Transferable skills like leadership, communication, and professionalism will help you to take on and excel in any role that you are in
Celebrating your one, five, or ten-year work anniversary at a company used to be a badge of honor. It showed that you were an honorable and steadfast worker – one who would always be there to get the job done.
Today, you’d more likely leave people scratching their heads if you actually hit your fifth work anniversary. In fact, a survey conducted by LinkedIn found that 34 percent of Singapore professionals had no intention of staying with their current employers for more than a year.
In this generation of serial job hoppers, Abraham Thomas’ story is possibly an anomaly. This year, he celebrates his 32nd year at IBM, where he is currently the managing director of the Singapore office.
Interestingly, he was almost passed over by the company as a fresh graduate back in 1986.
I spoke to Abraham at the LIT Xchange conference organised by Young NTUC, in support of SkillsFuture Festival 2018. Here’s the story of how he eventually landed a job at IBM as a territory representative, and went on to lead operations at multiple IBM offices all over the world.
Results first, promotions later
Abraham was brought up in a family which held on to traditional values. Case in point: his parents were adamant that he become either a lawyer or a doctor. However, he didn’t want to be either.
“I wanted to find something that could constantly give me different challenges in multiple areas,” Abraham explains. “I thought I’d be able to find that in banking, but halfway through my studies in finance, I realised I wasn’t cut out for that.”
During this period of time, he was reading a then-famous book called In Search of Excellence, which featured business lessons from some of America’s top companies. IBM was one of them, and when they happened to appear at one of the campus recruitment drives that Abraham attended, he decided to send in his application.
“I read about the values of IBM, and what the company stood for – such as integrity – and they clearly aligned with my own value system,” Abraham recalls.
Although he wasn’t called up for the first round of interviews, Thomas was eventually invited to come in for the second round when IBM decided to open up more slots. By this time, he was already applying to other companies, but after undergoing a third interview and receiving a job offer from IBM, he immediately accepted.
Of course, Abraham had no idea that he’d end up spending 32 years at IBM, eventually becoming the managing director of multiple offices across the world – first in India, then South Africa, and finally back in Singapore.
His only goal back then – and indeed, his career motto – was simply this: “to do the best you can in the job that you have.”
“If you do [your best] and shine, the organisation will give you more and more opportunities,” he explains. “You can’t just coast along, and expect to move up in the organisation. You need to deliver results first.”
And results, Abraham continues, can only be delivered by working well with your team.
“Gone are the days when you could do everything by yourself,” Abraham explains. “You need a tribe to be successful.”
The importance of transferable skills
The ability to manage a team well is one of the many transferable skills to which Abraham attributes his success.
To him, skills can be broadly placed into two buckets: core and transferable. And he strongly believes that it was the latter that helped him succeed in his various stints across departments in IBM.
He offers the example of when he was asked to lead IBM’s consulting business, after leading operations in the South Africa office for three years.
“I had never done that particular job in my career so far, so I had to quickly pick up the essential core skills for the job,” Abraham recalls. “But what truly made me successful in that role were the other skills I brought along – my organisational, networking, leadership, and communication skills.”
“Of course, core skills are necessary to do your job right,” Abraham continues. “If you are a doctor, you need to be trained as a doctor. But it’s the transferable skills – leadership, communication, professionalism, and so on – that will help you to take on and excel in any role that you are in.”
He went on to add: “The more you learn, the more transferable skills you have, the more adaptable you become, the more your marketable value will increase.”
A sense of loyalty
Having established a reputation in this industry over the years, Abraham inevitably received many job offers from other companies – some of which were extremely attractive. But despite the “carrots” that were dangled before him, he continued to remain at IBM.
“I think that it is important to be loyal,” he says. “Unfortunately, among many people today, this might not be so important because they seem to be more loyal to themselves rather than to an organisation.”
Also read: Working for a millennial CEO taught me how to be confident, brave, and a little bit crazy
Abraham had – and continues to have – a strong sense of loyalty towards IBM because he appreciates the many opportunities that they have given him.
“IBM took me from Singapore, and allowed me to work across many countries across the world,” he adds. “My intention is to retire at IBM […] I might be biased, but once you’ve worked for the best, why would you want to join the rest?”
Another reason why he has never thought of leaving IBM goes back to his reputation in the industry.
“For 32 years, I’ve been telling my clients that IBM is the best. Imagine if I joined another company, and said that actually, this company is the best now?” he says with a chuckle. “I would lose all my credibility right away.”
Keep reinventing yourself
All that considered, Abraham concedes that there might be a downside to staying in a company for too long: succumbing to groupthink.
“When everyone starts thinking the same way and agreeing with each other too much […] that’s not good for you from a development standpoint,” he explains.
Thankfully, due to the fast-growing nature of the technology industry, as well as the corporate culture of IBM, Abraham has never been allowed to rest on his laurels for too long. Even within IBM, he has been switching roles once every three years.
“There’s just no opportunity for you to say, ‘what I’ve done in the past is what I’m going to do in the future’, because you’ve got to be continually reinventing yourself,” he says. “And that’s what’s so exciting about the job I’m in.”
Ultimately, Abraham believes that the willingness to rise to whatever challenge may come is what makes the “perfect” job that every fresh graduate is trying to find. Once that disappears, then it might be time to consider your options.
Also read: In the age of millennials, true leadership means leading without a title
“It is really what you make of the role that will determine whether you have the perfect job or not,” he adds. “But if you wake up in the morning, and feel like you’re dragging yourself to work, then you need to re-examine whether you’re in the right company or not.”
I ask him if he has ever felt that way in the last 32 years. With a smile, he tells me that he woke up this morning at 5.30am, and still feels energised (it was 8pm by then).
“If I’m not enjoying what I’m doing, why would I want to do this?”
—-
e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.
The post In a world of job hoppers, this IBM managing director still believes there’s value in staying loyal appeared first on e27.