Skip to main content

Corporate Talk

Recently, I had the opportunity to be part of an interview selection process for a scholarship, in which I was grouped together with a bunch of other scholarship applicants and the group was given a topic to work. At the same time, a couple of the the HR people closely watched us with a rather big scoresheet in their hands, attempting to evaluate the performance of every member in the team, picking out each person's strength and weakness.

And the subsequent discussion went pretty much as I expected. Everyone wanted to make their voice heard and ideas and opinions were thrown from all directions. And some of the ideas were undoubtedly brilliant, but some were not and when they were followed up with a one minute justification, it was a pure waste of limited time.

The biggest problem though was that this form of disorganised brainstorming lacked focus on the end goal and went on till somebody said '5 minutes left'. I realised that people tended to forget that quite a bit of time was needed to connect the ideas together and make sure it made a coherent presentation. This tended to be usually done at the very last minute, which negated some of the great ideas that were brought up.

I guess this is a direct consequence of the pressure cooker in which the participants find themselves in, when people talk faster than they think, when people talk for the sake of talking. Not a desirable culture but one well suited to our deadline world.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Journey to the West : Mind Your Language

"Lettuce, tomatoes, onions and spinach", I pointed out to the lady wearing the apron behind the counter. She looked at me questioningly. "LET-USE, TOE-MAT-OH, OH-NION, SPEA-NATCH", I repeated with better enunciation. She looked back down at the the multiple compartments of colourful mix of vegetables, leaves and fruits and methodically grabbed some from each, while repeating the names of the ones she grabbed. "Let-us, Toe-mado, Ah-nion, Spee-Nuch", she clarified. I shrank a bit in embarrassment. With every passing day in the country, my belief that the English education that I received in a former British Colony, that set high and rarely achieved standards in English for its students, was of substandard quality, strengthens. In a well intentioned effort to assimilate, I have over the past couple of months tried to mimic the pronunciation of the Texans. "Howz'it goin man?" "Ye'no"   "Can I ha...

An Eye for an Eye

"Something that three or four years ago you told me was one of the touchstones of maturity: being nice to people even when they’re not nice to you…" - William Styron It was an plan that came out of nowhere. Perhaps half depressed by the winter and half depressed by the inactivity at work, there was sufficient turmoil in the mind to create these type of plans and then let it fester, until something that started off with a what-if turned into a why-not. It would have been the perfect revenge for the past hurt and humiliation that was yet to completely heal.  The circumstances were similar. On one side, an eager visitor who had traveled far to say "Hello" and on the other side, a host, bewildered and surprised by this visit. In the first case, the host would not receive the visitor, who would turn back humiliated and vowing never again. Now the roles were reversed and I was the host. What if I agreed to receive? What if in reality I did not plan to receive? ...

Another Day at the Office

"I am sorry, but are you good at IT?", she inquired with the most apologetic of expression. I gave her an incredulous look. Seriously? This was the second time I was being asked that question in one month and I took offense. It was almost as if the world judged that the only reason my race would be allowed to venture overseas was to fix other people's computers. "No. I am a production engineer", I replied, half wondering if I should clarify it had nothing to do with human production, which my people are also well known for. "Oh. That is a pity. Our printer broke down and we were wondering how to fix it", she said pointing to a piece of contraption that lay on the table nearby. Men being men, I offered to help. On walking over and looking into the inside of the contraption, I saw what most millennials see if they were to ever see the inside of the multiple devices they are perpetually holding onto; abyss. I doubted she would give me a discount f...