Most of us have heard the story of the hare and the tortoise. It is the story of the race between the swift, agile rabbit and the slow, lumbering tortoise. The rabbit starts at a rapid pace and then takes a break, while the lumbering tortoise carries on without a break and finally wins the race. The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race. When I see youngsters today chasing careers, it often looks like the story of the rabbit. They get out of the blocks in a hurry, want a frenetic pace of career growth in the initial stages and then lose steam where it matters, near the finish line. I do not advocate ‘slow and steady wins the race’ for careers. But I do have an adaptation of that moral for professional success and that is—win where it matters. You don’t have to win all the time. If you want to have a truly glorious career, then it is important that you win in the second half of your career. That’s the only thing that matters; everything else is immaterial. That is my career moral: win where it matters—in the second half of your career.
Careers today are roughly around forty years long, and it is important to internalize that it is a marathon, not a sprint. A person’s career can broadly be split into two halves, the first half and the second half. The length of the two halves is not important and does not have to be mathematically equal—it can be twenty years each, it can be twenty-five and fifteen or eighteen and twenty-two. The broad concept is that careers have two halves.
I have observed many people through the journey of their careers. I have seen those who succeeded, those who were less successful, those who looked like they had a good start but did not achieve their potential, those who looked like they had a bad start but seemed to overachieve, those whose careers had twists and turns and those whose careers had more steady, straight paths. Having observed all these people and their careers—and it is a lifetime of observation—I have come to two conclusions:
Let us start with the first conclusion: The more significant career achievements are often in the second half of the career. A good way of understanding this is to compare two people with similar qualifications and capabilities who passed out of the same college at the same time. Let us say we compare their careers after forty years, when they hang up their boots, and conclude that one of them had a very successful career with great accomplishments and the second had a more moderate career with fewer accomplishments. Let us say the first person had a career of 100 points and the second person had a career of sixty points, and the gap in their career success was forty points. The interesting thing you will find is that the first half of the career often explains only a very small portion of the success difference, say only five of the forty points, while the bulk of the success difference—thirty-five points—is explained by the difference in their success in the second half.
If you continue to do this comparison for various professions, you will find the same story playing out. Let us compare two people with a marketing major from the same business school. You will find that both were possibly heads of marketing for decent-sized businesses at the end of the first halves of their careers, but at the end of the second halves, one of them went on to become a global CMO of a big MNC while the other did not make more progress than what he or she had achieved at the end of the first half. If you look at two engineers who passed out at the same time, you will find that both of them went on to possibly head large plants as a plant manager at the end of the first halves of their careers, but one of them went on to then become the head of a company’s end-to-end supply chain and manufacturing while the other continued to stay as plant manager or do functional jobs. One could do this again and again and in most cases you will reach the same conclusion—most people of similar qualifications and capabilities achieve roughly the same career success and results in the first halves of their careers, but there is an extraordinary difference of success in the second halves. This then led me to the conclusion that the more significant career achievements are often in the second half of the career.
As I observed the careers of several people, I saw that most seemed to have achieved something in the first halves of their careers. Differences in capabilities and potential did not seem to have created a stark difference in the first halves of careers. Equally, I found that most people find it difficult to succeed in the second halves. It is almost like you keep progressing steadily, growing in your career in the first half, and then that growth suddenly slows down and almost comes to a stop in the second half. As a thumb rule, I would say 95 per cent of people are successful in the first halves of their careers, but it is the other way round in the second halves where only 5 per cent succeed and 95 per cent fail. ‘Fail’ is a provocative word, I admit, but what I really mean is that 95 per cent don’t really make much progress in their careers in the second halves beyond what they have already achieved in the first.
The question that naturally follows is the ‘why’ of it—why do most people find it easy to succeed in the first halves of their careers and difficult to succeed in the second? There are three factors that explain this:
The nature of the organizational pyramid in the first half of a person’s career differs from the second half. In the early phase of their careers, people are at the bottom of the pyramid, which has a wider base, while in the later stage of their careers, they are in the narrower part of the organizational pyramid. In the first half, the wider base of the organizational pyramid creates more opportunities. The operating principle is that if you are good enough to do the job at the next level, then opportunity is not a constraint. There are enough opportunities at that level. Hence, career progress in the first half is a function of the absolute, not the relative. If you are good enough, then by virtue of the pyramid, you will move ahead. However, in the second half, the organizational pyramid is narrower. Fewer opportunities come up. Also, every time an opportunity comes up, there are many more claimants. Hence, moving up is not just a function of how good you are, but also of how good you are relative to others. Another factor is that if an opportunity comes around and you don’t get it, then the person who gets it stays in that role for 4–5 years. Tenures at the senior levels are longer, and so the next opportunity often does not come immediately. To summarize, there are fewer opportunities in the second half and those few opportunities are determined on relativity and not absolute capability. Hence, opportunity becomes a constraint in the second half of your career.
The second factor is the impact of the boss and of supervision, which is much higher in the first half than in the second. In the first half, the results we produce are not just a function of our capabilities and what we do, but also a function of the very active supervision we get from our bosses and the hierarchy of our organization. In the first half, bosses and the organizational systems and processes make up for weaknesses that individuals have, and hence, it does not impede their career progress. However, in the second half, the supervision that people receive from their bosses and others in the organization is limited. Results have to be produced based on your own capabilities, and impact can be measured far more accurately. There is nobody to compensate for weaknesses, which are often exposed at this stage, and so people ‘fail’ more often in the second halves of their careers.
The third factor is the preparation required to succeed at the next level. In the first halves of careers, the next, higher role is somewhat similar to the current role, and so the current role often allows a degree of preparation for the next. E.g. somebody could go from being an assistant brand manager to a brand manager or from an area sales manager to a regional sales manager for a larger geography. In each of these examples, the current level offered the opportunity for a degree of preparation, as the next level is simply a more complex, higher-scale version of the current job. However, in the second halves of careers at senior levels, the next job is often fundamentally different from the previous one. It could be a transition from being head of sales to being a CEO, which is the transition from being a functional expert to a business leader. It could be a transition from being a plant head to being the head of the end-to-end supply chain, a transition from technical skills to a more strategic and holistic responsibility. In each of these, the current job of the individual does not prepare them adequately to succeed at the next level, and so people often have to learn after getting there in order to succeed. This is another key reason why people experience more success in the first halves and more failure in the second halves of their careers.
To reiterate, the three factors that explain why most people succeed in the first halves of their careers, and very few in the second, as explained above are: the nature of the organizational pyramid, the impact of the boss and supervisors and, lastly, the preparation required to succeed at each level.
So let’s look at the two conclusions that we have arrived at:
The two together set up the career challenge for most people: where you need to succeed is where it is more difficult to succeed. The second half is where you need to succeed and yet that is when it is more difficult to succeed. And hence you need a catalyst, the catalyst of foundation-building in the first half, to ensure success in the second half.
While the success that matters is success in the second half, the foundation of that success is often laid entirely in the first half. Far too often, people get to the second halves of their careers, recognize that they do not have the necessary skills and capabilities to succeed there and come to the painful realization that it is too late to pick up these skills and capabilities. They have not invested in the right foundation in the first halves, on which the pillars of success in the second halves are built. The most visible symptom of this is the spectre of people past the age of fifty nearing the end of their careers who often stagnate and are not able to contribute meaningfully. Mostly, these people also realize that they fail to keep up and contribute, but despite trying hard, they fail to acquire the skills at that age to make a difference. This is visible in most organizations, especially in more humane organizations which let such people serve out their tenure and retire gracefully. Youngsters in these organizations often look at these people and snigger among themselves. In private conversations, they are often referred to as the ‘old guard’ or ‘passengers’. What is interesting is that these youngsters are usually not thinking of how they can build their foundations in the first halves to avoid the same trap of turning into the ‘old guard’ of tomorrow.
Success in the second halves of people’s careers is largely a function of the foundation and pillars built in the first halves. This means that every person, in the first half of his or her career, must be focused not only on winning then and there, but must have a very sharp focus on building the foundation for succeeding when it matters. I want you to pause for a minute and answer this question: ‘Am I managing my first half to succeed in the first half, or am I managing my first half to succeed in the second?’ Reflect on this question for a while and get a clear answer for yourself.
The ideal answer to this question is obvious. As explained earlier, most people succeed in the first halves of their careers, and so there is little more to be gained by focusing all your efforts in the first half for immediate success. Equally, we have concluded, the greater career achievements are often in the second half, and very few succeed in the second. Based on this, one would think it would be obvious that most people would spend some of their focus in the first halves on preparing to succeed in the second. Unfortunately, in my experience, this does not happen. Most people I observe are so busy chasing their tails that they hardly build the foundation required to succeed when it matters. They don’t focus on building the foundation in the first half, which is the catalyst for success in the second half.
The question then is, if it is so obvious that there is tremendous ROI in focusing on foundation-building in the first half rather than chasing short-term career success, then why is it not practised? I believe there are three reasons for this: inability to delay gratification, being in the rat race of comparing self with others and, lastly, lack of knowledge and guidance in building the foundation.
Focusing on foundation-building in the first half does require the mindset of foundation-building and, sometimes, the ability to delay gratification. Let me make a couple of analogies to explain this.
Let’s take a junior artist who is apprenticing under a senior artist. In art, all the kudos always goes to the senior artist, who is the face of the art form. The junior spends a few years with the senior and learns key skills on a rapid basis. But there is a gnawing thought in the back of the mind—‘When will I get recognized as a great artist?’ All the recognition goes to the senior artist, even if the art has been created jointly. To get recognition, however, the junior artist has to break free and do his or her own work. That would bring recognition, but that is the end of the learning in the apprenticeship. If a junior artist breaks free too early because he is not able to manage the thought of not being recognized, then he might get some early recognition, but he wouldn’t have built the foundation for a successful career in art for fifty years. This is about the mindset of delaying gratification—the mindset that says that I can live without recognition for a few more years, but by being an apprentice I will invest in my foundation-building during this period so that I am successful in the longer term.
Another analogy is the literal analogy of foundation-building for a tower or a monument. The more complex, taller and more imposing the building you want to make, the more the time required in preparing the drawings, planning the construction and then laying the foundation under the ground. Often, for a complex building, over half the time could be spent planning, preparing drawings and in the foundation-building process. Till that is done, there is nothing tangible to show. If somebody does not have the patience for foundation-building, and they short-circuit the process, they might put up a tall building, but in all probability, it will crash soon. Constructing a tall building requires that you spend enough time planning, drawing and building the foundation.
Careers are like that—to build a tall career, enough time has to be spent preparing, planning, apprenticing and building the foundation. The science of that and the logic of that are often intuitively understood by most people. However, despite that understanding, many people don’t do it because they don’t have the mindset that can delay gratification in the preparation and foundation-building phase. The lack of this mindset is why, despite it being so obvious, most people do not spend time in the first half building for the second half. Instead, they mistakenly focus on success in the first half.
The second reason why people do not focus on foundation-building in the first half is the constant need to be in the rat race and win it. Unfortunately, in most cases, the markers we set for how well we are doing in the first half are not defined by how we are learning, what experience we are building, which skills we are acquiring or how we are setting ourselves up for sustainable success through foundation-building. Instead, they are defined by how we are doing in the rat race, how our career is looking versus our peers’, how many promotions we have had versus another person who is of a similar profile, etc. This need for constant comparison with others and for winning the short-term rat race is often the primary reason they make poor choices in the first halves of their careers—choices which make them think they are winning the race then and there, but which are not good for foundation-building and hence actually reduce their ability to win the race where it matters—the second half.
The third reason for people to not focus on foundation-building in the first half is actually the lack of knowledge and guidance on how to do so. There is very little quality guidance, mentorship and tabulated knowledge on how to manage one’s career in the first half for success in the second half. How does one make the right choices? What does foundation-building mean? Which skills and knowledge are relevant? What is the right balance between width and depth? There are many such questions. Often, the key question in people’s mind is, if I am letting go of something that looks lucrative here and now, then how do I know what I am doing instead is indeed building my foundation? Sometimes, people do rely on their seniors within the companies they work for such guidance, but the challenge in these situations is often the impartiality of the guidance. Is the guidance impartial, or is it motivated by the interests of the organization and the seniors? And even if the advice is impartial, is the recipient willing to believe that? Let us suppose there is a finance manager who has spent time learning supply chain finance and the sales side of finance for ten years in a large company. One day, out of the blue, a small company wants that person to be the CFO. It is possible that people within the company advise that person of the need to still learn treasury and accounting, and that the learning is incomplete. However, the challenge for the person is to be able to distinguish between genuine advice and an effort by the organization to prevent that person from leaving. It is indeed very difficult to know that, to know if it is genuine or not. Only when individuals have enough knowledge of the principles of foundation-building will they have the ability to process that advice and select the right one.
In summary, there is a fundamental knowledge lacuna in what it takes to build the foundation to succeed in the second half. A major focus of this book in the succeeding chapters is to fill this knowledge gap. However, the mindset to delay gratification and the ability to not be in the rat race all the time are aspects you will have to build into your personalities and into your behaviours. These aspects are as important for success as the knowledge you will gain from this book.
The next few chapters will focus on the knowledge of foundation-building. However, the inability to delay gratification and the temptation to be in the rat race are barriers that you have to overcome yourself.