Happy Teacher’s Day Team!

Summary: The article talks about how being an ardent student of his team enabled the author to lead his team better.

I joined Acko in May 2019 as the City Head for Delhi- NCR. This was my first time in the automotive industry and naturally on my first day, I was half excited and half apprehensive. Excited because of joining such an early stage start-up and apprehensive because of arcane nature of the automotive industry.

Everyone in our team was an automotive industry veteran who had spent his career in this industry! It was thus imperative for me to at least match the knowledge level in order to lead the team. Therefore I made a very simple plan, talk to everyone who is on the field which included members from- call center team (which converts a lead into a customer), business development team (the team that manages the auto dealerships), supply fulfilment team (bridge between call center and business development) and finally the salesmen at the dealerships. Here are my learnings from those interactions:

1. The foremost thing that helps you understand the business is the problem/s that you are solving for the guy who is paying for your product.
2. Giving people basic professional respect goes a long way!
3. The most important skill to have is- asking the right question while the most important virtue to have is the courage to do so.

Over the next couple of months, as my understanding developed so did the composition of conversations. My part in conversation which was largely centered on asking What should be done now had a serious competitor, suggesting what can be done. Slowly but surely, all the apprehensions that I had harboured melted away and what was left was experience, mutual respect and a tightly bonded team!

The seeds of openness, transparency and inquisitiveness sown, in the formative months of my time at Acko, grew into a team culture which thrived on innovation and improvisation, meritocracy, trust and genuine empathy. I now felt like what Ganguly might have felt with Sachin, Dravid, Laxman and Sehwag in the batting line up against Australia in 2003-04 Border Gavaskar Trophy! Sorry for taking it that far but there was no other way to describe that feeling. 

This post is dedicated to my team members at Acko who continue to be my teachers.