random ramblings

Once upon a time when there was a drumbeat about motivating employees, I used to be sick of the term motivation. But of late, I was getting interested in motivation. Maybe it is a sign of me getting absorbed into The Matrix, but I think I am interested in it to satisfy my curiosity about what motivates certain people and keeps them going. I started reading Dan Pink’s Drive: Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us just before returning from onsite – I had to return it at library, will try to finish it some time. Couple of days back I saw two related Motivational Theories in a comment in a HR blog. Theory X and Theory Y – X says that employees are inherently lazy and managers should monitor/control work. Y states that employees maybe self motivated, ambitious and can exercise self-control. It is interesting to see how many managers think theory X is correct vs. theory Y. As usual, most might fall between both. Two Factor Theory – states that there are two sets of factors – on...

‘Clutch is your friend’ – for an amateur stick shift driver (first week of driving to office), that is a good advice. Whenever in doubt, press the clutch – comes to use for me often, gives me a moment to think which gear to use and what to do. Another good advice was to ‘just take the car and drive, don’t think it will take a month of observation before you start’ – if you are by someone’s side, you will always be wondering how they manage to drive without getting hit or hitting someone, but if you are in that seat, you will figure it out. Of course it is only after some driving classes and 5+ years of driving automatic gear, but I wouldn’t have ventured out so soon if it weren’t for that advice. Third advice was a story that someone thought everybody was driving like they were mad and drunk, so he also drove like mad and drunk and it all worked out at the end. I don’t intend to drive like mad or drunk, but it helped to figure out that expect no courtesy and if you are too courteo...

For me, world cup is dead – my two teams (England because of Rooney/Gerrard and Argentina because of Tevez) are out of it. I have been thinking about management lessons in football – for some time now, especially with coaches like Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson – on why they are able to maintain quality and control for so long (apart from the fact that they are managing rich clubs). Anyway here is some pseudo psychological pseudo management theory in no particular sequence – in the lines of Tom Peters et al (just finished The Little Big Things by Tom Peters) – 1.    Team that wants the ball more, goes after it, chases it, intercepts rather than waiting for it – wins. From my frustration of England giving away ball and then passively running after it. 2.    There is some sense of purpose, larger goal (defending honor as best team, underdogs on a run, pride / national glory, utter loyalty to boss, reputation as a fighter, history etc) behind winning teams. ...

For me, world cup is dead – my two teams (England because of Rooney/Gerrard and Argentina because of Tevez) are out of it. I have been thinking about management lessons in football – for some time now, especially with coaches like Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson – on why they are able to maintain quality and control for so long (apart from the fact that they are managing rich clubs). Anyway here is some pseudo psychological pseudo management theory in no particular sequence – in the lines of Tom Peters et al (just finished The Little Big Things by Tom Peters) – 1.    Team that wants the ball more, goes after it, chases it, intercepts rather than waiting for it – wins. From my frustration of England giving away ball and then passively running after it. 2.    There is some sense of purpose, larger goal (defending honor as best team, underdogs on a run, pride / national glory, utter loyalty to boss, reputation as a fighter, history etc) behind winning teams. ...

TurboTax Design FAIL « Scott Berkun   I was thinking about exactly Turbo Tax example today evening and saw this post. Déjà Vu. We get software requirement for complex order processing applications saying "build me an app which is as easy as Turbo Tax". That application, built as easy as Turbo Tax, to do the processing in sequential steps with hints/questions and directions might work for simplest cases, but when it starts deviating from the normal happy path is when things will start getting complex. Slowly such an easy application will start getting complicated with multiple enhancements to handle more and more complex functions to the point it will start deteriorating. After a while it will go downhill when the original users who used it for the happy path will find it unbearably complex. The trick is to remember why it was built in the first place and keep that balance through the numerous enhancement cycles. The face should still be recognizable through numerous nos...

My bathroom reading has picked up speed these days (or means longer bathroom breaks) and I am finishing more books. Most of the books completed recently were some that I was postponing for maybe years because I thought it was self-help or bit cheesy, but the nice thing is I liked most of them. 1. Good to great : why some companies make the leap, and others don't / Jim Collins This was topping many of the reading lists and recommendations, but had postponed. But it was interesting read. I could use some of these advice when I start my company. 2. Tuesdays with Morrie : an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson / Mitch Albom Again one of those I keep seeing in top selling racks in supermarkets. But it was a good read. I only wished if I had a mentor whom I could be so close to talk so freely. This lead to whole series of day dreaming about playing mentor roles to young kids, which could be life changing for some not so blessed with educated parents or expensive schools....

It is 6 months since the "back again" post; I think about writing something very often but usually don't get around doing that. I must have covered the topic multiple times in this blog itself. It is a strange variety of problem though: - if I keep something pending for doing later, I may never do it even if it keeps paining me consistently. It is not that I forget it also; it is on my mind very often. One classic example is my Chemistry lab report during college. I missed submitting it in the first two sessions or so, then didn't feel like doing it next two times, soon it was 2-3 months and I was getting in trouble. Then one day I made up a story that we moved house and lost my lab report in the move - it was somebody else's story. I don't remember whether I convinced my professor, but somehow he allowed me to submit a new one which I painstakingly made with hours of hard labor. Anyway, there are many stories of this sort where it even meant sour relationship...