..

Catalyst

  1. Brief summary
  2. Learnings
  3. Quotes

Brief summary

  • How to be successful at work? We need a catalyst in our lives similar to how we have a catalyst in a chemical reaction
  • Mere presence of the skills does not mean that one would be successful in their career. They have to make efforts and take actions to utilize their skills to the maximum.
  • Time and hard work alone do not drive real individual growth, it needs to be catalyzed.

Learnings

  • Throughout the life, usually the ups and downs are equal. It is you who has to work on yourself to drive career growth.
    • Grow your skills, knowledge, communication skills, persuasion and decision making ability
  • Thinking about the results constantly diverts us from real progress. Instead the probability of getting better result increases when we focus on the deeds for getting the results.
  • The way we lie our personal lives has an impact on the way we work

  • TMRR (How?)

    • Target, measure, review and reflect
    • Have a target for an activity, measure the actual performance and then review the performance to understand the effort
    • Should be applied at as granular level as possible. Daily/weekly instead of quarterly/yearly
    • Reflect: What could I have done better?
  • If you started the project again, with all the learning you have now, having done it once, what would you do differently?
    • Good intent gets converted to action when it gets ingrained as a habit
    • Maximize learnings from a learning cycle (Any major project or initiative) via TMRR
    • Identify major learning cycles and participate in them
  • Higher Productivity
    • Productivity is the means through which you can convert the experience algorithm into results.
    • As you advance in your career, the problems become more complex and more broad/opaque. Higher productivity helps in dealing with the latter issue
  • Focus on circle of influence rather than circle of concern
    • The circle of influence is the area where you can have an impact. Identify it and work on that only
    • Highly productive people spend all of their time in circle of influence
    • circle_influence
    • The higher you go on corporate ladder, the more productive you need to be
    • Spend most of your time on what is important. It doesn’t happen by itself: Identify important things and allocate time for that (eg: schedule calendar)
  • Career Management
    • Usually the most significant career achievements happen in the second half of the career and that is the place where very few people succeed
    • Opportunities in the second half of the career are scarce and determined based on relative capability
    • The foundations for success in the second half are set in the first half
    • Delay your gratification: Don’t be in a rat race and compare yourselves to others in the first half, it might lead to poor decisions
    • Focus on depth in the first half of your career. Depth builds skills whereas breadth builds knowledge and information. Knowledge and information is easily accessible in today’s age. Too much knowledge can also be a barrier for us to absorb or accept new knowledge
    • Optimize your career to participate in major end to end learning cycles
    • Best learning cycles are those that change you as a human being
    • Seek good bosses and mentors who can help you make choices that maximize the probability of long term career success and who know you personally to give specific career advice.
  • Decision to quit a company
    • Decision to quit is majorly impacted by learnings and fit at a company.
    • Decision to quit should be made before the decision to join anywhere else. These two decisions should be taken independently
      • Do not quit the job as a consequence of the decision to join
    • Decision to join must be taken based on learning and fit, not title/pay
  • Life and Values
    • Develop a hobby outside work that you are passionate about
    • Pyramid of motivations at work
      • triangle_purpose
      • Achievement: Need to achieve respect, recognition, wealth, material success
      • Mastery: Need for being the master of our trade
      • Purpose: Sense of purpose at work
      • If leaders are focused on their achievement needs only, then they will be selfish and ineffective. The key to success at work is to work from a perspective of mastery and purpose.
    • To fulfil one’s achievement needs, find alternate avenues like hobbies outside work where you can push yourself and feel accomplished. Eg: Running or striving hobbies
    • As one goes to more success, the achievement need also progresses. It is important to find alternative ways to feed that
    • Striving hobbies: One where you strive for achievement and that liberates you from feeding the achievement need at work
  • Leadership = (Position + Content) * Values
    • Each one of us feels we are honest, not because of our absolute level of honesty, but because we always set the standard lower than our current personal honesty level. Strive to be honest and do write even when others are being
    • Be humble: No success is ever created alone, there are other people involved in helping you reach there
    • Improve your values
      • Sensitivity: Self awareness of your values and what are you doing good/bad according to that
      • Practice: Choose few simple scenarios where you can practice your values

Quotes

Great success requires you to drive great change, great change requires you to have great leadership impact and to have great leadership impact, you need to have great values. Very few develop the level of values required to become legacy-creating leaders who leave an impact. If that is your aspiration then you have to set a standard for yourself to be in the 1–2 per cent of the highest values-driven, self-aware individuals.