ASSIGNment mindset - a problem?

I am writing this post just after I came out of a lecture on "Corporate Organizations and Leadership", after I heard the experiences of a Finnish manager in managing an Indian team, after I heard him say "Manager presence and interruptions are surprisingly increasing productivity in India!" This is not a NEWS to me, as I personally kinda think the same. This post is my own reflections on how I was brought up, grew and how the environment around me was!

 Briefly about the experience Finnish manager shared was that,

•  My expectations of self leading team did not happen and most team members were expecting me to "Assign" tasks to them

•  My personal presence and inquiry about progress of the tasks increased productivity (or fast response from employee)

What does this mean? Employees are not voluntary in coming up with tasks and not self-motivated by themselves! When this thought trickled in my mind, the first question I asked was, "Does it apply to me?" and the answer was "Yes, till few years back".

• Yes, I was looking up for some tasks to be assigned to me and I am best in completing them on  time, successfully!
• Yes, occasionally I do rise up and propose some new tasks! (Ah, wondered how many times, despite high pressure in completing the assigned tasks.)

So once I accept my state then, I was interested to identify why I felt it that way. Perhaps it could be because,

•  At universities, we were often given lab exercises, short assignments, and jobs to accomplish! I had not done a single learning diary exercises to reflect on what I learned from the course.
• At schools, it’s even more competitive as the marks decided the path we will be taking in our future. So most of the time was spent just to attend classes, tuitions (if any) and study, study, study.. Hmm, any learning? Yes, perhaps I should not shun away all those precious learning’s of mine from my school days. But was there any learning of how to mould ourselves? How to identify our strengths, weakness? How to survive difficult situations? Unfortunately NO. Not only was there any curriculum or activity for developing such skills, but also there was no conducive environment to develop them. It was all about to get good marks and percentage! 
• At kindergarten, it was still listening to teachers who teach ABCs and sing rhymes together. When I hear from parents these days about kindergarten interviews to kids, I feel how blessed I was those days. Nevertheless I really feel pity about those kids and schools.
•  At home, we the parents "teach" kids in a traditional and boring way to repeat alphabets, numbers and prepare them for their prospective future!

So what's going wrong in all these? Isn't there lack of giving space for self-understanding, being curious, being responsible not only to gain something, but for the sake of it! From the day being a child, student, adult and in a family, we are ASKED or ASSIGNED to do something. Our actions alter when there are some personal interests behind it. I have a vivid anecdote from my experience.

My beloved granny Paruvatham patti used to assign me some tasks and I remember how I performed it on her presence and absence. She used to utter, "Parthal oru karyam, parkalena oru karyam pannakoodathu" means, "There should not be two forms of doing an activity like while watching and not watching. The work should be done the best always, for the sake of it."

As it is with all teenagers, I looked at it as a cynical advice. But now, I realize how important it is to get that attitude. Especially when they are expected from employees! Ah, yes unless you get that attitude from childhood, it’s not easy to build it.

Another interesting anecdote from my granny again is about self-lead team. When she was at work and I escape from being ASSIGNED any tasks, she used to say "Kannu parkanum, Kai seiyanum" means "Watch out and do it". She placed emphasis on how to take part in a group activity say cleaning the house, by contributing of what you can do for that without being told. As simple as that. Yet again, being a teenager I shunned away those words as boring advices.

While I reflect these thoughts from my childhood, I could clearly understand that the way we are brought could be a mix of right and wrong things. But what is important is to provide space and environment for SELF-LEARNING AND SELF-MOTIVATION. As a crux I could sum up as,

TEACHing -> easy learning, productive but lacks cultivating motivation or understanding self.
LEARN by self -> takes time, productivity could be seen later (like bamboo tree growth), inculcates self-confidence and self-understanding, natural learning of leadership qualities and management skills.

So it all starts from HOME, which mould us as how we are and our attitude. Having said that, I should not do the same things even after knowing the shortcomings. Me being a mother of a small son, how do I provide a conducive environment for my son to be more curious, more creative, learn by self and self-motivating – most importantly all of them should seen as FUN by my son.

This is the experiment I am doing these days through my Kids play activities!

Okie, enough of my talking, would love to hear from you, your thoughts about this post and your ideas as well!