Stoa Digest 113: 🚦What's Stopping You?🚦
Even if you hit rock bottom, start digging again!
Hey there, Stoans,
Last week, we hosted Anurag Ranjan, the Operations Director of Delhivery for a Fireside Chat, and here are some of the key takeaways and insights from the session. If you are in an ops role or are aspiring to be in one, bookmark this page and use these insights to unlock several doors for yourself. 🔑
What makes a person an ops pro?
Two things:
- People Management (the most essential, hands down)
As an ops person, you have to handle your ground staff- the people who are your behind-the-stage workers and you have to answer to your management - people who are analysing and paying the bills.
Not just that, the most fundamental skill of an ops person is the ability to listen. You are not on the ground to know what is happening in your assembly line, or why is the truck carrying your shipment delayed, you have to listen carefully to your team who is handling this. Understand their pain points, identify the root cause and then, work on a solution. 📝
“You have to listen to it, and then you have to talk to the people who are actually doing that on the ground. It has to be from bottom to top. Listen and understand.”
- Negotiation Skills (stakeholder management)
You cannot work in silos by being in an ops team. You will be working with the tech team, the business team, the ground staff, and more. Your tech team will always give you more solutions, whereas your business team will put in budget constraints and client expectations, your on-ground team will come with feasibility issues but your timeline for the task will remain the same. Here, you have to put on the negotiator’s hat.
Reason with different teams, get everyone to a middle ground, prioritise the completion of the task and so on. 💪🏼
“To be successful in doing your job, you have to come out on top of all problems, and you need to have good negotiation skills to achieve that.”
Why should someone get into operations?
Operations in a lot broader than what meets the eye to someone on the outisde or to most of us, the customers. It is not just a desk job where you have to analyse, evaluate and put things in Excel. You have to be on the ground. You have to understand the problem from where it starts, the scope of the problem, the impact of it and someone who can solve this gap is what the industry requires.
With newer government policies, and advancing physical and digital infrastructure (building ports, fulfilment centres, roads), the next revolution in the Operations industry is coming. 🚨
Positions such as Founder's Office/Chief of Staff, Project/Program Management, Account/Community Management, and Customer Support/Success represent important operational roles with high demand. It is imperative to remain vigilant and consider these opportunities seriously.
“And if you want to be one of them, start listening to the problems at every level. Listen and then apply your problem-solving abilities. Make yourself a product.
Start being aware of everything that happens in the process and then combine your analytical and understanding of consumer behaviour skills and make yourself a product that companies are thrilled to pick to get their problems solved. Save more to the company than you cost them.”
Companies want people who are not just theorising or philosophising on something, but who are actually on the ground getting work done. ✔️
Getting things done is like a drug! You get addicted to it, you cannot take fluff anymore. You cannot make just pretty slides. You wanna get on the ground and start working, and you wanna see impact and results right away. Time doesn't matter. The number of hours doesn't matter. You're just trying to solve that problem.
If this statement resonates with you, you know where you are headed. Watch the entire Fireside Chat and unlock the answers to all your operations questions. 💯
🐝 Community Buzz 🐝
Our Nagpur fam met up over the weekend for a fun (blurry xD) evening together! 🔥
⏯ For Stoans by Stoans ⏯
An interesting watch on the Laws of Valuation by Aswath Damodaran.
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Some of the best Job Search Trackers: Huntr | Teal HQ | Jackfruit | SkillSyncer | JobScan | Kiter
Hasta la vista, fam!