My First Corporate Learning

A couple of decades back, just after completing my graduation, I took my first employment with a big Company, a Company which was the most preferred employer for aspiring and talented young professionals and I was an exception. I was lucky enough to be there.

A few months later, I invited my colleagues home for a dinner, my invitation was accepted and came home my colleagues.

We were busy discussing everything that came to our mind, some wise and some otherwise. I was quite anxious. My colleagues were introduced to my mother and other members in our family. My mother offered them a typical South Indian filter coffee that made some of my colleagues our regular guests.

As we were discussing, my father returned home. This was the moment I was waiting for. I wanted to introduce all my colleagues to my father.

I started introducing my colleagues. While I was introducing one of my colleagues to my father, I introduced him as my subordinate. My father gave a gentle smile and a pat not so gentle on my back and told me “Talk to me before you go to bed”.

I could not see the discomfiture behind the smile. Why he asked me to talk to him was a conundrum to me.

After all my colleagues left, I approached my father who was engrossed by the book he was reading. I gently took his attention and he started with what he wanted to say keeping the book aside, “One thing you should learn early in your life - never ever introduce anyone as your subordinate. Superior-Subordinate is the hierarchy in the Organizational structure and that is not the relationship between the people. He is your colleague and that is the relationship”.

The message was abundantly clear. I realized that there was a lot of meaning in what my father said. That was the last time I introduced anyone as my subordinate.

A few months back, I had an opportunity to travel to Qatar along with a Senior Colleague, my Boss. He is quite a senior person, a member of the Company’s Board and a fatherly person to me. While he introduced me to his counterpart, he introduced me as his colleague heading Supply Chain. There are no words to explain the joy it gave.

I remembered my father who taught me the first corporate lesson, a lesson that I shall never unlearn.

Published for Msn.com

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