Crucial Success Skills Forged Through My Journey
I am so very pleased to talk about my journey because it will definitely be helpful to the fellow women out there. I have accumulated leadership skills to lead, not just work engagements but also lead family decisions. Leading complex engagements in financial industry ensuring business problems are solved keeping in mind various stakeholder's requirements be it functional, financial, nonfunctional requirements requires focus, experience in the industry as well as understanding the customer pain points. All these helped to me to be in the position I am working for my customers.
It is not just designation it is also about the feeling of adding value to the customers. Other interpersonal skills were listening skills, negotiation skills and collaboration which are very much required so that together as a team we are able to meet business objectives. I had built creativity skills, boldness along the years not just at work but also in my personal accomplishments which could be seen on news channels, social media accounts such as Instagram, Facebook profile and pages. Having this level of courage helped me to perform Bharatanatyam which is a complex art form at multiple reputed places. During the entire journey of mine all of these skills were very much required to ensure there is success not only at work but also my family members goals are also met .
Crafting Creative Opportunities from Every Challenge
Adversity hit in multiple phases of my life, starting from 20s until being in mid 30s. First one when I had a major accident during my engineering exams. I broke my right-hand wrist bones and had injuries on my head and legs. I broke emotionally where I had dreams to be a topper. This incident happened when I was giving my practical’s during last year of engineering. Inspite of this I was resilient, bold to ask for a writer and hence was able to give exams as my right-hand wrist was fractured. Second when, when I was trying to have a work life balance in my family especially after having a baby, the major challenge was that my support system kept on changing I had nobody who could own and back my support when I was away at work.
To me both and my baby are equally important when I was becoming low and started having thoughts to give up, I became much more resilient, bold, courageous and started bridging the gaps at home and seeking for support from my parents, husband, in-laws, or nanny or myself supporting both the sides by asking organizations for remote working. To my surprise by fighting adverse situations, I only became stronger day my day and had the courage to reach out to leaders and raise my voice. The third adverse situation in my life is feeling of loneliness and missing fun in my life. Being an Architect my now I learnt to figure out solutions to both business problems as well as personal struggles. Though I had networks, professional and personal it was always about work, i wanted to do something different where there is movement, fitness, happiness so I started my brand on Indian Classical forms of Dance. I put my methods, approaches to learn, choregraph and teach. In all I conquered all the difficult situations of my life.
My Impact
From the days of being a Java programmer to being a Digital Architect I found so many of my colleagues asking me on my career trajectory, upskilling and my learning methods. For my career I always kept on upgrading myself. Technology is like, the more you work on it, the more you will love it. With the expanding technology I created an approach to upskill and increase my learning agility. From the earlier days of my career, I always grabbed the chance of working End to End which has always helped me to look at a big picture, solution, vision etc. and thereby create IT Architecture Roadmaps, get involved in Strategy planning, Product evaluation, Respond to deals. In my own personal brand, I was able to collaborate with various other artists and was able to establish my footprints even there.
Because I wanted to have my own ecosystem of people with whom I can interact and show case my skills and my talent and hence grow. Grow my community, grow my ecosystem and hence was able to touch many hearts and thereby create a wider impact. I received Innovation awards, customer Delight award at work and received National awards, Vande Mataram award for my artwork as well as received many other awards at other National dance festivals. I am also nominated and selected for Women Influential and achiever awards for this International Women’s Day. Thereby I have been positively influencing others which could be clearly seen everywhere I go. My influencers if not all some of them could be seen following me, writing to me on social media like LinkedIn, Facebook.
Scaling New Heights in Personal and Professional Triumphs
Success to me is happiness with the work you do, gaining the satisfaction of accomplishments, measuring your productivity each day. The accomplishments when I say is not really an award, it is confidence you gain with whatever you have learnt or produced during the day is useful and is utilized. Success is never a halt nor a destination it is ongoing. In the tech career that I am in, demands me to be ad hoc, deliver quickly with super high-quality work. So, I ensure to have that I introspect by self which is also called self – mentoring whether I am able to meet the customer expectations and also understand their POV. There are SLA’s, metrics against which I measure my work, we are given KPIs against which we measure our goals.
The most important factor is one needs to have SMART goals which are measurable, accurate, realistic and timebound. If I feel that I need to work on my gaps I assign some tasks and assignments to myself to complete the same. For example, even while making my personal brand in Indian Classical forms of Dancing I kept on increasing the levels of complexity to reach to the target I wanted. Increasing the levels of complexity could be one of the benchmarks I set for my success. In my IT career delivering quality deliverables is another benchmark as per the scheduled timelines. I have my learning goals by week, by month and quarter. Whenever you meet your goals or do something beyond, it is an accomplishment. For the same work life balance and health also matters a lot.
The Synergy Between My Path and Recognition Values
In my entire journey what took me to overcome the barriers and challenges I had was courage, being bold, overcome fear and how did I do that? Was only to speak, give tech talks in front of a crowd. I gave speaker sessions in Universities, organizations both external and internal, gave sessions and supported the tech labs. I was also awarded at the Rational Summit in IBM as a speaker. I am awarded for Customer Delight, Innovation award and honored with esteemed Chief Architect position at Capgemini. My goal was to be a Renowned IT Architect and serve customers by delivering value each day. My secondary goal here was to have my personal brand, for the same I have been working diligently consistently and planned milestones. Had completed my Arenghetram in Bharatanatyam at RRSabha , Mylapre Chennai., it requires lot of courage, focus to complete the stage show.
There are also other National awards I won such as National vibuthi award organized by Pune , Ministry of Culture at Bharatna Pandit Bhinsen Joshi Kalamandir. Won Nrutya Gunashree National award organized by one if the Classical Dance Academy in Mumbai and Karnataka events. I was also titled as Laasya VIRUKSHAM and Natya KODHAI for my recent stage and temple performances. Not just awards, if I get more opportunities which itself means, I am recognized for my work and, hence getting more work. There will be gaps everywhere but what it takes to reach our targets is hardwork with a mix of courage. Be bold to ask for opportunities to reach out to leaders or right people who can identify your potential and help you grow.