Is it Worth to Quit for more Family time?

Kumar Rahul Tiwary; Sep 13, 2012

If you are not getting time even to change your password, may be it is time to change your login :) (Rahul) https://twitter.com/rahulbemba

When to quit your job? I think it is a million dollar question. Some of us even make it an answer – “I will quit my job only when I get new job with a million dollar salary.” Or make your estimate. Such professionals have only money in their mind. But I think we should wake up to the fact that there are more reasons to quit a job than only money.

Here are some more reasons why people would quit their jobs:

1. I don’t like my boss.
2. My boss dislikes me.
3. I don’t get promotions.
4. I have been forced into a promotion I don’t like.
5. I feel my salary is too low for the work.
6. I am getting better salary offer next door.
7. I need to relocate to other city for family reasons.
8. My company is forcing me to relocate to other city which I don’t like.
9. I don’t like my work.
10. I have done too badly at my work and appraisal is too bad too.
11. TYP… (take your pick and continue)

I think each of these reasons also impacts a professional of a certain age group. (Or even demography and other factors but we won’t get into those). Till certain age, money looks most important. After a certain age, it is money which brings more misery and we realize that our goals need to be reset. Family compulsions become more important. Many of us do give enough importance to such aspects. I think “family” matters are one reason why people higher the organizational ladder switch their jobs most, rather than the beginners. But some people feel guilty when they have to quit a job or change employments because of family reasons. How to deal with such guilt?

I think there is a certain novelty in “trying”. If you are facing some problems in personal or family life due to your job, first you should “try” to make things alright. Can you manage it? Can you think out-of-the-box to come out with a solution which would make you work around the problem and thereby you won’t have to quit your job? Many of us forget to think too hard to find a solution and take quitting as an easy escape. We should not do that.

The problems with family life Vs your job happens most of the time when both spouses are working. Therefore the problems can be solved only if both have equal understanding of the problem and are equally dedicated to solve the problem. If only one side makes a compromise which the other side didn’t understand or appreciate, it might create more problems in the long term.

After all out-of-the-box ideas fail to solve the problem (which has very less probability if we try intelligently), we should even take help from friends and colleagues who have had seen this phase we are going through. We should even discuss this with our boss and ask for suggestions. We should read books and articles to understand aspects we may be ignoring totally so far. May be we could solve our problem this way.

If everything fails and we are bound to make a decision to quit, I am sure we shall be more confident about our decision and we shall be happier while making the change. Ultimately we all do our jobs because we want to be happier. Money, more family time, etc, are all means for our happiness.

Happy quitting!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization associated with the author. The incidents or examples mentioned in the article, or cases based on which article is based, are for illustration purpose and need not be from author’ real personal (work) experiences.

Do you do “Easy” Jobs?

Kumar Rahul Tiwary; Sep 12, 2012

When Ramesh joined the new project, he was given structured KT (knowledge transfer) for all the activities he was supposed to do. Since their team was based at multiple geographies, most of the KT sessions happened through telecom and desktop screen sharing. He was also given access to some KT documents describing the jobs and activities he was taking over. When Ramesh started taking over activities, he was a worried man. He soon realized that the KT sessions were not exhaustive and he was not able to perform the activities with the help of the documents. He could complain, but he thought not to be the “noise maker”. So he chose the difficult road ahead…

He spent extra working hours and put on a lot of efforts to perform the activities with best results. He also took help from others whenever they were available. For his own reference he also noted down and prepared documents with the correct, relevant and updated processes. He was good at his work and his dedication to come out of the clutter made him sharper day by day. Within 2 months, he was doing all the work assigned to him in minimum time and with best quality.

“But that is the easiest of the lot”, at first he couldn’t believe his ears. Then he got used to it. His team had come out with their own “explanation” for his exceptionally good performance. Since he was doing his work in the least time with best quality, they had concluded, to their own amusement perhaps, that his portion of work was the “easiest”. Ramesh was given more workload but he still maintained the same performance. But the rumors never died…

Have you come across such scenarios around you? What do you think should be the best method to dispel such hypothetical assumptions or assertions by Ramesh’s team? Should Ramesh ask to swap tasks with others in order to prove that he is best at whatever he does? Or should he talk to his team and explain how rigorously he has to work and how he came up with easer ways to do the same jobs? Of course these are options in front of him, but may be not following any of these would be the best?

I think an ultimate proof of your excellence is - whatever job you do comes to be known as “easy” work by others, over the time :) (Rahul)

My explanation of my today’s tweet :) Follow me at https://twitter.com/rahulbemba

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization associated with the author. The incidents or examples mentioned in the article, or cases based on which article is based, are for illustration purpose and need not be from author’ real personal (work) experiences.

Management lessons from Mahabharata

Coaching or Mentoring is a great tool in management for talent development. This small piece tells how the Mahabharata teaches us the key points:

Trust in coaching: Krishna and Arjuna

In the Mahabharata, the Pandavas are shown to have fought with the Kauravas on a matter of principle.

Arjuna was the person on whose shoulders the morale of the Pandavas rested. His well-being heralded victory and he stood for all that was supreme Pandava valour and glory. He had two biological older brothers, so he was not solely responsible for looking after the family. However, Arjuna was a little vain and sensitive, and felt he had nobody to look up to. Krishna filled this void. Krishna’s style of mentoring relied on certain building blocks.

Krishna proclaimed his love for Arjuna publicly and attached the highest importance to his friendship with Arjuna. They spent much time together and Krishna took every opportunity to demonstrate his love for Arjuna. On one occasion, they fought a battle which pleased Lord Indra. Lord Indra offered Krishna a boon. Guess what he asked for? He asked that his friendship with Arjuna continue forever! This built great trust in the relationship. Trust is the first building block in the mentoring.

The second feature was that Krishna was always supportive of Arjuna but never interfered with his life. At no point did Krishna take the decisions or the actions required, he merely offered his advice to Arjuna. At any rate, Arjuna had a fragile personality, the kind that would not accept interference by someone else. Krishna ensured that after proffering his advice, he gave Arjuna his own space so that the protégé felt no sense of dependence on the mentor.

The third feature was that the relationship was one of cheer and warmth. Arjuna took his tasks very seriously and had frequent outbursts of temper. Krishna showed himself to be a friends and comrade despite the moodiness of his protégé, so that Arjuna felt free to open his heart to him.

The fourth feature of Krishna’s mentorship was that when required, he criticized Arjuna’s decisions openly but never insulted or denigrated him personally. Krishna’s focus was on the issue, not on the person. Thus he was always non-judgemental.

The fifth feature was that Krishna never left Arjuna to fend for himself just because he had chosen a path which Krishna was not supportive of. When Arjuna’s son Abhimanyu was killed in battle by Jayadratha, Arjuna vowed that by evening he would either kill Jayadratha or commit suicide. Krishna did not think this was a good idea, but he stood with his protégé to help him complete his difficult task. Lastly, when Arjuna faced a personal crisis on the battlefield, Krishna came to his rescue by propounding the Gita; it was not a mere sermon but a way of looking at the issues he was facing and helping Arjuna to resolve his dilemmas himself.

(Taken from the book “The Case of the Bonsai Manager”, by R. Gopalakrishnan)