Friday, May 6, 2011

Be an Entrepreneur - Do not suppress your career potential!

Over past 25 years of professional career, I have been interacting both with employees and entrepreneurs. Only this week while traveling from Lahore to Karachi, I was sitting with a young MBA who is working at a large FMCG company (www.engro.com) as an Assistant Brand Manager, a career job for the last nine years.

We started talking about career progress and role of employers. Generally speaking, a good employer with strong HR department provides a career map to its employee right at the beginning of their career. This young lad also had the same experience. He was happy that from research, he is moved to a more lively position that allows him to interact with a wider community and also involves substantial traveling. At this position, a small company maintained car and cell phone expense are also provided. Excellent deal, isn’t it?

My radical thought process started! No it is not a good deal, my thoughts pushed me further in the opposite direction………….

I am getting convinced that if an employer gives you a career map……. Your growth is almost pre-defined. Annual performance reviews and career meeting might help in couple of quick jumps on your salary scale, you are happy to visualize a decent career growth and position 10 years down the line without realizing that your mind has been locked to a certain path.

Okay, now compare working for others, with working for yourself as an entrepreneur. Looking at examples such as Richard Branson, Anita Roddick, Ray Kroc, Sir Alan Sugar etc, you will see that the freedom and the flexibility to progress for an entrepreneur is unimaginable!

Having said this, entrepreneurship is not a piece of cake like some may believe. This means no more 9-5 working, no more relaxed weekends. Because now you have different set of challenges, you are a manager, order taker, order filler, bookkeeper, shipping manager and customer service representative all in one, at least at the beginning of your entrepreneurial career.

But the pleasure is awesome! Now you are defining your own career path……….

7 comments:

Huzaifa Shabbir Hussain, Entrepreneurship Development;Accountancy Solution for Small Businesses said...

Nicely devised pool of thoughts :)

Afsheen said...

excellent article ,and very unique approach

Amna said...

dont you think that most of the people are happy that way?i mean following a career path,getting reasonable salary,career growth??isnt that what satisfies most of the employees?do people really care if their mind is locked by certain pre defined set of goals??
how many people really want to that extra thinking,push their limits,take the pain of thinking out of the box when they are extremly cosy and comfortable inside the box?
i dont actually defend this but unfirtunately that is how the mind works in case of majority, in my opinion!

Hizbullah said...

There is a great diversity in the human perception of satisfaction. Conventionally, a reasonable salary, career growth and a career path make employees satisfied. However the majority of new generation is not going to believe in this conventional approach and here Ammar's point makes a great sense.

Anonymous said...

System needs both workers and leaders/enterpreneur. Saying that I still believe that every human has its own capabilities, that should be discovered and use to it fullest.

Piscean said...

Sir I agree with how you think,but as a fellow commenter said not everybody wants supernormal growth, majority of people want certainty even if it means growing at slower pace and achieving normal results.Because it ensures a sense of security for me

So out of few billion people in the world,the few you mentioned are outliers

here is an interesting piece regarding planning life and my take on it
http://aamirwrites.blogspot.com/2011/03/aimsplans-and-surety.html

Adeel Ahmed's Blog said...

The article is very much thought provoking and helps establishing distinction among entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial personalities. However, I believe its not that one can chose to be "entrepreneur" - its a questions of either being entrepreneur or not being one.