Surviving in the corporate jungle(New Book on management)

Recently happened to read this book and is written by my friend/mentor Mr.Ashok Bhatia who lives in Pondicherry. Since he had worked in big corporate like in TATA, HCL, Hidesign in senior leadership levels, he has brought his rich corporate experience and wisdom in this book to manage the workplace dynamics.While most of the authors are serious writing style to discuss the corporate practices with tons of do' and don't kind of pieces of advice, he presents the message with a sense of humor and conveys the point rightly. He covered almost all functions of management with simple messages to survive in corporate jungle

A good book to read for all working professionals to get a new perspective or wisdom from experienced person like Ashok Bhatia. Recommend this book to get a new perspective on leadership and management.

Link is given below to get in Amazon as Kindle version or paperback version

http://amzn.to/2vvmnTy

Why is patience required for development ?

      

One of the most challenging tasks for self at a personal level or leaders in a business environment is to reach next level growth by changing self or inspiring others to change. The strange nature of the change management process is that it requires continuous effort on nurturing and the result may not be visible immediately. Without knowing the change management process and with impatience mentality, most of us, either give up the effort or getting into inferiority feeling or spoiling the relationship or environment.

        As you might have aware of a bamboo tree, it is different from other trees as it does not grow in the usual fashion. While most of the trees start growing steadily from the beginning, this Chinese bamboo tree does not even break the ground for the first four years. Then on the fifth year, this tree starts to grow at an amazing growth rate. It is said that within four to five weeks time, it even grows to 90 feet height. Actually, during the first four years, growth is not visible externally, but the tree has internally grown and made the roots strong. This nature reveals a lesson on our growth efforts on self-development or on other people development.

        Whatever efforts we put on self-development or people development, it works internally and needs time to be visible externally. Here the key point is your patience to go through the process makes you realize the result, especially on self development or people development.
       

Giving is noble

A young man traveled to Himalaya as pilgrim trip.He found a stone on the riverbed and he picked it as he knew the value of it. After returning home, he was showing the stones to his relatives and friends.One of the relatives also aware of the value of the stone and requested the young man to give it to him. 
Without any second thought, the young man gave the stone to the relative.

Some days later, the relative came back to the young man and returned back the stone. Surprised with the fact that he liked the stone very much, the young man asked him, “I know you are fond of stone, that is the reason, I have given it you. Why are you returning back now?”

The old man replied, “I know the materialistic value of this stone, but more than that there is something precious WITHIN you that enables you to give this stone to me. I wanted to possess that. That is more valuable than anything else!!

Moral:

It is not how big we are in terms of materialistic, it matters how generous we are in giving to others, either it could be knowledge, money, time etc. That attitude makes a difference between ordinary and extraordinary!

Imposing change on self

There was a saint believed to have tremendous power to solve all kinds of life problems. One day, a middle aged man approached the saint to solve his personal problem. He narrated the saint with the list of complaints against his wife.It was quite apparent that his every effort to reform or change his wife’s behavior had proved a failure. He requested saint to help him.

Patiently listening to the man, the saint said, “I can assure you excellent married life, provided you become a better husband”.

Confused with the reply, the man curiously asked him, “What should I do for that”.

The saint replied “First give up all your efforts to change her as a better wife”

Moral of the story:

Not only in family relationship, in all relationships, no one will change their basic attitude and behavior easily for others, unless there is compelling need is felt.Hence, accept the people as such as it requires a major mindset change within us. That is relatively easier than any effort to change others.In a relationship, any form of imposing change only results in frustration and hurt in long run.

Moving from managing to coaching

One of the lesson or habit we need to learn when we grow either in personal or professional life is listening to others and allowing others to take a decision on their own.

Since we have grown up in an environment where obeying to senior’s instruction as perceived as discipline, the same mentality we are bringing in when we become an adult. We expect ourselves to give a bunch of advice to others and expect them to own. 

The real maturity of growth lies in when we move from managing to coaching. Everyone has to go through the path from managing to coaching.
For example, as a parent, we need to manage child as long as they are in childhood by giving advice on do’s and don’ts, getting into nitty gritty of all activities and decisions. That is fine as they are in childhood.When  they become an adult, the best way to manage them is to give the perspectives of pro’s and con’s of any decision and let them own the decision and consequence.

Similarly, when you are managing the people at a functional level, it is ok by giving advice and owning the result. When you move up the ladder into senior level, it is expected to make the people own the decision and your role is just to guide with possible approaches and their likely consequences.

When we continue to manage, stress crops in a relationship, ownership missing on the results from others. Just be aware of your level and role as manager or coach.

Redefining your life success with right metrics

In today’s world, everyone is madly rushing behind money and positional status and in this process, we are too much stressed out.This causes disruption in physical and relationship.One of the reason could be unconsciously we had defined the life success as money and power. That is the only metrics by which we are measuring our success.Some study suggests that if we change or add one more metrics in our definition of life success, it will change our perception of life and our actions. That metric is "THRIVING".

Thriving can be defined as prosperous or flourishing or growing in all aspects of well-being.This metric is beyond survival and 360 degrees winning in all aspects of life.

The overall of well-being (Thriving) can be attained by 

1.Nurturing yourself physically and mentally
2.Keep learning
3.Spending time yourself to listen to your inner voice
4.Giving to others
5.Distance yourself from digital noises
6.Exploring new location and people 
7.curiosity like child
8.Get enough sleeping as it improves health

In reality, coming out of survival to thriving mode requires a lot of internal perspective change about life and real growth!

How successful people look at failure ?

Jeff bezos, Founder, and CEO of Amazon has said in one of the interviews that if his people have a one in 10 chance of making a 100 x return on an investment, he wants them to experiment every time. This message has a profound on the way he looks at failures. His message implicit that he is willing to tolerate failing nine of out 10 times because his chance of making one big success is high.

This is a very hard concept for us to believe as we had come from an environment where we measure individual or organizational worthiness only with materialistic values. We think that failing is something as a personal failure and with that mindset, we achieve or lead a life what we can do in the safe environment.

The point is when we take the failure as normal in business or in a personal endeavor and then there is a high possibility to make the breakthrough result as we are open to much experimentation. This is purely mindset issues and needs to be challenged with awareness. This is how highly successful people look at failure and moves on!!

Am I leading my life the way I want ?

One of the lingering questions a few of us will have at some point in time is “Am I leading my life the way I want?" .Particularly, this question come to those who had fulfilled the basic need of the survival. This question comes when there is a conflict of interest in what we are doing now and what we like to do.Some people label it as passion.

As I witnessed that  some people answered the question, led a path rightly and some people struggle to find the right answer themselves.

This calls for structured process as follows

1.First, accept this disturbance as such.You are disturbed by this question because you are destined for something else, that is good. 

2.Allow some time  for settling down as  any quick emotional decision  may  affect  the quality of life

3.Spend time privately for reflection  both on logical and emotional  outcome  of  any decision you take 

4.Seek  the help from genuine coaches who can work with you without bias  on your values/beliefs and guide you  to choose the right decision  by yourselves  

5.Experiment your passion without giving up your current path as reality will give a clarity whether your passion is sustainable or not. Based on the experience, you can decide your path.

Finally, you are the master of your life, own any decision what may come and enjoy the process!!

Being happy to be successful

  

 One day a successful businessman was called to address the gathering on the topic being happy in life.The speaker also was happily sharing his experience. On completion upon his speech, one person from the audience approached the speaker and said, “You are successful in your business that is why you are happy. You do not know how much effort I am putting to be successful, how can I be happy “

The speaker stopped him and said, “I am happy not because I am successful, it is another way round, and I am successful because I am always happy”.

This statement is profound.Being happy is a state of mind irrespective of environment or status. When the mind is happy, it can think through the ways to be successful in any Endeavour.

In reality, most of the time, we tend to be happy only and if some favorable conditions are met. There should not be any reason to be happy.It just requires awareness.

Be happy and makes other happy with your presence!

Why do we trust some people as leader?

In a professional environment, we come across a lot of people either as colleagues, subordinates, boss.Only a few people, we admire as a leader and have trust.With this belief, we sometimes even adopt them as our role model, mentor, guide, coach, and well-wisher.

What makes difference between others and leaders? Only two factors make us believe that they are our leader. One is CHARACTER and second is COMPETENCY.

The character could be boldness, firmness, approachable, attitude towards helping others and so on as we see as the positive soft factors.
Competency could be their functional and managerial skills like technical mastery, problem-solving skill, decision making, thought process and communication capabilities as we see as positive hard factors.

When either character or competence lacks with reference to their position, we start to disregard them as leaders and lose trust. Now, relate this to any personalities from your professional, media, politics or in sports background and you find that those who trusted as leader once upon a time lost their shine when they missed character or competency in line with their positional status!!!

The point is, in professional or business environment, if you like to scale up your career from individual performer to leader/role model, you need to continuously enhance your character and competency.This character and competency building is a lifelong effort as any professional growth demands.