'Seven Orientations' that make or mar careers

Have you ever thought of the difference between 'display' of who you are to 'who you are' really. Puzzled?

Let me share one of my personal experiences with you. I was interviewing a candidate and he told me that he is a goal-oriented person. I asked him to tell me if he can give an instance where he demonstrated this skill. He told me that he works very hard on every project. For a particular project he told me how he worked 100 hours a week continuously for 6 weeks.

However, on questioning deeper it turned out that he was indeed a hard working person but not necessarily goal-oriented. It did not take me more than 5 minutes of discussion to figure this out. This person was possibly trying to project himself as someone else.

In my experience as a human resource professional I have come across numerous people who have taken someone else's resume, made a few modifications here and there and presented the same as theirs. Generally such people do not go past the first stage of interviews even if by luck their resumes are short listed.

I call these people 'copy paste' individuals. This phenomenon is even stronger in 'freshers'. Somewhere in this analogy lies the understanding of the subject of 'personal effectiveness'. The presentation layer cannot be different from the ingredients it is made of. The more you present yourself as who you really are the more effective (and hence successful) you would be.

So, why does this happen?

Two reasons:

1: Candidate does not know about self and hence borrows someone else's resume
2: Candidate is trying to bluff so that the short-comings can be covered

More often than not, it is the first reason.

The author is director, HR and Placements at PurpleLeap (www.purpleleap.com), an organisation that works with colleges to make students employment-ready. He is an MBA in HR (XLRI) with 12 years of experience in training & recruitment across IT and manufacturing sector.

Before I tell you how you can overcome this, let me share some of my experiences with you. In my professional life, I have come across two kinds of working professionals:

• People who achieve a lot
• People who keep trying to have their ends meet

Why does this happen? More than intrinsic intelligence, which is quite the same for professionals working at a similar level, it is the personal effectiveness of these people. Some people are simply more effective than others. In most cases, these more effective people do NOT have higher IQ or intelligence. It is mostly the focus and intent of the people that ensures that they are able to work around their limitations and get the best possible result.

In short, personal effectiveness is all about being able to optimally utilise every available talent and resources that are at one's disposal.

Decoding personal effectiveness

Personal effectiveness can be thought of as being in a perennial state of equilibrium between one's output and competence to create that output. The individual is not at a point where s/he puts in efforts to meet an end, but is on a continuum of two-dimensional development efforts.

There are two dimensions of individual competence: Individual vis-a-vis himself & individual vis-a-vis others. In order to shape one's professional life, both these dimensions need to be worked upon. Overall, personal effectiveness is contextual.

Corporate: The topical worthiness of personal effectiveness

Corporate India is evolving at a high pace with diversification taking the centre stage. The implication: The corporate is continuously upping the bar. However, it is also to be realised that more on output cannot be achieved with less on input. Human capital is an intrinsic part of input. You would often hear 'if the candidate has the right attitude, we will groom her/him'.

Companies are more scared of making 'wrong hires' because of attitudinal/behavioural shortcomings than domain/function related gaps. Let me give some examples of the candidates that I have been extremely scared to have in my organisation: Candidates who are always looking for excuses for failures and put the blame for every failure on external factors.

Such candidates will typically talk about their 'incompetent boss' or un-supportive organisational culture etc. The other set of candidates that I avoid is the people who are not sure what they want. Such people tend to be very unsure about their options and choices and tend to constantly keep looking outside and get dissatisfied with their current job. All these are examples of candidates who will be less effective on the job. Unfortunately, as per the present scenario, candidates have not been growing with the 'personal effectiveness' expectation -- it's like 'too much too late' to grapple with.

The greatest ever advantage of developing personal effectiveness is that it builds self-confidence of the individual. From my experience, let me present to you the 'Seven Orientations' that make or mar careers. They are:

1. Achievement orientation: Organisations like to hire people who are serious about themselves. Do you come across as an individual who is forward looking, takes ownership & has the fire in the belly? To judge a person on this parameter, I often ask the candidate to share their goals. I follow it up with the next logical question -- how do you plan to achieve that goal?

2. Learning orientation: Organisations want employees who can learn from any & every event that occurs in personal or professional life. It is never about not committing mistakes; it's always about whether enough thought has been given not to repeat them. I have asked people about some of their failures in life and if given another chance what would they do different to avoid that failure.

3. Productivity orientation: Organisations are keen on high output individuals. Are you churning more & more with less & less? When nobody is watching over your shoulders are you mostly chatting or into perfecting some part of the project you have been working on. The typical questions that I ask candidates are: What do you do in your free time? And 'Take me through a typical day in your life'.

4. Problem solving orientation: Organisations prefer individuals who are part of the solution rather than the problem. Irrespective of the kind of problem, do you have a 'solution-ing' mind? For technical jobs, interviewers will ask 'puzzles' to figure out the problem solving approach. Apart from the approach, such puzzles also tell how hard the person is trying for a solution. In other cases, I will ask the candidate to describe some challenging situation encountered in life.

5. Team orientation: Organisations are about teams. Interpersonal skills are vital to individual's personality. To assess a candidate, I will either give a situation that calls for a challenging team situation from their life -- say conflict in a festival, insubordination in team when the person was the team captain, low motivation in a fellow team member while organising an event etc.

6. End-user orientation: You are not the consumer of what you produce. The ability to get into the shoes of the end-user, internal or external, is an important competency sought by organisations. One of the symptoms I watch out for is whether the candidate understands the difference between benefits & features. If I ask about the achievements or key highlights on the job, and the person starts talking about job responsibilities, I know there is a disconnect.

7. Interface orientation: Finally, the display part. Organisations look for people who present themselves well whether in the verbal or non-verbal ways. Communication is key here. One of my favourites and possibly every interviewer's favourite as well is: Tell me about yourself. The answer to this simple question is normally all over the place. If you find it difficult to present your own self in a short interview, chances are high that you will exhibit the same at workplace as well.

How does an individual make the seven orientations a part of day-to-day life? Simple! Keep your mind on the three Ws.

What you are: Build your self-awareness: your values, needs, strengths, weaknesses, achievements, challenges & learnings. Take feedback from the environment -- parents, friends, teachers and peers.
What you want to be: Figure out your goals as short term and as long term, as they may be.

What you need to do to become what you want to be: The difference between the above two will give you an understanding of what you need to fill out. Identify the roadmap to close them out. The need to act is implicit.

Conclusion

Personal effectiveness is about habit formation. It is not as daunting as it sounds. Like all habits, the key is to start small. What is important is to have the desire.