A few reflections on Leadership, Mentoring and Group Tminus...

Manish Rai, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Motorola

In my several years of experience in Startups and Fortune 100 companies, I have had the good fortune of working with teams across multiple countries and bringing products to market worldwide. In an interconnected world, leadership is about being curious, constantly seeking and learning to create value and building teams by harnessing strengths of diverse cultures.

Throughout my career, I have been blessed to work with good leaders and mentors with whom I have explored new ideas, discussed career paths and my life journey. I have worked with Ram in two companies and have acquired many valuable leadership skills from him that I apply everyday to motivate my team and exceed my goals and aobjectives. He insisted that every team member have one or more mentors and in many cases, across the world. The goal he said, was "to seek and capture new stimuli from others, because we do not know what we do not know".

The contribution by Group Tminus to build leadership is much needed in a world economy, where emerging economies continue their rapid growth and developed countries seek new pastures to pursue. I am looking forward contributing what I have learnt through Group Tminus initiatives and learn from others in the Tminus community.

Manohar Hotchandani, Director, Business Development, Microsoft

Success for Global Corporations depends extensively on ability to lead and work with virtual teams spread across many countries. To remain competitive, leadership in a knowledge economy requires ability to synthesize new ideas, harness the energy and creativity of teams worldwide and make others successful. The key to remaining competitive is to create a mentoring organization that will connect people at various levels across the organization and in multiple countries.

Having worked with Ram, I am delighted to see that he is bringing his extensive real-life experience in multiple countries to groom next generation Global leaders.

Kaushal Mehta, Manager, Sales Excellence, SMB Segment, Microsoft

During our annual Business Planning sessions, our virtual teams comprise team members from various groups from several countries. In a challenging economic environment, we face multiple business inflection points. Very often, we need to make decisions that impact resources in teams.

I first met Ram in one of our Business Planning sessions. I watched him steer people from various groups and various cultures. He reminded us constantly, that each of us individually do not have all the answers, but if we put our heads together and keep an open mind, we can make decisions that serve the business well. Impressed with his ability to harness diverse opinions into a richer outcome, I approached Ram and requested him to be my mentor. Over the years, we have had invaluable conversations on careers, leadership, global business and creating power teams, Ram’s mentoring has helped me immensely in my corporate career here at Microsoft but most importantly it has made a indelible impact on the person that I have become both professionally and personally.

I am really delighted that Ram and Group Tminus are embarking on a leadership initiative to help groom next generation leaders through coaching, mentoring and workshops. In addition, I am excited about the online community that Group Tminus is creating. This online forum will give us an opportunity to learn from experienced business leaders worldwide.

Ekanatha Pai, Program Manager

I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to take risks at an early age and work on interesting and complex products. I learnt from this journey, the importance of learning continuously from other cultures and constantly improving. Mentors always played a huge role in shaping my career and encouraged me to always keep an open mind for new stimuli.

Often, I remember Ram's frequent message to us, "the market opportunity is too big. Time is our enemy. How can we up the ante and make 1+1=10 in our teams?"

With time to bring new products to market constantly shrinking due to global innovation and the global shortage of talent, the need for focus on human capital in organizations is greater than ever before.

The age old practices of mentoring, learning from other cultures and the desire to take risk remain relevant more than ever.