The Yin and Yang of career planning

The concept of Yin-Yang comes from ancient Chinese philosophy, which holds that nature is composed of forces that are opposites but complementary. In Indian culture, such drives are often represented as Shiva and Shakti, or as the pairing of Purusha (consciousness) and Prakriti (nature/energy). However, in Western theology or philosophy, there exists no concept of balance. The closest approximation is duality, which treats opposites as mutually exclusive rather than inseparable twins.

If one were to cast the work-life balance onto this framework, it becomes apparent that most treat it as dichotomous or mutually exclusive, rather than as Yin and Yang. Even within work, exploration and exploitation, as in learning and doing, are deemed as incongruous. But should that be the case?

In a highly cited paper, the organisational psychologist, James March, brought to the fore the case of simultaneous exploration and exploitation in an organisational context for its continued sustenance. Exploitation is about addressing the immediate opportunities with deftness, while exploration is about identifying and creating new growth opportunities. Exploitation is hinged on one’s productive abilities, whereas exploration calls for creativity and inventiveness.

Juxtaposed to an individual’s career, exploitation is honouring your current commitments, and exploration is in crafting future avenues of growth and self-development. As you might surmise, exploration is complex. For one, there’s no clear path, and additionally, the endeavour is ridden with risk. ‘Why rock the boat?’—is the argument. As a result, countless people work themselves to redundancy. 

Answer this: If given a choice between ‘working for the company’ and ‘learning for yourself’, what will you choose? Contrary to what most would claim, it’s the company’s interests that take precedence. Why? Working, as opposed to learning, offers immediate gratification in the form of a monthly salary, a pat on the back or a kick in the pants. Working is a lot more structured than learning, and, most importantly, it has a momentum that learning lacks. 

It surprises no one that scores of employees must be threatened to finish their 40 mandatory hours of learning per annum. Working 80 hours a week seems to be much more doable than learning 40 hours a year! This counterintuitive behaviour stems from the way learning is framed in organisations — it’s additional, disparate from work, a distraction from the well-oiled treadmill and largely involuntary. How can employees be motivated to look at learning from the lens of self-interest rather than it being obligatory? Three practices.

Firstly, show the futility of exploitation, or just working at the same chip. If one can incessantly exploit what’s known, then there’s no urge to explore what’s unknown or even unknowable. The diminishing returns of exploitation must be factored into the fabric of work. It’s how technology companies design planned obsolescence into their products. You can’t use a version of your smartphone forever. It will slow down, by design. The same must be done to work — it must atrophy over time, giving way to new people and easing out the owner in the process. 

Secondly, make learning a pursuit in self-mastery, and not an additional chore. Instead of encouraging the dichotomous view of doing vs. learning, let it be a natural extension, like the way exhalation follows inhalation. Exploration-exploitation is like walking, one foot in front of the other.

Lastly, don’t reward learning. Rewarding a process that should instead happen spontaneously creates perverse incentives — eventually making it mechanical. Learning must be a reward in and of itself. 

The Yin and Yang of corporate life are doing and learning. You learn something new, you perfect it over time, and then you transcend it to a higher altitude, or to another dimension. This graduation or migration is even more pronounced in the age of AI, where it’s not another bloke awaiting your seat, but the very machine that you once operated is yearning to replace you. 

In summary, learning for oneself is as important as working for the firm, and this must be made clear as one’s responsibility. The firm can enable it, but not push a self-growth agenda. It must be framed as a continuous cycle of exploitation and exploration rather than one-off excursions. Alas, work can be automated, but learning can’t. So, learn your way to relevance.