The fact that you got a degree does not guarantee you a job, and a job will not guarantee you success and a coherent career. You will struggle to unlearn everything you learnt in school and college and wander through the formative years trying to learn newthings and get smart. However, everyone else is also doing the same and you are stuck in the rat race. Here, the author Sumit D Chowdhury, shows how to accelerate your career in today’s competitive world. The key is to manage your career as if it were a game.
You start with some rules of this game and as you learn and excel, you will discover new rules and invent other rules to differentiate yourself. Fast trackers present themselves well. They build their professional networks. They lead whenever an opportunity presents itself. They invest in themselves. Like any professional sports person, they incorporate uncertainty and volatility into their work and continuously plan and re-plan to their advantage. This book is not a success mantra. It is aimed to get you to contemplate. It is meant to create an awareness about yourself that will help you discover those particular nuances that could help shape your life. It is designed to give you a head start in your professional life by helping you understand how to orchestrate your own path.
The interviews of CEOs alongside, are portals through which you could perceive how the masters of the game learnt the rules and diligently practiced them as early as they could, to make their careers a resonating success.The Rules of the Game empowers you to have an enjoyable career journey without trudging through life fearing change, failures, politics and uncertainty.
Once you get a chance to read the book, you get to:
• Transform your thinking to become personally responsible for your career
• Take control over your actions, reactions and thinking processes in each and every interaction in life
• Craft a deliberately impactful career instead of wandering and being accidentally impactful
• Develop teamwork, network and leadership skills effortlessly
• Improve your empathy, etiquette and communication skills
• Develop a way to achieve long term goals through short term milestones
• Learn to learn, unlearn, fail, acknowledge, invest, and transform yourself continuously
• Read how ordinary beginnings can also lead to extraordinarily successful careernt for titles, paragraphs & more.
Dipak C Jain, Dean Kellogs
"Today’s education system offers students a structured program focused on gaining skills that are economically relevant. There is value to this approach, certainly. Yet, this academic experience rarely prepares a person for leadership roles. Most schools do not teach the ‘rules of the game’, knowledge that can help you rise to positions of leadership and impact more quickly within an organization.
Sumit Chowdhury’s book aims to help by offering a framework for greater self-
reflection and professional success."
Shashi Tharoor, MP
"Lucid and accessible, Dr. Sumit Chowdhury's book is a must-read for young working people to boost their self-awareness. It helps you to realise the wisdom that you are the creator, keeper, and beneficiary of your own success. The book pulls together striking anecdotal insights into strategies, characteristics, and principles that have helped some of India's current business leaders in building successful careers. Chowdhury urges his readers to be entrepreneurial in understanding themselves, and gives them a valuable toolkit for achieving success in their careers."
Nitin Paranjpe, Unilever
"While the title 'Rules of the Game' suggests a very prescriptive approach, it is anything but that. It simply provides a perspective to allow people to figure out what works for them, as they chart out their careers. A good book for transitioning from an academic to corporate life."
Roopa Kudva, CEO of CRISILtalks about how she spent the first 15 years of her life just doing a great job and not worried about career at all. However, a chance opportunity to work on anassignment in Paris opened her mind to the numerous possibilities and how she systematically captured those to reach the current role. She worked on her self-confidence, communication skills, read biographies and created a life where there was no need for discussing work-lifebalance. It was already there. In her own words, “What differentiates me is my ability to strip a problem to its bare basics... and see the big picture from outside-in”. A very inspiring interview with Roopa is included atthe end of Chapter 7.
Vinita Bali, MD of Britannia, talks about how being able to enjoy your work, makes it a game and creates an opportunity to create an impact. She has captured many unconventional career opportunities across the world but not accepting the status-quo and taking decisions filled with curiosity, adventure and exploration. Her interests spanning across art, music, dance, theatre clearly shows how she can engage in multiple conversations, making her a great approachable leader. In her own words, “It is not about how you need to balance your work and yourlife. It is about how your work is part of your life and how it seamlessly fits into everything else you do”.Her amazing interview included at the end of Chapter 8.
Naina Lal Kidwai, Country Head of HSBC, clearly articulates how she knew her place in history very early on in life and went ahead to achieve what she was destined to do. A very clear mind that knew exactly what she wanted but not blinded enough to miss opportunities that presented themselves. Herinterview talks about many examples of eventsin her life that transformed her and her ideas about teamwork, leadership, communications, and how discussing her ambitions with the right people made her successful. In her own words, “..firstly do not take yourself too seriously –have fun and secondly don’t take to heart every negative comment you receive but learn to balance the good and the bad.” Read thedetailed interview at the end of Chapter-9.
Chandra Sripada, Head HR of Dr Reddy’s Lab and previously with IBM India, talks about how life does not come with any intrinsic meaning. You have to provide the meaning to your lifeand therefore how you should take charge of your career without expecting others to provide meaning to it. He talks about how you should network and contribute back to it and howpersonal brand building and leadership will help you develop into a great person. In his own words, “You have to see goodwill in the world to get goodwill back.”Read thedetailed interview at the end of Chapter-10.
Prasoon Joshi, Chairman, McCann Worldgroup and one of the most profound orators had very insightful moments including his contrarian advice on not reading self-help books. The logic of his conversation