aspire to inspire

I wrote a personalized thank you note to each one of my team member, marking my departure to join the HR department. It was hard thinking of the right words to say, though I know exactly how I appreciate each one of them (I got teary-eyed more than once). Everyone had their unique abilities and brought different flavours to the team. They are such wonderful people and it has been such an honour to have served alongside them these past two and a half years. Although I’m only moving to another floor, I will miss seeing their cheerful faces each morning. Heck, I miss them already.

..to a colleague who plans on leaving? I want to be understanding and empathic, but him leaving would be a loss nonetheless. I hate it when i’m torn between being a boss and a friend.

..would be “to be a great boss”. But honestly, I don’t see myself as anyone’s boss. Instead I “aspire to inspire” others to be the best they can be, and in the process, gain experience in nurturing a high performance team.

I had a meeting with my team earlier in the day (about 16 people altogether) and we discussed the upcoming restucturing. Among others, I mentioned the possibility of outsourcing the operations function to another group while we focus more on development and IT-related initiatives. I could sense some of them were getting shifty and uncomfortable. So I did a lot of reassuring, letting them know that it will be a win-win thing, not something I’ll force down their throats. I mentioned it’s still to early to discuss specifics but I wanted them to hear it from me first.

In the process, we discussed some of the challenges of operations. Someone mentioned that we ought to be more selective when accepting change requests. A few others commented on being unappreciated and even abused by people who were less than empathetic and probably thinks the universe gravitates around them. I believe I handled it quite well, telling them to be patient and try to put themselves in some of the users’ shoes. Things can get unpleasant when the numbers don’t add up and someone’s breathing down your neck. So of course the last thing you’ll need is to have the network connection die on you or lose a document coz your PC just froze.

At the end of the meeting, one of the senior folks expressed her relief that I understood what they go through. She sincerely believed I was on their side. I thought that was one of the nicest feedback I’ve received of late. I went home thinking, this ain’t perfect, and some days everything goes to hell, but today.. it was all good.