The Avengers Within: Iron (Wo)Man Lessons in Leadership, Mentorship, and Letting Go

When leading a Chatbot Testing team, I was given the task to mentor and guide newly recruited Graduate Engineer Trainings (GETs), who had just stepped out of engineering colleges. Post their online induction into the organisation (it was during the pandemic), I was their first team lead/ colleague they interacted with.

These 20-something brilliant youngsters had completed their engineering in BTech, Computer Science, Electronics and Electrical. The team was inducted into my team remotely as they were located in Kolkata, Chennai and Trivandrum. Gradually, a couple of more GETs were inducted into my team, who were from Hyderabad and Vishakhapatnam – all brilliant young minds. I feel fortunate that I was their team lead and mentor for close to two years.

Creating Order from Chaos

Our team was created to support various project managers to help them test the chatbots deployed in their respective accounts. Initially, it was totally haphazard. We were all over the place. Since this was something never done before in our vertical, no processes were in place to streamline the testing.

We faced escalations at the beginning, and I had to keep dousing them every now and then. This had a demotivating effect on my team, as despite their best efforts and working late, we weren’t able to deliver results. While we did what we had to do, it was not meeting the project managers’ (across multiple accounts) expectations. There was definitely a gap that needed to be addressed.

Identifying the Roadblocks

So, my team and I got down to a brainstorming session, and we made a list of hiccups that were stalling our work:

1. There was no clear ask/ expectation set by the project manager as to what they wanted from the testing – we tested the dialog flow, language and technical glitch.
2. We had little to no updates on the client, so that we could view the chatbot and its trained Use Cases (UCs) through that lens.
3. We were getting the list for testing in parts. So, by the time we were half way through testing, the project manager would send us more instructions and my team had to redo the testing from scratch.
4. There were no testing templates to capture the hits and misses that is expected from a ‘good’/ ‘operational’ chatbot.
5. There was no checklist for testing the chatbot.
6. There was no agile/ waterfall system of testing the bot.
7. It led to reworks, delays, frustrated managers and a highly overworked and demotivated team of chatbot testers.
8. Timelines were so airtight that there was no room for unexpected delays.

Finally, we had to put our foot down as this was just not working. My Testing Team and I then created a checklist. We brainstormed to see where we’re getting the delays.

Building a Framework for Success:

1. Whenever we got a testing requirement, we sent the project manager a checklist of all the items we needed in place before we would begin our testing.
2. We created a queue system to avoid skipping the ones we were already testing.
3. We created buffer zones during internal User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and before GoLive to avoid rushing until the day of the launch.
4. Once we received all the required documents for testing the chatbot, we would scan through the checklist.
5. If some of the items were missing, we would not begin with the testing, unless the pending items were sent.
6. We set our boundaries, and the project managers just HAD to oblige. This led to accountability from both parties and refrained us from passing the back to one another.
7. We set up a timeline for the testing of the number of Use Cases to be tested. (As sometimes, we had over 500 UCs to be tested, including multiple languages).
8. Once we sent out our testing feedback, the project managers would rectify the issues by their team of admins and send it back to us for final review and closure of the task.
9. We started using the KPI metrics to rate the chatbot. Once our testing was complete, we even ranked the chatbot – good/ bad/ ugly.

It became such a robust system that our efforts were optimised. We had no escalations, and things worked like clockwork.

Empowering Through Trust

I had a lot of trust and faith in my team, which had a huge positive effect on them. They were self-motivated, I did not have to micromanage them. Since they were young, and I too have been through this phase as a junior more than two decades ago, I ensured they wrapped up for the day on time and enjoyed some personal downtime. But if they saw me working late online, my team would not leave my side; they worked along with me even though I asked them to sign off for the day.

Leadership in the Time of Crisis

When we were at the peak of the pandemic, most of my team was away on medical leave. At one point, it was just one colleague and I who were left, while the rest were on medical leave, and we had tonnes of testing to complete.

I worked with her late into the night and on weekends too, so that she did not feel overworked and overwhelmed. We’ve had instances where project managers lost their cool (I realised they were all tense and worried during the pandemic). I would also sit with them separately (in one-on-one MS Teams calls) to calm them down, as this was a global pandemic, and everyone was impacted. Some project managers even broke down during our conversations, asking me how I knew they were worried.

The thing is, we were all pushed so hard at work that we just forgot that we’re all human and we’re all battling the same crisis for the first time in our lives. I just failed to understand why a client would push for a shorter deadline when we were all hit by a global pandemic!

Anyway, with just the two of us from the testing team, we wrapped up all the testing with minor delays.

Recognition: Fuel for Motivation

During monthly calls with our managers, all the project managers for whom we did thorough testing to make their chatbot a success, their work was well-received by the clients, and they were awarded with rewards and recognition.

One day, during our internal call, my testing team shared how demotivated they felt that they were not even acknowledged for their hard work.

I shared with them that when the coronavirus vaccine was released, it wasn’t released overnight. It had to undergo a series of testing until it was proven safe. Everything that is created, such as a car, for example, is tested for utmost safety before it is rolled out into the market.

I told them we’re like the Avengers. We live in the background; we work in the background to ensure our product is ‘safe’/ working optimally to help our team/organisation at large. And that’s how we named our team The Avengers, and this was a game-changer in their motivation!

Changing the Narrative Around Motivation

I once shared with a manager about keeping the team motivated, which is critical for the success of our account, and he replied, “Why would adults be demotivated? That means they’re immature.” I was genuinely taken aback. Motivation has nothing to do with one’s age. Any one of us can run out of motivation. Even our soldiers need motivation to keep going in rugged terrains.

Sometimes my team would feel underconfident, especially those from South India, who thought that they might be mocked for their accent, and I told them not to feel that way. We worked with a global team, many of whom were from non-English-speaking countries. We never made fun of their accents and broken English, so why would we make fun of our own Indian accents? This narrative gave a boost to my team. And I wish you could see them when they presented our work to our managers so confidently. I couldn’t have been prouder.

The Avengers – Finding our Heroes based on our Strengths

So, our team became the Avengers – I was, of course, my favourite, Iron Man, the others were Captain America, Hulk, Black Panther, Dr Strange, Wanda – and we all had our own strengths.

We started referring to one another as Black Panther, the Hulk and Captain America… and our motivations shot up. Because these names reminded us of our strengths and that we were doing something significant, which led to the success of an account, a bigger goal. I could not change the system at work, but I could change the mindset with which we worked.

When Thanos struck – A Sudden Exit, A Lasting Impact

When my contract ended abruptly during the second year of the pandemic, my team was shocked, and they hit rock bottom in disbelief.

Since my contract wasn’t renewed until the end, I had to submit my resignation. I was in the organisation for over three years, and I had become their go-to Chatbot Consultant/ Language Expert. I was deployed to various accounts to help analyse their chatbot failures and helped scale up. I loved my work, I even started learning about chatbots, and I had so much to offer. I was also in the core team of setting up an in-house chatbot for customer demos and launching/ testing new functionalities. I trained the chatbot with over ~700 personality-based questions and gave it a ‘character’ for an end-user to comfortably chat with. As the customer’s main pain point was that the chatbot did not sound human enough, my job was to give the chatbot dialogs a human side of interaction – that included general knowledge, hobbies, philosophy and even humour!

I just received a call from my manager to start my handover to a lady who had recently joined our Avengers Team. I was given no further answers despite my requests. So, I started my handover to the lady who had recently joined our Avengers Team of Chatbot Testers.

Much to my surprise, she burst into tears the day I told her that she would be replacing me. “I can’t take your place, Tanya…” she cried, “You’re such a fabulous mentor and you’re so good at your work! I’m so new here and hardly know anything around. Why are they replacing you?”

Yes, I was very hurt, but I couldn’t show that to my team as they had to continue the journey.

I hoped for a more supportive manager. I kept following up with him for over a year to get me absorbed into the team, as I was a consultant (on external payroll and hence not a part of the internal organisation). Despite repeated follow-ups, I never received a clear response.

Farewell to Iron (Wo)Man

I received a farewell online over MS Teams, where my team prepared their ‘last report’ for me. I choked looking at what my team had to share about me. People from other verticals joined the farewell call for a few minutes, just to say that “As long as we knew that this work has gone to Tanya for a review, we knew it would be done to the very best and we had no worry at all.“

The words that resonated with me from The Avengers’ Team last presentation was – “We will miss you 3000”.

Sadly, since I was hired as a consultant, most of my work (albeit via email) was not on record. Though my testing team worked with me, they reported to my manager. So, nowhere have my efforts of mentoring, training and leading a team been documented, nor was I part of the internal appraisal system.

The non-renewal of my contract sent out a powerful negative message to everyone. My team, which I had built from scratch, were suddenly crushed. Project Managers with whom I had an excellent rapport kept calling. Everyone tried to help me get a role within the organisation; and their efforts was so heartwarming.

This article is a tribute to my fantastic Avengers Team that I had the priviledge to work with, learn, lead and mentor.

Reflections and Lessons Learned

Today, writing this piece has been incredibly cathartic for me. To be honest, I haven’t gotten a chance to fully take this off my system.

There are times when I introspect and wonder why, despite giving and doing my best, and with good results that benefited the organisation, I was not absorbed into the team. Maybe I’ll never know. But I’m so grateful for this opportunity, that I got to make a difference at work and with my team who worked with me. No experience goes waste as there’s always a lesson waiting for us.

Suppose you’ve been through a similar situation. In that case, you’ll realise that over time, this is just a job and just like in real life, even when you may have the best of intentions, give your best armed with the best laid out plans, there are no guarantees. Despite such setbacks, you learn to rise again and move on. You learn to be smarter in your next gig. You’re mentally prepared. These experiences keep you rooted, grounded and humble, knowing that you’re just a spec in the organisational universe. You don’t let success get to you.

With so much news around ‘mass layoffs’ across companies, there’ll be several who may go through similar situations like the one narrated above. Know that this too shall pass, and you can and will start all over again.

Rewriting Our Stories, Reclaiming Our Strength

My story may resonate with many out there. It just goes to show that we’re not alone in our journey. We cannot change an organisational mindset, but we can definitely improve our personal mindset. It is sometimes important to write about challenging situations as it helps us realise how far we’ve come and rewrite a more positive narrative. Writing our narratives highlights our strengths and helps us align with newer (positive) beliefs and better goals.

Since I’ve experienced the lows, only to appreciate and be grateful to the highs, my mentorship comes from this space, where I can resonate with my clients’ experiences. I help them pen down their narratives, heal, find strength and rise again.

This is when I realised the power of learning from the Bhagwat Gita. It reminds us that time alone doesn’t heal; it gives us space. However, true healing comes when we turn inward, reflect, and free our minds from the clutches of pain of ‘why did this happen to me?’. Without this inner work, time just passes — the hurt stays. (Source: If Time Heals Everything, Why Do Some Wounds Stay? The Gita’s Answers)

As a Writing Mentor and Coach at The Write Compass, I will guide you with words to heal, empower and strengthen/ overcome many self-created/ imposed negativities.

It is okay to feel vulnerable, low and demotivated, but know that it is just temporary. Wallow, cry and yell, but then once done, get up, dust yourself and start again.

As the Japanese proverb goes, “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” ; and so here I am… for the 8th, 9th,….. one millionth time.

If you’re ready to rewrite your narrative, connect with me at The Write Compass over a Discovery Call and let’s begin a new positive narrative about ourselves. I have a course designed for professionals – 12-Week Journey to Clarity & Confidence. Book your slot now for our mentorship sessions. See you soon!