All working professionals should ask this question to
themselves as part of the quarterly self-review of their career. Asking this
question confirms that one indeed is on the right track and with the right
organization.
The sharpness of competencies and experience that one has
picked on the way while moving along one’s career can get blunted if one works
with the wrong organization for more than the tolerable span of time.
Interestingly, an organization which is wrong for someone can be the right for
someone else. In addition, an organization which is right when one joins it
might become wrong at a later point in time. The quarterly self-review is a
good method to determine this.
The association of a professional with an organization
depends on the career aspirations and objectives of the professional vis-à-vis
the organization’s ability to help that professional achieve those. Certain
organizations especially with a father figure leading a founding team of
loyalists and lifers may be exception to this rule. In such organizations the
loyalists and lifers work like a slave to the father figure and the father
figure is a like a corporate king.
The loyalists and lifers will not move out even if the job
they do is demeaning to their intellect and self-respect due to following
reasons:
- They will not get another job outside as they won’t be able to demonstrate that they can survive elsewhere. Even if they manage to move on they will come back in no time when they realize loyalists and lifers can’t survive in a true professional set-up.
- They would form a closely associated coterie which has mutual admiration for each other due to the loyalty for the father figure but their performance and competencies might be extremely low. However, for some reason they will naively assume all the loyalists and lifers together have great brain power.
- They will have created a comfort zone and become frogs in a well and hence lost the ability to accept new and differing ideas. The father figure would leave the pack of loyalists and lifers by showing reluctance to even hear about new ideas. As per them, things can be done only their way.
