People-Teams-Presentation-Feedback

This is my first post after joining Schlumberger.  I attended a two weeks training program that gave an overview about the Company, the Oil industry and some training on soft skills.  Schlumberger believes in improving the potential of the employees through continuous training and development.  I found this particular training lengthy and tiring after sitting for long hours listening to lectures.  I wished to get back to work soon.   Nonetheless, I had something to learn out of this training program and I tried my best to summarize the contents that I could remember in this post.

Being a software engineer, it didn’t make lot of sense to me to write programs without understanding the domain. We had a three day session conducted by an experienced geologist that gave us an overview of Oil Exploration and production.  It was an eye opener for me to get to know the different technologies that have been employed to obtain black gold from the earth’s belly.  I have little idea on how long these non-renewable resources could satisfy the energy needs of the world.  However, it is worthwhile to note that the current technological advancement and engineering feat achieved through collaborative efforts are pushing the decline of this oil industry and the energy crisis to the future.

People & Teams

Also, It was a wonderful experience to meet people from

• Diverse backgrounds – Software Engineers, Postdoctoral Research scientists, Field Engineers, Supply chain specialists
• Different Nationalities – Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Americans, Hispanic, French
• Different Levels of Experience – 0 to 2 years with the company

We were divided into three teams for most part of the training.  It was good to learn some team dynamics.  They mentioned that a successful TEAM (Together  Everyone Achieves More) has the following characteristics:

• Common Goals (and Vision)
• Leadership and clear roles
• Expertise
• 100% Participation
• Supportive Relationships
• Time

Working in a multi-disciplinary team for different case studies assigned during the training program, I noticed a few things:

• Most people were experts in their own area and they view the same problem given to everybody with a ‘filter’ based on their background.  We get to know the different dimensions of the same problem from different angles.  However, we must understand that people perceive things differently and nothing can be left for ’Assumptions’.  Always, we have to make sure that everybody is on the same page regarding a particular issue
• Some people talk way too much and some people rarely open their mouth during meetings.  A good team leader should make sure that everybody gets a chance to voice their opinion.  Final decision need not be that of a team leader but the one agreed upon by the team inline with the common goal
• Brainstorming sessions are essential to generate new ideas and all the ideas have to be captured somewhere, before picking the good ones
• People do not so much listen as wait for their time to talk – Evelyn Waugh.  When everybody in our team were talking at the same time, one of my team member threw a permanent marker on the table and asked everybody to stop.  He said, “Person who wish to speak, take the marker in hand and the rest of the team just listen”.  It made a huge difference in that atmosphere.  In conclusion, we need to Understand first and evaluate second.  They mentioned it as the E.A.R method (Explore, Acknowledge and Respond)
• We should have a well-defined problem to start with.  Considerable amount of time has to be spent in properly understanding the problem.  This is critical in identifying the root causes of the problem.  Once the root causes are identified a decisive plan has to be drafted to identify the priority of tasks for execution.
• People neglect Common sense at times and give more importance to tools & processes that they learnt during the course.  A good carpenter would be noticed only by his furniture work rather than by the size of his tool box.  It is to be emphasized that the process and tools are in place only to aid us rather than think for us
• Supportive relationships are essential in leading an ordinary team to exemplary performance, even though the team lacks some expertise
• Never put down other people’s thoughts as rubbish or start your conversation with a negative connotation.  People are more willing to listen to you, if you start something like “I appreciate your idea and have you thought about this….” and then present your idea.  Don’t have any BUTS, HOWEVER etc., as part of your sentence.  In my opinion, we could say something like “I have a suggestion to make and we could decide to take it or not later”.
• Time:
  • It is better to have a time-keeper in a meeting and a proper agenda to keep us on track.  Nevertheless, we need to be flexible with the agenda within that time period, so that we meet our objectives and arrive at some conclusions at the end of each phase
  • Every member in a team should have a space and time to think on his own before collaborating on ideas
• Going with the flow:
  • We have to learn at times when to make our point and when to keep quiet.  This is called the art of fighting without fighting
  • Not all your ideas would be appreciated, however brilliant they might be.  Therefore, we must not take anything personal
  • I purposefully started working alone on a particular case study, to see how the team responds in such a situation.  People immediately think that you are a spoil sport, neglect your ideas and suggestions.  In short, you will lose your presence in the team.

Presentation Skills

• Texans in general are slow speakers and majority of Indians (including me) speak fast.  Slowing down my speech indeed helped me to garner my thoughts, at the back of my mind before delivering it.  In addition, it helped the audience understand my thoughts better
• I was pointed out that I need to be improve on the cadence and that my tone is fine.  I realized later that it is essential otherwise people get bored with a monotonous voice
• Watch your ‘ahs, uhms’ during the presentation.  Indeed we had people who set records with the largest number of ‘ahs’
• Smoothen your transition from one speaker to another, rather than ending your speech abruptly
• Sometimes people worked their case studies with so much depth that they did not find enough time to practice their presentation.  Communicating our ideas is much more essential and it could be done better through practice
• Keep your audience in mind
  • Expand on the abbreviations and clarify the jargons
  • Avoid any jokes that could offend anyone in the audience
  • Engage the audience through interactive questions or thoughts
• Less is more.  Sometimes people get into too much details losing the forest for the trees
• Grab your audience attention before starting your speech and set the ground rules for the presentation (For instance, the questions will be taken at the end of the session)
• Stand up and present yourself, so that you would be the center of attention
• Take a deep breath in case you are nervous.  Confidence is the key to effective presentation
• Make a proper eye contact with your audience.  If you keep looking at one set of audience, the other people in the room feel neglected and lack attention
• Avoid unnecessary movements and hand gestures that could distract the audience
• When you screw up something, don’t get tensed and apologetic.  Keep moving
• Presentation slides:
  • Keep slides to the minimum and to the point
  • Never read through your slides.  Slides are there, to aid your presentation
  • Have a complete understanding of your material and don’t put anything on the slide that you could not explain
  • Keep your slides clean from distracting pictures and videos
  • Don’t show your back to the audience while presenting.  Look at the laptop in the front rather than romanticizing with the projected slides behind you
  • Slides should have appropriate font size so that the contents are legible from a far away distance
  • Choose your colors appropriately.  Nothing is worse than a dark blue letter on a black background

Giving Feedback

Most of the time in our lives we get negative feedback and we rarely ever spent time filling out customer surveys.  Anyhow, I learnt that feedback is very much essential in continous improvement of any system.  A feedback may be positive, negative, constructive but it must be “Specific“.  A good feeback should be delivered in a positive manner with appropriate timing.  Feedback must be

• Motivational - Tells a person what they have done well
• Formative - Tells a person how they could improve effectiveness

Always start with a motivational feedback and conclude with a formative feedback.   Avoid conjunctions like unfortunately, but, however etc.  Most people get defensive when receiving feedback particularly when you know that you have done something right that the person says wrong.  I did it once during the presentation.  However, they taught me to accept feedback graciously with a ‘thank you’ without denying it.  You can respond to their comments later.