So your boss has a favorite employee...and it isn’t you. Talk about a tough workday. As an employee, you feel unappreciated, like your hard work goes unnoticed. Plus, you may have to spend part of the day watching your boss drool and coo over her favorite minion. Here’s how to cope.
Don’t compete. Trying to compete with the “Chosen One” is a losing battle. Not only are you unlikely to change your boss’ mind, you’ll drive yourself crazy when you work hard and don’t see immediate results.
Shine on. Even if you aren’t competing with the favorite, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work hard. In fact, you should try to work extra hard. The reason? By putting in the extra effort and taking pride in what you do, your confidence will be noticeable. It may also help you to realize that your recent work hasn’t quite been up to par, which could explain why your boss seems to be happier with another employee.
Don’t jump to conclusions. Before you get unnecessarily bent out of shape, it’s important to consider why your boss may seem to have a favorite. Maybe the two have been working together for far longer than you’ve been around. Maybe they have mutual friends or share similar outside interests. Before you get into a funk about their relationship, take the time to consider if there are explanations or reasons that add insight and help ease your anxiety about workplace favoritism.
Consider what it means for you. Does the fact that your boss has a favorite impact your job or is it just a major irritation? If you like your job, feel productive and generally receive good feedback, than pat yourself on the back for rising above a bad situation. But if the favoritism is out of hand and impacting your general happiness, work ethic, or relationship with your boss or co-workers, maybe you need to do something about it.
Know when to go. Yes, there’s something to be said for being the hardworking, positive-attitude-sporting underdog and toughing it out until you get your chance to strut yourself in front of your boss. Then (hopefully) you become the favorite. But if you’ve been around the office long enough to know that your boss is constantly playing favorites (and you’re never it), then maybe you should think about polishing the résumé and moving on to another job—one where you’ll be the star.
Reproduced from the Human Resources IQ website
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Bridge the Distance
Read this on Projects@Work
Structured communications can help you connect with virtual team members.
"Wish you were here" is a phrase you might write in a note to distant family and friends. Nowadays, you might also think that same thought about coworkers. But wishing won't make it so. More and more project managers are expected to complete complex projects, despite being separated from team members by time zones and even continents. Here are strategies to work effectively with people you may seldom, if ever, see.
Establish Expectations. Having a detailed, written communication plan is critical before starting a virtual project. The plan should set out a hierarchy of when to use phone calls versus e-mails, and establish team member availability standards and response times. Everyone should know who's available when, how to reach them and what sort of reply to expect.
Contain Conference Calls. Teams often come together via conference call, and preparation beforehand can improve results. Send an advance agenda with ground rules that live questions are welcome at the end. By setting expectations ahead of time, you don't have free-for-all calls.
Seeing Is Believing. Use tools that allow your virtual team to communicate with images. Having a visual fix on the task can be worth a thousand words — many more thousands of dollars.
Close Communication Gaps. Don't underestimate people's ambient fear of outgoing phone calls, which intensifies if work isn't going well. Makes lots of calls to close communication gaps and nip problems in the bud, while encouraging team members to do the same.
Remember the Others. Check the clarity of your communications with role reversal. Put yourself in their shoes to see if your e-mail makes sense. Have you made your request clear and complete, and attached a specific deadline? Have you written in an appropriate tone?
When a team is separated by distance, time zones and technology, everyone, starting with the project leader, should be thinking how to make it easier each other.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
How can you detain Mr.Khan ????? India's Biggest worry on Indepdendence Day
62nd Independence Day, All the TV Channels were flashing the news 'SRK detained at Newark Airport for 2 hours', ha ha ha, funny, every Indian should be worried about this.... All other Top stories, President's and PM's Address to the nation, Swine Flu, etc. everything took a backseat.
Unfortunate, there is no vote bank to our Indian Politicians in the US, so there was not much reaction, otherwise this would be another case of Minority Bashing. Everyone from the filmworld had their own opinion to grab their possible share of frame in the media. What immunity does Mr.SRK has against being detained or checked ? Just because he or anyone being a celebrity, does it necessarily mean that they should not be questioned. Look back at the number of celebrities who were involved in anti national or anti societal activities, so in my opinion every individual is the same in front of a security personnel. Scores and scores and people are travelling and irrespective of their nationality or religion, they are being frisked and questioned, so why should we publicise a normal procedural check of an individual.
Come on India, move on, we have better things to worry about.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Independence Day Wishes - Flag Cards
15 Aug : Independence
Flag cards (that we pin in our dress during Independence-Day[I-Day] and Republic-Day[R-Day]) are very popular in our country that every Indian citizen will be happy to wear and express his/her patriotism.
My Colleague Devaraj started with a small initiative to have a new design of flag card to PIN-in our dress on I-Day/R-Day. (below is the sample of new design of flag card)
Flag cards (that we pin in our dress during Independence-Day[I-Day] and Republic-Day[R-Day]) are very popular in our country that every Indian citizen will be happy to wear and express his/her patriotism.My Colleague Devaraj started with a small initiative to have a new design of flag card to PIN-in our dress on I-Day/R-Day. (below is the sample of new design of flag card)
Advantages in the new design:
You need not PIN on the flag card, rather you have a small space to pin. This avoids poking the flag that we use.
Every flag card would have a message just below the flag, which tells one of the glories of India.
- By this way we convey and share the glories of India and make everyone feel proud of our Nation.
Why this should be used:
This message below the flag (in the flag card) can be used to convey the message from PM,CM, DEO, IAS, IPS.. etc. about the past and present glories and also to convey the future vision and goals that our country wants to achieve.
The message present in the card can also be used to convey the greatness(present or during freedom struggle) of our country .
During I-Day and R-Day most of the Indian citizens tend to think about the country and we all like to wear the flag on those days. While wearing the flag, if we see a message (on glory of India or about our AIM to improve India), it will reach our hearts.
In future this can be used to convey leader's messages (in respective departments like education, security, agriculture etc.,) to convey the messages for their department people.
How much does it cost:
Less than 1 Re. per card (if you take a color printout)
How much time it takes for you to spread this:
Less than 1 hr to create the card and print it (having the attached template ready).
What we have done so far?
We have designed this card and created a PDF file, which can be used by anyone to take color printout, cut and use. (This post has got the PDF to use for printing)
What needs to be done?
Check for more validity and feasibility to make this idea spread all over.
What you can do?
You may the PDF and get flag cards printed in near by color printer shop and distribute it to your circle.
Spread the word to create more such flag cards, so that many start using this in coming days and it becomes a good platform to spread the glory of our Nation (particularly among children)
Your feedback and comments are always welcome, and will help us in improving. Please do give your feedbacks.
Click to download the PDF File : http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B33hRE1i7TgNZWIxMTE1NzctN2YxZS00MzY0LWI1YmYtNTgwODc4YzhiZTQ4&hl=en
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Inspired, To Inspire
Ten students from Singapore Management University spent 3 weeks in India as part of the MindTree India Immersion Program, conceptualised by Subroto Bagchi. Infact was very lucky to play a small part in this program and the following link is the blog of one of the student.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Why Gold Plating is not Welcome....
Life experiences has always taught us very beautiful lessons, even the ones that I have not studied in my B-School. This has always made me appreciate the immense benefits of learning from unusual sources. This is what my daughter and my wife taught me about 'Gold Plating'.
As usual, it was one of those wonderful late evenings with the family and we were all glued to Barclays premier League match between Manchester United and Liverpool. My wife served me a glass of lassi and after having the same, requested my daughter to leave this in the kitchen sink, as I did not want to take my attention away from the match.
As I instructed my daughter, my wife listened to that and asked my daughter not to keep leave it in the sink, but just on the cooking table. She also told my daughter that, she may not be able to reach the bottom of the sink, so she may break the glass. My daughter went to the kitchen left the glass and came back to the living room and we continued watching the match.
Then, after sometime I heard a sound of glass being shattered, so, had to rush to the kitchen to see if everything is fine. As my daughter and self were going to the kitchen, we heard my wife shouting at my daughter, ' Did I not ask you to keep the glass on the table?'
In the next 5 minutes, things settled down to normalcy. But, when I was just analysing the situation, the only thing that came to my mind was 'Gold Plating'. My wife assumed that my daughter kept the glass on the table, as she had been instructed and kept a big vessel with water in the sink and that had made the glass break. My daughter wanted to do a good job, as she knew that the glass should anyway be kept in the kitchen sink, she stretched a bit and did that, inspite of being asked not to do the same.
Even though my daughter had stretched a bit and completed the task in the way it has to be done, the customer(my wife) was not happy because my daughter did not do, what she was asked to do. So, my daughter, who was thinking that she should be appreciated for what she did, eventually ended up being abused. Are you able to draw parallel to one or more of your customer experiences.
Gold plating is what we call it when the project team does work on the product to add features that the requirements didn’t call for, and that the stakeholder and customer didn’t ask for and don’t need. It’s called “gold plating” because of the tendency a lot of companies have to make a product more expensive by covering it in gold, without actually making any functional changes. (For example, there are plenty of watches and fountain pens you can buy from luxury companies that are identical to their cheaper versions, except that they’re covered in gold.). I shamelessly stole the above definition from Andrew Stellman's blog.
As usual, it was one of those wonderful late evenings with the family and we were all glued to Barclays premier League match between Manchester United and Liverpool. My wife served me a glass of lassi and after having the same, requested my daughter to leave this in the kitchen sink, as I did not want to take my attention away from the match.
As I instructed my daughter, my wife listened to that and asked my daughter not to keep leave it in the sink, but just on the cooking table. She also told my daughter that, she may not be able to reach the bottom of the sink, so she may break the glass. My daughter went to the kitchen left the glass and came back to the living room and we continued watching the match.
Then, after sometime I heard a sound of glass being shattered, so, had to rush to the kitchen to see if everything is fine. As my daughter and self were going to the kitchen, we heard my wife shouting at my daughter, ' Did I not ask you to keep the glass on the table?'
In the next 5 minutes, things settled down to normalcy. But, when I was just analysing the situation, the only thing that came to my mind was 'Gold Plating'. My wife assumed that my daughter kept the glass on the table, as she had been instructed and kept a big vessel with water in the sink and that had made the glass break. My daughter wanted to do a good job, as she knew that the glass should anyway be kept in the kitchen sink, she stretched a bit and did that, inspite of being asked not to do the same.
Even though my daughter had stretched a bit and completed the task in the way it has to be done, the customer(my wife) was not happy because my daughter did not do, what she was asked to do. So, my daughter, who was thinking that she should be appreciated for what she did, eventually ended up being abused. Are you able to draw parallel to one or more of your customer experiences.
Gold plating is what we call it when the project team does work on the product to add features that the requirements didn’t call for, and that the stakeholder and customer didn’t ask for and don’t need. It’s called “gold plating” because of the tendency a lot of companies have to make a product more expensive by covering it in gold, without actually making any functional changes. (For example, there are plenty of watches and fountain pens you can buy from luxury companies that are identical to their cheaper versions, except that they’re covered in gold.). I shamelessly stole the above definition from Andrew Stellman's blog.
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