Are you serious?

There is a very fine line between easy going and laid-back. A lot of times it is not very difficult to jump from one side to other. Laid-back attitude can really spoil a lot of things nevertheless the results that can have long lasting impacts. Over the last few days we had several situations where the most easy going team members switched to the other side and with ease, most without realising that it is happening. The biggest problem of been laid-back is that you never know you are. In my long career as a development manager I ended up with several Ninja developers who happen to switch side failing to realise they did. Result was clear buggy code, technical debts, backlogs and dirty future. The laid-back attitude really kills the sincerity and potentially kills the winning attitude. I have been at times switch the side myself, specially when the teams get along well, work is smooth paced, people help each other etc. That is when you can start NOT BEEN SERIOUS.

Well its not very difficult to find out if you really are serious about your work or not, a few questions and that's it...While I don't want to discuss the why part in this post, I would certainly talk about the How part here as it is an important step in identifying if you are travelling the laid-back attitude or worthy one.

Do you ask right questions?
In meetings, discussions or otherwise? When I say right questions, I mean questions that are sensible, right and effective enough to fetch an important, valuable answer? If you don't, I can tell you that you are seriously not serious. A person who doesn't ask questions moreover right questions often bring the risk of understanding it all or none. If you never have any questions, it also means that you don't care.

Do you finish what you started?
If you do not finish what you started or things you are a part of, its time you think about the attitude. Unfinished tasks usually pile up to change the runaway attitude. It also puts a question on your ability to be a finisher.

Are you curious?
If you ain't, it speaks a lot. Curious minds want to know more, discover and then bring the improvement. If you are not getting enough curious, it also means you are loosing the weight of discoveries, Innovations are killed and you live a routine.  

Do you remember things? Do you take notes?
The most laid-back people will always be found in meetings unprepared, without notepads and more importantly without mental presence.

Are you confident?
Your confidence will always reveal your knowledge about what you do. If you are not confident, it also means you are not serious with it. Confidence is key and the consequence of low confidence is often failure.

Is that your best?
A question one should ask all the time. Is the output you just delivered the best you can do? If not its time to get more serious.

Do you convince?
If you cant articulate it, speaks you cant handle it. Its critical to be able to speak about what you so, explain others , debate, question and query.

Well if you are not able to get some positive answers from the questions above, then I guess you need some serious thinking My Friend. Go figure out if you are on what side and what can help you get corrected. If you are not serious about BEEN SERIOUS, then you read a wrong thing anyways.

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Look Beyond Clouds....

I have seen Russell Crowe starrer Gladiator n times, and while I write this I am just about watching it for another time, same passion, same thrill. Just the very same wrath and power. While astonishingly Maximus inspires you, the contributions and work of Juba and Hagen cannot be forgotten. But do you think Juba and Hagen would be of any help had they not known who the Spaniard was and what he wished to do? Ofcourse not, it took looking beyond clouds for the 2 to let Maximus achieve his ultimate vengeance.

Looking beyond cloud is interesting,  but not so easy, I wouldn't mix it here calling it as "Looking at the Big Picture" cause it's just not that. Looking beyond the cloud is understanding on WHY than WHAT. And if the clarity exists I am sure the vision would be a mere effort to Reality. Leaders put through their vision and executors of those vision items need to have this ability of looking beyond the clouds. Do they? What are these clouds that block them from understanding the WHY?

Well the answer is NOT black and white. Very recently one of our customers found a bug in our system, reported it, we escalated it and managed to work over a fix. A developer was asked to fix the issue. The issue was found, fixed and released, the process however revealed the looking beyond cloud efficiency. A lesson we ought to take and submerge in our teams. At the same time it is important that the symptoms are verified and figured out before they damage. The course of fix revealed we knew the bug existed bug never asked ourselves if it would cause a problem to the user or not, We knew what caused it but never cared to detail on how it would impact, After it was raised we knew how to fix it, but we took time to resolve it as we never wanted to put that as a FIRST PRIORITY. So many failures in just one line of action. Fairly easy to guess now what these clouds are...

The cloud comes in various forms...

Laziness : The biggest blocker. If one just doesn't want to know why, he would never make an attempt to know WHY.
Fear : Most times the fear of having to do it or failures block one from wanting to look beyond.
Inability : Ability to understand and prioritise can be easy cause.
Visibility : If you don't know about it, you will never look for it.

Of course many more... Writing it down may give you a list you would want to miss.. Do you see beyond the clouds? The clouds of routine, vagueness, mediocrity, lousiness and at times inability? Do you know if they exists? Do you know what is beyond those clouds? Do you wish to know what is beyond those clouds?

If the answer is YES. Start asking questions to yourself and then to others.. look for answers and not just questions...

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Communicate, but wait first connect

Been on stage ever wondering, why those lads in the audience are busy yawning? Ever walked to a ticket counter and noticed why the lady behind the counter never looks you right into your eyes? Ever tried to figure out why calculating a TV TRP is such a difficult task? or ever wondered why the RJ on your favourite radio channel never blabbers what you want her to? Well they all miss one critical part of communication.... The CONNECT part.

The connect in the communication makes the communication effective and vital, eventually managers, leaders who fail to bring the connect part in the work they do, always tend to fail in the overall results. A few months ago I attended a live music programme and a seminar on some typically financial topic. I always thought speeches and seminars are boring while music is great.. My assumption changed when I had the speaker of this boring topic make a few connects with the audience, he asked questions, he cracked jokes, he made gestures and he involved the audience and dragged them deep into the topic. On the other hand the singer and the band playing the greatest hits ever never ever got the audience involved. That's the importance of connect in the communication.

Its the same thing with articles and blogs... if they don't connect, they loose the touch, the hope and the feedback, eventually making the communication connectionless.  The video below explains how connect plays a key role in communication... Be it the safety measures video before you fly or the most hostile speech you hear...

Remember to connect when you communicate... 

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Communication : Talking, Listening or more?

"The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished" - George Bernard Shaw 
A few days ago we happened to do our Project kick off, an event where we discuss what we would achieve in the quarter, for the product in a given release cycle with details of who does what and when. Wanting to keep the mood of the kick off light we wanted to have some cake cut at the end of the kick off meeting and celebrate the beginning of the release; I happened to pass on few quids to the office boy and asked him to get us a cake, when the kick off meeting was over and we opened the box it was a small cake that probably wont be enough for our team, so what was this?

Also a few weeks ago, my wife called me while I was on my way home and asked me to get a "Few cold drinks" mentioning my kids friends are in. Thinking that the troop was at home for a puppy party or something I ended up taking a few gallons of soft drinks, only to reach home and realise they were 2 of them. What do you call this????

Well its the disconnect. The ability to speak is not the same as the ability to communicate. Speaking is different than constructing a message, building it, conveying it, gathering the feedback, processing it and returning it back in a way it is understood. Most times the part involving feedback and further is lost and hence a disconnect happens breaking the communication and causing pains and disasters big or small.

Communication is not about you blabbering, it is conveying processed information
Communication is not about words exchanged, it is about processing the words to result an outcome
Communication is not about you listening or you telling, Communication is always about connecting

Next time when you communicate..... make sure

1. You construct a message that would be easy to understand and can be easily conveyed
2. You take that message and use an appropriate channel to pass it on
3. You wait for the feedback once you convey the message.
4. You take the feedback and process it to understand if your message is rightly understood and if not you re-convey.
5. You take the resultant feedback and build the next message in a language and mode it is understood...

None of the above is new to us, eventually we in the rush always tend to forget the completeness of the communication and that results in delays and waste of efforts you never looked for.

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Apologies for keeping this dull

If you were a reader of the blog and have been noticing dull periods on this blog.. I would start with an apology... Its been a really busy year for me and inspite of having tons of drafts documented I had absolutely no time reviewing them.

I have just found a better time to spend on this blog and a better way to do it... so I am hoping to bring some life to this blog soon.

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The No Whining Zone

How much of negativity do you see around when you sit on your desk? How much of those vibes hurt your development? How much it affects your moral and productivity? How much you start whining yourself? I am sure, answer to a lot of these questions are not known to you. A lot of us basically dont even notice or consider the whining around to be actual whining. For several reasons whining in office spaces have become the basic necessity and believe me you would certainly see moral and attitude troubles in places that are whiner-land.

So what and how does this whining affect us? I recently happened to visit a Travel agent, a small office clubbed with around 8-9 people who would help the clients book hotels, flights etc. I wanted to get my vacation planned with them and since the tour planner was running late I got a chance to sit in the crowded place. A few moments I noticed that that the girls around were talking, I could not avoid over-hearing but they were cribbing about phones, about customers behaviours, about bosses, about people.. during the same time they chose to have their working lunches and I noticed the whining increased in mercury levels.... there were arguments, complains and raised voices... huh.... Before I left the office I asked my planner on what was the issue with the girls working there, he said they have several and sometimes they just crib about everything..

I realised if your office space is a whining area.. where people choose to do nothing but complains.... you are soon de-moralizing your teams, building wrong attitudes in people and of course affecting your over all growth and productivity. Whiners spread there magic like fire and when they spread the negativity they dont care where they do it, how they do it and who it affects.

In today's era we all are burdened with a lot of work, deliveries, quality, customers and deals. Hence we all need that sympathy soul who can hear us out... most times whining is done to get away from responsibility or blame others for things not happening. A engineer can whine if he is consistently working hard on deliverables, if he see's not so good quality work coming to him, if he sees issues in the work place, if he notices any troublesome factor.. sometime he will wine if he see himself working more than others, if he thinks he is paid less, if he thinks other companies pay better and the list continues.... all these situations and talks happen in work desks, passages, smoke area and pantry rooms.

The Book Whining : 3 steps to stopping it before tears and tantrums gives a superb view of different types of whining that happens in a house, family. But it is not bad to link it to a workplace where the effects are much broader and affects bigger audience.

So how do we create the no-whining zone in workplace?

1. Make people accountable.. if they know how to take responsibility there will be lesser reasons to whine.

2. Make people responsible, if they know their responsibilities well there will be less reasons to whine

3. Suggest people they talk positive.. Unless they speak good things about even the worst possible elements there wont be those negative whining vibes.

4. Suggest people to have smiling than frown faces.

5. Put boards across office asking NO WHINING PLEASE

6. Create whining zones which are distanced than the work place and people can be noticed... it is important to let the whining not affect regulars or the motivated.

Last but not the least... whining is a problem.. try to fix the issue that matters... changing whiners is a difficult task.

Make your workplace a fun area not a whiners paradise

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