Skip to main content

No Answers

Reading this Inc. article made me think of people I have come to know over the years. Could not think of anyone who is prone to using all the six phrases in the list consistently - some leaders use more from this set than others. L came to mind for always getting on calls with customers with "How can I help you" - and did not matter how upset that customer was when they called L, they always end up calmed down and eager to do more business with L's company. "I trust you" is a popular one - the folks that came to mind in that context were typically managers that teams liked and got along with. They were also more likely than not to ask "What do you need from me" - to make sure they were being useful and removing obstacles for the team. 

I think what I have heard the least and wish it was more popular for the powers that be to say "Honestly, I don't know". There is a presumption that they do or should know. When they don't allow themselves to be vulnerable and admit to not having answers, that presumption becomes an axiom - everyone proceeds from there to the great detriment of the organization. It takes a great deal of courage to say I don't know but I can try to work out the answer together with everyone else. That would be viewed as an admission to not having vision, not being strategic and the rest. So down in the ranks, folks might not be inclined to accept this person as their leader. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha...
5 comments
Read more

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more