Reviewing photos taken in the last month came across one that evokes many postive feelings.

It shows two of our team sitting in garden in our hotel/guesthouse in Delhi, my laptop is in the foreground and I’m sitting with my back to a tree. It must be around 7:30 am and the city heat has yet to descend. Despite having all the windows open the lack of breezes and the mosquito nets meant that at this moment the guesthouse is somewhat stuffy (though by 9am it will be cooler inside the building than outside). They are both wearing headsets plugged into laptops and are transcribing the previous days interviews. I’m not sure exactly how long they’ve been up or what time they slept but they were working when I awoke. We’d all been chucked out of the breakfast room by the housekeeper who was eager to set the table.

And the positivity? A mixture of coming together in a flexible and condusive space, seeing old friends, having a common, agreed and understood purpose, everyone getting on with the job without having to be asked, and everyone working within the boundaries of their own rhythm (a couple of the team were still asleep but then they’d been working late). Sometimes the jetlag can play havok with getting the job done, but this time everyone synced just fine.

It also reminds me how sterile regular corporate approved hotels can be.