LEARN YOUR WAY TO THE TOP
“In the business world, an executive knows something about everything, a technician knows everything about something and the switchboard operator knows everything.”
-Harold Coffin
This quotation may be intended as a pun, but the truth is not father away as I’ve learned from my own experience. The amount of knowledge a person holds about his company is inversely proportional to his position in the company. It’s an altogether different ball game that some people ‘sleep their way to the top’ but here we’re discussing strictly legitimate means.
What I’ve observed is that the worker class holds the maximum amount of knowledge which more or less affirms what Mr. Coffin said. It’s true that the view at the top affords one a perspective which cannot be had from down below. For instance, consider standing at the top of a tall building. The things you’ll observe thence would give you a crystal clear view of the horizons. You’ll notice thing you didn’t know were within your sight’s grasp or even existed. Now look down and you won’t be able to make out much except tiny dots moving around.
It’s a bit different in the job world. If you’ve ascended from the very bottom, you would have a fairly good idea of what these dots are and what they are really up to. Consider my case. Right now I’m a trainee engineer; almost at the bottom. As such, I’ve no qualms or hesitation about interacting freely with the workers; the lot that knows it all. A GM or even a plant manager would think twice about intermingling with them the way I can afford in my position. Hence, in this respect I’m eons ahead of them. I’ve been here only a short while, but I’ve come to know who are the villains, the spies, the politically motivated trouble-makers as well as the influential ones.
Another amazing thing I’ve found here is that the workers are more technically sound than their superiors. The same person who appeared larger than life to us( the trainee engineers) during the orientation with his intricate knowledge of all the plants in the factory now appears a mere mortal. The reason: most of the time when he tries to explain something new to us now, we already know it, in fact we’ve have a better grasp of that matter. Sometimes when one of my colleagues has gone to him with a problem, he has been unable to arrive at a viable solution. The logic is simple enough. You can’t gain experience without going through it. There’s only so much you can learn by observing things from a distance.
This knowledge which I’ve been able to glean from the workers is going to be invaluable should I decide about staying here for a long while. Which brings me to the buzzword of the job-market: “switch-over”. The last decade has seen an increasingly number of people spending a couple of years in a certain job then moving onto another, as opposed to the trend of the your where people stuck to their jobs with the same till-death-do-us-apart dedication they put in their marriage. Now the institution of marriage is itself inching towards the ‘switch-over’ trend. But let’s not sidetrack from our topic.
What the switch-over does is add a hefty increment to your existing salary, and sometimes even enhanced fringe benefits as well. For instance, a brand manager of Insta-one who was getting Rs. 55,000 p.m. changed loyalties to U-fone for – get this – a cool Rs.110,000 p.m. She really hit a jack-pot, didn’t she? Now this maybe a rare case, but there are sure monetary benefits of ‘changing lanes’.
But as the old adage goes; all that glitters is not gold and the downside of this trend is the lack of specific knowledge about the new organization. Whatever that means? And more importantly, how on earth can that possibly hurt? Let me quote a real life case. Our maintenance incharge is a competent person, technically sound in his field, and yet he has to face embarrassing situations every other day owing to his lack of knowledge about my factory. He has been here only a short while and obviously joined this organization in search of that golden sky which every one of us yearns for. He got the financial reward all right. But the thing is that facotyr has it’s own sets of indigenous technical glitches for which there are equally technical ‘Jugaars’. You can’t make do without them and you can’t possibly know them unless you’ve been ‘knee-dirt’ involved in their rectification.
So whenever he suggests a remedy for a problem to the workers which they know won’t work, sometimes it is downright absurd for that particular case, he inadvertently ends up making a fool of himself. It may be a completely viable solution elsewhere, but since it doesn’t work in this factory and in this plant, the workers think it is outrageous and end up making the slanted conclusion with their dogmatic mentality that their boss is a goof-off. He thus undermines his authority.
And if this happens more than once (which it does in the case at hand), you’re preparing a recipe for disaster for yourself. The adaptability to the new workplace becomes all the more difficult, and you won’t be able to last long in such a place with your dignity intact. Of course, different people have different priorities. Some people override their need for respect from others for materialistic gains, and go on working in the same place where they’ve been deemed worthless by all and sundry. Others value others’ opinion about themselves dearly.
Now this scenario may not be as prominent in other professions and occupations, but it still exists most of the places with varying degrees, and when you’re shifting lanes for a better future, be sure to remember that it will come at a price. You’ve to decide for yourself how steep that price is and whether you’re willing to pay it or not.
If you’re aspiring to be a CEO early on in your career, then the best shot you can have at it is to stay with a company as long as it takes. It may happen that down the line you may be offered a high-ranking managerial post at some other company, but remember that getting a good post is not the hard part. Sustaining it with dignity is. But whatever path you choose, remember to make friends with the switchboard operator. ;:))
-Harold Coffin
This quotation may be intended as a pun, but the truth is not father away as I’ve learned from my own experience. The amount of knowledge a person holds about his company is inversely proportional to his position in the company. It’s an altogether different ball game that some people ‘sleep their way to the top’ but here we’re discussing strictly legitimate means.
What I’ve observed is that the worker class holds the maximum amount of knowledge which more or less affirms what Mr. Coffin said. It’s true that the view at the top affords one a perspective which cannot be had from down below. For instance, consider standing at the top of a tall building. The things you’ll observe thence would give you a crystal clear view of the horizons. You’ll notice thing you didn’t know were within your sight’s grasp or even existed. Now look down and you won’t be able to make out much except tiny dots moving around.
It’s a bit different in the job world. If you’ve ascended from the very bottom, you would have a fairly good idea of what these dots are and what they are really up to. Consider my case. Right now I’m a trainee engineer; almost at the bottom. As such, I’ve no qualms or hesitation about interacting freely with the workers; the lot that knows it all. A GM or even a plant manager would think twice about intermingling with them the way I can afford in my position. Hence, in this respect I’m eons ahead of them. I’ve been here only a short while, but I’ve come to know who are the villains, the spies, the politically motivated trouble-makers as well as the influential ones.
Another amazing thing I’ve found here is that the workers are more technically sound than their superiors. The same person who appeared larger than life to us( the trainee engineers) during the orientation with his intricate knowledge of all the plants in the factory now appears a mere mortal. The reason: most of the time when he tries to explain something new to us now, we already know it, in fact we’ve have a better grasp of that matter. Sometimes when one of my colleagues has gone to him with a problem, he has been unable to arrive at a viable solution. The logic is simple enough. You can’t gain experience without going through it. There’s only so much you can learn by observing things from a distance.
This knowledge which I’ve been able to glean from the workers is going to be invaluable should I decide about staying here for a long while. Which brings me to the buzzword of the job-market: “switch-over”. The last decade has seen an increasingly number of people spending a couple of years in a certain job then moving onto another, as opposed to the trend of the your where people stuck to their jobs with the same till-death-do-us-apart dedication they put in their marriage. Now the institution of marriage is itself inching towards the ‘switch-over’ trend. But let’s not sidetrack from our topic.
What the switch-over does is add a hefty increment to your existing salary, and sometimes even enhanced fringe benefits as well. For instance, a brand manager of Insta-one who was getting Rs. 55,000 p.m. changed loyalties to U-fone for – get this – a cool Rs.110,000 p.m. She really hit a jack-pot, didn’t she? Now this maybe a rare case, but there are sure monetary benefits of ‘changing lanes’.
But as the old adage goes; all that glitters is not gold and the downside of this trend is the lack of specific knowledge about the new organization. Whatever that means? And more importantly, how on earth can that possibly hurt? Let me quote a real life case. Our maintenance incharge is a competent person, technically sound in his field, and yet he has to face embarrassing situations every other day owing to his lack of knowledge about my factory. He has been here only a short while and obviously joined this organization in search of that golden sky which every one of us yearns for. He got the financial reward all right. But the thing is that facotyr has it’s own sets of indigenous technical glitches for which there are equally technical ‘Jugaars’. You can’t make do without them and you can’t possibly know them unless you’ve been ‘knee-dirt’ involved in their rectification.
So whenever he suggests a remedy for a problem to the workers which they know won’t work, sometimes it is downright absurd for that particular case, he inadvertently ends up making a fool of himself. It may be a completely viable solution elsewhere, but since it doesn’t work in this factory and in this plant, the workers think it is outrageous and end up making the slanted conclusion with their dogmatic mentality that their boss is a goof-off. He thus undermines his authority.
And if this happens more than once (which it does in the case at hand), you’re preparing a recipe for disaster for yourself. The adaptability to the new workplace becomes all the more difficult, and you won’t be able to last long in such a place with your dignity intact. Of course, different people have different priorities. Some people override their need for respect from others for materialistic gains, and go on working in the same place where they’ve been deemed worthless by all and sundry. Others value others’ opinion about themselves dearly.
Now this scenario may not be as prominent in other professions and occupations, but it still exists most of the places with varying degrees, and when you’re shifting lanes for a better future, be sure to remember that it will come at a price. You’ve to decide for yourself how steep that price is and whether you’re willing to pay it or not.
If you’re aspiring to be a CEO early on in your career, then the best shot you can have at it is to stay with a company as long as it takes. It may happen that down the line you may be offered a high-ranking managerial post at some other company, but remember that getting a good post is not the hard part. Sustaining it with dignity is. But whatever path you choose, remember to make friends with the switchboard operator. ;:))
posted by Saqib at
9:40 PM
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