A middle aged obese couple takes a new year resolution that they will get to their normal BMI this year. Being well read and controlling sufficient wealth, they get to a doctor who specialises in treating obesity. The doctor recommends them a diet plan with quite a lot of restrictions and an exercise plan that requires a couple of hours every day which will be monitored by a trainer. If they begin the transformation journey and review month on month, the doctor says that within about 12-14 months they should be in the higher bounds of an acceptable weight for the height and gender.

A boring meal plan and long physical activity is not what they had in mind, so they set out to read more about this and stumble on forums where they zero in on two terms – Liposuction and Bariatric surgery, which does not need any meal or exercise plan. They go back to the doctor asking for these options, they are explained about the high risk of infection, tissue death and rebounds and advised to drop this idea. The couple with sizeable money in their pockets find another doctor who will do these procedures for them. A few months later one of them dies due to liposuction injuries not healing well and other dies of necrosis due to complications of bariatric surgery.

Irrespective of the transformation whether it is business or personal, the first thought I observe that comes to a decision maker is the shortcuts/canned stuff that are available. People visualise transformation to be a big one shot activity, which when done people can continue to operate with the old ways. In reality, transformation is nothing but a change in the ways of operating itself and it does not have an end as an activity, it goes on and needs more evolution to keep up with the dynamics.

For a company to digitally transform themselves, they need a strong team that can support their new digital part and alter the ways of working to support the organisation. If a team has been hired/contracted to deliver a product/project that will transform the company, it is the first step towards failure. Owning up a transformation is necessary as it changes the ways of working than upgrading the systems and tools. If it is not easy for the business to bring technology into the core of their business, then it is necessary to find a partnership that can help them with the transformation. Partnership is an overloaded word, where it is now used to refer to vendors and contractors; partnership has to be true partnership and should have skin in the game for the transformation.

There is no easy way out, every transformation comes with the pre-requisite that you can’t buy it off with money, you have to be involved from within and put the efforts to sustain.

Remote work which took the tech world by storm in 2020s is here to stay in some form even when return to office increases. Hybrid work mode is not going anywhere which will challenge our communication and collaboration styles. During the initial chaotic transition to remote work it was common for people to miss work due to poor connectivity and power outages. If hybrid or remote work is the norm then the excuse of connectivity and power outage should be limited to widespread outages, care should be taken to have electricity and data connectivity backup as well as quality of the connection.

IT workers will fall into two broad categories – Coding and non coding roles. Coding roles require deep thinking time and unbroken chunk of time, high quality connectivity is generally not an issue until an online meeting happens. Non coding roles on the other hand require a stable, high speed connection to ensure that they can always be on calls and have enough power backup.

What happens if not able to have stable internet once in a while or while I have to travel and be flexible to work? There is a not so well known option which a lot of veterans in the industry used to do before 3G connections. Use the stable phone call to connect to meetings, many frontline conference call softwares like zoom provide dial up numbers for many countries and will often be included as a free call in the plan and even if dialling is expensive there is a provision to get zoom to call the participant on their phone.

If we are committing to work remote, depending on the profile of work if synchronous time is required with others, then ability to come on calls is non negotiable. So ensure there is enough power backup for the routers, laptops and mobile phones. Subscribe to backup data plans just in case primary fails and understand to use all the options under the sun.

A restaurant manager gets bored of restaurant work and decides to be a facilities manager for a company in a small town in Japan, leaving a well known business and the country to newer experiences. The Japanese company always hosts a banquet for its executives on every Friday. Tempura is one of the delicacies ordered in large numbers along with other Japanese delicacies. The majority of the food is prepared before in the kitchen and served on the table except tempura and a few other dishes which is prepared in a live counter and left to self serve.

The manager observes at the end of the banquet that there is a shrimp tempura left, instinctively thinks about the cost because of recent shrimp shortages and how much do they have to pay for high quality ones. So the manager orders lesser number of tempuras to be prepared for the next dinner. Surprisingly one tempura remains and the cycle continues until tempura is removed from the menu.

This goes on for a few months with the other live counter dishes until the live counter itself is removed because of non usage. The cost savings when seen from an individual’s point of view was big. The proud feeling of being able to prove one’s ability to bring in efficiency was giving a high. At the end of the quarter, the facilities manager gets a notice period from the boss to leave the position as a lot of executives have complained about missing the live counter and poor quality of banquet experience.

No one told the manager anything, but what was progressing as a great cost savings plan ended up costing the job. Why did it happen that way? In the group of people who dined, they have a common agreement that it is rude to take the last piece in a buffet, how hungry you are or how tasty it is, it does not matter. For an outsider it looks like wastage, but for the diners it was part of their communication.

Another angle to this is, feedback does not come directly in many cultures. It will often be hidden or wrapped in euphemisms. In this story, one of the diners would have expressed that they need more tempuras but never picked the one on the plate thereby confusing an outsider with mixed messages. Cross cultural work which is a given for knowledge workers nowadays is full of these problems. One book that is helping me is ‘The Culture Map’. I keep rereading a few chapters before getting exposed to a new culture so that I can be well prepared to understand the style of working. It is not foolproof, but it helps you to be better prepared.