Abount being frank

I often credit myself as being very frank and straightforward in my dealings. Of course, pre-MBA I was absolutely straight-forward and un-diplomatic and I think I had my share of love and hate due to this. Since I am at the fag end of my MBA education here, I was wandering what to do with that particular aspect of my personality because I think I have changed from a hard-core techie to a manager during this time. Techies are a different breed, especially software techies because most of the things are a Boolean 0 or 1 to them. Either it will work or it will not, nothing in between. It is very easy to deal with techies because either you love them for what they do or you hate them because they don’t do things. When you are undecided about someone and don’t know if you love him or hate him, you are probably dealing with someone who is about to become a manager. I have seen and worked with several techies during my career in two software biggies of India and usually this theory has worked well.

Now, manager is a different beast all together. There is no Boolean 0, 1 in his case. It could be 0 and 1 at the same time also. Managers are truly caught in the middle between people they manage and people managing them. The same technical explanation does not convince both parties equally. In this context, can I be honest about what I think or feel on a particular topic in the organizational context? If the boss asks me to do something which I feel is almost impossible to do or is not the best thing to do (in my opinion), should I still go ahead and accept? Earlier, my answer would have been ‘No’ but I think now, my answer would most likely be ‘Yes’. The reason for this change is simple. I am not too sure about the thing. Management decisions are not very black and white and irrespective of how many McKinsey frameworks or BCG models one applies, the choices are still subjective. It could go either way. So, unless I know for sure, can I differ with the boss with confidence? Another reason why I feel I cannot speak my mind with the historical freedom I have enjoyed is the widening of audience and inability to control interpretations. This was not an issue while speaking to a group of likeminded fellows who understood the language, the context and the implications. There are so many different stakeholders for a manager that it is almost impossible to bring them to a common platform to ensure similar interpretation. So, better be to exercise discretion than face possible embarrassment. Any negative symptom from me is bound to get amplified while travelling upward or downward, though the same cannot be said about positive symptoms. So, if a task is to be done and I express slight negativity about the task, it is most definitely not going to get done. That’s another reason why I have to be careful about what I speak. And who knows, the negative impression could be due to insufficient homework or lack of trust in the abilities of the people around me.