Choose what you fight for!

I recently came across a wonderful answer from a successful woman when she was asked to share her secret. Her prompt response was -

I stopped fighting those who gossipped about me ....
I stopped fighting with my in laws...
I stopped fighting for attention...
I stopped fighting to meet public expectations of me...
I stopped fighting for my rights with stupid people...
I left such fights for those who have nothing else to do...
And I started fighting for -
my vision
my dreams
my ideas and
my destiny
The day I gave up on the small fights is the day I started becoming successful.

I started succeeding when I started leaving small fights for small fighters

This made me ponder over some fights I have myself taken up over a period of time. Other than getting some self satisfaction, the only way it helped me was in the form of more stress. Yes, I did get some things I wanted, but was it worth it? The amount of time and energy in trying to fight all the small battles was definitely not worth the investment.

It is important to speak up, but knowing when to and when not to is equally important. Rather than looking at the short term, the key is to focus on the long term. Half the battle is won when you start achieving your dreams and visions while others keep criticizing you :)

Some battles are not worth your time, choose your battles wisely!! 

Whats in for me...

Recently I was killing time browsing over the internet and chanced upon a brilliant video by Jack Welch that explains the role of a leader -

One very important point made here is as a leader how crucial it is to let your team know - "What's in for them..." Organizations hire people to deliver results for them which is understandable. However, the point that is missed is employees are also looking at growing themselves and carve a path that is advantageous for them as well. So as a leader, when we are trying to bring in a new product or a new technology or a change of vision in the organization, it is but inherent that we would talk about the value addition that the change brings for the company. But in majority of the cases we forget to stress on the value add it has for the employees. It could be as simple as learning a new tech, or expanding the domain or diving into the futuristic trends. Focusing on disseminating such information means your employees equally understand the value and passionately work towards achieving it.

Organizations that have long staying good and passionate employees are the ones that consider providing a value add to their employees as much as to the organization. The best secret of an organization's good health and long term sustainability is being able to create and retain a talented pool of employees by truly empowering them and be able to answer the question for them - 'What's in for me?'

I am sick...

• I am sick
• I have a personal emergency
• Due to some unavoidable reasons...
• My kid is not well
• I am down with fever

...And the list goes on!! These are some of the most common reasons given when you want to take a day off from. In most cases it is true but there are those instances when you just don't feel like working. But because that is not considered a "valid" reason, we end up coming up with this or that excuse.

I remember one of my colleagues in my previous organization who told the HR that he didnt attend a particular mandatory event because he was bored :) And the result as you might have guessed was a couple of escalations and email chains circulated.

As human beings it is natural that there can be days we may not be in the best moods to work. Working on such days does not help any of us. It turns out to be more like present physically with possibly not being much productive. You can't get much out of an employee who is not in a mood to work. Instead it would add on to more unproductive days, whereas a day off would mean being active and focused throughout the other days.

Building such an atmosphere where your subordinates aren't hesitant to share the real reason of absence creates a big sense of trust and consequently reduces the number of ad-hoc days of absence. Indirectly it results in better planning and targeting of work. Hopefully, the industry establishes a culture soon where in you can rejuvenate, take an off because you are not in a working mode or want to hang out with friends/family. And you are no longer falling sick!!

Create your table

Recently I came across a you tube video where Meghan of 'The Suits' fame talks about a topic that is very close to my heart
 

This video opened up a flurry of thoughts, past experiences, stories from many of my friends.

The video makes a small but profound statement towards the end - Create your own table. For me this seemed like a very powerful 4 word sentence. Something that many of us might have been unknowing been doing everyday.

Even in this age where we talk about diversity and equality, there is no denial that there still exists a gender discrimination in society - be it at home or workplace. I have been fortunate enough to have not witnessed a gender disparity at home and was lucky enough to be have been for the most part not be constrained in not doing something. My first brush with this came only when I was in my last year of graduation and was giving interviews for jobs. Being a chemical graduate and having a chemical background in the family, I was always fascinated by the big chemical factories and this is where I wanted to land my foot into. So when one of a very big companies came in for campus recruitment and I sailed through the final round of interview, I was elated. However, my happiness was shortlived when I was told that I did not fit into the role since the vacancy was for the production department (mostly dominated by males). Though I was demotivated, I did not lose hope and continued to follow my passion. I did land a job in a chemical research company, however that turned out to be short lived too due to the limited opportunities and ultimately I took an abrupt decision of switching careers and moving into software.

Since then I have done decently well in my career. What I have learnt along all these years is this very statement - Create your own table! Being a woman, there are many times you've got to deal with egos, make people realize that you are no less if not better, be ready to offend your peers with your success. Take it up on yourselves to empower yourselves and more than anything learn to be commanding enough so your colleagues take you seriously. And finally realize that you need to stop thinking of what others  think about you because there is always this someone who will be a debbie downer. But at the same time there are also a lot many who can create a table for you and who encourage you to create your own table. I feel proud to be associated and have known some really strong women who are doing superb professionally while being a big role model for many others in the industry.

The going may seem a little tough but as they say nothing comes without a struggle. Create your own path, work towards it, empower other women around you :)

Manager or Leader?

Manager - Every time I see this tag, it makes me think, "Why not Leader". We don't have a designation "Leader" in the corporate world - at least I haven't seen one. The term Manager brings a host of  expectations - meetings, excel, delivery, getting things done. What it fails to bring forth are the most important things that are crucial to run a successful team.

In the book 'On Becoming a Leader' by Warren Bennis, he stresses the difference between a leader and a manager - The leader innovates, the manager administrates. The leader focuses on people, the manager focuses on systems and structure. The leader inspires, the manager controls. The leader is his own person, the manager is a good soldier. The leader sees the long term, the manager sees the short term.

We want more leaders in an organization, leaders who can grow people around them, who can get the best out of them, who can nourish their team member's strengths. Being a leader has been one of the most challenging aspects for me. It is easy to get work done from your team - it comes naturally with the heirarchical position. But getting it done in a way that there is good motivation and growth for everyone around is the challenging part. It is but obvious that not everyone is the same, and tapping each individual requires a good time investment.

David Marquet's video on leadership skills has been one of the inspirations for honing my leadership skills. 

It is not easy to adopt it, and requires a lot of patience. However, the results are definitely worth seeing.

The dictionary gives the literal meaning of manager as a person responsible for administering or controlling a group of staff!!

What are you - a Manager or Leader?

Less is MORE

Often I have come across strategies in software industries where in order to make delivery faster, the team is made bigger. Though it may work in some cases, it may not really benefit long term.

Bigger teams can have its own challenges -

• It is a human limitation that one person can manage max 6-7 team members directly. Anything more than that means spending more time in getting to make the team work together. Effectively, we may end up with multiple team members who are spending their time tracking the project status, people management, distributing work and so on.
• Every individual in a team has his/her own different personalities. Gelling together all personalities and making them work together can be challenging.
• Team work requires getting to know and complement each other. Team building can be challenging in bigger teams.
• Being able to divide tasks in such a way so everyone is kept busy as well as there are minimum dependencies among each other.
• It is super difficult for each team member to holistically know what is being delivered. It involves considerable time investment in being up to date.

With smaller teams, we can get rid of all the above challenges. Lesser the team members, more easy it is to work together. Team members do not struggle to get visibility of their work. It is easy to identify the performers vs non performers and ensure work is distributed. It results in every individual have good sense of ownership and is able to contribute effectively. Throwing the ball and blame game is avoided. Inherently team politics stays away and the focus is on performing and delivering.

One of my most recent wins with small teams has been building a product in just 30 person days. This is the fastest I have built a product in my entire tenure that also involved understanding the domain and designing the UI! The product still has a long way to go, but getting it to a point of demo in this span is nothing short of an achievement. This achievement is with just 2 full time team members (including me) and 2 consultants working 8 hours a week. At the end of it I was myself surprised that we did it...

Less is More is definitely the mantra for software development.

Get out of the comfort zone

Time and again, almost on a daily basis, I see people around me cribbing about their jobs. They have been stuck up in an organization since a long time without any real motivation and learning. The thought that keeps crossing my mind is if you dislike your job so much, if you are literally dragging yourself to office everyday, if you are forever thinking that you could do better things, then why don't these you just do it. Why don't you carve a path for yourself that can keep you happy? What does it take to do that?

Over the years I have noted that a very big aspect of not making the move in that direction is the comfort zone. Over a period of time, all of us tend to get into a comfort zone wherein though we may not be happy with our jobs, it serves the purpose. The major worry for most of us is - 'I need to prove myself all over again' or 'I need to work doubly hard' or 'I am all set here'. Well, if you like doing something and you take up exactly that, how difficult will it be to prove yourself? It may take some initial efforts but isn't it worth it than being stuck up somewhere and continuously crib about it.

What you do and what you get is completely in your hands. If you really want to do something, you just go for it. Stop blaming everyone around you for not making it good for you. You are the torch bearer of your career and it's only you who can shape it, no one else. So think about what it is  you want, either be the change you want to see or look for a change.

Most importantly - Just get out of your comfort zone!

Software and Culture

I have been building software since the last 11 years and like everyone software for me was coding. Being a software developer the focus is always on technology, knowing the latest trends, automating, building cool stuff that helps reduce manual efforts. And what does it take to build that - a bunch of smart people, a computer and some infrastructure. Is that enough - YES would be the answer from majority of us. However, I had a major mindset change in the last 2.5 years thanks to some great mentors and colleagues. Software is not just coding, software is not just technology - software is a Culture in itself.

You can't get a bunch of smart people, a computer and infrastructure to build software. Well, yes you can, but if you'd like to build a high quality product that is long running and sustainable, run technology with culture. So what's this big thing about culture and what value does it add? Maybe some leadership lessons and some psychology lessons here and there that sound great on pen and paper? Definitely no, my experience says that the right culture helps in creating a highly motivated, high performing teams who are passionate about building and delivering meaningful stuff.

Culture in technology means giving the developers working at the ground level the autonomy. Trusting my fresher as much as I trust a senior developer. Giving the ownership to the team. We can't have a program manager who has no clue about what an 'if' condition means, committing to a deliverable date. This is something that needs to come from the developers coding at the ground level who really understand the challenges and what goes in building a software. So if my developer says it takes 3 months to build what a program manager thinks can happen in 2 months, do I agree - Yes!

Culture is letting people be innovative, giving them the tools they need. Technology cannot be built in a constrained environment where there is reluctance in trying out new things, where failure is converted into a blame, where the ball is thrown at each other. If you want to build a great software, innovation is the key. Along with innovation comes failure - the idea is to fail fast and learn fast.
Culture is not telling people what to do but hearing from people what they want to do. Getting away from a task based system to a product based system is the need. A culture of openness, a culture of healthy debates, a culture of no baggage, a culture of no deadlines or practical deadlines which I'd call guidelines - this would make a product successful, this is what makes developers passionate about delivering, this is what would mean no attrition. Giving the team the freedom to think and innovate would automatically reflect in deliveries and productivity. The so called deadlines will automatically be taken care of. You don't hire smart people to tell them what to do, you hire them so they tell you what to do and how to do. Haggling behind designations and competing for visibility will take us nowhere. Strive for excellence and everything else will automatically follow.

All this does not come easy. It's a big investment in a big mindset change at all levels. It means getting rid of some age old roles, it means learning new skills, it means giving up control, it means giving the decision making to a 1 year experienced software developer, as a leader it means talking less and making people talk more, it means stop giving directions, it means TRUSTING your people to the core. It means unlearn and learn. It definitely means a short term disruption. However, the results in the long run are worth seeing.

You can create jobs with technology. To create careers, build Technology with CULTURE.