1. Learning 6
Rush to your seniors with a problem
Charge yourself up to first finding the possible
solutions than just sharing the problem
You know how busy all executives are, including yourself and the
managers. Each has so much to do and lacks time. And on top of that,
occasionally you get stuck with a problem and need your manager to
guide you. And your manager is as usual, too busy.
What do you think will work better for you. Should you go and just pose
the problem or should you go with the problem and the possible
solutions? Obviously the latter. Why? You save time for your manager
by presenting the possible solutions. Else, hours would have gone by,
figuring out the possible solutions. Also, you save your boss's mind
from being cluttered with too many problems as s/he now has one
problem less to handle, considering that both of you solved the
problem there and then. Finally, if so much of time of so many
managers is saved, who gains? The company, your manager and You.
As time saved on transactional matters would now be used to discuss
strategic aspects, which would deliver higher growth and profits for
your company. That would mean more growth for you, as you are the
one who helped managers gain time.
At the end, won't the boss think: yes, this person is different . S/he
knows the problem and some methods to fix them also! S/he deserves
to be applauded/rewarded etc. Applause wins you recognition and
you get rewarded with higher responsibility.
12

2. Learning 37
Keep newer learnings you just acquired to
yourself
Share and spread the learnings and create
organization wide success
In your day to day execution of your tasks, you do many times come
across some better ways of doing the same task / activity OR you learn
something new which could help you immediately in enhancing your
performance. To add on, you may find some new and novel way to
crack some problem. Quick resolution means quicker and faster
results.
Say, you are in Sales and come across a client who has some peculiar
and different requirements. You brainstorm with your production
team and arrive at a good solution which makes your client happy.
If you were to keep this new learning to yourself, you would sort of
rob the other sales guy of an order assuming he too faced the same
situation but said NO to the client as s/he was not sure of the company
agreeing to so many product changes to satisfy this client. But if you
did share, the company wins another deal.
So for every new learning / discovery, you have 2 options, one is
to keep the learnings to yourself and second is to help your peers by
spreading these learnings. Normally a weak hearted person would
keep the learnings to one self as s/he is not confident of making newer
discoveries to improve performance etc. A strong and confident
employee would share the same as s/he is confident of un-earthing
newer discoveries. And the more you share , the faster and better your
team performs and obviously management would want to share
higher rewards with you
78

3. Learning 42
Assume full day/week/month left at any point
of time
Achieve more by assuming day/week over at the
start itself
Speed is essence of everything. You need to move fast, work hard,
deliver fast, think fast, act fast etc.Why? As there is so much to do and
also there is so much competition. And main reason for all this: the
client just cannot wait. And competition is moving faster too.
All in all this means, time is scarce, so much so, that it leaves you
begging for more. And un-fortunately time is one thing which is never
available on loan. We all know this. Yet, many of us tend to take things
so easy till the last moment comes and then we jump out of our
slumber only to do them fast and in the process, commit some
mistakes. So, when the week starts, we take it easy, till Thursday comes
and then we start jumping to finish the weeks work. Same for the
month. You take life cool for few days till 15th comes only to realize that
you haven't got a single order! This reminds me of one of my
conferences where I asked each person when this task would be done
and they all said: end of the month. They meant 30th. I then asked what
if each month got over on 25th ?! And they all said, yes, we will get it by
25th! That meant that the company suddenly gained 5 more working
days per month, which is 2 more months in a year!
So, if you want to stand out from the crowd, if you want to win, then
you need to do something extra. You cannot afford to take it easy even
for a day. Go for a contrarian thinking: think the day is about to be over
just when it starts, think the week is about to be over when it just starts.
Same for the month. This way, you would always exhibit fire in your
belly. The fire would last for the entire week or the month unlike the
laggards who fire up only for half the time. Even lesser!
The more the fire, the more the drive and the higher chances for
success. Fire never goes un-noticed. Your fire for sure will one day get
noticed by the management.
88

4. Learning 43
Never do your task right the first time as there
are others to cross-check
Show your super skills by doing it right the very
first time
Do we not see this playing out daily, i.e. we tend to execute our tasks so
fast that we land up making some mistakes. Mistakes in the solution
we propose to our client, mistakes in some calculations, mistakes in
wrong commitments given to management. Infact, for all
transactional, operational and strategic tasks, we do land up not
doing it 100% right in the fist attempt.
And why does this happen. One, culturally we are used to concentrate
more on execution than planning. Even though, we very well know that
planning helps in reducing issues but we still prefer to execute without
planning. Two, we tend to rush and complete tasks at the last moment.
Three, the cost of making a mistake is very low as we are not fired but
just warned. It's like the traffic signal. You jump it without any
hesitation as the fine is just Rs. 100.00! So, whether you do mistakes
or you don't, the loss seems to be low. Four, even if we do make a
mistake, we know there is someone beyond you to cross check (your
boss or your testing / quality check team).
All these factors naturally and logically drive each of you to continue to
make mistakes. Well, there is nothing really wrong as this is a cultural
issue and who can challenge culture. But I want to make one point. Do
you want to be part of the crowd and therefore not be visible or you
want to be seen as the one standing out and being recognized and
applauded for?
If you want to be recognized, then don't follow others. Set examples for
others to follow. Plan your work. Think of all the issues and test for all
so that no bug or defect or error is pointed out by anyone. To sum up,
do it right the first time. If you always do it correctly the first time, you
will be different from the others. You would be the most wanted.
90

5. Learning 67
Always try to wrongly impress by over
committing and under delivering
Attain respect by setting expectations at correct
levels
It's natural to always give aggressive dates for deliveries when your
boss asks you as you want to impress him by showing how great your
skills are. And bang comes the date to deliver only to make the boss
realize that you have not even finished half the work! What went
wrong? Your over-zealous attitude to commit and look important did
the damage.
And what did you deliver? Sadness and gloomy facts.
On the other hand, if you were not as excited and thought through all
the tasks, you would have, for sure, committed safer and realistic
dates. That would have pleased all as the work would have got
delivered around the target date. This does not mean that you become
so conservative in planning that you commit 2 months for a fortnight's
job!
So don't get over excited and commit too aggressive dates. Don't you
get irritated when the restaurant owner makes his standard
commitment of 15 minutes to deliver but actually takes more than an
hour to turn up?
So, don't rush into commitments. Think thru and commit realistic
dates. The management would love you for that. And truth is solid
recognition.
142