An engineer was checking his new pay slip after appraisals with a big smile when his friend asked him, “Looks like you got a good raise”.  He replied “Yes, my company seems to have done well.”   The friend’s envious response was, “I wish I too had got a good raise like you.”  The engineer replied, “You should wish to work for a company like that.”  A college student standing nearby was listening to the conversation; he interrupted, “I wish I could help build a company like that.”

There are three types of professionals in the corporate world – Wishers, Thinkers, and Doers.

Wisher is like the “friend” in the above story.  His primary interest is in getting a good raise.  The root-cause analysis of how to go about achieving that raise does not figure as highly in his priorities.

Thinker is like the “engineer” in the above story.  His thought process has more depth, and he appreciates the influence of external facilitators and accordingly strategizes on right decision points to climb the ladder of success.

Go-getter is like the “student” in the above story.  He acknowledges that he can’t forever rely on external facilitators, so takes responsibility for not only self-performance but improvement of the surrounding environment as well.

No doubt, each one of us seeks financial success.  Equally true, the tri-shades – wisher, thinker, and go-getter – are spread across the constituents of every organization.  Interestingly though, the ‘thinker’ trait is abundantly native in most professionals and, therefore, isn’t much of a differentiator between organizations.

It’s only when ‘go-getters’ outnumber ‘wishers’ that an organization is able to stand taller in today’s fiercely competitive world.