Working for an IITian
I have been working for 17-18 years and have worked for multiple companies. For MNCs , and not for startups in last few years.
However this is first time I am working for an IITian as CEO / CoFounder of the company. Have had junior colleagues who are either fresh out of college or havent worked for more than 2 years. You still have an upper hand because of time you have spent in the industry.
Of course we all know they are good and at one point they have cracked the toughest exam in the world and got the golden ticket which helps them get into any door they want.
I to some extend was jealous, and also had this younger to prove I am as good as them, if not better. Needed to go through Vipassana sessions to internalize that this chase is nothing better than a rat race and there is no point in this journey which ll eventually make me feel good about myself or my journey. Have been working hard to be happy with what I have and still strive to do more. I think we are digressing big time here.
So this is first time I am working this closely with an IITian who is 50+ and leading this company with his fellow CoFounders, who too are from prestigious colleges.
And following are my observations -
He does not acknowledge any limitations - Not of time, not of resources, not of physical fatigue to put in long hours. If it has to be done, It should be done. I have never heard him say or give excuse like “I dont have time for x”, or “I am tired I wont travel for this client meeting”. If its mathematically possible, it will be done. He just takes the emotions and fatigue out of the equation totally
He does not pick battles - Everything is do be executed. He might have his list of priorities, but he ll work on everything in front of him. Never say I ll only focus on top 3 things that matter etc. Because of reading many self help books, I always thought focus is a super power, and too many things on the plate is distraction. I have a process to pick my battles and focus on high value things to do. But looking at him so closely I just tried to experiment and work like he does. To start with I started doing the non-priority tasks on auto-pilot mode, or came up with templates and heuristics to complete them and put energy into the priority tasks.
Ability to consume lot of information - He can consume lots of information and not feel the fatigue. He understands it all too. May be it comes with time and habit. I thought this is insane but still give it a try. Again from the things I learnt from self help books, I thought let me try this positive self talk thing on this part. Let me stop saying no and let it all all come. And I think I have never been as productive as I have been in last 2-3 months. This is also one of the reasons why I have survived this #NoBreakNovemeber challenge so far. And travel pan India for my client meetings, and play football with my team. Though I am not able to spend as much time at home as I would like to. But hopefully that too will come under control soon.
Art of attention to details - Our company is into Observability and Monitoring of IT applications. Basically our products help capture the trails of work of applications and help IT folks to know “why” behind the “what” the issue is. I think this has gone into his DNA too. He forces us to log , I mean note down everything that we do at work. And I had come from a very different universe, where Bosses hated that I was marking them on too many emails. And wanted to be looped in only if anything was needed for them. Sharing everything with CEO to me was perceived as he doesnt trust me enough. But today after spending 14-15 months in the organization I realize he operates efficiently because of this. And wants us too to benefit from it. And he reads them all. All emails from all of us on variety of topics - sales, client issues, investment, hiring, HR initiatives, product development, tech stack for assessing new tool, and on top of it all he these days is pushing use of ChatGPT to 10x productivity at every level. Others do not ready my email in depth as he does. And asks questions very relevant to the topic, and appreciates good parts which have gone unnoticed by others. Its a very good feeling when I see he sharing my notes with the tech team stating “these are good insights for us to consider for our next release”
I had my share of learning curve. It is never easy when you switch sectors, I have moved from Fintech to a Deeptech company, and on top of it different style of leadership. I have gone through my emotional roller coaster ride of where the hell I have come, to am I not good enough for this ?, I ll quite next month, to let me give this a fair shot, to let me operate as I am expected to, to letting go an burden of resentment, any -ve emotion and giving my 100% and pretending to operate as if I too will not respect any limits. If he can do it , so can I.
And I am loving this version of self. Though lot more to learn and many things to work upon. Though the results will come gradually, or may be faster, who knows, but the beauty lies in wanting to give 100% day in day out, every hour of the day.
I truly hope everyone gets to operate at this level at some point in their life and experience this good feeling and see the version of yourself you thought you were not good enough for. Its a wonderful feeling to prove yourself wrong and grow :)
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