Life is a combination lock, with many numbers. Turn to the right numbers in the right sequence and you discover that the joy of unlocking life is not in the capture but in the hunt. Interestingly, all of us are in pursuit of this winning number. Some give up in this pursuit while a few emboldened seekers trudge along until they find their life's purpose. This edition of Indus presents Usha Mohan who counts among those emboldened seekers.

Usha with her family

Usha, as her colleagues call her, took the entrepreneurial plunge after realizing that the IT world needed people who could create outstanding marketing communication. Matching her MBA skills (from IIM-B) with stoicism and resilience, she pounded the streets of every megalopolis with her service offerings. A booming software industry beckoned her to start her dream company, Triumph Research & Holding Pvt. Ltd., in 1992, as a development company which switched later to technical writing in 2000. Since then, Usha’s unwavering commitment has helped Triumph grow to an incredible team of 80 plus documentation experts. Her company is now called as Triumph India Software Services Pvt.Ltd.

Grappling with changing paradigms and business landscapes, she recounts, “there have been stormy seas, but none that dangerously rocked my boat. I am lucky.” However, she parries the question on numbers, “I chose to sacrifice quantity for quality. Do fewer projects, but do it well, is my motto.” This faith has helped her shape up a long-term Offshore Development Center (ODC) for a multinational company. At this ODC, her writers manage diverse documentation suites and work with several development teams spread across multiple time zones.

At 47, and having achieved so much, she is elated but far from satisfied. Quoting Warren Buffet’s famous remark about retirement, she says her life’s objective is to prepare her employees to become effective technical communicators rather than just documentation experts. “Knowledge workers around the world are becoming contagious with good quality technical writing. Gradually, the industry will realize that there is more to user manuals than just the written word. For users, it has to become a visual and an interactive experience.”

Preparing her team for new challenges, Usha says, “I strongly advocate mentoring. Result-oriented approaches can only bring short-term gains and this approach does not carry the stickiness factor.” In fact, when we asked her employees, we earned some gratifying accolades about her people management skills. They pointed out that she was a fair boss with a “never-say-die” attitude!

So, how does this die-hard lady boss turn up at home? “I find relief in household chores. The cooking experience is the most enjoyable among them. Two hours inside my kitchen helps me plan my day and organize my thoughts!” Reading pulp fiction and non-fiction from cover-to-cover without putting it down, and listening to Western and Carnatic classical music helps her wind down after the daily grind.

Usha remarks, “as an entrepreneur, I feel happy to have got some solid support from my family. My husband’s encouragement (he works with Hewlett Packard) and my sons (a 21-year old and another 18-year old) have helped me get back to work when the chips were down.”

Despite all the roller-coaster rides, Usha’s credo has been delivering the best while communicating and managing customer expectations under many trying circumstances. She does all these with her big, inseparable, inherent, and of course, patented grit! Good luck, Usha! We hope you carve out a niche for yourself and for your team at Triumph.

M S Dattatreya is a Documentation Manager at Mindtree Consulting.

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