Mentoring and Coaching

What feels more empowering - being told the answer or being told how to find the answer?

I will go for the ´how´. My natural inclination is go to for the ´how´. Knowing the how increases my capability to deal with similar situations in the future.

What's the flip side of this approach? It usually takes longer to find the solution and usually involves repetitions/ iterations.


What do you do when there is a time crunch (need for quick action) or when cost of failure is high or when ecosystem is such that a lot of pre-knowledge is required to figure out how things work?

I think a combination of the answer and how to find the answer, in the future, might be beneficial in such cases.

Hence both mentoring and coaching have their place in organizations. 

I don´t think it´s a question of which approach is better.  Rather the question is 'which approach is more appropriate in a particular situation'.

-
Sourav

Bell Curves and Identities!

Visualize you are having  one of your best periods or year at work!

Things are going well for you. You are stretching but enjoying. You are getting the results. Your teammates are also doing a damn good job. It's a successful and energizing workplace.

At end of year, you are told your performance doesn't meet expectations!

Well! Are you taken aback? 

In all probability you must have been.

Obviously, the Bell Curve and relativity is at play here. :)

It doesn't matter how well you perform; what matters is how well you perform relative to others!
 

This seems to be true in most of our institutions -schools, colleges, and workplaces.

It does make logical sense to say that we are upping the bar of performance and there are consequences for those who are at bottom of stack.

But logical from whose perspective? The organization´s!

What kind of an emotional impact might this have on employees? Will employees relate to organizations?- they might if the tide is with them -everyone wants be a rating 1 but no one wants to be a rating 5:).

Think of a family or a friends circle where the least effective member´s membership in family/circle is in question at the end of the year. 

What kind of an emotional response or a preventive mindset might that lead to ?

In companies, over a period of time the emotional relationship/identification will possibly be more with one's team members/work, etc and lesser with the organization.
 

Probably that's why, with the advent of Bell curves in organizations, the focus has shifted from loyalty (to organizations) to employability (of one's career).
 

Does organization lose? i don't think so!
 

Do employees lose? 

Over a period of time they might realize what's at play- they might choose to still put in discretionary efforts- but that will be for reasons beyond performance based incentive.They might also choose to be loyal to a particular organization - but that will be because his/her employability or other needs is being taken care of adequately.

Is there a better alternative possible?

Well! For that we first need to find an alternative to bell curves :).

-
Sourav

Emails!

Back in 1999, I got my first email account. 

My friend and I went to a cyber cafe next to college. While surfing the net, we were intrigued and excited. We fumbled with the keyboard, mouse, and UI.  Soon we had opened our accounts in yahoo.com. We were the first recipients of each other´s first email. We felt happy that day!

In the first few years since then, worldwide web felt like an exciting, unique, and possibly fruitful addition to life.

A decade down the line, emailing is not a unique or exciting experience anymore. But is it usually fruitful? I still am not sure!

Now the internet encompasses our lives. 

I have a smartphone. I can access the internet at a click of a button and I have access to my emails at all times. Or rather emails have access to me all the time! :)

So I realized over a period of time that I was not sleeping well at night. I felt that the phone will ring anytime, and slept light in anticipation of that.  

I tried keeping the phone on silent, but even then I found myself waking up every few hours to check my emails on phone.

So now I don´t keep my phone with me in bed when I sleep at night. Rather I keep phone on table- and that´s quite a distance away from my bed.

Now I atleast get a few hours of being just with myself.

At work, we usually spend our time reading, writing, or replicating emails every second minute.  With so much emphasis on staying connected, I have been wondering what all might we be missing out on at work.

Over last month, I have been trying a new way of responding to emails. I check and respond to my emails only twice a day – for about 45 minutes each – 1 slot in the morning and 1 slot in the evening.

All the other times in the day are creation/relationship building/contracting/project times. 

This POA seems to be working for me.

I feel my day is more easy paced. I do more and better work. I feel more satisfied at the end of the day. I manage to clear and respond to all my emails too.

Importantly, I have defined and contracted on what timely response to emails means to me – response within 24 hours until and unless an email is marked as High Importance.

Work seems to be more meaningful now, inspite of barrage of emails I receive every day!

In this connected/networked world , what has worked for you in doing things beyond emailing?

-                                                           

Sourav

Identities!

Who/What do you associate/identify with? 

How many groups/entities s can we simultaneously associate/identify strongly with? 

Well, to answer this question we first need to draw a distinction between association and identification.  We can associate with lots of groups/entities but needn´t necessarily identify with, and advocate everyone of them.  

Does this mean that ´association´ is characterized by emotional detachment? I don´t think so!

I feel  both association and identification are value words- they have an element of emotional attachment involved, though in different degrees.

I identify with myself and my family. I am shaped by them!

I associate with some individuals/teams who I am with, or have come across-  I somehow get intertwined with them and their mark stays on with me But I can´t turn around and say ´I identify with them´.

Sometimes  I find an expectation that if you are associated with something, you must also identify with it and even advocate it.  I´ve seen such expectations manifest across institutions, colleges, teams, functions, and groups I have been a part of. Such an expectation doesn´t necessarily resonate with me.

We supposedly at any time can identify strongly with maximum 2 entities. That´s what probably defines some of anomalies/confusion at work place/in life e.g. – we identify with our team and function (but probably not with company), we identify with our family and country (but probably not with state/region we come from).

So at any point of time I can be associated with lots of people/groups, but I will probably identify strongly with 2-3 groups only!

Which identity do we seem to choose when there are conflicts amongst our different identities?

I´m not sure. Probably the answer is case specific.

How might a relationship characterized by identification sound/feel like?

I recently met an old buddy after 3 years.  We spent a couple of hours with each other, immersed and seeped in conversation. Time flew by and soon we bid each other adieu. Our conversation stands etched in my memory.  

And so do conversations we had the second last time we had me ( back in 2008) and first time we had met (back in 1999).

Sometimes it is not number of hours you spend with someone that determines identification;  rather  it´s quality of time spent.

-

Sourav