One fine evening in September
2007, I got an unexpected call from a headhunter, who asked if I was open to
discuss an opportunity that would lead to a career transforming job change in my life. The idea of leaving a decent career as a
Software and Solutions sales guy with a renowned business house had not
occurred to me and I had all my energies focused towards closing the next
business opportunity that I had been working on for past two months. So, the
first thing that came to my mind when the headhunter asked that if I was
looking for a change was to tell him that “I am happy here and have no plans to
change”. But something inside my head
said “listen to the guy, you never know what good may come out of this “. And
that’s what I did and then started a new journey that changed the way I work, the
way I conduct myself as a professional; above all it transformed the way I
think.
Then, began the unusual interview
process, interactions were happening over international phone calls and
emails. This was new to me as I was more
comfortable with looking into interviewer’s eyes throughout the interaction as
it helped me adjust according to the nonverbal communication ques. But here it
was different, every word every phrase that went through a long distance call
was being interpreted by a highly place professional who knew exactly what he
was looking for. I was asked to share a copy of my recent work I created for
one of my customers to showcase my skills and my professionalism. Then there
was a lull, for couple of weeks and I thought “let’s get over it, maybe they
didn’t like me”. But, then I got a call
from company’s resource manager asking me if I can take a call from the head of
the product line that I am supposed to work for. I was driving, on my way back to my home and
thought “Why not?”. Then a minute later got a call from US and I think I was
ready for another round of interview. But what happened then was a pleasant
surprise, it turned out to be a one hour discussion in which I was the one who
was asking most of the question and a friendly voice on the other side kept on
answering them with a big smile that I could see (well I think I did).
Two more weeks and I got a call
from the recruitment team to fill in some details in a form that has been
emailed to me and send back, so that they can proceed with the recruitment
process. I got an offer within a week,
had a telephonic discussion with the team where they told me what to expect
when I become a part of the organization. They asked me how much time I would
need to join.
I joined CSC on 3rd
Jan 2008 and since then I have been given opportunity to work with a Manager
who is located thousands of miles away in a time zone that wakes up when I
finish my day’s work and get ready to go home.
“I have hired you as a thinker”, this was the crux of the first
interaction I had with Phil (My Manager) and he said I should think of him as a
coach rather than a manager. He explained to me in detail what he thought of
this little experiment that he has kicked off by hiring a resource from India
to be part of a Global Think Tank. I think I understood most of it, but now
after two years as I look back it seem like I understood so little.
Then began a complex exercise of transitioning
from hands on sales guy to a thinker who had his mind open to all kinds of
idea. The bottom line being “no thought is stupid and thinking outside or
inside the box is not important as long as one can think”.
It’s more than just getting the job done
Looking back at the two years
that I have spent working with a forward looking visionary leader, sitting
continents apart and separated by multiple time zones, I see myself being
transformed from a 9 hour work machine to a component of a 24*7 think-tank that
paves way for the organization to make rapid advances into unforeseen markets
and exploit innovative technologies to provide path breaking solution offerings
to a global customer base. What started
as an experiment two years back, may become a fine example of how teams working
across time zones can exploit the potential of collaborative working across the
continents and transform into 24*7 thinking machine that never sleeps. The idea
of always on, always working looks astonishingly productive and fruitful in a
world that needs organizations to be one step ahead of the competition by
innovatively placing high value resources across the globe in a manner that
thinking never stops even if one is sleeping.
The whole idea of someone else who
is sitting in a country that is geographically, economically and culturally different,
working on your Idea while you are sleeping can give gooseflesh to some
innovators and thought leaders. For some
this might sound crazy and absurd, and many would claim that this would lead to
dilution of idea and one might run into intellectual conflicts. But, isn’t this
the whole idea of working in a team. To have different ideas and thought
processes coming together under one roof (well, I mean virtually), and bring
diversified learning experiences closer to bring chaos into the system so as to
invent and create a new system that is more effective than the previous one.
From Global Support to Global Thinking
The concept of globalization has
transformed the world from 9 hour workday shift world to a 24*7 working, living
system that revolves around the idea of exploiting the skills of people living
across the globe, to achieve a common organizational objective. It has created
an ecosystem that is ready to respond to any customer demand that arises
anytime anywhere and is a fantastic service delivery mechanism in which
physical location of the skill holder does not matter anymore. It’s the quality of service that was offered
to the consumer that has become the priority and not who delivers the service.
Why should ideas be treated any
different? Does it matter if the idea comes from East or West, America, India
or some remote corner in Africa? Or for that matter does it matter who in the
team worked on that idea to put in on paper and who made it tangible enough to
be adopted by the organization? The answer to all the above questions is “No”,
it does not matter where the brain is physically, as long as the thought can be
converted into an excellent business proposition that is of immense advantage
to the organization.
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