Match Point
Written on 4:04 PM by Tushar
These days I drive to work which takes half an hour in each direction.Here's an interesting thought which originated during the commute.
Life is unfair. Opportunities you get are analogous to waiting times at a traffic signal. Everything depends on the timing! Sometimes you might have to wait for a long time till the queue built up in front of you clears up and there will be times when you are the first one to pass through. Relating this to the professional life, I see people with 6 years of experience who don't even have a US degree, managing a team working on cutting edge technologies. At the same time there are people with 10+ years of experience with a graduate degree from Stanford working under them. (I am not suggesting that becoming a manager is the nirvana of a software engineer. Replace the label "manager" with whatever you want to become or achieve in professional life.) You'll argue that a person's promotion (as an engineering manager in this discussion) does not solely depend on his/her technical skills or background. It is also a function of his people management skills (soft skills) and his desire to manage a team (there are people who want do a technical job forever). True. Agreed. Given all that I am trying to figure out what are the reasons behind a meteoric rise of an individual. Exclude "startup superstars" for now.Just as an exercise compare your manager with your director. Both of them might have almost similar profile/background/professional experiences . Both of them possess people management skills.In a place like silicon valley where every other person is technically sound (lets not argue about that. It's just a hypothesis) I think becoming successful very heavily depends on being at the right place at the right time!
I'd seen an excellent movie based on this idea called Match point directed by Woody Allen.Highly recommended.
Posted in
Matchpoint,
startup
Thats so true. Timing matters.. but above all i should know where do i want to "reach" on time..
yup timing matters, I have seen this happen myself!
btw..your new template is not rendering both the browsers I use, FF3 and Safari.
@Parag - This template has really given me a hard time and I still have to do a lot of work on it.I cannot believe that I have to spend this much time just to use it!
Climbing the escalator is not only a function of technical and managerial skills, its also depends heavily on person's interest. In most companies in the software field, you can choose to be where you are until you want to move on. I can choose to be on the technical side, coding, and not managing people / projects. It is somewhat unfair to allude to the lack of skills of the veteran Stanford fellow for being inferior to a much younger manager. People sometimes just don't want to be promoted to manage people or projects, and favor instead being on the technical side, and for varied reasons, like disinterest in doing so.
@AG - I think I had mentioned all your points in my blog already! By meteoric rise does not only mean becoming a people's manager. It can mean becoming a software architect (or which ever title you want to use for a higher level techi position). Given all that I still believe that timing matters in those situations too! That was the whole point of my blog. (which you seem to have missed;))
When I read it again now, it makes sense. And I agree being at the right place at the right time (which arguably and collectively could be called as luck) is one of the factors for being successful, for any definition of success :)
i liked the traffic signal queuing and clearing analogy .. i too see that often wrt number of years :)
gud gave u a stupid firing as usual but thats ok ;P
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Hmm.. true about the timing stuff!! One of exmaples comes from attrition rate in SW industry, where if the higher people in a project leave, and you are say even 1/1.5 years closer to their place, and if you can capitalize on this opportunity then you are moving up faster! The point is that in some projects/companies, its better to promote people inside rather than bringing in complete outsiders, and then some people can encash on this using their capabilities.
Btw Nice new look n feel of your blog!
Timing is one factor which can give jump start, But to Retain/survive or you can say to justify that position again people have to work hard. I mean whosoever who got success with such opportunity and are successful and going good, they have something that why they have survived :) else they cannot enjoy success for long.
So I think opportunity meet right/capable talent too :). But yes, getting quick opportunities is good luck.
i dont agree with the philosophy of right place and right time (although I wrote an entire GRE essay on this topic).
opportunities are always there and those who grab them rise up in the ladder. Maybe the Stanford guy didnt follow this simple principle and hence chose to be a loser.