Does nature of job change when one advances in the career?
As one progresses in their career, they gain the experience and get better in doing their work. Usually in a corporate set up, as your career progresses the nature of your work changes. Often growing in a career entails becoming manager. Even though one may not become people manager, the day to day work evolves from a routine work to more strategic work. But aren’t there many professions where the nature of work remains the same? Sportspersons, actors, doctors are few which come to mind. What is the nature of such professions?
Whenever a sportsperson plays for a long time, they continue to perform the same actions as they were doing as youngsters. They may play a more senior role in a team guiding young players, but on the ground nothing changes. Even after playing for 20 years, Sachin Tendulkar had to bat and play shots — nothing changes. Same goes with the actors. One Marathi actor had mentioned this in one of the interviews. When one is starting a new film/new play, they have to start from zero and experienced actor has to go through the same process as a novice one. Both these industries require you to ‘improve’ your work rather than developing ‘new’ nature of work.
Compare this with corporates or academics. Unless you decide to continue with your role as an analyst or SW developer or salesperson or professor, as you ‘grow’ in the organization, the nature of your responsibilities change. Even if one grows as IC (Individual Contributor) in an organization, what is expected of you changes. From being ‘hands-on’ (reserved for junior people), responsibilities are more geared towards mentoring, guiding and strategic work. If one grows as a people manager, the nature of work completely changes. Rather if someone desires to climb up the corporate ladder, the expectation is to mould yourself in new roles.
So what differentiates these two cases? I think 2 factors — 1. whether the profession is primarily skill-based and 2. the size of the operating entity.
Acting, sports are basically skill-based and the only thing one can improve is the ‘skill’. But isn’t say coding also a skill? So why can’t a software developer continue to code throughout their life? This is where the second factor comes in, which is size of the operating entity. In sports or arts, the operating entity remains a small group of individuals. Eleven in case of most sports and less than 100 in most movies/ plays. It never graduates to a structure which requires managing people. Maybe this is similar to hunter gatherer bands where everyone has similar role, as these operating entities are small. When the groups become large, additional roles geared towards strategy, management, mentoring, etc are required.
Also, when an organization grows, the need for specialized work creates differentiation in the nature of work. So even within the same industry, size of organization can be important factor in deciding if your work changes when you ‘grow’. A large I-bank may require Directors, VPs, but a boutique I-bank may have individuals doing similar work.
Before industrial revolution, the nature of work remained the same for most individuals. It changed as the organizations grew in size and managerial roles grew important. It would be interesting to see how this evolves with technology. With platforms such as Substack, journalists don’t need to ‘grow’ in the organization and can become independent. Increase in freelancing could change this landscape and there could be more people in the professions where the nature of work does not change as one ‘grows’!
