Tharoor needs to normalize

Shashi Tharoor is in news again, yet again over the tweets he sent over the Visa norms that the Government of India has put up conditioning the security. As we all know Shashi Tharoor was a diplomat in his past and is now stepped in to his new role as a Minister of State for External Affairs. The switch is big enough to get him into the arena of complex political scenario. The last tweet about “cattle class” and the current one mentioning “26/11 terrorists were not holding Visa” or “Security or Tourism, I prefer later” (Surprisingly it seems that the later tweet has been removed as I don’t find it in anymore). Well the reason this post belong here is that I link Tharoor tweet controversy to a step missed in Team building, Our Prime Minister really need to consider this.

Team Building is not a straight forward process and so is not the process of inducting someone to a new area… I believe in something called as a policy of FORMING --> NORMING --> PERFORMING. Every new member in the Team has to be inducted, explained and let get adjusted to the environment. Then get him involved silently and let him adjust to the complexity of the scene, this step is the most critical one, Normalizing. If you don’t normalize then you face issues that Shashi Tharoor has being experiencing. He is a seasoned diplomat, but politics is not just diplomacy. The type of people you deal with and the way you deal with is completely different.

I wrote a while ago about this : Team Building, what does Leadership need?

In Indian politics you have to not only follow diplomacy in your statements and interactions but also diplomacy in oral and written behaviors. We as Indians give freedom of speech to everyone except the party ruling the nation?. Opposition parties can shout on what is said or not said, can hold protests and demonstrations , can shout and yell and abuse anyone (include Abu Azmi who was abused for not taking oath in Marathi) but if a Member of the ruling party speaks something “He is sure to face heat” .

As Indians, As Ruling Party members, as opposition, As Media we all need to help Tharoor normalize to Indian politics. He will definitely find a better wording for making the same point as he is Master of the language ;)