The Dark Side – a reflection

As I approach the 2 year mark of crossing over to the dark side (a Star Wars reference, for those who are unfamiliar with this phrase), I can’t help but reflect on the journey so far. I’ve wondered frequently whether it was the right decision to make this move. I made it knowing full well that I wasn’t doing it because I was going to enjoy it, I was doing it because I had to. If I didn’t, I would drown. The verdict? It has been good in some respects but at this very moment, I see the negatives more than the positives.

I have always hated the corporate world. Maybe, hated is too strong an emotion. The better way to put it would be that I have never felt like I belong. I put off the “what I want to be when I grow up” decision for as long as I possibly could. I have always gone with the flow. I took the road my parents put me on, well into adulthood; all the way to USA to do my MBA. And then, I was on my own. I had to grow up! I had to do what grown ups do like make a living, pay rent, buy groceries, etc. That also meant, I had to get a job and enter the corporate world. And I did. I hated it but I did it anyway.

It’s been a while since I entered the corporate world and I am still “struggling” to find the right place for me. I studied IT but my first corporate venture took the joy of that world right out of me. While I was wallowing in my misery, my parents threw me a lifeline and pushed me to go for an MBA. Through some sort of divine intervention, I made it and came to the US to do my MBA with the goal to leave behind IT and get a fresh start in business / strategy. I had no idea what that really meant or what the struggle for that was going to look like. But I learnt soon enough.

During the job search for our internships, I tried for roles that were strategy oriented and got nothing. For fear of losing out and not having a job, I pivoted back to technical roles in IT and voila! I had 2 internship offers at fortune 500 companies. I realized that I could not just decide to switch lanes in my career at my whim. Though I interned in a technical role and came back full time in the IT organization, I struggled for 4 years to make the internal jump to Corporate Strategy. After finally making it there, I was pigeon-holed in a dead-end role of an IT administrator. I learnt the hard way that you need someone, a mentor or a sponsor, to actively believe in you and give you a chance at something different. Without that, you won’t make it. I was stuck in the vicious cycle – no job without experience and no experience without a job. After 5.5 years of struggling to find my way, the dark side came calling.

Those who know Star Wars, know that the dark side is enticing and all powerful but evil. At this point, I would highly recommend everyone watch John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight’s episode on McKinsey. It will make my reference easy to comprehend.

When the dark side came calling, without a doubt, I knew that if I let this opportunity go, it would be career suicide. I knew the reputation and the benefits of spending even a few years in this career even though there would be some serious negatives. But, in the long run, the benefits far outweigh the negatives. And so, I took the plunge.

First, let me give you my perspectives on the obvious – work-life balance. You hear some people say that its up to the practitioner to enforce work-life balance. That is just not true if you want to prove your mettle over everyone else in the firm and want to get somewhere within the firm as I want to. I have had to put aside the fact that I hate the corporate world to stay focused on making the best of my situation and do the best I can so that I stand out among my peers as I believe I deserve to. So, I have had to sacrifice work-life balance, to show up and be available when required. That means staying glued to my desk all day or glued to my work phone (even when on vacations) because I may be needed or just stay up to date for when I will be back. In fact, on one occasion, one of my mentors actually asked me, “are you sure they won’t just replace you when you leave for PTO?” How is that reassuring me to disconnect and take a vacation? Is that what you call work-life balance? Its a myth.

Now, lets talk about that all important performance metric – utilization. You work like dogs for hours but utilization is provided only for the hours you can actually bill to a client which never matches the actual number of hours you work. God forbid, if you are on the bench (between projects) for even a week, that metric falls so hard that it takes weeks of client projects to catch back up. There may be some respite in years when the firm’s overall business was down so practitioners are given a pass overall but meeting the target for your level still gives you that edge over others. So, once again, if you want to give it your all, you still live with the pressure of meeting the targets.

While you have the all important client work pressures, you must not forget that you also have to do your best to contribute to the firm itself. If you do good client work but do not help the firm grow in anyway, are you really committed? Apparently not. The best performers are judged based on the stellar client work on top of significant / noteworthy contributions to the firm’s business, its assets and its people. Consider that in the context of work-life balance.

If all the stuff I just mentioned wasn’t enough, there is networking and relationship management. Let me explain the criticality of this particular aspect.

A partner I met at the firm once explained to me that consulting is an apprenticeship model. There is a master who then has one or more apprentices. Each practitioner at the firm spends years gaining experience and mastering a craft. They then must take on apprentices to teach them the craft so that it carries on generation after another because consulting is after all, a people business and a business of craft. Through this model, over time, each partner builds a followership. Partners rely on this followership to service clients taking their followership from one engagement to another due to the level of trust built among them by a common set of working principles. The apprentices too benefit from a close relationship of trust as they believe that their leader will not lead them down the wrong path and will help them grow in their own careers. This explanation stuck with me. I appreciated his explanation and teachings as it broke this whole business down into simple terms for me to understand and start to imbibe.

I had always known but began to realize even more strongly that I needed to find that master who I could be an apprentice to. I was lucky enough to find one such person very early on – CM. Within a couple of months of working with him, I knew he was the leader I could follow to the end of time. Though he is dynamic in his interactions with clients and other leaders in the firm and he is great at what he does (he has this amazing ability to remember tiniest of details without ever writing anything down that amazes me to no end), the quality that I admire most in him is his care for his team. When I was new to the firm, he would frequently ask how I was doing. He offered help and time for me to assimilate and adjust. He trusted me enough to leave me alone with clients within a few interactions. He protected the team from client blow ups and stood up for the team in heated arguments. I may be biased but I am yet to find a flaw in him. So yes, I am definitely his apprentice for life.

As consulting is a business of network, I pushed myself to grow my network in the initial few months. While I did meet a few people, as I had expected, these were not meaningful relationships. They were one-off introductory calls which were of no use when the actual goal is to find projects, particularly if you are staffed on a long term project currently. Anyway, then I met JM. This relationship quickly turned into probably the most significant relationship of my career. Very quickly, he became my mentor and my sponsor. I had never had such a relationship before. Eventually, I became his apprentice too. This was a very different relationship from that with CM. In this relationship, there are 2 added complexities – one is that he is my practice lead, which means he trumps pretty much all the leaders I hope to work with at the firm and two, he is a bong which automatically builds a sort of personal connection that I must always be mindful of never exploiting or letting others believe that I could exploit. JM pushed me (rightfully so) to consider branching out from under CM’s shadow and build similar relationships with other leaders as a relationship diversification measure.

During one of my client projects, surprisingly, without any effort, I ended up building quite a strong relationship with KG. His warm and jovial nature gave me a friend I could talk to and joke around with when needed and also talk about my insecurities. I missed that after the project I completed with CM where I had built a small community of friends. In this business, if you don’t follow the same team from project to project, you have to rebuild your support system with a new team every time. For a person like me, that is exhausting. KG helps me in this regard. He has kept in touch and though he is senior, he never treats me like I’m a junior. And for that, I am forever an apprentice to KG.

One of the leaders in the firm JM pushed me towards was BA, someone JM has mentored for many many years. I tried, unsuccessfully, at first. Eventually, my time came. I got to work with BA in a project. Throughout my time here, I have heard lots of stories and good things about BA so I had built him up in my mind as a big persona. Due to this, I was very nervous when the opportunity to work with him came about. It was a 3 month project and I took on a lot of pressure to live up to his expectations. Not only did I fail to make a good impression, in my mind, he didn’t live up to the position I had built up for him in my mind either. It is for that reason, I do not consider myself his apprentice, at least not yet.

This week, I have been caught in a relationship mess between JM and BA. As my mentor, I talk with JM regularly. I mentioned to him my general unhappiness about my current role (the role under BA’s leadership). JM has been a strong advocate for me and has been a strong supporter of my push to try for a promotion next year. He approached me for another project which has a stronger role for me and asked me to choose (refer to the first complexity in my relationship with JM – he is my practice lead and is actually in a position to make things happen for me). My current role with BA isn’t done but the responsibilities in the upcoming phase is unclear so JM was giving me an out. This new role would be with JM and KG, my comfort zone. But it did not feel right to leave BA mid-project. JM asked me to talk to BA. When I talked to BA, he blew up at me. He quickly recognized that JM could come up to me with a new role only because I had complained about my current role. His point (which is a fair point) is that I should never have told the practice lead about my unhappiness. I should have gone to him directly. I couldn’t explain to him that I wasn’t complaining to my practice lead. I was only speaking to JM as my mentor. Ultimately, BA said he would sort this out with JM.

Now, JM is not happy with me because I didn’t stand up to BA and take a position on which role I want more. In the short run, BA may be pacified because I chose to stay on his project but I can’t help but think that he will forever think I am going behind his back to JM and that I will always be JM’s follower, not his which means he will not trust me again. I still don’t know the outcome of this mess but this whole thing has left a sour taste in me. Not only do I have to concentrate on the pressures of performing to high expectations but now, I am also expected to manage such fragile relationships. After all, this is expected from every practitioner if they wanted to reach the status of Partner. Makes me wonder, do I want that for myself?

All this to say that as I reflect on this career move, while it is a great move in terms of learning and broadening my horizons, personally, its been a mental tsunami for me. I am constantly mentally tired. I have retreated into my shell even more (if that is even possible). I do not want to talk to others and socialize when I’m not working because I just want to be left alone for some peace and quiet. My poor dogs get a tired version of me who doesn’t have the energy or will do go for longer walks or spend time with them in our lovely backyard. I have not even had the energy to write, the one thing in this life that gives me actual joy. I was pushing myself towards the goal of a promotion so I could distract myself from all the mental fatigue of the job. But now, I wonder, if thats even worth it. If I don’t focus on something, I will fall apart. It’s a dangerous territory because if not this, then what? Where can I go so that I am finally happy with my work? This goes back to a topic of conversation I often have with Tim, my closest work-friend, we still don’t know what we want to be when we grow up!