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Atul Antala

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Atul Antala

Director at Access Grooup, Inc.

Access Group, Inc

Atul Antala is a member of:

Atul Antala's Advice

Having vision is important

Being a leader in today’s environment is like being an entrepreneur. You must have a vision of where you want to go or what you want do and be focused yet flexible on how you get there. Be willing to change, you have to keep on trying new ways for doing things. Be open, caring, compassionate and trusting. It is not possible to get ahead without support of your team, so remember to look out for the success of the entire team and others will be more willing to follow you. Develop partnership with people with different skills who share your vision or have similar goal.

How I continue to Grow

Just like anything in life, it is very important to take action. Today, there is so much information available to educate yourself. It is very important that you take action and put into practice what you learn. Through trial and error you gain experience to stay ahead of the curve. If you are never criticized for anything you will never know what you need to improve upon so it is good to keep on trying out new ideas, even though you may get criticized for the ones that do not work. It is said that you learn more from your failures than your successes.

My current job profile

I am currently a Director of Information Technology Services for a company in the transportation industry. We are a company of approximately 1300 employees. I manage a team of technical resources that provides technical support to all users and maintains the entire information technology infrastructure across 7 different sites.

Important career decisions

I think the best career decision I ever made was to make a switch from biological sciences to computers. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and was working at a chemistry lab after graduating from college. Six months after graduation I had an opportunity to interview for an entry level software developer for a company on Wall Street and I was able to land the job. I have held many position over the last 16years in computer technology industry and have never had the desire to return to Biochemistry.

Tackling Grievances

Every organization should have a grievance policy. This grievance policy should clearly outline the steps to take when a grievance arises. These steps should include quick and consistent action, documented events and resolution by the manager. It is very important to take quick action and rectify the situation to maintain employee morale and productivity. Any ignored grievances can potentially lead to employee frustration, dissatisfaction and loss of productivity.

Leadership skills

Avoiding mistakes – both in your personal as well as profession

As a leader it is very important for me to make sure that my organization/team knows my vision and has a clear understanding of my goals. Iconsistently communicate with my team to clarify short and long term goals; follow through to make sure goals are met and hold myself and others accountable for the performance of the team. In addition, I make sure that the needs of the team are met. I make sure to delegate responsibility to capable team members and be available to help these team members as needed. It is very important for a leader to create an environment where a team can succeed, by developing relationships, mentoring, motivating and caring. Leader must create meaning and purpose for players and teams by linking their work to goals, strategies, and community benefits. Lastly, try to remove hurdles for my team members that stand in the way to their success.

Advice to upcoming leaders

My family background

I am originally from Gujarat, India. I immigrated, with my family, to United States at the age of 12. I am married and have two daughters aged 10 and 7. My wife is also from Gujarat, India. I currently live in Delaware state in a small town called Middletown. I have completed my studies from 8th onwards in the US, which include BS in BioChemistry, MS in Computer Engineering and MBA.

Influenced by

While I cannot think of any one individual who has influenced my life, I personally feel that there is some lesson or reason in any contact you make in your life. We may not know the whole picture just yet, but that contact was a required piece of the puzzle. If I had to pick the influences, I would say my family gave me love and a good value system to live up to. My parents and circumstances taught me the value of hard work very early in life. My parents always pushed me to reach higher whether it was academics, personal life or professional life. My wife has taught me to think differently and to love life.My children have taught me to be more patient, love unconditionally and to live in the moment. Each person who has been or is in my life has given me something, either their love, friendship or a lesson to learn.

My views on India Technical development

I think the biggest reason for lack of new products coming out of India is lack of support system for entrepreneurs. As a society we do not encourage entrepreneurship in India. We are always pushing our children to study hard and get a good paying job, but we never encourage our children to take any risk. Our children are rarely allowed to make decisions until they are out of school. They have been trained to think of failure as a suicide or bringing down the family name. If we want to make a shift from producing job holders to producing inventors then we need to introduce entrepreneurship to our children early in their life and bring classes on critical reasoning and creativity to our schools. Universities should offer courses on entrepreneurship that teach how to get a product patented, manufactured, and sold on international markets.