Are you a Real Woman ?

One day after finishing the work Rachael was unwinding by checking her personal mails. Suddenly she saw a mail from an unknown person and he wrote in his signature “I am a fan”. Well she had a fan following of her blogs but she never thought that one day she will get such nice and heart touching mail. That was an Invite to become the speaker and the topic was “ Women - The change agents”. Well usually she doesn't like being a speaker because of public glare but this time the invitation was from “A fan” so she could not say no. She knows that being someones favorite is a“great responsibility” as she herself was fan of many people. And when people look up to you, it's your responsibility not to hurt the feelings. Well Rachael accepted the invitation and started preparing for the Seminar.

On the seminar day, there were four other speakers along with her and all of them were from different background. It was a privilege to share the stage with such talented successful women. She was happy that she will get to learn new things from such distinguished guests who were not only senior to her in age but in experience as well. She was the first one to speak and was a little nervous as that was her first seminar as a speaker. Well she fumbled initially but then she became more confident and was unstoppable. She spoke on the topic based on her experience of being woman…. Simple things of life and how simple things in life (if not taken care properly) can become bigger issue later.

Now was the time for another speaker to take the stage. When the seminar ended she was surprised to hear the opinion of other speakers. One of them said “I am surprised how a woman can take care of kids as well as office. I can never imagine myself taking care of my work and family together. I somewhere feel that such women compromise on work and don’t give their 100%. The kind of profile I am in I can never imagine to start family that’s the reason I never got married”. Another one said “Don’t get upset when your boss comment on your lips and say that “ Your lipstick is awesome””….. Well Well !

Let's take the point one by one. The primary role of women in the society/family is to take care of the family. If that’s not true then Why only women have the capacity to undergo  the process of meiosis because Its women role to have kids and take care of them and define the future of the society and country. I am not saying that Women should not work . They should but Family should always be a priority for women. Men and women have defined roles by GOD and it should be followed in that order only. If we try to change things completely it can lead to devastation.

Rakhsita being woman always believed that Women role has to be performed by women and no men can match the role of women . In the similar way Men role should be performed by Men only, No Women can match that. Rachaels  mother and father had defined “role” in shaping her as an individual hence she believed in that logic. People will label Rachael as Orthodox but according to me She is a modern woman and trying to do her duties of life and I am sure one day she will be a successful mother, wife as well as professional.  We have many examples from the corporate world where the  woman is  successful mother as well as professional. It's not difficult and can be easily achieved with the help of family members ,colleagues & mentors. That’s the reason it's very important to marry the right person/Choose the right organisation….A person/organisation who can understand you, help you grow as an individual. Climbing the corporate ladder, or juggling between the companies or straightway starting of your own … Whatever way one has chosen, it doesn’t matter… what matters is the success of each role play. Women have to plan their house chores as well as office chores in a more professional way and nothing seems impossible. Planning is the core of everything whether its personal or professional life.

Coming to the second statement of speaker “Don’t get upset when your boss comment on your lips and say that “ Your lipstick is awesome”…. It is a concern and matter to get upset. It depends on the individual. Some women like such compliments, some don’t... so men should be very careful before making such statement. Men should better avoid making such loose statement. Everyone appreciates beauty but when this appreciation becomes habit for men and is shown to every second women then its a matter of concern as the next step will be to visualize women in "Ooh la la" way…. Infatuation at any age is bad but if its limited to healthy flirting then it's absolutely fine.  Now the issue is if you don’t appreciate such statement you will be termed as “ Arrogant”. Don’t bother what people say, DO what you feel is right and appreciate the behavior if you find it ok. If not then ask the person ( whatever position the person holds) in a polite manner to “ SHUT UP”

Someone rightly said “ Women's role is to unite the house”….. Women are known as “Female”… The word itself has “Iron” in it which means that women are strong, intelligent and ready to take the  world. Reach the top but don’t forget the primary responsibility of “Being Woman” !

*Image Credits : Creative Commons.

Saamna - The Real Story

Empowerment – Empowerment is a strong word and we talk in today’s world with respect to Women Empowerment, Employee Empowerment…. Empowerment is what young job aspirants are looking for in organizations. More than monetary rewards, it is the feeling that employee “owns” the job that motivates him or her nowadays. Empowered employees are energetic and passionate, however in a middle level position when “Boss” empowers the subordinate, it always doesn’t mean that  “Boss” is doing to make the subordinate feel empowered but it can also mean that he is incapable of handling the work and has chosen the best brain to help him so that he can show his work to seniors by simply erasing the employee name from the document .

So how to handle such Idiotic, mad boss… here presenting the story of Saamna a middle level manager.

One fine day Saamna got a call from an HR firm stating “ Will you be interested in joining ABC company” ? She said “ No” because she had heard that Women are not treated well by ABC company. After few days she was surprised to get call from the Head marketing of the same organization called “ Nilesh Kumar”. First of all she was shocked and taken aback that how “Nilesh” got her number and secondly Why is he calling her… This was the first time in her life when Head marketing was calling her directly without any appointment. However she gave him ear… Nilesh tried to persuade her to join the organization and ensured her that she will be treated well.

After the call he started texting her. She was shocked and didn’t know how to handle the person like him…. So she gave it a thought and tried to ignore the messages. However she had a strong feeling that someone else is controlling this entire act ( The stupid act of Head marketing) so to get into deeper she also got friendly on sms but things were still not clear as whose brain is behind all this activity.

 One day she got the call from HR that she has been finalized and she had to join on x day. So finally she joined. Nilesh tried to get close to her and shared his personal life. She easily could have said “ FO” but he was her boss and she had to think smartly so she hatched the plan in her mind.

Problem statement – Nilesh was mentally sick and needed a shoulder to cry as he was undergoing Divorce in his personal life.

To know about the person who is asking him to get friendly with Saamna.

Solution : For problem statement 1 she needed someone who can become Nilesh friend so she zeroed in on a girl who was always checking guys and was known as “Saana” by some of her friends.  So this “Saana” was best mach for him as there was lot of similarity between Nilesh and “Saana”.

1. Both of them can't stick to one person.

2. Both of them had the habit to show off and were masters in manipulating the situation. Both of them were born liars. Lie was in their blood. Both had the bad family background.

3. Both of them had little brain and were divorced. Nilesh was divorced twice whereas “Saana” was divorced once.

So she thought of introducing them to each other because by doing that she will be at peace and Nilesh will stop harassing her and both Nilesh & Saamna will be able to concentrate on work and will have peaceful professional life. Sammna was professional enough to handle the work and she just wished that Nilesh let her work peacefully which was beneficial for the organisation as well as for her. It would have been the WIN WIN situation for both the organisation and for her.   She once thought of sharing this with senior management of the organization but  she was told that senior management doesn’t hold good opinion about her, however she tried once sharing with senior management but got cold vibes. One of the option was to tell his wife but she was shocked to hear Nilesh opinion about his wife. He told her that she had cancer once and she goes out with guys. Her English is poor. She drinks and smokes. She is on depression pills. Saamna thought the person who had no respect for his wife will never make her life happy. In fact she will become more depressed if she stays with person like Nilesh.

So in front of her there was only one option which was good for the organization as well as for her  that she get him friendly with that “Saana” so that he remains busy with her and she gets peace in life and they as team were able to deliver the project on time. So she introduced him to her . Life was going good till the time Nilesh behavior became worse ( A man ego that how a woman can say no to him). One day when Nilesh misbehaved with her she thought of teaching him lesson for life because there is saying “When we ignore a wrong, we also become part of the wrong” so she decided that she will leave that organization only after  teaching him lesson for life.

She took the matter to HR and she moved on in life. One month later she got call from a lady stating that “Saana” was sleeping with her husband and she needed Saamna’s help in meeting “Saana” as “Saana” was ignoring her calls. She mailed her the videos of her husband and Saana in a compromising position. She also got the shock of her life when she was told that Saamna account was hacked and few mails were sent using her account to show the world the different story. Saamna could have gone to the police but she thought this situation was like mud, if one throws a stone then some mud will be on her as well. So like a sensible girl she thought of ignoring everything. Time will tell who is what and you can't hide the truth for long.

So finally her plan worked. Both got together, the organization came to know the real Nilesh, and she saved his wife life as well.

When the life showed her right vs. wrong , she chose the right even for that her image was at stake and she had to leave the organization on a bad note. Leaving on a bad note was less painful than to suffer from daily harassment. One mistake which Saamna made that she heard the personal story of Nilesh. According to me she should not have given the ear to Nilesh story but her inquisitive nature and a thought that someone is behind her stupid boss action and her thinking that the organisation is like family, made her hear the story. She learned a big lesson that the Organisation is not family and one should never hear the personal story of anyone or never try to help anyone.

When I heard the above story I was moved and proud of being a woman and only a woman can make such sensible judgment .  Hope you all agree that Saamna was a good decision maker and did the best in that particular situation. There is lot to learn from the above story and the fact that empowerment always doesn't mean that Boss is empowering subordinate to give him/her the power of decision making and allowing the employees to say on how things are to be done.... Empowerment needs to be implemented with caution and senior management should be able to differentiate between empowerment and Bosses non performance. Empowerment doesnt work at the place where boss have highly inflated egos and are self centered. When boss look for secured but not challenging jobs, empowerment sounds hollow.

Keep Reading this section.... 

Challenges at work place – Managers Dilemma

“ I can't work with that Swine. X is Swine.” These words were forwarded to  Rachael who had recently joined an organization which had crazy boss and the team was highly demotivated.  For a minute she was awestruck because not only she was shocked to read those lines but was surprised that how someone can write such lines for a colleague. She thought “from” must be junior or a fresher  and doesn’t know much about business communication but she was amazed to find out that “from” was part of the senior management and a very close friend of COO. The fact that he was writing this mail to one of his juniors and by mistake he sent to x person ( sometimes it does happen that we send to the wrong person about whom we are writing instead of the right recipient). Now x person  reported to Rachael and complained to her that he has raised this issue many times with Rachael’s boss but he has not yet taken any action. Hence he was asking for her help.  Rachael decided to discuss with her boss but got the same old reply that “from” is senior person and it's already been highlighted to MD but MD has decided not to take any action on same. Since its sensitive issue and Rachael's boss is handling it she should be out of this. So for Rachael it was a tough decision as Boss is saying to stay away and here is a colleague who is looking at her with hope that she will help him getting justice.  So it was an ethical question for Rachael… She did which she always do when she is stuck in such dilemma’s. She asked herself what is right… and she got the answer that “from” is wrong and he has to apologize…. Rachael raised the issue in a forum and “from” had to apologize but that apology was not from the heart but for the sake of it….. So here the question is  -

When business leaders make mistakes , should they apologize ?

 Traditional thinking says they  can’t afford to, because by doing so is an admission of guilt that can go against them in the future. However an emerging school of thought says that apologizing isn’t as risky as previously believed. It's better to apologize and set up an example that apologizing doesn’t make one small and create culture in the organization that anyone who makes the mistake will have to apologize… No matter which position the person holds. Ethics are the accepted principles of conduct that govern behavior within the society. Put another way ethical principles define the boundary between right and wrong. For me its knowing the difference between what you have “right” to do and what is right thing to do. To make the right choices as a business communicator you have responsibility to think through not only what you say but also the consequences of saying it. Ethical behavior is a companywide concern, of course but because communication efforts are the public face of a company, they are subjected to rigorous scrutiny from regulators, legislators, investors, consumer groups, environmental groups, labour organizations and anyone else effected by business activities.

Lets come back to Rachael… The other problem she faced was that team was highly demotivated so she decided to figure out the issue by simple method .. by doing “Root cause analysis”. She knew the symptoms of demotivation in the team were – Negativity, Dislike of each other, No team bonding, Keeping to oneself, ego, arrogance, immaturity. She could have easily erased these symptoms by doing small activities like team outing, appreciating the team, asking HR help and getting the training organized for the team members but she chose not to do so because simply by removing the symptoms the chances of reappearing the symptoms are much higher. (Its like fixing the bug temporarily and bug reappearing every financial year. Therefore its very important to fix the bug from the root. )

Hence she decided to get into the root cause of the issue.   She asked 3 questions to herself

1.       Factors- What had led to this situation

2.       Reason - Why it happened

3.       Solution - What to do so that it doesn’t arise again

Hmm…  It was a tough task. She decided to make problem chart. Problem with higher management ( including her boss), Problem with group as whole ( colleagues of different department), Problem with oneself.

Well she could figure out that all the 3 areas defined above were the root cause of the problem and being in the position she was in, she decided to let it go or leave it to the way it is as there is an intelligent saying “ Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control. “ And Rachael didn’t have any control. She didn’t wish to take control but wished that her seniors could take control of the situation. Even if she would have tried to control she was sure that she would have failed because strategy is successful only when executed from top to bottom not the other way round. When we suffer from myopia its better to get it operated rather than putting eye solution, as short term solution will lead to blurred vision and eventually will lead to blindness.

* Image credit = Creative commons