It was indeed a great opportunity for me to circle back and connect with Dr. Raj Dravid, Chairperson of EcoDev Foundation. I was fortunate to have worked with Dr. Raj, though very briefly in early part of my career. However, then, as it would normally happen in a professional association, I had very little idea of Dr. Raj’s personal journey, his love of music and how his experiments with skilling young men & women in Haryana shaped his destiny towards leading the skills movement in India.
Having led leadership roles at IL&FS Skills and Centum Learning Africa, Dr. Raj personal career journey spread over four decades is testimony of the fact that success in career is very much a product of hard work and doesn’t happens overnight.
Listen to the complete Podcast Here: https://bit.ly/33heqUE
Duration: 30 Mins | Language: English
If you want a dip into what to expect in the podcast, here are a few interesting takeaways:
1) There is no substitute for on-ground experience: If you think that you are from a premiere institution and you can start working on strategy and take high level decisions without working on the ground, you are destined to fail and learn the hard way.
2) Embrace Change: Covid19 has taught the world a few hard lessons and the best one to take forward is to embrace change. If we are not resilient and don’t embrace change, we are going to be left behind. Learn in his own words, how Pager Industry was introduced and wiped out in almost 14 months'.
3) Everyone needs a job & dignity of work: If skills that we provide people with are useful on the job or create employment, there are high possibilities that people will come for it, undertake training and will settle for jobs. The failure that we see today when people are let go with the onset of Covid-19 is because we never created that environment where workers were treated as kind of extended families.
4) Favorite Quote from The Podcast: Ask people one question, “what can you do to help others so that they can in turn help you”.
5) Love for Music: In the words of Dr Raj, “Music gives you oxygen and allows you to extend creative expression in life”. He enjoys listening to Carnatic Music, Marathi Music, Chamber Music and enjoys Ragas and classical Hindustani as well. He has authored several books in Psychology, however, “Listening to Bismillah Khan” which is a standard textbook in multiple universities is a must to checkout, if you know Marathi!