New Gen is around the block

As Chair of the Intern Council at HP Singapore, I had the fortune to conduct a Design Thinking workshop for our interns on October 16th 2019. We had intern's working across various disciplines in HP who participated in the session. It’s very encouraging to see how the next generation of Interns and Grad Hires are building a strong community within the company and making waves in building strong social networks.

This team of energetic and passionate employees also aims at embarking some exciting projects within HP on top of their day job. What was most exciting for me personally was how at each step of the workshop, the team demonstrated creativity, empathy and openness to work around to find solutions to the problems they undertook.

One of the key skills we attribute a lot of importance and relevance is the ability to Managing Ambiguity. We live in a dynamic world which is ever changing. Workshops like these actually demonstrates how individuals look for -managing time; effectively look for solutions that are practical with little information , also keeping in mind how their fellow team mates will benefit. The exercise we did was about solving  problems for ones teammates. What was fulfilling was to see some remarkable and creative solutions. it was great to hear that the individuals not only acknowledged their team mates solutions but also decided to embrace them.

While seeing the young minds work and imbibe what’s primed to them truly shows the promise of how the world of tomorrow will shape up to be better than its today. Its also very encouraging to see how today's new generation is careful with optimizing resources and also being mindful of our sustainability efforts. I strongly believe that we have to make time and be a mentor and also be reversed mentored to keep up with changing times. Coaching is certainly the best way to learn and build new perspectives. Its very clear that you strengthen your skill set when you share it with people who can enhance it.

Ambiguity certainly can create uncertainty and lead to stressful situations. Its a key skill in Matrix organisations internally and Multi-Channel organisations externally as well. If I had one tip to add on managing ambiguity, it’s your ability to be relaxed while responding to these situations. Investing in a hobby, social activity or harnessing new skill sets and passionately following it is extremely important to our state of mind.

I want to thank Shelly Rajpal . Shanice Loo and Benjamin Smith for organizing this session which was indeed a rewarding learning for me as well. Really look forward to the countless interactions we will have to harness the ideas of the new generation that’s now around the block.