Krishnan Ravishankar, Solutions Partner-Harrison Assessments, on the importance of aligning one’s passion with the chosen profession, and the key success factors.
I represent Harrison Assessments, and I am one of the principal coaches and partners in India. The topic I will be discussing today is how to plan your career. In my opinion, career planning is a common-sense approach, but unfortunately, it is quite uncommon among people. This is why, many times, we end up in careers that are not our cup of tea.
Purpose Behind the Job
Let me share an interesting example to illustrate this. There were three people cutting stones, and an economics professor wanted to study their work. He approached the first stone cutter and asked, “What are you doing?” The man replied, “Don’t you see? I am cutting stones in the hot sun.”
The professor then went to the second stone cutter and asked him the same question. He responded, “I work here for 12 hours a day. I get paid a couple of hundred rupees, which I use to feed my large family.” Finally, the professor approached the third stone cutter and asked, “What are you doing?” The third man replied, “I am preparing these stones to build a beautiful temple.”
Which of these three stone cutters do you think is going to be the most productive? It’s clearly the third one. The key difference between the first two stone cutters and the third one is their mindset. The first one was cutting stones simply because he didn’t have a better job. He was already frustrated and would likely leave for another job if given the chance. The second stone cutter was working solely for the money. He wasn’t enjoying his work and was doing it only to meet his financial needs. On the other hand, the third stone cutter not only enjoyed his work but also understood the purpose behind it. This sense of purpose made him more productive and engaged in his job. Let me now share some very interesting examples from real-life situations.
When Psychology Was Applied
A student came to me after completing her MA in Applied Psychology with a gold medal from one of the top colleges in Bangalore. Yet, she had been unable to find a job for two years. Her father, a good friend of mine, approached me and said, “My daughter is highly depressed. She is a gold medallist. She was the athletics captain, volleyball captain, and basketball captain. Despite her outstanding academic and extracurricular achievements, she hasn’t been able to secure a job. Can you help her?”
I told him, “I am not a magician, but I can try to figure out what career she might truly enjoy.” When I conducted an evaluation of this girl, five key points emerged that were very revealing. In my opinion, career planning is a simple, common-sense approach, though it’s rarely applied. On Interest in sports: Her score in this area was 10 out of 10. Interest in psychology: She scored 9.8 out of 10 in this subject. Preference for outdoor activities: She scored 9.2 out of 10. Preference for frequent travel: Her score was 9.5 out of 10. Comfort with challenging situations: She scored an impressive 9.9 out of 10.
There were many other insights, but these five points stood out as critical. Using just these scores and some common sense, it becomes clear what type of career this girl should pursue. I didn’t say anything to the girl directly. Instead, I asked her father, “Can you invest a little more in your daughter’s higher education?” He replied, “Yes.” So, I suggested, “Ask her to explore opportunities in Australia for an 18-month program in sports psychology, and then let her come back to me.”
This girl was incredibly proactive. She came back the very next day and said, “Uncle, these are the top three universities in Australia offering programs in sports psychology. They even provide financial aid for deserving candidates.” She applied to one of the universities, got admitted, and completed the program.
This is an eight-year-old story. Today, she is working as a sports psychologist with one of Australia’s Olympic teams. That’s all it takes to plan your career. Let me touch upon three aspects.
Understanding your personal and technical strengths: In Harrison terminology, we refer to this as eligibility and suitability. For every job or career, success depends on being strong in both eligibility and suitability. One without the other will not lead to success.
Take the examples of highly successful individuals: a cricketer like Sachin Tendulkar, a singer like S.P. Balasubramanian or corporate leaders who’ve reached great heights. What’s common among them? They all had both high eligibility and high suitability for their respective fields.
Aligning your career with your interests and passions: If your passion is not aligned with your profession, you’ll find yourself lost. You might be in a career, but not a successful one. If you want to achieve great success in the shortest time, you must focus on aligning your passion with your profession. Without this alignment, the journey will lack fulfilment and momentum.
The last is Balancing your personal interests and your professional interests.
A Global Perspective
Let me share some research findings from a global perspective on what makes a successful career and what you need to focus on evaluating.
Work Preference Inventory Factors: There are 175 work preference inventory factors that one needs to evaluate to identify the right career path. These factors cover eight critical areas.
Alignment of Inherent Interests with Career: Your inherent interests and how well they align with your career are crucial for career success. Academic qualifications are merely a passport to enter the job market. However, in many cases, what you study academically may not match what you truly want to pursue in your career. This is a common reality.
Life Themes and DNA Behaviours: A life theme is essentially your DNA behaviour, which refers to behavioural traits you are born with. Every individual has five critical behaviours that are unique and define their strongest traits.
If these strongest behaviours don’t align with your career, you will feel like a fish out of water. However, if even three of these five strongest behaviours align with your career, you’re bound to achieve significant success quickly.
Understanding your DNA behaviour is essential because these traits, or life themes, are unchangeable. That’s why they are referred to as behaviour from the womb to the tomb. No matter what life experiences you go through, these behaviours remain constant throughout your life.
Task and Environmental Preferences
Task and environmental preferences vary from person to person. The more your career involves tasks you enjoy, the higher your success rate will be. Similarly, identifying the kind of work environment you thrive in is critical. If you find a career aligned with your preferred environment, you are more likely to achieve long-term success and satisfaction.
Another significant aspect is recognising that your strongest behaviours are not necessarily your strengths. This is one of the most impactful research findings and is referred to as paradox behaviour. Your strongest behaviour, by itself, can be a weakness unless balanced by a complementary behaviour. For instance, you might be a very frank and outspoken person. While frankness can be a strength, if it isn’t balanced by diplomacy, it becomes a weakness. Frankness combined with diplomacy makes you an effective communicator. However, being frank without diplomacy can come across as blunt. People may start avoiding working with you because nobody likes interacting with someone who is excessively blunt.
It is crucial to understand your strongest behaviours because these are the traits you tend to overuse in your career. Unless you are aware of them, you cannot balance them with their paradoxical behaviours—the complementing behaviours that create harmony and effectiveness.
Negative behaviours
Equally important is recognising your negative behaviours. Research has identified nearly 32negative behaviours that can influence your job performance, depending on the role. For any given job, at least one-third of these behaviours will have a direct, negative impact.
Understanding your scores on these negative behaviours is essential. The higher your negative behaviour score, the more it can undermine your career success, regardless of your academic credentials or work experience. Balancing these behaviours and mitigating their impact is key to sustained career growth and effectiveness.
Your interpersonal skills, achievement orientation, and leadership skills are three critical competencies. Without these, survival in the corporate world becomes challenging. While other competencies are also important, these three play a crucial role in your professional success.
However, it’s equally important to address negative behaviours, which can overshadow all your positive traits. Just one or two strong negative behaviours can have a devastating effect on your career. I have observed this in individuals with impressive qualifications and experience—yet certain negative behaviours caused them to lose their jobs or miss out on opportunities.
Eligibility and Suitability
To ensure career success, you must balance your eligibility and suitability. Eligibility refers to what you can do. It includes your work knowledge, academic qualifications, length and nature of your experience and special certifications and technical skills. These are the material skills that showcase your capabilities and qualifications for a role.
Suitability encompasses everything related to your behaviour. It involves your attitude, interpersonal dynamics, emotional intelligence, and ability to adapt to the work environment. Balancing eligibility (your technical qualifications and skills) with suitability (your behavioural competencies) is the key to a successful career. This balance ensures that you not only get the job but also thrive in it, aligning your strengths with the demands of your role and the organisation.
Every job comes with its own set of behavioural requirements. For example, the behaviour expected of someone in an HR role is vastly different from that of someone in Accounts. Similarly, the behavioural traits required for a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) are not the same as those for a Head of Human Resources (HR). It is essential to understand the specific behavioural demands of the career you intend to pursue. You also need to assess how strong your current behaviours are in alignment with those requirements. If you find gaps, start developing the necessary behaviours over time. Doing so before you transition into the corporate world will give you a significant advantage. This is a critical aspect of career planning. Preparing in advance will ensure you’re equipped to meet the demands of your future roles effectively.
Enjoyment-Performance Theory
Let’s discuss an important concept called the Enjoyment-Performance Theory. This theory provides a simple, common-sense approach to planning your career and highlights a critical connection between enjoyment and performance.
The Core Idea of this theory is that Enjoyment drives repetition. Whatever we enjoy doing, we are naturally inclined to repeat. Repetition lads to improvement. The more we repeat an activity, the better we get at it. Practice makes perfect. Improvement brings positive feedback. As we improve, others begin to notice and provide positive feedback. This recognition is powerful. Positive feedback fuels reinforcement. Encouraging feedback builds confidence and reinforces the desire to continue.
However, the reverse is equally true. Lack of enjoyment leads to procrastination. No repetition results in stagnation—there’s no scope for improvement. No improvement leads to negative feedback. Negative feedback kills motivation, pushing you to quit.
Many people fail to consider this simple theory when planning their careers. Instead of aligning their careers with what they truly enjoy, they often focus on factors like salary, status, or external pressures. This misalignment sets them on a path to dissatisfaction and failure.
The Enjoyment-Performance Theory underscores the importance of aligning your career choices with activities you genuinely enjoy. Doing so will naturally fuel repetition, improvement, positive feedback, and long-term success. Planning a career based on what you love is not just practical but essential.
Individuals who enjoy at least 75% of their work are four times more successful than those who don’t. This is a simple yet powerful formula. The higher your level of enjoyment in a job, the greater your likelihood of achieving career success.
Align your career with your passion. Passion naturally leads to high levels of engagement in your work. Enjoying what you do ensures a fulfilling work experience. Passion-driven careers are fuelled by intrinsic motivation, making it easier to excel. High motivation translates to consistently better performance.
The formula is straightforward: marry your passion to your profession. This alignment is the key to building a rewarding career. With modern tools like AI, evaluating these factors is quick and efficient and it takes less than 30 minutes.
Key Factors for Career Evaluation
To choose the right career, focus on these eight critical elements:
Strongest DNA Behaviours: Identify the behaviours that define you, as they don’t change throughout life.
Inherent Interests: Understand what truly excites you.
Task Preferences: Recognise the tasks you enjoy performing.
Environmental Preferences: Know the work settings where you thrive.
Motivation and Engagement Factors: Assess what drives you and keeps you committed.
Personality and Behavioural Traits: Identify your strongest, moderate, and weak traits.
Key Competencies: Focus on building three essential competencies, namely Interpersonal Skills; Achievement Orientation and Leadership Skills.
Negative Behaviours: Identify and address these early to avoid them hindering your career.
Let me conclude with another interesting real-life example. A student pursued her Master’s in Computer Science because her parents wanted her to become a computer engineer. After completing her degree, her parents insisted she move to the US, saying, “That’s where the future lies.” She followed their wishes, secured a job at one of the biggest IT companies, and worked there for 15 years. However, she was deeply unhappy. Every evening, she would return home frustrated, telling her parents, “I’m not happy with what I’m doing. I’m spending 12 hours in front of a screen, and it’s taking a toll on my health and my eyes.”
This young woman had a lifelong passion for Bharatanatyam dance, which she had been learning since the age of five in Chennai. Despite her demanding IT career, she spent her weekends teaching dance to a small group of students. After 15 years in IT, she made a bold decision and quit her job. Her parents were shocked and asked, “What will you do now?”
Her response was clear: “I’m going to start a Bharatanatyam school.” Five years later, this young woman had established a flourishing dance school in Seattle, USA, with over 300 students, earning 10 times more than she did in her IT job.
The simple secret to her success? She married her passion with her profession. That’s all it takes—a career aligned with your passion can lead to fulfilment and extraordinary success.
