What I learned from Mr Mahadevan R. at Nortel

This week, I will be sharing a lesson I learned when I was working for Nortel in Mumbai and I attribute this lesson to my dear colleague Mahadevan R. Those days I was responsible for pre-sales and he was post-sales, we were working together as a team, helping Reliance Communications plan and design the optical transport infrastructure.

Different realities exist simultaneously

Once we were locked in a debate and were not able to conclude a discussion, because everyone was quite adamant about what they wanted. It was year 2007 and I had been handling the Reliance communication account for about a year now and was getting comfortable there. It was quite difficult for me to digest the logic given by the customer team, so I felt that I may not be doing the right thing if I just agreed to them. I always tried my best to make them understand the “Reality” and hopefully accept my solution.

One such day when I was ranting in the evening with Mahadevan R. he asked me a question, “What is the right speed of driving on the Road?”

I said that depends on the speed limit, traffic on the road and other factors, so there cannot be a simple answer. He asked me to think more and said their is only one right answer. We went through some hilarious arguments and I could never get to that expected answer. Then he explained that the right answer is, “The speed at which I am driving”, everyone who is faster that me is a reckless driver, who does not care about safety and everyone who is driving slower is a poor driver, choking the road and creating inconvenience for others.

So be mindful that while you may think you are right based on your reality, others may be right based on their reality and as realities may not be same, you may both be right. I wish that rather than pushing for one right answer, you work to understand the realities in which other answers become right. This will lead you to do better every single day.

Stay tuned for more next week.