LIFE - Edition 1 - Inspiring Stories - Woman Power

LIFE - Lead, Inspire, Flexible and Energize

I cannot find a better day to start the LIFE journey - on 8th March, International Woman’s Day. The journey of the person who gives LIFE to many has never been easy and is full of hurdles and challenges.

There is a reason for celebration, and it is important that the essence of the celebration is understood and passed on. To the fellow friends who also believe in Mythos and God, today is Shiv Ratri – The Supreme God who acknowledged the power of Sakthi (Woman/Nari) and Siva-Sakthi is the combination of both (Demonstrated Equality)

The journey of any woman needs to be celebrated and appreciated, things have changed for better over last few decades, but there are still struggles which many face even today and the least we can do is to appreciate, acknowledge and support the woman who are part of your journey.

I consider myself very fortunate to have travelled with power packed woman’s, from whom I have learnt how to see different perspectives, worked together in solving complex challenges, conflicting opinions, and differences, etc… Life is a sum of the experience you encounter, and it has been quite enriching and inspiring.

This Episode is dedicated to all my Woman Superpower connections professionally and personally.

• Minority is not a weakness:

During the early days of my career, I was working for a start-up and part of the seed team. We were 14 of us and diversity ratio was 12:2. We are working on creating complex models and there were days when you had to stop looking at clock, but all the days we had the 14 looking at each other. I personally learnt from the two, what is it to do multi-tasking and still smile at work. One instance I still remember is we were stuck in an analytical paralysis, the key to the freedom came from one of the 2. The values which our CEO and the leadership team instilled us to work a team truly reflected Unity in Diversity. Fast Track 5 years, the diversity ratio increased multiple X times.

• Majority is not a strength:

When I was working for a large multi-national bank, I was part of a team of 8 responsible for end-to-end financial closure and guess what the ratio was 2:8. I consider myself lucky to land into the team where I am a minority as learning was steep. There were challenges for sure, but what made me go, was the support of our manager/team lead – She felt the discomfort as I was extra cautious in how I behaved and talked. She said Dinesh (yet to be become DK) just focus on your job and if you disagree mention it. She created a team where it did not matter who was majority but what was important was the context and contribution.

• Why Fear when you are right:

The conditioning which I was part of was you do not talk back to elders and supervisors in majority of cases. The instance I would like to share is about my good friend (Whom I call Sis) - she was leading a large team supporting APAC and I was a lead supporting Americas market. The interactions were limited to the shift, but we know we speak between teams and its fun to talk about our supervisors ??. In all the interactions and communications, what always stood out was she is straight and does not fear anyone… You must balance politeness and aggression, but can you hit bulls’ eye every time really, yes that what my sister was capable every time. I saw her live in action when during the management meeting she was straight and fearless to the Global manager and said I do not agree with your proposal The second instance was when we both worked for another large global player. I asked her are you not afraid of what others think and what bosses can do, she said – If you are right, stay with it and face challenges. She still follows that quality and continues to inspire me.

• Power of the Will

Multi-tasking and family balance are two major challenges which I have seen during the initial days of my career, while things are changing now, but it was…. Will Power is a powerful word and can be leveraged in multiple ways, remember the saying “Where there is a will there is a way.” I am going to talk about 4-5 team members who taught me on how not to give up and challenge the challenge.

The Team member x and y (Different persons) were happy go around and quiet persons, who comes does the job and moves on…They encountered personal tragedies at home, but they faced the trauma strongly and was able to build their career by not giving up, but using the hurdles as launch pads and ?today they are very successful and soon their kids will be entering the corporate world.

The Team member Z, dynamic, smart, and fearless (I had to listen to straight talk directly) decides one day to pursue a new line of education. She had two kids in middle and higher secondary and has a day job of managing large operations, beyond the support which she got from team and company, she still amazes me, is her will power to learn and prove. Guess what she was a topper and recently I got to know she is now pursuing masters, all this with zero impact to family and work.

One of my friend ABC – Initially we started off like Tom and Jerry, but now she is one of my friends whom I trust, and she guides me when I face tricky conflicts. She had lots of challenge at home, but I have never seen that come in the work. She really connected teams and worked on the strength of the teams. It is easy to get bogged down, but she never did once.

• Mentorship through actions and giving back to Society:

Numerous motivation words and free advice are available in general, but very few show real intent in what they say and how they behave, many of my connections Walk the Talk and not just talk…

123 has dedicated her career now to support numerous social initiatives and make a difference globally. It is not an easy task to formulate and support the Global network and here you have a friend who does it effortlessly. She mentioned that she gets the motivation and energy from the larger sections of society and that helps her overcome the challenges which all face (Balancing priorities). She has mentored so many of her team that she can continue to make a difference to the world.

&*% is a friend who does loads of social work and supports needy, but never says to the world. She says helping is personal, why should I publicize. I asked her to look at this from another paradigm, share the good work so that she is able to inspire many. Let me see how she takes that feedback ??.

She also publishes motivation and short stories who inspires and supports multiple mentorship activities all through the year.

• Smiles help in crossing miles: - Humor:

Very few can create those moments where even in stress you bring a smile and lighten the moment. Yes – I have seen how you can leverage your humor and smile to change the atmosphere – Not many fit in this section but yes, I was lucky to experience the same.

During one of the floor walks, the team were pushed to the wall and there was this moment where it could have gone worse and the intent was not to push the team, but it happens as we all know, out of a blue there comes a person (HR lead) with a smile on her face, she diffuses the tense moment by bring in a lighter moment and that changed the way the floor walk was going. I have seen multiple instances that humor is a strength and if you use it right, it creates a beautiful constructive collaboration.

• Shoulder to lean on - Friendship

Friendship extending beyond 3 decades is not simple thing, i am so fortunate to have couple of them. Our friendship has no boundaries and has stood the test of time. I count myself blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Summary:

?This post is a dedication to all my woman’s colleagues who continue to inspire and motivate me every single moment. Every single day needs to be dedicated and celebrated. The mutual respect and supporting each other makes an enormous difference and team dynamics shift.? Let us not get hindered by gender bias and do your part to acknowledge and appreciate.

Cheers to the families who extend the support. Behind every successful Woman is a family

All the characters and experiences are from real life, but due to confidentially and privacy names are not shared :-)

Thank you for being a good friend and colleague

DK