Are we living under a material trap???

HAPPINESS….What do we mean by happiness or let us put it in this way- what brings happiness to us?

We would say that money can bring happiness. We can buy anything we wish for, we can visit any place we desire for and can acquire any comfort we want to avail for. So money can fulfil all our wishes, wants and desires and hence it brings happiness.  But the question is- Does it really happens so?

Let us try to understand it by means of a short story.

One day there was a man sitting on sea shore enjoying serene beauty of the nature and peace of the place. A businessman visited there for vacation. He used to observe this man daily doing the same thing for entire day.

One fine day out of curiosity, he asked him- “why don’t you work inspite of spending time sitting idle daily?” The man asked-“What will happen next?” The businessman said-“You can do fishing, sell fishes in the market and earn good amount out of it.” The man asked-“What will happen next?” Then he said-“You will be able to buy good food and clothes for your family from that money”. Man asked- “What will happen next?” He said-“Then you can expand and deliver fishes in nearby market”. He asked again-“What will happen next?” The businessman said-“You can keep people under you and cater more market needs and have more fishing and make more money out of it” The man again asked the same question. So then he said-“You can become an entrepreneur with a big empire and you can fulfil all your wishes, wants and desires”. The man again asked-“what will happen next?’ The businessman excitedly said-“Then you can chill out, enjoy and relax just like me.” On this, the man said-“Sir, I m doing the same currently.”

So, happiness is all about the satisfaction that we feel. Our degree of happiness depends on degree of satisfaction that we keep in our life. A person’s wishes, wants and desires have no end. A walking person will desire for cycle, a person with cycle will desire for a scooter, a person with a scooter will desire for car, a person with car will desire for SUV and the chain will keep on moving in the same pattern.

In hustle of these desires, we forget living, we forget the happiness of being with our near ones, we forget happiness of discovering ourselves, we forget happiness of the things that we already have, we forget the happiness of being physically fine, we forget to cherish THE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS ITSELF and get engrossed in achieving the material things in our lives.

“Happiness is not out there;

It is in YOU”…”

There are so many beautiful reasons to be happy. Let us choose TO BE HAPPY rather than keep on running behind our desires which are endless. Let us live and cherish each moment of our life as -

 

Zindagi na milegi doobara…

 

Empolyee Engagement-"Being BP"

A very much talked about function of HR world nowadays wherein there is a paradigm shift in HR role from ‘Being Traditional’ to ‘Being the Business Partner’ for the organization

But what is employee engagement in true sense?

1. Fun activities, events, celebrations, festivals, birthdays?
2. Involvement in decision making?
3. Work life balance?
4. Career growth opportunities?
5. Training, Learning & Development?
6. Adequate utilization of employee in terms of job ability fitment & quantum of workload?

Ideally all the above are subset of a superset called Employee Engagement…

As defined by google baba, it is an extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and put discretionary effort into their work. The above mentioned subsets can be summed up in form of 6 C’s for ensuring a complete engagement of employee

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs specifies the need hierarchy of an individual wherein Employee Engagement aspects play a very vital role for the satisfaction of employee by safeguarding the upper 3 portions of Pyramid - Belongingness, Self Esteem and Self Actualization. In spite of good perks, remuneration and designation; people tend to leave the organization or loose interest in their jobs. There might be varied reasons altogether for the same but certain well executed employee engagement practices will surely deal with such issues.

A happy employee is always a productive employee. Although the matter of fact is the need/satisfaction level of different individual is different. So here lies high responsibility on shoulders of managers with whom an employee works day in and day out! The definition of manager is no more a person who gets the work done but he is the responsible one for understanding and thereby helping his team member achieve those upper 3 portions of Maslow’s pyramid.

However, employee engagement is not only the responsibility of HR in the organization but it calls for equal mindset of reporting managers, HODs and management as a whole. It turns out to be an overall cultural image of an organization.  All in all it calls for a CHANGE…

“Growth is the only evidence of Life”

Now the question is whether there is any tool/measure to find out that the employees of our organization are engaged/ disengaged? What are the techniques to find the underlying reasons of disengagement?

This being a very wide topic; could have various other perspectives attached to it. Hence all are requested to kindly share your opinions on the said topic and foster the leaning!!!

 

Carve our own life sculpture-The way we want

Internal Locus of Control and Self Motivation are the biggest weapon to live a satisfactory and happy life. Let us understand it by means of a beautiful story shared by someone in my professional network.

****************************************I was waiting in line for a ride at the airport in Dubai. When a cab pulled up, the first thing I noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for me.

He handed me a laminated card and said: 'I'm Abdul, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.'

Taken aback, I read the card. It said: Abdul's Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.This blew me away. Especially when I noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean! As he slid behind the wheel, Abdul said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.'

I said jokingly, 'No, I'd prefer a soft drink.'Abdul smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, lassi, water and orange juice.'Almost stuttering, I said, 'I'll take a Lassi.'Handing me my drink, Abdul said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have The NST , Star and Sun Today.'

As they were pulling away, Abdul handed me another laminated card, 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.'And as if that weren't enough, Abdul told me that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for me.Then he advised me of the best route to my destination for that time of day. He also let me know that he'd be happy to chat and tell me about some of the sights or, if I preferred, to leave me with my own thoughts.

'Tell me, Abdul ,' I was amazed and asked him, 'have you always served customers like this?'
Abdul smiled into the rear view mirror. "No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard about POWER OF CHOICE one day."

Power of choice is that you can be a duck or an eagle.

'If you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. Stop complaining!''Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.''That hit me. really hard' said Abdul.

'It is about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes, slowly ... a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.' 'I take it that it has paid off for you,' I said.'It sure has,' Abdul replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on it.'************************

Abdul made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like a duck and start soaring like an eagle. Start becoming an eagle today ... one small step every week..next week... And next...And....

"You don't die if you fall in water, you die only if you don't swim.

That's the Real Meaning of Life. Let us Improve Ourself and our skills in a different way.

Be an Eagle. .not a Duck.

Source: Story received on social network

 

Work Life Balance-The Tree Way

A very well-known and favorite connotation of today’s professionals which is being referred by everyone be it a job seeker, an employer, an employee or for that matter HR professionals too is ‘WORK LIFE BALANCE’.

But the question is what exactly we mean by work life balance? Mostly we refer it to as no stretched working hours, no working on holidays and no carrying of work to home for which we heap the responsibility on the shoulders of either the organization or its culture or the manager.

But actually speaking these are not the only factors for disturbed balance between our professional life and personal life. There is something else also attached to it. Let’s understand it by means of a story:-

There was a carpenter named Mohan. He lived in a town called Kurusat. He had a small and happy family comprising of his wife and 2 kids aged 5 and 7 years. Mohan belongs to a very mediocre family wherein his ancestors were also into carpentry business and spent their daily livelihood by working on daily paid basis. Mohan was associated with a contractor for his project assignments and was paid wages on hourly basis.

One Sunday Mohan got an assignment at Raj’s place. Raj was working with a reputed organization at a mid to senior level position. Mohan reached his place by 9.00am, understood the work to be done by Raj and started taking out his tools. When he plugged in his machine, he found that it’s not starting. He did some R&D but still it didn't work and owing to Sunday no technician was available for repair. So he had to drop his day and return back home. When he called up the contractor to inform this, the contractor was immensely angry and scolded him to check his machine a day prior. Mohan, with a heavy heart of losing his daily wage for that day, informed Raj about his inability to complete the work. Raj noticed the sadness on his face and hence followed him till gate. Now when Mohan tried starting his Luna, he found that it has got some technical problem and because of which it is not starting. Again being Sunday, the mechanic was not available. Raj was observing him from behind. He asked Mohan to drop him till home. On the entire way Mohan was upset, sad and didn't utter a single word.

On reaching, Mohan invited Raj to visit his home and have a cup of tea to which Raj agreed. While entering, Mohan touched a tree trunk outside his home and thereby entered. As soon as Mohan entered his home, Raj noticed a drastic change in his behavior. He happily called his wife and introduced her to Raj, hugged his both kids with joy and started talking to them. After having tea, when Mohan came to see off Raj near his car, Raj asked him why he touched the trunk of tree before entering home. Is it part of any tradition or what? To this, Mohan smiled and replied that this tree is his TROUBLE TREE. Every evening, when he returns from work, he hangs his worries/problems/overheads of work on it and thereby enters home. While daily next morning while he leaves for work, he takes it back from tree. He added: - “Believe me sir; the load is lesser as compared to which I hung last night”. On the entire journey back to his home, Raj was thinking about Mohan’s incredible practice and felt highly enlightened by this incidence.

Work life balance has lot to do with our internal factors like behavior, attitude, and mindset. External factors are not in our hand but remember internal factors are guided by our own-self. Everyone of us shall have a trouble tree with us wherein we can hang our professional life worries/backlogs and do not allow them to fade away/take away the happiness and involvement of our personal life.  To have a balance between personal and professional life; it is necessary for us to keep both lives discretely apart from each other. Its all about quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and family and friends. Ultimately life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

“Never get so busy making a living that we forget to make a life…”

 Stay Balanced; Stay Carefree

We Reap What We Sow

The choice between what’s Convenient & What’s Right

               - The Seed Way…

The CEO of ABC Corp., Mr. Williams, was retiring next month and in regards to the same; he called upon a meeting of around 20 crucial members of the Company. The agenda of gathering was to appoint a fitment to his replacement. Mr. Williams introduced the group about his retirement and the plan of identifying an internal employee to replace his designation.

On listening to the CEO; all started chit chatting internally and there was a wave of excitement running in hearts of all. Mr. Williams then said that all of them are equally qualified, with proven track record and equally eligible to be identified for the said position. So in order to choose the right person who is Mr. Right to blossom the Company with magnificent colors and aid in the swift growth of Company; he has got zip lock plastic bags for each of them which carries seeds. Each one has to plough the seeds in a pot, water them regularly and take care of its upbringing. By end of 15 days, all have to carry their respective pots to the office and based on observation, Mr. Williams will take the decision. Although astonished, all were excited about the whole exercise and more of to the ultimate tag to be attained post that activity which created more fascination.

All went home happily with their bags, buying a beautiful pot and best of the fertilizer on the way to home. The first thing that they did on reaching home was to plough the seeds in their expensive pots, water it, add fertilizer and then doing the daily activity. Amongst the 20 chosen employees, there was 1 employee named John who also did the same as rest 19. All used to do the same thing daily for first 5 days, then on 6^th day onwards they started sharing their experiences. Few of them got a yellow flower, few got 2 red flowers, few got orange sunflower and few got white lilies. On the other hand, John was little sad as till date there was no flower to his plant. He still watered the plant and adequately fertilized to eagerly wait for his 1^st flower or at least a leaf. Days went by, all kept on cherishing their flowers and the plant’s growth but alas, John was still resenting as his seeds has not even grown the roots!!!

On 15^th day, all the 19 brought their pots happily and with pride on their faces. However, John brought the pot with immense heavy heart and with a sad face. All were informed to gather in the conference room. All intended to keep their pots in front but John kept his pot at the last, feeling ashamed. Mr. Williams entered the room. He started observing plants one by one and asking the concerned about experience of upbringing the plant. Everyone started talking about their efforts and cautious approach for the 15 days exercise. After listening all, when Williams turned to John, he was surprised to see his pot. He asked him, “Is this your pot?” to which he replied “yes”.

Mr. Williams holds and raises the hand of John with happiness declaring him to be the next CEO. Everyone’s jaw was dropped in the room as to why John was chosen. Then Mr. Williams announced that the seeds that were handed over to be grown have no potential to grow at all as they were the dead seeds!!! All the 19 employees played trickery and manipulated results by buying a flowery plant from market and presenting in front of management; while unlike others John consistently and honestly kept watering the seeds and feeding fertilizer without losing hope and presented the honest outcome in front of management.

“Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it

While; Right is Right even if no one is doing it”…

This story makes us understand the true meaning of Integrity which means- Doing the right thing even when no one is watching you. Integrity is one of the core values that is a mandatory expectation from a professional. Also as rightly titled that whatever we sow the same would be reaped. It was convenient to buy plant from market and present rather than having patience and doing what’s right. John sows honesty, commitment, consistency and trust which reaps him to be appointed as next CEO for the Company.

                       “Respect is earned;

                                      Honesty is appreciated;

                                                        Trust is gained &

                                                                    Loyalty is returned”…

Which Type R WE???

"The Learning

 Curve Way..."

There were 2 colleagues named Shukan & Snehal. Both joined ABC Limited on same day at same level and started working in the same team under the same boss.

Days passed by, months passed by and years passed by. Shukan was excelling in his performance, became favourite of other team members including the boss, and was central point of contact for any advice/support for everyone. While on the other side, Snehal was comparatively infamous professionally, was happy going and fun loving person having good terms with all.

By end of 5 years, Shukan was promoted as Manager with double the remuneration drawn by Snehal who has reached to Sr. Executive grade till time.

Now the question to ponder upon is what created this huge difference between the career graph statistics of Shukan & Snehal? Most of us will think that it is-The difference in IQ and intelligence level of both.

But the fact is its not only the difference in capability/skillset level but it the difference in our Attitude, Passion & Determination towards Career that draws the leaps & plummets in our career graphs.

There are 2 types of person: Type A & Type B

Type A person wakes up in the morning, goes to office, works whole day as and when work comes, returns home, have dinner, watch TV/mobile/roam around, then sleep and wakes up again in the morning for the same schedule. By end of the month, salary is credited in the account and he feels ‘Balle-Balle’.

Type B person wakes up in the morning, goes to office, works whole day as and when work comes, returns home, have dinner, analyses entire day-what new did he learn, what good things he did which he needs to carry for tomorrow and what unproductive things he did which needs to be eradicated for tomorrow, plan the activities for tomorrow, measure the improvement in skills, then sleep and wake up again in the morning for the same schedule. By end of the month, salary is credited in the account by default but with it the real earning is increase in the skill level & learnings that take us to the next level.

Shukan was Type B and Snehal was Type A in the above scenario. Shukan had the will and urge to learn more and more and hence his learning curve was exponential. Due to this habit of self-learning and improvement on regular basis, Shukan became more learned and hence had productive output, fruitful suggestions at time of meetings and innovative ways of solving the problems. While, Snehal was least bother about his learnings and upliftment. He was working in his comfort zone and had no goals defined for the life. For him it was - 'khavanu, pivanu and maja ni life'...

Type B has aspirations, goals and all passion attached to it while Type A lives a carefree life without any aim/direction. Now its upto us-1^st to identify which type we are and 2^nd which type we want to become...as time never waits for anyone...once gone is gone for ever...

“Learning how to learn is one of the most important skills in life”

"Keep Learning; Keep Growing"

Have We Ever Introspected Ourselves???

“Importance of Knowing Thyself
- The Button Way”

There were 2 students named Kunjal & Ashish studying in class-X in the same school and same division. They were together since class-1 and had wild competition amongst each other for 1^st rank. Kunjal ranked 1^st in class-1, 3, 4, 7 & 9 while Ashish ranked 1^st in class-2, 5, 6 & 8. So now in class-X; the competition became more cut-throat.

While observing Kunjal one day, Ashish discovered something strange. In the last exam of board examinations, Ashish furtively managed to take off the 1^st button of Kunjal’s shirt without his knowledge. Now when exam started, Kunjal started sweating and panicking and was not able to write a single word in the exam paper. Finally the results were out wherein Ashish topped the school and Kunjal failed the examinations. The thing that Ashish discovered about Kunjal was that Kunjal has a habit of writing exams by holding his topmost shirt button again and again. On the last day of exam, since the button was not there, Kunjal was not able to concentrate on his exam and was feeling out of memory because of which he failed.

This small story urges us to ask few questions to ourselves:

·     Are we aware of our weaknesses?

·     Are we known to our habits that are making us helpless and dependent?

·     Are we alert on our competitors knowing of our weakness/habit/dependency?

· If yes then have we started with the remedial actions to eradicate them or are we procrastinating?

We all are aware of a well-known management concept of SWOT Analysis which says we shall be aware of our Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat. But the concern here is we are just aware about it; we don’t implement it.

              He who knows others is wise; 

                                      but he who knows himself is enlightened...

In practical lives, we sharpen our axe by focusing on strengths and creating the opportunities wherein in this heftiness of leading the race; we overlook the significance of identifying our weaknesses and thereby shrinking the radius of our threats!!! In order to mark an unbeatable success in life, all the four dimensions of SWOT concept needs to be followed hand in hand. Every single dimension is futile without the existence of other 3 dimensions…

“Know Thyself; Know Thy Success”