By Bhuvana Jayaraman, AGMP 2025
As a child, I rarely waited to be asked. Singing, oratory, drama, and, when a team fell short, even sports, I gave my name freely. I was class leader through much of school too. I prepared hard to do my best on stage, but winning was never the price of showing up again. My mother had taught me something I only understood later: participation matters, because every time, it leaves you with an experience.
My first corporate role arrived the same way, except someone else raised the hand for me. An interview panel decided I would fit Project Management. I joined without knowing the “P” of PM, then spent years proving their judgement right.
Yet as I changed organisations and gathered experience, I slowly began withholding myself. In school, a raised hand had meant interest. At work, the same gesture could be read in other ways. Was I neglecting my core job? Was I overstepping? Was I chasing visibility, personal gain, a shortcut to the top? Some rooms seemed reserved for those already known. Some ideas were not waited for. Quietly, without deciding to, I started waiting to be invited.
The irony unsettles me now. We are meant to get better with age, yet so many of us grow more capable of participating and less willing to volunteer. Perhaps a child risks only an outcome, while an adult believes she is risking an identity.
Fourteen years into my career, I raised my hand again.
IIM Ahmedabad had always been a dream, though stepping away to prepare for CAT no longer felt possible. Then I found AGMP, a heavy fee, a real commitment, education folded into a full-time job. None of it put out the fire. I wanted to study again. I wanted to walk into my dream campus. So I raised my hand.
The first time I arrived, I touched the walls and benches, as if to confirm I was truly there. I felt as I had in school, unreasonably happy. At our first immersion, volunteers were called for class representative. I had no speech. I simply said, “Most of you do not know me, and I do not know you either. I am volunteering and asking for your vote. I will do the best I can, and promise nothing grand.”
I was not the star of my batch. But I learnt new subjects, new perspectives, new behaviours, and a quieter lesson: never think twice about raising your hand.
Since then, I have applied for roles I only half matched, written because it brings me peace, and put my name forward to speak before I felt fully ready. Rejection still stings. I pause. I continue.
Today, I ask myself one question. What would the child I once was volunteer for today?
Author Bio:
Bhuvana is a PMP-certified IT Governance Manager at Solventum, with 15 years in pharma, biotech, and healthcare technology. A Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, she volunteers with PMI chapters worldwide. She is a trained classical singer and a budding photographer who also writes poetry when the day allows.
