Archive for the ‘Misc’ Category
There is something good in everyone
Posted by: Manas in Development, Misc, social on February 17th, 2009
I recently got to know that in my daughter’s school, all teachers have an interesting annual target. The target is that at the end of the year, every child in the class must receive “Certificate of Excellence” for at least one area. The belief is that every child is good in at least one thing. If the teacher doesn’t find anything good in a child, she isn’t looking hard enough. So, a teacher must find something good in each child and then help the child develop it.
something good in everyone
I was so amused by the thought and compared it with the corporate culture of our times. In fact, I shouldn’t call it culture as there is nothing cultural about it. Anyways, …
So, I was wondering if there be a company in which every manager has a similar performance goal in additional to all the regular ones like meeting deadlines, achieving sales targets etc. Each manager must identify at least one area for each direct reportee where that person can excel. And then through the year, help that person demonstrate his potential in the chosen area.
And this can be completely unrelated to the work for which that person has been hired. If someone is good at painting, there can be an exhibition where he/she can show his/her talent in the whole department or the whole office building. If someone is good at organizing hiking trips, some outbound trip is planned where he/she is incharge. If someone is good at singing, there can be informal singing sessions past working hours.
These are just examples. The skills and the way they are brought out can be different. Even making it part of the performance goals is an example. A company can choose its own method of implementing it. The important thing is the belief that there is something good in everyone.
Won’t that company have a lower attrition rate and higher productivity?
Won’t more and more people want to work in that company making it easier to attract people?
Will you not like to work for such a company? Will you not like to build such a company?
The earlier you start, the easier it will be.
Start now…
Leader’s fall from grace: From Belief To Pride
From the book “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
One night, Army General Aureliano asked Colonel Gerineldo Marquez:
“Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting?”
“What other reason could there be, old friend?” Colonel Gerineldo Marquez answered. “For the great Liberal Party.”
“You’re lucky you know,” he answered. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve only just realized that I am fighting out of pride.”
How many times has it happened with you that you took up a project or a challenge because you believed in a cause but ended up just fighting for your pride?
Be it a college election where you start out with a dream to improve faculty-student relations but you end up fighting with the focus that you don’t want to be a loser.
Or you may start a venture now because you believe that your idea can impact the world in a positive way but you end up dragging it along because you don’t want to accept defeat.
Or you may take up an assignment in your company because it will make your product better. But as you struggle with the inertia of other teams, you take it onto your pride to see the assignment through.
Examples are plenty, the net result is one. You start something because you believe in the cause and you just end up fighting out of your pride.
Why? Because as a leader, you struggle with several opposing forces. As an agent of change, you’ll face resistance, offense, and insult. People will come and praise you which will bloat your ego. People will also come and offend you which will hurt your ego. At times, you’ll try to move things and they’ll move, bloating your ego. And at other times, you’ll try to move things and they’ll not move, leaving you frustrated.
When things oscillate between appeasing your ego to hurting your ego, you develop a sense of higher self-esteem as well as a strong urge to protect it at all costs. Well, there you go. You started with the goal of making the world a better place and ended up with a self-centered life.
But fighting for your pride will not take you far. People will not support you. People don’t support leaders. People support a cause, a belief, a dream.
People didn’t support Mahatama Gandhi, they supported movement for independence; they supported method of non-violence. Imagine Gandhi fasting for several days not because he believed atrocities on the poor must be stopped; but because he was up against the district magistrate and wanted to teach him a lesson. Would he have got the support from people they way he did? No. People wouldn’t have even noticed him. Or would’ve laughed at him.
What made the difference for Gandhi? The fact that he was just fighting for the cause and not for his pride.
So, as a leader, stay focused on the cause. If you stop believing in it, just quit and walk away. There is no point in fighting for the pride. You’ll fail anyways…
Your top priority is just another errand for others
Posted by: Manas in Development, Misc on January 29th, 2009
Finishing any sizable work always takes more time than expected, more than estimated, more than it should. Why?
Because for every work that you do, you have external dependencies. There are small bits of things that need to be done by others for you to complete your work. And those small bits of work are as important for the whole work as the big chunks are. Just as a small needle in a sewing machine is as important as the big motor driving the machine.
And those small bits of work need to be done by others. And even though these small things hold the highest priority for you, for others, it may be just a side thing; an errand to be run once in a while or when there is a mood.
And surprisingly, there are just too many of these small bits of work in any sizable amount of work. And unsurprisingly, because of their size (or rather lack of it), these bits are never visible when you make your grand plan. When you make the grand plan, you see big things and budget for them. But small things? Because they are invisible, they won’t be budgeted for. And they’ll take longer to finish because of external dependencies! After all, your highest priority item is just another errand for others 
Caught ya!
Anyway, there is no point in holding a magnifying glass and looking for small bits when estimating time. It’s too much of effort and you won’t be able to do it anyways (remember, these are too small to be seen when your mind is occupied with big items).
Just go by the rule of thumb - it takes twice the time, twice the money and will give you half the returns than what you expect.
What’s the correct length for blog posts?
Yesterday, in the course of a chit-chat with Navin, the discussion turned towards blogging and questions like what’s an ideal size of blog posts and how many posts one should write in a day etc surfaced. Since, there were some “insights” in that discussion, I thought I’d summarize them here.
1. Frequency of posts - General principle, the more the better (in terms of visibility). If the same quality of content is written, the blog with higher number of posts gets more visibility and readership. Somehow, the more you produce, the more you get noticed. You are noticed more by the search engines; there are more incidents where your writing can be quoted; there is a higher chance that everybody will find something interesting on your blog. It may also be equated with the more you speak in a meeting, the more ears you get. Of course, there is a limit to everything and you shouldn’t be talking rubbish just to keep high frequency.
2. Length of posts - Short posts are easy to consume but the shelf-life is very short. They are read and forgotten in a very short time span. They cannot go in depth of any subject. Their purpose is more for making people up-to-date or providing some entertainment. However, long posts that go in great depth of a particular subject, last for long. They can be referenced for a long time to come. They are like pieces of art. At the same time, much like great pieces of art, it takes a long time to get recognition for them.
You can also write a series of small to medium size posts on a subject and eventually roll it up in one large, insightful post. Or write a large post on something else altogether. Basically, a healthy mix is important.
3. How much time to spend on writing the title? - For some idealists out there (myself included), manipulating the post title for maximizing attention sounds like dishonesty. But that’s not necessarily the case. Just as a book is judged by it’s cover, a post is judged by the title. It is based on the title that I decide if I want to read a post or not. Title is the essence of a post. So, as long as the title doesn’t promise more than what the post has (check this bait-and-switch ploy by a matrimony site), it’s ok to hand-craft it. In fact, it must be hand-crafted.
What are your insights on effective blogging?
Pushing for “more” - Good side and bad side
Motivated by a post from my friend and my own experiences with work pressure, I was tempted to write something about it.
If you are wondering why you should know about dynamics of pressure in work life, I would assume that you haven’t tasted it yet. I would like to congratulate you for this accomplishment. However, for a lot of poor folks like me, work pressure is an everyday reality which can cause very bad things like early aging and various other disorders.
So, for a lot of people, it’s important to understand pressure.
Usually, people are not so bad that they intentionally pressurize others. Things always start with a push and that push becomes a pressure eventually.
We are living in a time when pushing oneself to be more, to do more, to achieve more is very common. If you can run 5 kms a day, you push yourself to run 8 kms a day. If your team delivers 1000 lines of code everyday, you push them to do 1500 lines of code everyday. If you are selling 50 switches every month, your manager pushes you to sell 70. If your revenue is $20 billion, you push yourself to make it $25 billion.
Nothing wrong here. It’s good. Pushing is a necessary ingredient for the “more” recipe. If your team member is just idling and not starting his work, a slight push may get him started. If your product has high number of bugs, a slight push may motivate people to find innovative ways for reducing bug count. Whatever your sales figures are, a push on the sales people may make them more efficient or creative and get your better sales.
So, pushing is not necessarily bad. If there is room for “more”, it usually gets you more. However, if there is no room for more, or if one is not able to find room for more? What happens then? That’s when push becomes pressure. And that’s a very very bad thing. Because when there is pressure, you don’t get even as much as you were getting originally.
When a team working at the peak is pressurized, the productivity falls. It may still achieve “more” in short term but not without a cost. Development teams that are pushed beyond their limits write crappy software. Creativity goes for a toss. Also, such teams may see more attrition.
Pushing is like a knife. An adept can put it to wonderful use but in the hands of a monkey, it can cause a havoc. So, it’s very very important for us to understand the difference in pushing and pressurizing. Pushing should be a tactic and not a habit. Used as a tactic, it works for you and used as a habit, it works against you.
Unfortunately, neither our education system, nor our corporate training teaches us how to use this tool. We all are part of a network where everyone is pushing one another, either directly or indirectly. Yet, how well do we understand or use it?
What are your insights with push and pressure? When did it work for you and when did it work against you?
Leaders always lead, followers may not always follow
I had mentioned sometime back that Leadership is Situational. The same person who is accepted as a leader at one time is rejected at some other time. I used the examples of Alexander, Mahatama Gandhi and Churchill.
Now, the questions arises, Leaders are always the same, well, leader-like. So, how come leadership becomes situational? How come a person is leader in one situation and not in another situation?
The people who are leader-like (i.e. the ones taking the lead) are always leader-like (i.e. they always take the lead). However, people may not follow them all the time. In India, at the point of time, so many people are trying to take the lead towards better governance but how many followers have they got? They are still leader-like but there are no followers for them.
Tomorrow, when people are just too fed up with the current state of governance (as much as that they decide to take some “real” action), the same set of leaders (social-activists as they are called) will emerge as leaders.
Anatomy of pressure in work life
Put forth your best and don’t think about the results too much, because come what may you cannot better your best.
My friend Hari Om has written a humorous and very insightful post on pressure in corporate life.
An item on my must-read list. Some more stuff from there -
There is another kind of pressure. Sometime we stretch ourselves, and consciously or unconsciously set the benchmark for us. Since life always do not let us operate in perfect conditions, but in general the expectations do not take into account all these factors. Thus we continuously engage into stretching ourselves. Since stretching in one direction makes our life severely disbalanced, thus we feel the heat on the other fronts in life. Now, the natural reaction is not to eliminate the original stretching, but we start stretching ourselves more. Example we set a benchmark at work place. But consistently performing at your personal high level costs you your personal space happiness. Your family is at the stake. The first reaction is to somehow manage this all. Thus we get into the loop of managing things rather then living the life.
Leadership is Situational
Leader is a person who has followers - Peter Drucker
via Wikipedia
Let’s take an example. Alexander? He was a leader right? A good one? He conquered most of the land known to the Greeks of that time. Starting from Greek, he led his army all the way to heart of India.
But what happened when he was preparing for a fight with Nanda for Magadha? His army refused. And he couldn’t convince his army to fight. What did he do then? He left for home.
via Wikipedia
Another example - Mahatama Gandhi. He was at the forefront of India’s movement for Independence. What happened after the independence? He was not a leader anymore. People started turning away from him. And one day, someone assassinated him because he was considered a “hindrance” in the progress of India.
Another example? Ok, last one. Churchill? Led British Army to victory in World War 2. After the war, Churchill told a huge crowd in Whitehall: “This is your victory.” The people shouted: “No, it is yours”. And what happened in the elections afterwards? He lost. Leader?
So, as we can see, all these people who are among the greatest leaders of all times did not have followers all the time. Even though they were still the same people all along, what really made them leaders and what took away the leadership position was the “time”.
There are several attributes that people tend to assign to leaders - tenacious, determined, leads from the front, thinker, etc etc etc. But the most important attribute of a leader is that he or she represents the aspirations of the people of that time. When aspirations change, leaders change.
As long as the Greek army was driven by a passion to conquer, Alexander served their purpose fine. But when the army got bored of fighting and wanted to go back home, he couldn’t move the army even by a couple of inches.
As long as people of India wanted self-governance, Gandhi looked like a leader to them. However, when self-governance was achieved, he was seen as a hindrance.
Churchill? Chief reason for his losing election was a desire for post-war reform was widespread amongst the population and that the man who had led Britain in war was not seen as the man to lead the nation in peace.
Conclusion? Leaders do show some attributes like tenacity, clear thinking, etc etc. But the most important thing is that leaders represent the aspirations of the followers and they inspire a belief in the followers that all their aspirations will get fulfilled through him/her.
Proto.in this Jan
Challenge and Poetry
One day, I was talking to one of my colleague and the discussion turned to “lack of challenging assignments” as a demotivator. What follows is a summary of my thoughts on this subject.
There is a class of people who constantly want challenges. Note: constantly. They want one challenge after another. Once they have successfully executed a challenging activity, they get a kick out of it. That’s what makes these people happy. That’s what makes them going. These people tend to be pretty aggressive in their pursuit and compete fiercely with others.
But any new field can offer you challenges only for a finite amount of time. Once you get the mastery in a domain, the challenges cease. A challenge is basically a stretch of your knowledge and skills. Once you keep handling the challenges of similar kinds, your knowledge and skills will be enhanced and you won’t find such assignments challenging any more.
When you start your life as a programmer, even a sorting program is challenging. However, with time, you can write a distributed filesystem with your eyes closed (metaphorically speaking).
You may choose to enter a new field but that will also offer you challenges only for finite amount of time. And then the challenge will cease there also.
And while you try out newer and newer fields, one more interesting thing will happen. You won’t find anything challenging even in domains you have never worked for!! That’s because you would realize that same kind of knowledge and same kind of skills are applicable everywhere. There is only very small domain specific information that you need which is very easy to get once you get the hang of quick learning.
So, what is the alternative for such people? By the way, yours truly was one among such people so these thoughts are from first hand experience 
One thing to find in work is challenge and the other one you can find is poetry! Yes poetry. It is kind of difficult to explain but I’ll give you some examples that will give you some idea.
Once I had gone to a circus. First came 5 girls riding bicycles. They were doing a good job of co-ordination and they were in general putting up a good show. It was evident they were trying very hard to do it. It was a challenge for them and once they were done, they were very happy at their feat.
After that, these girls vanished behind the curtain and out came another (different) girl on a bicycle. Oh, only if you had seen her. So much grace on her face and a lovely smile. A smile that said I am enjoying it right now right here. The kind of show that she had put up was just far better than what the first set of girls had done. But for this girl, nothing was challenging. It seemed that the bicycle she was riding was just an extension of her body. There was something poetry like in her show. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s something you just experience when the master of an art performs live in front of you.
Look at the musicians for example. Let’s take Ravi Shankar. He is a Sitar maestro. It is not challenging for him to play Sitar. But he enjoys the mere act of playing Sitar rather than getting a kick later that he could play it.
Look at any master of any art. There is no challenge, only joy.
When the challenge ceases, real joy begins. The poetry like joy. The joy of expressing yourself through the art. Make that joy the goal of your life and not the challenges on the way to that joy.
In the end, I would just quote a story here (it is called “The parable of Black Belt”):
Picture a martial artist kneeling before the master sensei in a ceremony to receive a hard-earned black belt. After years of relentless training, the student has finally reached a pinnacle of achievement in the discipline.
“Before granting the belt, you must pass one more test,” says the sensei.
“I am ready,” responds the student, expecting perhaps one final round of sparring.
“You must answer the essential question: What is the true meaning of the black belt?”
“The end of my journey,” says the student. “A well-deserved reward for all my hard work.”
The sensei waits for more. Clearly, he is not satisfied. Finally, the sensei speaks. “You are not yet ready for the black belt. Return in one year.”
A year later, the student kneels again in front of the sensei.
“What is the true meaning of the black belt?” asks the sensei.
“A symbol of distinction and the highest achievement in our art,” says the student.
The sensei says nothing for many minutes, waiting. Clearly, he is not satisfied. Finally, he speaks. “You are still not ready for the black belt. Return in one year.”
A year later, the student kneels once again in front of the sensei. And again the sensei asks: “What is the true meaning of the black belt?”
“The black belt represents the beginning — the start of a never-ending journey of discipline, work, and the pursuit of an ever-higher standard,” says the student.
“Yes. You are now ready to receive the black belt and begin your work.”
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