What's In A Title?

Last week I was at a social function and got chatting with an elderly gentleman. Soon things turned to family and I queried him on what his son does.

Suddenly, I could sense the atmosphere becoming pregnant with excitement, and with the air of a conjuror who pulls the rabbit out of the hat, he leaned close to me, raised his eyebrows and conspiratorially whispered, “My son is a GM!”. And with that he leaned back, his work done, beaming at me, waiting for the gushing praise.

I really wanted to know more, so I started asking him stupid questions like where he worked, what he did and the like and it all seemed to irritate the proud parent no end. His son was a GM. Period. How does anything else matter? At some point during my quest to understand his son’s job better, he walked off, refusing to waste any more time on someone who could not appreciate the enormity of what his son had achieved.

I’m sure his son was doing something very meaningful, but I was still not clear how just two words – General Manager – did justice to all the stuff the high achieving son was probably doing.

Look around – this fixation on designations is breaking out like an epidemic - there is no getting away from it. And I think I know why.

Upto the ‘80s, the public sector was the holy grail – “Oh, he is in a government job. Respect.”

The ‘90s and early 2000’s were the era of the MNC – “Oh, he is with a Foreign Bank. Respect.”

Today, life is more complex. MNCs and large Indian companies seem pretty evenly matched in many areas. Even some of the public sector jobs are quite interesting. And then there is the entrepreneurial bug. So much so that it is difficult to actually understand where one is placed relative to others. “Grey hair” has ceased to be the marker with the advent of hair colors and transplants. Even the car (which was a dead giveaway some years back – the guy with the Esteem is by definition senior to the guy with the Zen!) is no longer a reliable predictor of a person’s worth.

But not to worry, we as a society have found a simple way to solve this conundrum – Designation. It looks like we now cut through all the cobwebs and go straight to the point – your standing is determined by your designation. What it means is that a VP is bigger and better than a GM, a GM is bigger and better than a Manager. If you are called a Chief Mentor, it is probably because you are out of a job!

What this also means is that, unless your designation keeps changing every few years, you are not making progress in the world. The simple HR solution – keep changing designations, but make people do the same stuff…

I think the Advertising Agencies had cracked it much earlier than others. In the 90s, when I started off my life in one such ad agency, I was a Junior Account Executive, was promoted as Account Executive, and then very quickly became a Senior Account Executive. Three designations in two years – I was on a roll! I was soon going to become a Junior Account Manager, then an Account Manager to be shortly followed by Senior Account Manager. Somebody stop me! I actually pitied the CEO of the company (some bloke named Alyque Padamsee) who was the CEO when I joined – he remained the CEO till I left – while I had been promoted two times. What a loser!

One of the more creative HR spins I’ve encountered in corporate life is “Internal” and “External” designations. Forget that, once we even had Domestic and International designations. So, I was a Director when I was dealing within our Desi boundaries, but became a VP when I got onto an international flight. This is because in the US a VP is senior to a Director, but vice versa in India. I wonder why? Maybe it’s because in India when you say Director, you are probably thinking Mani Rathnam, while when you say VP, you are probably thinking someone who reports to Pratibha Patil – ugh! Give me Director any day!

And this obsession seems to be taking firm roots. I have seen examples galore of people refusing great job opportunities, better salaries and roles just because the designation was not to their liking.

The brighter side of all this is that it is still confined only to the corporate world. Imagine if it seeps into other spheres of activity. Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir would be Senior VPs of the Indian Team (and not Openers, which is exactly what they do!). In which case, how can Kohli ever become the captain – he is just an Assistant Manager!

I wonder at what point the designation ended up relegating other aspects of a job to relative unimportance. How does what you are called become more important than what you do? To the extent that the title reflects the job, it’s fine. But being called something different, while doing the same job? How does that help? I think it’s just creating a notional sense of progress to an entire gullible generation.

Thankfully, I wised up to this racket a while ago and am happier for it. While I may be called Investment Director, that means little to me – the work I do is more important, and I’ve stayed focused on that. The fact that a Partner is senior to Director doesn’t bother me any more.

I do hope that we all reflect about what we really should be going after. Thanks for reading…

Venkat.

PS – Though, I must point out that – not that it matters, but just for information – an Investment Director is senior to Principal, VP, AVP, Manager, Associate and Analyst. No big deal - just, you know, like I said, for information…

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