Unmuddlings!!

Business leaders cutting across all industries, functional areas and size of operations have one common challenge: People. In fact, if we ask entrepreneurs and professionals in leadership positions to name  their top three challenges – the answer will be people, people and people. The real issue is not only how to get the best resources but also  how to get the best out of them. . The first part – how to get the best resources depends upon the talent pool available in the market and the competition for it. External factors have a significant bearing on recruitment effectiveness. On the other hand, how to get the best out of the resources is internal to an organization and offers myriad opportunities for the innovative business leaders and HR managers to play around with. There are a large number of tools and frameworks available in the human resource domain to increase organizational performance, employee engagement is one of the foremost. What is employe...

[..Continued] So, we have discussed a message and a method. Where is the measure? Without a measure, no method is complete? The measure is asking oneself every moment. Asking oneself – am I biting chewable bites, am I enjoying, am I positive -  moment to moment. Do I have space to chew more, absorb more? At times when I will find myself not giving the desired answers, - do I quickly/smilingly accepting poor habit and not blame it on the situation. [To a client negotiating hard, or a colleague politicking or to a bad call from home]. Do I quickly check my mental make-up and try to slow down and remove the ruffle from mind? Whether to make the correct choice or to justify a vicious instinct is our calling of truth - every moment is a moment of truth. To put it succinctly, it about enjoying a joyous state of mind, every little moment. As I write this, I am reminded of this eternal verse below. [Little drops of water Little grains of sand Make the mighty ocean And the beauteo...

[..Continued] We are but a social animal. In addition to managing oneself better; barring the rare exceptions, happiness, productivity and living up to one’s promise will greatly depend upon how to we align ourselves to the eco-system. How we behave with respect to our circle of influence and  how we continually expand our circle of positive influence. It is impossible to be happy/productivity by withdrawing from, rebelling against, or forcing ourselves upon our environment. Which fundamentally implies – playing a conscious and pro-active role in leading other co-stakeholders to correct decisions both at strategic direction setting and at micro level optimization. Investing in stake-holder education and persuasion by using empathetic and receptive verbal and non-verbal languages is a sine-qua-non. Equally importantly giving the co-stakeholders the confidence that we are eager to get a good nudge and enthusiastic to change our perspectives and behavior. In short proactively and...

For success and happiness - every moment needs to be seen as a moment of truth. One more article on managing the self. And one more article which serves the same wine, at best, in a different bottle. I totally agree with that. In fact, the truth is that no self-management book or article or exhortation has ever told anything fundamentally new that rational mind did not understand before. Be it by the old seers like the Buddha or the contemporary super popular spiritual leaders like Goenkaji or Prajnanadaji. Ditto supremely packaged mantras from the new age management gurus like De Bono or the acclaimed self-management experts like Stephen Covey or Rhonda Bryne. But still there will always be more written and more to be listened to on the subject, because the soul always wants to share a new nuance, that uplifted itself. Hopefully some other soul will feel a little uplifted too. Even though the message is just a reiteration to the willing listener; it may possibly a new nuance that...

The other day I read that Mother Teresa had once remarked “‘The brain is getting smarter, but the heart is not catching up.”; as a response to the query   ‘..why, with all the scientific and technological advances, more couldn’t be done to help the unfortunate’? More such questions have lingered on, - why are there unfortunate people in the first place? and what is being unfortunate? Is being unfortunate, being in a constant state of stress? Which then manifests in negative energy in myriad forms at all levels – viz. eco-system, country, community, workplace, family and self. Earning levels for a family or a community are not likely to have the most dominant correlation  with being ‘unfortunate’ as there are large number of people in lower incomes levels who are not unfortunate. Putting it differently – if we substantially increase income levels of an ‘unfortunate’ person or family or community – will they necessarily cease to be unfortunate? The fundamental rea...

An artist’s life is the perfect canvas to get closer to moksha. The line came to me spontaneously as I closed my eyes to chart the life of my dearest wife. In the current era of single currency [that is money, unlike the days of barter system], priceless   elevated experiences or personal upliftment cannot but get undervalued. In a world where a software engineer in his twenties earns for his company or self- three hundred dollars per day for writing say less than 300 hundred lines of code, whereas a dancer who has to practice for 300 hundred hours for a 30 minutes performance is probably expected to perform free – the commitment to become a devoted dancer can only be felt and seen to be understood. More so for an ambitious person like Lara with a Masters from one of the leading universities of the world. The decision to take up dancing, over an impactful and luxurious corporate career, says it all. Lara’s stunning beauty and poise as a dancer which juxtapose to mesmerize, a...

Over the past decade or so, I have had the most amazing journey of knowing myself through my instincts. I have had a lifetime opportunity to bare in front of my eyes the myriad instincts that engulf me: elevating instincts, healthy instincts, harmless instincts, mediocre instincts and harmful instincts. Some of them I overuse [read abuse], others I consciously try to avoid. Needless to say, there are many others deeply embedded in my psyche of which I am yet unaware. But I am delighted when I look back upon the path - rather imperfectly treaded – and relish the multitude trials and tribulations I have confronted myself with joyously and with reducing shame. Persevering to identify and ward off the mediocre instincts – many of them a conditionings of an imagined physiological affliction and many others a conditioning of a foolish, misplaced fear – has been fun. The most difficult part of the process of accepting something. Once accepted  it will require due commitment to self-acc...

The last time when you won a close game didn’t you know the results much before you have actually won? Was it your hunch which helped you guess the victory in advance? Or was it your victorious feeling which attracted victory to you. Well, that is principle what Rhonda Byrne is promoting through the amazing book ‘The Secret’ and similar other books that she has written. At a scientific plane, what she says is that frequency we carry and create are the frequencies we attract to ourselves from the universe. This follows the principle of ‘resonance’ and is easy to understand. As a corollary, if we carry a particular type of feelings [which are but vibrations with a particular frequency] all the time, then we attract more of the same to us. If we have good feelings – as an outcome of positive images – we get more of positive outcomes. If we fear bad things to happen to us and carry their bad feelings, then we are more likely to have more opportunity to generate such bad feelings within ...

I have just about started to read ‘The Argumentative Indian’ by the only one Dr. Amartya Sen. The book is making incredibly sense. Written very objectively. It has already helped me (and promises to help me more as I read further) broaden my horizons and erase a few blind nooks of . As if every word has a meaning – and was meant to be there. But still there is this disconnect – the Hinduvta digs – which I have already encountered few times in the first 50 pages. Enough, to want get a little ‘argumentative’ about. Hinduvta bashing, at best with anecdotal evidence but normally with inconsistent analysis based upon inadequate or contrived research, by the pseudo intellectuals ruling and influencing Indian media is a fashionable pastime. But I was a bit surprised by the same tone and [according to me] the same one-sided logic coming from the rarest of gems who is apparently extremely objective while treating almost every other theme. I am not abashed to say that I have a soft corner for t...