Intern + First Solo Trip; The Team
I work at the top floor in a skyscraper made of glass. There is a corner on the floor nicknamed as Meditation area, with light music playing in the background and walls the color of ocean with patterns of symmetry, suddenly breaking into bits. The whole city maps till the horizon, lined by. Just adjusting the angle of vision by a few degrees up and you can see clouds speeding away on a windy day or lightly moving on other days making a scenery. And then you look down completely and see children playing tennis in the neighboring society and cars moving slowly on the road in between. I sit there to just be and observe, simply put meditate.
This week I engaged in conversation with senior leaders both offline and virtual; locally and globally. I took with me learning's of a spiritual essence.
First thing I noted was that individual success is not for long term, it is the success of a team, of everyone; that brings real meaning of success to reality. Second, there is no corporate way of being, just be true to who you are and function as you do in the most genuine of way. They said grow into someone who pushes others to grow, is tough yet inspiring, a stroke of balance. And I saw live example over the course of time.
Thirdly and most strikingly it was the little things that hit the best. Those things you can do at any level and make people around you excited to work with you. Like being: clear. concise. compelling; in your mails, conversations, code and everything in between. Take time out for those around you or just anyone, everyone else is just as interested to talk, go to lunch together or have a cup of coffee. That’s when I have had the most interesting of my conversations from finance to books to their stories.
I consciously try to make a character sketch of people in my mind with every thing they do and say, a graph of sorts, and these conversations make it come alive, like an idea growing into a network.
From people you meet people and they are even more fun to indulge with in a conversation. In my mind, it is the entry of a new character in a book being described as an exploration of unlimited possibilities. Takeaway for you: Never eat alone! major value addition from this activity is trust building that more than often turns into friendships of variety.
I found a really sweet TEDx talk on somewhat similar topic and I think you will enjoy it as much as I did.
And the last cute thing but really good thing to remember is to say thank-you. If someone takes time out for you and helps you out just give a small token of appreciation there itself. Write a cute thank-you note and it will make the other person’s day. Be the reason people are happy to come to office the next day.
The whole week I deepened my take on the idea of what really is a team and more I thought I found evidence of just how important it is to function well collectively in corporate and otherwise. This was a week of volunteerism for me, with me participating in many amazing activities, touching lives and bringing an impact no matter how small.
In one such activity, work was done in teams and one team was highly effective. I kept looking at them while waiting for my turn; they were efficient and fast, they looked like one single organism, each part functioning as intended. A team is only as good as its weakest link or say OS waiting time of the slowest process, even if you are doing your part perfectly. I understood what it is to be a team in that moment. Being in a good team, it is not about you anymore, it is something bigger than you. And it is about the unimaginable that you can achieve together.
While we are still talking about work, I think one becomes a true and fully on-boarded part of an organization with that first commit of code, immortalized forever. That was this week too.
And finally the fun part, the trip part you must be thinking. So my friends find IKEA a fun place to visit too, I protested! But went anyway, being a “team-player”, pun intended.
By the end of it, It was Golconda fort part 2, instead of aimlessly roaming the house of “dead”, I was in the mansion of “unknown”. Instead of hidden art of broken walls, I was gazing at what modern designing had to offer. Then the storyteller in me awoke, and I entertained by friends by being their personal salesperson.
