Assignee - Case Studies
A Month in the Life... at Ashray Akruti
by Nicki Stannard
I’ve been at IBM now for 8 years, starting as a graduate in October 2000. Since joining I’ve gained a range of experience, from being a Seibel consultant, to leading Unix and Network teams, to my current role as a Technical Solutions Manager in IT Delivery (part of Global Technology Services or GTS) - a role that straddles sales and delivery, pulling together technical solutions for clients against some pretty tough competition sometimes.
Always looking to stretch myself, I was delighted to be included in the GTS Top Talent Programme in 2007/08 and very fortunate to be selected as one of five Top Talent individuals to spend 4 weeks in India, working with a charity on a real-life business problem. Organised by Adopt a Business this opportunity was intended to take me outside of my comfort zone, by giving me a task to do that was unrelated to my day job, sending me alone (independent of IBM) to a developing country and by placing me with a small, growing organisation that faces very different challenges to the large corporate developed world that I'm used to... no mean feat!!
I volunteered myself for this because I wanted to develop myself, broaden my business skills, prove that I have transferable skills outside of my job and give something back by contributing to an organisation that changes people’s lives. IBM is expanding significantly in India and this was also a great way of gaining direct experience of the culture, values and market in India, outside of the IBM organisation.
After submitting my application, I was invited to a selection day to find out more about Adopt a Business and the organisations it works with and to map our individual skills to potential assignments. I was extremely pleased to discover that I was one of those chosen by Adopt a Business and the GTS executive leadership team to undertake one of these "outzone experiences". I was matched with a partner organisation called Ashray Akruti, whose primary function is to run a school for deaf, hearing impaired and slum children in Hyderabad and my assignment objective was to help them improve their marketing, communications and fund-raising capacity.
In preparation for my assignment, I spent time speaking to colleagues, friends, sponsors and a local deaf children's charity. I also spoke to the founder and director of Ashray Akruti, Mr Babu, who I would be spending 4 weeks working closely with on assignment. I was provided with a professional coach to help me to define my personal development needs and an advisor from Adopt a Business to talk through the business objectives of my assignment and prepare me for 4 weeks in India! My assignment took place between 26th January and 22nd February 2008 and was an incredible experience for me - I learnt an enormous amount, not just about India but about myself too. The first week was pretty tough, getting used to the country, the people, learning about the organisation, building relationships and working out how I could make a difference in just 4 weeks. In the end I was amazed at how much I was able to achieve and the impact I could have with very little previous experience. Through the course of the 4 weeks I learnt to consult and coach rather than do, understand a market and industry I've never worked in, work around cultural barriers that are alien to me and rely on skills that I didn't realise I had!
At first I struggled with how I could add value when Ashray Akruti was so well structured and managed, but through investigation and talking to the staff I soon realised that although all the right elements existed, they were not as well organised as they could have been, not well documented and more importantly, not maintained. It’s extremely difficult to attract and retain skilled resources in the social sector in India and Mr Babu is doing the best he can with the resources he has, which can often mean he ends up doing a lot of the work himself.
This discovery helped me to find a way to add value quite easily, through helping Mr Babu and the staff realise the importance of capturing, structuring, organising, and especially, maintaining key data and documenting the process for managing it. Stakeholders in any business rely upon clear and regular communication from an organisation and in order to satisfy this and ensure continued support, providing this is essential. The communication plan we developed together focused on defining who the stakeholders were, what methods of communication were appropriate, how these would be constructed, maintained and delivered and how often. I worked with the staff to define and document the process and structure and develop the detail of the data required - always coaching, never doing it for them. This greatly increased my chances of the staff continuing the work we started in my short time with them. I focused on revitalising the organisation’s leaflet, which was rather dated, and used the key data we had just defined and centralised as the core message, along with some recent photos, and reiterated the importance of keeping it current. I was pleasantly surprised by how small changes and things that seem obvious to me could have such a big impact.
Working with Mr Babu was both inspiring and challenging, as Ashray Akruti is his legacy - an incredible organisation that he has worked extremely hard to build and sustain over the past 15 years and, with no government funding, it exists mostly though his tireless networking and lobbying in pursuit of funds. Mr Babu felt he had to tightly manage and control everything, understandable with limited access to experienced staff. The staff were also very respectful of him and rarely challenged his decisions. Delegation was difficult. The staff were in defined roles and it took time for Mr Babu to understand what I would finally achieve since the assignment terms of reference were broad and my skills didn't clearly map to a “job" in his organisation AND we only had 4 weeks!
I think one of my greatest achievements was challenging the organisation’s thinking and its approach to people. I had to prove my worth, having different skills than had been anticipated and a background and training from a corporate world very different to this organisation. I demonstrated the benefits of documenting processes, trusting staff and delegating to them, through sharing my personal experiences and encouraging Mr Babu through some delegation exercises for real - using the benefits of allowing him to put his time to better use and growing the capability in his resources. I think by not fitting the "mould" he expected, I felt I broke down barriers of perception and judgement and built trust.
Another success was engaging IBM volunteers through the IBM On Demand Community and contacts I had made in IBM India, introducing Ashray Akruti to better ways of working with temporary resources and volunteers, by clearly documenting requirements and managing expectations on a regular basis. I believe this, in conjunction with the business review, communication strategy and recommendations I completed, with help from all the staff and Mr Babu, may have changed their view of the corporate world and increased their value in the skills of individuals. I coached Mr Babu's direct reports through asking open questions, provoking thought and reflection and praising their progress and achievements along the way, building confidence and enabling them to challenge the process and decisions made.
Personally, I have gained greater confidence in my own ability and a much deeper appreciation for the challenges of working in India, a country with unstable infrastructure (power cuts nearly every day), scarce and unskilled resources (the social sector especially), extreme poverty and wealth (and very little in between), a huge variety of local languages and multiple religions, the impact of the caste system, historic traditions and learned behaviours that influence the way people work and interact. I also felt a huge sense of gratitude for the things we take for granted in the west - like clean water, stable energy sources, even new technology. I was overwhelmed by the warmth and inquisitive nature of every person I came across and humbled by the kindness of relative strangers (particularly when I got sick!).
Since returning to the UK I regularly draw upon my learning experiences and apply them to my role, occasionally reminding myself of what I have achieved to renew my confidence and I relish sharing my experience with others. I discovered that I was able to change my approach to work and adapt to changes faster than I expected. I’m now working more effectively, delegating more and producing results more quickly. I’m now much more willing to take on new challenges and my coaching and leadership skills have grown enormously.
I have maintained contact with the friends and colleagues I made in Hyderabad and am confident that Mr Babu has used the outcome of our work together to benefit his organisation and enable him to support more children. The organisation has succeeded in listing with Give India (similar to our Just Giving) and advertising through Google.Org, something I discovered during my assignment, enabling charities to advertise for free. Mr Babu has already documented more of his business processes and hired more staff to delegate work to - so it seems that we both improved our art of delegation!