Scratching each others back ..

a.k.a building "support structures".

Just a week ago, we requested a gen next platform owner within the team to pool in his voice to get some expedited support from a support team.

Its a serious irony, that support functions give higher priority to systems that are building now, than the systems already widely deployed all over the world. They all know, the real support is needed in what is deployed. But that's yesterday.. ain't it ?

Anyway, when my team was getting frustrated knocking on a stone wall, thought pooling in the Gen Next system owner to pitch in will help. But the gentleman clearly said, its your problem, you deal with it. Then I said, the same customers will move to Next Gen systems, will have the same issues in a short while. We will help you find some issues proactively this way to help your product do well.

"Nope ! Not my problem" - denial !

Just within a week, the karma has turned it around. Now, he is looking for our support to pool in !!!

Communication Breakdown ..

Today I had a visitor from another building, another department - desperate to get out of his current job and find new opportunity inside the company ! Not an old friend, however - we have a common friend, was he wanted to come over and spill his heavy heart in front of me .. betaal obliged !

Here is the story !

This guy is clearly the "hardest working" of the team. Offloads his boss and super-boss from most of the mundane process driven job. Manages small pool of employees independently without being a manager.

BUT - he constantly reminds the management about his growth, his promotion that is pending, his designation as a manager.

The management has given the promotion. And not yet sure about whether the designation "Manager" is proper yet. In the mean time the employee has gone ahead, ramped up his game, picked up more responsibility, did a bit of business development too.

Then the employee gets a bit more confidence with his new expanded role and went to his management chain and said to consider or he would look for alternatives.

The manager said to find someone in the team and ramp him/her up to his level - which he did :)

Poor guy, he did not know once that happened, his manager told him to "Go find a job within 2 months".

A pure case of communication breakdown because of irritation. The employee was irritated as he felt no one is recognizing his work. The Manager was irritated by constant asking for the promotion.

Now a perfectly good and effective employee is on the look out just to survive !

pattern ... !

Back to blogging after a long break ! 
And considering all the stuff going around, I am sure there will be a steady flow for a while.

The break went very fast, mainly this is the time that is busy in corporations. Post the holidays of December, until the summer school vacation, there is this stretch where a lot of year ahead set ups happen. Just like new years resolutions.

Some lesson's learned. The commitment to keep the commit dates. Re-resolving the resolutions ! etc and time flies away.

But, during this same time, I ve seen history repeating in many cases. Leaders, tired of space and independence moving on to new areas. Happened in 2005, in 2008 in 2009 and again in 2011.

A scary pattern is forming, that tells me - "there is something wrong here".

Will do the root cause analysis and then may be taking a mid-year resolution !