title: The Magic of Responsibility — A Story published: true tags: Leadership, Mentorship, Lead by Example, Motivation canonical_url: https://bhavaniravi.com/The_magic_of_responsiblity/

The Magic of Responsibility — A Story

Do you want people to act mature? Trust them and give them the responsibility!

The Adorable Kid

I was in an airport. I think it was when I was returning from Pycon last year. A little girl caught my attention. She was there with her mom and her little brother. She is definitely not more than 3 years old and her brother is somewhere around one. Pretty sure he can’t walk. Adored by the little girl's cuteness I was looking at her the whole time.

The Amazing Mother

Along that time I was amazed by her mother’s skill as well. She had a huge suitcase, a handbag, and the two little kids all alone to make a trip. Brave, I thought to myself. It might be a normal thing, I have heard stories about pregnant women going on a Himalayan trip but it was the first time I saw something like this.

Curiously Curious

My mobile was dying, didn’t have much to do so I continued adoring the little girl. She was not indulged deep into any gadgets like the other kids around. Who likes to watch kids who are sunk in their mobile phones(Damn!! I'm growing old). She was one of those super energetic and curious kids. She had so many questions about everything. She pointed her fingers at random things and looked at her mom with curious eyes. Her mom answered every question without any strain in her face. She didn’t even do that “Wow my kid is so intelligent” — cliche, which might totally boost the child’s ego. I was amazed by her mom’s patience.

Teaching Patience

After half an hour, it was time for them to leave, the mom pulled out shoes for her kids and handed it over to the little girl and asked her to wear it. The little girl sat on the chair nearby and started wearing the shoes, while the mother made the one-year-old wear his shoes.

As the girl was putting on the 2nd shoe, she had trouble wearing it. She nagged her mom to help her. The mother, still busy with the other kid’s shoes was not paying much attention. The little girl wanting to put on the shoe ASAP called the mom again. I expected the mom to lose it at this point as the little girl didn’t stop nagging her.

But to my surprise, she with a soft voice explained “Baby, I’m helping your brother right now, can you hold on for a couple of minutes? I will be with you once I am done. You are not supposed to call people like that when they are doing something”. Now I was super anxious because I was anticipating a big scream and cry from the little girl but there it was another surprise was waiting for me. “I’m sorry mommy, I will wait right here.” the little girl said.

Lead by Example

That’s not the end, here comes the best part, Once the mom is done she looked at the girl’s shoes, seemed like the little girl didn’t pull the velcro out properly. The mom could have just worn it to her by herself, instead, she just opened the velcro up and asked the little girl to try and put it on again. With one quick pull, the shoe fitted her legs right in and the girl hopped off the seat in victory.

Both the mom and the girl had an insane amount of maturity and understanding. Their chemistry awestruck me. It doesn’t happen in one day. It started growing when the mom first introduced her to what a shoe is? Why should we wear one? How to wear one? and patiently answered every other question that has popped in the kid’s mind. The mom must have really lead by an example by showing patience to a curious kid, listening to her before yelling because she was occupied.

I exactly felt like a new kid when I entered orangescape a year back. The first 3 months were hard, my brain was bouncing in a hyper state with all the new information it was receiving(metadata, criteria, condition, component ).

I was that curious kid who asked a million questions and bothered my managers Adhi Ramanathan, Rajesh and my team almost every day. They practiced an insane amount of patience with me while giving me the challenging tasks(maybe to keep me busy, like those lego toys :D).

It all didn’t happen in a day. But finally, after a year, I see that I have learned, evolved, existed, extended, sometimes even stretched. It was all worth it. It was not a cakewalk but a walk filled with a lot of cakes(That’s how we celebrate).

1-year @OrangeScape working on major modules of @kissflow.

It helped me learn, evolve, exist, extend sometimes even stretch, In the end, it was all worth it. pic.twitter.com/NoNdgGMieb

— Bhavani Ravi (@geeky_bhavani) May 20, 2019