Many young people as they embark upon their
educational and experience journeys are often intrigued and stymied in their
analysis of what kind of focus and/or versatility in their journeys would
provide them with appropriate career growth and satisfaction. There cannot be
easy answers to this query as the variables that influence one’s career
development go beyond education and experience. That said, education and experience
are two of the most profound variables that influence a person and his or her
contributions to any system. Education and experience not only add knowledge on
a continuous basis but also influence personality development. Any template
that helps the aspirants to understand themselves and their career ecosystem
better should be a welcome addition to management and organizational
literature.
The template cannot be about which
educational course or industry domain is better or worse from a career point of
view. The template has to be more generic and independent of such choices. The
oriental model advocates specialization in education and experience; it almost
frowns upon darting across streams. The western model is open to, and even welcomes,
versatility in education and experience. Alternatives are possible when a matrix
approach is taken. The author, in one of the earlier blog posts, brought out
how a 2X2 matrix provides insightful conceptual and analytical clarity to
understand any issue. Interested readers may refer to the blog post, “The 2
Dimensional Matrix: A Universal Analytical Tool”, Strategy Musings, July 3,
2011 (http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/search?q=the+two+dimensional+matrix).
Four categories
Fundamentally, there are four options for an
individual with respect to education or experience. He or she can pursue
specialization or diversification in the course of education. He can also
pursue specialization or diversification in industry of employment. Individuals
can, therefore, be slotted in one of the four quadrants of the
education-experience matrix. These are (i) Education Specialization – Experience
Specialization (ESES), (ii) Education Diversification – Experience Specialization
(EDES), (iii) Education Specialization – Experience Diversification (ESED), and
(iv) Education Diversification – Experience Diversification (EDED). For ease of
reference and even for representative reflection, these four categories of
individuals may be referred to as Mountaineers, Miners, Seafarers, and
Explorers, respectively. The nomenclature is supported logically as further
discussed below.
The individual who specializes in a
particular education stream and sticks to a particular related industry domain
is very much like a mountaineer who masters mountaineering and is clear about
the singular mountain he needs to climb; hence ESES individuals are best named
as Mountaineers. The individual who diversifies into many educational streams
but sticks to a particular industry domain is quite like a miner who masters
multiple mining technologies to get that best metal or mineral; hence EDES
individuals are appropriately named as Miners. The individual who specializes
in one educational stream but diversifies into many industry domains is like a
sailor who trusts his ship to navigate through the varied seas; hence ESED
individuals are logically named as Seafarers. The individual who diversifies
into many educational streams and also diversifies into multiple industry
settings is like an explorer who constantly learns and embraces the new to
achieve the prize catch; hence EDED individuals are reasoned to be Explorers.
The Successful Mountaineer (ESES Executive)
To be a successful Mountaineer in the professional
or corporate world, one must have a strong aptitude for the subject or domain
and a commitment to contribute through a synergy of academic knowledge and
practical experience in the industry. A good example would be a basic degree in
mechanical engineering, followed by a post graduate degree in automobile
engineering or other specializations such as thermal engineering, metal
forming, robotics or mechatronics and a career in an automobile firm. Typically,
he or she would commence the career in one of the three core areas of product
development, manufacture or marketing and move on to become a functional head
and eventually a business head. The linkage of education and experience with
the subject and domain aptitude is the hallmark of the successful Mountaineer.
To be a successful career Mountaineer, the
professional executive would need to have all the technique and patience of the
real mountaineer. The career path for a person specialized in and dedicated to
a particular domain, industry, and even a company is likely to be challenging
with slow growth and slippery terrain. It requires a perfection of subject knowledge
and conversion of knowledge into results to become differentiated. As one would
be aware, automotive, aerospace and metals majors recruit each year scores of
graduate engineers suited to different functions, and only a handful can reach
to the top. It is, however, a feasible target illustrated by the likes of Alan
Mulally of Boeing and Ford and AM Naik of L&T, and several other graduate
engineers who reached to the top in the respective industries. It pays to be a
Mountaineer if education and experience are aligned with aptitude serving as
the glue.
The Successful Miner (EDES Executive)
The successful Miner in the professional or
corporate world is like a miner in search of precious metals and minerals. He is
likely to be highly career focused, motivated to reach to the top by being as
broad spectrum as possible in terms of functional capabilities. An individual
who pursues a graduate degree in any engineering discipline, followed by post
graduate degree in business management or a professional who does chartered
accountancy, company secretary and cost accounting courses are driven by an
ambition to mine wider and grow faster, picking prize assignments and seeking
functional adjacencies in growth. As opposed to the Mountaineer who has committed
aptitude, the Miner tends to have flexibility and adaptability as the key
drivers.
To be a successful Miner, the professional or
corporate executive needs to have, like the real life miner, a fine
discriminating and refining power. Knowing more subjects or dabbling in
multiple disciplines is not necessarily a sure passport to the top. Successful move
to the top is often based on some solid achievements in certain core functional
or business areas. The uniqueness of knowing multiple domains must be reflected
in an ability to define, plan and execute for strategic goals, with greater end
to end connectivity. A large number of senior executives at the top in an
industry appear to conform to the pattern of learning more and contributing
singularly to a specialized industry. Indian industry and Indian executives, in
particular, appear to prefer the Miner model.
The Successful Seafarer (ESED Executive)
The successful Seafarer has aptitude for, and
belief in, his core subjects just as the successful real life sailor has
control on, and confidence in, his ship. He is also not easily laid off by the
vastness of practical applications which his core specialization can explore. Examples
of this type of career planning relate to educational specializations that are
not industry specific, and instead are industry neutral. Specializations like finance,
information technology, legal, electronics and instrumentation which can find
scope and need in any industry are the typical Seafarer’s preferences. However,
certain gritty Seafarers are wont to use their educational specializations in
uncharted seas of radically different industries. Unlike the Mountaineer who
has a certain natural alignment of education and experience and the Miner who
has a vast functional spread for a unitary industry, the Seafarer has the
challenge of his or her knowledge specialization leading to such notable
contributions that could help him or her get positioned for growth in
competition with Mountaineers and Miners that are bound to exist in an
organization.
To be a successful Seafarer, the individual
has to have the innovative ability to apply his specialization to achieve
competitive advantage for any industry. He or she also should have the
competitive and tenacious spirit to push the envelope and create new areas of
contribution to the industry. An instrumentation engineer would, for example,
be able to secure new levels of automation for any industry. A finance
professional can bring his vast core and collateral functional knowledge to
lead the company in any industry to newer levels of financial solidity, costing
sharpness, overseas listing and so on. In addition, a Seafarer would need to
have an extra set of behavioral competencies to be seen as a strategic manager
despite strong functional specialization. If the Seafarer does not possess or
acquire such soft skills, it is quite possible that a Seafarer would remain a
knowledge worker or a subject expert even in the long term, which, however,
need not necessarily be a bad outcome either for the individual or the
organization.
The Successful Explorer (EDED Executive)
There could be a view that an Explorer would
end up a rolling stone, gathering no mass in the sober, steady corporate and
organizational worlds. On the other hand, the Explorer represents the
quintessential Gen-Next executive, eager to absorb multiple subjects and dabble
in several domains. He is also eager and motivated to constantly search for an
organizational home that not merely meets his expectations but challenges him
to explore higher trajectories. The new age young CEOs and the young
entrepreneurs coming up with new ideas are the representatives of the Explorer
category. Some Explorers tend to become turnaround specialists and growth
drivers. Most Explorers also become highly successful as consultants with
diversified competencies and organizational deliveries.
To be successful, the Explorer needs to be an
intensely absorbing person; linking subject mastery and organizational delivery
to each moment’s challenge rather than to the nature of degrees or longevity in
organizations. The Explorer tends to have a bit of the Mountaineer, Miner and
Seafarer characteristics in him but in his own ‘mix and match’ capability. The Explorer
is characterized essentially by lateral thinking and an ability to generate new
thinking from current situations and adapt past experiences to new situations.
Explorers eventually make excellent heads of diversified business conglomerates,
and not surprisingly highly successful bureaucrats and public servants. Business
stalwarts like JRD Tata and Ratan Tata are legendary examples.
Talent-Organization Matrix
An ideal organizational format of a growing
organization would offer adequate space for all the four classes of performers,
the Mountaineers, the Miners, the Seafarers and the Explorers. Needless to say,
diversified companies organized in terms of business units offer much greater
space for all the four classes of aspirants. That said, their existence or
requirement is also contextual. If an organization chooses to be specialized
and narrowly focused, it will need, and also tend to have, more Mountaineers. If
an organization is narrowly focused but needs new ideas to propel turnaround or
growth, it will need and also tend to have more Miners. If an organization is
in search of a core competence, it will need, and tend to have, Seafarers. If an
organization needs diversification, or is already a business conglomerate, it
will have, and need to have Explorers.
The above has important implications for
strategy formulation and talent management. There has been a debate whether
structure or strategy precedes the other, and the debate has been settled with
the validated hypothesis that structure follows strategy. The discussion in this
blog post also leads to a debate whether strategy sets the talent needs or
talent helps create a sustainable strategy. Potentially, a broad vision for the
organization should lead to induction of an appropriate mix of Mountaineers,
Miners, Seafarers and Explorers that can develop and execute a required
strategy. Young aspirants need to understand that when they choose their unique
educational paths and experience pathways, they are not only categorizing themselves
into one of the four classes but are also developing into human dynamos that
can power organizations in potentially unique ways.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on October 14, 2013