I recently joined a social media agency. Given my HR knowledge and er...not to mention recent brushes with HR people, I was assigned to an HR client who if I may add was nothing like I expected!
To give you a brief - I have always been 'The Client' so this was my first in terms of seeing what's the grass like on the other side and believe me, it did not appear greener to me. Having come back to the Indian workspace after more than 3 years adjusting to the chaos was even worse. I was used to nice airy spaces to work in, which was something I would have to start dreaming about since the new place looked more like one in which it's all about 'the survival of the fittest elbows'
With a CEO who looked like he did not know what he was up to half the time (although that's just the way he works, he is pretty much aware), an ex-colleague from a previous organisation as my current boss (yeah that's the reason I took up the job, though believe me it was not much of a consolation) and a client who perpetually spoke like she was 'The Buddha' and that too in times when she was wrong, you can pretty much imagine what had been served on my plate.
Add to this the fact that I have always been the youngest in any organisation that I have worked with and if I may add, the one to add some mayhem to the discipline. For a change this time round I was beaten to the task by practically everyone in my new company, including the CEO.
And no, I was not from the social media industry, my knowledge of B2B social media was zilch and Twitter seemed like a hitherto unknown bird's world to me until my entry into this field.
So well, you may ask, given the above what would my first month at this new job be like?
I started a mini library of sorts at my space-crunched desk, to brush up on my HR knowledge so it was like going back to school which was a nice thing.
Since I joined at a managerial position I obviously was to look into a team and my team included 2 people. Also since I was new to this industry, the obvious first step would be to get my grey cells singing to the tune of social media. And that is exactly what I set about doing.
Understanding the medium (Social Media); understanding the client, their requirements and understanding the team.
Talking of understanding the client, my first brush with her was quite nice, but eventual brushes burst the bubble that first impressions are never the last. As a consequence, my conversations with myself became a tad too loud as they were fringed with blasphemies for my client (a natural reaction considering the trauma I went through with her, am sure you'd agree, though a lot of my colleagues thought I was going slightly mental).
All that understanding led to quite a few learnings in the first month itself. Here's a short list:
- Gender is truly a bender: I actually found that like does repel like - women (read:female clients) were sweeter to men in the agency than to women.
- Mere knowledge is not enough, one must know how to apply: Just learning management fundas and theories is not enough. Only if you know where to apply them and how, are you truly an MBA'ite.
- Thinking out of the box helps, but so does thinking inside the box: At times simple ideas work wonders far more powerful than super creative ideas. Don't always stress for the 'BIG' idea, small ideas put together can also give you BIG results.
- Managing people is not as easy as it sounds: Absolute Fact, even though I was looking into just 2 people, just getting them to break out of someone else's mould and shape them into mine (read: management style) was a herculean task.
- FB, Twitter, Li and YT are just the tip of the iceberg: Social media is a Mammoth. There is such a lot to know and learn that it needs not just knowledge but experience in it teaches you a whole lot of different stuff as well.
- Age is not an indicator of intelligence: Just because someone is older that someone else does not imply the presence of intelligent grey cells in the former's skull. In fact as I found out in my new company, the ones who are younger have sharper acumen and way better intelligence than most of the older ones that I interact with.
All said and done, going by the way my first month went, looks like this new job sure is going to be one helluva roller-coaster ride, let's hope it's one I totally enjoy :)
No comments:
Post a Comment