Fear of being misunderstood

Written on Sunday, February 28, 2010 by Siddharth PV

I am on my way back from Chennai where i had gone for my personal interview for XLRI. As i sit back and think about the interview, i am a little worried the panel might have misunderstood me. I am not so worried about being selected/rejected. Frankly, i am past the stage where i used to think that a degree could make or mar my career. I am sure that mba or no mba, eventually i'll make it good. But being misunderstood surely scares me.

One of the questions where i am afraid i might have been misunderstood is-

Q- So you switched from TCS to irunway.. And your salary jumped by X%.
(he calculated X wrt my current salary.. No wonder X was significantly large)
My Answer- yes sir, but over a period of two years....

And unfortunately this is where i stopped.. Or i guess the topic got changed.. I never explained that my real motivation for moving to iRunway was the profile.. In fact, when i first moved, my salary was nowhere close to my current package. In fact, the cost of staying independently had almost offset the increase in salary and the increment in my monthly take home was hardly anything to write home about.

But the sad part is, i never explained all this. I just said 'it has increased over time'.
Besides, i had also mentioned it amongst my long term objectives that i want to build a strong financial foundation for my family...

Just hope that the panel doesn't (wrongly) put 2 and 2 together and picturize me as a money-crazy guy who's doing his mba to chase a bigger pay package..

This is the problem with short interactions.. You might end up making unfair conclusions about people because you heard only one aspect of the story.. The short interaction did not leave enough time to explore the various layers to the person's answer.

My take away from this episode is-
When you haven't really 'interacted' with someone, you should avoid making any judgements about them. Its important to give people a chance. On the other hand, one must prepare adequately for such interactions. To me, it feels equivalent to faking it (at some level) as you are not being your natural self. But i guess there's no way out..

Posted in iRunway, mba, misunderstanding, money, motivation, passing a judgement, short interactions, xlri | 1 comments

Skepticism v. Cynicism

Written on Friday, February 12, 2010 by Siddharth PV

What follows is a small excerpt from the commencement address given by Tom Friedman (the author of the 'The World Is Flat') at the Williams College, MA in 2005.

Btw, the address is titled 'Listen to your heart' and is really worth reading..

Skepticism is about asking questions, being dubious, being wary, not being gullible, but always being open to being persuaded of a new fact or angle. Cynicism is about already having the answers -- or thinking you do -- answers about a person or an event. The skeptic says, "I don't think that's true; I'm going to check it out." The cynic says: "I know that's not true. It couldn't be. I'm going to slam him."

So, to summarize it, a skeptic is the one who 'questions with an open mind' whereas a cynic 'opines with a pre-conceived notion'..

While the skeptic is actually in search for better info before he can start believing, the cynic is only there to push his opinions..

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Gangu Teli v. Raja Bhoj

Written on Sunday, February 07, 2010 by Siddharth PV

Devdutt Patnaik recently had this great post (link) about the deference between people who just implement and those who dream and ALSO implement.

Over the last year, I feel that I have become more of a implementer and lesser of a dreamer. Saying that this is (probably) the result of my working atmosphere would be being unfair - because finally we all are responsbile for what influences we chose.

Well - either way, here's a great post that has again reminded me of the importance of maintaing the fine (and extremely critical) balance between just dreaming (a la Sheikh Chilli) and just implementing (a la Gangu Teli - just focusing on acting in the present - looking at the current 'small' picture while completely forgetting about the BIGGER picture). (So in a way, this is also a continuation of my previous post..)

Some excerpts from the post by Devdutt:

Shekchilli is a dreamer.

Gangu Teli does not dream at all. He likes to implement things. He calls himself a 'realist' and focuses on practical things like doing the task and measuring their effectiveness and efficiency. That's what the world should be doing. He has a disdain for dreamers. He is the frontline warrior; he knows. When times are bad, he will be called upon to do the ultimate sacrifice. The buck stops with him as he stands in the market. He is therefore most valued in the immediate term. Since he knows that, he often suffers from an inflated self-importance.

Mitti ka Madhav - He is what you want to be. On his own, he is neither. He is a reactive member of the team, doing whatever pleases you, with no mind or opinion of his own.

That brings us to Raja Bhoj, the ideal leader, a dreamer as well as implementer.

(He then explains the behavioural difference between Gangu Teli and Raja Bhoj through an example.. really worth reading)

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The Small Picture and the BIG one too..

Written on Thursday, February 04, 2010 by Siddharth PV

The Small Picture and the BIG one too..

The Context:
Its 8 p.m. and I am polishing off another proposal. Just like all others till date, this one also came with a short-ish deadline. We somehow managed a decent (I would like to believe) version and that too about just in time.

I send it across to the big bosses and wait for any changes that might be required. 10 mins pass and the feedback starts:

This assumption shouldn’t be here. Doesn’t make sense.
- I reply saying that I had included it using inputs from the delivery team and as far as delivery goes : who knows better?

Now, 5 minutes later, I sit back and think about the assumption and realise that boss wasn’t wrong after all.

Maybe the assumption was valid – but surely the language needed to be better
(as in – while the assumption made sense from a strictly delivery standpoint - given the BIGGER business context in which the proposal was being sent, it surely did not make sense)

So, why did I not spot it in the first place?

My guess is: when I was busy getting the proposal in place, with all the 10 sections.. with inputs on pricing, exec methodology, etc coming from 3 different sources..
I was more focused on getting the smaller (yet very important) things right...

Is the formatting in place?
Is the English correct?
Is the content complete?

That’s what I was worrying about. I was looking at the document through a magnifying glass, making sure that I don’t miss the minute details – while assuming that the inputs that I was getting were correctly thought through.

But turns out that while thinking about the tactical issues, I did lose the BIGGER picture.

While getting the minute details is mandatory – you do not get any brownie points for getting them right. Its part of ‘hygiene’.

But if you miss the BIGGER picture – you could end up losing the project all together.

So – its mandatory that I quickly master the art of checking the small picture while not missing out on the BIGGER one too.

(I know that I am capable of doing it. Just that the challenge is doing both in a crunch situation where having time is a luxury.)

Posted in details, strategy | 0 comments