“Now, this may benefit your reality. But my new one, not so much.”
By: Try Ajitiono
Tags: Happiness, Remote Working, Solution, Team, Beneficial

“Now, this may benefit your reality. But my new one, not so much.”

Spoiler alert if you haven’t watched Avengers: Endgame, because the title is no other but a quote from The Ancient One in that movie.

Banner, egoistical version

In the movie, The Avengers traveled back in time to retrieve the Infinity Stones from the past. Bruce Banner, aka. “Professor Hulk”, went to the New York Sanctum to get the Time Stone. He met The Ancient One at the rooftop and demanded the Time Stone to be given to him to save his reality. The Ancient One was still the sorcerer supreme at that time — and that was exactly why she didn’t want to give Banner the Time Stone.

She explained to Banner that if she gives him the Time Stone, his reality will flourish —the “decimation” will be undone and everyone will return back to life. However, her reality will be the opposite of his as without the Time Stone, this timeline will crumble against future threats.

She queried Banner, how could “science” prevent all these from happening?

Banner, conservative version

Luckily, Banner gave us an insight how to deal with this situation. He ensured her that the Time Stone will be returned at the exact time it was taken using the time heist machine.

This is a really cool showcase about how to trade-off in an argument. Banner eliminated the disadvantages that her reality might suffer by giving him the Time Stone. With his proposition, his reality and her reality will survive.

In real life?

Sometimes, it’s quite hard for us to implement this in real life. But if you ever want to be the person who initiates the win-win solution, you MUST place yourself in other people’s shoes. You can’t reach a beneficial solution for both parties without putting your ego aside. You need to be empathic to other people.

If you’re working in a team, and you demand some work from your team member and he/she hasn’t done it yet, think about responsibilities this person has taken in the team. Maybe this person spent a lot of time helping other team members in order to unblock other tasks to some extent that, he/she doesn’t have the time to do their own thing? In that case, you probably should help them. Help make things easier for them, don’t add more burden to them. This is beneficial for both parties, your team’s tasks are unblocked, and his/her burdens are lifted.

If you’re working in a team, and you need some help, state clearly what is your problem and how other people can help you. If you don’t describe how to help yourself, people will be really confused and they will just waste their time figuring out how to help you. This is beneficial for both parties, you will be helped, and other people will know how to help you.

If you see some members in your team irritated by lengthy meetings, search for some productivity articles related to meetings, such as “Stop the Meeting Madness” and “The 30-minutes meeting: Why short meetings can be more productive”. How to reach a win-win solution on this? Plan a meeting with a tight rundown. Make sure some discussions don’t exceed allocated time. This way, the meetings’s objective is achieved, and the time spent will be more efficient.

If you see some members in your team irritated by working on-site, search for some articles regarding remote work and office work, for example: “Remote vs In-office workers: Which employee is actually better?” and “Remote vs in-office teams: Which is better?”. Find the objective ones, find out the advantages and disadvantages of each method. From what I have read, working on-site is effective to gather ideas/discuss, while working remotely is best for productivity because there will be less distraction. What’s the best of both worlds? In my opinion, discuss everything on-site, then after the discussion, everyone is free to work anywhere. Why? Because we have discussed everything. Why should we still group up in one place? Some people might not enjoy it, because their productivity might be worse. And then you will ask him/her, “Why you haven’t done it yet?”. Don’t ask me why this person is angry later.

Tools that you might use

Utilize documentations, such as Google Docs, to write up things so your team members don’t forget about what have been discussed. Google Docs is really powerful, you can create drawings and such to visualize mockups. If this isn’t sufficient, you can go to sites such as https://draw.io/ to draw your diagram, or anything. This way, the friction between your teams during communication can be reduced. Just put a comment in the document, ping the person you want to communicate with, and ask them to look at your comment when he/she has time. By doing so, you won’t interrupt his/her pace when they are doing their things.