Tips for working more efficiently

How to working efficiently?

Be it at home or at work we all try to work efficiently. But in this fast pacing world it becomes difficult to complete everything and do it efficiently too. I have like many of you readers read a thing or two about techniques and significance of focus, goals in life and work life balance, etc. Most of the stuff is centered on similar concepts of discipline, hard work, prioritizing and balance. I have myself tried and practiced some of the principles and techniques, but it slowly fades away in mundane daily activities and remains only as some principle that you once read in a book. Life falls back into chaos.

I was very distracted and running low on enthusiasm when our team meeting happened and  what I learnt at my last team exercise is something so simple and easy and yet so impactful and amazing.  Let me start from the beginning. After a long time our team met again for a group meeting and as is expected of our pro-active empowering group leader we had another team building exercise at hand.

We reached the conference hall there was a tray with some chemical bottle sitting and stuff on one of the side tables. Some of the team mates questioned and immediately reported the incident to the lab committee which is another matter altogether.  This post is not about lab safety.

Any ways the meeting began and ended and then came the fun part. The erudite group leader explained the exercise.  There was a trough containing safety gear like gloves, glasses and masks; a sealed glass bottle and a cardboard box half full of Styrofoam. The exercise required one of the volunteers to pack the glass bottle in the box exactly as a packaging professional would do.

This time we were prepared to be vigilant, remember the last exercise? And along came a volley of questions and queries. We asked the group leader everything possible, from the contents of the bottle, time required, number of participants to if there was anything underneath the Styrofoam in the cardboard box? etc, etc.

One of the team members volunteered and after adorning the safety gear proceeded to carefully to empty the box of Styrofoam.  Estimating the length of bottle she left a layer at the bottom for cushioning and kept the bottle and started packing Styrofoam around it.  At one point she realized that the bases layer might have been too thick as the bottle would not fit in the box for it to be sealed properly. She then removes excess Styrofoam from base and repackaged the entire thing. She tried to put in all of the Styrofoam but I guess we had some in excess.  She finally left some out and packaged the bottle.

The exercise was done and to our surprise there were no surprises this time. But, there very many a valuable lessons to be learnt.

Learning’s from the exercise.

1. Unlearn to learn: This is a principle that helps us think outside the box and get better results. After all there is only so much you can fill in a half full cup.  If the volunteer had not used her prior knowledge of measurement, she would not have left  the box semi full and re-do the entire exercise again.

Emptying the Styrofoam from box literally symbolized emptying your cup. Once you empty your cup you are more perceptive to newer ideas and approaches.  This is a key to innovation improving efficiency at work. And not just for an R&D company like ours.

1. Focus on the core: We live in a world surrounded by technology. It has made every thing so accessible and easy and yet so confusing. When you look at it everything seems easy and doable. Look at your personal to do list for today. There are some short-term and some long-term tasks. There are some major and some minor tasks and ALL these tasks are important.

You have to read the news, reply to official and personal messages, attend a few meetings, work towards the next weeks project deliverable, read something for personal or professional gain and buy groceries on your way back home, withdraw cash from ATM (yes this too is important!! For many people like me who survive on cards) and get the petrol tank full.

The typical approach is to finish the smaller tasks first so that you can sit and concentrate and work on the major tasks.  When we work using this approach, we invariably end up spending the majority of our time taking care of small small things and in the end there is not much time left for the most important/difficult task.

Yes, some people like me procrastinate difficult/heavy work and in the name of trying to be efficient spend time doing simpler things.

This is what the exercise was all about. Packaging the bottle was the core goal of the game. But the volunteer ended up spending so much time, energy and knowledge managing the Styrofoam. The Styrofoam literally represented the smaller, not so significant tasks that can be overlooked to accomplish the major goals. This way we can accomplish more things at work and in life. This also one of the ways we can work efficiently and not end up whining later about the lack of time and too much to do.

I found the exercise very useful.  What do you think about it? I’d love to hear about the lessons you’ve learned from various fun activities or from important people in your life. Please share those in the comments or write to me at deeptiamitsrivastava@gmail.com.

To read about how key to success is practice, an amazing post by Naomi Simson click here.

To read more about how to maximize the joys of this life and make life more meaningful chick here.

 The opinions expressed are those of the author only and not of any organization with which the author is affiliated.

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How to work with Jerks?? Lessons from a friend.

How to work with Jerks?? Lessons from a friend…

Like most of you I work in a 9 to 5 job and face the same problems as most of you do. Life has had it usual ups and downs and I understand that it can get really messy, if things do not go the right way at work. Work troubles effect our entire life including personal and social fronts.

At work we encounter different kinds of individuals. Some are fun to work with, others not so much. Some lash out publicly against any offence, others do it silently. Some are smart, some stupid, some intelligent and hardworking, some lazy and some jerks. Yes every office has its fair share in this last category.

I recently read an excellent  article by Jennifer Dulski on LinkedIn titled “Don’t Work With Jerks: 5 Lessons I Learned From My Dad”.  But many a times people that we work with and jobs that we are in, there is not much that we can change about it. We can try changing the job or the team but, in most instances, there is little that can be done.

A friend of mine, simplistic and hardworking person has been plagued with a poor team support and has had to tolerate working with people who can be real jerks at times.  She is a very quiet kind of person and in more cases than should be, others take the limelight. It is easy to say that work for has not been easy.  This is mostly because of others in office than herself, her work and efforts. 

She recently found herself in a project working with jerks. As is usual, she put in a lot of effort for the job, while others took the credit for it. It was disheartening to see that her efforts were not recognized by the organization. But, the way she dealt with this situation taught me a valuable lesson.  Instead of whining about it ( she did a little, that is natural, she is not actually a saint… :) or may be she is…. :)), the point being that she did not waste time in cribbing about the situation. Instead, she resolved to keep working hard and do a good job.  She kept her cool and patience and did not let jerks get in her way.

The result being, she was so good at the job, that no one could take credit for it, without mentioning her. Her contributions were outstanding and could not be usurped and finally she got her due. I would say by passive aggression…. :)

So the lesson my friend taught me was – when dealing with jerks, do not lose your cool, stay focused, be patient and work hard.

In most cases, radical changes like changing the job or even your team might not be an option. So, you might want to try this option/solution. Let me know how it goes for you. And most of you will agree that focus, hard work and most of all not giving up is a cocktail for success. For more on that read this superb article by Bernard Marr titled, "The One Thing Successful People Never Do".

 

If you tried this way and it worked for you, please leave a comment or write to me at deeptiamitsrivastava@gmail.com.

If you face similar problems and have found a way out please share it with me by posting a comment or write to me at deeptiamitsrivastava@gmail.com.

Significance of client participation in contract R&D. No Assumptions Please!!!

Significance of client participation in contract R&D

Team meetings are a mundane activity of every professionals life. Most of us find them usually dull and boring, mostly time consuming and almost always a waste of time. It was with this general expectation that I entered the conference room for my weekly group meeting.

I was surprised by the outcome of this one is the least I can say. This meeting fell in the category of interesting meetings, an unusual occurrence at workplace. I actually learnt a valuable lesson from this one. Not just for my work life, but also for effective living. To begin with, my note of appreciation for leadership qualities of a certain individual.

The meeting started on a fun note. We were asked to group ourselves into teams and make houses from playing cards. A deck was somewhat evenly distributed between teams of unequal sizes, the team leader purposefully playing alone. There was abundance of enthusiasm, creativity, team work, sharing and most other positive stuff compared to most other team events.

Well, racing against the time line, we all got down to work. It was haphazard, experiments in design, creativity, a little bit of bickering but all forgiven for the greater good, to secure the winning position for your team.

Although the exercise was for a share from the office candy bowl, it was fun and It

taught me not to assume things.  The lesson is extremely valuable for any contract R&D professional.

When we started playing, like any other project, we had a clock ticking. This led to our first mistake. We hastily started building houses of cards, trying different permutation and combinations as we went along, not thinking about a strategy or our group capabilities. A common mistake made in most research projects. A strategy meeting at the beginning and at various stages of the project is important as it helps in accessing the progress made, optimum skill and resource utilization. It also gives a chance for review and correction and changes needed to accommodate the scope of the problem. So strategize.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question; I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

                           - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate

Almost of all of us were too busy to ask any question about the play. We just took our cards and started. No questioning why the team leader was just overlooking the entire exercise and not playing with us. He was in the game, remember! Well at the end of our time, all teams proudly displayed their accomplishments, varying lengths of single story house. Some had during the course of these 12 minutes (yes we bargained and got 2 extra minutes… a characteristic learnt at school and often practiced at work) had managed to build a couple of storied but as greed never did good to anyone, it invariably collapsed. So end result – single stories for all.

The team leader evaluated everyone’s projects, took out a stash of folded cards from his pocket, laid it down in a chain on the table and won!!

This brings us to the second lesson- ask questions and define problems. We had not stopped for a moment to think and ask whether or not we could spoil the cards? Could we use glue or adhesive tape? I have seen a number of good projects suffer because of ill defined problem statements. Also in a research projects, especially contract R&D project, just like the team leader, client also might have very valuable project related information that has not been shared with you. Before approaching a contract R&D organization, companies usually try to solve the problem in-house. The results may be bad and deterring, but, as a R&D professional, it is important that you extract this information from the client. Also, do not hesitate to request clients for utilizing their resource. Always keep in mind; the success of your project depends on many other things apart from your capabilities. And defining a good problem statement tremendously increases your chances of success.

What played most significant part in our failure to win was assumption- assumption as to facts, assumptions as to rules of the game and assumption as to the whole exercise itself. The entire team started this exercise based on certain assumptions like not spoiling the cards, it being a team building exercise of sorts. We being a group of scientists and engineers, this is not surprising at all. All problems solving techniques in this world begin with certain assumptions and hypotheses. So, in our defense, we also started with some basic assumptions. Is that wrong?

Well, if you statistically look at success and failure rates in your organization, you will find assumption to be the culprit for failure in most cases. In my case, I have found assumptions, rather incorrect assumptions to be the root cause of all heartache for most of the projects that I have undertaken and those of the entire company. Contract R&D business and also most joint R&D or collaborative R&D projects involves a lot of trust. This is true for both inter as well as intra- organization (inter department) collaborative projects. Therefore, to secure your position and promote healthy collaboration do not assume anything. Lay the groundwork, question the other side or partners before establishing assumptions and communicate it to the other side at the very beginning of the project.

This was the most important lesson I learnt while building a house of cards to win a share in office candy bowl!

The opinions expressed are those of the author only and not of any organization with which the author is affiliated.

Exams ahead....

Hi...... well tomorrow i have an international law paper...and as usual have not yet started reading.... next sem would be my last here ... donno how time has flown by...

And those of u who dont know me ..... before exams ... my getting nostalgic or senti or whatever is nornal.... anything to postpone studying...:)

m feeling hungry ...... gotta go ....