How to be Assertive

 How to be assertive. First a disclaimer, the post title is incredibly cheesy and clichéd. I will be very disappointed if this is final extent what I could think of creatively. However since I'm trying to be back on track after a long hiatus in blogging, I would focus more on the post right now than fretting about the title. (Plus going with latest trends. there is always AI to lend you a helping hand :) )

So why I'm venturing into this rabbit hole now. Because at different stages of your personal and professional journey, your focus area shifts as it should be. Sometimes you are trying to reinforce your relative strengths, to leverage them for better growth. And other times you try to work on your relative weaknesses as your find them dragging you down. In last few year ;my professional growth has been really good and it rubs off on your personal aspects as well as subconsciously you find subtle changes in your personality while handling bigger and bigger responsibilities. I have decent communication and technical skills (humblebrag alert !). Strangely contrary to conventional wisdom (which says you need to focus on communication and motivational skills when at senior leadership level), My major focus was on hard, technical skills only. I acquired certifications in Project Management and Functional Safety and recently was looking in area of Artificial Intelligence. My current role gave my liberty to focus on any area that I wish (as the company is evolving) and I choose to see myself as a CTO.

But that is changing now, I'm beginning to focus more on Business development aspect (as we are seriously lagging behind in sales). And at the very top level, everything is about numbers. So there is pressure to deliver. Another factor which accentuates the situation is that I'm working in this company for more than five and half years now, And in the Indian team, I'm the oldest as well as the senior most members. So I have to carry the baggage of all failures, lost initiative, missteps by previous management. Based on my previous experience, When the organization is under-delivering on the whole. The owner starts looking for "superstar". The prospective candidates who promise the moons and stars and everything in between, More often than not, these people are smooth talkers and sly as fox. So unless you can communicate assertively, There is no saving you from decline on slippery slope from where there is no coming back.

So here I am, getting increasingly less and less chance to speak and participate in core leadership group. And whenever I do get a chance to speak, its like walking on eggshells. Anything that I say seems to trigger the top boss (who is incidentally the owner of the company as well). Its not doing my confidence a world of good and I have no option but to be walk the fine line between assertiveness and aggressiveness. As becoming a passive spectator and letting things take their own course is not an option.

I'm an introvert person by nature so blessed (or cursed) with trait that I'm a better listener than speaker. The group interactions, where all other senior manager jostled for attention of top boss, are not my favorite events. My natural cadence or pace of speech delivery is also on the slower side (based on feedback received from multiple people.

 The exact situation and struggles before my company; is a subject that merit another post as it will be too technical and specific to international business and packaging automation. So I steer off from that topic for now. This post is more on the communication part.

So to form the vague outline of  plan, I divide the communication into two parts, Tone and the content. As I need to work on both the aspects.  I believe I need to add a third element of context here as well. 
First the third one, broadly I speak on three type of occasions. Explaining something to customers or giving presentation, the kind of occasions that I enjoy. As I wear the technical hat (not sales or commercial). More often that not; customer is keen to hear what I want to say. So I have no problem in communicating even though I encounter a whole spectrum of customer and it a good challenge to vary your message depending upon the occasion.

The second type of occasion is meeting within India team. Here also I have smooth sailing mainly because I'm senior most person (that is about to change very soon..) and us being a very hierarchical society; other team members does not oppose my views openly. In fact these kind of occasions are easier for me to practice assertive communication skills.

The third is the most challenging and difficult one, My interaction with core group which is senior leadership group that takes most decision. And it includes owner of the company as well who has headstrong personality and dominates most of the discussion in the group. This is the platform where I have to be at my assertive best.

Now coming back to other two aspects, tone and content. First is about content. The major part of it is about the homework and preparedness. When interacting with top boss, you are supposed to be on top of all things and have every information on your fingertips. The owner would love to catch you off guard. So he will change the pre-set agenda and ask some vague information that is not relevant and not expected. More often than not, it tests your confidence and on the spot thinking. If you fumbles for information at that instant, you are gone.

Regarding the tone, I have a very monotonous tone by nature. I had enrolled into Toastmasters (https://toastmasters.org/) more than 10 years back which is like a club focused on public speaking. I manage to complete the first stage of certification (which includes 10 speeches). The feedback was very consistent on few aspects. One that I have a serious expressionless face while delivering the speeches and I looks very stressed. And Second my natural voice tone is very flat. Not much modulations so I come across as very emotionless (Not sure if its a bad thing in high level business interactions though)

As I still don't have a action plan other than having more conviction in my ideas and show more confidence (which is easier said than done). I don't have anything to add on that front and should conclude my post here. 

PS : I tried to look online for any solution and did not find anything great apart from some generic advise.

2025 Post -1

 19th April 2025 :

What about Title of this post, lack of  creativity or writers block or plain laziness ?
Perhaps all of the above or I'm not sure if I'm going to write more than one post per year now (the way things are going off late)

And what's with the date as the title of the post.

Its the day I'm writing this post, Perhaps it will be weeks and months before I could conclude and post it. So a nice litter reminder regarding how many days it takes for me to write a post.

Plus its my parents 47th anniversary; And birthday of one of my best friend (at least we were when in college). We have drifted apart now and its almost impossible to repair the relations. Its sad but inevitable as don't have many common interest area and we are separated physically as well (both the factors are important as my experience shows with other friends)

21st October 2025 :

The date above is a giveaway that I'm opening this page now in October after April. Which means almost a whole year gone by just like that. 

This is the second year in a row where I have spent spent almost no time on activities that I used to like and devote time quite regularly; reading and writing. And coincidently, this is the second year of my so called promotion. (I was promoted in November 2023). So probably I'm paying the price of growth. Anyway more on that later (in another post maybe...)

Since this post is more like a diary entry. So first few lines on why this date. Well first of all 17 October was my birthday followed closely by Diwali festival which was yesterday. So here I'm; on very next day after Diwali, in relatively early morning when the house is nice and quite. Weather is usually nice this time of the year and I could hear birds chirping outside. But I could also sense horrible pollution as a consequence of firecrackers burned last time. AQI is close to 350 and I could feel minor irritation in my throat.
Partially because I don't feel like exercising due to this pollution and partially because we have holidays after Diwali so I don't have to attend some urgent senseless official meetings today. I could spend some time in writing this post. Not to say I'm perfectly capable of wasting time on not doing anything, So this should count for something.

My birthday has been a trigger point for my writing for a long time time. You could find a lot of posts on my birthday or new year where I try to introspect, plan for future and the post serve as a platform where I try to put my thoughts into writing, A brain dump if you may call it so.

So the broader trend looks something like this, I write a post on birthday, ruing lost momentum and opportunities in last year. Reaffirming that I should get serious now. And this mood continues till new year which is resolution time for most of the world. There I make plans on how this year will be different and my personal milestones that I wanted to achieve. Sometimes these goals includes no of posts that I wanted to write as well. This time was similar is some ways yet quite different in others. One I was feeling quite tired and jaded, I was trying to build a fitness routing and included brisk walking so partially because of that. But there were others reasons as well that I cant really put a finger on right now. I actually forget how many years older I'm now. Maybe the sign of getting older that birthday gives you more guilt than joy. The guild of wasting one more year and seeing your life wasting away on the whole. And your constant feeling of tiredness in part physical and part mental. On Diwali as well I'm was unusually bitter, I had a bad episode on office; an usual case of office politics but it was not the trigger point. It was more like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I was feeling bitter before this episode as well and this particular incident just added oil to fire. When your mind is not really into it. These activities just feels like a waste of time. And I'm getting drawn into concept of "Time rationing" off late as well. So I sort of went through the motions and today morning my relative calm is more from the sense of relieve that its over now. So much for the occasion of Diwali which should rejuvenate you and fill you with positive energy. 

Continuing the brain dump for second day as well as the pollution from Diwali is still very much there, with AQI is the range of 400 to 500, Exercise is not advisable and as I'm still in Diwali break so I can spend some quality time in rummaging thoughts. 

I have written so many times regarding planning the goals and objectives that I actually have nothing to add to it. Though we can argue that situation every year is different and unique which should be factored in while tailoring the plan. After so many years, one thing is certain that the new year resolutions just doesn't work. Perhaps its due to my tendency to do so many thing at same time that I end up getting overwhelmed, or perhaps I can't sustain my focus and motivation at consistent basis on long term. 

So Maybe its better to sort of "live in the moment". To take thing as they are. And see where we end in the end. New year is around 8 week away. And even if I could sustain these minor changes for these 8 weeks, there is still hope...

 posted on 22nd Oct.