Office Office

 I intended to write this post in January however due to certain delays, lethargy and inertia on my part, I could not write this then. Hence I am picking this thread again with renewed insights and events from last 2.5 months.

First thing first, every office has a different culture and arrangement. For instance, Military might follow a cadet culture. Private sector may claim to follow non-hierarchical innovation oriented culture. For instance, everyone given equal size cubicles be it CEO or a developer. Public sector i.e. Government tend to follow a hierarchical and authority oriented culture which is not cadet style culture except for police service.  However it tends to get tricky in situation where it involve private vendors, direct recruits, promotee recruits, and other-direct recruits  in the equation. Here the leader has to wear many hats and change his communication and leadership style while talking to different actors. 

From my experience, best way to get the work done from the vendor is following:

1. Get things in writing
2. Review code and understand the topic in detail
3. Fix timelines and do regular follow ups
4. Always do a mail communication and know the last person who is working on the system

However, if a manager/leader/authority do not have real reward and punishment strategy in his hand then it is challenging to bring the best from the worker. There are very limited options in such setting. Some of them which I have experienced and faced are following:

1. Symbolic reward like reserved appreciation and symbolic punishment like frequent scolding and name-shame as one way to make the vendor work.
2. Create imaginary pressures like weekly work follow ups, number of days for which work is pending, daily accounting of the work done, taking timelines from the vendor and doing regular follow up with them
3. Know when to escalate the issue to leadership
4. Reserve your harsh words for exceptional situation 
5. Create your image in the office through your behavior pattern. For example,

        Use of anger in instrumental fashion like Sanjeev sir does
        Use of frugality of words like Ramesh sir does
        Keeping distance to create your aura
        Keeping conversations professional so that vendor do not get easy with you
        Not mix the personal and professional life
6. Play Good Cop-Bad Cop strategy
7. Develop a tone of authority

The situation is complex when you deal with government staff like other-direct recruits and subordinates. Hence few more principles could be applied.

1.  Treat them with respect, response and attention. At the end of the day, they are government staff who have fixed promotional timelines and fixed reward punishment patterns

2. Find their basic nature and accordingly allocate the task. For instance, whether he is aggressive, meek, sincere, calm, analytical or theoretical and so on

3.  Motivate them. Give them speech. Provide some referential authority so that they can also get the work done.

4. Provide them work related authority and tools

5. Don't get involved in the petty issues of office. These things work out on their own. At least, not pay attention to them until they are flagged. 

But just imagine that you are on other side of the table. How would you deal with an angry and aggressive boss. Following are some insights:

1. Develop a thick skin: Let the other person shout as much as he can. As long as he is not harming you physically and in substantive sense, it is ok. Just absorb the rebuke.

2. Under promise over deliver

3. Learn that client will always tag a task as urgent but essentially, there is nothing called URGENT

4. Buy as much time as possible

5. Always keep some output or excuse ready

6. Use visibility and opaqueness in functional sense. Use it wisely to deflect tension.

7. Become a Yes Man. 

8. Strategies like "Sir you are not audible", "Sir there is another output for you", "Sir, I take the responsibility for delay", and some other tension diffusing lines should always be available.

9. Show as if lot of effort is going on but live life as usual. Work need not be done but it must appear to progress.

10. Take approvals in writing and never give anything back in writing

11. Do not let the client access code or real work environment. Else he will know the truth.

12. Keep multiple versions of the documents.

13. When you can't explain, confuse

14. Pass the decision to client. This will help you in buying time.

There are many other situational techniques. If in case you are government staff then also you should have few tools in your hand. For instance:

1. In government, never give full answers

2. In government, always tell less than what you know

3. Keep a low profile

4. Speak less, observe more

5. Never be on the front, work from the back end

6. Delegate as early as possible. Never keep it pending at your desk

7. Show as if you are the busiest person in the office

8. Learn to see the hidden meanings of directions

9. Never sit in a car or room bigger than your boss's car or room

There is lot more to write but I think enough for now.