HOW DO YOU DEFINE WHAT YOU DO?

Some of the recent observations I have made got me thinking that while starting a career as a fresher, you can define your aspirations in functional terms because you are still in the learning phase but after you get exposure of different functional areas such as in a general management role, you can no longer define yourself in these terms because the work you are going to do will be having all the functional requirements. One of the better way for slightly experienced professionals can be categorized in three forms i.e.

• People who do business diagnosis
• People who set vision and plan
• People who implement and execute

Business diagnosis is basically like a diagnostic department in a hospital where patients who don’t know what is wrong with them come. This department works as per scientific principle, generates hypothesis and check the validity of those hypothesis using various means. For them the business success or failure does not matter much. What matters is the correct diagnosis. If a business decision worked well, these people should do the postmortem of business success as rigorously as they do same for business failures. In this way, they will be less dependent on “chance”. Correct diagnosis will also help them in repeating the business success in future as well. These people don’t care whether a particular decision turned out to be good bad, what matters more to them is identification of correct causes of business success or failures. These people should be good observers and analytical.

People who set vision and planning would need assistance of business diagnostics because they will help them predict the result of business decisions. These people are the ones who decide the direction of a business. You can call them visionary etc. In addition to being outward looking, they would also need to do the planning. There is little element of uncertainty in their work.These people need not be good with people. They should have attention to detail and ability to think two steps ahead.

Third type is the one who actually implements the plan on ground. Their work deals with least uncertainty. They have to be good with people. They should have bias for action and work in mission mode. These people might not need any assistance of first type but should be in constant touch with the second type so that planning visionary types are aware of the ground realities.

So what is your type?