Sweet Spot

Few days back I had a technical discussion with my developer and the client on one of the critical projects that I am working for currently. My developer (hereafter referred to as ‘SA’) is a very sincere person who always aims for quality deliverable and also puts the best effort to meet deadlines. My client is a very systematic person who works in early bird schedule. So a technical discussion in the night is obviously an irritating thing for him. Unfortunately the discussion exceeded the scheduled time and SA was not convinced with the discussion. The more he was trying to clarify, the client was becoming impatient. Unexpectedly the discussion was not very fruitful.

I spoke to my SA immediately after the call and explained to him that it was right to focus on the client’s needs rather than giving a best solution for long term when the client is ready to rework after a while. I understood SA’s intentions that he wants to give a best solution rather than thinking short term solution.

A few days back I had another discussion with my supervisor. We were talking about different resources who report to me. He commented about SA that it was very tough to work with him and there were few people who haven’t preferred to work with this person. Hence he was trying to find out if I faced a similar situation. I said my relationship with my team is absolutely fine and I am satisfied with SA’s work too.

The point that my supervisor conveyed to me was, sometimes people become unhappy when the person works beyond what is expected. It was the same problem with SA. He worked so passionately that he doesn’t deliver until he is satisfied with the quality.
I said that was the quality that I was very impressed about SA and I am fine with that.

This lead to a discussion on one of the articles my CEO had written about ‘Sweet Spot’.

Here is a Venn diagram that shows the sweet spot:

The highlighted region is the sweet spot.
A- refers to company
B- refers to Personal Interests of an employee
C- refers to employee’s strengths

Sweet spot is defined as a region which helps an individual grow along with the organization's growth. A person has to have the caliber to do something; the one that interests him and is expected by the company showcases him as a talented person.

Having strengths but no interest; having interest but struggling to do a task; having interest and strengths but doesn’t meet the company’s needs are 3 combinations that make a person unsuccessful.

In the case of SA, he has high caliber and interest but most of the times doesn’t meet the expectation set by the company/client, rather exceeds them resulting in dissatisfaction.

I defended SA because I have never let down any of those who have worked with me so far. I know the fact about sweet spot but did not completely agree with my supervisor because I have been in similar situations before.

This discussion reminded me of 2 incidents in my life.

Incident 1:I had a very tough time before I found my best first job. I applied for a job position for one of the telecom giants based out of madras. There were 8000 candidates who had applied for the same job position. After having attended many interviews and knowing the time that it was a recession, I had very less expectations when I went to the aptitude test. I did my best and was very happy to know that I cleared the test. I then had a technical assessment which covered almost all the areas of engineering concepts. I was delighted to hear the results that I passed the test. Immediately there were 2 technical discussions on the same day. I was little bit nervous but slowly my expectations and confidence were building very fast. Both the interviews went on very well and I was waiting to hear the results again. Imagine the mental state of a person who had to hold the breath several times on the same day. I was informed that I cleared the interviews as well.

From the 8000 that appeared for the selection process, only 42 were selected after the technical discussions. After a weeks time, there was a HR interview and I got to know from sources that they were going to select only 35 of us. My interview went on well. I was very sure that I would be selected. But to my dismay I was told that I was one among the 7 who were rejected. Also the HR added to the point that those who were rejected don’t mean that they are not capable but their strengths does not fit in the company’s expectations J

Oh what a diplomatic way of conveying! Isn’t it? But that moment was very hard to digest and I was dejected. It took me at least a week’s time to think about the next step. But that was when I realized that there is going to be some other time in my life when my strengths would be recognized by someone else.

My thinking was true. I continued to put in my effort and was offered 2 jobs from leading companies at the same time.

Incident 2: There was a time when I used to work for a very critical project in my company. We had very odd working hours. Some of us used to work crazily and hardly had time to sleep. My superior was a person who was never satisfied with the work delivered. He was always a person who pointed out the scope for improvement. Sometimes when there was a delay in best of intentions to deliver quality product, it was often mistook as deliberate delay to let my superior down. How disgusting!

Soon after that project was completed, I moved onto a different team. Surprisingly for the same amount of effort that I had put earlier, I was appreciated at least once in a day. How funny life was!

My grandpa thought me a very important lesson to me. Tough times in a person’s life are inevitable. One has to suffer and get through those times. But when one continues to do good they will be rewarded the best during one’s best times…..wondering why? Its for the best deeds accumulated.

The lesson that life thought me many times was continued effort, good thought and good work will be appreciated one day or the other and I firmly believe it till day.

I also believe this holds good for many situations and relationships in our life.

So coming back to the original point, I planned to send appreciations for SA because one of the tasks that he had worked was highly appreciated by the client.