Skip to main content

Good job, great job, great work and all that

 Worked with a bunch of talented technologists over the last few days. And gave them an exercise "Appreciate an intern"

The majority of the responses were along the lines of "great job, good job". Some of them were "good job, great job" with a disclaimer. Some found it difficult to appreciate (is there any reason to appreciate?).

Fairly common - I have written about this in my book as well - but what is funny is that they are saying this because they have received appreciation in much the same way. 

So, we worked from there and asked - what is wrong with this? And they all got it right. 

What is the purpose of appreciation - and they got that right as well. 

If you know that this sort of vague appreciation is not helping the team, why are you not doing it the right way?

And. how are you appreciating your team?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The power of jotting down ideas

 Long long ago, I always used to carry a small letterpad with me. To jot down ideas that might occur. Over the years, it has changed from a notepad to evernote to google keep, but the power of jotting down ideas is immense.  Small ideas go into keep.  Anything to be quickly typed goes into whatsapp as a self message.  Bigger or better formed ideas go into Google docs A few are still written, but I manage to copy them into a digital format sooner rather than later.  But the power of jotting down is immense. My google keep is an encyclopedia of ideas - most of which may never get implemented. 

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...

No conferences

Decided not to attend any conferences this year. Atleast not the typical ones I have often ranted about here. Will be both choosy and intentional about which ones to attend.  The ones to attend are the ones put up by practitioners of a craft. The rest is marketing one way or other.