Understand your office culture

“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage”.

-- Jack Welch

Office culture plays a major role for any individual to work and perform in any specific organization. If your office culture is as per your expectations, you will perform at your best. If you have aligned yourself with your office culture and then performing the best, it will take time to prove you. If you are not able to align and settle down yourself as per the office culture within a time frame of maximum 2 years, better one should switch the group or organization itself.

Sometimes, a person is expecting a specific type of culture, which he/she is, used to probably in his/her previous organization. But this is very difficult. Each and every organization has different culture. One should adjust in the same and try to prove his/her abilities in the current scenarios. After that only, change in the culture can be initiated and implemented.

There are three simple rules to understand your office culture.

2. Be a neutral viewer: Look at the employees and their interaction in your organization with the eye of an outsider. Pretend you are an anthropologist observing a group that you have never seen before. Try to note down how the interaction and communication is going on between the two parties. Communication can be of two types – Technical and general. Both are important so keep an eye on both the types. Analyze the way, the mails are exchanging. And minutely notice the formal and informal way of communication between the two parties. How the customer interaction is going on, should be noticed very cleverly.
3. Watch for emotions: Emotions are indications of values. People do not get excited or upset about things that are unimportant to them. Examine conflicts closely, for the same reason. Look at the objects and artifacts that sit on desks and hang on walls. These can tell you a lot about the culture and also give an insight into the psychological values of the employees. Normally, I have seen that real professionals are so much talented that they never come out with their emotions, playing at the back of their mind, while working in the office. But artifacts that sit on desks definitely gives you a picture about the mindset that specific person is. Emotions play a very important role in each and every individual. So if there is any conflict, or better to say emotional professional conflict, look at the way how individuals are reacting for the same. Try to pen down the ways how each and everyone involved in the conflict behaves at that particular time. One should recognize the source of the emotions and try to understand them.
   
4. Culture interviews: Another way to understand the culture of your organization in to talk to employees in small groups. It is just an important, during these interviews; to observer the behaviors and interaction patterns of people as it is hear what they say about culture. Recently, I have seen doing this task by one of my manager to understand the culture. And surprisingly, I have seen numerous changes and improvements after this exercise done by him.

Understanding office culture is very significant and important as it decides your attitude towards professional work. Attitude is everything. What Your Attitude Cannot Do for You is - Substitute for Competence, Substitute for Experience, Change the Facts, and Substitute for Personal Growth. What Your Attitude Can Do for You is - Make a Difference in Your Approach to Life and make a Difference in Your Relationships with People.

Remember – It is your attitude not your aptitude that determines the altitude.

-- Sanat Sharma

Communication

Hello to everyone. I am back to blogging after around 82 days. Actually, I was busy with some of my professional and personal commitments.

First of all, I would like to wish all of you

A VERY HAPPY AND HALCYON NEW YEAR 2009

नव वर्ष २००९ की हार्दिक शुभकामनाये। यह साल आप सब के लिए मंगलमय हो।

And then let’s get back to business. I am starting this year’s blog writing with a very common topic that looks easy and understandable but most of us are not aware of how crucial and difficult this topic is.

Communication – Looks like a very simple word which means the activity of conveying information. But it only looks like a small word. It looks like that we are aware of this word. But can you think of that this is one of the most common reasons for any software failure or project delay in IT industry?

Believe me. I am not kidding. More than 60% of projects delayed or derailed only because of communication, in fact not because of communication but because of miscommunication or no communication. A situation in which miscommunication or the complete lack of communication adversely affects the work as well as the relationships among the people carrying out the work. Good communication is critical to software project quality.

To understand this, let’s define what is communication? It is the process involving the transmission and interchange of ideas, facts, feelings or course of actions. You give, get or share information with others during this process. Whether you communicate orally or in writing, this process essential remains the same. It can also be defined as the exchange of information, ideas and knowledge between sender and receiver through an accepted code of symbols.

Communication can be broadly divided into two categories:

1. General communications: The characteristics are:

• Contains a general message
• Informal in style and approach
• No set pattern of communication
• Mostly oral
• Not always for a specific audience
• No technical vocabulary and grammar.

2. Technical communications: The characteristics are:

• Contains a technical message
• Mostly formal
• Follows a set pattern
• Both oral and written
• Always for a specific audience
• Frequently involves graphics, jargon etc.

Both kinds of communication are important in day to day life. We may say that General communication plays a major role in personal life and Technical communication plays a major role in professional life. But since we are talking about the project failures and derailing, let’s talk about some barriers that hinder us to establish a good communication in our professional life.

Intrapersonal barriers – Wrong assumptions, varied perceptions, differing backgrounds, wrong inferences, impervious categories, categorical thinking.

Interpersonal barriers – Limited vocabulary, Insane state between words and actions, emotions outburst, communication selectively, cultural variations, poor listening skills, noise in the channel.

Organizational Barriers – Too many transfer stations, fear of superiors, negative tendencies, use of inappropriate media, information overload.

I have faced a major failure of a project in my professional life due to communication. It was like someone hit on top of your head without even notifying you. Then only I realized that effective testing and clear communications of results is an integrated part of a project risk-management strategy. And we all are aware that how much important and crucial, the risks in our projects.

By following these guidelines, you can achieve effectiveness in all your communications activities that are technology oriented:

• Be clear with your purpose
• Keep in mind the background of your audience and also your relationship with them
• Consider whether your audience has access to the technology used for communications
• Keep in mind the urgency, duration, cost and facilities while selecting the technology
• Remember that you use technology for speed and efficiency and not for the sake of using it
• Explore all the facilities available in the particular technology you decide to use
• Be familiar with the technology you choose and practice till you become perfect
• Always be ready with an alternative in case of some failure in the chosen technology.

-- Sanat Sharma