I just got back from Delhi. The team and I were busy - we didn't leave the hotel from the time we checked-in, until after the entire three-day event was over. And the debrief by Ms KD right after the event closed was "Thank goodness the goddamn event is over!", to large applause and sighs of relief.
The thing about working in a high-energy and fast-paced environment, is that they expose you to the different sides of people and of yourself. My big lesson learnt is that I need to be more of a risk-taker. And to be honest, I think many of the team members I was working with, need a huge dose of this as well.
One of our keynote speakers - a really smart scientist and an avid musician - wanted to do a live demo. We're in India, and the big banquet room is in the lower lobby of the hotel. Although the hotel is wi-fi enabled, the connection can be quite spotty. So when he sprang this last minute request at me, I thought, nooooo, cannot be done. No can do. But he being a distinguished engineer and a vice president, kinda over ranked me and so I thought, oookay, he insisted and we should give it a shot.
Before long, the project manager was advised, he freaked out, then the other team members heard about it, and they freaked out and then the executive sponsor of the event heard about it, and she freaked out. After a while, they all began to sound like me, and the exec was facing a tirade of no and negatives.
That made me take a step back and realised that this exec is unfazed at all this reaction, and what he's been saying was finally sinking in to me. He said we need to take risk to set a new benchmark. If the connection worked, he would have one heck of a kick-ass demo, but if it failed him when he's presenting, he'd move on to the next slide. He wouldn't be a broken man if it didn't work out. That's when the light bulb went on for me.
The man, who develop technologies and is at the forefront of invention, had a healthy attitude towards failure, and it's something that I sorely need to develop. Try something new, if it works, congrats, you've just raised the bar, and if it doesn't it does not matter, you learn and move on.
Sounds simple, but difficult to practise. Here's to small baby steps...
2 comments:
Atleast you now know that you need to make a change. Thats the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous, to stand up and say "Hi, I'm an alcoholic." Once you've faced your failings you know you need to change them. And you know what you need to change.
Its human nature to be conservative with your life and your reputation, and its also innate to fear change.
Good luck! You have the rest of your life ahead of you!
Hello! Happy to see you here again :)
Post a Comment