Do you want a salary raise?

Simple Quiz:
Do you want a salary raise?
Do you 'feel' that you are being paid lower than what you deserve or being paid lower than what your peers are paid?
Are you feeling cheated and let down by your manager who has not 'recommended' a good hike for you?

If the answer is 'Yes' to any of these, then you are like what I was ten years ago.

When I went to my manager (who eventually is my mentor now) complaining about my salary rise this is what he said: 'Go check out your price in the market'. Many years later, I learnt the same from the pricing class when my professor stressed on how prices are determined by the market.

You are a product. Now determine:
1. What is your value within your company or your team? Essentially your value = value of the alternative available plus or minus the differentiating features.

So, lets take an example. I'm a project lead and I 'feel' I'm doing a great job and I must be getting 20% raise. What alternatives does your employer have? Can you be dispensed off with in which case your value is negative and the employer is losing money by employing you. Or are other in the market being paid more for the same work? If yes, what are your differentiators and what value would you give for those? If your salary is 5 lakh rupees and your peers in the market are getting 6 lakhs, you must be sure you are providing more than 1 lakh of value than your peers in order to claim.

So, on a positive note, work on how you can increase value and then by all means ask for a raise. If you are already providing more value (working and getting better results) to the company then please list down your rationale in objective terms and approach your management.

Now the game changes to how eager your management is to retain you. If not you know you are providing a great value and the market will grab you.

Please send your comments. They are posted here only after moderation.

Misuse of email

I wanted to talk about misuse of an email in the working enviroment. No I'm not talking about huge attachments or spamming at all. This is about when email should NOT be used and I'm seeing clearly more occasions now with these violations.

One recent example I saw was from a manager who did not want to respond to a big thread of email (from Support with Customer Escalations) because the manager knew that he was going to another division on a different role.  His mail read "Hi, I'm not responsible for this escalation since 'm moving to a new role". Okay - so whats wrong with this email.

One, avoid sending an email to customer support saying you are not going to respond. For support this is a cardinal sin because they are caught with no option in front of the customer. At all times, if your ansewr is 'I can't do anything', say 'I can do something however ......'.

Two, always call, call and call if you have a negative response. Dont email the very first response on that. If you have already called then email as a follow up may not be a bad option.

From an Indian manager's perspective, it is easier emailing than calling because in order to call someone in an another country (from where the urgent email thread originated) one needs to make an international call during non office hours. However it is a pain to make an international call and expense it from office because most finance procedures make it tough for you to expense bills and you would rather make a personal expense rather than go through the hassle. Email comes in very handy to dash of that quick email which grows like a monster if the tone is negative.

Look for innovative ways of doing this. One example is to have VoIP services on your mobile. 'Fring' software is free and you can make VoIP calls from your mobile by just connecting to your wireless broadband.  There are VoIP phones but they cost 300 dollars upwards so Fring is a nice option.

If any of us resan our sent folder after 5 years we would notice how many emotional, information inadequate mails we have sent. Nobody is an exception. Really nobody is perfect in this art. I want to share these thoughts with you to use email and not mis use email.

Global development and communication myths - a small list

This topic is actually a very vast one. However I'm writing this solely for those readers of this blog who are budding or new managers or engineers who directly communicate with global teams within their company across world wide offices. To keep things simple, let me address some myths that exist today among the said audience.

1. Myth1: In order to buy time, let me keep things as vague as possible.

I have seen teams from India or Japan for example, give rounded, very convoluted answers to simple questions because the team/individual is afraid to say things clearly as they will be held responsible for the statement. Let us look at an example.

US team: 'Hi, have you merged the branches of the ver 2.1 code'?
India Team: 'Actually, we are looking into it. The replication is taking very long and we are considering it. My manager, Raju, will be talking to his director and will be getting back to you on this'.

Gosh! The real scene at home was that merging was not done because the coding was not complete. And the coding was not complete because a third party program with Microsoft who had to provide the SDK was delayed. The average, fearful, engineer or budding manager thinks that he or she will be given the boot if he/she explains the situation in crisp terms.

A neater way of responding this would be : 'No. The merge has not happened. While we are ready with the code, we are awaiting the SDK upgrade from Microsoft. I estimate that we will be able to merge in the next two days. In any case, we will keep you posted'.

Myth 2: If you working in a matrix mode, where you have a functional manager in US and a local manager in India, then you have to keep both of them updated with the same amount of information. Or you will suffer during your appraisal.

Many budding managers struggle to do this. It is important to understand what role each manager plays in the overall context. Remember, more often than not, you will never get the answers in black and white. Let us assume that the functional manager is the person responsible for product releases and the local manager is responsible for running the operations, you must know which information to give to each other and how to diplomatically explain when both your managers confuse their roles.

US matrix manager: 'Hey, can you send me the daily status of what each of your engineers are doing?'.

Reportee budding manager: 'I have updated the product development status and the percentage complete at out portal. We are locally managing the resources to do this. Let me know if you anticipate issues in delivery'. (Now, you have indirectly told him not to micro manage and at the same time said that you are accountable for deliveries).

Local Ops manager: 'Hi, I think we should take a decision on the patch release today. Why don't you send me the entire project status as well as risks that you see for the patch release.?'

Reportee budding manager: 'Sure. I'm discussing with our US manager the patch release. Why don't you join our conference call tonight and you will get up to date information on this' (note, again diplomatically the budding manager has clearly differentiated the functions and balanced it well).

Myth 3: Being very agreeable and very amicable makes me a great team player.

False! A good team player is the one who asks many questions in the interest of the team and overall goals and pushes back arguments for them to get validated. Agreeing to everything or being very amicable makes you a weak player and not a reliable robust player. Again, just listening to someone and executing the instructions is very easy. However you will never grow out of that position. The person who is considered valuable is some one who can ask many informed questions and who makes daily attempts to understand the domain of work and it's business perspectives.

I had a manager who asked me 'You say I have no listening skills. But have I ever spoken a word when you were explaining me something? I always only listened and listened and listened'. Do you see the problem? This manager had never tried to understand or validate with me if his understanding was correct. Good listening skills also means good validating skills.

In contrast, I had an engineer who was several layers below me and he found me near the water cooler and asked me 'I'm developing the web services for this component. What surprises me is that the company we acquired recently has a product with the same set of services. Can't we reuse them?'. Now this was revelation! When the new M&A was done, all that we knew were the products of the acquired company but at senior management level you are not privy to the exact services exposed.

So keep asking questions.

Myth 4: I can argue as much as I want because questioning is going to increase my stock value:

While healthy, constructive, informed questions raise your value, unnecessary arguments that go round and round in circles pushes you several notches down. Nobody likes a budding manager or engineer who is extremely argumentative and who needs to see everything in black and white, right and now!

I can provide hundreds of examples. Pl do send me questions if you have specific situations troubling you and I will pick good ones, anonymously and suggest solutions.

One Step Ahead of the Paparazzi

Gosh! Technology is a leveller and it enables everyone equally. Let me give you an example of unethical behaviour for work related activity that eventually exposed the unethical behaviour.

One of my acquaintance, lets call him Mr. Shark, is a very popular recruiter and he is glorified in his company as someone who can get information about anyone in this world who have logged on information somewhere on the Internet. I was having a chat with him and he told me how he uses the system. He uses various different measures, uses combinations and uses a good lot of guesswork to find information about a person from social networking sites to chat sites to blogs to internal company databases. On top of this, he also has access (illegally obtained) to mobile numbers of employees of most targeted companies. So, imagine that there is a senior executive who is great at his job and has no intention of changing his job. This Mr. Shark will contact him, lure him, send repeated mails every week and also try making personal contact with him. This is worse than spamming. Mr. Shark is unashamed of his skills and is rather proud of it. He proudly says 'see I hit the right target' and laugh loud.

So, I asked him - 'well, do you think your searches are unknown to the target'? Mr. Shark was optimistic that the target has no ways of knowing how Mr. Shark got to know the target's mobile no. or his family details.

I showed him some websites where I have posted information and my blog. I ran a good analytics tool that I have and there it was all for Mr. Shark to see.

- I showed him which Google searches led to my blog. For e.g. someone wanted to know how many kids I have and that led him to my blog! One another had wanted to crack a password to a matrimonial portal and since I had written about the portal itself, he had landed in my blog. What surprised me was how many searches were looking for personal details and this was new to me. It's probably motivated by Sales and promotional (of course unethical) companies or individuals or people who like to hound others after fully knowing their personal details.

- The analytics report showed the exact domain address and exact country from where the Sharks had searched/called.

- It also showed so much behavioural searches of the Sharks that not only shocked Mr Shark but gave me great confidence that Internet is a level playing field. If you can find and hound, so can I find information that I'm being looked for. With my premium blocker tool, I can exactly block the Sharks.

Just like how Bayesian logic learns SPAM rules out of each behaviour, so does the human mind. So, please don't use unethical means to do anything at work, esp. during this era of the Internet. You are fully exposed! And you have lost everything after that.

As a man thinketh - James Allen

Read this book, it is free, available freely downloadable from internet - it is a classic wtitten in the last century and it is a small book but very powerful book. Every page is like a mantra. There is a free audio book also available as MP3.

Here are some excerpts and I strongly encourage every one to read it. After reading this, we will stop blaming others and circumstances for failures.

Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this--that man is the master of thought, the moulder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny. As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills. Man is always the master, even in his weaker and most abandoned state; but in his weakness and degradation he is the foolish master who misgoverns his "household." When he begins to reflect upon his condition, and to search diligently for the Law upon which his being is established, he then becomes the wise master, directing his energies with intelligence, and fashioning his thoughts to fruitful issues. Such is the _conscious _master, and man can only thus become by discovering _within himself _the laws of thought; which discovery is totally a matter of application, self analysis, and experience. Only by much searching and mining, are gold and diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being, if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul; and that he is the maker of his character, the moulder of his life, and the builder of his destiny, he may unerringly prove, if he will watch, control, and alter his thoughts, tracing their effects upon himself, upon others, and upon his life and circumstances, linking cause and effect by patient practice and investigation, and utilizing his every experience, even to the most trivial, everyday occurrence, as a means of obtaining that knowledge of himself which is Understanding, Wisdom, Power.


James Allen's little known history is here. I think he was an enlightened soul.

Levelling and the ifs and buts

Yesterday I had an encounter to deal with. One of my managers was abused by his reportee. This employee is a fantastic performer and was rated 'Excellent' by the manager in his levelling. When this levelling got rationalized at a higher level, the 'Excellent' rated person had to be brought down to the leel below which was 'Met expectations'. What always surprises me is this. An engineer, an individual contributor, inspite of his/her great logical thinking in coding rarely understands this life principle. He/She usually thinks 'Why me', 'I have put in my blood sweat and tears and I get just this rating'. I explained to this employee in detail about how individual bell curve fitments finally gets into the bigger curve and an organization needs to have the correct distribution of great and average performers.

We might have Sania Mirza as a great tennis player but when it comes to world ranking she is 50+ ranked!

It's hard and unfair sometimes. But one cannot always be assessed the best or worst all the time. If one realises that he/she will be fairly judged most of the time if one performs well, then there is no fear of failure or fear of rejection. Otherwise, the career goes down in a spiral since you have to combat stress, being fussy, sidelined, moods and overall low esteem.

We all are unique in some ways and no one can really be compared with another person. So, walk with your head high and with a smile always on your lips.

The Reimbursement Mindset

It's all a philosophical discussion but I will go into specifics of certain behaviors of software pros (aka. software coolies). What I call a 'Reimbursement syndrome' it's a disease. I see this all the time during my work hours and off it.

Interviewee : "Well....er I like the package but can you tell me what company benefits I will get....I mean, will my telephone and other bills get reimbursed?". So the clever HR manager repackages everything and gives him huge benefits only that the interviewee does not know that it is shuffling of the same package!

Employee: "I know I'm eligible for a particular amount for telephone call charges and another amount for broadband charges. Can I claim the sum of the amounts for either of them?"

I have seen numerous occasions where my team member built his case for months that he is not paid enough and he is in poverty but when he got a good raise he immediately purchased an expensive car! I asked him why - he said, well I buy it under a certain scheme and it has 0% interest!!

Or numerous friends who stand in long lines to convert those free coupons in stores.
Or numerous relatives who lose the fun of talking over phone with near and dear ones because they are forever dealing with cheap calling card dialing, calls dropping and losing the conversation thread completely.

Or numerous managers who lose business because they did not call the business contact directly (who pays then) and instead chose to call via the office EPABX and bridged it with a conferencing company (calls through VoIP) and in the mean time lose a good 20 minutes by when the business prospect is totally put off!


Do you get my point? Most of us are Software coolies or wage labourers and until we get out of this we will never prosper. Have you ever seen a successful entrepreneur filling reimbursement claim forms for small expenses? Don't miss the point - 'small expenses'.

Invest in yourself. Use the time, energy and mind share spent in calculating small expenses, in small claims for larger things that will propel you to higher orbits. This could range from doing your job exceedingly well, learning new skills, developing more enriching relationships and all that goes with your career and personal life development. In fact the more you invest on the 'right things' the more you prosper. stop worrying about the raise your colleague got and instead plan and do your job exceedingly well. And the next time you will notice that you have not only got a great promotion that includes the pay for the next level, but you have also got much more than what you would have saved with small claims and no promotion. Getting my point?

Behave and think like a King and you will be one soon. Behave like a coolie and you are a coolie forever.