While I was the helm of Shriram Housing Finance Limited as it’s Managing Director and CEO, I had the opportunity to take the help of Dr.Ahana Banerjee’s expertise and planned a 3-day Leadership Development workshop for my senior management team members.

This was in the year 2015 and though the company was a new one, practically a start-up, the management team were all experienced market participants, with proven background in established BFSI companies. However, the challenge for me was to gel these talented and experienced individuals into one well-oiledmachinery. And these werepeople who not only were gender-diversified, but also belonged to different geographical regions of our country and heading different functionalities, from business development to operations to back office responsibilities. So, for the company to succeed and prosper, which it has, it was crucial that “team bonding”, alignment with the company’s larger vision had to be developed and quickly.

My brief to Dr. Banerjee was very simple and straightforward; she had to design a program which would identify the strengths and weaknesses of the individual officials and also diagnose the same attributes for the team as a whole. We decided to hold this workshop away from the office environment and also ensured that, other than they, no employees from the company was present. Even my participation was in the first hour of the first day where I, together with Dr. Banerjee, introduced the thought processes behind the program.

I am very happy to say that I received very positive feedback from the participants, my senior leadership team members. Since this was a Sensitivity Training, it helped to sensitize the participants towards each other andbring in a sense of empathy, thus establishing a collective harmony. Thus, in the longer term, the takeaway from this exercise was very helpful in enhancing the team dynamics, work ethics and self-motivation.

From the interactions that I had with Dr. Banerjee and the feedback from the participants, she, in spite of her relatively young age, impressed me on the following counts:

1. Firstly she was able to open up to the audience as they were very senior members, and ensured that they accepted her in their fold.
2. She wasNeutral and had deep listening skills.
3. She engaged all the audience to participate in the various activities and exercises, which brought in deep insight about themselves, their thought process, personality, motivational aspects and their true connection with the company.
4. There was some potential conflict with one of the team members, due to his religious background but she handed it well without hurting his sentiments and totally defused the flashpoints.
5. She was very much open to others’ideas.
6. However, she, through her facilitating sessions, was able to bring about a structured thought process towards a competencyof “Collaboration” which was not happening in the company due to various reasons.
7. She also facilitated a brief session on Mindfulness which helped my team a lot.
8. The best part about the workshop was she was able to encourage the entire team, through her Coaching &facilitating skills, to let down their hair;everyone speaking up, hearing what is said, engaging in healthy conflict, not being afraid to disagree, and accepting that the whole is more important than the parts.  This process helped in ensuring that everyone is engaged, sharing ideas so that they are able to able to reach to a consensus without egos coming into play.