What I learned from Mr. Anthony McLachlan at Nortel

Moving on from last week, today I will take you back to my Nortel days again. I have worked with many great leaders at Nortel and each helped me gain new perspectives. I started interacting with Anthony when he became leader for APAC (Asia-pacific). I was leading the MEN division (Metro-Ethernet Networks) for Nortel India and used to meet Anthony during the business reviews, specially when he came to India.

You do not win or lose alone.

Anthony emphasized that the business is not a one man show. Nortel MEN Division R&D (Research & Development) teams as well as PLM (Product Line Management) teams used to be based in North America and were quite far away from India. Moreover, India was a small piece of the global business. Getting the support of these teams was essential for business success. Anthony encouraged me to involve the relevant members from these teams in my projects. He said that due to the time zone gap, our region needs to work harder to get the right stakeholders involved in our business. Once we get others emotionally attached to our business, such that our success and failure matters to them as well, we will get the right support.

I do hope that you realize that in most organizations, it is very important to align the matrix structures to your business. Connect with people, invite them to your region, engage them with your customers. This will help you to work with them like a team and not just as co-workers. Create your own “Team” and see the difference in your own game. 

Stay tuned for more next week.