My two year old niece, Avantika, managed to teach me a couple of valuable management lessons amidst her goo-goo gaa-gaa gabble. So what if she calls me 'Shil-pa-pa'...cause she doesn't know when to stop the 'pa'...so what if she calls a tortoise a 'to-to-toise' cause she doesn't know how many damn 'to's are there in tortoise, she seems to know a thing or two about some very important inter-personal skills that we try and learn from these management courses at our firms!
In my opinion, managing a house maid and other such unskilled workers who work for you in a non-professional set up is much tougher than managing educated/skilled people in a professional environment. Keeping a maid motivated enough to come to work every single day and perform well continuously is not a petty task. The feedback system doesn't work most times....the way most maids react to feedback is by quitting!Paying above the market is not always a solution. Most of these people have very tough personal lives. Some of us, do a good job of making the maids working hours as pleasant as possible. But the way my niece handled the situation was so different...that it was almost eye opening! She met my maid for the 1st time a couple of days back and greeted her very pleasantly first thing in the morning. To her the maid was an aunty, just like I was. There was no differentiation. She called her 'anti' just like she addresses me..! The next day, the maid got an even warmer welcome. Avantika, was maybe a little shy to express all her love and affection for the new 'anti' so fell short of hugging the maid when she came in. But she ran around the house, declaring to everyone that 'anti' has arrived (probably expecting all of us to queue up in a line and greet and hug 'anti' etc). After that kind of a welcome and unabashed display of her affection, I doubt if the maid would be able to refuse any task that Avantika requests her to do for her!
When most adults are treating maids as if they are inferior, the kids' approach seemed so much like the right thing to do. Most kids are that way...they come in with a fresh perspective...with no preconceived notions, without these walls that we build while going around the sun. For the life of me, I can't remember, when or how I unlearnt all these things that I must have come in with! Worse still, I am not even sure, if I can learn these things again and effectively implement them! :(
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"Unlearn"... the keyword in all MBA classes ;-)
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