Recently, I had been spending quite a few extra hours at work working on a presentation for one of the teams at the office. This was for a major awards presentation where one was expected to talk about the various criteria for selecting winners, measurables, basically jargon. And this was to be given to one of our foreign customers. My job was to end at creating the presentation and handing it over to the big guns to make the presentation. The time for the awards was at 6 PM.
All of a sudden, at 12 Noon, they big guns come up to me and say, “Nikhilesh, you’ve created the damn thing right? You present it!”
I was shocked. I mean, this was no small customer or significant nobody’s who I would be making the presentation to. All the big guns of the company would be there and the “customers” as well. This gave me 6 hours to think of what to say, how to say and understand the entire business of that vertical in about 1 hour. Holy crap! Besides this, I had another speech to take care of, along with getting certificates, which as expected, had the wrong write-up and were of wrong size. They needed to be re-done.
Now, this is where this blog is of some significance. Right back from school days, when I was in charge of things like the morning assembly, I’ve always been the man to go to in a crisis. My school had been so kind to teach me a very valuable lesson in “crisis management” which is coming in handy all these years later. In school, I would invariably face problems like people not showing up for things like reading the morning thought, or news for the day, even worse, showing up un-prepared. I remember running around to get the morning newspaper with 5 minutes to go for the assembly bell, writing the darn news and handing it over to the “idiot” who was to read it. I even remember times where I would read the thought, the news and science info for the day, one after the other. It really bugged me back then. And I would end up complaining to my teachers that I didn’t want such responsibilities at school. Let me be !!! I thought kids in school were incompetent and didn’t give a damn. Little did I know, it’s not just kids but adults too are like that ! I guess this comes from the way you are as a kid.
Anyway, if there is one thing I’ve learnt from life so far, it’s that “ The only way to make a mark is to step up to the plate when no one else is willing to do so! ”. The great thing about times like these, when you are put in a crisis, you really learn who you are and what you are capable of doing. And all those years of preparing stuff in the last minute thanks to school, I was able to stand up and stand tall. I nailed the presentation. All the biggies, the CXO’s , my boss, etc were really happy that I was sort of the ‘hero of the day’ because no one else had prepared for the presentation. Even the customers were quite happy at the end of it all. This was one of those moves which could have got me good recognition and praise (touch wood for that) or back-fired disastrously, with the biggies dubbing me, ‘good for nothing’!
However, the major downside to all this was that although I got the pat on the back, the usual, ‘good job my boy !’…I didn’t get invited for the fancy dinner. I don’t even know if this would count during my appraisal. Basically, like most superheroes, I saved the day with nothing more than a thank you! I guess I have to wait and see what happens.
Anyway, coming back to the point, these are one of these little lessons that what one thought were meaningless and cruel at school; actually do help in the long run. I guess my teachers were right when they said that anything and everything I do would define me some day. And I guess the fact that they taught me to take a risk when no one else was willing to do so, and always learn to stay calm and have faith in myself really helped out.
Thanks for the little lessons!!!
I am reminded of Troy, when the king’s messenger comes to fetch Achilles to fight the battle. The boy says, “Your opponent is too big, he looks like a giant. I wouldn’t fight him !”. To which Achilles replies, “And that is why you shall never be remembered!!!”. I guess it's times like these that really define who you are and where you are going.
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