Until then I will try to blog only when i cant be in front of the computer and have enough time to blog..
forgive me for the hibernation enforced here
Sachin Tendulkar the legendary cricketer was inspired by Kapil Dev the Indian cricket Team captain who won the 1983 world cup for India, this was when he was just learning to walk. Behind every legendary man/women there is a short inspiring story, this story plays a crucial role in the lives of these legends and thus make them legendary.
Your team always look at you with very high regards, yes they idealise you, they see you as their inspiration.. no matter what you do when you begin with your team, you begin as a inspirational part of their lives. However busy in the day to day routines you forget to inspire them in spite of being inspirational...Every Team member is like a hot iron rod if several other iron rods put pressure on it, it may not take the right shape, but when the hammer puts force it may(The hammer has to take care that it applies the right pressure and not force). And surely if the iron bar takes the right shape, it is going to love you for it....
Every member of your Team holds some exclusive quality within, if you can find that out and give way to it so the team member can do something of it, is he not going to love you for helping him expose and liberate his talent? There are different ways to inspire... Some people let others do what they want to others do things that can inspire else do it too. Everything and anything that you or your team does can inspire one or the other member of your team, you just have to use the right way to present it...
A few ways to inspire your teams:
I always think there is active inspiring and passive inspiring
Active inspiring
1. If you have found something very interesting or innovative on the web world
a. Speak about it in front of your teams
b. Tell them the benefits , usage and some good points of it
c. Show them how to use it, how you use it
d. Promote to get it used
e. Ask them ideas on how it can help the teams
2. If you know certain talents of your team members
a. Speak about those topics with them
b. Discuss pros and cons with them
c. Discuss legends, stories , success stories of people in the area of interest
d. Refer them to sites, people who you know in the same field
e. Share experiences
3. Creating a forum and debating on the topics of like
a. Create a forum where a lot of people can come together and discuss things. This will help your teams take a deeper dive into things
Inspiring Passively
1. Put a note or a symbol that can be seen.. Knowing some of the developers who were interested in blogging I made a point that I put my IM status message to my blog link, only later I realised that with every change in the status I had majority of them visiting the link. You don’t need to speak, if they are interested they will find a way to do it.
2. Create curiosity by not talking much about it.. sometimes less talking does more thinking.. speak once about it and let others to explore
3. Let them overhear – When the topics of discussion are interesting to others.. let them overhear.. they will go back and find details about it, would go and take it more further.
Yes.. Inspiring your team is something you would want to do.. Because if you can inspire them, you will find that they can do more then just getting inspired.. In turn to bring some good to them, they are going to love you.
Continuing with our series on Feedback from the previous post we went through how to accept feedback. What is important is the reaction to the feedback. Many of us after accepting feedback don’t know what to do and how to do it... Here are a few things that may help you post receiving a feedback.
1. You asked for it, you got it so don’t crib
Feedback usually comes as a periodic output of an expectation. Usually the receiver of the feedback is the one who asks for it. Objective is very clear “How can I do well? Better? More?” Now the human nature doesn’t let us listen to criticism that easily. You always see a complain box in front of a government office, asking for feedback. I for fun once put a note in it criticizing the way the work was carried in that department. Next the “complain/feedback box” was removed. The common ways the feedback's are reacted are:
a. Ignore – By not listening, thinking or understanding the objective of it.
b. Over react - Thinking it is personal
c. Quit – Trying to run away from the feedback or the person giving it
d. Defend – for things that you clearly need to work on
We sometimes forget it was us who asked for the feedback....
2. Your body language speaks more than your words
During one of the feedback session while the Manager was giving the “Knowledge Doses” to the employee the employee kept looking at the pictures in the office, at the marriage ring of the Manager, at the laptop screen.
Once a Manager was giving criticism lessons of how a call centre executive should handle angry customers, the CS executive begged to differ and started arguing on every incident recorded, made faces and finally walked out.
An employee listened to the Boss , took the feedback, positively went out of the office onto his desk and with full fury started throwing things haywire, unlucky enough that the Boss walked right behind him to tell him that his promotion anyways is due that month ;)
An eye to eye contact, a sincere attention to the speaker, a calm body, a smiling face trying to adapt to the situation is a good foundation to the constructive feedback and professional career. During and after the feedback a sensible way to react is to try and list down what needs to be done.
3. Defence is the best offence, but only if you know what you defend
Every time we receive criticism we try to defend.. if the Boss says “You could have done this better” you say “Yes but that’s because you had X, Y and Z problems”. Your boss says “You should have done it this way” you return “No, this is how I was told to do“ blah blah. Defence is good, but only if you know what you are defending. A defensive approach during feedback is the offensive approach... it lets you go away from the core objectives. Never take a defensive step, listen adapt figure out what to do.
4. It’s all about perception?
Feedback is nothing but a summary of the personal and public perceptions. Your Boss’s opinion based on his perception considering your personal approach and how people see it. You may be doing all the right things but they may not be the rightest one in other people’s opinion. It’s about perceptions. The best way to handle this part of the feedback reaction is to read and not the perceptions and list down how you can improve them.
5. Your feedback is not to prove but perceive
The best thing to do after a feedback is to not prove that someone is right and someone is wrong. It is to perceive and not prove. I remember an incident that happened today. We asked one of our customers in a meeting about their feedback about our web application, the customer was honest and frank and he said “It is very slow”, The first thing that came from a developer sitting by my side was “It may be the browser, internet connection, etc etc.” We chose to say that we would like to check the same thing and get back to you. The right thing to do this is to summarize the feedback items and from time to time go back to your Manager and tell him on what you have worked on and what you are working on.
6. Mr. Good boy or Mr Grumpy?
Arrogant or Grumpy will never get you feedback again. Keep the attitude to yourself.
As much as feedback is important in our path to learn and grow it is similarly important that you react with the spirit of feedback. Remember the feedback is given to let you improve, learn and grow.