How I learnt English

I was born in a village 100 miles away from the super city, Colombo. Though my parents were teachers, they very not keen in English. They had a very good vocabulary which I could never catch up. in Grade 7 a monstrous English teacher came to our class. though I could read and write some words, I was totally lost in understanding grammar and dictation. in grade 8 I only got 32 marks for English which made the class teacher a demon and a reason to beat me and humiliate me infront of all of grade 8 students. I remember how i cried begging him not to hit me. By grade 9, the harassment of the English class teacher made me a neurosis patient. Upto grade 11 i was admitted to the hospital due to shock and fear to the class teacher. I couldn’t catch up Maths and English both. But I was excellent in Sinhala, Science and all other subjects. I got all island 1st in Sinhala essay writing several times. I did sports and went upto all island level with master track. I got a ‘c’ pass for English at the O/L cos I parroted essays and letters using past papers. Otherwise I didnt have any knowledge on grammar. Situation was same even by grade 13. I knew very little in English. But there was a small change after finishing school. I began to read English books, not heavy books but cheap and simple love stories which motivated me to read and find meanings. After that most things were changed. In GELT (pre- university English training) I began to understand basics in English language. at University we had a huge library. Most of law books were in English. Though I was not very good in writing, I tried to read some books and understand. But even at that time I couldn’t talk in English.

There was a change to the direction of my life again. I learnt about internet and began to chat. To be honest, chatting was my teacher which gave me a super help to communicate with people in English. But still I was too shy and could talk in English with anyone. Life went on. I used internet a lot. With the nature of my career, I had to draft letters. I followed a same letter format but developed it with changes needed. Day by day, the English speaking ability and writing ability was improved. Today I have come to a level which I can manage English language. But still I improve myself. Now I learn English from the basic level again and most importantly I learn to teach English in the most accurate way. Cos, I have experienced the bitterness of confusion in teaching English in Sri Lanka, and during last 5 years I saw how my daughter struggle in learning English. My real victory is not learning English speaking or writing but learning the weaknesses most kids go trough with the various systems used in different classes and difficulties they face in managing the language. I am proud cos I could help my daughter to learn basics in a systematic way. I never forget how I suffered because of the English teacher for 5 years. How I prayed him to come to the class even few minutes delayed. How I tried to be motivated to go school by buying small items each week. I dont want my daughter to go through the same hell ever.
I will share what my observations of my daughter’s learning English and the successful method I use to improve her knowledge.

You should have reminded me……bla bla bla

Once an HR Manager in another company asked me whether he can pay a visit to a training program we organized to see whether the training is relevant for their organization too. I said ‘yes’ and gave all the details two weeks before.

As he didnt come on the training day, I contacted him over the phone and asked whether he comes. The reply I got was one of the most interesting common answers I get from some people.

“oh.. I totally forgot that……bla bla bla.. You should have reminded me yesterday….bla bla bla”

” ah really?? why should I? Am I the secretary of yours? ”  I swallowed my unuttered answer.

How many times have you heard this ‘you should have reminded ..’ phrase from a person who have forgotten something? This is a dirty way some people use to trow the ball to another. Is it healthy for a healthy relationship at work?

If you are a person who is having that reaction whenever you forget something, only thing you should know is, your reaction hurts other person to the extend to loose his / her respect on you. If you say that to your wife / husband when you forget to do something, he / she will not say a word as a reply, but will curse you from the inner heart for not accepting your mistake.

Accepting a mistake is the greatest thing a person can do. That shows how humble he / she is. Respect should be earned through personal values not demanded.

A firm hand shake – Not an indication for over confident / confidence anymore

When interview candidates who are coming from various levels, we experience different type of handshakes. Some are weak, some are strong, some are really strong and memorable with a pain for few minutes even after they leave the room. 😀

Firm handshake means two things for me.

1. that person is really over confident or trying to be smart at the interview

2. that person is aware about handshaking methods and trying to show his confidence but has eventually turned to a posture of over confidence even without the knowledge of the candidate.

Since the handshake is not a good way to measure a person’s confidence level as it is very much personalized, I just ignore what comes to my mind with the way they offer their handshakes.

Selecting people – taking a calculated risk

As I believe, selecting employees is not a perfect process we have the total ownership. It is very similar to a marriage. Before the marriage, people show their fairy picture to the partner hiding all the weaknesses they have. Though there are reference checks and personality checks, we can never see the true self of a candidate we interview. Because the world is such a crazy place that all of us have been trained to pretend as someone whom we are not really us.

In such a crazy world, there is no harm in taking a calculated risk to recruit a person whom we have a doubt about capabilities. Because the environment, soil and the fertilizer have a great effect on blooming a flower beautifully.

Changing layout – should be a collective decision of all levels of the organization

ABC organization had designed their layout in a different way. As per the initial layout, AGM and above employees had been given cubicles. Senior Managers had been given a separate area with a small particle. Managers, Deputy Managers, Assistant Managers and also the Senior Executives have been given bigger tables. When the staff grows, the company faced to a problem at seat allocation for the new Managers because there were not enough tables.

As a solution HR Department suggested a change to the seating arrangements with a location change to the departments. HR Manager had a meeting with the Heads of the Departments where all the Heads agreed to stand by the plan and to sort out the issues possibly coming from the employees.

But something different happened at the day of the shuffle actually happened.

As Senior Executives had been given tables similar to Managers (as per the lay out of the company the actual plan is also to locate senior executives in the manager tables) one person didnt change his place to the suggested place where other senior executives sat. He is an old employee who had been in the company for a long time, but the grade is senior executive.

In a scenario like this, most common incident is passing the ball here and there by Head of the Departments, HR Manager and even the CEO of the company because no one talks the responsibility of negotiating and explaining the organizational view point of the company.

What are the learning of this type of a scenario?

1. Management should talk one language. There should not be behind the wall talks, criticisms or passing the ball efforts.

2. It is not only the HR Manager’s responsibility. All the Heads of the Departments are equally responsible to stand the change.

3. As this is a rectification action to a wrong decision taken in the initial stage, there will be definitely grievances. Therefore whatever the change done should be indiscriminative.

4. The organization always should do the change on a rationale.

Mr. Not on earth – a man never hurts his family & takes care of him subordinates whenever needed

In outer appearance he is among the most handsome men in the company. His relationship with the customers and society is uncomparable, because he a man who is having selling skills in his nerves. He has raised in the career ladder from the bottom and has been in the real battle zone having no chance / no need to get certifications for what he had earned through experience. He is a professional manager from tip to toe, is very polite, very decent and very careful in all relationships at work. It seems he is a peoples’ person at work.

No.. !!!! Why???

This professional, nice sales manager  makes damn funny mistakes sometimes. Specially when he deals with the subordinates and the other staff. He is not organized though his table is with less paper works. The funny fact is, not the planning skills are laughed by the others but his way of behaving at normal life phenomenon. He is not living on earth and he doesn’t know what is in ordinary social life.

Ah. I have seen some great values in him. But when I asked about the values I have never seen in him, he mentioned following two after making a hell of a questions on why I ask these.

1. He never hurts his family members

2. He can take the control of his emotions when he is on too much pressure / hurt / attacked

One weakness he is having as per him is managing time.

Management lessons i learnt from Mr. never on earth are:

** No human on the earth is fully capable of understanding people and capable of handling situations in a perfect manner. Understanding people and situational intelligence are not norms but managerial skills which we have to in-cultivate in us.

** What we are doing at work is not our life. We can never put our family in a scale vs the career we are doing.

Ms. Anger – what is in her heart

She has been a real monstrous manager in the previous company. As per her own words, some of her subordinates had left because of her anger. As she is well aware, she had been in a tremendous pressure at work and had been turned to a monster manageress who is no control over her anger. Unfortunately the anger had not been removed from her system at the time I met her. She has less patient in explaining something to someone. She looks at people in a funny manner no one will like to look at her again. Knowing she is a great person to work with I wanted to know 2 good things her has in her, in order to forgive her if there is any misunderstanding happens between us. Following are the great things she has in her, which I never knew.

1. Helping others, immaterial that person is a friend or an enemy.

2. Studying Buddhism

See how great values people have in them though the outer appearance they build up around them or not a bit of a similar. 🙂

My learning from poeple

In my 7 years career life I have met people in various personality traits. After having fulfilled my 4 years determination for an award I wanted to find another goal for life. I didnt want to go behind another goal which I have no control in my hand. Instead I thought to learn from the people I meet, specially the people I meet at work. From today, I will write about the incidents I face / I have faced in the past. The learning will be two types. I will learn about the great things in my employees which I have never known and one weakness. Secondly, I will write about the lessons I learn from the people relationships. I hope this will be a nice experience in the HRM side and a great help for my spiritual development.

If I could do that, why can’t you!!

” I have waited hours for interviews when I was in the search for jobs.. So why can’t they (candidates) wait too?? ”

” I have come to work while my wife was in labor for our 1st baby, So why can’t he come, he is not in such a situation?”

” Before I was given the promotion as the Head of the Department, I had to wait 8 years for a promotion. This person’s performance is good, but I have no reason to recommend him for a promotion this soon”

” If I work after work, why can’t you stay too? HR people should be an example to other staff”

It is scientifically accepted that no human being is similar to another. If so, up to what extend can someone expect others to act in the way he / she has behaved?

If the two incidents are coincidents and the people are totally similar in physical and mental structure, the above argument has a valid basis. But the truth is, any incident is based on the several different factors such as time, environment, technology, social differences, cultural differences and more importantly human differences. Therefore no one can expect another person to behave in the way she / she behaved in the past.

The questions mentioned above provides one reason to prove the popular saying of, ‘people leave managers not the companies’.

There are sad realities about people behavior in organizations. (Sometimes these realities are similarly sad in political world as well)

*** People tend to compare what they have gone through against others bahavior. There are two thinking patterns with related to managing people based on own perceptions.

1. what I have gone through is worst than what this person has been asked to do.

2. If I could do that, he / she should be able to do the similar thing.

When raise in the career ladder, we totally forget the painful past and how we suffered due to high expectations of the other people. We put our foot to the shoes of our superiors and become similar monsters.

When I was in the university I always wondered why our seniors who had been suffered from ragging had made their juniors to go through the similar pain / harassment? Did they expected a pay back for their pain? They said that the reason for ragging is for the betterment of junior students, to socialize them. But is it the reality? To socialize someone else, what are the qualification / abilities the senior student is having in him / her? If we ask from a psychologist, the interpretation of the reason for ragging will be totally different.

There is a similarity in ragging and expecting subordinates to behave in the way the superior behaved in the past. I dont know whether that Is the hypocrisy or the lack of understanding about the social human behavior?

If all managers can understand the beauty in human mind, no one will ever expect coincidents at their work places.

Sometimes this can be a great research for psychologists or specialists in human behavior.

‘Human Resorces’ Management – Manging Human Resources

‘ My mother is suffering from depression. When I get late, she starts to act uncontrollably. But my Department Head expects every one to stay after work, immaterial whether we have work or not. I have no guts to talk to him, cos I know the answer. ‘Deena. I can understand your situation. But what will happen a customer peep in and no one is there to look after?. It is essential you to stay at least 1/2 hr after work’

‘ I can understand your request for a laptop. But here only Senior Manager above employees have been allowed laptops. Some Managers work until 8 – 9 at night. So what if they also ask for a laptop?’ This was the answer given to a Manager who was expecting a secondment to Deena’s company. He had been given a laptop from his mother company, but this particular company refuses to give him a laptop saying it is only limited to Senior Managers.

‘ Everyday you are late to work. We cant tolerate this. I know you have a grievance that you are traveling 50 km. But that is your problem and you should solve your problems.’ When Anna asked for flexi time for 2 months, her Head of the Department answered her.

It is easier to work in a full automated manufacturing plant. No people, no people related problems to take decisions. Cos, except role models who always to be the ‘best student of the class’, ordinary people make requests and expect things from their work places.

My favorite subject is HR policy development. Cos it lays a frame work. It creates boundaries, limitations, what to do and what not to do.

Though policy development is the favorite subject of mine, ofen a simple question bothers me. ‘ What will happen a policy becomes god’s rule’?

Unfortunately, in most companies, HR policies and procedures become rules of god. There is no flexibility, no alterations.

If we work with machines, yes, we have to use same button, same gear and same production procedure. Ah, with people, YES, WE CAN. We can always say,

‘ I can understand your request, but you know we have a policy for this’
or

‘ You are very reasonable, but you know, if I do this for you, others will also ask for same’.

Ok. it doenst matter if this is the answer for EVERY ONE. but the problem is, 99% policy followers are bias for favorites.

What will be the ultimate result?

Company looses GREAT employees for NOTHING.

How can we take correct decisions which require a reasonable justification to other employees / decisions out from policy framework?

1. Scientifically measuring the impact of grating the request on other employees.

2. Measuring the impact on the employee who makes the request against the impact of granting the request.

A policy should not be violated. But at the same time, a policy should not be life or death rule. there should be alternations. Otherwise ‘human resources management’ becomes a myth which doenst come under ‘management’ definition.