Saturday, May 24, 2014

Satraps gain, organisation loses!



The power of mediocrity is much more than the power of eccentricity, paranoia and maniacal focus!
One stat says, 70% of US CEOs are alpha male and that defines that the country has immense belief in experiment and belief in being better than one can imagine. That means the trust of experiment is given in the hands of people who drive the change! Change that affects everyone around them and that is the catch. When change means doing things differently than we did yesterday, it is shock treatment and people are not ready for changing stakes that makes their position vulnerable. Larger mass is in favor of maintaining the status quo. Change is a fearful thought, nightmare! Keep the mediocrity approach alive, keep change makers and catalysts at bay, frustrate them and then your world is impregnable as birds of change migrate to a patch ready and welcoming change for a better tomorrow. What if the top boss is insecure and protects mediocrity? You develop relationships of personal comfort, no-shake, no-intervention, compartments within compartments! Life is good! People tend to focus on their personal territory and personal fiefdom and that means a pseudo one-org thinking! Organisation is private and fragmented, people run their own enterprise to protect their identity and maintain their exclusivity by holding and hiding the skills and knowledge that organisation spent huge money building for them, thinking it will be organisations's IP. Unfortunately these fiefs become closed counters and do not allow others to learn and challenge them. We need to think beyond billing a client and keeping the cash-flow healthy through a few people who actually become satraps and inhibit knowledge flow to organisation. Satraps benefit, organisation loses! Building SMEs is a great concept but building an SME who is a knowledge and power hoarder is a threat. Watch for flow of knowledge and speed and integrity into the process of making a skill transfer! Not any manager or any director will make a healthy workplace that cares about building organisational skills. All great opportunities remain with few people and they keep getting attention and huge salary jumps and promotions. Others, who are 10 times smarter, have great integral and communal values, work under these hoarders who frustrate them and keep them below the glass ceiling all the time. Organisation loses satraps gain!

Things can change only when the top leadership is not insecure and battles for new tomorrow!

Sunday, May 11, 2014

The No Asshole Rule


A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF-“The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't” is a book by Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton, based on a popular essay he wrote for the Harvard Business Review. It sold over 115,000 copies and won the Quill Award for best business book in 2007
Bob Sutton's List of The Dirty Dozen Common Everyday Actions That A**holes Use

1. Personal insults
2. Invading one's personal territory
3. Uninvited personal contact
4. Threats and intimidation, both verbal and non-verbal
5. Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems
6. Withering email flames
7. Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
8. Public shaming or status degradation rituals
9. Rude interruptions
10. Two-faced attacks
11. Dirty looks
12. Treating people as if they are invisible

Behavior of an Asshole by Bob Sutton.
As shall be understood or as Bob Sutton understood it
Risk of misunderstanding- Mrinal's take NOT favoring an Asshole
1. Personal insults
Talk about issues and results, expectations and accountabilities; keep facts away from personalities, do not make personal remarks and pass judgments, chronic incompetencies can be dealt separately than giving feedback or transactional talks
One needs a pair of experienced eyes and right brain thinking before we can anyone as asshole. The bully may not be an asshole when he is dealing with an asshole. A normal guy in utter frustration may sound like a bully and an asshole. Look for the context and little background. Personal insults are a certain no-no, whoever it is. Be careful, when labeling someone an asshole!
2. Invading one's personal territory
This robbing someone's wealth and pride and modesty. This is criminal beyond being an uncivilized workplace behavior
Asking someone for a long pending report when one struggles to find where it is, in this folder or that folder, this computer or that computer, this application or that application or whether it was ever built? Frustrates a manager or a leader and if in that case, that leader asks for login credentials and wants to go and check himself rather than wasting time with a mental vagabond, think who is an asshole?
3. Uninvited personal contact
This is same as above
Sometimes new leaders contact people out of surprise to shake them out of their orgasmic inertia, out of their pontiff positioning and being dukes or dutches. Differentiate between a bully and a self-proclaimed and sedated and bottom heavy slow moving ship. Organisations have many who do not like to be contacted and do not come to meetings where they can get exposed.
4. Threats and intimidation, both verbal and non-verbal
This is serious and if it happens for reasons which are personal to the individual who is threatening, it must be dealt with severity
There is subtle difference between strong feedback and intimidation. One can feel intimidated after a strong feedback. Whose problem is this? Does a manager or leader know what shall be all implications and outcomes of a straight talk on a lousy fellow? Should a leader worry about what interpretations will someone have after a straight talk with a leader/manager? Differentiate and look at context in totality. Assumptions are too easy to make. Moreover assumptions many a times are mother of all fuck-ups! Use right brain thinking before being the super judge! We do not live in a utopian world. Had this been the case, we would have laid-off tons of people, may not have played all games to be the market leader, conspire against fair competitors to lose margins and be in business! Remove employee benefits to cut costs. Easy to tell an individual an asshole and get rid of him. Asshole is a culture issue that many a times emanates from the way company's think, behave and operate. Operate internally means, here who? Fire who? Promote who?
5. Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems
This is bad and there shall not be devaluation for dealing with any crisis or performance, good or bad
People may take an emotional statement about issues and not necessarily targeted at any individual but those involved may take it personally disparaging.
6. Withering email flames
This is not expected beyond a point, email activism is not a solution, and trial by email did not help anyone ever. Passive medium like this does not work on sensitive issues. Unfortunately emails are considered as evidence as euphemistically said.
Use personal meetings and solve issue with right set of stakeholders engaged. ‘A’ player sometime lose track here.
7. Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
This is against law of humanity and humanism! People can survive and do well without a manager or employer or state or country. They work for you because they need to work and chose to work for you as a manager/employer.
Do not focus on who is telling, focus on what has been told and if something is told by top level, it means more than it meant till that time. Take it with a pinch of salt or cry foul.
8. Public shaming or status degradation rituals
Same as above. As told praise in public, reprimand in private
Same as above, We need to respect people for they are people. Whether they are asshole or not is a matter of circumstance!
9. Rude interruptions
This is wrong and it happens more with Alpha males as 70% of US CEOs are Alpha males. Need to curb this habit as far as possible. This is same as above 2 pointers.
Same as above, We need to respect people for they are people. Whether they are asshole or not is a matter of circumstance!
10. Two-faced attacks
This is almost a design for killing and burying someone to ignominy. Deplorable.
Not acceptable as there are other ways to manage the most pathetic people.
11. Dirty looks
This is worse than apartheid. Deplorable
How much dirty you talk, you should not look dirty. Not acceptable as there are other ways to manage the most pathetic people.
12. Treating people as if they are invisible
This is like lost all hope and respect for people. Either have them with you or not. Suffocating and insulting every day is no help to anyone.
Sometime you may ignore people as you have chosen to focus on work as they are quite in a mess and people need to know unless work is in order, we are not socializing!



Friday, May 9, 2014

Hold your emotions: Use social intelligence!

I read many posts on LinkedIn and what I find is the same stuff that I see in self-help management, personal effectiveness books. Experienced folks sound like copying from ubiquitous and rusted text books. Why don't they share real experiences? The case studies of their companies? Their signature programs and stories of business transformations? Inspiring stories of creating a world class team, product, company?

Let's be bold guys! Let's start realizing that either we are afraid being honest or we are so ordinary.

In a moment of rage, I uttered this, almost half-asleep...And I feel so good now..

Corporate is a dangerous place for you to display your intelligence, insights, brilliance with number, problem solving, decision making, etc. While these are essential selection factors at hiring time, they become gallows for you when you start applying them at work. Why? Because your brilliance irritates your managers, seniors, peers, who out of their glorious years laden with issues, never ever could have such insights. You are screwed. Act dumb, act foolish, sound slow and average! You will grow, you will not appear aggressive, intimidating and almost prepared for the 'coup'. No one likes a smart guy!

Do not justify your salary everyday. It makes lot of A**h**es around you uneasy and they start scheming against you.

Being passionate at work is dangerous. Passionate folks cannot fake, will be transparent and honest! Will expect others to appreciate these values, but that does not happen at workplace most often as workplace is full of insecure bosses who have stopped adding value. They feel threatened by smart thoughts and actions.Leave them in their slumber till they perish!

Be smart when you are in a great company that promotes and rewards smartness!

Peter principle applies to most senior jobs. 

Time to stop Employee Farming!

  #Twitter  handle in Nov 2022 tweeted: "bye literally everyone"! Elon's tweet confirmed that this action was needed as  #twit...