Tuesday 22 March 2016

Dignity (Real Incident)

Recently ,I  was  waiting in Bangalore railway station to return to Chennai  and the time was around  10.30 pm .A young  boy was selling tea and he approached me to sell  it to me . As I did not have the appetite to have tea during that late hour and  politely refused.But, he  started requesting me to buy a cup. On looking his appearance and  his effort on persuading, I just started conversing with him.

In less than a minute , I gathered information  that  he was  studying  8th standard in nearby Government  school and his ambition was to become a  police officer  in life. During the chatting, he was insisting me to buy a cup of tea .As I wanted  to help him in a small way ( also I wasted his business time !!) ,I gave Rs 10 to him and said not inclined to  buy tea .He refused to accept  the offer  and said “please buy a cup of tea and offer me money  as charge for it".

I was touched by his dignity, bought the tea and paid Rs 10. He returned   the change Rs 2 to me and I told him  to keep that with him. This time , he is very firm, smiley  and politely replied , “I earn my money through my service , not  by other means” and  lifted his tea carrier and moved from that place.

I stunned  with his dignity,  attitude , clarity of thoughts , firmness at this young age.

After this incident, the  following questions  were lingering in the mind  

1.Who had taught him “receiving anything with dignity  and not accept anything free”. ?
2.Where did he learn the persuasion skill  to sell his product to strangers?
3.What kind of determination, he has about his aspiration despite the current  family situation?
4.Is it not a “Divine GIFT” in living with dignity, positive approach about life  despite all the temporary shortcomings?


Pl write your comments 

Thursday 17 March 2016

Iceberg Principle

      One of the management principles used for problem solving approach in organizational environment is iceberg principle .The same principle can be applied for personal excellence.

      The iceberg principle* says that the majority of our efforts are invisible to the eye just as the majority of the ice mass of an iceberg is underwater, so is the majority of the hard work it takes to deliver good results in any endeavor.
As most of us aware, that before Edison invented the concept of light bulb, there were various versions of the light bulb, but without practical, affordable, durable and inexpensive for home illumination. Edison experimented with six thousands materials and finally succeeded. The inventor knew that his invention was going to change the lifestyle and this drove his relentless experimentation. He did not care how much experimentation, he should conduct. He kept on going until he had an inexpensive, long lasting electrical bulb. What external world knows only the outcome, not much aware of the hard work gone into that.This is iceberg principle.


       How do we make it useful to our lives? It is good way to remind ourselves that the most accomplishment happens in life after series of hard work and effort.We need to show up every day with our best effort and this small shift in mindset make a big difference in our lives.Even sometimes our work does not produce immediate results,we need not get disappointed.It is better to keep working towards the purpose or goal than to give room for inner doubts, rejections, and disappointments. Historically that is how great accomplishment done and great people demonstrated..!.

* source courtesy : The Excellence Habit ..Vlad Zachary

Sunday 13 March 2016

Building Trust


  “The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust is the key professional and personal competency of our time – Stephen Covey

Building trust is important for personal,professional and business growth.

What is meant by Trust?

 It is others in your relationship,should believe that you are genuine,your product or service is genuine,or you are capable of doing something worthy,your product or service is worthy.

How Trust can be built? 

Trust  can be built based on “Consistent action and delivery” over a period of time. It is not one time effort or performance. Generally, based on our past consistent behavior or actions, others come to form perception, that is trust.

For example, in a professional environment, if you are consistent in keeping up your commitment  every time, others start trusting you as “committed”.Alternatively, if you commit something and everytime you show up with excuse, others form perception that you are "not dependable". This way only, you build the perception   about you to others.

Similarly, in business, your customers build the trust about your product or service based on the consistent performance of your product or quality of service, how your organization responds to customers.

Hence, building trust is not one time effort, it is CONSISTENT EFFORT and if you would like to preserve the relationship with team, customers, family members or advance your professional growth, do any good thing consistently over a period of time and build trust as this helps your growth !!!

Friday 4 March 2016

Managing Expectation -Part 9

As we had discussed some of the insights and problems in managing the expectation of others, both in professional and personal life, now we discuss the solutions, approach to manage the expectation as it is difficult to fulfill the expectation always. 

Solution approach to manage the expectation:

1. Taking responsibility  to improve the competency
2. Improving  communication skill / feedback, giving and receiving 
3. Deciding  the choice and accepting consequences

Having discussed first two solutions approach, we discuss the third solutions approach

Deciding the choice and accepting the consequences:

It is very difficult to fulfill all the expectation of others, even though others are related to us in one way or another. To some extent, we can take effort to improve our competency, communication, and interpersonal capabilities to manage the expectation. Most importantly, we can decide the priority in life or decide which relationship we would like to preserve most. Based on the choice or decision, we manage the expectation. However, we need to accept the consequence once the choice or decision taken.

For example, you come across better career advancement opportunity, but you are rejecting the opportunities to fulfill the expectation of your family members. That is your choice and it may be good for you. Once you decide the choice, accept any consequence of career growth. The problem arises only when you are not accepting the consequence and internally feeling guilty about your choice. 

Ultimately, you need to decide which is important to you, which relationship you want to preserve most, take a decision, and accept the consequence happily. This mindset is required for balanced growth and happy life.