Stand Up: Your Identity, Your Recognition or ...

In recent incident and many incidents in past, I realized that project teams take seriousness on their heads to the extent, that the output is stripped out of the emotional attachment.

In what then seems to be the cause, would mostly have been an overpowering voice that is dissented but yet silenced to work and deliver what was said.

This is painful and helplessness...would agree that the ruthlessness is deserving for such teams.

What I teach my team every time in such incidents is this:

1. Stand Up: To lose the fear of finding another job sitting at your desk. You will eventually get one.


2. Stand Up: To speak the right thing, the right time, the right way. No point in getting angry, hurling abuses, cursing to self, feeling sorry to have missed the bus. If you are not comfortable, say so and carry along what you need to do. If forced, document that " I abide by your suggestion and request you to be responsible for the results. In future, if things may change, would request that my points be given a consideration." or something like that...
   


3. Stand Up:Walk over and say you need to talk things over. Many escalations are solved in this way, without need for emails and CC lists. And it goes off in minutes.
   


4. Stand Up: Cross over and Talk the bitterness you have. Never write bitterness, escalate bad blood in emails sitting at your desk. They will haunt you forever.
   


5. Stand Up: Be led yourselves. Don't be led. If you are not presented the choice, better to say so and work than just work and feel so.
   


6. Stand Up: Speak out when given an opportunity in private or public. Never miss a chance. Popularly known as "Chance pe Dance".


7. Stand Up: It shows your personality. Your Identity, Your recognition. Don't miss it.
   


8. Stand Up: To say sorry when you dismiss suggestions and demand a certain compliance without appealing to common sense. You do exactly what you hate others doing it to you. Isn't it ?


9. Stand Up: To listen to any one standing and speaking to you. 1. In India, it is respectful, 2. You would be more keen, 3. You would feel free to relax and hence absorb new ideas. My dad used to tell me to walk and read to beat sleep and energize the brain early morning. If only, I listened...

Practice and let me know, if you felt otherwise.

And #10, re read #9. :)

Employee Evaluation: It is not just Performance

The distaste in professional life, is that performance alone doesn't matter in retainer-ship of employment.

The blog Why Haven't You Fired Him Yet? , is a very good read. Good performers should also be good at creating deterrents around them from being tossed out as fantasized in my earlier post.

The blog is truthful about the practical fact that to a certain level, we tend to expect a mandate and homogeneity from fellow colleagues with our own internalized systems, while becoming uncomfortable with little threats to the thought process. In our management circles, we discuss an employee viability in cost terms, and performance is always a second priority (not without reason). The costs are:

1. "Management Overhead Cost": Inclusive of performance is the analysis of the fact whether the resource needs to be managed not only for work, but for the self-team-organization balance. It many times, unfortunately, means and is used for "falling in line", when it actually should be used to analyze, the management attention created to address a probable negative impact. For example, a resource is self managed, goes about the job in a routine fashion, and completes the job allocation in their own style. They should ideally be more, right?

But if there is a mandate that knowledge sharing is a need and must, and the cultural aspect is neglected for personal gains, then the management over head in ensuring the cultural balance is prominent than performance required.

Similarly, there is something in the mannerisms that the next level performers find choking in the superlative performer, the management over head to elevate the next level performers to the superlative league is a crucial factor in the evaluation.

1. "Peer Value Cost": This cost is measured in comparable terms. Again, it is often than not, misused, as a favoritism, while it is to be measured to value the attention(brags/self mentions)-attraction (perks/salary) -assertion(Choosing work, being finicky of others work ) ratio vis a vis performance.
   

This is typically manifested in teams where employees come from different profiles: Some working their way up through experience, while others have a degree to boot at the same level, or in some instances, the variable attention just for the prestige associated with the school.

In a team of equivalent talented great employees, the overhead of giving disproportionate attention, attraction and assertion to a particular employee would mean other equated employees would leave/live with heart burn that would affect the morale, brand of the organization.

Hence while it is important to lay down the performance parameters, it is equally important to be conscious of the associated costs and keep them to minimum for a self-standing success.