Thursday 17 November 2016

The best boss I ever had

One of the phrases we might have said or heard from others is “the best boss, I ever had “. In our career, so many bosses might have crossed our life and contributed to our growth, but we may count only a few of them as best bosses. How we do  we distinguish the best and good boss?

Even though there are multiple factors attribute to admire as  good boss, one distinguishing factor for  best boss is the one who had identified hidden unique talent within you  and created  opportunity to exhibit.I.e. The one who had brought out the potential of you, which you  never thought about. That could be turning point in  your professional growth.

Just list out all the bosses you had and identify the best boss. He would be fitting into the above definition.

Having realized this  insight, the next question you need to ask yourself is , for how many people you are the best boss? Have you identified the uniqueness of your team member and shown new possibilities to them?

Being a good boss is natural and given, but being the best boss for someone is your choice, it needs extraordinary compassion, effort from your end.Let us strive for best boss for someone.

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. 


Tuesday 25 October 2016

Building confidence with small success


In business or professional environment, the biggest challenge is selling our idea or believing that the idea will work.That is building a confidence within us and to others.

Building confidence in self-levels:

This cannot be built  only through external stimuli like reading books, listening motivational lectures, etc. as they build confidence momentarily and short lived. Real confidence will be built deeply at conscious level only by doing and experiencing small success.

              For example, if you want to improve your confidence on public speaking skills, you cannot immediately do it in a large crowd. Instead, you consciously experiment in a small group, take action, and taste the success. Your subconscious mind registers the successful event. Next time, when you are speaking in larger groups, your mind pushes you with positive reinforcement of earlier success and you may do well. Again, the mind registers this event as positive reinforcement. This way only, you can improve your confidence in public speaking.

Building confidence at team level:

             Similarly, if you want to  build confidence to your team  about any new initiative ,they need to see it and believe  it .Hence   experiment  the iniatives in a small way , be focused, take action, achieve and celebrate it .This  positive reinforcement   of success will give confidence to your team for taking higher level  initiatives .
              Building confidence is one of the leadership qualities  and it is time consuming,but more powerful once it is built . Hence, the action plan is to identify the area in which you have low confidence level, take small action, taste the success and this small success will help you to achieve more!

One degree +

Very good video on emphasizing the importance of stretching the effort. We use to think, only in sports, the difference between winner and loser is only to the extent of microseconds, but actually, in all aspects of life, like career advancement, winning deals in business, relationship, the extra step or effort or stretch makes a big difference.

Hope you enjoy this video even though you might have watched earlier.

https://goo.gl/OA7rBP

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

Saturday 8 October 2016

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.

Tuesday 27 September 2016

How do you respond to feedback?

Feedback from well-wishers, matured people are generally are genuine and for continuous improvement only. However, in reality, our mind responds to feedback in different ways and this response makes a difference in the performance. Generally, we respond to feedback in  three ways. 

For example, your boss or colleague or even your customer is pointing out some gap in your behavior or performance, you may choose any one of the below responses and that response determines  your further growth from the feedback.

Taking too personally:
 Feeling guilty and becoming sad about the feedback. The consequence may be your self-esteem may go down and you may be cribbing about the feedback. No Improvements on the corrective action or forward thinking and in turn, no progress in performance. 

Defending to  the feedback giver: 

Defending your position with justification to feedback giver. Likely, you may win the argument as well, but you may lose the sight of the truth of feedback. No improvements on the corrective action or forward thinking and in turn, no progress in performance.

Analyzing the feedback with rational approach:

 Listening and seeking further clarity from the feedback giver. Getting into introspecting. In this process, your mind tends to analyze the fact and accept the need for corrective action for growth. 

The point is that the choice of response you are choosing to feedback determines the progress, Feedback does not. 

Just be aware of your response! 

Tuesday 20 September 2016

Real entrepreneurial attitude

       Recently I had an opportunity to meet a very old businessperson, who has successfully built his organization and gained a very good reputation in the industry. His third generations have also stepped into the business and they are actively managing the business. Despite his ageing and health issues, he is having a habit of coming to office regularly and involving himself in important decisions.

     On seeing his passion and hard work, with curiosity, I asked, “Sir, Having created a big empire and developed the team to manage the business, are you not still happy with the growth? Why do you trouble yourself at this age? He profoundly replied, “It is not the question of happiness. I am already happy with my accomplishments, as I know where I came from, but not satisfied. My thinking is always on how to create more wealth to my employees and how to create more employment opportunities to many people.”

     I am amazed with his thought processes and witnessed the person of self-realization. The God chooses the right people for right purpose based on the thought, intention, enables right action and result!.Real growth and fulfillment is when we make our life for others. 

Real entrepreneurial attitude!

Friday 9 September 2016

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!