It was the year 2002 that I had bagged a training & development assignment from one of the biggest brands in the world. When I sat with the VP of Human Resources he told me the magnitude of the challenging assignment that I had been given. This organization had acquired a home grown company in mid 1990’s along with their brands, employees and factories. Most of the inherited employees were not even graduates but through sheer dint of hard work and experience they had grown into Managerial position. The multinational giant believed in recruiting the best of talent from B Schools, CA’s and Engineers. So you had people who were over 50 years of age and also fresh 23 & 25 year olds from college in the same team. The VP told me, “Sreeram, I want you to bring the synergy between these two contrasting groups even if it is going to take couple of years it is fine. But if we have to succeed in the marketplace and emerge as a leader this synergy is pivotal.” It took a few years to bring that alignment but once it was achieved then there was no looking back and I had seen in front of my eyes the dramatic result that can be achieved when the exuberance of the youth is guided by the wisdom of the experience. Of course in this journey I have heard several veterans ridiculing the young folks by saying on their face, “Hey, your age is my experience, stop this crap.” At the same time I have also seen the young guys saying that these oldies are too slow to respond and the old methods no more work these days. But once we were able to make the experienced understand that what the youth can do with technology they can only dream off and when they witnessed it in action they understood the value of youth. I remember one day we started a boot camp with around 40+ people and the first thing I did was to note down the years of work experience of each person in the room and it totalled to 775+ years and then I asked can there be a replacement for these 775+ years. The entire room went silent for few minutes. After that when we said now we shall take up each problem in the room looking for the reference points from the wise men and women and we shall also confront those challenges with the innovative ideas of the youth. When we closed the boot camp we had a solution for each and every challenge and there was complete harmony and respect between the exuberance and the experience. It has hardly been a week since India scored the most dramatic victory over Australia at Gabba. And let us remember that neither the most experienced player Pujara alone nor the youthful zest of Risabh Pant by himself could have scripted the victory. As much as the dare devil shot making prowess of Pant helped us to win it was also the body blows taken by the experienced and patient Pujara which led to the fatigue of the Aussie bowlers which was later capitalized by the new generation. That’s why I say, “Energy of the Youth and Wisdom of the Experience is an unbeatable combination. Loving you. JVC Sreeram