This is a story of the year and a half just gone by.

Sometime in April 2014, I had moved to Kuala Lumpur as the National Planning Director of Geometry Global (a division of Ogilvy & Mather).

I was in charge of a team of three strategists who were responsible for communications strategies for all our client brands in Malaysia. We  worked on brands of various clients like Unilever, Maxis Telecom, Astro Entertainment and CIMB Bank.

I want to tell you about how this team dreamt the most impossible of goals and achieved it within eighteen short and tumultuous months.

A little background context would be useful before I go further on this story.

Firstly, all these three strategists reporting to me, were insightful, high IQ, strong-willed individuals. We came from different backgrounds, nationalities and cultures. Even our mother tongue was different, while all were proficient in written and spoken English. One of us is Chinese, the other Malay and the third a Malaysian Indian. Leading this motley bunch was me – a native Indian who had spent the last decade in various positions across Asia.

Secondly, we came together roughly 18 months ago when Geometry Global was formed in Malaysia, as a joint venture between two competing advertising agencies. This came with its share of cultural friction and competing visions of the future. In these agitated times, our team of four had to become the “collective glue” that held this new organization of over 200 people together.

Thirdly, it went without saying that in the same period, we had some tough financial targets to meet. In other words, we had to run, as we were learning to walk!

In this challenging context, our small team set ourselves an audacious goal. We wanted Geometry Global to  become the most famous communications agency in Malaysia. And we wanted to do this within the first twelve months of its birth, competing with other agencies who had a rich legacy of decades.

But, goals without targets are just wishful thinking. We set a tangible target to become the most rewarded in the Asiawide, industry specific PMAA (Promotional Marketing and Activation Awards) for this dream to be realized.

This challenging goal and its target had some surprisingly positive fall out.

The more naysayers within the larger organization pooh-poohed this ambition, we became more determined. I also channelized this perseverance every week, within our regular meetings, to benchmark our milestones along the journey.

Such meetings, followed by a generous communal lunch, helped us come together to support each other as a team. This partnership blossomed despite our several innate differences.

We also put up a soft board of successful case studies (and the failures!) in the public office cafeteria. This prompted emotions of both pride among the people who worked on the case and envy among the rest of the office.

Perseverance, partnership and pride are powerful emotions. I helped inject them in our team through little everyday interventions, towards our common goal of becoming famous communicators in Malaysia.

A year went by.

This year, as we were getting closer to the PMAA entry deadline of July 15th, I must admit that I did have some doubts on the quality of our cases. I reached out to my counterparts in other countries, seeking their feedback to make the cases better. As a team, we had some stressful and hotly debated moments on such external feedback, as the deadline loomed ever closer.

Come July 15th, we entered twelve case studies of successful communication that our team had created right here in Kuala Lumpur. This was ten more than any other Geometry office in the Asia Pacific region. By itself, this was an achievement because it demonstrated the width and depth of our work. It also flagged our commitment to all stakeholders across the wider organization.

We had a quiet team lunch after the entry deadline, sharing small jokes and light banter. As the conversation progressed, I outlined some of the soft achievements along this journey.  We raised a toast to a good job done, irrespective of the yet unknown outcome.

But, all knew that this was not the end. We nervously wrung our fingers, prayed to our individual gods and crossed each day from the calendar towards awards night. After almost twenty five years, I felt the nervous anticipation of waiting for one’s report card in school.

Yesterday, September 29th was the awards night of the PMAA awards. And, I am delighted to report that the results exceeded out wildest dreams. With seven of the twelve cases getting a metal, we won the best communications agency in Malaysia. But the icing on the cake was that we also shared podium honours for being among the top three agencies across all Asia Pacific countries. This proved to me that ‘impossible is nothing’ for a passionate team that works towards a common goal. For those of us who have seen the movie, this felt like the famous Shahrukh Khan movie ‘Chak De India’ in real life for me!