Perfect People look Imperfect - by Sanju Dabi

Perfection is something that I have realized to be a very much a relative term. What appears as perfect to one person may be less perfect or imperfect to others or vice versa. And it is not common to see people who try to be more perfect actually end up being less successful than those who don't seek to be so much perfect. This does align with the thought that 'excess of anything is bad', so does that mean aim to achieve extreme perfection can really turn out to be something undesirable? Ironical but this is true. Haven't you heard about scientists who were declared as crazy because they wanted to achieve something that was beyond understanding of other people?

Higher is the degree of perfection aspired, the efforts required to achieve it increase exponential, say making something 90% perfect would some effort; then achieving the last 10% cannot be accomplished by addition 10% of this effort, infact even if 10 times more the initial effort cannot guarantee 100% perfection. As friction cannot be totally eliminated, perfection cannot be completely achieved. However if you want higher perfection you also increase friction with people whom you are working with or with people how are working for you. Does anyone like boss who is questioning too much and trying to understand everything? People generally call such people as crazy, but all they are trying to take all measures to achieve a higher perfection. On other hand a boss who is not much involved and talks on high level and keep people jolly is liked more and is thought to be one who understands more and is more knowledgeable than previous type of boss. Wait! That’s a too quick conclusion, infact the former type of boss is more knowledgeable and latter type is a person who only knows how to manage opportunities available to him and would quickly move out of project when a better opportunity comes to his way giving an excuse that because of his capabilities more challenging work has been allocated to him. Definitely the former type of boss will be capable of achieving a higher degree of perfection, however when it comes to projecting perfection the later type definitely outshine.

Haven’t you heard form lots of people who complain that they have been working sincerely for long period of time but did not get promoted or appreciated? Why? Because they delivered something that was more perfect and they took more time in doing so.

Another aspect is that those who are not much involved in the activity would normally believe in anything that is presented to them reasonably good manner. People like to here what they can understand and presented in a simple manner and are happy to know that someone else is in full control with capability to deliver something perfect and that there are no associated problems. And it is s a fact that nobody around you would really appreciated the higher degree of perfection you are trying to achieve.

So you need to decide if you want to be called successful or feel perfect to yourself, you cannot be both!

Firing a Vendor, as seen on Television - by Sanju Dabi

Television definitely has affect on people. This incidence is about the time when I had graduated from university as an Engineer and was on first job where I happen to work under a manager who was quite cool and had plans to teach the new graduate engineers about how to deal with vendors and non-technical aspects of work, apart from doing the technical work.

Those were the days when I was learning UNIX operating system and new applications related with Instrumentation and Control. We had lots of projects going on at shop floor of our company and I was given responsibility of installing and configuring SCADA systems. This was for one of the most important clients of our company. The computers were purchased for a well know firm and for any hardware issues we had a support engineer coming to support us at shop floor. Also we were a big client for this vendor. It so happened, that one support engineer “Mr. Gentleman” was assigned to support our projects. He had been quite good at his work and was also supporting clients other than us. Over period of few weeks we had somewhat friendly communication over support issues.

One day I was facing problem with some hardware in a computer that needed a card to be replaced and was waiting for support person to attend this, however he did not turn up till second day. When I was asked about the progress of my work I informed my manager that I was stuck at the moment due to a hardware problem.

To this my boss explained me how to deal with such situation, he told me “Well you need to call them up and tell them that your project is being affected and this call is of priority, you need to get tough with them and give them some firing too, like if the project gets delayed due to the sluggish support from vendor then it will impact all their future contracts” and also he asked me to call him up when support engineer is present to fix the hardware issue. Oh well now this is how I executed this.

I was a bit excited and panicked since this was my first job and first major execution responsibility. I was not sure of getting support and was thinking over and again about the way I should talk to the vendor. What if I speak in normal tone and I dont get support and then my manager gets angry? He will point out that I was not tough with vendor. Definietly a newcomer confusion and felt myself under pressure, so I decided that I should talk like an executive in power. I called up the support department of the computer vendor and spoke with Mr. Gentleman in a tough voice (as you would see in television soaps when people in office speaking on phone with a sharp commanding tone).

I told "Your hardware is not working fine! Because of your sluggish support we are unable to make any progress in our project, we need you now and immediately here! If you do any delay I will see to it that it has direct effect on further orders we place to your company" and that was it.

All he was telling over phone was "Yes", "Ok", "We will do it" and I was not sure of what would happen next and that time I did not realize what a tough language I had used but was feeling that I had done my duty as instructed by my manager.

And this is what happened next. Within next 2 hours we had the support engineer at out shop floor and our problem was fixed. But then I realized that this guy Mr. Gentleman was more nervous to talk with me while at our shop floor. After he finished installation of new cards, I took him for a tea at our company cafeteria and then called up my boss to tell that problem was fixed. My boss was happy and talked with this person in a very cool tone and then I had all my hardware fixed.

Next day I see that Sales Manager of that computer firm (who was also boss of that support engineer) has come to visit my boss and for a moment I thought he might complain about me being tough with his support engineer. But latter my boss told me that the Sales Manager had come to insure that support would be of the quality and timeliness that we required and there would not be any delays.

My manager was not expecting this visit from the vendor firm but he was very happy with me and thanked me for taking extra steps to insure good support and that I was good at dealing with vendors. I was a bit nervous about way I complained to support engineer and for sure would have got a good lecture from my manager if he came to know that.

After this I never had issue with getting support from this vendor and even for a small problem we had support engineer visiting us on the same day. Still I felt quite uncomfortable later for being tough with this Mr. Gentleman over phone and learnt the right way to solve such issue. Later on with experience I realised that tough language should be used only at end when there are no other options left and things are really out of control.

Its not necessary to show anger to get things done and certianly television is not a right place to learn!

Mr. Perfect and his Manager - by Sanju Dabi

Computerization is now a way of life and further to it the enhancements or major improvements are also frequent, i.e. end users can expect that system that they are working on to be obsolete within few years and get a new system that is supposed to be better and more efficient for the business. A new system is always welcomed by end users, it’s nice to see people happy and elated on the day it gets commissioned, however happiness may not last long. Although the new system is supposed to be better, the main issue for end users or operators is getting familiar to this system. Operators do find it difficult to do some activities in new systems that were simpler to do in the old system. This can be because the graphic screens have changed or sequences in which they need to enter data or instructions may have changed.

It’s quite easy to hear a remark from operators that 'the new system is causing so much trouble to us'. I am used to hearing this over last 10 years since I started to work for implementation of systems. Remarkably I see that the attitude in this matter shown by the end users across industries, locations and countries is similar.

And who is Mr. Perfect then? Certainly he is not the one who has all knowledge about the new system (because nobody can have it). I happened to go to a bank in my town with my father since I needed to get a draft prepared for US Embassy. Well and this looks to be a time when a new system was introduced in this bank. Earlier it used to take few hours to get draft ready or even I had to go next day to collect it. Well now times have changed and I got this draft from bank within 45 minutes with help from Mr. Perfect who made the new system work for us.

How? This was interesting to observer. I had given form for draft to a gentleman at counter with all my details and I got a response that it will be ready within 10-12 minutes. He was really a cool person with nice smile and looks to be quite friendly with his colleagues and then I see him getting off his seat and calling his Manager a couple of times for help. It appeared that something funny was going on. After 15 minutes I inquired if my draft was ready and I got a response 'well we have a new system here and it’s messed up and I am fixing it', that’s interesting!

Then he calls his Manager again, who looks to be a bit tensed (obliviously since he has responsibility to manage large amount of work in the bank and also people to manage) and gives some instructions to this guy. Then this guy looks happy and does some more stuff and that gave us impression that draft will be ready soon. In between someone came to him with another request and he turned it down with a smile saying 'oh well not right now, I have to make a draft for US Embassy'. Certainly he was fully devoted for my request (feels good to get such an attention).

Now again I go and inquire if it was ready and answer was 'no, there are still some problems' and then I am standing close to his counter desk. He once again calls his Manager and this time you cant expect that his Manager would look happy, so Mr. Manger sits next to him and starts to instruct him as 'now enter code here', 'click on the next button', 'click on approval page' and so on till complete activity is done and draft is ready to be printed. And I here from him that my draft is ready and is being printed. Finally I got it and it was fast compared to time it used to take couple of years back.

Finally I see Mr. Manager commenting to this gentleman that 'Why do you have to ask me the same things so many times? You have been trained for this new system' and he gets reply 'I know that Sir! But I need to be sure of what I am doing that it is exactly correct in this new system!'

So who is Mr. Perfect?

"Mr. Prefect is the one who can make any new system work for his customers and has a thorough way to insure that all is correct by calling his Manager every few minutes!"

Keeping Ahead of Time, yet Always Arriving Late - by Sanju Dabi

What made me think and wirte this was a call I got from my sister at 7:45 am (instead of 8:00 am) on a Sunday morning when I was feeling lazy to wake up and felt like sleeping few more minutes. Why did she call me 15 minutes early???

Keeping clock ahead is common trend with lots of people in India. Keeping ahead by 5 minutes would for sure go unnoticed, but for sure it’s easy to encounter situations where clocks at home and offices would be ahead by 5-15 minutes, in some cases even up to 20-30 minutes.
It’s obliviously a reason to wonder why this is being done. How does it help? Does it cause confusion? Who benefits by this? Why people keep their time ahead?

Some of the replies are: “It helps me to be on time (how come you know your watch is ahead)”, “If i am not on time as per my watch I will be on time at least as per the Standard time (makes sense)”, “I don’t want to miss my bus in case it arrives/departs early (makes sense)”.

Well where you can find this clock to be most synchronized with the Indian Standard Time (IST) would be probably at Railway Stations, where its not uncommon to find people commenting that the clock of government is behind (which may not be the case). However looks like people like to have their own standard time and feel distinguished from others. Another use of keeping time ahead is to tell others to work faster by showing that they are being delayed. Certainly this gives some buffer to avoid some small delays.

I worked for a multinational firm at my hometown of Baroda for 3-4 months in 1998, obliviously the administration staff there was composed of all local people with a rule that people reaching later than 9.15 need to report to the respective manager for reason that caused them to delay. That was a time when I used to keep my watch less than 3 min ahead of IST and one day I reached office certainly a minute before 9:15 on my watch but was put into category of people coming later than 9:15 for that day. There was no point to argue with people at office reception who kept the office clock at entrance ahead by at least 7 minutes because for sure they kept a pride in keeping office ahead of time.

Well 3 minutes ahead of Standard Time doesn’t looks unreasonable if you are surrounded by people who keep it 10-15 minutes ahead. But on my first trip to Denmark being 3 minutes ahead of Standard Time left me in cold. I came out of the apartment to get on bus that would take me to office as per time in my watch and it was first week of February, 1999 really cold in Ordrup, a suburb of Copenhagen. The bus arrived and departed exactly on time and other people who got on the same bus arrived on the bus stop were present there less than 10-15 seconds before the bus arrived. Well so all I had to do was to synchronize my watch with the standard time in Copenhagen and it was really convenient.

It can be an easy conclusion that services are on time and better in Denmark than India, however this conclusion incomplete and incorrect if volume of traffic and passengers is considered per unit of infrastructure (I wont take up this discussion here, its another very interesting discussion).

On other side it’s a trend of not arriving at any party or casual gathering on time. Normally people start coming like 1 hour later than proposed time. Why is that so? Well why should I be at some place when I am not sure about the time when others will arrive? I want to go when people are there and not when crows are flying. You can spend a nice time explaining all good reasons of your busy life that caused you to come with late (maybe this can help you to become talk of the party). It’s natural to feel more important and busy in life by arriving late and you get the full party atmosphere and no need to be the ones who are trying to create it.

These practices are not bad at all, these give people more space to talk and feel distinguished and have been adopted even by Europeans living in India. In the company where I worked last in India we had a Danish appointed as a project manager who was got an invitation for an expatriate party which was supposed to be of only Germans and Danish people working in Baroda. This gentleman went at 7 pm sharp only to ask a question at the reception of the party hall “Is this the location where we are supposed to have party today?” and the answer was “Yes Sir, you are quite early”. Well they had a great party but this gentleman was wondering all next day about this culture and how quickly it was adopted by his fellow countrymen.

Well there is no harm in keeping ahead of time and arriving late. Its your time, its important and if you arrive late it only means that you are really important!