Are comparisons healthy or not? It depends.

As human beings, many of us cannot help but compare ourselves with people around us. Everything is up for comparison. Salaries, designations, roles, promotions, increments, awards, accolades .. the list is endless. A common pattern that I notice is that such comparisons invariably lead to unhappiness. The unhappiness is typically triggered when we see ‘somebody else’ in a better situation: it could be a better role, drawing a better salary, having a fancier designation, having a larger office, and so on. It gets worse when we feel (in our opinion) that we are as deserving as the other person, but are not being recognized or rewarded by the system accordingly. This happens quite often, doesn’t it? Besides the unhappiness factor, such feelings are often so deep in negativity that we often find it difficult to genuinely be happy at somebody else’s success, or sometimes outright resent it even when they deserve it. The ‘rat race’ and  ‘survival of the fittest’, are a couple of the phrases used to describe and sometimes rationalize these negative feelings.

Shutting your mind out to comparisons is really difficult. Here are, in my opinion, three possible alternatives to deal with such situations and minimize the negative emotions.

1. Compare with self, over time: This technique really works. The idea is to compare yourself with yourself, backwards in time. Imagine yourself in front of a mirror. Compare the person looking back now with what you were perhaps a quarter ago or a year ago – what’s the difference? In your competency, knowledge, productivity, quality of deliverables and overall expertise? What areas have really developed and what areas still need improvement?

2. Gratitude for what we have. This is essentially captured by the little rhyme, “I had the blues, because I had no shoes, till I happened to meet, a man with no feet.” A genuine feeling of gratitude for what you have received is the best possible antidote to the poisonous feelings of resenting somebody else’s success. This might sound old fashioned, however it still works – I’ve seen it working.

3. Accept somebody else’s strengths. This really is about humility. The minute you genuinely accept somebody else’s strengths, you find yourself less likely to feel uncomfortable about their success. When you see a colleague receiving appreciation for a job well done, you find it easier to congratulate him or her – genuinely, from the bottom of your heart.

I know people who practice the techniques above – sometimes consciously and sometimes not. What matters is that most of the time, I see them happier and more at peace with themselves and the system. If you fall into that category, do share your wisdom with the people around you. If you fall into the other category, do try out the techniques above for a few months and let me know whether they helped make a difference!

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Thanks for reading. The views expressed are my own. I’d welcome your comments, feedback and suggestions below. You can also send me a mail at shantanu.paknikar@gmail.com or connect on Twitter: @spaknikar

The best answer to a question: What do you think?

One of the most fulfilling aspects of leadership is the impact that you can make on people. In my opinion, the maximum impact happens when you can trigger and influence the thought process itself. It is the power of thinking that makes us unique as humans, and in my opinion the role of a leader is to nurture, encourage and amplify that latent power in every person within that leader’s sphere of influence.

This is primarily the reason why my favorite answer to a question from a team member is invariably, “What do you think?”. The reactions are interesting. Usually, there is some surprise, possibly with the thought “If I knew the answer, why would I ask you?”. However, the question almost always nudges the person to start thinking, and possibly discover the answer along with some help from my side.

Sometimes of course there is total silence, or the person might say “I just don’t know”. There might now be a temptation to answer the question directly. My recommendation: Don’t provide the answer yet. One thing that I’ve noticed that works at this stage, in place of an answer, is another question starting with something like “What if …” or “How about ..”. You need to ask the right question, and guide the person opposite to the answer, which should equip the person to then discover the answer to the original question.

This technique of leadership and coaching is well known as the “Non-directive” approach. The focus is on empowerment, offering guidance, pointing out possible directions, asking a lot of questions and avoiding direct answers, and eventually enabling the other person to answer their own questions. To be avoided are direct answers (spoonfeeding), solving the other person’s problem, telling the other person what do do, and giving advice. One important leadership quality needed here is patience. It will take time for your team member to discover the answers and often it’s tempting to just tell them what to do. You might also not be able to use the technique in scenarios where the consequences of mistakes are high or there is no time available. In general though, over the longer term, as you apply the technique as often as you can, you will be able to build a team where you make yourself redundant. And, isn’t redundancy one of the objectives of leadership?

While this technique is typically employed for ‘senior’ personnel, I have had interesting results applying it to colleagues fresh out of college as well as the senior and mid-senior colleagues (If some of you are reading this, please accept this as a confession – my only intention was to ensure you did not need me to discover answers to your questions).

I am currently trying out the technique with my 9 year old daughter. It’s not going too well.

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I’d welcome any comments and feedback. You can leave a reply below or send me a message on Twitter @spaknikar