Climbing the Success Ladder- Tips for Growth, Change and Leadership
Hi. Welcome back to Wai Involve Podcast The guest for our podcast today is a Problem solver. His passion for tech innovation has propelled him to the top of the industry. He leads globally distributed teams, driving strategic planning and execution, and has been quite remarkably successful with it.
Introducing Mandar Kulkarni, Director of Engineering at ADP currently. Hello Mandar. It's such a pleasure to host you today. To get right into it, many professionals face uncertainty while advancing in their careers Mandar So in your opinion, what are some of the clear indicators that you see that a person is set for growth, is ready for growth? And, what most importantly, what is the best way for him to approach a promotion request with confidence? Sure. So people are in different jobs.
So you have you work in as a part of team. So I am going to take an example of a software engineer. You're a software engineer.
you're doing job for a few years. You yourself realize that you have started to outperform your peers. You're doing better than your peers You're doing better than other software engineers.
You're constantly getting positive feedback from your peers, your architects, your manager, and when you do a job for a certain amount of time, the sense of fulfillment starts to wean, right? You want to do more. You want to do more challenging work. The unease comes and you feel like, yeah, I need to do something else. I need to do more. That's an indication for yourself and for your manager. You know who is your employee who is outperforming others and they're ready for the growth.
So unease setting in, wanting to do more, wanting to be challenged and outperforming others are the primary indicators that you you are ready for being growth Certainly I've seen that. Yeah. And when it comes to promotion.
So I have very different take on promotion. Traditionally promotion has always been associated with being reward. So people do a great job so they get promoted. And I do not agree with that premise. For me, promotions belong to two categories. One is a natural progression and second is aspiration of progression.
Now when I when it comes to natural progression, there's a lot of people who constantly do next level jobs. A software engineer does a senior software engineer job or they they come in contributing to design. So they're essentially performing duties of an architect. So they're already doing the job that is next level. That is a natural progression that the manager or whoever is in capacity to promote those people should promote those people because it's they're ready for the next job.
That is right. Second is an aspirational progression. The people who feel unease, they want to do the next level, things they know they are capable of doing. It, and they want to be doing the next level things.
I think, the question that you asked really addresses the second category of people who want to do more, who are ready for doing this next level things. And I think, when people have perspective over things, they understand the process. They are confident about their skills as well as they can, you know, be they are ready to be accountable for things to happen. I think that's also a telltale sign that, you know, he is he's ready for growth because he he has control over a lot of things, and he manages it so well. Now So absolutely, I think that that's also a sign.
Yeah. And I want to go to the question that you asked how to address the promotion request confidently. Now, the fundamental mistake people do is they give the key to their success to their manager or whoever is going to do that. Of course, the manager plays a very, very important part in your promotion, but at the end of the year, you go to the manager and say, hey, I did a fantastic job. That's what I believe.
Now you promote me and manager is on a completely different understanding and they say, no, no, that's not what I feel. And you're not up for a promotion. And then it doesn't result in, you know, overall satisfaction for both of them.
So for me approach and promotion is a beginning of the year kind of an activity. So when when your year starts your boss calls you for setting up goals. You need to set the expectation that in this next one year, I would work for a promotion and for the next job that I'm willing to do.
You need to tell me what all things I need to do to be able to get into that job, which results in promotion. So if you do that at the beginning of the year and ask them to give you tangible, achievable, measurable goals that will set you up for promotion. So start at the beginning of the year.
Ask right questions. Ask, set the expectations with the manager that you want to get promoted. Now that's the first part of it.
Does it end there? No. You have to constantly, continuously take feedback on how you're doing on those goals. There are two things that it will achieve that your monitoring, your progress.
And second, your remaining boss that you're working for a promotion. Yeah, that's a great pointer. So, don't lose the sight of it for a whole year.
And then at the end of it go and ask for it. No constant feedback. Continuous feedback is very important. because feedback is a two way street, right? They will tell you how you're doing and you need to tell them what you have done. So at the end of the year, make a list of things you have achieved on the goals that you set, and then tell your manager, this is what I have done. This was we this is what we agreed on at the beginning of the year.
Now, how are you doing about what are you doing about my promotion? And that's also being assertive. Continuously asking for feedback also means that you're confident about your abilities, and you are assertive. In the next question Mandar I want to talk about career changes.
And, you know, for those professionals who have put in some years already, into their professional journey and they're approaching a milestone. Career change really seems daunting. And, they're not ready for transition. So for those people, what is your guidance and what are the, how do you think they should approach, a career change? How to evaluate and explore new opportunities. And once they do the transition, how to get motivated to, you know, get success in their transition as well.
I think the, the first thing anybody who's looking to pivot from what they are doing is to find their 'why' Because if you don't know why you want to do something, it not necessarily results in the success you're looking for. So if you have done a certain job for ten years and you feel that it's time for you to try something else, try something new. Find Why you want to do that? It could be yours.
There's no growth opportunities in your current or your passion is for some other technology, or your current job doesn't offer you the work. Life matters who you're looking for. There could be multiple reasons for that. Finding that reason is fundamental to pursuing the change in your career. Now that once you find your job, why you then need to think what do you have? What can you offer to the new career you're looking for? Do you have the skills for that job are there any gaps in your skills? Do you need to learn something for the new career you're looking for? The career change is not a single event. You need to do the ground work You need to think about what you're getting into, and then it's a process that goes on for some time.
You take, sometimes you take one step forward, two steps backwards, but, assist that and take the next step. So find your gaps. Upskill yourself once you feel like you have sufficient skills, look at your options. What are your options? Other roles you're looking for and available in your own company or your organization? You need to go and look for them. Look for them outside of your organization.
So doing that, that homework is also important because you don't look for the options within your company or outside your company. Think which ones suit best for what you're looking for, and then start pursuing opportunities now. Pursuing opportunities, not applying for jobs. You need to build a lot of things around it. Learning upskilling is one of them.
Networking is another one. So during this podcast, I'm going to talk a lot about networking and really underestimate. I'm waiting for it! Yeah that's going to help. See networking. You need to be able to leverage networking as well as, you know, mentorship, any strategy that uses, mentorship or a network with, interfraternity that is certainly going to help you, right? So network strategically.
Look at people who are already in those jobs, or careers you're looking for. Look at successful people, what they're doing. Observe them. Observation is a really good way of learning.
Follow some some people. LinkedIn is a is such a powerful platform. People really don't use it to their advantage. You know, you can build your brand, on LinkedIn. It is as simple as just posting what you do, what you know, there are so many. You will be surprised how many people are looking for the information you have in your head.
I'll give you my own example. I was in a job for five years. I built the technical knowledge. I built the domain knowledge. And five years is a long time doing the same job.
And at the end of it, I was feeling like. Yeah, I need to do something else now. Exactly the question you asked for.
So first thing I did was started posting about what I do, what I know on LinkedIn. And when I started to look for opportunities, linking is a very powerful tool. So when you apply for a job, say, I'm going to take an example of a software engineer.
Now there are hundreds of thousands of software engineers on LinkedIn. When you when a recruiter goes and look for a software engineer for a particular technology skill. People who constantly post on LinkedIn are active on there. They are the people who show up higher on the results. So it's a very, very important thing that you be active there. It's about creating your own brand.
Yeah. You know. Yeah. You people what you're doing. You generate content, you write blogs, you answer to, questions about technology. You give your opinion, you share your perspective.
You attend, you know, you network with like minded people, then you attend conferences and all. So that's a sure sign that, okay, you are you are confident about your abilities and you are trying to reach out to people, yeah, absolutely. Another thing I would recommend people who are looking for career change or switch. Find people in those jobs or people who can tell you a thing or two about the pros and cons of it, the challenges the jobs have and people who can motivate you to get into it.
So finding mentors and finding It is not saying that hey, can you be my mentor? It's not. It doesn't work like that. You find people, you approach them. You talk about your challenges or what you want to do.
Ask them about what what their job looks like, what their challenges are. That is how you look. So it's not you Be my mentor and I'll ask you questions and you answer that. It doesn't work that way. So you'll find people that are already doing the things you like and learn from them.
Mandar I want to talk about leadership. So, you know, that leadership can sometimes feel intangible or, you know, maybe to some professionals. But, what are the abilities that people should look for to become, leaders? And, it reminds me of Robin Sharma's statement. Right? He said it's not about the title or the position, but it's about the three 'I's, the influence, the impact that you create, the influence and how you inspire people.
So what traits would you, what would you recommend for people to adopt? And, even for people who are in non management roles. What are the abilities they should develop to, you know, really amplify that impact and inspire people. So for me, leadership is two pronged. One is for people who are not in people management field and for people who are.
So let's talk about the fundamentals. For me, leadership is about helping others win. It is as simple. So think about if you if you're in an individual contributor role what are you doing that amounts to leadership.
You be consistent with your own. outputs. If you're a software engineer, the code you write should be high quality.
You set an example for others to see what a good quality code looks like. You make sure you you have sufficient coverage for your code in terms of unit testing. So that's that's one way of looking at things. Now you take initiative.
There are hundreds of things that are available within your team or your organization. You show people that you're interested in doing things that not necessarily everybody is. Be consistent with your output. Again, it not be stressed, any less. Consistency is key.
That's what gets noticed. Share your knowledge. You learn a lot on your job. Outside of job, you learn from people as you coach others that automatically amounts to leadership. One.
One thing that gets really, really. It's very underrated. And I keep I post about it a lot on LinkedIn. That being easy to work with is is a very, very underrated skill. People, need to be easy to work with that. And I consider that as a leadership skill because your team, your management, everybody, if they find you easy to work with, you're going to go places.
One more thing I value a lot in people is when they say I'll do something by certain time, and they do it. So always say carefully, but when you say, do it. Now when it comes to people management, it's a favorite subject for me. When I took the management job, people managing my job, I asked myself, am I the manager I want to have? So everything that I did not like about my management style in my manager, I started to scale down in that. So ask yourself if you want to be the manager of people.
Would you like to have yourself as a manager and set those expectations for yourself? Make it about them. When your people are successful, you are successful. So I have seen Mandar why do people avoid people management? I have seen, you know, professional developers, especially, they want to be technology oriented, right? But they don't want to they want the tech lead So tech they want but the lead and the people, they are working with, they don't want to manage the people.
they they fear they will end up as managers. So is that true? It is true. I have I have so many people on my teams who never want to be people managers and and it's a choice. For me,
management, people management particularly is a skill in itself. Some people like it, some people don't like it and some people are willing to. Skills are about, you know, as you develop them.
Yeah. If if I have a software engineer who's technologically very strong and they are, you know, superhuman as far as I know, being software engineer, if I want to make them manager because they have so many years of experience and that's not their favorite or strong suit, you're setting them up for failure. So I do not necessarily encourage people to be managers because they have certain amount of experience. And I do not promote people just because they ask for it. So you need to develop skills before you get into people management because you're responsible for people's success, as much as yours.
So it's a very, thought out, decision. If you if you were to get into the management. So the, the reason people don't like it is they don't they don't want to deal with HR issues or people issues. And they feel writing software code is their best suit and that's what they do.
Hitting a career plateau is a challenge that many professionals face from time to time. So what is your guidance for them? If they feel stuck, what they should do, and how do they reignite the momentum and find new opportunities for growth in their career? Sure. So when we start out in our careers, we always look at some people and create our own. path this is what I want to do over the next 3 to 5 years, I want to be senior software engineer, I want to be an architect. I want to be a manager.
I want to be a VP What happens over the time is I think we lose the touch with our own goals and we achieve some of them, and we reach there. And we never thought. We never think about what's next. I think that's where we feel like we're stuck or our career has plateaued. What do I do now? So there's nothing wrong with that.
A lot of people go to that phase. Maybe they become complacent without realizing themselves. Absolutely. There's a lot of people who get into comfort zone.
I like what I do, so I'm going to stay doing or keep doing what I'm doing. And then there comes a time when things change and they feel trapped in what they're doing. So it's as simple as going back to basics. You started off your career with some plan. You wanted to do something, do the same thing.
Look at your next 3 to 5 years what you want to do. Is there any skill gaps that you need to plug? Technology changes so fast that if you. I know people, Kirti who have been just about. Net developer for 15 years or ten years, and now they realize they did not develop any other skill. And now they're in their 40s.
they're doing fine. they no way they are underperformers or anything, but they feel stuck. So I, I was having a conversation with one of the software engineers I know who has 20 years of experience, and he can develop a fantastic one, but never learn any other technology. I cannot call him a full stack developer.
So step back, zoom out a little bit and see you know where you are. You will see the gaps and plug those gaps. It is as simple as that. Think about what you want to do. Upskill yourself, learn new things, network and then see the opportunities you want to achieve. So go, go look for those opportunities you can knock So here's the thing.
Momentum and action is a very, very funny thing. I've read about it. So people always wait for motivation to kick in to take some action, but it's wrong. Motivation kicks in. You don't necessarily take action after that, but here's a guaranteed way of achieving motivation. You take an action.
Motivation kicks in. So it works nine out of ten times you do something and then the motivation kicks in. So think about what you want to do. Look at your options.
What? When you say I want to do something in the next 3 to 5 years. Look at what's available. What? What skill gaps you have. Plug those and start pursuing the opportunities that will get you out of your prior role. Correct Yeah. It's really unfortunate.
You know, if you are a good developer and you're good at your work, doesn't mean you have to keep on doing the same thing for years together. If you just focus on so many different functional skills that you can have, which will really make you relevant always. And it will give you the impetus to, you know, do better and better in so many other fields. And the more responsibility you handle, the more, capable you become. And I don't think you will feel stuck that way.
So that's a that's a great guidance Mandat, really appreciate. So for early career professionals in technology Mandar they obviously have lot of energy and they are go getters, but what are the pitfalls? They should look out for when they have a steep learning curve? And obviously they should be networking and follow mentorship strategies. So what is what is it that they should be doing to achieve lasting success? What people get trapped into is in getting to a focused learning. I always say this you join right out of college company and they put you on a project which uses Java and Oracle. Now you focus your energy in learning Java and Oracle.
That's that's absolutely necessary. Then the trap is you learn only Java and Oracle and you focus your energy on that. Never get out of it. So always avoid the trap of being being focused on learning only certain things.
Yeah. And languages become irrelevant so fast. I think you should, you should master the basics.
Yeah, absolutely. And be open to learning technologies. Be open to learning. That may not be necessary for your current job, because that is what is going to set you apart from others.
Second thing I advise the young folks is be an early adopter. The technology evolves every single day. You are going to be the first one to try everything that comes out in market. Be it AI, who thought about AI three years back, or five years back. So it's not that AI is going to replace the software engineers.
The software engineers who use the AI are going to replace the software engineers who don't. So, as an early adopter learn everything that is out there. You have time on your side. That's a great way of enhancing your career and setting yourself for success. The next one I, I feel everybody's good, including me.
I have been guilty of that as well. Never pretend to understand. People get into this. We are too shy. We are too shy or ashamed of saying, I don't understand. But what happens is I will give you an example.
A product manager comes and explains a problem that needs to be solved using software code, and a software engineer does not understand the problem and pretends he did, and then go and develop a solution. And it never meets the criteria. It is extremely detrimental for your success to pretend to know Never be ashamed to raise your hand and ask a question. Yeah. When in doubt
always ask Yeah. Yep. The next one I'm going to say again that it applies to everybody. We are we are too shy to ask for help.
It's crippling. People get crippled by not raising their hand and asking questions. Now, I'm not saying you be dependent and dump your work on somebody else. But when you are stuck and you have exhausted all the options. Your online help, everything. Go to an experienced person and ask for never be, never be shy of asking for help.
You know, never keep struggling, you know, because the earlier you ask for help, you are avoiding failures. Otherwise you're just setting yourself up for failure Because you are You are trying You think that you would be able to resolve this and time is very important. So you need to ask for help at the right time.
Absolutely. If you want to fail, fail early and then make headways like there What I'm seeing here is not anything new. Everybody has gone through this. So I'm just reiterating the things for people who are just getting started because nobody teaches you this You learned this on your own I did not ask for help last time. I better do that this time because yeah, it didn't end well for me.
So the next one that particularly software engineers I've seen underestimate is ability to communicate. They underestimate communication skills or soft skills a lot I understand not every single role has to interface with multiple people. But communication is not about talking to people.
Communication is about getting your point across. So even if you developed a fantastic software and are not able to guess what it does, it's not going to help. Never underestimate communication skills. Make sure what you do, you're able to write about it. You're able to talk about it. Yeah and it's not about language.
Don't get me wrong. As long as you're able to get your point across to the other person. That's about communication. Are you able to understand the problem statement? Are you able to express it in your own words? If you are able to express it in your own words? Obviously you have understood it. So communication is certainly the big.
So it's the key. Yeah. And the last one and the most important one. Network.
I came back to it, but here's the here's the worst thing about people's networking strategies. They go to people when they need something. And networking is exactly opposite of that. You go and talk to people and you don't need something from them. Talk to people who are outside of your league.
Just people you admire. What do you rate job in a next level. Go introduce yourself, everybody.
I've seen so many people who have no idea what the VP of their company. Who they are They never talk to them. I promise you, they're. They're human beings as we are.
And if you go and introduce yourself, tell them what you do. It is always easy They even appreciate that. So always look out for people who can guide you. Mentor you.
Teach you something. Observe them. Reach out to people who you look up to so ask the questions. Ask the challenges they face in their jobs and that's the best way of learning things. So, I'm going to just list out again.
Don't focus. Learning is a crap. Be early adopter of technologies. Ask questions. Don't pretend.
Ask for help. Sharpen your communication and network with people. So you are saying everyone should.
Even if you are just starting out in your career, it's good to have a mentor. The best thing about mentors is they have they tell you what you're good at and what you're capable of, and they push you to do those things. They help you understand things from different perspectives. So mentor, mentors are extremely important for the career growth.
For our viewers interests, would you like to talk about, your future project or any other key takeaways that we might want to, remember from this podcast? I'm going to summarize what we talked about. We talked about how to approach promotion, how to get out of a plateaued career, how to network, how to become a leader. Exactly. So here's a few things I wanted to summarize on Take control of your career.
Don't give the keys to somebody else. Make them your partners in your career growth. But you should be in the driver's seat. Do everything that you need to do to progress in your career.
We talked about that in the podcast. Here's one thing I learned is if you want to see the success it is, always beyond something that is hard or that sucks. So you have to get past that.
Hard choices get out of your comfort zone. Actually. Now third thing I will talk about is don't wait for motivation to kick in. Take action.
Motivation follows always. Never be. Never. Get trapped into focused learning trap.
Always be open to learning everything that you can. Keep looking for learning opportunities. Here's another one that is important for for being a leader. Help others win. That is how you're going to win and always the most important thing.
Always keep looking for enhancing your network do it strategically do it whatever way you feel appropriate, but keep expanding your professional network. That takes you really, really far in your career. So it has been really wonderful talking to you, Mandar, and I'm sure a lot of professionals will, take lot of, they will get the guidance from whatever we talked about today.
And I want to wish you all the very best for all your future endeavors. Thank you so much for joining us on Wai Involve Podcast It has been a pleasure. Mandar. Thank you very much.
2024-12-25 21:14
