Intellectually Fierce And Brutally Honest

Earlier this month, my boss assigned a certain task to me.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that no matter who assigns a task to me, I do not pick it up unless and until I am convinced that it will have an impact.

My initial understanding of the given task was that it won’t have any. So, I decided not to do it. I even informed my boss of the same.

Seems like it came from her senior. Which means, I must do it.

I said, “No.”

My boss, she went to her boss, the guy from whom the requirement came. He is doing his PhD from one of the best engineering institutes in the world. She told him that I was “not convinced enough” to pick up the task and requested him to talk to me.

The guy, who barely has time to sit and interact with us, came to my desk, sat with me for half an hour, and explained how doing this particular task would help us reach our goal in the longrun.

I argued with him too and told him that I was open for experimenting and that I would do the entire task if only my experiments had an acceptable impact. He agreed.

This is the kind of environment I work in - where being in the top of the hierarchy doesn’t mean you cannot be questioned, where we truly believe in being “intellectually fierce” and “brutally honest”.