Personal and professional development for technology professionals.
» Bringing Ideas To Life. With Love!
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 16 Jan 2006, 8:38 AM - Leave Comment
Guy Kawasaki enlightens us with a great post for people who are looking at a branding initiative for their company and even for themselves. Here is the link:
Enjoy!
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By Rajesh Setty on Mon 16 Jan 2006, 6:00 AM - Leave Comment
The other way of saying this is that if you are TOTALLY wrong, just admit it!
You won’t be right every single time. I ask people that if they would be careful in the new year whether all their decisions that they make in this new year would be 100% right. Until now nobody has told me that they can get it all right. Meaning everyone knows that some of their decisions will be wrong. In other words goofing up sometimes is almost expected.
Of course, whenever you make a decision, though, you don’t start by saying that the particular decision will be wrong. You want to make a good decision every time. At the time you make your decision, it is based on several things – your awareness at that point, your knowledge, your intellect, current circumstances to name a few. Once you make a decision or take a stand, any of those things can change or you may just be presented with new facts. You may realize that your earlier stand or the decision was incorrect. The easiest (and the hardest) thing to do is to just simply admit that you were wrong and take another stand. However, that is something that will hurt most people’s ego. When you really need to change your stand or decision for the right reasons, please garner enough courage to make the change even if it means that you will contradict yourself.
Of course, we all know that if you start contradicting yourself on a daily basis people will start losing trust in you. If you do this once in a while, you will only show that you are also a human being. It’s OK to be wrong sometimes. Remember that by NOT admitting that you are wrong, that fact that you were wrong won’t change.
If you are a leader, this is all the more important. You will be setting an example to your team members by sending a clear message that it’s OK to be wrong sometimes.
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 15 Jan 2006, 9:32 AM - Leave Comment
I had the good fortune of meeting with Dr.Tom Hill of Eagle Institute recently. Quick background on Tom: Tom is 70 years old and was in the academic field until he was 50 years old. At age 50, Tom started a business career selling Re/Max franchises. In the next ten years built businesses that together transacted $3 Billion worth of business.
Tom spoke to our group on several things but one concept was really fascinating. Tom asked us to list ten people (apart from our family members) with whom we spend most of our time. Tom’s point was that you will be “average” of these ten people in several respects. This short article builds on that topic.
Who you spend most of your time with will influence a lot of who you are in life and where you are going. Here is a simple reason for that:
2. Your general thoughts are largely influenced by your dominant conversations
3. Your general conversations are with yourself or people who are around you
4. People who you spend a lot of time with you will have a large influence on what those conversations will be.
So, in essence, people with whom you spend most of your time will largely influence your destiny. Who are those people in your life today? Who should you add to this list?
I am in no way suggesting that you should not have friends with whom you have a lot of fun. The wisdom is in determining how much fun you will have NOW in your life and how much you will reserve for the future 
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 14 Jan 2006, 9:34 AM - Leave Comment
Dwayne Melancon reviews “Beyond Code” at his always insightful blog Genuine Curiosity.
Thanks Dwayne for your kind words!
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By Rajesh Setty on Sat 14 Jan 2006, 9:18 AM - Leave Comment
There is a problem if you regularly say “I don’t know” and there is a problem if you never say “I don’t know.”
Both are extremes. In the first case, it is a skills and competence issue and most of the time in the second case, it is an “ego” issue. I want to focus on the second case.
Many people have trouble being comfortable saying “I don’t know.” and it is more common amongst leaders than others. Sometimes leaders get carried away thinking that because they are the leaders, they are supposed to know answers for every problem that their people bring. They not only think that way – they think they should know the answer at that very instant. So, rather than accepting that they don’t know – they make up something. Most of the time, leaders are smart and they CAN make up things quickly and it may very well be something good. However, that is nothing like saying “I don’t know.”
Think about it – when you say “I don’t know” there is a whole new set of possibilities that will open up than when you start making up things. The moment you declare “I don’t know” the first thing that might come to your mind is to your mind is to ask for help. Help from someone that might know more about the topic than you. The other option you might look at is to start to learn more about the topic through books, tapes or websites related to that topic. In summary, you will be in a “learning” mode rather than “making up” mode. In the “making up” mode, you not only have the risk of “making up” a sub-standard solution to the issue at hand, you also have to start thinking about defending whatever you “made up.” It is like building a house of cards. If what you “made up” is not so good, you look bad not once but everytime you try to “defend” whatever you came up with in the first place.
If you think long and hard, you will see that “making up” is not worth it.
Lastly, saying “I don’t know” won’t make you small by any means. If in case, the team around you thinks that way, it is time for you to look at your team and see if it is the right team that you have assembled in the first place.
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 14 Jan 2006, 8:08 AM - Leave Comment
One senseless act, one careless remark or one stupid decision can COST you a lot
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By Rajesh Setty on Thu 12 Jan 2006, 3:25 PM - Leave Comment
Yesterday, I was at a group meeting of one of the mastermind groups that I am a part of. We were discussing a lot of things and the topic moved towards the works of Deepak Chopra. My friend Mukundan recounted watching Deepak Chopra’s interview with Larry King. I believe one of the questions was “How do you think this Universe was born?” or something like that. Rather than answering the question directly, Deepak seemed to have responded questioning the question. He said “Larry, from your question it is assumed that since there is a discussion about the birth of the universe, there will be a discussion on death. The universe was not born or it won’t be dead. It always was and will be there”
The discussion topic above is controversial and let me not get deep into it. However, the point to note is that Deepak immediately questioned the question and re-framed to bring a new perspective. This is a common theme with several smart people. They are not tempted to answer every question that you pose to them. They think about the question and see if the question needs to be answered in the first place.
Whenever a question is asked, our general tendency is to respond with an answer. That is the way we are programmed – right from home. The same thing continues at school. The teacher asks a question and the student answers. Go to work and most often, the practice continues. The boss asks a question and you answer. It is this conditioning that makes it hard to act otherwise. There is no where during this journey, people are taught to question the question. This is not part of any curriculum. This is supposed to be one of those self-learning things that you pick up as you grow.
How do you learn to question the question? For some, it comes naturally. Others have to learn it through observation and pracice. Listen to interviews of powerful people on TV, Radio or on the Internet. Focus especially on the free-form Q&A section. See how these people handle questions. Observe those people in leadership positions in your own organization. How do they handle questions?
Here is a trap: There are good questions that someone will ask you and you won’t be comfortable in asnwering them. The escape route for you is to question those questions and avoid answering them. Questioning the question is not to be practiced to avoid responsibility or accountability. You need to have the wisdom and courage to:
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By Rajesh Setty on Thu 12 Jan 2006, 9:37 AM - 1 Comment
Here is a question to ponder for the new year
What should you BECOME at the end of 2006 to feel that you had a fantastic year?
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By Rajesh Setty on Wed 11 Jan 2006, 3:40 PM - Leave Comment
SEABE stands for “SEArching for the Best Excuse.” A few years ago, there was a member in our team (we will call him “Joe”) who was an expert in SEABE. When the boss asked him to do something more than what he was doing, he would immediately come up with an excuse as to why he wouldn’t be able to do it. The excuse would be so good that neither the boss nor anyone in the world could dispute what was said. The result was that the boss would go and find someone else to solve the current problem. Joe would think that he won. This continued for a few months. the results were always the same. At the end of every such interaction Joe would think that he “won” the game. Don’t get me wrong. Joe was a smart guy and he would complete whatever was assigned to him brilliantly. What was different was that Joe would never take any additional work!
After a few months, things changed! The boss would no longer come to Joe with any additional work. The boss would not ask him for any help beyond what was assigned to him. For Joe, this was a major victory!
You all would have guessed what happened after that. Many of Joe’s peers who were happy to walk the exra mile were promoted when the time was right. Joe was always treated with respect but his career stalled. Cutting long story short – Joe left the company in search of greener pastures.
SEABE always helps – in the short run. You can think that you are smart if you SEArch For The Best Excuse. But you really are not. They say that “It’s either reasons or results and reasons don’t count!”
Next time, when you have an opportunity to walk the extra mile, stop and observe your thoughts. Is your mind racing for SEABE or is it racing to find ways to somehow make it work? There is a day and night of difference between the two approaches.
SEABE kills your career in the long run!
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 10 Jan 2006, 6:40 PM - Leave Comment
I might have mentioned this before but let me say it again anyways.
Kavitha (my wife) and I watch a lot of movies. We watch them in five
different languages. Being a storyteller I like movies with powerful
stories. If the story and direction are good, I sometimes get so
engrossed that I forget myself. Of course, I know that you don’t care
about my movie watching habits. The point I want to make is different
but I wanted to set the context first.
It is always fun to watch
the reactions of the people after the movie. There are always some
people who will endlessly analyze the minor glitches in the logic of
the movie and comment and finally conclude that the director of the
movie does not have enough brains. Otherwise how could he miss these kinds of details?
What
I can’t stop wondering about is that these people know most movies are
fictional and the director has to crunch a lifetime of events into
three hours. It’s a lot of work.
So, here is my point: While its fun to find fault in the logic,
they need to extend the same kind of rigorous analysis to other stories
that they hear in their real life. Example: When they are going after a
goal and their friends may say something like “You can’t do it”, “It’s
dumb”, “It’s impossible” and follow up with some stories to back up
their claims, it’s important to check the logic in those stories.
Why do you think that real-life stories get a different treatment?
Cheers!
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