A Colorful Half Inning!

On this International Women’s Day, my heart tells me to acknowledge one woman who seized an opportunity 20 years back – Poornima Pratap. With that she has made a big difference to herself, me as an individual and the team around her!

Poornima and I have spent more than half a century together. As kids, I took the career route early in life and straddled home making alongside, while she went the home-maker way. A few years after her daughter took off to school, she decided to ‘go to work’ and traced her steps to the role of an administrator in a school.

We shared everything about our lives with each other and her stories of the changes she was bringing to the way the school functioned to build in efficiencies amazed me. The thought that she’d make a wonderful additional to our Marketing + Communications team at Accenture, continued to plague me.

A chance to put this to action came up when our M+C Operations Lead resigned. Our then M+C lead - Atul Takle responded with positivity and enthusiasm when I presented Poornima’s profile to him. He was willing to go that extra mile in giving her an opportunity though her experience was not a direct match to our requirements. ?

The next step was to speak with Poornima about it and enable her to see the potential - her response was, “I don’t think I can survive in that crazy corporate world of yours”. I cajoled and convinced her to take a week off and come and try her hand at understanding the role and our team as people. She came, she stayed and she conquered. It has been nearly 20 years. She chose to stay on over the years as a third-party resource, not wanting to get into the competitive world of growth and the politics associated with it. I moved on to other pastures from M+C, but as I understand it, she continues to be a valuable team member of M+C Accenture in India even today.

The few reasons I share this are:

-?????????She took a chance and opened her mind to newer pastures: Keep an open mind to unexplored opportunities, believe in yourself

-?????????I knew her potential and could visualize her ability in fixing the gaps we had in our system: Identify your guide and critic

-?????????Our leader Atul took a chance in giving her a break and creating an environment for her to succeed: Make sure the leader who gives you the opportunity is willing to provide the support for you to be successful

-?????????Her focus was on learning and enjoying the journey: Growth need not always be vertical alone

-?????????The team rallied around her: Demonstrate the right attitude and build the peer network to enhance your confidence

The task at hand for me now is to convince her look at our post-retirement initiative plans together – the sane backbone to my maverick self….

More power to women like Poornima! Wishing you the very best if you are on that journey to take that same leap of faith!

PS: The all dressed up picture of us together? Us at her daughter’s wedding ??