Heya,
So how are you guys doing? I am sitting in my hotel room at 7 in the evening listening to Coldplay’s X & Y album and writing this blog post. Will post it sometime at night. Had a very very long nap. Was feeling a little strange and tired during the day and when it started raining towards the end of the working day (Our active market work lasts for about half a day, till about 3-3:30 pm.) I took off. Been sleeping since then. About 3 hours I think. Then spoke to a very old friend. Felt good. The mix of a good nice nap after a tiring but rewarding week, a long chat with a fellow mate and then finding a luke warm pet bottle of Limca next to the bed. Perfect!
We go through a lot of “Management” in B-Schools. There is work management and there is people management. Money management and time management. And I am not at all talking about the stuff we study. I am talking about the stuff that you learn besides that. Working with different workloads, with different people, each with their own time limits and schedules and then there is the limited pocket money. Just the environment teaches you a different course altogether. But there is a management that I think we have been doing since we were little. Something that we are not aware of explicitly till we are in a job and we have to do it for strangers and new people. Of course these strangers then become part of our lives and at some point we lose sight of it again. I am talking about managing expectations.
People management is managing the problems of these people and their work and what not. But what I am stressing about is something that is never talked about explicitly. It is something I think is special about sales jobs. Since we are in supervisory role we have to look at it in a rather objective way. To manage these people, we have to manage their expectations. What are these expectations? Vary from people to people, role to role and time to time. My salesman expects to have a better sale on the day I am working with him. But that it what they tell you to do in your job. There is a lot more. He expects that I will treat him at the end of the day. He expects that I listen to his problems. Not only the ones he is having in his work. But his family problems. Sickness, food, relationships..all. These are the things that they don’t tell you to do, but they make the difference between a good and an effective supervisor. They think in the beginning that you are some impersonal person from the head office and they are being loaded with some extra dead weight. It is then that you have to draw out the person from this working man. Who is he? What all does he want from life? What is troubling him? Knowing all this is what gives you the effective tools to motivate him, give him hope, help him and make him a better worker. My mentor in Kolkata tells me that at one time he used to send the monthly targets to the wives of the salesmen. He had developed camaraderie with their families and knew them all personally. He would then tell the wives of the incentives and the bonuses on completing the targets. This drove the salesmen in such a way that we would never be able to do. No better carrot and stick policy than that of the wife who effectively runs your life, the life that is worth living and working for.
Made me think that maybe there is a whole lot more than just a sliver of this in life apart from the job. It is pretty obvious that there is a lot of expectation management in life as well. But I think I personally, don’t give it as much thought as I should. Maybe I could have saved some hurt or made some one happier had I just thought about their expectations of me. I always think about my expectations….just that I don’t think of it like expectations. More like what I want and what I don’t or what I would like and what I would rather not. I am not a cold person. No I am not. But I can be a little blind at times to the people around me and their feelings. My usual excuse is that I am bad at picking hints. It is true, I am. But maybe that is because I never think of it in this manner. In the manner that I look at it when I am working. Callous to the point of being hurtful. That is what I can be sometimes. But as all bad things have to go…..this has to go as well. I better get my act together on this front. I am going to take responsibility of the happiness and the sadness and the expectations of the people that I affect. The people I care about. Brave words, huh? Let’s see…..
Till later
tata
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