Gratitude for the month of Giving...

I am starting off November with a deep sense of gratitude and journaling my thoughts on what we've been able to collectively accomplish as a team in the month of Give.

My four states of mind in the month of Give (October) were -

1. Proud to have been nominated. These positions of being a VPAL (vice-president-appointed-lead) at Microsoft are very sought after and it felt amazing to have this responsibility entrusted for both Store and across MCB.

2. Overwhelmed - Albeit for a short period of 3 days, I have to admit (otherwise i wouldn't be helping other folks that feel the same way), I felt overwhelmed by the flood of great questions/requests for help from my well-meaning teams, and worthy causes. When I started engaging with the non-profits, it was difficult to not get emotionally attached to the help recipients. There is so much need in this world and there is so much help people want to provide in this world.

3. Purposeful - After having a moment to pause, it became very clear that with the right supporting team and a well-structured plan, we can prioritize, plan the work and finally work the plan, thereby making a significant impact in the end.

4. Grateful - Despite being very demanding in terms on time commitment and mental energy, there is no other way I could have learned so much in such little time. I am thankful that I am in an organization, team and management chain that lives/breathes the culture of Giving.

The gist of what I learned is:

1. There is supply i.e. people want to help. There is demand i.e. there are a lot of people that need help. The trick really is to find the right balance between the two. So I am more optimistic than ever that we can make the world a better place by channeling the willingness to help.
2. There are multiple organizations that work within a very specific target audience and when you have the vantage point of seeing across these causes, you can make connections that can be super powerful.
3. Rallying an organization behind a few chosen causes, while trying to balance it with empowering employees within the organization to contribute to their causes do not need to be mutually exclusive. I witnessed some senior leaders who did this incredibly skillfully during this month.
4. While individual contributions are super important, we need systemic and systematic changes to really bring about change - be it through public policy or organizational level investments or changing the mindset of an entire set of people.
5. Data is incredibly important. In order to understand the impact of the work you are doing and in order to inform future investment or prioritization decisions, it is super important to be able to track and quantify the right metrics.
6. Dialogue and an emotional connection at a human level is more important than data. Throwing data at someone that has a strongly formed point of view is not going to help sway the person. Openness to having a dialogue through these differences is what can create a better outcome for all of us.
7. Finally, as a human race, we all have a lot more in common than different at a fundamental level. We all want a better life for ourselves and our future generations. However, what is different is the access we have to the resources. With the right intent, mindset and reframing of the problem, we can make a significant impact and generate more equity of resources and opportunities.

Net net, grateful for the opportunity and would highly recommend taking it on for anyone considering it for next year!

Special thank you to the team that made the journey so awesome - to our leaders, my manager that created this opportunity, to my own team that helped me take on this stretch assignment by holding down the fort, to the Giving v-team that helped provide scale, to my VPAL partners Linishya, Laura, Shy, Sabrina, Susan, Jason, Sean and to the non-profits that spent so much time educating me and the team on their causes.

 Onto Holiday now…

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