1.
One change that I had been thinking about was to confront problems immediately and directly. I felt many of us put up with the inefficiencies, weaknesses in ourselves and others, imperfect ways of working etc out of respect for others, being diplomatic and to avoid conflicts. Acting on the “Be kind, not nice” maxim which is in my wishlist for this year. I listened to a podcast on Radical Candor as well to learn further.
This week consciously called out two such situations, it might have felt uncharacteristic of me, for people on the other side. I have to learn further to do it much more calmly, one on one, going to the root of the problems and illustrate with examples. I found that in such cases, people react sharply since they may not have heard anyone articulate this aspect about them before. I had one or two rare people in my life who could distil what was happening and tell me an insight which felt obvious. I hope to do the same for others.
2.
Communication is a nuanced topic with so many levels. This week had problems that arose from communication between people that led to bitter arguments and it also pointed to lack of strong relationships as a base which can withstand such situations. Coincidentally, we were reading a chapter from the book, “Making Things Happen by Scott Berkun”, in our Engineering Book Club that was addressing the exact same topic. It is basic and obvious, but all social groups run into conflicts due to the limitations in communication. Patience to listen, to repeat one’s message in different ways with different kinds of people to ensure understanding by all, staying in the conversation rather than withdrawing, adapting with circumstances etc needs to be learnt further.
3.
I am trying to practise “writing culture” more this year. Trying to write down what we want to change this year as a written document that can be shared with the team and develop collaboratively with inputs and encouraging them also to write out the arguments in full sentences in a document, rather than presentations, to communicate changes. Hope this leads to more thinking and clarity.
4.
Met a friend, Vinod, for coffee in a place oddly named “Stylish Juice and Tea”, next to a football coaching camp (few such have come up in the city) and a tourist village. Good conversation on so many topics that we kept switching from one to other non stop, from diversity in our workgroups and why it strengthens the teams, what we were reading, building products etc. Got an idea to get a session organized on women in leadership for next week, will see how it goes.
5.
Continuing to read “The Covenant of Water” - at times I felt it is the perfect book I needed now and then the author goes on a killing spree and creates a melancholic scene just like the Kerala monsoon season that he paints with his words.
Spanish learning is continuing with a 65 day streak and continuing the Hundred Days of Running without break so far.
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