Your value as a member of a community will be a measure of your success | Education News,The Indian Express

Nigam Nuggehalli writes, “Schools and universities have a set of goals identified for you already: ace exams, win debates, write prize winning essays. You develop a personal plan for it based on your interests and motivations. Except that in the real world you almost never pursue individual goals”

My dear students,

Your student life leads to a paradox. You are conditioned to succeed individually. You achieve your goals by focussing on yourself. You decide what your goals are; you decide how you will go about achieving your goals; and you decide how much you will push yourself. When you come to think of it, this is not something very complicated. Schools and universities have a set of goals identified for you already: ace exams, win debates, write prize winning essays, etc. You decide which of these goals works for you and then you develop a personal plan for it based on your interests and motivations. All good so far, except that in the real world you almost never pursue individual goals.

In real life, you are faced with a different problem requiring a different set of skills: how to succeed collectively. By collective success, I mean that your life flourishes if the team you are in flourishes. Being a grown up means being part of a team with responsibilities: a mother, an office colleague, a member of the resident welfare association, a cricket team; the possibilities are endless.

When you start working, you will have a different set of decisions to make. You will need to figure out what you can do for your team, not yourself. This is not because the world rewards altruism but because the world is wired in a way that the precondition for your success is the success of the team of which you are a member.

Members of an orchestra succeed when the orchestra performs well in unison. The conductor and the players work with each other to produce an ensemble production that, if done well, enhances the success of everyone working on the production. The contribution you need to make to the team will not always be clear and it will be your job to chart your vision for your team. To realise what your team needs, you will need some understanding of your team members and some appreciation of the larger organisation and ecosystem in which your team is operating.

https://indianexpress.com/article/education/your-value-as-a-member-of-a-community-will-be-a-measure-of-your-success-8225228/


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Updated: 1 year ago
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