Setting Right Expectations Upfront!

Setting expectations will help one do better business. Successful company will develop a relationship with the clients by telling them will give you a good quality services – but nothing comes for free.

I have worked with software consultancy firms where in I have observed two schools of thoughts. Giving something for free to get the business and then charging high rates to get more business that’s first. The second school of thoughts is – set an expectation up front that there is nothing like a free lunch. We will charge you reasonable rates but we will not do anything for free.

IMHO doing something for free sets wrong expectations. Bring us to a rather philosophical point – grid. Let’s all agree it’s a only human to have unlimited wants! You give something for free and they will want more. This act of giving a free ride - generates grid in minds of the clients and they will ask for more. Again, if someone has to pay very high rates, I am sure they will have a lot more expectations too which will ultimately break the hell loose for the poor developers who will end up burning mid night oil not only for the work they are doing for free but also for the implementation phase where in they have to churn out more. Exceeding expectations is the most dreadful (worst) nightmare come true for them.

Morale of the story: If we set expectations right (and upfront) there are a few tangible advantages. :-)

Johny Johny Reloaded

I got this re-loaded version of Johny Johny in a forwarded email. Humorous irony explains plethora of issues today's average Indian employee is facing after meltdown of financial services industry globally.

Enjoy maad! :)

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Johny Johny Yes Papa

Pvt Company
Yes Papa

Any Motivation
No Papa

Many Tension
Yes Papa

Do u Sleep well
No Papa

Onsite Opportunity
No papa

Boss Ki Galiyan
Yes Papa

Increment?
Ha ha ha :)

Relationship Analysis :-)

Let’s list three facts:

# 1 – It has been observed & proven that action and reactions act in opposite direction in equal force (''To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction)

# 2 – A definitions is a means of limiting a subject – subject being any tangible / non tangible thing

# 3 – Relationships is humans’ way of describing how one associates self with others

Based on points above, isn’t it true that defining a relationship will actually create a pressure / tension in the opposite direction that will be waiting for a trigger point to bounce back. Trigger point is relative to variables like circumstances and individual. To me it more seems like a disaster waiting to occur!

Why is it so that we need to characterize the bonding and judge it and ultimately invent fallacies?

Why can’t we accept the very liquid form of relationships as it comes?

It is like water - it will easily adjust to the shape of the jar you try to capture it in. You will try to freeze it with characteristics; it will become fragile and tend to break…

Why do we have to be obliged to certain things or not do certain things cause relationship poses 'em on you?

Why can’t a relationship be just a relationship? Does water differentiate with other water? Water is just water – emotions are where relationships hail from and we should take them just as they come – why invent a disaster?

When to move on from your current job?

So, I have been a loyal employee of X organization for 5. years and 8 months now. This is my second job. At my first job – I joined as a trainee and stayed with them for a reasonable enough time 2 years 1 months

Staying with one organization for long time kind of slows down one’s learning and hence growth as a person. Mind you, I am not talking about climbing up the ladder and getting higher ranks, that comes easy if you stick to one organization for long time. My point is learning – what you get to carry along which will help you become the person you are supposed to be. I wouldn’t totally disagree with the school of thought that states – one should own one’s growth.

Now, this brings us to important question – when is the time to move on? When one outgrows the organization’s growth that is the exit time. One should plan his exit well and have to be very calculative of all available options. Ensure you have more than 1 (at least 3 choices) which gives you *what you want*. Relocation, Salary Hike, Subject of interests to work on, Travel Requirements, Learning Opportunities are some of the things to keep in mind while closing on that final option.

I think change is the way of life – one needs to take some pains to learn new things and that’s the way to grow and such steps should be taken based on calculated risk.

Art of philosophy...

I often get to hear from my friends and others that my conversations are a little more than philosophical. More often than not, I get into some discussion and people ask me to stop "inventing" philosophies.

I am left completely puzzled when I get to hear such things. If I now take a step back and give it a second though, I am sure of nothing but one - I have been trying to describe a well established fact instead of "inventing something." I am sure some people will find me "justifying" certain things when I put forward a set of arguments.

As they say - put your foot in someone else' shoes to feel what they feel - for a second I will try different shoes. If I were on the other side of the table, I might will call it "invention" coz I may have made a conscious decision not to believe in what the other person is saying, OR I have known those facts but haven't been able to acknowledge it. Often I find running away from the responsibilities an easier option compared to dealing with the situation.

The very phrase "inventing the philosophy" - however catchy it may sound, DID got me thinking. I was deliberately trying to figure the definition of this word in my world... It is ironical when we put conscious effort to come up with something, we seldom come up with something that we will be pleased with / and feel satisfied about. Having stated this fact, I couldn't not come up with anything meaningful. At lack of originality, I landed up running to "Lord Google" to rescue me. I wanted to see if / how others had defined this word.

Later that day, I was busy running errands and this thought pops up in my mind "Philosophy is an art of being spontaneously logical." and it made so much sense to me. I have been just trying to link the fact in more logical way such that its easy to see, understand and more importantly believe in.

Over a period of time I have observed that its important to have spontaneity. This saves one from getting into a confined and traditional thought process. If definitely brings up an interesting question - if the art is all about being spontaneous, can this be learnt at school? I see people taking up philosophy as the major and spending years at university to learn it. Not sure if that's the playground where one can sharpen the skills. I think the ability to logically relate the things come from living more life. When I say living more life, I mean paying enough attention to our daily trivial experiences such that we learn out of them. I somehow have gotten a feeling over a period of time that if we make philosophy a profession / or offer a specialization, we rather would end up creating a useless factory to produce jackass people trying to beat other bunch of jackass folks for what they have wrote / said in past. Again more important and critical part of the issue here is, how would you start quantifying various paradigms of such a liquid subject.

I am sure we can talk about this forever and write a thesis on it but I will leave it here...

As Albert Einstein says "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results", may be those jackass folks were doing the right thing..

I will come back to this topic for sure and add / update more content!!