My Corporate Lessons 101

Communication Strategy Framework
1. Never try to solve any conflict through asynchronous medium like email or blog. Also never respond to such medium which might provoke you to defend yourself or show that your are right and others are wrong. Always avoid any further discussion in email in such situation. First discuss with your manager. Either try to call or meet that concerned person directly and resolve it. If person does not respond setup a call. If that does not work discuss with your manager
2. Always take some deep breathing and reflect to yourself before you respond to other when situation is challenging. Because based on rules of reflex arc brain's immediate response is always driven by emotion not by intellect
3. Never try to corner any team or person even if you think they are wrong and you are right in email or in meeting where many other group present. Follow the rule number 1 in this case.
4. Always understand the boundary of your work and let concern team do their job. Focus on your key responsibility. If you try take all the responsibility you are destined to fail as you wont have enough time to complete your primary work. Also you may think you are trying to help others. However other might think you trying to interfere in their matter. Sometime it may seem to you others are doing wrong. However it is always advisable let it go unless other group seeking your help explicitly.
5. Always keep a good working relationship with all the team.
6. Never refused to help others immediately when it is asked for even if you are busy. Never jump to help immediately. It is always advisable to ask to setup a meeting at convenient time based on your calendar so that you get time to understand the context and may also get time to discuss with your manager if you should participate in such discussion. You can always request reschedule or decline due a conflict
7. Don't assume leadership direction received in Corporate Town Hall or All Hands meeting, needs to be followed in your next working day. Please note leadership direction are always for long term strategy. So it is always best follow ground rule what you have been following util there is a formal communication to change the same.
8. Never hurry to respond in tough situation in email. Never. Always wait for some time before you respond. It will give both side time to reflect.
9. If you think you have fabulous innovative idea never jump start sharing with others even with your close buddies or manager. Because it might waste their time. Rather spend more time groom that idea by yourself and abstract the idea through user friendly means e.g create a mock demo of the idea based on Idea Domain and after completion of demo if you still think its something worth then setup a meeting and share the idea through demo. Don't spend to much time how you implemented that idea, rather focus on usefulness of your idea through your mock demo.
10. Don't try to be hero in professional life and spend sleepless extra hour to show off. Follow rule number 4
11. Listen. Always listen first. We generally tempted to speak and try to showcase ourself. However you can only make high impact on your target audience if you understand the context of the discussion clearly and realize your target audience. Always speak based on your target audience and context to make high impact.
12. Never speak from a place of hate, jealously, anger or insecurity. Evaluate your word before let them leave your lips. Sometime its best to be quite.
13. Don't try to correct everyone. Some might hate you.Only try to correct someone who value you and appreciate you.
14. Step back. Try to learn how and when to step back. There will be a time when your action or idea may be right but you will be facing resistance and your emotion will force you to drag further to beat the resistance. Follow Rule 2. Always remember right and wrong are relative to a context and perspective. What may seem right to you may seem to wrong to others. Both are may be correct. In such situation instead of dragging follow Rule 1
15. Understand the NO or Disagreement with your response. There will be time when you wont get a direct no or disagreement from your audience. This is very critical. Understanding the negative impression, disagreement or no in early stage and change your strategy. There are pattern to recognize it e.g. a. People not responding to you b. They are not giving direct answer in writing. To make you happy they may agree over phone but never give formal communication Do not drag when you don't get direct affirmative response. Lot of time based on logical reasoning it sounds very simple and clear. You assume others got automatically in agreement. However this could be a dangerous assumption and may have unintended consequence. The best way to handle such situation is to follow Rule1
16. Honesty vs Diplomacy - Lot of time we feel its very important to show honesty and eventually that will pay off. However trust me there is very shuttle difference between honesty and diplomacy. Always try to handle things using diplomacy as diplomacy include intellect and honesty include emotion.
17. Think twice before go one level above - Sometime you may feel frustrated that your immediate boss unable to solve the problem and if you go above & escalate at top it may bring attention. However trust me most of the time your immediate boss failed to solve as his/her boss failed also to solve it. So it is wise to have patience and hold your breath. Dragging the same further only worsen the situation. You should only consider going above when you feel there is significant damage happening to you professionally and personally.In such situation deal it professionally and with utmost polite tone. Please always have utmost respect for Sr. Leadership.
18. Don't respond to email if its specifically not addressed to you. A lot of time in Corporate many email floats addressing to all or not specifying any targeting audience. A lot of time our emotion get tempted to respond such email even if its not specifically addressed to us. There are lot of reason people get tempted to respond. e.g Sometime people wants to get attention, sometime people wants to show off that they versatile skill, sometime people wants show their responsibility etc. However we need to follow rule #4 here. If you are not the intended audience and if you get into such email it will waste a lot of time productive time once you respond. You will be stuck into a lot of back & forth email which may not be related to you primary responsibility. So always avoid and think twice before responding any email which is not addressed to you.
19. Be kind. Always be kind and you will be much happier in work place.
20. Watch this
21. Watch this
22. Never forget above rules and read & remind yourself everyday. Practice these rules everyday even in your personal life and social life. These are invaluable lessons the early we get it and make it, the better success we get in corporate. Print it and put it in your desk and home. So that you never forget these rules. Please note here you are trying change your behavior which is driven by emotion which is very tough to change. You trying to change your natural instinct. But once you make it a habit, your emotional behavior will change.