Mastering the stroke

There was a rich man who loved art as well as birds. He asked an artist  to draw  a kingfisher bird which must be breathtaking, unique and natural.He offered  to pay  a huge price if it is breakthrough.The artist  accepted the challenge and informed the rich man to wait for three  months.After three months, the rich man  went to  the artist ‘ s studio, but nothing was completed. The painter requested for another three months and rich person agreed.After three more   months passed ,again the rich person visited the studio and asked for artwork.

The artist drew out his brushes and with ease, he instantly made a picture within two  minutes. The rich man  was very much happy with the quality of artwork, as it was more than his visualization. Suddenly he became angry and shouted at the painter ” You have cheated me  for last six  months.This artwork took only two minutes to draw, but why have you made me wait for six  months?”

Without saying anything, the artist opened up his shelf and showed hundreds of scrap drawings of kingfisher birds.

What we see from successful people’s delivery performance as natural, behind that passion and hard work reside.Mastering is all about expending time, persistence, and patience.

Process disruption

    In personal and business front, sometimes, we get upset with the pace of growth.We expect different results while we do the same kind of activities or adhere to the same business processes.For continuous growth progress, what is required is continuous process disruption.

   When we say process disruption, it is not going away from the fundamental process adherence which would be disaster even for survival or existing growth .Process disruption is challenging the existing mindset or process which is producing the current result and continuously inculcate new thinking, new process for high level growth. .If we do the same thing, we get same result .If we change the process, at least we can expect different results.

     You might have seen some organizations exist more than decades with same line of products from inception to now, but had grown multifold, not because of diversified product line, but due to process disruption or continuous innovation in how they manage the business processes.

    In Business, challenging the existing process and continuously upgrade the business process, you can expect different result or high growth.

   In personal front, by continuously challenging your thinking process, you can solicit new opportunities and growth. 

    The point is that if you want great result, your process is also need to be different. You cannot expect major changes in your result with the same level of process. Continuous process disruption is only way for sustainable growth!

Your belief is important for success

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ― Henry Ford

 What do you think the prime reason for you to learn to drive a two-wheeler or four wheeler? You may answer that need, desire, affordability, skills, etc., But the prime reason for the achievement is that you believed that you could drive. That belief only brought all other resources to make it happened.

          Let us refer any success stories in business, sports, media, politics  or any historical events, we may realize that underlying reason for the success is that someone believed that it could be possible. For example, Mahatma Gandhi strongly believed that through Ahimsa, he would bring freedom even though he did not have strengths and resources at an early stage. Eventually momentum gained and the rest is history. The reason is that he strongly believed he could.
Similarly, in your business or even professional life, your belief about success or growth is more important rather than anything else. Today you may not have sufficient resources, knowledge, skill sets, or strategy to reach the desired state. Nevertheless, your strong belief will drive you towards attracting the desired actions.

          It is said that anything happens twice, once in our mind and then in reality. If you strongly believe that you can turn around your business, you will. If you strongly believe that you can be extraordinary performer in your job, you will. If you strongly believe you can be a role model to your child or to your team, you will. Everything begins with your mindset or belief. 

         Relook your beliefs about your quality of performance, quality of relationship, quality of leadership and expand your mindset, you are going closer to new possibilities.

Business model with compassion and profitability

   Inspiring video about a person who started from scratch after retirement and built a great , profitable organization with more compassion to poor people. It talks about Vision, Values, Business model, Spirituality, Possibilities, and Compassion.

   Moreover, while most of us striving for operational excellence through lean system thinking in manufacturing segment, they had been practicing lean operation/ service management and brought efficiency. Actually, that efficiency made their service more affordable and competitive .One key insight leadership is all about vision and execution.

Thought that it is very  inspiring , learning experience and hence  sharing the link below

https://t.co/2HnW47rN81

Hope you enjoy this video…

The shift from “whom” to “what”

“Accept responsibility .Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else”.-- Les Brown

       Whenever we face any problem both family and professional environment, most of us  tend to blame the environment and cite the root cause of the problem as parents, friends, society, teachers, boss, colleagues, school, college or something else other than self. In this process, temporarily we may feel comfortable.The moment we blame and push the responsibility to others, the mind never attempts to find  alternatives  to overcome the problem.

       What is needed in that moment is a slight shift in mindset towards taking personal responsibility.When we accept personal responsibility for the outcome of the event, we tend to find out the solution. Moreover, we will not have the habit of blaming and complaining others. In addition, when we take personal responsibility, we take control of the situation. This mindset is one of the qualities of leadership. 

        For example, in an organization, when the problem comes in, most of the time, tendency to shift the focus on WHOM, the moment we shift the focus on people, we close our thinking process to solutions approach. Instead, when we shift the focus on “what,” mind cools down to think of solutions.

       It may be difficult for some people having this mindset naturally, but it is possible with AWARENESS and your life will be more rewarding as you are perceived  as a solution provider than problem creator.
        
        Hence, the key is to  accept the personal responsibility of life events, which is the first step towards achieving Growth!

Prolonging Good times

In our life journey, everyone goes through good and tough times either in business and or in a professional environment. Most of us have a  tendency to enjoy too much during the good times and to get down too much during tough times. This mindset reflects our lack of maturity in understanding the nature of life, lack of clarity in dealing the life gift and uncertainties.

We may come across matured people who take any situation without much reaction and respond it in a positive way. According to them, all the situations are good time and they are good at the art of prolonging the good times or success forever.

The secret could be their mindset during good and tough times.

Mindset during good times:

• Not believing in permanence
• Looking for adversity soon and preparing themselves
• No overconfidence about their abilities and good times
• Surrendering all success to divine and free from self-pride
• Not arrogance with others 
• Continuously upgrading themselves

Mindset during tough times:

• Not believing in permanence and expecting turnaround soon
• Faith in divine  
• Continuously doing what they have been doing 

Getting into that level of mindset may not be easy for all. But striving for that level is all about maturity . The earlier we reach maturity; more it improves the quality  of life irrespective of good or bad times!

Infinite Vision (Book)

The inspiring book is all about the explaining the path of How Aravind Eye Care Hospital became the world’s greatest business case for compassion.

Authors: Pavithra K Mehta / Suchitra Shenoy

Context:

Dr.Govindappa Venkataswamy founded Aravind eye clinic with 11 beds  in 1976 after his retirement  in his hometown  in South India  .He had only one vision “To give sight for all” who has curable blind diseases with highest quality and affordable cost .Today Aravind eye care had treated more than 32 million patients and performed more than 4 million surgeries . In India, 5 % of the eye surgeries are being done by Aravind. 

Today Aravind eye care case study is mandatory reading for every MBA student at Harvard business school.

Started in a small way by a visionary person become the world greatest business case for compassion.

Excerpts from the book:

Aravind surgeons average 2000 cataract surgeries a year, against the Indian average of 400 surgeries and the US average of under 200.The efficiencies that enable to provide the lowest cost, highest quality eye care systems in the world.----

This is a model that demonstrates the power of integrating innovation with empathy, business principles with service and outer transformation with inner change. -----

To understand the Aravind model –one must look into the heart and the mind of the visionary surgeon who set it all into motion. ----

Recommend this book who would like to understand the power of vision and the leader’s compassion towards the humanity.It is inspiring to learn the process of how one person from the village made it happen in a span of 30 + years.

Also for manufacturing professionals, it is inspiring to learn how  they applied LEAN SYSTEM THINKING in their process to improve the efficiency  and made it  best cost in the world.

Overall, Inspiring book from an Indian background.

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

Managing Expectation part 5

Past weeks, we discussed  two insights on  expectation.First, when there is a relationship, there must be an expectation. Second, in  a relationship, since someone is believing that you are the person  capable of meeting their needs, thereby expectation rises. If we want to preserve the relationship, it  becomes our responsibility to manage the expectation. This  reflection will relieve the stress  to some extend on managing the expectation.

We will discuss  third insights  of expectation 

Insight 3:

"You cannot control other’s expectation"

Even though our intention must be to fulfill the expectation of others to the maximum extent possible, we must also realize the fact that we cannot control other’s expectation of us. That means, others can expect anything from us, it is not possible always to fulfill  the  expectation. It  requires a balanced approach to managing the expectation and relationship.

This insight is important, failing which only, sometimes, we want to please all people and in this process, either we lose  our   temperament or personality  or disappoint  everyone surrounding us. 

For example, through your business, you are providing service  and your customer is  expecting more from you and sometimes expecting unreasonably say superior performance, lowest cost, and fastest delivery. You cannot control the customer’s expectation. At the same time, you may not able to fulfill all expectation, as you know it is a tradeoff between cost, speed, and delivery. 

Here what you must learn is how to manage the unreasonable expectation and retain the relationship, not on trying to please others at the cost of your profitability and peace .

We discuss the solution part once we outline one more insights on expectation next week !.

Managing Expectation -Part 3

      As discussed last week, as most of us struggling to manage the expectation and in this process, we get into disappointment, frustration, personal vengeance or stress.

       We discuss this aspect into insights and solutions approach. Before getting into solution approach, let us understand some of the truth or  insights about the expectation management.

Insight 1:

        In personal life, expectation arises between you and yourself, expectation arises between you and your parents / brothers, expectation arises between husband and wife, expectation arises between parents and child, expectation arises between teacher and students and so on.

        In a professional environment, expectation arises between you and your boss, expectation arises between you  and your team, expectation arises between peers and so on.

        In a business environment, expectation arises between supplier and customer, expectation between client and service provider, expectation arises between business and society and so on.

        Likewise, expectation arises between one element and another. In all the above examples, what does exist in common? In all the examples, there exists "RELATIONSHIP". Expectation arises only when there is a RELATIONSHIP. Alternatively, we can say when there is a relationship; there must be expectation in the relationship. .

        Generally, we are not expecting much about someone who does not have much relationship with us. We expect something only someone is associated with our life through some relationships. Hence, when there is a relationship, there must be some expectation. If we internalize this fact or insight, this would  bring a new dimension to solve the managing the expectation problem.

        The next insight would be when there is a relationship, why someone  is expecting from us .Let us discuss the insight next week

Managing Expectation -part 2

         As outlined last week, in personal and professional life, most of us are struggling to manage the expectation as we have limited time and  resources.

When there is a gap between the expectation and reality, it becomes problematic. This  problem may result in disappointment, angry, self deprivation, frustration  or  in modern management terminology  STRESS.

For example, at a personal level, you may  like to give up some bad habits  and in reality, if you are not able to give up, that makes  you disappointment, that shakes your self confidence or you start to hate yourself. How to manage about yourself  during such circumstances?

Similarly, in professional front, you may  expect  high performance levels  from your team and the team is not up to your expectation, you get into disappointment, frustration or personal level vengeance   with some team members. Eventually it starts spoiling  the quality of  relationship with the team. How to manage the expectation from others? In the reverse situation, your boss is expecting more from you and if you are up to his expectation, the same level of stress your boss may be undergoing  as you are going through!!!..How to manage the expectation of others for you??

Similarly, even in family front, you may expect  something  from your spouse, children and the reality may be  different. You get into disappointment and sometimes the disappointments turn into  anguish  and   verbal battle situations. How to manage those expectations  in a domestic environment?

The point for realization is that there is no guarantee that reality will always be same as you are expecting. What we need to learn is how to cope or manage the gap  between the expectation and reality.

We discuss some of the insights about expectation  management next week!

Managing Expectation

          Thanks  for the positive response to  our survey on weekly insight  initiative and we had received   a lot of suggestions to improve the learning experience. One of the suggestions was that instead of discussing random topics every week, take one topic and discuss  it from 360 perspectives. We also realized, this suggestion  would improve the depth of understanding on a particular topic and now we have chosen “ Managing expectation “ as one topic and next few weeks, we will be discussing all aspects  of management in depth. Your views or comments are solicited.

         In personal and professional life, most of us  are struggling to manage the  expectation as we have limited time and resources. On the personal front, there is a need to manage the expectation from  SELF as well as from  family members. In the professional front,there is a need to manage the expectation  from bosses, subordinates, peers and in business environment, there is a need to manage the expectation from  customers and other stakeholders.

         When we are not able to manage  the expectation well, it creates a lot of pressure within us.To manage the expectation, we need to understand some of the insights and discuss the solutions approach.

Let us discuss the following aspects in the coming weeks

1. Misunderstanding about the expectation management

2. Some of the  insights about expectation

3. A paradigm shift in approaching the problem

4. Solutions approach to manage the expectation

Mastering the art of managing expectation leads to high performance, extraordinary human being and above all makes you stress free. (Which is good for you and others!!!) and let us strive for it.!!

Evaluate your 2015

“Dates that come around every year help us measure progress in our lives. One annual event, New Year's Day, is a time of reflection and resolution.”—Joseph Wirthlin

    Even though the transformation in personal and business life happens through  the changes WITHIN, irrespective of change in calendar years, now, this is the opportune time to plan for change. Instead of merely planning with wishes, it would be effective to look back , learn from the past and set the direction for the future.

    Hence evaluate your 2015 in all aspects of life with the right questions. This may help to reinforce the good things you did, correct the bad things you did in 2015.Answering to the following questions may l help you to set  the direction right on career / business / relationship / financial aspects.

Which initiatives worked well in business  / professional career  and which was not?

What  motivated me last year and what drained  my motivation level?

What factors improved  / affected the quality of relationship  with family members / peers/ subordinates / clients?

Which factors improved my personal financial success and what not? 

What made me proud of  my contributions to others?

Reflection is more powerful than any other form of learnings. Reflect on 2015 and move forward for great 2016 as each one of us in this earth are deserved for continuous growth..

Wishing you and your family & Business  to achieve new growth, peace, happy new year 2016!

Adversity

“Every adversity, every failure carries with it the seeds of an equal or greater benefits”-Napoleon Hill

         Adversity or difficult times happen in our life at any moment. The difficult moments can be losing job suddenly, losing dear ones, losing all earned money etc. Those moments make our life upside down and literally we may not have clue what would happen next. As it is beyond our control, we can not avoid and only option is to undergo the experience.

          Actually, those tough times only teach us a lot of valuable lesson about life. It brings loved one closer to us than ever before. It brings us a lot of time to introspect our past mistakes, which leads to difficult times. It makes us to think to handle the future different way .It brings out our real divine power within us and rise up as stronger than ever.


           Let us look back your life; you might have come across so many difficult times in different point of time. Despite all those ,today you are .This is due to the powerful learning’s , courage, will power, divine energy you got from those tough times. Similarly, you look around any nation, which had undergone many tough times in the past and today it stands tall because adversity makes them stronger than before.

          Hence, adversity need to be looked at as part of life, that also will pass over a period of time .Real happiness is not in good times and it is on how we manage tough times and come up .Great time ahead after every adversity. That is the Law of Nature!

Building Momentum

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”-Thomas Edison

              Many times, we have good ideas or intentions to do something to improve our profession to business, but we fail to convert those ideas into reality. When we see others to implement similar ideas, we use to regret or feel guilty. One of the reasons for not converting ideas into reality is a lack of building momentum the moment idea is conceived.

Building momentum is one way of giving a shape to  idea to the next stage.

For example,

If you have an idea or intention to visit a foreign country, you can build momentum immediately by getting  as much as information about the place, cost of travel, culture, weather  etc.. This action  may propel you to next step and so on..

If you have idea to diversify your business into a new product portfolio, you can build momentum by getting information about the competition, market size, investment etc..This step may propel you to next step and so on..

If you have the intention to bring new initiative in your organization, you can build momentum by immediately seeking suggestion or help from those people who did it already.

Simply, if you have an idea or intention, communicate to your dear ones and commit.That way you build the momentum and that momentum may take you to next level action.

All the achievements are made by execution only. Hence action is important to convert any intention to reality. Hence, building and keeping momentum is a first step and necessary  for any achievement!!!

Start Now

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”-Arthur Ashe

        Everyone wants to lead a life with achievements in a profession or business, maintaining cordial relationship with others, healthy body and mindset. But in reality, not all will have the right environment  and opportunity right from childhood to channelize their energy towards achieving the above. Only a few gifted people have the blessings from childhood, For others, it may take life long process. During the process, some people give up, eventually contented, or even complain about age, circumstances, and others.

        If you look at one of the most divine creations, “Butterfly” which everyone likes for its colorful wings and shape. In its life cycle, it evolves as butterfly only at the fourth stage by passing over the egg, caterpillar, chrysalis stages. However, it completes its lifecycle with the transformation from ugly caterpillar to beautiful butterfly. What matters is a transformation in a lifetime, no matter at what timeline it happens in life.

Hence,

If you have not managed your business so far, start now to transform now…
If you have not managed your relationship well with others, start now to renew it…
If you have not managed your finances properly, start now to reorganize
If you have not managed your health, start now to rejuvenate or look into it.


        Every day is a possibility of positive change in life.No point in regretting about the past and complaining the environments or others.Start now for new beginnings!

Possibilities

“The Future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious.”- John Sculley

         Sometimes we are skeptical about the future and think that the status quo will continue as such either business growth or financial status or even professional growth  or quality of life.During such time, “Possibilities thinking” may be useful to get confidence or overcoming the skeptic mindset.

        For example, observe any successful people from business, sports, media, politics, etc., You may realize that their background were ordinary or much worse than yours. How they became successful is that they believed themselves. Before believing themselves, they think the possibilities of becoming successful or achieving something great. They believed in the possibilities of changing their destiny better than they were. They believed in the possibilities of tomorrow, which would be  better than today.

        Similarly, look at the developments in all the fields like connectivity of the world through internet, mobile communication, affordability of transportation modes, education, healthcare inventions, etc which was not imaginable a few   decades ago. Today it has become reality as  someone was thinking about the possibilities changing from better to best.

         In a nutshell, what was not possible yesterday becomes reality today and it is the result of possibilities thinking of humanity. Hence, think about new possibilities in your life either business turnaround, personal transformation or improving the quality of life, it will become reality with right actions!  

Why goal fails?

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” –Jim Rohn

               In professional and Personal environment, many of us  have experience of setting  goals  and not able to achieve the same.There may be many  external  reasons for not achieving the goal, but one of the  causes for failure is an internal oriented or mindset in approaching the execution.

            Whether we are setting the goal only with OUTCOME oriented or PROCESS oriented makes a lot of difference in the success or failure. For example, if you set a goal to improve your revenue by 2X in a year's time. This is outcome oriented. If you focus only on this outcome,  likely you may not achieve the goal.

            Instead, if you focus more on setting process goals to achieve revenue increase by 2X in a year time ,then  likely you may achieve the goal. For example, you set goals to improve your skill set, up gradation of knowledge, improving network etc and working on it will lead you to achieve the goal. This is a process-oriented goal.

           To sum it up, we tend to focus more on the outcome than the process to achieve the outcome. This leads to failure of achieving goals. Instead, being disciplined in the process   will improve the probability of achieving the goal.

Self-efficacy

“In order to succeed, people need a sense of self efficacy to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles of life.” —Albert Bandura

      Self-efficacy can be defined as one’s belief in his ability to succeed in specific situations. The success or failure in whatever situation is generally depends on individual‘s belief in his ability to face the situation. For example, if you are venturing into new business or new initiatives in your professional environment, more than environmental factors which alters the result, your belief about your capability gives you all strength to manage any challenges during execution.

      People with high self-efficacy are more willing to take action, especially on new activities. They stay longer in the face of challenging times. Now the question is whether this quality is inborn or can be developed by anyone. The answer is a high level of self-efficacy can be developed by anyone with little effort.

      One of the ways to develop self-efficacy is through observation. It is demonstrated through study about a person with phobia and the person’ self-efficacy about managing the phobia is improved when he observed fellow phobic struggled with and overcome their phobia.

       Similarly, if you observe your role model for any of his excellent qualities, you can also gain the belief about your capability. It is a simple proposition that “if it is possible by others, it is possible by me “. Who could be your role model to observe and learn? 

Mindset matters

“Anything is possible if you have the mindset and the will ,desire to do it and put the time in.” ---Roger Clemens

      You might have observed that some of the highly successful people lack formal education and business management skill, but they are quite successful in any venture. Also, you come across some people with knowledge and extraordinary business skills, but will not be much successful or achieved much. Why does this contradiction  exist? The answer is a mindset towards achievement.

       It is proven  that anybody can achieve more in life and it requires the  four  factors  as follows

1. Desire to achieve

2. Faith in self and God

3. Consistent Effort

4. Ability or  Skill

        It looks like all the four are equally important, but the reality shows that first three are important and the fourth ability or skill can always be acquired or delegated.What matters most is the mindset and the first three elements are related to a mindset.Even if you have all talent or skill, but lacks in desire or faith in yourself and too lazy to take consistent effort, you may not able to achieve great things in life.

    Hence set your mind for high ambition and be faith in yourself or god and tune your mind for taking consistent effort, then you get all the skills or capability to achieve anything.You attract good things in Life!!