Professionally being in Quadrant IV

In my previous blog dated 15 August 2012, Professional Life, Where do you Stand? I introduced a simple Quadrant Tool to find your position in professional life. Following was the mentioned simple Quadrant.

One needed to assess him/herself on two scales i.e. Passion about what he/she is doing and his/her ability to do that certain work.  Scoring was done with 1 as least and 5 as the highest score for each category. Based upon this scoring one would be located in one of the quadrants shown in figure.

We have already discussed Quadrant I known as quadrant of Satisfied people and Quadrant III of struggling people. Today we'll discuss the Quadrant IV which is labeled as of Incompetent. 

It is easiest to understand but very difficult to diagnose & figure out. No one would like to call him/her incompetent and that is true. No one is incompetent but the most important issue for this tool is to make assessment against the work being done at the moment. You might landed in type of work you are currently doing due to one or another reason. You might have also developed some skills and passion for it. If this passion is natural or you developed it to limits above score of 2.6 with ability still below 2.5, you'll be in Quadrant IV.

People in this quadrant might be under great stress, much more than those in quadrant I of struggling people. People in Quadrant I are struggling both with ability and passion but they have less degree of frustration because they also don't have enough passion for the said work. However those in Quadrant IV have enough of passion but can not perform the job and this creates a lot of anxiety, stress and frustration.

There are two ways to get rid of this problem. The first one is to develop passion for something you are able to do, which seems less practical. The other way is to develop the skills in the work you are doing with great passion. Now-a-days as lot and lot of skills building tools are available like online learning the two most important issues are about selection of appropriate tool and devotion of time.

You must invest a good amount of time and may be financial resources also to find the most appropriate skill building forum. There are many free but in actual there is no free lunch. Quality level training and development needs financial investment to some degree. You must also be patient while developing your skill and follow the learning curve without trying to jump over to few stairs up in one go. This seems appropriate if you are experienced in the field you are studying but it will for sure leave some connections in the chain weaker. A chain is as much strong as its weakest link is!

In summary if you have passion for the work you are doing but lack the ability then you and your work both deserves improvement. Choose from simplest doable tools like free reading stuff, listening to gurus of your profession at Youtube, reading books, attending seminars and webinars and finally attending the paid on campus or online courses. If you find a master who is willing to teach also then you can also learn a lot but don't forget no matter what you learn you have to validate it through a certificate or diploma. There are only few professional branches in which you can move up based upon your work but that movement is also limited. CEO of Yahoo,  Scott Thompson was able to move to top but his work could not keep him there as he could not validate his skills through a legitimate source.

Struggling in Quadrant III, Its Common!

Going back to our model of assessment of ones professional life we must note that the scoring is done for what you are currently doing. WAP tool introduced in one of previous blogs allows one to assess his/her condition about what is being done and what is wanted. However in later blog a tool was introduced to let you assess where do you currently stand? Those who used this tool, must have found themselves in one of the four quadrants as shown below when scoring for passion and ability is done for their current work.

Quadrant I of Satisfied people was discussed in last blog. I was planning to discuss Quadrant IV today. However with the feed back I received, I was asked to explain Quadrant III. Those who found themselves in this Quadrant labeled as Struggling should not feel bad. 

Most of the people on this planet are expected to be in this Quadrant. You would be in there when you lack passion and even ability to perform your current work. The most important two reasons behind this could be, i. either you were forced to choose what you are doing, or ii. you started and then developed limited ability and limited passion and got stuck in this Quadrant.

Now the question is what one should do to improve the situation or get rid of this position. We found that people in this block lacked ability and also passion for their work. The first and most important step they should take is to re-assess their aptitude. It might be true that you have developed limited ability and limited passion for your work but you need to re-assess seriously. If this re-assessment shows that you want to pursue the existing work either you feel you may make it a passionate work for you or you may excel in it, then either through working hard on ability you move to Quadrant I or falling passionate for it would lead you to Quadrant IV. If you improve on both, you'll be in Quadrant II.

On the other hand if this re-assessment concludes that you are not interested in developing your ability or passion for the work you are currently doing, then you must go back to WAP  tool.  It would give you the other choices available with an idea about your degree of passion and ability.

Once you are done with this step, you may see a range of new options. Considering those options and working on them one can gradually move out of this quadrant.

Note: For those readers who expect that a quick fix is available or only reading can help, I am sorry to say, they would be disappointed. Please use the tools introduced and you'll feel the gradual improvement.

If you are in Quadrant I

Those of you who took time to read the previous blog Professional Life, Where do you Stand? might have been able to locate themselves in one of the four quarters mentioned in that block. The only exception could be if you locate your ability and passion at 2.5 score then things could be weird.

In this blog I'll explain the situation when you lie in first quarter. In order to be in this quarter your score (on scale of 1-5) should be between 2.6-5.0 for ability and between 1.1-2.4 for passion. 

As one can see that in this case the ability is in upper half of score line while passion is in the lower one. This situation arises in cases where someone has to take up a career due to one reason or another and then develop ability to do work with success. This could be due to family pressure, unavailability of other opportunities or availability of good chances to move up in a certain profession making it a priority. 

However if the said person does not have or has low level of passion for this profession, he/she would be in the first quarter. I consider this quarter as quarter of 'satisfied' people. They are in general satisfied with their work mainly due to their developed ability to do it and related financial gains. They are satisfied also due to fear of loosing in any other field as they consider themselves able only in that certain profession.

However for those who have been honest with their evaluation and consider that although they are able but they don't have the passion for their current profession, this quarter is of no good. They need to move horizontally from their position. Their ability to do their current job is an advantage as well as a disadvantage. It is advantage in a sense that it provides self confidence to them that they are able. It is a disadvantage as it puts their brains working and behaving in a certain way. They are unable to think of new ways to handle things.

If they really want to do things they have passion for, I would suggest them an hybrid transfer model. In this model they should change their field of profession to the one for which they share passion, but with care and time. They should start investing time and resources to make their place in profession of their passion. For a mid level executive or professional this transit period may vary from one to three years. During this time one may start working in profession of choice starting with 20% shift to maximum possible which in ideal case is 100%. However even if 100% is not achievable due to any condition especially financial constraint, any move or work in profession of one's passion would move him/her to condition of peace which is second quarter of our model. 

Simplest Personal Development Tool - WAP

A great difference exists between USA and other countries on the planet. No matter you like the country or you hate its governments, one has to admit that something is really different up there.  This something has transformed USA in to worlds' (considering its superiority in space program more than one world is a valid case) super power. In addition to natural resources, military power and a culture of spending time and effort, the single most important difference exists in style of children raising.

In most of the world including Europe it is very common to ask a small child what will you become when grown up? based upon exact location parents expect answers as Engineer, Doctor, Bureaucrat and to some degree Musician, Writer. In the original USA style the question and answer both are different. The question asked to child (if asked) is what will you do when grown up? Therefore even if the person holds a super ordinary job, he is proud of it as he/she is doing something not just holding a profession.

Try putting the question 'What does Google do?' to someone on street. The probable answer would be 'it is a search engine' or at best 'it helps to make search'. The second answer seems to be true but try putting this question to google itself and the answer would be  'Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information. Google primarily generates revenue by delivering relevant, cost-effective online advertising.' 

See the difference, the success of google lies in the fact that they know exactly what they do or should be doing. Unfortunately most of us never find answer to this simple question. Guy Kawasaki in his lecture 12 lessons I learnt from Steve Jobs, said that while being interviewed for your ideas by investors you must tell what on hell you do in first 30 seconds. Agreed, but I would like to take the idea to self development case.

I would suggest using the simple tool I call WAP, i.e. What you do, What you are Able to do and What is your Passion? (What do, Able to do, Passion to do). The system works in very simple manner. Take an A4 page and put the questions as following.

Now try to fill the Current Situation Column. This might be not what  you wanted but you are following or you had to follow. Later fill the column Wish Situation and note the difference. Please share if you had same answers for both, little different or too different.

In my next blog I would be discussing how this tool can be used to make your life easier and for switching to the condition where you are doing with ability what you have the passion for.