Anything that ends with “ING” is a process be it marketing or learning! Having spent almost 17 years in the corporate world, gave me the opportunity to work with various leaders. My journey started as a medical rep followed by diverse positions across the country. In my voyage, I got influenced by all the leaders whom I worked with, however, some of them had far greater impact on my life both professional as well as personal than the others. I would not like to quote their names here however good or bad, I learnt from all of them and the learning still continues. Today I want to take this opportunity and share my 10 learnings from the corporate world. Here we go!
1. Clock is ticking: someone once observed that “Time is not the main thing, it’s the only thing”, many a times people working in the corporate world fail to realize the importance of time, let me put it in a simple way. Every second counts and if we fail to capitalize on available time then it’s gone forever. I learnt the hard way, in my past years, especially in the initial years of my career, I had wasted a lot of time and that time never came back. The leader who taught me this also taught me the second point which you will be reading soon. His message was pretty straightforward, Abhishek – Don’t waste time!
2. Choose your friends: while I was having a telephonic conversation with him almost 11 years ago sitting in my white colored Maruti estilo next to Manisha Lake at Bhopal, I still remember vividly what he said rather advised. Choose your friends wisely, it is as simple as that. Here is my interpretation, humans by nature are emotional. When you have friends you need to find time for them otherwise they will get emotional and the story continues. I guess what he meant was if you don’t choose your friends wisely, you will end up wasting your time.
3. Morning Practice: Working with multinationals is quite different than working with national companies. At that point in time I was working with Eli Lilly almost 15 years back. One thing I learnt there was morning practice, let me attempt to explain what I mean. Being in sales, our customers expect us to be up to date with science, and if you do not practice, you won’t be able to live up to the expectations of your customers. My trainers taught me to practice your message delivery every morning before you leave for work. I guess applying this can help anyone. What say?
4. I cannot leave my city but I want to grow: Probably the most absurd thing you would observe in the pharmaceutical or surgical industry that, one person is growing in the same head quarter YOY. If I were to calculate statistically the probability of this, I guess it would be one in a million times. Here is my take and suggestion, if you genuinely want to see yourself growing, you need to stop craving for your current head quarter. You need to be MOBILE.
5. Urgent & Important: Out of 100 + books in my library, at least 10% of them are from the same author. If you know me, you guessed it right. It’s Stephen R. Covey. Whilst I was based out of Gwalior HQ in year 2004-2005, one of the most inspirational leader in my life introduced me to Mr. Covey. Initially he gave me the photocopies of some of the pages from his book. Later on I bought the book and read it multiple times. The book was “The 7 habits of highly effective people”. This very book changed my life forever and I will remain indebted to him (can’t quote his name). So what’s the learning? Do your important tasks on time before they become urgent. If you delve through the “TIME MANAGEMENT MATRIX” prescribed by Mr. Covey, you would realize how much time we waste in quadrant I, III & IV. You got to be in quadrant II always.
6. Bokeh: The visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a particular lens. What you just read, is the google definition of Bokeh, but, why am I talking about Bokeh here? Portrait photography is incomplete without shallowness of the depth of the background. However, when the same shallowness hits in your approach towards things in corporate world, the end result is not beautiful. This learning is not too old. Message here is don’t float on surface. Because when you do that in hurry, you miss the details. Sometimes missing out on details comes with a cataclysmic price. Message is – GO THROUGH THE DETAILS!
7. Pen Down on a Paper: When we pen down on a paper, we tend to remember. Many a times we presume that whatever we planned for the day or for the week we will not forget. Trust me we do forget. Learning – Plan on paper. Let me give you reasons to believe. Writing is a neuromotor activity. Therefore, whenever we write something we tend to remember more. That was a classical pharma learning. Haven’t you seen pharma reps with a pen and a spiral diary in their front pocket? Well they have all the details!
8. Precise & Concise: This is something which I learnt the hard way. Whenever you are presenting to top management (robust brand plans excluded), please be concise and precise. In my opinion this is a very important, rather pivotal learning from corporate world. Let me ask you a question. What are the traits of a great presenter? Well the answer is pretty simple. Great presenters are, to the point, precise, concise, they weave their stories inextricably and use lesser words, lesser slides and most importantly they rehearse! The message here is whilst presenting to the top management you cannot afford to have more than 10 slides. Lesser the better!
9. You are Under Observation: I don’t want to reveal here whether I learnt this easy way or hard way but the point here is I learnt. Let me come to the point. When you are with senior managers, leaders, top management, whatever you do, even your snap reactions, everything is under observation. The jokes you crack, the focus you lose, I mean everything. If your time is right you might get lucky and the management might just ignore your wrong doings. However, things can go the other way round. God forbid!! Learning – Be serious, Focus. Dont grin unnecessarily. Avoid cracking jokes.
10. We all love stories: Power point presentation is an integral part of corporate world. We all love stories right? Let me come to the point directly, whilst you are making slides try to bring the story. Story has an opening, it has a body and it has an ending. If your presentation is not coming out like a story, you might want to consider reworking on your presentation. Remember, we all love stories!
I hope you went through the details of my story, I also hope some of the point’s resonated within you. These 10 learnings have come from my experience and I value them a lot. I hope, you found my story useful.
Mjsing blog 