Pebble the Pond…

A serene pond gives an amazing reflection of the calm Self within each of us, the one that is so DEEP rooted, which is also probably the reason why it is highly inaccessible – Too deep rooted.

Deep within each of us, there is the Self that is desperate; desperate for joy, success, craving to grow, to be popular, to be sought after, and to be the apple of the eye to everyone; in other words yearning to be ‘the Master of the world’. The child in us completely believes “I am the best” and propels each of our action despite all past experiences.  It’s amazing how this Master operates.  The only setback is that this Master takes charge only during the critical moments of life.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like, if every moment of our life is controlled by this Master? The more I think about that, the more it feels this way to me.

Like a pebble that creates beautiful ripples in a pond, the ACTIVATED MASTER in us causes the ripple-effect over everyone around us.  Mining our Self is not an easy task.  While mining, we come across sand, stones and rocks of all sorts within. While some are really beautiful elements, others are extremely hard to break, there are some sullied stuffs and of course, we would have to kill some germs and insects that has grown within. As we burrow deeper, fear increases due to high resistance and we don’t let ourselves unfold. It is definitely not an easy task to reach the Master without passing through all the pawns.

As we reach this Master, we realize Him as an ocean of knowledge. Not a still pond, but a deep ocean that is placid, for its depth is so unfathomable.  It is blissful as He enlightens us that all the extrinsic factors are simply excuses through which we try to justify our ineptness. Interestingly we justify its cause because we know that the Master within will feel elated if it had happened as it should have. The Master knows that everything in our life is the choice that we have made.  I decide to not marry someone of another caste. Why? I may say it will make my parents unhappy.  But the Master within has His own reasons; either HE himself believes that it is not good to marry from another caste, or YOU have chosen to please your parents and make the Master unhappy.  In reality, we are so busy trying to be happy and attribute all the unhappiness to the Master whom we don’t want to face at all.

This only leads us to the space where all of us think that happiness is about keeping others happy by SELF-SACRIFICE. Think about it. How can we ever generate something in others what we lack? Do we ever realize that we keep moving in circles thinking that the pond is the ocean? 

The realization has generated in me a super power that gives me strength, joy and success, and I can fee l MY Master awake and active. Trust me, it is a huge transition which of course is not easy to attain. But what is worthy, if it comes through easily? The effect is definitely fruitful and LIFE TRANSFORMING. I got enlightened and felt you too would thirst for it.

May be you too want to pebble your pond to reach the Ocean…

Do share your experiences, am sure that will motivate more and more people.

THE ASSEMBLY LINE ARTISAN: A whole and a part of the whole

There was once an old man who made beautiful pottery.  He spoke to the clay and the wheel each day and told them what he wanted of them.  They loved him so much that they heeded his request and became what he wanted them to become.  They were completely in sync with each other so much so that, the pottery always enjoyed what he did and spent all day making and selling earthen ware.  So flew by several years and the potter’s son also took to the same profession.  Then one day the old man passed away.

A few years later there was a new king who said “If every potter makes his own earthenware completely, there is lot of time and effort wasted.  Henceforth in my kingdom, all potters will work together under a single master, each taking up a specific task like preparing the clay, spinning the wheel, molding the wares, baking the wares, etc.”  After this law, the kingdom was able to produce lots and lots of pots so much so that, they had excess of pots and could even sell it to other kingdoms and make much more money. 

Every one rejoiced the decision of the king and made more and more in this system of pottery until one day the master realized that potters did not talk to the clay or wheel anymore.  There were so many people working with one piece of clay that they couldn’t relate to it any more.  They were getting bored since they were not in sync like before and therefore over time, they started limiting the time they spend making what they were making.  Does this story strike a chord with you?

All of us realize that the involvement that individuals had as artisans before the industrial revolution is very different from what we have in today’s assembly line.  People don’t feel aligned, they don’t want to work long, they crave for work-life balance, there is disengagement, there is fall in productivity – we all hear these all the time.  There is a huge gap, alienation between people and their work. 

Unanimously, we agree that the solution is “ENGAGEMENT”.  All organizations are trying to put engagement in place, but the issue doesn’t seem to be resolved.  Do we realize why?  The solution is right in front of us.  We are trying to create a family by singing and dancing, talking and walking, awarding and rewarding, but we don’t see what was that we have lost.  We have lost people whose passion is their profession, who communicate with tools and machines, who tell their machines what they want, and who can get it out of their machines through sheer love for them.  We are all trying to scratch the surface earth to mine gold instead of getting to the depth.

 In the current age, it is not just sufficient to be a whole self or a part of a whole since neither would help you survive.  The survival mantra today is “A whole by self and yet be a part of the whole”.  It is time we reach the synthesis, the new age associate/employee, of the 2 systems: Artisan and Assembly – ‘THE ASSEMBLY LINE ARTISAN’.

Millennials: Are they such a contrast as being spoken widely about?

Millennials also known as Gen-Y is identified as the demographic group of birth dates ranging somewhere from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s. The characteristics of this generation vary by region, depending on social and economic conditions. However, it is generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies.

One of the consistent criticisms on the Millennials is that they possess an over-developed sense of entitlement. The logic goes something like this — after receiving a steady stream of praise throughout their lives and being told by their parents and teachers that they can “do anything they want to do”; Millennials are caught off guard by the harsh realities of the modern workplace. This is even truer during an economic downturn, when employees are expected to do more work in less time without complaint. Heck, you might not even get a “Whoo-hoo!” from your boss. Working in the so-called “real world” is not always easy, and nothing frustrates people more than a person of privilege complaining that everything isn’t exactly the way they want it to be.

Many employers are concerned that Millennials have too much of expectations from the workplace due to which they will switch jobs frequently. Studies show that many large firms are currently studying the social and behavioral patterns of Millennials.  A UK based institute researched the gap in understanding between Gen-Y recruits and their managers, and found that there are high expectations for advancement, salary and for a coaching relationship with their manager, but no hamper to the structure or business of the organization.

 When we look at the data on what is their priority, they are clearly looking at a work-life balance that has always been a distant dream for the generations before.  They demonstrate this over and over again through their need to be connected to their personal life through the day, the facilities for which were not available earlier and not utilized sufficiently by the older generation even today when available.

If all of the articles that talk about Gen-Y being difficult to fit into the current corporate work were accurate, we would have witnessed almost nonstop convulsions in the workplace over the past sixty years, and knowledge work environments that look nothing like they did a few generations ago. But instead we still have org charts that mean something, jobs with narrowly defined responsibilities, promotions, bosses and subordinates, and most of the other longstanding trappings of organizational life.

Absolutely millennials have different technology habits and preferences than before. That has been so with every changing generation.  The solution as always would be for organizations to adapt and accommodate the changing foray of work-life balance and yet make the best use of Gen-Y. After all anyone can be a Millenial if they are tech-savvy, open-minded to all kinds of diversity, and are into the latest in everything from career to entertainment. If we do not adapt then today's workplaces will change Generation Y more than the reverse.

Time to manage perception!

Performance Feedback – A crucial business activity

This time of the year, organisations are overhauling their performance management system to better its impact on organisation performance.  Most of the organisations provide just one opportunity for formal feedback to employees about their contribution towards organisation performance, at the most two.  Using this only opportunity flawlessly is crucial, not only to set the platform for next year organisation performance, but also to fulfil an important employment value proposition.

To positively impact organisation performance, every employee should trust the performance management process.  It is important that employees perceive performance management system to be fair, meritorious and equitable.  Every manager need to ensure that all their team members perceive the system to be fair.  An employee may evaluate the fairness quotient at multiple points and definitely during large foot print items like goal setting, performance feedback and rewards.  Our focus in this article is about performance feedback. 

Performance data on individual contribution comes handy to set context during feedback.  It brings the manager and the team member to the same page.  Keeping this data-based discussion as a foundation, moving on to next level discussion by explaining relative performance of the team member makes a great manager.  Discussing the relative performance of individuals describing the difference between expectation against reality bring in subjectivity to the discussion.  While there can be a number assigned as rating at the end of the discussion, managers will agree that the algorithm to arrive at that number is extremely complex as it may vary from manager to manager and team member to team member.  The good news is that there can be a table that a manager can refer to which would only need to be customised to organisation.

Perception is not built over this one time interaction rather; it is over a series of interactions.  A manager constantly communicates opinion on performance over different settings like review meetings, day to day interactions, recognition programs, email communications about things going good and not so good etc.  This time of the year, when manager gets ready to give feedback in a formal setting, it is important that managers collects the thoughts together, consolidates all informal feedback given and communicate in the formal, structured performance feedback session.

Actively listening, without preparing on counter arguments is crucial to manage the right perception about performance management process among employees.  Actively listening helps consolidating the employees views into a pattern that may be aligned or not aligned to the teams micro work culture.  Manager may attempt to build on the observed employee view point and take the thought process to next level.

                                                                                                                                                        

Performance feedback is an opportunity to exhibit genuine care in the employees’ career growth.  Career growth is an important value proposition the managers can play an active role in.

We will discuss more in the blogs to come.