These days employability has got a bad rap. It is often associated with mind-numbing jobs and following someone else orders cuffing and curtailing one’s creativity.
The advent of Mark Z and Elon M has lit a spark on entrepreneurial fire at the cost of insulting and hence burning the intelligence of people working in those companies. Anybody who works in 8 to 5 is treated as a cog in the wheel forgetting that those cogs in the wheel in fact deliver great products from the companies that are owned by entrepreneurs. The founders who once were the engineers and the visionaries, move on to run the business, while the skilled workforce continues to deliver great products.
It is a different kind of intelligence creating business, running it, Vs designing and delivering a great product Vs managing the day-to-day activity. All are carried out by different roles inside the organisation, they are skills nevertheless.
So what is employability?
– Employability is about possessing skill and rendering it to serve a business or customer.
– Employability is about having social skills with which you can interact and work harmoniously (or at least with less friction) with others.
– It’s about having the empathy to understand what the client or stakeholder would want and deliver it.
– It is also about delivering more than the customer wished for.
– It is sometimes about understanding what you want to deliver is not what the customer needs and still meeting that customer’s need while curtailing your urge.
– It is sometimes about helping customers see what you are seeing for the future because you possess the skill and knowledge and they don’t.
– It’s about understanding the differences in the team and helping each other play to their potential.
– Sometimes, it is about following the boring process because the process delivers a standard perfect product.
– And then sometimes it’s up to you to improvise the process.
Finally, it’s about being an adult and knowing not everything works the way you want to and you will have to deal with bureaucracy and processes and things we don’t like.
You make improvements where you can, follow the process where you should, and be creative when chances allow.
Ultimately being employable is about being of service to others. Unless you can serve others, you can’t be in business, either as a CEO or a founder or as an 8 to 5 job holder.