How Can Vowels Be Useful If You Are An ITProfessional?

Vowels can help you succeed in IT sector. As strange as it maysound, it’s true! These alphabets form the basis of principles thatcan help you develop yourself as an individual and as a part of ateam and by extension- the organisation. Development of peopleand self are essential components to succeed in IT.The success and failure of any organisation depends on thequality of its workforce. It’s how you grow and develop along thebusiness, leadership and technology domain that contributesgreatly to the growth of an organisation. However, peopledevelopment initiatives often face a lot of challenges; scalability inlarger organisations and prioritisation in smaller ones. Anenvironment that fosters self development in an organisation cangreatly help in curbing these challenges. Even you can contributeto your own self-development by following certain principles:

The AEIOU FrameworkShantanu Paknikar, general manager – Solution Initiatives,Happiest Minds Technologies Private Limited, highlighted theAEIOU Framework for self-development. According to him,leveraging the AEIOU Framework can greatly help an individualfoster self-development.

Let’s understand this framework:

‘A’ is for Awareness: It’s imperative to be aware of yoursurroundings, what’s happening around in your team. It can befollowed as a one-on-one exercise; you can have a set of 10questions framed to assess your level of awareness. Thethreshold marks of 8/10 would mean that you can move on to thenext block ‘E’, otherwise you need to focus more on awareness.

‘E’ is for Enthusiasm: Just being aware would not help. It’s alsoessential to be enthusiastic to participate in what’s going on. It’syour enthusiasm and excitement levels that triggers action. Theexercise here is to assess the fact that whether you havetranslated your awareness into enthusiasm.

‘I’ stands for Involvement: Awareness and Enthusiasm needs totranslate into Involvement. A score of 4 out of 5, after the exerciseto assess your involvement levels, would mean you can move onthe next level.

‘O’ stands for Ownership: Your real growth and by extension- yourorganisation, happens only when you start taking ownership. Ascore of 4 out of 5 is required to move on to the next block ‘U’.

‘U’ stands for the Ultimate Goal: Awareness, Enthusiasm,Involvement and Ownership are important, provided they result inthe ultimate goal, which is growth. Growth can either be tangibleor intangible. “As you scale up to higher levels in the team, youmight find yourself at the bottom if the AEIOU ladder, again andagain. Therefore, climbing this ladder has to be a continuousprocess; that would ensure constant growth for you,” Paknikarstated.

“You need to understand that your growth depends on yourteam’s growth, and how you influence, contribute and impact thesame. AEIOU provides a framework to help you influence andimpact your team’s growth,” he concluded.