This is an extract of my new book that I am currently writing:
We go to schools, B-schools and Econs 101 classes and we are taught that the firm's purpose is to maximise profit. But let's drill down one level - what is the employee's purpose? We go to work being told that our career paths will be taken care of (esp. during recruitment talks), we will be trained and upgraded and all that synergistic "we are one family" mantra. Trust me, you will sit in the employee's tables and the bosses and spouses will sit in the VIP tables with the directors, clients and bankers.
One way to simplify our view of corporates and employees' needs is to think of a battery and a lightbulb. Like the movie Matrix, if you imagine a person as a battery, everything makes sense.
Think for a moment. A person's aim in life is to maximise charge. Charge is defined as salary, energy, happiness and all that 'utils benefits. Call it total resource. You come to office and the office environment discharges or drains you. But you get charged by learning new skills and get further re-charged at the end of the month when the long-awaited paycheck comes.
If you are in a great job with a great future, you earn a net charge.
If you are in a bad job, you get net discharge during the tenure of your work there.
As management or entrepreneurs, you think differently:
By getting more powerfully charged (hardworking and bright) batteries to work with you, the bulb shines brighter.
As the saying goes, you dont need to be bright, you just need to find bright people to work for you.
In MNC, you should see things this way:
First rule of Corporate Life is:
How can I maximise my charge?
Second rule of Corporate Life is:
Who is looking at my lightbulb?
The third rule of Corporate Life is:
Who can I discharge to maximize my lightbulb?
Last rule in Corporate Life:
How long can i make the bulb last before the bosses realize i am pretty dim or when I run out of battery?
For older employees and exhausted ones, their batteries can't be re-charged and there is very little use, so it becomes harder and more challenging for them to find jobs. It is easy to move retirement age higher but the challenge is always changing the mindset of employers to appreciate experience and age. The ugly truth is they seldom do.
So if the world is flat as explained by Thomas Friedman and you have China and India masses after your job, and a younger and cheaper workforce waiting to replace you - what can you do NOW?
This is the decision the schools never bother to teach you.
What kind of battery or lightbulb do you want to be?
Do you want to spend your whole life constantly being charged up (study, new courses, learn as you go, MBA, be an apprentice etc) and then get discharged until the battery is dead and is carelessly and ruthlessly discarded?
Or do you plan to be a discharger and plan rows and rows of poor batteries to be drained by you (suck the marrow out of life..but someone else ) and shine bright as sunlight at the expense of others?
Or do you want to be the kind of charger/discharger that make sure all your batteries under your watch will leave you with net postive charge. That's a cool sustainable green model too :-) These are my heroes. I like to think such leaders and bosses live happily ever after.
If you want to do any of the above, you must start thinking about building the infrastructure to discharge other batteries and your own on DAY ONE of your working life. You need to figure out how bight yout bulb should shine. At someone's expense or you are some renewable energy that add value to this planet?
One more thing as Steve Jobs is fond of saying..
And remember the parallel and series circuit you learn in primary school science? Parallel batteries arrangement will make the light dimmer but if one battery goes off, the bulb still stays on. The series arrangement gives you a brightlight but if any one of the battery is dead, the bulb goes dead.
Do you want to have multiple income streams that keeps you going and going?
Answer: Sell property, multi-layered marketing, run a home business while working for someone.
Do you want to work for a single income stream where there is little room for mistakes but the initial returns is 'bright and promising" until you become discarded batteries?
Answer:Focus all your energy in your single job and build a stunning career.
Those who ask themselves such questions and willing to strive for answers to these questions, i believe, will have a longer, more fulfilling lifespan. Those who dont think - you will just get drained at some point and be discarded like old batteries.
(These are the outlines of my book titled "How is my Lightbulk".)
Harold Fock
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