TechLahore

Hopefully you can read the message on the back of this rickshaw, but if not, I’ll spill the beans in just a minute. On my way to work this morning, the above is what I saw. A beaten down orange rickshaw with a message that the HR managers in our local IT industry need to adopt as a mantra, “Ag lagay teria’n majbooria’n noo’n”. For those who don’t speak Punjabi (you don’t know what you’re missing out on!!), this loosely means, “Damn your compulsions!”. This significantly raises the bar for the pearls of Rickshaw Wisdom, my primary source of values and inspiration.

Come on, admit it. You’ve wanted to say this to your employees so often! When they use the old my-aunt’s-cousin’s-son’s-mother-in-law-passed-away excuse, you wonder what to say since you sort of remember her passing away last month. Well, this is what you should say And if you can’t say it out loud, say it under your breath to yourself and it’ll make you feel better. The next time one of your guys says to you, “I couldn’t send the weekly report to Ned at BigBankCustomerInNYC on time because…”, cut him off right there and bring out the BIG GUNS! “Ag lagay teria’n majbooria’n noo’n”.

On a serious level, when you’re serving customers globally who have very little knowledge of the social fabric and norms in our part of the world, it is important to abstract away anything that gets in the way of projecting an always-on, 24×7 approach to business. Your customer in Finland doesn’t really know or care about the fact that there was a traffic jam at the Mughalpura railway phattak (crossing). Figure out a way to get around it!

The reason Project Managers are at a premium, specially in our environment, is because they are not only responsible for managing the project, but for managing all these ups-and-downs we are so used to. They need to abstract away our unique issues while continuing to meet deliverables and keeping the customer oblivious of the gargantuan efforts involved behind the scenes. It’s a very challenging job, and I’ve seen only a few people who can manage it well. Maybe someone needs to suggest to LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences) that a course in this area – Global Relationship Management for Pakistani Project Managers – is not only the need of the hour, but is sure to be a hit with the BPO, Software, IT and other export focused industries in Pakistan.

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