of playing in childhood sometimes becomes the real life role when children mature. Same thing happen to Mr. Randy Komisar. He saw the seriousness of his father regarding career. Moreover the socioeconomic condition of the individual plays a vital role. The way people grow up in developed country, the facility they get, the environment they surrounded by, the culture they swim into are totally different in developing country like ours and the developed country like Mr. Randy Komisar. Mr Komisar had the luxury of studying at Harvard, working with apple and floating the life as he wanted. To him life is not to struggle but for willingness to see himself/herself as the individual want. To him, he is the virtual CEO and least bother to the way world think.
Friend and colleague pressure is the one which never ending force sometime decides one’s career. This pressure force to take some career path where individual satisfy their ego by comparing economic status, social status, positional status and sometime self satisfaction with the view of ‘grapes are sour’. Mr. Randy Komisar never thinks of others though he needs not to be but in our society, it is very difficult to suppress the external forces. Living beyond all expectation and isolating private life and professional life is not so easy in our society where individual work for 16 hrs a day and merely get 8 hrs to spend for rest of the activities. This horse racing is not only to achieve the target one set for his career but also sometime to sustain in present global competitive market. I think, most of the cases, least likely we get an opportunity to opt for career path rather than we force-fit ourselves where sustenance is a big question in our society depending on demography, race, caste, age and educational background.
When we talk about friend pressure, I can remember one of my friends who could not join in IIT instead did BE from regional engineering college, still he desires to get a MBA degree from Harverd to compete his friend who did B Tech from IIT
I see career is not independent of variables like family, friends, relatives, surroundings, culture, race, demography rather it very much sensitive to the external factors where we need to manage career instead of making career.
Yes, I agree with Pranati that manager/bosses do influence career of their buddies. I will also take pleasure to express my experience regarding the same. I work with a company where talent is less important than loyalty as people from outside see this organisation but as a lower/middle level manager we see exactly opposite. Here we find that the employee should be loyal enough to his/her boss instead of organisation. Once upon a time there was less demand of talent in this organisation but not now. Now a days talent are much more employed and their career is purely depend on their so called loyal boss who decide the fate of their buddies.
ReplyDeleteI started my career in electrical/electronic maintenance in this organisation. I got an offer of doing cross functional assignment for about one year where I was very successful. My unit head as well as I wanted to switch over and continue to new assignment but my immediate superior did not and as a result I had to come back to maintenance once again. The very reason behind the leg pulling is not that I am indispensible to this department instead the reason is loyalty to my immediate boss.
Now coming to the influence of family, friends and colleague: Yes, all they have very big role to decide one’s career. Family or specifically parents sometimes just impose their want or need to their children. Sometimes children also get influenced to see their parents the way they live. The act of playing in childhood sometimes becomes the real life role when children mature. Same thing happen to Mr. Randy Komisar. He saw the seriousness of his father regarding career. Moreover the socioeconomic condition of the individual plays a vital role. The way people grow up in developed country, the facility they get, the environment they surrounded by, the culture they swim into are totally different in developing country like ours and the developed country like Mr. Randy Komisar. Mr Komisar had the luxury of studying at Harvard, working with apple and floating the life as he wanted. To him life is not to struggle but for willingness to see himself/herself as the individual want. To him, he is the virtual CEO and least bother to the way world think.
Friend and colleague pressure is the one which never ending force sometime decides one’s career. This pressure force to take some career path where individual satisfy their ego by comparing economic status, social status, positional status and sometime self satisfaction with the view of ‘grapes are sour’. Mr. Randy Komisar never thinks of others though he needs not to be but in our society, it is very difficult to suppress the external forces. Living beyond all expectation and isolating private life and professional life is not so easy in our society where individual work for 16 hrs a day and merely get 8 hrs to spend for rest of the activities. This horse racing is not only to achieve the target one set for his career but also sometime to sustain in present global competitive market. I think, most of the cases, least likely we get an opportunity to opt for career path rather than we force-fit ourselves where sustenance is a big question in our society depending on demography, race, caste, age and educational background.
When we talk about friend pressure, I can remember one of my friends who could not join in IIT instead did BE from regional engineering college, still he desires to get a MBA degree from Harverd to compete his friend who did B Tech from IIT
I see career is not independent of variables like family, friends, relatives, surroundings, culture, race, demography rather it very much sensitive to the external factors where we need to manage career instead of making career.
Yes, I agree with Pranati that manager/bosses do influence career of their buddies. I will also take pleasure to express my experience regarding the same. I work with a company where talent is less important than loyalty as people from outside see this organisation but as a lower/middle level manager we see exactly opposite. Here we find that the employee should be loyal enough to his/her boss instead of organisation. Once upon a time there was less demand of talent in this organisation but not now. Now a days talent are much more employed and their career is purely depend on their so called loyal boss who decide the fate of their buddies.
ReplyDeleteI started my career in electrical/electronic maintenance in this organisation. I got an offer of doing cross functional assignment for about one year where I was very successful. My unit head as well as I wanted to switch over and continue to new assignment but my immediate superior did not and as a result I had to come back to maintenance once again. The very reason behind the leg pulling is not that I am indispensible to this department instead the reason is loyalty to my immediate boss.
Now coming to the influence of family, friends and colleague: Yes, all they have very big role to decide one’s career. Family or specifically parents sometimes just impose their want or need to their children. Sometimes children also get influenced to see their parents the way they live. The act of playing in childhood sometimes becomes the real life role when children mature. Same thing happen to Mr. Randy Komisar. He saw the seriousness of his father regarding career. Moreover the socioeconomic condition of the individual plays a vital role. The way people grow up in developed country, the facility they get, the environment they surrounded by, the culture they swim into are totally different in developing country like ours and the developed country like Mr. Randy Komisar. Mr Komisar had the luxury of studying at Harvard, working with apple and floating the life as he wanted. To him life is not to struggle but for willingness to see himself/herself as the individual want. To him, he is the virtual CEO and least bother to the way world think.
Friend and colleague pressure is the one which never ending force sometime decides one’s career. This pressure force to take some career path where individual satisfy their ego by comparing economic status, social status, positional status and sometime self satisfaction with the view of ‘grapes are sour’. Mr. Randy Komisar never thinks of others though he needs not to be but in our society, it is very difficult to suppress the external forces. Living beyond all expectation and isolating private life and professional life is not so easy in our society where individual work for 16 hrs a day and merely get 8 hrs to spend for rest of the activities. This horse racing is not only to achieve the target one set for his career but also sometime to sustain in present global competitive market. I think, most of the cases, least likely we get an opportunity to opt for career path rather than we force-fit ourselves where sustenance is a big question in our society depending on demography, race, caste, age and educational background.
When we talk about friend pressure, I can remember one of my friends who could not join in IIT instead did BE from regional engineering college, still he desires to get a MBA degree from Harverd to compete his friend who did B Tech from IIT
I see career is not independent of variables like family, friends, relatives, surroundings, culture, race, demography rather it very much sensitive to the external factors where we need to manage career instead of making career.
Yes, I agree with Pranati that manager/bosses do influence career of their buddies. I will also take pleasure to express my experience regarding the same. I work with a company where talent is less important than loyalty as people from outside see this organisation but as a lower/middle level manager we see exactly opposite. Here we find that the employee should be loyal enough to his/her boss instead of organisation. Once upon a time there was less demand of talent in this organisation but not now. Now a days talent are much more employed and their career is purely depend on their so called loyal boss who decide the fate of their buddies.
ReplyDeleteI started my career in electrical/electronic maintenance in this organisation. I got an offer of doing cross functional assignment for about one year where I was very successful. My unit head as well as I wanted to switch over and continue to new assignment but my immediate superior did not and as a result I had to come back to maintenance once again. The very reason behind the leg pulling is not that I am indispensible to this department instead the reason is loyalty to my immediate boss.
Now coming to the influence of family, friends and colleague: Yes, all they have very big role to decide one’s career. Family or specifically parents sometimes just impose their want or need to their children. Sometimes children also get influenced to see their parents the way they live. The act of playing in childhood sometimes becomes the real life role when children mature. Same thing happen to Mr. Randy Komisar. He saw the seriousness of his father regarding career. Moreover the socioeconomic condition of the individual plays a vital role. The way people grow up in developed country, the facility they get, the environment they surrounded by, the culture they swim into are totally different in developing country like ours and the developed country like Mr. Randy Komisar. Mr Komisar had the luxury of studying at Harvard, working with apple and floating the life as he wanted. To him life is not to struggle but for willingness to see himself/herself as the individual want. To him, he is the virtual CEO and least bother to the way world think.
Friend and colleague pressure is the one which never ending force sometime decides one’s career. This pressure force to take some career path where individual satisfy their ego by comparing economic status, social status, positional status and sometime self satisfaction with the view of ‘grapes are sour’. Mr. Randy Komisar never thinks of others though he needs not to be but in our society, it is very difficult to suppress the external forces. Living beyond all expectation and isolating private life and professional life is not so easy in our society where individual work for 16 hrs a day and merely get 8 hrs to spend for rest of the activities. This horse racing is not only to achieve the target one set for his career but also sometime to sustain in present global competitive market. I think, most of the cases, least likely we get an opportunity to opt for career path rather than we force-fit ourselves where sustenance is a big question in our society depending on demography, race, caste, age and educational background.
When we talk about friend pressure, I can remember one of my friends who could not join in IIT instead did BE from regional engineering college, still he desires to get a MBA degree from Harverd to compete his friend who did B Tech from IIT
I see career is not independent of variables like family, friends, relatives, surroundings, culture, race, demography rather it very much sensitive to the external factors where we need to manage career instead of making career.