Indian School of Business (ISB) Essay #2

Describe a challenging assignment you have handled (at work or outside) to date. What were the challenges and how did you handle them? What were the personal learning you derived from this assignment? (300 words max.)

At my workplace, in my first experience as a mentor, I was expected to design and coordinate a new student intern's learning and working experience. After briefing him about the work, I asked him to help me with a project I was working on. However, his dependence on me and expectation to perform the experiments myself meant that I found it increasingly difficult to balance my role as a mentor with my regular responsibilities.

Realizing that this model of working was clearly not working, I took him out for a lunch conversation to understand his perspective. Surprisingly, his difficulty was a lack of understanding of the technology, and lack of direction due to inadequate feedback. Working on this information, I set up a schedule of tutoring lessons. Everyday for about a week, we met for an hour and poured over the system, helping him understand the technology and also its applications and consequences. I also set up weekly meetings to review progress over the previous week, and assigned new tasks for the next. This helped give him a sense of direction and achievable goals to work towards. These efforts quickly brought him up to speed, and he not only provided me with useful data to test my algorithms, but also freed up time to concentrate on research.

My key learning through this experience was the importance of communication. I learnt the importance of understanding the others' opinions and concerns, and to address them in a mutually agreeable way. I also learnt that timely feedback is essential to set a sense of direction and convey appreciation for work performed. This also helps understand the consequence of our work, thus providing a strong motivation for best performance.