25 years ago: Have I lost something now?

This month, about 25 years ago, was when I stepped into my first job after my Engineering degree.

The working world that time was very different, and after I have spent 25 years working, when I reflect on how it was vs how it is now, I am quite amazed.

While there are quite a number of changes, and many for the betterment of work and society at large, when I reflect, there are some things that I have lost.

In this article and a few to follow, I would reflect on what are the things that we used to do better with human skills, and how it has changed now

I am categorizing the changes that I have seen in certain buckets/title. In this article and the next, I would focus on communication

Communication:

1.     There were no computers (only the IT department had it, and that too large unwieldy ones), our work used to get done on typewriters. We were dependent on a few typists that the organization had in various departments. Content used to get typed on a type-writer with a carbon paper copy. We used to retain the carbon copy for our records.

Since we were dependent on few typists, our work often queued up in front of the typist. Since queuing up involved waiting and higher lead times, we just couldn’t afford our drafts to go wrong. So, we used to be very diligent in having our communication draft right first time. I used to spend extra time reviewing the content that I wanted to type out, before I handed it over to the typist. I used to review all spellings myself and including grammatical errors, as content once typed, when it is wrong, the cost of waiting was prohibitive for me.

How did this help? It certainly improved my written communication, my vocabulary and spelling. I always had a pocket dictionary and a grammar handbook in the drawer of my desk. It made me more diligent and improved my inherent skills. It also made me focus on having things first time right.

More importantly, I needed to have a good rapport with the typist. As the saying goes, even if the God is forgiving, the Priest is not. The typists were akin to the priests and wielded a lot of power, though their designations would make you think otherwise.

In those ages, it taught me the importance of relationships, no matter the hierarchy

Fast forward to today: I have the luxury of Grammarly and auto-correct, and I know that even if I go wrong, these would correct the sentence.

What has it done to me? I have now become complacent, as I know that even if I go wrong, the system would auto-correct things for me. While this is good for the person who receives my communication, because it would be grammatically correct, as an individual I have had diminishing returns in terms of improving my vocabulary and grammar.

While we know that the system auto-corrects, I am not diligent enough to review it and send. Added to it is the facility of recalling mails, and “delete for everyone” in Whatsapp.

Some-times today I use auto-correct as an excuse if I send out a wrong communication. That is the extent of loss in diligence is it not? Sometimes, we un-apologetically or even jokingly write “oh it is an auto-correct error” and unabashedly blame the software for auto-correcting as well. The ownership of communicating right is now transferred to the software and we have distanced ourselves from it.

2.     We never had e-mails. Interactions between functions used to happen in what we called as Inter-Office-Memo (IOM). Each one of us had an in-tray and an out-tray. Communication was predominantly on papers moving across departments through the office boys. Every communication in the IOM was in triplicate. The original goes to the department concerned, the duplicate to the manager and the last copy in my file.

Most of the IOM cannot be sent to the other function directly and it has to be routed through your department manager. There used to be a very famously used “through proper channel”, where my manager used to sign, before it gets back to my out-tray.

There were no “blind carbon copies” and only carbon copies.

Since the IOM was a booklet, I could not afford to make mistakes while I drafted. Crossed-out lines/words used to look very unprofessional. Whitening, though was an option, was not considered very professional either. More importantly I needed to write very legibly so that the recipient understands the asks from me.

In addition, I needed to have a very good rapport with the office boy, for him, to run errands for me beyond his normal pick-up schedule. I learnt the art of building relationships, where people are willing to go the extra mile.

Fast forward to today: We have emails, cc, bcc. When I cc my manager, it is tacitly assumed by the recipient that the communication has already been authorized by my manager. I once again have the luxury of Grammarly and Auto-correct

What has it done to me? When I randomly use my notebook for taking notes in a meeting today, I find that my writing is no longer legible as it used to be in the past. While one might argue that handwritten communication is passé, have I not lost my dexterity in writing? Is that a skill that I should not have lost? I don’t know. But even now some of the forms that I fill up for social security, forms related to government departments, bank applications largely remain hand-written, and I find myself hopelessly inadequate in terms of filling these legibly, unless I spend inordinate time in writing these out slowly.

There is no doubt that the working world is a better place now compared to when I started my career. We have great ways of communicating, connected devices, information at finger-tips (sometimes to the extent of being overload), analytics and so on.

In the process, I have learnt newer skills, newer ways of leading and managing. However, when I reflect, with all the above, I still have had two of my great skills shrink compared to what it was in the past. The ability to be diligent, having ownership and being right first time, has now been delegated to technology

In my next article, I would take the other components of communication like shift log-books, phone calls (very rare events), how meetings were more productive, and how in general I had an opportunity to flex my brain to keep it alive and kicking.

Note: Views expressed by the author are solely in his private capacity and does not in any way represent the views of the Organisation that he is employed with