Teaching 'em how to fish
 

Observing people at work, you find various styles - dictatorial / consensual, big-picture / detail oriented, delegators / do-it-yourself-and-take-all-the-world's-trouble-on-your-shoulders types, panicky / cool-as-cucumber…and so on. Now a lot of this is obviously a matter of individual style, which evolves through a person's entire personal and professional experiences. If a person is a control-freak at work, chances are he/she's the same outside of the workplace, and there are so many factors that lead to anyone being any particular way.

Amongst all these influences though, one stands out for me - and that is the influence exerted by a person's initial employment circumstances - the first manager, the first company / industry and the nature of the first role (perhaps not literally first, but say in the initial 1-2 years). Young, bright minds, fresh out of college are highly susceptible to their professional world-view being shaped by those initial experiences. A 'kiddo' who sees a work culture that emphasizes inclusiveness, trust and mutual respect will tend to view a professional corporate career very differently from one who starts off in a polar opposite environment. Over time, each will undergo varied experiences - for sure, the first one will encounter the proverbial lousy boss, and equally the second one may move to a better work environment - but the first experience imprint remains and gets internalized more.

I count myself exceedingly fortunate that on my first project, I worked under two outstanding managers. Even to this day, I can trace back my most essential beliefs and attitudes to the learnings I picked up working with them and watching them at work.

From Prithvi, I learnt that quality is first and foremost an attitude. On one memorable night, this chap went through an entire 150 slide deck for the next day's steering committee meeting, carefully checking for typos, alignment, exact phrasing, re-sequencing slides and so on…Mind you, this was after our partner had gone through the entire deck and approved it. Frankly, from an outside-in viewpoint, he didn't need to spend those three hours- nobody would have noticed perhaps, if two slide objects were a few pixels out of alignment. We used to drive back to our guest house in the same vehicle, so initially I was a bit irritated - but as I watched I was fascinated by his inner drive for perfection. His point was - 'if you prepare a document, it's got your name on it. And you should stop when you are internally satisfied with what you've produced'.

The other manager, Prem in his laconic, somewhat cynical style expressed the same thought 'Quality means 100%. Anything less is only an explanation.” (He actually said 'excuse'!)

Prem was a funny old bird. He would rarely give you any straight answers. Instead he would give you big complex pieces of work, way beyond your experience and capabilities, and expect you to use your brains. If you got horribly stuck, or were going off in a totally wrong direction, he would set you right, but never by giving you the answers. He would ask you questions, which forced you to think it through. In the end, you'd get it right and in consequence your confidence / belief / ability to handle greater responsibilities would be much higher than if he had simply spelled out what was required to be done and asked you to merely execute it.

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" - Confucius

Now, teaching people how to fish is easier said than done. So many difficulties come in the way:

Firstly, you should want to develop your team. The rationale is fairly clear - the more your team steps up and takes on bigger responsibilities (typically yours), the more you free yourself up to take on higher order challenges. Unfortunately, too many managers see young bright minds as potential threats to their own position. 'Forcing yourself to become redundant' presupposes a high degree of internal security about your own performance and position.

The corporate environment you are working in is another huge factor. Highly political cultures which emphasise hierarchy and discourage risk-taking behavior make it near impossible for the best intentioned managers to develop / groom their team members.

Next, not all personnel respond well to the 'throw in the pool and let them figure it out' treatment. Some personnel are better geared for a structured, organized initiation. This approach works best when the concerned employee is bright, has some degree of self-confidence and has the right attitude towards challenges.

Lastly, the manager concerned has to be prepared for a short-term hit, either in terms of quality or in terms of deadlines. If you have an immediate deadline to meet (which you almost always do), and if you know exactly what needs to be done (which is some of the time), it takes a lot of will power not to tell your struggling junior how to go about it. If you don't know what exactly needs to be done and have to figure it out, it is even more difficult to let go.

In a sense, in the short-term you have to let go of your 'Quality is 100%' quest for perfectionism, for longer term gains. I have personally never been able to do this to my satisfaction.

And thank you, Prithvi and Prem.

 

Category: General | Author: Sriram Subramanian