My Blog

Reflections - The Christmas Wish

2011-11-25T00:10:00.000-08:00

Saw this movie yesterday......It is about a man that walked in humility and forgiveness. The main theme forms around a grandfather that leaves his grandson a wonderful legacy: how to live in humility and truly love your fellow colleagues. The movie underscores the importance of family and how Will in his quest, to fulfill his grandmothers Christmas wish, finds Lillian and in the process discovers his true self , his real calling. It is the realization that only in seeing ones work as a calling, a means to serve a higher purpose, he could find true fulfillment. The experience made him more aware of the context in which he worked, sensitized him to the concerns of the people around him and helped him understand that an attempt to achieve personal mastery requires a good human being. The movie to me contained nuggets of knowledge that are invaluable to everyday living, about living more fruitfully and optimally. It portrayed how one’s attitude determines one’s altitude in life, how the past is history, the future is a mystery, the present is a gift, to be used optimally by keeping the mind from drifting constantly into the past and the future. The movie in particular influenced me for its leadership lessons and its applicability to our daily lives, both personal and professional. Good leaders as epitomized by Wills' Grandfather and himself are selfless, take initiative and focus on their duty rather than obsessing over outcomes or pecuniary gains. The key message is to “put purpose before self”, a precept that holds abiding value for corporate leadership today. By acknowledging one’s responsibilities Will performs a true renunciation. This concept is ironic in today’s context as leadership in general is shrouded with deceit, dishonesty and selfish acts. We hardly see leaders who sacrifice their authority, position and incentives for the benefit of their people. Many leaders lure their followers with promises only to be forgotten once they capture their leadership positions. Many leaders promise prosperity only to lose focus on people and their well-being. In this age of Enron, Tyco, insider-trading scandals and corporate malfeasance, the lessons from the movie underscores a need for leaders who practice selfless giving and strive for the common good and who know how to renounce the selfishness that affects our relationships to all things.

Christmas Wish is as practical as a movie can get. It is about remembering why we work, and why we were chosen to lead . It’s about finding the courage to act on what one knows is right – and leading a life with the same courage. It’s about winning. The right way. It edifies, inspires and motivates one to imbibe its lessons in all relationships, the workplace and especially one’s posterity. It reaffirms to me the importance of values one learnt growing up in homes, playgrounds and classrooms. That values aren’t to be conveniently molded to fit particular situations. They are indelibly etched in our very beings as natural impulses that never go stale or go out of style. An inspirational manifesto that made me reflect that one does not have to sacrifice the principles that make life worth living to succeed at the highest levels.

Google integrates QR code technology for 100,000 business owners

2010-07-03T23:46:00.000-07:00

Google integrates QR code technology for 100,000 business owners

Confessions of a Professional

2010-06-14T01:25:00.000-07:00

Ø Takes pride in his work and shows a personal commitment to quality.

Ø Reaches out for responsibility.

Ø Anticipates and doesn’t wait to be told what to do - shows initiative.

Ø Do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Ø Gets Involved and don’t just stick to his/her assigned role.

Ø Is always looking for ways to make things easier for those they serve.

Ø Eager to learn as much as he can about the business of those he serves.

Ø Really listen to the needs of those they serve.

Ø Learn to understand and think like those they serve so they can represent them when they are not there.

Ø Is a Team Player.

Ø Can be trusted with confidences.

Ø Is honest, trustworthy , and loyal.

Ø Open to constructive critiques on how to improve.

The above list is a reasonable definition of what it means to be a Professional. The opposite of the word professional is not unprofessional , but rather technician. Professionalism is predominantly an attitude; not a set of competencies.

A professional is a technician who cares

Professionalism is not a label you give yourself – it is a description you hope others would apply to you. You do the best you can as a matter of self respect. Having self respect is the key to earning respect and trust from others. If you want to be trusted and respected you have to earn it. These behaviours lead to job fulfillment.

The question should really be “ Why wouldn’t someone want to do this ? “ If someone takes a job, or starts a career worrying about what’s in it for them, looking to do just enough to get by or being purely self serving in their performance – they will go nowhere. Even if they manage to excel through the ranks as good technicians - they will not be happy in what they are doing . The work will be boring , aggravating tiresome and a drag.

The Saints did not pray to the Good Lord for instructions on what to

do. The Bible was already clear on what was expected of them.

Nevertheless, the Saints got down on their knees every day of their

lives - to pray that, in spite of daily temptations, they could find the

courage and strength to do the right thing

--- Old Mexican Proverb

Adapted from 'True Professionalism', by David Maister

The Talent Conundrum

2010-05-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

The "War for Talent"...... " Talent - the key vital in an organizations marketplace survival"..... "Talent, a critical business asset for competitive advantage"..... oft repeated slogans, business insight, nuggets of wisdom, hackneyed statements , we are free to pick our chose.. However, the votaries of talent fail to see the biggest irony of our times that nothing is more commonplace than to see wasted men and women of talent for want of the right opportunities.

The very concept of talent today is mired in paradoxes. We understand the impact of not having the right people in place to lead and confront business challenges but pay mere lip service when it comes to assessing the true value and the innate potential of an individual; we like to hire for attitude and train for skills, in reality though a persons 'biology' is more critical than his 'chemistry'; We would like to adopt more innovative, strategic and cooperative approaches, which goes by the name of 'talent solutions' yet are unwilling to shed our myopic approaches driven by short term gains. We would like to label ourselves as 'professionals', who, if one was to borrow David Maister's definition from his seminal work on the Professional Services Industry*, 'is a person driven by a sense of caring', in reality though most of us are lured by the transactional, ephemeral, tactical approaches to hiring key talent.

The world is full of educated derelicts and the old truism that talent will finally find a way to showcase itself may not hold true in a dog-eat-dog world where 'whom you know' is more important than 'what you know'. But just as 'Talent' must persist in its search of the holy grail, it also places a onerous task on the shoulders of talent seekers who occupy positions of authority to evolve 'creative responses' in their hunt for talent. 'responses' which try and fathom 'How one does what he does' and the broader context within which an individual operates. All this calls for sacrifice, personal conviction, a innate desire and passion to make a difference in the life of others... virtues which need to be exemplified in professionals who walk the high corridors of power today....

The much touted demographic dividend of India may well turn out to be its biggest 'missed opportunity' if the country's huge talent repository is not leveraged & gainfully deployed.

" One of the greatest talents of all is the talent to recognize
and to develop talent in others"... Frank Tyger

Tuesdays with Morrie - My Reflections

2010-03-17T03:03:00.000-07:00

The movie to me in many ways was an “ode to life”; that life is a celebration whose every moment is to be cherished and rejoiced. It contained nuggets of wisdom and knowledge that are invaluable to everyday living, about living more fruitfully and optimally. The movie chronicles the lessons about life that Mitch learns from his professor Morrie Schwartz who was dying from ‘Lou Gehrig’s disease’. Mitch is a successful columnist to the Detroit Free press after failing to become a pianist. After seeing Morrie on ‘Nightline’ Mitch visits Schwarz twenty years after his graduation and this culminates in their Tuesday morning sit-outs. The re-union discussions soon turn out to be a discovery of ‘life’ for Mitch as he relearns the virtues of acceptance, communication, love, values, openness and happiness. He describes to Mitch the importance of forging his own culture, about being his authentic self and that how the drive for pelf, fame and ambition has shorn today’s life of its true essence. Mitch’s character changes as Morrie’s stories soften him. As Morrie Schwartz's condition deteriorates, so does the hibiscus plant atop of Schwartz's study. It acts as a symbol to Schwartz's life as a natural process of life. The movie to me epitomized the importance of ‘self- awareness’ and its leadership insights. The understanding of the self is not only about understanding our physical and psychological states. This goes further down to our deepest levels of consciousness that our true potential and purpose can be realized by understanding our true selves – the quantum level of our existence. The potentiality of our quantum self is analogous to the scientific developments we have witnessed in the past century: science was able to achieve more when scientists were able to understand it at the quantum level. The same principle applies to leadership. We can become effective leaders when we understand our quantum self. Today, we understand leadership as something that is not only about leading a nation, a corporation, or a big entity, but it is about influencing and guiding others. It is about helping others to find their potential and purpose. It is not possible to become an effective leader if the leader does not understand his or her own self, and does not understand his or her own potential and purpose. This teaching, to me, embodies the very essence of thought leadership, which has become so important at this juncture in history, when every ideology and every system has fallen short, in some way or the other in creating a egalitarian society. While capitalism has brought growth and higher standards of living, it has also resulted in increased inequalities. Socialism brought about greater equality and economic security, but lagged greatly in increasing the size of the pie. Authoritarian states have collapsed the world over, but democracy also has not delivered results. We are living today with huge contradictions: the worst of both the worlds. The media in the movie serves as an interesting motif of purveying evil and suffering as all stories either cover homicide, suicide, hatred, violence or depression. Morrie’s lessons to his protégé imbue life with a fragrance that only grows with every interactions. I would like to finally sum up the insights from the movie in this verse from Pablo Neruda’s “ Ode to Life”,

Life waits for us – all of us who cherish the wild perfume of the sea

and the celebration of spearmint nestled between its breasts

Satyam and Thought Leadership

2009-01-07T23:21:00.000-08:00

The fall from grace of yesterday's icon and role model Ramalinga Raju is indeed a sign of our times where the lure of the lucre is the only driving motive for all our actions and that one can succeed at the highest levels by sacrificing all principles and values that make life worth living. Mr Raju indeed has shown great courage in building a business empire from scratch which has dishonesty, cheating, moral bankruptcy as its building blocks. One of the finest Thought leaders of our times till yesterday, Mr Raju has given Leadership a new meaning altogether. The notion of the ' ideal leader' : the "philosopher king" so engagingly potrayed by 'Plato' in his seminal work The Republic lies in shreds today. While the full implications of the 'satyam fiasco' would be felt in times to come the scenario only underscores the need for us to embrace the good old values we learned growing up as children, in the playgrounds,in the classrooms. The fiasco is a stentorian call for the business world to reassert accepted moral values and live up to its responsibility of sharing gains with the society. The need is for Thought Leaders who preach well and replicate the same in their daily actions not preach high and display moral bankruptcy by their end actions. I would quote Mr Raju form one of his many articles in a leading business magazine, " Practically every wealth creation attempt is a transformational process." Mr Raju has indeed taught us to create wealth by ' transforming' the very ' values and precepts' which make life worth living. He stands today in a quagmire all of his own.