Speed or Direction? What one should concentrate on?

I learned about this interesting concept …  of People having better sense of Time (Speed) than that of Direction … in a management development program at XLRI couple years ago. I liked the concept; it was interesting and vague enough to attract my attention. Before I tell you why bring this up all of a sudden, let me explain the concept in few lines:

There was a famous study conducted, in early 90s, as part of the research topic (do not remember the author details etc), trying to figure out the professional career success mantra. The not-so-surprising part of the finding was that: Successful people had obsession with not wasting time. The finding was based on interviews of all types of successful people … businessmen, politicians, great teachers, social workers, sports personalities, religious leaders and even movie stars. They all had this obsession with not wasting time.

Now the surprising part:

• Of these 70% said they  feel they wasted their life
• Only 30% said they lived a life worth living

The climax is: majority of these 70% did not say so because they wanted to achieve new highs in their chosen field. Rather, they thought they should have done something completely different … than what they had mastered (to feel worth of living).

The paper goes on to claim that ‘people have better sense of Time than sense of Direction’. Essentially once you are on some path / any path, good people will always find ways to run faster than the rest of the pack. Even the society encourages this and rewards a fast runner. E.g. If you are an automobile engineer, you will get better pay, better respect, and better social status if you know the art of auto making better than others. Once you have established yourself as a great auto engineer, it’s that much easier to run even faster and widen the gap between you and the next best auto engineer. The adrenalin rush from this is so great … that it will be 20~30 years before you even think if you really wanted to be an auto engineer. And when you do, you would have come so far on this path, that choosing anything else would be almost impossible.

So much for the theory, but then how do you really ‘know’ what you want in life? How do you know that all these successful people are not cribbing for nothing? These are very hard questions to answer. I too do not know.

I regularly coach and guide students exiting from 12^th into college and exiting from college into industry. And of late, lots of students have started asking me this question… how to find out what will make them happy? Should they become an engineer or a doctor or an architect or teacher? That very question led me to this blog; to share with you what I am planning on doing for these kids; to get your views on what else I can do.

There is no easy answer … but I have started taking this question very seriously. In addition to guiding students on various softer aspects of getting into new job / new college, we are proposing to do their personality type profiling and linking it to career preference … that may help us partly answer this question. E.g. If you are an empathetic person, try looking for a job closer to hospitality industry or if you are a people person, look for HR / training etc. Even when you link the practicality of campus placements to it, just the sheer knowledge of knowing one’s personality type and career preference would help students. If you are a ‘people person’ and have done great in computer engineering, by all means go ahead and join a great paying IT company; but then look at contributing actively to activities like training and recruitment within the company that will take you closer to your type (of being a people person).

In the end, I hope students find right direction before they catch speed on their chosen path.