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Everything related to work

What do you fear the most in your line of work?

Every work has its own risks and rewards. Risks outweigh the rewards in tough times. The ones that are pivotal. That’s when fear takes centre stage. What you fear the most decides how well you perform in tough situations. This defines the areas of work that you defend the most. You tend to believe that you should prepare a lot more better for this situation. This is where you insure the most or break fast. Do you know what you fear the most in your line of work?

Some of this is job-related. Common for most people in that line of work. Job-related-training and worker policies tend to take care of these in the best-way-possible. Like that for a cop, a soldier, a doctor, a lawyer. But most hurting ones are personal. They tend to be contextual. Something very pertinent to the company culture and your own view-of-the-self.

Fear of failure, Embarrassment, Underperformance, Rejection, Transfers, Confrontation, Loss-of-position and Isolation. These make it to the list of top fears for most of the tech-workers. Each one adopt their own defence mechanisms. Perception of consequences lead people to either hide-behind-something or perform-better-than-expected.

When you know what is your biggest fear, face it. Dancing-with-fear is more fun than hiding or running-away from it. Former leads to strength and better performance over time. Those who get this right, top the list of achievers. Watch and learn from those in your set-up. You will know what works and how to make it work in that context.

Companies face this with what-if-scenarios, plan-A-B-C structures, succession-plans and other insurance mechanisms. At an individual level, you have to device your own method. Coaches and courses help. Portfolio of skills and experiences are useful. Start with small experiments, with focus forward. But, practice well with the best.

Find what you fear the most in your line of work and prepare to dance-with-it. That’s the better-way-out than jumping-ship and living with its ghost.

How do you make technology for good?

Technology is never neutral. It is not easy to say that tech-is-for-good. Tech needs constant updates, replacements and care! In the hunt for new and cool tech, old tech suffers. So are folks stuck with old tech. Every upgrade makes the entire investment useless. New ones do not guarantee better-experience. If you are building tech how do you make-it-good and for-good?

Tech also has negative counts on equality, transparency and accountability aspects. The divide-in-society, the new fear-of-losing-out, and immersive-addictive-isolation are tech-enabled.

Earlier, companies taught people to make plans for regular-maintenance, periodic-updates and planned-upgrades. Backing it with warranties, maintenance-contracts and buy-back-schemes. Now, they are re-wiring the practice, one-device-at-a-time.

It was fascinating to show our products to our families and friends. Recommending our products with pride was part of being an Engineer. They lasted well over two-three-decades. Every time someone came-back with a part-request after a decade, we were happy to treat them with care. Customer loyalty was beyond reward-point-system.

Now with so much advancements, tools and techniques, why can’t we make tech last longer than before? If we can increase the outreach of care and life-span of people with tech, why not tech itself? Can’t tech be good for itself?

That’s the question for every tech person. If you introduce yourself as a technology person, think twice. Are you making something good for good or tinkering for good? Every line of code you write, every design marking you go-ahead-with, has a mark on this world. The amount of digital-dust we are creating is unimaginable. Where is this headed and what will it do? Who’ll clean this mess and the mess it creates? Environmental enthusiasts soon will find a new topic to pursue. Before that, it is up-to the responsible tech people, to be good.

Tech for good requires a set of fundamental guiding principles. Some of them include – Practice Essentialism. Adopt responsible-design-practices. Focus on effectiveness. Kill-short-cuts and patch-works.

Make your own tech-work-manifesto. Live by it. Pass-it-on. Make-it-a-cult. Take-an-oath when you start your work to be making-tech-for-good. May be, good-tech follows.

What is your tech-work-manifesto?

How to build walls in place of bridges?

Walls serve the purpose of a border, a structure for bearing the weight of what may come later. Walls create tribes, silos and gated communities. Opportunity for something precious to breed in secret.

Bridges try bringing tribes together. Help preserve the purpose of sharing and caring beyond boundaries. Opportunity to collaborate, optimise effort and maximise benefits.

Every meeting is an opportunity. Either to build a wall to safe-guard or a bridge to expand. If you feel threatened, you raise the wall. If you are in a mood to expand, you add a few more tiles to the bridge. If you have nothing to offer, there’s little you can earn through meetings. Every dull meeting is a wasted opportunity.

You are busy every hour of the day. When meetings occupy your day, you tend to delegate. First step towards building a wall in place of a bridge. Person attending on your-behalf is there to safe-guard. That’s what they believe. People on the other-side think the same. Purpose served. The wall gets its height. More job for the organiser to get them up-to-speed and later to manage the damage. When you step-in for what you are, walls get broken and bridges emerge. Less job of breaking. More for the making. Good for all.

When you delegate, make sure you delegate decision-making not attendance. Choose those who know the art of building bridges to represent you, your company and the purpose. Not those who can take notes and pass-it-on.

If you are the one organising, you know what to do. Get those who’s required. Say no to their virtual twins. If you are representing someone else, make sure you know why you are there. Prepare well and contribute to building bridges. You move-up and become remarkable.

Every meeting is an opportunity. Build a wall or a bridge. Not one in place of the other!