Of This and That

Try as much, being in senior leadership role means that typically you are cut off from some internal group discussions and gossip since you are considered the management person and will always take side of the management. I always felt that I had a good, strong and healthy relation with all my team members and they felt free in sharing any issues with me, but then there is always that last mile, which I was not a part off, which I realized the other day.  I got included in a Whatsapp group, which had all team members of mine. Initially I felt that a new group has been started given that many people had left us in recent past and this was good and easy way to remain connected, but when welcome messages came my way, I realized that this group wasn’t that new… only I was new to it.  And the reason I wasn’t added to this group earlier was that people would discuss things about the organization they felt should not be discussed in front of me, as they believed I was a...

As I left Infosys, during the various farewell meetings, people shared few observations that they felt were the strong points of my leadership and that they liked it very much. These were a) quick response to emails, b) being available always to listen to anyone for any of their issues and c) the ability to handle multiple things at the same time. The first I think comes from the fact that I don’t see a reason in keeping anyone waiting when I can respond immediately and also I had spent some time early on in my career in learning typing. I won’t say that I have mastered it, but at least it has helped me being able to type pretty fast and that helps in responding to emails quickly. Since I know that I can respond to an email within a couple of min (If I have the answer), then why not respond right away? Why wait till you actually tend to forget about the email and the need to respond to it. If I don’t have an immediate solution, I reply back saying that I will get back shortly. Th...