 So, I have with me Professor Rajesh Jaleh whom I will introduce and then he will respond to any questions or comments that you may have. So, Professor Rajesh Jaleh gave you the content on professional conduct and I can think of nobody more appropriate than him. He is one of those rare people in IIT who has extensive experience both in industry and in research and teaching. So, he is an alumnus of IIT Bombay graduated in electrical engineering close to 30 years ago and then went on to do his PhD at Carnegie Mellon. Subsequently, he worked as a technology developer and business person in several businesses. He is very well known for his work in wireless communication especially and then he joined back IIT as a professor in electrical engineering. So, he comes with first hand knowledge of issues related to soft skills and workplace communication and he has in fact been teaching some of these to our own students here. So, we were very glad to have him on board for this particular course. So, I will now hand you over to him. Any questions, comments that you have, any clarifications that you seek on this module he will be able to respond and answer to this. I will hand you over to him. So, I am really happy to participate in this activity. One of the reasons I will share with you what is on my mind right now. I have worked for about two decades in the industry both in India as well as in US and I get to interview many of you who are just graduating out of school and who want to be in my team or in our company and consistently over period of years what I was seeing was there was a an element which was lacking of being a professional and it is not it is not the students fault is that it is something that you were expected to know you know on your own and I kind of learned it you know after so many years and I wanted to kind of present whatever I have learned directly to you so that you can benefit from my experience and that is what we are all supposed to do as teachers anyway. So, I am really excited to be here and I was I was very happy when Professor Parthasarthi he called me for this unit and I hope whatever I talked about made sense to you if you have any questions any scenarios that you would like to ask me I would be very happy to answer those questions. Thank you. What we will do is if any of you have very specific questions or if you have clarifications or if you would like Professor Zelle to explain something further based on your own experiences and your own aspirations you can raise your hand after that we will have a general round to some of the colleges and take your feedback also on this particular module yeah so please click on the raise hand button. Mahakaal Institute of Technology, Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, welcome so please ask your question. Yeah please state your name I would like to know your name. My name is Gauri Sankar Sahu sir I have a question related to assignment sir if I have a team and I am a leader of my team our faculty member has given us an assignment which should be submitted on a particular date. Okay. So date and if we are highly dedicated to complete our assignment on proper date which is given by our faculty members but on that particular time we could not complete our assignment so at that time what should we do means in our classroom if we will look so our colleagues will just doing like copy paste copy paste so that time we should that time what should we do means we should also do assignment we should also complete our assignment on proper date with a dishonest or honestly we should complete our assignment after date a particular date. Okay Gauri Sankar excellent question Gauri Sankar Saha right Sahu okay thank you for the question and it's I can feel your pain and I can understand your dilemma right finally in my opinion right you should not let your situation decide your future right whatever is around going around you the clarity of thought you should have is what do you think is the right answer can you tell me what you think you should do if the environment around you was not there yes sir what do you think you should mean sir I know only one thing that I have to learn things I don't just have to copy paste means I want to learn therefore I should complete my assignment with full honest means if it is not complete it is not complete on that particular date but I should be honest with my with my self on that assignment means sir I wanted to complete my assignment with honestly means I want to learn something from that assignment means I don't just want to complete assignment yes I finish my work good good so Gauri Sankar you hit it absolutely right what you what you are saying is what you need to do is the two things I would do okay because I see as a teacher as a professor I deal with this day in day out students are always you know students at IIT are extremely smart and they are extremely smart at manipulating their professors also okay so they will give all sorts of reasons to extend the dates but I put my foot down and all I have to do is only once I have to hold the line and after that they will never push me again so my theory is very simple you do your assignments honestly and you make sure you deliver it on time because an assignment that's finished late is no good in my opinion okay so you have to start early you have to plan early I have to finish your assignment on time because it's not just what you do in your assignment but delivery on time is very important and this is the lesson you will carry forward when you go work somewhere else right because let's say you are working at ISRO and there is a space shuttle going out in space at certain time and you didn't finish your work on time the space shuttle will get delayed right and that's not acceptable so I'm giving an extreme example but you really have to finish everything on time and for that you need to plan what you are doing and also at the same time it doesn't hurt to communicate with your professor and tell him what you are observing and the professor will be very sensitive to your concerns you know and like for example in my class if I see anybody any assignment every assignment we check for you know copy paste type of behavior and whoever does it they are disqualified just like a dope test in sport you know so you know you should not you should not let what other people are doing decide what you want to do you need to do what's the right thing in your in your belief if you let other people decide then your life will be a Hindi movie let me tell you okay so you got to decide your own own future yes sir so that at last time what should I do means a I should say to my professor that I mean say this is a particular time I am unable to complete my this task so means I can take some more time to complete my this assignment generally taking more time doesn't work with the professors unless they really everybody in the class says that you know they are not able to understand something then then the professor will extend it for everyone because from the professor's point of view things have to be fair and if he's giving you more time means he has to give the entire class more time so think about that also so my my suggestion to you is that you submit whatever you've finished so far and tell that you have not completed that and it will be okay it's okay to get less mark but if you made if you got those less marks with honesty and integrity right they are a lot more valuable trust me you will be able to hold your head high when you get your degree and I wouldn't worry about what other copy paste are doing okay Gaurishankar one point that you made is extremely important and I would like everybody else to also pay attention you mentioned that you want to learn your objective is to learn no more so what should guide you because you yourself have gave the answer that copy paste is not going to help you to learn okay better whereas even if you do partial work and submit it you have learned something on your own and you are going to learn by completing it later also so that's an extremely important because our objective is to learn and be better at what we do okay so that's that's the takeaway from this okay I would just you know just to add to what professor Zellie was saying yesterday I received a letter from the University of Chicago so this is the to mark the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda speech at Chicago they are giving scholarships to 100 students from India and they asked me to recommend five from IIT and you know what this told me they said please don't go by marks okay please don't just go by those who are toppers there may be others who are not toppers but who have the motivation and the ability and the sincerity those are the people we want here that's what they told me okay that's what is important for you as well excellent thank you sir thank you thank you Gauri Shankar Sihagat College of Engineering Ponderpur please state your name and ask the question hello sir I'm Deepali good afternoon good afternoon sir we are really happy for this conversation which workshop you took for us because sir there are so many questions in students mind also that about skills and workplace that also you cleared all the questions and sir the main advantage of this face-to-face interaction was for the student was that the students have in their mind this feeling that that if we are going to speak if we are speaking with the person with the high respect and high position then they have respect plus fear but now I think we all students are having only respect for you thank you that was very nice I'm honored thank you sir thank you very much what is your name hello sir I'm Sherwari I'm really thanks to you that you give us chance to interact with you and it's really into our for self-development communication and how to interact our behavior and also I like that you always start with or on time every session your punctuality and I learn so many things from you so thank you sir thank you thank you I appreciate that yes you know have any of you done an internship anywhere is there anybody here who's done an internship in a company yes so based on now in the same our college organized the internship program for internship and now they're planning in on Monday they're planning for the internship okay so based on your internship experience you must do you have any questions about professional conduct because what he talked about is about when you take up jobs once you graduate from your institutions but some of you must have some work experience when you did an internship so whether any issues or problems you faced when you did this internship about which you would like to ask a question if we done the entrepreneurship that time they not totally give the guidance in some companies and that is the session that we conduct for the development our development and they not give proper guidance that time what we do so amruta I really thank you for your courage to ask this question many many times you go through places where you don't get any feedback right you are in an environment where nobody is there to help you you can blame yourself or you can be proactive and you need to identify the right person who can work with you so you know any workplace where you go to it doesn't matter internship or any other other place right you have to connect with people you have to bond with people and you have to make relationships and these are all professional relationships so that you know they get to know you and you get to know them and then in in case you need help you can open up to them and you can ask them the right question so I would say that when you you should not expect somebody to come out there and sit down at a table and help you but it's the responsibility is yours to go and approach people and be just like you asked me this question right now right you need to do the exact same thing and don't don't be afraid because you are intern and your job is to learn right so you don't be afraid by any means what's the worst thing that can happen to you right they will fire you and not a big deal when you are an intern but they will admire your courage and trust me nobody will fire you if you ask the question they will they will really appreciate your boldness and you will go a lot further in your career if you continue that approach. Thank you Amruta. Thank you sir. Myself Akash Yadav. My question is that suppose I am a pressure employment in a newly company so what should be our cooperation with our company so that the result is beneficial to our company. Okay so generally when you are hired in any company right yeah Akash now I can see you okay okay so I think your Akash your question for so that everyone else understands right is if you're a fresher in the company then how should how should you work so that whatever you do helps the company does that make sense is that what you're asking okay so yes sir okay good good I was waiting to hear that so imagine right I mean either your internship candidate or or you are a you know new hire in a company you really need to identify it depends on the company if you are in a big company then the hiring team is different and people who you are reporting to is different person what you really need to identify is your mentor who will make sure that you succeed in that environment so as a as a I mean I'll tell you from company's point of view what are they thinking right so if the company is a healthy company then the team in which you are going to be there they want to make sure that you you do your job correctly so that and you get trained in the process so that it's helpful to the company's overall bottom line right every person whatever they do it does matter to what the company is doing so even when you are getting trained it is going to matter because the next project you're going to be performing on your own right so initial period of training you really have to put your heart out there so that you can learn whatever you need to learn during that process so you may feel at times that directly you're not doing anything but be patient in the initial phase you'll be in the training mode where you will be learning a lot of things and then you will get to use whatever you learn in the next project but have a open channel of communications with your supervisor meet with them often you know people generally what I see is that the freshers try to avoid people who are they're intimidated by their supervisor or supervisor supervisor you should not do that you should be you know you should interact with them even a hello and you know asking questions about the other side makes makes things interesting right so for example if you're joining my company and if you're walking by my office every day I see you but you don't even smile at me because you're afraid of me for whatever reason right that's no good take that first step you know you got to drop your innovations little bit say hello introduce yourself and tell tell us what you're doing and when you break that barrier if I'm in that shoe first of all I will do it to you okay but there may be people supervisors or bosses who may not do that who may be very busy but it's the the thing is in your code that you need to have that interaction so interact with as many people as you can in a new environment because in the beginning is when you are going to make your first impression as I said right so that first impression is important and you talk to many people it doesn't matter how your language skills are how your communication skills are what matters is your genuineness the honesty with which you speak your desire to communicate is more important than the actual words that come out of you everybody reads you through your eyes so as long as there your genuineness is reflecting in your eyes you will be fine okay so so make an effort to communicate with people around you and everything will start falling in place but if you just quiet down and you feel afraid interacting with anybody then you're not going to make much much progress does that answer your question Akash one thing is that in starting so many persons we've heard that because many seniors are present this company that's why every decision which we make so it is the process but it should be true or wrong so in which cases what should we do actually he wanted to ask that as a pressure if he is working in a company and he is actually posing to some infineers and you know people they get conscious about what is wrong and what is right they get hesitant so in that situation what he should do right and wrong is it can be relative right so I think what you need to choose is right and wrong based on your core values and your beliefs right so and there could be times when you're wrong many times that can happen in the beginning so it doesn't doesn't hurt to talk to other people and and ask them hey you know this is a situation can you can you help me with this thing the most important word in your initial part of your work is hey can you help me with this right keyword is help and people will open up to you just like that okay do not be afraid ask that question hey I need you help I'm not able to figure it out is this right or wrong and that way you will you can sound off ideas with other people you won't believe this but I do this all the time even now with my students whenever I have a doubt I ask them hey you know this is the issue that I'm having what do you think we should do and many times I'm doing that intentionally but I'm just telling you that it works in reality also in reality also you can you don't want to force your opinion but you want to get other people's opinion candid opinion and that candid opinion can also help you so don't be afraid to ask other people's opinion but finally you need to do what you think is the right thing okay we have a lot of people waiting to ask questions so we'll move to another center there's one person whose centers in question via chat thank you very much thank you amruta and thank you Akash yes so case Rangaswamy has this question from some tips to handle negative peer pressure because this is related to this so I will repeat the question the question from case Rangaswamy college is how do you handle negative peer pressure right and especially if this is happening in the beginning phase of your your career right there are many layers to answering this question let me let me put out a few scenarios for you you are you just joined the company and you are in a scenario where you know somebody else doesn't like you right one thing you need to remember right not everyone is going to like you in any place that you go and you have as soon as soon as you understand that fact life get lots easier right so if you if you feel that somebody is putting a lot of pressure on you and I'm assuming it's not your supervisor then the best best way to deal with situations like this is as much as possible do not react do not respond you need to do your work right you need to do what you believe is the right thing and you need to communicate with your supervisors you need to communicate with your colleagues who you're who you're working with and if you feel comfortable you can let them know hey this is what is going on and but then do not react confront you know any kind of on negative pressure now the other kind of negative pressure could be could be a test for you people may put negative pressure on you in a company environment where they are trying to check you out okay so you really need to be able to again you know withstand that pressure do not react have a have an reaction which is instantaneous think through what is going on and always you know my rule of thumb is when I get into a negative situations I kind of like to wait you know listen to myself and then then whatever negative thoughts are coming in your head right don't react to it quickly wait for some time wait for an hour wait for a day and then by that time the the knee jerk reaction will be dissipating within you itself and then probably the pressure on the other side will have also dissipated so what matters is you don't react in a knee jerk fashion because you can hurt you can say something really really you know wrong which which you cannot erase once it's said and again in these situations emails are to be handled very delicately when it comes to a negative situations you know open communications with the other side is really important and always let other person know that hey you know I'm perceiving that this is what is going on is this what you really want to do or am I doing something wrong what would you like me to do and sometimes when you ask a question in that fashion there itself the pressure will be dissipated and you will you will have a have a great time addressing that question. Madhumita here from Penmal Engineering College. Madhumita is that right? And one question is yeah Madhumita here sir and I need to get some importance regarding the behavior in the workplace either in case of stress or stress-free in case of stress it determines work pressure on team leader team leader initiates the employee to you have to complete with this deadline either that employee does not know the concept of skills how to do that so he might be asking as a few said so I don't have any idea of this please just figure out me what I have to implement so that I'm so people the employees or team leaders the colleagues they may be thinking that these employees is insufficient they are not contributing towards the work they are keep on asking so that word becomes their negative pressure so how to tackle that in case of stress and stress-free if we are keeping contact with those colleagues either in case of sharing the innovations or implementing these points could be better and efficient so this takes more importance so that can be handled so my question is regarding the stress so are you asking me question how do you handle stress that behavior behavior in the workplace behavior in that place okay okay let me reword the question so that I I if I don't understand the question you can explain it to me again so the question is that you you you have stress in your workplace because certain employees is not behaving correctly they are not sharing sharing information and you're asking me how do you deal with it how do you handle such kind of stress and how do you do your job asking the questions or some doubts regarding what what we have to figure it out so people they may be taking that as an a negative instead of clarification so my my suggestion to you is in the beginning phase of your career right you can ask as many questions as you want okay and if people don't like asking questions then you are in the wrong place trust me okay because you need to be asking questions you need you are in a totally new environment you need to learn what's going on around you so you you have every right to ask questions of course you cannot ask questions about you know what you learned in school right how do you solve differential equations and things like that because that's something you've been trained to do but anything that's relevant to your work which naturally you're not supposed to know right you should ask those questions and many times what you can do is you can ask them for a reference you know maybe you can and the reason people people I'll share with you something right people who get upset when you ask questions you know why they get upset most most of the time they don't know the answers and you are asking the questions where they don't know the answers so when somebody gets upset with you you have a clue that I've told you that they don't know the answer don't ask him the same question again or same the question you need to go out and find out another person who will smile at you and let's figure it out together that kind of approach so it's it's trust me you will be going through a lot of stressful situations in your life okay now what you do with that stress is really up to you okay you can you I mean I have gone through this over so many years right I've been through so many stressful situations some of them are very extreme situations where you can't even sleep at night you have to learn to deal with stress with certain kind of detachment you know you cannot let it you know impact you who you are so the stress will be there it's part of your job you have to deal with it with calmness and you know objectively try to think about what you really need to do in this situation many times the stress will be so unbearable that you feel like you want to react explode right take a break leave your place go for coffee and come back and the stress will have dissipated so my advice to you is do not react on any situations where you feel that you have your compel to react and the stress will be very easy for you to handle and in terms of dealing with colleagues who are not willing to help you you have to move on to other people you have to ask other people and you have to find the people who are willing to help you and you will find you will find somebody who is willing to listen to you and if nobody is willing to listen to you then it's time to do no no you know what to do just add to this please from my own experience so I've been holding an administrative position in the last three years so I had to face many of these stressful situations also and I was also not used to many of these situations in the beginning so as professor Zellier said this is what I did so sometimes I would just think it over or give it some time so that I don't respond immediately and precipitate the situation make it worse or the best solutions I've got is there are seniors to me who have been through the same experience I asked them for advice and then implement that that has been the easiest thing for me to do sometimes if you are not able to solve a problem we just tell our colleagues this is a problem okay we can't find a solution immediately please give us time okay please bear with us so sometimes it is possible that they will actually listen to you if you are honest about it saying that you've tried your best there is a crisis there is a problem but we will all together sort it out we'll call a meeting and sort it out so you have to find a way in which you address the problem rather than get stressed out and make the situation worse okay so getting into a stressful situation and fretting about it getting frustrated is not going to lead you anywhere okay one slight point I want to add to and it's a it's an important important key that I want to give you as students right one of the most important thing you can do in a workplace and especially in a situation where that you describe right let's say Madhumita right Madhumita ask this question so Madhumita you have an issue at work and you came and asked me something and I helped you out let's say first time right now next time you talk to somebody else you mentioned my name you know Rajesh he he really helped me I'm really thankful to him right mention that in that conversation word will get around that you are you know you you really appreciate this other person's work and it will work like magic for you trust me you will you will everybody will would love to work with you because you're giving other person credit right giving other person credit is the easiest way to get everybody on your side okay people love that I mean as human beings we love that right you you are at home and you made some really nice dish and somebody else said something nice about it to other person you like that don't you it's the same way at work so give other people credit and if you don't do otherwise then nobody will want to work with you right so give the credit where it is deserved to other person that so-and-so person even a junior person came out and helped you once you give them the credit they will they will think that you know this person is really honest and he he really likes to work with other people he appreciates my help and he mentions my name in front of other people which is which is great thing for him and great thing for you too okay all right okay next question and how to interact with the higher authority in an organization we implement some innovations while we are approaching the authorities they may be thinking like this is very optimistic so people they are expecting for current trends so if we go on for negatives they are thinking oh this is very pessimistic so how to interact with that higher authorities okay higher you interact with all the authorities like a human being okay don't treat them like higher authorities because if you treat them like higher authorities right they will they will treat you like a lower authority okay so you have to treat everybody like a human being you know no matter if it's a CEO of a company or whatever see exo of the company you have to deal with them at a human level and you have a question right and you can always pose your questions in such a way that the other person is willing to contribute to the conversation okay let me give you an example an example would be this is what you think we should do huh so for example you think that this is this in the company needs to change you guys are not doing it right what will do you think the other person on the will will do they will go on a defensive because now you are accusing them now you are coming out with a suggestion with that with a tent of acquisition whereas you could you could pose your question in such a way that hey you know I'm observing this this this this and I think there are some issues with this you know maybe we should do that what do you think when I ask a question saying what do you think suddenly you are engaging that other person to contribute to this conversation and that's the trick that you need to use to get you know whoever you are interacting with on your side okay thank you mother with us so much I feel casual okay when I apply for an intensive so they are hardly five to six it's there so my patient is what are some extra qualities so that I can be a part of that intensive because there are many people who are fighting for that intensive or that campus placement your question is that there are only limited internships available and so many people trying to apply for that internship and you are asking me how do you improve your chances is that what is that what you're saying okay okay you asked a very very interesting question casual because I'll tell you what I do every day right I get emails from students all over India hundreds of them okay and you know what I do I delete them okay so I'll tell you why which ones I delete and which ones I read okay I get emails which are like a blank emails which is their address to all the professors in my department huh and or I'm in the BCC and they don't write my name I delete them immediately the second kind of email I delete is where there are spelling mistakes in the content I delete them immediately after all these barriers if the message is not clear I I mean I don't even read those messages okay and then finally if I find everything appropriate then I will open up the resume again the same methodology follows I make sure that the person who is asking me all these things right they're genuine and they're not just trying to waste my time so you can learn from all this and make sure that whatever you write to the other person you make a personal connection you write a personal email with address to that person individual email rather than personal email and then explain your situation you will get good results but if you send out like a blanket email to everyone in the company you know most likely nobody will open your email so the communication should be one on one and genuine and you should explain you know what you want to do and what skills you have and you know maybe then you will have improved chances at least so that you are in the door for an interview and at the interview place you you have to follow a lot of other techniques that you have learned through this they have learned through this course right so so the most important thing as I said even in the emails is making that first impression and making the right first impression a spelling mistake in an email goes to the delete box okay hello my name is Deepa Ja and my question is the first of all I want to say that we have learned a lot from this from this IT Bombay website it has been very interesting for solving all the assignments and it developed our communication skill as well as how to present ourselves in front of I mean and sir I have one question which I want you to that is it necessary to say always yes to all the questions asked by the company for their benefit really good question really good question if your friend is asking you that question would you say yes to all those questions no I won't actually sir I am having an example can you give me an example actually some college there are some campus in our college in which the companies ask the question to girls like if they can do night duties or extra work after after their working hours so if they say that they can't do night night work or night duties they directly reject them so I don't think this is a good thing because there are many cases we have heard about that's why my question is is it necessary to say yes always for their benefit no no no no I mean this is a deeper year this is a really important question that you mentioned you you should not agree to anything that you don't believe in okay you have to stick to what you think is right just because somebody is putting pressure on you you don't have to say or your colleagues are saying yes and you should not have to say yes you do what you think is right and you have to stand by that and in my opinion you know what you're seeing right now is not a very fair situation so I would bring that to attention of your you know placement office because it's it's not a it's a I feel it's unfair to to ask people to work at nights having said that there will be times when you're working right you will be under a lot of time pressure to finish something and occasionally there is always you have to work work extra hours long hours and you know sometimes even at night in and you know I don't think you should be you should be against that because as long as it happens rarely because at that time everyone's future is is tied to something getting on time right so then people people do this extra you know beyond what is expected you know they do these things and you should be you should be okay with that in my opinion as long as it's occasional and and necessary okay I can give you a suggestion so in IIT Bombay recently we had people from the Deutsche Bank coming and addressing women students here because women students sometimes get asked very awkward questions which should not be asked by companies and they don't ask the same questions to men so the Deutsche Bank actually trained these women who are going to sit for placement on how to respond to this so they are doing this as part of their CSR activities so as I just you also get in touch with the Deutsche Bank and maybe we can give you those contacts later if you can contact us offline and there are many other women's organizations NGOs who will help you in this your placement officer you should talk to about this so they can help you out on this on this kinds of issues okay yeah one thing that's really important is you know different genders right you are on equal footing you know you should not take a backseat it's you have equal right to the same job you have to believe in that first yourself and then you will get what you want so believing in that is important because when you when you if you don't believe in that and if you came in then that means you know the other side will take advantage of you IERCEM yes okay oh this is from West Bengal okay hello what is your name that was the lecture that we talked about right I hope you went through the lecture and you know I hope you learn from that so hello sir yes what is your name I am Surya Bargo sir thank you for having us sir I have some questions about workplace communication as well as soft skills can I ask them now of course shoot if we got a situation like we are heading a team that is we are leading a team in a project some of the team members are not supporting us that means which they are not doing their work which we are given to them and they are feeling they are making us to feel important how can we handle the situation so that we can make that situation favor to us okay if I understand your question you are you are a team leader you are working in a company and some of the people in your team they are not doing any work and then how do you deal with them is it okay so dealing with people who don't work right is very common a good way to handle such situation is track the keyword is tracking okay so as a leader you need to track who is doing what so as a leader you need to identify who is going to do what first okay always so let's say you have a team of five people then you need to identify you need to have a good communication with your team granted that two or three people are not listening to you it's perfectly fine but you need to let them know that this is what you expect them to do and in this much amount of time and after that you need to let go of them okay you cannot you cannot go after them every one hour have you done this have you done that right then they will be turned off and if there is already an animosity or unpleasant behavior it will exaggerate further so but as a leader your responsibility is to get things done without any pain as much as little friction and as little pain in the in the team right and rest of the team will realize that what you are trying to do you have to be factual you have to you have to communicate with everyone the same way and you have to let them know what your expectations are and if somebody doesn't fulfill your expectations you need to let them know to you just have to be calm and composed about it you don't have to scream just have to let them that this is what you expected and it's not getting done on time and you don't appreciate that and I think having rather than having a shouting match just letting other person know that you're not happy about something works wonders because I think when you say something negative without being emotional it does about 10x impact on the other side I'm telling you from my personal experience so do that and you will see the magic happen people will fall in line and what you also as I said you know earlier if you if you get my thread whoever is doing the right work you need to make you need to really appreciate what they're doing and you need to reward them not monetarily or any other things but you can always sing their praise right I really appreciate you did this on time and thank you when you say something like that it makes an impact on other people who are not getting that warm feeling right so as humans we always want positive reinforcement and you give the positive reinforcement to people who are doing the work for you and you always talk about those people with your superiors or whoever in the organization with high high respect and rest of the people will figure it out right so so then they will also want to do work with you and they know that if you they if they do good work you they'll get appreciated so that's a good way to get things done with a positive reinforcement you have any sir I had another question in workplace being as being a professional we we need to avoid the personal discussions between our colleagues isn't it sir absolutely if any person is going into personals like that we are not want to discuss and he is going into personals even we are even he feels we are uncomfortable how can we tell them and without hurting without hurting them so that we can get rid of that situation you just said the answer right now that's exactly what you need to tell the other person you just tell them that you're uncomfortable talking about this very simple move away that means if directly it makes them hurt how can you know why should they why should the other side be hurt you just not comfortable very simple and people will ask you question once and twice and then after that they will not do that if there is something private in your private life you don't want to share with that person you have 100% right to protect yourself okay so do not talk about stuff you're not comfortable so you Surya you brought this thought in my mind thank you for this I mean I you can sit down if you want to because I want to there is something I talked I mean me and my wife we discussed this many times right and we are both professionals so she looked at the presentation I did and she said you forgot this and so whatever I forgot is what I'm going to tell you now so here is and Surya you you kind of gave me a great segue to explain what what she said to me so one of the things my personal experience has been in Indian workplace or not so much in US but in India itself is people talk to each other about their salaries openly okay and my opinion is that your salary is your private data you don't have to share it with other person you will there will be situation when you are happy with whatever you are getting but you are unhappy suddenly because somebody is getting 10 rupees more than you okay because humans are very relative you're always relative thinking relatively you are you think you you judge other person in your mind and you you put a number on them and you always put a lower number on other person and if that person is getting more money then you for whatever reason you you feel unhappy so that's one reason and other reason is it will affect your work whatever you are doing because this thought of salary will be always in the back of your mind so salary is a private information don't try to find somebody else's salary okay imagine that this your workplace is a fair place you are getting what you deserve the other person is getting what he deserves or she deserves so don't get into other person's salary and the second thing you brought out is I also see somebody asking me what cast I am from and I was like this is the first time ever in my life somebody asked me what cast I am from because I never thought about cast as a question right and this happened to me very recently about two years ago when I was giving a talk at some place and I was so shocked that it took me a while to react to that question but I had to wait pause and you know do all those techniques and you know not react to that situation and I just ignored that question that's the way I dealt with it I didn't want to react to it so the point I'm trying to make is you know do not ask other person all these private questions which cast whatever religion whatever they are from you know because at workplace you are all equal you're there to do your job and you're help there to help each other and don't let any of these biases come into your workplace because once they enter the bias it's a devil that's in your mind and that devil will kill you and it will kill you work and then it will be you know your own destruction so don't let all these things affect you don't ask all these difficult I mean like uncomfortable questions to others and if somebody asks you uncomfortable questions shy away from them saying that I really don't want to talk about it I'm not comfortable okay and that goes about your personal situations are you married are you going to get married are you how many kids you have once you have an established relationship with a person right and if it becomes truly your friend outside the work by all means you can share whatever you feel like and at that point it's your call what to share okay because humans by definition are always judging other people okay so once you share the information in the private syntax they will be judging you okay so be prepared for that and one example would be I'll give you an example right as a don't take it the wrong way but let's say that you are you are a single person okay and if you are a single person then the judgment on the other side is going to be oh he can work hard and he can come in at nights he can work through the weekends but if the person is married then then maybe no you know he won't be able to put in as much time so these kind of judgments happen all the time subconsciously many times many times people are not thinking about these things so I'm not saying that you should become ultra private person with with no information but you have to take that call what information you release okay thank you so the question is if the supervisor is partial to one of his subordinates how does other subordinate handle the situation it will happen to you trust me it will happen to you and it will it will feel good if you are the partial candidate whatever that is but it will not feel good at all when you are on the other side and you know you can complain about it or you can handle it gracefully and I approach it with how do you deal with this situation gracefully first of all you can there is not much you can do unless that person is doing something writing or via you know expressing it where other people are present right and where they notice that this this partial behavior is is uncalled for right for example if somebody is passed up for promotion and other one is not given a promotion you can always question you can always talk to the supervisors you can have a fair discussion with your supervisor supervisor you should have a complete access to people in the hierarchy and always go with you know don't go with attack mode you know in these situations always ask questions you know hey can you explain why this happened what am I doing wrong because when you ask questions like this then the other person will be on your side they will they will not go in the defensive they will give you advice and and you will also bring it to other persons notice that hey this is what is happening and it's really not right and if the supervisor supervisor or the person in the higher authority is is is really fair person then he will he will make sure that things are right corrected huh so again you know you can't really confront people in a negative manner but you can always bring it out in a one on one discussion in a delicate manner as I said you know hey maybe I am doing something wrong can you explain what I need to do to do as well as this other person you know this other person deserved I'm sure he deserved or she deserved whatever she got but then what do I need to do and when you ask questions like this it will become very clear that the decision making wasn't exactly fair and and human beings are such that you know once you once you make them aware and once once they know that everyone else is around them is aware then they try to avoid those situations and things will stop so you have to handle this gracefully if you go go storm into the supervisor's office and hey you know attack that person or whatever that is then the things may not be the way you want them to be okay yeah do you guys have any questions so how do we interact with them in the campus or outside it should be safe or we need to perform it directly yeah what is your name so my name is Akash okay Akash so your question is that how should you interact with people as a professional in campus versus outside campus is that kind of what you're saying yes yeah so yeah I don't see why the campus should make a difference in your behavior you can be in campus or outside the campus you should extend the same professional courtesy to other people you were asked uncomfortable when we meet them outside the campus so we do not make eye contact and there is feeling of no no please because articulate what your question is because I'm sure many of the other people have the same question so feel free to please say that again so I understand your question whenever we meet our superiors outside our campus or outside the organization we tend to feel a little nervous okay so we just don't make eye contact or we just live out of it so that is the kind of nervousness so how should we overcome it so the eye contact is is matter of confidence what kind of confidence you have about yourself how much you believe in yourself I think once you start believing in yourself you will make the eye contact so you know don't worry about that again you know when you're interacting with with your with your supervisor or anyone else in the organization right you just have to be you know you just have to be nice to them and you have to extend the same courtesy that you would extend with respect and if you give other person respect they will give you the same respect you know that's the way the respect works it doesn't have to be with superior and inferior persons right we are all equal it just happens that that person was born before you or has had experience before you and he just happens to be a little bit higher in the chain than you are doesn't matter doesn't mean that you are not going to get there doesn't mean that you are not going to go beyond that person so you should have that confidence in you and your abilities and but you just give them the same respect that you give other person right you if you treat people with respect it will be obvious however if you ignore them and if you try to shy away from them then then there is not much that other person can do also right so you treat the other side with respect not not respect to the extent of subservientness that you will do anything that they want you to do the respect has to be mutual the other person has to treat you with the same respect and it has to be a professional interaction so you know the respect should not be that they ask you hey go get some coffee for me right that will be totally not right and at that time I would react that why don't you get it yourself right and can you get some for me also no I'm kidding here you know don't do that you know the point I'm trying to make is that the respect has to be mutual it has to be professional and then there'll be times when you help the other person beyond what's expected but there'll be times when they will do the same for you okay so so it's a mutual interaction that's that you have to take it as it comes Sir I am Ashwini Hello Ashwini My question is that see in a workplace we are we are under stress and we are given overload work but we couldn't manage it but it must that we should do that situation and in that case how could we manage our stress our overload work and how could we tackle the situation yeah you will be I mean there'll be times when there'll be too much work to do right and you you you can be under stress but I think the best you can do is you're working for a certain amount of time and in that time efficiently how much can you finish right get those things out of the way you have to manage your time very well if you efficiently manage your time maybe then then the amount of workload coming to you maybe you can sort it out a lot faster than you think and get help from people it's okay to ask for help and it's always okay to say I don't think I can complete this in time maybe I can complete these these things in in time you know just just outline your one of the most important things I need to tell you I hope you learn from my presentation that you need to set expectations if you set expectations let's say somebody gives you pile of work right and you okay you said okay that means you have set an expectation that that work will be done in that amount of time so you need to say that if you can leave it there or I can take it but I don't think I can finish so and so so many things but here is what I think I can finish in this time or you can always give a timeline saying that I can finish so many things at this time so many things after this time things like that so that way you have set an expectation on the other side saying that with reasonable amount of work you can finish so many things at so and so time and nobody will punish you for for work that is not completed right because they just gave you too much right so and they will also remember that you know you actually set expectations and you met the expectations if you accept something and if you don't deliver in a given time then that's that's not good I mean people can come back at you with negative feelings but if you even if you got more you upfront said that you know I would love to do all this work but then I only have so much time and I have to finish so many things and I think I can so many things out of this I can finish in this amount of time you have set expectations about what what you can do at that point and it's okay it's okay that you don't have to stay there overnight doing all these things right because many times people people on the other side will push you to do that and you have to make sure you stand where you want to stand at that point okay thank you I can just add to this you just need to be explicit about your own abilities that I am available to you and whether you can fulfill the expectations so you know as a faculty here I also tend to depend on students for various kinds of work either in research or organizing conferences events projects and so on so usually what happens is I tend to depend on students who I know will handle the job well will perform the tasks I know some people cannot so sometimes what happens is without realizing it I tend to overburden some students because I know they can do the job and they come and tell me sometimes so I sometimes I realize that they cannot do it themselves so assign somebody else they will come and tell me sir I know this person will not work with me this person will not do the work so please don't assign him please I will select somebody who will do the work for me okay so that's what you should be doing also okay you choose a partner who you think can help you in this work and go to your supervisor and tell them we both will do it together that's absolutely fine okay so you don't necessarily have to accept somebody else who has been assigned to you if you're not comfortable yeah good afternoon sir so my name is Anish Jain Anish what if boss asked me a question instead of immediately rejecting my idea what should I do at that situation the question is what what should I do when my boss asks me a question instead of rejecting my idea is that the question yes sir yes sir I mean that's the kind of boss you need to have right you want to have somebody who will not reject your ideas outright but pose questions because questions are posed in such a way that they make you think they make you think about maybe you have not thought about these situations maybe you have not thought about this application and the question should be always welcome because if you become defensive for those questions then then then it will be very uncomfortable for you and for the other side also so it's really important to you know listen you know most important thing you need to do at workplace is listen you have to listen to other people and you have to kind of internalize what the feedback they're giving you and then you have to react so if somebody asks your question that means they are interested in what you're doing if they just say yes yes yes and they move on to something else that means they don't care right but if they ask your question that means they really thought about what you're saying and they have asked your question which is relevant to what you're saying so you should welcome the question and try to find an answer to that question okay so but at last I found that my boss like my idea and so what should I do at that situation I have to go with my boss cabin and ask that why you reject my idea or I have to say that you should like you like my idea so can you please give me some opinions on that what should I do I am a little bit confused your boss is liking your idea right so then there is nothing better than that but sir at last I found I found out that my boss like my idea but at that at that situation they were he was just asking me questions about that but not related to my idea so I felt that the boss reject my idea but at last I found that boss like my idea so in that situation what should I do yeah yeah I mean the Indian way of doing things is we don't like to tell other person that you like them right your does do your parents tell you every night that they love you do they okay they do yes yes every night your parents tell you that they love you yes sir and they tell me good night and yeah they are not but not a great parents yeah that's good no I'm trying to illustrate a point that you know people are different and they have different ways to express themselves so generally in what I have found is in India people are not very open about you know they will not tell you openly on your face something that's that's great and good but when they are in a conversation with someone else they will tell them that hey you know this kid is really sharp I really like his idea and that happens all the time so don't be discouraged that's all I'm trying to tell you you know because like many times I don't tell that to my students either even though I know that they're doing good because I want them to do even better right so I raise the bar higher up so that they can do even better and so it's in your good that he's not he's not pampering you but but you know you got to you got to follow your instinct you're going to pursue your ideas if you believe they are good and looks like you have a healthy relationship with your boss then you you got to pursue that idea further and I'm sure you will make in roads and take your idea for me okay all right so first I would like to thank all of you come here on Saturday afternoon and listen to this discussion I'm really happy that you're asking all these really important questions because it it gets me in your head about what you're thinking and then I will I will use that information in my my next presentation whenever I get an opportunity with students right so it does help me what the key thing I would like to tell you is it's really important it's really important in workplace to to communicate with whoever you are around okay and communicate with with your heart open and you know then then there will be no you know you can't go wrong if you if you believe in yourself if you if you follow your instincts then you will you will be successful so and on the other side right your boss is always looking for people who is doing that and and they can trust people who are communicating who are very honest and you know who are willing to make an effort so if you do that you will definitely succeed please follow the the points I gave you think about them and you know internalize them and then utilize them when you are in your professional environment thank you again so I would like to thank professor Zellio on behalf of all of you and the team here