Job Transitions

What Every Manager Should Know Why Generation Y Quits

January 12, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Millennials, or the Generation Y or Gen Y cohort, are much better educated. They’re tech-savvy, more achievement-oriented, and better problem-solvers than preceding generations.

Millennials also tend to be restless with their career progression, demanding salary and job flexibility. They’re quick to move on if something better beckons. Millennials aren’t interested in the financial success that inspired the Boomers or the independence that characterizes the Gen Xers, but in personalized career paths.

Employers often gripe that millennials seem entitled and overly ambitious. And even if they’re high-maintenance, they’re hungry and willing to do what it takes to prove themselves.

To prevent Gen Y retention problems, create an environment where they have room to make an impact and give them the autonomy, support, and training to get there.

Idea for Impact: Millennials become disengaged quickly in the workplace—they’re impatient with things that do not lead to learning or advancement. They never stop questioning the status quo; they don’t want to be told they must do their time and wait in line. Give them a way to move up promptly, with fun and challenges along the way.

How to … Know When it’s Time to Quit Your Job

September 1, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If there’s an acid test for how to know when it’s time to stop and do something different, it’s this.

When you come home from work, and pretty much all you want to do is slouch on the sofa, order takeout, and watch silly videos on TikTok, it’s time to find something else that meshes with your interests and aspirations more closely.

For many people, the central challenge of work-life should be, “How do I bring more of myself to my work?” Your job should make you sweat a little bit, in a good way.

So, when you start to believe you can’t do better, when you start to feel pretty indifferent about what you’re doing, and it’s sapping you of all energy, it’s time to evaluate whether you have the right job at the right company and whether you’re doing the right thing.

Idea for Impact: Above all, whatever you do, work should add energy to your life, not sift it away. Work at a personal plan, and periodically follow up with those who may be able to open doors for you.

It’s Not Just a Job … It’s a Career

August 23, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Your job belongs to your employer. It’s a specific purpose in the system. Jobs are the fundamental building blocks of the organization. If you don’t do the job, somebody else will.

Your career, on the other hand, belongs to you. It’s your life’s work—your path, your dream. Your career is something you build towards and work upon every day.

You’ll have many jobs throughout your career, even with one employer.

Idea for Impact: Don’t get lost in your job; it isn’t an end in itself. Every job is a means to an end; every job is an element of your career. Do each job well, but look beyond. Learn to expand and market your skills. Strategize how each could lead you to the next job on your career trajectory.

The Great Resignation, The Great Awakening

July 25, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Great Resignation hasn’t been just about burnout. It’s about a “Great Awakening,” notably for many folks in middle management.

Obliged to stay in their homes during COVID, they’ve reevaluated their lives while cherishing the extra time with their families and engaging in other interests. Discussions of work-life balance came into renewed focus.

As part of this great rethink, people are unwilling to sacrifice as much for a work-life balance. Some middle managers are increasingly disinclined to take the next step in their careers because “onward and upward” isn’t as appealing as it used to be, and the price to climb the corporate ladder is too high. These people are keener on setting career paths based on their own values and definitions of success.

Not that their ambitions have changed, though. But they aren’t driving for the same things they were driving for ten years ago. But they’re reconsidering how they can keep contributing to their organizations—on their own terms. They’re willing to come to terms with “career plateauing,” unhooking from the pressure to pursue an upward path someone else has set.

They may still derive a certain sense of identity from their jobs, but they’re seeking other ways to seek a more fulfilling life. They’re no longer pushing for the more prestigious title, the broader responsibility, the bigger raise, and a larger team. Instead, they’re taking energy that had been directed primarily on goals defined by the employer and focusing it elsewhere.

Idea for Impact: As part of this great rethink, reassess your options. Set clear boundaries on your willingness to sacrifice to strike a better work-life balance. Think strategically not only about the work you enjoy but also about the life you want to lead.

Don’t Quit Your Job Until

July 20, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Before you quit your job, give your employer a chance to address your issues.

Thoughtfully identify what the real concerns are. Is the problem your current job, your supervisor, a coworker, the processes, the whole company? If the job is the problem, consider making a move within your company before you decide to leave.

Time your concerns appropriately. Use your best insight into how and when to talk to your supervisor based on her temperament.

If you don’t tell your supervisor, she can’t fix it. Who knows what’s feasible—a different job description, team, department, schedule? You may just be surprised at how enriched your experience can be once the key issues are addressed.

Don’t jump ship in frustration if you’re likely to run into the same problems with your next employer. It’s easier to tackle frustrations in a familiar environment at your current employer than at a new company, where you’ll be under pressure to learn the ropes and quickly produce results.

Indeed, your supervisor may not be able to fix your issues even if she knows what they are. But unless you give her a chance, you’ll never know. If you can’t work it out, don’t get hung up on whose “fault” it is.

Why You Should Interview For a Job Even if You Don’t Want It

May 21, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

When you’re uncertain about a position or the company that’s invited you, attend the interview anyway. Do your best. At the very least, it’s an excellent opportunity to practice your interviewing skills.

It’s good to endure the uneasiness—or panic—leading up to interviews. The more interview styles and settings, and the variety of interviewer personalities you’re exposed to, the more prepared you’ll be when you land that dream job interview. Presenting your best self in an interview is a rehearsed performance.

Better yet, any interview could open doors. You may discover details of a position, team, or company that you may end up liking. Job descriptions tend to be nondescript, and you don’t get a real sense of a role or a company until you’ve had a face-to-face or telephone conversation. Too, if you make a positive impression, the interviewer may refer you to another job opening that’s a better fit.

If the interview is definitely not what you were going for or if you have an attractive job offer lined up already, don’t waste your time—and the interviewer’s time.

Idea for Impact: Every interview could be worth your time, even if you don’t want the job.

How to Improve Your Career Prospects During the COVID-19 Crisis

May 7, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the world into despondency and uncertainty, it’s easy to worry about your career prospects, feel risk-averse, and become inert.

However, if you could look beyond the short-term challenges, now’s a good time to take on new skills, tend to your network, and accelerate your long-term career prospects.

Here’s how to take a bit of initiative and think creatively about your career during the current lockdown.

Reflect upon your goals for your life and career. Think clearly through the steps you must take to realize your aspirations.
State clearly your aims. If you want to earn more or get a better responsibility, speak to your boss about what it’ll take to secure a promotion.
Seek specific feedback, but don’t just reflect on the past. Asking for feedback puts you—not your boss—in the driver’s seat. Ask lots of questions and decide what you could do to make a positive change.
Redefine your goals at work. Identify worthwhile measures of success. Agree on targets that stretch but don’t strain.
Work with your boss to find gaps in your experience. Find projects where you could develop and use those skills.
Don’t try to do everything. Prioritize. Ask yourself, “Where do my strengths lie?” Focusing on one or two areas could help you isolate and sharpen the necessary skills to move up.
Seek out new opportunities. Be alert to points of diminishing returns on learning new skills.
Take the lead on a project that others don’t find particularly interesting (see Theo Epstein’s 20 Percent Rule.) You could not only learn by way of broader experiences and gain confidence but also become more visible to management and situate yourself for a promotion.
Offer to share responsibility. Take an interest in your colleagues’ work. You could win over grateful allies and open up new opportunities within your company.
Reevaluate what’s essential. To the extent possible, divest yourself of the boring, time-wasting, frivolous, and worthless—anything that doesn’t “move the ball down the field.”
Pursue side projects. Cultivating knowledge and trying out new skills during your free time is a definite path to career reinvention.
Seek out mentors. Make the right contacts. Bear in mind, those who influence decisions may not necessarily be the ones at the top.
Begin actively networking. It’s never late to put together a range of experts whose knowledge and experience you could tap into.

Idea for Impact: Mulling over how to improve yourself and enhance your career is a great shelter-in-place project. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower once declared, “Plans are useless but planning is indispensable.”

Some Lessons Can Only Be Learned in the School of Life

November 19, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

How Anil Ambani Learned the Ropes of Doing Business in India

In the Fall of 1982, Anil Ambani, scion of one of India’s wealthiest family, returned home to Mumbai, then Bombay, after attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Anil had fast-tracked through his two-year MBA program in less than 15 months.

He met up with his father Dhirubhai Ambani and announced, “Look, Dad, I’ve become an MBA, and I’m going to take a break since I worked hard. I will see you in the New Year.”

Dhirubhai asked, “I am very happy and delighted that you accomplished this. Since I did not go to any formal school or college, I do not have any degree, why don’t you tell me, from your learning at Wharton, what does an MBA stand for?”

Smug and self-satisfied, Anil replied, “That’s simple. Master of Business Administration.”

Dhirubhai countered, “An MBA represents Manē Badhā Āvō che,” (Gujarati for “I am know all.”) He explained,

You are entering India, and you need to Indianize your MBA … at Wharton School, did they teach you about customs duties, excise duties, income tax, sales tax, Parliament?

Do you know about a zero-hour question, a call-attention motion, and the difference between a starred question and an unstarred question in the Indian Parliament?

If you don’t get to know all these things, let me assure you, all your formal education is not going to help you. You need your practical Indian MBA. And I am going to create that learning environment for you so that you can get the exposure.

A formal education doesn’t necessarily teach you everything about how to navigate the real world

Dhirubhai Ambani, the prototypical crony capitalist that he was, was highlighting the importance of learning the ways and means of doing business in pre-liberalization India.

One must note that Ambani’s extraordinary rags-to-riches story was a blend of cunning, street smartness, audacious risk-taking, and an unparalleled knack for bending the rules through powerful politicians and bureaucrats. As controversial as he was, Ambani must be understood in the socio-political context of India’s post-Independence industrial milieu. He artfully exploited the opportunities those times offered.

Idea for Impact: Formal education cannot complete the kind of real-world operative skills that you need

If you’re truly serious in your desire to get ahead in business, you will need a broader grasp of your chosen discipline than you can get from formal education.

Look, listen, learn. Every industry, company, organization, and team has its own culture. Spend time observing the winners: what does success look like? Who holds power, and how are they persuaded? What are the traits of people who get ahead? Emphasize developing skills in line with the winners.
Develop a network of people who can potentially lend a hand or bail you out of a jam. Invest in the people who will listen to your ideas and support your ambitions. Get to know peers at all levels to build a support base. Any person may have the knowledge and the allegiances that they can put to work for you if they’re so inclined.
Discover how to make the most of the circumstances you’re dealt with. Don’t manipulate others for your own devices in a Machiavellian sense—although, occasionally, you may need to use duplicity for respectable purposes, i.e. where certain ends can justify certain means.

Remember, the political payoff for fostering and nurturing relationships, and for developing a vast reservoir of skills and experiences, may take months, years, or even decades.

Don’t Use Personality Assessments to Sort the Talented from the Less Talented

October 25, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Personality assessments have featured in personality development and career counseling for almost a century. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and other tests form the basis for helping people deal with conflict, understand team interplay, outline career search, sharpen decision-making skills, and cope with stress.

Personality Assessments Cannot Predict Performance

Even as their use has grown significantly over the last two decades, personality assessments—including strengths inventories, and emotional intelligence assessments—have been criticized at length:

An individual’s personality cannot be summed up by a personality assessment. Individuality is described best by continuous (not discrete), normally-distributed attributes. For example, the MBTI Step I classification of individuals into 16 categories (or 4 dichotomies from Carl Jung‘s book Psychological Types (1921)) does not encapsulate the full range of personality variance.
An individual’s behavior cannot be limited to one side of a dichotomy. For instance, every person can be outgoing and assertive in the external world (extraversion,) while requiring time for some contemplation (introversion).
Many academic studies question the tests’ predictive validity and poor reliability. Moreover, personality assessments have poor test-retest consistency. Test takers have been shown to change at least one dichotomy when they take the MBTI Step I survey a second time.
Personality assessments can initiate confirmation bias (“Barnum Effect”)—the test scores are self-fulfilling because people tend to behave in ways that are predicted for them. In other words, a person who learns that he or she is “outgoing” according to MBTI may behave that way.
Personality tests are decidedly fakeable, especially when used to evaluate future career opportunities. All personality assessments are contingent on a degree of honesty, but MBTI test-takers are often motivated to match up to extraverted, sensing, thinking, and judging (ESTJ) proclivities in the modern organization.
Assessments are regularly offered as universally applicable. Not only do they tend to mirror the biases of the test developers, but also they are skewed in preference of the social groups the developer studied.

Personality Assessments are Starting Points for Change, Not a Predictor of the Outcome

Academics have long acknowledged the previously mentioned criticisms of personality assessments. They’ve argued fruitfully that many of the criticisms should be directed to how HR practitioners understand personality tests and use them in the development arena.

MBTI and many other personality assessments were never intended to sort the talented from the less talented. They are designed for the individual who takes the assessment, and not for the HR practitioner. In other words, personality assessments were designed to help individuals discover their underlying preferences regarding learning styles, problem-solving styles, self-awareness, ethical inclinations, emotional intelligence, and stress management.

Intended for Increasing Self-awareness, Not Appraisal

On the contrary, HR practitioners tend to interpret test scores speciously to gauge behavior, rather than as pointers of categorical preferences. Besides, HR practitioners often fail to factor in the test-takers’ past and current environmental influences.

And then there’s the risk of people being pigeonholed or pushed into a particular course regardless of his or her preferences. HR practitioners and career counsellors who put too much emphasis on personality assessments may compartmentalize people into rigid categories. This flies in the face of a central tenet of the MBTI premise—that individuals could choose to act against their preferred type if the occasion demands it. People’s attitudes and behaviors often change over time because of emotional experiences or socialization into specific work and social cultures.

Idea for Impact: Use Personality Assessments to Facilitate Self-Awareness, Not for Categorization or as Predictors of Achievement

If you’re a manager or a HR practitioner, don’t use personality assessments to categorize people or as predictors of achievement. Encourage people to take personality tests, but help them interpret these pieces of data about themselves—only they could make sense of test results in the context of their life history, social environment, and ambitions for career and life.

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Job Transitions

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How Anil Ambani Learned the Ropes of Doing Business in India

A formal education doesn’t necessarily teach you everything about how to navigate the real world

Idea for Impact: Formal education cannot complete the kind of real-world operative skills that you need

Wondering what to read next?

Personality Assessments Cannot Predict Performance

Personality Assessments are Starting Points for Change, Not a Predictor of the Outcome

Intended for Increasing Self-awareness, Not Appraisal

Idea for Impact: Use Personality Assessments to Facilitate Self-Awareness, Not for Categorization or as Predictors of Achievement

Wondering what to read next?