Raj Shankar's Blog, page 54

Vedantic Wednesday: Being a ‘Witness’ is the real ‘Secret’

The literature on the power of thoughts – keeping them positive and using these positive thoughts as a way of modifying the world around us to be how we expect, is not new.  The category of self-help predominantly uses the positive mind-set philosophy as the basis for all achievements. Though “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill was not the first book to highlight the power of positive thoughts, it has definitely been a phenomenal influence in its own right, apart from serving as a catalyst to the genre as a whole.  In more recent times, “The Secret” turned the same concept with a different flavour into an even greater phenomenon. While I have been an ardent reader of works based on the “Law of Attraction”, something contrary to this showed up glaringly as I started learning Vedanta.

The ancient Indian philosophy takes a diametrically opposite stance on the prescriptive action while also acknowledging the power of the mind. Since the world itself is said to be a projection of the mind, attracting or repelling objects and beings is but it’s inherent power.  While the “Law of Attraction” school of thinkers have suggested ways to manipulate the external world so as to satisfy the mind or the individual, the Indian school of thought Vedanta, talks of doing away with the mind and accepting everything as is without any manipulation/ interference. This is broadly termed as ‘Sakshi Bhava’ . Over the last two days I have been sharing some thoughts related to keeping positive and being neutral as options that are available to a leader.  In line with that, I thought it best to share what Vedanta suggests as the best way to transact with the world.

Maintaining the stance of a witness, to all that happens in the world is set to bring about a strange kind of calmness. Experiencing and maintaining the calmness helps the individual to go through life’s transactions with little stress and strain.  The reduced friction creates the much needed peace of mind in today’s turbulent lives. While attaining the above referred to state of being namely that of a witness (‘Sakshi’) may not be easy, even after accepting its possibility – it is worthy of attempt!

Being Positive over Being Neutral

The concept of thinking positive and looking positive, as a way to attract positive aspects into life is not a new phenomenon. But every time there is an attempt at re-positioning this old secret desire of human beings it gains world-wide recognition and acknowledgement. I know the power that “the law of attraction” holds on to the lives of so many people. “The Secret” book and DVD became a sensation. Why won’t it? It caters directly to one of the fundamental desires of the human mind – addressing wants! But one of the fundamental things that these books, tapes, videos and trainings do is ask you to maintain a positive look. According to these, if one manages to maintain a positive look, one is bound to attract more positive aspects onto himself  / herself.

NOTE: Please don’t misunderstand me – I’m not against being positive and I am definitely not promoting being negative as an alternative. But I am only using it to highlight how this is affecting decision making.

When this “positive thinking” school of living is borrowed by leaders in businesses and other institutions, the first thing that happens is that they don’t want to acknowledge challenges, problems, issues, etc. Because a positive person is always positive, speaks positive things, thinks positive things and acts positively.  Your product is not selling? -Be positive, push harder it will sell. Productivity is a creeping issue? – Be positive, talk to your team, motivate them for all is well.  Rosy picture indeed! But the downside of this is that challenges are constantly subdued without objective analysis. While they can be suppressed for a while, over time they come back in a different form and in a much stronger manner. Often by the time the institution is forced to acknowledge the problem, it is too late.

Why not on the contrary be neutral? Neutral to the changes that happen, neutral to challenges that crop up, neutral to positive and negative results with equal poise. This will enable a leader look at issues objectively and make the best use of resources at large. This kind of leadership will make the greatest impact on society. Think!

Convenience over Choice

Almost every business leader / entrepreneur worth the name is busy trying to get things back to normal. They are all working harder than usual, managing people who are more demanding than usual, handling situations that are tougher than usual, marshaling and juicing out resources more than usual. In this process one thing that the leader does not want to let go is the image of being the ‘good man’. Not sure if this is a cultural thing in India! But this is almost natural in Indian Leaders!

Objectivity today seems to be ebbing away to lower and lower levels. No leader wants to objectively assess the business and its current state. They all want to keep the fairly obvious problems under the carpet, hoping they will disappear by themselves – somehow magically! In the meantime because of the lack of objectivity leaders are forced to find symptoms that are conveniently addressable without toppling the cart too much. In fact during these times maintaining the status quo seems to be the order of the day. Initiatives are more around improving marketing collateral, re-positioning the same product or service, greater networking and repairing old relationships. Nobody wants to accept the situation as is and aim at using the challenge as an early warning towards sickness! If only one acknowledges the challenge, can they start working on relooking at health of the enterprise. For this, one has to first answer the most fundamental question in strategy – “what’s going on here?”

This is not convenient! This is not an easy choice! This could put some products on the sledge! This could make the institution leaner! But it could also make the institution healthier! It is the forte of bold leaders, the entrepreneurial leaders to make tough choices and avoid comforting conveniences.  Are you such a leader? Wherever you are – get out on the scene, make the choices and you will make yourself visible. Your business and the world needs more of such leaders!

Interesting Links This Week: 07-Apr-2013

As we start another new financial year, what caught my attention surprisingly were articles on procrastination and an earlier prediction around the euro economy. Here are this week’s favorite links:

Why people procrastinate and what you can do to avoid this? http://bit.ly/WHCMht  

If you know and enjoy the game of chess, you will connect with this article on multiple fronts.  Here are six strategy lessons from the game of Chess  http://bit.ly/WLvJ5Z

How are pundits viewing the restructuring efforts happening in Europe?  http://bit.ly/YiWA9j

Books and Me: The Referral Of A Lifetime

Title: The referral of a Lifetime

Author: Tim Templeton

Tim Templeton’s book is the first in the Blanchard’s Series with Berrett-Koehler. Having read a number of Ken Blanchard’s books, I am a fan like many others to his style of writing and the messages embedded in them.  Using fables to convey important messages is probably not new. But the titles with Ken Blanchard’s name on the cover have a signature style of their own.

Many entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals will relate to the protagonist of the story Susie McCumber.  All of them would have the same query. How some people seem to have things going their way all the time, and that too without the kind of effort that they put into the game?

The answer is fairly straight forward. And most of us may have been told that in the field of business like in many others – ‘Who you know is more important than what you know’.

In an effort to know a lot of people most of us  spend large amounts of time attending events, conferences, seminars etc with a hope of making  those magical relationships that can catalyze business growth.  Though we may have seen, some success in spurts the very fact of turning it into a repeatable process seems irrational and daunting. As you go through the book, this is taught through the wonderful character of “Mr. Highground” on how to unlock the gift of building and sustaining relationships. The book gives tactical steps on how to implement the four principles that fortifies the proposed networking system. The book also provides a number of simple templates and suggestions to make the system practical and usable.

In my view, the system though simple would work equally well for both one-man offices to  large corporate houses.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book which definitely did make me share the book and the thought with my colleagues to see how quickly we can apply the tips in our business. I hope it will excite you too!

Teaching entrepreneurship to Children!

It’s my first visit to the much talked about green campus of Great Lakes at Manamai near Mahabalipuram. What got me excited about the trip was the fact that I would be spending about two days with a handful of entrepreneurial school kids from PS Schools, Mylapore in Chennai. They are here to learn an optional elective course that Great Lakes and PS School run jointly to expose the kids in their 11th standard on aspects around Entrepreneurship and Business Management. Though I keep visiting colleges teaching engineering and MBA students on strategy and entrepreneurship, the fact that I will be teaching school kids the very same thing got me thrilled. My experience has cleared some statements that I have been hearing from many quarters (faculty, educators, administrators, parents etc) regarding the education system in this country and how outlook and attitude of students are taking a serious downturn.  In these kids there is:

No lethargy! The energy and enthusiasm of the kids simply did not let me sit quietly for a minute. They kept at  activities. There was interest to learn, have fun and enjoy the learning.

No post-lunch challenges! My session in fact started post lunch and my God! I could not believe the energy. Not even one of them was remotely sluggish. Not even one seemed drowsy. Though credit could be given to the pedagogy, I believe it’s the kids that made the difference.

No inhibitions! No pretensions! No worries! That’s being happy and that’s the only condition in which one can truly learn.

No distractions! There was emphasis on self regulated behavior. Whenever the sessions would begin, they would ensure that they get everyone inside the class quickly and on time. In case there is a joke or a discussion and we want to return to the session, they would amongst themselves quickly help each other to regain focus.

No complaints! On the contrary, there was positivism, energy, zeal, aspiration, and noncompetitive performance spirit. I loved that! Rarely do we get to see kids who can share ideas and spend time without worrying about competition.

On the whole I am excited and inspired. You can see that in my words. I am back in class today as well and I hope to get infected by their spirit and enthusiasm. Being truly child like is what makes life exciting. The moment we drop it, we become a robot (ok let me not be so dramatic, let’s say almost one)!

Vedantic Wednesday: In the journey back home, earlier the better!

Almost every teacher of Vedanta, without exception, keeps harping on the importance of kick-starting your learning into spirituality at the earliest. Though this is told to us even at times in hard hitting ways, rarely do we make a beginning. Almost every attempt to make a beginning faces great resistance from various forces including:

 Pressing priorities of life that takes precedence
 The question of what will we get if we learn?
The thought that people learn this only after retirement
Friends think I am taking to it because I’m a loser in life

And so on…

None of these are reasons in the real sense, they are excuses! But I would say they are not even excuses. Why? Because, you make excuses to delay doing what you want to as you have other more important desires to fulfill. But in this case, do you even want to? Very often most people hardly understand what spirituality is for. Most people resort to religion as a last resort when all known options have been exhausted. So if we don’t understand the value of something, why will we even want it?

So when I asked one of these master’s why he keeps lecturing over and over again knowing fully well, most (if not all) come to his classes more as a stress buster than for real learning – his answer was: we are not sure which of the thoughts will trigger a thought process, on whom and when! So having acquired the knowledge and experienced the freedom that comes from putting it to practice, his job is to simply keep sharing. He has no expectations on how many will come, how many will learn, how many will seek more, etc. All he knows is that he has been ordained to share, and he will.

So, why is this emphasis on starting early? Because the more we interact with the world, the more desires and memories we accumulate. The more we accumulate the more there is to throw away. It is like a mirror which is accumulating dirt. The more dirt, the longer it takes to clean it. Hence the urgent call by all masters to understand what’s happening. So the effort to be taken is to listen to these teachers and sit back and reflect on the truth in what they are saying.  When we realize it, we must start taking steps to slow down, stop and change course.

It will be tough but it has to be done sometime. So why not now? The more the initiative, the most nature aids in catalyzing your process. So go ahead and think if you want to delay further the start of the journey back home.

What are you doing in your strategy planning meet?

This is the season for organizations to think about their coming financial year. Considering today’s social and economical climate, I will be surprised if there are companies that aren’t doing anything about their annual plans.  Though my teaching and consulting engagements gets me to be present at some of the senior management retreats or offsite annual planning,  I find very few to truly fall under the category of what they call themselves – “Strategic Planning Exercise”

While most CEOs seek to create strategies at these meets, most often it ends up in one of the following:

Visioning – Much of the time is spent in creating a catchy slogan of a desirous future. This is followed by the efforts to make as many people buy into it.
Performance Review and forecasting – Lot of effort goes in trying to figure what has fallen short and how to make up in the coming year. The reasons are very often created to justify performance.  There is lot of change in the organization with each year that passes and the one that comes by. A host of new measures are introduced with the hope that the organization will look better with them.
Divisional budget Review and rollout: A typical consensus driven approach to make the overall plan gain commitment from the individual business unit heads. The individual goals are collected and added to create the institutional goals. This is a very passive way of setting the yearly targets.
Ambitious BHAGs.  This is usually the more aggressive and positive view of the planning exercise.  Unfortunately many times what is thought of as BHAG is not really a BHAG but actually Big Hairy Audacious Statements of how one would like the future to be.

While each of the above tools/approaches have their very specific role in the organizational context  – none of these will result in a strategy for the organization. Planning is not strategizing. Goal setting is not planning. Then what is strategizing? I shall soon post my views on what I consider as strategy and strategising.

So the next time you conduct a senior management retreat, an annual planning exercise or a strategic offsite, you may want to rethink what you actually want to get out of the exercise.  And use the right tools, else you will be wanting something but getting something else!

Go Ahead Fool Yourself !!

First April every year is celebrated world over as Fool’s Day.  I don’t know the origin of how it came into being, but from my youngest years I can recall this day has been used to fool people.  Children play pranks on each other and loudly declare “APRIL FOOL” and feel victorious at their effort. This joy remains till the act is reversed. Even elders who we can call us grown up children attempt to play pranks on their near and dear ones.  If you are yet to do something like this today, don’t wait – just unleash the child in you and live another moment!

As I saw people play soft pranks at each other, a lot of questions started storming at me. While the attempt to answer questions initially seemed philosophical and sombre, the more I stayed with them the more I started laughing at the answers that were emerging. I shall share my questions, answers and the resultant smiles with you over some other posts. But here I want to share just one thought on how FOOLs day can actually help achieve transformation within us.

I realised today fooling yourself is the easiest way to develop a positive habit.  This thought brought to my mind a book that I had shared with all of you recently – “The Power of Habit”. The author’s description of habit loop on the surface seems so simple that it can get easily rubbished as being silly.  It talks about how by creating a sense of reward, habits can be cultivated. But I understood the power of rewards best today!

What is stopping us from creating a habit around what we always wanted to do – let’s say exercising, studying, reading, walking, dieting etc? Most often it is the lack of conviction on the returns which most often remain elusive and far-fetched. But if we can fool ourselves to believe that with this day’s walk, all the fat accumulated in your arteries will dissolve, with this one piece of writing you can achieve greatness, with this one visit to the gym you can become size zero – you will willingly get onto to the activity. You keep promising yourself that at the end of this day’s practice lies the pot of gold!

Once you finish the activity, you will realise that you will have to do it again the next morning and probably all that will be left at the end of that day is also just an option to make one more attempt. You will be stuck by the stupidity of believing that today would be THE D-day.  But instead of getting cynical – go ahead and laugh at yourself for being gullible.  So tell yourself, fool yourself that result is there waiting for you at the end of this one attempt – and when you don’t get it; just wish yourself “Happy April Fool!” and repeat this all over the next day.

The funniest thing will be as you fool yourself into action repeatedly, the result will start blossoming. And when you experience the results – you don’t have to fool yourself anymore. The hope that the habit may do you good is changes to conviction. I have wished myself Fool’s Day today and I truly hope every one of you will do!

Interesting Links This Week: 31-Mar-2013

These are this week’s picks:

a) For someone who keeps looking out for enhancing productivity, this seemed as a great article - untill I reached the last point. An interesting read and something that would resonate with many of us http://www.inc.com/steve-tobak/10-things-you-need-to-quit-doing-right-now.html?cid=em01020week03a&nav=su

b) It really doesn’t qualify as a complete link. But as I am toying with ideas around networking as a topic for my upcoming writing efforts, this got me thinking. Loved the concept of ‘multiplex tie’ http://hbr.org/tip?date=120612&utm_campaign=Socialflow&utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Tweet

c) If you don’t measure you cannot manage. But you cannot manage just because you measure! Tips for designing performance dashboards. http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/15xk9M/www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2012/12/03/using-dashboards/