I got excited about the consulting project I was assigned when I started to prepare for the first team meeting. The excitement stemmed from the intersection of data analytics and impact investing in the project. This excitement multiplied in the team meeting as while preparing for the call with the client, a total of just three people on the team brought diverse lenses of looking at the project. This was unexpected for me as the project description was very brief and I thought that there could only be some specific “obvious” questions about it at that point. This was the second time I felt good about my team, the first being when they stepped up to support me as I experienced a tragic personal loss at the very beginning of the assignment.
In the last couple of weeks of working together, we have shared our perspectives on the project and collaborated on understanding the client’s needs. We also have been volunteering by ourselves for all the administrative tasks so far, something rare in my experience. While the real work hasn’t begun yet, I am quite sure that I am part of a highly motivated team, something that I have learnt makes a tremendous difference in both the journey and the outcome.
However, my team members are not the only people I am surrounded by in this project who are enriching my experience. Our client also in the one-hour interaction managed to share a lot about himself, learn a lot about us, and explain in depth about his organisation, its values, and work. The classroom environment also turned out to be a first-of-its-kind experience as I saw 35+ people initiate collaborations on ten projects in less than two hours. While my initial excitement was about data and how it would lead to social impact, it’s the people around me that have gotten me excited about the
journey.