Employees and cars

I have often thought about myself with the analogy of a car - calling myself 'high maintenance'. Actually this analogy is not very off-track. Fits rather well with most people and bosses. Just like certain cars go with certain personalities, so also the pairing of bosses and their reports. And just like the family has some say in the car you take in, so also the team. And its not just the boss and the team that help decide what kind of employee should be inducted, it also depends on the nature of the job and the company culture.

Let me try to enumerate the possible car type and their personality counterparts to see if this analogy flies ..

1) The vintage collection : Antique value, unique personality, very high maintenance, feels good but limited utility. OK to inherit - but not to buy
- employees who TALK about values and a lot of 'gyan' and how things should be etc. etc. Feels good to have, probably need a few in the team to train others?? but at the end of the day, the value far outweighs utility. The are prohibitively expensive, slow, crib a lot but well known personalities - looked up on from the outside

2) The family SUV : Adaptable - can fit into many different roles and functions, very high utility, some maintenance, generic personality
- the dependable employee who isn't the star but you go to for all those odd jobs that other are either not capable of or not willing to do, not too demanding,

3) The sleek sports car : your prized possession, very very high maintenance, to be used carefully, but what the speed, drive and acceleration is unmatched, a real treat, expensive and rare. Best to use for special occasion lest you run it down
- the star employee, highly specialized, difficult to manage but what he brings to the table is both rare and valuable

4) The economy small car : you need one to run errands, no maintenance, high few efficiency, no personality
- these are the mediocre employees in the team, you use them to execute tasks, little personality, lots of utility, easy management

5) All terrain vehicle - 4 wheel drive : High fuel consumption, low maintenance, but necessary for bad weather and difficult terrain where none of the other cars can do
- you trouble shooter, you can send to fix any problem

6) The problem car : breaks down all the time, at the wrong time, spend most of the time under servicing in the garage, you'd love to dispose of this but cant. Terribly high maintenance with negative utility.
- the bane of every manager - PIP candidates, either for work or attitude or both


The above five are the most extremely examples, just as there are cars of all shapes, sizes, colors and values, so also people, sometimes a mix of one or more above. The same person behaves differently is different situations just as the car behave differently in different terrains.

I guess it is important for every person to figure out their personality type and see where they fit into the team. If their role and personalities match. For example if I have the personality of a sleek sports car - requiring constant attention and expensive maintenance and yet at the same time I do not bring the cherished value to the team, I am a poor fit. I need to move on to a place where my unique abilities are prized so that the high maintenance can be afforded.

What should a team composition be?
I guess depends on the work, the skills required for the work and company culture and philosophy.
If the work is normal routine job, its best to fill it with small compact car personalities - low maintenance plus easy execution
If the work is rocket science - then ofcourse you need to go for the sports cars, irrespective of the maintenance costs because what you need cannot be filled with anything else.
Service industry would need mostly SUVs where one size fits all - probably augmented by a few 'sport car' specialists.
For most product companies I guess a combination of a one or two sports cars, a couple of SUVs and bulk of small and mid size cars should do the trick.

Where does the manager fit in?
The manager is like the person in charge of the upkeep of the cars. They decide which car goes where - who does what. If they send the sports car to rocky mountains, the car and the journey will both be a disaster. They decide how much investment in terms of servicing to invest, which cars to disinvest. They decide, which fuel to fill in each car, the sports car needs 'premium' the small economy car doesn't. They decide which brand of car to get on board, what are the gaps and what cars to fill them. One wrong decision and ...

Tangible vs Intangible?

Can an person:
- Have a tangible work and office
- Have a tangible decent amount of salary deposited in his account

And still claim to be doing lots of intangible work? Continuously? For long period of time?

I guess this is a tangible benefit of working in a big company!

Wow!

The Beatles Principles...

Interesting read, important read. Makes me feel good that though I am a generalist, I have my uses :)

Business advice from The Beatles
Interesting article from Andrew Sobel about business + strategy with four lessons about teamwork and creativity. Selected quotes below...

“Eight Days a Week” Beatles Principle Number 1: Invest in and build face time between team members long before they are required to appear together.

“Getting Better” Beatles Principle Number 2: Evolve your “songs” and bring the same level of ideas, new perspectives, excitement, and enthusiasm to your hundredth meeting with a client that you brought to the first.

“With a Little Help from My Friends” Beatles Principle Number 3: Help team members become brands-within-a-brand by giving them a song — an idea or proposal — that will help them to shine.

“I Need You” Beatles Principle Number 4: Put exceedingly diverse professionals on the same team, mix specialists with generalists, and foster friendly competition to produce the best ideas.

On this last principle, Sobel writes:
The Beatles showed that differences and friendly competition fuel team creativity. So does a blend of specialist and generalist abilities. McCartney and Lennon were the deep generalists of the band. Each had broad musical and artistic talents — both could play a range of instruments, compose music, and write varied lyrics — and this breadth fueled many of the Beatles’ innovations. George Harrison and Ringo Starr, in contrast, were the branded experts. Harrison played lead guitar and Starr played drums, and they stuck to their knitting. As a result, the lead guitar solos grew ever more inventive, melodic, and moving. Starr developed a highly idiosyncratic and recognizable drumming style.

The art of creating effective teams lies in how you blend together branded experts and deep generalists. Unfortunately, many corporate teams are overloaded with specialists who fail to put their products and services into the broader business context of their customer’s or client’s needs — they save the leg but let the patient die. The harder person to develop is the deep generalist. That takes a mix of careful hiring, creative career management, and broad-based skill development. Sprinkle your teams of branded experts with a few deep generalists, and the result will be powerful.

Hyper vs High Energy

A long time ago, I had an interesting discussion with an interesting person regarding High Energy person vs a Hyper person, he maintained that they are both the same thing while I insisted that there is a difference however subtle.

High Energy Person : This is when someone's mean/median energy levels (any combination of these) are higher than an average person energy level.

Hyper Person : When a person's thresholds are lower and a small event/trigger can put the person at a higher than normal energy levels for that person. Basically a person can move to the next level with minimal stimuli, something which most other people will not be affected by. The higher energy level is not a normal state for the person, it is due to the trigger and therefore metastable. Once the triggers are gone the person returns to the original energy levels.

A person can be neither of these, either of these or both, I am probably both.
There can be many hyper low energy people as also non-hyper (stable) high energy

Patterns : Covering up or Closing your mind?

It sounds weird but I see a pattern in the hear gear and the general 'openness' of the corresponding society:

I do understand that all the head dress had a purpose, protecting from cold or wind, protecting from sand and dust, protecting your position or simply hiding you women with the intention of protecting them. Whatever the reason, it seems to me, as if the more you covered your head, the more you close up your minds!

1) Modern society : No head dress : open to experimenting, new ideas, neither orthodox, nor conservative

2) Ancient society : No head dress : Fast evolving society, the Golden periods of history, fast development, equality and all the good things associated with it, new ideas emerging, creative juices at work in all of art, science and literature

3) The Purdah following societies : Strict head and other dress code for women : Limited progress, primarily by men, none for women. Its like once you cover the head, you also close it

4) Middle Eastern cultures : Strict head and dress code for both men and women : Minimal progress for the whole society, limited evolution and contributions in fields of art, science, literature

5) Orthodox societies in the northern part of India : Purdah for women and pagri etc for men. Very othrodox and conservative, closed to new ideas, stuck in the past, limited progress, limited if any contribution on all fronts

6) European cultures of yore with flowing hats and wigs : Not a strict code but highly popular. More conversation than today, less free flow of ideas, strict ideas about prim and proper, expectations, some development but not as fast as now when these things look ridiculous. Who follow it still (the royalty) have still orthodox and less open to new ideas

What role are you playing today?

There was a time I couldn't think of any topics to write about - now there are so many and yet no time to pen my thoughts.

A while ago I was thinking of all the possible roles a person plays and how effortless (not always though) a person moves from one stage to the other.

Its been a remarkable day of sorts, so what roles did I play today?

- A mother both critical and nurturing
- A wife, both nagging and supportive
- A child, an adult
- A daughter-in-law (of the best kind I think :) )
- A cook
- A story teller
- A manager - instructing a problem employee, supporting a potential star, reassuring the frayed nerves of others
- A problem employee ;)
- A human being - a good one at that
- A responsible citizen
- A writer - as I do this
- A patient ear to all the concerns, stories, ideas
- A soothing mouth to calm the fears of a concerned parent
- A facilitator for laisoning between different team
- A transporter of ideas from the team to the concerned network
- A network!
- A daughter
- A sister
- A friend
- A resource
- An object of hate and ridicule (yes, unfortunately even that!)
- A receiver of accolades - thankfully this too :)
- A linker of different networks
- A broadcaster of all my info
- A parasite thriving on speculation
- A miss-fix-it, go-getter
- A miss miss-fit
- An ideal - I think I sensed that in one person's eyes today and remember someone telling me that I was a role model - felt really good.

.. so many more... isn't it surprising how many roles we play - and yet we call our lives boring at time?

The concept of equality of men and women

What is equality?

People still talk about lack of gender parity in today's society. I don't refute the fact that men and women are not treated equal but I have problems with the parameters that I used to judging the level of parity.

Here are some of the standard parameters:
- Who spends more time in the kitchen?
- Who in more likely to stay at home when needed?
- Who more likely to leave their jobs when the need arises?
- Who spends more time with the kids?

I do not agree to these being the parameters of judging the level of equality. I think, equality means having equal choices, having the freedom to chose. There is nothing wrong in playing the traditional roles - the husband the primary bread earner and the wife the primary homemaker. The problem arises when the society expects you to play a role against your wishes. When someone plays a role they want to, that is freedom.

I do more cooking than my husband, I spend more time with my kids, does that put us on unequal footing in our marriage - no. I am doing this out of choice, of my own free will. If does bother me when this is expected of me, by my extended family, that I resent. But as long as I feel I have the option of my 'playing' or 'not playing' the role traditionally assigned to a mother/wife, I don't actually mind the role/work itself.

People make a big deal about 'working women' working in the kitchen. And yet, no one ever talks about the fact that men are expected to drive when going out, men are expected to always have to earn and not really have a choice of staying-at-home and so many similar things. Just like expecting women to work and work-at-home is not fair, these expectations of men are not fair either.

Agreed, women end up doing more work if you add up the work at home and at workplace. Is that always unfair? Even at work, don't we all end up giving most of our key work to our few key people? Do we think it is unfair? No, because, we know those few people are capable of handling more. They why is it unfair at home, as long as the woman in concern is CAPABLE AND WILLING to handle the additional work. Its not too different from someone sick athome. Do we expect the sick and the healthy people to contribute equally to the work? We do expect the healthy people to take care of themselves, home and the sick people and this is totally fair - because the sick can't, so also in the relationships in life. There is nothing like absolute equality, we share the load in the ratio of our willingness and capability. And in my opinion this is FAIR.

This relative equality where each person contributes to a relationship (both physical, emotional, financial, spiritual, and anything else) in proportion of their capability and desire in more fair than the absolute equality where I will do the dishes only if you take care of the laundry and I will drive half the way on the way to our destination on a vacation - all this while you resent doing the dishes and I driving.

Power of the web

This initiation into blogging has me thinking about the power the web.

What gives it the power? The reach and the anonymity.

It lets you be what you want to be, you can be yourself and not have to play a role. At the same time you can play a role that you want to without having to be yourself.

Where to start?

Ok, so here I am trying to blog and without a single subject to blog on.

Typically during a converation when there is nothing to talk about one would resort to - weather. That's what I'll use to break the ice.

Weather, well what about it? its been beautiful lately, cool but not cold, breezy but not windy, cloudy but not depressing, rains but only when I am not travelling, in short perfect! It is at this time of the year when you realize Bangalore is heaven compared to other places. It doesn't get better than this. Maybe it does, if only the rain drops could be a little warmer, getting wet in the rain would be so much more fun that it already is...

Now that we have 'broken the ice' or warmed up and you already know that I am in Bangalore, its probably time to share about who I am. Well, that a tough one. I have unsuccessfully been trying to figure that out all these years.. no I am not telling you how many :)

This blog is my small attempt to see it I can write about my thoughts that I care to share. Not hugely confident that it would succeed but still worth a try.