Peaks and Valleys

Peaks and Valleys

Even though this book is old, this is very apt at this point, to make good and bad times work for us by maintaining mental stability and positiveness all the time.


Name of the Book: Peaks and Valleys
Author: Spencer Johnson (Bestselling Author of “Who moved my cheese” book)
No of pages: 100+

The  Theme of this book :
In the entire lifecycle, everyone goes through good and tough times. Our tendency would be enjoying too much during good times and getting upset too much during tough times as it shows the lack of maturity in dealing with the gift and uncertainties.

This book gives perspective on dealing with good and bad times of life in a story format and easy to read.

I especially recommend to entrepreneurs and business leaders to get perspective on managing good and tough times in business.

The essence of the book is given below. 

Valley (Tough Times):    
                                                                                          
 This time is an opportunity to learn more about life. Find the good hidden in a bad time. Could you make use of it? Do more service to others. Learn from the mistakes; develop strategies, competency development for a better future.

Peak (Good times):

This Time is for celebrating the achievement and enjoy the moment. But, be humble and grateful for being on the height. Reflect on what good things made your top and look back on the path you have come across. Sustain it.

Prolonging Peak (Good times):

When we are in peak, the tendency would be to get into complacent and arrogance. Instead of it, practice humility, do good things better, and do more service to others. Always remembering to reach the valley as part of the cycle.

Be mentally strong now, and everything will pass on!

Learning Resources

Learning Resources 

"Sometimes we can not change the circumstances, but we have a choice to choose our attitude and actions"

Given the lockdown period, each individual has a choice to develop the competency and today we have multiple options. Given below some of the options which i am personally exploring and suggesting you as well.

1. Online courses:

Variety of subjects available in the market place and depending on your interest you can pursue any short term course.

2. Online Learning website  / Apps on multiple personal, professional. spiritual  subjects

Medium.com
Harvard Business Review -HBR Management Tip
Gita 365 - Spiritual contents (Apps) ( Thanks to my friend who had suggested)
Youtube channels of your interest mainly on Interviews by professionals to get new perspectives and fresh ideas 

3. Evergreen / classic books to be read forever:

Personal and relationship perspective enhancement
 
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
Law of Success in 16 lessons – Napoleon Hill
Awaken the Giant within –Anthony Robbins
Discover your Strengths – Marcus Buckingham
Why Mars and Venus Collide –John Gray
The road less traveled –scott Peck
The Habit of Winning –Prakash Iyer
Seven habits of highly effective people –Stephen Covey
Valuvaana Kudumbam, Valamaana India-Prof Kanagasabapathi
Living with the Himalayan Masters –Swami Rama
Rich dad, poor dad – Robert  Kiyosaki
 
Business growth perspective
Five Levels of Leadership – John Maxwell
Blue Ocean Strategy
The Goal –A process of ongoing improvement –Eliyahu M Goldratt
The machine that changed the world – James womach
The high-performance entrepreneur –subroto bagchi
Stay Hungry stay foolish –Rashmi bansal
I too had a dream – Verghese Kurian

( Will suggest regional language-Tamil Books if you drop me a mail )

4. Some good/new management books can be explored :

The Fourth Industrial revolution -Industry 4.0 - Klaus Schwab
Profit First
CEO factory -HUL experience
Kindle Life - Swami Chinmayananda
Lean startup
Edge - Turning adversity into advantage
Trillion Dollar coach
Emyth -revisited
The next step- In individual and social development -Madhusudan  Reddy
Compilation of Vivekanandar speech at Chennai ( i will send based on request which i compiled)

5. Eat, Sleep well, watch movies along with family and be cool as everything will pass on.

Reflect and  Be grateful for everything you have in life ......

Ultimately, you need to be happy and peaceful irrespective of circumstances !!! That is also competency to be developed.

Developing the team's big picture thinking

Developing the team's big picture thinking

Having discussed the process of developing big picture thinking at an individual level, let us understand how smart leaders teach the big picture thinking to the team.

As I observed some leaders and their method of developing big picture thinking among the team in the organization as follows

1. Sharing the big picture perspective frequently to the team.
2. Briefing the context when delegating the task 
3. Helping the team to see the meaning in the work

1.    Sharing the big picture frequently to the team:

I know one CEO of a social organization, whenever, he conducts a meeting with his team, he makes a point to share about the prime purpose of the organization as "Making positive Impact" to customers. The team also articulate the same purpose and behave inline with the big picture perspective during in any business transaction with the customers and stakeholders. 

2.    Briefing the context when delegating the task:

Most of us tend to give a checklist or to-do list to the junior colleague. Effective people use to delegate responsibility and brief the person about the context of the job.

For example, instead of merely asking your salesperson to prepare the next three months' sales projection, if you give the context of sales projection to manage the plant capacity, mobilizing the working capital and so on, that will make the person more careful on the accuracy of the sales projection. (The point is wherever possible, brief the context as this makes the other person understand the big picture!!)

3.    Help the team to see the meaning of the work:

When anyone knows the meaning of his / her work, it will enhance their big picture thinking and contribution. As we are predominately organized ourselves as a department or function, most of the time, the team's thought process will be confined from a functional perspective. The leader's role is reminding the individual or team how the work is aligned with organizational objectives or how their work is helping the customers.

The effective leader is continuously striving to develop 360 perspectives both at self and at the team's level.

Let us discuss when we need to switch over between big picture thinking and micro detailing next week! 

Developing big picture thinking

Developing big picture thinking

Having discussed the definition of big picture thinking and its benefits on growth, let us understand the process of developing the big picture thinking as an individual.

Once three people were working on the bridge construction. The stranger approached the first person asked what he was doing. The person said, "Can't you see that i am laying stones." The stranger quickly moved on to the second person and asked the same question. The person replied: "I am working on my income to take care of myself and family."

      The stranger moved on to the third person and asked him what he was doing. The person replied with a smile, "I am building a bridge, once the bridge construction is over, many people will pass on. I am helping others to move fast. This bridge will be here centuries after I leave."    
 
       The story has a profound message of how you are looking at your work with a higher purpose makes a difference in the quality of work and life. That is big picture thinking. Here we extend our perspective or thinking from being working for survival to a higher purpose,
 
 Similarly, with your qualifications and experience, you are working as a professional. How do you look at your profession for the next  5-10 years' time? Today, you are running a business in a small way, how do you look at your product/ service and its impact on the market  10~20 years from now?

If you look at your profession as a means for survival, that is low order level thinking. When you extend your thinking about the impact you can create through your job or your business, you are into high order or big picture thinking.

When you are proposing some ideas to your team, and if they are not receiving it well, you may think they are resisting. That is low order thinking or micro-level thinking. The big picture thinking could be either team needs more explanation about the proposal, or they are not ready to digest, or you need to improve the communication skill, or the timing is not perfect. That is big picture thinking. In this process, you are looking at the event from 360 angles.
 
The key is how you are extending your thinking process from minute to higher, wider,360 angle makes you learn the big picture thinking process.
 

Big picture thinking is an art and can be developed at any age with awareness and practice.

Big picture Thinking

Big picture Thinking 

One of the qualities of competent people is the ability to have “Big picture thinking or perspective” in any circumstances.

What is meant by Big picture thinking or perspective?

A big picture perspective is looking at any interaction or event or opportunities from a higher, broader angle view to get the holistic idea rather than immediately getting into details.

For example, when you fly over your city on a flight, you able to view the entire city. You may be able to look at high rise buildings, rivers, roads, flyovers, and so on. This holistic view is possible only when you are at an elevated level, say at higher feet from the ground.

Similarly, in personal and professional life, when you look at any events, incidences, conversations from a higher-level view, you will get a holistic idea about opportunities, growth potentials, and other benefits. The key is elevating yourself at a higher level or distant yourself emotionally and look at the things.

Suppose your boss is asking you to take additional responsibility as being aware of your potential. If you are a big picture thinking oriented person, you will be immediately thinking about learning opportunities, future growth prospects, exposure, and so on. Else, immediately you will be worrying about too much about the unfamiliarity of the job and refuse to accept or getting into a conversation on monetary benefits, working hours flexibility, and so on.
 
The point is not to get into the details, but how you are distant yourself emotionally, elevating yourself to look at a higher and wider level helps you to get a holistic view. Once you see the comprehensive picture, your mind is ready to take on any challenges on the micro-level. This mind shift only provides the path for growth.

Now the question maybe

1. As a leader, how can I develop my people to get into big picture thinking?
2. As an individual, how can I develop my thinking process?
3. When can we shift from the big picture to detailing and vice versa

Let us discuss it next week!

Look up -insightful lesson

Recently i came across the viral video,(released 6 years back with more than 6 crores views till now ), and it talks about our addiction to smartphones and social media and losing the personal connection with the real, live human beings in front of us.

Director Gary conceptualized the theme by a story of a lost young man falling in love with a woman who gives him direction and their life together without the hindrance of social media.

Suggest you watch this video with Captions twice, and you will be able to relate how much we are losing our time in WhatsApp/ Facebook / YouTube and other social media blindly without real relationship building with the people next to us.

I hope you enjoy it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY

Dealing setback -a leader's mindset

A few weeks back, i  met the CEO of a firm whom I know for many years. He is looking after many businesses, apart from his passionate activities. A few years back, he ventured into a new business, and he had been consistently growing since inception.

When I asked him about this year's performance of his new venture, he replied that performance was not up to the expectation and indicated some no's. I wondered about his coolness and asked about his mindset to manage through this slowdown setback.

His reply seems to be the real testimonial of authentic leadership.

• My senior team is continuously working hard, and I am not finding a problem with them except the external environment
• Despite the external reason, we are working on our initiatives, and this will help us when the external environment turns positive
• Now I am spending more time with the team  to share  more insights about business and their development
• I am optimistic that the initiatives will bring more business when the external environment turns favorable 

The responses reflect the right leadership behavior. As we discussed some time back, leadership is all about mindset, thought process, and actions that impact others positively.

It is essential during tough times the leader should maintain coolness, not getting into negativity or blaming everything, believe in non-permanency, work for the long term, and hope for the future. More than that, taking personal responsibility to turnaround within the individual or team's capability is more critical.

No wonder that his team regards him as a role model.

Sometimes as a leader, we forget our balance during setbacks!