The older readers of this blog will know a little something of how I feel towards some of my colleagues at work. I don’t quite know where my expectations for them come from, and the more I try to narrow it down, the possibilities seem to be even greater!
I come from an Indian background and was raised in Dubai. For those who have not experienced the education system there, trust me – school for you guys is a breeze in the Western Hemisphere. Culturally, it is also paramount for us to be academically brilliant to the extent that sometimes a 100% mark on the test is not good enough!
My day for umpteen years began at 6am, I used to get up and ready, and make sure that my youngest brother was off to school on time by 8am. Mom and dad used to be out of the door by 7:30 am. 8:30 am was private classes time for 2 hours. I used to get back by 10:45 am and get cracking on homework until 12, when it was time to catch the bus to school. School began at 13:00, and finished at about 18:00. I used to get back by 19:00 and off to my second set of classes at 19:30, which lasted an hour. I used to get back home, and then study and do homework until about midnight, before hitting the sack.
That was my routine, 6 days a week for 6 years. Actually, that was the routine of every kid in my class because that’s how hard school was for us. We had exams 3 times a year and had a million tests in between, so we always had to be on the ball. I think it is needless to say that hardwork and dedication to the task was drilled into us from a fairly early age!
I say all that…. but I was a rebel; I have always have been. I never made the loud noises, but did my own thing since I can remember. I am not academically gifted, and have always performed poorly at school. What I am good at though is being innovative and practical. One can work as hard as it could be humanly possible, yet the end result may still be zero. I commented recently, on a blog which I read, that my exam strategy was to figure out patterns in the questions, and that is how I revised for exams. It has catastrophically failed at an important point, but that is the way that I work!
I also like to think that I have been influenced by the Kaizen principle; the Kaizen principle basically focuses on improving a process, and fine tuning it to improve results even better. I think this has been a great motivation for me for a fair while. Until I found this post, that is.
I found this post (written by Ali Hale) to be wonderful and simple in understanding how a task should be performed. The post highlights simple motivations towards the task, and I guess these could be applied to any walk of life – not just work! Basically, there are 4 things – which if done correctly, can be the difference between “Job well done” and “Job done”, and I thought of sharing with you guys.
- Your task could be mission critical – awareness of the task.
- The way you carry out the task matters – awareness of the process.
- You’re showing diligence and reliability – awareness of your actions and responsibilities.
- You get personal satisfaction from a job done well – feel good factor.
I’m definitely going to try and highlight these simple things in my thought process and in everything that I do. Sometimes you need more than hard work, and perhaps something different is required – desire and sometimes awareness of what you are doing, and why you are doing it can get you further up the ladder than you could ever imagine!
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Getting the small things right is just as important as getting the big things right. Although, if you worry too much about getting everything right you never get anything done…at least I have a co-worker like that! He gets caught up in all of the little details that are not imperative for him to get the job done…
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