How to Judge a person

One day my neighbour( 60 yr old lady) asked me “ Dear how come you understand people so well ? “ I have been watching you for last 3 years and most of the time your prediction about people are correct. I am more experienced than you, but still I make mistake in judging a person, but probably you have mastered this art.” I said “ Thanks Aunty”. But it is very simple and I told her a story……. In the story there is Mr. Raj Khosla, who joins as vertical head in an organization. This organization has to launch a new product in next 30 days & there is huge pressure both inside ( employees) and outside ( Vendors). Now whenever a new person joins, he has to bring his army. In corporate it is never one man army, it has to be one man with 5,10, 20, 100 followers…. Depending on what position he is in. So this gentleman hires a person Mr. Rakesh Nath in a senior position. Mr. RaJ Khosla & Mr. Rakesh Nath both are new to the organization; they take some time to settle in new atmosphere. After some days Raj plans to leave the organization as he feels he should start something of its own. After leaving the organization he tries to poach Rakesh to join him in his new venture. Mr. Rakesh doesn’t join him and on the top bitches about him with his colleagues. He tries to create negative impression of the person who recruited him ( because Raj is no more with the organization & he is under the illusion that Raj will never come to know). Also he is very rude to his mom because in one of the conversation his colleagues cum friends heard him talking to his mom in rude way. So I told Aunty even if this gentleman ( Rakesh) is nice to me I know he is not good person because of two simple facts – A person who cannot be nice to his parents in old age can never be good human being and secondly if a person can bitch about his mentor can never be loyal to anyone. So its very simple to figure out the nature of the person and I have my own rules to judge a person. I have created the rules with my experience and that’s the reason judging a person for me is so easy. So Aunty asks what are these rules of judging a person ? I said very simple • If a man is always surrounded by many people, he has to be leader. I mean even if goes to loo there are some people who will follow him ( Gosh !! at least leave him alone in loo. Poor guy ) & that’s the height of ……. ( no words to explain) • If an unmarried woman is crying in the office loo, it means that she had fight with her boyfriend. • If a married woman is crying in the office loo, it means that she had fight with her boss. • If person leaves office only after his boss leaves ( if it’s daily routine) means that he has mastered the art of buttering/ego massaging ( This rule does not imply to secy’s). • If a person ( same department) looks at you & winks, it means that he is joking. If the same gesture is copied by a person from other department, it means that he is flirting with you. • If a person does not mix up with the people around, it means that he is most dangerous. • If a person talks unnecessary, he is genuine guy but need training on etiquette’s. • If a person pokes or provokes you it means that he is informer to senior management. • If a person keeps pointing issues in your product whereas the other person says it working fine & if it continues for all new products (only launched by you) then the person is interested in drawing your attention towards him. He wants you to notice him and I am still clueless finding the purpose behind this behavior. Sometimes even I fail to understand few behaviors. Aunty said these are rules for people whom you know, but what about those people whom you meet first time ? How do you judge them ? I said • If a person is well dressed for the meeting, it means he is thorough professional. • If he waits for you to sit before he takes his chair, it means that he has good manners as well. • If he is clear and to the point it means that he is clear in his thought process. • If he praises your efforts/work style it means that he is buttering. ( because how does he know as he has never worked with you) • If he asks you for lunch, it means that he is interested in closing the deal in first meeting • If he asks for dinner/drink it means that he want to get friendly with you. • If he comes alone to negotiate costing with you, it means that he is biggest fool. If he comes with his boss then there will always be drama inside meeting room as boss will say “we are not interested let’s leave” where as the other person will try to pacify. • If he is on time for meeting, it means that he is punctual ( In India you rarely get to see such people). • If he keeps looking at your face continuously, it means that he is awe of your beauty or there is something on your face which is drawing his attention so either you go to loo & check your face or think that you are born beautiful. Aunty was happy to get glimpse into the character of people we deal with day and night. She thanked me and I was glad that she liked my logic of judging a person. Hope you guys like it too ??

My Life My Rules

My rules of life

Rule No. 1 : Never Outperform your boss : Everyone has insecurities. When you show yourself in the world and display your talent, you naturally stir up all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity. This is to be expected. You cannot spend your life worrying about petty feelings of others. With those above you, however you must take a different approach. When it comes to power, outperforming the boss is perhaps the worst mistake of all.
Those who attain high standing in life are kings and queens: they want to feel secure in their positions and superior to those around them in intelligence, wit and charm. It is deadly but common misperception to believe that by displaying and showing your talent, you are winning the boss’s affection. He may appreciate you in public but at his first opportunity he will replace you with someone less intelligent, less attractive and less threatening. Your boss is like sun. There can be many stars but can only be one sun at time. Never obscure the sunlight or rival the sun’s brilliance, but rather fade into the sky and find ways to heighten the master star’s intensity. If you are naturally more sociable and generous than your master, be careful not to be cloud that blocks his radiance from others. He must appear as the sun around which everyone revolves, radiating power and brilliance, the centre of attention. If you are more intelligent than your boss, for example seem the opposite: Make him appear more intelligent than you. Act Naive. Make it seem that you need his expertise. By letting others outshine you, you remain in control instead of being victim of their insecurity. Ego massage is must in today’s environment. However most of companies deny the fact that promotions happen due to ego massage but in reality things are different and it’s high time that we accept the truth rather than running away from truth.

Rule No.2 : Do not trust your office friends, learn how to use enemies : Be wary of friends – they will betray you more quickly for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. Its better to hire a enemy because he will be more loyal than your friend because he has more to prove. Infact you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them. It is natural to employ your friends when you find yourself in times of need. The world is harsh place and your friends soften the harshness. Besides you know them. Why depend on a stranger when you have friend at hand. The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends at office will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes – may be they mean it often they do not. There was another colleague of mine who use to act as my best friend but the game he used to play at my back was unimaginable. All working place require a kind of distance between two people. You are in office to work not make friends. Friendliness ( real or false) only obscures the fact. Your enemies on the other hand are an untapped goldmine that you must learn to exploit. You would never put a finger in a lions mouth, because you know what will happen if you put a finger. With friends you have no such fear and if you hire them they will eat you alive with ingratitude. I have experienced this and I mean it.

The wise man profits more from his enemies then a fool from his friends ( Balstar Gracian 1601- 1658).
Rule No. 3 : Mask your real intentions : Keep people off balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what are you up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelop them in the wrong smoke, act as duffer….. and by the time they realize your intentions it will be too late………. You will be out of their life. Most people are open books ( people think that I am open book but unfortunately I am not). They say what they feel, they blurt out their opinion at every opportunity and constantly reveal their plan and intentions. They do this for several reasons. First it is easy and natural to always want to talk about one’s feelings and plans for the future. It takes effort to control your tongue and monitor what you reveal. Secondly many people believe that by being honest and open they are winning people’s heart and showing their good nature. They are greatly deluded. Honesty is actually a blunt knife which bloodies more than it cuts. Your honesty is likely to offend people, it is much more prudent to tailor your words, telling people what they want to hear rather than telling them hard, ugly truth of what you feel or think. I have experienced this so if you want to survive in this world ,do not tell the truth, hide your real intentions. Talk endlessly your desires and goals ( not real goals). Remember: It takes patience and humility to dull your brilliant colors , to put on mask of inconspicuous. Do not be scared of wearing such bland mask – it is often your un readability that draws people to you and makes you appear a person of power.

Rule No. 4 : Guard your reputation : So when I asked my dad after his retirement that “what have you earned in service to the nation?”. He says “ I have earned reputation”.
Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips however you are vulnerable and will be attacked from all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. They stand aside and let public opinion hang them. A solid reputation increases your presence and exaggerates your strengths without your having to spend much energy. It can also create an aura around you that will instill respect, even fear. Reputation is a mine of diamonds and rubies. You dug for it, you found it, and your wealth is now assured. Guard it with your life. Robbers and thieves will appear from all sides. Never take your wealth for granted and constantly renew it – time will diminish the jewel luster and bury them from sight.
Rule No. 5 : Use absence to increase respect and honor : Too much circulation makes the price go down. The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear. If you are already established in a group temporary withdraw from it will make you more talked about, even more admired. You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity.
Everything in the world depends on absence and presence. There is saying “Out of the sight is out of mind” but it is not true. A strong presence will draw power and attention to you. You shine more brightly than those around you. But there is time where too much pressure creates opposite effect. The more you are seen and heard from, the more your value degrades, and you become a habit. No matter how hard you try to be different, subtly, not knowing why, people respect you less and less. At the right moment you must learn to withdraw yourself, before they unconsciously push you away. It is game of hide and seek. Master this game. Imagine yourself as “ SUN” It can only be appreciated by its absence. The longer the days of rain, the more the sun is craved. But too many hot days and the sun overwhelms. Learn to keep yourself obscure and make people demand your return.

Please note that all the above rules are interpretation of my experience. Please do not take it personally and it is not aimed to hurt anyone.

Promote yourself to get promotion.

The below analysis shows that successful managers spend 48% of their time in networking, reason is that they want to promote themselves. This below finding emphasis on the fact that promoting yourself is must in today’s dynamic environment.

Recently, a friend of mine shared with me that, "I'm really good at what I do. I don't need to market myself." In fact, he is quite good at his profession, but the problem is that not enough prospective people (internal as well as external) know about him. Like many professionals, he is reluctant to talk about his accomplishments. "It feels like bragging," he says. "Doesn't it make me seem unprofessional?"

If thoughts like these often cross your mind, ask yourself this -- who are the biggest names in your profession? In your line of work, who might be considered unquestioned experts, those with maximum credibility? Now, how did you get to know about those people's work? Did you read an article or book they had written, hear them interviewed; learn about them on the web? Or perhaps you were told about them by others who had heard them speak or read their words.

The point is that these well-known people became well-known because they showcased themselves, usually in multiple ways. They shared blogs, examples, and ideas about the work they had been doing with a wider audience than just their friends and family. You know about their work because they showed it off. And I'll bet it never occurred to you to call them unprofessional for doing it, but some people have the habit of finding negative points in all the activities and only those people will show finger at you and say “She is trying to show herself because she is not very intelligent”.  Do not listen to such people because their aim is to pull you down no matter how good you are in your work.

Showing off your work doesn't have to sound like, "WOW !  I m great?" "Only I could have completed the work" "Company can not run without me" All the above statements have a hint of bragging. There are hosts of very dignified and appropriate ways to let a wider audience know how good you are without ever saying so. Here are a few suggestions which you can try.

1.     Writing articles -  Putting your expertise in writing and sharing it with your target audience ( Your colleagues, friends, family,) reads is a powerful -- and very professional -- way to let more people know about your unique talents. Submit your articles to both print publications and web sites that serve your niche and watch your visibility grow.

2.      Become speaker in conferences – One of my ex boss always use to encourage me to become speaker in conferences but somehow I was not very confident as I thought I will not be able to justify the position as speaker but I was wrong. Whatever position you hold, one should try his part as speaker. Appearing as a speaker allows you to broadcast your expertise with three different audiences -- the people who attend your talk, the people who are invited by the sponsoring organization but can't attend, and the people you tell about it before and after. If standing in front of a room makes you too nervous, serve on a panel of experts instead. You'll get to sit behind a table and speak from notes.

3.     Testimonials/Recommendation - Whenever you do a good job in office, ask your boss or clients to write you a simple thank you note describing what you did to make them happy. Then make their words available on your web site, brochure, or other marketing materials. Let them tell others about your value, and you won't have to say it yourself.

4.     Creating your portfolio - It's not just artists that should capture their best work to show off in a portfolio. You can collect photos, examples, and other evidence of your accomplishments and display them on your facebook, LinkedIn in a marketing kit, or with a PowerPoint presentation. You don't have to sell people on your abilities when they are seeing for themselves what you can do.

5.     Creating the product “You” - Packaging your image to the world as product to your prospective bosses can help them a compelling way to discover your real value. Products like ebooks, white papers, and audio recordings allow you to showcase your expertise and increase your credibility. They can often be advertised more widely than your services can, giving you another avenue for getting your name known.

So what are you waiting for?? Choose one of these ideas to pursue and make a plan to showcase what you can do for a wider audience. If you truly want to spend less effort on marketing yourself, start letting your prospective bosses know your worth J because after all you are metaphors of diamond, so let people know that you are priceless diamond.

Right Versus Right

We have all experienced at one time or another, situations in which our professional responsibilities unexpectedly come into conflict with our deepest values. A budget crisis forces us to dismiss a loyal, hardworking employee. Our daughter has a piano recital on the same afternoon that our biggest client is scheduled to visit our office. At these times we are caught in the conflict between right and right. And no matter which option we choose, we feel like we’ve come up short.

Managers respond to these situations in a variety of ways : Some impulsively “go with their gut” others talk it over with their friends, colleagues or families: still other think back to what their mentor would have done in similar situation. In every case regardless of what path is chosen, these decisions taken cumulatively over many years from the very basis of an individual character. For that reason I call them as testing moments. As managers move up in an organization, testing moment becomes more difficult to resolve. In addition to looking at the situation as a conflict between two personal beliefs, managers must add another dimension: the values of their work group and their responsibilities to the people they manage.  For example How should a manger respond to an employee who repeatedly shows up for work with the smell of alcohol on his breath? How should a manager respond to one employee who has made sexually suggestive remarks to another? In this type of testing moments, the problem & its resolution unfold not only as a personal drama within one’s self but also as drama among group of people who work together. The issue becomes public and is important enough to define a group’s future and shape its values.

Many managers suffer from kind of ethical myopia, believing that their entire group views situation through the same lens than they do. This way of thinking rarely succeeds in bringing people together to accomplish common goals. Differences in upbringing, religion, ethnicity, education, make it difficult for any two people to view a situation similarly – let alone an entire group of people. The challenge for a manager is not to impose his/her understanding of what is right on the group but to understand how other members view the dilemma.  A classic example which I have seen is stated below (name changed)

A 38 year old manager, Saket Bakshi headed the marketing department of ABC co. He was married & has three children. He had spent most of his career as successful salesperson and he eagerly accepted his current position because of its varied challenges. Three senior managers reporting to Saket supervised the other 50 employees in the marketing department and Saket in turn reported to one of four vice presidents at corporate headquarters.

Saket has recently hired an account manager Rashmi Agarwal who was single mother. Although she was highly qualified and competent, Rashmi was having hard time keeping with her work because of the time she needed to spend with her son. The pace at work was demanding, the company was in the middle of finishing a merger and 60 hour work/weeks had become norm. Rashmi was also having difficulty getting along with her supervisor Lisa Ray a midlevel manager in the department who reported to Saket. Lisa was an ambitious, hardworking woman who was excelling in ABC’s fast paced environment. She was irritated by Rashmi’s chronic lateness and unpredictable work schedule. Saket has not paid much attention to Lisa’s concern until the morning he found a handwritten note from her on top of his pile of unfinished paperwork. It was her second note to him in as many weeks. Both notes complained about Rashmi;s hours and requested that she be fired.

For Saket who was himself a father and sympathetic to Rashmi’s plight, the situation was clearly a testing moment, pitting his belief that his employees needed time with their families against his duty to the department’s bottom line. Saket decided to set up meeting. He was confident that if he sat down with two women the issue could somehow be resolved. Shortly before the meeting was to begin, however, Saket was stunned to learn that Lisa has gone over his head and discussed the issue with one of the company’s senior executive’s. The two then has gone to Rashmi’s cabin and had fired her. A colleague later told that Rashmi had been given 4 hrs to pack things & leave the premises.

Where Saket saw right versus right, Lisa saw Right versus wrong. She believed that the basic ethical issue was Rashmi’s irresponsibility in not pulling her weight and Saket;s lack of action on the issue,   Rashmi’s customer account was crucial and it was falling behind schedule during a period of near crisis at the company. Lisa also believed that it was unfair for one member of the badly overburdened team to receive special treatment. In retrospect, Saket could see that he and Lisa had looked at same facts about Rashmi and reached very different conclusion. Had he recognized earlier that his view was just one interpretation among many, he might have realized that he was engaged in a difficult contest of interpretations?

Identifying competing interpretations, of course is only part of the battle. Managers also need to take a hard look at organization in which they work and make realistic assessment of whose interpretation will win out in the end. A number of factors can determine which interpretation will prevail: company culture, Group norms, corporate goals, company policy and the inevitable political jockeying and battling inside organizations.

Planning ahead is at the heart of managerial work. One needs to learn to spot problems before they blow up into crisis. The same is true for testing moments in groups. They should be seen as larger processes that like any other needs to be managed. Effective managers put into place the conditions for the successful resolution of testing moments long before those moments actually present themselves. What happened between Saket & Lisa after that incident is not important. Important is the lesson.