Hi P NC series
Bill Gates - Microsoft
Steve Jobs - Apple
Michael Dell - Dell
Larry Ellison - Oracle
Mike Lazaridis - Blackberry
Shawn Fanning - Napster
Jerry Yang - Yahoo
etc etc
And it is no coincidence all of these college drop outs are boys. And what about India??? Is this happening in India or Is this going to happen in India.
It seems that these people are the ones who are most successful. Is it that it was the times that made them successful? Is there no value of education?
They were driven to the corner. They did not have anything to fall back on. Dire straits as they say and some character to bounce back and some grit to really do something. They were ready to move out of their comfort zones
They are high performers -- constantly re-creating themselves. That's what Tiger Woods does -- Says HIGH PERFORMANC research from Accenture.
They were SMART enough to be in good school (even Harvard and smarter enough to do something better in that school). As Roger Schank says if you want innovation then Hire the Bottom 10 % of Harvard.
Tsu Zu - Art of war also says -- Don't surround the army from all four sides. Do it from only 3 sides. Don't let them be in Dire Straits. If they will be in Dire Straits, they will fight for their lives and then they will fight to their might. Same thing happens when you drop out from college. But mind you that you should have the anger in your belly plus the conviction and the grit to do something.
I read an answer in Linkedin once on the same issue. As to what should be done in case your career is in the Valley.
There's an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Captain Picard gets to re-live an incident in his youth where he goads some Klingons into stabbing him in the heart. Picard regrets the event which he believes has killed him as his artificial heart fails. However, when Q lets him re-live the event without it, he finds that his elder self is not a Captain but a Lieutenant in the Science division, never having taken any bold chance that would have caused him to stand out as fit for a command post. When Picard eventually comes around, having not actually died, he has a huge smile on his face. He made the correct life choices all along.
This doesn't tell you if your own career is in the valley, but it does tell you what to do about it: take chances. Be the one to challenge assumptions openly that make no sense to you. Be the one to take on the tough jobs. Be the one to give the bad news to the boss, and admit you have no good solution, but will listen carefully to everyone and see if you can come up with one. Be the one to ask the boss if he wants to shift jobs - so you can take his. Be the one who isn't all that concerned if he gets fired, since "I can find another job easily." And knows it's true, because he talks to the recruiters all the time, and has his resume up to date all tlhe time, and has let it be known that he expects to do bigger things, or will soon be out the door in search of them elsewhere.
None of this is to say take foolish risks that have no good payoff, nor cross people or try to show them up as incompetent (unless they really are and drag everyone down, not just you, and you can be hero to all by taking down a pointy-haired boss). It's just to say, be more like yourself.
Everyone has to decide for themselves if they are "in the valley". If you've got no ambitions to do management work, for instance, don't want to take responsibility for others' failures, then, you won't think of a top technical job as "in the valley". But if you are tired of technical work and believe you can do a far better job of coordinating others, you'd see the same situation differently. So you have to judge by your own satisfaction and happiness.
There's no other guide. We're all different. We all have different attitudes to risk, too. Your colleagues may really like it when you step forward to take a risky task on. Or, they may resent it and ask for the job themselves. Feel them out. Get a sense of what they want you to do - not what the boss wants, what your colleagues want. You'll be surprised how able they think you are. Ask others what they'd like you to do that they don't want to do. Take on extra tasks and earn some gratitude so that you have political support if you fail at something very difficult later.
Finally, don't be afraid of randomness. If you don't know whether to say something or not, flip a coin, and flip it in front of everyone. Heads speak up, tails shrug and say nothing. If asked why, say that you want to speak half as much and do twice as much. If they hand you the dirty job after tails come up, fine. Take it. Do it. Show results without objection or any comment. Demonstrate willingness to trust fate. Put tough jobs in a jar and draw one out every day. Make it an event. Ask others to put jobs in.
Just get creative. You know what to do. If they fire you, tell the recruiter why. After s/he stops laughing they'll find you a far better job, somewhere they like courage and creativity. And you'll wake up like Picard, smiling, even after heart surgery.
If you don't do this, five years from now, you'll be the same five years older.
May be this is what these people also did. They tried to do anything and everything to survive. You only give your best and your full when you run for your survival.
No comments:
Post a Comment