K Srikrishna

The Entrepreneur Life

Category: Business (Page 4 of 8)

Matters pertaining to business

4 Hacks to Handling an Interview Panel Well

March 16, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Interview PanelOne of the joys of being around entrepreneurs and academicians is that you get pulled in to interview folks – in person, on the phone or Skype, and sometimes as part of a panel. This last weekend, I was part of one such interview panel – where nearly six senior candidates who’d been shortlisted were interviewed. Three things struck me about the experience

  • How vastly different approaches the various candidates brought to the interview process
  • Even the senior candidates made some of the same rookie mistakes that you expect only younger ones to make
  • How we, as the interview panel, could have done things better (that’s a whole another post)

Ask questions – In this particular panel, the thing that stood out the most for me, was how few questions the interviewees had for us as a panel. Sure they’d spoken to the hiring manager over the phone prior to the interview, but given the panel had veto power (did they know that?) it would have been better for them to ask more questions. While this is true even for 1:1 interviews, with a panel it’s important to understand what different people in the panel expect both of the role that you’re interviewing for and of the interview process itself. This will make sure you are neither blind-sided nor leave something unaddressed. Even more importantly your questions often will say a lot more about your than your answers.

Be specific A panel, with the very fact there are more than three people (ours had five), can easily get bogged down when it comes to decision-making. So it’s very important for you to be very specific with both your answers to their questions and even with your own questions. This allows you to stand out as a candidate. This requires you to avoid generalities – such as “I have strong networks in the community” and you’d be better of with specifics such as “I was able to recruit six mentors from the community in my first three months on the job. And these folks served with us on average for two years.” Balance the desire to be specific with the need to be concise – not always easy, but with practice can be done.

Be concise If you are like me (poor you!) the temptation is great to jump right in, when a question is posed. All too often, I get excited about the topic – which is usually why I’m there – and begin talking or responding.  Two tips to being concise – clarify what is being sought and validate whether you’ve answered their question. We make assumptions that may just not be correct – it is better to clarify before attempting to answer. In our specific job search, we wanted the candidate to make his organization, financially independent at some point. One candidate anxious that this was important to us focused on becoming self-sufficient within two years – which meant she recommended doing a lot of things, not central to the business, just to generate revenues. Clarifying the timeline over which the panel expected the organization to be self-sufficient could have easily avoided this.

Demonstrate Interest Many interview candidates assume that they are demonstrating interest by showing up. Why else would they be there? However, while showing up is necessary it is definitely not enough to show your interest in the job. The most attractive candidate – going by their resume and phone screen – turned out to be lowest ranked in our panel, due to the utter lack of energy and interest demonstrated by his body language and cadence during the panel interview. Most organizations are looking to hire people with energy and a good deal of motivation to make things happen. Sure they want to know and prefer you’ve done it before but are you willing and ready to do it and more, again? So it’s important to demonstrate interest – which of course asking questions, clarifying and engaging will all help you.

Not surprisingly most of these tips are useful for 1:1 interviews. However, it’s both easier to develop rapport in 1:1 interviews as well as recover from mistakes, with a little honesty and self-deprecation. Even the best of candidates can be undone with a panel, if there’s either non-alignment on the other side of the table or you don’t address the primary careabouts for the key decision makers on a panel. Share your own experiences interviewing with panels and what’s worked for you. Good luck!

Leaders come in all shapes and other lessons from a mentor

January 7, 2015 / / 0 Comments

It would be a lie if I said that I had a well-threshed out idea of who or what a good leader was, when I was 25. Sure, I’d already had nine years of college by then, lived in 5 cities across two countries. It wasn’t for lack of exposure. However, my idea of a leader, certainly till that time, had been all extroverted, Type A personalities, many larger than life. Starting with my father, maternal grandfather, role models in college and my graduate adviser, every one of them had fit this mold. And then I met Brad Bradford.

Eighteen months into my first job, I got promoted to be a section manager – fancy title for doing more of the same, but this time it was my rear that was on the line. Brad had been my manager’s manager and now here I was reporting into him. While I’m no physical giant, being much slimmer than me (not too hard, these days) Brad was small made. On top of it, he was quiet, understated and very measured when he spoke.

Brad made me completely reassess what a leader is and how a leader operates. Some of these lessons bear repeating as I keep falling into my old ways.

Bearing & carriage I recall my mom often urging me to stand straight and not slouch. Brad was living proof of what my poor mom had meant by bearing and carriage. The manner in which he stood, walked and carried himself communicated loudly even when he didn’t say a word. Once when the production line was down and we were furiously trying experiments, some of which were 12 hours long, to figure out what was broken. Brad would walk over to my cubicle and stand right there and look at me – not a word would be said to communicate that he was there to support us and to make sure we gave it our all. On that Monday day the factory was sold and we’d all been called to a meeting to tell us that we’d no longer have a job, Brad’s bearing and carriage said more about how we’d survive this and carry on than any words could have.

Action not words While I’ve always been voluble, some might say long-winded, Brad was – and I suspect still is –  a man of few words. This is not to say that he didn’t have a lot to say but he was the archetype of SHOW not tell. Whether pressing with upper management for more resources, negotiating with vendors or getting down to the factory floor to run or check on experiments, Brad was not big on “Let me tell you…” but got out there and did it. Never once in the two years I’d worked with him did I hear Brad raise his voice. All too often I had to strain to hear what he was saying!

Smile and humor For a man from Minnesota, working with a bunch of young, fresh graduates from India, Iran, Eastern Europe and laid back West Coast types, I’m surprised Brad didn’t throw things at us or at least yell even if he might have been tempted to take an axe (or the whatever weapon of choice Minnesotans had). As our factory was being, built once a week we’d have a crisis. The factory director, a storybook Texan with an enormous temper, would lead the raving and ranting that involved much frothing at the mouth. We young ‘uns would be easily offended and spoiling for a fight at being accused of doing a poor job. Brad on the other hand, unflappable as ever, would be an island of calm. He had a devastating smile and an understated sense of humor, that not only maintained his sanity but kept the rest of us cowboys in line.

Brad, thank you for showing me what leadership is and how you can lead effectively without being an Attila. I’m still learning to practice some of the lessons you’ve taught me.

You can read all the posts in my 30 days of gratitude series here.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |

3 Steps to Achieve Profitable Growth

December 19, 2014 / / 0 Comments

I never ceased to be amazed at how fast time seems to run right by us. Here we are in the second week of December and soon another year will be gone. Over the last four weeks as I’ve talked to a variety of entrepreneurs – it seems like they just got started and now already they’ve been in business for 4-5 years. Where did the time go, I find myself wondering. I’m not always sure that they wonder about it!

More importantly as some of them struggle for consistent growth and profitability, I find our conversations veering towards figuring out what’s working for them. In these conversations, I find myself repeatedly asking three or four questions

  • What is a typical deal size for you?
  • How long a selling cycle do you have – between first contact and first payment or purchase order
  • How many of these are repeat customers?
  • With which of these customers are you actually making money?

The funny thing is despite age or relative success of the business or experience of the entrepreneur this data is not that handy usually in most startups that I meet. It’s when they encounter a bump or worse yet a wall, they seek help and often the answers lie within such data. Of course sometimes it does not, but we’d know that only after we look at the data. Three things that are worth doing are

Analysis framework Build yourself a simple revenue and profit analysis framework – this could be simply a spreadsheet, like a sales tracker, but instead of forecast it shows what transpired. Ideally you would cover revenue, sales cycle, gross margin by account or customer (outside-in) and by-product or service offering (inside-out) and if you have a large enough team, even by salesperson. Depending on the nature of your business this could over a weekly, monthly, or quarterly period. Even if you review only on a half-yearly or annual basis, having the breakdown at least at a monthly level, helps.

Periodic reviews Any data and analysis is not of much use, unless you periodically review it. I’d include as many senior folks (if not your entire team) in such a review. The goal of the review is to really understand, which customers and products actually make profits for you – how long it took you to acquire them and why they’ve stayed with you or given you repeat orders. Alternately it will tell you if you are NOT getting repeat orders or those repeat orders are NOT coming fast enough or at better margins. Including the larger team, allows you to do find bottlenecks and assumptions within your own team – why proposals or demos take longer than they need to (selling cycle), costs are higher (team tries to get one customer to pay for entire dev cost etc.) Also it reminds the team that business is about making profits, not just shipping products (or proposals) alone.

Action plan Three critical actions can come out of such reviews

  • identifying what worked and doing more of this. Could include up selling to existing customers, culling non-profitable ones, tracking and shortening lead-to-customer conversion cycle times
  • designing experiments to validate things that are unclear – did that email campaign work, did pricing make a difference, what worked for one account or sales person can it be used for others – this helps find what worked (and what didn’t)
  • modifying your analysis framework do you continue to measure what you are presently measuring? What do you remove? What do you add, so that the analysis framework -> periodic review – > action plan cycle serves your purpose of profitable growth.

As December winds down and a new calendar and fiscal year loom, this might be a good time to look at this.

Selling Your Business – A Primer

December 10, 2014 / / 1 Comment

This last weekend, I gave a talk at the Unpluggd Conference in Bangalore titled “Selling Your Business.”

It appears that the internet and world at large is filled with information on creating business plans, getting co-founders not to mention loads of advice on fund raising. Yet there is mostly silence or a lot of speculation on selling your business. Sure you hear about “OMG! Did you see Little Eye Labs got acquired by Facebook!” So when you read about RedBus being acquired or an acqui-hire (BuyNBrag) happening or product buy-out (Mango) – what is it that actually goes on? More importantly what is it you want? Are there lessons to be learned from entrepreneurs who’ve sold their businesses with various levels of (un)preparedness and differing degrees of (dis) satisfaction?

The talk was intended to serve as a brief How-to ranging from, “Should you sell?” “Where do you start?”, Who should be involved? What do investment bankers or other consultants do? all the way to the mechanics and esoterica of valuations, deal structuring etc. and the lessons learned from other Indian tech and non-tech firms going through a merger and acquisition (M&A).

Thanks to my friend Ramani, who originally inspired me to put this together.

3 Simple Steps to Generating Revenue

November 24, 2014 / / 0 Comments

A former colleague reached out to me recently seeking help. He’d inherited responsibility for a set of retail outlets in medium-sized city. Unfortunately the inheritance did not come with a marketing budget and he was wondering how he could set the business on fire. We briefly discussed what their business was about, what challenges he faced, what his competitors were already doing and such. We brainstormed a little and then tried to put down some specific action items or at least things to try.

As I reflected on our conversation it struck me how much of what we’d discussed was true not just for this retail gig, but for any business. As with all great truths, they seem simple enough to articulate, but is well worth reminding ourselves periodically. More importantly, regardless of the tactics we’d use, and these will change with both our business types, time and place, these three strategic steps will rarely change.

Creating Awareness People need to know you exist, before they can buy from you. It’s even better if they know why you exist, what you stand for and how you are different. But you gotta start with folks being aware. How do you create awareness, especially when you don’t have a marketing budget? In my friend’s case, it begins with the tried and tested real world methods such as handing out flyers at the street corner or a man with a sandwich board neither of which costs much. In his case given milk and dairy products he sells, targeting local apartment complexes, with both inserts in newspapers as well as display booth maximizes number of folks who get to know he exists. Of course getting his current customers to spread the word – word of mouth – is a great way to get the word out. This works whether you are an online school, SaaS B2B service provider or social network for new moms. Thought leadership, writing for the local (or hyperlocal) paper, presentations at local schools (or corporates) are ways to identify your brand/store/product to value for the prospective customer. Content marketing in many ways enriches all the above and builds a long tail of awareness creation.

Generating Footfalls Ok, now you gotta a lot of people aware that you exist. Now you gotta get them into your store – physical in my friends case, possibly online in your own. This is what marketers think of as Call to Action (CTA). How do you get someone who’s aware of you to act upon it – usually by visiting you. Promotions, contests or freebies are common ways of generating footfalls – for instance the chappie handing out flyers at a street corner, could offer a free ice cream (or n% of a second purchase) as a way to induce footfalls. Online free e-books, flash sales, or other forms of giveaways could be used to induce footfalls. Keep in mind, what tactics you use to generate footfalls will change with the nature of your business, physical vs online stores, target audience, time and place. In fact tactics that work at one time may not work or worse yet backfire at other times. Generating footfalls need not be only about price or giving away stuff for free, but is always about providing value for the customer. Skin type testing, bra fitting, financial education – all these are things of value to the user that can help them cross your threshold, and it need not cost you money, at least not a whole lot.

Building a relationship All of us, however good or bad, can get one customer or some customers to buy. The trick is how do you get a lot of them buying on an ongoing basis, bringing others in or inducing others to buy. This requires that we build a relationship with our customers. Just because we want to have a relationship with them doesn’t mean they’d want one with us. Worse yet, if you did a poor job with creating awareness, either by misleading them or worse, they’d want nothing to do with you. Also if you generate footfalls under false pretence – using bait and switch tactics or worse, they not only run away but tell 10 other people to avoid you. So being authentic, understanding their needs is the first step in building a relationship. Consistently serving their needs, ideally anticipating, setting and exceeding expectations is the way to build lasting relationships. While not trivial, it’s not rocket science either. In my friend’s case, it’s knowing the regulars, keeping in touch with them, not just in the store but outside. In your business it may involve newsletters, making recommendations or connecting with partners or other service providers and above all listening to them, what they are saying and what they aren’t.

As the writers Sean Platt and Johnnie Truant advocate Write, Publish, Repeat, to become a successful writer, building business is all about Create Awareness, Generate Footfalls, Build Relationships. Repeat.

Good hunting.

Get your hands dirty and other lessons from a friend

November 8, 2014 / / 4 Comments

“You might want to keep your hands in your pockets.”

I think I’ve always gesticulated with my hands and I never realized it but I also am a toucher. I touch people when I talk to them. I’d been in grad school for about two months and met Marcel, a fellow grad student in the same department, but working for a different professor. I can’t recall how we struck up a friendship, we couldn’t have been more different. Marcel was this serious Dutch guy with a Masters studying computational Material Science. I had been voted – most likely to be hurt in a political dustup and not graduate – while at BHU.

A couple of months after we’d  become friends, Marcel took me aside and told me, “ Western men don’t usually like to be touched by other men!” I didn’t realize that I had been not just waving my hands but clasping hands or otherwise touching the guys I was talking to. Coming from India, where it’s common to see two guys holding hands or hands across each other’s shoulders, the concept of personal space, was a little alien to me.  I think I was aghast, when Marcel recommended using my pockets to hold my hands. Well that was only the first of many lessons I was to learn from Marcel over the four years we were in grad school together.

Walk in the wilderness Marcel introduced me to hiking. In fact once we even took my unsuspecting mom on a gruelling 5 mile hike in Briones National Park in Northern California. I’ll never forget the day, he let a lizard that was sunning itself on a trail, crawl on to his hand to admire it. We spent days camping in the rain on Pt. Reyes National Park. Having lived all my life in cities and having grown up in India, I’d lost the connect to nature and land – that I saw my grandparents have in rural India and Marcel helped me rediscover in America. Both of our research work, meant hours cooped up in a basement, often in a dark room with a microscope or photo chemicals in my case or in an attic warren for him. So getting out there in nature, spending time walking or even just lying in a tent in pouring rain, taught me to both take a break and reconnect with nature as well as return invigorated to the work at hand. Through out my subsequent startups, most of my 1:1s I’ve had walking in a park in Bangalore and in an open school playground. Stay connected to nature, appreciate and engage with the outdoors is a lesson that I’ve learned from Marcel.

Don’t let little or big things stop you Many months after I met Marcel is when I learned that he did not hear so good in one of his ears. Of course that explained why he prefered to always walk one side when we hiked or otherwise did things together. This ear went from bad to worse till he had to have surgery many years later to try to fix his hearing in addition to using electronic aids. Yet many of our most fun times together was when he played the piano, which he did a great job of – whether for Christmas carolling or at a dinner party. Conferences meant giving talks, attending more and networking. From Marcel’s music or enjoyment of the piano, you could never tell that he was hampered in any way – so he did not let little or in this instance big things around his hearing from doing the things he loved or being able to do his professional roles. So on days when I’m throwing a snit for not getting the right sort of pencil or getting good copy writers I have to remind myself of what I learned – don’t let the little or big things stop me from doing what needed to or wanted to get done.

Get your hands dirty For a guy who’s research involving electronically computing phase diagrams from first principles, Marcel could fix cars like a mechanic. He bought a fixer-upper in Richmond-Berkeley border and really fixed it up – doing carpentry, plumbing and a great deal of gardening. And he could cook up a pretty good storm. Before meeting him, I’d have had a hard time fixing anything beyond checking if the darn thing was plugged in. By no means am I any good at plumbing, electrical work, dry walling or any of the other manly contractor jobs – but I’ve gotten to be darn good cook (even if I say so myself), a semi-decent do it yourself (DIY-er) and odd jobs guy. More importantly I got to appreciate the value of being able to do such work and the people who are good at it. Many years later in my first startup this lesson got reinforced, when we build several teams of sharp kids, but few of whom had actually gotten their hands dirty, building stuff. Marcel was a maker before the Maker movement. I’d like to think i get my hands more dirty these days, and the credit for that goes to Marcel.

Thank you Marcel, for being such a wonderful friend. I don’t think I’d have completed Engineering Mathematics or graduated but for your help and for all the life lessons you’ve taught me. I’m grateful to have you in my life.

This is the sixth entry in my 30 days of Gratitude series. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |

Make Haste Slowly – lessons from a mentor

November 6, 2014 / / 15 Comments

“Now lookee here! You gotta sloow down!”

via Comfight

via Comfight

I was fresh out of college, all rearing to go. My work buddy, mentor and fellow process engineer Ken Bohannon had been working longer than I’d lived. The very first day it was clear none of what I’d learned in nine years of college was going to be of much use, as we set out to build a green field semiconductor factory. The team was a motley crew of experienced hands and fresh grads, split probably right down the middle. Our little work group was itself a virtual United Nations – Ken, from Louisana, Tony from Samoa, Mohsen from Iran, Joel the token Washington native and yours truly from India.

Ken and I couldn’t have been more different – he was a 6 feet 4+ inches tall, built like a linebacker, spoke slowly with a Lousiana drawl that was never too far. He was unflappable, patient, ready with a question and slow to jump to conclusions. I was a foot shorter, easily excitable, prone to act first and think later. Hence his frequent reminders to slow down!

In the short two years we worked together, 18 months in the same department, Ken taught me not just all about diffusion and furnaces, but how to work well with operators on the factory floor, all of whom had vastly greater experience than us, the maintenance crew who were suspicious of all the college kids and engineers and vendors of all stripes. The real lessons I learnt from Ken are:

Making haste slowly We were building new processes, on new equipment and in some instances we were building the equipment themselves. This was the time when six-inch wafer were being used for the first time and so the number of things that could go wrong was enormous and things did go wrong. So rather than run yet another 12 hour experiment overnight, it made sense to stop, take stock, think through what it is we were seeing and what made sense, if we wanted to get the production line fixed before the next shift showed up. All clearly sensible in hindsight. However, Ken’s calm approach and gentle prodding is what taught me to balance my need to rush forth with some forethought – hence making haste slowly. Can’t say I’ve mastered it but Ken is where it all started.

Working with younger people Today as a father of teens and working with young entrepreneurs professionally, it is only recently I’ve learned to appreciate what Ken must have gone through with me. At no point did he make big deal about working with clearly no-nothing, not-prepared to listen folks such as myself. Even more importantly, he was very willing to learn from us, the few things that we did know a little more about – whether the VAX VMS systems or statistics or wordprocessing software.

Knowing what you love Even in the backwaters of suburban Tacoma in the late eighties – NY city or Silicon Valley it wasn’t – a lot of the people in our company were hustling to get ahead. Ken was not only laid back, or maybe he was laid back, ’cause he was clear about his priorities. He was the first person that I heard say I don’t want to be a manager – of course he’d been there and done it. He was comfortable with himself and who he was, clear about what he wanted and confident enough to be vocal about it. I can’t say I understood it then, but since then clearly I’ve gotten a little smarter and envy his clarity and courage of conviction.

Ken, thank you for all that you’ve taught me – including what March madness was. I’m yet to master slowing down, but am grateful for having you in my life and putting to good use a great deal of what I learned from you.

This is the fourth entry in my 30 days of Gratitude series.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |

Related articles

3 Darn Good Reasons You Need Advisors Who Think Differently

November 5, 2014 / / 9 Comments

“When are you going to sell your company?”

Photo Credit: Oberazzi via Compfight

Photo Credit: Oberazzi via Compfight

I was taken aback. My good friend and former boss, Sandeep Khanna had suggested that I talk to Pravin Madhani, kick-ass sales guy and serial entrepreneur who’d just sold his previous company for a sizeable chunk of change. My intention in meeting with him, was to learn about raising capital. This was in 2000, when the internet bubble had burst and we were still holding day jobs as we tried to bootstrap Impulsesoft, our Bluetooth startup.

I think my first response to Pravin’s question was a somewhat offended “We’re trying to build a business here – we’re not going to sell it.” To Pravin’s credit, he kept his laughter to mere chuckles and persisted.

This was the first of several meetings I had over nearly two years – usually months apart. Every time we met his first question would be about selling the company – a variant of “When are you..” or “Have you already..” Initially I felt very uncomfortable about this question and wasn’t sure if I really wanted to talk to him. To my we-are-trying-to-build-a-Sony-or-HP sensibility, his questions seemed far too commercial. Luckily good sense prevailed and I did continue to meet with him and he too met with me enthusiastically, despite my clear discomfort.

I came to not only value but look forward to my meetings with Pravin. Three critical lessons I learned from Pravin

The need for clarity Why are you in business or for that matter why are you doing whatever it is you are doing? Examine this closely. Each time you seek to answer this, go past the easy or evident answers. My meetings with him were always the exercises in asking Why five or more times. And clarity can only be achieved by asking uncomfortable questions

The power of diversity Of all the advisors I sought, Pravin was probably the one who was most unlike me. This I have to admit made me uncomfortable. I suspect I initially avoided or at least procrastinated meeting with him. The very fact that we were so different, thought very differently is what made my meetings however short and far apart, invaluable. To this date, I find myself asking “What would Pravin ask?”

Being yourself Pravin was the living embodiment of being yourself. What you saw is what you got – he made no apologies for the positions he held, which in hindsight all seem tame. Neither did he hesitate to say “I don’t know. I don’t understand it.” Several years after my first meeting, Pravin sought my marketing inputs for one of his startups. His engineering vp had persuaded him to have me come in. He told me “I thought marketing was all fluff and am never sure marketers really do anything.” I refrained from retorting that this was rich coming from a sales guy! The very next morning he called me and said how useful our meeting had been despite his initial skepticism. Despite his multiple successes (he did sell this second startup as well) Pravin’s been the same plain-spoken person with no airs about him. An example well worth emulating.

Thank you Pravin for being the person you are and challenging me on every occasion you’ve had. I’ve learned a great deal and in a small way passing them on to the next generation of entrepreneurs. I’m grateful that I got to know you and to work with you.

This is the third entry in my 30 days of Gratitude series.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |

Practice makes perfect – lessons from a mentor

November 4, 2014 / / 15 Comments

“Ma’am, TTV wants Srikrishna.”

I was in ninth grade, when a tenth grader appeared in my class, asking for me. TTV – Mr. TT Varadakutti – was my math teacher – a slim, small made man, with a distinctive red mark on his forehead. He was one of the teachers who both excited us and gave rise to dread when he called upon us in class or outside. Why was he calling me?

I walk over to the 10th grade classroom and enter tentatively. I pointedly avoided meeting the 30 odd pairs of eyes that are staring balefully – so I imagined – at me.

“Sir, you called?” I address TTV who’s busy writing something on the board. “Ah, there you are Srikrishna, tell me what’s ….” and he shoots three or four questions at me. For a moment, I’m flummoxed and then begin to answer him. I was so focused on his rapid fire questions that I lost sight of where I was and what else was happening. Then he drops the bombshell. Turning to the 10th graders, he says “Aren’t you ashamed that you guys can’t answer questions that a ninth grader can? ”

I beat a hasty retreat, without meeting the eyes of any of the tenth graders and tried to stay out of the playground the next couple of days!

Practice makes perfect While TTV didn’t usually pull us out of class to snub our seniors, he constantly challenged us and expected us to push ourselves. He’d expect us to be able to work out problems on the fly and in our heads, under pressure. His constant refrain was to practice, practice, practice. And he didn’t leave it to chance, he made us work on enormous number of problems.

Make learning fun When teaching us commutative law (or any other basic principles or axioms) he’d first write it on the board.

a + (b+c) = (a+b)+c

Then he’d read it out “A plus (pause) (superfast) b+c (pause) equals (superfast) a+b (pause) plus c – the first time he did this we wondered if something had happened to him. However, over the several months (and years) he taught us, he trained us adequately to be able to transcribe any problem he dictated correctly without his having to write it on the board. It also made it immensely fun. In the bargain, what seemed like a silly or contrived game – became thoroughly absorbing. We also developed great respect for brackets and parenthesis early 🙂

Expect the best from yourself and others As my little trial by fire in front of the 10th graders showed, I was likely the most surprised by being able to answer his questions. Starting with his evident passion for the subject, his high expectations from his students and his willingness to work hard with us, he never lowered the bar. Years later when I took Engineering math in graduate school or the IIT entrance exams right after school, his lessons stood me in good stead.

Thank you TTV sir. 35 years on, since graduating from your class, I continue to not only value, but use, the lessons you taught me. I’m grateful for having had you in my life and all that you’ve taught me.

This is the second entry in my 30 days of gratitude series.

The Secret to Preventing Email Wars at Your Startup

August 1, 2014 / / 0 Comments

ConflictWhether a startup or a large corporation, email has become just a fact of our work lives, it’s hard to imagine a time when it wasn’t so. Email useful as it is, however seems to create as many problems as it addresses. Beyond the chain letters and phishing emails or spam, flame wars conducted over email is probably the biggest cause of productivity loss, in both large and small companies.

Most back-and-forth email stinkers or flame wars are preventable and many times seem downright silly or petty. Yet they seem to pop up all over the place with near-despairing regularity. Flame wars, particularly between colleagues, is a huge emotional sink, sapping productivity and motivation. This is even truer when the parties involved are in the same office. It is to overcome these that we’ve formulated a simple rule – yep 1 single rule to prevent email flame wars.

The No 3rd email rule Simply put this rule states, if one person has sent an email (#1) and a second person has responded (#2) and it’s clear that they are not agreeing, or not happy – there should be no 3rd email sent. Instead the two parties should talk in person (sometimes this only requires swivelling in one’s chair) or pick up the phone, if not in the same office.

Think about it – most email flaming starts due to one of two reasons:

  • public questioning, accusation or challenge (real or perceived) by usually the sender
  • outright misunderstanding by one party (usually the reader)

In the former case, the recipient responds either defensively, or attacks the sender, as they perceive themselves or their work being undermined or attacked. This may or may not have been the intent of the sender. In the latter, regardless of the sender’s intent, the recipient misunderstands either what is being said or why it is being said (or at times to whom it is being said or copied to) and leads to misunderstanding and grief.

Regardless of who started it, their intent and what was being actually said, the No 3rd email rule works excellently by stopping the electronic conversation, which would at this stage usually deteriorate into accusations, counter accusations and fingerpointing. The beauty of this rule is it is independent of who wields the organizational power between the sender and the recipient and nips the blooming potential conflict in the proverbial bud.

Like all good rules, it’s simple to state and understand, a little bit harder to practice. We are still working on it. What are you waiting for?

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 K Srikrishna

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑