Unsolicited Advice

This morning after dropping my daughter at school, I noticed a young man sitting on his bike immediately after a blind turn. I thought it is a dangerous place to standby and out of genuine concern advised him politely to move away. He mumbled something inaudibly which I presumed as a 'Thank you'. Usually that's what people expect when we help someone. A minute later from across the road I found same man in same posture and same place not moving an inch. Then I realized what he might have mumbled is 'it's none of your business'. It is an unsolicited advice even though given in best interest. He is evidently not interested in it. It made me think, why do I do it despite being rejected in similar fashion time and again. May be it is something to do with my personality , may be a defect in my making or growing up.

If you thought this happened only because I am a stranger to the young man, you are mistaken. It happens with known people as well. I gave an unsolicited advice to a friend who is living outside his earnings on credit (credit cards , loans etc., ) I was genuinely concerned about the kind of lifestyle and financial havoc he is into. He did not appreciate it. I have never ending debates with my wife, which revolve around why we should remain our ethical stand irrespective of the non-matching behaviors from other people. Her point is you cant remain Gandhian in today's dog-eat-dog world. She may be right from her view point, but I always hold contrarian view and an unsolicited advice in my back-pocket ready to invite trouble.

Professional environments were relatively better conducive, how ever a guy like me can invite trouble every where. There are times when I took "Speak Up" feedback a bit more seriously and started speaking up. Little did I realize that nobody asked me to solicit my opinion on a recently rolled out policy, decision made by a senior boss., The list is endless. I thought people appreciate the fact that concerns are not my personal rather general with earnest concern for people. Sometimes I got away with it but on other occasions ended up sucking embarrassment that I was not expecting. I was expecting a thank you instead. :-)

It got me thinking, where is a the problem? Do I represent the diversity in nature or do I represent the  devil' advocate that I am not expected to be? 

Life Skills for a Professional (Part II)

This is continuation of the blogpost I started as essential for survival in today’s world for working professional

Networking:

It is not what you know but who you know will take you heights in career. There are many talented folks waiting for opportunities while there are many others who get just because of the connections they have made. There are many other benefits of networking.

Being a part of good professional network grants you access to wealth of information easily, which otherwise takes painstaking efforts to gather. An informal connection can help break the barriers of bureaucracy helping us in accomplishing our goals. If you have a strong connection with some powerful person in the organization, your image among the people would change.  

Reading:

In today’s world not knowing is perceived as a crime. In order to know the best avenue is reading. Selective reading about your area of business is minimum required where as a more generic reading can broaden your mind and though process and makes you a better person.

Well, the common question asked is, can this be monetized. Sometimes yes but most often it gives us intangible benefits that cannot be really quantified. A well learned person gets respect from others. He also will find his confidence levels improved and will be ready for challenges in life. It also gives him maturity to deal with difficult situations life throws at us. This is one unique skill that can be cultivated without help from anyone.

Introspection:

We all rely on Annual Performance Appraisals, for identifying areas of improvement. Its experience that the feedback we await for year is grossly inadequate, outdated, and sometimes not even correct. Also it happens in some cases that we work under selfish bosses who care only about themselves and have no interest in our development. How do we tackle this shortfall? Introspection at regular intervals can help in bridging the gap.

What is introspection really? It is critically reviewing our performance against the goals we had in our vision. Here we have to be brutally honest about it as giving benefit of doubt in our favor is not going to help really. This has to be done at regular intervals such as biweekly, month or quarter. We need to make sure we note down the corrective actions and work up on them before next review. This process when done on a sustained basis, can provide magical results to your life and career. 

Life Skills for a Professional ( Part 1)

Survival of the fittest is the norm as per Charles Darwin. The same can be applied to professional work environment these days. Especially with increasing competition in work place where the smart newcomers are posing a serious question of existence to veterans aboard.  So what constitutes a winning combination of skills to be acquired by senior staff so that they can win (not just survive) Here are few observations from my side. As usual the disclaimer is these are personal opinions and so limited by my knowledge level and experience with Indian IT sector. 

Story Telling:  

A very important skill in today’s business is the art of telling a compelling story. You may be providing progress updates on your project, you may be trying to justify a design choice, you may be trying to pitch for a new project or you may be simply trying to face your manager in performance review – likelihood of your success improves if you are great narrator. Ofcourse the story should be backed by data, otherwise it would not fly.

A compelling narration tailor made to the audience will give you advantage over competition, as the impact it makes over clumsy presentation, technically overloaded content, indecisive audience. The Story that is well articulated, covers all dimensions, pre-empts the questions the audience might ask, objectively evaluates options can easily win in making the intended impact. So if there is one skill that you would like to pick up this year, it tops the list. 

Data Interpretation:

In day-to-day job we come across many numbers that need to look at, understand and make a decision. However, if we cannot interpret the numbers well, the decision can suffer. So the basic data interpretation skill to understand what the data is trying to suggest is of utmost importance. Unfortunately most decision made are based on intuition either for want of good data or due to inability to interpret the data at disposal.

“Lies, damned lies and Statistics” is the wisdom that tries to infer that numbers can be used to conceal the important facts. This is the second problem. We need to be able to ask relevant question and unravel the facts hidden behind the beautiful charts and graphs. This is gaining more importance at strategic levels in the organization. 

Active Listening:

Come on! We do all through our lives, you may say. Please understand I am talking about Active listening. My observation in meetings is people come decided to the meeting and listen to only parts of the conversation they want to hear and discard. Even worse, some people actually were just waiting for the person to finish so that they can recite their premeditated speech. Due to these problems, the important information that other people trying to convey/communicate is being lost without consideration. Active listening involves intent to understand, get other person’s view point and if necessary, to make amends to our line of thought.  It can help improve our knowledge and become better.