Partha's Blog

The Curious Case of the Lazy Achiever! “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it!” (Bill Gates) I read about this quote from Bill Gates a while back and could well associate it with some of the professional achievers I have seen throughout my career. Yes, some of them have achieved a lot despite coming across as primarily lazy or laid back persons. It totally flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which says to be successful one should be a disciplined hard worker apart from having the other core competencies to be successful in their roles. However I do find a few possible drivers that catapult them to their success, despite their seeming lack of effort. From my past experiences, an example that I can cite relates to a 7 day hackathon that we had on upgrading a product feature. The most productive employee was almost twice as effective as the second best one. This takes significance as the two of them put together accounte...

Don’t Burn the Bridges – The right way to quit your job! Lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act II, sc.1) Times are changing and it is reflected best in the separation trend in the IT industry. Till the 1990’s most professionals had a linear thinking pattern; acquire a skill (engineering, accountancy etc.) and then choose an organisation (typically a PSU) where one could work for a long period of time, if not till retirement. With the opening up of the Indian economy in the mid-90s, came the era of the IT boom which continues to this day, albeit at a much faster pace. With several opportunities rising due to the industries getting more integrated to global markets and economy, job stability is a thing of the past. People have realised that...

Let’s Stop it! - Workplace Trends That We Don’t Want To See In 2017 As we welcome the New Year, I find a lot of people predicting the workforce trends that we are likely to see. Some interesting ones include improving the candidate/ employee experiences, multi-generational (yes, Generation Z is here!) and multi-skilled workforce, continuous assessments, HR Big-data analytics and Artificial Intelligence in HR. Very interesting times indeed if we believe the Issac Asimov’s in the field of HR! On the contrary, I strongly feel we still need to unlearn old practices before we learn and adopt the new ones. There are a lot of aspects we need to either minimise or completely stop to ensure that our people in the coming year will be able to balance their work-life priorities and also be happy and productive at the workplace. This becomes critical when we are going to see almost 4 generations of people - with different needs, working styles, and aspirations - rubbing shoulders (and brains) ...

Cabbages and Kings – the lighter side of categorizing people The time has come, the Walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — (Through the Looking Glass; Lewis Carroll) These lines have lingered with me since the first time I read ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ in my childhood. Though the words are simple and comical at first look, I have realised over the years the deep thought behind them once you scratch the superficial layer. As children we enjoy the superficial’, like the rhyme and the absurdity of the poem, but subsequently we find quite a few life’s philosophical gems hidden in it. It also goes to show that human nature has not changed much, though the times apparently have. Being a HR professional with around two decades of experience, I have seen this never ending segregation of people into Cabbages (average performers) and Kings (top performers) by Managers. Annual Performance appraisals are often used as ...