We
have been hearing from last 20 years Intelligence Quotient, Emotional Quotient,
Leadership Quotient and lately Spiritual Quotient which is catching the
imagination of the world. All these Quotients have been extensively talked,
debated and spoken in greater wavelength across the world. In the last 10 years
of my experience of working Information Technology Industry with both Indian
MNCs and Global MNCs, I have realized it is more than these 3-4
quotients which decide the Destiny of a person as he gradually matures from a
Young Professional to a Lateral to finally a true Real Leader. I would say it
would be the 3 new Quotients which can be extension to existing one or define
the new parameters to decide the defining moment in One’s Life and Livelihood.
A true real leader is not always born by birth or Silver Spoon on the mouth. It
is more often a true Leader is born by Experiences, Adversity and dealing with difficult
circumstances and situations of life. Lot of times people are caught in a catch
22 situation to take a decision for the benefit of the mankind or at the big
picture irrespective of things which are not in his control. At those difficult
times a normal person gets transformed to a True Leader where he walks the
extra mile to fulfill his obligations and commitments in both Professional and
Personal Life. These resulted in shaping my ideas for 3 new Quotients called as
Experience Quotient, Adversity Quotient and YGM Quotient. You may be wondering
what the final Quotient to do with Human life is and there is where all the
answer lies to resolve all the uncertainty and perplexity and make a good human
being.
1. EXPERIENCE QUOTIENT - Experience is the biggest teacher beyond just plain
Education. Even a world class degree has no value in front true real experience
of a person which is earned striving through all good and bad times and still
coming out with Flying colors. Education only helps at the Entry point, post
that it's your Experience which makes you a marathon runner than just short 100
m or 200 m sprints. 10 years back I started to work with a Services
organization. My initial days were a client –vendor model from where I moved to
multi-vendor business model. This was great learning experience as there was
multiple stakeholders’ expectations management beyond just customer’s
orientation. I then moved to work with a Product-Services model and got an opportunity
to travel to Australia and directly work with Client Interfacing roles. After
working in the Industry from close to 4 years I decided to go for a Global MBA
in partnership with Nasscom to have a complete knowledge of Business, Domains,
Finance and Sales along with get leadership exposures in both APAC and European
Union. This was due to degree was awarded from both colleges in European Union
and India. This gave me impetus to take up the Business Analyst role for
completion of my MBA degree working directly with African and APC geography
Banking Customer and Telecom Customer for a year’s time. Post return to India,
I took up a role to manage a Center of Excellence and create new Revenue
streams across horizontals and verticals. I played the role successfully for
more than close to 4 years and moved to Client Partnership business model in my
new Organization. It is like handling multiple Accounts from Advisory,
Consulting and Delivery along with Practice Leader roles in building new
Solution and Service offerings and brings in Thought Leadership culture in my organization.
As I move forward to work with new Domains beyond just Banking and Telecom into
Retail/CPG and Healthcare in uncharted territory or new geographies, bottom-line,
I am willing to move beyond my Comfort zone. I am now becoming more Product agnostic,
Domain agnostic and Geos agnostic. This is a mandatory skill which all Sr.
level executives require to be Tomorrow’s Leader. So holistic Experience
Quotient becomes critical to understand the Business metrics, Process metrics
and Technology metrics and Be the Change!
2. ADVERSITY QUOTIENT – I have heard from childhood every Adversity can be
turned to an Opportunity by your sheer determination and perseverance. 10 years
back, in 2004 I could not get Campus placement among batch of 200+
odds despite my winning strides in clearing the written exams in multiple
companies with ease; I was still short of getting offer letter. In June 2004, I
decided to board the train from a Tier 2 city Odisha to a Tier 1 city of India
in search of my first Elusive Job to Bangalore - The Silicon Valley of India.
It was a Catch 22 situation in my life as I had an offer letter to be a Jr.
Professor of my passed out college, but still I was willing to take a Risk to
board the train to Bangalore which was full of uncertainty as there was no
guarantee of anything. I promised my Parents that within 3 months till Sept
2004, if I could not get any Job will come back and take up the role to be a faculty
member in the college all my life. That was a defining and turning point of my
life, as I lacked Experience but yes had full Intuition of my next move. Sometimes
adversity becomes an opportunity if are you are willing to take these
calculated risk. My initial months went in figuring out a clear Strategy what would
take me to compete with whole of India in Bangalore – when I was not able to
clear 200+ odds people. Yes there was some shortfalls initially, but then the
first 2 months made me teach the lesson of Adversity and taking all in stride,
without getting distracted for the larger Goal to get my First Job in remaining
1 month. In the month of Aug 2004, there was a Written – Interview call
happening from one of the best brands in IT MNCs and again the crowd was
swelling to a figure not less than 25000 in all 3 days ( a 100+ times more than
what I faced earlier). I cleared this time with a thumping win and in a week’s
time by Aug 13’ 2004 had the offer letter in my mail-box. Finally I went to
join the organization in Sept 2004 and rest is history. There had been a series
of many other Adversities which I encountered and each became learning and
inspiring lesson for me. The bottom-line is people who have crossed obstacles
in their life and converted them to Milestones – they survive in each decade
despite all environmental or economic pressure points. These few leaders went
on to build one of greatest quality called as Resilience – which I will talk in
next series.
3.
YOGA-GITA-Meditation(YGM- QUOTIENT) – In my initial days of my job life in
2005, I worked with many NGOs on weekend regularly to go different parts of
Bangalore and distribute all the basic things for the poor little chaps who
could not be fortunate and blessed like you or me. In 2009, I was in Africa
when on weekends my colleagues will go for Iskon Temple rituals and I also used
to accompany them twice, but I still felt the gap to do something bigger for
changing the mankind in whatever means I can. As I came back to India realized
helping the mankind is the biggest tribute to God than just plain visit to
Temples, even same has been told in Gita and by great Swami Vivekananda. I
slowly and steadily started to get involved in all activities on weekends apart
from starting to write Books which could help people who could not get all
degrees either due to Financial problems or who were bit directionless in their
life’s. In Oct 2013, a tragedy happened in our life and we lost the most
precious person who united me and my wife. In these difficult times, all people
were looking for answer which I could not find in a better book other than GITA.
That brought me close to GITA and I realized the importance of Karma Yogi
without any desires to be in Peace and tranquility with the Society. GITA Book
brought me in a transformation to stride all the challenges as part of duty in
life. The Peace within brought me close to Meditation and once you are in
peace, you can provide direction and Roadmap to people. The bottom-line is
every person should learn the art and science of Meditation in their daily life’s
to grow as a complete peaceful and helpful personality. They should also learn
the facts of Gita and use in their daily lives to cross all obstacles without losing
focus on Goals. Also last but not the least is the importance of Yoga in our
regular life. Yoga is the single USP which differentiates India from rest of
the world. Yoga exercise in the morning will prevent you from all Diseases,
make your immunization strong and give you inputs to deals with stress like
situations. These three jewels of India origin- Yoga, Meditation and Gita would
be biggest Gifts from a Parent to a child where the child in absence of the
Parents still can survive in the competitive world with all grace and dignity.
–
will be continued in next series.
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