Sneha Biswas

Recently one of my employees quit in a day.

A super sharp #mba graduate. Quiet, but observant. Excited to be back to work after a long maternity break.

As a female founder, I feel responsible to bring up women and give them a chance that others might not be willing to give so easily. I hired her. I offered her #wfh so that she could be around her kid and feel less guilty as she transitions back to the workforce.

But just in a day, she came to us and said that she would have to resign. Reason: Her husband and in-laws felt that it was a little too early for her to be with a laptop all day, instead of the baby. Based on her projected income, she had even arranged for a nanny before she joined us. But she was told that she was neglecting the child by leaving her with the nanny. Her husband said that “he”could not focus on “his” work as the child lingered around “his” wfh desk.

When asked about daycares, she replied- “Not allowed.” I could see the genuine pain in her eyes as she spoke, not knowing when she could be back and fully knowing that many of her MBA classmates are far ahead of her in their careers already.

I felt helpless.

In that moment, I felt that more than employers, families need to support women. Husbands and partners need to stand by them to make sure that these women can also build their careers fearlessly and more importantly, guilt-lessly!

#linkedin should celebrate families who support women careers, because, as unfortunate as it maybe, there are still large strata of our society where women either give up work or constantly struggle between guilt and ambition.

I am lucky 🧿 to have a husband who has been standing by me and my decisions for years now, since I met him in Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur . Also, having a similar career track has helped us both understand each other’s struggles, ambitions and required commitments. We both stayed away from civilization during our oilfield days, we both know that consulting involves crazy long work hours, and we both learnt that “personal life is just as important as professional” through our LEAD class at Harvard Business School . From sharing workload at home to sharing dreams and ambitions, having a supportive life-partner helps. A LOT.

I feel the best career decision of my life was to marry this boy! Touchwood.

#womeninbusiness

The insecurity that a small-town boy (or girl) lives with takes away half their confidence.

And that’s not because they are all unsophisticated, but because they know that they are being judged -

By the society, by the so-called “big city boys and aunties” and “high-class people”.

The bias about “class” comes from a few things that people believe are signs of “sophistication” :

- English
- Clothes
- Accent

Shallow and vain, but unfortunately true.

There are several reasons why small town people face prejudices everyday:

1. Lack of exposure: Lack of exposure and less diversity in smaller towns can lead small town people slightly longer to understand broader and global ways of working and living.

2. Limited opportunities: If a small town’s person’s ambitions look different from yours, that doesn’t mean he/she is less ambitious. Limited opportunities in smaller towns limit their view of possibilities. It takes slightly longer to reach the same dreams as yours.

3. Media and historical biases: Movies love showing stereotypes because you connect with what you believe in. As the world has changed and internet has massively penetrated, small town people are not as unaware or unpolished as they were historically - internet teaches!

Next time you meet someone from a small town - in an interview or as a colleague - STOP JUDGING by his English, Clothes or Accent!

Because, real sophistication comes from respecting people, sticking to your values, and not just from a polished accent and a few smart words.

Because small town people can also be sophisticated!

#education #success #confidence

I have never shared this on a public forum. Rating women according to their chest sizes 😔

This was 17-year old Sneha’s first exposure to how bad the world of internet can be. 💀

I did not have a personal computer / internet till I reached college.

At undergrad, I discovered DC++ : P2P file sharing network that each college had.

The first time a hostel senior told me about DC++ , I was SHOCKED at the incident she shared:

A little while back, a group of boys had drawn sketches of all the girls in their batch describing each ones chest size and rating them in order. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤬🤬

And shared it on DC++

It immediately caught fire and girls started receiving unkind messages and street stares.

At IIT, women are few. e.g. my batch in IIT had 30 girls and 750 men. These women, far and few in number, fought hard to get the sketch off the internet and it took months, and years for the bully messges to stop.

Today, an average person spends 50% of their waking time on screens and #cyberbullying has become an even more rampant issue affecting millions of people, including children. 1 out of 6 high school students are cyber bullied in the US today.

It is time you do something.

Beyond grateful, that with Early Steps Academy , I am able to join the #spreadlove awareness campaign against Cyberbullying . For the upcoming International Day of Education on 24 January 2023, let’s educate our youth to be kinder, wiser and nicer on the internet ❤️


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message me if you want to know how you can help too 🙂

One of my favorite case studies at Harvard Business School was that on the “7-minute miracle” bullet train cleaners in Japan.

This photo is from my first trip to Tokyo, JAPAN and a part of my excitement was just to be able to see the miracle! 💫 At HBS, learning through real world case studies was super fun - all that you learn and do in classrooms can be experienced in the real world too! You remember things longer and you actually want to learn new things everyday 😄

Coming back to the Shinkansen bullet trains in Japan, here’s a quick 5-line summary of the case study:

1- IMPOSSIBLE GOALS: The Tessai cleaning staff had just 12 mints at the station - for passengers to get off, to clean from floor, tray tables, windows to bathrooms, collect forgotton items, rotate the train seats, and for next set of passengers to get on. Just 12 mints. 🎯

2- POOR RESULTS: An impossible feat led to shabby work, lot of customer complaints and high attrition among cleaners. Cleaners found the work dirty, dangerous and difficult. 📉

3- SCOLDING: Managers resorted to on-the-spot reprimands for poor-performing employees. Result was a further dampened enthusiasm and worse morale! ☹️

4- UNCONVENTIONAL INCENTIVE: Around 2005, a new manager, who had never worked in the field of “cleaning trains” was brought in. All he did was:

Introduced colorful uniforms and called the trains the “Shinkansen theater“ where cleaners put their technique on public display. He listened to people for new ideas and accepted ideas like Aloha shirts as summer uniform and adding flowers to uniform hats! 🌸

5- RESULT- With uniforms and a renewed motivation to show off their skills to the public, cleaners magically reduced their cleaning time to 7 minutes. In just 7 minutes every time, they were all done, with no mistakes. 🏆

What an amazing real world case! Financial incentives or even command structures do not always work as well as “just making people feel proud” about the work that they are doing!

Obsess over “how you make someone feel” - is one of our leadership principles at our company, one that’s very very close to my heart 💜

#work #motivation #people

We are #hiring people who are fun and easy to work with! Because-

Building a company from ground up is HARDWORK! And you need GOOD PEOPLE to enjoy the ride with - not the cribbing, complaining buzzkill kind 😛

Building is not exciting everyday. It is mundane and repetitive on many days.

You do the same things - starting with
2 customers to
20 to 200 to 2000 to 2 Million!

And that takes time. You get faster, you get more customers. Then you catch up, and you realize that you now have even more customers. And it continues.

You have never caught up, and you still feel like it is Day1 - scrappy, excited, nervous, happy all at the same time,

And most importantly ambitious! ⛰️🧗

BUILDING IS A LOT OF FUN! 🤩

And those who have the spark of builder ✨in them, they love journey!

Imagine being part of the early team in building the next big thing for the world. 💪💪💪

IMAGINE how it might have felt for those among -

The first 100 people at Google,
back in 2000 - that’s 3-4 years after they kind of started! 😊

Next year, 2001 - they had 300 people.

4 year later they IPO-ed! 🥳

That’s what crazy startup journeys look like.

That’s what it means when they say it is a “Ground Floor Opportunity”

And today we have a ground floor opportunity for you -

Here at Early Steps Academy , we are growing 🚀🧿🧿
And we are hiring!
All we need is for you to be a fun person!

Roles open across -

- SALES (Product Consultant)

- OPERATIONS ( Global Operations Specialist / Junior Associate / Associate)

- GRAPHIC DESIGNER

- VIDEO EDITOR

- TALENT ACQUISITION TEAM ( HR Associate)

No role for product and strategy. Please don’t apply if these are your interest areas. We are in the crazy building phase and all roles require hands-on work - get your hands dirty, along with me!

Experience: 0-5 years
Requirement: Most roles are for WFO, Bangalore, India

If you believe you have the fire in you, APPLY NOW 💯 - Link in comments

All the best, builders ❤️

#hiringpost #job #jobs