Your office holds secrets that will help you work better

In his new book, 'Mint' columnist Harish Bhat talks about bringing more productivity and joy inside the office

- Harish Bhat

Do offices have secrets waiting to be discovered? Can these secrets help us become more effective managers? The answer is a resounding YES. Offices hold plenty of powerful and useful secrets, though not of the kind you think. These are not secret financial numbers or confidential strategy documents hidden away in locked drawers or in safes. Instead, they are simple secrets present all around us. Yet, we do not often see them.

Let me tell you a few stories that exemplify the kind of secrets I am talking about. Some of these stories are fictional and pieced together from years of assorted observations, so please do not ask me if these specific people actually exist, but do believe me when I say that the lessons they teach us are totally real.

SURESH'S SECRET OF RECOVERY

I have a colleague called Suresh. He and I have sat through so many meetings together. Meetings of all kinds. Happy meetings, sad meetings, delightfully crisp meetings, infinitely long meetings. And we have also endured many painful and bad meetings, including some where we were pulled up severely, and others where long PowerPoint presentations were followed by important-sounding but totally useless discussions. You can say that ours is a kinship of meeting-induced suffering.