Courage Doesn’t Roar.. #corporatebytes

On a Monday morning stuck in the never ending traffic of hyper city Bangalore (India), Aanya is already late to the most important meeting of 2nd quarter of the year. She rushes into the crowded meeting room adjusting her hair; there is intensity, anticipation and wind of disappointment.

As she enters, her eye meets last but one slide of the presentation. She is glad to see the numbers in green. Yes, that’s her team performance. And then comes an announcement,

“Aanya would be the right person”, voice from the background. It’s Mr. Pandey her manager.

She gives him a surprised look, their eyes meet.

“Uh, Aanya there you are”

“You will be managing a new team in addition” said Mr.Pandey.

Vendor management was a team of 10 members, most of the members relatively new with 2 senior members managing the team until now after the lead resigned a few months ago.

Aanya Singh is an enthusiastic power pack, ambitious individual, extremely positive and always ready for new assignments. She is thrilled about the new opportunity. It was 4 years ago; she took up a small role in this huge organization and made her way through up the ladder in short span. She has a great rapport across borders with various teams, leadership, excellence in managing her team & the client has no complaints.

“I am going to resign” said Nikita with a frustrated tone.

He looked at her round clam, “You are a great team member, and you just need time to groom yourself”.

Furiously, “Groom myself for another 5 years?” asked Nikita

“Well, you need to wait for the right opportunity. You are not ready for this. Excuse me now! Hello..! (On phone)” walked away from the meeting room, Mr.Pandey.

Nikita Bora, an MBA Postgrad, dedicated 5 years of her life to the organization. Highly committed and worked hard, hoping to acquire a better role in the organization.

She is friendly in nature but liked by a very few in the team due to her mood swings and bad people management skills. She is very aggressive and arrogant at times. A senior member of the Vendor management team and dreamt of leading the same team. But with her incompetency in handling the team and work assigned, the leadership was frustrated with issues within the team and escalations from the client.


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The insubordination from Nikita had upset Aanya’s work on multiple occasions now. Nikita’s attitude towards Aanya was no less of a revenge drama. Being a senior member, her knowledge is vast and great value for team’s success. However, it did not really matter for her. Nikita had issues with everything around; Mr.Pandey was always involved in any communications between the women.

It was frustrating for Aanya to be blamed and held accountable for activities she could not control and false allegations from Nikita. Though she understood the reason for Nikita’s rude behavior and tantrums, Aanya believed in keeping her clam and focused only on meeting the deadlines and empowering the team to work together.

With time, she is able to bring positive changes in the new team with not much difference in Nikita’s attitude. Client has gradually adapted new ways of working. Aanya is an impeccable support and team is happy about her leadership style.

But after 6 months there is another opportunity waiting for Aanya with new learning, experience and exposure. Management had to assign a new lead. And there were no competitors for Nikita this time around.

Excitedly Aanya says “Congratulations! You deserve it”.

With rolling eyes, “Thank you! That position was always mine” said Nikita


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Nikita has finally acquired her dream role. Everything seemed so perfect, she felt confident and powerful like never before. She is heading one of the strongest teams in the business unit. However, in time her poor people management skills has tone the team apart. Her domination is not one could tolerate and so is her over-confidence.

It is 30 minutes past 7 PM; Nikita is winding up her work. She can’t wait to get back home on a Friday evening after a long day. But Mr.Pandey has something else planned for her. He stood next to her gazing at her laptop.

“We have an issue Nikita. Client requested an audit on transactions in last one week and report it by Monday” said Mr.Pandey

“On an average we complete 100 transactions a day and auditing these transactions for a week would take time. This can’t be completed by Monday” sounding worried.

“This is a client requirement & a must. So please report the results on Monday” said Mr.Pandey.

Nikita extended her working hours to manage a report of transactions completed. But she knew it was impossible to complete the audit the same day and she had to work over the weekend.

That was the first time she is working on a weekend. She is thinking about the times Aanya worked the same way when Nikita denied helping her in multiple occasions with complex reports. Sign of karma instincts Nikita, she avoids her thoughts and tries to concentrate on her work.

Pitch dark floor with low lighting above her head, a wired silence encounters her cabin. She works continuously, with skipped meals and coffee breaks. Its 8 pm on Sunday evening and she has more audits to complete.

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It’s a beautiful bright Monday morning, while Nikita started her day way too early at 6 am. Other members of the team made there way on their regular schedule. Aanya enters the cabinet greeting each person with her warm smile and stops by Nikita.

She notices a special concern in Aanya’s face who offers a cup of coffee together, Nikita accompanies. While they both sip the coffee, Aanya talks about her experience in the team, in the organization & ways she managed the most stressful situations and most importantly, the people.

It was a much needed conversation for Nikita. She goes on sharing the challenges she faced from the time she start leading the team. Aanya’s words empowered her and gave her some confidence to manage things in a better way. Hope to a new start and better ways of working.

Nikita realizes that Aanya was a great coach and a mentor. And felt terribly sorry about being so annoying and mean to her.

That was not the only weekend Nikita had to work. On multiple occasions she had to work overtime and weekends with increasing pressure of work. Leadership was monitoring her work closely after having multiple escalations from the client.

At this time, Nikita is assigned a new project. This includes working on multiple reports and dealing with high degree of complex factors. This project was a deciding factor for the client to extend the contract. Nikita is tensed as this is the only opportunity to prove her-self.

So after considerable research & understanding the critical aspects of the project, she seeks assistance from Aanya.

Within no time, Aanya is there to assist and guide her. Solutions provided by her, helped Nikita complete the project within the timeline with accuracy. Project is signed off from the leadership and client. Things had started to fall back in place.

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Nikita sends a “thank you” note to Aanya with her deep heartfelt gratitude.

She realized how important it is to be composed about our emotions, and not to judge someone by their actions. Because, every action has its own reasoning. When management assigned Aanya to lead the team, it was not her choice. It was a responsibility, purely her job.

Usually at work most of us tend to make things personal. Every email received, every feedback, every suggestion is treated as a threat. We are offended about anything and everything sometimes. Is this self-importance or pure stupidity. Most of us don’t ask these questions. Do we?!

When your boss questions you, provides you feedback, marks you down on parameters. They are purely doing their job. There is always someone else doing the same with them.

The most important lesson Nikita learnt is not to be reactive, no matter what others have to do. It’s their choice to do certain things not yours and has nothing to do with you.

Aanya is left with a feeling of containment reading Nikita’s note. She always believed in doing her part for the good. She knew positivity could be magic and turn anything around. What if, she denied Nikita’s request. What if, she didn’t care Nikita’s longing work.

There are people who always thrive to make a difference in some way and add value to existence. That day Aanya learnt, genuine care can take away all the hardness and hatred of the world.

It takes real strength to do good for the ones who never taught well for you. But given a chance, how much does that strength really take. Well, may be just a matter of letting go your ego. Isn't It!

So, will you be a successor, leading others to succeed!?

You have the answer. Think about it!

 

@magnashri Thank you for your feedback, I am glad you liked it.. Yes we all go thru this phrase, right attitude is what matters the most.

 

@peddadas Thank you so much

@stayblessed Thank you so much! you are absolutely right