..So you have been working for more than 4-5 years in the
corporate world; some of you have been working in the middle management rung,
but the common refrain is, feeling stagnated, you feel that there is no action
happening, getting bored (or frustrated) of mundane things you have been doing,
more are less are de-motivated (& if things don’t change for better, you
could be de-moralized too!)
Right??
If that is the case, the good part is, you are not alone.
There are millions of professionals feeling the similar pangs, though the
remedy is not that difficult!
Allow me to explain.
In the current work, do you ever get the feeling of
ownership? Did you, on your own / proactively (without anybody else asking)
work late to complete some urgent task / proposal / program or worked for few
hours on weekend from home? (and I’m talking of pre-lockdown era! 😊) Do you
feel attached to the work? Do you take pride in whatever little team you’re
leading?
Mostly, the answers will be in negative. If that is the
case, you need to reorient yourself.
Yes, you need to start thinking like a CEO! (& No, but don’t rush to HR to ask for
corner office and or executive assistant! 😊) .
When I say, think like a CEO, try to take a bird’s eye
view of your work / your organization from 10,000 ft above the ground. Try to
make sense of all the business units/departments. Try to see the big picture. Don’t
think of yourself as a mere spoke of a big wheel. Instead of moaning say,
‘what-I-am-doing-in-this-migration-project’, find out how it is important for
the customer & for your organization (like in the given example, you’re
enabling customer not only saving money
in capital investment of hardware by moving onto Cloud but also in taking
advantage of scalability of Cloud) & you will understand the importance of
your contribution). Find out how the organization makes money (Order to cash
process), see who the vendors are, find out the employee count. Find out what metrics/KPIs your organization
uses. There will be some key words / terms specific to every organization. Find
out what those are, find out their meanings & you start getting a new
perspective. (Listed organization do
publish financial statements on internet, find out & try to read the
balance sheet, P&L statement. It is not that difficult. Even if you find
out the operating revenue & operating expenses & the line items
underneath, it is a great beginning!).
Observe CEO (or rather, CXOs/Sr. leadership), how they communicate,
their body language, the confidence they exude, the energy, positivity they radiate.
(And I’m not asking to follow them
blindly or to idolize them but to get inspired, get charged)
Once you start taking above steps, you’re getting into
the groove; you are molding yourself to think like a CEO. Supplementary reading (Eco Times / CNBC etc.)
would provide you a lot more info about the verticals, how a particular
industry is performing, what are the common pain points of a particular
industry & how the industry champions are facing it etc. You need not understand full 100%; even if
you understand 10% of it, it would still help in changing the perspective,
changing the thinking.
If you’re working in IT industry, are you aware that
labor cost is its biggest cost component? But that is not the case for say,
automobile company where material cost is the biggest cost component. If you’re working in hotel or hospitals,
occupancy is the key metrics. Again, if
you’re an IT professional, find out the gross yield per employee (simple
formula – Revenue divided by Total No. of employees). Then you will also
realize why IT companies want to move away from the linear model.
Once this thinking starts developing, you are bound to
work differently, however small your team could be. You would be more energetic, would be liking
to go to office, to accomplish things (& not for the sake of your home loan
EMI!) You would be taking genuine interests in your team associates, would be
taking the end-to-end ownership of the project/s, talking to client/client’s
project manager more frequently, hearing
the feedback/complaints, trying to do the course-correction, would have a better pulse on the billing /
collection, sniffing escalations & mitigating them in the bud!
And believe me, if you start doing above things, within a
few months (or maximum, a couple of quarters), you could be the top performer
in your team/BU/organization.
Continue delivering a spirited performance for a few
years and you are bound to think one day, “Hey, why should I do all this for
someone else and that too for so many years? Let me be the boss of my own
little organization!”
And voila… an entrepreneur is born!!
