July, 2008

It is funny how you would see alot of elders, state leaders, any form of individual who is in a leadership capacity and even preachers of any form or manner including religion, politics etc, ask you to “accept and embrace the fact that you have made a mistake”. The funny part kicks in when these same individuals do not accept mistakes themselves. All too often I have seen people who preach that it is “ok” to admit mistakes, never really own up to one. These so called preachers are the first people to point out fingers on where you are going wrong but careful to ensure that the tales that they reflect on are in the past while clearly committing a “mistake” right now and then. These mistakes are not going to send them to hell nor are they worth the Wrath of God but it is important to be consciously aware of your environment, actions and behavior. I suppose one of the most critical things about making a mistake and accepting it is – in front whom do you accept it? I believe the answer to the question is anyone you feel is worth the confession or someone you feel you can learn from or help. This includes showing them that you as a human being in the present time of the world is also making a mistake and that is “ok” as well.

In my childhood and adult life, including my professional life, I have seen the value of being honest about making a mistake. If I am able to say “Yes, I have made a mistake”, what else can the opposition do about it other than asking me to serve the consquences depending on its severity. I suppose we all need to make mistakes to ensure that we can learn from them and grow in life, but it is also important that we do not try to commit the same mistakes again. A mistake is different from a crime and I want to be clear about that in case some one reading this post has “funny ideas”:

As per define:google

Mistake: an understanding of something that is not correct.

Crime: An act committed in violation of the law; The practice or habit of committing crime.

Reccently I have been very open with my team members, going as far as accepting “faults” or “mistakes” that I see should be made transparent in order for me to improve myself and allow others to know my weaknesses and that I am the one who exposed them.  I am not sure this shows any sign of weakness because the main reasons for doing such an activity is that you are being very clear and upfront to the people you work with – and thus a level of honesty that hopefully gets appreciated. You are also conveying to them that you are weaker at certain roles/points/situations and that you would need their help. Asking someone for help and allowing them to help you is a great way to ensure that you might be learning from folks who are better than you at a certain task but also creating a form of transparent amicability without the fusses of political necessity.  With a younger group of team members I lead, making it clear that I have my own set of tasks that I might need help with, or telling that I have made a mistake and I need their help in fixing it, is also part of a new routine that I have undertaken and hopefully it tells my team members that I am just a human being with no superpowers.

In conclusion, I think it is important to admit mistakes and not be ashamed of it. Sooner or later someone is going to find out about it if you are in the world that we live in today. The audience can differ and that is understandable but if you set a global audience maybe the feedback/lessons learnt might be more fruitful. I will leave that judgement to you. But note one thing for sure – admitting to a mistake is not a sign of weakness by any mean. It is probably the hardest thing to do in one’s life – but it’s ok to have that problem as well.

Randy Pausch – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

Imagineer – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagineer

Please visit my new blog at http://www.thaneshsadachcharan.com/blog

Recently, there has been a wave of information being sent via email within my organization. People seem to be excited in sharing information and ensuring that others find excitement in the “issues” that they have seen. Issues could be defined invariably ranging from topics such as Obama to Agile methodologies. Why do people share such information and why is it necessary to make sure that you are not the only one who is the “care-taker” of such data? Last night I read a book on Agile methodology that was sent to me by a colleague of mine. The book talks about implementing a new style of project management, design and implementation but also about “Getting Real” in life as well. I found it interesting that the 37signals guys do not mind sharing their framework – Ruby on Rails with the whole world. Why would they do that? I guess fundamentally they knew that the work that they were doing was great and they were getting paid some money for it as well and “hey, why not share it with the world”. It really caught my attention because I consider myself a “social-capitalist” or at least want to be one – one day . This idea of ensuring that knowledge is shared among individuals could be considered a sub-set of it.

So why does it suck to keep things to myself? Well for one, how do you know its a good idea? If you pass the message around, get some feedback and if its positive – you could be onto something. Hey Agile again – message being shown off as obviously code/prototype.

Let’s take the simple case of an issue I had about two weeks ago on a client engagement. We were dealing with some caching issues and the developer from the client side and I were working on it, trying to see how to resolve the issue. We were miles apart but working on the same damn thing. We spoke, shared a few ideas, he gave me some leads and I gave him a few threads. Passed the message around a few people who are working on the same platform and in the end we got a decent solution. If we had gone with the idea of “ok let’s just put this out here and than stick with it” – well, I would not have known what others were doing and whether there was something better out there. By not keeping it to myself , trying to genuinely validation information and in the process sharing some of the lessons I have learnt and seen, I was able to get valuable feedback.

I have been in the world of “doing a lot of talking”. Hey I bought this domain about two months ago. Went around trying to do all kinds of things and then never really got to anything – cause I was trying to do too many things. Decided to just test out a new blog, and than move on from there. I am trying to see whether just doing small things at a time can get the ball rolling for me – at least in the development world and than see what the world thinks about it. At least by not keeping it to myself and putting it out there – I know I am getting free feedback and atleast a comment by my friend that the site sucks and I should just get a life. And that is just priceless.