Seven vital trade-offs you will face at work and how to deal with them (2024)

By Devashish Chakravarty

Are you in the middle of a critical trade-off in your career where you are struggling to make a decision? Maybe you have been offered a move into senior-management but will have to leave your current comfort zone for a high-risk opportunity. You want to have it all—a dream career and a perfect role. But ask yourself, what are you willing to give up or pay for it? Know that every trade-off has an opportunity cost. Like when you choose a mid-career MBA, you pay not only the cost of education but also the opportunity cost of lost salary and promotion. Let’s look at major trade-offs you will face in your career.

1. Money vs Time

90% of all jobs and promotions are a trade-off between money earned and the time required. At junior levels, you clock in mandated hours of attendance for your fixed salary. As you grow in responsibility and compensation, the demands on your time eat into your daily hours, weekends and holidays. To solve this trade-off, either change or expand your skill set. Imagine a super-specialist doctor vs a general practitioner at a hospital. With more valuable skills you can choose between more money or more free time depending on what is critical in your current stage of life.

2. Position vs Accountability
A higher designation demands greater accountability and thus increased mind share and stress. There will be more people to handle, a bigger target to achieve, a greater geographical spread to manage and maybe legal liabilities when something goes wrong. Do you want this kind of role? The answer lies in what energises you. Do you look forward to your current targets? Do you like handling your team and role? If not, then you will not be able to survive with more work piled on your plate. Ask your manager to skip the designation for you.

3. Job security vs Opportunity
Most careers or roles offer you one or the other. Opting for a pensionable government position gives maximum job security but excludes the wealth creating opportunities of an entrepreneur where there is almost no minimum guarantee. Similarly, the front-end sales person can earn a high incentive on success but also lose his job faster because his failure is immediately measured. What do you value more? If you know that you have the skills to find new jobs easily and are competitive by nature, you can ignore job security and chase opportunities in high risk-high reward roles, sales, self-employment and entrepreneurship.

4. Travel vs Predictability

Does a new role involve travel? It is likely to bring greater unpredictability in your personal life, daily routine, nature of work crises and professional relationships. In a zero travel role, everything falls into a predictable sequence including the people you work with, your daily task schedule, goals and even the quality and number of emergencies. If you love the idea of travel, the excitement of the unknown and the freedom from routine, this is a trade-off you should make.

5. Role vs People
Are you struggling to choose between two different projects? In one the role and the content is what you love but the colleagues and leadership are not to your liking. In the other, you like the team and know that they will back you fully but the project itself is not exciting. Take a step back and evaluate the culture of your firm. Does it reward gladiators—people who achieve solo successes—or does it glorify generals —people who are part of victorious teams? In a gladiatorial setup, go for the meatier roles and become an indispensable specialist. In the other, choose to strengthen relationships each time. If your personality does not match the culture switch jobs.

6. Brand vs Scope
If the choice is between two employers, the trade-off usually is between a big brand vs a role where the broad scope is exciting. Big brands are coveted employers and are rarely lacking for talent. That leaves little room for you to negotiate. In a lesser known company, talent is tougher to come by and you often find a role that stretches you. Know that big brands are good for your CV and works well when moving on to the next opportunity. If you are not worried about your subsequent job and care about rapid growth and early success, go for the role with the wider scope.

7. Relationships vs Numbers
Are you weighing options with in an owner-led or family-run business vs a public company with little shareholder intervention? Know that attrition in the former is usually lesser and there is a huge premium on your trustworthiness apart from achieving long term targets and goals. In a fully management-led setup – you are usually only as good as your last month or last quarter’s numbers. If you are comfortable with a long-term career with a single employer, the former works well. If job-hopping is your style, choose the latter.

BEYOND THE TRADE-OFF
1. Reframe
You do not have to choose and lose in a trade-off. The trade-off is an outcome of your frame of reference. Reframe the situation and the trade off disappears, creating a whole new opportunity for you. Say you want flextime to manage personal commitments. Reframe the situation to, ‘Am I ok with a commission-based role that does not need me to go to office’?

2. Negotiate
You may be stuck in a trade-off because you haven’t explored what is possible. Negotiate your requirements with your boss and see if you can find a creative solution. Say your status changes from employee to consultant permitting you to work for only half a day for the next 12 months while you complete your diploma at the university.

3. Delimit
Perceived trade-off in a career transition may arise from self-imposed false limits. Delimit your thinking to go beyond the trade-offs. Use a growth and abundance mindset as a context for your work. To practice this mindset, suspend thinking about tangible goals and measurements for a while and imagine intangible possibilities and opportunities instead.

4. Contribute
Refocus your mind and energies as a contribution to others instead of being wrapped up in self-concern. Your mind stops tapping into your fears and survival instincts and starts drawing energy from your human need to matter and make a difference. In the space of making a difference to your team, many of your trade offs vanish.

5. Accept
All change happens in the real world and not in fi ction. Thus, fi rst accept and own your current reality and only then can you craft a change. When you accept a reality, you free up the energy spent in struggling and resisting it. Thereafter you can fi nd or invent solutions and possibilities to move on from that place.

(The writer is Director at Headhonchos.com and Quezx.com)

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