FLEXIBILITY

Rajat Subra Chatterjee

It was September 2019 when Abhirup, then based in Navi Mumbai as a senior HR Professional with Wipro was being explored by a US IT Firm if Abhirup was suitable to Head their India People Function from their Pune office to bring about a much awaited transformation in People Culture and Practices.

Abhirup had about 3 rounds of interactions with the leadership team of the US company through Skype and being convinced about Abhirup’s ability, the CEO and owner Mr. Haggins wished to meet Abhirup in person at Pune.

Accordingly in late October 2019 Haggins flew over to India and a date and time was fixed for their meeting.  The time of the meeting was 3 pm.

But on that day of the meeting, Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi was to land in Pune and his address meeting was scheduled very close to where Abhirup was to meet his supposed- to-be the new CEO.

On the early morning of the day of the meeting,  Abhirup got a  call from Haggins, requesting him to pre-pone the meeting by 4 hours as Haggins had correctly apprehended that with the arrival of the country’s PM close to the vicinity, there could be chaos and restrictions of movement and as a result Abhirup might not be able to travel all the way from Mumbai to Pune to be in time.

Haggins proposed Abhirup that the meeting be held at 11 am. !! It was about a 4 hours travel from Abhirup’s residence to then meeting venue in Kharadi, Pune

Without blinking an eye lid Abhirup said that he would be there in time.

It was early morning, 7.15 am that day and next couple of hours were like battlefield for Abhirup for getting his two infant daughters ready for school and then got himself ready to start for Pune.  Rajlakhsmi his wife, joined  the battlefield to get all ready for their positional destination. It was heck-neck activity as four hours were to be sandwiched before Abhirup could reach in time. Abhirup was in time for the scheduled meeting at Pune, infact 6 minutes ahead of time.

When Haggins thanked Abhirup for being there in time in spite of constrains, Abhirup smiled and said you are going to recruit your HR Head in India and you are thanking me for making it !? As a HR professional if I am not flexible, then better you don’t recruit me .

Haggins, as the reserved person he is, nodded, smiled and got back to the work of recruiting his HR leader.

Flexibility the word has been Abhirup’s forte. .

Now that Abhirup is firmly anchored with that US company  having streamlined the Indian operations,  is the culmination of what transpired out of the whole incident which is being shared here.

Morale of the story ? – ‘ to get to an altitude, you must have the right attitude. Do not wait for the opportunity. Create and grab the opportunity’.