Can I get back to my previous company

I'm a Mech engineer with 7 yrs experience, in mainly R&d.
One year back I did take a jump from my previous company (here which I worked for 3 years) to my current company.
The change was mainly for better remuneration.
Now my previous company is calling me back and offering me an higher remuneration with leadership roles (a project lead position). Currently I'm not doing up any leadership role here, which is fascinating & dragging me to take up the offer and join my previous company. I always had ambition to get in to these roles after 7-8 yrs exp, so I wish to get back to my previous company.
To give a quick info - Both are MNC which are doing well, and at both places Im working at R&D function. My current company is bigger in turnover (30 Bn $ turnover) where as my previous company is around 7-8bn$ turnover. There are more HR policies, worklife balance, good quality trainings and higher head count in my current company and I feel job is more stable here.

The company I wish to join (previous one) has more diluted policies, very few people in India R&d center, more work and woklife balance is not that great. Work has more challenges, which I even enjoy these conditions many a times, at the same time I need to have a stable job.

The main apprehension that I have is, after I join back many of my ex-colleagues will have loose talks at me & I may be a topic for discussion & rumors. Or even management may squeeze me & provide me some kind of torture after....?????

So with rating the priorities I did a SWOT analysis, which my previous company is taking a better rating (as I get challenging task, leadership role and also higher pay to my current).
Would you suggest me to join back or I need to take the highlighted fear on serious note and continue with my current job?
Thanks & Regards

Sainath's Advice on Saturday, November 12, 2011 :

Hi,

Let us address your queries one-by-one.

First and foremost, I liked the statement :

"Work has more challenges, which I even enjoy these conditions many a times, at the same time I need to have a stable job."

I would like to share some thoughts on certain points mentioned:

Job security

The funny part of job security is that the more you go after it, the less you have it. Pursuing job security means that you will inevitably target larger, stabler organizations which have an established revenue generation model, good balance sheets, better policies, etc. But this also means that work will be of a standard nature, lesser challenging, and more streamlined. Inevitably, this will cause you to lose interest, your heart and spirit will no longer be in it over a period of time and this will happen no matter what you are being paid. Soon, without realizing it, your skills will start declining. The assumption that this is a secure job is one which I would like to challenge - it takes only a few bad decisions by some top management person/s or a drastic change in the economic / business climate to jeopardize the future of an organization. And this keeps happening all around us - yet we choose to ignore it. Here are some examples:

Example 1:

Company A chooses to sack it's 2 active CEO's and hand over control to a new guy

Consequence - both the previous CEO's had their own core teams, since now only a single person is in charge he decides to disband the teams and retain only those persons whom he needs. The rest are asked to quit.

Conclusion : The assumption that a so-called stable company with large headcount and good revenue streams will ensure a long-term stable job has gone horribly wrong for these people. But life goes on and the news dies down,

Example 2:

The CTO of a top financial organization decides that Python should now be used as a development platform. Senior technology specialists in the organization are horrified, their brains take a spin - what about the years they have invested in learning Microsoft and Java technologies? Job security and fear force them to comply with the new initiative. A handful decide to do something about it and move on.

My point is - your level of employability is your only security. Your level of employability is only directly proportional to the size of the problems you solve, the size of your responsibility, and what you are really capable of doing and have achieved in your career to this point. Latching on to a big organization with the thought that you are secure is not a good option in the current era where business models are continuously changing.

Flexible people seem to have an almost uncontrollable urge to go beyond established limits. They are uneasy about comfort and they live on the edge of their competence.
They seem compelled to place themselves in situations where they do not know what the outcome will be and courageously venture beyond their comfort zone. They accept confusion, uncertainty and the higher risk of failure as part of the process. They learn to view setbacks as interesting, challenging and growth producing.
    - Henry Toi in the book "Habits of success"

Associate with the 5% crowd

When you start taking more and more risks, an interesting phenomenon will happen. You will find that you have more critics (sometimes family members and close friends) and lesser number of people who will support you in your decisions. Sometimes, people may even be vocal and nasty in conveying their opinions. But if you observe closely, very few persons in this entire cross-section will be people who have truly succeeded. When this happens, it means only 1 thing - your plane of thinking now goes beyond your immediate peer group.

Another interesting thing will happen, you will find that your thinking will start resonating with a small subset of top performers who can be called truly successful. And they in turn will appreciate your efforts as they themselves rose to the top after overcoming the same challenges.

It is s funny anti-climax, you will have lesser and lesser number of believers who understand your decisions as you get more and more successful.

"Don't join an easy crowd; you won't grow. Go where the expectation and the demands to perform are high."
       - Jim Rohn

You can't fly with the eagles if you keep scratching with the chickens.
    - Author unknown


High return and high risk go together

You can't have your cake and eat it too. High risk and high return go together. Only in exceptional cases will it happen that you will have exciting work to do and a stable work-life balance as well.You need to make a choice - what is that you value more at the current stage in your life? And act accordingly.

Even in indecision there is risk. Create a way to weigh risk. One simple way is to ask these four questions;

• What is the reward we are seeking to attain? Does it justify the risk taken?

• How can we create "first-aid boxes" strategies to rescue the situation if something unexpected happens?

• What is the worse-case scenario?

• Can we bear the loss?

• Do we know enough about the matter to make a sound judgement? Are there experts we can go to for advice ? Is there past knowledge we can seek to avoid pitfalls ?

    - Henry Toi in the book "Habits of success"

Have a fall-back strategy in place

Answer the question, "If I were to be jobless for the next 6 months, can I survive?" The reason I say this is because if you have planned properly, your financial stability will ensure that you maintain a healthy risk appetite and your thoughts / decisions are not influenced by your immediate financial needs. Too many times, individuals fall into a debt trap with high EMIs and loan payments and all their career decisions are more out of compulsion and less out of choice. Think of yourself as a company, and have surplus funds to fall back on should there be a rainy day.

To specifically answer your concerns,

(1) What if other people in the old company mock me?

As long as you know why you chose a particular course of action and are absolutely convinced of the same, it does not matter. Trying to please everyone or live by other peoples' definition of life is a dangerous thing, in my opinion. Live on your own terms, ignore the rest.

"As for worrying about what other people might think - forget it. They aren't concerned about you. They're too busy worrying about what you and other people think of them."
          - Michael le Boeuf, Speaker and Author

(2) What if the old management tortures me?

This is something that you have to arrive at a judgement based on your past experience of the people you are going to associate with. A similar scenario was asked earlier, please go through the below link.

http://www.dotnetfunda.com/advices/a89-should-i-go-back.aspx

Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone.
    - Robert Allen

I hope I have provided enough food for thought - it's good that you have already done a SWOT analysis, probably the points I have stated will help you in strengthening the analysis. Please revisit your analysis and arrive at an informed decision. All the best !

Regards,
Sainath S,
www.ugain.info

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Mohanms said on Sunday, November 13, 2011

Mr.Sainath Thank you very much,
It is really a great advice, I feel a lot more clear to take up my decision. Really nice advice and app thoughts embedded in it.
Certainly like to be in touch with you in the future. Thanks again

Regards
Mohan

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Mohanms said on Monday, December 05, 2011

Thanks so much for the suggestion