Changing tracks, parting ways

Managing change is a painful process, especially so when you are part of it and have a major role in developing it in a constructive way.

Recently I handed over one of my most-favored projects to a close friend, with whom I love to retain a love-hate professional relation. Thus what I wrote in the paragraph above proved to be true in my case the hard way. Like every honest individual, I also do admit that my first reaction was to resist the initial pangs of transition...losing a project that I developed and managed myself walking through all the hard ways sitting through late nights and pre-dawns, the team that I grew up (I still treat them like my kids) from a couple of nerds to masters of their art, an appreciating client who constructively acknowledges all amendments I make and provide me ample room to exercise my creativity...it was painful to let go everything in a couple of hours.

It is equally true that I’ve to develop other pilot projects also (yes from the roots…that’s where I like to exercise creativity and employ my management prowess) and take care of higher challenges yet to come in the New Year. It, therefore, is natural for my boss who does not hesitate to call me an asset of the division to ask me to concentrate on higher challenges. But letting go of the sweet old things in such a short span was more painful than I expected.

Equally painful is the case when I still keep receiving mails from the same old client who accidentally or not, updates me with changes at her end. Gradually I began imbibing the ease with which one handles a newly gained client: promptness and commitment. With increasing level of confidence inspired in the new client, I began reinventing the wheel developing another project that is all set to change the face of my department, add a new meaning to our activity…we’re now knowledge engineers.

I’m delighted to be the flag-bearer of change and a trendsetter for business processes and practices in the division. Change is the law of nature, and had it not be, I’d be stuck in a traffic-jam caused by a stray dinosaur.