Emotional Intelligence !

It is unbelievable how many great theories there are about human behavior. It is unbelievable how unpredictable my own behavior has been. Two weeks back, I was the one who was to a large extent disillusioned. Today I was the one giving a colleague a motivational speech for well over an hour on how she can make a difference. Why do things change? The only thing that changed between last "instance of helplessness" and the "cautious optimism" is simply some deep thinking. Well you do have time for that in this less busy non-INSEAD world ! Well did I say the INSEAD world was busy? If it was, it could not have been busy for these "instances of self-actualization". I did incidentally got to the the book on emotional intelligence and got through a few lines that had missed me the first time. It helped. I don't think I am emotionally more intelligent than I was a couple of weeks back, but I certainly am a little more "self-controlled" and "self-confident" compared to where I found myself 2 weeks back.

One thing is for certain. When I finish 2006, I am proud of what I have accomplished this year. I had three jobs on graduation. I have zero debts six months into graduation. I am "well settled in a new town and have started learning two new languages this year. I have a wedding date (yes, Wannabe, getting married next summer) !

This reminds me of a remarkable quote from the CEO of a company (that my friend used last weekend)...."Career is like a marathon, not a 100m dash. Don't use up all your energy early on and lose the race. You need a lot of energy to finish, finishing first has to do with stamina rather than heroics"

Things of the week: Visit to Germany. Visited a friend who got recently married ! Forgot a gift for him but will make it up next time. Thrashed people (well not really) - in Bowling. Scored an average of 130 (well my usual average is around 120) with a top score of 146 ! Anyone better than that around here?

Hello Social Life

It has been a month since I started working. That is an important milestone. Next time I speak about the time I have spent here, in all liklihood it is going to be in a year, unless things nosedive.

Let me see what I have to say about my job so far.
(1) Challenging - Tons of things to get done
(2) I bring the right knowledge / Skills for the job - Both my background in previous jobs and passions "Seem to be designed" for this job.
(3) I still have no social life and might have to start building relationships from scratch.

I think to be fair to my boss, I have arrived here after a couple of years of having a fabulous boss I had an incredible chemistry with. I did not have to persuade people or be nice always. I drew credibility in my job from my boss and his leadership style. The chemistry did I think set the platform for success in my previous job. I was also a little adventurous because of my chemistry with my ex-boss. I used to take risk and occassionally when I screwed up was ready to face it. That honesty is now gone and I am surprised (when I should be working on building that credibility all over again). Well, I think I need to build trust and be trustworthy. When I am not understood, I will have to try building stories that are persuasive. I have accepted it as something I need to do over the next few months. I have realized it through the week and am going to precisely do that. Infact as a colleague told me, I need to be looking for the "kind of reactions I draw" from people and understand them. I am going to be a lot more open with my boss and his leadership style and see where it takes us. After all, this is a job that is a "no-risk experiment for me" thanks to some degree as there are some very very good back-up plans in place.

And yes, Social life, alcohol is trickling in slowly. Yes, nothing compared to what INSEAD offered but INSEAD was life in fast-forward. This is real life. So I am enjoying life even in "slow motion" once in a while....

The Good Boss and Bad Boss

I guess, I need a blog more than ever before. I have tried to convince myself in the last week or so that I am not the "Arrogant MBA" recruiters and HR managers often talk about. Recruiters always talk about individuals who join their companies and then start looking at colleagues as "inferiors". As an MBA starting in this company after about 3 weeks I feel the following

(1) I am overpaid for what I do (on relative terms of course)
(2) I do not speak the language in which business is done here (For the most part)
(3) Expectations are much higher in terms of what I can achieve compared to peers in the same "age bracket" with a strong background who have been within the company for years.
(4) I learnt last year that incentives work on me (just like on everyone else) and I am starting all over again on the food-chain and I have no reason to feel like "I have achieved anything at all so far in the context I am in" and have a ton of incentives to go behind (including a fancy ROI calculator I got introduced to in my Finance 101 and am under more pressure than the peer group because of this "discovery" and "self-(destructive)-analysis" capabilities.
(5) My social network was so incredible when I was in INSEAD (as we fed each others egos 100% of the time and suddenly it has disappeared)

Now, lets start working with this assumption. I start with a handicap of 5 (borrowing Golf terminology for once) in this job compared to the regular employees here (Point 4 but the blissfully unawareness about responses to incentives can be good). In this context I am going to bring in an important B-School learning. Interestingly enough, without my Blog I would have actually forgotten that we discussed Incentives PASSIONATELY. I mean everyone had something to say about it when we discussed it in P2. Now that we know its an interestingly subject (or animal called the BOSS)

My OB professor about 1 year 2 months back said "People Join Companies and Leave Bosses". It was confirmed by a book I had read on the subject. The best business book of all times in my view "First break all the rules" describes the best manager of all times. They claim to have information about millions of employees and their behavior at work place thanks to being a "Survey company". Well, good for them. But it gave them some scary levels of credibility...now to what they have to say on the subject.

Great Managers
(1) Treat Individuals Differently, based on their strengths not weaknesses.
(2) Care about outcomes and not about the process followed (remember ethical behavior of course is a given).
(3) Is always there when he or she is needed by his team and coaches them NOT manages.
(4) Positivity is another trait, a great manager is an eternal optimist.
(5) Values life long learning for himself and the team.

And sadly, I do not see even one of the above traits in my current manager. He seems to be more interested in "Process" than "Results". Infact the way our groups goals are designed the "Result" seems almost certain with no risk. It pains me because I also think even after achieving the results "he does not see" there is almost a high risk of failure for the company and he does not see it at all as "its not our job".

Am I going to be one of those people who leaves within a year of joining because I didn't fit? Maybe not. I know I can end up with exactly the same kind of a boss again. So instead of running away from this, I think I am going to face it. Then why am I speaking about all this? Well, if I do see this a year later and see if I actually ran away from this, I know the material I am made out of ;-). I am most likely to have a "smart justification" that my future recruiter will buy for my running away...something a year in business school certainly does to people. Be eternally optimistic atleast about one's own career choices even if they are extremely-reactive ;-).

Same time last year?

Well, I have been thinking about slowly and gradually reading my blogs and guess what? I read this post not far from Nov 9th 2006 and I had written something to the tune of "The heart of Europe" demonstrates an amazing degree of unity and discipline" (I think the countries involved then were Germany, Switzerland, Austria) and guess what? Today I am working in the very heart with atleast 2 of the countries in the three along with a couple of countries whose national weeks followed. Life has changed so much and yet has not changed at all?Well I do think working in an industry of choice is fun. I am working in a messy messy industry in one of the messiest of companies. I do work "WITH" consultants instead of working "AS A" consultant. I don't work with the tier 1, so not all the tricks from "House of Lies" is used but a substantial number is being used. What I ran away from all my life is what I think I am getting into. I think I committed some serious mistakes at work this week and I feel sadly out of touch with complexities of work (and relationships at work) despite my "rigorous training" last year. Interestingly I feel the place I work is NOT AT ALL different as my colleagues do think from the "World class companies" that I had worked for earlier. Its the same rules that need to be followed.
(1) Relationships are the best way to get things done at work quickly.
(2) Respect people to get respect back.
(3) Stereotyping is never healthy.

Yet, I seem to be listening and even accepting some violations on the above three areas. I have ignored some requests from "less important people" and have spent too much time feeding into "the customer" or the "more important people"And this is different from INSEAD simply because "Everyone in INSEAD is equal" or we are lead to believe it (even when our GMAT scores, GPAs, Color of skin/eyes, "Ending salary before INSEAD", "Starting salary after INSEAD" were as diverse as the colors in the Rainbow).So now I commit to myself, I will go back to work tomorrow morning with an open mind, accept the mistakes I committed earlier this week and try to fix as many of them as possible !

To my blog readers....I can't believe atleast a couple of you keep track of me even when I get lost in my own world way too often...(Well atleast the wannabe I think, should stop blogging and commenting until he finishes GMAT ;-). Good luck).

Phase 2 Begins...


Blogging is addictive. Well it has been. I have actually taken to smoking and quit at will atleast in 2 instances. Maybe I am strong willed or maybe I was not given the same set of neurons everyone was blessed with. Life in the last three months has been with a lot of eerie silence. It has been less packed than ever before. After 10 months of partying the silence has disturbed me a lot. But then the silence has given me time to think. Time when I have realized certain things have changed forever. Yes forever. My CV no more looks the same. I am no more one of the "most underpaid employee around". Infact I need to admit, I feel "terribly overpaid" for my skills, competencies and potential I hold. I am also in a geography that is considered "much better" than I came from. INSEAD was fun, but it should not have changed my valuation so much. Ok before I continue with my random ramblings (of course I can't control it too much), here is a quick intro what has happenned in my life so far.

I graduated from INSEAD on a relatively "un-emotional day" (I am an aberration) thanks to all the logistics ahead of me. The same weekend, I left for this tiny central american country where I spent a month with my Fiancee even if it meant missing the France-Italy Final. Italy's win that evening was symbolic as I was over the atlantic. It meant, I told myself, my future was brighter than Past. The month that followed was so relaxing. Learning spanish for a couple of hours a day, picking and dropping off the girl at work and socializing with family and spending weekends at the lake and the ancient city around. It was paradise until Fiancee decided to do some community work in some noname village. Before I knew it it was time to leave. After a 10 day internship with a start-up (yes very brief, I did it for charity) and meeting up with a couple of INSEAD friends, I spent a month and half with my parents. Then I am here in Italy for the last 2 weeks, working for a company that did succeed in persuading me to join them.

About this blog, One of my friends from INSEAD asked me if I still blogged (well one of the 5 who knew I blogged during INSEAD) and I thought why not. After about 25 hours of Italian classes, I knew how to use Google translation and dictionary and so after some research decided to name this blog whatever it is named essentially trying to imply "Gypsy Life" as Gypsy was already taken (well the Italians blog too). Life is feminine and Gypsy is masculine, now before getting all judgemental about my name picking abilities, remember that the name deathspiral was picked for me by finance monkey and INSEAD alum. So with no guidance and spoonfeeding I have decided to title this blog Life Spiral because this in many ways is called "Real Life" following the MBA. Ok enough of explanations, now to the real Blog. Thats it for today.

Cheers