Brat #2's calling

Brat #2 will probably end up working for Hallmark cards. This is what she wrote (spelling error hers) in a thank you note to a classmate who bought her something at the school book fair:

Snowflakes fall with icy snow
Oh, winter with its coldest blow
Dazziling glows, brighter than snows
From friendship and love that no one knows

Sheryl Sandberg

My PhD (written many moons ago, and now collecting dust somewhere) is dedicated to the three men in my life: patidev, big brother, and dad (aside: poor mom, bless her kind soul, was brave and composed, but clearly shaken to be the only one in the family left out).

Wierd stuff that makes a team

My Austin team welcomed their manager back after his HQ trip with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGivk6Byc7E.

Big Company

I now work for a really big company. No, I work for a giant company. I had never worked for a big company before coming here, and a sort-of-mentor told me I would not survive a year here. I came anyway.

My thinking? I felt that every small company wants to grow into a bigger company, and the bigger company, into an even bigger company, and so on -- any my company (at the time) was going through some acute growing pains. Well, what better way to learn how to grow into a big company, than to work in one, and understand how it is run? I told myself that I would not give up in a year, and would stay till I learned what I was coming here to learn.

However, I digress. This is not a post about how big companies work. This is a post about how one navigates these oceans. Here are my top tips if you work for, or want to work for, a big company.

Brat Observations - Part 1

Brat #1 observes: You adults are funny. When we say we are full, and have a lot of food left, you say: "You will be hungry if you don't eat. Eat more". If we say we are full, and have only a little left, you say: "It  is just a couple of bites, why don't you finish it?" We can never figure you out.

School Reunion

I have a lot of college buddies I am in touch with. I even meet a few of them pretty often. While there are a couple high school buddies in the area, there isn't quorum enough for frequent encounters. We did a few local meetings a while back - the four of us. Then we had kids and careers, and life took over.

Last week, three friends from out of town flew, and one drove, and the rest of us met up with them. We all hung out together, remembered old days, talked about our current lives, and caught up. It was a such a treat!

We have all not changed much - but each seems to have grown a lot, and become very beautiful! Somehow, I never thought of us as beautiful in high school. Was it the lousy uniforms?

Our professions vary vastly from running a granite business, to entrepreneur, to housewife, to doctor. Our children are all different ages, from high school to elementary school. Yet, when we were together, we were the same old girls from 25 years ago. We fussed about our hair, drank like a fish, danced like a maniac, and gossiped till the morning.

Thank you girls for the lovely, lovely, time. Before life takes over one more time, let us plan our next get together.

Pick your battles

I recently met my friend, who told me how much he has changed over the last couple years. When I worked with him a few years ago, he was a great software architect, could see the bigger picture, and all that, and was someone I had high regard for.

He then took the plunge into management, and is a Sr. Manager now at a mid size company. He told me how much he had changed since we worked together, and how he is more comfortable with imperfections now. Not every decision needs to be right anymore.

What he said reminded me of what my dad would say to me when I was a fiery teenager: You have only 24 hours in a day. You always need to pick your battles. If you don't, you will lose them all.

Often, it is very hard for us trained as scientists and engineers to internalize this. Our brains are wired to think about correctness first. However, whether it is the software we sell (with all its known and unknown bugs), organizations we run, or business decisions we make, the key to success is to get things to be good enough so we can move on to the more important battle.

I now have even higher professional regard for my friend. He is now making another career shift. Good luck to him and wish him more transformations and learning!

Brat #2 meets my boy next door

Brat #2 has been feeling a bit left out. Conversations with Brat #1 have been whizzing past her, and she has been  pestering me to talk to her about the numbers that can be lines. I told her that she would have to wait for that. However, I would show her something else.

I asked her how many languages she knew.

"Five", she said with confidence. She really only knows English, barely knows Tamil, and claims to know Hindi, Spanish, and Chinese.

I said that I had counted all the languages she knew, and there were 6.

The sixth language, I told her, is Math. I showed her how an equation, is really a statement. Then, we took some random statements and wrote them in Math.

My name = Alice (My name is Alice)
My brats = 2 (I have two brats)
Brat 1 age > Brat 2 age (Brat 1 is older than Brat 2)
and so on...

She is pretty thrilled - less for having learned anything, more for having been the focus of my attention for a while.

Alice's 10 commandments

Here are some commandments I live by (and some I wish to live by :)

1. Treat strangers with caution, not suspicion.
2. A little hardship will strengthen me. A lot or none can kill me.
3. Contribute something tangible to the world.
4. Try to be there for those who will be there for me - my family, my neighbors, my friends, my colleagues.
5. Try to be there for those who need me even if they wont be there for me - the elderly, the sick, the poor.
6. Learn something more than I knew yesterday.
7. Learn to love patidev and the brats for who they are, not who I want them to be.
8. Take good care of myself - body and mind.
9. Count my blessings.
10. I don't need a 10th commandment.
    

Book Review: Leadership Agility

Once in a while, you read a book that you know would not have made sense a few years ago, but makes sense now. Whenever this happens, it always makes me feel good. It implies, I am living up to one of my commandments.

Leadership Agility is one such book. It is about sustainable leadership. It has changed the way I view success for myself. Thanks, Sandy, for recommending this book.