Farewell...

 My last blog on career transition got a good response  and I hope you will find his blog useful.

Let me start by sharing that at a very early age in my life I got inspired by the teachings and leadership qualities of Jesus Christ.  The practices that I am going to share are based on his teachings. Some of you may find this unusual a Marwari following Jesus and writing a blog on his teachings. This unusual trend will continue as you will see some of my upcoming blogs on teachings of Mohammed Sahab or Guru Nanak and many more incarnations. So for now here are few leadership qualities leading to a memorable farewell. 

 

Treat thy Neighbor the way you like to get treated : Most of us know this popular saying from the Bible but many leaders as they grow in hierarchy don't treat the people especially below them in the same way as they expect them to get treated. They expect respect but don't give respect especially when things are not going as per plan. They want to be treated fairly but they don't treat others fairly especially when they have to make choices that may impact their interest. In last 6 years I have experienced series of instances where my support staff (mostly contractors) would make mistakes in trainer allocation, venue booking, incorrect training material, no training materials and so on. Now the way the leader treats the employees (especially contract support staff) in the heat of the moment defines the leadership quality. One needs to remember that nobody wakes up and comes to office with a plan to make mistakes. Mistakes do happen "to err is human". The interesting part is the same leader who blows up and treats his staff so badly complains about his or her boss treating badly when they make mistakes. Even though our eyes are outside we should make them look inside and treat each one the way we would like to get treated. Same applies at home with your spouse and kids. When you don't like the tea or coffee made exactly to your whims and fancies go and make it yourself but don't show your upper hand as that will not fair well for your farewell.

 

Look at our own sins before pointing at the sins of others : There was a prostitute who was being stoned in front of a church by the villagers. Jesus stood in between the prostitute and the villagers and said that only those  can throw stone who have never committed a sin in their life. You know what would have happened. There was nobody who had not committed a single sin and each one sheepishly went back leaving all the stones aside. Now bring this story to our personal and professional life. How many times we point fingers at others on things they are suppose to do or not suppose to do and you will realise that most of those sins are committed by us either in the past or possibility of committing in the future.  So if a leader focuses on his own sins rather than pointing at others it will help bring ongoing transformation not only for himself but for all others around him leading to a memorable farewell. 

 

There is a saying in Hindi "aksar hum hamare dukh se utne dukhi nahin hote hain jitna ki dusron ke sukh se' meaning we are not as unhappy with our own unhappiness but more unhappy with happiness of others. There was a village with severe unemployment and drought. The richest man in form of Jesus came in to help and said that if the villagers can dig for 8 hours every day he will give them 1 dollar. The villagers were thrilled with joy and offered to work even 10 hours for same 1 dollar. This news spread in nearby villages and unemployed villagers came to Jesus and said they can also dig for 1 dollar. Jesus said yes but they said that they come from few miles away and have to leave before it gets dark so they can dig for 7 hours only. Being the generous lord Jesus agreed to still pay 1 dollar for 7 hours. After few weeks the first set of villagers started becoming unhappy about why should they dig for 10 hours when the second set of villagers were doing only 7 hours. The discussions about this discontent continued on coffee machine, lunch breaks and even in weekly meetings. So they reduced their hours from 10 hours to 8 hours. Jesus was observing this but did not say anything. The unhappiness continued on why should they work for 1 hour more than the other villagers for same 1 dollar.  Finally they called for a AHM with Jesus and shared their concern. Jesus asked them to recall the time when they were unemployed and thrilled to get the job at 1 dollar for 8 hours and were wiling to work for 2 hours extra. Now just because someone is working for less hours you have let the unhappiness creep into your life. Leaders who stay focused on their own work (be happy with what they had signed up for) rather than becoming unhappy with what others are getting will have lots of time on solving problems of their teams, serve their customers better, be a loving spouse, a caring parent, a great friend, colleague and finally get a well deserved farewell. 

 

I am there when you need me : Faith in Jesus brings his support to you whenever you need him. It is like a big brother or supportive father who is always there in the background to help you. As a leader if you are there with your team physically as much as possible but psychologically every moment when they are at work achieving the targets you have set for them then you are like Jesus in their lives. So at Wipro whenever we launched a new program or a new initiative I was there as a co-facilitator with my team. While in many of the programs I was not a subject matter expert but being with them gave them the required confidence.  Most leaders think that they need not be hands on with the team on the dance floor once they reach a certain level but if you ask teams across domains, geography and technology they always feel inspired when their leaders can understand them deeply by being with them all through the journey. 

 

Finally I would like to share a fundamentally disruptive thought based on my observation of many leaders who will never get the farewell that we have been talking about. These leaders treat their blood relations say their daughter for example so nicely but so badly to the same age daughter of someone else in office even though the blood group is same as their daughter.  The question is why this distinction ?  On the other hand the farewell leaders treat every person with same respect and care irrespective of the blood relation because to them blood is blood and never bloody for some and not bloody for others.  

 

Hope the above thoughts on treating others the way we want to get treated, looking at our own sins, being happy with our happiness, being on the side with the team and treating all relations as blood relations will help you in making every place a great place to work and live. Your work colleagues will then not want to give you a farewell and your family will not want to give you the final farewell even though such leaders will be welcomed by every other organization and Jesus in heaven. 

 

Looking forward to your thoughts, reflections on farewell leadership.

Career Transition...

After 25 years of full time corporate job and half of that in one of the best companies in the world Wipro I am making a career shift to become an independent consultant.  Will divide my time between education sector and leadership development for corporates.  I thought of sharing my experience of how I prepared for this shift, the support from my family, the long period of mixed feelings of joy and hollowness as I worked thru the separation with my boss, peers, reportees and the organization.  Instead of sending a regular good bye email I thought of writing this blog on my career shift which can become a useful reference to be saved for future use.

Anchoring your career transition with a cause :  The desire to contribute beyond self can come to us at any stage of our lives and one should look for that cause before making a shift. While it may come at any stage, it is seen that usually it comes or amplifies in the forties and that is what happened to me few years ago when I was invited to a college to address the students on their graduation ceremony.  I was escorted like a king to the auditorium, welcomed on the stage by the principle, flower bouquet by impeccably dressed student, thunderous claps every few minutes on anything I said and a momento (mostly lord ganesha or goddess saraswati) at the end by the chairman (mostly in white Lenin shirt with more gold than the goddess). Very soon I got invited to another college (principles have their own private network) and in a span of 2 months I had been to 4 colleges. It was great to be treated like a king every few weeks in a new college but all this joy started to fade into sadness and concern.  I came to know that most of the students who were giving me those thunderous claps will have nothing to clap after their graduation as only 10% of them will get placed from campus in those colleges and rest will be on their own to find a job.  I started declining new invitations as those thunderous claps were hitting me hard inside.  I could feel the hollowness in those claps from the helpless students.

The Porcupine Story : Most of you may have heard about the story of the porcupine who puts his head in the hole thinking that the storm will pass and I thought I was also behaving like a porcupine.  The storm of unemployed youth will not go away by me not going to the colleges but if I really have to do something I should start taking some action.  So I started accepting those invitations again and at the end of my speech I offered the students to help with guidance, coaching, training on weekends. As I started helping the students I saw their confidence go up and many of them clearing interviews/getting jobs.  I started experiencing the joy of helping which cannot be described but has to be experienced.  It then become a regular affair to go to colleges, help students and feel the joy.

Createyourfuture.in : As more and more students started seeking my support I was lucky to get few volunteers who joined me in this cause and we created the website which has all the things that a student will need to prepare for getting a job.  We started using this website as the base for the sessions with the students and the whole approach became very structured.

Faculty Program : Looking at the way we helped students in a nice structured way many colleges started asking for a similar structure for their faculty development.  The idea was that if we can make the faculties better at teaching, the student will become better and it can help improve the employability. Wipro has already done  phenomenal work on this through their Mission 10X initiative. This was the time I felt that I should attempt to make a bigger impact by creating a deep structured journey based program with some like-minded people who I got associated over the period of time.

Our Identity : The organization we work for becomes a major part of our identity over a period of time and we should prepare ourselves for loosing that identify while making the shift. It will take a while for us and the people around us to be seen without the organization. I come from a Marwari community and in my community most people know me as "Yogesh Wipro Wala" instead of "Yogesh Agiwal".  For many years my last name has got replaced by Wipro and imagine me without my last name Wipro. While in long run you will once again relish the time you spent with the organization but there will be a period of hollowness without the organization tag with you.  

Enrolling your Family : I think one of the most important thing while one plans to make such a shift is to enroll the family. While one may be passionate about the shift, the family may not necessarily have the same intensity.  They will need to make many adjustments from time to time on daily routines (they will start seeing you more often than before) to financial spending to our identify in the society.

Financial Commitment : Most of us love the thrill of buying properties and the thought of paying multiple EMIs does not really bother till we hit our forties.  Having too many EMIs will become a hurdle in the shift so keep a watch on this from early years of our career.  So for last couple of  years when people asked me in Hindi "Kuch liya kya" (did you buy any property) I would tell them "Lene ka nahin ab dene Ka Time hai" (it is time to give and not buy anymore).

Commitment with your Boss and Organization : It is very unlikely that your timing of career shift and the completion of projects in the organization will match.  So one should make a conscious effort to complete all the projects on hand and slow down on taking new projects.  It is also important to enroll your boss and keep him/her updated on the work you do on weekends over the years so that when you decide to make the switch there are no surprises. Similarly enroll your reportees and peers over a period of time.

Few other Things : The support systems like travel desk, IT help desk, facilities management support etc. that we take for granted will no longer be there. It is important to plan on creating a office space with printer, scanner, white board and so on when you are on your own.  The idea is to think thru each small thing that you will miss once you leave the organization.  While the desire of career shift may be really strong and driving you to make the shift but not doing proactive planning on each such thing can become an irritant / speed breaker on the momentum with which you can otherwise work.

Hope you find this blog useful.  Do share your thoughts. 

The Magician’s Illusion…

I lived in US for many years and had a chance to watch the show of David Copperfield (one of the world’s top magician) and recently two performances of Ugesh Sarkar (one of India’s top magician).  We know that what we see in the magician’s performance is an illusion and not reality but it looks real to us.  For few moments we cannot believe what we see and what we believe is not seen.  I was thinking if we can flip this magician’s illusion to our competence and confidence in life meaning we may be living in the illusion that we cannot do certain things but in reality we may be able to do anything that we may want.    This may sound little philosophical but when I look at all those people who have flipped the magician’s illusion in their lives; there are some common aspects which I would like to share.

Deep Practice – I could not speak to David Copperfield but got a chance to speak to Ugesh Sarkar.  What he said and what I read in few interviews of David Copperfield is that they do many months of practice for the few hours they come on the stage.  Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outlier” has talked about Deep Practice where he says that one can achieve anything if he or she puts in 10000 hours of practice and Daniel Coyle in his book “Talent Code” builds further on this that there is a part in our brain called Myelin that strengthens if we do deep practice.  So if you always wanted to become the chief architect of a particular platform or a pricing expert or a leader in a particular domain you need to put a plan of deep practice.  You can see that this deep practice can flip the illusion that you cannot become the chief architect or that expert.  You can even look at some of your hobbies like playing a musical instrument or learning to write code and apply the deep practice to achieve whatever you always had desired.

Meaning before Money – While money is for sure very important in our lives but most people who have been able to achieve great heights (make money) by flipping the illusion have always looked for meaning before money.  In almost every speech of Guy Kawasaki who worked very closely with Steve Jobs he brings this point very strongly.  It took 5 years for Steve Jobs to launch iPod (meaning) before Apple made billions (money).  Meaning can inspire deep practice and not money.  So as a manager if my meaning is to take care of my team irrespective of what salary hike I get I will continue to stay motivated (meaning) and eventually the organization will give the required hike (money) or as a service provider if my meaning is to provide world class services irrespective of my organizational or market constraints the customer will give new contracts (money).  This meaning before money is important for deep practice as deep practice needs lot of energy and energy comes with meaning and not money.

Passion and Fun (PF) – There are times when our Passion goes down or we loose sight of our Purpose and that may lead to reduced or no Fun in the things we do.  It is natural and human to all of us but we need to keep a watch and bring back the PF as soon as we see it going down.  We need to put a rhythm of reminder that will help us create PF even before it goes down.  One suggestion I have is to look at the PF in our salary slip every month as a reminder.  For my global readers PF is a component in the Indian salary structure.  The employer puts in equal amount in a secured account which most employees use it post-retirement.  Usually this is not a big percentage of salary so most people don’t pay attention to the PF column.  However you can now look at PF column in salary slip every month to check whether you are having enough of other PF (Passion and Fun).  So if you are a facilitator you can check whether you are bringing in enough Passion in delivering the sessions.  If you are a support function you can check whether you are bringing in enough Passion in understanding the needs of the internal customers and providing solutions that helps achieve the Purpose of the organization and finally are you having Fun in whatever you do.

I know many of you must have put resolutions for 2015 and I can guarantee you that if you can bring the Deep Practice, Meaning Before Money and look for the new PF every month you can achieve much more than the resolutions. You can flip the magician’s illusion and achieve anything that you want.  If you like please share with me your resolutions and plan of Deep Practice with PF and any support you need from my side to achieve them.  

KICK - Part II

I got many responses on the new KICK that my readers have started to give to their supervisor, organization, spouse and to themselves.  Many of them also watched the movie KICK after my last blog and started seeing Salman Khan in a new light (beyond item number).  If you have not watched the movie yet please do so and notice the last dialogue of the movie where he says “Mein Dil mein aata hoon, Samajh mein nahin” which means you can understand me with your heart and not with your intellect.  If I draw a parallel to this “Dil” is the emotional bond that we have with people around us and “Samajh” is the systems, policies, processes. 

You must have seen managers with whom people not only like working but they enjoy and then there are managers with whom people just work because their job / role demands.  In the first case there is a combination of “Dil (Heart)” and “Samajh (Processes)” whereas in the second case it is only “Samajh (Processes)”.  While it is absolutely critical to respect “Samajh (Processes)” but most people get embroiled into that so much that they loose the “Dil (Heart)” connection.  This happens on the personal front also.  I have seen some of my childhood friends when they were getting married they use to be on the phone with their fiancée for hours together “Dil (Heart)” connection) and now after a decade into their marriage they only call them once they reach their destination while travelling or if they are getting late when stuck in traffic as per “Samajh (Process)”.  The “Dil (Heart)” connection got lost somewhere in the process of upbringing of kids, taking care of ageing parents, worrying about the EMI and so on. 

On the professional front reflect on why the customer with whom you have been working for last five is not giving you more business or demanding a steep discount on renewal of contract even when all the SLAs have met.  The reason is that somewhere we lost the “Dil (Heart)” connection with him.  The monthly or quarterly reviews are done only with “Samajh (Processes)” and not with “Dil (Heart)”. One of my friend recently shared a very nice “Dil (Heart)” story with his customer where he said that his customer came from a country where most of the year it is gloomy and they don’t get enough sunlight.  It was the month of March in Delhi and it was a bright sunny day.  So on the day of review as per “Samajh (Process)” the meeting was scheduled in one of the conference rooms but his “Dil (Heart)” said we should do the review in sunlight as that is what the customer misses in his own country. They setup the tables in the open area where the customer enjoyed the sun (his “Dil”) while doing the review as per process.

If you speak to any of the music composers they say that they immerse into the character for whom they are going to compose the song with their “Dil (Heart)” so much that there is a time when the music just emerges and then it is just a matter of composing “Samajh (Process)”.  I think if we can do this “Dil (Heart)” connection with our customers where we deeply think about their problems and challenges, many deep insightful solutions will emerge.  If we do this connection with our spouse and children a united family will emerge.  If we do this with our supervisor a partnership of supporting each other with their strengths will emerge and finally if we do this with our organization and the country a new world will emerge.

This blog is a reminder to bring that “Dil (Heart)” back in everything we do both on personal and professional front.  Call your spouse even when you have not reached your destination or even when there is no traffic jam and halt yourself together with the times you had halted once.  Hope I was able to make a “Dil (Heart)” connection with you and this blog inspires you to make those connections with your customer, supervisor, spouse and the organization.  Share with me the “Dil-Heart” connections that you make till I meet you again with my next blog.

KICK…

This is my second blog based on reflections from a movie (first one was Dabangg and now KICK both featuring Salman Khan).   In this movie Salman Khan enjoys the thrill (kick) of doing new things, challenging status quo and fighting the system for a cause while his girlfriend Jacqueline wants to lead a life of 10 to 5 secured job, almost no risk and a stable non challenging life (a life without any kick as per Salman).  So one day Salman says to her that we will need to part ways as we think so differently of our lives and he says to her while parting "I want to get old with you and not old because of you".  While Salman made this bold move to part ways before he got married when I look around I see many people not making such moves and are getting old because of each other (life without kick) and not old together (life with kick).  This holds true in the relationship not only between husband and wife but also between father and son, between two siblings, between managers and their reportees as well as between colleagues. 

In most of my earlier blogs I have talked about taking ownership, responsibility of creating anything you want and on similar lines I would like to share few thoughts and ideas on creating a kick and becoming old together without parting ways.

Kick with your spouse: In many of my sessions participants say that they are not able to do many things (kick) because their spouse does not support them.  So I ask them few questions like how many times in last 30 days have they thanked their spouse for keeping their breakfast ready, packing their lunch box, packing their travel bag, managing kids and taking care of their ageing (sometimes ailing) parents.  How is this connected to kick?  It is a very simple math that to get kick you need to give kick.  The most basic kick of every human being is recognition and appreciation. While at work the HR R&R policies, engagement initiatives makes you appreciate (kick) your team members but at home there is no such HR group.  So start giving the kick and see how you get the kick back as the whole atmosphere changes where the spouses start seeing each other's kick and start giving kick to each other. You will soon forget the current kick that you are giving to each other.

Kick with your supervisor: When was the last time you gave the kick to your supervisor? You now know the kick I am talking about and not the kick that you are thinking right now.  Some of the kicking ideas are asking your supervisor on taking up some of his load, understanding his point of view and not always going with a view that he will not agree to what you say, appreciating and accommodating that he has his own limitations on why he does not approve certain request, becoming his high support system and not a high maintenance system. Once you start giving him the kick you will stop getting the kick you got all along and start getting the new kick.

Kick with your organization: Abraham Lincoln once said "Ask not what your country has done for you but ask what you have done for the country".  Just replace country with the company you work for.  I know such patriotic thinking may not get a buy-in in today's environment but remember that your performance is directly correlated with the way you think about your organization.  So even though your promotion (kick) has not happened in the timeline you expected it will never happen unless you give the kick back to the organization (delivering to not what was signed up for but much more than that as the market, customer and other stakeholders get their kick by getting more than what they signed up for under the banner of value addition).  So think about this and come up with at least 4 kicking ideas that you can give to your organization, your supervisor and your spouse in this quarter.

Kick with yourself: In almost all scriptures it has been written that before you win the world you need to win over yourself (kick with yourself).  In almost all leadership programs that I facilitate when I ask participants to come up with two positives and two negatives almost all of them start with negatives first despite my clear instructions to start with positives. This tells me that we humans are wired to look at negatives first and that in a way derails the journey of kick with yourself.  If you don't love (kick) yourself you can never love the world (spouse, supervisor, colleagues, organization) around you. I agree that you may not meet the expectations of the world around you but remember that even a defunct clock performs right twice every day, so when you feel defunct like the stopped clock remember that you are doing minimum two things right every day. These thoughts will help giving you kick and the more you give yourself the kick the more endorphin will get secreted in your body to give kick to all others I talked about earlier.

My kick is writing blogs that can give kick to readers and I hope you found value (kick) in this blog too.  Do give as much kick as possible to as many people including yourself during the long weekend and do share your kicking ideas with me so that I can share them in my sessions, future blogs and help create a kicking world for all of us.

The (D)ance of possibilities with Atten(D)ance…

Many readers wrote to me on my last blog “Attendance and the Dance in the Atten(d)ance”  that they ideally want to dance but with the past experiences they had with their supervisors, head of the department and with the organization as a whole they did not feel like dancing most part of the year except during the DJ at offsite.  This blog is the third sequel and like Dhoom 3 movie this will be my third and last sequel on this topic.

To begin let me request you to read two of my earlier blogs “Inside Out or Outside In” and “The Obvious Issue” as they will help create a good warm up to the (D)ance of possibilities I am going to talk about in this blog. 

As you start reflecting on the two blogs you start seeing that the past issues have been because we did not understand the obvious issues of our supervisor or our head of the department and the reason we did not understand them because we were not “Inside Out” but were “Outside In” in the interactions.

When we start practicing “Inside Out”, many new possibilities start opening up and we begin to start practicing new ways of living.  So one of the possibilities in the new ways of living is to start every day as a new day and every conversation as a new conversation.  When this possibility starts manifesting in our lives, no matter how bad (because of your “Outside In” thinking) your boss was yesterday you don’t see him as bad in the new day, no matter what kind of conversation you had yesterday but in the new day you start every conversation as a new conversation .  There is a possibility that you are still thinking that it is easy to give such gyaan and I have no idea of your boss but this is the first possibility you have to start creating that there does exist such a possibility of starting every day as a new day and every conversation as a new conversation which eventually will lead to the (D)ance of possibilities with Atten(D)ance. 

The second (D)ance of possibility that I want to you to consider is about making a Choice on how you feel every moment.  It is very common we hear people saying that he or she makes me angry, he or she puts me off, he or she spoils my mood.  In reality nobody makes you angry or puts you off or spoils your mood but your response to those situations makes you angry or spoils your mood.  Stephen Covey’s 90/10 Principle is a very powerful concept on understanding choice.  If you reflect deeper on this you will see that your boss does not get up everyday morning to make you angry but the anger comes because most of the times you are not able to see the way your boss looks at things (The obvious issue).  So let me talk about two bosses and I think most of you would have experienced one of them.  Your first boss always likes you to go thru the report with him even though you have given everything in the report.  So at 11 PM in the night when you send the complete report with all the supporting documents/annexures you get an immediate response “Lets go thru this report tomorrow morning” and you become angry on what else does he want.   The second boss becomes very upset when you go and meet him next day morning to walk him thru the report.  In fact the second boss becomes angry and says very harshly that don’t think he is stupid that he cannot read the report on his own.  Now let’s look at the two bosses from a behavioral science perspective.  In case of the first boss there is a possibility that he was the only child and his father always helped him do his homework and also read the report card for him.  In case of second boss there is a possibility that he lost his father at a very early age and he always had to do everything by himself.  In general you will not be able to make such a deep connect of childhood of the boss and his behavior today but if you start practicing the (D)ance of possibility that nobody makes you angry but there could be some past issues that is making them do the way they do things and the way they don’t do the things you will start getting new insights.  These new insights will help you become a person who can (D)ance with anybody.

I always take inspiration from Jesus Christ especially on the two powerful concepts of “looking within” and “forgiving every day”.  First concept of “looking within” is when people were throwing stones at a prostitute he picked up a stone to throw at those people and told them that only those people can throw stone at her who have not committed any sin in their lives.  To bring the learning of Jesus we should first look within ourselves and we will find that most of the time we don’t pin point at ourselves before pin pointing at others.  The second concept was when he was nailed and he said that Oh lord please forgive them as they don’t know what they are doing.   To bring the second learning if I were to forgive (because of obvious issues of others) and start a new day every day and a new conversation everyday (with inside out thinking) there is a possibility that we can make a better world every day for ourselves and people around us.  Finally remember that the Sky is same every place in the world and it is only because of the “Obvious Issues” and “Outside In” thinking we have created deep rooted differences.

I hope the above thoughts will trigger some new thoughts of possibilities and help you create a new day every day, a new conversation in every conversation,  a choice of looking within and forgiving every day which obviously will help you constantly (D)ance with Atten(d)ance all the year round and not only during the DJ at offshore.

Do share your (D)ance experiences with me and share this blog with your boss in one of the (D)ance sessions.

Attendance and the Dance in the Atten(d)ance

Most of the organizations today have attendance recorders where employees swipe in once they arrive at office and many now also have biometric attendance recorders.  These recorders can only record the physical arrival of the employee but cannot record whether the employee has arrived with their heart and soul to work.  

In my last blog on “Accounting of Accountability versus Account of Accountability” I talked about ownership and responsibility from a leader’s point of view and in this blog I am sharing how employees can take ownership and responsibility (bring their heart and soul to work).   Let me ask you to recall your company’s last offsite meet where most of the employees danced till late night and next day morning on the breakfast table you hear the conversations like “I never knew you can dance so well” or “You really have great energy to stay on the floor for so many hours” or “You made others also dance with your energy and enthusiasm” and so on.  Now fast forward to the Monday morning after 2 weeks of the offsite meet and you see the same set of employees swiping the attendance recorder without the energy and enthusiasm of the dance floor.  The Atten(d)ance now does not have the (D)ance (energy and enthusiasm) in them.  Imagine if each employee like in the offsite meet were to bring (D)ance along with Atten(d)ance to work.  I was thinking about this and was wondering why do many employees don’t dance at work and following are few thoughts that I would like you to consider.

They don’t (D)ance with the Organizations values: Each one of us have been brought up in different environments and carry different experiences from home and at work from various organizations that we have worked in the past.  Many a time because of these varied experiences, our values may not align with the organizations value and this may bring down the (D)ance (energy and enthusiasm).  However if you think deep there is nothing wrong or right about values. Values are values and one should either align or find some other organization but not continue without the (D)ance.  For sure it may take time to learn to (D)ance with the organization’s values.  So if you thought that the values of previous organization were like “classical indian music” that you liked and the value of the current organization is “hard rock music” then you may want embrace the new “hard rock music” by telling yourself that “indian classical music” made you fluid from inside and now “hard rock music” will make you a rock from outside.  So being patient and learning to align with new values will help you become rock solid and bring (D)ance to work.

They don’t (D)ance with the Head of the Department: Very often we hear employees saying that the Head of the department does not understand the ground realities, his vision, his ideas are not connecting with what happens in day to day work and so on (in some extreme cases employees may even say who made him the Head). These are the employees who don’t (D)ance with the Head of the Department.  They usually are on 2^nd floor of the building and can see only a small radius whereas the Head is sitting on 12^th floor and can see the Tsunami of change in the market and how competition has already started to (D)ance.  So it is quite obvious that the employees on 2^nd floor are upset with the changes the Head is asking to make.  Imagine if each employee were to put in their offsite energy and enthusiasm in implementing the changes, ideating with the Head of the department and not pulling each other’s energy down they all can have the party with the Head on the 12^th floor almost every day.

They don’t (D)ance with their G&O and their Supervisor: In continuation to the above since they don’t (D)ance with the Head they don’t dance with the G&O set by the Head and the spiral effect of no (D)ance with the supervisor. 

They don’t (D)ance with their peers: Finally the whole (D)ance floor is empty as the peers are also swiping the attendance recorder without the (D)ance in the Atten(d)ance.

Imagine if one were to start dancing with all the above starting from organization values to Head of the department to goals & objectives to supervisor to peers, what an environment of energy and enthusiasm can get created.  Which customer would not like to work with such an employee, which father would not like to have such a son, which brother or sister would not like to have such sibling or which colleague would not like to have such a colleague who can dance with any music on any floor.  The concept of dance is the same in business world or under world.  In underworld you cannot say that I will not kidnap jewelers and I only prefer to kidnap builders when the realty market is down and jewelers can give you a better top line. 

I hope this blog will trigger thoughts on why we and people around us don’t dance and bring dance in Atten(d)ance from the time we swipe in the attendance recorder.  Do share with me your stories as my (D)ance (energy and enthusiasm) is seeing people (D)ance to transformation.

Accounting of Accountability Versus Account of Accountability

I am an Accountant by education and then became a software specialist by profession and now an individual and organizational behavioral specialist by passion.  For me understanding of Accounting came in very naturally because besides the education in Accounting I was born in a Marwadi family where Accounting is part of most conversations.  However the Accounting that I am going to talk about in this blog is not about the accounting of profit and loss but about ownership, taking responsibility and adding value to oneself and to the organization. 

Accounting of Accountability is keeping a tab or count (Accounting) of what one is suppose to do and keep doing that.  It is like a checklist that one maintains and keeps doing the work irrespective of whether the effort is adding any value to oneself or to the organization.  On the other hand Account of Accountability is constantly checking (Account) of whether the work one is doing is adding value to oneself or to the organization.  On the face of it one may say that we all should be doing Account and not Accounting of Accountability but you will observe that majority of the people do Accounting and not Account of Accountability. Let me share my thoughts on why they do that and what can we do to change that. 

The first reason people do Accounting and not Account is because the leaders or the organization did not do enough conversation with them on WIIFM – What’s in it for me (WIIFM is a sophisticated term for the marwadi community term “Mujhe kya fayda” or in my nearest cousins Gujarati language “Mane su faydo”).  If people are not explained why they should do certain things and the rationale behind the tasks they are suppose to do, they usually get disengaged  soon and get into doing Accounting.  So whenever you run a initiative or define a process it is important to check if you have taken care of WIIFM for all the people involved. I know that with constant pressure to deliver in short time we may at times have hard time finding time to spend on WIIFM but if we don’t do that then we will anyway have hard time with Accounting and no Account of Accountability.  Please spend few minutes as you read this blog to think about why people are doing Accounting and not Account in your circuit and possibly you will find the missing WIIFM.

The second reason people do Accounting and not Account is when they don’t understand the big picture.  To a large extent I think this is the Accountability of each leader and management team to ensure that each one understands the big picture.  I would like to share the story of the NASA security guard near the lift area who use to run around asking the NASA scientists to move into respective queues of the multiple lifts so that they can reach their floor faster.  So one day a scientist asked the security guard what motivates him to do this activity of moving people around with so much enthusiasm (Account) every day.  The security guard said that if he did not do that every day then the scientists may get delayed to reach at their desk and it may impact the launch of satellites.  You can see how the security guard took the responsibility (Account) of value adding to NASA versus just standing (Accounting) there as a security guard.  In the conversation with the scientist the security guard further shared that the head of NASA one day had given the big picture of NASA to all employees and how each one needs to take responsibility (Account) for success of NASA. Please spend few minutes to see if you have given a big picture to your teams and even if you have done that please plan to do it one more time now as it will help enhance the Account of Accountability.

The third reason people do Accounting and not Account is most people don’t have a positive experience in their work lives.  So a new employee who joins us from an organization where the above two situations were present (missing WIIFM and no big picture) then there is a possibility that he will continue with Accounting in your organization also.  As a leader it is your responsibility to give them a new experience and help them forget their past and create a new future with Account of Accountability.  My earlier blog “Inside Out or Outside In” can be a good read when you plan to create giving a new experience to your employees.  Please spend few minutes to reflect on how would you create that positive experience for people in your circuit.

The fourth reason people do Accounting and not Account is they don’t feel safe to challenge the status quo and only when people challenge status quo they can add value (Account) to themselves and to the organization. By feeling safe I mean that a common mistake most leaders do in All Hands Meet or in any regular team meetings is asking the employee who gives suggestions on any change to implement that suggestion himself.  In one sense there is no harm in asking people to volunteer but that is not a safe way to do as many people need time to think about getting involved and asking them right there in the meeting puts them on the spot and people stop speaking in any future meetings.  The spiral downfall of such behavior of the leader is that over a period of time no body speaks in the meetings and everybody gets into Accounting and not Account of Accountability.  Please spend few minutes and reflect on how much safe environment are you giving to your people to speak up.

There may be many more reasons besides the one’s I have shared on why Accounting of Accountability happens more than Account of Accountability and I look forward to your thoughts.  I sincerely hope that the above will help you in converting Accounting to Account of Accountability in your teams / organizations.  While I have talked about only professional setup but the above can be applied in your personal lives as well and you will start seeing why your teenage son or daughter or even your spouse don’t speak much (Account) and speak only what you like to hear (Accounting).  Either there is a missing WIIFM or you have not shared the big picture of how the family should lead the life together or they have not had a positive experience with you when you were busy building your career brushing off most conversations or they don’t feel safe to talk to you.  I would be equally keen to hear your personal experiences also on this journey of turning Accounting to Account of Accountability.

Hum Honge Kaamyab Ek Din...

You would have seen that many of my blogs are an inspiration from movies and songs like leadership lessons from the movie Dabbang, Safar versus Suffer from the song “Zindagi hai ek safar” and the last blog on BHAG using dialogues from the movie Dhoom 3.  During the Republic Day when I was listening to the all time inspirational song “Hum Honge Kamyab Ek Din” which means we will succeed one day, I was thinking how relevant this song is in today's times.

The first line says “Hum Honge Kamyab Ek Din” but in today's time there is no “Ek Din”.  It has to be today or max this quarter.  Starting from the Boards of most companies to stock markets, they have very little patience for that “Ek Din”.  The next line is “Mann Mein Hai Vishwas, Pura Hai Vishwas” meaning we have faith, confidence and trust in ourselves but if you speak to most people in corporate world they are not very sure about these in themselves.  Multiple rounds of recession,  constant cost pressures, demanding customers etc. have shaken them up.

The line after that says "Hogi Shanti Charon Aur" meaning silence and peace will be all around but you pick up any newspaper or switch on any news channel wherein other than the name of the newsreader as Shanti most of the news is not about silence and peace.  The next line says “Hum Chalenge Saath Saath” which means we will walk together in the journey but with the above situations we don’t see colleagues getting a chance to walk together for too long as they get separated at times without their own wish.  With rampant migration to cities most families are also not able to walk together.

Like many rituals I see that this song gets played all over India on the Republic Day despite many contradictory things that I mentioned above.  However I was thinking what will make people “Kamyaab”  today “Ek din” and in the future.  Few skills and competencies that come to my mind are Ability to deal with Uncertainty, Change and Complexity, Networking skills, Analytical Skills, Digital and Social Media Skills and Global Communication Skills.  What else do you think will be required ?   

In all my blogs I urge my readers to take actions and here I would like you to reflect on the skills you already have and the skills that you need to acquire for “Kaamyabi Ek Din”.  You may want to look at many new sources of learning which does not cost anything when you do this reflection.  While the list is unlimited let me share some free sources that you can explore.

- MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) like Coursera, Udacity, EDX and many more

- Slideshare.net on great presentations on almost all the topics you can think of

- Youtube on anything that you want to learn by search of the topics plus series of learning channels like “Leaders@Google”, “Authors@Google” and so on

- Twitter – just do a hashtag search on the topic you want to learn

- Blogs from world class management gurus to thinkers to entrepreneurs to academicians and anybody you can think of are there to share on the social media  

Once you decide on the skills and competencies you want to develop please include them in your BHAG and never BHAG (Run away) from your BHAG.  If you do that then no organization will want to say BHAG (Run away) to you but include you in their BHAG.  Do share with me your learning plan, BHAG and the “Kamyaabi Ek Din”.

BHAG

In the November blog I had urged my readers to take actions to create Part 3 but in December blog I talked about slowing down on actions and doing Time Pass.  So many readers wrote to me that there was a dichotomy in the last two months blogs and my response was that it was done on purpose as I wanted to create questions, thoughts, reflections in your minds.  The idea was to first ask you to take actions and then while taking actions include the action of “Time Pass”.

As the year 2014 started you would have seen emails or had conversations on setting goals, making resolutions and starting new habits. I would like you to consider few thoughts on new year resolutions and the basis on which the new year goals can be set.

Let me begin by sharing the famous dialogue by Sahir and Samad from “Dhoom 3” movie that I watched during a recent Time Pass which I thought is very inspiring on achieving goals.  It says “Bande Hain Hum Uske, Hum Pe Kiska Zor, Ummedon Ke Suraj Nikle Charon Aur, Irade Hain Fauladi, Himati Har Kadam, Apne Haathon Kismat Likhne Aaj Chale Hain Hum.”  For my non Hindi readers let me attempt to translate this dialogue where they say that there is nothing that can stop us from achieving our goals as we are determined to write our own destiny and we see hope all around. 

So with the backdrop of this inspiring dialogue let me share few thoughts on setting goals for 2014 and beyond.

First thought is using BHAG as an inspiration.  Bhag in hindi means running away but I want you to consider BHAG (Big Hairy Audicious Goals) that Jim Collins has talked about in his beautiful book “Built to Last”. While Jim had talked about this in the context of corporate setting but I think it can be applied in our personal lives as well.  Many of us while setting goals have the fear that if we set Big Hairy Audacious Goals we may not achieve them and so we either avoid or procrastinate. I think there is a positive side to even not achieving them as Einstein said that when he failed 10000 times he learnt 10000 ways of how something will not work and Randy Pausch in his inspiring book “Last Lecture” said that “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted”.  So do take a look at what you have set for yourself and don’t shy away from making it BHAG.

Second thought is while setting BHAG make sure that your goals helps strengthens your relationship with people around you on personal and professional front.  What I mean by that is your goals should not be self centered but it should encompass development and achievements of people in your circuit. Dr. Stephen Covey has time and again talked about “Abundance Mentality” where he says that when your goals are developing and enriching people around you, you don’t have to think about enriching yourself as just being in that state will enrich you.

Third thought is that your BHAG should be all rounded and not one sided which means you should pay equal attention to your health while you want to make wealth. History has many stories of people loosing health to make money and then loosing money to gain back health.  Well rounded also means having a spiritual dimension in BHAG so including regular meditation in your goal is one of the ways.  I have been myself practicing the sahajayoga school of meditation for last two decades and for last couple of years I also go to many corporates, educational institutions and teach mediation to senior executives, faculties over weekends (one of the items of my BHAG) and most of them say that they thought mediation is something that they will when they retire to which I say, “you may not be there to retire if you don’t start taking care of your health now”.

Fourth thought is that your BHAG should include something for the society at large and the reason I say that is if you read or hear almost all the successful people who have done incredible things for our society say that they should have started it in their early part of their lives.  If you listen to Azim Premji’s speech on receiving the Economic Times Lifetime Achievement award he says that the only regret he has about philanthropy is that he started late.  Working at Wipro for more than a decade I have always taken inspiration from Azim Premji and for couple of years I have been working on providing voluntary trainings to youth so that they become job ready over weekends.  Every Sunday 3:00 to 6:00 PM is the time I have dedicated for supporting youth.

Fifth thought is that your BHAG should include involvement of your near and dear one’s and again I would like to share what Azim Premji said in the same speech that he would not have been successful if he had not involved his spouse. So do discuss your BHAG with your spouse and make them part of it.

Hope the above thoughts will help you in setting your Big Harry Audicious Goals for 2014 and beyond.  It will be my pleasure to know your BHAGs and let me know if I can be of any help to you. Sunday afternoons are always available for each one of you and it not just for the Youth because I think age is just a number and each one of you are Youth for me as it is never late to set goals in your lives (Gandhiji besides the BHAG goal of giving us freedom also set a goal at the age of 70 to learn Bengali).

Time Pass

During our child hood most of us would have heard our elders saying "kuch kaam kar, time pass mat kar" meaning do some work and don't sit idle.  In one of my earlier blogs I had talked about how our brain develops and how the hard wiring happens listening to such constant instructions all through our child hood. The hard wiring that idling is bad makes our limbic response keep giving instructions to keep working to the extent that you will see people murmuring about some or the other work even while they are sleeping. So you would see many people when they go on vacation get more tired than when they are at home because the hard wiring says that never do idling no matter where you are.  There are some extreme cases who while dating are in a hurry to win the hearts of their girl friend or boy friend and know their life of 18 - 20 years in 18 - 20 minutes.

With no idling for years together and constantly working they get severely exhausted and at times have severe health issues. With the health issues when they visit the doctor he says that you are overworking and you need to slow down, take a break, do some idling (Time Pass) with yourself.

This is such a dichotomy that from our childhood we were told "Time Pass" is bad and now the doctor says "Time Pass" is good.  I think one of the sayings of Dalai Lama fits in here really well where he says “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the future; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived”.

Like in most of my blogs I do urge my readers to take some actions and with this blog I want you to look at how much "Time Pass" you are doing with yourself and how much "Time Pass" you are letting your near and dear one's do either with you or by themselves. Watch if you are constantly telling your children’s " kuch kaam kar, time pass mat kar" from your hard wiring. For some time we had a pet (golden retriever dog) called Joy and he really taught us the art of idling. I still remember that he would sit besides me quietly for hours together in our gallery where we both would watch the sky if it was late evening or sun rise if it was early morning and with him I also learnt that there is no time limit on "Time Pass" with your near and dear ones.

Hope this blog is not a "Time Pass" blog (in Indian slang time pass also means useless) but has given some value for your "Time".

Do share this blog with your spouse, kids, and friends and do “Time Pass” with them during the Christmas holidays and share with me your time pass experiences in new year.

Also during Christmas imbibe one of the great qualities of Jesus Christ on forgiving everybody for the mistakes they have made during the year and ask for forgiveness with people whom knowingly or unknowingly you have hurt.

When you return to work do share this with your boss and do some Time Pass with him also.

The 3 Part Play

With my last blog on storytelling many of you would have got access to your internal stories and you would have seen possibly some of them limiting or dis-empowering you. We can call those internal stories as our past (now when I say past, not just the past of 20 - 30 years but the past of day to day life meaning yesterday, day before yesterday, last week or even sometimes just the previous moment). This past can be termed as the Part 1 of the 3 part play.

The part 2 is the present and part 3 is the future.  Now I need you to spend some time reflecting on how are you playing the game in part 2 ? How much of part 1 is impacting your part 2 and how part 2 will impact part 3 ?

For most people part 2 is a reflection of part 1.  So one may say that I am not part of the top management of my company in part 2 because I did not do MBA from a top institute in part 1.  I am not happy in my married life in part 2 because I did not marry my first crush in part 1.  I am not progressing in my career in part 2 because the boss of part 1 is still sticking around in part 2.  I guess many such part 2 scripts must be coming in your mind as you read this. While most of the part 2 things that I mentioned may look real to most people but they are just a set of our internal storytelling.  If this continues you can very well guess how will part 3 look like. Exactly like part 2.  There is no possibility of one taking any new action to create a new part 3.

I want you to consider a new way of looking at part 3. Just imagine what would you like to see happening for you in part 3 and do a declaration of that.  So if you want to become part of top management then do a declaration that by end of 3 years from now I will be part of top management.  If you want to progress in your career do a declaration that you will move to the next position in next 2 years and so on.  Once you do the declaration of part 3 you will start seeing yourself in a completely new light. You will now start taking action on what it would take you to get there in part 3. You will no longer be the victim of part 1 and 2. There are high chances of you no longer blaming anybody for any parts of your life but taking complete responsibility and accountability of not only part 3 but also part 2 and 1. So you will now start talking to key members of your top management and understand their expectations, you will take up a course on any of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platforms like Coursera, EDX etc. on topics like Business Acumen, Strategy etc.  As you start knowing more about the top management you will realize and appreciate the pressure they go thru and understand why they did not approve your paid course last year.  Now with the declaration you took action to find out free courses and not kept cursing the top management.  The same spouse with whom you were unhappy will start giving you happiness as the issue was never with the spouse but the way you saw him or her in part 2 as a reflection of part 1.  In fact you will recall that in the first 3 marriage anniversaries you had celebrated each anniversary in a exotic location but after the first child was born you have been celebrating marriage anniversary as a ritual going to the nearby restaurant known for candle light dinners but the enthusiasm died as soon as the candle in the restaurant got over in most anniversaries because you were so caught thinking about top management and your boss.  You will start seeing that your wife takes the second child in her arms while going to drop the first child to the school bus stop so that you can go to Gym, does groceries on week days so that you can relax on weekends, takes your parents to doctors as you come in late every day and doctors are available only till 9:00 PM and this list can go on. In the light of all new possibilities you get your DISC psychometric assessment done that was always freely available in your training department and you realize that you are very low on “C - Compliance” (a attribute that indicates that you are not comfortable with too detailed reports with lot of numbers) and possibly that was a point of contention between you and your boss as he possibly was high on “C” and would always look for detailed report.  So now instead of blaming and becoming upset with the boss you now start adapting to his style. 

Now you start seeing many new possibilities and take actions but there is also a possibility that while reading this blog your internal story will still tell that “Yogesh does not know about the politics in the top management of my company so how can I declare” or “Yogesh does not know the way my spouse has treated me or let him spend a week with my boss to know how terrible he is and so on”. However if I was to think that you are going to think this way then what will happen to the declaration I have made for my part 3 of transforming every person who I touch in any type of interaction including my blog.  Hope you will join me in creating a new part 3 and do a declaration and keep taking actions in part 2.

Life is too short to not declare and take actions. Many of my earlier blogs can be a good read especially the “Inside Out or Outside In” while you declare part 3. I look forward to hearing about your declarations of part 3 and do let me know if I can be of any help in your journey of creating a beautiful part 3 for you and everybody around you.. 

Storytelling

There is lot of importance these days on storytelling in the world of communication and presentation.  While it is crucial for people to pick up the storytelling skills so that they can communicate and engage with their audience really well, it is equally important to listen to the storytelling that constantly happens in our brain. In fact the internal storytelling has a strong correlation with external storytelling.

Reading this blog the stories that your brain may tell you is "these days blogs of Yogesh are all about brain" or "looks like Yogesh is doing some course on how brain works" or "this blog is again on brain so let me read it later'.  There is a possibility that none of the above stories are happening in your brain but these are stories my brain is telling me about you. While these stories are light stories and may not have a big impact but let me talk about some deep internal storytelling of our brain.  

Imagine you are a 8 year old child who is selected to sing a poem at the republic day function in your school. Your parents have spent every evening for last 3 weeks helping you rehearse. Your father even took 2 days of leave and invited few relatives from home town to attend your performance. The D day comes and everybody is excited about the event including you.  The curtain is on and you stand being the curtain all set to deliver with your frill dress that your mother got it stitched especially for this event from her own savings. As the curtain opens you see a huge crowd sitting in the auditorium and you become extremely nervous.  The nervousness does not go away and you forget the first few lines of the poem. Your teacher who has also helped you prepare, your parents and relatives who are sitting in the first row are all trying their best to motivate you to get started but more they encourage you to sing the more you become nervous.  Finally you sheepishly dragging your feet move out of the stage and someone says "popat" which in marathi language slang means looser. Your brain tells you an internal story that you will be a looser for rest of your life. Let's fast forward your life and you are 28 years, very successful in your career but whenever someone invites you to address a gathering or an event your internal story says "popat".  Now what happened when you were 8 on that republic day may not happen now but the internal storytelling is so powerful that it convinces you that you will continue to be a looser when you address a large gathering.  So no matter how many storytelling sessions you attend you will not be able to demonstrate that skill until the internal storytelling is first mastered. 

While this story was a very deep long story of your life let me share a story that may happen in your day to day life.  Imagine you are a disciplined employee who always sends the weekly report to your boss sharp at 11:00 AM Monday morning.  One Monday you were tied up with some work that your boss had given to you on Friday and you miss out on sending the weekly report at 11:00 AM. The boss walks to your desk at 11:30 and asks you where is the weekly report.  There is a possibility that your brain will immediately tell a story that he does not have any appreciation for my timeliness, hard work.  I have been sending the report without fail for last 6 months and just for this one instance of delay he is following up with me and that too when I was busy with the work he had given to me and so on. In reality what should have happened is that the moment your boss asked for the report you should have said that I am working on the other issue and will send the report in an hour but our brain works so fast that we at times get embroiled by its storytelling. Now with this internal storytelling when you meet your boss over lunch or anybody else, no matter how much training you have got on external storytelling there will still be glimpses of discontent in your behavior because of this internal storytelling.

So in the upcoming festival of Diwali spend some time reflecting on all your internal stories and empower yourself to not get dis-empowered by any such long drawn or day to day stories.  I look forward to hearing what internal stories were you able to listen to and how you have now empowered yourself to really become a great external storyteller.

STRESS Unveiled Part II

I recently took over as the head of leadership development for Wipro BPO and in last one month I had the opportunity to spend time on the BPO floor meeting the teams in both voice and non voice business.

The environment in BPO has a constant sense of urgency as everything needs to be done here and now.  More or less every transaction has a touch point with the customer or customer’s customer with a high degree of customer involvement and constant interaction with the Wipro team.  It is a challenge to maintain the same level of energy and enthusiasm for an agent from his first call when he or she logs in to the last call when he or she logs out especially if the agent lands up handling back to back irate customer situations.  In order to keep the customer satisfaction levels high there are Quality Assurance people who monitor a set of agent calls every day.  During my flight back from Wipro BPO Delhi I was reading the book “Quite Leadership” by David Rock and I was thinking that how many times do we observe our conversation with people like the way the Quality Assurance personnel were doing for the agents?  How will observing those conversations improve my relationships with people around me?  Will the improved relationships help in managing my stress? I have seen people either getting more stressed when they go to work or for some people when they come back home as I guess the relationship is not going well at those places.

In last decade there has been phenomenal research done on how our brain works and its impact on stress.  As a sequel to my earlier blog on Stress I would like you to consider practicing 3 observations and see how that helps in managing your stress levels.

First Observation – Observe the Maps in your brain:  Maps are built in our brain with our experiences.  Let me talk about Maps with an example.  Imagine you are born in a religious Hindu Brahmin family, the first map that will get built possibly is to go to temple every day after taking bath and never wear shoes inside the temple especially where the deities reside.  Now imagine you are born in a religious Catholic Family in Mexico, the first map that will get built possibly is to go to Church every Sunday and always wear the best shoes in the Church.  The two maps are completely opposite.  Mexicans have similar looks like Indians and let’s bring the Mexican on his first visit to India and he does not know much about Indian culture.  In first few days he comes to know that Temples are like Churches and he decides to visit the temple.  There is likelihood that he may enter the Temple with his best shoes and imagine the Hindu Brahmin after his bath sees him in the Temple with shoes.  Since Mexicans have similar looks like Indians his map will instantly see him as an Indian who is arrogant or insensitive or many other words for Indians may come to his mind.  His instant reaction can be very bad to the extent of pushing him out of the Temple.  Imagine if there is no clarification or conversation that happens between the Indian and Mexican, will the Mexican ever visit India again or what new map he will have about Indian culture?  Considering this example if you start observing your Maps you will realize that very often we behave like the Indian who don’t recognize the Mexicans around us.  The Indian could have challenged his Map and said to himself that let me ask why is he wearing shoes instead of concluding that he is arrogant, insensitive etc. and pushing him out of the temple.  Once you start observing your Maps you will build the capacity to observe other people’s Maps and instead of reacting you will come to know from where they are coming.  This will help you build relationships in every conversation.  In the example above the Indian could have possibly worshiped together after explaining him about shoes and asking him to keep them outside.  In fact with his newly formed friendship the Indian could have gone out for lunch together and realized that “Rajma” is same as “Beans” of Mexico and if they continued for few more days they would conclude that everything is a Map and there is nothing wrong or right.  Imagine if we start building all relationships the way the Indian and Mexican are now enjoying being together respecting each others Maps, where will be there any scope for Stress. As you observe your Maps, do share your insights and hope this observation will help you not create new stress in you. 

Second Observation – Automatic Limbic Response: The Limbic System in our brain is based on long term memory and it creates habits that we unconsciously practice.  Let me talk about this with an example.  Imagine the time when you were learning to drive car.  The ABC of Car driving was so tough. ABC is Accelerate, Break, Clutch and the co-ordination between the three was like a big task for first few weeks.  After you got used to the ABC you started driving with the car picking up from every signal without any hiccups or engine stopping.  After a year or so you started even answering phone calls while driving.  Now what had happened is that the Limbic system is working unconsciously and giving directions / responses for driving.  While most people take pride in multi tasking of answering calls and driving at the same time but I will talk about how brain gets stressed out because of that later.   For now let me continue with Limbic System.  The way the Limbic system was giving automatic response for driving it does the same for many other situations.  In one of my coaching assignment my coachee shared that he always had arguments with his spouse on not liking Brown Color shirts.  When I dug deep in his past experiences we found out that in his school days he always dreamed and was waiting to get into college so that he can get away with Brown Color school uniform and wear the dress he likes.  Unfortunately the year he got admission in the college they introduced Brown Color Uniform in college also.  The subconscious mind recorded the hate for Brown Color and even after 20 years of leaving the school and college his automatic Limbic response is that he does not like Brown Color.  In one other assignment the coachee always had disagreements with his boss but got along well with his boss’s boss. We found that he stayed with his grandfather and his father would come only once in few months to meet him.  When his father met once in few months he would ask questions about his studies, marks etc. which he did not like.  So every boss for him was a father who would only ask questions and boss’s boss was like grandfather who he loved to live with. Now in the above two situations the relationship with the spouse and the boss will obviously not go well and create stress.  It is tough but it would be very helpful to keep observing our automatic Limbic responses especially those with which people get annoyed with us and instead of blaming them we can fix our own issues and reduce stress.

Third Observation – Pre-fontal Cortex Response: I mentioned about stress that gets created by too much of multi tasking.  Pre-fontal Cortex is the working memory of our brain.  It helps us process information and take decisions.  Let me talk about Pre-fontal cortex with an example.  It is like the RAM (working memory) of our computer and you must have observed that when we load too many applications either the computer becomes slow or it crashes.  On similar lines if we load our Pre-fontal cortex with too many things for too long it gets exhausted and creates tremendous stress in us.  Hence it is very important for us to take enough sleep.  Also in my previous blog I had talked about keeping intentional blank spaces between meetings and that is to recharge/refresh Pre-fontal cortex.  It also needs glucose to work optimally so eating snacks from time to time helps (avoid cakes/pastries but eat more fruits as fruits release glucose slowly for a longer duration whereas cakes/pastries releases glucose in one shot making the Pre-fontal cortex again starve for glucose). That is one of the reasons why dieting for reducing weight does not work because when we deny food to ourselves for the entire day we exhaust the pre-frontal cortex (no glucose) and when we reach home we completely eat the fridge.  I like the idea at Infosys where they have snacks outlets next to the bus depot so that employees can pick up some snacks before boarding the bus for their long journey providing glucose to Pre-fontal cortex.  So do observe your Pre-fontal cortex and you will see that your irrational decisions are taken when the Pre-fontal cortex is completely exhausted.

Do share your observations as you make the above observations and let’s help each other to reduce our stress levels by creating new maps, changing our automatic Limbic responses and keeping the Pre-fontal cortex free to take stress free rational decisions.