Managing Super Performers in the team

Have you managed a team at any point of time in your career? Was there someone in your team who was above average and was clearly a super performer? 

And did you get confused on how to "manage" this breed? Then you are not alone. This is a common challenge the average Managers face almost everyday, while handling above average employees. Few suggestions you might like to try out:

1. Stop trying to "Manage" - Managing people is not the most loved word in industry anymore. Knowledge workers don't want to get managed by someone else, more so if they know their work well and at times better than their Managers. Instead of managing them, start behaving as a partner, and together work towards the success of the project.

2. Don't overload smarter people - More often than not, smarter workers end up getting the most difficult assignments as their managers depend on them in delivering the toughest component of the project. But that's not really fair as the super performer ends up getting a stressed out engineer, burning midnight oil all the time.

3. But don't bore them out - This might seem contradictory to (2). but the catch is in the frequency of the challenging jobs. If all the tasks assigned to your super performer are challenging in nature, then she might find sticking to the job challenging as well. Also challenging job doesn't necessarily mean a stressful job. This is a delicate balance, but it is the most important one in retaining super performers in your project and company.

4. Compensate them more than the others - Unfortunately though the managers have a say during work assignments throughout the year, they start losing their voice when the time for yearly pay hike comes. Super performers need some additional benefits compared to the rest 90% population. You should not cover your face behind company policy and what-not when the time comes to compensate your best employee in the best possible manner.

And don't preach Maslow's pyramid during Appraisal cycles - it generally loses its effectiveness during that period of the year.

5. Let them know they are special - Most of the smarter workers know the fact that they are better than others. But they don't brag about that. However their silence doesn't mean that they don't need any external recognition as they also belong to the same planet as you. Use the appropriate forums to appreciate the good work they have done and share the story with the other team members.

Not all the Managers get a super performer in their team every time. But if you have got lucky, don't blow that out. Do your level best to retain that super performer in your team and together make a wonderful growth story.

Also published in LinkedIn blog.



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Thank you for checking this article. I contribute regularly on Technology & Management related stuff. Apart from this blog, you can follow me at 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/csubhamoy
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About me: I have been working in the areas of IT strategy & usage of Digital technology to deliver business growth. My areas of interest include Enterprise Mobility, Cloud Solution Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, Social Media and Big Data. I am an alumni of Indian Statistical Institute (MTech Computer Science) and also attended Harvard Business School Executive Education on Innovation and Driving Growth.

Did you put your money in FIFA World Cup based on Goldman Sachs predictions?

Just before the FIFA World Cup tournament had begun, Goldman Sachs had famously (now infamously rather) predicted the scores of each of the matches leading upto the Final. Now that the group matches are over, if you check back the predictions you would find that out of the 16 teams projected in the GS list, 7 has lost out already. Roughly that makes the success rate of the prediction as 9 out of 16, i.e. 56%, which is as good as flipping a coin (50% theoretically). 

And if you check the predicted line-ups of Round of 16, none of the combinations did match. So if you had put your bet solely based on the Goldman Sachs prediction, you might have lost a few cents already. But did you really put your money based on the Goldman Sachs prediction alone? Then you not only have ignored your common sense, but also the basic principles of probability.

If you have studied or used statistics in any part of your life, you must be aware of Bayes’ Theorem. Even if you have not heard about it, it hardly matters, as you can get the fundamentals from your common sense. Principally it suggests that the probability of an event changes from its Prior Probability due to another event that has occurred in between. The new probability is called Posterior probability. Let’s see how this common sense can be applied to the FIFA World Cup. 

Spain was the 2010 World Cup winner, and the probability of them winning it back again this year was quite high, that is before the game started. Accordingly Goldman Sachs had put them in the Semifinal lineup. In Probability theory parlance, the Prior probability for Spain of winning the World cup before the first match was predictably high.

However Spain lost the first match to Netherlands 1-5! This is quite an event, and if you are going to predict the winner of the tournament, you must have been taken into account before updating the probability of Spain winning the World Cup still (Posterior probability). The key to that calculation is to finding the probability that Spain really messed up the first match instead of it being a fluke. If you are a follower of the game, you must have noticed that it was not a fluke by Netherlands. That reduced the chance of Spain to quite a large extent.

And then came the second match. The Prior probability of Spain winning the cup before the second match was already lower (as equal to the Posterior probability after Netherlands match). Spain lost the match against Chile. After this match, the Posterior probability of Spain still going on to win World cup became much thinner. Finally Spain went out of the tournament.

The key learning of these events is, if you are into the prediction of the tournament, you need to consider each of the events that are happening daily and impacting the final outcome. It may sound pretty common sense, but somehow as it has been told by some intelligent men, "Common sense is not so common."

Till that time, follow Bayes’ theorem to update the predictions and enjoy the FIFA World Cup.

Also published in LinkedIn blog.

---

Thank you for checking this article. I contribute regularly on Technology & Management related stuff. Apart from this blog, you can follow me at 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/csubhamoy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/csubhamoy
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/csubhamoy

About me: I have been working in the areas of IT strategy & usage of Digital technology to deliver business growth. My areas of interest include Enterprise Mobility, Cloud Solution Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, Social Media and Big Data. I am an alumni of Indian Statistical Institute (MTech Computer Science) and also attended Harvard Business School Executive Education on Innovation and Driving Growth.

Every Song has a Memory attached to it

Every song has a memory attached to it. When you hear an old song, it might remind you of a journey, a person or an event which had got attached to the song at the time you first heard it. One thread pricks the other in the brain, and the neurons work in their own way at times which result in ramblings. Yesterday morning, when the news channels started sharing the news of Manna De's demise, the neurons started aligning themselves in their own way. On the way to office, the car FM was playing some of the oldies in tribute of Manna De. They played "কফি হাউস এর সেই আড্ডা" (YouTube: Coffee Houser sei adda), possibly one of the most popular numbers of Manna De amongst Bengalis. It took me back to the last day of my engineering college, when all of us met at the hostel and sang this song together with our hoarse voices before venturing out for our other life. I have never been to Kolkata Coffee House, supposedly the citadel of Bong intellectuals. I don't connect to the lyrics either as they are a bit dated. I don't connect to the names mentioned in the song also - they sound quite alien. But the song still touches me due to that chorus of the last day at my engineering college, in the Summer of 2001.

Suman Chattopadhyay's "তোমাকে চাই" (YouTube: Tomake Chai) was released in 1992 and as wiki says, it redefined Bengali songs. When I heard it for the first time, I was 14 years old. It brought in the much needed boldness in bengali songs - it was a deviation from the way bengali songs were sung and also it changed the way bengalis expressed their love. Whenever the song plays again today in YouTube, it reminds me of my first crush who never knew possibly (what a miss ;) ). It reminds me of a Sanyo cassette player (just Googled now - Sanyo has stopped selling any kind of devices in India since last year) which was the only source of music at that time. It also reminds me of a concert by Suman at Nazrul Mancha, near the Lakes in South Kolkata in 1995, where me and my friend somehow managed to get hold of a pass to get into at the last moment.

During our childhood days, most of the music cassettes in our household used to be of Rabindra Sangeet collections. Being a bengali bhadralok family, it was customary not to play Hindi film music as they were supposed to be anti-cultural. A Mani Ratnam-AR Rahman movie (Roja) broke that monotony though. Rabindra Sangeets had its own share of monotonicity, stiffness along with the standard musical instruments. However out of those numerous Rabindra Sangeet collections, the one that still haunts me today is Kanika Bandyopadhyay’s "তবু মনে রেখ" (YouTube: Tobu mone rekho). It brings back memories of my father and so many other things. The song starts playing within me at the slightest pretext. I guess its not only the lyrics, but also the singer's rendition that helps realign the memory blocks in our brain circuitry in a certain way. 

Most likely music started blending with videos from mid 90s in India, when music videos started getting popular. And that was the time when songs stopped getting tagged with memories but with the videos.

5 must to do things for a bong during Dugga Pujo

Bongs are bongs, and are bongs forever. This species has certain characteristics, which differentiate it from other species like Homo-sapiens etc., but the best of bong comes out during its annual carnival called Dugga Pujo (some not-so-perfect bongs call it Durga Puja also). If you ever aspire to be called a True Blue Bong, you must do the following five things during Dugga Pujo. Else...

Note that there are few variations of this species across the age groups. We have taken a sample out of 30 to 40 years age group, as during this time frame the maximum possible bong-ishness comes out. 

 And here are the 5 actionable. Check your score, genuinely.

1. You should buy atleast one new dress, even if it’s inner wear just before Dugga Pujo. And you have to wear that piece on the auspicious day of Bijoya Doshomi while offering Anjali (not Sachin's wife dude, its offering flowers to the Goddess). 

2. You must buy a Puja Barshiki, the Puja special literature editions. It’s not about reading, it’s about the buying experience man. There is no harm even if you don't complete a single story.

3. You have to go out and eat street food (read Fuchka) atleast on one of the 5 days of Pujo. This is must for your annual soul (and bowel) cleansing.

4. You should post atleast one pic in Facebook. If you are male, one abstract pic is worth 10 Durga portraits. If you are phemale, post a couple of selfies. No offence - you look good during Dugga Pujo, also.

5. Bhog and not Vogue is in-thing during Pujo. Keep that in mind on Astami.

One bonus point:

6. You must have a traditional wear in your wardrobe. Ladies/Girls - Red & White. Men/Boys: White Kurta. Color variations are acceptable since this is a bonus point.

The Corn Factory

Relax with Rahman on a Sunday afternoon

Coke Studio at MTV India (Season 3) has started sharing some awesome videos and teasers in YouTube off late. Coke didn't pay me a single penny (gasp!) for promoting their brand, but I liked the music. You may like it too.

Season of Bengali Literature - Puja Barshiki

Durga Puja is that awesome period of the year, when a bong gets all its creative energy in full force, be it in creating beautiful idols of Durga, or the superb pandals, or the volume of literature that gets churned out. 

I started getting my staple of Puja barshiki from my early childhood via Anandamela. It used to have nice illustrations (that used to attract the eyes before checking the author list) and the fantastic stories of Kakababu and so on. It was a ritual to try to copy the front cover drawing of Durga from Anandamela. Over the years, one of my realization regarding literature - children remember the name of the story, while adults remember the name of the author.

We used to get almost all the Puja specials at our home - my father and jethus and kakus used to consult with each other before buying, so that there was no duplicate copy of a Desh. Being a joint family, we used to get access to all these books without going to any library. You may envy to know that we used to have atleast 10 (or more) of them starting from Anandabazar, Desh, Aajkal, Sandesh, Suktara, Statesman, Bartaman, the leftist magazines, the rightist ones and so on. Anandalok was strictly banned so that the little ones don't get morally screwed up. But we had our way of getting it with external help :-)

The little ones were allowed to check Desh only for the Feluda story by Satyajit Ray. Desh was a regular magazine in our household, which I have seen from the time I can remember anything - it used to be a weekly, then fortnightly, then again weekly and so on, before we decided that Desh was losing its literary value and stopped subscribing couple of years back. But Desh was the first magazine in our childhood which gave us flavor of literature meant for big guys. That's another story for another day. 

These days, Anandabazar house has increased the number of Puja Barshikis to a great extent. They come out with Anandamela, Desh, Patrika, Anandalok, Sanada and possibly many more - they have something or the other for all the target groups. But if you want to try out different flavors of literature, there are those other brands like Pratidin, Bartaman and also the small magazines. 

There is a good number of people who blindly go for one of these brands, while there are others who search for a particular author and buy the one which has a story from him/her. During our college days, Joy Goswami used to be the star amongst the intellectuals. I remember, for a couple of years I chose between Anandabazar and Desh depending upon who is carrying his Uponyash. 

There is a standard snobbery which prevails upon the readers - Puja barshiki works are not of good quality as the authors churn out too many things in too less a time. There is some truth in it possibly. However there are classics which have come out of the Puja barshikis also. My take - keep aside the snobbery, and get submerged into the sea of literature. Its a unique phenomenon - you don't get to see such a spike in any other regional language literature consumption during any other part of the year. Just buy your favorite one and have a happy Puja.

* The Feluda image is obviously by Satyajit Ray - tribute to him. The Durga image is from last year, taken by yours truly.

The Lazy Sunday

Spent a lazy rainy Sunday morning with my daughter doing something, which I did in my own childhood. She is 2 years old now, full of curiosity about everything around her. She tries to play around with these beautiful color pencils when the iPod is getting recharged. The photographs were taken by +Suparna Chakraborti.

Durga Puja, Kolkata & Raghu Rai

Raghu Rai is one of my favorite photographers of all time. All of his pictures tell a thousand stories. I happened to participate in a Raghu Rai workshop few years back, where he talked about how he approached photography and to say the least, it was an amazing experience listening him. He is an engineer by qualification, but took up photography as his passion and continued his journey to become one of the most talked about photographers of India. He told stories behind couple of his famous photographs, including those of Indira & obviously about the Bhopal pictures.

The photograph in this post was taken in 1999 at Kumartuli by Raghu Rai, where the Durga idols are created every year. These days, the young and enthusiast photographers make a beeline during this period with their newly acquired DSLRs, at times irritating the artisans. Sharing this picture, as a tribute to both the artisans at Kumartuli and to Raghu Rai.

Previous post on Durga Puja, 2013: Click here.

The Art of Public Speech

Public speaking is one of the most terrible things people dare. I was told once by a corporate trainer (they talk non-sense mostly) that public speaking tops the list of most fearful things in life. While there are enormous amount of literature written on the Art of Speech, I believe the best way of learning is to record yourself and then attempt to see the video back. Believe me, it would make you think that you should jump out of the window, now, unless you are a Guy Kawasaki.

Guy Kawasaki doesn't need any introduction to those who are clued onto his numerous posts and lectures and books. However if you need reasons to watch this video on Entrepreneurship  let me prime you a bit with the possible benefits:

1. You save your money from buying a pretty popular book - "The Art of Start", as Guy talks in this video primarily from the book. But you may get enticed to buy the book after this lecture - see, I warned you. 

2. How to make a speech which doesn't suck even though its long

3. How to Connect with the audience in a prepared speech

and one last point:

4. How to buy time from the organizers even if you are overshooting - you need to go till the last 7-8 minutes where he is fighting for one last slide.

Waiting for the Signal to turn Green

On a rain-soaked morning at Rajarhat, Kolkata.

A lot of investments had moved in the Real estate sector in WB in the last few years. However most of the apartments are moving at a very slow pace. Even the ones which are finished are sparsely occupied. The vacant and unfinished residential complexes give an eerie feeling while driving down the expressway. 

When do you want to start your 30 days challenge?

Its a short 3 min video - worth trying out, eh?

The Bong Festival is close by

That lovely part of the year is coming soon. The festival kick-starts from Ratha Yatra which was on 10th July this year. On that day, the artisans start creating the Durga idol. The Puja is still a few months away, but the planning for the multi-crore mega-show has already began. What is your plan this year?

Next post on Durga Puja, 2013: Click here.

Park Street, Kolkata

Kolkata continues to amaze me. Park Street is at the centre of the city, witness to many a stories that unfold every day on its streets and corners. This is an aerial view of the skyscrappers around Park Street on a foggy morning.

Rose Experiment

The stories behind the photos always entice us. But it also remove the myth behind the lovely photos. A close up of a vase with lovely roses becomes more interesting when you use the right lens and the right kind of lighting.

Happy DIwali

Let there be Light.

Timeless - Happy New Year

Happy Independence Day

There would be +ve biased people and there would be the other group. But what matters is whether we are concerned about the country or not - only this concern will help stop this country from going to hell.

Personally I strongly believe in the growth story of India. I believe its going to be a superpower soon. I believe 2,50,000 villages would be connected by broadband. The communication revolution has made a sea change in the lives of the Indians over the last 20 years. Places which were not accessible by any vehicle 20 years back are now connected with Mobile communications also. Progress is surely happening, though the pace might not be McDonald way.

Had a long debate with my friends in FB today - which only proved that people are still bothered about the country's future. Hope is not lost yet.