Human Relations - Personal and Work Related

The toughest subject on this earth, I was told, is to understand any human being. I second this statement firmly. I tried to understand so many people in my life - my family members to friends in my personal life - my superiors, peers to subordinates at my work place - my suppliers, customers to my partners at my business etc. If I look back am I succeeded in understanding any one of them? Have I at least able to judge even a single person for his / her requirements and attitude? I do not think so - I do not know as on today what exactly so many of them or at least any one of them wants. I ask a question "Do I know what I want?”

To be frank with this question I have to answer in negative. So what is so difficult in understanding a person's attitude / requirements. If that is the question - to get the answer, I was told one has to read so many subjects like Psychology, Motivation, Economics and HR management etc. Based on my interest I studied some of the theories on this subject. Leaving behind these theories of Douglas Macgregor to Abraham Maslow I had lively discussions with my then guru Prof Vijay Kumar and my pals K V Mohana Rao, K Eswar Babu, Meera and Durga in USA. The more I studied and discussed the more I confused.

From my perspective, I divide human relations into two broad categories. One our intimate and personal relations with our family members / our loved ones and the other work related relationships. The major part of our life is sandwiched between these two. In addition to these we have casual relations like our walk mates in the morning and a street end supplier to our postman etc. But my feeling of late - our relationships are getting strained in understanding what the other people want.

To emphasize on this I used to explain in a design seminar that - before going to buy anything or asking a supplier to visit us we should be clear what exactly we want upto the last specification. But in most cases I also fail in identifying what I want. I go to a shop some of the times without knowing what type of shirt to buy. I ask to show the best shirts - then the sales guy asks "Checks or stripes or plain?" what one? What make? What color? What size at least? With me (so called Electronics Packaging Expert) I do not know and just buy a piece or two and my mom just comments saying it is similar to what I had three years back. (I really appreciate the female side of this great remembrance).

At our work, some of the times we were asked by a few of our customers to visit them urgently because their entire work is stopped and things are boiling up as we are not visiting them for one of their enclosure design. When we go there, to our dismay we find a few functional heads join for a meeting in front of us and start arguing upon what exactly they want. It seems that they have not done the ground work and they do not know what they want even when things are burning. I am not exaggerating the issue. It is the order of the day with some of the organisations in Indian conditions including ours.

Even in personal life also we do not know exactly what we want. We suffer with possessiveness as well as identity crisis and thrive for so many things. We want our spouse to enter into our inner heart and try to learn what exactly we want and act based on this. How fair? How many of you agree with me? So what all these things to relate with the human relations. There is a lot depends on this. If we are clear about so many things our life is also fair. But unfortunately this clarity in most of the cases is not there at all. Or otherwise even if we are clear our life partner or team member may not be clear. So there arise conflicts.

I was told in Indian conditions a person who is quite efficient at work is a poor relationship oriented at his/her personal life. Is it true? I don’t know but some of the times I do vote for the same feeling. I used to suggest my guys - do not work hard and show always very good results - because more is expected from you every time. This I coined as a "Yeah dil mange more theory". In that process everybody and every time expects high and your life will become miserable. Similarly the other way around if you do not produce results every time either you will be kicked out or out dated. So the best method in life is to follow the Parle advt - 50 : 50.

Working in the odd hours and late hours, more work related stress, approaching dead lines and boiling issues making us vulnerable and ulcers, IBS, migraine and work related health issues eating us away like cancer cells in a human body. Because of the work pressures the thin line between personal relations and official relations is getting erased and more and more people are getting involved into EMOTIONAL based relations. To ease out from these tensions or to vent our feelings we need at times a friend or a soul mate. The lending shoulders at times are causing more problems rather than solving the issues.

So one thing is sure - we have to help ourselves but nobody can bail us out from the tensions we are into. So am keep on telling myself - Boss help yourself and then help the society. JS - are you listening?