Funny Corporate Tales

Sarcasm involves saying one thing and meaning the opposite. Adapted from Reader's digest: Very few companies require any physical-fitness program. Everybody gets enough exercise 'jumping' to the conclusion, 'running' late to the meetings, 'dodging' the responsibilities, 'flexing' their muscle to prove their superiority, 'beating' around the bush, 'walking' around the policies, 'fudging' the data, 'painting' the grim picture of the situation and 'fighting' like fools!

Who will Bell the Cat? This is a story about four people named 'Everybody', 'Somebody', 'Anybody' and 'Nobody'. There was an important job to be done and 'Everybody' was asked to do it. 'Everybody' was sure 'Somebody' would do it. 'Anybody' could have done it, but 'Nobody' did it. 'Somebody' got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. 'Everybody' thought 'Anybody' could do it but 'Nobody' realized that 'Everybody' wouldn't do it. It ended up that 'Everybody' blamed 'Somebody' when 'Nobody' did what 'Anybody' could have done.

HERD MENTALITY: There are many versions of the tale. One version describes it Birbal's way to set the expectations right when Akbar was boasting about his supreme authority and absolute compliance he enjoyed from the public (subject, प्रजा) he ruled. Another version is based on the thought process of humans. Now Akabar-Birbal story: Once Akbar heard that every man thinks differently. He asked Birbal whether it is true or not? Birbal said, "No, Your Majesty! In fact, wise men think alike." Akbar was interested to know more about and said, "Birbal, You will have to prove your saying." The next day, Birbal asked all the attendants of the palace to empty the royal pond. Then he announced to the people in the city to pour a glass of milk in the pond during the night. He also informed Akbar on his act (and what Birbal expected in the pond the next day). The next day morning, Akbar and Birbal went to the pond to see the pond was filled with water. Akbar was surprised and asked Birbal, "Why this pond is filled with water instead of milk?" Birbal politely said, "Your Majesty! Everybody has deliberately poured a glass of water in the pond yesterday night. Because they think all others will pour milk and no one could find that they pour water in the pond." That is why it is said that "Wise men think alike".

Knowledge vs Skill vs Expertize

When someone comments about you that you get angry easily or there is behavioural instability: the hardcore criminals, rapist, dacoits... are mentally strong and extremely stable otherwise they cannot do what they do! Are they good human beings? Why do you think you tend to distribute roses or sweets all the time? Statements starting with following words are sheer example of deceits and lack of confidence: Honestly speaking, In my frank opinion, Correct me if I am wrong, I may we wrong...

'Experience' is an attribute which is very often confused with knowledge and skill. While ‘knowledge’ defines the relevant information a person might possess, the actual application of the knowledge on real-life examples is the experience. Hence, in a job the experience plays important role because it prepares one to take future challenges. As we gain experience, it build confidence to apply the knowledge he/she has gained though academic and self-learning route to new application and foresee the challenges that might crop up. The analogy is between fresh wine as knowledge and old wine as experience even though the chemical composition of wine remains almost same.

With experience, our knowledge may or may not increase in proportion but our value and capability to serve a particular role increase. While the definition of "most relevant experience" for a job is debatable and varies from person to person, experience and capabilities are two complementary traits to assess a person for "fitness to a role". To a certain extent, a person who has been successful in one domain and gained experience in a particular area of work, it is highly likely that he will succeed another area of work not vastly different from the previous one. For example, a person teaching only algebra for last five years and rated as good tutor is very likely to succeed and be equally effective teacher in calculus or trigonometry if certain minimum qualification criteria are met. Hence, a 'relevant' experience indicates a person's ability to be productive right away similar to "ready-to-serve" food, a person's knowledge and capability defines the slope of time curve which will take him to be ready to deliver expected output.

1. Do you mind if someone quote you later what you said in past?
2. What switched you off that is what you dislike most about yourself and others?
3. Do you like to be monitored and to what extent?
4. If you are asked to implement an unpopular move, what will you do?
5. What makes you not trust your manager?

Reference CAE Inc: These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements about our vision, strategies, plans, market trends and outlook, future revenues, capital spending, expansions and new initiatives, financial obligations, and expected sales. Forward-looking statements normally contain words like believe, expect, plan, intend, continue, estimate, may, will, should, strategy, future and other similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as aim, anticipate, believe, could, expect, intend, may, plan, seek, should, strive and will.

A statement is forward-looking when it uses what we know and expect today to make a statement about the future. By their nature, forward-looking statements require us to make assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties associated with our business which may cause actual results in future periods to differ materially from results indicated in forwardlooking statements. Products and services applicable for Simulation and CAE category are similar in many aspects and help companies of all sizes solve their business problems such as reducing product development time. However, pricing setup, and installation differ for businesses of different sizes.

How to Prepare a Business Case

A business case can be justification for any investment or it can an estimate of profit and loss of any new area of oppportunity. The main intent is to seek approval from the project sponsors and other interested parties.

1. Meshing Error: Insufficient memory available to complete mesh generation
2. As per various software vendors, it requires 1.5 ~ 2.5 GB RAM per million cells

Starting a new activity

Step-1: What is the primary purpose? For example, [1]Make information available in a searchable webpage [2]Let others learn from your mistakes [3]Make is a passive source of income [4]Earning for a living i.e. primary source of incom ...

Step-2: Why do you want to do it? For example, [1]To get recognition among general public [2]To contribute to environment and social causes [3]To counter the myths and false narrative ...

As you can see, the statements listed in Step-1 and Step-2 overlap and can be interchanged. Hence, to define the objective, you need to ask yourself, "Why do I want to spend time on such things?".

The next step is to check the market size (number of users, renewal cycle, number of existing players...). For example, if you want to create a YouTube channels on "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning", the repository of YouTube already have whatever topic one may think of and beyond that. Then, one need to think why a user should come to your channel - that is what "New or Unique offerings" you are going to provide?

Similarly, if you want to start a mechanical engineering blog, you need to understand the size (number) of unique visitors. As per news published in India, approximately 15 lakh engineers graduated in 2021. Out of that, around a lakh would be mechanical engineers. Hence, the maximum potential users for your blog would be four lakhs = 4 [duration of course] x 1 lakh [number of students enrolled for mechanical engineering]. This is too small a number to get any meaningful hits to your website and blogs - excluding similar portals already in active existence. However, the number may easily rise to 50 times if you are dealing with topics on Machine Learning. Not only students from many disciplines but also working professionals make up the potential visitors.

Delegation of work

There is limit to multi-tasking and some routine tasks needs to be delegated to subordinates. A clear-cut desription of tasks and instructions are pre-requisite to make the delegation effective. Some examples of delegation are:

Delegation outside the Team

Sometimes delgation of responsibilities are needed to someone outside of the team due to small size of individual teams. The person A managing day-to-day activities with customer may have many colleagues with hyphenated reporting. In such cases, there are very likelyhood of issues with owernship of deliverables from each team member. Let's assume a case where person A is assigned functioanlly a member B who are administratively reporting to different manager C. In this case following can be a division of responsibilities between A and C.

While C is responsible for organizational management such as leave approval, performance appraisal, behavioural training... for B, A is responsible for day-to-day activities for B such as process compliance, status updates, minutes of meetings, weekly or monthly reports...

Team Structure

A sample team structure can be as described below.

Commmon steps to outsource engineering activities: RFQ: Request for Quotation, SOW: Statement of Work

Reference: Computer-aided engineering (CAE) on AWS empowers engineers to innovate: Today, computer-aided engineering (CAE) is standard in any industry that uses design software to develop new products or to create new features for existing products. CAE allows engineers to perform simulations of a product’s physical properties quickly by eliminating the need to build a physical prototype. Virtually all industries are using CAE in product development processes, including: automotive, aerospace, plant engineering, electronics, energy, and consumer goods.

Realistically simulating a product’s complex geometries and testing those in all conditions requires an immense amount of computing power. CAE simulations require storing and processing large amounts of data. Modern simulation tools, software as a service (SaaS) solvers, and cloud computing, have removed barriers to streamlining the difficult endeavor of CAE. Engineers can now leverage the power and speed of high performance computing (HPC) in the cloud to speed up the standard CAE workflow and significantly reduce the cost and time required for each design iteration cycle.

Reference: ANSYS White Papte: In areas of product engineering, digital transformation is already highly embedded – for example, CAE, CAD and CAM are now "must haves" for every manufacturing enterprise.

My experience while dealing with car sales personnel: Following observations are from buyer's perspective and it may be entirely different from salesman's perspective or understanding of the selling process. Other observations include the impact of second language: use of second language English demonstratively created confusion at many instances and it is better to have someone from buyer side who can converse in the same native language as that of seller.

Templates

Template for Target Setting and Performance Appraisal --- Excel-based Goal Setting Template

Printable Calendar: This is not a template but is useful to have a printable calendar. Source is unknown. Printable calendar for any year upto 2078

Business Case:

This template or similar can be evolved to standardize the communication at various level in an organization to get approval for expenses and procurements. Template for Business Case

₹ Planning for source of incomes: Whether you have sources of income or not, some expenses are fixed and necessary. This excel can be used to plan various sources of income one may need based on current and future expenses. One need to account for lump-sum expense such as purchase of a car in monthly savings. Template to match source of incomes and expenses.

☕ Template to plan items for a big feast (Bhandara or Bhoj): Template to prepare a list of items categorised as per their types, names of spices and vegetables written in English and Hindi. Items categorized for each of procurement and storage.

⌛ Template for Minutes of Meeting: A simple but highly effective template to capture action items, responsible persons' names and due dates.

Template for Employee or Team Database: A categories multisheet Excel file to manage team database for day to day use - not for confidential data. Many names defined to enable drop-down options.

Template for Business Growth Map: Businesses have complex dynamics and identification of key attributes are essential to look for growth lever. Human minds cannot process large number of data types and hence a lesser but sufficient number of attributes need to be captured.

Template for Input Tracker Sheet: For complex tasks, not all inputs are available at the start nor they are needed. A pre-defined list of inputs help track the availability of the inputs for smooth progress of the project. It is recommended to circulate the tracker sheet content in the body of an e-mails than sending as attachment.

Knowledge Management (KNM) Database and Folder Structure Template

For example, if you are making platic components, Business Segments can be Toys, Home-Products, Farm-Equipments... and sub-segements can be Raw-Material, Moulds, Fixtures....

For the business mentioned above, the file names can be Toys_Raw-Materials_ABS_Glass-Filled_Rev_01.pptx, Farm-Equipments_Fixtures_PA66_Hoses_Rev_01.pptx and so on.

Business Accelerators (BAC) Database and Folder Structure Template

Customer Presentation Records: It is important to record presentations made to customers and track them

Vendor Records and Database Template: Vendor-Buyer or Supplier-Customer relations are integral part of any business model. A good records of the facilities and capabilities of your collaborators are important to take buy-or-make decisions.

Meeting Agenda Template: Despite intense criticism of time wasted in meetings, such interactions are necessity of human approach at workplaces. A well-design agenda is the starting point to improve outcomes from meetings (to avoid wasting 'hours' to record 'minutes').

It is recommended to circulate the tracker sheet content in the body of an e-mails than sending as attachment. Typical agenda should have following headings:

Interview Summary Records Template:

Some of the reasons for not selecting a candidate would be: No relevant experience, Experience far too higher than requirement, Lacked basics of simulation tasks, Tool knowledge not inline with overall industrial experience, Overall relevant skill not inline with total experience, No prior experience to manage a team, Not able to communicate or explain to technical questions, Lack of understanding about proposal preparation

Template for Pipeline and Project Forecasting:

Project pipelining can be a push system where members of a team are assigned the task by reporting manager. Or it can be a mix of push-pull system where a member can pull a task from a queue based on completion date of his/her current assignment.

Template to find out Root Cause of Business Stagnation:

Some of the discussion points could be: Pricing pressure from competitors, Not able to move up in the value chain of service offerings, Lag in resource replacement and augumentation, Customer's business not growing at healthy pace.

Template to find out Root Cause of any Problem Statement:

There are too many examples out there such as Pareto Analysis, 5-Why Analysis, Fish-Bone Diagram... This template is a condensed version of a 5-Why analysis.

Feedback Lifecycle Management Template:

Do not get trapped by someone asking for a feedback when they do not have a robust tracking mechanism. Whether the feedbacks are superficial in nature or worth pursuing should be recorded and informed to the initiator about final outcome.

Workshop Agenda Template:

It is recommended to circulate the tracker sheet content in the body of an e-mails than sending as attachment.

Template to recommend team members for reskilling, upskilling, and cross-skilling: What are the criteria for selection? Who can nominate? Is there any central repository?

Template to Maintain Recors about Facilities in a Building

Template to Present Team's Data

Template for Thank You or Final Slide

Template for Synergy and Partnership Slide

Template for PowerPoint Smart Arts

Template to Record Nominations for Team Members

It gives me immense pleasure to appreciate your efforts towards providing exceptional customer experience while managing a difficult customer and turning them into a regular client. Your positivity and micro-innovations in day to day activities have helped reduce the burnout of the entire team while exceeding the targets on most parameters. Your fresh perspectives, objectivity in approach, and sense of innovation make you a valuable member to our ever growing team. His / her / your ability to perform every task with utmost sincerity has been a great motivator for all of us.

My heartfelt thanks for your dedication towards delivering high-quality output while filling the skill gap in the team. Thank you for your unwavering dedication and commitment for every opportunity you seized and every contribution you made ultimately helped us achieve new heights of success / substantially exceed the targets. Thank you for being the brand ambassador of positivity and confidence at the workplace! Wishing you all the best for continued success in the coming days and years! We are amazed by your skills, high performance and it is our pleasure that you choose to work with our organization!

Template to Design Performance Appraisal Systems

Template to Create Dashboards

One of the key features of a dashboard should be to segregate semi-static data (like attrition, level or grade of employees, number of team members...) and dynamic data (like open positions for hiring, team members going on vacation in next two weeks...). The dynamic data or open items should be shown as list which is compact yet contains detail information. Data to be presented monthly, weekly or quarterly should be properly selected. The dashboard should avoid redundant data. For example, multiple definitions of Utilization (UT) are created such as UT with Fresher, UT without Trainees, UT without Contract Worker, UT with Onsite. At the end only one value should be used to report this parameter as too many similar parameters do not convey much different story.

PivotTables, PivotCharts, Slicer and Timeline are some of the features available in MS-Office to create a dashboard. Slicers and Timelines allow you to quickly filter your PivotTables and PivotCharts, so you can see just the information that's meaningful to you.

Some contents that can be part of dashboard are: Team summary, Revenue till date, Utilization till date, Innovation Quotient, Hiring pipeline, Attrition rate...

Template to Consoliate Databases

Template to Conduct Review Meetings

Template to Create Timesheet Management System

Template to Add Assumptions Slides in a Thermal Simulation Proposal

Template to Exclusions in a Thermal Simulation Proposal

Template to Organize Outdoor Events such as Intra-Organizational Sports

Template for Team Events such as Lunch Outing, Camping

Template for Selection of Lunch/Dinner Venue in a Restaurant

Template for Succession Planning

Boss in a meeting: "WE WANT CHANGE". The participants starts putting coins on the table... ha ha ha :)

Boss: How can we keep the office clean? Me: By staying at home.

HR: What’s your biggest weakness?, Me: Interviews, HR: And besides that?, Me: Follow up questions.

Boss: Just go to hell! Me: So, should I stay or leave? I’m confused.

If you ever feel useless, just remember that US took 4 Presidents, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and 20 years to replace Taliban with Taliban..

THE SIX PHASES OF A PROJECT

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and honor for the non-participants

Self-deprecation

Funny people are seen as more intelligent and skilled. During his presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy faced accusations that his wealthy father was attempting to buy the election. At the 1958 Gridiron dinner, Kennedy addressed those accusations by saying, "I just received the following wire from my generous daddy: Dear Jack, don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

Business Jokes and One-liners

• Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go! कुछ लोग जहां भी जाते हैं खुशी का कारण बनते हैं। दूसरे जब भी चले जाते हैं!
• I do not take you seriously any way! मैं आपको गम्भिरता से वैसे भी नहीं लेता!
• Doubting duck is better than quick dimbit
• A crisis is when you cannot say "let's just forget the whole thing"
• If an argument lasts more than 10 minutes, probably both sides are wrong! यदि कोई तर्क 10 मिनट से अधिक समय तक चलता है, तो शायद दोनों पक्ष गलत हैं!
• There is nothing called "work-life balance", there are mostly "work-life choices"! "कार्य-जीवन संतुलन" नामक कुछ भी नहीं है, ज्यादातर "कार्य-जीवन विकल्प" हैं!
• "सही समय" कभी नहीं होता है। यदि आप भविष्य की भविष्यवाणी नहीं कर सकते, तो आप सही समय की भविष्यवाणी नहीं कर सकते। There is never a "right time". If you cannot predict the future, you cannot predict the right time.
• If love and care would produce high performers, more than 80% of families in the world would have one! अगर प्यार और देखभाल से उच्च प्रदर्शन करने वाला बनते हैं, तो दुनिया के 80% से अधिक परिवारों के पास एक होता!
• If you dread Monday, your in the wrong place!
• A 'consensus' means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually - Abba Eban. एक 'सर्वसम्मति' का अर्थ है कि हर कोई सामूहिक रूप से यह कहने के लिए सहमत है कि कोई भी व्यक्तिगत रूप से क्या विश्वास नहीं करता है
• It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them - Mark Twain
• Don't feel bad. A lot of people have no talent!
• Your colleagues ego is inversely proportional to his knowledge and intellect.
• Poor by thoughts or poor by means? Constipation of ideas and diarrhea of words!
• Opposite of love is not hate, hate is not phobia! Differentiation is not discrimination.
• Who said bad memory is bad. The people live in deep distress who remember everything.
• Is there a sane definition of success?
• Essential for some, useful for all!
• Be emphatic, be caring, be forgiving but do not be a fool! प्रभावी बनो, परवाह करो, क्षमाशील बनो लेकिन मूर्ख मत बनो!
• अच्छे बनो लेकिन शोषित मत बनो! Be nice but do not get exploited!
• Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools talk because they have to say something!
• Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted
• You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard
• Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one you are least interested in, and say nothing about the other.
• When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking about themselves
• Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous"
• Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour
• Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing
• Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail
• The last person that quit or was fired will be the one held responsible for everything that goes wrong - until the next person quits or is fired
• There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over. इसे पहली बार सही करने के लिए कभी भी पर्याप्त समय नहीं होता है, लेकिन इसे फिर से करने के लिए हमेशा पर्याप्त समय होता है
• If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it!
• You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk
• अगर आपको नहीं पता कि क्या करना है, तेजी से चलें और चिंतित दिखें When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried
• You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like
• No one gets sick on Wednesdays
• The longer the title is, the less important the job
• Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse
• Success is just a matter of luck, just ask any failure
• Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. ---James Baldwin
• If you face dilemma to chose between finance and fiance, take a pragmatic approach and check which is easier to replace!
• Some people are clouds, when they disappear - the day becomes beautiful!
• Making mistakes is better than faking perfection - like some religions claim!
• Sometimes it is not the person who change, only the masks come out! कभी-कभी इंसान नहीं बदलता, सिर्फ मुखौटे निकलते हैं!
• Fake people and fake religions have an image to maintain. Real people and real religions just do not care!
• यह कितनी हास्यास्पद बात है कि जो लोग आपके बारे में कम से कम जानते हैं वही सबसे अधिक बोलते हैं! How funny it is that the people who know the least about you have the most the say!
• If people talk about you behind your back, that means you are in front and stay on your course!
• एक बुद्धिमान व्यक्ति कभी भी सब कुछ नहीं जानता, केवल मूर्ख ही सब कुछ जानते हैं! A wise man never know all, only fools know everything!
• You cannot force a person to respect you, but you can refuse to be disrespected! आप किसी व्यक्ति को आपका सम्मान करने के लिए मजबूर नहीं कर सकते, लेकिन आप अनादर से इंकार कर सकते हैं!
• Who gossips with you will gossip about you! जो तुम्हारे साथ गपशप करेगा वह तुम्हारे बारे में गपशप करेगा!
• जो लोग लगातार दूसरों को नियंत्रित करने की कोशिश करते हैं उनका खुद पर नियंत्रण नहीं होता है! People who continuously try to control others do not have control over themselves!

Correct Interpretation of Employee Traits

Sample Training Plan

This can serve a starting point for a short and simple template to record progress of a self-paced training program.

Value addition and Service Offerings

1. Fulfill a Need
2. Help with non-core applications
3. Augment skilled resources
4. Meet short-term requirements such as peak load or one-off case
5. Create round-the-clock operation
6. Vendor consolidation

Some terms which are common to highlight one's strength are: Reliable Partner, Flexible Workforce, Global Presence, Collaborative Growth, Synergy of Resources, Balance of Generalists and Specialists...

Job Requirement

1. Domain Skils: Automotive (OEM and Tier-1 suppliers dealing with ....), Industrial Products (pumps, valves, comsumer proucts...), Electronic cooling (PCB, MOSFET, Chip, Controllers Cooling simulations and Heat Sink design)
2. Physics: Conjugate heat transfer (natural convection and forced convection with thermal radiation), porous-media, moving mesh, multiphase flow, acoustics... review result and reports, awareness about quality assurance and error prevention
3. Tool Skills: ANSYS FLUENT, Ensight and CFD-Post, SpaceClaim, ANSA, ICEM CFD, CFX, OpenFOAM, ParaView, STAR-CCM+
4. Documentation: Hands-on with advance features of MS PowerPoint and Excel, experience in preparing techno-commercial proposals
5. Inter-personal: Ability to coach younger engineers, helps less experienced engineers in troubleshooting simulation related issues
6. Location: India
7. Duration: Permanent / Contract (6 months)
8. Bill rate and Pay Rate: Bill rate (INR 800/hour, INR 1.28 lakh/month), Pay rate (INR 80,000 per month)

Job Requirement(example statements): Drive and engage in investigations and studies related to validation of New Product Developments in (a)Chemical Industry such as Mixing Tanks (b)Thermal management system, its vision and its evolution... Collaborate with multi-functional team in the early-stage studies, pre-studies and advanced engineering initiatives to secure system and concept maturity. Develop and maintain good harmony and quality culture within and interface functions. A typical job requirement in mechanical engineering and a Team Lead can be as described below. This can be also interpreted as Roles and Responsibilities of the applicable person.

1. Carry out flow and thermal simulation and maintain utilization (billable work) for the self ≥ 75% - some billable effor may come from mentoring/review efforts
2. Review the tasks performed by colleagues and ensure timely delivery as well as First Time Right solutions to customers - plan review time at the start itself
3. Plan a work pipeline for the team and monitor/update as new information flows in - clearly distinguish between the task performer and responsible person
4. Project monthly revenue for the team (including self) and confirm that they are realized at the end of the month
5. Identify skill gap (for the self) as well as the team and prepare development plan to improve the overall competency within the team
6. Conduct and participate in interviews, weekly meetings and circulate regular project status update to all internal and external stakeholder
7. Develop ability to handle short (near) term uncertainties and communicate affected parties quickly with different options - learn how to prioritize ongoing and pipelined tasks
8. Get to know the persons and teams responsible for running the operations inside the company: IT, Hiring, Allowances, Procurement, Travel, Vendors...

A 'negative' list (things to avoid or not do) is equally important to improve clarity about roles and responsibilities

1. Provide your insight and act tactfully: do not take other's task on your head. Know the escalation ladder and convey the issues discretely and timely manner
2. Do not expect all the answers from your reporting manager - you can ask for opinions and approvals
3. Do not commit a task without checking software, hardware and manpower resources - explore alternatives before saying 'No'
4. Do not get carried away by weakness of a team member - allocate work/task as per his/her strengths and plan for multi-skilling
5. Do not rely on your memory alone: take notes, maintain log, send minutes of meetings, develop a tracker sheet
6. Do not take the person you are working with (such as subject matter expert or single point of contact) as substitue to your reporting manager.

Networking and Team Management applicable for Department Heads:

• Cultivates personal networks in and outside of the organization and effectively uses relevant contacts to achieve results
• Leverages internal/external interactions as networking opportunities to strategically exapnd businesses and parternership
• Brings in innovative thinking to enhance existing business practices leading to rapid growth
• Ensure the team is building successful channels for attracting, assessing and selecting the highest quality candidates in the most efficient manner
• Develop creative approaches for identifying and recruiting high quality candidates, including implementing strategies that broaden the diversity and talent pool. This includes identification and implementation of strategies for recruiting both active and passive candidates across the team.
• Budgeting for existing and future requirements

Process Improvemnt Ideas-PII

Bahavioural Aspects in Performance Appraisal

1. How the results have been achieved?
2. How well does the employee plan and prioritizes their responsibilities?
3. Attention to details and follows through on presentation/appearance of work?
4. Is she/he efficient at multi-tasking?
5. How consistent and dependable are his/her results?
6. What level of accuracy and completion does he/she displays?
7. Is he/she timely when responding to requests?
8. Since last evaluation has his/her displayed improvements in specific areas?
9. Is he/she looking for ways to be smarter and find new ways of working?
10. Are you a person who is self directed?
11. How much supervision is required?
12. How much follow up is required?
13. How willingly you assume your responsibilities?
14. Do you own up your mistakes?
15. How creative are you?
16. Do you use independent and original thought?
17. Do you introduce new concepts and processes?
18. Do you challenge or accept the status quo?
19. Bring 2 most valuable cases where you helped a colleague in crisis
20. 2 cases when a colleague helped you in crisis like situation
21. Cases where you did not get the help asked for or anticipated for.

Traits of Strong Teams

Fallacies

Fallacy = mistaken belief - an unsound questionable logic without factual evidence to support it. These are (a)defects that weaken the argument, (b)tend to be quite persausive, (c)Difficult to classify an argument as fallacies. Claims with sweeping words like All (सभी), None (कोइ नहीं), Every (प्रत्येक), Always (सदैव, सर्वदा, हमेशा), Never (कभी नहीं), Everyone (हर कोई, सब लोग) tend to contain some elements of fallacies. These are not inherently and/or necessarily bad arguments - they are deceptively false beliefs and half-truths!

Also known as cognitive distortions, there are inherent weaknesses in human thought-process as well as decision making. Not all decisions we make in our daily life are based on logical evaluation of pros and cons or use of checklists. While crossing the road, we do not try to guess the vehicle speed and time taken to cross the road. Most of the decision makings are based on intuition and heuristics. For example, we tend to 'believe' a good looking person or lady! As a climate is combination of weathers, biases are like 'climate', influenced by personal experiences, conditioning, training, upbringings, social circumstances, education...

1. Ad Hominem (Argument to the Man): A common form is an attack on sincerity. For example, "How can you argue for vegetarianism when you wear leather shoes?"
2. Needling: simply attempting to make the other person angry, without trying to address the argument at hand. Sometimes this is a delaying tactic.
3. Straw Man (Fallacy of Extension): For example, the claim that "evolution means a dog giving birth to a cat."
4. Burden of Proof: the claim that whatever has not yet been proved false must be true (or vice versa). Essentially the arguer claims that he should win by default if his opponent can't make a strong enough case.
5. Slippery Slope Fallacy (Camel's Nose): there is an old saying about how if you allow a camel to poke his nose into the tent, soon the whole camel will follow. "If I make an exception for you then I shall have to make an exception for everyone."

Universal List of Career Options - Work in Progress

Government: Defence, Bureaucracy | Administrative, Engineering, Finance, Procurement, Education, Information Technology