Sweat in Peace….Why?

“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war”. This has been the motto of my upbringing, but I started appreciating it only after the 4th edition of our Annual Meet ‘Accelerate 2018’. While the results were beautiful, it was a roller-coaster ride, and the lessons learnt were profound. So much so that I am enthused to pen down the experience and tag a few who have been part of this journey with me.

Stretch Targets => Innovation

I always had bosses who loved taking huge stretch targets and I hated them for that ??. This Sales Meet was no different. I was told to triple the partnership engagement vis-à-vis the previous edition. . It looked insane to me, but the boss is always right. With a heavy heart I reached out to all team members and partners. After 3 months of extensive campaigning, the ideas started flowing in. We re-visited each partnership, reinvented relationships, restructured the way of doing deals, re-did the GTM planning, created new partners. The results were there to see, we were not only engaging partners at the GTM level, but creating new themes expanding the market for all of us.

A stretch with-in elastic limits pushes you out of comfort zone and brings in innovation!

Collective Intelligence => Spring of fresh ideas

From sponsorship to planning, from sales interlocks to meet execution, it seemed too much at a times. The team inside and outside had lot of hidden talents and intelligence. The stretch pushed me to reach out and collect those gems of wisdom. My alliance counter-parts had done innumerable meets, so they had all the contacts and do’s and don’t ready. Sales knew the geography, the deals and the customer pain points well. Practice teams knew the partner trigger points. The moment I connected these dots the ideas, the help and the funding started flowing in. Constraint =>Opportunity. The whole meet was about opportunities. From funding, to venue selection, from creatives printing to actual presentation every time I had a constraint I either innovated or collaborated or delegated. So, in hind sight each constraint was like any opportunity gift wrapped to connect, to innovate, to learn and grow. I enjoyed it the most!

The master sheet => God

I always thought that as you go up the ladder, your love for excel sheets replaces the love for your spouse or may be over takes it. But I was wrong. The master plan sheet for project execution should be treated even better. It should be treated like God. The single version of truth, fully loaded and accessible to all stakeholders. It should be reviewed with version control and updated daily like a prayer routine. This single sheet can take any project to closure. Barring this sheet all other pieces of the project can be outsourced. Though I learnt it the hard way myself and there is still long road ahead.??

High Risk => Higher preparation

I always read that high risk will give you high gains. Only when I started taking risks, I learnt that with bigger risks the need for preparation goes up exponentially. In safe zone your experience can fend for you. But when you adventure in the unknow or in war like zone it is always better to practice, carry a fully loaded gear and a map. “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war”.

Secret Ingredient => Personal touch I learnt over years that one thing which no app, no sheet and no ppt can replace is personal touch. It is like grandmother’s secret ingredient in any recipe. It brings hearts together, brightens conversations and warms up the whole occasion. I recommend a lavish dose of this secret ingredient every time. This personal touch not only worked like a catalyst but also as icing on the cake. And the whole 3 days our eco-system worked like a well-oiled super-efficient machine.

‘Accelerate 2018’ was a huge success but the by-products that got created were even better. In 3 months of preparation time we revisited all our partnerships, created a solid partner plan for 2018-19 and Identified new areas of collaboration. The meet super charged the team and got all the internal and external stake holders on same page. Last but not the least in four years, creating and sustaining ‘win-win’ partnerships has become DNA of CMS IT Services.