Empathize, Nurture, Motivate

Workshop on ‘Managing Peers’
- By Ms. Pallavi Muralidhara
  Senior Engineering Manager
  Cisco Systems India Pvt Ltd.

Axcend has been investing continuous efforts to build skills and confidence among its employees and helping them with a better work environment and work-life balance. An session on ‘Managing Peers’ was organized to throw light on practical paradigms of everyday work life and the possible conflicts and

growth aspects which employees encounter at work. Ms. Pallavi Muralidhara, Senior Engineering Manager at Cisco systems India Pvt Ltd graced the occasion and conducted an workshop on ‘Managing Peers’.

 

Realistic scenarios and day-to-day conflicts which surface within any team – such as cultural, personaility traits, values and opinions of employees and its impact on the team performance were brought out powerfully by Ms. Pallavi. The conflict often intensifies with communication gaps and dynamic work environments which bring a lot of change at work place in short span of time. As pressure mounts on teams to deliver, team work and acceptance within your team is crucial for success. Managers and team members need to offer help to peers as well as influence decisions with mutual acceptance. The old saying always holds good – “Treat others the way you like to be treated”. Acknowledging diversity of people and their behavior/conduct and readiness to deal the situation with trust and respect for your team unlocks the first door to resolving conflicts among peers.

Another interesting phase of peer management surfaces when one of the team member grows to being the manager of the same team. The manager might be on a pedestal of personal friendship with team members, but the moment calls for clear distinction from personal and professional relationship without creating conflicts. Ms. Pallavi also insisted on an important fact that it is equally important to differentiate your previous role from your new role. This point calls for effective and consistent communication from the new manager to the team members – about expectations, motivation and delegation. At all points, one should not overlook the fact that we need to focus on what’s good for the business.

Every Axcendian was able to identify themselves with the thoughts expressed by Ms.Pallavi and the session turned out to be very interactive and different by its nature.