Bag full of chocolates

I was very upset a few weeks ago. I received a not so nice anonymous note in response to one of my blogs! Try as I may my mind kept straying back to this…i shared this with my friends they asked me to look at the tons of great notes i receive and one of them forwarded a very flattering note they had received when they forwarded my blog!

I moved on but this thought that one stray negative comment could upset me kept haunting me. I wanted to understand this phenomenon better- one where we overlook all the good and focus on that one negative aspect. I didn’t let go as i wanted to learn my lesson and didn’t want to fall prey to this again!

Around this time stuck in an absurdly long wait, due to delays and missed flights, i finished all my mails, made all the calls, and was really at my wit’s end! Just then i remembered i had my notes of conversations(work, external meetings and personal) with various folks over the last few months. I had started this a few months ago as i realized i could recollect only parts of the conversation, the ones that made an impact or presented well or contemporary.

I pulled out the notes, reading through was amazed at the variety of people, my bad writing and the number of people.

Maybe influenced by the mood I was in , i started classifying the comments positive and negative to be surprised – the negative things people spoke about far outnumbered the positive – 65% to 35% . Quite surprised, sliced it by personal and professional – the results were still the same except that personal was around 10% lesser than professional in negative outlook.

Intrigued and a tad disturbed by this finding i dug deeper – was there a difference in age group, degree of separation, place of meeting?.I stumbled upon an interesting statistic – those you met in seminars, networking events tended to be a lot more positive.

I classify negative comments broadly as statements such as difficult people to work with, things not working, disappointments, bad relationships, traffic,the weather etc…

I was intrigued, but soon caught the long awaited flight and got home,but the weekend had more in store.

The truth,hit home hard when i spoke with an old neighbor. They were married decades, raised three children and now retired rather comfortably. i slowly prodded her to talk of her life and her relationship, how is it living with the same person for 45 years! – the conversation started well… but what i remembered was her slowly complaining about how he has changed, should really watch his drinking, she wished at least now he paid more attention to her and not his library, she wasn’t getting enough time with her grandchildren and woes with her daughter in law!

Walking out just when I was saying gotcha see my data is right, my friend who was with me pointed out that we may have consciously only looked for the negative. We had our negative filter “on” because we wanted to prove our hypothesis right. He said why don’t we forget all the negatives and only focus on the positives. Come to think of it, there were a few… their first overseas trip, how wisely her husband had planned for their retirement and now it seemed she looked at his library as a delightful idiosyncrasy than a complaint! Wow… does this mean all my number crunching was a waste as i took those notes down with my filter “on”!

To help me solve this dilemma, the same wise friend suggested an experiment. Let us offer a bag of chocolates to a few children and ask them how they liked it. Surprise! Surprise- all of them spoke about the one bitter chocolate we had put in the bag! forgetting all those other lovely sweet melting ones!

This really set me thinking “do we really count our blessings?” or “do we just focus on that ONE negative? are we naturally predisposed that way? Or it is the environment, situations and/or upbringing that influences us and makes it a part of our personality?!

I don’t know the cause but my quack experimentation seems to show so. We don’t count our blessings! we only count and brood over what didn’t happen, could have happened, didn’t happen right – all the bitter chocolates. The many sweet ones are forgotten!

So, can we change the filter? I am going to try…

I have made a list of all things i am grateful for and stuck it in my home desk
I have made a get bugged by that one negative comment but balance it with those positive comments

Now i could become an exuberant, optimistic fool…i am ok to be that and not a pessimistic, cranky, difficult to please downer!

I should have seen this when i posted the “Happy blog on a noisy diwali”…. in November. It took a long travel schedule and a bag full of chocolates to remind me!

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But I will know!

As we roll from one scam to another in India – you hear debates of value systems, declining ethics and so on… . For some reason the latest expose of even stalwarts of the media being implicated was the last nail in the proverbial coffin. I stopped reading the newspaper, watching the news and stopped inviting or socializing with friends and colleagues who pontificated over the current state… As I was withdrawing into my shell, unbeknownst to me…I had a reverse drama playing out in my own life! Let me play that for you in this post.

It was late at night, and I was surprised to see my son still awake when I got home. As soon as I walked in the door, he pounced on me, animatedly sharing his class project which needed him to list favourite things of his best friends, parents etc. After confirming mine, he wanted to call a friend to find out what his likes and dislikes were! Tired, I tried reasoning with him, but he was worried of not finishing his homework, finally out of sheer frustration, I said “why don’t you just make it up… your teacher doesn’t know your friend anyways”. Pat came the answer “ …but I will know that I made it up!”

Wow! I wasn’t going to negotiate or debate that… that was a clear message. Sagely at 6!

I had forgotten about this after twittering @agastyasays until last week, when I saw an email from Janaki Rajagopalan (a colleague from the New York office). Apparently, Dileep Thiagarajan (another colleague who works in our America operations) wanted to return a princely sum of US$ 269/- to the company. Huh? Say it again! Reading further, I learnt that the Movers had refunded this amount, as they found they had overbilled him. And since he had already claimed the amount in full from MphasiS, he wanted to return it!

Two things struck me immediately… Dileep could have easily pocketed this amount, which is not a small sum and nobody would have ever known! Moreover, the Movers could have easily kept quiet… the transaction was closed.. There was no fear of discovery. Yet they both chose to do the right thing and reimbursed the amount!

Is this what my 6 year old meant by “I will know that I made it up”?

In this context, I recall what one of our past CEO’s had said, when we were in the midst of our Values roll out a few years ago ….”true character is what you do when no one is watching you”.

Is this the inner compass that steers us? And why do we have such trouble taking direction from it? Who is the real us behind the mask. How do we behave when under pressure, how do we behave when we know no one is watching us…

Our behaviours are driven by i) Will I get caught? ii) What are the consequences or iii) It is not right, I know it and therefore I wont?

1 and 2 have their limitations… 3 is timeless, a guarantee that we will never have to hang our head in shame! What is your choice? And who is the person you’re hiding behind your mask? Will you recognise yourself without the mask say if you met in a crowded elevator or in a traffic snarl? Or when you know nobody will find out!

Have fun un masking – whatever you find.. don’t be alarmed – discovery is the beginning of change! And build a strong internal compass that will stand you in good through good and bad times! Let me warn you, it is tough… i believe we naturally are inclined to bad and self destructive behaviour… because that is easy .

If you get time read one of my early blogs “Silly ways to lose a job”… it will reinforce your external compass! Internal compass, you have to help yourself.

Good luck! And do leave your comments

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i failed and i am proud

Lately i have been recieving threatening calls from my Directs, saying that they won’t be able to deliver their commitments if I don’t approve their candidates. One even threatened to go on a dharna (strike) ! Yeah, I am kidding…. Vijaybharath complained that I had lost my sense of humour, so I am trying to rediscover it in everyday interactions !

What is the issue (no, not my humour!) with approving potential hires? I have met, met and met candidates but just don’t seem to be meeting the right ones! No I am not doing what delivery does to HR… I am being genuine (read into that what you will :)) All I want is someone who has failed 🙂

Unfortunately, nobody seems to have failed at all in their professional life! A favourite question of mine is “… so, talk to me about a failure you experienced in your professional life?”. Words, that seemed to flow endlessly for other questions, suddenly cease like water in the taps in Chennai.. ok, Bangalore too! It’s almost like they don’t understand failure. Just to be sure they understood me, I ask again.. “how about a time things didn’t go well?” But that doesn’t help either, cause there are still no signs of the verbal deluge. Like they say in Hindi this results in Bolti Bandh (literal translation – talk stop)

After I got through a few interviews and realized that most of them were struggling, I called one of my punching bags and whined about how I am not getting the right answers. I got what I deserved “Elango, I am surprised that as an HR guy you don’t understand this – most of us look at failures as an ugly scar! We go through it, blame it on bad karma, bury it deep inside and don’t want to ever talk about it. We are scared and even embarrassed of them!”

Oops he is right! Failures are looked upon as bad happenings, to be forgotten in a hurry, buried quickly and moved on.

If so, why make someone uncomfortable by asking this question in an interview? To me, this is an indicator of two things, one – the depth of their experience and two – their ability to learn from failures. I look at failures differently – as a badge of honour. Little like a sign that says, been there- failed at it-and know what never to do again. My turning point was when one of my Managers sent me a resume with note reading .. “great profile, check her out. She is a failed-entrepreneur- wanting –to-get-back”. What started as a “have you lost it” type of discussion (politely of course!) quickly turned into a slow nodding and wondering “why didn’t I think of it that way”

The lesson is that life throws successes and failures at us. I am yet to meet someone who has had only one of it thrown at them. Successes are heady and have their own traps, (remember the Ganesh Ayyar blog on Success Traps ?) while failures, on the other hand, are personally painful and we want to get them out of our conscious memory quickly. But they need not be that way. Failures are a painful reminder of our capabilities, our knowledge and our weaknesses and it would do us well to treat them as sign posts -read the signs well, reorient ourselves and move on. Not hiding them, but wearing them as our proud scars. I remember reading a resume in which the profile read ‘ battle scarred veteran’…I hired her!

One of my colleagues, whom I was discussing this idea with, actually said that we should ‘relish’ failure, ‘savour’ it, stay in it and allow it leave its impact rather than run away, leaving behind the lessons. Profound, a little hedonistic maybe, but maybe there is truth in it.

My son refuses to run a race – reason being, he hates to lose and he knows he is not as physically agile as his friends. But he is ever ready to challenge anyone to a word game or a reading session. Many of us are like this – we want to continue to play the games we are good at, fearing that playing another game means coming second. Many very-senior folks are reluctant to try anything new because they are so scared of failure!

How will you know the joy of a meal if you have never felt hunger? How will you appreciate beauty if you have never seen squalor? And how will you appreciate success if you have never tasted failure?

BTW, if you think the humour is forced and out of place, blame Vijay Bharath for his comment on WordPress. As for me, I take feedback seriously! Ha ha…

There are many stories and quotes on failures here is a quote from Robert Kennedy!

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly.”

Good luck and as always leave your comments, send your private notes and talk to me when you meet me… I love it!

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After effects of Mangalore…. are you listening?

I wake up this morning to a text message from a new friend who closely follows my blog on wordpress. ‘..do you think the pilot of the ill-fated Mangalore flight fell in the success trap ganesh wrote in his blog last week?” provocative morning text, for somebody who is still reeling from a mix of relief, sorrow and fear. As a frequent lander(sic) in the Mangalore airport, ever since Ganesh asked me to manage the growth of Mangalore, I was shocked to receive Vidyaranya’s text on Saturday morning (there is something about Saturday mornings! – I dread to receive MGs calls on Saturday, it is always about somebody somewhere not doing well he wants to tell me! ), relieved to hear when Murali our CRO confirmed no Mphasian or their extended families except Vidyaranya who lost his family friends entire family of parents and daughter in the crash(another early morning text)! Fear about how will people react to this for Mangalore..personal impact is never faraway, fear as if I will ever be able to allow my family to fly on their own! My spouse of course in her inimitable style said.. don’t cage us with your love, it can happen while stepping off the sidewalk! You can’t cheat fate!
Back to my friends text.. maybe yes, maybe no.. he has flown so many thousand hours, landed 19 times in the same airport, worked in India.. we will never know, the dead keep their secrets.. did he let an inexperienced underling land.. is this a lesson on delegation.. i hate dissecting tragic events and doing management gyan, i am already numbed by the incessant news anchors spouting gyan! This event triggered of a different thought! If I was on the flight and were to go up on flames what would people say.. what would have been my last thoughts!
Would family and friends say, ah he owned the best car in town.. or will they cry more because i wore the best suits in town… will they exult because i worked 18 hours a day or 6 hours a day, will i die a different death because i bought the LED tv my neighbour covets, or win the assignment over 20 other people! Strange thoughts.. morbid connections to mundane events. But it set me thinking.. or writing.. what is my legacy.. if I was on that plane what will people say.. or what wont they say.. I don’t know.. worse what if close family , friends or colleagues had been on the illfated flight, what would i go through, remember the missed good byes, never expressed love, sorries never said but wished we had! Small grudges never forgotten now seem god I wish i had let go. You never know and I don’t want to think any further, but it did painfully make me aware of what my priorities in life are.. and what mattered most!
What didn’t matter is those small resentments and labels.. what mattered is never to miss a chance to settle a dispute, smile, accept a sorry, make the call and say i love you, forget the fight and most importantly let go off all the baggage we accumulate over the years!
I know I know what you are thinking .. memories are short, this tragic event too will fade and will revert to our old ways.. this is the truth but hey you would have at least let go off a lot of baggage, and who knows some of these habits may stick. A friend of mine, recently shared with a few of us that the reason he is always quick to say when he likes somebody, quick to praise and short on anger.. is a result of losing his father, early in life never having had the courage or time to say how much he loved him, or thanked him for being there.. he realised it only when it was too late. Now that he knows he is not going let off that chance every time it presents itself.. see it does make a lasting effect on some people.. hopefully many of us will remember after reading this blog. I am signing off now to make a few calls, bring a few smiles and shake off my baggage.. what about you?

And please remember the families and friends of the departed in your prayers tonight to give them the strength to go through this terrible loss.

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Galileo the pragmatist

If I told you that the moon was not a perfect sphere, but pocked with mountains and valleys like the earth. And that No longer could it be said that heavenly bodies revolve exclusively around the earth- you would not be amazed or perplexed, as these are normal, accepted ,now proven concepts . But that was not how these thoughts were perceived and received by the Cardinals in the 16th century when Galileo Galeli documented the same . Instead , the reactions ranged to the extent of certain clergy refusing to look through Galileo’s telescope, because they thought it bewitched!!!

This blog is not about revelations it is about how to make things happen, how the focus should be on the idea and not YOU.. the flexibility and ability to work the system. Galileo and what he did is a powerful historical perspective for us. A case study to use modern jargon to demonstrate a powerful strategy for change management! Unconventional but now new.

The wisdom of Galileo is most marked in his recanting (I know this is not a commonly used word, so here is the meaning – to make a formal retraction of or a previously held belief or position). He was accused of heresy by the Inquisition and was being arraigned for his advocacy of the Sun as being at the centre of the Solar System.

The church and the Pope held that the Earth was at the centre of the system of planets and everything moved around the earth. To say otherwise was heresy! Such a heresy was a grievous offence in those old harsh times and hence the Cardinals of the Inquisition arrested Galileo and asked him to revise his position publicly. They threatened him with some highly refined tortures and showed him the room where the instruments of torture were held.

It is very instructive to understand what Galileo went through and how he worked out a solution that ultimately benefited him and benefited Science. Wisdom he decided was to recant and then to secretly pass on his studies and discoveries to a realm beyond the reach of the Cardinals of the Inquisition, Pragmatism he concluded was more important than heroics and he decided to recant in public and plead forgiveness for his heresies.

In this manner, he was not exactly a great hero and futile heroics may not have earned him a place among the greats in history. He must have remembered Bruno being burned at the stakes. He was weak and quivered at the thought of being tortured. His studies would be lost to posterity and it may be a few decades if not centuries before they were discovered by some future wise man.

We too often come across such situations in our working life and have a choice between rigidly holding on to a position that may seem very correct and righteous but does not in the long run serve the larger purpose. That is where the wisdom of Galileo must be applied. Even today think back how many times you have had a great idea and the system has pushed back or smothered it. Could you have applied Galileo’s strategy?

Obviously yes.. but the issue is, it neither appealing nor popular. We are brought up on old and new popular icons of knights in shining armour that took the establishment and brought it down! And the most difficult, the ‘I”, the ego has to recede and you have to focus on the idea, the change .. then you will do anything to make it happen!

I only hope you will put all your energy around ideas and change that brings about collective good! And guess what this is not about you, it may not even be attributed to you immediately – it is the art of making the new the old…

Remember the changes or ideas may not change the world, it can be for simple personal and professional success and Pragmatism works best when faced with powerful hierarchies, steeped tradition and powerful personalities and when your change/idea or world view challenges established world views.. Don’t worry about winning the battles but focus on winning the war, drop the focus on YOU and focus on the change! And hey don’t think short term.. remember patience pays.

I know I leave this deliberately with more questions than answers.. take a step, think about this, read a little more on Galileo, …history always has powerful lessons for those of us willing to look at it… a good start is Guha’s India after Gandhi, 15 – 17th Century Europe and the new world stories!

Final word don’t blame the system.. instead be the change… be Galileo 

Good luck have fun challenging status quo and success in making them stick, to all of you Galileos!

Credits-BTW this blog reads very well because it was co –authored by a friend, Chandrasekhar Sastry (Sastry Uncle) whom i call a friend but is more a mentor and guide. Uncle has written the book, “Non Resident Indian” and many articles and columns in his own inimitable style. He has also won many prizes for fiction writing. Hopefully I will be able to convince him to write some more.

Also, users of wordpress will see a new addition – “booky corner” – a review of interesting books for all the book lovers out there. Currently up there is a book review by Merin Jose on Predictably Irrational – extremely well written..Happy Reading!!

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Life is Unfair

Hearing this from a 6 year.. particularly when it is from yours.. is heart breaking and makes you wish just that once you can turn time and change the way events shaped up. This is my son reacting to the IPL finals last night.. why did a team that beat nearly every team every where, was points ahead on the league table lost to a team which was struggling to get to the semifinals and actually had to win their last league match to get to the semifinals. Life is unfair man! Worse he was questioning all the old-fashioned values of hard work, consistency and luck favors the ones who prepare!.. tough one. i am sure the experts and commentators will analyse this to death and churn out gyan on how the winning team came together! As a unit at the right time, peaked, smart captainship.. da da .. they are paid to churn words and I suspect by the number they churn 
But how do i explain this to a six-year-old and not have him walk away with the wrong lessons. i did what is best, distracted him, got him to bed.. but I couldn’t be distracted or go to bed. This kept playing back in my mind. Many instances in my own professional and personal life of that one exam i didn’t do well, despite topping the class through out, the one debate i came a cropper despite being the favourite in the rehearsals!, working my posterior off through the year and blundering in that 10 minute crucial presentation to the board.. the list is endless.. i am sure many such incidents are playing in your mind as you read this.
But such is life.. call it unfair, fair whatever.. it is that one crucial meeting, that crucial presentation, crunch time presentation.. preparing for hours for that 60 second meeting with CEO and saying all the wrong things. It is a tough one but we all need to be ready for that one moment, that one incident, that one interaction – our finals.. that we need to be ready for. There are multiple ways in which we can prepare for our finals everyday
there is no substitute for hard work and preparation, presentation – you can’t say it one page, one minute, one slide don’t bother.. learn to encapsulate everything into the three.. that’s it. This is the most crucial skill.. finally remember your on stage every time.. unlike the ipl we don’t our finals. Sometimes you do like a client presentation, a board meeting, a ceo meeting.. go ready, talk to people, be in their path of relevance.. and most of all get your elevator pitch ready!
Life is unfair.. stop cribbing about it and start preparing.. and hey unlike in sports life does give you many chances.. a miss is not the end of the road.. there is another road, another journey and another final! Now let me get to a EC meeting and also figure out how to get my dear son to understand why life is unfair.. any ideas please drop your comments as always

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Silly ways to lose a job..

A few weeks ago, Suraksha called me on my extension to say that a gent has been on the phone from the morning, insisting that he talk with me.  On asking for details, her response “I am really sorry, he is refusing to give any details, just keeps saying this is personal, this is urgent, I need to talk to Elango, and he really sounds desperate” .  She sounded like she was going to cry herself. So I took the call  and what i heard is the reason for this blog.

This gent is an ex employee, left the company a few months ago and struggling to find another job. He was in tears, a grown up man, with a family and very upset. What happened? He lost his job with us a few months because he was caught at work under the influence of alcohol.  He admitted he made a mistake, was really sorry, can i please help reinstate him!  I promise you I will never do this again.. please please.. This is a tough one, you want to help but you can’t, these decisions are irrevocable!  It took me a while to shake this incident off.  Then another happened,  a new graduate was apprehended surfing inappropriate sites and obviously had to go! This person accepted, understood he made a mistake and took the disciplinary action on their chin.. and moved on. However this person made a comment that stayed..

 “i wish I knew, I would have never done this”.    That is when i started writing this.   I have tried to dredge every silly action that employees in different companies I have worked in have done to get themselves out of a job.  I have had Gokul, Claudine and Priya Manjooran and many others chip with their experiences.

Forged petrol bills or medical bills! This tops the list, employees submitting bills to claim tax deduction.  I have seen employees submit petrol vouchers they have printed, bills for two tank fills the same day, fake medical bills, facial bill passed as physiotherapy bills… The logic is always this money is anyway mine! But hey the tax exemption is for genuine expenses not for making it up and forging, faking, misrepresenting are all integrity violations.  

False expense claims – team lunches being claimed as client entertainment! Or sometimes taking out family and friends and submitting the bill for reimbursement.

Accessing/viewing inappropriate (read X rated) sites, using company desktops and laptops in office from or on office networks! Recently we had one person who had more than 10 Gig of objectionable videos and pictures stored in their laptop. Some smart Alec, used their data cards, to override network controls, little realizing that we all work out of cubicles and glass offices and electronic footprints are easily traceable!

Sharing passwords and log in ids, whatever the reason. The person who shares, who uses and the person who approves all stand to face the music. Sharing company confidential information, forwarding internal mails to external parties! , posting company, employee information on blogs, external media.

Forwarding inappropriate material on email to group ids or text messages! Seems harmless but dangerous when it lands in an inbox you didn’t want to!

Proxy attendance – getting somebody else to enter your attendance on LAAS(our online attendance system). Recent case a manager found requesting his team member to enter proxy – we had to let go the manager and the employee for complicity. Very sad! I wish the team member had used the open door policy or whistleblower policy to report this coercion. Many a time they had leaves that lapsed and marking a day off would have hardly made an impact.

Like the story in my introduction, getting to work under the influence of alcohol. It always starts as a harmless; let me go with my friends on the way to office, one sip, and another and the inevitable.  There are of course serious offenders like a manager who took his team out for dinner, had a few drinks got back to work, doing reviews, smelling like cotton soaked in spirit!  I am given to understand this same manager was involved in terminating a junior employee a year ago for the same reason! If that is not daft what is!

While on alcohol, I have seen some curious cases of harmless, quiet persons at work, transform to garrulous, aggressive, brash people under the influence of alcohol in office parties. It didn’t lose them a job but did tarnish some reputations built over years of hard work.

One common theme among all the above are, they are all avoidable, none of them have a material impact.. will not make us millionaires or give us any undue advantage, but  instead leave us  irrevocable tragic consequences, after effects of which may linger a working life time.

The reason I write all of this to insure each of us are aware of such situations, avoid them in our personal conduct and take time to educate our teams and colleagues. Let us avoid what happened to the gent and the young person in this blog.   

A few suggestions when in doubt,  go to the intranet check the code of business conduct, or ask your manager. Still in doubt don’t do it , or write to ethics email id or call the ethics helpline…they will guide you. Finally remember a few rupees, dollars, pounds, yen, euro or renminbi, an extra day leave, a night out in the bar with friends, a few thrills surfing sites on the internet is not worth the loss of a job, reputation and worst of all letting your family down.

The annual code of business conduct refresh is a great way to enhance your awareness! This is around the corner – you should hear from Sivaram and Shalu around the third week, take quality time to complete this certification. It is well worth the time spent.

Remember my blog on positivity and don’t read  too much between the lines, this is a genuine attempt at increasing awareness, influencing a lever within my control,  with the hope that we all will read, internalize and carry out in our professional lives.

 It is a tough world but that is the price we pay to work in a civil place where integrity is a given, respect is the hall-mark and prudence and propriety in behaviour is a part of our DNA.  Even if we save one person from committing any of the silly mistakes above – this blog is worth the effort

Good luck, as always leave your comments, give your thoughts, thank me, curse me.. but interact J

Cheers

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