I believe that honesty, teamwork and commitment are essential ingredients required to succeed in life. That's a given, but in the course of implementing egovernance projects in Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL), I realised that there were other skills that were essential. Some of these take time to acquire.       

Like negotiations skills. I am not talking about negotiating with vendors but negotiating with users for mindset change. In government setups there is a tremendous resistance to change. I headed mission-mode projects such as introducing a Web-based complaint management systems in the corportaion. Many employees are reluctant to take on additional duties or agree to change, in however small way, the way they are carrying out their duties. You have to put yourself in their shoes and learn to empathise. You need to have the people on your side to implement such projects.

Just as important is building a good team. I believe that the success of a project depends a lot on the dynamics between the team members. I like to  do a selection based on the genuine skills of a person but also consider the person's individual behavour as well as his/her behaviour in a group. However, every once in a while I have had a team member who does not ft with the culture. In a government setup, it's risky to ask him to leave; I believe the better option is to keep him inlvolved and persuade him to mend his ways while at the same time make him feel important by asking him for his opinion on some matter.

I have a lot of faith in what training can do to employees. At UPCL, we had selected a “user champions” group and trained them in leadership and technical skills. This team consisted of staff from different departments who had opted to help in the speedy implementation of e-governance projects. The training worked wonders!   

I am now on the other side of the table working for the private sector, using my domain experience in designing and executing IT projects for PSUs/ government organisations.

Jayant Sinha | AVP & Head (Power-IT) Spanco Ltd