When the performance appraisal happens and one colleague is promoted,  many of his co-workers don’t feel good. They compare themselves with him and conclude that their boss favors only who flatters her. Always, that may not be the case. For example, read the below story called Navigate Without a Map.

Photo Credit: David Masters’ Flickr photostream

Navigate Without A Map

Background
Peter and Scott – both joined the company on the same day as Analyst Programmers. Both were coming from different background but have two qualities in common. Both were hard-working and committed to their work.

Promotion of Peter
After a couple of years Peter was promoted as a Lead Programmer while Scott did not get the promotion. Scott got very upset with this, drafted the resignation letter and went to Stella, his Department Manager. He complained that Stella does not value hardworking staff and promotes only who blandishes her.

The difference
Stella knew that Scott also worked hard for past two years but she had a point to address and make Scott realize the difference between him and Peter.

So, she discussed a scenario with Scott, “While working as a dedicated developer with an offshore client, if you reach a limbo stage when there is no work for couple of weeks. How’d you proceed?”

“I’d call the client and ask for the work”, was Scott’s reply.

Stella explained further, “The client responded that he needs to send you some task specifications but he would be able to send it only after two weeks when he’ll return back from the vacation. So the limbo stage continues. What should be the next step?”

Scott said, “Well, since I have no work, I’ll work on my pet project or do something else. May be I will also take some leaves. Given it is a Dedicated Developer Contract, client is going to pay for the two weeks anyways so he can’t blame it on me or the organization.”

“Well,” said Stella. “Let’s discuss the same scenario with Peter and ask what would he do.”

Peter responded, “Well, first of all I won’t come in the limbo stage because I keep communicating with the client very frequently and always make him aware about the work status. But still if that stage comes and I do not have anything on my platter, here’s what I’d do:”

1. Optimize the code for performance – I’ll utilize the knowledge I’ve gathered in Application Performance Improvement classes I attended in the last weekend of April.
2. Recheck the code comments and take it to the next level. I understand that there is no comparison between well-commented code and just the code.
3. I’ll do some research and learn more about my client’s business. I’ll also prepare a document which will outline the knowledge I’ve gathered by performing the research. I’ll share that with the client also.
4. I’ve some high level idea about what changes he wants to make in the software I’m working on. So I’ll make some draft user interface and modified architecture diagram with added application scalability.
5. I’ll record such additional activities and submit a report to the client such that he can know how I’ve utilized my time for which he is paying.
6. I will do…

“OK, Great! This information is sufficient for what I was looking for. You may go and continue your work, Peter.” interrupted Stella.

The realization
Scott soon realized the point which Stella wanted him to understand. He understood that Peter has an edge over him. He observed that:

1. Peter has absolute clarity about where to go and how to proceed even when no path is given.
2. Peter has invested his time to learn different technology verticals which are even indirectly related to his core strength by investing extra time over the weekends.
3. Peter is a true servant leader. He’s willing to learn his client’s language (business) so that he can serve his well.
4. Peter does not need a map to navigate. Instead he is willing to travel when there’s no map. He will try hard to improvise application’s architecture and would work on making it still better.
5. Peter utilizes the information in a way; it becomes meaningful to the client and the organization. Most important is that he keeps all the important information in the written form.

“I want to take back my resignation,” were Peter’s words. “I’ll learn from him and be an equal or better version of Peter.”

Only hard work and commitment are not sufficient. You need to develop an ability to navigate without a map (Yes, wordings are taken from Linchpin by Seth Godin – a great read, indeed.)

We’re in a different age where rulebooks are not matching pace with the changing demands of the workplace so start thinking beyond the rulebooks, take personal risks and excel at what you’re doing. Remember, observation power is a big differentiator. And, excellent use of observed information may take you a long way.

May be that’s the reason we are blessed with two ears and two eyes but only one mouth. So speak less, observe more. Maintain a mental database of observed information, index it often and use it to navigate when no map is available.

See Also:

1. Software Professional, Are You Developing Yourself As An Aspiring Mediocre?
2. Contribute Beyond Your Title With Assumed Responsibility And Take The Right Decision!
3. Mini Saga – Focus
4. On Being Upbeat 20
5. Mini Saga – Executing The Dream

1. Software Professional, Are You Developing Yourself As An Aspiring Mediocre?
2. Contribute Beyond Your Title With Assumed Responsibility And Take The Right Decision!
3. Mini Saga – Focus
4. On Being Upbeat 20
5. Mini Saga – Executing The Dream

No one would like to develop himself as an aspiring mediocre. Would anyone? Yes. May be. Unknowingly. Read the story below to learn how.

Background
There was a group of college friends – Anders, Peter, Brandon, Rob and Laura – running a music band.

Each friend had different skills. Peter was the music director. Anders was a keyboard player, Brandon was a drum master, Rob was a guitar player and Laura was good at playing flute.

They were outstanding in their skill area. That’s the reason their music was very popular. They happen to be the winner of the music competition held in the Summer Carnival for last 2 years.  They all were working very hard for the upcoming Summer Carnival which was due in about a month.

Change of circumstances
Peter’s family was shifting to another city so he had no choice but to leave the band. And the band was in a soup. Everyone knew that the band would not be able to perform at its best without Peter’s direction. They did not have any clue about what to do next.

The decision
Someone suggested them to form a committee and take an opinion. So they invited few wise individuals and formed a committee.

Committee members were good in their respective areas but no one had an actual experience about how a music band should function. After analyzing the situation, the committee decided that everyone should learn every other instrument as Peter, the director was no more available. The committee believed that if everyone knows all other instruments then they will be able to understand other’s part and they wouldn’t need much direction to perform well.

The practice
Anders was excellent in keyboard and getting A’s but when it came to playing drums he was getting C’s.  In guitar he wasn’t that bad as he was getting B’s. Playing flute was also not working for him because he was getting D’s there. So the committee advised him to work hard on playing drums and flute. He had to borrow some time from keyboard practice to invest it in learning drums and flute.

The committee observed his progress and appreciated him time to time to keep him motivated. Anders was also happy with his progress as now he started getting B’s in drums also. Happier as he was unaware that his handle on keyboard was no more a reality.

The same was the case with other members also. So everyone started practicing harder, getting appreciation from the committee and started learning every other music instruments. At the end of practice days,  they learned all the other instruments but could not practice well in their original skill area.

The performance
They did not even realize that their performance was mediocre until they heard people criticizing their performance badly in the Summer Carnival.

Here’s what happened:

1. They learnt some new things about playing different music instruments.
2. In achieving that, they lost their edge in their original skills and were no more competitive.

…and they were thrown out of the competition.

Photo Credit: deargdoom57′s Flickr photostream

The sad end
Six months later, Peter came back to meet his friends and let them know that he has established a new band in the new city.

But he found out that the band had been closed down and the friends are scattered and playing music is no more an exciting thing to them. They all parted ways and were busy doing something else (read “something mediocre” here) to live their lives.

Some small scale software companies also act like that committee. They instruct their people to work for many job profiles at once. For example, they expect their project managers to write code, create architectures, test the application or write SRS documents.

They expect them to be super-humans who can do everything just well.  They are genuine and pay such a person more pay than his market value.

Now think about this, before 3 years you were good at analyzing the systems and performing really well as a systems analyst but then you were pulled into application testing and project management.  You were asked if you need promotion and good pay hike, take up more responsibilities in diverse areas. So you started putting efforts in different areas including the one which you didn’t like much or you were not good at. Pity was that when you did little well in such areas, you were appraised and rewarded for your “hard” work.

Such companies are like the committee who appreciate you for your achievements in the areas which don’t matter in the end. May be they also don’t know how the music band should function!

At the time of the ‘Summer Carnival’ of your life, when you are expected to perform at your best, you will not be able to. Just because your focus is diversified in different areas and you haven’t realized it till now.

So you’re mediocre in all that you do. You do things which don’t matter, you don’t possess expertise in any single area and you have been turned into an aspiring mediocre.  You are just another technology profile who can be easily replaced with one or more people at any given time.

Choice is yours. For the sake of few bucks offered by such companies, do you want to lose focus from what you are good at? Shiv Khera said in his popular book You Can Win, “Winners don’t do different things; they do things differently.” You need to understand what exactly is doing things differently. It means doing things in so excellent way no one else can do. Identify what is one thing that you do which no one else can? Is it Project Management? System Analysis? Testing? Whatever it might be, stick to that; do not lose focus.

Then recognize whether your company’s business models are allowing you to reach your full potential. Does your company have the vision to take you where your full potential can be utilized? If yes, get aligned and build your fortune with your company. If no, find another company (or create your own) where you can get a vision to get aligned to reach your full potential.

Or forget about successful career in the software industry and do the same mediocre things  to become jack of all and master of none.

See Also:

1. Mini Saga – Focus
2. Want To Get Promoted? Do You Know How To Navigate Without A Map?
3. Contribute Beyond Your Title With Assumed Responsibility And Take The Right Decision!
4. Play The Music, Don’t Let It Play With You!

1. Mini Saga – Focus
2. Want To Get Promoted? Do You Know How To Navigate Without A Map?
3. Contribute Beyond Your Title With Assumed Responsibility And Take The Right Decision!
4. Play The Music, Don’t Let It Play With You!

A couple of months ago, few friends and I were out to a 3.5 days outing. Idea was to pause, disconnect with so called real world for a while and explore nature at its best.

We agreed not to bring anything which might distract us.  So we did not bring any digital instrument like iPhones, Blackberry, Laptops and Music Players etc.

Photo Credit: LaserGuided’s Flickr photostream

It was a pleasant morning of the third day. One of my journalist friends who is considered as one of the top journalists in local news industry told me that she was feeling down, restless and started feeling headache. She further opened up her heart saying she cannot live without music. And the reason of feeling down was its absence!

She has been listening music for 15-16 hours a day since her childhood. From the age of Walkman to iPod, one thing has not changed – lubricious relationship between her ears and earphones!

When she wakes up, first thing she seeks is her iPod. While driving to her office, she needs music. Even while she’s doing her day job her relationship with music is unchanged; it’s on and on and on.

She believed that if music is off, she would no more be able to perform at her best. Somehow her mind was conditioned to believe that.

It was the music that playing with her; not she playing the music!

It also happens with many of us. We negatively condition our minds in different ways. For example:

• I cannot perform well in my job if I am not offered an external training.
• Now that I own C-class Sedan Car, I cannot drive my old small car.
• I cannot lead well if I am not given a leadership position.
• I cannot…I cannot…I cannot.

Now there are two things about it; One bad and the other, good.

1. Bad thing: Negative conditioning is a Cancer.
2. Good thing: There’s a cure for the same.

So I spent about 30 minutes with her to discuss about the following. Intention of the discussion was to make her able to live life powerfully; beyond reasons; live life the way we dream of. Here’s what we discussed:

1. Be in the present moment: Most people suffer because they either live in their past (how cool were the days when we were in the school) or they live in their future (I’ll enjoy life when I’ll have this, this and that.)  What they forget is the current moment. What they forget is, “Past is something which doesn’t exist and even in future, future will remain future!”)
2. Unconditionally love yourself: Love yourself the way you are and the way you’re not. Each of us is gifted with at least one unique ability. Find that out. Remember, you are what you believe. And once you have abundance of love inside you, you’ll be able to give it to the world which eventually will come back to you with interest.
3. Eliminate reasoning from the self-talk: Be unreasonable. Reasoning is being in the past while being unreasonable means opening up the realm of imaginations. Remember what Einstein said, “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
4. Take divorce with your ‘Act’: Your act is your fixed way of being in a given situation. It is your biggest limitation. You cannot be anything but your act in those situations. Let it go. Start doing something else no matter how effete or small that might be.  Just start doing things differently.  Sometimes, divorce is a good thing!
5. Choose Your Response: Victor Frankl said in his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, “Man’s last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situation.” When you become unreasonable, when you start visualizing things out of your imagination and not only from your knowledge, you increase your ability to respond by leaps and bounds. You are at the source of the matter; not the effect.

At first, she argued, screamed, felt very uncomfortable listening to the above. Then she became quiet and agreed to affirm what I had to say. So I gave her a piece of paper with the following text written and asked her to read it daily. Once in the morning and once before going to bed.

My Daily Avouchment

“Regardless of what happens to me, I choose to be happy. I make the best out of available resources. I’m not what my possessions are. I’m free. I’m full of power. I radiate positive energy and the world of people around me is enlightened of that. I’m an excellent human being. I’m my own favorite. I inspire life in me and around.  I have come out of my fixed way of being. I choose to be the best version of myself; beyond the reasons. I don’t allow anything or any situation to control my mood. I choose to be responsible for my choice. I choose…I choose…I choose.”

After about a month, she came to me to express the power she got by practicing the daily avouchment. She also said that she chooses to play the music.   Now she’s choosing when she wants to listen to the music and she is happier than ever. She also showed me a draft of an article which is going to be published in the ‘Mental Fitness’ section of the news magazine she is working for. That article is based on her own story and its title is, “Play The Music, Don’t Let It Play With You!”

See Also:

1. On Being Upbeat 20
2. Zen of Time Management

1. On Being Upbeat 20
2. Zen of Time Management

Unexpressed goal of any life is self-actualization and learning is the key tool which helps you reach there. Learning involves the process of learning, unlearning and relearning. This obviously invites an encounter with a specific form of result called failures and its consequences also.
While learning from our own failure is one thing we should focus on, we cannot afford to lose the opportunity to learn from other’s failures (…or mistakes or mere lack of knowledge).

In this context, I’d like to share about seven things if I had known earlier could have made more a difference in my being.

1. It’s the question that matters, not only the answer – For almost two and half decades of my life, I worked hard for finding right answers. It worked well in some situations but not always. Sometimes, it led to situations full of stress. But from the day I learned to ask right questions, things changed, all for good. Why? Because, questions invite the answers from different sources and provide you the mindset needed to work ‘ON’ the things in the most efficient way rather than working ‘IN’ the things.
2. Leadership needs no titles – I was thinking that I’ll be able to execute things well when I’ll get the title called ‘CEO’. Later I discovered that I was in total dark. I found out that everyone is a CEO. CEO of his or her own self and titles do not help you much in performing at your best. Leading beyond a title means being your best version; delivering excellence with 100% of your commitment, regardless of your title or position. It applies to personal life also. For example, you don’t need a title of ‘father’ or ‘mother’ to give selfless love to a child.
3. Be cause in the matter; not the effect – The folks who find themselves at the ‘effect’ side of the matter are the most miserable; exactly opposite to the leaders who choose to be cause in the matter. Being cause in the matter means taking responsibility. And once you start operating from the context of being responsible, massive actions happen and results follows.
4. The most effective path to excellence is Be…Do…Have – I would have loved to discover this earlier. Most people focus on first doing then being and then expecting to have but it seldom works. Instead, it works well when you first ‘become’ something; then your actions would be exactly like whom you have become and then you will have exactly what you need. For example, despite of the non-technical academic background, when I chose to become a software programmer, I did everything that programmers should do and found a good programming job also. More than a decade passed since then but still I’m a programmer. I can program different things including computer software, photography sequences or marriage functions, marketing presentations or game strategy, with little effort. It’s possible just because I focused on BEING whatever I had to be; programmer in this case.
5. Life is empty and meaningless; and empty and meaningless is also empty and meaningless – I searched for the meaning of life for almost 30 years to discover that there’s no meaning of life unless we (or someone) assign a meaning to it. Quality of the picture of life will depend on the lens we look from. And to assign whatever meaning we want to assign, we need nothingness. In the nothingness, there’s a space. The space which invites us to discover the realm of the possibilities out of which we’ll choose to do whatever we intend to do.
6. Silence is the secret to sanity – I was shocked to discover that I invested my energies in speaking…speaking and speaking for many years to win an outspoken personality award amongst friends and family. The day I learned to become silent, I really learned to listen. Listen to the many things I was not able to earlier. I discovered that speaking took up a lot of energy which could have been used in understanding. I discovered that Listening habit took my communication to the next level. I really became saner when I learned this skill.
7. Less is more – Its opposite ate up many years of my life. I used to start 4-5 projects at a time and start working on all of them simultaneously. It means, my energies were only 20 to 25 % utilized on each project. I was calling this my multitasking ability. But I was totally wrong, from the context of effectiveness. This was a proven path to be ineffective.  Later, on the back of several heartbreaking failures, I started to focus on one thing at a time and it started giving immense results. Then I made this my mantra for effectively doing anything. Focus on less and you’ll get more.

Sooner is better than later and timely application of excellence leads to a definite success. Excellence is created out of performance which is the result of consistent actions which are usually ignited out of knowledge, no matter experienced or gathered.

So, if you find something which you think you should have known earlier and could have made a difference, please feel free to share it in the comments.

Photo Credit: alicepopkorn’s Flickr photostream

PS: Leadership Development Carnival is up at GreatLeadershipByDan and I’m honored to have my How To Caffeinate Your Leadership Repertoire post included.

See Also:

1. Excellence 21
2. A Formula for Success by Prof. M.S. Pillai
3. Seven Habits Of Highly Ineffective People
4. Landmark Education Courses That Will Make Difference In Your Life
5. 7 Acts of Poor Managers Who Gift Cancer To Their People, Their Clients and Their Businesses

1. Excellence 21
2. A Formula for Success by Prof. M.S. Pillai
3. Seven Habits Of Highly Ineffective People
4. Landmark Education Courses That Will Make Difference In Your Life
5. 7 Acts of Poor Managers Who Gift Cancer To Their People, Their Clients and Their Businesses

In my decade long course of learning, unlearning and relearning  business and its management, I’ve observed different kind of managers.

Good and bad;  effective and ineffective; powerful and poor. Different.

Photo Credit: runran's Flickr photostream

Today I’m going to expel about some of the common acts; one or more usually found in the managers who can be classified as ‘poor’ and who unknowingly gift cancer to their team members, their clients and their business.

Here are those seven acts:

1. Take everyone and everything for granted: Nothing matters. Their own life, their family, their friends, their workplace, their team members, their customers… everyone and everything.  They don’t keep promises and usually take more things on their platter than they can eat and digest. They don’t know that management starts with ‘Managing Thyself’ and don’t know what they don’t know.
2. Cannot manage the face of change­: It is said that ‘Change’ is the only constant in the business. Things change. Situations change. People change. People also – Not very often but change. Everything changes. Being able to manage the self, the team, the operations and the projects on the face of change is the most important skill that is expected from a manager but they can hardly make it.
3. Change team members fast: Whenever their expectations are not met, they find out an excuse that the cause of the failure is their team member’s non-performance. So, they start losing trust in the team members and start to look for replacement.
4. Set lousy goals: They don’t really understand what’s setting SMART goals. They don’t keep it written and their personal and professional goals are overlapped. Pity is that, they are not much worried about it.
5. Focus on experience and titles rather than abilities and talents: They believe that more the experience, better the results. A good manager should always focus on making the best use of available pool of talent…that’s what distinguishes them from the poor ones. But they just miss to notice that.
6. Steal the credit: Whenever they get a chance, they love to grab it. “I did it” and “If I was not there, this task could never have been completed, you know!” are the favorite sentences in their vocabulary.  Such behaviors result in general dissatisfaction in the team and the team members also – may be indirectly – encourage the poor manager to become poorer.
7. Delegate what they should not: They focus on getting rid of their responsibilities and call it ‘delegation’. While in essence, delegation means, “To give somebody else the power to act, make decisions or allocate resources on your behalf.”  But they use delegation as an escape tool rather than an important weapon in getting things done.

Not being a manager is a better choice than being a poor manager. It’s a blessing, in fact… for the people, for the clients and for the businesses. Think and take corrective actions about it if you find any of the acts in your management repertoire.

3 Critical Questions For The Managers:

1. Do you perform – knowing or unknowingly – any of the acts mentioned above?
2. Even to a minor degree?
3. Do you think you need to change it in order to be an effective manager?

See Also:

1. Twelve Traits of Dependable Project Managers
2. My Happy Clients 12
3. Four Causes Of Poor Performance (And What You Can Do About Some Of Those)
4. 10 Peaks For Creating Performance Focused Teams
5. The Guaranteed Way To Best Manage A Project

1. Twelve Traits of Dependable Project Managers
2. My Happy Clients 12
3. Four Causes Of Poor Performance (And What You Can Do About Some Of Those)
4. 10 Peaks For Creating Performance Focused Teams
5. The Guaranteed Way To Best Manage A Project

Tanmay has written an interesting post at QAspire blog today called, “Focus on Relationships and Tale of Two Leaders”.

Here’s its quick summary followed by some of my thoughts on the same.

Story of Peter
In his quest to achieve his sales targets, Peter was overly focused on “closing the sale“. When in front of a customer, he often focused on what the “next steps” would be. He sold from the mindset of “What all can be sold to this customer out of all my services?” Read more here.

Story of Jack
Jack, on the other hand, believed in “building a relationship”. When a sale was closed, he considered it as a beginning of a relationship. When in front of a customer, he mostly focused on “understanding/listening” what customer had to say. Read more here.

Unfortunately in today’s so called fast paced environments; most sales-persons walk the Peter way.

Because their incentives – mostly which are a big part of their CTC – are proportionately associated with their short term performances, they obviously choose to take the most traveled road.

Everyone wants to be rich. Or at least better than what his neighbor is doing. That’s also in the short time. Well, not everyone but most of us.

While Jack’s mindset is a surefire way to thrive over the long run, most of us do not want to sacrifice the short term benefits, especially when others are getting it just by doing the Peter thing.

Here are three things that any of the potential Jacks can do:

1. Focus on big picture. Take the holistic view. Views are totally different when things are seen from 500 ft. or 5000 ft. Perspective matters.
2. Establish the best relationship with the self. This is the most important step. The better one is satisfied with the self, the more he’d be able to offer the same to others.
3. Evaluate the organization’s value system. Read and understand organization’s vision, mission and value systems carefully. Answer the questions like
   1. What is #1 objective of the organization being in existence?
   2. Is it customer-service-excellence, short-term profit?
   3. What is precisely expected from your job role? Over the short term as well as long term.

Keeping these three points in mind, one can take corrective actions if necessary.

Many a times, those corrective actions lead to change in the Key Result Areas of a person or a Job-change and either is fine as far as it offers win-win opportunities.

See Also:

1. Twelve Traits of Dependable Project Managers
2. Mini Saga – Focus
3. 7 Acts of Poor Managers Who Gift Cancer To Their People, Their Clients and Their Businesses
4. How Team Relationships Are Affecting Your Ongoing Projects?
5. Disaster-Prone Business Organizations 30

1. Twelve Traits of Dependable Project Managers
2. Mini Saga – Focus
3. 7 Acts of Poor Managers Who Gift Cancer To Their People, Their Clients and Their Businesses
4. How Team Relationships Are Affecting Your Ongoing Projects?
5. Disaster-Prone Business Organizations 30

1. Turn it off, whenever you can.
2. Never ‘while driving’.
3. Distracts you often from doing whatever you’re doing.
4. Radiations – bad for health; Vibrations – bad for ear drums; Camera – security threat.
5. Compute ‘total cell-phone usage time’ vs. ‘doing something which takes you near to your goals’. Most likely, get balled over.
6. Causes male infertility – here’s how.
7. OK for emergencies but for perceived pleasures?

(Inspired cousin from Nicholas Bate’s TV7)

See Also:

1. Excellence 21
2. When You Feel Good About Life 7
3. Neuro-linguistic Way of Presenting The Thoughts

1. Excellence 21
2. When You Feel Good About Life 7
3. Neuro-linguistic Way of Presenting The Thoughts