The Hindu Business Line : From Fate Age to Corporate Age

Titus Lucretius Carus (circa 95-55 BC) was a Roman philosopher and poet. He is said to have first divided human history, based on development, into Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age.

On similar lines, Sanjiv R. Bhamre divides career development into Fate Age, Qualification Age and Corporate Age, in The Five Great Myths of Career Building ( www.macmillanindia.com).

The Fate Age lasted till about 1900, he writes. “In relatively static societies, many professionals would often inherit a single lifelong position (place or role) in the work force, and the concept of an unfolding career had little or no meaning.” That was the era when there was ‘relative tranquillity in the continuation of an accepted career’, and inheriting of careers was a norm. (A phenomenon that goes on in politics and entertainment, as much as in many family businesses, you’d agree.)

Well, then came the Qualification Age, “with the spread of modern education, and especially after the paradigm-shifting social innovation of the textbook.” Choosing a profession got de-linked from one’s family profession, explains Bhamre. However, a career was considered to have been made once a person acquired a qualification. “Career counselling in this age was nothing but vocational guidance.”

We were in the Qualification Age till about the 1990s, recounts the author. “But we still believe that career is all about choosing the first job,” he rues. “Even when we observe professionals choosing careers removed from their qualifications — finance professionals working in human resources, or corporate professionals directing movies — we still vigorously debate about the choice of an educational course, as though our entire life hung on that choice.” This is one of the myths of career building discussed in the book.

Continuing the tale of the Ages, the good news is that the Corporate Age has dawned. For example, many companies today show a career roadmap on their Web sites depicting “different designations or roles that a new professional might go through if he grows in that organisation.”

The book is no comfy read because the five myths listed in it can be highly disruptive to common thinking. Take, for instance, the first myth: that you need to set career goals. Alas, setting goals suits only “uniskilled individuals, working in uniskilled professions like medicine or law, uneducated individuals who pursue money goals, and perhaps migrants who had to leave their homeland in search of survival,” frets Bhamre.

He reasons that this myth is based on the assumption that career building is ‘a fixed target-fixed capability game’. Not something that would suit the multiskilled person, to whom “career building is not the simple sequential phenomena of setting a goal and achieving it. In fact, the very traits that helped one in achieving an earlier goal may become the bottleneck in achieving the next goal.”

So, what do the multiskilled do? “They exploit the changes that are happening in the system and flow with those changes.” Sometimes they take charge of the steering wheel and steer the vehicle in the direction of their desired goal, while at other times, they wait and seemingly do nothing, and develop some other capability which later becomes critical, elaborates Bhamre.

“They intuitively know when to adopt which stance. Sometimes they are just proactive, sometimes they just actively wait.”

Essential read, as a critical building block in your career structure.

D. M.

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

More Stories on : Books | Employment | Career Crossroads

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Basic concepts in accounting

Interconnect service without tax

Why is dividend tax-free, but not interest?

Do-not-call registry in 3 phases

Just Do IT

Research on Buffett’s riches

Nothing worthwhile comes easy

From Fate Age to Corporate Age