AUTHOR: SS | 29 June 2021 | Read Time: 3-5 mins
Close your eyes and dream of your career, say 5-10 years down the road…
I am sure most would like to see the following ingredients:
1) a loving & caring spouse with a beautiful heart (possibly a charming kid…perhaps a reflection of your early childhood days)
2) solid financials…both with regard to liquidity and asset backing…I know you are exactly understanding what I mean
3) an exciting and challenging job…one that offers a new challenge every day, and isn’t monotonous.
Although the theory of Karma is very strongly embedded in our culture and it often makes us believe that “Jo hona hai, wo to hoke rahega…apne haath mein kuch nahi hai…its all destined and blah blah blah”, but I am a firm believer of the fact that this type of escapist and lethargic attitude to life is completely uncalled for and a recipe for making life nasty, brutish and short.
You got to believe that life will be substantially shaped by your own actions and it is very much possible to realise the dream mentioned above…..what it requires is “T shaped skills”
The horizontal bar at the top of the letter “T” reflects a superb “generalist” i.e. a person who has good knowledge in all areas…be it psychology, physics, medicine, finances, architecture, machine learning…and what not.
The vertical line in the letter “T” signifies in-depth “specialization” in one or two core areas. This means you have an unsurmountable mastery in such areas.
The so called “circle of competence” is what I am indicating when I speak of specialization.
If you look at the best of portfolio managers from India…the likes of Manish Chokhani (Enam Securities), Sameer Arora (Helios capital), Ridham Desai (Morgan Stanley), Nilesh Shah (Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund) etc, one thing certain is that we find these veterans display T-shaped skills.
You talk to them about base ball or about space ventures, about history or world order, or just about any xyz area…..and they have a good point of view to share. Their take on matters will never fail to surprise you & bound to get you thinking!
As far as their expertise & understanding of Economy and Financial markets is concerned, ofcourse there are no words to describe the degree of excellence.
So my dear friends, I urge you all to be open to all sorts of readings and discussions…be it of any topic… so that the generalist in you can develop. At the same time, pick up your area of specialization….invest yourself in that area…hours and hours of time…and develop that vertical line of “T”.
Studies indicate that India is overcrowded with people with technical skills…people who can file IT and GST returns, people who can do cut copy and paste work on excel, people who can sit on tally and keep on tallying the balance sheet ……
We do have moderate number of people with good communication skills….they have a better future.
As we move to higher order, we come across some people who posses leadership skills…they know how to motivate and inspire others and how to design scalable processes and systems which are effective as well as efficient. But even these people are less flexible and may not be able to grasp new areas that quickly.
But there are very few, and I mean very few people with T-shaped skills….and the best part is that they can draw that vertical line of specialization wherever they want as per the needs of the situation…! So if you will carry out a time series analysis of their life, you will find a broad horizontal line with several vertical lines from time to time —showing shifting areas of specialisation.
I urge you all to hanker for development of T-shaped skills and make your dream a reality. Don’t shy away from challenges in the name of karma/destiny…
Be thirsty for knowledge…develop skills…work more…want more!
All the very Best
Jai Hind
Sanjay Sir
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Wonderful writeup !! While going through the post that time series analysis was on autopilot mode… This is a very enlightening post that I am going in the right direction.
Your guidance is precious sit, thanks a lot.
Now I can read the non academic books without being guilt ridden. Thank you, Sir.
Sir,
I am always excited about your blogs. Your blogs or thoughts are completely out of the box. As you have rightly mentioned, going towards the future a T-shaped approach should be kept in the mind.
Hey Raghav. Yes that’s the thing….completely out of the box. Simple, yet so amazing!
Sir you never fail to give the perfect dose of motivation and that also at a perfect time. Thank you for such an insightful piece.
Glad if it helps you even a tiny bit Reeju!
Wonderful piece sir and quite enlightening.
I realised that i do have a strong horizontal line but i feels a strong desire to draw two verticle lines for myself. So what are your thought on making “Pie shaped skills”?
You know the drill….Put it as a query on QForum to reach Sir?!!!
Bow down sir!!
There can never be a mentor like you..one of the examples i would like to add above on T shaped experts is SANJAY SARAF sir itself. We, especially I learn alot from you. And i consider you as that one t shaped expert for me. Thank you for everything sir.
Thanks Arpita for writing in…I too think this piece is a gem. It’s wonderful when ppl acknowledge!