Since I am on a sabbatical, a good friend of mine Nitin Sareen (the daddy of organized people) has decided to contribute a post to the blog. I think its a well written piece. And unlike my off-the-cuff posts, he has obviously spent a lot of time crafting this one. Read it, I think you'll enjoy it.
So What is a Career Anyway?
The mostly ominous news about the global economic crisis these days, has led me to wonder whether our definition of a successful career and the social implications of having one, is at the root of this mayhem. The leaders of the firms which have gone bust recently were in those positions because they had exceptionally successful careers thus far. So why did they fail? I believe the answer lies in understanding the single measure for choosing a corporate leader today – A successful career.
As the world progressed from biblical times to today’s jet age, people became increasingly obsessed with the aspect of their lives which relates to what they do for a living. History has always been written about the winner, the wealthy, the famous and the powerful. Not surprisingly therefore, in modern times, the word “career” relates to how successful one has been in accumulating a combination of fame and wealth via what they do for a living. Rarely do we see “career” being equated to anything other than this. Therefore a successful career person is one who by virtue of his single minded focus on ‘working to get rich or famous or both’, has actually done it.
Until recently, the top career choices for a typical B-School graduate would be Investment Banking & Consulting followed by leadership positions across industries. Why? Having run the rat race myself, upon introspection, I think the answer lies in every graduate trying to build a successful career –a way to make your daily bread which puts you on the fast track to being rich & famous. While the winner’s of this race are most certainly stalwarts of industry today, the so called “losers” continue hone their skills to enter the get-rich-quick highway. I wonder if the craze for these professions would be as great if they did not fit in perfectly with what today’s society calls a successful career. What about a career in piracy? At least Somalia thinks that piracy fits the bill with the current definition.
So how else could we define career? Perhaps we could begin by going back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Of the five levels of need defined by Maslow, today’s definition of a successful career allows a person to satisfy only to a few needs at each level. Physiological - food & housing; Safety – property & resources; Love/Belonging – nothing here; Esteem – respect, achievement; Self actualization – problem solving. If self actualization is the highest level of achievement by an individual, then today’s definition of career falls short of selecting such candidates for a traditional Indian arranged marriage, leave alone corporate leadership. With a distorted definition of being successful, most of us are not even aware of the huge gaps in some of our other basic needs and self development, which after a point promotes irrational behavior like excessive greed, appetite for high risk, extra-marital affairs and divorce etc. No wonder there are cases of lack of ethics, prejudice, scandals and deteriorating family life. Therefore learning from this introspection is to broaden the definition of career in terms of a person’s achievement at each level defined by Maslow. Defined this way a successful career person to me would be someone who has worked hard at satisfying all his physiological, safety, love & esteem needs and is moving towards self actualization.
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