He is 45. He is yet a Senior Manager. He hasn’t really
achieved much!
Even I have found myself involved in such
conversations at times. Now when I look back, I was immature. Success and achievement
are subjective terms and are heavily dependent on points of view. When you walk
on the road, you see so many luxury cars. Would you term the owners of those
cars as successful people? Most probably you would and in all probability you
would be right. But that doesn’t mean that the person occupying the small
cubicle in your office, way above age for his designation and role, is unsuccessful.
As individuals we have career goals and life goals.
It is a fine mix of the two that determines how you would like to shape your
life. It is like the temperature control knob in your car; just replace the extremes
with the two goals. The ideal balance would be to have the knob in the centre –
ideal work life balance. Those who have worked even for a short while in the
corporate world would know that such a phenomenon is utopic. In reality, the
knob would be biased towards one side.

Today’s stress on professional success and growth
has resulted in limiting the definition of achievement only to professional
life. Also, that is the most visible and tangible measure of success. Companies
and organisations stress on competition and the result of competition is a
winner – often times termed as an achiever or a successful person. This is the
reason why that old guy in the small cubicle seems as an underachiever or, in
harsher words, a failure in life.
Step back a little. Why did men start working in
the first place? To earn a livelihood. Why did they want to earn a livelihood? To
feed their family and fulfil their necessities. Was there a work life balance
principle then? Perhaps, but not stated as such. Though the cases in which there
was an imbalance in work and personal life would have been more for survival
than for “success”. The first instance of usage of the term “work-life balance”
was in 1970s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was not until 1986
before this term was used. So, the term is not too old. What brought about the
rapid proliferation of the term in board room discussions was the woman
workforce. They were the ones that really needed that balance between work and
home. As we travel into the deeper realms of the 21st century, the
term has taken a more universal relevance and every individual debates whether
he/she has work life balance or not.

Why do people move up or down the groups? One
reason is because their calibration of work and personal life changes. When there
are important landmarks in their personal lives for which they have to
sacrifice a bit of success at work, they move down. When they are gunning in
their work life and are dedicatedly working towards driving success, they move
up. There are also factors like burn-out, skill-out (not upgrading skills to meet
the ever-changing world), etc. that contribute to the downward movement.
Among all this, there is a group that resides in
its segment forever. They would mostly be seen in the bottom 2 groups. Everyone
in the organisation feels they have no ambition, they care two hoots about
success and at times, the manager even thinks of asking them to leave. However,
managers are helpless as their performance may not be exemplary but is always
found “meets expectations”. Let me introduce you to the successful lot of
personal life.
This is an animal that is growing in number in the
world. This species does not care about quick success that comes by sacrificing
family time. This species will continue to do what it is expected to do. Mind
you these people are not those who will not demand what is due; they are smart
people. They will extract all that the company owes them, commensurate to their
effort and results they drive.
Many may consider them primitive as their work
principle is aligned somewhat to that of the ancient man – work to support the
family and fulfil their needs and dreams. For them success is determined more
by what they do for the family than what they do at work. They are not
failures. They always exhibit the spark. They are late bloomers. When the early
achievers burn the midnight oil for their professional success, these people work
as much as is needed to make them grow professionally at a steady pace. They know
that the needs and dreams of the family will grow and that they need to
themselves grow to keep pace with that. They plan their professional lives
according to their personal lives. Many end up exactly at the same place as the
early success stud – the difference being, the early success stud has by then
earned a lot more and has enjoyed the pole position for a longer time. Neither
achievement is significant in the eyes of this species.
The personal success chaser is always there for the
family – every important landmark of the child, every parent teacher meeting,
every emergency situation, every doctor’s appointment, etc. For him, family
comes first. He believes at the end of it, family matters most and if he is
unable to devote time for the family, it beats the purpose of working. Many a
time, this species looks down upon the early success achiever who, in most
cases, sacrifices a lot of family time for the ambitious plan for success he
has. There is one problem though. When the personal success chaser is made to
compromise on family and personal time, he starts showing a slump in
performance. The reason is that he comes under stress – stress that makes him falter
and this results in poor performance. To get the best out of the personal
success chaser, let him have his personal time and he will deliver the best at
work.
There are examples in which the early success studs
realised later on in their lives that family is important. They pause, look
back and recalibrate their lives. In many cases, the recalibration leads to
more family time. In some extreme cases, recalibration results in bidding adieu
to professional life to maximise personal life before resuming professional
responsibilities. Of course, quitting is an extreme step and not everyone can
take such a drastic step but they would not have needed the extreme step had
they calibrated their lives suitably, right from the beginning. Take the example
of two CEOs - Mohamed
El-Erian, the former CEO of the global investment firm Pacific Investment
Management Company (PIMCO) and Max Schireson, ex- CEO of
10gen (the MongoDB company). Both these gentlemen achieved professional success
very early in their lives. They focussed extensively on their professional
lives before incidents that changed their calibration. These are names that we know
because they are renowned people who took the extreme step. There must be many
more people taking these decisions about recalibrating their lives due to
realisations about what life and family demands from them.
There is a third kind of people. These are people
for who, making a difference in the world is most important. They chase their dream
so aggressively that they sacrifice their professional success. Take for
instance the youth that has taken up education of the underprivileged children
as their challenge. They strive hard to achieve success in their chosen cause. There
are so many instances where youngsters have quit their high paying jobs to seek
what gives them the most joy. The list
on this page mentions just a fraction of the many who have taken the road less
travelled. I know of people who work to bring cheer to old age homes. There
are others who work to bring joy in orphanages. They may not climb the ladder
of success at work but they are way more than successful in what they aim to
achieve.
Every individual has a different goal in life. He
strives hard to make it successful. More often than not, he is able to succeed.
Judging others from our point of view is being very immature. The only thing that
we should judge is if we have been successful in what we set out to
achieve. Achievement is not defined only
in terms of size of wallet or designation or the height in the corporate
ladder. Success is very personal. I set my targets – if I achieve them, I am
successful. Many are also pulled back by limitations; limitations that we may
have no clue about. That guy in the small cubicle may be one such case. He, in
his evaluation, may be a super successful person given his limitation.
My guru, Aniruddha Bapu tells us a similar principle.
One must not compare one’s devotion with others. Often, we hear people compare the
time they spend for Pooja versus what the other person does. And still, the
other person seems to be getting all favours from god. Bapu says, there cannot
be any comparison. The only comparison can be versus where one was the day
before. Moving forward in devotion and ensuring you are better off than the day
before is the only comparison one must indulge in. The queue to god does not
have many people in it. We all have our own queue. And we must move ahead in
our queue, closer to god. Exactly as everyone’s aim in life is different and we
must never comment on their success or failure basis our definition of success
and failure.
The next time you say, “He is not that successful”,
pause and think. He might be looking at you and saying exactly the same thing.
From his point of view, you may not be a success story to tell!
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