What are stability and stagnation? How do they impact us?

Stagnation brings inertia for growth. Stability leads to increase of endurance & prepares for growth.

True to what they stand for, they have significant impact in our professional careers. We experience both during various stages in our professional lives. Stabilizing phase in our careers are times when we strengthen ourselves and prepare ourselves for the phase ahead. In a sense, preparing for a giant leap ahead (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leap-forward-nitin-nag ).

Stagnation sets in when we realize our full potential isn’t utilized or we start doing jobs that don’t enhance our skills. It could take us away from furthering our careers and perhaps even lead us to becoming redundant eventually.

Things that are required to be done during stability phase are

· Identifying core skills and strengthening them

· Assessing our current state against a previously defined vision for ourselves

· Redefining a new vision for ourselves if required

· Identifying and developing new skills that are required to get there

Misunderstanding stagnation phase as a stability phase is perhaps fine as stability keeps us positive and leads us to prepare ourselves for challenges ahead. Interpreting stability as stagnation in our careers is an issue. This misinterpretation could lead us to degenerate instead of focussing on consolidation.

Since stagnation brings a certain sense of negativity, it is imperative it is recognized early to minimize the damage it could cause. We can discover career stagnation by watching some of these obvious signs.

· Work leading to boredom

· Not enhancing existing skills

· Not developing new skills

· Responsibilities not growing

· Salary increments not coming through

· Progression to new roles not coming through

Once we realize we are in a stagnation phase, it is critical to isolate the factors causing it. Factors could be job repetitiveness or the environment. Repetitiveness of the job is in our control & can be overcome by taking on something more challenging or skills could be built to enhance the job profile. The work environment can also contribute to stagnation. This issue is layered with many factors; the company itself, people, who are part of the company and the overall market landscape. Environmental factors are beyond our control. What we can control is how we respond to these situations. This is the time we look inward, focusing on skill building, setting and working towards a new direction to our career and forging a strong network with people. With this we can identify opportunities better and find smarter ways to circumvent stagnation.

In the event we are unable to isolate factors causing stagnation in our lives, it is beneficial to get external help. This external help could be a sounding board or a mentor. Mentors are trusted advisors who provide guidance, motivation, emotional support and goal setting. If we look around, we might find some of these people around us and willing to help. Once we find someone, we need to endeavour to nurture that relationship. They would often know us well enough to help disassociate stagnation from stability and even identify nuances that lead to or cause status quo in our lives.

People who I have sought help from at various phases in my professional life and have immensely benefitted from are Pradeep Bijur, Rajeev Yeddanapudi, Ashok Padhye, Niranjan Rao, Ramesh Padmanabhan, Elango R, Dinesh Venugopal & Harinarayan Sharma.

Their guidance at various junctures has helped me guard myself from stagnation, understand the values of stabilization and prepare myself for the road ahead. For this, I am eternally grateful to all.

Career stagnation is an issue that occurs frequently with people. However, recognizing it when it sets in, identifying the root causes of it, could help us in providing the right attention to reset the career and put it back on the path of growth.

-- Nitin Nag

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