Beat Conflict with Ease

Conflicts within the workplace is something we all will face sometime or the other - the trick is to work around these tensions and keep your job secure. Read and learn the tips and tricks to deal with difficult office situations, as power and influence management in your company will always be a part of your career. 

Conflicts and tensions between boss and employee or between co-workers are present in every industry in one form or another - and it is not going to go away anytime soon. Since it is impossible for anyone in an organization to stay untouched from it, it is always better to play it safe and position yourself in a way that you don’t get harmed.  

 Here are a few tips to help you deal with workplace conflict

1. While at a new job, keep your eyes and ears open and mouth shut at first. Observe what is going around you. Ask your boss questions regarding the office culture and the core values of the company and the like – so you have an idea of what to expect and how to react to your surroundings in the first few weeks.
2. Choose your battles with care. Some things cannot be avoided, like a new policy that affects your work environment or your work style – Let them go. By grumbling about it with coworkers, you’ll only be harboring negativity. This doesn't mean you can't voice your opinion or discontentment with something. Instead, revolt when it makes a difference. However, you should stay professional if you choose to speak out.
3. Don’t choose sides too easily - Stay neutral. You'll be able to resolve conflict by not getting involved in it. If you're stuck between two people or parties the best thing to do is to keep channels of communication open and not show any bias--even if you personally favor someone over the other.
4. Don't make it personal. Try not to get angry or emotional. You don’t know who you might need help from in the future, so be in good standing with all coworkers. Plus, even work "friends" will most likely choose themselves over you if it comes down to the line. Point is, you can only trust yourself at work.
5. Have an emotional outlet outside of work. It's inevitable that if things get difficult at work, your emotions will get fired up, but how you choose to react to such situations is what separates you from the crowd. Talk with a friend or a family member about the issues. This will enable you to blow off steam and see things more objectively

Within a company, with so many people working together, there are bound to be some issues that arise. When such conflicts arise, it’s quite easy to get wrapped up in them. But with our guidance, you can avoid the drama that may hamper your career advancement.

Letter to my Teacher

Dear Joy,

I got placed in Purple Talk as a Trainee Engineer. Thank you for the Joy effect that you created in the class. Your classes were refreshing and we always enjoyed being trained by you and you made us cultivate good habits to improve our language which in turn were helpful in our interview and we miss that Joy effect.

Regards,
Kamal kumar shelley.
(STF-29)

Hello Vathsala,

 Hope you are doing well.

I would like to share few good things happening in my life these days:

·         I got an appreciation award too for giving great contribution to the project.

·         I got an on-site opportunity as an ASE. I am flying to Dublin, Ireland on 1st Jan 2012.

So once I come back to India, I will meet you in person and share my on-site experience with you. I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!!!

 Warm Regards,

Kanwaldeep Raheja

Sprint-15.

Hi Vathsala,

Good News!!!

I just wanted to share this with you. First of all I wanted to thank you, Shakila, Madhu, Ashwin and the entire team of "TALENTSPRINT" for giving me support and encouraging me all the time. I can't just say thanks and leave it.

TalentSprint is not only an organisation where students like me come, learn and go. It’s a place where we share our ideas, develop our skills and make our dreams come true. Before coming to TalentSprint I thought I am not fit for working in a IT field, and better choosing some another field. "TalentSprint" was the last chance for me. But after joining every day has been a memorable day. 3 months of my course just flew away so fast.

The important thing in every one's life is we want someone to support and encourage us in case of failures."TalentSprint" always does this. I was not selected for APPLABS for my first interview. I couldn't digest that. But Vathsala and Shakila gave me full support and energy. They did not let me down. The next company visiting was THINKSOFT where 200 people attended the interview and I was the only one who got selected. 

TalentSprint is a very good platform for entering the IT field. Thanks to the entire team. Proud to share this moment with everyone and proud to say that I am student from TalentSprint

My success with talent sprint

Junior Test Engineer in THINK SOFT Chennai from OCT 2010 till SEP 2011

Test Analyst in REVOLUTION IN Singapore from SEP 2011 till date

Thanks!!

Keerthi

Hi Vathsala,

 How are you? Hope everything is fine. I am fine and I am so happy. This is all your blessings and teachings that has helped me to grew up to this extent.

I want to share this good news with you. In a short period span of time I have won the SPOT AWARD for my work. I also got appreciation from the client.  I do not forget my gurus who taught me to grow up in my career. I hope you remember me.

Sandeep Bommina

SEF-07

Cognizant

Dear Trainers, (Joy, Alam, Aisha, Swetha)

Your continuous support and encouragement during my TalentSprint days has helped me secure a job. I feel privileged in expressing my regards to you for helping me 'grow up'.

Regards,

Farhan Sumbul

STF-29

For Santanu Mohanty

“I was very apprehensive about Oracle classes which were very important for my career and I meant to listen to it attentively. But to my surprise I never felt sleepy during these Oracle classes. This was the magic I found in Santanu sir’s lecture. I still remember the first hour of Oracle class when I was mesmerized by Santanu sir’s words, where he said “We are not friends here, I am a resource and you need to utilize me.” … As a saying goes from our Vedas that “Vidhyadaaanam sarvadaanam pradhanaam” - which says that there is no donation greater than the donation of knowledge and a teacher does exactly that, that’s why this is a divine profession. A true teacher’s hunger and satisfaction is all about making every student of his class become successful and he becomes more delightful when the student comes back in revelation. I found the sprint of a true teacher in our Santanu sir. After taking feedback from all of us he moulded himself to our requirements and inspired us. In my knowledge from the past three months he never missed a class and was on time there by setting an example of a true professional. After bringing so much difference in my life the only request that he made from me in the past two days was to see me as a good and successful person after few years.”

Bhanu prakash

PLSQL-01

Hi Joy,

How are you Joy? I want to say thanks to you for the confidence you showed in me. You are my first teacher who showed confidence. I’m not a pet to any teacher all these days. I still remember it (I’ll remember for life time) when I said I can't, you said "you can.” When a teacher encourages, a student can do a lot ( I started). Do you remember or not I don't know, one day you asked us to write an essay on the companies you like (small company or big company). I told I’d like to work in a small company where you can learn a lot. Today I am in that company, I m happy.

 You may have encouraged many but I’m thankful to be one. It was the time where I needed to prove myself. Your encouragement really supported me. I was second in ISTQB (missed the first, next time I’ll never miss).

In interview when the interviewer told me you look confident, it reminded me of you. Now it’s becoming overconfidence too..

 Lot to say but mails need to be in short (it’s not a formal mail). Only thing to say is you are my BEST TEACHER/ BEST FRIEND who made me I CAN...

                                 MISS YOU and YOUR CLASSES... Always keep Smiling

                    

Regards

Srikanth Buyanni

TalentSprint Chennai begins the transformation process right from Day 1

“Our trainees lack confidence”

“Our trainees lack communication skills”

“Our trainees don’t interact, how will they clear the interview?”

Why this Kolaveri against our trainees?

We decided to break the ice and showcase that our trainees are as confident as we strive to make them.

Traditionally, we conduct an induction at the start the batch. It is usually a typical session with a PowerPoint presentation and the TalentSprint video playing in the background while the management and other team members of TalentSprint are introduced to the fresh trainees.

We thought of giving this a twist and spiking things up to help the trainees lose their inhibitions.

Usually, we see that trainees are afraid to speak up because their constant thoughts are “am I saying the right thing? What will my classmates think?” and the like. We decided to nip this line of thought in the bud so that they don’t have any discomfort within their group of peers.

So what did we do?

Hectic brainstorming began and we planned a series of events. The idea was to introduce the trainees to all aspects of TalentSprint (staff, technology and facility) and have them interact amongst themselves. Welcome emails were sent and the stage was set to welcome them. Trainees started to assemble by 1:45 pm and the session began at 2:30 pm with a full house.

We began the party with the new batch of trainees cutting the welcome cake – The cake with the legend “Welcome Sprinters” was their first inkling of what was to come. The stage was now set.

Next event was the trainee's introduction. Wait! It was not in the usual way either. They were given a questionnaire created by Sylvia, which had to be filled with details of a random fellow trainee and they had to introduce that trainee to the gathered crowd. This went a long way in breaking the ice.

After the trainees introduced each other, the faculty left the classroom. On queue there was a video call on Skype from Princeton (the room) and the trainees were looking at me on the screen. I set the expectations for the next event which was a “Treasure Hunt”. Trainees were divided into 2 teams, each with an envelope with a set of questions to ask the TalentSprint staff and receive their first clue. They had to interact with at least three staff members to get that clue.

The first clue was to meet the Testing faculty. Teams had to know what smoke testing was and perform a smoke test on SMS application on their mobile. They had to send an SMS to a number, the reply to which was another long number – which was the second clue.

The teams had to decode the number to using predictive text. The answer was “business communication”.

The next stop for clue three was of course Geena & Sylvia. The teams received five words and had to find their synonyms. On finding the correct synonyms, they were asked to meet the Engineering faculty.

The task for the fourth clue was to start writing a small C program whose output is “DMR we thank you for creating C Language” , paying our tribute to the one who led his life by “Value” rather than “Reference” (bit geeky but good one!). Next stop was the final treasure which they got from me. They got a “Cadbury Bournville” (remember the ad? You have to earn a Bournville).

Phew! 3 floors of running around and finally back to the classroom. Teams were greeted back with tea and snacks and then we began round two of the induction party. We had recently placed trainees visit us and address these new trainees. There was some constructive interaction among them. For the job seekers with the ever-present doubt of “Will I get a job?” -  It was comforting to see how things can change in a matter of few months. We thanked our Alumni and presented them with a TalentSprint Coffee Mug each to place on their desks at work!

And it was an even more eventful close with both the faculty and trainees participating in Word games that focused on Vocabulary and Tongue Twisters. It was a good blend of learning and fun and it made clear difference to our new batch.

The faculty reports that trainees are more than usual vocal in their preliminary Remedial English session.  

From the Desk of

Harish Kota, Director

   TalentSprint Chennai. 

                                                                                                                                                                                        

20 ways to save the earth!

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth. It is a measure of demand for natural capital as opposed to the planet's capacity to regenerate. Every year, this number is recalculated — with a three year lag due to the time it takes for the UN to collect and publish all the underlying statistics.  It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area necessary to supply the resources a human population consumes, and to mitigate associated waste. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if everybody followed a given lifestyle.

In 2003, humanity’s Ecological Footprint (its demand on nature) exceeded global bio-capacity (nature’s ability to meet this demand) by 25 percent.

For 2006, humanity's total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.4 planet Earths – in other words, humanity uses ecological services 1.4 times as fast as Earth can renew them.

This indicates that the current global level of consumption is not sustainable.

Countries with ecological deficits consume more than the ecosystems within their borders can provide. With a per person Footprint of 0.75 global hectares and per person bio-capacity of 0.4 global hectares, India is running an ecological deficit of approximately 100 percent. While the Ecological Footprint of an average Indian citizen is low compared to that in many other countries, India’s total demand on bio-capacity is exceeded only by that of the United States and China. Indian industries will play a key role in determining both India’s future wellbeing and that of the rest of the world.

Ways to Reduce Your Footprint

1.  Replace the light bulbs in your home with long life CFL (compact fluorescent) bulbs. These last up to 15 times longer than regular bulbs and use up 80% less electricity than regular bulbs. You could simply replace your regular bulbs as and when they burn out.
2. Filter your own water, rather than buying bottled water. Most tap water is safe to drink, and some bottled waters are flown in from the far corners of the earth and the production process of the bottles adds to greenhouse gas release.
3. Bring your own mug to your favourite coffee shop. This will reduce the usage of the paper cups, the energy used to produce them and save trees. Paper cups are usually not 100% recycled.
4. Only use your dryer, dishwasher and washing machine when you have a full load, dont do half loads. This reduces the number of loads and the electricity used.
5. Plant a tree this is one of the best things you can do. Trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. They also shade your house in the summer, and will lower your air conditioning.
6. Buy in season produce. Out of season requires more energy to refrigerate, and more fuel to ship in from places where it is in season.
7. Don’t use a hose to wash your car and reduce the number of times you wash your car.
8. Try to use something other than black plastic garbage bags. The black bags can't be recycled because of the black pigment they put in them to make them black. So if possible stick with white or even better don’t use any at all.
9. When replacing household appliances choose energy efficient appliances. You can check their Energy Star ratings for a quick reference. This may cost more upfront but will save you in the long run.
10. When you remodel or paint a room, buy the right amount of paint. This saves chemicals from entering the air that are caused to make the paint, energy to make the paint, and your money buying too much.
11. Reduce Excess Baggage and pack lighter when travelling. Planes flying with extra baggage use more fuel.
12. Whenever possible walk, cycle or use public transport to get around rather than driving in your car.
13. Read the newspaper online to save paper, trees, and carbon.
14. Eat one less serving of meat a week.
15. Don’t leave your household electronic goods and appliances on standby they use a substantial amount of power even in standby mode. Invest in a power strip that you can plug them all into and switch off when you are not using them.
16. Use both sides of the page to print or copy.
17. Replace the exterior lights around your home and in your garden with solar-powered ones.
18. Use reusable bags for grocery shopping.
19. Plant an organic garden and grow your own vegetables even if it’s just a small patch or a windowsill planter.
20. Use a laptop rather than a desktop. Laptops use up to 80% less energy.

Keep the Motor Running - Secrets to Self-Motivate

Lack of self-motivation has haunted us all at some time or the other. Staying constantly and uniformly motivated becomes a daily struggle. Negative thoughts start to flood our minds and concentration and drive that is needed to complete the task is jarred by anxiety.  Everyone faces such situations in their lives. The lack of confidence, focus and direction sometimes veers us down this path - And though not easy, we have to know how to pick ourselves up and carry on. What separates the highly successful is the ability to keep moving forward by brushing off all that is detrimental to their success.

Learn to Better Self-Motivate in 3 steps:

1.    The first Achilles’ heel of Self-motivation is low self-confidence.  To get out of this downward spiral, you should focus on only the positive things in your life. Take a moment to count your achievements only. Remember your strengths and your past successes. Calculate your current advantages.

We tend to under-appreciate our strengths and instead compulsively dwell on our failures. By stopping to think of your track record, you will realize how competent and successful you already are. This will rejuvenate your confidence and get you motivated to build on your current success.

2.    Lack of focus can be a motivation-killer. When the fear of failure and other such doubts enter our minds, they eat us from the inside. Since quenching fear is an impossible in-actionable task, the trick is to count out measurable steps towards your goal and take them one at a time. To stop fear based thinking, the first step is focusing that energy on a well defined goal.

By defining a goal, you automatically define a set of actions which should be easily calculable instead of an ambiguous fear. If you have a fear of not getting a job, create a plan to boost your skills and experience. It could be getting relevant diplomas. It could be getting a higher degree, learning a new language, or brushing up your English skills.

 

3.    A lack of direction kills motivation because without an obvious next action we succumb to procrastination. The key to finding direction is identifying the activities that lead to success. To continue the example from above, a job searcher’s list would look something like this:

>       Research 10 target companies

>       Customize your resume

>       Spend one hour per week monitoring job boards 

>       Practice your job interviews

However, there is no simple solution for a lack of motivation. Even after beating it, the problem reappears at the first sign of failure. The key is in understanding your thoughts and knowing how they drive your emotions. By learning how to nurture motivating thoughts and neutralize negative ones you can pull yourself out of a slump before it gains momentum.

Farewell Teacher - TalentSprint's PL/SQL trainees bid farewell to their teacher Mr. Santanu Mohanty!

Dear All,

We the trainees all our brains are like tables from different Schema’s and with no sufficient data in it. Santanu as a DBA, inserted the required data into our tables and made sure that the data is relevant and related to each other. He also taught us how to insert and update our tables with the data & technology available.

He is the perfect and powerful DBA who trained us how to SELECT the required data from our tables at required times. He introduced INDEX to us, through which we learnt how to give preference to work. He trained us what to invoke, how to invoke the data from tables in our lives using Index.

He is the person who trained us how to perform DML operations on our lives. What to INSERT into our tables, what to DELETE and what to UPDATE i.e, insert the knowledge, delete the useless things and get updated with the technology.

He asked us to be Unique as an UNIQUE KEY. Always says, “what ever you are, either good or bad, don’t maintain duplicity, be unique and make your name stamped forever. Nothing stays forever except your name and fame.”

Our TALENT SPRINT, here it is a VIEW through which the companies are accessing (hiring) us.

The memory required to share the data while executing is the CONTEXT AREA. This area is very important at interview time to present our knowledge well. The POINTER used to point the exact memory which is needed to present at the interviewer is a CURSOR.

Initially we all have IMPLICIT cursors in our brains that are not sufficient to retrieve the data in a bulk from brain while the execution i.e, interview time. Santanu helped us to CREATE and DECLARE some EXPLICIT cursors which are helpful all through our lives.

He is not just a trainer, but a person with human values who can inspire others. Santanu is like a DATA DICTONARY with many inspiring objects like discipline, attitude, behavior, hard work, sincerity towards work and many more, which can be invoked by all and he being the DBA of his style, he GRANTED all PRIVILEGES to learn, seek and get inspired from him.

Tomorrow we all will wake up in our new life, full of yet-to-be realized opportunities and empty of your company Santanu. We really MISS you.

He is such a person whom we can never DROP. We are glad to say that we are his trainees and will proudly say:

SELECT * FROM santanu

WHERE batch = ‘PL/SQL-01’;

NEELIMA KARNE,

PL/SQL 01 BATCH.

TalentSprint.