It's interesting to note how each one of us views our responsibilities. I am normally the type not to make conclusions or form opinions until I see the same thing happening repeatedly. Yesterday something happened at office that took me back about 9 years or so when I first started working, then in a small events company.
As it happens in events, this was one firm hired by a larger organization to plan and execute an activity which if done well could grow into becoming a campaign and so on. Everything there was 'outsourced', which meant for a press conference, ABB would hire us, we in turn would put together various components of this activity from various vendors who specialize in "a" particular function. In other words, the events guy would be the one with whom the buck stops! His neck is on the line irrespective of who didnt do their bit! Needless to say, i've had the sword hang on my neck very often and even got it slit a few times. In retrospect, this helped me be the 'professional' that i have been and take onus of the work given to me (i'm not saying i havent goofed up, but at least i try and ensure all components come together, if any of them fail, i fail).
This might've even contributed to the growth at aastha. I remember clearly, in the early days at aastha how we used to outsource most of our work - freelancers for content, ad agencies for designs, positives, plate making and printing of course(yes these were the pre CTP days), distribution agencies, BTL promotions with anotherAll this coz I was the only person in the company for over 8 months. As we grew from a project into an organization, I ensured that these values were inculcated in each and every member of the aastha team, each one could multi-task and double up to take on more responsibility, some even more than they knew they could handle. We'd always been a small team and had to share the work to ensure it gets done, without too much focus on whose work it is!
At my current assignment in a much larger company, it somehow just feels like those days where each component of work was outsourced where different companies had "a" task to accomplish and didnt care about what the previous or next step in the process of that task was! Its kinda sad coz not only does the quality work suffer and some people get stuck in the grind in between but it also disconnects the organization from being one unit into being multiple smaller units.
Come to think of it, this is also a specialized function in certain organizations. But do we really need a specialized person to remind us to work together or to facilitate inter depertmental communication? Whatever happened to the good old grapevine or just having a good set friends at work?
