Carrer tips 1

A bimonthly newsletter dedicated to your career development.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Career Tips. It will take about 10 minutes to read this newsletter. This investment will pay off, if you apply the tips provided.

Pygmalion effect: Power of expectations

This is an interesting story of an educational experiment, which revealed the power of expectations.

At the start of an academic session, a teacher was given a list of IQ levels of all the students in her class. The list was in descending order, with highest IQ student placed at the top and lowest at the bottom. The teacher was told it was only for her reference and she was not supposed to reveal the IQ scores to the students.

There was one catch, however. The list given was wrong. It was inverted. The student with the highest IQ had been placed at the bottom and the one with the lowest at the top.

It was obvious to the researchers that the students' performance had been influenced by some factor other than their IQ scores.

It turned out that the teacher, who knew the IQ scores of all students, tailored her expectations from the students according to their IQ levels. She expected superior performance from the high IQ students and did not expect much from those with low IQ levels. And the poor students? They simply performed according to her expectations.

Moral of the story: Expectations affect a person's performance.

This phenomenon gets its name from George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. In the play, a teacher's high expectations led to a sterling performance by an otherwise ordinary student.

CAREER TIP: Check out how your boss's expectations are affecting your own performance. Does he/she expect great things from you? If not, why not? Do you expect great performance from your colleagues/subordinates? If not, why not?

Seek the best performance from everyone including yourself.

Four factors that affect your career growth

Many of us work sincerely and to the best of our ability, but don't seem to enjoy the kind of career growth that we deserve.

Why?

Though there can be many factors affecting a person's career growth, the following four often play a pivotal role:

1. Your department's health
2. Your company's overall health
3. Your industry's health
4. Your country's health

Let us look at each of them in detail.

If you work in a department or are involved with a product line that is growing fast, your growth will automatically be fast. Vice-versa is also true.

If you work in a company that is growing rapidly, won't you also grow fast? On the contrary, if you work for a company that is sluggish and struggling, won't it dampen your growth too?

If your company belongs to an industry sector that is growing fast, obviously your company, your department and you will have good chance of growing fast. But if the whole industry is struggling (like IT industry some time back), you can't expect good personal growth.

Finally, if your work in a country that is enjoying sound economic health, the prospects of your industry, your company, your department and your own growth will be much brighter. Reverse is true again.

If you do not believe that these factors can affect your career growth, meet someone who has worked in a company that closed down a product line or itself. Or meet someone who has been subjected to roller-coaster ride of the IT industry's fortunes. Or meet someone who has worked in a country whose economy went through a recession.

Moral of the story: Your career growth is affected by the growth of your department, company, industry and country.

CAREER TIP: Read and pay close attention to the following: your department's performance report, your company's annual report, newspapers, trade magazines and business magazines. Keep track of your department's, company's, industry's and country's economic health and make your moves accordingly.

Managing boss: Focus on strengths

Trouble with the boss is nothing uncommon. It happens everyday, everywhere and at every level. Is there a way to enjoy a good, productive relationship with your boss?

Try the following strategy:

1. Realise that your boss is also a human being. And therefore, boss has his own strengths and limitations, just like you.

2. The key to your effectiveness lies in recognising your boss's strengths and then enabling him/her to use the strengths.
If your boss is good at cultivating contacts with outsiders, help him to do so. If your boss is good at negotiations, involve him whenever you want to strike a deal.
If you consciously apply this technique of focusing on your boss's strengths and using them, you will find your own effectiveness multiplying many folds.

3. Do not focus on his/her weaknesses. It doesn't help anyone, especially you.

CAREER TIP: Observe your boss closely and identify his/her strong points. Actively help your boss to use his/her strengths.

Expand your perspective

Have you ever helped someone in need? If you have, you know how satisfying it is to be of service to others.

What about the work you do? Do you derive the same kind of satisfaction? May be not. Barring some occupations such as nurses, doctors and social workers, most occupations do not offer that kind of satisfaction or even something close to it.

But if you can expand your perspective, you would realise that, ultimately, regardless of the work you do, you are also touching the lives of others. It may not be so obvious like in nursing or social work, but indirectly every piece of work ends up affecting someone else.

If you design air-conditioning systems for a building, you must realise that ultimately the building will be occupied by patients, office workers or some ordinary people. You will be affecting their comfort and well being.

If you are marketing a software for mobile phones, you must realise that ultimately ordinary people will be using your software to communicate. Mothers will speak with their children. Businessmen will talk to their customers. They will be able to do so because of you.

If you work in a manufacturing plant, producing semiconductor chips, your product may end up in hospital equipment, in home appliances, aircrafts and what not. Again, thousands or millions of ordinary lives will be affected by your work.

CAREER TIP: Look at the work you do and expand your perspective as far as possible till you are able to relate your work to the ordinary people. How do you feel when you realise that your work is not just about earning a living but also about making a difference in the lives of others? Always keep this perspective in mind when you are working. Be proud of whatever you do.

See you again next month.

Atul Mathur

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