Archive for July, 2010

Oops, if you did it again!

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

Ofcourse you didn’t want to do it again. But you did. So now you are all guilty and irrevocably discouraged. This is the biggest symptom that you are definitely feeling responsible for a certain act. This is also the first step towards doing what is noble. And so at AnyLinuxWork , instead of creating pressure or negative motivation towards Using Electricity Smartly, we believe in positively encouraging people for the same.

So what’s your excuse of not being able to use electricity smartly? The thought is definitely inspired by the US Department of Energy initiative. They have come up with a campaign in which they are asking the children to enlist excuses for not being able to save energy. Some of these excuses we too have offered at some point of time or the other.

The top four excuses as per the list were:

1)      That’s not my charger: Someone in your office made you realize that you have taken the hook off the charger but the switch is still on. And this is how you respond.

2)      I can’t find the remote: Mum scolds you for forgetting to switch off the TV before leaving the room. And pop comes your lamest excuse.

3)      I meant to leave that on: Why haven’t you switched off the fan in your room when you are not around it? So that’s how you choose to reply to the query.

4)      Unplugging stuff is hard: The wife shouts on top of her voice- Why can’t you just unplug things? That’s coz it is hard to do.

Thus, IO came up with an idea of asking employees what’s their usual excuse for not doing what they ought to do towards the objective of using electricity smartly. The  drive is if we can count our blessings one by one, we must also count things-that-we-didn’t-do so as to correct them in future.

This was what they scribbled as their excuses:

1) I thought you will do it: This is a classical situation between two colleagues one of whom didn’t shut down the PC before leaving. Passing the buck, as we had discussed under this column earlier, comes so naturally to humans.

2) I was just about to switch off: Admission of mistakes comes a lot harder than the excuse for it. This is one such instance.

3) I wasn’t supposed to: This comes by those who just do everything by the book. Hence they need specific instructions even for the most common sensical things.

4) I got unlucky only today: This is when a senior catches you wasting energy unnecessarily and you try to persuade him that you usually are very careful but only today was an exception.

Today under this blog space, we intend to make everyone realize that we can fool the whole world by excuses but not ourselves. We might be digging our own graves by not valuing electricity as much. Efforts are not enough. We need a commitment towards using electricity wisely. No excuse on earth can ever compare with this sense of responsibility. So even if you failed last time, don’t feel bad. You can still make a difference. Never ever give up on Using Electricity Wisely.

Do feel free to share your ‘power smart’ ideas with us.

School of Leadership

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Leaders, some say, are born and not made. However, yet another school of thought keeps fighting off this idea and so we have some real good B-Schools across the country. Most good leaders won’t be able to teach you leadership. That’s simply because more than flaunting leadership, they have practiced it.

Leaders at AnyLinuxWork have one thing in common- they are accessible to everyone. You can walk in to them with ideas, thoughts, doubts, complaints and clues anytime. IO leadership believes in encouraging people to discover their individual goals for their lives. This, in turn, widens the landscape of work at IO adding ever newer dimensions to work culture and work quality.

At Office Space today, lets explore some very interesting qualities of the leaders at AnyLinuxWork. And yes many of these, you will realize, are cultivable.

Effervescence: Leaders at AnyLinuxWork are full of life and have a knack for infusing their energy into others. They are people who have the ability to light up the environment around. All they need is a good joke to start a meeting or just entering a board room with a real good ‘Hello everyone!’.

Amour-propre: This is French for ‘self-love’. IO leaders, however, love work ethics and stick to them. They love the brand IO that they have created and developed over the years.  This love translates into their efficiency in traveling any distance to making the brand successful.

Integrity: Jack Welch- the man behind initiatives like Six Sigma quality, e-business and former CEO of General Electric- has more than once proved that you cannot lead unless you have integrity. In his autobiography, Welch shares: “I stuck to some pretty basic ideas that worked for me, integrity being the biggest one.”

At AnyLinuxWork, integrity is almost synonymous to leadership. Our employees get inspired to work with integrity because they have seen our leaders do the same. Our leaders have always been people of strong values and honesty. It is thus no surprise that we see the same values being transferred down to the other levels of leadership. .

Organized life: Infosys Founder Narayan Murthy cautions- ‘workoholism’ must not be aped. A few months ago, IO leaders had shared affinity with this idea and had inspired the rest of the team. As a result, most employees have now cultivated a habit of working smart instead of working more. Our leaders lead a life that emphasizes the importance of inter-personal relationships. They are equally committed to their personal lives.  Thus they encourage their subordinates in their personal achievements as well. They have successfully created such an environment at our office that each individual focuses on having a good life and not just professional success. In addition, it is our policy to be mindful of the health and personal life of the employees. Joint celebrations, fitness initiatives, recreation facilities etc are some of the most practical things we do at IO to ensure that each one leads a healthy and happy life.

Complimenting: How easy and handy it comes to point out mistakes. A heart of appreciation, ironically, doesn’t come so easy. However, the art of complimenting is something that is an integral part of the IO work culture. Nothing tastes better than a compliment right out of the horse’s mouth. Apart from an organized system of encouragement through ‘Employee of the Month Award’, IO leaders never miss out on showering words of appreciation to team members even in the smallest of achievements.

Self-domain: Most people keep waiting for ‘the big opportunity’ for exercising their leadership skills. This is definitely a mistake. A good leader leads a team of two as energetically as he does a team of 20. What really matters in leadership is not the size but the spirit of leading. Effective leaders love their domain of work and transmit this feeling in others around them.

We have tried to inculcate this habit of leadership in each employee by making him or her accountable for the work assigned. IO leaders give each member enough freedom to logically take decisions on their respective assignments. As a result, each team member never feels insufficient to deliver his or her best.

These are a few more visible qualities of our leaders apart from many personal qualities that they have like a good character, sportsman’s spirit and a generous heart. The good news is IO provides ample opportunities for cultivating these qualities and practice leadership right from where one is placed. If this can happen at IO, it can happen anywhere. There may be a great leader sleeping inside you. It’s time to wake him up.