Having attrition problems? Try a nice gesture

Last week, Airtel sent me a personalized calendar. I felt special. I know that I would stick with Airtel services for the rest of the year. I started thinking when was the last time I showed a nice gesture to my team members. I wasn't able to recollect. Long time. Probably never did.

My contemplation was if I show a nice gesture all of a sudden, wont it be too artificial? Wont it be too corporate-ish? Probably yes. But who cares. I knew that Airtel sent me to make me special and also to make me glued to them for one more year, although I have been enjoying their services.

A nice gesture could be anything. I know of a manager who picks his team member and drops him regularly (though it is off-route from him). Show it regularly and probably you don't have to worry too much about attrition or productivity loss.

Is cribbing good?

"Man, the job sucks!!!"
"My PM is God's revenge on humanity"
"What is the status update?"...2 hours later..."What is the status update?"...
"I slog. WTF, I get just 15% hike and he gets a 15.5% hike"

"Not possible..."..."The problem is..." "The issues are...." "The estimates are screwed up...".... the morning sermon from the majority of the IT population.

Aren't we so used to this cribbing? Aren't we so diligent in taking tea breaks to vent our frustration on the system, people, strategies, processes, etc..? Yes. We are. I do. I do a lot.

But one fine day (today), I realized, that cribbing does help you to squeeze out the stacked up grief from your system. Its a good thing. Do it everyday. Allocate time out for cribbing. Keep squeezing out till it empties out (just like a toothpaste). One day, you will be so bored of cribbing, that the natural tendency is for you to start thinking about solutions. You have to crib. If you don't crib, you wont even know what you are unhappy with.

My suggestion would be for organizations to have scheduled cribbing sessions/meetings. It might work. The reason is because as techies, we hate these meetings so much, that we would start hating these cribbing meetings and soon we might not crib at all or if we are super-cribbers we would start cribbing about the cribbing sessions...Who knows...

I am going to give it a try.

Help, dont scare

Unusually, my inbox was flooded with "alert" (spam) emails from the Performance Appraisal system. The system demands that I fill up my objectives of the year before I start the year and get it reviewed with my Appraiser at the closure of the year and assess where I stand. Decent logic. Does it work? It hasn't worked for me. And I am sure lots of my colleagues would agree with me. So, what is the problem? One of the cases where a theorem failed to deliver a concrete proof, but was still awarded a Nobel prize. I will explain it in detail.

The theorem is "Penning down your goals at the start of the year/project and assessing at the end of the year/project makes your company understand your performance better and helps you grow in the corporate ladder". Decent theorem, though I am not fully convinced.

The proof is "Use a system which keeps alerting (scaring) you saying that you dont fill up, your increments/hikes are screwed". The solution is paralyzing. What you end up doing is copy some default objectives from somewhere, customize it to what you know you can do or did (rather than what you want to do) and at the end of the year/project, proudly claim that you have done it. The appraiser appraises you, gives you a rating and the system normalizes and then you get your increment. You step up in the corporate ladder.

Isnt it scary? Did your Mom ever use such a system to bring you up? But still she knew exactly what you wanted to do, what you did and what she wanted you to do. There wouldnt be any formal session where you would sit and review your progress at the end of the year. Argument could be my mom never had 10,000 kids. Counter argument is "Then design one, which solves, not scares". Design a system which mimics a Mom's nurturing mechanism.