What's your Drive?

In my experience, there are 3 drives for any high impact professional

Growth - They're driven towards achieving the next level. Some want to grow intrinsically. They’re happy to be doing better tomorrow than today. Then there’s extrinsic growth. People who are looking for symbols of growth such as promotions.

Process - These are folks who want to do the right thing every day. They want to be happy every day. The joy to them is not the outcome but the process itself.

Purpose - Single-minded outcome driven individuals. Purest of them put the purpose above themselves. They’re willing to sweep the floor if it helps towards the objective. They will have followers and enemies. There’s no middle for these folks.

The Right Fit

Every high potential individual will have a combination of these 3. But everyone has a dominant trait that defines them. If you’re building an org, you want to ensure the role-trait fit for highly critical roles.

Growth

These folks are easy to find and hard to contain. Individual target driven roles are the right fit for them. Example being B2B sales or cracking critical deals for the organization.

Process

Most creative folks will fill up this category. I also know people who live to solve problems every day. The day the problems end, the drive ends. They also tend to be good team players. Nurture these folks. Keep them a little isolated from the turbulence. They are the sparks for magic in your org.

Purpose

Hard to find in India. Culturally we’re brought up in a society that rewards winners. Growth mentality is a natural byproduct. We’re also not a well-off society. Moving ahead is the only way to make a better living. Most don’t even have the time to think about purpose. But those who you find, put them them into solving the toughest problem statements you have that require a large group. Beware though as these folks can easily burn out your org. Not out of some personal agenda but the pure chase of something bigger than themselves.

Think. What’s your dominant trait. Being aware of it will help you choose the right career to be happy in!