Without the culture of recognition and appreciation, the steel that backs the virtue of leadership starts hollowing out. We end up making ineffective long term leaders who look outward to blame for their own failures.

***Hero worship and the ever-looming demi-god cult***

Indian work culture of hero worship always finds a way to turn any leader into a cult god. The repercussions? The 'leader' then fails to notice the small things, the little slivers of day-to-day leveling up of their team-mates.

It only is a matter of time that the environment turns more toxic; falsely signalling that it is OK to emulate the leader, and fail to notice the efforts and growth of the people around you.

***Why does this happen though?***

• Putting your team first is (perhaps) looked at from a critical perspective.

• Is a leader who puts her team first (and often), not looked at kindly?

• Is their confidence second guessed and their genius questioned?

• What makes a leader focus on boosting their own image or personal fame?

It's critical to recognize and appreciate a team's hard work than to focus on individual awards or recognition. Corporate tokens of appreciation are just plastic approximations compared to the long term confidence real human appreciation builds.

I hope we can create a work culture where leaders are humble and supportive, while looking at the bigger picture. We only win together.

Say No To Whacknowledgement

Ambition and passion are probably the best things around, but both are fuelled by hope and optimism. It's the overuse of both these words that irritate me. ​

This is how I see things:

* Passion helps you elevate the floor of your potential. It keeps you up at night, keeps you curious and drives you to be/have/seek better.

* Goals help you manifest the ceiling of your potential. It keeps you away from diversions and detours along the way.

* Ambition drives you enough to make you realise (perhaps a little scarily) ––

  * That your passion is not good enough

  * That your goals weren't big enough ​

Constant motivation-porn and hustle advice (perhaps) makes you believe that constantly changing "ambitions" is going to get higher up the ladder. I disagree. The abuse of the word "ambition" and creation of false equivalences is an attempt to shortchange a bright future.

***Life is a marathon, and the people who profit off of sprints and short races are selling you the cool-aid of motivation.***

Paraphrasing what my friend said a few years ago: "you don't rise to your highest dreams, you fall to your lowest systems".

May you know your worth in the best definition possible, ​\
And see your long term goals in 480p, \
​Your short term goals in 2k, ​\
And your next step in 8k.

**Now, take that first step.**

A

Everybody's PGA Tour (passion, goals, ambition) - Part 1

Product • UX Designer

Gamification

Human Computer Interaction

Mobile User Experience

Worked on an OEM all-in-one super-app for Panasonic phones released in India in 2017-2018.

Arbo Hub (Panasonic)

Redesigning the intranet application for a large IT company to fit the modern employee's mobile workflows.

Microland One

Helped create a flexible design system for a small fintech startup, centered around atomic design principles.

Design System

Designed to facilitate safe & easy transactions for millions of Indians traveling overseas. Users can now use their Indian Bank account to pay using UPI.

UPI International

Cart Checkout • UPI AutoPay • Card Tokenization • Refund Confirmation • International Remittances

Various Payment Product Projects

Enabling one-click UPI payments for a billion Indian citizens.

UPI Lite

Worked on scaling the Payment Gateway consumer-facing products for PhonePe's business suite.

PhonePe PG for Business

Worked on all aspects of the products: the customer facing Studio product, consumer mobile apps (both Android & iOS), the user documentation & handbooks. Duration: between 2018 to 2020.

Various Products

We built this 0 to 1 product targeted at D2C creators & merchants - with a view to leverage saved information and robust payment systems available on PhonePe's consumer app.

ExpressBuy

Designed a platform dedicated to easy reporting, setting escalation matrix and resolution of issues - for the cognizant citizen.

Anirudh Shrinivas

2024