Comfort Zone

I worked for 10 years in one and then for about 28 years in the second organisation thereby spending an entire career span of almost four decades in two organisation. The shift from the first to second organisation was also incidental and not on account of any issue with the first! 

Civil servants join civil services and retire after holding various positions upon attaining superannuation. Ditto defence personnel though defence services do have a concept of short service commission, including the newly introduced Agniveer. Even organisations like Tatas are known to recruit greenhorns who then go up the organisation’s hierarchy to finally retire! 

I as also the examples cited above are the cases of people working in their comfort zones and yet neither regretting nor necessarily stagnating in having served their respective organisations over long periods! But every time you listen to or read a management guru, a spiritual guru or any motivational speaker, they will exhort you to come out of comfort zone to attain success! 

I interpret this exhortation not as much against long engagement with single organisation but rather getting smug or complacent while working there at! All my 40 years or so, I remained excited, motivated, inquisitive, optimistic and ready to accept new challenges ( assignments, roles, transfers etc), never really becoming smug or complacent to be falling into so called, “comfort zone” that the gurus caution us to avoid.

The mantra, therefore, is not to necessarily look out for career growth but not treat your workplace as a comfort zone, but a karma bhoomi! Job hopping should be resorted for very cogent purposes based on sound logic and not for the sake of testing survival out of comfort zone as preached and exhorted! A workplace should be full of excitement and challenges and therefore, can never be a comfort zone.