WW EP06 - Divas x Siddharth

Career transition is seen as an opportunity to gain new skills, expand networks, and develop a broader perspective of business and people. It is part of a framework that includes lifespan, healthspan, and career span. Success in current roles and building a track record are important for opportunities to come. Personal experiences of successful career transitions are shared, along with the importance of having a clear view of strengths and desired skills. Risk is involved, but managing variables and seeking advice from mentors can help navigate transitions. Each person's career path is individual, and it's important to find one's own path rather than comparing to others. Building personal principles based on inner conversations is more valuable than seeking quick tips and tricks. A career transition for me is defined as an opportunity to pick up new skills, an opportunity to expand one's network, and therefore an opportunity to develop a wider perspective of how business operates, how people operate. Over time, I've realized that it's very useful in life to have a set of framework which helps you making choices. So therefore, career transition to me is part of a framework. And my framework is essentially three stages, lifespan, healthspan, and career span. The opportunities will come to you only if you are delivering in your current roles. Only if you've built a track record of demonstrated success. Only if you are seen as a leader who can carry along teams, build teams, those opportunities will come to you. I had spent four years and a few lakh rupees to become eligible to work with one of the top IT companies. Not only this, I prepared really hard for the interview, went through a rigorous on-the-job training and was thinking of on-site opportunities, working in the US, earning in dollars. For me, I was quite clear with my career progression. Career set, life set. And then one fine day, I made a transition in my career, when I moved from the IT industry to the training and development industry, poles apart. And yes, it's been almost 10 years since I did that. Unfortunately, I'm thriving and happy. The reason why I say this is because when I was planning a career transition, I was scared. I had doubts. I was not 100% sure whether this new career path will work for me or not. What do you think of career transitions? Is it like taking a hit in your career progression to live your dream or do what you like? What do recruiters think about it? Is career transition seen as a sign of confusion or one is appreciated for falling their heart? Let's delve deeper and find some answers. Welcome to WorkWise with Naukri. I'm your host, Diwakar Gupta. And today's episode is about career transitions, whether it's a dream or a reality. I thought it was a dream before I myself went through a successful transition. I'm happy to see a lot of people making an attempt to transition in their career and beautifully navigating through the new path. And one such amazing being is Siddharth Banerjee, who is the Managing Director for Pearson with an international business experience of more than two decades working with organizations like Unilever, Vodafone, Facebook. He's an active keynote speaker and a best-selling author. Siddharth, I'm really excited to have you on the show. I mean, I have a lot of questions in my head, and I believe that you're the best person to answer those questions for all of us. Welcome on board. Thank you for having me here. I read this quote by Sheryl Sandberg, where she says that we cannot change what we are not aware of. And once we are aware, we cannot help but change. You have changed so many careers in the last two decades. How do you look at career transition, the change? Over time, I've realized that it's very useful in life to have a set of framework which helps you making choices, be it in life or in one's career. So therefore, career transition to me is part of a framework. And my framework is essentially three stages, lifespan, healthspan, and career span. Lifespan is about having a long life, healthspan is about having a healthy life. And then career span is about having a long and healthy career, which enables lifespan and healthspan. Now, if you look at career span, then the third pillar of the framework, that's where career transition fits in for me in my life. And therefore, to me, a career transition is an opportunity to enable a long and fruitful career, defined as an opportunity to pick up new skills, an opportunity to expand one's network of people that you have worked with, or you know, and therefore, an opportunity to develop a wider perspective of how business operates, how people operate. And so therefore, the fundamental underlying this whole, you know, three bits is learning or hyper learning. Career transition is also not about saying, hey, I want to follow my passion. And therefore, let me go and try something else. Career transition is having a very clear view of your strengths, of the areas that give you joy in your life, and of the skills that you want to build going forward. I see your profile, you've worked with FMCG brands in Unilever, with the Vodafone and Telepeus in India. I mean, this thought of the transitioning from one industry to the next industry, what was going in your mind? So, like I said, the fundamental thought was that of making sure that I'm equipped with relevant skills for the 21st century world. That's one. And second, that I have the opportunity to take on challenging tasks. And so therefore, from my move from many years at Unilever, to Vodafone, where I picked up absolutely brand new skills, to Pearson now, where I'm using some of those skills, as well as picking up new learning, in order to bring about a complete digital business transformation in one of the largest industries in the world. All of that is underpinned by fundamentally asking yourself, what are your strengths? And what do you want to build further? For example, I do consider effective communication as a strength that I have. I do consider clarity as a strength, because when things are not clear to me, it makes me very uncomfortable. And so my kind of natural reaction to that is to kind of break down a problem into pieces and figure out a way that I can be clear for myself. And then via communication, make it very clear from either my team or people around me and so on and so forth. So these are some pieces that I knew about myself. But there were also pieces that I wanted to learn more. For example, how do you thrive in uncertain, ambiguous situations? Because for the longest time, I had worked in very structured organizations. So as I kind of grew, I threw myself into situations which forced me to deal with an ambiguous situation. And that again, like I said, built new muscles, new strengths. I made my transition when I was in my 20s. And was it quite easy comparatively? What was going in your mind when you made that transition? Was it like, what if it doesn't work out? What if things don't go as the plan? So was there any risk involved? Transitions will have a certain element of risk. And I faced that as well. So you know, when you're rock climbing, for example, you have your hand and your feet on the rock, and your instructor will tell you that, make sure that you have some contact with the rock every time you're swinging your leg or your arms and moving up. Similarly, in career transition, you should not be changing all the variables. For example, don't change your industry, and the role that you do, and the geography in which you do all at the same time, because it just makes life more difficult, because there is an element of risk. So I, you know, joined Facebook, for example, a couple of years back with great enthusiasm. And I said, Hey, I think I can make this work where I was shuttling every week from Mumbai to Gurgaon. So family was in Mumbai, and the job was in Gurgaon. But that one year and a quarter was difficult, because I was changing all the variables, new industry, new role, new city, and family not in the city. So personally, kind of it burnt me out. The other principle, which has really helped me is, what is it that you might need to unlearn? And what is it that you might need to learn? So I still remember when I joined from consumer goods from Unilever to telecom with Vodafone, one of the best pieces of advice that I got from a senior colleague was to read a lot of telecom white papers, when I joined Vodafone, just to get a sense of the industry. Because this is really an intense experience that the consumer gets. It's 24-7, very demanding, unlike, let's say, FMCG, where a soap or a soup might not stay with you for 24-7. And so therefore, the importance of learning and unlearning really helped me transition into a new industry. And the last thing that I would say, point number three, that really helped me in the course of career transition, was to have a very rich set of friends, network, mentors, that I could continuously go to for advice, continuously tap into for some dilemma that I faced. And I really got some very, very good learning from them. When I made a transition from IT to training and development, like poles apart, I was quite scared that whether it will work or not. So knowing the consequence and the chances of the worst case scenario, it is all in the head to load up. And that stops you from taking that risk. Because as you rightly said, risk is involved everywhere. It's like a trade-off, whichever decision you take, I mean, you move from telecom to I think, consumer games as well, internet games, right? So even that would have been challenging for you that what am I doing? But then there was always this trade-off risk and the comparison that yes, this is much better. And again, it was a call that you took, which you are proud of today. Everybody's career path is different and individual. And I think while a lot of young people that who come up to me for advice, get guided by what they hear or read about in the media, I think it's important for me to constantly reiterate to them that everybody's career path is individual. Do not go on Sharma ji ke bete ne kya kiya aur beti ne kya kiya, find your own path. In life and in career. And one of the things that's kind of interesting to note in today's world is that a lot of people are looking for tips and tricks and hacks and jogar, which are band-aids at best. What people who are considering a long and healthy career, including career transitions might want to think about is articulating their own individual set of principles, which is based on their inner conversations with themselves. What is it that they hold dear? What is it that gives them energy, as opposed to the media narrative, as opposed to what they might hear from their, you know, batchmates or their colleagues. Studying is very important to have your own narrative. And it's a very difficult exercise when you start with it. But it's a super fruitful exercise to do, to have your own set of principles and then to lead your life based on those set of principles. If someone works in a company and he listens to the podcast, he might feel that, I think even I should transition from this industry to some other industry, and he might have some insecurities, some doubts. What else a person can do to handle that fear? How do you look at it? How do you tackle these insecurities? I think all of this is very real. The constant judgment that many people talk about, and a lot of young people come to me for advice about exactly this, right? The judgment of the outside people, they are wanting to take the jump, take the leap, make the transition. But there is always this fear of how will my equation with the world change? And frankly, no advice there can really help. What can really help is if a person wins the internal battle, which is, why do you want to do the transition, the career transition or the jump to a startup in the first place? If you're not very clear about that reason, and if it's a hollow reason, let's say, you know, I have read in the front page of this newspaper that hundreds of people are joining startup, or the popular social media influencer says that, 9 to 5 mein kya rakha hai? That's not a great reason. So find the reason why you want to make a switch, or go to a different career or to a different industry. Like I said, for me, the reason always has been what are the skills that I can pick up and make me more valuable for the career market, because I'm looking at the long game. I'm looking at a healthy and a fruitful long career. And that career, by the way, need not be a linear career. I think that's the third thing that I would tell people. Oftentimes, careers become about what's my next grade? What's my next desig? And therefore, attached to that, what's my next compensation? And that's great. But you really need to think about career, not really about that, but about what's my next valuable skill that I'm picking up? What's the next challenging role that I have, which will give me an opportunity to use everything that I have learned, learn more, and then contribute back. And so therefore build a successful track record for myself. So the reason for a career transition must be super clear for the person. And mostly those reasons are very internal. They cannot be externally guided or media narrative guided. You spend more than a decade in Unilever, right? After spending so many years in one industry, a person finds a sweet spot. Changing the industry at that point of time, what skillsets did you carry with yourself to the next role? Or did you search for a role based upon that, okay, this is what I can, this is what I'm good at. And this can help me in the next role. Or is it like a chance came your way and you're like, okay, let me jump into it. And then like, like, you know, like figure it out what skills that requires to be there. Super question. And again, this is kind of related to my journey. So I'll bring in one more facet that was part of my decision making process, which is risk reward. So I did many years at Unilever, but I think the interesting bit on Unilever was that I got an opportunity to do different kinds of roles. In fact, I had the opportunity to work in multiple categories, multiple geographies internationally as well. And most interestingly, had the opportunity to work right from super big brands to build brands from scratch, the zero to one classic experience in that sense. And therefore got a very rich set of learnings, which gave me some amount of confidence that I could go forward in the world and learn something. After having done the first 15 foundational years in consumer goods, I wanted to get into the digital side of things. At that point of time, when I evaluated myself, my risk reward ratio or my risk reward equation was not that that I wanted to jump directly into a startup. I wasn't that risk taking. So I made a bridge to say that, okay, let me not go in one step, but let me go in two steps. which was a great way for me to get first party data skills and understanding of digital first consumer and understanding of what it means to be in partnership with a larger ecosystem. And so therefore, I chose to take it in two, three steps rather than a jump directly. This example of yours helped me connect with what you said initially, where do not change all the variables at the same point of time. Can we say it a better way that a person is working in an organization, before you think of leaving the company, experiment and explore within the company, like you tried to expand the international markets, being a new leaver, right, or trying some new roles that can be challenging for you to get some new skill set by being in the same umbrella, right? There's no change as such, the same peers, the same culture as such, but at least you are exposing yourself to a new dimension altogether. And that muscle of taking the courage and exploring yourself that gets like built up with the process. Bang on. So I think if you have the opportunity to explore within your organization, the ability to create a larger impact, by all means, please go and explore within your organization. But make sure that those opportunities will come to you only if you are delivering in your current roles. Yes. And if you've built a track record of demonstrated success, only if you are seen as a leader who can carry along teams, build teams, those opportunities will come to you. You spoke about being good at what you do before trying out something new. Yeah. This kind of a question comes in that, I mean, as a leader, you spend so many years working with a lot of people, do you think that like some people take an escape route that it's not working for me, let me leave this work and go to some other industry, maybe that is where I can shine, instead of proving yourself over here and then going ahead, or do people take it as a, you know, let's leave this and move to something else? That's not really a great reason, because you're unhappy at a particular situation for you then to move into a new industry or a new role is not really a great reason. And my submission would be that if you're unhappy at your current role, that actually calls for even more introspection. Like why are you unhappy? Is it something to do with the outside environment or is it something to do with your internal sense? And if you spend that little bit of time on interrogating yourself, rather than the escapism of a career transition, you will be able to have much more fruitful answers and make much more better choices with greater intentionality than using career transition as an escape mechanism. It is about putting in that daily work on yourself, which is the secret sauce. It's a little bit like going to the gym, or in the simplest terms, brushing your teeth every day. So it's a little bit about that, that incrementally, what are you adding every day, which is making a big difference? Someone who thinks of changing their careers and exploring and learning, all the driving forces are there. But then he goes to the new company and HR says, you have been here and there, here and there. I don't see that kind of depth in terms of your knowledge or your sincerity or your loyalty. The acceptance by the recruiters, that is still a challenge. They still look for someone who has spent a lot more years in one sector than someone who's been hopping off and on. That's why we started the conversation saying that there is a difference between career transition and job hopping. If you really haven't contributed anything to where you have been, and kind of hopped around like a rabbit every couple of months, quarters or years, that's when this question that you're talking about kind of comes in. So there's a difference between career transition and job hopping, number one. Number two is, you should be very clear in how you have contributed to each of the roles, whether or not it is a career transition, a different role within the same company. But you should be very clear of the contributions that you bring to the table. So that's point number two. Point number three is, this is a very, very changing Bhooka world in which we live. So there is no virtue of automatically saying that, hey, I have stayed somewhere stable at 20 years. And so therefore, that's the best set of skills that I could get. It's a default statement that may or may not be true. Whereas a person who's worked in a multiplicity of roles in those 20 years, so let's say three roles in those 20 years, where the person has demonstrated that every time he or she has moved, there is a contribution to the company or to the organization. And there is a great amount of skill that the person has picked up or the set of skills the person has picked up. I think that is what separates career transition from a random job. And that should be very clear. Now, there always will be many people who will be detractors and say that I'm looking at this set of kind of attributes versus a set of attributes, which are different. And that's okay, because your reason for career transition are yours individually. And so if you've made that choice, you should be very, very confident of why you made that choice. So then samne wala doesn't really count, as long as you are very clear about the intentionality of your choices. If you have to sum up this entire conversation, those three core learnings, which a listener should take along with themselves or herself. Let's sum it up into three phrases. The first is, spend disproportionate time if you're a young person on self-reflection, showing your self-awareness, that will give you your bang for your buck, the best ROI. The second thing would be to do your current job the best that you can. And therefore, that opens up opportunities for you to be known for your work and the contribution that you bring in. And it also increases, you know, the value of you being known in the career market so as to speak. And the third piece is, it takes a village. So always make sure that you have enough perspective from people and mentors and colleagues around you. Cultivate a source of such friends and colleagues and mentors who are able to help you along your life and your career journey. Thank you so much for being on the show. It was an absolute privilege listening to you and your experiences. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Workwise with Naukri. And I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode. If you did, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you are listening to this. Also, do share this with your friends who would benefit from this episode. You listen to us and I'm sure you would have learned a lot. Is there anything that we all can learn from? You can share your perspective on Twitter and LinkedIn and use the hashtag Workwise with Naukri. Three of the best perspectives will get a special surprise from us. So go ahead and share your perspective on your social media. Thanks again for listening to this episode. Next episode, our host, Mehr Sindhu Batra, will bring an interesting episode on how to evaluate a company before accepting the offer. I'm Devdutt Gupta and you were listening to Workwise with Naukri, a career podcast from Naukri.com produced by Wine Studio.