The First 100

Henry David Thoreau was a hero to me in high school, we had his story in our English text book. One of his famous quotes runs like this "The very basic core of man's living spirit is his passion for adventure". I never did attempt an adventure anywhere close to the great philosopher himself, but I can safely say my spirit was rekindled during these first 100 days at Novartis akin to an adventure.

Here is what I learnt...

1.     Great culture is the cornerstone of success: You cannot ignore the difference once you step into a Novartis campus. The respect employees carry for each other, the energy they bring along, the deep sense of time consciousness and many such. It is great to see the company is steadily moving towards realizing its vision and attempts to do it un-bossed. For an outsider, it may sound impossible but these 100 days in Novartis taught me that it is actually the only way! The genesis of my learning and what I say later in this blog has its seed in Novartis's invigorating culture.

2.     Your job isn't the most important thing: Quite contradictory right ? In popular Telugu culture there is a saying - "Inta gelichi raccha geluvu" meaning - "Win at home first and then attempt outside". True to its sense, my attempts at improving life at home with my wife and kid has had a progressive influence on the way I performed at work. It gave me a great deal of satisfaction, energy and zeal to bring value in office. In every way, it was during the time in Novartis and because of its employee centric policies that has opened up the avenues for me to attain a balance.

3.     Always make yourself uncomfortable: Remember the scene from Mission Impossible II (2000), Tom Cruise climbing the Rockies slips and then precariously hangs by the cliff at which point he does something totally unexpected - HE SMILES! As a teenager it appealed to me back then in a different way, but I started watching this over and over again the past few months and realized there is absolutely no learning without the feelings of 'out of place', 'I don't know a thing about this', 'this is overwhelming', 'this is intimidating'. Some examples of how I put myself in these feelings in the last 100 days

• I started mentoring students on Statistics and Business Analytics, I have given close to 10 sessions till now and my feedback rating grew exponentially.
• I nominated myself for a standup comedy act at the Open Mic Gig at Novartis Hyderabad, something I never did in my life. I prepared hard with a script that I painstakingly put together, but it was a disaster in the end. I was disappointed but I spent many hours afterward improving my act and learnt a lot about humor.
• I started posting on Yammer - never used the official social network prior to Novartis and I'm only enjoying it.
• Attended a session on Google Cloud and subsequently read and learnt quite a bit about the ways cloud technologies can benefit business.

Novartis is indeed shaping me up into a risk (however small) taking individual.

4.     The skills you possess are far less important: Yes, they are far less important than the attitude you bring to work. During a visit to the NASA space center in 1962, President JFK, noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said, "Hi, I'm Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?" "Well, Mr. President," the janitor responded, "I'm helping put a man on the moon." I too witness this elderly lady from the facilities department in Novartis Hyderabad who smiles and greets everyone every single day, while joyously performing her duties. Such is the atmosphere here, that when I look around I see employees with a smile on their face and their head held high, the positive energy I feel here electrifies me.

 

5.     The person at the helm need not be someone in a 3 piece suit. After his election to Presidency, Barack Obama traveled the world meeting dignitaries on behalf of the United States and what a great example he set! I get the same feeling when our CEO pops up in a new country every other week with his power packed message to our colleagues - of course without the 3 piece :-).





I'm eagerly looking forward to what is in store and my guns are all loaded to take every opportunity head on.



Do you think I missed something ? Feel free to comment and share.