To Say or Not To Say

The title may give you a perception that this might have something to do with concepts of communication; well it does have a link to that but let me come to that a little later. Let's go to the basic nature of communication, it's about sharing. But what I would really want to broach today is, what do we share?

For which, I would like to trace back to a situation I was in with my friend maybe in 9^th grade, we had just finished our quarterly exams and happened to discuss about how we wrote our papers and the topic came to what score were we expecting in the paper. My friend just stopped the topic and said ‘I would not like to share anything more as I feel saying it would have an effect on the score itself’. Truly, I didn't go further on that topic; what was even more surprising to me was I seemed to totally understand what he meant and felt the same way.

From then on I have been facing this phenomenon all my life, across groups of people that I have come across, friends, family, acquaintances, anybody, I see them having a similar perception about holding on to share about something that might be happening in their lives till the end of that instance. I can even safely say that almost 50% of those groups have displayed such a behavior as if it was a religious fervor in their lives.

My take is, in any occurring there are only 2 possible outcomes “I knew this would work” or “I knew it wouldn't work”. What’s interesting in both these outcomes is the common word is “knew”, indicating that the person knows the outcomes all along subconsciously.

However, there seems to be a better way of handling that knowledge at the end of the situation compared to the start of it. It's interesting to know how such a thought is ingrained in us somehow, that it may not happen the way it we intend it to, just because it’s been 'said', isn't it ;-)

So looking at similar scenarios in an office atmosphere, most of the time we do need to keep all the things informed as a process or a project does need information on a regular basis so we end up sharing that in the form or reviews and presentations. But, in a closed room when a similar question is posed by a colleague, peer or manager, we actually end up not telling them about what is really happening and would wait to tell them all about it after things are done and complete. Familiar? 

Out of sheer curiosity how do you explain this human nature? Let me know, and see how many such unsaid things you have at this time :-)

Tail ended War!

The scene was almost straight out of the most realistic war movie that I have seen, Saving Private Ryan, when Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) barely able to stand up, picks up his red coloured sea water filled helmet and slowly moves to a steel barricade and there suddenly the sounds in the scene dies down and what you can see is Tom Hanks rolling his view around the beach. There is a rain of bullets, bombs exploding and men screaming but he can’t hear a thing and then slowly the sounds come back where his team is asking him for the next command… (here is a feel of the scene)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaS1Jq_DPzs

I was in such a place, I couldn’t hear a thing, my hearing was numb in fear as I grasped the scene, my eyes rolled around looking at all the 4 fierce commanders who were standing in front of me, they were alone, frightened, focused, I could see the fierceness in their eyes. They were sure, they were ready, and their weapons were locked tight in their hands, armed and ready to kill.

My eyes glanced on them individually, the first commander was fearless, did not look like needed a sophisticated weapon to destroy but a blow would kill tens of them at once and maybe a stomp of the leg would raze an entire battalion. The second commander was the strategist, you could see the mind making a million scenarios of how the enemy might show up and how every designated path could be blocked and barricaded. The aim was to wait, corner and destroy. A brief moment I stared straight into the eye of the 2^nd commander and I could hear the breathing, sound of a 100 tonne steam engine. 

The third commander’s war cry itself could vanquish an entire army, and this commander happened to be the commander of all the others, the armed forced and the civilians (like me), who was giving precise information of the enemy’s movements for the others to do their part. The 4^th was the analyst, was overlooking the entire mission, was right behind all 3 of them, was the most experienced of them all and hence had the skills of all ready to unleash even if one fails.

The entire armed forces were in front of me and I was this citizen dragged into war. I couldn’t bare to see the holocaust that was about to happen. Also, selfishly didn’t want the energy and the power of such commanders to be used in a simple mission as this, a “seek and destroy”. The enemy was anyway cornered and only had to be lured for the final kill, I called in the SWAT and asked for one specific commando who was anyway a specialist in S&D missions. He came, he saw, he cornered, he hit, mission accomplished! The tail end of the enemy was in the hands of the commando.

Mission Status:

1 Kill – A mouse

Commando – Veeresh, building caretaker

Commander 1 – Mother in law

Commander 2 – Sister in law

Commander 3 – Wife

Commander 4 – Ajji

Weapons Locked and Loaded – 2 brooms, 2 slippers. 1 plastic broom called for, but unapproved

Weapon status – All unused ready for next mission