During the initial stage of my business, I started my work with visiting villages and direct interactions with farmers. I went to the areas which are in deep interiors; I used to visit 2-3 villages a day. After working for around 15 days, I realized that it will take very long to cover a small region for my products. I was not in condition to hire people. Then I thought about how I can include some more people in my work without paying them. After sometime, one of friend asked me to arrange a summer internship in any company for one of his relatives. I thought why can’t I have interns working on my venture. I went to some local B-schools and asked them for some interns on they agreed. In the month of April, I conducted interviews of applicants for summer training on my venture. In two days, I interviewed 56 people and after matching them with my requirements I selected 32 MBA students as interns on my venture. All selected interns were supposed to join me the last week of May 09. The period between their selection and joining, I did a lot of ground work to provide them work during their summer training. Finally 20 out of selected interns joined me for their summer training.
I was well aware about the nature of job given to them, they had to visit villages which followed by village meetings. They had to use public transport for their visit to the villages and in most of the cases they had to go on feet to reach the villages which are away from main roads. It was hot summers and it burns in Aligarh during summers. The work was very difficult for them and it became more difficult because I was not paying any stipend to them. I was paying only TA to them, no other incentive was provided to interns from my side.
On the one hand, they had to face above difficulties and on the other they had to deal with typical mindset of farmers. People in villages don’t get convinced easily and when it is about agriculture, they hardly listen to strangers. For interns, the work was very difficult and there was no motivation in the work.
Just after first 2-3 days, most of them realized about the hardness of the job. Even few of them decided to leave their training in between. I was able to read their faces because I had worked in same fields, I was well aware of the hardness of the work. When they used to come back from fields, they were very much tired. Generally they used to go early in the morning and used to come back in afternoon or so, sometimes they were without lunch.
It was a very big challenge for me to retain my team effective. Initially my perception about these guys was not as good. I used to compare my knowledge with their knowledge because I am also a management student; I and my interns were in the same position academically.Some of them were so intellect and creative.
I gave it a deep thought and came up with some cultural changes within the organization of 33 (including 20 interns, 10 agents and 2 employees)people. I made them free to take leaves; they just had informed me 2 days prior to their leave so I could manage accordingly. Every Saturday was called as ‘Fun day’, every Saturday all of us used to go for some picnic or used to enjoy at office but in any case all of us together. At least once in a week, I used to give a motivational lecture kind of thing to encourage them, so I could get them back on track if required. All interns were free to invite anyone from outside to join us on Fun day. Every Monday, there was a review meeting about our work in the last week and plans for next week. We used to review our approach during the last week and were always open for suggestion to improve. There was no senior or junior in the office to the extent possible. I gave them a feeling of ownership, each one of them was asked to come with a plan for next week if he owns the business every Monday in the review meeting. This feeling of ownership made them think out of box and they started coming up with very good plans. I asked few of them to implement their plans on ground and they did. Open culture and feeling of ownership made them so affectionate about the work.
This team was highly mobilized, conducted on an average more than 3 meetings a day at different places. Every individual in this team became a valuable asset for me. Each individual gave his best and made things happen in realistic manner. Most of the members of this team including me were completely fresher’s. None of us was having any expertise in any field of management except our study of one year at our respective B-schools.
Even after getting a very difficult and challenging job with no motivation, all of them worked so well. Isn’t it very strange?
Yes, it is strange but realistic as well. The ownership feeling and open culture motivated them in such a way that when their tenure ended with me, most of them asked to continue work with me. It is something which I have learnt at IWSB. When I joined IWSB and saw an open culture it was very surprising for me. At IWSB, everyone calls others by their first name, whoever he/she is. We (students) call our director by his first name. Actually not just that we can share whatever we feel like or we want to share with our mentors. All such things were completely new for me, initially I couldn’t relate these things with my learning’s but it was easy to learn with such norms. While creating and formulating my team I tried to implement the same thing which gave me above expectation returns.
I am really thankful to IWSB for such education which is helping me while setting up my business.
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