Medianews4u.com’s effort acknowledging women leaders of the Media, Marketing and Advertising fraternity has received an over-whelming response from all the readers.
Presenting to you Women leaders from WAVEMAKER, who share their experiences of breaking the gender stereotypes and how they continue to inspire many other women who are true leaders in the making.
Mansi Datta, Managing Partner, Wavemaker India
One of our digital accounts is extremely demanding with very quick turnaround times (which could be a common scenario). The account lead was planning a family andthere were still 7 months to go. We discussed with the account lead on how best to service the account in the future and came out with an action plan. As part of that action plan, we made a decision to hire an additional senior resource for the team with an intention to have 3 months overlap time between the account lead and new hire for an easy transition.
Resources are always scarce and to get an additional headcount even tougher where organisations focus on having LEAN TEAMS see anything extra as FAT in the team. However, this turned out to be the best decision ever. Because we were prepared for an eventuality (which in the given state of affairs had a high probability), transition was smoother, the team was happy knowing that we were prepared for high pressure times to come, the client was happy because they felt they were being valued and we were being proactive.
All in all, being prepared well in advance, sniffing out a potential disaster or sniffing out a potential need to be filled in is where the emotional intelligence kicked in.
INSPIRING WOMEN
Believe in Yourself.
Don’t look for outside affirmations…have the knowledge that YOU ARE AMAZING.
I had attended an amazing workshop led by WPP’s Lindsay Pattison called “Walk the talk”, where an insight was shared – that for a job posting that has 10 requirements, women will apply if they qualify for 7/10 factors while men applied even if they qualified at 2-3 factors. This was an interesting insight that women tend to be far tougher on themselves on their self-evaluation.
So go out and be bold.
Monaz Todywalla, Vice-President, Wavemaker India
There comes a moment in our lives where we can either play the victim card and look at it as a unsurmountable difficulty or you can look at it as an opportunity. I had just taken up the remit on a new senior role with no team and was still double hatting on my earlier one, we had just been invited to a big prestigious pitch. I had a choice either I just put my hands and say “unfair, how are you expecting me to mount this without a team” instead I used this as a fun challenge to see how far I could go. I knew the organization was excited that we were invited to this pitch, this wasn’t just my pitch this was our pitch, so I did the following looked for people – juniors and seniors who were excited and had never worked on a pitch, their motivation and enthusiasm spurred me to do things outside my comfort zone. I lobbied for help and knowledge from across the organization – it was no longer a Mumbai pitch, it became a national one. Let’s just say I used persuasion, motivation, cajoling and sometimes even rank to ensure that the people in my “pitch team” had a wide berth from their existing work to work on this . The last but in no way least important thing I did on hindsight was I told my kids and my husband how important this was for me, I told my kids. “ mummy is appearing for a very important exam and she will have to work very hard and late in office.” My daughters and my husband were my biggest support and mentors during this period.
I learnt some valuable lessons:
Redefine the problem – the moment you make it a larger cause, you will be surprised at the support you get
Collaborate and team work – organisations are about the power of “we “ and not “me”, Collectively we know more than a single individual, and we should learn to harness that
Shamelessly ask for help and more importantly set clear expectations with your family and at work
Don’t judge – we may not always get the best skilled people to do the job, people high on motivation and will do a far superior job than subject experts
Oh and of course “we” won the pitch!
