Tulika Tripathi's Alice in Corporate land can guide professionals to take better career decisions. The author chats with D Kaushik about the importance of mentorship in life
How adorable will it be to have Noddy, Cindrella, Snow White or any other cartoon character you admired as a kid guide you in making right career choices or dealing with tough boss or scheming teammates! Tulika Tripathi, Asia operations head for a global talent solution firm, was probably too intrigued by this idea and therefore for her latest book, Alicein Corporate land: Career lessons from a Fairy Tale, she used Alice to give important lessons about achieving success and facing challenges in corporate world. “The book has Alice as main character. Inside the book you will find characters from various fairy tales, there is Rapunzel, Pinocchio, Seven Dwarfs, who turn into mentors sharing lessons. There is a lot of retelling of fairytales in the book. There are these fairytales we read as children set in corporate environment in the book. Around two years ago fairy tale fiction became very popular, so I read a lot or retelling of fairytales and that remained in my mind. So that’s one reason for producing a book in such a format. Second, I read a lot of books — business, fiction or non-fiction. I realised that most of the times business books are preachy, told in first person and they are repetition of an idea. My book breaks that format. What I discovered is that when you work everyday it is difficult to keep things simple and pointed. Alice in Corporate land is meant to be entertaining, engaging and meaningful. The book seems to be targetted predominantly to women as the title is based on fairytale character, but it is just because I am a woman who grew up on lot of fairytales, otherwise the messages shared in the book are universal, applying to professionals across the globe,” said Tripathi.
This book tells you how to make choices in your profession. “When I look back at last 15 years and try to find out what was it that really worked for me or what was it that I really did badly, I wish somebody would have told me earlier about that. So this book tries to get elements in place for professionals. There are things that I would like to tell my team. Working for so long I have realised that the Gen Y doesn’t like to be told what to do, they want to figure things out for themselves. This book allows you to figure out solutions to your own problems. I think attention spans are shorts so the book is short, it is light and entertaining. All my personal experiences are a part of it,” shared Tripathi.
Problems young corporate are facing have changed in last few years owing to organisational, managerial and technological changes. What worked in the past does not necessarily work for the present or the future and the faster we understand that and we keep ourselves open to new ideas, the better it is. Said the writer, “Technology, amount of information available to you, geographical boundaries and what they mean to you have all changed. What we learnt has changed. I did my bachelors in Economics and learnt that economic cycle happens in every seven years, and in the last five years we have seen a double dip. Everything is faster, information is available faster, so there is a lot to be churned to meet the expectations. The generation has changed, their concept of time is fundamentally different, so it was important for me to approach youngsters in a different way. The biggest point in the book is about resilience and how you adapt yourself to change or setbacks. Change is pertinent. I have tried to accompany Alice from an entry level role to young leadership role and within that looked at things that are really important as you grow in your career. The first lesson she learns is not giving up in her job search. I am a recruitment specialist so there is a lot in the book on how to find a job. How you look at it mentally and organise yourself for the search. The first tale that I have taken is the Cindrella story set in corporate world. It shares a lesson I learnt through hit and miss. It was about creating a network of mentors. We talk much more about mentorship today than few years ago. It is important to have a network of mentors within an organisation. Mentorship doesn’t mean politics, it’s about not having someone doing good things for you, but having someone who has been through your situation. Someone who has an experience and there is no harm in learning from someone’s experiences. We all make mistakes, and it is mistakes that give you angles. The book goes on to talk about work ethics and how you build them. Then I have spoken about how important it is to have a network of people who give a lot of feedback. Criticism can be a career advantage. The other important message in the book is failures help you achieve success.”
Writing happened by accident to Tripathi. She wrote the book in seven weeks, while travelling to nine countries and dealing with crisis in her own life. “But once I got into it I lived it. After sharing about my journey interestingly I will look forward to write often,” she ended.