Rural India - Focus on communication proficiency and Find a Mentor
Stories of Role Models
I grew up mostly in Rural Tamilnadu - which had only Tamil medium schools, to which we all went.
I had to study the hard subjects by myself and my mother and my elder sister were even more focussed than me, that I do well.
Like all struggling parents across the country - they too knew that acing studies was the best bet for my bright future.
On a quiet day, their corrective voice still sounds in my ears. For it, I am so grateful.
I got into an engineering college. It came as a shock because the medium of instruction was English. I hardly spoke any.
In the beginning, it was a struggle to make out what was being taught in the class.
There was no internet, but there was a library and there were a few english-speaking friends. That and the fire in my belly taught me enough to cope.
When you study in a mediocre school, there are no campus interviews. No one comes along and tells you how to ace an interview. I went through all that too.
I have come across so many talented people who lost-out in the system because of these aspects.
Starting in 1990, I worked my way up progressively through different companies.
I also kept learning to improve myself technically. I would seek out mentors from time to time. They helped and supported me.
Wipro hired me in 1997. It made the world of difference to me.
The thing about Wipro - in that period of rapid growth - was that no one cared about your pedigree. You were gold if you delivered.
Deliver I did.
Various Wipro leaders mentored me after that. They saw me as effective and capable. This changed me. I began to see myself like that too.
I found affirmation. I began to believe in myself. This difference propelled me to take up and do ever more. It was a great journey.
Another person who had a lot of confidence in me was my wife. She played a major role in grooming me.
Do you look at yourself in the mirror while brushing your teeth and wonder if you have it in you? It is easy to doubt yourself when you are yet to taste success.
There are 2 insights from my journey up to here that you might find useful for people from rural backgrounds.
Education is the only option to succeed in life for most of the middle-class families in India.
To work and succeed in the Indian software industry, English fluency is also a must. Don’t admire your situation if the cards you were dealt did not include one for English.
Focus on your communication proficiency in English. More so, if you studied in a rural school.
With English under your belt, you can compete on other things like ability and hard work. If not, other things will not matter.
The other - find and work with a mentor.
To find a mentor - I knew I was looking for 3 things -
someone who shared my way of looking at things and thinking.
someone who can keep you honest.
someone who would say yes to helping me.
I knew I had to find one, but who would be my mentor?
I made my next career choice - while still in Wipro - to work for a mentor that I admired.
Selvan was a Senior Vice President in Talent Transformation. He wanted to build a pipeline to upskill tech professionals with various soft skills.
I took up the role, because I felt I would learn a lot from him. Every interaction with him was a great learning experience.
A mentor is like a mirror. You still have to do the hard work yourself.
Every year, I began to set goals for outcomes and for my learning, based on what I heard in feedback.
Investing in a relationship with my mentors also taught me the value of relationships in general.
Since then, whenever I have moved to a new role or new company, I have kept in touch with people who made a difference to me. Who I valued. Who I respected.
It does not take much effort, but this is my real network. This is different from being popular amongst many.
I moved to HP because I wanted to continue in the product engineering space which I really like.
I had to learn new skills. I also found, this is what I wanted to do for a long long time to come.
Couple of mergers came along, and I played a pivotal role in making it work. New lessons again.
Indian teams earlier used to be on the periphery. The real action, happening in the USA or elsewhere. Indians worked on sunset products, etc.
Many teams, such as ours, learnt new ways and began to actively lead global engineering efforts.
One of the great lessons from Subbu Vempati - SVP HP was that we need to be on-par, if not better than any global teams. Low Cost Geo should not justify sub-standard software.
We learnt to take ownership and boost our productivity. Our sustained focus on quality and execution helped us become world class.
Along the way, I got a chance to work with David Chang, Jason Rosenthal and Mark Jancola. Great role models all!
My team was my teacher too.
I learnt that if I truly and genuinely cared for my team; Allow them to make mistakes and learn from it; that would be the best support for them to succeed.
Along the way, I moved to Cisco.
I have learnt that in this industry, you need to manage yourself. No one can micromanage you. You need to be responsible and accountable. Software field is all about effective self-management.
I have also learnt; it is very important to be Fair.
I have had my critical moments, made bad decisions , badly handled situations, etc. Inspite of all, it is important to be fair and transparent. People like you and respect you for that quality.
You need to be proud of your actions and guilt free when you look at yourself in the mirror.
Today, my engineering group generates multi-billion dollars in annual revenue. But don’t for a moment assume I am all sorted out.
Learning is a continuous process when the benchmark is to think Global. To execute to the world-class.
My learnings and values -
Be Fair
Ensure communication proficiency for yourself
Find and work with a mentor
Value your professional and personal relationships
Empower the Experts to solve the problems for you
Integrity and work ethics are non-negotiable
Think Globally and focus on world-class execution