Squadron Leader N Praveen Kumar (Retd) - Hard Work Beats Talent Each and Every Time Especially When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard (Co-Founder - iDreamCareer)

Even Indian Air Force had adopted the Japanese concept of Just in Time Training where the thought was to break down the training periods and let the trainees experience the on-ground job to relate to what they are being trained on. History is testimony to this where we had highly skilled craftsmen, artisans, architects who build many wonders of the world probably without any formal education.

Tell us about your background, journey, and upbringing.

I belong to a place known as Mahe which is geographically in Kerala but politically and historically a part of Puducherry. I was born in Mahe but my father being in the Army, did my schooling from various places in India and thereafter went to Bangalore Military School at the age of 11 yrs.

At an age of 18 yrs, I joined the Indian Air Force as an Airman and very soon got selected in the Air Force Athletics team and started participating at the national level. In 2014, I got President’s commission and became a Flying Officer in the Air Force. I was commissioned as an Air Traffic Controller.

Being an ardent sportsman since my school days helped me develop certain right attitudes to life. Being from Bangalore Military School and thereafter the life spent in the Air Force taught me many values like integrity, discipline, and most importantly the value of giving. 

Air Force life helped me experience some of the harshest conditions of living with complete acceptance, for a cause much higher than self and family. Two decades of travel across the length and breadth of our country played an important role in understanding the cultural demographics of India. 

The knowledge of differences in terms of cultural, social, and economic conditions gave me a larger picture of the strengths and weaknesses of different societies.

What inspired you to take action in your direction and what are your future plans?

In 2013, my posting to Purnia, a small town in Eastern Bihar, opened my eyes to extreme poverty where I saw people living in poor conditions from a close quarter. Our Air Force Station was located close to a village known as Goasi, where people were deprived of basic necessities and had to deal with - temporary houses, no toilets, high infant mortality rates, no proper education to list a few. 

Some of the highest wage earners were the MNREGA labourers and with a meagre sum of 2000 – 3000 rupees per month were supporting family of 6-8 people. 

This was when it dawned on me that it is so important to get people identified with the right opportunities based on the potentials in and around them. A person from the low-income population in the right job/career will feed many and will be an inspiration for the entire community.

In 2015, I took voluntary retirement from Air Force and joined iDreamCareer, a career counseling organization, to commit myself to help young students and working professionals towards the right career identifying opportunities around them. iDreamCareer also works with a large number of low-income population students as part of government, CSR and NGO projects. 

This provided me the opportunity to interact directly with students from the low-income population which gave me the insight to create suitable structured programs for them to get into the right careers/jobs.

From a mere 5000 students in 2015, we have been able to scale to 20 Million plus students in 2020 across India and Middle East from government school students to students from many reputed private schools. While we have achieved scalability, going forward we would like to focus on engagement. 

As career guidance is a process and not a one-time intervention, build products to create personalized journey for every student starting from 08th/09th grade till they transition to workforce. Our focus going forward would be more destination-driven by further standardizing the process of career guidance.

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What does your typical work day look like?

Lately, it has become extremely challenging to spell out a typical working day. Most days start with home chores - from cleaning utensils to brooming and mopping. These activities have substituted regular morning exercises. However, I have developed a keen interest in gardening during the covid period. 

Once I settle down for work by 9:30, it is a toggle between mail, Slack, WhatsApp, calls, and online meetings. As I manage private schools across India and the Middle East, many days would be in calls with Principals or management. As we are scaling phenomenally in B2C in the past few months, I have started focusing a lot on the post-sales activities to ensure better customer experiences, referrals and upgrading to more engaging programs.

Several global companies have come out and thrown their support behind not needing a formal education. What is your opinion about this?

You might be surprised to know that this year I have moved out my children from physical school to an online school known as 21K School. This is fairly a new concept in India but hybrid models are something we can expect that would stay back after the Covid era. 

The World is changing and changing very fast and it is difficult to predict what shape it is going to take in the next few decades. Today companies are focusing largely on the right skill sets needed for a particular job rather than a formal degree.

In my opinion prolonged formal education without application of knowledge acquired creates a skill gap required for a specific job role. Frequent application of knowledge is essential to understand what are the right skill sets required and keep acquiring them through micro learning courses. 

Even Indian Air Force had adopted the Japanese concept of Just in Time Training where the thought was to break down the training periods and let the trainees experience the on-ground job to relate to what they are being trained on. History is testimony to this where we had highly skilled craftsmen, artisans, architects who build many wonders of the world probably without any formal education.

However, there are pros and cons as formal education not only prepares you for the workforce but also prepares you for many other aspects of life.

How do you handle someone who has lied on their resume?

Lying is a question of Integrity but most of us lie either out of fear (children lie out of fear of being scolded) or to conceal some of our weak areas or wrong decisions in the past. I have learned in my life keeping trust as a basis of all relationship to place a person at 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 when you meet them first. 

With every wrong incidence including lying on their resume, they would keep lowering their scale. However, if at all I come across that they have lied on their resume after having hired the person, I would definitely want to go deeper to know the reasons for lying. “Let us accept the fact that most of us would never want to hire a failed person or a murderer”, Society rarely gives a chance.”

How has covid changed things at your workplace & which of these changes do you intend to make permanently?

From Formal to casual to shorts to the freedom of enjoying my Mallu Dhotis any time of the day. Everything has changed in the last year. From physical meetings to online meetings from in-person sessions in school to completely moving online. We would like to make all the student counselor one-on-one sessions permanently online whether in our B2B private school or our B2C clients from across India, the Middle East, and neighboring countries. 

Can you imagine a student from Deoghar, Jharkhand (one of the students who signed up for our program last month) having access to a highly experienced career counselor sitting in Mumbai, Bangalore, or Delhi? Imagine the numerous opportunities that a child is going to be exposed to and the impact it can create for that community.

                             

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs or those eyeing the top job?

Only one Advice – Hard work beats talent each and every time especially when talent doesn’t work hard. There is no substitute for hard work to maintain sustainability.

Which is your favorite book/show and why?

Favorite books kept changing with changing phases of life. A few of the books which definitely transformed life – An autobiography of a Yogi, Books by Osho, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, E-Squared and E-Cubed which gave me a lot of confidence while moving out of Air Force, and a few books by Robin Sharma and one of the most touching book was Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Favorite Show - A very few as never had the luxury of watching television leisurely. Lately watching Mahabharat on Disney Hotstar was amazing.

Bio - 

Squadron Leader N Praveen Kumar (Retd) has served in the Indian Air Force for more than two decades with working experiences in sports, administration and operations. He started his career in the Air Force as a national level athlete and after enhancing his educational qualifications got commissioned as an Air Traffic Controller. 

As an Air Warrior feels extremely proud to have contributed during the Kargil War and Operations Parakram in 1999 and 2002 respectively. In his long career of 20+ years, he also had a stint with Sarang Helicopter Display Team and Air Force Sports Control Board as Joint Secretary. 

In 2014, took an informed decision to move out of Indian Air Force to start working towards social impact and came across iDreamCareer and its work. The vision to help students identify the right career deeply attracted him to join the company to create happier societies in India. 

He completely believes People making Right Choices holds the Power to Empower Lives around them. Having been with iDreamCareer for almost five years, Praveen feels finally it is the Attitude rather than the Aptitude which determines the Altitude. He enjoys travelling, meeting new people and helping people in need to enhance their lives.