Anatomy of a brave decision

When you look back at your life, you see the pieces of puzzle come together - Steve Jobs said at Stanford commencement.

In retrospect everything looks simple and straightforward.

Often in life we need to make decisions and choices that are life changing and determine our future course of life. The hard choices are the ones when they are between two seemingly equally good ones, or equally bad ones.

The more preferable situation is when the choice is between two equally good ones, because whatever the decision, the future holds a promise to be better than the present. The decision making is hard because it has broader life implications and comes with the fear of losing out on the other good option.
I have been lucky enough to be in such a situation recently. Having made the decision I now look back and want to pencil the process of making that decision and some learnings from the experience.

Having spent four years in one role, I was beginning to feel a bit stuck and stagnated. Working for a very progressive company and a supportive manager, I had shared these concerns and was presented an opportunity to take on a global role and relocate internationally. This was a promotion within the same organization, a natural career progression, managing a bigger team, global responsibility and known people, products and processes. The international relocation with young children was exciting as it would present an opportunity to explore a new continent, culture and people just like what we experienced five years ago when we moved from India to Singapore. This would be a dream come true to be a global marketer and to eventually be a worldwide CMO. The perks of living in Scandinavia - the happiest region with the best work-life balance in the world and so on. It seemed like a straightforward decision until another opportunity presented itself.

The other opportunity came up suddenly and it was to join a leading regional bank undergoing a massive transformation under a visionary leadership team to lead the charge on modern age banking using technology. This opportunity would allow me to disrupt myself completely, be a part of this digital transformation, learn the latest and greatest in marketing technology and bring a fresh tech perspective to this transformation. This would also allow me and the family to continue to stay in Singapore/Asia, where the economic action and growth is with its warm tropical weather. A known culture and country which is the safest and cleanest in the world.

So the dilemma here was:
[Option 1] Promotion, bigger leadership responsibility, excitement of a new location, comfort of same organization and known people.
vs.
[Option 2] : Excitement of new domain, comfort of same location, new age functional learning, lot of unknowns of the new organization.

This was a tough decision and here is how I reached a conclusion:

1. Make a push-pull-stay list: List down all the factors that are pushing you out of your current situation, the factors that are pulling you to the new option and the factors that would make you stay at status quo.
2. Speak to mentors, friends, family: I called up at least half a dozen people who I trust and have been my mentors. My mentors did not give me the decision, but challenged my thinking and gave me fresh perspectives on both the options. A lot of times we tend to make decisions on our own, but getting trustworthy perspective really helps.
3. Make a list of what matters: This is really important because in each of the decisions there will be parameters that might matter to more - for example, for me a huge factor was the cultural aspect of working in an organisation. I value autonomy, transparency and accountability more than anything else in the work environment. Family mattered to me and their comfort and future and so on.
4. Draw a timeline: Draw out your life/career chart 3-5-7-10 years in both the options and see which one will take you closer to your ultimate goals in the life. This is very important because sometimes we may get blinded by short term gains from the opportunity, but lose the long-term view.
5. Be Brave: For me one of the biggest reasons was to choose the option where would I be most uncomfortable and hence get to learn new things. What would push me out of my comfort zone the most. I firmly believe that we live in a very dynamic time, where we don’t have the luxury of one job for our career. We probably will have 6-8-10 jobs in our careers and we need to constantly reinvent ourselves, learn new things and stay relevant.

So what did I finally choose? I took the local opportunity with the bank to disrupt myself and be part of the disruption that the industry is going through.
I also value a few things that the experience taught me:

1. I was feeling a little embarrassed by the amount of time I took to decide and the back-and-forth in my decision making. However, I now think that this was a great learning experience in itself that prepared me to make future such decisions more confidently.
2. I was also feeling very loyal to the organisation where I was working and it made it harder for me to decide on the other opportunity. At some point I felt as if I was betraying my organisation since they offered me a bigger role. However, when I look at my own priorities and where would I be better and contribute more, I feel I took the right decision.
3. I got a chance to seriously evaluate my values and beliefs and what really matters to me, and this is an extremely valuable exercise that I would encourage everyone to do time and again even when there is no urgent decision to be made.
4. I realised that my life is not just my own, there are other lives that depend on my decisions and here the decision is no longer about me or my career alone.

As I start my new journey now, I feel brave and satisfied with the decision I made. A lot of my friends and well-wishers are very keen to know how this disruption will pan out for my career and I will pencil my reflections again in a few months on my experience with this disruption.

Wish me luck!

This piece was by Marketing Society Singapore board member Saurabh Singhal.