What simracing can tell you about career management.

A bout of furlough earlier on in the lockdown got me back into Gran Turismo Sport, a racing simulator up there with the best of them in terms of realism and for me, a discerning petrolhead, the best motoring fix there is. I am so into it I am even measuring my driving rating (D.R.) and sportsmanship rating (S.R.) performances after each race.

As the workload has crept up, G.T. Sport has gone from being a way to while away a rainy Tuesday into a perfect evening de-stress, and I started to think about what could be learned, professionally speaking, from racing virtual cars around a virtual track with furiously competitive anonymous randoms from all over Europe (my handle is ‘Lego__Mike’). Get ready for some tenuous links…

Learn the track, learn the car.

When racing, you cannot just throw yourself into a new car or onto a new track… well you can but it is not going to go very well. I am the first one to admit that currently I am very mediocre in my G.T. Sport skills but even I can see the value of learning a track and its braking points, as well as testing the performance nuances of a new car. My partner thinks I am mad for doing this, but only a few months ago, when she was interviewing for her new role, she was the one researching the company, its mission, and strategic initiatives. Are these two forms of predation really so different?

Bide your time; make that move.

I am the first one to say to a colleague not to rush into changing roles, or carefully think things through before taking the plunge; it’s all too easy to turn a career into a race, especially if someone you went to university with, or was once a peer, is progressing seemingly faster than you. So what?

G.T. Sport sadly is a race but biding your time on the track pays dividends. Not lunging into an overtake, instead, to carefully plan the singular best time to do so can be advantageous (there were reasons Four-time Formula One world champion Alain Prost was nicknamed ‘the Professor’). And yes, sometimes you can throw yourself into a race-winning move, and it does work. But it should never be the automatic, knee-jerk reaction. I have slowly learned that some races, for all the will in the world, just are not meant to be won, and changing strategy to maximise the opportunity is best. As I bumble around in fifth place, I will stop attacking and risking mistakes or bad decisions under duress. I will pit, get on some fresh rubber, and safeguard a solid third, thus bolstering my D.R.

Specialise or generalise.

In G.T. Sport you can either fine-tune your finesse on a certain type of track or in cars with a certain drive train (such as mid-engine, rear drive), and when the time comes to make use of those skills, you will wipe the floor with anyone you come across, but maybe struggle elsewhere. Alternatively, you spend time to learn all cars and all tracks, which takes lot more time and will not necessarily turn you into an overnight master, but it will make you frighteningly consistent and adaptable.

When it comes to careers, the same applies. You can be known for doing one thing and be the subject matter expert… but risk being pigeonholed or be a flexible jack of all trades… but take your chances in being perceived as less qualified compared to others. This is the million-dollar question and deserves a post all to itself. In the meantime, I like Caroline Ceniza-Levine’s answer:

“In the choice between a specialist or a generalist, the answer is yes”.

Do the gears.

A watershed moment for me recently on GT Sport was when I moved from using automatic transmission (when the game shifts gears for you) to manual, where, amongst everything else you have to think of, you’re doing the gears yourself. This was frankly a pain in the a**e and saw my D.R. freefall as my beloved R35 Super G.T. – screaming in first gear when it should have been in fourth –crashed and spun and crashed again as my eyes watched the tachometer, not the track. But slowly but surely, I improved. I started to turn down another driving assist, traction control.

Let me tell you, manual shifting with no traction control is the quickest way to get… well, quick. Suddenly I was three seconds a lap faster and challenging for the lead, not tenth place. And you know what? It does not just make my results awesome; it makes me feel like I’ve worked for it. Nothing worth having comes easy. Apart from McDonald’s, via UberEats.

Try not to be a dirty driver.

In my company we say, “If you can’t get there by doing something right, then don’t get there”. In the world of GT Sport, you are rated on your sportsmanship as well as your driving skill. If you want to win by ramming other drivers or forcing them onto the grass, then knock yourself out, but expect to be paired with similarly dirty drivers as your SR decreases. Having a high SR matches you with clean drivers, and when this happens you find that your journey to GT Sport success will be smoother and quicker. The moral here? Be known in your network for the good you do and being ethically sound – your reputation will quickly precede you… for the right reasons.

I reckon, in the surprisingly disciplined world of Grand Turismo Sport, there could be a lot to learn. And here I am waxing lyrical about driving and career skills like I am god’s gift to both. Well, I’m not – you can check out my YouTube channel to see my vast collection of racing fails. And my career is a work in progress. I think the biggest thing I have learnt from simulator racing is the sense of community, where people you have never met are congratulating you when you have done well and commiserating with you when you’ve choked. If you have those people around you in real life, then you are kind of winning already.