If I Were 22: I Would Want To Fail…Fast

I was asked by LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago to write a post on what would I do #IfIWere22. Since then I have been racking my brain on what could I possibly tell the graduating class of 2014.  I honestly believe 22-year olds now are lot smarter, better informed, socially responsible than my generation.

Finally I decided to share three lessons I learned in my career.  Before I explain what those are I wanted to share my personal story.

I started my career when I was 20. I joined a relatively small shipping company in Chennai (India) at their IT department with the title Systems Executive.  (“Executive” is a bit misleading because pretty much most folks in that part of the world are called that way.  All I was doing at that time was Data Entry)

I was so eager to join the workforce at that early age mainly because I wanted to provide supplemental income to my family.  After all, my father had worked very hard to put me (and my two brothers) through school and college.  Being the oldest of the three I felt it was my duty to relieve my dad off his pressures.

Once I took the job I started doing shipping bill of lading data entry.  Shipping industry is heavily process oriented and manually intensive.  Obviously it was too error prone as well.  I had a programming background.  Although my job was data entry, my programming background pushed me to look for opportunities to put my knowledge to work.  Ways to automate those manual processes.  Unfortunately there was no top down mandate nor goals per se to automate.  But I had a free rein on what I wanted to do.  So after my work hours I would code and I started implementing new systems.  Slowly users started to adapt these new systems.

Over the course of two years, I was easily putting in 80-hour work weeks.  I didn’t take any vacation.  Frankly, didn’t need one.  Because I was having a ball.  I was purely driven by not wanting to do the data entry job.  A burning desire to prove myself drove me to slog.  Funny thing is, no one asked me to work those hours.  My manager and the company leadership was very supportive of my contributions.  They recognized me with tons of financial and non-financial rewards.  My coworkers treated me like their family.  There was little to no office politics.

Within the first two years our little IT department was leading the company.  For the local shipping industry, at that time, we were setting the tone for our competitors on how to do business. We were leaders in business process automation.  I was leading the charge for all of this.  I had achieved what I wanted.  Which is to move away from data entry and started to manage a team of developers.

At the age of 22 personally I felt like, I had arrived.  I was basking in the glory.

What’s wrong with this picture, right?  What else can you ask for at that age?

Except that, for the next four years I was coasting along in my company.  My early successes led me to stay where I was.  I didn’t push myself out of my comfort zone and became complacent.  When I was 26 I realized my skills were becoming stale and I was not adding much value to the company.  That’s when I decided to move to the U.S and take a different path.  Not until I left the company did I realize that I stopped growing professionally after 22.  My first job was a good start to my career and I got everything I asked for.  But looking back I should have challenged myself and set tougher goals to achieve.

Now that I’m in my early 40s, here are a few lessons I learned:

1) Early successes are deceptive.  Especially as it relates to your career.  We see this in professional sports or witness it in our lives all the time.  People who excel in childhood either academically or in sports taper off once they get a job. Whereas Patrick Willises and Richard Shermans of the world who lived through adversity make it to the top of their game. Some times I used to wonder how would their lives be if they didn’t go through those life experiences.  Would they have accomplished what they did?  Probably not, is my theory.

Bottom line, don’t let early successes fool you.  It will only make you complacent.  It introduces the fear of failure.

2) Redefine your targets.  So, you have some early wins but how do you ensure NOT to fall into the complacency sinkhole?  Ask yourself constantly where you should be and move your target if you already reached it. For e.g. If you are an engineer and want to move up the ladder, ask yourself how good are you in the industry (not among your peers) and go seek the next level.  Whether it is to become a team lead or a development manager.

3) Ingrain risk-taking mindset.  In project management we used to say if your project status is green i.e project on track, then we are not moving fast enough.  We are not taking enough risks.  Same applies to our careers.  After all, career is a project.  With a beginning and an end.  You have got to make risk taking as part of your psyche.  Without trying you won’t know if you failed or succeeded.  So be bold and venture out.

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(Original LinkedIn Post can be found here)