clog

for number four started a few years back. Well, the purpose of this title more than anything else was to generate curiosity and get more readers [smart, right ;-) ]. Well, coming back to the point of my love for this number. The whole thing started when a few years back when i got interested in puzzles (The summers and Shakuntalas of the world) and soon enough I started thinking in combinations and scenarios. The combination part is something that stuck with me and when I joined the corporate world I could see it being used almost everywhere from the "time quandrants" to the "Market space and players". Having said that, there are a few places where I have used this concept to categorize people. I will be listing out a few of them in my subsequent clogs, here goes the first one.

Competency (C)/Political Index in corporate world(P)
(+ means high, - means low)

Let me quickly define the two self explainatory terms, well competency is comepetency :-) and political index is one's awareness of people/circumstancial dynamics around and talent to utilize those to gain competetive advantage. Now, with these two we have four categories in play

1) C+P+ : Noone can stop these people anywhere, they practically rule everything.
2) C+P- : These guys are generally (not always) seen as sorry figures plainly because they tend to gain less than they deserve (this deserving part is debateable though) but usually they get a huge amount of support and respect from their peers and juniors and definitely some from their superiors as well
3) C-P+ : These will be the guys hated by their peers (even from other guys in the same category) but usually are liked by their superiors due to obvious reasons.
4) C-P- : Noone cares about these people and I think they just keep changing their places without much impact on anything else other than their own lives. None of this means their life is useless or anything like that because having an impact is not necessarily everything rather it might mean nothing in absolute terms if you can actually adjust to it.

Now, the most tricky part in an organization is to handle the second and third categories. C+P- are super-cool bosses and peers and if you are lucky if you can find one. C-P+ are generally not good bosses to be with, may or may not be good peers (depending on which category you fall into) but harmless as juniors/subordinates. Adding to that there is a popular saying in corporate world - "the incompetent employees are generally the most litigious" and I think that explains the danger that lurks around you when you have C-P+ around you. Well, this is one classification I find useful while looking around and orienting myself in a setting. There are more, but those won't make a part of this blog. I am planning to write a series of such classifications, lets how far I can take it and how far you can take it ;-). So, before you leave this post, figure out where you lie in this classification.