What I learned from Mr. Brian Ostler at Power Grid

Continuing from the last week, let me talk some more about the good old days at Power Grid, when I used to work out of Hemkunth Chambers in Nehru Place, a commercial complex in Delhi. Mr. Brian Ostler was another consultant along with Ralph Brown  from US and he was also helping us write the technical specifications to buy telecom equipment. The equipment that we needed to modernize and automate power system control and management. His specialization was optical communications compared to Mr Ralph Brown, who was an expert in microwave. Let me share a lesson I learned from Brian this week.

Entertain the Curiosity – Develop your team

My self and my colleague Manish Kansal were working closely with both Brian and Ralph to create the draft specifications. We were fresh out of college and have had one year of rotational training at Power Grid. Our knowledge of telecom was minimal but we were eager to learn and make our mark. We came up with new ideas, some times crazy ones. Brian would laugh at our curiosity, a very warm and encouraging laughter, an inclusive one. And then he would spare time to share some practical knowledge and help expand our understanding.

He always entertained our curiosity and helped us develop in to good engineers. The investment he made in us forced him to put extra work into the nights, but he gladly spent that time. We tried to give back as much as possible by doing the research and sharing the load. In the end it all worked out well.

I wish all leaders can be as generous, that they can encourage curiosity and invest into development of their teams.

Stay tuned for more next week!