Communication lead Perfection
(https://portal.amer.csc.com/wiki/display/Viveksblog)
Jan 29' 2010
In the race of who delivers first, "applying the oil" strategy is largely being followed but the cost is perfection. Vivek's example of applying the oil to cure wheel's screeching sound as a metaphor to describe the dicy situations in the project schedule and other systems in general, reminds me of a fact learned in my academic years which I like and remember that a workaround used during development phase (decided to be replaced by a permanent solution later) gradually becomes a permanent part of the project and replacement is rarely made. However, the expense of this workaround is overall perfection. Bringing this scenario to a genric level, be it a project or an organization, perfection would be achieved if people (parts of system) at every level understand how critical is their role in the overall process.
I beleive all of us know these success-secrets but then why we still feel the lack? Why are we still not able to achieve that systematic thinking? The answer is lack of context driven approach of communication and irresponsible behavior when it comes to ensuring the integrity and consistency of the piece of information being communicated. How many times you have told your fellow employee some bad news about your organization without adding much spices to it? Or How many times you have heard your manager saying "mere kaunsa ghar ka kaam hai (this is not my personal work)" ? Or you must have heard him asking you to do some piece of work and that you need not be concerned with where your output is going to be used. All those small statements and expressions, although seem very trivial but subconciously give birth to a feeling of disconnectivity from the organization which ultimately leads to miscommunication. This is the reason for what Reema calls "silent resistance" in her comment and the same is the reason why Deepti says "Anything put up by the participants in town halls and other meetings is often taken as a complaint". The need is to repair our thinking, the systematic thinking will develop gradually and perfection would be just a step away.
Vivek's blog entry forced me to think why despite of open communication policies in , we still feel disconnected across levels. What pulls us to feel the individual proud when our organization feels proud of some success milestone? The need is to wake our concious up and communicate neatly without spices. Then we will see how effective the town halls, 1x1 meetings and other meeting channels would become. Then every time we will hear a screeching sound, we would know how to cure it. Because we will own the system. :) Best Regards, Maninder.
