Building
an Early Foundation
The credit for my early foundation and evolution goes
to my desire to constantly upgrade, keep working for professional and personal
goals, lifelong learning and contributing to the society. I always knew that any
form of success especially professional success, cannot be achieved without
raising your own level of competence and self-leadership. And I often share
this with my clients - your professional or business success can never outgrow
you. So, invest in your development and make your business or career soar.
Throughout the 3 decades of my career, I have moved from being a part of the
family business to corporate world and finally the last decade into being a full-fledged
entrepreneur. In all these 3 stages of life, I focused on building myself and
ensuring that I am able to build others. I knew I wanted to finally become an
entrepreneur and living these experiences gave me the worldly vision and the
skill set to help others in their journey as well.
The purpose of my life comes from this desire to help
people live their dreams and make them realize their full potential so that
they are able to create their own world which has endless possibilities.
Therefore, I help create, empower, support and facilitate people in my network
and add value addition to their professional journey. Hence, I customize my
solutions to enable my clients easily achieve what they desire! I do this with
love, compassion and emotional intelligence.
Beyond the Barricades
Yes, when we go through life not everything works out
the way you want it to. As an entrepreneur, I started working on offering
creative HR solutions for MSME’s but it didn’t work out. I saw a lot of resistance and changing
mindsets, how the SMEs work, and also the fact that working and bettering their
HR functioning seemed very cost prohibitive to these business owners. It was
truly a challenge but when I finally identified the challenge, I tried working
on business solutions to solve their most crucial people problems, which even
their customers pointed out. And that is how I started with my entrepreneur
journey. I realized that MSMEs need business solutions not HR solutions even
though HR was an integral part of the business.
Another learning experience is that as an entrepreneur
you have a mindset that you know what the client needs. But the clients may not
think the same way or even understand it. I learnt and understood that it is
not about what I think the client needs but understanding the pain areas of the
client and what I could do to support and alleviate them from their sufferings
and help create a better environment or an innovative solution that would help
address their needs. Innovating, Design Thinking and Building Solutions keeping
the customer in mind are the three parameters that helped me create a presence
and visibility for myself and my organization.
Transformation
of the HR Industry
Working as an HR Business partner for more than a
decade and working with business leaders and supporting them achieve
organizational goals, I have seen the HR industry evolve rapidly. Whether it is
the industry or the leaders, I have seen the combined power of business and HR
and the contribution that HR professionals have made using the opportunities
that came with the evolution. Three decades ago, when I started my career, HR
per se did not exist. It was a personnel time function with mostly administrative
roles but lately in the last decade, HR has grown and evolved to be the key
element of every organization across industries. Today it is recognized as a
critical function, which supports the business, and the business leaders achieve
collective goals.
Appropriate people and culture strategies and
formulating people teams has been one of the major transformations in the
domain over the last few years. HR understands the challenges and dynamics of
the business, works closely with business leaders and contributes largely to
the skill set, mindset and enhancement of the tool sets which every
organization needs to embrace.
Defining
D&I- a Holistic Approach
Diversity inclusion research has shown many benefits
of having a diverse and inclusive workplace. According to the research, when
employees don’t feel that their presence, contributions and suggestions are
truly valued, they eventually look for other places. Creating a work culture in
which diversity and inclusion is respected is seen as a way to increase the
ability to recruit a diverse talent pool with greater possibility of innovation
because a diverse workforce brings in a lot of creativity which eventually leads
to higher revenue growth.
I have seen organizations where people from a
particular region were preferred over others which created a sense of non-alignment
and division leading to mass resignation. So it is important for HR to drive
the D&I agenda, build a business case and showcase why it’s important.
Today with the kind of awareness and visibility that D&I has managed to
attract, more and more workplaces are truly recognizing the importance of
having a diverse workforce. I believe that HR should look at creating a
workplace where they recruit and develop a diverse workforce that enables the
organization to benefit as a result of the wide experience and thinking
capabilities that the workforce brings to the workplace every single day.
Formulating
the Bestsellers
Books are a great medium of sharing your thoughts with the world. In 2020, I authored my first two books. The first was a compilation of the best 50 ideas and the second an international bestseller on Amazon ‘The Growth Hacking Book 2.’ Through my books, I have attempted to share with the world, what they can do in order to live the life that they really wish to. Right mindset is important and all the books that I have read during my lifetime have helped me develop this mindset. I wanted to be an author so that I could share my thoughts and experiences with the world. So, when I got an opportunity to share and be part of a few book projects, I jumped with joy! I believe learning is continuous and I have miles to go.
Sources
of Powerful Lessons
I am blessed to have come across a lot of mentors
throughout my life, inspiring me in every phase. My English Teacher Jyoti Bisht
Ma’am in school was my foremost mentor. My father a successful entrepreneur
inspired me to explore my path as an entrepreneur as I learnt from his style of
working, thinking and innovation. In my corporate career, I was lucky to get
mentored by both business and HR leaders like Manoj Chugh, Rahul Thapan, Chanda
Hate, Vivek Kumar and Paul Sexton. Their feedback and support shaped and
enhanced my leadership and presentation skills and I continue to be in touch
with them even today.
There is power in association and I feel blessed that
I got opportunities to learn from my network, fellow entrepreneurs, and even
got reverse mentored. As a result of all the wonderful mentors that I had
opportunities to learn from, I was able to move from where I was to where I
wanted to be. The most valuable lesson I learnt from my mentors is that if you
want to make your dreams come true you have to wake up and work on it. On this
journey I moved from self-reflection to heightened self-awareness; from
envisioning to goal setting and action planning; from over thinking to
overcoming and achieving. “What’s next?” I regularly ask myself.
And when your mentor appreciates you and your growth,
you realize you are on the right path! One of my mentors recently mentioned –
“your achievement is a testament to ambition and perseverance. I just know you
will be able to climb over any challenge that comes your way. Congratulations!
I only know of a few people that can inspire others to achieve greatness. You
are one of those people. Your drive and passion are infectious.” I feel beyond
blessed!
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