I just read a blog post by one of my friends where he explored the idea of ‘speed dial’. Much as I would like to share it here, it is his private blog and I respect an author’s right of distribution. However, the basic premise of that post was that although one has so many friends and connections, the ones who really matter are those who come first to your mind when asked about specific category. For example, first 3 names when you think about your colleagues, first 3 names when you think about your college friends and so on.
In Management jargon, this is called “The Pareto Principle” which says that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Although in this case we may say that only about 2% of the people in your life make 98% of the total external impact on it.
As I reflect on this, I think it is right. They say man is a social animal. But no matter how social we are (varies a lot; some are born extroverts, while some are introverts), I think every person has a speed dial list. When I try to construct a speed dial list of various categories of people, I notice an interesting phenomenon.
Let’s talk about friends. Although the term ‘friend’ is very liberally applied to what actually should be called ‘acquaintances’, I would say that I have about 150 friends. But my speed dial list of 3 friends has 2 names who are not on my facebook list, 1 name with whom I haven’t even talked to face-to-face in last 7 years. So the speed dial list somewhat contradicts the usual meaning of ‘friends’ i.e. someone you are regularly in touch with or hang out with.
Let’s talk about colleagues. I must have directly worked with about 70 different people in 5 years of my career. Yet, the speed dial list has 2 names who were my colleagues way back in 2004 and 1 name from 2007. Nothing from recent times; again defies logic as these 3 names are hardly ‘colleagues’ anymore; they are more like memory snapshots – although excellent but distant nevertheless.
Let’s turn to the more sensitive subject of mentors or bosses. If I recollect correctly, I have had 8 bosses/managers so far. But here, my speed dial list has only 1 name; even if someone forced me to fill in number 2 & 3, I can’t fill in the blanks. Common sense would say that this name must be the one with whom I worked the longest. But again, it defies logic. This is the name of a person with whom I worked for a very short duration. I had a lot of debates, discussions and heated arguments – hardly the kind of thing people have with their favorite bosses in a short duration. Yet that person remains the only name on my speed dial, mainly because that person was the only person who treated me with respect and dignity.
This can go on; but the surprising point about the ‘speed dial lists’ is that they defy the common logic applied to that particular category. At least in my case!
So, how do your speed dial lists look? :-)
P.S. By the way, I have never set or used the speed dial function on the handset. Irrelevant line, I know; but still!
