November 2005 – Windsor, ON. It was that summer of that year in which I first broached the topic about considering a career in academia. Discussions with 2 of my professors whom I had worked closely with and served as their respective teaching assistants during my tenure as an undergraduate student were both encouraging and motivating. Both felt I had what it took to be an academic. Both had assessed my academic capabilities and both were confident of my abilities.
I had other plans though; to see the world; to gain some real-life work experience and to prove myself in an otherwise ultra-competitive environment. I assured my professors I would be back for my post-graduate studies. Despite their heeding that it would be harder to return should I choose to remain longer in the working world. While I thanked them for their concerns, I was confident I could make it. I would return eventually
I was wrong. I never did return. Despite valiant attempts here and there to make a comeback, to return to my roots, I never did return. An exciting career, a prospective relationship, a family tragedy – all these eventful affairs and incidents derailed me from pursuing the oath and promise I made that fateful day some winters back. I had lost sight of my goal and no amount of comebacks would catapult me back into achieving what I had intentionally wanted to do all along.
Then there was a breakthrough. A new promising career which may ignite the spark back into my original goal. A career in management consulting. What I would be doing I wouldn’t know, but all I knew this might help in my goal. Or at least that’s what I thought I knew. The career move was insipid to say the least. The grandiose delusion I had in which I would be crafting strategies and concocting cutting edge frameworks for my clients ended up with modest tepidity. I found myself producing slides instead – developing mindless training materials and creating communication materials for the honchos. Whatever happened to implementing theoretical frameworks and proposing organizational ideas to the client? Instead, I found myself assigned to the most unglamorous and prosaic management consulting role – Change Management. The very word exudes a sense of humdrumness in the sexy and covert world of management consulting. New eager associates who would join our firm would wince at the very notion that they have been assigned to change management. It was often compared to being the entrée and never the main course. It was the broccoli that was served along with the salmon, but never the salmon itself.
And that was the role I was assigned to. And the disappointing aspect to the job was “what you do in the beginning of your career is what you will end up doing for the rest of your career”. Sure the glossy brochures and the tantalizing career website suggested otherwise. Many were “duped” this way. I was one of them. But change management, (which would later be renamed to much more authoritative and corporate sounding Organization Change) was to be kismet and over time I would learn to move from beyond just mere worker to developer and finally after years of blood and toil, an advocate and expert for change. Okay maybe the expert thing is abit too far fetch, but I am getting there I think.
But where was the academic aspect in all of this? Was there even any academic inclination in all my endevours and pursuits during the tenure of my career as a management consultant? Or was I so subsumed in my work and the allures of the corporate world were containing me that the omens forborne by my professors ages ago were being fulfilled?
What was happening to my goal?
