Horizontal growth is building a career path which is across multiple functions (like Engineering, Project Management, Sales, Finance) as opposed to spending majority of your professional life in a single function doing monotonous job. I feel people in India are more inclined towards vertical growth prospects and feel insecure when given an option for horizontal growth.
People feel insecure about moving from one function to another (for horizontal growth) because it involves learning new things, it kicks you out of your comfort zone, makes you build relationship with new people, exposes you to re-evaluation, fear of not performing well in your new role and the fear of losing what you have learned in your last function. Non performers who are just holding on to their current positions because of seniority or political edge or favouritism are generally averse to horizontal growth.
Horizontal growth doesn’t always have to do with changing your current role; you can always pickup responsibilities outside your current function while still owning the existing role (like being an engineering and doing project management, being an account manager but spending 2 days a week on new sales, being a project manager and technical architect, owning both HR and organization process).
Being in the same function is fine as long as you are not becoming monotonous, for example being a project manager for a 10 member team is different from managing a 50 member team, managing a SME (small and medium enterprise) customer is different from managing a large enterprise customer, doing a scrum based project is different from waterfall. All of these are different forms of project management and adds to your learning.
But certain times there is only so much an organization can do for an individual’s growth, organization may not have an enterprise account to offer or your boss may not have plans to resign/retire so you can take his position J or top management doesn’t want to restructure things or there may be too many people competing for a single role or you may feel that you have learned a lot in a particular field (like project management), in these cases I would recommend you consider horizontal growth as an option.
It is natural to get worried as to how the world will treat you after this change or how a company would view your profile when you want to switch jobs but trust me instead of doing monotonous work and not being able to learn/grow, you are always better off changing role and learning something new and hope that whatever you are learning will all come together one day for your own benefit and bring exponential growth.
Nice one, there is also a point, which I think as most imperative why most of the people doesn't move to a different horizontal - fame that they procured on their existing role, they need to rip that off when they move to a different horizontal - this action needs lot of guts.
ReplyDeleteVery pertinent thoughts Vinod...Leaving project management for Marketing was not easy. Photon(EF) did give me exposure to a shade of sales in addition to operations. That's the good thing about small companies...you are not branded stereotype.Instead you get to play versatile roles as when you want!! My desire to get into a large corporation now is totally gone. The funny thing is I started my career @ Infy!! Tis like preferring to be Kamal than Vijay in the industry..BUT BUT for someone wishing to start up, it is always better to be a linchpin at something, say database programming or Social Media Marketing or whatever with a reasonably decent exposure to Marketing, Sales , HR,etc. atleast until they are funded enough to have specialists...Thoughts??
ReplyDelete@ Ganesh, I think it is important that you are passionate about what you are currently doing. I would kick all fame and glory out if I discover that my work is not exciting any more and having exhausted all available options to inspire myself in that job, decide to move on.
ReplyDeleteYes, money perhaps may be hard to come by at first , but ultimately doing something that you are not passionate about will NEVER make you rich!
@ Kumar, absolutely. If you are planning to start up one day the horizontal growth you have had would definitely come handy, it gives a good perspective of how things are done in an organization thus increasing your confidence level to start something on your own.
ReplyDelete@ Vinod : Good one...very few people think on these lines. what all it matters to people is how to climb the ladder which is always crowded at the bottom. After some years, they becomes slaves of themselves refusing to come out of the shell. One of the best ways to break this monotony is "Study More". Keep studying....expose yourself to all streams from engg. to sales. You will never know when you will get fascinated to try something new !!!! all it takes is passion .........
ReplyDeleteProbably this is one of the best article about self enhancement i would say. The thoughts were apposite and to the point.This article created kind of vibes in me to achieve something in life.Probably this is the secret of success of all famous personalities in and around the world.(i.e not only in job rather in other fields they extend their roots of performance). It is not so easy for every one but i feel every one should cultivate this kind of mind-set to reach the greater heights in their life... Finally to say "SELF ENHANCEMENT" is a linchpin to one's success in life.
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