While driving to my office today morning, I saw avery common sight in Bangalore (and in any city in India). There were 3 trafficcops waiting at a busy T-junction.
Now imagine, you are in a hurry to reach your office(or wherever you are going). You see that the signal has changed form Green toYellow and you are right at the turn. You race to cross the signal before thesignal turns red.
Alas! The signal wins the race and just turns to Redat the instant you are taking the turn.
Bang! The waiting cops pounce on you and slap afine or maybe ask for a bribe (yes, this is also a form of corruption, whichwas largely ignored by the recent uprising of the Anna Hazare movement) to letyou go (which could very well be more than the official fine for the offence – btw,fine for jumping a traffic signal is 100INR).
Are these cops responsible for catching trafficviolators or to reduce traffic violation?
The way we define the responsibility could have a bigchange in their attitudes and actions.
If their responsibility was to reduce trafficviolations, they could find ways to ensure that we do not race with the lights.Instead of hiding behind the blind turn, they could wait just before the signalto ensure that no one gets a chance to violate the traffic signals. They couldthink of more ideas like the timer at each signal which indicates when the nextchange in the traffic signal is.
Let’s now think (I know it is becoming more and moredifficult now-a-days to do this but let’s give it a try)!
How many of us know of a manager who do exactly thesame – wait for us to commit a mistake and they are all over us reprimanding andtaking us to task.
Do you think it would be much better if these samemanagers could find time to coach us and help us wade through our work withoutcommitting some of the common mistakes and when we do make mistakes, instead ofreprimanding us, they could help us learn from the mistake and move on in life?
Life @ work would be so much more rewarding.
Now, what happens if the manager went one stepforward! In addition to the coaching, he waits for us to do something well andpounces on every such opportunity to praises us for the job/task well done.
Life @ work would be so engaging !!
So, lets start catching someone doing something right!!
Caught you – Reading this fantastic blog!!! Well Done!!! 😉
