Every decade or so, the environment throws up subtle signs as to the industries that are evolving and will be the game changers for future. Correspondingly the talent required to propel this wave or growth also undergoes a shift. One way to identify this shift is to see the trend for the most ‘sought companies’ in B schools – in 70’s and 80’s, it was the industrial sector and fmcg companies like Tata Steel and HUL; in 90’s it was foreign banks and fmcg ; in Y2K, consulting firms like McK, E&Y, Deloitte came into the foray along with IT companies like Cisco, Infosys, etc. Next decade saw companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google and now we are looking at Amazon and Flipkart. The future is highly tilted towards complex technologies that are changing the business landscape of both traditional and modern industries.
This shift brings about its own challenges in the talent pool. Redundancy of skills, outdated knowledge and cultural misfits in changing market and corporate environment is a common challenge for both employers and employees. Driving business innovation and creating value in today’s highly disruptive markets requires a whole new set of skills and competencies. This is a continuous process now. For an individual, it is no longer a choice but a necessity to stay ahead of the curve by taking charge of your career and success.
In today’s world of networking and collaboration, a critical aspect of success is your EQ – emotional quotient is awareness of our own emotions/feelings (self) and the society around us (social skills and social awareness). Higher EQ results in better self awareness to navigate successfully in our relationships through improving our discerning powers for better judgements and decision making. Often people live in emotional silos and prone to self-deception leading to several blind spots with respect to our true values or beliefs. Similarly we tend to either over/under estimate our abilities, our achievements and competencies. This is where an intervention of a coach can help you to identify the gaps in self-evaluation and eliminate blind spots through a continuous and consistent introspection, reflection and feedback process that is channelized and customised to your individual self. A coach supports you to manage and mitigate the risks/ set-backs and maximise your opportunities/potential to lead a designer life.
For fresher graduates, a career coach can help you identify and build your employability quotient. A career coach takes you through a rigorous and continuous process to help you set your short term and long term goals, based on your strengths, competencies, values and potential. By focussing both on internal and external factors, one can draw successful workplace strategies for career development. Though a continuous and periodic exercise of introspect, reflect and review process it is possible to bring about behavioural changes to achieve your goals and aspirations.