Expect the Unexpected

After a day filled with assignments and classes we were all prepared for a guest lecture by Mr. Vijayakumar Rangaraju, Deputy General Manager - HR at HCL Technologies Limited. He began by saying that it was a refreshing change to meet young and vibrant people like us. We immediately knew that the next one hour was going to be intellectually stimulating as well as amazing fun!

Mr.Vijayakumar is truly the synonym for multi-tasking. We were listening in awe to the list of activities that he was currently pursuing and incredibly they were in different fields including Hypnosis, Handwriting analysis, Skit and play writing, Carbon Trading and finally Politics. The “Hot Seat” challenge he conducted is just an example of the various creative ways he used to deliver the message - “Expect the Unexpected”. The story about three rats was another innovative way to help us understand that we should all be prepared to face varied situations in life.

He went on to discuss the policies followed by HCL - “5 Principles” that represents the core values of the company, the first one being the Mirror – Mirror philosophy. This is about seeing things as they are and not attaching any fringes to them. This will help truly assess and accept ourselves to achieve set goals. The second principle laid stress on trust that employees have on the management and how this trust is created and maintained through Transparency. The third principle was “Destroy the CEO’s Office” which told us that HCL had an open mind regarding feedback about company policies and employees were encouraged to walk to their superiors with any issues they had. This also helped us understand the next concept which was “Inverting the Pyramid”. This once again showed that HCL was an open organization that appreciated communication across all levels.

The last principle was the best one of them all that said “Learn from the child”. He told us in the end that we should all listen to the child in us and think of creative and innovative ways to tackle a problem. These 5 principles gave us an idea about HCL as a company and the environment that exists there. Mr. Vijayakumar concluded the lecture by narrating another insightful story. The moral of this story was that if we stay in our comfort zone, the possibility of us learning or experiencing the many wonders of life is limited.

The one hour we spent with him made us think about the real world and we were extremely honored that he took time off to educate young minds and inspire us to expect the unexpected and move out of our comfort zones. It was a truly exciting and thought – provoking experience!

Contributed by Pavithra Chandrasekaran, Retail Varsity, CBS Batch 4, 2009-10