Its always fun watching Rahul Dravid speak, brings back childhood memories of watching Test cricket just to see his innings, even when everyone else started cribbing about how boring the match becomes when he comes!
In this nice chat with Vikram Sathaye on What the Duck, Rahul talks about his friendship with players, particularly that with VVS Laxman. He said that since they used to be on the slips most of the time, they would chat about non-cricket stuff too, like the plumbing, electric switches in their new houses that they both were incidentally building around the same time. Rahul was quick to add that this was only done in between balls and as soon as the bowler would start running, they would be back concentrating on taking the catch.
He had to say that.
Someone with the record of most catches in Test cricket, had to clarify that the non-cricket talk did not disturb his concentration.
Else, someone would have accused either Laxman or him of callousness, of not being serious players on the fields- how could they talk anything but cricket when they are out there playing!
Doing things to justify or project oneself as a great performer is a common phenomenon in the corporate world.
People tend to stay back extra hours at work, not like to be seen chatting too much, are always glued to their laptop screens, drink their tea/coffee on their workstation only, finish lunch in flat 20 mins, and the list goes on.
Bosses, on the other hand, keep an eye on who is visiting coffee machine at what time, who is showing more teeth than necessary, whose appetite is not fulfilled even after a 45 mins of conversation filled lunch, who packs up exactly at the closing time and sometimes even who takes how much time during a loo break!
During team meetings, in his subtle but obnoxious manner, this boss would let “his” people know that he has a diary where he is noting who is whiling away more time than necessary. It’s really a marvel when such boss give a feedback to his team member during appraisal, that you need to be more social and visible in the office.
To avoid being someone who doesn’t value the office time, employees pretend, don’t make friends, build their boundaries (read silos) and mark a CC to their boss every time they are “taking someone’s case”.
Such attitudes are formed early in one’s career. So, if you have had a genuinely nice boss in your initial few years, who only cared about your work and not what you do with your stipulated time, then you would have continued being like that even in your subsequent roles/jobs and most likely, would turn out to be a similar boss. But the problem comes when someone like you gets a boss like the one above. Imagine if Dravid and Laxman had a captain in the wicket-keeper who would keep a track of their non-cricket talks and then at the end of the day reprimand them for talking personal things at work! Your guess is as good as mine, as to what would they be more worried about- how they are being perceived, or how to perform?
We had a very favorite question during our commerce classes and later in MBA- Is Management a science or an art? I would always get reminded of this question, whenever I faced bosses in my career who believed in a particular way of behaving/working and expected the team members to clone him. Despite reading or learning about management, the art of managing people, giving them wings to fly and shaping their future is still such a rare skill in most of the bosses today.
There is no easy solution or end to this. While corporates are cognizant of this fact and invest money & time in developing managers to develop better leadership skills in them, the rate at which the bad bosses grow is much more than the good ones, and that is the sad reality.
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