Officer Like Qualities

You might have heard the acronym OLQ which stands for Officer like quality which officers in the government are expected to possess. Some of the worthy to mention are listed below:

Effective Intelligence, Expression, Self Confidence, Determination, Organizing ability, Courage, Initiative, Sense of responsibility, Stamina, Decision Making etc.  A lot of money is spent on imparting these behavioral traits among the officers however not necessarily they end up learning or developing these attitudes. Instead, what we see as a result of training is something related but different. Few things I observed among most of the officers are following:

1. Clean Shave: They are perfectly clean shaved every day.
2. Dress: They follow a certain dress code which distinguishes them from other employees and subordinates.
3. Silence: They speak as little as possible in front of employees.
4. Distance: They maintain a distance from their employees or subordinates.
5. Cadre: They can even die for their cadre. They cover for their cadre people and develop ingroup-outgroup thinking vis-à-vis other cadres.
6. Turf: They continuously try to expand their turf.
7. Elitism: They consider themselves to be on some other pedestal.
8. Communication: Good in speeches and in some cases good in action.

Having said so, we must admit that their cadre, network, and job security enable them to exhibit autonomous behavior. They do not look for approval and develop a commanding attitude. The power of their position helps them with self confidence and sometimes with punitive authority. But there is nothing special with them. It is the job and the training which made them so. Had it been any one else with same privileges, he could have performed better than the Officer like officers.

Documentation and Project Planning

This post is about importance of project planning. Any big project becomes hundred times easier if we are able to break down the project in small segments.
1. Whenever an employee float a new idea or new substantial suggestion, tell him to document and send the idea across.
2. Go for detailed documentation of all the screens, module in the form of Wireframes.
3. Do a daily stand up meeting and take updates from each employee.
4. If employee is disturbing the team ethics then ask him to update his work status two times in the day.
5. Fix individual responsibility and accountability.
6. Identify the sincere employees and give them appropriate autonomy, freedom and respect.
7. Maintain daily, weekly and monthly tracker of your project.
8. Do not hesitate from conducting marathon meetings once in 15 days.
9. Whenever a new employee joins, set the tone by way of these meetings. Give him the glimpse of project planning and your own nature.
10. Behave like an officer, disciplined, meticulously organized, neat and clean. This sets the benchmark for employees and also define the standards of excellence.
11. Point out even the minutest mistake of the employees and ensure that an standard of excellence is set among the team members.

For all this, the leader himself has to be in high spirit, full of enthusiasm and energy. He should live up to all the expectations of excellence which has from his employees. This is my learning from the Project Insight.

How to break your employee?

Managers or administrator use various tactics to break their employees like
1. Kill his autonomy.
2. Keep the decision making to yourself.
3. Maintain your aura.
4. Act superior to him like dress, manners etc.
5. Use words frugally.
6. Break his network.
7. Do not heed to his basic needs.
8. Be mercurial/unpredictable.
9. Don't give him opportunity.
10. Keep him on the edge.

This is the situation in most of the jobs. These are the tactics deployed by an insecure manager, when he wishes to assert his dominance over his employee who he think can challenge his authority. Be it private sector or government sector.

There are different ways  an employee can respond to this situation?
One way could be avoidance behavior. It could be reflected in following ways.
1. Do not seek satisfaction from job.
2. Diversify your talent or source of Income.
3. Become passive.
4. Build your network.
5. Maintain silence.
6. Live easy.
7. Show no sense of ownership.

Another way is to develop offensive behavior like
1. Be vocal about your rights, speak up.
2. Bypass authority and channels.
3. Work hard to prove your mettle.
4. Be mercurial.
5. Incite others.
6. Backbite your manager.

7. Work on your skills.

However, both behaviors are extremes. It is advisable to choose your strategy depending on the manager's rank in the hierarchy. A possible middle path could be:
1. Diversify your talent or source.
2. Work on your skills but do not make them public.
3. Build your network.
4. Speak up but use your words judiciously.
5. Create your importance in the office.
6. Look for other jobs. 

One can see all sorts of employee-manager relationships in the government as well as  private sector. Such situation demands lot of prudence from the managers. In government jobs, Employee's first reaction develop the avoidance behavior however in private sector employee's first reaction is to develop offensive or middle path.  

Breaking the Inertia

For last two months, I am struggling with the inertia of not writing blogs. The reasons are not many. First could be the fear of spilling too much personal details. Second is lack of substantive and structured thoughts to write. Third but I think the most prominent is my own laziness on this front. Anyway, there is lot of things to write about, lot of thoughts, experiences, frustration, joy, and new developments. 

To begin with, I must apologize to myself for my failure to write anything for January.  The month taught me ways in which the leadership can destroy the zeal and enthusiasm of genuine employees.  Our whole batch (People in Delhi) was put on an unofficial compulsory wait. We were not given the further postings after the "sham training" of two and half months. There was sense of uncertainty and demotivation in me. However, I tried to compensate through other means like exercise and music.  I managed to follow my resolve of not eating after 7 PM. It helped me putting my schedule in practice and I felt much happier. We installed our TV at home and most of my time went in enjoying the TV shows specially the horror ones. 

February was little busy. I wrote a book on Budget and Survey for Vajiram. I was put on the project Insight, one of the most sought after project in the department. I met many interesting people including my project head Mr. Sanjeev Singh. Watching and observing him and others in the department, I understood the importance of documentation, project planning and why is it better to be feared than loved. 

Working along side him, there were numerous small observations day in and day night. The taste of functioning of the government department in the backdrop of my own experience of working in private sector helped in developing the new perspectives. I will list some in the upcoming blogs. 

For now, the breaking news is breaking the internet. Indian air force has hit deep inside Pakistan and destroyed the terrorists hideouts. This could well be beginning of a 5th war between India and Pakistan. Pakistan may target Gujarat next. Let us see how the situation unfolds. Bidding adieu for now.