Career Advice, Story of watermelons, Mental health, Onboarding asks
Welcome to Sridhar’s newsletter number # 15. Appreciate you being here, so we can connect weekly on interesting topics. Add your email id here to get this directly to your inbox (https://sridhargarikipati.substack.com).
One of best career advice shared by 54 women in senior positions to their younger self. A beautiful story about watermelons and what the story can teach us if can applied to various aspects of life. A war hero put it in best words “Demons in our head are toughest of enemies”, always ask for help and need to get self aware about mental health for ourselves and for our family, friends etc. One awkward discussion happens every time we discuss about adding more resources to team, its already on plan that we have to add, still one awkward discussion has to take place before we go ahead. This week newsletter is all about these topics. So, let us dive in.
Career Advice shared by 54 women in senior positions
This was sitting in my drafts and every week I would look at it and give this entire list a read. I realize every time I was at; it is a great advice and good to read this again and again to remind me few things. This content was from LinkedIn Post and my bad I did not save the detailed article link to give author credit for. I am sharing this, in this week’s newsletter. Hope you find it useful as I find this too.
54 women in executive product management roles were asked to share something they would tell their mid-career selves.
Here are the top answers (shortened for space) ...
✅ “Soft” skills are the most important; focus on how you communicate, let go of “being right”, listen harder
✅ Trust your instincts
✅ Enjoy the climb; if you only focus on promotions, the summit will not matter
✅ Mentor others; focus on building relationships
✅ What got you to one level may not take you to the next; re-center
✅ Leave toxic environments quickly, take time to find a healthy team
✅ When you can hire, focus on diversity
✅ Always be networking
✅ It is about people who care about you; find an internal sponsor
✅ Do not start with solutions; start with the pain point, then decide *if* you should solve it, then how
✅ Focus on what YOU can control: your process, communication, commitments
✅ Do not waste time in a job where you have stopped learning; stay curious
✅ Titles matter; ask for the title you deserve
✅ You can be an assertive and pleasant person at the same time
✅ You do not get things you do not ask for (raise, promotion, title, projects, resources)
✅ Do not let fear of rejection hold you back; ask for feedback
✅ Take time to reflect, often: what makes your heart soar?
A Story of watermelons
This is story of watermelons which was narrated by Manohar Parrikar, the former chief minister of goa. Coming to story,
A Village is famous for its watermelons. They were very huge in size. Farmers in the village would organize a watermelon-eating contest at the end of the harvest season and sales were great for them every year. They used to host watermelon eating contest for kids, farmer used to place his best size watermelons and ask kids to eat and spit out the seeds into a bowl which they will use for their next harvest. It was a fun event for kids every year. Post few years the event went dull, although watermelons were there, they were very small in size and farmers were in losses. So, I went out to meet the farmer who hosted the contest, came to know he got retired and now his son had taken over. Son was also hosting the contest but there was a difference.
Older farmer would share his best produce to contest and keeps his best seeds for next harvest which would yield even bigger watermelons the next year. When his son took over, realized that larger watermelons would fetch more money in market sale instead of giving them free in eating contest. Process was same but product got different, he sold his big watermelons and kept the small watermelons to contest and was end up left with small watermelon seeds. So, his next harvest watermelons were small and year later even smaller.
Great story right, our best should always be invested first, and story can be apt to multiple scenarios. I read this in another person Substack newsletter and thought of sharing this out. Here is the link to the article.
https://www.foundingfuel.com/article/wfh-daily-184-a-story-of-watermelons/
Ask for help, mental health is greater importance than you think
Specially in India, Mental health topic is seen as taboo. if one is mentally stressed or depressed, in such culture people end up or should I say, many ended up in dark struggling on their own, Impacting their day to day lifestyle.
I Stumbled upon Florent Groberg below YouTube video and he put it in best words. Demons in our head are toughest of enemies.
Mental health is not a taboo. If you need some help, do reach out. Talk to your parents, siblings, friends, please share to at least one person instead of keeping to yourself. One’s physical health is visible out, but if one is mentally stressed then do talk to your other well-wishers. Talking out may not resolve the situation, but at least you will have a shoulder to you. I will keep this short, there are many nonprofit organization who provides online material for self-empowerment. Sharing one such website for reference. Do ask for help and help yourself as well.
https://www.smartrecovery.org/
The one default question to be answered before you begin recruitment phase for your team
Any time I am in recruitment stage for my team. Before I begin that process this one awkward discussion happens between me and some other manager. I get advised quickly to use the existing resources from different team and use them for full potential before we on-board new (fair point). The resources from different team have different skills set, they do not have the skills required for my team, that is why we are in recruitment phase. Not sure how many times in my career I have seen this. A person with Project Management skills, clearly understands that we would require project specific skilled resources, that is first basic point in resource management under Project Management lesson. Still one must explain again and again, why we cannot use any resource in any role. They are very much aware of this but very often I have seen them falling on this. Another funny thing is, they expect one to just start from tomorrow and deliver the work as skilled resource for that tasks which the person they refer are not even skilled for. I really wonder if they have ever done tasks themselves, there must be some reference right, to give advice with such confidence. I get the drill and been used to it. One awkward discussion must explain like a baby that they do not get it, why the team requires specific skills to work on tasks. It is not that, it is not on plan or not the budget. They know that we must add from so and so date already. Discussion still must happen.
Let me know how many you have faced such situations. On side note, this funny video puts such conversations at it very best.
That is all for this week. See you again.
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