This
is the story of Arun and Varun. Arun and Varun are fresh out of college and
have been recruited by one of the leading IT services company of India. Arun and
Varun work in the silicon city of India, Bangalore and are roommates. Both
share their work experience every day. Both of them are fresh out of college
with high hopes and dreams to achieve the unachievable. However Varun needs a
hard push to go to office and feels compelled to attend to work every day where
as Arun feels motivated to work every day even if it means working on the
weekend. What has motivated Arun to work for the betterment of the company and
what has lead Varun to lose interest in work?
Let’s
find out....
Arun’s story
It
was a Monday morning, first day at work... Arun gets ready to go to office. It
is his first job and he is nervous as well as excited. He boards the office
bus. As he walks inside the bus he smiles at people. However his smile is not
reciprocated... people just ignore him and get back to listening to their Ipod/FM....
As he looks at people he spots unhappiness on their faces... for a moment he
wonders why on earth are these people so sad? They are working in one of the
leading IT companies in India and are paid handsomely compared to the salary
standards prevalent in India. For a happy-go-lucky person like Arun it was weird
for him to sit next to people in a bus who don’t interact with their neighbours
and are plugged into their music systems.... He assumed that that is how IT
company people are and he needs to respect their space and he travelled 30 Kms
absolutely mute... Soon he got down from the company bus and walked into one of
the swankiest campuses in the world..... He felt so happy and inspired... More
importantly he felt blessed to be employed by one of the world’s leading IT Services
Company.... He was soon welcomed by the HR of the company and directed to meet
his project manager Krishna. Krishna or Krish was the project manager, managing one of the
major banking account. People working under Krishna were very happy with their
work as Krishna was a People’s manager.
Krishna
immediately greeted Arun and took him to the conference room for a quick chat.
Krish
– “So tell me about your background”
Arun-“I
have completed my mechanical engineering from VTU with distinction”
Krish-“Wonderful...
We need bright engineers like you to deliver projects for our clients... We
work for the banking industry where there is zero tolerance for errors and it
is engineers like you who make this possible.... I have a great team of bright
engineers like you who add tremendous value for our clients... You will be
working under Asish one of the finest leads of our account...let me introduce
you to our team”
This
quick interaction made Arun feel very special... he felt that he too can
actively participate in the project work and add value to the client
deliverables...
Krish
introduced all his team members to Arun. He highlighted the strengths of each
of his team members during the introduction.... This motivated not only Arun
but also the team members who were introduced by Krish... This motivated the
team to work harder to improve on their strength...
Krish
called for a team meeting...
Krish-
“Hello all I am proud to welcome a new member to our team, Arun. As Arun has already
been introduced to all of you I will not repeat the drill... The purpose of
this meeting is to introduce Arun to the core values of our team..... So let’s
get going....
Arun,
we have laid out few rules in the team that help us to perform better at the
work place.... We often refer it to as the four pillars of great performers.
1)
Teamwork - We are not
running a marathon or a sprint with each other in the team. We are running a
Relay where in each individual in the team plays a very vital role in the
delivery and if anyone lags it causes a failure for the entire team. So each
team member should help each other to convert the weakness of a team member to
his core strength and keep winning the relay. Hence each team member is not
competing with each other instead working with each other as a team striving
for a quality deliverable in faster time.
2)
Equality - Our team
strives to promote friendliness among the team members. As a virtue of which
each team member is respected by each other and treated as an equal. So if you
have a doubt get it clarified with the team and don’t be afraid that your doubt
will make u come across like a mediocre in front of your peers.
3)
Openness - If you have a
problem with one another which is very normal to arise as we are a family and
issues arise in a family in that case please do not keep that in your heart as
when you keep it for yourself the hatred grows to unimaginable proportions. As
a team we promote openness. So when you have any issue with one another take
him or her to a conference room and have a healthy debate to sort out your
differences and if that doesn’t work-out I can help.
4)
Continuous
Learning-
In the IT industry we are not paid for our hard work instead we are paid for
our knowledge and it is imperative for us to learn newer technology and apply
it in the work place to add value to our clients to keep them way ahead of the
competition. Hence in our team we have regular trainings for technologies that
we think can add value to our clients in the future and after the training each
individual is expected to create a tool and it will be mapped in his goals.
So
Arun make sure you memorize these four pillars and follow them when you are a
part of this team or any other team in the future. “
It
was a very inspirational speech and Arun wanted to add value to the project. He
was assigned work and as he was a fresher he needed help. The team members went
out of the way and helped Arun perform his task better. Once in two months the
team went for a project outing by contributing individually which brought them
closer to each other. There were no conflicts in the team as each member in the
team was more than happy to help each other. He learnt new technologies and
applied them to work and got accolades from the client as well as his managers.
Arun truly enjoyed working with a great team and learning new technologies.
Arun yearned to go to work every day as each day was challenging and exciting
and a great team made him take up these challenges with ease.
Varun’s Story
It
is first day at work for Varun and he undergoes the same situation as Arun on
the way to work. His HR directs him to his new project manager Yash. Yash
unlike Krish is not a People’s person.
Yash meets Varun for 2 min and directs him to Raj who is Varun’s new
team lead. Raj asks Varun about his background and cuts him off mid way and
shows him his work place. Varun is not introduced to his team mates and nobody
seems to talk to each other and everyone is busy in their work. He overhears an
altercation between Raj and one of the team mates; Raj literally threatening to
release the guy from the project if he doesn’t come on the weekend. The altercation gets uglier with the team
member and Raj both yelling on top of their voices and nobody seems to
intervene to control the situation. After sometime Raj hurriedly goes to Yash’s
cabin and after few mins gets out of the cabin slamming the cabin door. For a
second Varun feels scared and the sheer disrespect of Raj towards his team
member and Vice Versa adds to his bad experience on first day at work.
As
days passed Varun was loaded with work and no one to help him. He was
frequently yelled at by his Lead and did not have a friend in the team to share
his problem or ask for help. He was mentally stressed. Nobody in the team
talked to each other and were least interested in making friends at the
workplace. The dynamics at work were totally wrong. There was no team outing or
parties for the team members to interact and get closer to each other. Varun felt
compelled to go to work every day and was contemplating to quit the IT industry
and start something on his own.
My Few Cents
This is the story of every software
engineer in India. Few people like Arun are really lucky to find great managers,
Great team and great processes that makes work motivating however few unlucky
souls like Varun come across policies politics unhealthy work environment that
makes life so difficult and eventually lose interest in work and end up in
depression. I am sure even you have been through similar experiences in your
career.
The main intention of this blog is to
showcase how much impact a team makes on a person and each one of us can follow
few simple steps in our workplace to make it a better place to work and where
people are motivated to come to work everyday.
Hope I have Added some value to your
time if you happen to read this blog J
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