How to become a Great Communicator

These are excerpts from a Fred Pryor seminar called 'How to become a Great Communicator'.

When communicating face to face:
Body language makes up 55% of communication
Tone of voice - 38%
Words - 7%

For those who are virtual or using the phone:
Tone of voice makes up 80% of communication
Words - 20%

KEY POINTS

1. There are four main behavioral styles -- Relator, Socializer, Thinker, and Director. Relators and Socializers are open, while Thinkers and Directors are self-contained. Thinkers and Relators are slow-paced, and Directors and Socializers are fast-paced. When relating with a person from a different behavioral style, it is important to mirror their style. By developing the weaker parts of your own personality, you will gain flexibility in relating to colleagues and family members.

2. When dealing with difficult people or situations, it is important to assess the situation and view it objectively. Do the benefits of change outweigh the costs of putting up with the current situation? If you decide to make a change, formulate a plan before you approach the other person. Be prepared to be flexible and to ask for their feedback in designing solutions.

3. Whenever you meet someone new, you have one to four minutes in which to make a positive first impression. There are four main things to think about - your physical appearance, your voice quality, the topics you talk about, and how well you listen. It is also important to give a confident handshake, keeping direct eye contact.

4. In working a room, do not be afraid of small talk. Approach a group of three or more people, nodding as you approach to signal that you would like to be included. Try to circulate to several groups of people, rather than staying with one group for the whole event. Ask people about their favorite subject - themselves!

5. Negotiation skills are critical in almost everything we do. We negotiate with managers for better deadlines or better projects. We negotiate with family members about household chores or using the computer. The qualities of a successful negotiator include self-confidence, the willingness to ask for what you want, a win-win attitude, and willingness to practice.

Interviews again.. but this time with a difference

I believe I can set a Guiness record for attending the maximum number of interviews without accepting any of the job offers.

TCS, Capgemini, Amdocs, Mastek, Hexaware, HSBC, EDS, I-Flex.. the list is too long.

Everytime I thought of preparing for the interview(which didn't happen a lot by the way...) I would scrounge around for interview questions wasting more time on searching question rather than preparing.

The irony is, If I do a search on my PC for any topic related to mainframes I'll get dozens of documents. But some of these have repeated questions and some are plain useless.

So this time, I decided I would put on all the useful material on a site in a manner which makes this information easily accessible.

Thus began the creation of my Googlepages.

http://onkar.s.mann.googlepages.com

The work is still going on and I hope from now on there will be no effort wasted on searching for the questions.

Myth # 2 : The IT industry employs only Techies!

This post is totally written on the spur of the moment.

I had started writing this series about the myths floating around about the IT industry but never got beyond the first post.

Now, those familiar with the industry would read the heading and say 'That's so obvious'! I would've done the same till I met a guy called Puran on my way back home during the vacation.

I don't know much about Puran coz as it turned out, I was the one speaking at length about my work, my company, my industry.. blah blah and gave the poor guy a headache!! :)

Turning to the subject of the post... IT companies employ lots of people with different skills. Basically, it's like any other company which is out to sell... it has to have

1. People who make/provide the product/service.

2. The support function for these people... HR, Admin etc.

3. Sales and Marketing teams.

4. Project Managers and Business Analysts(usually MBAs but not always).

5. And companies who venture into the product sphere would need specialists from the field which the product will target. For example, if you want to create a software for maintaining the apparatus at an oil rig, then you need people who have worked on an oil rig and familiar with what the product would need to achieve to become successful.

This has been a short post but hopefully it serves the purpose that it was meant for i.e, every person from IT industry is not a Techie!!!

Cheers Puran!!! ;)

Syntel's Campus drive at Oriental Institute, Bhopal

This one took place before the Campus at RCET Bhilai but I wasn't regular at blogging at that time.

Anyway, it merits a post as this was my first outstation(apart from Pune which was really just another local trip) campus drive.

The journey was nothing out of the ordinary but Abhishek(Gupta) and I were surprised on two occassions:
1. The domestic terminal in mumbai, which both of us were visiting for the first time after it was renovated, is much better than the international terminal.
2. and, there were so many people travelling to Bhopal by air :)

By the time we reached Bhopal it was quite dark, two students and the placement officer had come to receive us. The ride to the hotel was quite enjoyable. Abhishek quite enjoyed the XXL feel of the Tata Safari DICOR and immediately struck a conversation about the merits and demerits of Safari and whether it is worth buying. Manish(Raibhandare) and Anil(Kaul) were enjoying the feel of Ford Fiesta in the meanwhile, which wasn't bad as we later found out but feels cramped when you pit it against the Safari.

After a brief rest, we were taken to the outskirts of bhopal to a club/resort for dinner. All this while, we couldn't miss the fact that the roads in bhopal were much better than in any average city. Probably being the capital has it's advantages after all.

The morning after saw the arrival of Rajesh Patil to join the interview panel. Instead of reporting at 9 o'clock we reached the college at 10 or so and saw the college gate blocked by a restless student who was not being allowed to sit for the written test as he(and his college-mates) hadn't brought their admit cards. It took some effort from the security guards and student volunteers to get him out of our way.

Everyone was well-prepared and there was no trouble in getting the test done with well over 2000 students appearing for it. In fact we were told that a few days ago the Satyam Campus had seen over 9000 students appearing.

The participation of students was a welcome change. Everywhere else, I've seen the faculty and the management running the show but here it was different story. Even the arrangement for food was in the charge of a bunch of students.... and well, the food was great!!!

The test results were not so great though, barely a 100 students cleared the written test and after a lot of pondering we decided to interview 130 students.

The interviews were a nightmare. Apart from one female who was from MCA, none were comfortable with programming. And I'm talkng about programs like checking if a number is prime and generating some odd/even numbers.

In the end, only about 45 students made it through and the happiness(or was it relief that we saw) was evident on the faces of the selected students.

Syntel was the 9th company to come for campus round and it was more than visible in the quality of students that appeared for the interview.

When we were leaving we got to know that Infosys was to conduct their campus the next day and I could feel nothing but pity for the interviewers.

There was a cake cutting ceremony by the students and they made the conference room reverberate with their cheers and claps.

Unfortunately, there was no time to enjoy as our flight was at 8 in the evening and it was already 6 o'clock. We were rushed to the airport, though we did stop at a sweets shop(where the cars were nearly confiscated for being parked in a no-parking zone).

The return flight was the first time I flew and ATR aircraft. Nothing apeared different apart from the constant whirrring sound of the propellers that I could hear. After another uneventful flight we were back to the hustle and bustle of Mumbai ready for another day in office.