As usual, it was one of those wonderful late evenings with the family and we were all glued to Barclays Premier League match between Manchester United and Liverpool. My wife served me a glass of lassi and after having the same, I requested my daughter to leave the empty glass in the kitchen sink, as I did not want to take my attention away from the match.

As I instructed my daughter, my wife listened to that and asked my daughter not to leave it in the sink, but just on the cooking table. She also told my daughter that, she may not be able to reach the bottom of the sink, so she may break the glass. My daughter went to the kitchen left the glass and came back to the living room and we continued watching the match.

Then, after sometime I heard the sound of glass being shattered, so, had to rush to the kitchen to see if everything was fine. As my daughter and I were going to the kitchen, my wife shouted at my daughter, ‘Did I not ask you to keep the glass on the table?’

In the next 5 minutes, things settled down to normalcy. But, when I was just analysing the situation, the only thing that came to my mind was ‘gold plating’. My wife assumed that my daughter kept the glass on the table, as she had been instructed and kept a big vessel with water in the sink and that had made the glass break. My daughter wanted to do a good job. As she knew that the glass should anyway be kept in the kitchen sink, she stretched a bit and did that, in spite of being asked not to do so.

Even though my daughter had stretched a bit and completed the task in the way it should be done, the customer (my wife) was not happy because my daughter did not do, what she was asked to do. So, my daughter, who was thinking that she should be appreciated for what she did, eventually ended up being scolded. Are you able to draw parallels to one or more of your customer experiences?

Gold plating is what we call it when the project team does work on the product to add features that the requirements didn’t call for, and that the stakeholder and customer didn’t ask for and don’t need. It’s called “gold plating” because of the tendency a lot of companies have to make a product more expensive by covering it in gold, without actually making any functional changes. (For example, there are plenty of watches and fountain pens you can buy from luxury companies that are identical to their cheaper versions, except that they’re covered in gold.) I shamelessly stole the above definition from Andrew Stellman’s blog.

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Venky is a delivery manager at MindTree Limited, having interests in team building, event management, employee engagement and training. An avid blogger too. “Riding the wave” best describes his approach towards life. Visit his website www.venkyb.com.

I noticed it, got down from my friend’s vehicle and moved my vehicle a little so it was no more a disturbance to others. There was another person who was trying to park and he saw me doing this and said “Thank you”, as he thought that it was someone else’s vehicle and I am trying to help him. I accepted the thanks and just thought about the whole incident.

Now in the mind of the person who was trying to park the vehicle, I would look like a good socially aware person, but at the same time my colleague would have felt how badly I had parked my vehicle, as he knew it was my vehicle. The same way, many times we build perception about another person with one incident and we carry the same impression about that person. In this incident it was fine that this person had a positive opinion about me, but there may be many situations in our life where we could have misjudged some people based on an incident and built our perception about the individual, based on that incident and would have taken a lot of decisions based on that, which might have been wrong.

Typically in our industry, which involves a lot of team work and relationship being the most important factor for the success of the team, these kind of perception building will lead to lot of trouble and ultimately lead to the failure of our project. So let’s give a thought before we create any perception about any individual, around us. Many times, what we see and what we hear may mislead us, so it is wise to get to the details.

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Venky is a delivery manager at MindTree Limited, having interests in team building, event management, employee engagement and training. An avid blogger too. “Riding the wave” best describes his approach towards life. Visit his website www.venkyb.com.

My parents left for our native place on Thursday and we went to the airport to see them off. In fact, my father, who retired from Indian Government service, had never traveled by air before, so I just took this opportunity to make his experience wonderful. In spite of being asked to book tickets by train, I got them tickets on Jet Airways.

The moment I handed over the tickets to him, he was surprised to see that I had booked them by air. The excitement was very apparent on his face, waiting for the time of travel. Just like a schoolboy, he was preparing himself on that day. We all went to the airport together, right from using the trolley for his luggage, the baggage check-in and asking for a window seat and waiting restlessly for the security check-in to happen. He was thoroughly enjoying himself and I, too, was overcome with joy watching him experience all these things.

As they were about to go in for the security check-in, he walked up to me with tears in his eyes and thanked me. He became very emotional and it was not as if I had done something great, but the fact that this meant a great deal to him.

When he said thanks, I told him there was no need to thank me. But later, thinking about the entire incident, I looked back at my life.

As a child, how many dreams did our parents have that came true? Without understanding the financial situation, we, as children, asked for cricket bats, dresses, toys, outings, etc. Irrespective of their affordability, they catered to all our needs. Did we ever think about the sacrifices they had to make to accommodate many of our wishes? Did we ever say thanks for all that they have done for us? Same way today, when it comes to our children, we always think that we should put them in a good school. Regardless of the amount of donation, we will ensure that we will have to give the child the best: theme parks, toys, etc. But we tend to forget that our parents have sacrificed a lot for our sake to see us happy, so it is our responsibility to ensure that their dreams are realized and what they failed to see when they were young, it is our responsibility to ensure that they experience all those and their life is complete.

Many times, when my parents asked me some questions, I have actually answered back without patience. When my daughter asks me something, I have been very polite in answering. Now I realize how they must have felt at those moments. Let us realize that old age is a second childhood and just as we take care of our children, the same attention and same care needs to be given to our parents and elders.

Rather than my dad saying thank you to me, I would want to say I’m sorry for making him wait so long for this small dream. I do realize how much he has sacrificed for my sake and I will do my best to give the best possible attention to all their wishes. Just because they are old does not mean that they have to give up everything and keep sacrificing for their grandchildren also. They have wishes, too.

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Venky is a delivery manager at MindTree Limited, having interests in team building, event management, employee engagement and training. An avid blogger too. “Riding the wave” best describes his approach towards life. Visit his website www.venkyb.com.