Azadi Dil Ki (with Responsibilities)

What is Freedom?

As per Google:

noun

1. the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.

"we do have some freedom of choice"

2. the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

"the shark thrashed its way to freedom"

As we are celebrating 75th year of India’s independence, I am avoiding the typical debate “How free are we in India?”, rather focusing on one level up, “What are we doing with our freedom?”.

Just imagine you have unlimited freedom with absolutely no responsibilities. How good would that be? In the beginning it may feel, “Wow, that’s not too bad”. But now think about the consequences down the line. Currently sitting very close to the beach while writing, I can only wonder if we had unlimited freedom of doing whatever we want to do on the beach, without any sense of responsibilities to keep the place clean and safe, would we continue having such beautiful beaches forever? We get a legit driving licence and have the freedom to drive, but can we ignore the responsibility to obey the traffic laws and drive safely? Well let’s try not to visualize the chaotic streets of Chandni Chowk and get distracted.?

The point is Freedom must come with responsibilities!

On this #AzadiKaAmritMahotsav, for our beloved country, we went around and asked our team members where they want to see India in the next 25 years.?

Some of the answers were,

?“I want to see my India clean”,??

“I want to see my India green”,?

“I want to see my India more literate/educated”,?

“I want to see my India preserving historical resources'',?

“I want to see my India as the safest country (especially for women) in the world”,?

“I want to see my India as a World SuperPower (Vishwa Guru)”,?

“I want to see my India more inclusive and corruption free”,?

“I want to see my India having Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education”.?

It was wonderful to see, that attached to these wishes, each and every one of them spoke about their responsibilities, what they will do individually and collectively to have their wishes for India come true.

?“I will recycle responsibly”,?

“I will grow more trees”,?

“I will be careful and not throw out waste on streets and will also recycle”,?

“I will keep on contributing towards the education of underprivileged kids at whatever capacity I can”,?

“I will spread awareness on conservations”,?

“I will raise my voice against crime, violence, and injustice, to the best of my ability”,?

“I will try to put little contribution whenever and in whatever way possible”,

?“I will not tolerate discrimination”,?

“I will actively work on grassroot level, creating awareness and encouraging the importance of quality education especially for girls”.,?

And some being honest, said “I want to start small in terms of growing trees and educating others. Not sure how but I will start for sure!”

Same way at CricHeroes , you have full Azadi apne dil ki to act, speak, or think as you want. But all of it comes with an equal amount of responsibilities.

One of the pillars of our culture is to create a Culture of Candour- to be able to speak what’s in your heart with the positive intent, aiming to assist another or what's best for CricHeroes. We truly love and live by it. By being able to freely share our opinion and feedback, we not only create a bond with each other, we develop and continuously get better at what we do. How are we able to enjoy giving and receiving feedback, which always has a negative feeling attached to it? It is only because everyone does it with responsibility- responsible in assisting the individual, responsible for constructing the feedback in a way that is actionable instead of making a loose comment and again saying it with the responsibility of doing what’s best for CricHeroes.?

One of our other pillars talks about creating a Culture of Context instead of Control. This means we create a culture where we define the Whys and want the team members to take care of the Whats and the Hows. In other words, we set the context and individuals are given the freedom to decide on the course of actions. How does this work for us? By moving control away, simultaneously we attach the sense of responsibility to each one. “It’s your decision, and you will be responsible for the success and the failure of it”. Of course if one fails, we learn it as a team, share it with others and move on quickly to Plan B. To help the team members to freely exercise this, we have removed control in a lot of places like avoiding clock in clock out time systems or having unlimited vacation policy.?

Responsibilities without freedom will restrict creativity, will make the process long and bureaucratic and in turn frustrate the individual and stop the growth of the company.

Freedom without responsibilities will lead to malpractice, politics and utter chaos; again resulting in stopping the growth of the company.

Only when both are at parity can we tap on everyone’s highest potential and can make the most of it in our growth journey.

Freedom with responsibility is the sweet spot to achieve our vision.

This Independence Day, instead of passively enjoying our sweet freedom, let us actively take a personal pledge to make India the most progressive nation in the world!

Share your views on how you are making most of our Freedom responsibly on this Independence Day.

I am Amrita Sengupta , VP People at CricHeroes .

CricHeroes is the world’s largest Cricket Network with more than 15 million registered cricketers. A platform to live score and live stream grassroots cricket matches, get recognised for your talent and become better with data.