Learn from Aleksandr Isayevich
Only an extraordinary person can turn opportunity into reality - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
In a bureaucracy, success is the fruit of the average It does not yield abnormal outcomes. To seek an extraordinary path, it is necessary to first reorient yourself where exceptionalism is rewarded. Not suppressed.
In August 1914, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described an inept system leading Russia to defeat in the Battle of Tannenberg in East Prussia. His observations ring true today for those in struggling bureaucracies. Especially insightful are points that those with above-average abilities will never find fulfillment in protocol-heavy institutions:
There is no innate gift that brings unalloyed reward: it is always a source of affliction too. But for an officer, it is particularly galling to be endowed with exceptional talent. The army will gladly pay tribute to a brilliantly gifted man - but only when his hand is already grasping a field marshal’s baton. Till then, while he is still reaching for it, the army’s system will subject his outstretched arm to a rain of blows. Discipline, which holds an army together, is inevitably hostile to a man of thrusting ability, and everything that is dynamic and heretical in his talent is bound to be shackled, suppressed, and made to conform. Those in authority find it intolerable to have a subordinate who has a mind of his own; for that reason, an officer of outstanding ability will always be promoted more slowly, not faster, than the mediocrities.
There is a risk in leaving the comforts of a government job. There are also risks for remaining. How many of those who grasp the modern equivalent of the field marshal’s baton retain their unconventional capacities? How many suppressed their talents to earn time-in-grade advancement?
If you seek extraordinary outcomes for your career, you cannot remain where ordinary action paves the road to advancement. Look beyond. Look outside. Don’t conform. Be true to yourself. Take that first step.