Graduate / List some of the academic and professional differences made by you in your life. [4]

Please help me improving this essay as mentioned here under. Need to cut it short to 500 words while improving the essay to better content. Please give your opinions how to improve this as i really want to submit better essay irrespective of how many times i need to edit it.

Question is : School seeks students who desires to become leaders with purpose-those who will positively influence the global business community. What have you done thus far in your academic or professional career to make a difference?

Captain of Ashoka House

From the very beginning, I loved to be a part of every activity conducted in my school and enjoyed negotiating with people for a viewpoint. My excellent performance in extracurricular and convincing ability impelled my teachers as well as student body to elect me as a Captain of Ashoka House in the time when participation of students was very low. I used step-by-step strategy for ensuring maximum participation and achieving good performance in activities. For achieving this, I conducted numerous house meetings, produced hypothetical stories where the less confident win by tackling nervousness/other problems, cherished their small victories for boosting up confidence, and motivated them to work in unity while sharing credit for win. Standing out worthy among few gave them courage to open up in crowd like they managed to do this first time in front of few. This work like contiguous effect to house members and by the end of year, Ashoka house was having highest participation and fair level of achievements. This experience taught me how to influence people and how to handle team of reticent members.

At professional front, there were numerous instances wherein taking initiatives led to advancements. One is regarding standardizing the invoicing procedure among sites. Lack of a standard method was impacting as delayed cash inflow, collection loss in lack of reconciliation, tax implication and cost increment owing to incorrect tax methodology for invoicing. For streamlining the situation, I studied patterns of different projects and related cost contributors, consulted taxation and operations team, evaluated involved parameters and developed a module which is implemented on project and this implementation led to 2% cost reduction and time saving of few weeks to few days. This also ensured timely and maximum possible cash inflow, proper reconciliation and no tax penalty to government due to incorrect methodology. However, while instigating this, resistance and reluctance to accept any instruction from a much younger person were evident. Most of team members were thoroughbred Engineers who had little patience with "modules and methodologies". But efforts of persuading team-mate of my age and increment in project profits on account of its adoption convinced seniors in the team also. The module is then adopted by all solar projects of L&T in India. From this experience, I learnt how a shared vision and team contribution ensure accomplishment of that vision.

One more incident I would like to share where I had the opportunity of organizing campaigns for marginalized children of Koshish School through PRAYAS trust, NGO by L&T, working for the health-care and social upliftment of children and women. I spent the whole day at KOSHISH knowing the requirements of these children and its operation. They seem satisfied with their condition despite the lack of resources. These children though marginalized treated me like their family, although I had known them only for hours. . I observed that body language and polite manners are of paramount importance in expressing what word cant. On way back to home, the drive to reciprocate the kindness of children was my motivation and I proposed to team to set up a fund-raising event. During my visit, I noticed the artistic quality of children in home-made things. So, setting up camp on major festivals for selling those home-made products is decided. With this, I had to devise an appropriate pricing strategy that should lie within the customer budget. First, I calculated the cost of ingredients. I proceed to research the average spending of the people on such products so that it lies in the spending ranges.

The event went on smoothly and I enjoyed doing that. We are still arranging such camps on festivals. However, with the help of L&T we tried to extend help in the form of scholarships, health check-ups etc. I learned the valuable lesson of power of compassion and realized that real happiness is achieved by making others happy.