Suspicious of Certainty....

2008-05-18T01:00:00.000-07:00

Recently I attended a talk by Sir Mark Tully at the British Business Group in Goa. During the lecture he made certain observations about Indians and the observations are:-

“Indians are suspicious of certainty, want to lead the middle path and want to find a balance in life.”

I was moved with these comments. On one hand we find ourselves indulging in palmistry and astrology, constantly looking to find what lies in future and trying to get rid of uncertainty from the mind. Yet, Sir Mark Tully made this comment, coming from his extensive travel in India, with the experience of interaction with so varied spectrum of Indians, I was left reflecting on the thoughts.

On being asked a question, he replied, that once decided, the Indians try to find fault with those same decisions. Hence the implementation of these decisions becomes difficult. The path constantly looks different and uncertain though.

We just need to look around, specially in the political and economical horizon and we always find the proof. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about the serious topic of Nuclear Treaty or a socially sensitive topic of Women’s reservation Bill or an economically sensitive topic of SEZ.

However I wonder if corporate India or Indian managers also demonstrate the same behavior. Do we also behave like this in our professional matter?

I also wonder, if this is our strength or a weakness, where the only constant we find in every aspect of life is uncertainty. Does this mean that we as Indians can find the way out of uncertainty easily or that we can live with uncertainty at ease OR does it mean THE OPPOSITE?

Don’t we want the certainty; are we not capable of leaving peacefully with the knowledge of certainty?

Or is it that the path of certainty is away from the middle path? Do we construe that a decision creates an imbalance in life?

I for one certainly don’t have all the answers, but I am certainly looking for the ones.

Smart Rat

2008-03-24T03:29:00.000-07:00

SMART RAT

We keep reading about World Class Organizations, Best Employers, Six Sigma Companies and what stuck me was, is it always the responsibility of an employer to make employees world class?

How does one become a World Class Employee or an Employee with a Zero Defect?

I am not intending to draw parallel between Six Sigma process and the responsibilities that an employee should have, but I will be attempting to define the circle in which Employee works and three primary roles that he plays in the organization from the social perspective.

Three roles that every employee plays are:-

Subordinate
Peer
Boss

For every one it is important to be successful in all these three roles at the same time and one needs to moderate / calibrate the behavior of oneself from role to role.

In accordance with these roles every employee has to earn Respect from his subordinates, Acceptance from his peers and Trust from his boss and hence every employee has to be a smart RAT.

Now the questions arises, how does one earn respect from subordinates, Acceptance from peers and equally important but more difficult is to earn trust of the boss.

Respect from Subordinates:-
As a boss, you have subordinates and your success depends on your subordinates in varying degrees and in this context, how well you are respected matters the most. Respect ensures that there is fairness in transactions; it also ensures that there is very fair amount of exchange of ideas and data between a boss and the subordinate.

Transparency in the decision making, involvement of all, providing vision and the overall big picture from time to time are some of the most effective way of earning respect. In day to day operational problems, it is far easier for anyone and everyone to loose track of the vision, the very purpose of existence of the goals and this ensures that day to day stress levels start playing a much bigger role than necessary. On the contrary, the vision or the way ahead or articulating overall goals from time to time helps to de-stress the organization. It is far easier to get people involved and motivated in achieving bigger goals, after all every one likes to be the winner.

Not only this helps to de-stress the daily operations but also ensures that everyone is constantly thinking of improvisation for achieving ultimate objectives. What else can one ask for?

Acceptance from Peers:-
This is one of the trickiest one, largely due to the competitiveness of the organization. In fact this is the one where an organizational set up plays an important role. Should there be competitiveness or collaboration inside the organization?

Every individual wants to be the winner and the way one helps others to win goes a long way to achieve acceptability amongst the peer levels.
Non-existent of SLAs amongst colleagues doesn’t help the matter much and getting SLAs agreed itself is a big catalyst to achieving Acceptance amongst colleagues. How do I set SLAs with my colleagues? Informal understanding of each other’s roles plays an important role. How do I start enjoying win of all my colleagues, is a crucial question to ask for. For one to enjoy the win, one has to involve in the process and be a part of the solution. A bit by bit approach is the best thing to follow. Not everyone likes your involvement but as long as you develop an un-selfish attitude, you have a start to begin with. No encroachment, just an involvement, be a part of other’s enjoyment.

One of the most important parts of acceptance is the reciprocity; everyone will allow as much involvement to you, as much you will allow to others. Stay focused on the overall perspective and the vision; do not get carried away by the short term departmental orientation. Departmental orientation is one of the biggest roadblocks for not getting the acceptance from others.

This helps one to become a Team Player and helps to develop for WIN – WIN approach.

Making others win is a great virtue and every organization needs to promote this virtue as in the win of each and every individual lays the win of the organization.

Trust of Boss:-
This part of the role requires you to be pro-active than reactive. This part reminds me of one of the simple advice one of my superior had provided me and it goes like this:- if you are doing your own job smartly, you are eligible for a normal increment, if you are doing your job smartly and partially that of your boss then you are eligible for an extra-ordinary increment and in addition to both of the above if you perform part of the role of your boss’s boss, then you are eligible for promotion.

I have found that this is not always the easy job, but this cliché has helped me in the past to understand and to win the trust of my superiors.

How do I know that my actions are in the right direction for gaining confidence and trust of by boss? This almost immediately reflects in your one to one business review with your boss. This also provides you an opportunity to reflect, if your actions are in the right direction. In this game, the trickiest part is you alone can know the results of action and opportunity for feedback is not necessarily available to you.

In the moments of high competitive world, where the lines of interaction remain as much formal as possible, the importance of informal interactions can not be stressed upon enough. Interact with your superiors informally as much as possible; engaging in actions not directly related to the business also helps to understand each other better. Business communication is always one line approach and hence finding a common source of interest also helps. It may be a social cause, entrepreneurial aspects or a common mode of entertainment.

With these SMART RAT qualities one can always look forward to being a world class employee and hence a fast track movement ahead.

My blog

Suspicious of Certainty....

Smart Rat