Passion and Team Work!

Being passionate on what I want to do at work, will give me motivation, energy and direction on what I want to accomplish. Without passion I am just doing my job. The difference is humungous.

However, the reality is not so simple. My passion should be combined with my team work. The team you work with may or may not be on the same page as you. It's important for me to realize that I have to be aware of this all the time.

My passion may be construed and interpreted as aggressiveness, which will increase the temperature in the room. When the temperature increases it is hard to accomplish things.

The lesson I learnt was "Passion is important for my drive and enthusiasm. However, I need to be aware and keep checks in place so that, my passion at work is not mis-interpreted."

Importance of Implementation!

"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” as told by none other than Thomas Alva Edison. I wish Edison could blog during his times. He has contributed to so many similar quotes around the importance of implementation. I have listed a few ctrl+V's

1. “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

2. “I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work”

3. “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

4. “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”

5. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”


We do come accross a number of ideas everyday but we don't take time and courage to implement them.

Enter the Dragon!

China is a reality in the global IT world today. Days are gone where Chinese companies are a distant competition. Today, many Chinese companies are competing heavily where price of execution is crucial. Many managers are trying out few low risk projects in China. The growth in this region mirror's Growth in India a few years back. While, there are still a lot of challenges for Chinese in terms of language, capabilities and capacity, there are advantages in terms of price, brain power and most importantly hunger to prove.

Here are a few questions and my inferences:

1. What does it mean for the Indian companies and Indian Engineers?
I think the top 10 Indian IT companies are not Indian any more. They have become truly global and their head quarters happen to be in India. I know for a fact that all the big 5 have development centers in India and are consciously moving certain percentage of work to China. Some logical reasons are:
a) To de-risk their business
b) To exploit cheap labor
c) To tap the Chinese market
d) To ride the IT wave
I will add another logical reason here. Access to Large Talent pool. One of my customers I was talking to has this to say "A Chinese engineer today is an un-polished diamond. It depends on your polishing skills, to extract the true value." For Indian companies, China is another job market. For Indian engineers, it is a different situation. To differentiate themselves, they need to work much harder and not satisfied with the low end work. They need to constantly strive towards moving up the value chain.

2. Are Chinese companies a competition? Really?
Chinese companies are definitely a competition if Indian companies are competing on the basis of billing rates. The difference is huge and the IT decision makers are thinking harder and asking the question "Why not China?" or "What type of projects can we do in China?". Microsoft is going further here because of the commitment to Chinese government. "How can I do my projects from China? and how do Lower my risks of project failure" This is an opportunity I think for Indian companies which are truly global.

3. How can China and India work together?

Here are a few lessons

China does not provide cost advantage if you are doing your projects in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.
China as a market is much bigger than India but to succeed in this market, you have to take help of Chinese companies.
Chinese IT companies are typically good in areas such as localization and Globalization.
China is a good place to execute large scale IT projects.
China is not a good place to execute projects which have high customer interactions such as Support.

Given the above scenario, there are large synergies between India and China and it makes every business sense to exploit these synergies.

Gospel of Fearlessness

The theory of Fearlessness applies to business as well. However, like fire this is a very powerful concept. If you use it in a sustained way, you will reap the benefits but if you abuse it, you will get burnt.

I ran into this website while helping a friend. Very powerful compilation of Mahatma Gandhi's views about Fearlessness, thought I would post it here for larger auidence. I think all of us should take time and read these beautiful tit-bits, assimilate, agree or disagree and implement.

My Heart is in the work - Andrew Carnegie

http://myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=a_carnegie

Mistake Proofing

Clarity of Thought!

There was a king who had twin sons and nobody else. Obviously, he had difficulty in choosing the right one. He called his sons and asked each one of them on how the twin princes would rule the country after he denounce his throne.

The first one said "I will work with my brother and mother and serve the people to the best of my capability........bla ...bla...bla".

The second one said "I will rule."

In my 16 years of professional experience, the most successful people, I interact with fell in the second category. Unfortunately, I believe clarity of thought is like an art and not everybody is equally born with this skill. However, I think we can conciously develop clarity of thinking and avoid lot of clutter in our minds. Here are a few pragmatic ways and means I was able to improve my clarity of thinking:

1. Arrest Information overflow: Information is powerful when it is optimal. In today's world, we have so many options and choices, we get confused with too much information and the decison making becomes harder. For example, when I get 1 million hits for a simple search in the Google, how do I know which information is correct. As long as you have information as to not to reinvent the wheel, you are good to go.
   


2. Don't be a Gadget addict: Use gadgets only to improve your efficiency. For example, checking email every 5 minutes is counter productive. One best practice I try to follow is to check emails only 3 times a day. It's easier said than done but believe me, you have so much free time and can be extremely productive @ work. Try this for three days and you will realize how addicted you are to the emails and how much free time you will have if you follow my approach. If someone wants to talk to you immediately, they will call you. Also in the same lines, close that browser when you don't want it. Email, internet and Cellphone combined will hamper your thinking and eat most of your productive time.
   


3. Frameworks Help: There are a number of techniques and frameworks available and accessible to help your decision making. SWAT analysis, Root cause analysis etc., are tools many of us are familiar with now a days but ask yourself how much are you using these tools for your day to day activity. One tool I find extremely useful for my work is to divide my activities into four categories: 1) Urgent but not Important 2)Important but not urgent 3)Urgent and Important 4) Not urgent not Importent. Category 2) is the place you should try to put as many hours as possible and make sure nothing is pending in this area. Because if its Urgent and important you will do it anyway. If it's Urgent but not important you will do it or you will probably delegate it.


4. Chose Best times for thinking: Pick your best times for work which involves thinking. Early mornings for me are usually very good to be productive at my best. Some times late nights also work better for me.


5. Postpone decision making: I have experienced many a times that simply postponing my decisions has solved many problems. I am not saying you should postpone all decisions. But many a times, postponing a decison will actually buy you an option at minimum or no cost. Consider this as an alternative options very similar to non-of the above options in GMAT.