Skip to main content

Team Play

Nice post on why bias for action is not always the best idea. The example of a goal keeper taking action just to not be hated by fans for losing the game when in fact staying put could be the better play is something we can relate to in everyday life. Say a child comes crying to their parent saying they got hurt in their head and are in a lot of pain. The parent would likely bias for action and it that probably the right thing to do no matter if the child is exaggerating a bit to get attention - neglecting the situation could have bad consequences.  The same child when they push their parent to yes to something they are reluctant to allow, will likely meet some stalling tactic - no action basically. It would not be a good move to say yes (and lose  authority) or say no (be intractable where the facts may prove that to be a bad decision in the end). At work similar things apply. 

When dealing with a person who is not a good team player, sometimes it's best to ignore them while everyone else is brought in to collaborate. Once the team starts getting wins, getting recognized and such, the person who refused to participate may want in - chances are they will work harder to make up for lost time. You will get the outcomes you need and want without having done anything. Pushing this person ahead of time to be part of the team will only be met with resistance and likely demoralize those who are already on-board. This scenario has played out in my experience so many times that I no longer worry about the one or two difficult players - its all a matter of time and patience. 
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