I want to start by saying that I am a nerd. Big time. So, when a contest was announced where I could read more, write more, and ideate more – I jumped in, straight away. And the system rewarded me very well for my entries – mind you, I did not win as many times as I failed but that is the beauty of the organisation – it lets you fail without fear, only to help you stand back up. So, you could fail and your team would still have confidence in you – senior leaders from other teams would go beyond their way to teach you how to level up. Monetary rewards from Decathlon are great, of course, but what has worked in the favor of young executives is the enthusiasm on the self-motivated days, senior leaders’ guidance and occasional nudge on the other.
Once you show the curiosity to learn or to experiment, all you need is to go to your own leaders and mentors – they are ready to put in resources that will help you build your projects because they believe in honest support. This seeps down to the immediate manager you report to – so if you want to, you will get to. That is all the more why Adfactors PR made me and some of my colleagues-turned-family into responsible professional adults. It is not just the two leaders keeping it together, the Vice-President, Director, and even your peers will sit and guide you to keep excelling – because we nurture the spirit of good competition here.
However, freedom is not just about celebrating the good – it is also about accepting the responsibility to influence, execute, and embrace change. Fearless expression comes with the opportunity to improve things. I was humbled and grateful to be selected to be on the profession-first shadow board of directors – Millennial Board, where 16 of us took the onus of driving change. Our biggest learning was that change takes time, much like good PR. It needs a behavioral change and what we needed was honest feedback – help was pragmatically given to us while reassuring us that there are green shoots showing in places. With sometimes required brutal critique came the loudest cheer whenever I progressed – be it within the team or as an individual. It truly made work wholesome.
It is so easy to look at a magnanimous castle from the outside and find faults and issues, but try running it every day. It takes 1000s of people working in sync, some taking the lead and some being led, it takes leaning on each other once in a while, and my favorite, it takes a feeling of ownership that will drive you till the end. For a mammoth like Adfactors PR to thrive and continue to flourish for the next 25 years, I like to remind myself of what our leaders say (and this is an organisationally aligned view), you just have to show up every day and ask for help. Everything else will align itself on the way.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
This article is part of a SILVER JUBILEE series by Adfactors PR commemorating their 25th year in the business of Public Relations.
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