When you read the heading of this post, what was the first thing that came to your mind? A Pink Elephant?
Off late, this has been the question that I ask many of my teammates. And I ask this everytime someone comes up to me and says,
"I don't think we are in a bad position for this sprint."
"I don't think I have a problem with my manager."
"I don't think we'll be able to complete this task within this time, given the experience we had last week."
Research has proven that the human brain has a big issue dealing with negatives.
In my experience it's more so when the sentence itself begins with negatives.
Someone came to me to get an email reviewed, which read like this, "We cannot support this feature by date X as the UI concept is not available."
I got it rephrased to, "We shall be able to support this feature by date X if we get the UI concept by date Y."
This way we communicated a positive intent to support, and subtly put the onus on resolving dependencies to the other side as well.
There are a handful of people who are eternally optimistic. When one interacts with them, one feels everything looks so "Bade araam se". I'm lucky to have a few of them in my team as well.
Being like that comes naturally to them.
But for normal people like me, it needs constant conditioning of the mind.
A lot of our attitude shows up in the way we talk, our day to day outlook and the overall body language, without our knowledge.
Almost every time that I have started something on a pessimistic note, I have failed.
Almost every interview that I have attended in the past in which I have uttered the words, "I don't know" (or similar) when faced with a difficult question, the interview has ended shortly after that.
Many years back, a manager of mine wrote these exact words in his annual appraisal comments about me, "Santosh needs to work with a more Can Do Attitude".
Given that we didn't exactly share the best of professional relationships, I could have easily ticked it off as an attempt to vilify me, since it was documented and could be used against me in the appraisal discussion.
Nevertheless, I sat down to understand if this was true and how to address it. And it turned out that I had a fair deal of change to be done in my attitude and communication. More on what I did, in some other post perhaps.
To keep it short, everyone likes people who believe "The Word is my World" rather than "The World is my Word".
Around this time, I also attended a training program where the trainer told us this story about a seasoned mountaineer who had climbed all the major peaks in the Himalayas. He spoke about the difference between the amateurs and the seasoned ones when they have to tackle a tough section of the mountain in front of them.
While the amateurs try to find all ways around it or maybe even bypass it, the veterans always find a way through it.
His point was, "If I am here to conquer a mountain 6000 or more metres high, then I must not be deterred by this small section of mountain in front of me".
This was the most important learning point for me from that training program.
We must be like the seasoned professional in our outlook towards everything.
At work, everyday we are faced with all kinds of challenges and obstacles. Its up to us to decide if we want to procrastinate, circumvent, find an excuse or take these challenges head on. When I mean head on, I don't necessarily mean to be fast and furious in action.
Of course, doubts, apprehensions, will always be there.
Its important to take note of them and find ways to solve them, rather than not taking up the challenge itself. We also need to reassure ourselves that "Aal iz well".
While we may not be successful at all times, it will help us grow stronger and be better prepared the next time around.
A very profound quote from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.
Off late, this has been the question that I ask many of my teammates. And I ask this everytime someone comes up to me and says,
"I don't think we are in a bad position for this sprint."
"I don't think I have a problem with my manager."
"I don't think we'll be able to complete this task within this time, given the experience we had last week."
Research has proven that the human brain has a big issue dealing with negatives.
In my experience it's more so when the sentence itself begins with negatives.
Someone came to me to get an email reviewed, which read like this, "We cannot support this feature by date X as the UI concept is not available."
I got it rephrased to, "We shall be able to support this feature by date X if we get the UI concept by date Y."
This way we communicated a positive intent to support, and subtly put the onus on resolving dependencies to the other side as well.
There are a handful of people who are eternally optimistic. When one interacts with them, one feels everything looks so "Bade araam se". I'm lucky to have a few of them in my team as well.
Being like that comes naturally to them.
But for normal people like me, it needs constant conditioning of the mind.
A lot of our attitude shows up in the way we talk, our day to day outlook and the overall body language, without our knowledge.
Almost every time that I have started something on a pessimistic note, I have failed.
Almost every interview that I have attended in the past in which I have uttered the words, "I don't know" (or similar) when faced with a difficult question, the interview has ended shortly after that.
Many years back, a manager of mine wrote these exact words in his annual appraisal comments about me, "Santosh needs to work with a more Can Do Attitude".
Given that we didn't exactly share the best of professional relationships, I could have easily ticked it off as an attempt to vilify me, since it was documented and could be used against me in the appraisal discussion.
Nevertheless, I sat down to understand if this was true and how to address it. And it turned out that I had a fair deal of change to be done in my attitude and communication. More on what I did, in some other post perhaps.
To keep it short, everyone likes people who believe "The Word is my World" rather than "The World is my Word".
Around this time, I also attended a training program where the trainer told us this story about a seasoned mountaineer who had climbed all the major peaks in the Himalayas. He spoke about the difference between the amateurs and the seasoned ones when they have to tackle a tough section of the mountain in front of them.
While the amateurs try to find all ways around it or maybe even bypass it, the veterans always find a way through it.
His point was, "If I am here to conquer a mountain 6000 or more metres high, then I must not be deterred by this small section of mountain in front of me".
This was the most important learning point for me from that training program.
We must be like the seasoned professional in our outlook towards everything.
At work, everyday we are faced with all kinds of challenges and obstacles. Its up to us to decide if we want to procrastinate, circumvent, find an excuse or take these challenges head on. When I mean head on, I don't necessarily mean to be fast and furious in action.
Of course, doubts, apprehensions, will always be there.
Its important to take note of them and find ways to solve them, rather than not taking up the challenge itself. We also need to reassure ourselves that "Aal iz well".
While we may not be successful at all times, it will help us grow stronger and be better prepared the next time around.
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