pennies for my thoughts?

Even though I am steadily switching off at work, professional life continues to be a medium of self exploration and discovery.

My relationships, especially with my team, were viewed in a fresh light (how hackneyed can I be!) during the two days of leading edge workshop. I realized what I was doing right and I understood what I had to do more. More importantly, I figured out where I was coming from. So many of my actions are triggered by the thought of “this happened with me, I wont let it happen to my team” and this is in consonance with my feelings in my personal life as well. In both professional and personal spheres, the worst feelings I have encountered within myself have been that of loneliness and helplessness and my determination is not to let that happen to the people whose lives I do, or can, impact.

Another realization, more saddening, is that my relationships (team) still lack the depth I would ideally like them to have. I approach this with the practicality I apply to my life as a whole – one can’t have everything, it’s all a trade off – but when I think about what I really want to be, and have the potential to be, I feel sad about it. More than anything else, it is this thought that has made me determined to change the pattern of my work content and free up time. After all the arguments I have heard from Lak and Nav (and practically ignored), I finally found the most compelling one within myself. Typical of me.

Focus moved from internal me to others in the Friday offsite meeting. For the record (not that this record is being published anywhere), that was the best meeting I have ever been part of at Accenture. Watching R in action was a learning experience like no other. His control of the subject, his control of the room, the sense of inclusion, the constant thread of humor, the underlying positivism, the presence of perspective - I wish I could have video recorded that one hour performance to watch it again and again as I struggle to recall the key messages to be internalized. The ensuing discussion along with PV and RV was thought provoking in a different way. What makes some people decimate while others grow? What triggers the drive in a person as well as the self destruct button? How much of “me” is me and how much of “me’ is others? I don’t even know whether answers exist to these questions but I do know that these questions are a must to be asked, an internal checkpoint, a sort of weather vane.

And finally, this two day trip to Chn. My first visit to this centre and I am struck anew by the thought of organizational culture. The set of behaviors and practices that, day by painstaking day, builds up into something bigger and stronger that we loosely define as culture. And how this set of behaviors and actions is dictated by a myriad of influences, from individual personalities to cultural backgrounds to the physicality of the environment. In fact, do the wide corridors and large cabins of this centre have anything to do with the mess that this deal has been in since inception? Or is it the green psychedelic carpet? Colors, auras, aromas, vastu – so many areas to be explored, so much attraction. Like a beautiful young woman hidden by a veil a la music videos.

The other aspect of this visit was me. Again. My unexpected sense of alienation when I arrived there (despite the fact that this was my own organization, there were people there who I knew and who would take care of me, and the business was the same); my ability to adjust in a fresh physical space; my sense of connect with people I was meeting (and training) for the first time; my sense of challenge at conducting conversations with fresh customers who viewed me without baggage. All observed and recorded through a constant dialogue within myself. I am afraid that one day I will meet someone who can listen to this internal dialogue. And then I am gone.

More thought provoking were two conversations with Vip n Nkj, as we exchanged notes on people around us and the effect this lifestyle was having on them. Its really unusual how work, at a root concept, is meant to provide our lives with meaning and purpose and identity and yet increasingly it seems to be doing the opposite. Irrespective of the challenges we thrive on and the money we enjoy and the authority we exert, if we end up becoming someone we don’t like, is it really worth it?? Sooner or later, I find people asking this question. Some find the answer (usually a no) and then either make deep rooted changes or go into a downward spiral. Others do a cost benefit analysis of the effort involved when answering this question and choose to ignore it and go to sleep. I wonder which is wiser?

Linked to this is the thought of the balancing we do (or rather, need to do) internally. I realize that I am only scratching the surface here but the thought of this flow of positive and negative continues to fascinate me. Every single action, every single event – our work, our conversations, our food, our outing, our silences, our activities - takes something from us and gives something back. The trick is to keep it balanced…and maybe even positive….i.e., a state where you get more from life than you are putting in! I wonder how many of us reach that stage when most of our days are spent in just minimizing the negative inflow into us.

I should have more thoughts on this front, but I am shocked at how much I have written. This is probably my longest post ever. To be ended now.