Start your own November 25, 2005

David Thomas will turn 40 on Friday. He is smart, competent and devoted to his organisation. A graduate from one of the Indian Institutes of Technology, he went on to get an MBA from one of the best management schools before starting his career with a leading Indian company. Somewhere during his career, he felt that he should be working for a multinational company, partly because of the lure of higher compensation, but also he was succumbing to the pervasive Indian mindset that working for an MNC is the more prestigious thing to do. Sometimes an aunt or an uncle does not quite know the name of the company you work for, nor can they explain what you do. Yet, just the smug words ‘works in an MNC’ conveys that you are doing alright. That was then.Today, as he looks at the next 20 years of his life, David feels deeply troubled. He feels that he has levelled out. The work that he performed so well just a few years ago is no longer as consequential to the organisation. There is something in the air that tells him that his career is festooned with autumn colours. Too many organisational changes confuse him. How can he create a long-term career plan for himself ? How will he get that plan nested in the larger landscape of the huge organisation? Something in him tells him to be bitter with the system for his present situation. At the same time, he knows that bitterness is not going to solve anything. He is at crossroads. A simple change of jobs will not magically take him back to the time when he was 23 and his next 20 years looked inviting. What can David Thomas do today?He has an option. Unfortunately, no one is telling him about it. That option is to start his own, to become an entrepreneur. Here is why: Entrepreneurs create jobs. Jobs provide people with livelihoods. Without a livelihood, everyone feels lost. Given a good livelihood, we all feel secure and able to raise families; we have the comfort of exploring higher callings; we are able to provide emotional security to people around us.There is an estimated 6.5 billion people on earth. Out of these, a third live right here in India and China. In the Indian sub-continent alone, there are 450 million children below the age of 15 who will need to join the workforce very soon. It is neither for the government, nor for large businesses to create avenues for employment and growth for these people. It can only be done by entrepreneurs.Entrepreneurs drive innovation. Seldom does innovation come from very large, very established players. The reason is simple. Innovation disrupts the established way of doing things. Large, profitable organisations frown at disruptions of any kind. For innovative people like David Thomas, it is sometimes easier to start something ground-up than trying to change the existing behemoth.Entrepreneurs create great wealth not just for themselves, but for others as well. They also use the power of wealth, sometimes, to build sustained legacy for society at large. Behind the educational system of the US is a huge amount of personal wealth donated by entrepreneurs. Without their support, some of the greatest initiatives to protect heritage, arts and literature and the environment would be difficult.Entrepreneurship can be deeply rewarding. The richness of experience and sheer self-confidence you get by starting a small shop is sometimes larger than running a huge department for an established entity. This is because entrepreneurship is the most handson thing you will ever do. Nothing about entrepreneurship is a spectator sport. Many things in a well-paid job in a large organisation could well be. Entrepreneurship is a creative process. When done successfully, it can give you the highest sense of accomplishment possible. That sense of accomplishment is next only to delivering and raising your baby.Finally, the world has become an entrepreneur-friendly place like never before. No government in the world says, “We do not like entrepreneurs.’’ Funding for new ventures is becoming increasingly cross-border. Also, today, more resources are chasing fewer ideas, rather than the other way round.Well then, David Thomas, probably the time has come to shed your sense of being at crossroads. Consider breaking free to start on your own. It could well bring back the sheer feeling of exhilaration when your first appointment letter was delivered in your youthful hands, a good 17 years back! Source : http://digvijayankoti.blogspot.in/2009/04/subroto-bagchi-speaks-all-articles-by.html