This document provides guidance on how to become self-reliant in one's career. It discusses defining a career and understanding growth. It emphasizes choosing a career field and then focusing on continuous, progressive achievements. It suggests identifying skills to achieve more and becoming visible. It also recommends broadening one's experience, taking responsibility, and valuing oneself. The document outlines a structured approach to career choice involving assessing personal and organizational values. It stresses the importance of being good at one's work, enabling others' contributions, and managing oneself and others through objectives. Finally, it proposes a model of career progression from self-esteem to learning to doing, managing, leading, and taking responsibility rarely taken by others.

1. Learn, to Lead!
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In October 98, when we were entering
the period for annual appraisals, the
PPDP Training mentioned that one of
the areas of focus that year was on
how to become self-reliant in our
careers.
I felt this was something everyone
knew, but did not understand. We did
not know HOW to become self-reliant
about our careers. I could imagine
setting a career objective as simply as,
say, “I will be doing what our MD is
doing, in 10 years”. However, I could
not define ANY action plans that would
take me there. I could not define
anything that I should do now, which
would help me achieve that.
I started talking to my team about all
the things we could do, and I realized
we could define some actions now that
would make us self-reliant in our
careers. I put these into a
presentation, which I could run on a
one-to-one basis with different
individuals. It took me about half an
hour to prepare the presentation since
I was simply putting down my
reflections on my experience.
I ran this presentation across my team
of eight senior managers and added
the learning captured during the
presentation. The presentation took
approximately 45 minutes.
I subsequently ran the presentation on
a one-to-one basis for over 200
people, and what I have put down
here is the cumulative learning from
all these sessions.
I thought it would be good if we began
by understanding some fundamental
concepts in the same way.
Let’s try to answer these questions.
Take the first one. “What is a Career?”
How would you define a career? As
you realize, the definition of a career
that you came up with just now is in
your mind. How do you know it is this
definition that everyone has for a
career?
Similarly, consider the other questions,
such as “What is Growth?”
What you should realize is that if a
group of people is not working with the
same definition or understanding, the
expectations of different people cannot
be met.
These questions led me to some very
interesting answers. In fact, this

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presentation was a result of these
questions and the subsequent
answers.
I found some answers in the Webster’s
Dictionary.
On the net at http://www.m-w.com/
(Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary) I
found these definitions for the various
meanings and implications of the term
‘Career’.
Let’s keep #3 and #4 in mind.The
keywords in #3 are “a FIELD for
CONTINUOUS, PROGRESSIVE
ACHIEVEMENTS…”.
This is another meaning of Career and
some of us do follow this type of
career as well .
Well, essentially #3 and #4 of the
previous slide seem to be what
concern us so let’s take a closer look
at what we can get from these.
If “…continuous, progressive
achievement…” in “…a field…” is a
career, then thinking about the
development of this career, you need
to first select the field, and then make
sure your achievements are
continuous and in logical progression.
This implies we have to focus on
choosing the field or the ‘career’ as in
#4 and then on continuous,
accelerating, growing achievements.
To achieve more, we will also need to
identify and develop skills and abilities
in ourselves, to let us achieve more.
Let’s first look at how we choose our
careers, which will sensitize us to how
we can improve the choices we make.
We’ll then look at how we can achieve
more in the career we have chosen.

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These are some facts about our
choices in careers.
Some of us do have access to
structured, competent, and
professional career counseling help,
but it’s a fact that 99.9% of the
professionals don’t receive any
structured counseling help.
Typically, the time when we select our
respective fields, in classes 8 to 12, we
solicit and receive advice from our
parents, relatives, elders, and our
social circle. Usually, our parents are
more concerned about the field we
choose. This is certainly changing,
and children now are more conscious
of what they need to do. Peer
pressure, which is growing, has also
added to this.
Bullet 1: Working on the career
definition that we arrived at, the
progression for each one of us is
unique. No two people in the world
have exactly the same career. They
might have the same field, but the
progression characteristics differ.
Then, why do they differ?
Bullet 2: They differ because we make
choices that affect our career or
progression. Every time you decide to
do or not do something, you change
your progression. We exercise these
choices whenever we get the
opportunity. For instance, I might
choose to take a break, or meet
somebody, or finish something right
now.
This also highlights the fact that every
decision we make affects our career.
We’re probably making career choices
up to four times a day!
We use our personal vision, mission,
or values to decide on our choice. We
make a choice that would, we feel,
take us on the progression towards
what we want to be in the world.
Then, how do we build and think about
our vision, mission, or values?
Bullet 3: We build our vision/mission/
values based on our value system. I
have a personal statement that defines
what I value about myself, and I have
expectations from different
organizations. I expect that they will
value various relevant strengths in me
that will contribute to their growth.
We inherit our initial values from our
parents and family and later from our
friends and peers.
Let’s look at a structured approach to
choosing our careers. I have a feeling
that none of us follow this approach
consciously, but many organizational
systems do exist, which facilitate this
approach unconsciously. Maybe there
is some benefit in consciously using
this approach as well.

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In the first part, I list down all the
things I value about myself.
For instance, I might value my ability
to be punctual, to complete things on
time, or to play a game like an expert.
I then list what I don’t value about
myself, but what other people and the
organization seem to value.
This is actually a list that shows you
opportunities. You already have these
strengths, but you don’t value them
unlike others.
For instance, I might not value my
ability to sing but somebody else
might. Alternatively, I might not value
the fact that I always look at things
optimistically, while others might.
Now, I think about what the
organization values about itself,
including its people, which includes
me.
Some of this might be what I don’t
value but the organization does.
Finally, I think about what the
organization does not value but I do.
Thinking through all four of these
‘value’ questions gives me a very good
idea of the fit, conflict, and
opportunities I have.
After going through the previous four
lists, I take my decision. This decision
is what defines my career choice.
We must realize that we never go
through structured questions and
responses as shown here, but imagine
the enormous improvement in our
area of choices.

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I have not discussed ‘Choosing your
career’ further in this presentation
because that’s a different story, and I
assume we have already made a
choice that we like.
After talking about choosing your
career, let’s take a closer look at the
second part of Career Development,
which is Achieving more.
Let’s see how we can achieve more.
We can achieve more most simply by
being good and better at what we
have to do. This is the most obvious
strategy and often the only strategy
that we identify for our growth. And
that is where I think we fall short.
Apart from achieving more by being
better at what we do, how can we
achieve more? Well, by enabling
others to contribute to our
achievements. This multiplies our
achievements and is the other largest
method to achieve more. Others who
contribute to our achievements could
be people, events, or processes.
We also need to become visible or
known. Visibility is important to the
extent that whoever needs to know
and can benefit from knowing about
you should know so that more
opportunities come your way. This is
something like – “I might know how to
swim, but I’ve never shared the fact
with anybody, and therefore, when a
need for the ability comes by, I am not
thought of.
We should also broaden our activity
base to be able to widen our vision.
Finally, we should take more
responsibility, and value ourselves.
Let’s spend some more time on each
of these points in the following slides.
To be better at what you do, you need
skills, knowledge, experience, and
passion, among other things. Passion
is what drives you to do better; the
stronger the passion, the faster you
achieve. It accelerates the
progression of your achievements.
Being better at what you do increases
your personal power.
You are also managing yourself by
objectives (MBO) when you are better
at what you do.
One opportunity is to do the common
things uncommonly well. To stand
out, most people are worried about
doing uncommon things well. A huge,

6. Learn, to Lead!
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simple-to-achieve opportunity is to do
the common things well. And because
everyone is anyway worrying about
doing uncommon things, they miss out
completing the common things. When
you do common things well, it
becomes uncommon.
Why is it important for you to enable
others to achieve more? Because you
are a factor in what the team
achieves, and what you achieve is
affected by what the team achieves.
For instance, you performed
outstandingly but the team achieved
only satisfactory results. Your
achievements are going to be divided
by the teams. On the other hand, if
you achieved only satisfactorily, but
the team achieved outstanding results,
you are definitely going to bask in the
glory.
This (enabling others…) is the essence
of ‘people management’. It is also
essential to manage yourself. You also
need to enable yourself to perform
well.
This is also when you are managing a
team or others by objectives.
Why is visibility important? This is a
frequently trivialized and
misunderstood aspect. It can be,
quite often, confused with arrogance
or misrepresentation.
Visibility is important for you so that
you become a PREFERRED NODE of
REFERENCE for other people to refer
to and for them to WANT to refer to
you. It is important for people to want
to refer to you because that keeps you
‘alive’ while you contribute to them
through the value you add by being
good at something. In all likelihood,
you will be a node of reference for
something that you do better than
most people.
A simple way to gain visibility is to get
involved in a ‘high-impact’ project.
Because the world’s attention is on the
project, people see more of you. To
become the node of REFERENCE,
however, you need to do well also in
the project.
Of course, you will become a real node
only when you do something well. You
might say you are good at something
and people should refer to you, but if
they feel they are not getting value
from you, they will stop referring to
you, and you will stop being the node
of reference for them.

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You need to broaden your base, or
widen your experience, of doing a
variety of things, and doing them well.
This is important because as your
career progresses, and you get into
teams to lead them, you will be
expected to have a ‘vision’ of the
ground realities. You cannot have a
broad vision without a broad base.
If you don’t have a broad base and
you are a ‘specialist’, you run the risk
of becoming a pillar instead of
standing on a well-supported platform.
And we all know that pillars have a
delicate equilibrium, depending on
their height and base.
Take it on. Unless YOU take
responsibility and own it, there’s no
point in running the risk of giving it to
you and you not owning it. If you
don’t accept responsibility once, you
will not take charge when others
expect you to, which will lead to
disasters.
You need to manage yourself by
responsibility, and believe in the two
principles of MBR (Management By
Responsibility). The first principle
states that, “You are hundred percent
responsible for what happens to you.”
And the second one states that, “You
are hundred percent responsible for
your reaction to what happens to you.”
Look at it like this. If you don’t believe
in either of these principles, you are
not taking responsibility. And if you
are not responsible, how can you be
given the responsibility. You HAVE to
believe and act according to these
principles for you to be given any
responsibility.
As you take more responsibility, you
will be faced with risk. And you will
need to discover whether you are a
‘trader’ or an ‘investor’. Traders react
to market situations and requirements
and follow what the ‘market’ says.
Investors, on the other hand, invest in
their ideas, principles, and output, and
stay firm in spite of contrary market
indications, risking failure while they
work at succeeding. Each of us, at
various times, is either a trader or an
investor, to varying degrees.
Trading is simple, but to invest, you
should know the market trends, your
own abilities, and your confidence in
what you know.
Finally, to get more responsibility, take
it! The simplest way to take
responsibility for a situation is to
respond to the situation. And the
reverse is also true. The surest way to
lose responsibility is to stop
responding to the situation.

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Periodically, you need to value yourself
and evaluate your value for the
organization. You must evaluate your
contribution to the organizational team
to ensure that you increase your
contribution and value towards the
organization. Do this by observing
yourself and your achievements
objectively, standing beside yourself
as you look at yourself.
Once you are satisfied with your
contribution to the organization, you
must depend on the fact that
something that is valued is also
protected…just like your expensive
watch or camera.
When I first made this presentation to
people, at this point they said that
they got actionable knowledge out of
the presentation. And that’s what
prompted me to add this slide because
this is something we are very good at
doing. We revel in the knowledge that
we have the ability, but we never act
with it.
So, if you think these points are worth
your while, then just start working at
them. Build your personal systems to
track where you are on each of them
and keep at it.
This is how I see it.
We begin with Self Esteem, which we
get from our parents, in the early
years of our lives. This is also the
single most important contribution
parents make to their children – of
teaching them self-esteem. Without
self-esteem, we don’t even ‘learn’ at
school. And learning is the next thing
that we start on.
We go on learning, more and more,
until our learning starts spilling over
into the Do phase of our lives. Here is
where we follow instructions from
somebody, to actually do something,
and to carry out an activity to
complete a task. We get better at
meeting commitments made by
someone else like our teacher or
manager.
As we get better at meeting these
commitments, made by somebody
else, we start making our own
commitments and meeting them. As
we get better at meeting our own
commitments, we develop the Just Do
It value in ourselves.
If we acquire the ability to make and
meet our commitments, we have the

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opportunity to help other people
develop the same ability, and we
multiply into more people to get into
the Manage stage. At the same time,
we also start working at improving our
People Management skills.
At the base once we have the three
attributes of Self Esteem, Just Do It,
and People Management, we can say
we have Personal Power, and we start
working at Visibility, Broadening our
Base, and Taking more Responsibility.
As we take up more responsibility, we
realize we are taking responsibility
that nobody else or very few others
are taking. That is when we are at the
Lead stage.
As growing trainers of NIIT, we have
built some paradoxes for ourselves.
I’m describing one below.
The first is that we, as trainers, know
that all training is defined by the
Terminal Objectives defined for an
audience. By knowing more about the
audience and the terminal objectives,
we arrive at achievable actions
Enabling Objectives for the training.
These enabling objectives are what are
addressed by the training, and once
these are met, we assume that the
terminal objectives are also met. We
never address the Terminal Objectives
directly.
Then why is it that in our careers, we
set the terminal objectives - as in
money, power, position, and authority,
– without a clue as to ourselves, or the
enabling objectives? We then don’t
have any actionables to work at, and
when we don’t achieve we feel we’ve
lost out. If you think about it, what
was your plan to achieve what you
wanted and how predictable were the
results of what you did?
Set Terminal Objectives but also know
the audience, yourself, and the
enabling objectives you have to
achieve. Train yourself!
Your responsibility is to develop your
ability and look for opportunities where
you can contribute to the organization.
The organization’s responsibility is to
recognize your abilities and identify or
create opportunities where you can
contribute most to the organization.

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You can see growth in different ways,
and I articulated three ways in which
we grow.
I named them Apathetic, Sympathetic,
and Empathetic.
Apathetic
This is when the leader ‘grows’ leaving
the team behind, usually by adding
new people at intermediate levels.
This is when the leader’s growth is
apathetic to that of the team.
Sympathetic
This is when the entire team grows
together with no relative difference
perceived in relationships between the
leader and the team, but the entire
team doing better work and taking
more responsibility.
This is normally not perceived by
people as growth because no relative
difference is perceptible. But it is
growth for all.
Empathetic
This form of growth occurs when the
leaders empower their team members
to do better than them. This is the
model all the trainers have to grow in.
Your teacher in Class 10 empowered
you to do better than her. In the
process, she grew in her impact on
people, although her ‘position’
remained what it was.
This is also the model all the
grandparents use to grow. The
grandfather is not concerned about his
own achievements. He is very
concerned about how he can help his
grandchild achieve.
How We Grow
You can now probably identify with the
people who follow each of these
models of growth at various times in
their careers or lives.
They might have grown apathetically
at the beginning of their careers when

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they were on a faster achievement
track than their teams.
Midway into their careers, they were
likely to grow sympathetically because
their teams were likely to be more
mature and capable and grew or
slowed down at the same rate as they
did.
Towards the later part of their careers,
they focused more on how they could
empower others to grow, even beyond
themselves. They would have, by
then, achieved what they wanted.
If you come to think of the ONE
Growth that we all work towards, in
view of all the above discussion, you
would realize that all the visible signs
of growth are mere enablers for this
Ultimate Growth. This Ultimate
Growth is the “positive impact on
people”. Positive impact on more
people, and more positive, greater
impact on more people.
We tend to relate growth with our
position in the organizational
hierarchy, which is our position in the
structure. Let’s see why this seems to
be completely irrelevant.
If the two parameters, growth and
structures were related, then every
node in the structure would have a
value assigned to it, with the higher
nodes at a greater value and the lower
ones at a lower value. This would also
imply that the organization is
structured around the growth or
values of nodes.
Surprisingly, nothing could be further
from the fact. Organizations are not
structured according to the values of
nodes. Then, how are they structured
and why? Let’s see…
An organization is structured to deploy
functions.
The organization needs to be effective
at carrying out its functions efficiently.
Therefore, we should ensure that
organizational structuring avoids
redundancy of skills and functions,
retains effectiveness over a span of
control, and facilitates communication
and mentoring.
I thought of at least two approaches
that could be used to structure an
organization.

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One could be a Role Based approach,
when the organization is structured
around the need for roles, with the
abilities of people getting a very small
consideration. The IAS is one such
organization, and you might find many
government organizations following
this approach in the socialist countries.
The other is the Function Based
approach, where the organization
structures around the functions that
need to be carried out. This is the
approach that most of the functional or
functioning organizations take.
Well, you can’t just define the
structure and forget the rest.
Structures need to change because of:
 Changing market requirements
leading to changing functional
requirements,
 Growing capability, visibility,
and responsibility of the people
 Growing maturity of the people
and the business.
Essentially, structures need to change
to account for and drive all the people
arriving at different points on the
Learning Curve.
Let’s see how the Learning Curve can
be understood.
This is how we’ve seen learning curves
with the slope very high in the
beginning declining over time to a less
steep slope.
What do you think happens beyond
point X?
This is what I think happens beyond
point X in our learning curves.
Learning actually starts accelerating
beyond X instead of becoming static or
slowing down.
It is only these ‘learners’ who go into
the Leading and Envisioning stages,
beyond the Learn-Do-Manage.
Here, the obvious question is: What is
it that predicts this inflection of the
slope at X? The answer seems to be in
when we get the ability to lead
ourselves, when we become sensitive
to our productivity of learning, or
when we start learning from ourselves
- when we learn to lead ourselves.

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This is a corollary to the learning-
curves discussion. I realized we might
have some loopholes in how we
develop our people.
The upper curve is for a ‘senior’, in the
accelerating-learning mode while the
lower curve is that of a ‘junior’ who
joined the senior to be managed and
mentored.
In the beginning, the slope of the
junior’s curve is steep because the
senior provides instructions, values,
guidance, and training so that the
junior develops and performs. All the
time, the junior is following his
learning curve with the slope declining
gradually.
The senior ‘feels’ the change in the
slope, but misinterprets it completely.
By the time the senior perceives that
his and the junior’s slopes are about
the same, the interpretation is that the
junior has now achieved the same rate
of learning as I have and so he will be
able to keep pace with me. They don’t
realize the junior is actually slowing
down not speeding up.
By ‘leaving’ the juniors to learn on
their own at this stage, we lose the
opportunity we had of the juniors
following the seniors’ learning curve
close behind. Instead, the juniors now
follow their natural, further slowing
down of acceleration of learning to
eventually going through the
inflection. So what does this tell us?
Until when should a senior mentor his
junior?
The development of the junior must
continue until the junior crosses the
inflection; is able to lead himself, is
sensitive to his productivity of
learning, and learns to lead.
Let’s now see how we can chart the
careers that we impact. Our own
careers impact the organization’s
career.
This presentation applies completely to
the organizational career as well.
Let’s Learn, to Lead!