Extra-Curricular Activities is the magic potion you need to remain ageless professionally! | Alekhya Chakrabarty, Brand Manager- Vivel, ITC | Dove,Unilever | Emami | MakeMyTrip

Humankind is the most progressive species. Constantly growing and evolving, finding new ways to better themselves. The innate ability to compete exists in every species but is notably remarkable in Humans. While the ability to compete comes naturally to us, so does the act of collaboration like in extra-curricular activities. Like Helen Keller rightfully said, alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Alekhya Chakrabarty, Brand Manager- Vivel, ITC | Dove, Unilever | Emami | MakeMyTrip; belongs to the same school of thought. He says that there are multiple aspects of competing. We as humans and professionals can imbibe them to become better versions of ourselves. Some of these can be:

• Working in a team under pressure
• Learning from interaction with others

Alekhya, a voracious quizzer, talks about how quizzing as a sport has affected him on the professional front. He is of the opinion that the importance of extra-curricular activities cannot be underlined enough!

He has been quizzing for over 3 decades now and it has improved him as an individual by leaps and bounds. Talking about how exactly quizzing has changed him, he says quizzing is not an individual sport. It’s a team sport. It often happens that you don’t know the answer to the question, but your teammate has a small inkling as to what the answer could be. The pair of you work under flashlights. And in a matter of moments, you enter into a thought partnership to arrive at the answer!

You learn to handle pressure situations with another person to arrive at a working solution. This kind of collaboration you will never learn from any classroom or case study. It is learnings from instances like these, that make you a better, well rounded professional.

A functional citizen of the society is a clog in a well-oiled machine and they have to work in unison with others. Depending on our surroundings during our formative years, the degree to which we function with respect to others can vary. It is crucial to the point of being critical, to know how to work in tandem with a team. And what better setting could be than that of a Competition, Case study challenge of even a quiz!

Alekhya says that the process of arriving at seemingly the right answer as a team is the kind of qualitative learning that will improve your behavior and attitude. Not only on the personal front but also as an individual.

He goes on the say that the same situation can be extrapolated to your workplace as well. You are essentially working as a team with your boss, super boss, juniors and peers. You and your team thus, are trying to answer the same question in the context of your business.

The behavioral aspects that one picks up from extra-curricular activities cannot be picked up in day to day life and definitely not in a classroom setting. He notes that he has participated in quizzes more as a professional than he did as a student!

In conclusion, we can state with good authority that teamwork shall almost always lead to the solution. Collaborating within a group is one ability that will take you a long way on whatever front you may want to put to test.