Lessons in Life : From Hazaribag

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the third edition of lessons in life (Vol 1 - from family, Vol 2 - from my sister's life). This is about my work in Hazaribag.

(Slight diversion - the internet literally eats at your brain. I have been thinking about writing this post since ages but it was way easier for my mind to passively scroll Twitter on my phone).

This is going to be about perspective. 

I have been thinking about how there is a Delhi world that requires Delhi skills and there is a Hazaribag world that requires Hazaribag skills. I decide that I am fairly confident about my Delhi skills (or at least about honing them) and how Hazaribag skills will be a parcel of on the job training. Then, I sat down to ennumerate them separately. Turns out they are similar skill sets with different contexts. Let me explain.

From my experiences in Delhi (both in office and out), certain key characteristics showed up repeatedly. Clear communication and the ability to make quality conversation. It is the quickest litmus test. Then there is presentation, the way you choose to be seen - at events, in offices, in general. More often than once, I have seen people look you down from head to toe. It's probably bad manners, but hey, better to know than not that it happens. People skills have always been key: being able to read a room and specifically identifying a person's motivation. That's the minimum a conversation should end with, if not start with. Often harder to do than it sounds because so much is said (or even let loose) between the lines and then you adjust your behaviour accordingly. Confidence in one's ability to do things regardless of whether one has done it before or not. I wouldn't call the abovementioned sole markers to being a good worker/employee but rather as charcteristics, that if gotten right, would attract people to you. 

I thought about Hazaribag then. How being a 'boss' is key here. I broke down what being the boss meant here. It meant being authoritative - clear communication makes an appearance here. Clear communication with confidence. There are some gaps in my understanding whether this means shouting or being firm in your gentleness or a combination of the two. The meaning of 'quality conversation' undergoes a twist here. It is less of international affairs or start-ups or space travel and more of local politics, weather, family drama, other people and more laughter. Presentation of body and words is something 'my world' doesn't have to work hard for over here, or maybe consciously doesn't work towards at all. Yet, there is a difference in taste which gets reflected in the behaviour towards an outsider. Identifying a person's motivation is unbelievably easy most times, the options in the urban world (career advancement, impact, money, fame, power) narrow down to mainly money in cash or in kind (jobs). I do realize that this might be true only for the circle I interact with, I imagine the scene to be different in political circles. While my generalization is open to debate, I have found there to be greater transparency about it.      

Maybe it's the context of hierarchy that changes. In an urban setting, hierarchy doesn't mean only taking orders, it means active participation. It means trusting someone to get the job done according to specific timelines; have heard of reasonable timelines being established by employees themselves in multiple cases. This proactiveness is less common but would be rewarding here too. Apart from  lack of incentives, I sense some kind of fear in doing this. Maybe my time here will tell me if I am sensing this correctly. This difference in organization structure might be the reason why the extra push needs to be given- that and one track incentive. It's challenging to find something beyond money to serve as motivation. Is that what management is though?

About confidence!! 

Whole teams look upto their boss for cues and act accordingly. In such a case, even body language would give away a lot. They are such strong sub-conscious signals. It's a dangerous path but I wonder if taking quick, best-at-the-moment decisions that might backfire are better than moments of agonized indecision.

I have had a lot of perspective shifts with regard to work and life in general (anyone who reads often would have guessed!)

Work is done most effectively when emotions are subtracted from it. After a certain point, work seems best seen as an interesting puzzle, to be broken down into logical problems and then focusing on things you can do something about. One could argue that's how murders (read: lynchings) happen - people doing their job without attaching any judgement to it to solve the logical problem of making their boss happy. Which in turn made me reflect on the difference between emotions and judgement. Emotions aren't the enemy but they are suspectible to acting as hindrances. You could be afraid or sad or excited about doing something and in my experience when they creep in, the output gets affected. A basic judgement of right and wrong on the other hand could be important for self preservation. Too many contexts and exceptions, still learning.

A definite perspective shift has been in what it means to be a perfect boss/manager/employee. There is only no perfect type! I say this in terms of moulding yourself into a particular kind of person. It seems to me now to be more of a matter of adjustments and preferences. I mean at the end of the day, the you could be the best person in the world yet not have that mean much if you don't bring anything to the table (purely work-place angle, ignoring the family love is irrational concept). This also translates to comparisons with anybody else being futile - it is again, more of a matter of learning how to best work with/for them. Nobody else can be a good guide to who you need to be than your work and there are a million ways to get the same result. Again separating this from learning the best from others to see if you can integrate it with your own style. That is growth coming from a place of confidence while comparisons breed insecurity. :) It really helps to think of people as a team adding their magic ingredient to the mix.

Growth though, is so nebulous. As soon as you seem to have learnt something, the requirements from you at that point of time change. Glad about having 'arrived' what do you do next?

Perspective shift: a person who thinks he has too much to balance to one who prioritizes and delegates to effectively handle limited things in hand. 

I have been reading about thinking fallacies and one of them is black and white/all or nothing thinking. Unfortunately, I have been a prey to it. Again, distancing from this thought process requires removal of strong emotion and acceptance that a person can be good and bad, will be good and bad actually. It also means reaching a place where you can make your peace with doing a thing imperfectly, without adjudging it to be a 'failure'. Or celebrating where you are in life while also wanting to move forward. It's a beautiful, beautiful balance. :)

Perspective shifts help in dealing with embarrassments and failures. A simple thought exercise to deal with embarassments. Think of your most recent embarassment. Now let a dot represent it in your mind. Place this dot in a pile of other dots representing the rest of your life. See how this mega, super big event becomes manageable instantly?

It helps to think of situations in terms of what you have influence over in order to stop beating yourself over the things you can't. And, yes surprise surprise, perspective shift. A short example would be joining the dots of my first year post graduation - I still do not understand what I was trying to do. Helps to think that I learnt a little about life and people, got to live in Mumbai for a bit and see Coldplay live (!) and realize that I got here from there. I do value learning a lot and hence deliberate twisting the question from what I achieved to what I learnt in that period! I definitely do not have the sweet success story but my world didn't end there. 

Here I am in such an interesting setting surrounded by such a diverse set of people which would have been difficult to find in any other workplace. This diverse set is also the best at what they do and still shell out time to have conversations in which they take you seriously and help you grow. I haven't seen judgement cross on most of these faces and that is surprising because duh juvenile, inexperienced, judgemental, one-sided opinions. This kind of environment is exactly what (at least) I personally need to thrive. Oh, and and and, I also get to use the fancy 'travelling for work' phrase. Haha! The ground office is good with the added bonus of meeting a few colurful characters once in a while like I did today. This political conversation was interesting (once one didn't think of it in terms of it being a 'sad' or 'undersirable' situation). It was nothing I didn't already know and I will be in the midst of it come next year.  

The last point I make today is a tip a prospective friend gave. We too often fixate on our shortcomings as a result of being too familar with them. Try introducing your strong points to other people instead. This encourages you to actively work on your strong points too to make them even better while trying to balance out your weaknesses. On introspection, I realized that this is an important element of personal goal building which I shall get into on some other day. Working your strengths to your advantage! :)

I think I shall end my wisdomous advice giving here today.

Glad I write things to understand how these ideas have evolved over time in my head! To be honest though, I am a little perplexed because the more I see, the more variables seem to enter the picture of how things happen.