August 2nd, 1979. That's the day I was born! Unknowingly, it has been 37 years since, and today marks the start of my journey towards my 38th birthday.
It was an eerily quiet day. My mom has completely forgotten that it's my birthday; my siblings couldn't be bothered; my friends didn't say a thing. My dad, despite being very advanced in age, surprisingly muttered a "Oh it's your birthday today, right?". Yea for sure it is. Well, thank you dad for being the one and only one to have remembered my birthday in this world :)
Looking back at the past 37 years, I wouldn't dare say that I have left an indelible mark on this world and lived life as gloriously and bravely as I thought I would. For some reason, things didn't quite seem to go my way and life appeared pretty bleak at some point.
I am currently working for one of the hottest "startups" in the world but I am unhappy. Fresh out of my MBA program not too long ago, I remember clearly during the interview that I said, "I don't care about the job title. All I want is a role where I can make an impact." Fast forward two years, I think I actually did have an impact in my role but it was, alas, disregarded -- and nothing can be a clearer indicator than the comments that I received during my performance appraisal last Friday.
Going into the appraisal, I knew that the higher my expectations, the more disappointed I would be if reality turned out otherwise. True to my prediction, I was slammed with a "you met expectations" grading. An average grade? I was stunned but my manager did a great job of managing my expectations with a candid, word-by-word sharing of what others had said about me. For the first time in my life, I received comments such as, "arrogant", "off-putting" -- adjectives that I will never ever use on anyone but was surprised to have received them myself. I told my manager that I was both surprised and not surprised. The former because I didn't expect my actions to be construed as such and to be received such harsh comments that seemed like a personal attack on my character; the latter because I knew that my intensity at work - my go-getter character, forthrightness and goal-oriented self - was starkly different from the attitude of many of my colleagues. Perception is reality but was I really that much of a jerk? Wow, what a nasty revelation.
For the rest of the day and over the weekend, I pondered over the comments I received and was trying to make sense of why it hurt so much. Receiving an average appraisal was surprisingly not the reason; rather, it was the rationale for why I received that rating that hurt me so bad. For one, I was evaluated to be subpar on my ability to "build relationships with folks in the office" and this metric carries a 50% weight. In layman's terms, I simply didn't know how to play politics and did a terrible job brown-nosing senior management. So what if I exceeded my target? So what if I were the only one on the team to have exceeded my target well within budget? So what if I had devised a program to structure my thinking and guide my execution? All these only and merely account for 50% of my overall assessment. What shocked me more was how my manager even said that they would also rate a worker's performance as average had they failed to meet targets but performed well in building relationships. How's that for building a business that's performance driven and target-focused? I was aghast, bemused and confused. Was this the deal I signed myself up for and the company in which I hoped to be able to make in impact in? What good was the impact if the recognition was missing?
I certainly hope few people in this world come across such situations but I know it's happening on a daily basis. Performance reviews by humans are subjective by nature unless the company makes a conscious decision to abide strictly by the rules it has set for itself, that employees' performance will be judge solely on pre-agreed metrics and targets. For folks who may not be as well in building relationships with folks in the office, they don't necessarily have to be marked down. Rather, it simply means that they should take on a different career path; to ignore their hardwork and sterling achievement is just wrong. You never want to promote a person who is only good at politics but bad at delivering against targets. That's a sure road to failure.
Dejected, I found myself in the library on a Friday night and I chanced upon a book by Clayton Christensen, "How will you measure your life?". It totally changed my perspective on life and brought so much joy to my heart. It was such an inspiring, enlightening and empowering read. In areas where I failed to have clarity before, I gained a new understanding; in areas where I was constantly searching for answers, I found a way to get my answers. More importantly, it helped me wrap my head around this question -- what's my purpose in life.
Without going into the specifics, I would broadly list down for my own reference the wisdom of gold that was clearly elucidated in the book:
A) Before taking on a new role, be sure to answer these questions and not jump at it because it pays well.
- Is this work meaningful to me?
- Is this job going to give me a chance to develop?
- Am I going to learn new things?
- Will I have an opportunity for recognition and achievement?
- Am I going to be given responsibility?
B) Finding your purpose in life
The next big idea he shared centered around the the "purpose of life" and how we should go about searching for our purpose in life. He likened this to drawing and said that it is nothing but a simple 3-step process:
- Distill the likeness of what we would like to be (the rough form of what you'd envision you to become)
- A man dedicated to helping others around me
- A kind, honest, forgiving and selfless being
- Becoming committed
- It is one thing to have aspirational qualities written down but another to be deeply committed to those qualities that will serve our priorities and actions on a daily basis
- Never waver. "It’s easier to hold on to your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold on to 98% of the time; once you have justified doing it once, there’s nothing to stop you doing it again."
- Finding the right metric
- For him, it's simply the number of individuals he was able to help.
Clayton took a very structured and rational approach to figuring out what his purpose in life was and once he got it all nailed down, he was very strategic and thoughtful in the way he approached his every day life. Perhaps I needed it but reading his book (which I completed in two days) lifted me out of my doldrums and depression. It's the medicine I was looking for and I was glad that I found it on my birthday.
So, Happy Birthday to my 37 year old self. Plucking out my wisdom tooth on Sunday (July 31st) wasn't that bad (it gave me five days of rest) and if anything, it freed me from work and gave me one of the best birthdays I've ever had, even if the whole world has all but forgotten about me. Knowing how to really live a life that I want and one that will make me happy is the best gift ever! :)
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