Chanakya - Team Building Workshop (T-4 days) #ecosystem #howtobuild

Good evening, everyone!

Welcome to T-4 days article of Sarvhitay Elements Chanakya - Team Building Workshop. If you are looking for enrollment, please feel free to share your details via below form. Thanks a lot.

LinkedIn article thing !

I started this countdown from last Tuesday, 3rd Jan. I was aware that our dear LinkedIn do not value these boring and long form of writing that much. Specially compared to a post (1300 char limit) which is distributed to far more % of our network connections and easy to read as well. Keeping this fact aside, I still wanted to write in personal notes style (self-talk) & aim was to document own views for the workshop. And if few people read it, it will be good. The other benefit of writing is that I am creating something at time in a day (I mean night) when I could have just observed few online stuffs. I will try to keep this habit going, it suits me.

A way out from LinkedIn article.

Anticipating that there will be less feedback (comments) and views, I put an extra effort and requested few friends to kindly read it, when possible, provide their blunt and open feedback. It will help to improve the writing and aim of documentation. Many of friends did it. And I have got loads of feedback. As you know I will remember all of you forever with your critical feedback, in context of this seeming difficult stage you made easy for me.

A bet!

And here starts the fun. One of my friends started sharing feedback of last 2-3 articles on LinkedIn message. Time was 30 min past mid-night. And he shared feedback about #ecosystem article (T-8). The main question was - where are ways to build the ecosystem? I notated the point and said, let me write it on T-4 (this one). But, if you like the article, you will get me a lunch, and if you do not like it, I will pay it. A lunch anyway is fixed! Maybe dinner, we will see.

Feedback was not over there in mid-night. Today mid-day, one more friend, wrote a loooong email. With feedback. And he had the similar observation on #ecosystem. I have explained it nicely (and specially absence of ecosystem) but where the process to build one? This is not a bet, but this is achievement, to get such super intelligent people, reading our work and providing feedback. Loved it sir, loved it.

How to build ecosystem?

Simple answer from logic point of view is networking. Just wear sufficiently professional clothes and start networking with people. Over the time we will have a network. But this is exactly what we cannot do (or nobody can do). Because people do not get impressed by us only by IQ (Apology my dear friend IQ, one more stab on you!). So, what we need is EQ. And keep IQ at back pocket at all times, you can even put in the car that is parked or keep it at home.

I know it's not easy concept, but its already complete. Hence, we need examples!! I am sharing only 2 aspects and multiple examples of those. Let's see if you can pick it up what are those, and even we can get one common aspect. I will revel it at the end. Please note all examples are real and part of personal experience.

Example 1: Cook & eat something with team!

If you want to take away one good input from this article. It's here. Take as many team members as possible you have (Assuming you are boss!). Get them in nice, comfortable, non-judgmental, non-hierarchical, semiprofessional environments. Leave all smartness and IQ behind. Just be simple human is required. We should not be able to judge in this group which team is this, who is director, who is VP bla bla bla. Everyone is human.

Now setup is done.

Rest work is so simple (Simply forget that phone!). Just remain in moment. Automatically people will have interactions, smiles, songs, jokes, they will say something, they themselves will reply & multidimensional ecosystem will start generating. To be honest, there will be an owner, who will firmly (as per required) keep the track in right direction. We do not want to start navigation in wrong direction or making fun of someone together or start talking politics. We also want the group is one single pack. We want to do it in right spirit (without consuming it!). We need to be the "grand papa of this group". It's fun, I highly recommend it, it never fails. Extreme low cost. Please note we are cooking here (mixing raw ingredients, cutting vegetables and then eating together, total time required approx. 120 min show). If it takes 180 min it's even better! Please keep phone awayyyyy !

Example 2: Get food of your city!

June 2015, I was packing my bags for first ever visit to Vienna. I lived in the UK for 3.5 years before, so I knew fairly well about how much love for Indian food is there in the world (especially in Europe). With this gut feeling, I brough 2.5 kg of specialty of Pune called Bakharwadi. Do not worry if you know the name of it or not, you will love it when you eat it. My wife naturally guided if I was mad. And want to really take this to Vienna. I said, "yes" on both aspects.

Here are experiences collected firsthand. Should I say that in next of my trip the quantity increased.

Tricentis Founder Wolfgang Platz and Co-Founder Franz Fuchsberger both loved it from first time getting one packet each. Franz liked it so much that he had a full dinner with it one time.

One packet was always booked for our dear friend Michael Niessl . So much serious it was that once I took a pack for him. He was not in office, he asked me to drop the packet at his desk. When I went to his desk, his team was aware that I am coming with a packet. And had instructions not to even "touch it".

One packet I will open with our front desk, I will talk to Katharina Breitler and bring one glass bowl from office kitchen and open the packet and put at reception. Bakharwadi was a signal that someone from India is here in Vienna.

Final packet was going to support team. I used not to know many of them, but few of them since I worked at Cognizant Tosca CoE. And our dear support team liked it as well.

There was no IQ used in whole process. Cost of 2.5 kg Bakharwadi is 5 Euros (today's rate). But the love and care with which we bring it to 7,000 Km and share with all is pure EQ. And that builds ecosystem and connect.

If you observe, here its distributed deployment of ecosystem aspect. Not in single group as example 1.

Example 3: Take food of your city with you!

We cannot miss this. That time city was Indore, from where I came to work in Pune. And I knew (like the world knows) about good food of Indore. This is 2006. Same #concept as example 2. But here it one level up.

From Pune I will go to Indore for a vacation, generally for 2-3 days (1 or 2 times a year). Before going to Indore, I will prepare a checklist (best tool of tester, FYI James Bach ). I will ask to all 25 members of team (Dev, BA, QA, IT, HR, Admin, Director, Manager and more) that which type of Indore's namkeen you want? The spicier one or medium. That was only IQ required in this process. Whist in Indore, I knew best shop to buy. Additionally, I will buy 2 packets of 500 gr each and few sweets.

When we reach office, I will not let anyone open their own packets in office. Argument was - they are for your home. Please take it and share it with your family. Everyone will listen to me. Jus to note, I was a QA (Contractor) there, was lowest in the rank possible, but was definitely a little mad. For office, we will open those 500 gr packets & knowing we need to balance it will also open sweet as well.

Now imagine, what will happen when these 25 packets going to 25 homes. Somebody went to 700 km away town in Indore and brought this packet. If they liked the taste. Think of ecosystem getting build?

Sagar Dubal or Ambar Bokare any feedback on it?

Example 4: Connect is waste of time!

In one famous Indian movie PK, Amitabh Varma wrote a line, "Love is waste of time". Professionally, we can tweak a bit as "Connect is waste of time!". Now, even if we know that we need to waste time with 3 most senior directors of team to get better connect, question is how to do it?

One example, we did was a 4-hour meeting with 4 people. My experience here is that with 3 or 4 members, we get into a "social setup" which is better than 1-to-1 setup for team building. Here the idea is that we cannot simply waste 4 hours. We need drive it for 4 hours but with very informal, non-judgmental way. Keep the phone away again.

30 min each can easily be spent on detailed introduction. There are cities or origin, there are schools, migrations, families, parents and their background and what not. Each life is a #story (since its Data + Time + Personal Emotions). So, you get 2 hours done with 4 members. Outcome is that all 4 know each other very well compared to start point. Great RoI already achieved.

Other 2 hours can be spent in a creative way. Give them a run-time topic and a marker. Ask them to share your views (perspectives) for 30 min each. I have tried few meetings in this format with seniors, the simple question we used "Who is bigger, the person who gives something or the person who is asking something?". It worked very nice. I am not detailing it more (may be a new article is required). But there are always ways to break the normal discussion and get into something which gives real views/perspectives of people, resulting in better connect and ecosystem building.

Connect is waste of time!

Example 5: Lets go for Tea!

Cannot miss the great Indian tea. We are free for 30 min or more, and there are always things to catch up with one person. This is classical 1-to-1 format. INR 20 (USD 30 cents) for 2 cups of tea, open environment at an India Tea stall. And if required a little walk together (This is Sarvhitay Elements 's motto). This walk can lead you far.

Kapil Sharma 's movement from solution engineering to consulting team was decided by me and him on a one such long walk.

Sumit Kudal decided not to leave company on a long walk with me and Kapil.

Avishek Sarkar and me had a great walk just before he moved from company.

Sanal Nair and me used to get out in fresh air, many times to make our next big strategy.

Summary of #ecosystem #howtobuild

As promised here is the summary and one more example of #abstraction. What are we doing with either #food or #time here? We are bringing the people in a focus. We are opening ourselves to capture those EQ moments, small behavior, little example, little interaction. And this laser focus, grows the connection and the ecosystem.

Hence #food or #time, actually its #focus at core which is working.

Do not know if after writing so much, I win the bet or not! Have a nice evening. See you with T-3 article tomorrow. Please keep sharing online and offline feedback, I am loving it!