Friday 28 January 2011

How to turn Whining gods to Wining Gods?

"XXXX just cant do the work right"
"This office sucks hard, when will these people learn?"
"I am tired of this" blah blah...

I am sure you are hearing this... from someone and this someone is whining about something or the other.. regular workplaces have certain number of jobs reserved for some people who are always whining... we call them the whining gods.. these are the guys who have problem with everything and everyone...and you wont believe how easy it is for these gods to affect and impact and influence others... Seeeeeee.. while I just chose to talk about them, I am already one of them... whining about them...

Yes.. the workplace negativity is accelerated by the whining gods... who mutate very fast and can turn to be venoms if no handled carefully and in time. I have seen environments getting spoilt just because the whining gods control the emotions of the factors and actors in environments. So how do we handle the whining gods?

Well here are a few tips...

1. Do not agree. If you do there is a whole bunch of negativity that will float around.
2. Do not argue... I read somewhere that Arguing with an Idiot is never fun, he first gets you to his level and then beats you.
3. Do not counsel - No cheering or sympathies... that will boost the performance of the whining god
4. Do not whine with them... You are making one monster out of them then.
5. Never avoid or Ignore... If you do... they will spread the word... just spread it bad and hard.
6. Never try to solve their problems... because they have bolted there minds with the thoughts that there problems can never be solved by some smart ass.

So then how do we beat the whining gods?

If you have a whining god, consistently complaining about colleagues or bosses... just tell them.. well we heard/see that you handle him/her well, How do you do that?

If you have someone at the workplace consistently complaining about the quality of the work by people... make him incharge of it, for a while.

If someone is always complaining about the environment etc... ask them to initiate things that would improve the ENVIRONMENT.

In other words... there is no real and 1 thing fits all way to handle the whining gods.. slowly and steadily you have to beat them in different areas, beat there complexities, beat there frustrations, beat there attitudes... one step at a time...

Thursday 27 January 2011

Innovation not necessarily be Invention

Innovation is fairly misunderstood at times, and people who misunderstand it spend a fair share of development and Idea storming time. Not to mention they take organizations far behind in the history. Innovation is not something brand new, something original, something unique... Innovation can be what already exists.... When a company sees that twitter is good for general, however it still needs something constrained to a particular organization and make Yammer out of it.. it is enough to be called as Innovation.

When MP3 players that are heavy to carry, do not store huge amount of data and are not very classy to look are replaced by a white fruit like logo holding gadget, built by a company with the name of the fruit Apple... is Innovation.

You dont need to find unique original ideas for Innovation... you just need to find things that run in present and fail to satisfy the needs of customers.... improvising on those processes and tools and making them more effective and cheaper in all senses.. is Innovation.

The quality of your Innovation and the acceptance to it, will be determined by the fact of how many users like it, appreciate it, criticize it and oppose it... Remember your Innovation is not successful until you have enough criticism and opposition to it ;). Its the critics that will help you evolve your Innovations more.

So now dont wait to Invent... dont just wait so that you can think of something no one has thought.. just pick your brain in the shower, think of what are the things that are blocking people and are expensive to them in sense of time, effort, money and use.... and find a better way to do it....


Wednesday 26 January 2011

Welcome Onboard

Well please treat this as a welcome note even if you are a regular reader of the blog.. for unfortunate reasons I never had chance to incubate you into the blog, nor I took time ever to introduce you and welcome you to the blog properly...

As much it is important for one to get welcomed, as much it is important to get incubated.. if someone is joining a force be it sales, development project, product or management it is very important the person gets a right way of hand holding before he is completely incubated in the Team.. now since this blog is more relevant to Management... I think with some hard mistakes and some very good processes seen floating around (Read on Quora) , I realise that the on boarding should not just be a few step task or process... it needs to be a phenomenon... way to detailed in the steps of team building that I always mentioned on this blog...
Forming - Get a person on board, form a team.
Norming - Normalizing him to the culture
Storming - Brainstorming his and your views and ideas and generating better processes and ideas
and Performing...

So.. like mentioned on the Quora answer to which I strongly agree... and the experience with the last 2 new hires we had in our team leaves no doubt in my mind.... Introductory lunch and a Team introduction in a casual mode.. is just going to stay for hours....so there has to be definitely something more... at the moment we do the following:

1. Introductory chat with the director on day 1
2. A quick lunch usually in the first week
3. A team introduction - usually in the first week
4. A 2 week long training plan with details around domain and personal training
5. pairing with one team member and incubation to project.
6. KRA setting in the 3-4 week

Of course in detail they are more clearer... but I feel that this is not enough..there has to be more time and consideration given to the process, culture part so the team member coming on board starts understanding and adapting to it... More significance given to values of the team, company and project so the member gets to know them well.. A lot more should be done... How to do it... I guess maybe I dont have it in black and white now... But I think it surely is needed....

So while I work on this.. I am sure I am going to need your help...so how do you get your new team members boarded?

Joining buddy? Lunches? ice breaking sessions? Detailed training plans? Cultural tourism? Technology tours? Throw in your suggestions... so we can use some help to share and apply a better one...

Thursday 20 January 2011

What mood is your Team?


I had been quite a fan of Myers Brigg indicator a while back... however though its a nice indicator, the sources to find the details are never really so easy to implement. Morever a lot of things simply don't make sense if you want only a part of it... also it was never easy to get the mood's and swings of mood from the Team in any valid or in a clear way as it best works for individuals... Though the emotions are clear in brainstorming meetings, casual chats and discussions.. I always find that some of these meetings are faux indicators of people's emotions as groups... some always crib, some always want to be in a sad mode and most of the time the negativity is considered as the mood for the Team, though it really isnt, hence meetings never can reveal what exactly is the mood and so does the MB indicator cannot work for Teams.

Corresponding to the same thought, most of the times people are not sure if they are happy or not, inspired or not, cool or not... the imposter of their emotions is really driven by the negativity blowers... so in other words... if I am not happy nor sad... I am going to be on the sad side, cause I will easily be impacted by someone who is feeling sad...

So then how does one know on a neutral platform if one is happy or not? more importantly... what is the overall mood of the team when they arrive to the office and when they leave.. specially under various phases of project and time... Well we are doing something interesting.. ofcourse we just started doing this...

There is a bunch of smiley balls we have kept on our security doors and our security team member gets every member getting into the office in the morning and leaving office in the evening put one of those balls in these buckets... the guard then publishes the figure on the board... of people who come happy to work and go happy , and people who come happy to work but go sad... a way to begin gauging of whats the mood of the Team, when you get in ;) and if we are keeping people in good spirits when they go to their loved ones or is it just those who are controlling the emotions of the Team by their ALL TIME CRIB ...

In the later version, we intend to improvise this... by putting labels to track the reasons and people... one way we know on which people we have to focus more and which people are really human and agile...


Well the exercise will help us get a indication of what is it that is keeping us going, finding out why we are happy and why not when we are in the place where we spend most of our time... Whats your view? Do you think this will be good enough to help you find your team moods...

What do you do to check the mood of your Team?

P.S : A while back I had seen about the mood checker in one of the personaility development workshops... I did not find it attractive then.. but with time I realise it is really valuable.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Share, Debate, Brainstorm or die

In the last few weeks Quora has really overloaded me with information. Vital piece of information on where and how internet is going, entrepreneurs, startups , technology , people and social world... An amazing tool to Share your knowledge, An amazing tool to learn.

I have being a avid blog reader... constantly reading Paul Graham, Robert Scoble, Seth Godin and many other seasoned blogger... learning a lot from them... Over these last few years of plain reading I learnt that a thought not shared is worth 2 thoughts wasted... every time I learn something I learn it once, every time I share it with someone I double my capital learning, every time I debate over it I triple my capital, every time I brainstorm it I quantipulate it...

Yes.. if you want to grow.. learn to share, learn to debate, learn to speak, learn to brainstorm, learn to find ways to increase your knowledge... just dont give up, because you think you cant win. Find a way to outlet your knowledge and in turn increase it.... else like a Dam it is going to fill and start overflowing, with a huge possibility of breaking the boulders....

Next time when there is a discussion, dont forget to jump in.
Next time when our team is debating, dont forget to value add.
Next time you see a comment on your blog, dont forget to interact.
Next time you see a tweet, dont forget to strike a conversation..
Next time you see a question of which you know the answer, dont hesitate to answer it.. whether on Quora or not

You will know only if you share it. You will grow only if you spread it. Happy Sharing....

Monday 3 January 2011

The missing sense - Quality

The feature that you just delivered - if doesn't deliver a UVP is missing sense
The speech that you just gave - if doesn't motivate your audience is missing sense
The gadget that you just bought - if doesn't help you same time/money is missing sense
The post that you just wrote - if doesn't get a comment is missing sense
The video that you just posted on YouTube - if did not go viral is missing sense
The status that you put on facebook - if not liked by your friends is missing sense
The tweet that you posted - if did not get RT'ed is missing sense

If you are doing something and it is not triggering the right impact or effect.. it surely is missing the sense... The sense that everyone else calls Quality. People love quality, they simply adore quality... A simple concept that becomes Google is sense as it determines quality, a simple social networking tool that triggers a Internet revolution is sense as it shows a class, a quality.

Are you making any sense of what you are doing? Think... its time to do something that makes sense....

A Happy New Year

Just finished reviewing my blog... I think I have missed the goals by miles...

1. 60% of targeted posts
2. No guest posts
3. No adsense revenue
4. Lot of scope to improve....

Well I think if I was perfect, I would have very less to learn... I am imperfect and that helps me do a lot things... My review of this blog in one word is...

"Never Mind, The journey just begin"

So here is the revised goals... more realistic this time...

1. 50 posts
2. 2 guest posts
3. A lot of back linking and cross commenting (Atleast 100 comments on my disqus account)
4. A changed design..

Enough for a resolution, enough for been agile...