Visibility – Key to your career

In his book Imagining India, Nandan Nilekani claims he is an accidental entrepreneur. That is, he never dreamed of starting a business and making money. All he dreamed of was having a good job. It was a chance meeting with Narayan Murthy that triggered him and 5 others to become entrepreneurs. He openly claims that if it were not for Mr.Murthy, he would have migrated to the US and would be like any other NRI. Why did Mr. Murthy choose Nandan and 5 others only? What made him choose these people over others in Patni computers?

Answer is Visibility

Most employees on a software company like ours have predefined plan as to what they want to be in a few years. However, people do not do anything other than the tasks assigned to them by their managers.  No one other than the manager knows whether you want to be in technical or managerial track.

Your peers do not know because it is very difficult to make out from your actions what you want to be. This is  lack of visibility. No one other than your manager knows what you are capable of,what your aspirations are and what you can really do.

Why is visibility required?

Since I have spent almost my entire career in CDC, my knowledge of how other companies work is limited. Hence,I am taking the following example from a friend who works in IBM( That’s you Balaji). One of his bosses explained why he needs to be more visible. “Suppose you have a superb idea that could generate millions of dollars but requires the company to put up a million dollars. If the company management has never heard of you before, they would just reject the idea. Why? They already have plans for spending that million dollars on something else. Is your idea really superb? Then they will ask you get signatures of 20 people in your department who will vouch for your idea. Will you be able to get those 20 signatures if you are unknown to other teams?”

How do you get visibility?

By doing things that affects or requires interaction with more than one team. By doing lots of things, there are chances for you to show what you are capable of to a wider audience. Keep in mind that these things may or may not directly relate to your big aim.I will give some examples of things that I did extra that helped increase my visibility –

•  I volunteered for CDC intranet group – I did not know anything about sharepoint.It was not directly related to my aim of  getting into management. But within a few meetings, I “discovered” the blog feature of our intranet. This gave me a way to showcase my “personal MBA” knowledge. Soon I started blogging more and neglecting the volunteering for intranet part. If I had never volunteered for this group, this blog would not have existed!

 

• I blog – Well, you are reading it. Would you know me if I didn’t blog? So far my blog has been mentioned by Naga( Managing Director, South & SouthEast Asia of CDC Software) in one of the town halls and by Sanjay Jha( Director, Software Development) in one of the All hands meet. My aim is that one day all big gatherings and high level meetings in CDC to start with a mention of my blog 🙂
• I organise agile games – Poor Merlyn(in-charge of ushering in Agile development in CDC Bangalore) is responsible for going through all the boring dreary stuff about agile. Then I step in and bring fun and games into the picture.Result – Every new joiner knows  me ( as the  fun guy!). Again, it’s not directly related to my aim, but it contributes to my visibility  and improves my knowledge of agile. Since I attend all the sessions, I get agile refresher every 3-4 months directly from Merlyn! 

I would have never imagined that volunteering for intranet group would help my managerial career path. Clearly, there is an accidental element to it. Hence I call it “Accidental career growth plan”. I know, it sounds like a new kind of insurance policy, but, I firmly believe one should volunteer to any task that is available and see if it is of use. If it is not, then you can always claim “am overworked” and drop out 🙂

 Are you trying to be more visible in your jobs? Would a  future Narayan Murthy in your company pick you  to join him in a new venture today?

Do Comment!

Demographic Dividend

Remember the title. You are going to hear this term a lot in the future. Especially when people are talking about India and its economic growth.

 

Demographic dividend is the rise in the rate of economic growth of a country because of rising number of working people. That is,the economic growth that occurs when there are more people in the working age ( 20 to 60) than non-working (i.e dependants).

 

I came across this term in Nandan Nilekani’s Imagining India. I recommend this book even though it does not fit into business books category.You would be amazed at his level of knowledge about India and wonder how he managed to run infosys as well as do research for this book.

 

Every country has a limited window of time in which the possibility of reaping demographic dividend occurs. US and other developed countries of Europe had this opportunity right after world-war II. Many couples had put-off starting the family because of the war. As soon as the war ended lots of families were started at the same time. When these babies grew up and started working the countries grew at phenomenal rates to become “developed” countries. This generation was called “Baby Boomer” generation.

 

The main ingredient is that the large number of people in working age should actually get some work. If unemployment rises during this critical time, the country will fail to reap the dividend and remain a “developing” nation.

 

In earlier times, a country with a large population was considered to be destined to be poor. This was because there were not many knowledge industries and over population was thought to be a burden on the natural resources of a country.However, this view has changed considerably in recent years with development of lot of knowledge based industries and population is now considered an asset. 

 

China started “One Child” policy when people still considered population as a burden. This policy artificially accentuated the demographic dividend. i.e suddenly all the working people had less number of dependants. Hence their growth rates are in double digits. But when this single child reaches the working age, suddenly they have more dependants( 2 parents and one child). This is becoming serious problem for China and are actively thinking of abolishing the rule. One side-effect of the rule is that the kids there are very very pampered. The people there are facing something called 4-2-1 problem. i.e 4 grandparents, 2 parents and one child. Can you imagine? Forget brother or sisters, the kids in China do not have cousins, uncles or aunts. They are the sole focus of attention of 4 grandparents!! But I still think growing up would be less fun without cousins, aunts and uncles.Anyway, I digress… Because of this policy China will stop having the dividend in about 5 to 10 years time.

 

However, in India, we don’t have any such problems thanks mainly to Sanjay Gandhi. Nandan says because he tried to control population through forced sterilization and faced the wrath of people no politician in his right mind wanted to do anything for population control. The result? we expect to have demographic dividend well past 2050 🙂

 

India is also unique in the sense that we are not behaving like one country. He says, different parts of the country are earning demographic dividend at different years. When green revolution happened, farmers in North India suddenly became rich, started having fewer kids and reaped the dividends. Then IT revolution brought money into the hands of educated people of South India the fertility rates have dropped dramatically.

However, some North Indian states like Bihar and UP continue to have high population growth which would help India grow for another 40 years.

 

I like the term “dividend”. Its like when I invest in stock market, I don’t look for dividend. I invest thinking the stock price will go up. Any dividend I get is like a bonus. Similarly, people don’t look for getting any economic benefit of having kids, but the fact that country as a whole gets benefits makes it a “demographic dividend”

 

I have a plan to extend this benefit infinitely.I am sure most people plan to have less number of kids than their parents had. Right? That is what is giving us the high economic growth. Now, to sustain this, we all need to ask our kids to have lot of kids.  That is it!! We just need to increase our population every alternate generation!! Nothing could be simpler 🙂

 

NOTE: –  Anyone who follows the plan described above is doing it at his/her own risk. I should not be held responsible for the consequences.