A Framework for Avoiding Embarrassment | Sourav Sachin | TEDxEmirates Hills
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDdl3Kb9Mts Video ID: rDdl3Kb9Mts ============================================================ the first thought that pierced my soul that night was how many of my loved ones have I killed the evening of November 4 2017 is forever etched in my memory I was in Ranchi visiting my family with the ever curious and hyperactive family that I'm born in it doesn't take time for a chai churcha like a casual conversation to convert into a plan excitement filled the air as we made a spontaneous plan to visit nather heart it was dark so with caution we proceeded on the drive I was on the driver's seat suddenly a sharp turn emerged catching me totally offu guard Brak screeched car weared off crashing into a tree doing full 720° roll and finally Landing into a 15 ft deep ditch unlike how they show in movies like these moments are spread out over a few seconds sometimes even minutes and it allows for some heroic acts to be performed in reality the entire double roll of the car happened in less than 500 milliseconds when I regain my Consciousness I was frantically looking around to see if there is you know any sign of Life anybody's moving speaking breathing anything and first thought that crossed my mind how many of my loved ones have I killed miraculously we emerged battered but alive moments later another part of my mind was trying to was trying to uh pull me into you weaker moments weaker moments where I was trying to disown the consequences of my action I found myself finding a fault of the misplaced tree of the sharpness of the turn of the missing reflector on the road of the missing GPS stand the rain everything that was outside of me thanks to my years of uh practice of accountability that it came to my rescue from a shortlived state of denial to pivotal moment of acceptance and growth hi I'm Sor of Sachin father of two an entrepreneur a coder and an eternal learner so and today I'm here to share those learnings and practices with you how about a quick poll to get started yeah how many of you have ever been embarrassed in life ever okay those who didn't raise their hands I can safely assume they're too embarrassed to raise their hands too yeah okay so uh next quick question is uh have you been in a situation where you asked for an update and you're totally caught unaware and the feeling is very mixed yeah feeling is very mixed like am I embarrassed or am I angry right how many well almost everyone right so ladies and gentlemen this if if you put the learnings of this talk into practices of your life you will say goodbye to embarrassment for a good part of you know situations that you handle now my father taught me about four stages of learning they are Shan Manan chintan and acharan so Shan means to hear Manan is to understand chintan is to contemplate and acharan is to practice is in this talk we'll go through the first two stages and for the third one which is to contemplate you have to apply you have to imagine how to apply the learnings of this stock into uh uh the past future and other imaginary situations and see how the handling gets easier so how many of you know this ship easy one yeah okay so this is my favorite example of ship in Troubled Water and we'll deal with with that now we know Titanic met the unfortunate fate so whom would you hold answerable that's a question would it be how about Jack and Rose yeah or maybe uh the ship manufacturer the captain or The God okay that was easy yeah okay so that's Captain so our term for this role we'll use the term accountable for it or simply put a Okay so so the person who's accountable all bucks stops at that person okay so now you cannot give any stories or excuses or blames you can only have you only have to give precise answers okay and uh have you ever seen a ship with two captains would it make the ship go twice as fast well it did make the ship go twice as fast but downwards right and the ship sank because every every Captain would think that the other would carry on with the job and that's what happened yeah okay so uh let's understand Captain's goals Captain's goals are to make sure that passengers are safe the sail is smooth and people reach on time at the same time the crew members they they're performing efficiently passengers are happy and overall The Voyage is memorable and fun that's the objective do you think the captain can do all this alone well no so Captain needs to delegate to other direct reportes and the direct reportes will further you know delegate different tasks to other reportis now this role we'll call responsible or simply put R so those are people who are helping Captain to make sure that all the uh functioning of Ship Happens smoothly now when you drill down R you start realizing that for different parts the simpler parts or smaller parts the different set of people who would then become accountable linking back to the previous uh role for example if the food is not served timely it's not the captain who's accountable anymore now it's the FNB in charge who will be accountable okay how many of you have heard of announcement either in real life or in movies that any doctor on board yeah sounds familiar let's try to deconstruct what would have happened that you know people were trying to figure out if there's any doctor on board so probably the crew member would have come across any health emergency with a passenger they were not able to control the situation so they may have escalated with the captain and the captain may have then you know recommended that let's figure out if we have a doctor on board what if there was no doctor on board they were probably contacted a doctor on the ground so what's happening here is that we trying to borrow expertise SK skills and experience of another individual to rescue a situation this role we'll call consulted or simply put C now it's very usual that people go and consult with their bosses okay let's try to understand this with a little bit deeper understanding and uh you know some nuanced aspects of it so when we are Consulting the boss are we really only utilizing bosses uh knowledge experience and expertise or are we quietly transferring the accountability well if things don't go well yeah if things go well of course all credit but if things don't go well it's not unusual to say to you know hear that people say that oh you told me this so I did it but please understand accountability is key to growth just like how explained my story about the accident where my rescue from those uh from the state of denial to the moments of acceptance and growth just like that when we take accountability we own our decisions our actions and the consequences thereof which is very critical so it's your opportunity to grow so don't let go of the accountability you should continue owning it so there are people who are not part of being accountable or responsible or uh consulted but they still Des deserve to know right if there something's happening to the ship they still deserve to know who would those people be what comes to your mind it would be certainly the crew the all the passengers then you would have uh other ships nearby right maybe coast guards maybe the CEO of the shipping line there are also some nonobvious players in this to give an example uh how about the entity which will suffer the biggest Financial loss if the ship kept sized which entity yes Insurance correct but it's hard to imagine that in a situation where you know you are totally surrounded uh you know in the thick of situation and uh the ship is pitching and rolling that you would be able to think of these non-optional players right so that's why the list of I people who are who have to be informed about uh you know how things are progressing that has to be prepared well in advance you should not uh uh get into a crisis and then think of the list because that list will never be complete okay so let's just sum up uh uh let's summarize here so now we have accountable we have responsible we have consulted and informed right these are four roles that we saw uh this is also called a rassi metrics okay now well why rassi why not RC that's because it just pronounce is easier and just like mbbs yeah so uh Mr James Robin son uh was the inventor of this whole framework uh he invented this in 1970 and I have utilized this at multiple places and uh got I mean received great results I really wish that every family you know teaches these systems and these Frameworks to every child so let me give you an example of uh another interesting topic which is closely linked uh it just plays out pretty well with this context so pardon me for being slightly stereotypical here let's just go with the flow so there's a uh there's a husband who is working on some office stuff and the wife is making smoothie okay and she asks that can you go and get ice cream for me I need ice cream brick so husband leaves the work goes gets the ice cream and the wife later on comes and Witnesses something she sees this oops how do you think she would have responded right probably this yeah now what went wrong here yeah what went wrong is that the definition of done was not very clear any party could have asked what was the definition of done what is what do we call the task to be completed so this is another very important concept that we need to know we call it DOD definition of done if she she had just mentioned that okay get the ice cream and put it in the fridge that would have been cool or if he would have asked that where do you want me to replace it that also could have been could have solved the problem so the definition of done keep that in mind that'll become handy in the next few moments can you imagine a situation where somebody may need to play multiple roles like somebody could be accountable at the same time could be consulted or somebody could be consulted and at the same time also be informed can you imagine you are visiting a doctor and or rather Consulting a doctor okay and uh you don't want want to inform the doctor about your symptoms would it be any meaningful conversation well no if you're Consulting someone means you're picking up on the Intelligence on the skills and expertise of that person so you cannot not inform that person you have to inform before you can consult similarly if somebody is responsible of course that person will utilize his or her own intelligence and skills and expertise so naturally if somebody's responsible they automatically get consulted and informed similarly somebody is accountable automatically becomes responsible consulted and informed so there's a sense of hierarchy that emerges here right which is uh accountable responsible consulted and informed in the in this order so because of this we can just assign one role and we know what that person is supposed to deliver let's jump to the uh to the part of practice now remember the fourth stage of learning so for practice now you don't need to know two things which are very important first what is the definition of done okay and second is who's the a who's accountable right and if it's you you better know it in advance now I'll show you a very easy way to organize uh your projects where you can distribute these roles and then have no such surprises because people would know that who have the who has the burden of follow-ups which is a so here's a chart which illustrates that on left hand side you have different tasks and on the top you have different people who would have different roles you'll see that a will be with only one person we discussed you cannot have two captains to a ship right so accountability has to be unshared so you'll have one and only one a in each row and you have to have one a you can even have a row which can have just one a but that's you have to have that because without that things will just get lost I want to tell you one more interesting example because this these princi principles are applicable in personal life as well in this example what happens is that there's a couple Amita and Mark and they have their mother they're expecting their mother to come and stay with them so Mark proposes that uh we will convert this spare room to a livable space and utilize that Amita likes likes the plan and then she says K yeah and for any Contracting job you should contact my friend who's into this business right now what happened is Mark painted the room and was waiting for the contractor to come and finish the two days worth of work and Amita was waiting for the contractor's work to finish before she could move in all the stuff that she bought the decor and the Furnishings that she bought both kept waiting because both thought the other would have contacted the contractor and would have finished now if you see the argument from both sides are legit Mark says that your friend was the contractor you should have contacted Amita says that you were the one who was who were in charge so you should have contacted and you you came up with this plan of converting this room so it's what it needed was just defining who is a so that we know that who has the burden of follow-ups think of it the knowledge that we uh understood in this session could it have helped imagine a sheet like this now we know clearly that who has the accountability you know so to make sure that who has the burden of followup that becomes very very clear okay so with this knowledge now I hope that the ship of our life will sail smoother and uh at the same time we'll have more happy moments because we don't realize but positive affirmations can uh you know improve our productivity can boost our productivity but at the same time The Hangover of embarrassment can actually adversely impact our productivity so I'll leave you with few lines uh from a very you know nice movie which is well it hasn't finished yet because I have the accountability to make sure all of you are informed about my message yeah so so for all those who are still left standing here's a translation so these moments urge let's live and Thrive let's take and give let's feel alive sorrow wants a traveler now release its hold let Sunshine flood our Courtyard bold let's live let's flourish let Joy unfold in every step we take in stories Untold thank you [Applause]