It was only in the last leadership meeting we made a conscious collective decision to come out with a iridium Interactive Celebration Calendar  which is now being discussed in our weekly huddles more than the project delivery plans..

We made it a point to invite all the team members last night, including those who have left Iridium but still feel highly connected with the rest of us. It was great fun sitting at a Dhaba in the open air and talking through those mid night biryanis and early morning dosas and idlis; Although most of us hated those long hours we all were putting in,  when we looked back and refreshed our memories, it was such a great learning that we all had; the day clients came in and congratulated us  and acknowledged the bottom-line impact we have made to their businesses .. I was telling most of the team if they put these project experiences in their resumes nobody in the industry is going to believe them that during recession times the team at iridium Interactive has been working on such world class cutting edge projects.

Folks, now its time for the IIPL third season… yeah its IIPL (iridium Interactive Premier league) and already invites are being sent out to all the iridium Interactive alums and customers too..to be part of the T20 cricket match scheduled for 30th January 2010. If you cant make it for the match watch out our blog or alternatively subscribe to the live twitter feeds at iridium Interactive

I managed to take a late night flight out of Hyderabad to reach Delhi a night before atleast to be on time for the fourth Breakfast meeting of the NASSCOM Noida CEO forum meeting at Grapecity.. I guess I am the first one who managed to reach the five star hotel, thats the feeling I got when I walked into the Grapecity office in Noida.. wading through the waters of the heavy overnite downpour that happened..

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Met with Avinash and exchanged business cards with Ashoke Ghosh and understood a little about what Grapecity is into.. Although I was talking to Ashoke most of the time I was watching the beautiful garden and the carefully crafted office.. I was a little intrigued by the designation of Anand Pillai and asked him .. hey are you a HR or a Strategy guy…He gave us all an insight on his role at HCL and what he does sitting in the Plush corporate office. He told me that he is going to talk on the Fast track program of HCL .. the popular SMT program.. Sr. Management Trainees (thats how we all used to call it atleast..) Hey by the way I am a product of HCL SMT program and was able to connect with Ashok while chatting over breakfast all my personal experiences of this fantastic 7-7-7 program.Although we started a little late, by the time we all moved into the conference room and Ashoke started giving a brief Intro (Anand called it .. he felt as if Ashoke read his Obituary.. the room was full.. and that was the right mix and size I felt.. Anand with all his fantastic credentials was very grounded and it was more of an Pratcitioners talk.. I always had this debate in mind… are Leaders born or made… Anand answered this by sharing couple of insights on how to spot high performance leaders based on their approach (proactive / reactive) and the efforts and energies they bring in (Quantum or incremental).. how to go about creating an high performance environment with a focus on talent transformation based on the challenging situations and the kind of support extended.. one of the queries from the participants was “Is this good for a large company or a small company too?” Anand’s response was in a smaller company one can do it much more effectively and can see the transformation much faster. I completely agree with him.. This SMT program was first started by DCM, Shriram group from where most of the HCL founding team came from.. Our director for Americas, Dan, is a product of that.. and we both have so many sweet memories about this program. Anand quickly moved onto the Eagle’s Nest program, or the 7-7-7 program of HCL for Talent Transformation and Intrapreneurship development. Yes its Intranpreneurship not Entrepreneurship… ie Entrepreneurs within an organisation.

Anand shared an interesting statistic about this program which was featured in 2005 June in Economic times..

As part of the corporate dossier done by ET, they found that this program of HCL has actually created about 100+ CEO.

I completely agree with this.. when is started my career in HCL, pretty much in about less than four quarters I have been thrown into unknown waters many a times.. some by company and some out of my own initiative. While Anand was talking of how people are moved from comfort zone to courage zone I could relate many instances out of my personal experience which I went through.The parallel of the Eagle’s life a leader was very insightful and thought provoking.. there is so much to learn from all the Seven qualities.. Ability to look at the Sun in the eye and face the heat.. dauntlessly; spotting its prey miles away with its vision; Tenacity with which it flies against the storm – I was watching one of the geographic channel program and almost cried watching that short film; Nurturing the eaglets – one at a time personally. Anand shared an insight of how the mom / dad eagle takes the eaglet out and make the baby look at the sun in the eye.. after couple of attempts if the eaglet is not really able to face it.. the eagle kills it as he thinks it not worth becoming an eagle.. ; High flyer… always flying in high places yet swiftly reaches to the planes to grab its prey; we all often use this phrase ‘Birds eye view’ or the 30,000 feet vision and the ability to translate the same to a ground level execution… maybe this is the origin of that…

Vice like grip. I was told when an eagles grips something either the eagles leg or our part of the body have to be surgically removed; this is the quality we as leaders expect in our teams isnt it … stay focussed … be on top of it .. is a very common phrase we all use in our day to day lives talking and motivating our teams. Eagles like us have a life span of almost 70+ years and they do suffer from ‘Mid life crisis’ … and they have a very interesting way by which they rejuvenate themselves and lives with full of life all its life. They develop cataract in the eyes + the beak starts getting rounded and lose the sharpness + the nails start growing inwards + feathers on the wings start coming out; For about 130 odd days Eagle goes through a process of Rejuvenation. For about 30 to 40 days he will sit on a rock and start hitting it with its beak till the roundness goes and goes through the pain with lot of blood; He then starts pulling each and every nail out; He looks at the sun in the eye till the cataract melts; Flies against the thickest of the storms till the feathers are pulled away; finally goes and takes three dips in a lake and comes back to its full life… most interestingly, for all these days he will not eat anything.. This was quite a motivating thing and thanks to Anand for bringing this perspective out..

There was a deep silence in the room and this has put all of us in a thinking mode. The topic was quite relevant to all of us and there is an excellent key takeaway. I am glad I could make it to this and Avinash as usual you have done a fantastic job of getting all of us together.. slowly we all started knowing each other and bonding…I collected cards from only half of the participants.. thats a good sign and we are all getting there.

Anand thanks for taking your time out and spending the morning with us; Those days at HCL .. its quite a nostalgic feeling and we all used to crack jokes that its a J factor .. (Jugaad) culture etc.. but all said and done hats off to the leadership team at HCL who dared to think different and build such a large enterprising organization which gives a tough fight to all the MNCs..