Confessions of a frustrated soul!!!

My weekend was rather dramatic this time.. a few movies, some time resting and a slip in nature's arm... I kind of enjoyed the whole weekend.. and while I was enjoying my weekend, I watched a funny movie "Confessions" based on a so called true story the movie rotated around a bunch of frustrated souls and their journey towards "do nothing". While I kept wondering why "Do Nothing Attitude" so prevailing in the society I was encountered by a fellow neighbor who discussed "Frustration" with me...

Frustration about how "People bother you when you are on Holidays" , "How not hire good guys" "how show off" "how show attitude" "how do buttering to get promoted" blah blah blah.... As a good listener I listened and explained a few good things about how not to get involved in such situations.... and as an answer to the issue.. I raised a few questions to myself...

Why do we intelligent souls get frustrated?

Answer was kind of tricky... and kind of easy... I decided to use my part of the weekend to get the answer... here is what I found...

1. I asked 12 people into different professions, different types of domains... they all gave different reasons here is my list :

1. 5 said Competition @work

2. 5 said Too much work

3. 1 said Inability to cope up things

4. 1 said Success of others

The last 2 were very honest and I promised them I wont disclose any names here... but as you see the top reason seems to be competition, it links directly to work.... the moment things dont go our way, we go frustrated. And when we get frustrated it affects major parts of our lives... A student reacts to an angry professor by saying "Must have had a fight with wife?"

Father angry with Boss goes home and slams kids?

Here are a few more statements that came out of the discussions I had ...

"Well frustrations dont limit me to work... I feel like bashing my neighbors dog who barks in the night"

"I find it hard, but sometimes even your closest friend is not the answer... you just want to bang your head"

Eventually Frustration is a killer... it kills mind, focus, brains, attitude, approach and last but not the least... "Future"

So how do we handle Frustration? I went through Google and except one or 2 good links, I did not find anything to read on...Hence decided to put my next blog on How to tackle Frustration?

Keep connected...

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Questions we care about during Hiring

We all take Interviews, we all look for specific roles. In the past few months we have been doing quite a few interviews.. we shortlisted a few and rejected a few.... very recently I was asked by a friend who is wanting to switch his job profile from Banking to IT on questions we ask during interviews.... I gave him a list.... during the list creation I realized quite a few questions we have been asking our candidates and of course we cared about those questions....

Now if you read through these questions and you have to think for the answers for too long or you have to make up for one... you are not the one we are looking for. If you have an answer throw the answers at us......

Here are a few of them:

1. When was the last time you were involved in a discussion which had a difference of opinion between you and other Senior members of your Team?

2. When did you last group pair with 2 or more developers to resolve a issue?

3. When was the last time you received a negative feedback? How did you take it? How did you respond?

4. What was the most challenging thing you did in your recent project?

5. What was your most challenging impediment?

6. What was the last most innovative thing you did to improve your productivity?

7. What did you learn in the last 3 months?

8. What is "Out of the Box" to you?

9. What did you do in your last few projects when you did not agree to a Team decision?

10. How do you define Quality?

What questions do you care for?

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How much Rework you have to do?

I have been closely monitoring and also involved in the current project that we have being working on. When I say closely I really mean closely. In the last few Iterations I have being harassed by the fact called rework in the development that we begin on August 17th and 6 months from then.. I see that we have spent a considerable amount of work trying to avoid rework.. yet rework is inevitable.

We as a Team recently decided to run a check on the reasons for rework, this was due to the fact that the Team has being talking about refactoring within a month of development of the item. As a manager any type of rework is a time waste. When people moved to the lean principles the core objective was to eliminate waste (in other words rework).

We decided to find the root cause of rework... and here is what I found... maybe interesting if you have a Team doing a considerable amount of development....some of these elements if taken care can really really help you eliminate some waste... a lesson for future a learning from past....

1. Understanding

50% of the rework is caused due to the fact that the developer does not understand what he has to do and he ends up jumping into the feature development. A big job here is to involve the developer in the upfront understanding of the feature and system. Not only it is associated with the developer but analysts also tend to write use cases without fully understanding a feature... result is rework after some amount of development is done.

A timely feedback and understanding of the features can help a developer build a right feature with minimum amount of rework.

2. Test Driven Approach

How many of your developers after completing the features run a test script written by the QA , Analysts? It is important that the developer approves every Acceptance Test , every negative test before he calls in the feature as done from development. A test driven approach is not just for feature but also for the code... A peer review can ensure the facts covered or uncovered by the piece of code written.

3. Break up and Build up of Tasks

4 out of 10 developers break up tasks out of a feature... I haven't seen any building a task out of features... a micro view is what a developer build out of a feature they work on... how beneficial it will be if you build a macro view of combination of features? Well the Architect and Managers have architectural views at higher level.. but if you understand the fact that what other features may need you may avoid duplicate work or rework.

4. Refactoring Yes , Reorganizing NO

Give time to your developers when they write code... not to let them re-organize what they deliberately left out or to cover what they did not finish.. but to reform the code in a better way. If your developer comes to you the next day after he finished a feature asking for a refactoring time, he has messed it up.. and the refactoring time is not the quality time.. its the development time.. he is running short on estimates.

Clearly define refactoring time.. and that is not development or bug fixing time.

5. workarounds vs Driveways

Developers always tend to bring workarounds as permanent solutions... they think from a granular perspective... train your teams to answer a few WHY... when they ask or suggest a solution?

Questions like :

Why this has to be done?

Why can it be not done later?

Why it was not done earlier?

Why this time?

Agile Teams eliminate the rework element to a bigger extend.. Agile Test Driven Teams eliminate it a very large extent. Agile behavioral development Teams can eliminate the larger chunk too... but yet Agile Teams too have to put rework. The project plans have to consider this fact and build an expectation accordingly. As a manager it is our job to ensure that we consider a few of the above elements and avoid some rework.. after all it is boring, time consuming and unpleasantly wasted.

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We all suck at Feedbacks - Part 3.1/4 - How to give Feedback that can be unpleasant

The beauty of this word starting with F (Feedback) is you cannot start it with a F word.This part of the statement is the most tricky and sensitive. All the time in Managers life he has to give negative feedback to everyone.. honestly it is not negative feedback it is the feedback that will not be pleasant to hear... A Call centre manager is walking by and hears a angry Customer Service representative blasting the customer or agitating the customer... the next thing he does is blasts the CS representative immediately after the call... what good does it do to him ? the Team?.

I went to a shopping mall last weekend, While my wife did all the shopping part I took a seat in the corner watching people, I saw a old lady looking for a bed linen where a sales rep was helping her. The sales rep initially showed interest, but when he saw her not being able to make a decision got agitated and reacted a bit rudely. His supervisor was watching all this and he stepped in had a chat pleasantly with the lady and tried to bring the lady to consensus and sold the work she was looking for. After the lady was gone he smiled at the rep and told him... "We will always have bad customers, they will come buy and go. What will remain is the reputation we hold. Now next time you get an angry/painful customer like this think that she is your childhood crush you never got a chance with.. I am sure you will serve better"

Inspiring... I liked the innovative way of feedback... What I liked about it was it had patience, place , perfection and politeness. Those P's that can make the F' better.

So what is it that we have to take care while we give a negative or not so pleasant feedback?

1. Place it well

Yes the place acts very important in the feedback sessions, specially when it is unpleasant... no one in the world wants to listen bad things about himself, secondly not in front of others. Make sure that when you have to give a feedback, give it in a private place.. it should be between those 2 souls and no one else. Find a right place to let the person know about the unpleasant things... so even if it gets worse it remains in there.

2. Point it well

Its very important to point it well. Again I prefer taking a profile book of incidents to support the unpleasant thing. You cannot just go and say "You miss all deliveries" you have to mention which item, which specific delivery and when. Be very specific to point on what you think about the incident too. This will help the person get your perspective about it...

A Manager once gave a feedback to his subordinate "The Management thinks that you are not capable or ready yet to take up this role" The guy went back, tried to figure out why , when , how asked the same questions to the manager.. he did not get an answer he Quit... if the feedback is not specific it is a disaster.

3. No place to emotions

Your emotions have no place in the feedback part. There is nothing worse than a angry, agitated, shouting and yelling manager giving a feedback. Be calm while you speak the feedback. Remember after all it is all about improvement.

4. Person is not the key, Action is

Feedbacks can get personal, A manager not happy about the attitude of the employee can take it personally while giving the feedback. He may pour only the personal perception and leave the public perception of the employee in due course. Ensure that when feedback is given it is given about actions and not person. Its ugly when a Manager says "You are not committed to the task" than he saying "We find you committed always, but for this particular task you missed the nerve"

5. Time it well

Run it instant. This will help you discuss the feedback more effectively. Any delay in giving a feedback on a unpleasant or negative action may turn disastrous in long run. Try and provide a quick if required short feedback but instantly for unpleasant actions.

6. Define actions

If it is the first time about something make sure you list down action items from the feedback. Try to create a check list and summarize and agree upon the actions when you close the feedback. If it is a repeated item on feedback then document it and make the consequences clear.. Yes politely. A developer who was a cricket fan was somehow not able to get hold of the pressure in development. Technically good he was still struggling with some or the other items.. after repetitive instructions the developer was not able to perform well when the Manager gave him a message "If you are a captain of the cricket Team, what will you do if some player consistently does not score? and while others are sitting on the bench to play the game? " He got the message and he listed down the actions he would work on.

7. Speak, Wait , Listen , Speak

Speak and wait to listen what other person have to say about it. At times ask the person to speak about it. Try to get a valuable input out. make it as a discussion not a lecture.

8. Trust

Build trust by re-emphasising that your faith still lies and you would want to get better results out of the actions defined. If you show your trust , it goes well.

9. Finish it there and follow it later

End it well. Try to emphasize on the objectives and make sure that you leave the feedback there. The items discussed in the feedback should not be discussed , just the action items derived should be followed up. keeping things about feedback in mind may cause unhealthy expectations and cold wars.

Of all these things.. remember you can use your sense of humour to give the unpleasant feedback wrapped in a pack of jokes and humor.

Dont forget that the objective of the feedback is to re-achieve well what we could not do for any reasons. We as managers have to make sure that when we come out of a discussion where the feedback about someone , something was unpleasant we have a plan to make it better.

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We all suck at Feedbacks - Part 3/4 How to give Feedback

Continuing our series…
We as Managers hold a primary responsibility of seeing growth for others. We see this growth for our colleagues, employees, Team and organization. In handling this responsibility we have to ensure that the set objectives are compared with the actual results and to match both of these we provide feedback to our employees or Team members… Consolidating feedback as one element would be a mistake so I would treat feedback as Positive Feedback, Negative feedback and constructive feedback the manager has to give. Remember the first 2 types of feedback can be fatal if not given in the right way and order. A constructive feedback would be the one that would be a mix of both + blended with a futuristic approach to grow collective and personally. So let’s begin our quest to find out how not to mess up when we provide our feedback…

Positive Feedback
Usually managers think that praising someone is the easiest task, honestly it is not. Just telling someone you are doing great is not working well enough for various reasons…
Once a Supervisor who was pissed off with a rail track maintenance engineer attended a manager motivation seminar, inspired he decided that he will see how praising an employee worked and went to the engineer and said “You are doing really great, keep up the good work; it’s good to have people like you in the team”. The next question the engineer asked was “Are you also giving me a raise?”

Another occasion a very excited boss went to an employee and started praising him. Confused about a untimely praise the employee went and put down his resignation with a fear that he was going to be fired.

Positive feedback has to come in right time and with right words... If you just go and say someone “What a nice job you have done” may not be the right word if said when someone recently had created a blunder. As managers we have to do the following when we give positive feedback:Again I would iterate “Feedback is a continuous process, As managers our duty is to give timely and frequent feedbacks”

1. Choose the time
Pick the time when the morale of the employee definitely need a boost. Ideally the time after a good job done, a deal won and implemented, a release done and no issues from it is the right time. Never be hasty in giving positive feedback. There are 2 reasons to it:
A. Early or Late feedback may not go with the same flair as a slightly delayed one would.
B. Just after a good job done the person would be in a relaxing / parting mode and your feedback may just not hit the right angle.
The Development Manager sent an email calling for a party that weekend after a big release was done.. only later to realize that the next day of the release caused blunderers and a lot of issues from customers which the Team spent fixing all through the week and later had to roll back. Time is the key factor.. So a feedback has to go in the appropriate time.

2. Choose the incidents
Just going and praising someone may not be good. The person may not value it or the message would be misinterpreted. Ideally when you turn to give a feedback make sure that you collect incidents at work off work that can help you build a great way to give a positive feedback also helping employees realize how and when they good. I maintain a Project Portfolio for every engineer in the Team… Every Project they work on, the hit and the miss. The learning’s from the Project for them, for me and for the Team. This helps during the feedback time when it is easier to tell someone
“Time is a key in support, and as a support engineer the reaction on LIV-XXX has being very helpful. It not only helped XXX customer go with their release on time but also helped us build a good relation with them”

3. Praise with clarity
A lot of positive feedbacks go without clarity. We Managers mix feedbacks always with Objectives… as in when we have to say “You did good at XXX” we say “You did at XXX , let’s do the same with YYY” this can cause a confusion.. it can be treated as an appreciation to what is done and also may be treated as a comment of what is not done and how to do it good next time. We have to be careful when giving this feedback that we don’t mix up Objectives and Goals with the praise or positive statement.
Clarity can also be bought by giving more preference to the actions than the person.

4. Bring Objectives in as a compliment
They say that feedback is the right time to give preview of goals too. Make sure that once you give the positive view of the past give a positive view of future. This makes feedback go stronger.. it is always treated as “Where I came from, What I did and where I would go”

5. Expose the pitfalls and improvements
Every Positive step is a step to improve. Similarly every positive feedback is a notification that you have to improve. With the positive feedback expose the pitfalls and the short comings; this helps the person understand the elements of improvement. Only praise is not the idea of a positive feedback, blend it with attorney of improvements.

6. During a feedback session , keep this part in the start and the end
I recently read a tweet that said “If you begin and end well you are sure to do well” Yes.. keep a pleasant beginning and end. So that when you enter the room and go out of the room the impression is positive. It’s the beginning and the end that will also drive how you run through the session. The last thing to do on a feedback session is to start with “You are an Idiot and did not do X, Y and Z” and end with “I hope you will do well here onwards”

I believe feedback being a mass topic in itself we should split this version into 3… we talk about How to give positive feedback today, How to give negative feedback next and then we mix the 2 to generate how to give a Constructive feedback.
I hope you would like the post and the series and would feed me back on what I have to do more.

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We all suck at Feedbacks - Part 2/4 . The Reaction

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.

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