Flowers should blossom

A flower should focus only on ensuring that it blossoms to its full potential. Nothing else.

Maybe in the place it is the environment – people, birds, animals, etc – value fragrance more than any other attribute and have no value for beauty. Should the flower then try to acquire nutrients which will make it more fragrant than what it naturally is? (Which is very less). NO.

Maybe the environment values beauty more than anything else and this flower is not at all beautiful but wonderfully fragrant, should it try to change? NO.

The flower should strive hard to be the best self possible – without any consideration for what utility it serves to the people around. Somewhere its value will be appreciated but till then it has to ensure that it blossoms well every season.

Fame or money or any such exchange unit for one’s talent can never be universally perfect. The moment it becomes a dominant exchange unit more people try to manipulate it – till it ceases its core purpose. Mediocrity rules and past imperfect allocation of such ‘valuable exchange units’ implies a generation gets what is does not deserve and hence ensures that corrupt use of the exchange unit continues. How to stop it?

The very solution is the problem – interesting. Since not everyone can appreciate value of a talent, those who do accord a payment for it which is reciprocated by the receiver. So gradually a separation is formed between those who have or value the talent and those who are ignorant. Usually the second is in the majority. Because they are deprived of it they tend to think that the exchange unit is the value – hence try to acquire it by hook or by crook. There begins corruption. [this was easy to figure out]

Challenge is to understand why nature has created such diversity in talent – some with talent and majority lacking it? There is something we are missing – the purpose. Until that point this corruption will go on. A new exchange unit will only solve it temporarily (few 100 years) but need is for a permanent solution.

Confusion

The flames are a fluttering
       The fire is a weakening
Ambition and desire have become less prominent

      The zeal to excel is diminishing and the future does not look so promising

“Wake up! wake up!” to shout
OR “talk up! talk up!” to shout
     Connect is all I want to say – with me or with yourself is for you to say

May be there is a grand plan which I am not privy to
Maybe there is no plan – erst plan is gone, update you have forgotten to

It’s not just the Captain’s journey
                The ship carries everyone’s hope
Probably I am the only one in the ship who is lost in the sea
                Jump/stay both options look the same

Never felt this clueless with the flame
                Stand still or keep moving, the darkness removed is the same
Let the flame burn itself or use to conquer new darkness, I know not Jane

Silly me asking the flame to answer, when it’s me holding it
                OR am I the flame?
Then the ‘holder’ please say what you want?
                Use me to move ahead or keep me still till I burn?
Both ways my ‘light’ is limited – just that you moving would help me
                win over ‘new darkness’.

"Quality" - in simple terms

One small thing that we miss sometimes is the need to keep in mind the end user of the software products we build or the existing products we service. Our client would not in all cases be the final user of the products – for example say our client is into building games in Facebook. He can play the games but the reason he is building this game is to sell it as a business, in that case the end user would be someone we do not know. If we keep this end user's need in mind and build an application which will delight him once he uses it – we can pat our backs and feel good that we delivered a good quality product.

" Qualtiy " - What does this term mean ?

Most of the time we make "quality" synonymus with "CMM" or "ISO" or some other industry accepted certification. The point is these are certifications by independent bodies to let others know that we have certain level of quality but without these too we can be good. How many of us are certified in the current technologies that we work in ? Does that mean we are not good – NO.

I will not define quality here but rather through some examples try to explain what it is.

Example 1:

You and your friends are planning to go out for dinner to a good place and out of 4-5 options you short list you zero in on 1 option and go there – right ?

Lets analyze what all parameters you would have used to decide on any one particular restaurant.

1^st food should be good.

Meaning – you want that the "Quality" of the food should be good. Here quality means two things – first the stuff used for preparing food are fresh and good – no stale or sub standard stuff is used . Second the taste of the food should be good.

If I draw a co-relation to what our situation is - first our client would expect that the technical competence we have is good – that our people are very good in the areas that they work in. Second is our people have enough aptitude to understand the business of the client,i.e his requirement , and code accordingly. Difference here is – some people might know a technology thoeritically – every syntax and options available but cannot comprehend a real life business scenario and put it into coding.

2^nd thing that you evaluate about the restaurants is the ambience – it should be good to eat and enjoy.

Here quality means quality of the place. The seating arrangement, the waiters, the plates used for serving etc – everything which is not your primary need (food) but something which will make you feel good and nice.

In our case – This would mean having good communication skills, so that the client feels comfortable talking to us. Communication skill has two main areas – Verbal and Written.

Both of these should be good in us to be a true professional – someone with whom people would love to deal with.

With these 2 things you would have decided to go to a particular restaurant. Imagine there comes up another place in town which in addition to all these also does the following. It discusses with you about your mood and the reason for the outing and accordingly serves food or decorates the place. This would delight you to such an extent that you may always want to go to that place.

In our case – we can check with our client who our end customers would be and accordingly make the product suit their need. For example say our client is building a social networking site for senior citizens ( retired government officals, army personel, etc ) . Then in such a website having bigger buttons will be good, or building an application in such a way that it is not too deep rather is more horizontal in terms of page spread, i.e to get to a page too many links are not followed – every parent page should have maximum 3 level below pages not more.

Imagine we actually giving such suggestions to our client and implementing it in the final product. Not only our client but our end user will also be imprssed to a point where they might just want to work with us for ever.

Ever wondered why idol worship as a concept came into existence. If as our scriptures say that GOD is omnipresent then why was a place of worship created and why inside that a figurine of God put ?

I think it was done because to imagine God and pray in open space was not working out for people, they needed a face to imagine and a symbol or idol to look at and then attach the same reverence and awe that they had for the internal belief called God. In short we as human beings externalized our internal belief and source of inspiration so that we can easily connect with it on a frequent basis.

Point is why am I saying all this ?

I wanted to draw a correlation to another place (which is also called as a place of worship) and the need to externalize our social recognition so that we derive pride from it easily and regularly. All of us work at some place or the other and might be all or some of us would be proud to be working at that place. We are convinced that it is a good place to work and we feel proud to be there. Problem or insecurity creeps in when the name of the work place is not famous in the outside world. Whenever you move out of office and talk about your workplace and the work that you do and do not see the respect or pride in other persons eyes or behavior your social ego is badly hurt. Some of us who are more mature and who do not need someone else's appreciation to move on in life and be happy, manage easily but for the rest of us self doubt and frustration creeps in. We tend to distrust the company/office and feel cheated or we might just decide to leave since it does not give us the recognition that we are craving for. Hurts all the more when your near and dear ones hesitate talking about your workplace because they do not feel proud saying it.

Here comes the need to externalize the brand and the values or things that you like about your office or workplace. As the brand building gathers momentum and becomes famous in itself you realize that it makes your life all the more easier. Now your social ego is massaged nicely – you just say the place you work and rest of the things are taken care of by the person you are talking to.

Even though technically it is still the same place and the same values and work standards that you are maintaining but suddenly you feel more worthy because others feel that way. Of course for the persons who were matured enough to feel good without the brand externalization hardly see the difference, they felt good earlier and would continue feeling that way.

The intent of my writing this article was to explain the concept of brand building keeping in mind the effect it has in boosting morale of people. Of course there are a host of other areas for which brand building is used for but I have tried to explain only one aspect of it.

Now the question I want to ask is – do we actually need to externalize our self respect so as to derive social recognition or just let the way things are and convince ourselves that it hardly matters what others think about us ? Please share your views.

I and We

Most often you would have come across articles or people saying that good team players always believe in saying “We” rather than “I” , together we can achieve more etc etc. The fact is it is true but most often interpreted in a wrong way. A bunch of mediocre people would pull down a talented guy just thinking that we should perform and grow as a team not someone growing faster. They would brand him selfish, mean , arrogant etc.

In some cases he could be all those – I am not talking about that lot – the ones I am going to discuss are the good intelligent ones who suffer because they happen to be among a lot of average people who have twisted team spirit to such an extent that running faster that the rest looks like a crime.

How often have you been stopped by your team from completing a task early because rest will have to work equally fast, how often have you been criticized by your team members for coming on a Holiday because they all had decided not to come. You would have been made to feel guilty for not complying to the team decision and those who succumbed to team's whims and fancies were liked while those who did not were made fun of or plain ostracized.

To all these people all I have to say is hold on – to your convictions ,to your self belief, to your intelligence – it's just a matter of time that these mediocres will wane away. You deserve to win and get respect and recognition for being who you are.

Team work does not mean you wait till everyone else reaches the same level and then pull the rest and move together. Then we get into a situation where the bad ones are having a good time and the good ones are being punished because they are good. Just because you are good does not mean that you will work more than the average guy and still get paid the same. The system should be designed such that the good ones get more than the average ones and if still the average ones are a drag then they should be left – that way we always ensure that system is fair.

Let me give an example of team work – hope this gives a clear idea on I and We and we learn to appreciate both.

Just have a look at a pack of lions when they go for hunting – everyone works as a team because they know individually they cannot accomplish anything,that is the We part. But that does not mean someone just rests and gets free food or runs slow because anyways the food will be distributed equally- no. Every single lion knows his/her responsibility and works aggressively to achieve it – everyone performs their part with the zeal ,as if he/she is the only one hunting. The I of every individual is at it's peak then and all get their share based on their strengths. That is true team work where everyone contributes to the best of his/her ability and together achieve more.

From a company perspective :

The company wants to grow and be big but what the company actually comprises of is individuals – you. The best we can ensure that our company grows is by focusing on our own growth, lets be 100% selfish. When the I's start improving their competencies, everything else falls in place. When every individual develops enough self respect not to do sub standard work and as a step to achieve that starts focusing on his/her competency development then organization as a whole improves. It's so easy right ?

Appraisal Blues :-)

"Usually towards the close of appraisals people tend to go through a lot of stress. If you ask them what their appraisal would be majority would answer in the negative - their answers would range from "I will have zero hike" to "I might lose my job" . These are the set of people who have not done anything significant during the year (not everyone though - some people who have done good work forget that part because what they lack is self confidence - they are a little low on self esteem) and since they themselves realise this they tend to get anxious.

This is the time you would find people thinking a lot about their career, meaning what skills they need to learn, what career they need to have after few years etc etc. Two category of people do not go through this - first one, people who are very close to the movers & shakers of the company and by some means have a fair idea that they will have a good appraisal (infact they have ensured through their work or interpersonal skills that they will have a good year) second category of people who are immune to this anxiety are the ones who have lost hopes from the company and thier career, these are people who know anyways they do not have much of a future here.

Rest everyone else I think go through this phase of stress and career planning :-) . So far so good ! People can use this stress for their benefit if they continue this tempo of self learning even after the appraisals get over and their worst fears have not turned out to be true but what they do is they start taking it easy after that. Forget self learning they get into the habit of complaining and cribbing about company resourses and all. Post appraisal you would find these people involved in a lot of company bashing, somehow they are now self assured that job is safe so no need to bother about learning, time to find gaps in the company.

This goes on till next appraisal and the cycle keeps repeating :-) . How I know this ? I learned it through observation - both by observing others and my own self ;-). "