Sunday, November 25, 2007

Some Lesssons Learned.

I am taking time to finish this blog quickly as I need to move to the railway station to see my parents off to home town. They spent about 4 weeks and I am glad that I could spend time with them, thankfully there was no travel.(Thanks to the falling greenback which is hitting budgets as never before).

I come back to couple of lessons this week.
1) Success does not always brings Happiness.
2) Horstman's saying: Tell the boss the truth, it shall set you free.

1)My Son participated in the Annual festival conducted by the Hindu Newspaper. His school "National Public School, Rajaji Nagar came second in the western music competition in which he was the lead singer. As luck would have it, there were 8 participants in the band which constituted the team. There were only 6 medals to be handed over to the winners and so my son and other guy missed out.( I guess they were slow to reach the stage I think). So my son was disappointed a lot and all the happiness that should be there after finishing 2nd out of 40 Schools participants, was missing. Of course, that gave me a chance to order a special pizza for him when he reached home. (I am against junk food) This also gave me a chance to explain to him some of the realities of life. We had about 25 Minute talk that night as we went for a walk. (I guess may be second or third time We had gone for a walk together). So I am glad this incident lead to him to learn that all success is not always happiness. I am planning to send a letter to the school as to what they can do about the medal. Lets see.

The second lesson, was Mark Horstman of Manager tool, jokingly mentions always, "Tell the boss the Truth, it shall set you free". I thought, that its just a statement in a proverbial context. When this happened to three friends of mine in different companies within 2 weeks, I was flabbergasted.(Was it coincidence, like 2 formula I crash in 2 days in 50 years) They took up on themselves to take up some issues that needs correction and pointed to their boss. The boss, duly saw to it that they are all set free, for whatever reasons.Two of them have some serious job search to do. One wont care as he was doing job as a hobby, being a millionaire. I feel that the power distance and openness in Indian context has a loooooong way to go. As the saying goes, "You can take Indian out of India, but you cant take India out of an Indian" is very true. I feel, Indian bosses are very intolerant to things being pointed out and ego massaging has to be done for you to go a long way. Thats why, I am personally glad that I am out of this of Indian boss connections. It all boils down to what background and culture and upbringing with which you have come. A Donkey can never be a Horse Right???. Ok, Enough of my venting my frustrations. (I have self censored many sentences, the Emotional intelligence, prevailed)

I came across interesting website Authors@google. This is video on talk of various authors who gave talk at GOOGLE. I watched Daniel Goleman on Social intelligence. Interesting topic.

Also saw interesting video on Stanley Bing on Type of bosses. (Crazy Bosses) Personally, I had been very lucky to work with great bosses in my 22 years so far who had influenced, supported, guided me all through my career. Out of 12 Bosses, I had in my career, only one (for a period 10 Months in late 90s) was a nightmare. Lets forget it.

I look forward to a great week with my Birthday this week.My Birth star as per Indian calendar was Yesterday.

Till Next week, take it easy and take care, live consciously.

Regards
Karthik.




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