What SOIL means to me – An Alumni Story

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25 Sep 2020

What SOIL means to me – An Alumni Story
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Growth, HR
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”
Who, why or what was this for – I couldn’t care less until 2008 when this started unfolding in real life..

Personal & Professional life as I had imagined and perhaps like many others – was like a linear equation. School > Graduation > Job/Business > Work hard > Party harder! > Good salary > Job change and the cycle continues. The fun actually begins when the downslope starts and with such speed that breaks work down. What should I do? With whom shall I discuss my issues? Who can guide me? And the most difficult question that one tends to ask, who will support me??! All possible questions, where the mind just doesn’t give the answer one wants.

This is how it all started for me. I had recently shifted my base from Bengaluru to Delhi – being ‘aware’ of my internal calling to become an entrepreneur. Setting up something from scratch was a great feeling – and with this, I plunged into setting up a venture which seemed to have great potential. Building contacts, working across industries and geographies was like a dream come true. From a two-member team to a 20-member outfit in 6 months felt like a victory lap for me! The entrepreneurial journey had started taking shape, but soon after it all started to change – one bit at a time. With the advent of the Global financial crisis, many started getting impacted, including me. With no other options in sight, it was time to course-correct but with shrinking opportunities, it was a real uphill task.

Slowly I started to lose interest in what I was doing. Between shifting to Delhi and post the crisis – a lot had changed. Despite having a great job at that time, questions like – am I in the right job? do I like doing this? should I look for ‘more’ kept plaguing me? Timely skill and knowledge additions play an imminent role in staying relevant and after all, life, in general, is non-linear! This is when SOIL happened to me. I have always held the belief that any form of higher education should be a bridge to a certain destination and it’s non-negotiable to know that destination before pursuing it.

I read about the institute, tried to collate as much material online as possible to validate my choice, however, it wasn’t going to be easy. I was looking at the First batch, no precedent, ROI? – made this a tricky decision. What’s my stand? What do I want? Is this what I want to pursue – all these questions needed only my answers! And so I decided – SOIL it is!

Finally, the day came & I got selected at SOIL Institute of Management!

It was not easy, especially after almost 10 years of work experience. But I persevered. I experienced the power of ‘Diversity’ as a concept in real life and it was wonderful! SOIL taught me a lot, that I carry with me to this day – whether it’s the values and ethics or the business core skills, I picked up a lot!

Days went by and soon it was time for the rubber to hit the road – Placements… Phew!! As a member of the Placecom, what an experience that was! Right from preparing the database of over 100+ organizations; inviting them; attending guest lectures during the placement week – all this when our self-belief was taking a serious beating!

Life after college: I thanked my stars for getting a great opportunity. I landed in Mumbai and prepare myself to start with full enthusiasm. What, where, how and what? I had a tendency to ask a lot of questions [which still continues ;-)] and maybe with the experience around me, I started getting better at this. Asking the ‘right’ question, deep diving, patience, resilience, seeing an idea coming to life – all this started unfolding with a greater amount of clarity. Slowly, it all started making sense. Becoming contextually relevant and being in the present is the key to learning – this part started getting clearer, each day!

Balancing enthusiasm, un-learning & not trying to be perfect, focussing on the ‘How’ as much as ‘What’ and ‘Why’ are ingredients to effective leadership and this gets curated at SOIL. It took me some time to realize this and just like the structural defect in this blog, I will surely get better at expressing this! Way to go SOILits

About the Author
Abhishek Khandelwal is currently with Welspun Group – a $2.7 billion diversified conglomerate with presence in home textiles, pipes & plates, steel, infrastructure & real estate. He is currently the Global Head HR for Home Textile division which is part of Welspun India – global leaders in Home Textiles space.

Abhishek is an alumnus of SOIL Institute of Management, Gurgaon. He started his HR career in 2004 and since then has been involved in multiple roles as a generalist as well as a specialist with some of the leading brands such as like Mahindra & Mahindra, Cipla and new age organizations like Hike.

Having in depth experience in Rewards and business partnering space, his current focus revolves around digitization of HR and building org readiness in terms of capabilities of today and tom. His leadership focus is around:
- Creating a high performance organization
- Business partnering to bridge and strengthen future readiness
- Building capabilities
- Reward structures

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