I've been eating, sleeping, dreaming EF, as it's said. Yet, it was only when I was thinking of how to do the presentation that I started to see so many facets, earlier just taken for granted.
And it was fascinating, as it was validating some underlying perspectives which were like Aha moments. And that's when I decided to tell it as a story to the team. This was the story slide.
We started in Jan '2015, with a goal of 50 enterprises and 100 Euros (70 lakh) funding. Renewable energy, underserved segment, huge need, entrepreneur development, giving money.....easy task. The mood was upbeat.
We made a plan, did our end of it, told our branches and field staff what we were looking for. And then the months started to pass.
June.........half way through.......just 2 lakhs done (5 projects), less than 5% accomplished. We were staring into the face of failure.
When Harish asked if we could do it, I said 'unlikely, nothing was working, we might do twenty lakh at best' and maybe we should consider returning the money.
Fortunately for me, the learnings, the attitude and the subconscious kicked in that night. They conspired to wake me up at 2 in the night to say, No, you can't give up....you have to do it. What makes the story...... is that moment, when I actually got up and sent off an email saying exactly that....'No, no returning money, we'll do it'..... and I had no clue how.
What it took is that turning point.
It was then about figuring out the how. And figure it out we did, a complete restrategizing.
Understanding what it takes, putting in place a process, a plan of action and getting our feet on the ground.
That's Jayashree putting stickers for all our enterprises, Bihar, Orissa and Karnataka........and it's been wonderful to see those dots increase.
As of yesterday, we'd done 27 projects (21 lakh spent), and what's more we'd even innovated on financing mechanisms, brought in banks, leveraged our money and enabled a lot more.
We now know we can do it. The energy in the room was palpable. We had a slide with goals for each person on the field, (me included), and before projecting it I asked each of them what they thought they could do, and consistently each of them gave me a number more than what I'd set for them. That's the belief, motivation and zing that makes you want to go to work each day.
And what did it take? ..............A shift in Mind Set.
Rather it is the instinct that said that you have never given up easily. Why now?
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a nice compliment, so thanks on that :)
ReplyDeleteThe why now? It showed how close to failure one was.... and where there's scope to move up, there's always the possibility of falling too. ....and that's what makes it so interesting I guess...the challenge of the now.