For every action there is equal and opposite reaction. When Newton stated this law of motion, he probably was thinking less about Human behavior. But it still speaks a lot about humans.

Read it again, ‘for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction’. Don’t we do the same as humans? Take the example of a kid who wants to play and his mother who wants him to study. The more the kid is notorious, the more the mother would get strict. Both striving for a balance.

As humans we tend to pull towards a point of balance. The point of balance though, isn’t defined. It is a gray area that resides somewhere in between. The more away the other person from your picture of what is right, the more you would pull towards the other side.

Child and Mother duo is probably an easy but poor example in this case. I would let that be the first one for simplicity, but for the ones asking, here is another. How about a coach and player. The coach’s objective is to extract the best from the player, but the player may or may not be aware of what is missing in his game. The coach would obviously make the player work to get inside the gray area. Similarly the tussle for balance is very much existent in organizations as well.

Aren’t there specific people in your contacts whom you would call a number of times to remind for a very small thing? Why would you need to give them so many reminders? It is the same tussle that I described between the child /mother or a coach /player.

Let’s talk a bit more about the tussle. 

“Tussle: A vigorous struggle or scuffle, typically in order to obtain or achieve something.”

Tussle is a strong word, a bit short of fight, but yet strong. And that’s what I believe describes some of these situations. So when does this tussle work and when it doesn’t?

There are two clear scenarios. The one with a commitment# and the one without. All the cases you saw above are with a commitment, either family, work or a friend. The one without commitment could be anyone ranging from a interviewee when hiring for a job or the person manning the ticket counter at the local railway station.

The tussle for balance works in case of commitment, doesn’t work that well for the ones without commitment. I will dive a bit deeper into both these scenarios.

In Case of Strong / Personal Commitment

Lets take the ones with commitment first. What if it wasn’t the child and mother but child and stranger. It is easy to tell a child what to do (mind you, not just studies, say playing with fire or colors or water). The stranger would talk softly, try to guide and perhaps even jump in momentarily if required. But the stranger can hardly do what a parent would do.

The stranger isn’t going to be around for long. They would hope to make a difference with their advice / guidance, strategy etc. They can’t command the same intensity as someone who has a commitment. Similarly a coach and a player share a bond, a common objective. This gives room for a stronger tussle.

The tussle exists more visibly in a scenario where there is strong commitment. It also involves fair bit of emotions. The gray area is the common point acceptable to both parties in a tussle. The narrower the gray area, the larger the side effects of the tussle. The more one person is bent on the other side, more the conflicts.

In Absence Of Strong Commitment

In absence of strong commitment, tussle exists as well. Be it someone you just met at a party or a transactional business like buying a used car. You would negotiate with the seller to get your deal, but you would show lesser emotions. You would want to make friends with someone but show lesser emotions in the tussle to reach that gray area of friendship. It is subtle. It is planned and the end result drives you. But it breaks where the commitment fails. You have options to go to another seller and buy a car, you have others to make friends with. Ignorance would step in the moment any one goes out of the gray area.

Humans juggle emotions along with tussle. Tussle works with commitment, it breaks with non commitment as ignorance steps in. The stickiness in the tussle for balance is provided by commitment^.

The alternative approach

Now that I have spoken of balance, tussle, commitment and ignorance. What is a better approach? You can’t always keep trying to hit the gray area and hope for results? You can’t always bring in ignorance and just let the commitment die? While as humans, the tussle would be an integral part of our behaviour, I would present an alternative here.

Be brutally honest. Arrington describes it for business here. The same could be brought in any relationship, co-worker conversation and even when talking to strangers. Not being diplomatic is difficult, not being ignorant is tough, but being brutally honest is perhaps the most powerful way to exist. And that’s not just power to you, it is power to everyone around you!

# when I say commitment, it means a larger or a longer commitment. Commitment exists in all interactions we do. But visualise your commitment to neighbor’s kids compared to the neighbors themselves.

^ The times when I wrote about Friendship and Face to face with online friends, in these situations perhaps the lack of large / strong commitment breaks the tussle for a common objective. With lack of trust or strong commitment (which is easy with online friends) ignorance steps in easily.

PS: I guess, my thoughts have evolved from this point. Apologies for making it a longer read than I usually like. Thank you for reading.

The puzzling questions/views on Trust & Friendship that I keep on asking myself is kinda never ending. To be honest more often than not these views are pushed by instances that left me with a bitter taste or undesired consequences…

The difference between a ‘friendly friend’ and a ‘real friend’ is more clear in my mind than ever before now. The understanding that the manner in which friendship is perceived today is very different than what I had in mind. Today being Friendly is Friendship.

It took a while, but I finally made a choice. That choice was acceptance.

Acceptance that I cannot control everything, I cannot be friends with people as I want, I cannot expect everyone to behave the way I like – rather I need not require everyone to be Friends, at times Friendly is enough.

This changed somewhere mid way, so did this. Dunno where I am today, but I shall be back!

]]> http://annkur.com/2010/04/i-made-a-choice/feed/ 7 http://annkur.com/2010/02/face-to-face-conversations/ http://annkur.com/2010/02/face-to-face-conversations/#comments Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:30:51 +0000 Annkur http://annkur.com/?p=783 Tweet//incomplete

An email titled: Study Shows High ROI on Face-to-Face Meetings

While this was some newsletter sent to marketing / sales junta & I don’t even need to open the thing and read it.  The idea is pretty clear: no matter how much you rely on IM, FB, Twitter – fact remains that nothing replaces Face to Face conversations. And I strongly seek that value in any relationship. I have attempted hard at times to keep up with my contacts and as far as possible I would race the bike to meet up in person. Again that has some relevance with the Friend Matrix (sorry, a lot of things for me revolve around that, in a sublime manner though); though I fear I won’t be able to describe very effectively but here is an attempt.

Anyways, when I asked Are we friends? the keyword stressed was TRUST. Making yourself available for a face 2 face meeting in many ways comes under that. (If I am avoiding a meet, that certainly means lack of trust!)…

Update: Comments on this piece on Facebook… really takes the discussion forward

]]> http://annkur.com/2010/02/face-to-face-conversations/feed/ 1 http://annkur.com/2009/12/are-we-friends/ http://annkur.com/2009/12/are-we-friends/#comments Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:34:44 +0000 Annkur http://annkur.com/?p=763 TweetAre we friends? This is something I ask people, directly or indirectly and more often than not I take answers without they having to say Yes or No. The friend matrix that I gave earlier is something that will give a larger view of how things work, but here is something very basic:

“Friendship demands trust. For me trust is the respect that a friend gives me, I value that and I like to give the same in return. For any reason (and generally many) If I fail to see that respect for me and/or I feel I cant give that respect to you, we shall seize to be friends!”

Also read Darshan Chande’s views on friendship. I quite like and agree with what he says. 1) What is friendship? 2) Is friendship driven by purpose

Evangelizing twitter on juhu beach

Now since @iMBA is such a lazy busy ass, I would have to make this blog entry. One of my most memorable outings was this little Road Trip along with Mitesh, Amit and Rahul. The original trip starts from Belapur when Mitesh (@iMba) and Rahul take Amit (@abeoye) for Mumbai darshan. The first halt being Andheri where I connect with them and we head towards Juhu.

It was just a casual walk back to office after lunchtime when I decide to join these guys and I never knew that I would return home only 36hours later after loads of fun, action, drama, adventure, tweetup … you name it – we did it!

— incomplete — View the pics for now

The @asfaq lookalike

(If you are wondering what @imba @annkur and @abeyoye means … They are our Twitter IDs)

So how many friends do you have? A question Vodafone is asking on TV and I keep asking myself whenever I reshuffle my friend Matrix. No its not on paper, its in the mind!

So what is this Friend Matrix? While each friend is special and have their own place in my heart, for illustration purpose I shall roughly categorize them in 4 sections (again, just for illustration) – See the images.

What you see above is a simple box with the 4 categories. A / B /C / D. Each of them signify something:

A: Special friends, very close. The ones who I would approach when I need help / advice / anything! I need it I will ask IMMEDIATELY. In short my lifeline. And goes without saying, I am available for them whenever they need me / whether they need me or not

B: These are again good friends. I would be always available, more than ready to help. But! I wouldn’t ask them for anything (much). All give, no take! Now that’s weird, bad, sad, whatever you call it. Incidentally most new people I began with start here, or are placed here within a v short time.

C: Hi, Bye - Formality. Either people who failed to impress me in the first few meets. Or the people who moved down from B, after I realized that they aren’t worth it!

D: The X list. Very rarely someone is placed here. You really need to be a bad (evil) person to make it there.

So that’s a basic classification of how I group my friends. Thing don’t stop here, they only get more and more complex…

Its just not the 4 boxes where I keep people (again reminding that the boxes are for illustration; things are more complex than even a google search here. And I don’t understand all of it myself). But people keep moving around. So as you see in the second image people can be in transition between different boxes. Based on my interaction, feedback and incidents the priority changes. Though its generally not one incident or day, but more than that (remember more than that?) which pushes people from one box to another. Either Up or Down:

There are other zones like AB, BC, CD, A>C, B>C, anywhere>D

eg: In Transitions: C>D – Moving from C to D / B>A = Moving from B to A

eg: Mixed: BA, BC = Somewhere between the two.

… I told you the boxes are for illustration. There would be over a 100 such combinations, and some really weird ones.

So whenever there is a little change in this friend Matrix by me, it invites a mini turbulence. Of course no one likes to be thrown down the friend matrix (no I don’t communicate people of a status change in their positioning), but even upgrading them gives them a little discomfort (which they soon forget, who doesn’t like luxury?)…

Upgrading comes with a discomfort: can be a little surprise. Why is this a%#hole so good to me? Always available?  But that’s when someone managed to impress me or I was able to connect to his / her personality traits.

————————-

The Philosophy:

Over a period of time the human brain links persons words, accent, body language, gestures, looks and a lot of other things (calculated in the back of your mind) to something they have witnessed in the past. So if someone with a particular set of features / traits / habits happened to cheat me in the past; I would certainly beware next time. This process is of course the intuition that we say our elders have. Judging a person in the first 20 secs … etc. Though I would confess I go by the words “Trust a person completely; either you will have a nice lesson or a great friend” – The only problem is that I keep forgetting the lessons (Yes a ghajini Fan you would say).

————————–

99% friends call me only when they have some work, rest they always have some excuse for me. So am used to a whole category of friends whom I am sure are calling me coz they got some work wherein I can help! Now that’s a sad situation? Isn’t it?

A key aspect to the Friend Matrix is accommodating changes, exceptions! People change with time was the idea behind shuffling friends across categories; but with some latest experiences I have learnt that its probably that I mistook them (undeserving promotion in the matrix) right in the first place. A mistake to begin with itself! I take lessons slowly and take time to recover, but the idea is to keep things moving and progressive.

Your comments, views, suggestions, criticism, additions – anything (no, not spam) – Welcome below or in my inbox!