In government, speed is measured in signatures.

This summer I learned a new unit of speed.

Not days, not sprints, but signatures.

I spent it as a Project Associate with UNICEF Chhattisgarh, and that rhythm took me a while to understand. At first it looked like slowness. Then it clicked.

§ Two speeds, two jobs

At Nexgentic, the startup I work with, a decision can happen in a daily standup.

Government runs on a different clock: approvals, layered, one after another. Coming from a startup, my first instinct was that this was friction to get around.

It isn't. When what you build reaches officials across an entire state, a wrong call doesn't break one feature. It travels. The approval chain is how a system that big protects itself.

§ The hard part isn't the waiting

The waiting you get used to. The hard part is this: sometimes a senior, looking at the program from much higher up, wants to change or cut something you know the product needs.

At a startup, you'd push back directly. Here, you can't just say “this can't be cut.” They're your seniors, they carry the responsibility, and their view genuinely counts.

So you stop trying to win the argument. You change the shape of the solution until it keeps what matters and earns their yes.

Don't win the argument. Win the yes.

That one reframe is most of what stakeholder management actually is.

§ The exposure nobody puts on a resume

Government work puts you in rooms with people from every background, age and level of seniority. Some of them have achieved far more than I probably ever will.

Many of them spoke to me, a college student, with the same decency they'd show their own superiors. That was humbling. No case competition teaches you that.

§ The honest counterpoint

Slow is still slow. There were days the waiting felt exhausting, and I won't pretend every round of approvals felt worth it in the moment. But speed was never the point of that system. Getting it right, at scale, for everyone, is.

§ Takeaway

Startups teach you to move fast. Government teaches you to move everyone.

If you're heading into a government internship, expect it to be slow. Then let it teach you what a fast place can't: how to get to a yes without ever needing to say no.

§ Over to you

Have you ever had to get a “yes” from someone senior who saw the problem differently? How did you get there?

#ProductManagement #StakeholderManagement #FieldNotes