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 !

.. and they said "Betaal could not be coached !!"

sorry for the egoistic title !

In years, I ve taken my first ever long vacation without having to open my hand bag at the airport.
Yes ! No carrying laptop... !

I always thought it would be a torture. For someone addicted to looking at screen and hoping for clear the mailbox and when done, waiting for the next mail.. it was a supposed to be a torture. But then, I gave up tobacco last year "Cold Turkey" !

Not a big deal ! Phew ..

I packed five books of different tastes instead in my hand bag.

Started with Paulo Choelho - "Brida" and "The witch of Portebello". As usual, typical Pualo. There were re-inforcement of many mythical other readings I ve done. Then the magnificently described "Dreams from my father" by none other than Barack Obama ! Loved the book. And more over could relate to every emotion depicted in that book.

Followed by Google story - not much to learn, but inspirational.

And finally (what ?? you may ask) "Sex and human loving" but three Doctors ! This was like, well - no one needs to learn "How to eat, self defend or procreate !" But a lot has been written on the fundamental rights that God gives at birth to each living being, irrespective whether one's is born in China or USA :)

Point is - no TV and no Laptop was NO problem ! Really !! 8 long days. And plenty to learn and evaluate and think and practice !!

Betaal can be coached - in absence of action and ego ! 

Next milestone is   "Do nothing for few days" !

The Transport Business

Whether shipping people in a car or shipping information packets over networking devices, there is huge similarity between these two businesses.

- Both need to transport their objects, reliably
- Although the job is same, there will be many models of cars and many models of routers. Varying sizes and capacities
- The fancy cars will cost more. There will be a moon roof, which will cost a fortune, but one may not use it. Same with expensive switches, some fancy lil feature
- When cars used to sell only in USA and advanced countries, they used to be fancy, big, luxurious ... the same makers struggling to make cheap hatchbacks for India and emerging. Its the same in routing / switching - the latest trend is "low cogs" devices for Emerging countries !

With all these, networking industry can learn a lot from locomotive, which is 100yrs older that it.

Now, why did Nano fail exactly despite low cogs ????

Localized benefit ! Call center counsellors.

One of my very close friends, went through a most troublesome pregnancy.

Just fate - I would say.

Drs. would say differently, and name a 21st chromosome to cause all the issues. End of the day, the 21st chromosome was not invited by my friend to cause the rubble any way ! So fate it is ....

The baby goes in to ICU post delivery. And very predictably the Health Insurance company says, they don't cover the baby expense because of "pre-existing conditions".

Hmm..!!!  pre-existing for a baby just born ? How could that be ?? As per the insurance company though - "this is a condition that could have been predicted using aminosynthesis before birth and could have been averted".

And hence it has become a pre-existing condition for a baby ZERO day old !!!


It does not stop there... I did the bare minimum bit of picking up the argument with the insurance company through a few friends in HR. And mentioned that my friend is under severe mental stress because of the condition of the baby and physical stress also, because of the surgery. Hence when insurance doctors talk to her, they should be considerate.

To my surprise, our own HR suggested to use another benefit available to employees under mental stress. A call center counselor. This is very popular in the west, where individualism rules supreme. Most of the people in distress wont even have any one to provide a pair of listening ears. They can use a call center suave person listening to the sad soul and empathizing. That is therapy !

And  a registered benefit provided by the employer.

Here in India, one drops a bit of tear, 20 family members and friends are physically beside you to help !! What use does a call center counselor have here really ???

Shame on the HR departments copying blindly the benefits from west !!

"Core USP"

I walked in to a bi-cycle store, which is oh so rare in Bangalore urban area. You can find Car dealers, but the old fashioned bi-cycles, which used to be the ONLY way of transport when I was a kid, is no longer a common sight on the streets. Yes ! You can find an upscale mountain or racing bike easily in Bangalore though :)

With Rampant wealth creation and consumerism, one thing that has not visibly changed and that is "service" sector. So, you can manage to buy a cycle, but wont find a place to fix a puncture easily !!!!

Finally I found this new cycle store in a busy street, which is close to our place. Walked in to buy a cycle. And asked that ONE question that bothers me... "Can I come back here for any repair if I need to ? " !!

I would not have been shocked if he said - " No Sir, we just sell (high margin, less work) bikes. You ll have to go out of city for repair". I would have accepted the answer too, as I ve gotten this answer in past and accepted, although grudgingly !

But the answer was a welcome "Yes we do ! " followed by a warm short story - "We started very small cycle repair shop 30 yrs ago in North Bangalore. From that repairing shop to 5 major cycle stores all over Bangalore, we have grown. We have grown - but what used to be our core business, that is cycle repair, we continue to do that. That's our root. Core of our business. can't Quit."

So come back any time when you have a problem, - "Call me on my cell before you come " ... and like everything in India, a mobile number to go !!

Welcome change.. but then, I ve not tried it out yet :)

Kids get it easy ..

This Deewali, we launched an initiative in the apartment association to have a cleaner Deewali.

Simple agenda - Lets stay away from crackers ! And focus more on cultural stuff, eating good food, dancing to bollywood music etc. But then, those were all taken care of by the over enthusiastic kids of the apartment complex.

My agenda was just to convince or at least tell as many families to not burst crackers and save themselves some risk, some money, poisonous gas and unpleasant loud bursts of sound.

Some visuals with lil kids with Nebulizers, gory pictures of child labor, and accidents, all part and parcel of the campaign.

After tiring amount of posters and e-mails, I had the toughest job to do. Explain my own kids to abstain from crackers.

A day before Deewali, I tried talking to them (9 and 6 yr old boys - who enjoy bursting crackers a lot and under peer pressure to burst this time too).

Surprisingly, before I could tell them anything, they were telling me NOT to buy crackers, as pollution, accident .. blah ..blah .. They even showed me pamphlets their school has distributed.

Retrospectively, I should ve sent the kids door to door on this campaign :) They seem to be the most matured ambassadors of this.