Playing the game...

“Success is all about human relations.”

That was the topic for the group discussion. It was the time when I was going through the selection process, hoping to get selected for the MBA program.

I happened to raise a few good points that time, I think. How the success is not only about human relations, how the concept of success should not be restricted to corporate success only and so on. I must have done a fairly decent job there because it got my into the MBA program eventually.

It is funny how one’s perspective towards life changes at different ages. That time I was god damn sure about the points I was making, especially when I said: Success is not only about human relations. One has to be equally skilled at the work he/she is going. Only then the human relations can enhance your chances. (I could have even given more emphasis on capability part against the human relations portion.)

But after completing the course and having taken a break from job market after working for almost two years, it feels rather different. I have had my fair share of interaction-experiences with different people. I believe that our thoughts are generally influenced by the events in our recent past. And even more so, when the events occur in a time when you are trying to get to know yourself towards building a career.

If I were the person I am today while appearing for that group discussion a few years back, I am sure my point of views would have been different. And given the nature of these thoughts (combined with my rather over-honest approach of dealing with things), I am not sure if the evaluators would have given me a seat in the program.

There’s a dialogue in the TV series Dexter when the character Dexter Morgan is telling his sister Debra, roughly meaning the following: The reason why Lieutenant LaGuerta (another character in the series) has been successful so far is that she may not be the most intelligent one, but she knows how to play the game.

I think the above statement answers the debate for me at this moment. Human relations seem to be a far more deciding factor than your actual competencies these days; rather, soft skills seem to have been emerged as the deciding factor for so-called-success.

A person may call it networking. Another may call it favoritism towards friends. It may also have different other names such as politics, lobbying, back-stabbing, unethically competing; but eventually these are different degrees of the same strategy towards emerging as the eventual winner.

Please don’t mistake me for someone who compartmentalizes this as a necessarily unethical/bad practice. Even I may have been a beneficiary of networking at some point of time. For example, may be some time I got a chance to perform in a music program because my college friend was performing there and he called me to join them.

I am not even saying that the successful ones are always only the manipulative ones with no other skills whatsoever. After all, they indeed had to have good (or even excellent) work skills to sustain their performance through the years. What differentiates them from the rest is the fact that they know how to play the game and beat the system. Making the right connections, knowing whom to avoid, making a shrewd move at a right time, knowing when to cut your losses and move on – they know it pretty damn well.

But having accepted it as a part and parcel of life, I feel really sad when a highly deserving person doesn’t get something which a highly undeserving person gets. (What someone deserves is a matter of plain individual opinion though.) As stereotypical as it may sound, but let’s say you are a good actor with a wide range of brilliant performances on your resume, you are even short-listed by the director for the lead role, but eventually you may not get the role in the film because the producer won’t finance the film unless the role is given to his son.

Unless the performance difference is quite obvious, it doesn’t matter greatly whether you are better at the given competencies than your opponent. Only thing that matters is how well you play the game. Skills, talents, knowledge, wisdom, creativity, strength, money, ethics – everything is important, alright, but those are only the aspects of the game and not the game itself.

I always thought that such I-will-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-me-there attitude existed only in high level positions in politics, cinema, business etc. But you don’t realize certain things unless they happen to you or in your close proximity. I agree that I am more of an idealistic person than a pragmatic one, but I never realized until recent times how it affects even the seemingly simplest of the life situations. These situations do not include only the widely known infamous politics about promotions in various offices, but also something like a student establishing favorable relations with a teacher with different motives in mind.

I always believed that if I stick to improving myself without caring too much about the “interpersonal dynamics and emotional undercurrents” of others, I will surely achieve success one day. Unfortunately, to achieve that kind of success, apparently there are a few other ways too.

In order achieve the so-called success, it is a topic of yet another discussion which practice should be acceptable and which one not. So, as of now, let’s just say that as long as you are scoring more goals than your opponent in a football match, it doesn’t matter even if you get a few red cards for foul play or you play pre-match mind games with the rival team members … well, its not something I would like to do or will do, but definitely something that’s known as blatant truth.

But as always, it comes down to your personal definition of success. You may not have what others call as success, but if you know you have given your best shot within the boundaries of your own value system, I think nothing else should matter.

This reminds me of a wonderful line from the film Cool Runnings: A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it.