Archive for 'Distinguish yourself'
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 17 Apr 2006, 1:15 AM - 2 Comments
When you start any significant initiative all you need is one “good reason.” Next time, change the game. Find another important reason to do whatever you are planning to do. Try to do this even if the first reason you have got is REALLY good enough to engage in this initiative. Let me try to generalize this even further. Make this a fun exercise. Even for simple things that you do in your everyday life try to find a second reason to do it.
Let me give some examples (ranging from sophisticated to whacky)
1. You are a consultant and you are always flyingSecond reason: Try to collect frequent flyer miles
Third reason: Meet old friends in different cities
Fourth reason: Watch latest movies on the flight and get caught up on entertainment
2. You commute about an hour to your work everyday
Second reason: You can listen to the latest audio books and get caught up on reading
Third reason: You can use a hands-free phone and talk to some long lost friends
3. You take out garbage every friday
Second reason: Go to the farthest dumping place and treat this as an exercise
Finding a second,third or fourth reason to do the same thing will not only stretch your creativity and imagination but will also show you how you can “leverage” yourself better. There is one thing that is common to everyone on this earth – each person has only 24 hours in a day. However, we also know that different people get different levels of value out of those 24 hours. One common factor that high-achievers have is that they can get higher leverage out of everything that they do. We can all get higher leverage only if we can think and act differently. Imagine the same eight hours of work that you put in everyday producing multiple returns rather than one. Can this be done? Of course yes! Does it take a lot of discipline to do it? You bet!
All the best!
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By Rajesh Setty on Sat 15 Apr 2006, 3:02 PM - 1 Comment
When something needs to be delegated, generally people are comfortable to delegate stuff to others who have had experience and accomplishments in those areas. That way there is some predictability is what they think.
Of course, we all know that only in an ideal world can we always get people with the right experience (and accomplishments) to take care of things. Sometimes we need to work with people who have the potential to take care of things but they have not executed such projects in their past lives. This is very common. In fact, those who have had the experience before can vouch that sometime in their life they got the opportunity to get the “first experience” without being fully qualified to do the job. They had the potential, though.
How much a person accomplishes during their dance with the “first experience” is directly proportional to the “amount” of expectations that is placed on that person. If you want to get the best out of these people, best is to “overestimate” what they can do. That will make them stretch and reach beyond what they could do if the expectations were “normal” or “watered down.”
The general tendency among people is to “underestimate” what a person can accomplish since this is the person’s “first experience” on that particular kind of job. There is an implicit contract between the two parties which states that it’s just OK for the person to be not the “best” on this time. The problem with this approach is that the “full potential” of the person won’t come into play. The person actually does not know whether he has the potential to create “something average” or a “masterpiece.”
By overestimating what he needs to produce, you are actually giving this person a gift allowing him to stretch and bring the maximum out of whatever he has to offer to this job.
He may not like you at that point in time but a few years from now when he is flying high, he will thank you for the gift.
Have a great weekend.
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By Rajesh Setty on Fri 07 Apr 2006, 8:12 PM - Leave Comment
Today I had lunch with four VERY smart people and one of them was Brian Sommers who was the longest running and most senior director of Accenture’s Software Intelligence Unit. The credit for this blog post goes to Brian.
We all know how important it is to innovate in these tough times. Innovation is no longer a luxury. It is mandatory for enterprises to survive and thrive. However, there is another aspect that seems to get overlooked. It is a company or a person’s ability to exploit innovations. Xerox PARC was famous for innovating but not very good at exploiting their own innovations. Dell, on the other hand not only has many process innovations, it also is a fast follower exploiting innovations at a breathtaking speed. The biggest example will be of course Microsoft. They were not the first in many things but boy, when the followed – they followed fast and exploited innovations to the maximum.
If you think about it, there will be a physical limitation on how much you can innovate. However, there will be hundreds of innovations by others that you can exploit for your or your company’s benefit. What would it take for you to be ready to exploit innovations for your or your company’s benefit? Here are some things:
*
Curiosity: If you have the curiosity of a child to observe and learn from innovations that are happening around you and across the world that may be relevant to you, you have an edge.
* Humility: If you think you already know everything that you need to know, you may not be open to learning. If there is no new inputs into your head, the outputs may not be very different from what it has been before
* Power to associate: Or in other words, the ability to connect things that are seemingly unconnected. The ability to making something
If your competitor is not innovating but is great at exploiting innovations you are still at a disadvantage.
What innovations could you exploit this year for your advantage this year?
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By Rajesh Setty on Tue 04 Apr 2006, 8:48 AM - 2 Comments
Let us do some introspection. Think about all your interactions with people in the last one month. How many of them do you vividly remember today? In fact answer the following questions:
* How many of those interactions will you remember next month?
* How many of those interactions will you remember next year?
* How many of those interactions will you remember throughout your lifetime?
In Other words,
* How many of those interactions were memorable?
Not many you might say. May be you didn’t meet with a lot of interesting people last month. Not many people took their time to create memorable experiences for you. One of your reactions may be that you should aim to meet other people who might be able to create those memorable experiences. That’s the easiest thing to do.
Now, think about all the people that interacted with you last month.
* Would any of them remember that interaction next month?
* Would any of them remember that interaction next year?
* Would any of them remember that interaction throughout their lifetime?
In other words,
* Did you create a memorable experience for any one of them?
Everyone is busy in their own lives. Unless you work very hard to create significant value in that interaction for the other person, there is no reason for that person to remember that interaction. Very few people worry about creating memorable exerpiences for others. If you are one of them, you are on our way to distinguishing yourself.
Good luck!
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By Rajesh Setty on Sat 01 Apr 2006, 9:56 AM - Leave Comment
This can happen anywhere at work or outside of your work. Let me take a simple example of what might happen at work. You are working on a very interesting project. When you complete it, you decide to create a powerpoint presentation (although that was not part of your job) and present it to your manager. You download some templates and put together some slides. You complete about fifteen slides and have ideas for the other five and before you finish them you get sucked into another project and get very busy. After sometime you forget about the presentation.
A few days later when you are having a casual conversation with your manager, the earlier project comes up and you mention to him about a presentation that you were preparing. Your manager wants to see it. After the meeting you go back to your desk and send the incomplete powerpoint presentation.
This is a simple example of “0.9 Extra Mile Syndrome” in action. When your manager looks at the presentation which is incomplete, his first reaction will be that you have not done a thorough job on the presentation. The fact that this was in addition to your job is not always on his mind. What comes up glaringly is the last few slides with only titles. Here is an analogy: Take a white sheet of paper and put a black spot on it somewhere on the paper. What people see is not the white sheet but the black spot. That’s the way life is. You can complain about it and question the logic. It is not worth an argument. It is YOU who has to change and learn to work with it. When your boss looks at your incomplete presentation, typically what he will remember is the fact that you sent an incomplete presentation.
What I mentioned was ONE simple example of this syndrome. Remember the times when you tried to walk the extra mile and you gave up in the middle. You wanted credit for the few steps you walked. The perception you left behind was completely different – that you leave things half done. You usually don’t get credit for partial “extra mile” journeys that you take.
Here is what you can do. Every time you want to walk an extra mile, consider the following:
* determine what exactly you want to do and see if you can REALLY complete that journey. If not, re-assess your situation and see what other extra mile you can walk.
and/or
* See if someone else is walking the extra mile. Help the other person in completing that journey.
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By Rajesh Setty on Thu 30 Mar 2006, 9:23 PM - 2 Comments
I am sure most of you would have read the “The Star Thrower” story by Loren Eiseley (Link)
Here it is again…
The Starfish Story
Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to
do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began
his work. One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down
the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to
himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so,
he walked faster to catch up.
As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man,
and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was
reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them
into the ocean.
He came closer still and called out “Good morning! May I ask what it is
that you are doing?” The young man paused, looked up, and replied
“Throwing starfish into the ocean.” “I must ask, then, why are you
throwing starfish into the ocean?” asked the somewhat startled wise
man. To this, the young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is
going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”
Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, “But, young man, do you not
realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish
all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!” At this,
the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it
into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, “It made a difference for
that one.”
When there is an opportunity to make a small difference, we might not take that up for variety of reasons. Some of them are:
* You think the other person may not need help.
* You think the job is so small that anybody can do it.
* Yes, you think it won’t make a big enough difference.
* You think nobody will care whether you do it or not do it.
Next time, when you find yourself in that situation think about the
starfish story and make it a point to make a difference, however small
it is…
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By Rajesh Setty on Thu 30 Mar 2006, 5:51 PM - Leave Comment
I want to draw your attention to two items:
1. Real Estate agents and their incentives:
I was reading Freakonomics
the other day. Steven Levitt beautifully explains the power of incentives in several chapters. In one example, Levitt talks about his study where it was found that the real estate agents tend to sell their own properties for significantly higher prices than their clients’.
Assume that you have a home that is worth anywhere between $300,000 – $350,000. The world view is that the real estate agent will sell the home for the highest possible price because of the incentives involved. The higher the price, the higher the commission. Right? Wrong, says Levitt. If there is an offer made for $300,000 for that home but there was a possibility of getting another $10K, the real estate agent won’t waste his time to get the additional $10K and may convince the owner to sell the home for $300K. The way incentives are structured is what prompts this behavior. Here are the details:
Commission for the real estate agent (A): 3% (6% split between buyer and seller agents)
Agency commission percentage (B): 1.5%
Actual commission percentage (C): 1.5%
Actual commission for additional $10K: $150
$150 is not a big enough incentive for the real estate agent to wait for a better price.
2. TV Show: Deal or No Deal
Kavitha and I watch this TV show sometimes. The rules (as explained in the website) are simple:
There are 26 briefcases at the start of the game each one filled with amounts anywhere from $.01 to $1M (or more sometimes) and the contestant picks a briefcase of his choice. Every round, Howie Mandel (the host) asks the contestant to open a set of boxes.
Then as each round progresses, the contestant must either stay with your original briefcase choice or make a “deal” with the bank to accept its cash offer in exchange for whatever dollar amount is the contestant’s chosen case.
Once you decide to accept or decline the bank’s offer, the decision is final.
Contestants are encouraged to ask friends or family in the audience for advice; however, only the contestant’s answer will be considered binding and final.
You would think that the contestants can make a lot of money. Most of the time, contestants make less than a few hundred dollars at the end of the game. It is interesting to watch the reaction of the audience everytime the contestant has to make a choice between “Deal” or “No Deal.” There is an overwhelming cry of “No Deal” from the audience even when the odds are not very good. Since there are hundreds of people saying “No Deal” the contestant might think that “No Deal” may be the right way to go. But look at the incentive for the audience. If the contestant takes a lot of risks irrespective of the outcome (win or lose) the show becomes a thriller. If the contestant does not take any risks, the show gets to be boring. What is the way for the audience to ensure that the show is thrilling? Just keep saying “No Deal” and influcence the contestant to not make a deal.
Incentives are extremely powerful. There are incentives for you to behave the way you do and there are incentives to make the people around you behave the way they do. Understanding the power of incentives will help you to understand people’s behavior.
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By Rajesh Setty on Sat 25 Mar 2006, 9:51 AM - 3 Comments
If you ask me what is the simplest discovery that has broad applicability in almost all walks of life, I would say it is the bell curve. You can explain a ton of things just by applying the bell curve theory (if there is one)
Getting advise is really easy. What might be very complicated for you will be easy for a person with a competence in that domain. Many times what you do with that advice is more important than the advice itself. Not everyone follows the advice. I think people fall into different categories when it comes to applying what they learn from a competent teacher.
[Of course, the bigger question is how will you convince this competent teacherr to teach you? Are you willing to pay the price? That's a separate discussion anyways]
Here is a bell curve segmenting the crowd of learners.
Collectors:
I actually want to call them antique collectors. These people love to collect advice. They read books, blogs and ask people for help. They ensure that the advice they collect becomes an antique in their minds.
Fantasizers:
They want to play around with the advice until they find one or two places where the advice was not applicable. That will be enough for them to stop following through. They will now look for new advice to fantasize.
Followers:
These are serious people. They want to make the most out of what they have got. They apply what they learn in a number of ways. They are quite successful in their life.
Committers:
These people commit themselves to achieve more. They learn quickly and apply what they learnt. They reach new heights in their personal and/or professional life. They become an example for others in their domain.
Transformers:
These people transform themselves and take what they learnt to the next level. They start transforming people around them and extend their circle of influence. They become a shining light in the lives of others and help others become committers or transformers.
Being a teacher, I am interested in helping people who have the potential to become transformers. So, I am careful who I pick to coach. I am sure your teachers will be proud if you are a committer. That’s a gift in itself. However, nothing can bring more joy to a teacher if his or her students are becoming transformers.
Go ahead, aim to be a transformer. That will be the biggest gift you can give to your teachers.
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By Rajesh Setty on Thu 23 Mar 2006, 8:57 PM - Leave Comment
I have written a lot about questions and there is a still a lot more to
write. The internet has made it easy to find answers for our questions.
This is just great. However, this is causing a problem too. The moment
we have a question, we try to find answers from various sources out
there. Mostly, you will not find ONE answer but many answers. The rest
of your time now gets spent in analyzing the variety of answers that
you get from various sources. Since there is a possibility of finding a
LOT of answers, your new problem will be to figure out the right answer. What you forget is that you may have asked the wrong question.
I have subscribed to about nine different mailing lists. All the lists
are alive and kicking. I learn a lot from the conversations that happen
on the lists and wherever possible answer some queries. Last week,
there was an interesting question on one of the lists. The question was
simple -
“Should I be honest in my exit interview?”
There were about three responses and all of them were great. Three
different perspectives. Each response made me think. In that sense the
responses were very valuable. The next logical step for the person who
posed the question would be to analyze the responses and draw her own
conclusions. However, I was not fully convinced about the real problem
over here. Here was my response.
The
fact that you are asking the question about whether to be honest in an
exit interview suggests that you have some information that may not be
pleasant to be shared and you want to know whether to share it or not.
My question back to you is to think and see why was this information
not shared with the right people when you were working over there?
There is no right or wrong answer to this. The only thing that you can
do is to go and find an employment at a place where you can honestly
share such information when you are working rather than debating about
it during an exit interview.
My assessment is that the real problem was one or more situation(s) at
work that were not pleasant. The problem she should be really worried
about is how she could avoid getting into a similar work situation
again in her life.
The first question was valid and needed to be answered. The real question, however, should have been:
“How do I ensure that I join a company where the work environment is great?”
Remember that even if you get the right answer for a wrong question, it’s still of no use 
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By Rajesh Setty on Wed 22 Mar 2006, 11:12 AM - Leave Comment
I wrote earlier about not to look to get drowned in positive feedback. This is an extension of the same. Some of you sent me an email stating that negative feedback alone won’t help either. I agree.
Note: If you are someone who is always on your own and never bother to get feedback, the only advise I have is to go please get a life 
Rest of us are surrounded by variety of people. Let me pick three types for the sake of this discussion.
Flatliners: They are extremely busy with their own work. They don’t have time to look at your idea or provide you feedback. They may say something like “Sounds good to me” or “Looks interesting”
Caring Critics: They really care for you and your projects. They are interested in you getting ahead. They honestly criticize the project keeping in mind the big picture of how this project will “affect you” in the grand scheme of things.
Non-caring Critics: They are not interested in the big picture of how this project will affect you and your life. Some of them may not even care for you really. You ask for feedback and you get it. In an extreme case, some of them might provide feedback that will hurt you in the long run.
You can ignore the first category of people when making decisions. Net caring Critic score is the difference between Caring Critics and Non-caring Critics. Here is the equation:
Net Caring Critic Score = Caring Critics – Non-caring Critics
Over the last few years, I have worked hard to keep this score positive and growing and it has helped me tremendously. This number is not easy to grow and you have to learn to build long-term relationshps. Most of your acquaintances and new friends will be in the first category as they just don’t want to tick you off.
Note: If you would like to read the other articles in the same series,
please take a look at the lens I have created on Squidoo: Squidoo Lens: Distinguish Yourself
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