What every company has taught me

 Now since my last blog, i suppose i have grown a bit more matured, seen a bit more of the world, tried some more luxuries of the world, lived a couple of more birthdays, met some very interesting people ( and the opposite too), read more books( and yeah started doing it on ipad now!!!), spoken in many more conferences and yes have joined a new company and moved to a new country too. From all this and from the fact that i have now worked in a few companies here and from some basic facts that i have from that of my friends here are some thoughts,

1)Companies are unpredictable living organism: I am not going to get into a debate if the word "organism" is true, but i am sure in general people would accept the fact that companies are unpredictable. I live it to mine and your vivid imagination of why and how it is unpredictable. A few studies of fortune 500 companies 10 years vs now would give you an indication. Once thought as giants some just wilt and die, and some who were never in any business writers mind suddenly grow up to a pet talk for everyone. Though there can be many statistical analysis of all these , at the end. even those learned analysts would be sometimes in loss of words to explain this.

 2)A great boss = better U: I have realised in the last few years that when you choose a company , try to choose the boss ( though one is not certain if the boss itself will remain there long enough....unpredictability). If she/ he is well positioned, you will grow. If she / he is knowledgeable you will learn.If she / he is smart you will get good pay rises. If she/he is good at heart you will have a good friend and mentor for life time. This means you dont need to be an Einstien to figure out what will happen to you if you land up with a wrong boss. I have been lucky to have been able to work and still working under some really great souls. If not for them i would not have been able to write even a sentence on topics like this. I have made it a priority number 1 to choose the boss first and the company second when i select an organisation. If you go that path chances are very high that you wont go wrong.

3)Never "love" your company: Now this may sound strange coming from an HR guy who speaks volumes about employee engagement , but the fact is that this is TRUE. I heard this from the chairman of Infosys and the reason he gave is " you never know when the company stops loving you". I figured it out the hard way once in my life and as you know ,once bitten twice shy , i have become a super fan of this statement, however i reword it and say " Love your company, but never get married with it".

4)Manage your own career: If you are one of those who think that there is a bunch of HR guys out there always looking out for you like a nanny department you are wrong. They are just doing their job and like anyone else they are first focussed on their own career and about the career of those who really care about their own. I remember my college professor of placements saying that you should stick your neck out like a giraffe to get noticed. If you have read the book from susan cain on introverts this may or should not sound like i am only talking about those gregarious extroverts. I am an introvert myself so trust me when i say this that you can take care of your own career even if you are an introvert and stick your neck out. BUT please make sure you are doing the right things and here right things does not mean what is right for you but right for your boss and for his boss and of course the company. I remember once i was in a flight with a very respected HR global leader of a bank and when i told him about a programme that i wanted to develop for the company .He was very polite in telling me that i am over using my HR books a little too much and that i may become a "Dinosaur. Though i did not at that time understand the real meaning of it i realized this later in my life especially when i coach young leaders.

5)There is nothing called as a single culture :I am an ardent admirer of Lee Kuan Yew , the founder prime minister of singapore and i try to grab hold of any books with his thoughts. One of the things i like about him is how he emphasises on the deeply ingrained part of culture in the DNA of every individual. This is an important aspect when we look at "political economics" where we see that companies struggle to get a foothold in certain countries. A friend of mine who heads global HR for one of the business units for a fortune 50 company tells me how they struggled to create a culture of that company when they first set up their business in Africa. Though many companies would love to say that we have a " common culture" this is just a misconception especially by people who sit at corporate or regional offices. Go to the ground level, get some skip level feedback without shooting the messenger or scaring of the person who gives feedback and you will know that this is a myth. However having said that this doesn't mean there should not be a one way of working. This in my opinion is not culture but just a way of working with checks and balances in place to make sure it is followed while in work.