Friday 5 July 2019

Cultivating Calmness in tough times


Recently met a CEO after a long time with whom I worked earlier. He was happily sharing his recent accomplishment in his business, and I was listening to him. Inside my mind, I was lingering with a question which I wanted to get the answer from him that moment itself.i was waiting for him to complete.
 
The reason for the internal disturbance in me was some years back, he was undergoing tremendous trouble in personal life, financial aspects, and his business as well. I worried about his state then. During those tough times, I never had seen him losing his coolness, smiling face, or showing his frustration to anyone and also noticed that he never gave up his efforts both in business and personal life.
 
After he completed his expression, I asked him how he managed through the tough times and his mindset during those times. His reply was inspirational and taught the spiritualism in life.
 
“When everything goes against me at the same time, it means something is working beyond my control. Then why should work against it? Let me accept reality and do my part.

I believe that good and bad times will never last forever. I had enjoyed good times and let me go through this tough time as well.

God is testing my resilence, and if pass, I will get a reward more than now.”

 
In my opinion, this mindset is the highest level of maturity in dealing with life challenges, and cultivating calmness will take us to the next level of evolution.!!

Hope you agree on this learning......

Wednesday 26 June 2019

One Habit for a Lifetime


Habit is what you are doing consistently.

For all behind success story, there must be consistency in some of the actions. That is a habit. Even for our own sake of fulfillment, we need to have consistency in some of the practices what we do. The frequency is what you set depending on the action.
 
For example, I know some of my friends have the following “consistent practices or habits” as their life long practices.
 
  • Walking for an hour daily for the last 30 years
  • Being punctual to any event by being  present 10 min before the event
  • Giving Blood donation once in 3 months for the last 20 years
  • Calling the people on the birthday and wishes for more than 15 years
  • Conducting weekly discourses for more than 20 years
  • Waking up before 6 am and doing yoga for more than 40 years
 
When you observe your network, you may also come across many people with good lifetime habits.
 
When you have some good habits, as an individual, more than external monetary success, you feel proud of yourself, and also it enhances your confidence.

One habit for a lifetime, whatever it may be in terms of frequency, easiness, significant to others. However, sticking to one pattern for a lifetime is very much meaningful to you and make a difference to you.

The action is irrespective of your age, profession, choose some habit now, and practice it consistently.

or

if you are practicing some habits, please share as this will be an inspiration for others !!!

Risk of Generalisation

Sometimes, we make a conclusion based on one or two experiences, coin the generalized statements and use them frequently. Eventually, we start believing in those statements as true and approach life as per the generalized statement. In reality, when we question those statements, our perception change.

For example, some of us heard about the following statements in day to day life
 
I always have stage fear
My team never misses the target
Everyone is selfish in politics
Running a business always risky
All are busy on Monday morning.

 
When you look at those statements, all are generalized by us based on one or two experiences, and we start believing as such. In reality, those are not true.

For example, when you say, “ I always have stage fear,” you generalize  based on one or two times fear experience factor as “ ALWAYS.” In reality, many times you might have managed. However, when you communicate the statements frequently, you reinforce yourself as real, and you may not take an attempt to overcome.

Similarly, when you say “ EVERYONE is selfish in politics ” based on one or two experiences, but in reality, there are people with service intentions. However, when you generalize, you start to approach everyone as if they are selfish.

The point is there is no generalization in the world and everything subject to change with reference to time, place and people. Flexibility is required the way we approach the things for improving quality of life!

Friday 14 June 2019

Focus on Process than People



In the workplace or even in a family environment, when the things are not happening as expected, or any problem occurs, the most immediate tendency of us is “fixing who is responsible?”. For any issues, finding the cause is a good thing, but the moment we focus our the cause on “People” factor, it likely turns out as blaming, complaining, justification, arguments and eventually into personal vengeance only.

As I observed with effective leaders, they focus more on fixing the “process factor” than the people. Once the problem occurred, they immediately recognize it, and their thought process moves towards fixing process as they believe that is a proactive approach. They believe that when the process is robust, ignorance, attitude related to people can be solved quickly. Sometimes fixing process may prevent the issue permanently as well as take care of human errors.

For example, some of the mistakes in organizing an event can be minimized when you have a checklist rather than depending solely on people. That is a proactive approach with process focussed.

Shifting the focus on fixing “process” than  “people” is possible with a little bit of awareness on our intention and behavior. For any problem solution lies in process, in turn, the process will take care of people factor also.

Just it needs awareness when we face the problem.

Sunday 2 June 2019

Book: Start with WHY


Recently came across this book, and the perspective shared by the Author seems to be very useful for both personal and professional life to lead and inspire others.

Some people or organizations inspire others to take actions and some struggle. One of the reasons as described in the book is the leader or organization has clarity about their PURPOSE. They start with WHY than WHAT or HOW  as rest of the world is doing.

In this book, the author has given real-world examples of both organizations and highly effective leaders on using the principles of starting with WHY and also explaining other benefits of this concept throughout the book.

If you would like to learn how inspiring leaders think and act, then I recommend this book to buy, read, and enhance your perspectives.

Book is available in Amazon; Link is given below
 

Thursday 30 May 2019

How are you perceived in the workplace?


In spite of your professional competency, how others are perceiving you in a workplace is an essential factor for your career growth. When you know the perception by others, it will be an eyeopener for you for both on strength and area for improvements.

Sometimes, you may not realize your strength since it is readily coming to you. Similarly, some of the weakness or area for improvements may not be known to you. Others are experiencing both, and they are forming a perception about you. When you know how others are perceiving you, that will give clarity to shape up your personality, which will propel your career growth.

How to know other's perception about you?
  • Identify 3~5 people in your organization who are interacting with you more frequently. They could be your boss, your colleagues or your reportees. Some of you may be your wellwishers and observing you from distant
  • Approach them with prior permission and tell your intention of knowing their opinions or perspective about you based on the association on the professional front.
  • When they give their perspectives, avoid the tendency to defend or justify you
  • Thank them for their feedback and consolidate the findings. If same or similar observations are pointed out by many, that could be your strength which you can leverage further or that could be your area for improvement which you can work on that.
The above method is powerful for personal development process you can try it out once in a year.!!

Lessons learned on email communication.


Most of us might have come across the following situation in professional life.

"You might have received an email either from your colleague or boss or team or customer, and the mail content induced anger or frustration within you. Immediately you reacted to the mail by bursting all your emotions by way of words and pressed the sent button. Later on, you felt that you overreacted or subsequent mail communications led to friction in relationships or waste of time. In either way, you might have realized the incident should not have happened."

Some years back it happened to me to receive a mail from one of my clients, and I reacted very harshly in a reply mail. However, fortunately, due to some intuition, I kept in the draft without sending. I had given some time to read the contents again and again. Then I called the client over the phone, and to my surprise, the client responded to my call, patiently explained his views which were quite the opposite to what I interpreted the mail content. The problem was eventually solved and our relationship is continuing till now.

the key lessons I learned from the incident were 

1. Unlike in verbal  communication.we  may not understand the intention of the content in written communication. In verbal communication, we may understand the intention through tone quality to some extent. We need the patience to interpret the contents rightly.
2. We should avoid the temptation to react to mail communications immediately. Email as a tool is not for instant communication We can take time and respond.
3. Even the mail content evokes negative emotions; we can give some time to dilute the emotion Any problem is solvable if it is understood in the right perspective and good state of mind.

To sum up, we should not react to email communications while in emotionally feeling low. Take time and then respond for better relationships and quality of life.

Summing up -Leadership Development Process


As we discussed last 35 weeks on developing leadership qualities from “ Inside to outside” perspective, now let us summarise the learnings as a temporary break on this subject.
 
Leadership is all about making a positive impact on others through your thoughts, words, action and delivering result.It is more about Inner strength which will be visible externally through your impact.

Personal leadership is precedent to organizational leadership, and it is the responsibility of an individual to improve his / her personal leadership qualities irrespective of the age, qualification, and position, and this is a continuous journey.
 
Steps in leadership development journey are as follows

Leading Self – (Self image / Taking responsibility/ Discipline / Being grateful / Faith)
Leading Others –( Building Trust / Connecting with care / Enhancing Tolerance/ Improving communication / Earning the respect)
Leading through Results –( Making Impact at self / Developing Thought leadership / Managing Result )
Leading through developing others –(Teaching / Guiding / Giving Feedback / Coaching)
 
The above steps are just an overview of the leadership development process from my perspective, and it is up to an individual to experience the process on his / her own.

Each one of us has the leadership seed internally, and that has to be nurtured with awareness and practices throughout life.

Friday 3 May 2019

Developing others through Coaching


As discussed, on the job training and giving feedback are some of the ways to develop others as a leader in a professional setup. Another method of developing others is through Coaching.

what is coaching?

Coaching is helping others to improve performance either by acquiring new skills or a developing new set of behaviors to achieve the desired goal. As a coach, you need to be working with them on their journey till they get their destination.

This coaching requires more of your time and effort compared to other forms of helping. Coaching is more of handholding the person until he/ she learns new skill or behavior.

 For example, if one of your team members is taking up a new role and he /she requires to develop some business skills and you need to be available for guidance till he/she acquires the ability or developing a set of behaviors. Being with them as a guide either physically or emotionally is the essence of coaching.
 
To sum up, as a leader, you can help others to grow by teaching your knowledge, sharing your experience, giving feedback and handholding in the journey until they reach the destination.

 In today’s professional environment, people in every level need some sort of handholding in their journey of growth.

The action is that you need to ask yourselves whether you spend quality time to help others to develop in their profession irrespective of the size of people you are handling. This shift is required for you and your team's growth !!!!

Giving Feedback for Development


One of the powerful methods of developing others is qualitatively giving feedback.

What is meant by feedback to others?
Feedback is your opinion or comment about other's positive or limiting behavior in any task or performance.
 
Why is feedback important for development?
Each one has their strength and limitation which may not be known to self. When it is pointed out time as feedback, it may help others to reinforce the strength or help to give up the behavior in case of limitation by taking improvement action.

How to give feedback to others?
Before giving feedback, understand your intention as this sets your tone and quality of feedback, whether your purpose is to criticize or to help another person to improve his behavior.
 
One of the effective ways to give feedback is by adopting the following pattern in your communication. 

“ what you notice/observe as good or bad behavior ”  and  “ some reasonings to be good or bad” and " suggestions to improve."  

For example,

you observe some repeated mistakes by your team member while preparing a presentation, and you can point out like this
 
“I observed repeated formatting issue in your presentation and how this performance will irritate the audience on readability  and how you can improve  by so and so methods." 
 
or you would like to give positive feedback about your colleague’s presentation, and your feedback  can be like this
 
"I liked the way you simplified the complex problem into the simple picture, and this helps the audience to connect the concept quickly."
 
Giving feedback is the art of communication, and this can be improved in multiple ways when your intention of providing feedback to help or develop others.