Showing posts with label Achievement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Achievement. Show all posts

Tuesday 18 October 2022

Personal Leadership

                                             

 As we discussed, Execution capability comprises three elements, viz. 

1. Personal Leadership or how we organize ourselves
2. Inspiring and Influencing  others to get things done
3. In-depth knowledge about our work or business
 

Let's talk about Personal Leadership or self-organizing. 
 
What is self-organizing or personal leadership?
 
Self-organizing or personal leadership is about proactively preparing ourselves for the position/ title or the job or task we do."

It is all about how we conduct ourselves, shape our character, attitude, enrich our knowledge and skill for the position.

It is all about personal effectiveness.

It is the foundation for getting things done.

For example,

Suppose you are a functional or business head. In that case, this position demands certain behaviors, knowledge, and skills like being a role model for others on respecting time, and people, expertise in functional or business knowledge, and specific skills to demonstrate. How you prepare yourself for those requirements is about self-organizing or personal leadership.
 
Why do we need to self-organize from the "Execution Capability" perspective?
 
1) When you have not organized yourselves, you can not lead others effectively. You can not improve your team's capability without improving your effectiveness
 
As per the law of organized performance, the ratio of a leader's performance to their team remains constant.

For example, if you measure your performance on a scale of 1~10 and your score is 8, your team score would also be eight or less. Hence ratio is 1:1

You can not change your team's performance score to 10 unless you also improve your score to 10; therefore, the ratio remains constant as per law.

The point is your team's execution capability, or effectiveness depends on your execution capability only.

To get things done, you need to enhance your effectiveness first.

2) You will derail any time during the growth stage if you are not organized.

As said, self-organized is more about disciplining yourself. You will get derailed when you do not maintain the discipline as the job demands.

We might have come across many talented people who derailed their careers not just due to performance alone but lack of personal leadership.

Some of the examples could be ICICI bank Ex women CEO or  Satyam computer founder's fall mainly due to governance issues from a business perspective or integrity issues from a personal point of view.
 
The point is self-organizing is very fundamental for enhancing execution capability. Without that, we cannot inspire or influence others. When you grow up, people look up to you for everything.

Let's talk more about personal leadership next week.

Developing Execution Capabilities

Thank you for your feedback last week on my request. When i analyze the input, most revolves around "how can one be effective in a professional life and how we achieve result in work or business." Some concerns about bringing ownership to the young generations to achieve organizational goals.Something related to the family business, conflict management, and delegation in general.


I observe a gap between what we intend or plan to do and what we achieve. That gap is due to execution capabilities. We want to get things done but struggle to get them for various reasons.
                                  
 
Hence, we initiate a new series on "Developing the Execution Capabilities" in a professional environment as an individual and an organization.
 
Why do we need to develop the execution capabilities?
  1. One of the studies says that only 8 % of the leaders are good at planning and delivering results. The remaining 92 % of the leaders are either good only at planning but lacks execution skill or struggle with both effective planning and execution.
We may relate these findings with our experience as well.
 
For example, we might have experienced many times that we plan to follow some good habits but give up soon. That is an execution discipline problem at an individual level.
 
Similarly, we may plan to achieve some level of business growth every year at an organizational level. Still, for many years, we may be stagnant at the same level of growth performance. That is due to execution problems at the organizational level.
 
 Execution problems may be a common phenomenon for any professional and organization. Unless we understand the execution process and develop the capabilities, there will not be much progress in professional life.
 
  1. Success and Growth come from implementing actions and delivering results, not just from planning or strategy or simply ideas. Execution is the critical differentiator between performers and nonperformers. The world admires performers only.
 
However, developing the execution capability is not as easy as learning concepts, tools, and techniques. It is a mix-up of managerial process and art.

Execution capability encompasses the following.

1. Personal Leadership or how we organize ourselves
2. Inspiring and Influencing others to get things done
3. In-depth knowledge about our work or business environment

 
Let us discuss developing the capabilities, the set of behaviors in each aspect, and some insights from effective personalities in this Series.
 

Friday 14 May 2021

Winning Mindset to deal with challenges

 Winning Mindset to deal with challenges 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 

As we conclude the topic “Achievement Orientation,” the last aspect is how an individual or effective leader deals with the challenges during the execution of any task.

 
Despite the planning process, clarity on values, purpose, being in conducive envelopment, self-commitment, and clarity on the roadmap, the reality is that the execution journey may not be rosy. The execution may not go as per plan.

Sometimes, we ended up with a different result than what we planned at the beginning of the journey. Dealing with reality needs a mindset that looks at everything as a winning opportunity in the journey. We can develop the mindset with awareness and practice.

Some of my observations from the effective leaders on dealing with the challenges
 
Embracing the challenges with excitement:

Effective leaders embrace the challenges when they initiate. I know one of the managing directors of an organization always starts with “I am excited to initiate some actions."Whenever he begins a difficult task, he began with that vocabulary. He demonstrated his energy and enthusiasm towards facing difficult task challenges, and he succeeded in most of the tasks. The key is how you look at the challenges at the beginning of the journey. That will give you the power to navigate.

Being adaptable during navigation

Effective people are good at being adaptive to the challenges or changes during the journey. Adaptability is the ability to accept the changes at the given moment and accordingly change the plan considering the task's holistic view. This emotional aspect is essential as, in reality, the plan may not go as expected. The person who has adaptability is happier than the person being rigid.
 
Learn from the experience

Another mindset the effective people demonstrate is that they take the outcome, whether favorable or unfavorable, as a learning experience. They always look at challenges in an optimistic way as "what I have learned from this experience." When you look at every outcome as a learning experience, you will not get much disappointment.

Taking a step back and self-introspect

Some people take a step back and reflect the things that went wrong from the planning. This mindset is the most effective way to deal with challenges and avoids mistakes in the future. The strong person can only admit the mistakes, and self-introspection makes the individual further emotionally stronger.
 
Our mindset in dealing with reality is essential than the celebration of the successful outcome as life is an experience than an event. The mindset to deal with each experience matters on emotional wellness!
 

Sense of achievement

 Sense of achievement  

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 
Recently, in one of the management review forums, one manager narrated his daily work experience and asked the following question, which I felt is relevant for the topic "achievement orientation."
 
The question is, “I am working hard throughout the day in the office, doing many activities and being busy throughout the day, still at the end of the day, i do not get the satisfaction that I did achieve something.”Why don't i get the sense of fulfillment?
 
I am sure most of us relate ourselves as we might have experienced sometimes.
 
What could be the reason for not feeling the sense of achievement?
 
My view is that lack of FOCUS on the priorities …. In an organizational setup, each role is expected to meet some of the priorities. Else, at the end of the day or eventually, at some period, we will feel, or others will perceive us that we are not achieving as expected.
 
Let me give an example,
 
If you are a functional finance head, your core priority or expectation from others is managing the fund flow in the organization seamlessly and looking at the opportunities for cash generation. Only when you have the clarity on the same and focus your energy, effort, time in achieving the core priorities, then only you feel the sense of achievement.

Alternatively, suppose you concentrate more on other non-core activities or working on others' priorities and being busy always, at the end of the day, despite your hard work, you feel a sense of non-achievement only. Here the issue is a lack of clarity on the priorities/expectation and lack of focus on the priorities.
 
The point is for any professional, depending on the position or role, we need to have
 
  • Clarity on what we want or what is expected out of us
  • Ability to focus on the priority
  • Working on the priority and get the desired result.
  • Feeling the sense of achievement.
 
Clarity and Focus on priority are much essential for getting a sense of achievement.

Just relate to your life experience and let me know your views!

Have a great week ahead.
 

How a Leader brings conviction to the team to achieve?

 How a Leader brings conviction to the team to achieve?  

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 
As we discussed last week on the importance of personal conviction to achieve something in the workplace, two factors determine the conviction. One is the emotional part, and the other is the rational part.
 
The emotional part is bringing on the compelling need to achieve, and the rational part gives clarity on the path to move ahead. When both are ensured in any task, there is a high possibility to succeed. When either one of the parts is missing or not given appropriate weightage, there are high possibilities for slow progress or underperformance.
 
For example,
Generally, most of us take the goal of achieving physical fitness. But not all people succeed consistently. The reason is the lack of deep, compelling need. If we give ourselves that fitness is good for health, it won’t help push us to achieve. Alternatively, if we associate physical fitness with our survival or associate with family members, the probability of achieving the desired fitness level is high.

I had witnessed one of my relatives gave up some of his lifestyle habits when he was diagnosed with a life-challenging disease. The change happened because emotionally, there was a compelling need to change from a survival perspective. 

There is a high level of conviction to achieve when there is an emotional connection with any achievement goal and personal life like survival, pride, reputation, appreciation, monetary benefits, or growth.
 
The next aspect is that even though we have an emotional connection to achieve when there is a lack of clarity on attaining (to some extent), it likely affects the conviction. For example, one wants to become financially independent but does not know the methods, avenues, and environment. The rational part makes it less likely to bring orientation towards achievement.
 
Being aware of the importance of emotional and rational aspects towards achievement orientation, the leaders plan well when delegating the task. They bring the compelling need of any task to the team by connecting the benefits to them and available with the team for guidance/support during the journey to enable the team to perform better.
 
Hence, one has to ensure both emotional and rational parts are being addressed equally for any achievement orientation.

You can relate with your experience where you succeed in any task, and there could be a balanced mix of emotional and logical parts!

Have a great week ahead.

Why do we fail sometimes to achieve?

 Why do we fail sometimes to achieve?

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)


 

Have you come across a situation where despite knowing the clarity on our values, purpose, being in a conducive environment, committed self, we still do not achieve what we intend in any new venture or assignment or delay the pace of achievement.

What is preventing us from achieving as per plan, or why is there slowness in progress?
 
It is due to the intensity of self-efficacy or, alternatively, lack of conviction.
 
Self-efficacy is the person’s belief that he/ she can complete the task. It refers to the individual conviction that he/ she can accomplish the task or mission. We know that to achieve something, we need to change some of the behaviors, but we have internal doubt that we can change our behavior. Given that self-doubt, we choose not to change the behavior. In that stage, we lose the conviction.
 
For example,

we are aware of the importance of physical fitness and knowhow of maintaining healthy practices. However, still, most of us never achieved the target of fitness, whatever we set ourselves. We have self-doubt about our ability to accomplish, say we need to get the early morning to do exercise. When we have doubt, we lose conviction.

The point is that the failure is not because of awareness, know-how, but at an individual level, lack of conviction.

In many organizations, the business heads set the business goals during the financial year beginning but ended up with a flat result or delaying the progress. It is mainly due to a lack of conviction of the result or lack of self-doubt in accomplishing it. Rarely external factors play a role in the achievement.

However, in some organizations, the business head sets the target and achieves the same.
 How they bring the conviction themselves on the result and process, and how do they convince the team to succeed?

Mainly two factors that determine the conviction. One is emotional, and another one is rational thinking.

Let us discuss more bringing the conviction through balancing emotional and rational aspects in next week!

Committing Self for Achievement

 Committing Self for Achievement 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

As we have discussed the factors affecting an individual towards achievement orientation like clarifying personal values, knowing the purpose, being in a conducive environment, the next important factor is “ Committing self for achievement."

 
What is "committing self"?
 
Committing self is taking responsibility for the action and the consequence. In a business context, most of the time, the term responsibility is perceived as the external enforcement of commitment to some person. But at a personal or an individual level, responsibility is a feeling of owning some task or profession or, on a higher level, life itself. 

The only difference between achievers and non-achiever is “ commitment “ or “ taking responsibility.”

When you observe any achievement, apart from skill, knowledge, luck, environment, there would be one fundamental invisible ingredient, that is  "personal commitment of an individual or group of people". 
 
When you take responsibility for any task, you will get the following benefits.
  • Intention to achievement will be relatively more.
  • Person display solutions orientation in any challenges
  • Despite failure or any setback, the person looks for the learning from the failure.
  • Always look at the setback or failure from a 360 perspective rather than blaming or fixing someone.
  • Always look for doing better in the given context as much as possible.
  • When we take personal responsibility, it puts us on a highly energetic emotional level during the journey.
     
Quite contrary to the above behavior, if the person is not committed or not taking personal responsibility, he/ she displays the following behaviors.
  • Less interest in actions and finding reasons or excuses for procrastination
  • Look for the problems at any moment.
  • Any failure or setback put the individual down.
  • Momentarily blame someone or try to fix the external reason for failure or setbacks
when there is a commitment, eventually you win despite all challenges ...In the absence of commitment, nothing sustains.

One of the questions most of the Business heads / Managers look for answers is whether the commitment is inborn or built within the person. How to inculcate the feeling of responsibility in people's minds in an organizational setup?

Solicit your views/experiences on the above questions...
 

How leaders create a conducive environment for achievement orientation among people?

 How leaders create a conducive environment for achievement orientation among people? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 

 
Last week, we discussed how an environment affects the individual in terms of his/ her thought process towards achievement orientation like “to be successful” or “not to be failed.”

Now, in an organizational setup, let us understand how influential managers/leaders create a conducive environment for his/her team towards achievement orientation.

As I observed, some of the effective managers/leaders have some typical working style patterns. They ensured that they are pushing the team towards achievement orientation by inculcating some of the following habits at the self-level or the organizational level.

                                           
 
Making the expectation clear:

First, leader/manager BRINGS CLARITY what they want and from whom they want it. They set the expectation clear among the team. When they are certain about what they want, from whom they expect, they become much focussed. When they communicate the expectation to other people, the other people are also working without any ambiguity. Only when the people have a dilemma about the direction, they slow down the execution speed, decision-making capability. When people know what is expected out of them, it puts them in the right direction.
 
Leaders ensure this first step by bringing role clarity, setting the targets and deployment to the right people,

Establishing a communication forum:

Once the expectation is set, the next thing an effective manager/ leader ensures that establishing communication forums for two-way communication. The communication forum is mainly for being in reality by everyone on the task. The communication forum could be exchanging information through various electronic channels on a fixed time interval or meeting face to face to review the progress. The advantage of establishing a communication forum is to get convinced about progress and ensure that all are on the same page.

Facilitation and feedback:

The next step is the leader believes more in facilitation than commanding to help the people arrive at the right solutions approach or right decisions as facilitation helps the people think and move confidently than in giving instruction mode. The advantage of facilitation is that the leader/manager's presence is not required when the people face a similar challenge. People learned to think from the leader/ manager's perspective.

Recognizing: 

This is one of the steps most people ignore or not giving much importance due to various reasons. That is, to recognize or appreciate the people for the effort and the result. Recognizing the work will reinforce the positiveness in the people's minds, which will help them replicate next time.

In a corporate environment, it is always a debate whether to appreciate the effort or the result. As I observed, most effective leaders recognize the people’s effort first, and then they concern about the result. They believe that eventually, the result would come once the effort is put in the right direction.
 
When we create an ecosystem, as mentioned above, with varying intensity levels depending on the task or complication of the task, people also orient themselves to achieve.

Environment triggers the behavior, and it is the primary responsibility of the manager /leader to create a conducive environment.!

Tuesday 15 December 2020

Holistic Approach for Achievement Orientation

 Holistic Approach for Achievement Orientation 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 


As we are discussing Achievement Orientation both at self and through others, the process is a continuous and lifelong experience.

Why is a holistic approach required?

Instead of being content with any short-term benefits with an external motivation to get things done, if we understand the HOLISTIC approach of achievement orientation, that will help us be highly motivated to achieve something or make others achieve.

Also, In today’s world, there are ample opportunities and equally distractors. Staying in line with your purpose and orienting yourself towards achievement is a challenge. If we are not aligned with our purpose on a sustainable basis, any setbacks or any new distractions would derail us from achievement or tapping out potential.

For example, you might have come across some people who are changing jobs frequently, even switching careers, but not feeling fulfilled with the achievement. The reason could be the lack of clarity on the purpose and values. The earlier one gets the clarity, the more fortunate to make an impact in their chosen areas. 

Hence, we need to understand the 
holistic process of achievement orientation.

I had developed a holistic framework based on my experience when i embarked on a significant life transformation. I  believe more perspectives on the following framework will help you stay on course on achievement orientation.


Let us discuss the following queries
 

  • What is the priority in my life? What do I like most? How to identify my values?
  • How to identify the purpose of my life from a long-term perspective?
  • How to design my life in line with the purpose
  • How to develop the inner desire and how to stimulate the appetite of others in a professional environment?
  • Why the environment matter and the process of creating a conducive environment to achieve at self and an organizational level?
  • Need for self-commitment and developing ownership for self and at others?
  • Developing the roadmap to achieve and focus on the result and the challenges
  • How to be in a winning mindset when things go wrong or during the challenging time


Let us discuss in the coming weeks, and stay safe until then!

What drives people to achieve?

 What drives people to achieve?

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)


 

As we discussed in the “Achievement Orientation  Introduction," the key challenge for every professional is motivating or keeping others in the same state?
 
You might have observed some people are always on a high energy level or highly self-motivated despite all the challenges like age, health factors. What does motivate them to be in that state?.. They are driven 
by their thoughts to achieve something in their profession or life.

Different schools of thought believe that people are motivated by external factors like money, a high positional status that comes from the title, and exposure. Some studies found that those external factors help to some extent to keep the person in a motivated state; eventually, the energy level is getting reduced. The pace may depend on the individual at what stage he/ she is in the lifecycle.

In one of the interviews, the interviewer asked Ratan Tata, " What drives you to do more even at this age as well? He said, " exactly i do not know, but it could be the fire inside." His rich experience reveals the truth.

Hence, what drives people is the inner desire to achieve something. That inner desire manifests externally in a different way.


How can you identify those people who are driven by inner desire?

  1. They are passionate about what they are doing.
  2. Eager to learn more in their passionate area
  3. Most of the time restless and unhappy with the current state or status quo
  4. Displaying a high level of energy in their passionate work despite any challenges

When an individual develops the inner desire or fire to achieve something, he/ she uplift self and make a positive impact on the team or in the working environment.
 
The question would be how to inculcate the inner desire? Whether it is inborn or can we develop?

In my experience, anyone can develop the achievement orientation within and with others and a structured process and practice.
 
Next week, let us discuss the holistic framework of achievement orientation, starting from creating the inner desire to achievement and dealing with the achievement challenges during the journey.

Achievement Orientation

 Achievement Orientation

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
One of the emotional intelligence competencies for aspiring managers or leaders should develop “Achievement orientation.”

What is Achievement orientation?

Achievement orientation is a combination of mindset and practices to accomplish the task or moving towards achievement. It ranges from small task completion to achieving something meaningful in life as a broad context.

You might have observed some people are continuously progressing in the life journey, and some people are stagnant at some point in time. In my opinion, regardless of the field of work, environment, and external  challenges, the clear  differentiation between a highly growth-oriented person and a mediocre person is “Orientation intensity towards achievement.”

You might have experienced some of the scenarios in the professional environment.
  1. Some people can get things done amidst all the challenges.
  2. When you assign some tasks to someone, he/she will finish it, and your intervention or follow-ups would be relatively less.
  3. Some people would complete the task due to follow-up/reminders, or the quality of work may not be up to the expectation.
  4. Even at your level, you may be finding joy to do some task and, in some task, you do not find yourself enjoying. You will be wondering how to keep your motivation high all the time.
One of the challenges for  most professionals is "How to be in highly motivated level at an individual level and keep others to accomplish more?"

In this new topic on “Achievement Orientation,” let us discuss the challenges and perspectives on 
  1. What motivates us to progress continuously?
  2. How to be highly motivated internally?
  3. How to bring the ownership feeling on others in a professional environment
  4. Steps in achievement orientation and insights 
Let us discuss in the coming weeks and solicit your views.

Thursday 3 September 2020

Avoiding impulsive decisions( Contd..)

 Avoiding impulsive decisions( Contd..) 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 
Last week we discussed one of the methods to avoid impulsive decisions-i.e Going beyond the numbers or facts with example. Let us understand other methods to avoid impulsive decision making.


Taking timeout for responding:

Except for emergencies, not all business decisions call for immediate reaction or response. We can take time out to make the decision. One of the benefits of taking timeout is that the time makes us think about the alternatives or choices for solutions. When we are making decisions impulsively, we feel as if there is no alternative.

When we give time ourselves, we are thinking about both rationally and emotionally. We are in a position to generate the options and able to evaluate the pros and cons of the options.

Typically we come across situations when dealing through emails. We used to react to mail communication immediately as impulsive and later realized that we could have taken timeout to respond with different choices. Sometime back, i have shared my experience on impulsive way of reacting to email as given in the link.

https://lifeexcellenceinsights.blogspot.com/2019/05/lessons-learned-on-email-communication.html

It just needs the ability to distinguish which decisions call for immediate attention and which decisions can be delayed. Not all workplace decisions need the same level of urgency!
 
Getting the perspectives from elders or mentors:
 
The next practical method is to get a perspective from others or mentors on important personal or business decisions. The obvious reason is that when we are emotionally overwhelmed with the problem, we may not see it from the other dimensions. Others could see it from a different perspective because they are not emotionally attached.

Most of us might have experienced that when we were about to make an impulsive decision due to emotions, and when we discussed with others, they provided us simple, rational solutions to the problem.

It requires that we need someone to share the concerns and get different rational perspectives than making impulsive decisions and struggling with the consequences.

How to avoid impulsive decisions?

 How to avoid impulsive decisions?

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 
As we discussed the importance of avoiding impulsive reaction in the conversation and making hasty decisions on any business aspects, now let us learn some of the methods to avoid impulsive decision making.
 
1.Going beyond the numbers or facts
2.Taking timeout for responding
3.Getting the perspective from mentors
 
Going beyond the numbers or facts:

Generally, we believe that "numbers or facts" are the real proof for making the right decisions. However, not in all situations, the facts or numbers will help us to make the right decisions. Instead, the numbers or facts lead us to make impulsive decisions and as a leader, we believe that we are taking logical right choices. We need to look at the scenario from the overall perspective.

For example,

In one of the client organizations, the worker's union put a demand to increase the compensation by quoting an absolute value per annum basis. By seeing that fact, the business head was immediately got angry and reacted to reject the proposal. Eventually, that decision led to the disturbance in the operations for some time. The disruption in the operations costs more than what the people put it as a request. Later, when the business head analyzed the demand in detail, he realized the impact was minimal daily compared to the losses they incurred.

The key realization is that the business head reacted to the mere fact rather than looking at the issue holistically in terms of the overall cost to the company, business continuity, and goodwill.

We may come across many situations in the workplace when we look at only on the number or facts, and we tend to react impulsively both positively and negatively. In either way, it would affect us professionally. It just needs awareness.

Let us discuss other methods in next week!

Tuesday 11 August 2020

Misconception about empathy and performance

 Misconception about empathy and performance

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)



One of the responses for last week's discussion on "empathy or looking at the things from other's views" is that if we start looking at things from other's views, that leads into lenience and, in turn, mediocrity in the performance, particularly in a professional environment.

We need to understand the slight difference between empathy and being lenient.

Empathy means we listen to other's views and recognize the cause in it. That does not mean that we are accepting the consequences as such.

For example, let us imagine a typical scenario in the workplace,

One of your junior colleagues on a particular day left the office early due to personal issues. He/she may be the authorized person for a financial transaction, and he/ she had not delegated the task to anyone on that day. Due to his/ her absence, the important financial transaction did not happen, which affected your organizational performance.

In this scenario, as a manager/leader, what choices you had the next day when the junior colleague reported the duty?

Choice 1:

You might have displayed your dissatisfaction with the performance without listening to his/ her situation. In this process, both of you experienced negative emotions or hurt personally.No learning from low performance.
 
Choice 2 :

You might have listened to personal issues, and both of you felt sorry about the performance. In this process, you are lenient and accept mediocre performance.
 
Choice 3:

You might have listened to personal issues, acknowledged it and you might have assertively conveyed your dissatisfaction and his/ her lack of delegation to the work. You made him/ her responsible for not completing the task.He/she might have learned from the mistakes.
 
Choice 3 is the appropriate method of understanding others and ensuring the right management process in place.

Most of the time, we are witnessing either choice 1 or 2 in which mediocre performance is encouraged.

 i recall an incident that happened to me some years back. I drove my car first time in a new city and violated the signal as I was not familiar with the signal points and free left etc. A traffic policeman stopped me and got my license. I briefed him about my first-time driving and lack of awareness about the signal points. He listened to me and advised me to be careful in city driving. But he was firm to charge me fine as punishment and I also paid. In my view, the policemen were very empathic about my ignorance but, at the same time, firm on his duty. That is what required for the people who are at the commanding level as a manager or leader. Just imagine if the policeman displayed choice 1 or choice 2  behavior, then we both were not doing justice to ourselves as humanity consideration or duty consciousness.!
 

The point is being empathetic does not lead to lenience; you need to be firm on your role as a leader in a professional environment for ensuring performance!

Looking from other's view

 Looking from other's view

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)


As we have been discussing the method of channelizing or regulating the emotions in the workplace, one more effective approach is "
looking at the things from other's view."

In most human interactions, everything is right or wrong from the person's standpoint, exposure or experience, context, and timing only.

When i am considering my decision is right, that is based on my experience, my today's context and that decision may be proven wrong by some one's point of view from their expertise, background, and timeline perspective. When we realize this truth, we can develop the ability to look at things from other's views.

This ability will help us to channelize or regulate emotions like anger, frustration, jealousy from competitiveness into positive emotions.

For example, you may get momentarily anger with your junior colleague's quality of work, say preparation of the presentation. When you understand his/ her background, experience, you may realize their weakness, which will help you to cool your emotions and divert into compassion to develop him/ her.

I am not advocating other's mistakes to be accepted as such, but for every error of others, if you suffer from negative emotions, it is not going to help you. Instead, if you develop the ability to recognize the causes for the mistake or low performance from other's perspective, at that moment, that will make you be in positive emotions.

Some people are good at look at things from other's perspectives, and it is a skill to be developed!

Tuesday 13 March 2018

why do we need a role model?



As you are aware that Roger Bannister, the athlete who created a record and famous for “four-minute mile” phrase expired last week at age of 88. He was seen as a legend not only for creating an athletic record, but he paved the way to study human mindset and life growth. Till 1954, in the sports world, finishing a mile within 4 minutes was impossible by human beings.When Roger Bannister created the record by completing in 3 min 59 sec, this became a possibility.

           Within 46 days banister’s achievement, an Australian runner not only broke the record he created a new record to complete by 3min 58 sec. Now, over the last half-century, more than a thousand runners have conquered a barrier that had once been considered was not possible.

            Nature had played its role thru banister to humanity on mindset.and possibilities.Either it could be on personal or in business, our mindset limits our potential. We always look someone as a role model or predecessor to show a new way or break the status quo or breaking the mindset.

             When you break your personal or business mindset, you become a leader or role model in your circle.But in reality, it is not possible for all, to create their own path by being role model. In such a case, look around, observe and pick someone as your role model and follow what they do.
Ultimatley, your mind restricts your growth , expand it through some reference , you life horizon also expands!

Friday 28 April 2017

What one trait differentiates achievers and non achievers?


                                                   

When Bill Gates and Warren Buffets were asked individually to write one trait that made them success in business, they responded with one answer, that is FOCUS.

In our profession, either working as employee or business owner, we are fairly knowledgeable about our work, we are skilled enough to plan and execute, but why do we find struggle to achieve our targets? It is mainly in the mindset towards our attention or FOCUS.

The process of being more focused:

1. Decide what we want and what is important for professional success
2. Priorities the action regarding DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY, QUARTERLY, ANNUALLY 
3. Execute what may come 

In fact, nowadays there are more distracters like WhatsApp, Facebook, mails, and calls from anyone, but in my opinion, they are all manageable if we are clear on what we want to focus. Since there is no clarity on what is our priority and we succumb to external distracters. 

Personally, I know one of my entrepreneur's friend with many successful ventures, has a habit of checking mails only once in a day, that too in specific time period.This habit increases his personal productivity and enables to focus on what the priority.The point is all distractions are external, the question must be are we clear on our priority and what we want..That differentiate achievers and nonachievers 

Friday 11 November 2016

When does Professional Growth Stop?

    Irrespective of your educational background, the profession you are choosing, one factor determines your growth is competency.When we say competency, it is a combination of attitude, skill and knowledge about the profession or job.



     In your career ladder, each position calls for different competency, it needs to be identified, developed, and demonstrated.For example, in your career ladder, competency requirement during entry stage, and say at trainee level is different from when you enter the middle management level. Similarly, the competency requirement is different when you enter in the senior leadership level.

    Simply put it, as you know, communication skill is one of the competency throughout your career. However, the degree of competency is different at each position say entry level, managerial level and senior management level. It requires continuous effort to improve your communication skill competency to move upward.

     So if you desire to move up in your career ladder, continuous effort is required to improve your competency by identifying the gap w.r.to job position.When you stop developing competency, your growth stops or stagnates. We are here to grow, hence focus on competency development!

Friday 4 November 2016

Be aware of your mental state for positive results

             As human beings, we are undergoing a different set of emotions or mental state in every minute. . The mental state can be positive  state like being in happy, high energy level, highly enthusiasm, etc. or the  mental state could be  limiting state like being sad, angry, worry, laziness etc. Actually, those mental states drive the quality of behavior or action at any point of time.

            When we are in a positive state, our words, tone and actions will be positive whereas in limiting state, our actions leads into more chaos or unproductive. So be aware of in which state you are in at any point of time and change your state before taking any actions or communicating to others.

           One  way  to change state instantly is by changing physiology or body language. For example, imagine that you are in deep thinking or in a sad mood and you are receiving a phone call from your well-wisher or friend. You are quickly changing your state to a positive state of happiness. Actually, during that moment, you are changing your physiology or body language that enables you to switch the state. It is possible to change the state instantly with little focus on awareness and practice. 

          The point is when you are taking any important decision or even talking to someone, aware of your state and change into a positive state. The result or response also will be positive. 


Thursday 13 October 2016

Invisible traits of successful people

     A lot of books have been written about highly successful people  and  a lot of researches have  been done to understand the DNA  of being successful in any field like  business, sports, media or in politics .Most of those analysis  use to point out more about  the external  traits like hard work,persistence, people skill, communication skill and decision making ability etc.

    Those are all known to the external world and anyone can take that as benchmark to follow and replicate. In this process, a few may succeed to some extent only. When we observe the highly successful people, we can realize the most important cause for the phenomenal growth or success, but not visible to external world is their quality of thinking, continuously striving to learn more about the field and challenging their thought process for the next level. 

      We could see some people with extraordinary talent stagnate at some point due to stopping their curiosity intend in their field of work. The point is irrespective of your profession, age, talent, continuous striving or curious to learn more  about your business or profession matters a lot on your sustained growth.

    When asked about his phenomenal success, Steve jobs said, “much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” It is purely the outcome of continuous thinking, challenging and striving for excellence