Money and Career Decisions

I have seen many societies in the world that talk of money not being important in many of the decisions they make in life.  Yet, most of the decisions taken revolve around money in most societies.  Till the turn of the 20th Century, money was seen as a need but values such as honesty, integrity, generosity, etc. took precedence.  Not that we do not have these values now but we need to recognize that society has changed. What were luxuries are now necessities.  And to ensure that these necessities can be afforded, one needs money.

I see many people struggling when they talk of making job changes where compensation is their driver for a change in career.  This is more in the Baby Boomers Generation and to a large extent in Gen X.  Gen Y and the latest Web 2.0 generation also struggle but to a much lesser extent. 

I see leaders struggle because they have been talking of making career decisions based on role and not on money.  To me, it is a combination of factors.  Career decisions get taken mainly on the circumstances of one's personal life and many factors go in to this decision.  Factors could include a poor role, lack of clarity in the role, poor manager or leader, family circumstances not conducive, need for more money, etc.  Usually, these career decisions are not taken because of only one factor. There will be many and if you draw a common thread, money will figure in almost all of them.

I have seen staff working with me struggle to explain to me the money factor.  To make things easy, I normally get the money factor in to the conversation and tell them how important compensation is while making a decision and that people should not feel ashamed if that is the driving reason.  Once I make this premise clear, I have seen many people change their discussion and tell me how much their personal circumstances have changed and how the extra money is essential given their new and changed circumstances.  They are more willing to share as to how this new role in another company is able to meet their role aspirations and the increased monetary needs.

Why do I do this?  The mental stress that one goes through while planning to leave a job is enormous.  It is  not understood well at all.  This stress causes health issues, results in loss of focus at work, causes break down in communication and brings with it irritability and anger.  You always get the best out of a person when he/she is relaxed.  I bring in the money factor early in to the conversation so that the person does not have to struggle while talking to me. 

I would like to share an example of a very senior person who decided to move out of my team.  He had an excellent offer and had been making few trips out of town to finalise the offer.  He had been lying to me for weeks as to why he was applying for leave few times in short succession.  He hated himself for lying to me.  He was under stress. When I met him one day, I saw that his face was drawn, he was not looking me in the eye and he seemed very pre-occupied.  I walked up to him and asked him what happened. He told me how his personal circumstances at home were not great and he was under stress.  After few days he walked up to me and said that he wanted to resign. That he had a nice job.  He even pulled out his offer letter and showed it to me.  He explained at length as to how the role was just amazing and that he could not hope to get such a role if he stayed with me.  I quickly interjected and told him that the compensation was also great and that I could never match that.  When he started telling me it was not the driver, I told him that it is very important in the course of decision making. That there is nothing to feel ashamed about it.  Immediately, things changed. The pressure on his face just disappeared.  He talked at length and was much more relaxed.  We decided that it was best to part ways and happily so.

To me money is a commodity that is necessary to live today.  All questions such as "Does money buy happiness?", etc. while being relevant, need to be weighed carefully in the world that we live in today.  Money is a necessity and it is good to ensure that we earn enough of it so that we can meet our daily needs as well as save something for the rainy days and retirement.  Let us not treat it with disrespect or feel ashamed to talk of the need for money in our lives.  Again, our forefathers were smart in this. They created Goddess Lakshmi - The Goddess of Wealth. I believe that Goddess Lakshmi was created so that people respect wealth.  Let us treat money with respect.  If we can do this Goddess Lakshmi will visit us and stay with us at home.