“dad, what is the short form of Madhya Pradesh?”. Hmm. Jispa is not the one to ask simple questions. It has to be a trap, a bait, an innocuous looking bait in which her papa will gleefully fall. Having thought of a few possible curve balls, I said “MP”. “aaaaa” she replied. “you said a bad word”. “MP, a bad word? When did MP become a bad word” I asked. “it is she insisted”. Oooo . ok. “nopes Jispa. MP isn’t a bad word. MC is a bad word”. “oh, ok” she replied. Good that was the end of that. Or so I thought. “what is the full form of MC?”. “err, Jispa, I am not telling you bad words, ok? I am not teaching you what they are or what they mean?” well do you explain mother F*&^er to her? I might be a progressive dad, but I am not explaining that.
“but dad, if I don’t know, I might say it by mistake” she insists. “well if you say it by mistake, then we will correct you and babes, you silly goose, I am not discussing the meaning or the bad words with you. I will teach you when you are 12 years old”. “o man, that is far away, 4 more years?” she cried. “Jispa, are you seriously sad that you cant learn bad words?”. There I thought that was the end of that. Or so I thought.
“dad, you know middle finger is also a bad word?” “ya, kid, I know”. “you know, I means the ‘F’ word”. “hmm, I guess so, but not just quite, it’s a little different”. “does it mean the ‘S’ word”. “nopes, not really”. “then what it means?”. “Jispaaaaa, I am not discussing bad words till you are in the eight standard.”. “but dad, you just said you will discuss it when I am 12 years old.”. “Jispa, now tell me, are you seriously crying and complaining that you are not getting o discuss ‘bad words’?”. That finally stopped the conversation. Or so I think. For now atleast.
We were laughing and smiling all the time while having this conversation. I really do want her to have this conversation with me, but later. I could possibly explain what I know. It’s better that she knows what she could be mouthing.
Hey did I tell this story. I guess not. I stopped swearing. I was a sailor tongue. This was largely thanks to my days as a sales man. Pressure was invariably used as an excuse to give out bad words. I did not see man or woman around while mouthing them. My bosses too had contributed to this as I had a string of bosses equally foul mouthed. And this was common language in office. My office team in the past tried to stop me but to no avail. I was sailor tongue and screw you I was not changing.
Then one interesting thing happened. In this new office, I recruited this lovely young women (we will use initials to protect their privacy- SC). One came to me within a month of being recruited and casually asked. “aap itna gaali kyun dete ho?” – Why do you swear such? “err, screw you, do you have a problem with that?”. “no, no, go on, just that, sometimes you talk so high, history and science and everything, and then suddenly, you go $#@% %$#@ $%#$@.” “so you want me to stop”. “nopes, just wondering. It doest suit”. Ok now that got me thinking. I thought a bit and slowed down, but did not completely eliminate it.
Then I recruited another young lovely lady. (ST – for short). In a few days she comes to me and says, “my my such profanity”. “hey, you are from media, I thought you are ok with this”. “oh of course I am ok with it.” “then what’s your grouse I asked?”. “I don’t have a grouse, I just remarked as profanity does suit your profile?”. HUH!?!. “so you want me to change?” “nopes “ came the answer, “I am just fine, its just that it doesn’t suit your profile?” “what profile?”. “well , when you talk all these big things, and then you use profanity. It just doesn’t suit”
I called the first lovely in as well. Well I told them. Its amazing that they had the same thing to say to me. They were fine with it and they were quite clear that they did not want me to change if I did not want to. They just remarked that I must change only if I want to. That day they did what some previous collegues could not. They made me feel quite ashamed of myself. I felt something funny, something weird, something shallow. Ok. I remember the date. 23March. One month from now if I don’t utter any such swear words, you guys take me out for lunch or else I take you out. DEAL? Deal.
They were I guess, happy for me and happy to lose the bet for me. Thank you someone for giving me these lovely ladies with kick ass attitude. I won the bet and won the war! Now I have been foul free since and these words when uttered by anyone stick out like a sore thumb in the conversation. I hear them loud and feel funny about it. A few words here and there come in a guy to guy conversation. But they are few and far between and they are usually there to mean something. Earlier they were there as fillers between words serving no purpose other than to give out swear words. What reason were they there? But I cant believe that 12 years of habit was undone by them in an instant.
It shouldn’t have been so tough. I never swear in front of Jasmine and of course Jispa. Jasmine had expressed her displeasure to me while we were 15 years old. And I have never been able to really swear in front of her yet she knew what I was behind her back.
So now I am the same upfront and behind. And all it required is not for someone to tell me to stop, but to wonder why I started in the first place.
I am so grateful to these ladies. I thank them and I owe them big time. Simple words can mean so much. I love you all.
Showing posts with label team. Show all posts
Showing posts with label team. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Monday, December 27, 2010
win or loose, wheres the booze
Saturday was a huge day for me and cricket. Nopes I did not manage to hit my elusive first 50. And I think with my aging instincts and fitness I don’t think I will ever get there. Sigh. But a journey that started around 9 years ago came to a large milestone. A little more than 10 years ago I joined this company to meet a man called Arun Solanki. One of the first things he asked me was if I could play cricket. I have played a lot of cricket, but almost all of that with a tennis or a rubber ball. Never with the professional hard leather cricket ball. Only a couple of matches. In one I smashed a lot of runs to win it for my team. But still not enough. He took me on in his team and taught me all that I know about cricket and captaincy. A couple of years later he asked me if we should start the B team within the company and asked me if I would lead it. Woah! At the time I knew little about field placements, a little about, cricket and a little about people. 8 years back, it was a small and disastrous start.
The B team was never a regular feature. I too moved within the company and it saw a few captains. Since last year with a couple of friends who are as dedicated to cricket as ever, we restarted the B team in full earnest. This year we even held selections and picked a pool of 20 players. I have learnt from experience that the B team is not a team designed to win. It is a bunch of rag tag players that play cricket because they love to play and not because they have some god given talent or experience. Most of them don’t even know how to hold the ball properly while bowling. Now as the captain and coach and manager I set a few things in place. These became my guiding force going forward.
The first amongst them was that everybody should get a chance to play. In the league phase matches, everyone would get a chance to play in the playing 11. I would never want to play the best 11. A hugely controversial rule that might have upset the players but would be fair to all. The b team never would have more than 2 – 3 ‘players’. It is largely made up of fringe players who come for the game and it made no sense for them to be out of the team and ferrying water for the rest. Also if you are in the 11, you will get a chance to bat and bowl to the position you like. You want to bat up the order, then sure go ahead, you want to bowl now, sure... in fact I did the unthinkable, I even gave field placements to people basis what they felt like doing. Allowing people to decide for themselves what they want to do. Interesting changes came about the team. From having to hustle 11 players for the team now in every match we had 14 /15 players to choose from.
The dressing room, (the tent actually in Mumbai) atmosphere was another thing I focussed on. A lot of fun. I always thought that the A team was a lot of bull shit. Too much technical stuff being discussed about cricket. Too much attitude being thrown and too much advice being given. I stopped all of that. I focussed on a lot of fun. In the team huddles, I only spoke about each man giving the game more than what he was capable of, thats it. Just play to whatever your potential is, not more not less. I told them not to dive too much and risk injury. I also told everyone not to shout or scream at your own players on the field. Misfields happen and catches get dropped. Its part of the B team. That’s why we have fun. I don’t care what the target is and what the score board says. Have fun. If someoenm gets out, dam cool, the others will get to bat. If someone bowls a long hop to be hit for a six, even better; more runs to chase. More batting. Once I was explain the B team ethos to a trainer and he summed it up best. “Win or lose, where’s the booze”. The focus is fun not winning or losing. The team spirit and the camaraderie is the most important thing here.
Doing all this during the season we found ourselves playing the finals of a tournament on Saturday. Oops. How did we get there. Of course, I am not kidding myself. It wasn’t like the prestigious tournament and that we played the best of teams. But the B team previously in all its existence must have won a couple of matches, tops. So a final was a big thing for my highly inexperienced team.
In the team huddle the first thing I said was, if anyone now calls this ‘the finals’ I will kick them out. We are not going to play the finals, we are out here to play cricket. No big match and no big occasion. We keep the same team ethos, no shouting, no frustration, only lots of fun. This year we normally fielded pretty decent, but in the finals, we dropped a catch, had a few misfileds and few shouts here and there. I kept calming people down and when the energy seemed missing after a couple of big hits by the opposition team, I shouted for energy and brains. On the field, I screamed, come on guys, on the field.
When the time came to chase, we too kept it simple. Play with your bat and the runs will come. Everyone contributed but we lost wickets at regular intervals. It became very tense at the end us down to the last wicket and 9 more runs to win off two over. Just the matter of being there. I focussed on getting the dressing room to relax, not shout too many things at the batsman at the crease. The batsmen somehow stuck in there and somehow won it for the team.
What I loved was that we played very well under pressure for an inexperienced team. Everyone contributed and that there were no single heroes in our victory. The team batted together, bowled together as a unit. When the last few overs were left, I couldn’t but think how close we had come. Win or lose, I told all my players individually, that it was a pleasure playing with every one of them. Because winning or losing did not matter how we played our game is what mattered. And to my mind, we played like a TEAM. We even made fun of our own players, brought smiles to people’s faces under pressure and did not scold any player for bowling wide or short or getting out to bad shots or getting other people run out. It happens.
Surely winning cannot be the redemption for a team that is not focussed on winning. And it’s not about the victory. It’s about creating team that likes to play together and be together. The fun in cricket which I thought was missing in the A team is so much evident in the B team. I am no technical coach and I hardly know my cricket. But what I know is that people play cricket to have fun. And fun doesn’t come from sitting in the dressing room watching others play and being told what to do. Fun comes from playing with the team and getting a chance to play your own part in the team. It’s a team game.
Now only to figure what’s wrong with my batting. I have scored almost nothing in this entire season. Literally next to nothing. I cant be in the team purely for captainship and little fielding.
The B team was never a regular feature. I too moved within the company and it saw a few captains. Since last year with a couple of friends who are as dedicated to cricket as ever, we restarted the B team in full earnest. This year we even held selections and picked a pool of 20 players. I have learnt from experience that the B team is not a team designed to win. It is a bunch of rag tag players that play cricket because they love to play and not because they have some god given talent or experience. Most of them don’t even know how to hold the ball properly while bowling. Now as the captain and coach and manager I set a few things in place. These became my guiding force going forward.
The first amongst them was that everybody should get a chance to play. In the league phase matches, everyone would get a chance to play in the playing 11. I would never want to play the best 11. A hugely controversial rule that might have upset the players but would be fair to all. The b team never would have more than 2 – 3 ‘players’. It is largely made up of fringe players who come for the game and it made no sense for them to be out of the team and ferrying water for the rest. Also if you are in the 11, you will get a chance to bat and bowl to the position you like. You want to bat up the order, then sure go ahead, you want to bowl now, sure... in fact I did the unthinkable, I even gave field placements to people basis what they felt like doing. Allowing people to decide for themselves what they want to do. Interesting changes came about the team. From having to hustle 11 players for the team now in every match we had 14 /15 players to choose from.
The dressing room, (the tent actually in Mumbai) atmosphere was another thing I focussed on. A lot of fun. I always thought that the A team was a lot of bull shit. Too much technical stuff being discussed about cricket. Too much attitude being thrown and too much advice being given. I stopped all of that. I focussed on a lot of fun. In the team huddles, I only spoke about each man giving the game more than what he was capable of, thats it. Just play to whatever your potential is, not more not less. I told them not to dive too much and risk injury. I also told everyone not to shout or scream at your own players on the field. Misfields happen and catches get dropped. Its part of the B team. That’s why we have fun. I don’t care what the target is and what the score board says. Have fun. If someoenm gets out, dam cool, the others will get to bat. If someone bowls a long hop to be hit for a six, even better; more runs to chase. More batting. Once I was explain the B team ethos to a trainer and he summed it up best. “Win or lose, where’s the booze”. The focus is fun not winning or losing. The team spirit and the camaraderie is the most important thing here.
Doing all this during the season we found ourselves playing the finals of a tournament on Saturday. Oops. How did we get there. Of course, I am not kidding myself. It wasn’t like the prestigious tournament and that we played the best of teams. But the B team previously in all its existence must have won a couple of matches, tops. So a final was a big thing for my highly inexperienced team.
In the team huddle the first thing I said was, if anyone now calls this ‘the finals’ I will kick them out. We are not going to play the finals, we are out here to play cricket. No big match and no big occasion. We keep the same team ethos, no shouting, no frustration, only lots of fun. This year we normally fielded pretty decent, but in the finals, we dropped a catch, had a few misfileds and few shouts here and there. I kept calming people down and when the energy seemed missing after a couple of big hits by the opposition team, I shouted for energy and brains. On the field, I screamed, come on guys, on the field.
When the time came to chase, we too kept it simple. Play with your bat and the runs will come. Everyone contributed but we lost wickets at regular intervals. It became very tense at the end us down to the last wicket and 9 more runs to win off two over. Just the matter of being there. I focussed on getting the dressing room to relax, not shout too many things at the batsman at the crease. The batsmen somehow stuck in there and somehow won it for the team.
What I loved was that we played very well under pressure for an inexperienced team. Everyone contributed and that there were no single heroes in our victory. The team batted together, bowled together as a unit. When the last few overs were left, I couldn’t but think how close we had come. Win or lose, I told all my players individually, that it was a pleasure playing with every one of them. Because winning or losing did not matter how we played our game is what mattered. And to my mind, we played like a TEAM. We even made fun of our own players, brought smiles to people’s faces under pressure and did not scold any player for bowling wide or short or getting out to bad shots or getting other people run out. It happens.
Surely winning cannot be the redemption for a team that is not focussed on winning. And it’s not about the victory. It’s about creating team that likes to play together and be together. The fun in cricket which I thought was missing in the A team is so much evident in the B team. I am no technical coach and I hardly know my cricket. But what I know is that people play cricket to have fun. And fun doesn’t come from sitting in the dressing room watching others play and being told what to do. Fun comes from playing with the team and getting a chance to play your own part in the team. It’s a team game.
Now only to figure what’s wrong with my batting. I have scored almost nothing in this entire season. Literally next to nothing. I cant be in the team purely for captainship and little fielding.
Monday, August 23, 2010
the selfish giant
This post was written on Saturday but posted later. Why is this important? Because this blog has a time value attached to it. Time is the fourth dimension, but is relative. What is all this shit? Well, I have been reading some stuff on quantum physics and I find it completely disconcerting. The journey as it seeks to find the theory of everything. This stuff does not make any sense. But it makes so much when you read it. It is so fascinating but at the same time so bloody mind boggling. Sometimes I wish I had taken physics major. That the stuff I was always good at and I naturally loved. Nowadays it makes for great fun to read this complex stuff and be entertained. It is only possible if you don’t want to remember it all and give an exam. Because otherwise it would be so insurmountable. I even read stuff about us living in mutliverse as opposed to a universe. Whoa!
But the point of the time value of this blog is important as I sit down today and reminiscence on the feeling that got built up over the last year as we hurtled towards yesterday. In the good old days I felt excited and I wanted yesterday to come everyday. I even counted the days to yesterday. Till I was in third standard yesterday was always in my school vacations. We used to live the gulf, where the school shut for the oppressive summers and I could not have my day in the sun in front of peers. Yesterday was an important point in my every day year. So when we first came to Mumbai I was so excited that I would get to celebrate yesterday with peers. I started counting the days I would take to get yesterday. Waiting and counting. If I am not mistaken I even counted up to 45 days. Oh that day. I wore a safari suit in the fourth standard. What was it blue or was it grey. But I was so proud. I must have never been so proud to distribute orange hard boiled confectionary. It used to cost 10 paise for one at retail price at around 6 paise per sweet at wholesale rate. Man I was so thrilled. The first time I had a chance to celebrate my birthday in school and having 60, not just 30 as per gulf school norms. Yeah yeah. It was day in the sun. No wonder I was so excited.
All these years I continued to be excited till something struck last year. It was my own version of the mid life crisis. I started hating birthdays. Not that the thought of growing older hurt. But au contraire I loved getting old. But I started hating getting birthday greetings from people. Why? I don’t know if people really care when they wish and I stopped liking any wishes and I started suspecting them of being mere formality. I also stopped wishing too many people on their birthdays as well in the hope that they would in turn stop greeting me as well. I even got rid of my birthday notification from the social networking sites.
Day before yesterday I sent a mail to HR. they have this practice of sending emails announcing everyone’s birthday. What a complete waste and pain. So I wrote them a mail asking them to please desist on my day. Just. Just spare me. As I get older I have gotten more anti social. In fact I merely got grumpier. Just like the old troll in fairytales. On Thursday being my grumpy old troll mood, I refused to listen to my team request for a luncheon on Friday. In fact once my meeting got cancelled for the morning I put in a request for the day off. I am not even coming to office. The second half we planned to run off to Igatpuri at my sisters bunglow with her family and my brother’s as well.
I make an effort not to remember my birthday. My dream one day is to forget it completely. That will be the day according to me. so I woke up in the morning not remembering its my birthday till I received an sms wishing me. as I came out of the shower my wife and kid sang the birthday song. I like that. I know people who really care, when they wish, it doe fell kind of good. My things with birthdays is the rest of the world not those who care.
I spent the rest of the morning helping my wife clean the house as we were to leave for three days. Roaming around in a pair of jeans, I was trying to get my pedagogy right for the lecture I was scheduled for next Sunday.
Suddenly the bell rang. As jasmine opened the door, I saw my good peon form office – Vinod with a cake in a bag. Oh god. They sent me cake from office. I looked at Vinod. Since I was topless I looked at him and aksed, ‘ are there others around? are they hiding?” he nodded and pointed in the direction. I ran in to wear a t shirt and then came out to discover them hiding near the stair case. SURPRISE!!! My team along with two others who are no longer a part of my team was present. Ok. I really love them. They all came in from office to catch me on my birthday. They had got a chocolate mousse cake which I proceeded to cut and then they took turns splashing it on my face.. Soon enough one spark resulted in a cake fight. All of us including my wife had cake n our face. All with brown melting mousse dripping down on the face.
It was pretty good fun.
Moral of the story – I was a grumpy old troll with a bad attitude problem. Sure enough you get shitty people and people who don’t care but at the same time you get good guys with a lot of love to share. In my effort to alienate those I do not care about or thopse who do not care for me I end up alienating those who do and those that matter. I almost threw the baby out with the bath water. I am reminded of the story of the selfish giant who did not let any one in his garden and winter permanently set in. It only got a bit of spring when one small kid who refused to get intimated by the giant and came and sat on one of the trees. The giant then saw light.
My team refused to get intimated by my ‘trollness’. They said screw you. And they came home and showed me what I might have missed.
Dates are irrelevant to the rational mind. They have no significance. What is the point of celebrating Independence Day. Work hard and be honest if you really care. Don’t sit and celebrate the day by watching old emotional movies on the telly. What is the point of it? Pure symbolism. What shit?
But at he same time, isn’t it a day to somehow remember that we struggled. So many fought so that they and more importantly those to come would be free.
My birthday has no real significance to me and to the rational mind it means naught. But we are all a bunch of people guided by irrationality. I liked it that the team came. I liked celebrating with them. It mattered to me that they felt welcome to come home and the fact that they bothered. It said something to me. it also proved my belief that I might be a troll at times but I am a likeable troll or at the least approachable. Having cake on my face was the ultimate gesture of acceptability.
In the physics book that I was reading I read about the Solvay conference held in Brussels devoted to Quantum Physics. 17 of the 23 delegates were or would become Nobel laureates. Marie Curie was even a double laureate. Einstein was one delegate. It was here Einstein declared in reference to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle that “God does not play dice”, and to which Niels Bohr replied “Albert, stop telling God what to do”
Wow. Imagine the group where one like Einstein can be told something like that in no uncertain terms. There is respect for the brain but there is also a healthy irreverence. Groups where people aren’t afraid to speak their mind are the groups that I would love to belong to. That is the group that I prefer. A respect but a certain irreverence. A case of opposites reconciling. And to think of it – I almost missed it thanks to my … my…. I don’t know what. Shit. I was lucky. I hope I don’t forget this lesson. In all likelyhood I am going to make this mistake again. It’s going to be difficult. The silver lining for me is that here I made the mistake but my team refused to let me suffer for it. At least I was considered open enough, whose plea for solitude was ignored.
As I grow older I will have many more of these pangs in opposite directions. The greatest fun will always be if in some magical way opposites reconcile.
But the point of the time value of this blog is important as I sit down today and reminiscence on the feeling that got built up over the last year as we hurtled towards yesterday. In the good old days I felt excited and I wanted yesterday to come everyday. I even counted the days to yesterday. Till I was in third standard yesterday was always in my school vacations. We used to live the gulf, where the school shut for the oppressive summers and I could not have my day in the sun in front of peers. Yesterday was an important point in my every day year. So when we first came to Mumbai I was so excited that I would get to celebrate yesterday with peers. I started counting the days I would take to get yesterday. Waiting and counting. If I am not mistaken I even counted up to 45 days. Oh that day. I wore a safari suit in the fourth standard. What was it blue or was it grey. But I was so proud. I must have never been so proud to distribute orange hard boiled confectionary. It used to cost 10 paise for one at retail price at around 6 paise per sweet at wholesale rate. Man I was so thrilled. The first time I had a chance to celebrate my birthday in school and having 60, not just 30 as per gulf school norms. Yeah yeah. It was day in the sun. No wonder I was so excited.
All these years I continued to be excited till something struck last year. It was my own version of the mid life crisis. I started hating birthdays. Not that the thought of growing older hurt. But au contraire I loved getting old. But I started hating getting birthday greetings from people. Why? I don’t know if people really care when they wish and I stopped liking any wishes and I started suspecting them of being mere formality. I also stopped wishing too many people on their birthdays as well in the hope that they would in turn stop greeting me as well. I even got rid of my birthday notification from the social networking sites.
Day before yesterday I sent a mail to HR. they have this practice of sending emails announcing everyone’s birthday. What a complete waste and pain. So I wrote them a mail asking them to please desist on my day. Just. Just spare me. As I get older I have gotten more anti social. In fact I merely got grumpier. Just like the old troll in fairytales. On Thursday being my grumpy old troll mood, I refused to listen to my team request for a luncheon on Friday. In fact once my meeting got cancelled for the morning I put in a request for the day off. I am not even coming to office. The second half we planned to run off to Igatpuri at my sisters bunglow with her family and my brother’s as well.
I make an effort not to remember my birthday. My dream one day is to forget it completely. That will be the day according to me. so I woke up in the morning not remembering its my birthday till I received an sms wishing me. as I came out of the shower my wife and kid sang the birthday song. I like that. I know people who really care, when they wish, it doe fell kind of good. My things with birthdays is the rest of the world not those who care.
I spent the rest of the morning helping my wife clean the house as we were to leave for three days. Roaming around in a pair of jeans, I was trying to get my pedagogy right for the lecture I was scheduled for next Sunday.
Suddenly the bell rang. As jasmine opened the door, I saw my good peon form office – Vinod with a cake in a bag. Oh god. They sent me cake from office. I looked at Vinod. Since I was topless I looked at him and aksed, ‘ are there others around? are they hiding?” he nodded and pointed in the direction. I ran in to wear a t shirt and then came out to discover them hiding near the stair case. SURPRISE!!! My team along with two others who are no longer a part of my team was present. Ok. I really love them. They all came in from office to catch me on my birthday. They had got a chocolate mousse cake which I proceeded to cut and then they took turns splashing it on my face.. Soon enough one spark resulted in a cake fight. All of us including my wife had cake n our face. All with brown melting mousse dripping down on the face.
It was pretty good fun.
Moral of the story – I was a grumpy old troll with a bad attitude problem. Sure enough you get shitty people and people who don’t care but at the same time you get good guys with a lot of love to share. In my effort to alienate those I do not care about or thopse who do not care for me I end up alienating those who do and those that matter. I almost threw the baby out with the bath water. I am reminded of the story of the selfish giant who did not let any one in his garden and winter permanently set in. It only got a bit of spring when one small kid who refused to get intimated by the giant and came and sat on one of the trees. The giant then saw light.
My team refused to get intimated by my ‘trollness’. They said screw you. And they came home and showed me what I might have missed.
Dates are irrelevant to the rational mind. They have no significance. What is the point of celebrating Independence Day. Work hard and be honest if you really care. Don’t sit and celebrate the day by watching old emotional movies on the telly. What is the point of it? Pure symbolism. What shit?
But at he same time, isn’t it a day to somehow remember that we struggled. So many fought so that they and more importantly those to come would be free.
My birthday has no real significance to me and to the rational mind it means naught. But we are all a bunch of people guided by irrationality. I liked it that the team came. I liked celebrating with them. It mattered to me that they felt welcome to come home and the fact that they bothered. It said something to me. it also proved my belief that I might be a troll at times but I am a likeable troll or at the least approachable. Having cake on my face was the ultimate gesture of acceptability.
In the physics book that I was reading I read about the Solvay conference held in Brussels devoted to Quantum Physics. 17 of the 23 delegates were or would become Nobel laureates. Marie Curie was even a double laureate. Einstein was one delegate. It was here Einstein declared in reference to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle that “God does not play dice”, and to which Niels Bohr replied “Albert, stop telling God what to do”
Wow. Imagine the group where one like Einstein can be told something like that in no uncertain terms. There is respect for the brain but there is also a healthy irreverence. Groups where people aren’t afraid to speak their mind are the groups that I would love to belong to. That is the group that I prefer. A respect but a certain irreverence. A case of opposites reconciling. And to think of it – I almost missed it thanks to my … my…. I don’t know what. Shit. I was lucky. I hope I don’t forget this lesson. In all likelyhood I am going to make this mistake again. It’s going to be difficult. The silver lining for me is that here I made the mistake but my team refused to let me suffer for it. At least I was considered open enough, whose plea for solitude was ignored.
As I grow older I will have many more of these pangs in opposite directions. The greatest fun will always be if in some magical way opposites reconcile.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
uneasy mind easy answers
I have had a slightly disturbed state of mind. I did not really sleep too well and couldn’t really do the yoga properly in the morning. Sometimes when there are too many things on your mind, it doesn’t really work out well. I think for me I need to be in control of the situation. If I don’t have too much control over it and depend on others then the uncertainty bugs me.
One factor was that I was planning for a vacation in June. I am planning to go up north and catch some camping and rafting. I invited some really cool ex students of mine who have the travel bug. They are now not really students but good friends. There is of course the small matter of them calling me sir. But it’s developed into a healthy relationship of almost equals. Ten years of age difference when they were 18 is not the same when they are 25. I love to see them all grown up. So while planning the trip the budget seems to coming up a little higher. Especially since some of them are salaried and just about so, I was a bit unhappy with the way the budget seems higher. I wouldn’t want them to spend a bit higher just because I am a little soft and want to stay in slightly better camps. So that was one thing that got me thinking and sleeping while thinking is always a bad idea.
The second thing is that my team is under some stress. I have largely left them alone for the recent past and some issues seem to be coming up. There is a little bit of uncertainty and change involved with one person shifting to a new role outside of my team but within the company. There are other signs that foretell of a simmer within. Like the look that I got yesterday when I asked them to pack up for the day. They did not like it. Funny. It should be the other way around in normal times. Probably I might have missed a vibe or a sign or I might have been too arrogant, too sure or plain too lazy to see some signals coming. So that got me a bit disturbed. Its been playing on my mind since yesterday. And with this trip planning thing, my head is a bit muddled.
But like everything else, when its muddles you attack the issue and close it, at least mentally. So first thing I started attacking the budget issue with travel. With that out of the way I started attacking the team issue. a few chats, a little introspection etc later… it is time to go back to basics. Keep the objective right. Keep the employee interest in your mind, give them the benefit of doubt. Internally change. This can work when you have faith in the employee core. I have faith in my team. Its been painstakingly difficult to build and I am justifiably proud of them and my ability to build them. Of course having a dose of luck helped but there has been considerable effort to bring them together and happy and pushing them to perform.
So Doing what I do best. I cleaned the white board. My big whiteboard that is behind me is where I write down all the work that has to be done . it’s a simple case of KRA setting. KRA? Key result areas. One of my bosses just decided to implement this for his core team and hence even for my team. I was smiling as I have always led teams by wrtiien down KRA’s. only we did not call them that and we did not have a long drawn out process for them. We called it managing by white board. The to do’s are written down on the white board. You come for a meeting and I will only talk about the stuff written down. If it’s not written, don’t do it. Complete clarity of what is required to be done by me and you.
Hence when its time to get back to basics, I clean the whiteboard. Playing eth shiva from the trinity is sometimes critical. Time to time the board gets outdated and boring. It needs a fresh perspective and a fresh look. It can’t be done by keeping the stuff there. So call in the housekeeping. Yes only in India can you call housekeeping to wipe the board clean. I have blogged about this before. He came and did a cleaning that is in a way metaphorical and symbolic. And here you are. Clean board, clean mind.
I have taken pains to build the team and I am not going to let it go down so easily. I am still here and I am still in charge. I can’t be bogged down by this for long.
Many years ago in the MBA entrance interviews, I had tried to practice good answers to bad questions. One was name your good qualities. One word I had liked then and realise its significance now – resilience.
It’s by luck I chanced upon it. I think if you tell yourself enough about something, your minds will actually believe it and act it.
One factor was that I was planning for a vacation in June. I am planning to go up north and catch some camping and rafting. I invited some really cool ex students of mine who have the travel bug. They are now not really students but good friends. There is of course the small matter of them calling me sir. But it’s developed into a healthy relationship of almost equals. Ten years of age difference when they were 18 is not the same when they are 25. I love to see them all grown up. So while planning the trip the budget seems to coming up a little higher. Especially since some of them are salaried and just about so, I was a bit unhappy with the way the budget seems higher. I wouldn’t want them to spend a bit higher just because I am a little soft and want to stay in slightly better camps. So that was one thing that got me thinking and sleeping while thinking is always a bad idea.
The second thing is that my team is under some stress. I have largely left them alone for the recent past and some issues seem to be coming up. There is a little bit of uncertainty and change involved with one person shifting to a new role outside of my team but within the company. There are other signs that foretell of a simmer within. Like the look that I got yesterday when I asked them to pack up for the day. They did not like it. Funny. It should be the other way around in normal times. Probably I might have missed a vibe or a sign or I might have been too arrogant, too sure or plain too lazy to see some signals coming. So that got me a bit disturbed. Its been playing on my mind since yesterday. And with this trip planning thing, my head is a bit muddled.
But like everything else, when its muddles you attack the issue and close it, at least mentally. So first thing I started attacking the budget issue with travel. With that out of the way I started attacking the team issue. a few chats, a little introspection etc later… it is time to go back to basics. Keep the objective right. Keep the employee interest in your mind, give them the benefit of doubt. Internally change. This can work when you have faith in the employee core. I have faith in my team. Its been painstakingly difficult to build and I am justifiably proud of them and my ability to build them. Of course having a dose of luck helped but there has been considerable effort to bring them together and happy and pushing them to perform.
So Doing what I do best. I cleaned the white board. My big whiteboard that is behind me is where I write down all the work that has to be done . it’s a simple case of KRA setting. KRA? Key result areas. One of my bosses just decided to implement this for his core team and hence even for my team. I was smiling as I have always led teams by wrtiien down KRA’s. only we did not call them that and we did not have a long drawn out process for them. We called it managing by white board. The to do’s are written down on the white board. You come for a meeting and I will only talk about the stuff written down. If it’s not written, don’t do it. Complete clarity of what is required to be done by me and you.
Hence when its time to get back to basics, I clean the whiteboard. Playing eth shiva from the trinity is sometimes critical. Time to time the board gets outdated and boring. It needs a fresh perspective and a fresh look. It can’t be done by keeping the stuff there. So call in the housekeeping. Yes only in India can you call housekeeping to wipe the board clean. I have blogged about this before. He came and did a cleaning that is in a way metaphorical and symbolic. And here you are. Clean board, clean mind.
I have taken pains to build the team and I am not going to let it go down so easily. I am still here and I am still in charge. I can’t be bogged down by this for long.
Many years ago in the MBA entrance interviews, I had tried to practice good answers to bad questions. One was name your good qualities. One word I had liked then and realise its significance now – resilience.
It’s by luck I chanced upon it. I think if you tell yourself enough about something, your minds will actually believe it and act it.
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