Don't get killed by whispers

The moment I heard this phrase, I decided that I need to share about this. It is such a powerful statement that every professional in any part of the world should remember it and manage it.

People talk about you - that's a known fact. The question is: can you manage or influence what they talk? The experiences of life tell me that yes, you can (and should) constantly try to manage what people talk about you. And you can do this only through your actions or deeds. To be successful, every professional needs to realise that their success will be a function of what they deliver as well as what people talk about them. Managing one without managing the other won't bring them the level of success they'd hope for.

Take a pause and reflect back on your career till date - have you ever been killed by whispers?

Made it!

The power of network prevailed, yet again. A Cranfield alumni has been instrumental in my securing a fantastic career opportunity. My strange and uncanny track record continues - in the coming days, I start in my new job in an industry absolutely new to me - my 7th job in the 7th industry.

Could I have imagined making a foray into Financial Services? Honestly, no. Yet, it has happened - all because an alum saw a role in her organisation, reached out to me to check my interest and then recommended my candidature. After 5 rounds of interviews and a successful outcome, I can safely say, "whatever happens, happens for good!"

Ironically, the paradox of choices also happens at strange times. I have received another job offer from a bank, based on a direct application on their careers website. So, the two unusually powerful channels that I mentioned about have worked for me.

Job hunt in uncertain times!

My redundancy had put me in a very difficult spot. But with no luxury of choices, my only pursuit was to get economically active once again.... and quickly!!

During the past few months, my job hunt became my full time job. I pursued a multi directional approach, and there are two specific channels that wish to stress upon.

Alumni network: One should never under estimate the power of your alumni network. I moderate the Cranfield MBA Alumni group on LinkedIn and it never ceases to amaze me how impressive and high profile the Cranfield MBA alums are. I carefully searched for alumni who work either in the industry or function where I am seeking career opportunities and contacted them. Most of them responded and in fact, one senior even shared information on a specific role that was posted on his organisation's intranet. Get the message? I had beaten the traffic of external candidates when he put my CV through the employee referral.

FTSE250: I must say that I had never heard someone share this approach of job hunt and in these changing times, I'd assure you that this is perhaps the most effective route. I picked up the FTSE 250 list, visited the careers section of each organisations' website and checked if there were any advertised roles that met my objectives. Many organisations also allow you the feature to create job alerts whenever any new roles are posted.

For some reasons, I have never had success with recruitment consultants....partly because I see a lot of cowboys in their field. Quite a few would actually ask me details on which organisations am I talking to, what roles etc. and then go on to approach those firms to secure business relations.

The "R" word - my personal experience!

Over the period of 2008 - 2009, the "R" word has perhaps become the most dreaded word. Not only did it cast its web far and wide globally, it created a massive cloud of fear over even those who survived it. In case you are still wondering, I am talking about "redundancy".

I faced the first such experience in my life earlier in 2009. As a double whammy, my wife was the recipient of redundancy too almost at the same time. "Life was tough" - is perhaps the understatement of my lifetime now.

There are many lessons in life that one learns only by going through them and for me, redundancy was one such lesson. Unfortunately, my Cranfield MBA program could never have taught me how to deal with redundancy, and I pray no one finds the need ever to learn this lesson.
Yet, from a remote corner of my heart, a voice calls out and says, "No! Everyone in their lifetime should actually go through such an experience (at least once)".

No, I am not being a sadist. I say this because the lesson is priceless because it is the most vigorous "wake up" call one can ever experience, as it was for me. This was the time, when I felt once again, the value of a close knit family, the dependability of real friends and the rekindling of financial sense. And above all of this, the power of your network.

Right...so where was I?

After a long and unsettling period in my professional life, I am back.....delighted that I still have much more to share. Sometimes, it surprises me as to how much resilience I have developed over the past decades. Yet, it should not really be surprising. Over 16 years of career, switching countries, going back to school to pursue a second MBA (at Cranfield), starting career once again in completely new surroundings, etc. - all this was enough to further develop my instincts to survive.
So watch this space as I share some more lessons of life with the hope that there will something for you to pick up and pass on.

Silence - by choice!

My blog has been silent for a long time now - not without reasons! As the economy comes out of recession, I will be back too! Thanks for hanging in, guys.

International experience assessed

Why did I come to UK? Why did I pursue the Cranfield MBA program?

These and a few other questions keep surfing every now and then in my conversations. My answers to such questions almost sound like pre-recited by now. As I celebrated this month the completion of 3 years of my professional career in UK, I thought - what would be my key note from my real "international experience"? As always, there will be a one or more contentious observations, many will disagree with them; but then should I care??

I had worked in India for 13 years and quit to come to UK to gain some international experience. At a very basic level, this just meant stepping out of my country and work with non-Indians. However, at a more tangible level, it also meant stepping out of my comfort zone (now who remembers ZOUD!!), exposing myself to unchartered waters - be it cultural, philosophical or even the weather (remember, I chose UK!!). It meant putting significantly extra effort to understand the different ways people work, their preferences or lack of it, etc. etc.

There is one key difference between the skill set used here in UK and that used in India. At the cost of generalizing, I believe that we Indians are excellent at functional knowledge but we fail significantly on people skills. In fact, while we love to deep dives in almost everything, getting into details etc., we do not show sufficient sensitivity to the people dimension.
It is the reverse in UK - Britishers are by and large very good on people skills, but cannot match us on functional skills. They are great at big picture discussions but avoid getting into details.

There isn't (and shouldn't) be a conclusive view on what is better. You need the right balance to be better than your peers. It is from this perspective that I would put my money on an Indian manager who has worked in UK for some years. The experience of emerging markets supplemented by that in a developed country would provide one with a robust and valued profile. You don't see that many British managers with "Indian experience", do you?

P.S. To all regular followers of my blog: I did not realise this post was left in draft mode for so long!