Things I am learning from my boss...

I recently read a blog post that started with a tale of a lousy supervisor doing a truly horrific job of relaying negative feedback to a subordinate. It got me thinking about how some bosses can be so miserable. Not wanting to linger too much in negativity, I tried to conjure up some of the points from the various bosses and managers I see around at my workplace. A good manager is hard to find, but when you have one, you often get to learn valuable lessons.

Here are some things I have learned from my boss.

Maintain a blame-free work environment
Finger-pointing is a highly toxic and counter-productive behaviour, but there is more to it; in a relatively new organization it is essential to move forward at a fast and efficient pace. A no-mistakes pace is simply too slow. To survive, we have to move at a speed that guarantees a certain rate of error. We must accept the fact that mistakes will be made and corrected on the fly, simply because a pace that yields no mistakes will not bring us to takeoff before the end of the runway.
In a typical organization where a culture of “no mistakes” prevails, everything is gold-plated to death. Time is regularly wasted on unnecessarily perfect performances, and on cover-ups when things didn’t go according to plan.
“No blame” does not mean “no accountability”. My boss has clearly spelt out, “It’s OK to make a mistake and you will not be judged for it. Making a mistake and not learning from it is a different story”.

Don’t confuse “urgent” with “important”
You plan your day, week and month. You focus your efforts in a calculated effort to achieve very specific goals. Then someone rushes in screaming that the sky is falling and all progress is put on hold until the oh-so-urgent issue is resolved. There’s a hero’s aura about riding to the rescue and saving the day, but when the day is done, you are still a day (or a week, or a month) behind your schedule. The fires you are putting out may be real, or they may be artificial emergencies conceived to manipulate your priority list. Don’t let the moment’s glory distract you from executing your plan for too long. It may not be as urgent, but it is far more important.

Manage your personal productivity
Productivity is a complicated issue. First off, the disparity between individuals is huge. It is not uncommon for a star performer to be 3-4 times as productive as an average, good employee. On top of that, there are many subjective and even random factors at play; the estimates that we use to measure productivity are always partially subjective.
Improving your personal productivity is a great way to get better at what you do, but as an individual, you are the only one who can tell how productive your day is. You can expect your manager to measure your productivity over time, but when it comes to your day-to-day personal productivity — you’re on your own. You’re the only one who can do it, and you’re the one to benefit from it.

A Fact, hard to accept for me

This is a post which I have taken from my personal blog, and was written on April 17, 2010. almost after an year not, I was finding it too relevant again in my life right now, so thought of bringing it up here.

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There is a fact of life which so far in my life I have encountered quite a few times, and every time I lost something in the process. But even till date, I have not been able to accept this particular actuality, because somewhere at the back of my mind, I hope and pray that ‘it’ is not obvious to happen. And that is why I want to question ‘it’. Whoever reads this, would wonder what the hell I am talking about.

I have many examples to explain, but I am refraining from putting them here. But because of some incidents, a strange feeling has crept inside me, suddenly making me feel that things change. My feeling of loss stems out of such drastic changes concerning my very close friends. It’s a mixed feeling. This happens with a friend of the same sex, as well as the opposite sex. Whatever the case may be, I feel that post marriage, people view friendships in a different light. The losses always begin subtly and impact gradually. But is it necessary?

I am not saying that it is the married/engagement friend who is at fault. Relationships certainly do change after marriage/engagement. While he/she is trying to adjust to the new environment, his/her friends find it difficult to adjust to the new person he/she becomes. Insecurity, protectiveness and missing the old times become very prominent. Everyone needs company, and when the company seems to be drifting apart, it is obvious that a feeling of rejection sets in. And this is especially difficult for people like me whose world revolves only around a few friends, and finds comfort in the company of that friend.

I just get scared because my world is shrinking fast. Most of my close friends would get engaged/married before me, and I would be left all alone. I get anxious whether I should make close friends, leaving an open area to get shattered time and again. I commit myself totally to my friendships, and I give in everything for it. I don’t want my close friendships to get wilted and put myself in the position of saying, “Our friendship was great till it lasted.”

It's nice to be back... :-)

A little over a year and half ago, I started this blog, but back then I knew nothing about blogging. Nor do I know it now. For me, all I knew was that I was about to embark on a new chapter in my life wherein I would be putting down the thoughts coming to my mind.

Over last few months, I have been so occupied with work that hardly got time to write, even though there have been loads of posts queued up in my brain. But these things take forever to write, and now that I’m working, I don’t have forever to write.

So, in the spirit of “Good enough” is the enemy of “At all”, I’m going to start blogging again, but with no blogging schedule.

I’m writing because I want to – when I want to. I know from personal experience that I most like to write when I’m unhappy because when I’m unhappy I withdraw from the world and the last thing I want to do is to keep all that stuff confined to my mind, that’s making me unhappy. But that doesn’t mean I will not be delighted to share all the good things happening.

My only motive is to write. I don’t care how many readers there are – it is simply an outlet for my thoughts. It’s nice to be back :-)