Screw Those Long Hours!

Have to thank one of my colleagues for sending me this. Wish I could send it to my bosses on behalf of all those non-shift dudes and dudettes who seem to always work 12-hour day shifts every weekday. You think you're being productive? THINK AGAIN!

Why We Should Go Home On Time.....

Mr. Narayana Murthy is undoubtedly one of the most famous persons from Karnataka. He is known not just for building the biggest IT Empire in India but also for his simplicity. Almost every important dignitary visits InfoSys campus. He delivered an interesting speech during an employee session with another IT company in India. He is incidentally, one of the top 50 influential people of Asia according to an Asiaweek publication and also the new IT Advisor to the Thailand Prime Minister.

Extract of Mr. Narayana Murthy's Speech during Mentor Session:

I know people who work 12 hours a day, six days a week, or more. Some people do so because of a work emergency where the long hours are only temporary. Other people I know have put in these hours for years. I do not know if they are working all these hours, but I do know they are in the office this long. Others put in long office hours because they are addicted to the workplace.

Whatever the reason for putting in overtime, working long hours over the long term is harmful to the person and to the organization. There are things managers can do to change this for everyone's benefit. Being in the office long hours, over long periods of time, makes way for potential errors.

My colleagues who are in the office long hours frequently make mistakes caused by fatigue. Correcting these mistakes requires their time as well as the time and energy of others. I have seen people work Tuesday through Friday to correct mistakes made after 5 PM on Monday.

Another problem is that people who are in the office long hours are not pleasant company. They often complain about other people (who are not working as hard); they are irritable, or cranky, or even angry. Other people avoid them. Such behaviour poses problems, where work goes much better when people work together instead of avoiding one another.

As Managers, there are things we can do to help people leave the office. First and foremost is to set the example and go home ourselves. I work with a manager who chides people for working long hours. His words quickly lose their meaning when he sends these chiding group e-mails with a time-stamp of 2 AM, Sunday.

Second is to encourage people to put some balance in their lives. For instance, here is a guideline I find helpful:
1) Wake up, eat a good breakfast, and go to work.
2) Work hard and smart for eight or nine hours.
3) Go home.
4) Read the books/comics, watch a funny movie, dig in the dirt, play with your kids, etc.
5) Eat well and sleep well. This is called recreating.

Doing steps 1, 3, 4, and 5 enable step 2. Working regular hours and recreating daily are simple concepts. They are hard for some of us because that requires 'personal change'. They are possible since we all have the power to choose to do them.

In considering the issue of overtime, I am reminded of my oldest son. When he was a toddler, if people were visiting the apartment, he would not fall asleep no matter how long the visit was, and no matter what time of day it was. He would fight off sleep until the visitors left. It was as if he was afraid that he would miss some thing. Once our visitors' left, he would go to sleep. By this time, however, he was over-tired and would scream through half the night with nightmares. He, my wife, and I, all paid the price for his fear of missing out.

Perhaps some people put in such long hours because they do not want to miss anything when they leave the office. The trouble with this is that events will never stop happening. That is life! Things happen 24 hours a day. Allowing for little rest is not ultimately practical. So, take a nap. Things will happen while you are asleep, but you will have the energy to catch up when you wake. Hence,

"LOVE YOUR JOB, BUT NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN THE COMPANY STOPS LOVING YOU" - Narayana Murthy -

Integrity versus Honour

As it so often does, writing the previous post prompted me to think about other aspects of integrity. By and large, when I was writing the previous post, I must have at some point confused the concept of integrity with the concept of honour. Then again, I never really did think about the difference until I wrote that last post. Ahem . Anyway, really thinking about it made me realise that, to me at least, there is a difference between integrity and honour.

Growing up on a steady diet of novels about King Arthur's court, old HKTVB's wuxia drama serials and movies like Star Wars taught me a lot about what it means to be an honourable person. Under no circumstances do you betray a person you care about, or a cause you deeply believe in, or break a promise. In the age-old formula of good versus bad, the good guys are always ready to make a last stand for what they believe in, or for someone they love, while the bad guys will always backstab their comrades or turn tail and run. To be honourable was also to fulfil one's duty, no matter how onerous, to remain loyal and to stand firm for the group. Most times, to be honourable was to reflect integrity of spirit and personality.

As I grew a little older, and my morals (what ever little I currently have...) began to take shape, I began to learn also about integrity. To me, integrity was to stay true to one's principles, and to maintain a clear conscience. To have integrity in effect is to have honour to oneself, to be loyal and not betray one's conscience. Sounds very high-sounding, but we all do it everyday. We make choices based on one's principles, and when we have to compromise, we do not feel good inside. The extent and frequency with which we are willing to betray our principles (and yes, most of us do betray our principles at least a couple of times a day) is the inverse of the level of our integrity.

Integrity and honour therefore, while extremely inter-related, must be viewed as two separate and distinct entities. And most of the time, while the two go hand in hand, there are occasions where satisfying the one involves sacrificing the other. I was reminded again of this just recently, when I was called upon to explain the actions of one of my subordinates. He wasn't in the wrong. He did what was usually accepted at my workplace. But recently our upper management has been clamping down on certain internal practices which may reflect dirty spots instead of a pristine white, and therefore I was called to task to explain his actions. And in order to explain his actions, it necessitated me to shoulder part of the blame, although it was a) none of my business because the instruction to do what he did never came from me, and b) whatever he did was originally long accepted and never questioned before.

While my sense of integrity (what's left of it anyway) rebelled at what I needed to do, I knew the choice for me was clear. I had to take care of my man. And so I cooked up some cock-and-bull story about the current circumstances necessitating his actions and that I gave him the go-ahead. Throughout the entire explanation, bile was rising up my throat, and I really didn't like myself for what I was doing. But I was also imagining the look my subordinate would have given me should I not lift a finger in his defence.

I learnt something fundamental about myself that day. If I had to make a choice between integrity and honour, I would in all likelihood choose honour, unless of course I feel that whoever or whatever I'm defending deserved what they're getting. If there was ever a gray area, I would stand beside honour over integrity anytime.

Let's just hope the times when I have to make such choices are few and far between...