Trip to Shani Shignapur Temple and Shirdi

Shani Shignapur Mandir:

Shirdi Sai Baba Mandir:

On the way: 

Good News

• Read about a maternity hospital in Pune which takes no money if a girl child is born. Medicare Hospital in Hadapsar, founded by Dr. Ganesh Rakh and all its staff including the gynecologist and nurses took a collective decision to waive off their charges if the newborn comes out to be female. It has been going on for a year now. It is gender discrimination with a difference. Certainly a very noble act... (DNA; Pune; 11-Jan-2013; page-4)

• Another such incident in Pune: At early morning (3:30 am), two burglars were stealing a safe with Rs 17 Lakhs from an office. While coming out they saw an approaching taxi, dropped the safe and fled. The driver Rajesh Rathod took the safe to his home. In the morning, he took the safe to the police station and reported the incident. Afterwards, the owner also reported the burglary at the police and was surprised to get the money back instantly. The driver works at a private cab service. (DNA, Pune, 8-Jan-2013; Page-3)

• Thank you HC for such a sensible and just decision. Religion can't be thrust upon a child: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/religion-cannot-be-thrust-upon-a-child-hc/article4178432.ece 

360-degree Evaluation Process

I think it is the need of the hour to bring 360 degree evaluation process at all good corporations. Without elements of 360-degree performance evaluation process there can’t be a best in class organization. Why not adopt it in full spirits?

Very often we find colleagues dissatisfied with the appraisal process. Often they feel they have a lot at stake just in the hands of one person – their boss. To make a fair evaluation process and to instill the confidence that each voice counts no matter what position in hierarchy, we should adopt 360 degree evaluation process where essentially reporting managers should also be rated by directly reporting colleagues.

I understand that there already is some effort done in this area. But if in the existing system a manager him/herself selects whom he/she wants to invite for providing the feedback about him/her, obviously one will choose one’s favorites for the same. It has become like give-and-take in many teams and it discourages others who are not in the favorites circle. People feel let down and “used” when they feel their efforts will never be recognized just because our temperament doesn’t match with boss’. Also, in case of serious complaints also no one goes to ombudsmen; people simply take release from project or leave the organization. Company needs to look at these grey areas and 360 degree feedback is perfect for these.

Last month I had got an invite for providing feedback about a senior colleague, on his leadership and team skills. I thought he had chosen me for that. He was not my boss. I had very good relationship with him so I provided very positive feedback. So I see all such surveys are biased inherently… It is not effective to the organization as a whole to get the correct picture…

I think the system should automatically make all direct reporting colleagues as eligible. Obviously many will not provide feedback because of lack of time. But those who will do, will be the right persons to provide such feedbacks.

Also, in case of L3/L2 support projects, we should have onsite team rating offshore team members and vice versa. And client should rate us too – though not directly but in form of we quoting appreciation emails and our bosses quoting complaint mails, if any.

I think Managers will not like this idea because of obvious reasons :) But company will gain immensely from it. I do not say this. The famous and much liked saying says it:

"People do not quit jobs; they quit their bosses!"

A manager’s position is very important. One manager with 20 people reporting to him/her can make life hell for all/any of those 20 people who in turn may resign from the company or may work with lots of dissatisfaction in their hearts. Such demotivated workers would be drain to all our efforts. One irony is that people seldom tell the real reason why quitting their jobs. Therefore the company will never be able to know exactly why lots of attrition is happening...

- Rahul

Note: Views are personal and do not represent views of any organization associated with the author. [Detailed disclaimer]

Page Views by OS and Browser

Blogger.com Stats tab looks amazing. It provides the blog owners with many statistics about their blog which helps them manage it and the audience well. But I could also notice two of the stats on display, which basically tells not about popularity of your blog but tells about the popularity of OS and browsers!

For example, here is the statistics and a pie chart showing what percentage of my audiences used which operating system:

 

So it appears that Windows is still the undisputed leader and will remain so for a long time to come…

Now, something about browsers:

 

Chrome is the leader here with 41% of audience using it to access my blog. Firefox is the second most used. IE has lost much ground but still has decent user base. Others are too small.

These stats may not be a fair global poll. Now there is also Stats for the places from which the audiences visited my blog: 

Most of my readers are from India. But there is sizeable presence also from the US and UK and some from Canada and Singapore. Now I was surprised about visitors from Lithuania. Frankly I had not heard about this country. I got to know that Lithuania is a member of EU. Its history dates back much into the past. Like India, it also shares a spell of colonial past. Soviet Union (USSR) and then Germany occupied it by turns. In the Wikipedia article the section of “Independence from” is much large. In 1990 it finally became an independent nation. Lithuania also has high human development index. So I realize that Blogger Stats are also to expose the blog owners about new things!

It feels good to go through overview of Blogger’s Stats section. I always learn something new from it!

- Rahul

Note: Views are personal and do not represent views of any organization associated with the author. [Detailed disclaimer]