2020 marked my 20th year in Unilever. Despite the many career peaks and troughs, the year will go down as the year of reflecting and reckoning, where one’s capabilities and intellect had been put to the ultimate test. At one end businesses were in an existential crisis and priorities were snarled amidst uncertainties, on the other hand it was equally an opportunity to ‘re-purpose self’ to deliver to the needs of the hour. As one stands at this vantage point of looking back at a 20-year career in a year that was unlike before it clearly is an apt moment to look back at all the ‘lessons learnt’.

·      Lesson 1 – Being self-confident but knowing & owning vulnerability: One is as good as one’s weakest links. While one thrives on building a collaborative relationship, at times there is a need for healthy conflict as well. The right balance between the two delivers ‘peak performance’. One should anticipate the potential challenges and its impact on business and articulate expectations as lucidly as possible so that people are clear about the immediate goals amidst all the trials and tribulations while work on the building blocks for tomorrow.

·      Lesson 2 – Ruthless Prioritization & Excellence over Perfection: Given one’s penchant demand for perfection, one tends to pick up a lot on own instead of leaning in on the team and the peers. It always helps when one to prioritises on a few, more meaningful and impactful initiatives while delegate many to others. While perfection may not attainable this way, it equally would not have helped chasing perfection. It is better to deliver on excellence.

·      Lesson 3 - No two ways on Accountability: Teams change. While they needed time to learn and accelerate, one should lay down the expectation and importance to ‘grow by doing’. Equally, sufficient degree of influence is needed to be exercised with peers and their deliverables to ensure that a task is delivered in full.

·      Lesson 4 - Getting the Right People on the Right Seat and Getting the Best out of Them: It is always critical to have the right people on the right bus and making sure they are clear which seat they are sitting as they are not just mere passengers rather have an active role in making a difference to business. This dovetails into the earlier lesson as well. 

·      Lesson 5 - Authority Stemming from Respect and Presence, not from Fear: To do a role effectively and exert authority one must exude a certain amount of respect and gravitas. This must come from respect and presence over fear of authority. Sometimes one reflects if flexing the ‘fear’ muscles would yield a different outcome; but personally, one would opine that having authority from respect and presence outweighs one yielding from fear.

·      Lesson 6 - Create your own benchmark and beat it: Difficult years teach resilience to fight back and outperform. We must constantly challenge ourselves and continuously adapt and change the performance benchmark. Excellence is a habit, and we need to constantly challenge ourselves and outperform. 

·      Lesson 7 - Respect competition but not fear them: This leads to the seventh lesson, where one reflects that while we should not fear competitors, we must have respect for our competition and not completely ignore them. Competition helps us to discover what we are capable of and how much more we could do that we never believed was possible.

·      Lesson 8 – ‘Why I cannot’ to ‘What I can’: When the house is on fire it is always difficult to nudge people to discuss about the future. While one can use this to justify and be defensive, the bigger question to ask oneself is, ‘What one could have done differently’.

·      Lesson 9 - When wronged, be righteous: Stephen Hawking’s once said, “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” As one journeys through multiple workstreams, one is taunted by all the factoids. Whenever one is being wronged, it is important that the one holds the superior ground and moral value. Sometimes one may lose the small battle but find new way to win the war.

·      Lesson 10 - Values of Value: There are fine lines on ‘Intellectual integrity’; whatever the headwinds, one needs to be true to the true north. Nothing can help and unseat the importance of principles irrespective of the difficulties. One has learnt “value of values” at home, and nothing can disenfranchise one from that. 

Napoleon Hill once said, “most people achieved the greatest success just in a step beyond the greatest failure”. I believe the worst of times brings the best out of me. 2020 is a year of reckoning, but it also teacher for future. My best years are still ahead of me.