Finding the Golden Mean(ing) of Life

Mount Kailash, The Abode of Shiva

In Hindu mythology there are are two types of heaven: heaven (spelt without capitals) and Heaven (spelt with capitals). The smaller heaven is called paradise, to distinguish it from Heaven. The first heaven, or Paradise is called Swarga and is ruled by Indra, king of the gods (note the spelling without capitals). He is surrounded by wealth and beauty and fame, but he is always insecure, fearful that another king or sage or demon may topple him anytime. Heaven, Vaikuntha of Vishnu or Kailas of Shiva, where there is no threat, only eternal peace. In the case of paradise, there is prosperity but no peace, while in Heaven, there is peace but complete indifference to prosperity.

The eternal duvidha or dilemma each of us face in our time on earth, is finding the right balance between prosperity (Swarga) and peace (Kailas). Do we choose a life of prosperity and give peace a go by, or do we choose peace and be indifferent to prosperity? A difficult choice, especially in these days of  increasing social and peer pressures to seek material prosperity. How does one navigate this dilemma? Here's one way to do it.

Finding the Golden Mean(ing)of Your Life

According to Hindu philosophy, the Four Purusharthas or Goals of life are; Dharma (Values), Artha (Prosperity), Kama (Sensual pleasures) and Moksha (Emotional balance). Stephen Covey, after a study of different religious traditions, came to the conclusion that the Four Needs of life are to  Live, Love, Learn and Leave a Legacy. It is in our yearning to fulfill our Goals that we end up confused and frustrated, for often one comes at the price of the other.  

To render this balancing act a little more doable you could use the Golden Mean Matrix (GMM). The GMM is a 2x2 matrix which has Prosperity on one axis and Peace on the other.

 To arrive at your Golden Mean, you need to closely analyse your perspectives on Peace and Prosperity by asking yourself the following questions:

1. What do I stand for?
2. What Values and Principles are close to my heart, are sacred to me, and are rooted deeply in my life?
3. How do I create meaning in my life and see to it that everything is not about earning money?
4. To what extent is material wealth important to me?
5. Where do I want to go?
6. What do I want to become? In the broadest sense, what do I want to achieve in my life? What do I live for?
7. How do I want to know myself and be known to others?
8. If I die, what legacy would I like to leave behind, and what would I like to have meant to others?
9. What do I want to learn? What do I very much like to do? What do I think is very important? What do I find nice and attractive? What makes me happy or sad? What am I willing to sacrifice to realize my objectives? What do I really want?
10. What do I want to invest in life and what do I want to gain from it?

After having reflected on and answered the above questions, you should be ready to arrive at your Golden Mean(ing) of Life. Give yourself a score between 1(Low) and 10 (High) for the two factors; Peace and Prosperity and plot them on the matrix above. The point of intersection of the lines will tell you what you yearn for, what the Golden Mean(ing) of your life is.

Scores 
Peace                              Prosperity                           GMM
High, Bet. 5-10                High, Bet. 5-10                    Moksha

High, Bet. 5-10                Low, Bet 1-5                       Kailas
Low, Bet. 1-5                  High, Bet. 5-10                    Swarg
Low, Bet. 1-5                  Low, Bet. 1-5                      Pataal

                                                                                                      

* Pataal:  The subterranean world of Asuras and serpents. The Indian version of hell is not a permanent place of exile, one may rise and reach Kailash after having duly paid for one's bad karma.

References:

1. Myth=Mithya, Devdutt Pattanaik
2. Total performance Scorecard, Dr. Hubert K. Rampersad

A Note to Ms Kalpana Morparia@JP Morgan

"...there was certain comfort in walking across to your boss and talking to him - that always helps in making decisions. As a CEO, I can reach out to my colleagues, but otherwise I am pretty much on my own." That was Kalpana Morparia, the top gun at the Indian arm of JP Morgan, talking to the Economic Times about the change she experienced when she moved up from her earlier position as the Joint MD at ICICI bank.

Most leaders experience a range of emotions on any given day - anxiety loneliness, frustration, grandiosity and for dealing with it, as Ms Morparia describes, they are pretty much on their own. At such times, what senior executives need is a sounding board, a conversation partner a 'truth speaker' - and they cannot find any of these within their organizations.

And that is where a coach comes in.

The coach isn't tied to the organization or anyone else, they are tied only to the coachees, so  they support them in these times. Even more importantly, the coach also supports them in what they want and where they want to go. As Washington, D.C.-based executive coach Linda Finkle put it, "Even our families, who want the best for us, can't be unbiased or totally objective. What you do or do not do impacts them, whether it's positive or negative. A coach is not impacted by your decisions, your wins or losses, or anything else."

This doesn't mean that company goals aren't supported by coaching—indeed, the coach was most likely hired by the company to support the executive's efforts to achieve those goals. Even so, the role of the coach is not to represent specific company needs or interests. "The perspectives they provide, the alternatives discussed, and everything else has no agenda except to support the coachee," says Finkle.


Ms Morparia, are you listening? Now that you do not have the comfort of walking over to Mr Kamath's cabin and talking to him to unburden yourself, would you care to have a coach?

You know whom to contact!

7 Leadership Lessons From Alexander The Great

Alexander became king when only 20 and in an amazing eleven-year journey of conquest rode 10,00 miles, fought 70 battles without losing a single one and conquered all the way from Egypt to India – half the known world of those times. All this in a life spanning a mere 32 years! Obviously an achievement of such epic proportions could not have happened without the display of some amazing leadership qualities. What leadership qualities of Alexander made historians label him 'Great'? Here are 7 incidents from the short life of Alexander, that are illustrative of his leadership style and which we could take lessons from.

Alexander the Great Source Encyclopedia Britannica

Leadership Lesson #1: Have An action orientation

Action was what Alexander wanted from life. He hated a life of comfortable sloth. When he heard of the conquests of his father, King Philip of Macedonia, Alexander was not happy about the additional wealth and power that he would inherit, but instead was sad that there would be less left for him to conquer. Alexander often lamented to his friends that the way things were going nothing would be left for him to do once he became king!

Leadership Lesson # 2: Care for your people

Between 30,000 and 43,000 infantry and between 3,000 and 4,000 horsemen followed Alexander into Asia Minor [334 B.C.]. He had only 70 talents (Greek currency) for their pay, and no more than thirty days' provisions. Alexander was 200 talents in debt, having spent everything he had in making sure that his best men were able to provide for their families. When one of his generals asked what he had kept for himself, Alexander answered: "My hope." On hearing this, the general refused the pension that Alexander offered him, saying: "Your soldiers will be your partners in that."

Lesson # 3: Be seen caring for your people

After covering four hundred miles in eleven days in the battle against King Darius, Alexander and his soldiers were nearly dead from thirst. Some Macedonian scouts had brought back a few bags of water from a distant river, and they offered Alexander a helmet-full. Although his mouth was so dry that he nearly was choking, he gave back the helmet with his thanks and explained: "There is not enough for everyone, and if I drink, the others will faint." When his men saw this, they spurred their horses forward and shouted for him to lead them. With such a king, they said, they would defy any hardships.

Leadership Lesson # 4: Dare to innovate!

In the city of Gordium, Alexander accepted the challenge of the Gordian knot. A very intricate knot tied together the yoke of an ancient chariot, and there was a legend that whoever could undo the knot would become the master of the world. Alexander pulled out his sword and chopped through the Gordian knot, instead of involving himself in its mysterious entanglements.

Lesson # 5: Lead by personal example

One day, Alexander fell behind the rest of his army because his old teacher, Lysimachus could not keep up. Night found Alexander in a very dangerous position: far behind his army and without any fire to combat the cold. He noticed some enemy campfires, so he ran over to one, killed two soldiers with his knife, then carried back a burning stick to his men. This was typical of Alexander -- he was always encouraging his men by a personal example of readiness to work and face danger.

Lesson # 6: Live your values

One night at Gaugamela, the armies of Alexander and Darius, King of Persia, came in sight of each other. The noise and campfires of the vast barbarian camp were so frightening that some of Alexander's generals advised a night attack because it would be too dangerous to take on such a huge force in daylight. But Alexander replied: "I will not steal victory."

Lesson # 7: Reward your people

Another time, one of the common soldiers was driving a mule that carried some of Alexander's treasure. The mule was too exhausted to go on, so the soldier put the load on his own shoulders. Alexander saw the man staggering along, and he asked what was the matter. The soldier told him that the mule was too tired to carry the load, and that he was about at the end of his endurance too. "Don't give up now," said Alexander, "but carry what you have there to the end of the journey, then take it to your own tent, to keep for yourself."

Parting Thought

These incidents offer us an understanding of why Alexander truly deserved the title of 'The Great'. But was his epic achievement a result only of his remarkable leadership skills and courage? In the words of a fellow Greek – Euripedes, 'Courage is nothing if the gods withhold their aid'. Can one say the same of leadership skills too?

Was Alexander truly a Leadership ka Sikander or was he a Muqqadar ka Sikander - the most favoured child of God?

The Difficulty of Being an Honest Business Leader

While coaching business leaders, one issue that comes up quite often is the battle of conscience, or, the battle of Ethics vs Morals. But first, let us understand the distinction between the two.
Ethics: Many many years ago, as Man moved from being a hunter forager to settling down in groups and communities, a need was felt of putting together a code of civilized living. The code was based  on notions of socially approved conduct, behaviour and duty. One could cite the Manu Smriti in India and the Ten Commandments of Christianity as examples of such codes of conduct.

Morals: As opposed to community -based ethics, morals are personal choices we make. It is about good vs bad, right versus wrong.

In sum, therefore, Ethics are community-defined whereas morals are more personal choices or inclinations.

The Battle of Conscience:
Doing business in India has unique challenges - and the problem faced by every single business leader is of dealing with the cancer of corruption. And this is where the battle of the conscience starts to rear it's head. This was evident at a recent workshop on Personal Mission and Values I was doing for  a group which included a few front-line executives. One of the activities required participants to identify their personal values and the importance of  identifying and living our values in our life. After my presentation one of them asked, "If the value of my time to my company is Rs 3000.00 per day, and I have an option to pay a tout Rs 1000.00 and get a ticket (or a form etc.) delivered at home instead of waiting in a queue to buy one, what should I choose to do?

And that's the battle of the conscience I am talking about - should the business executive/leader forgo his personal value (morals) of not paying a bribe  and settle for the 'efficient' and 'cost-effective' option of saving his time and pay a bribe? Or should he he stick to the ethical standards of conduct no matter what it costs?

 Fighting the Cancer of Corruption
Indian business leaders have learned to deal with this cancer in their own ways, and we can map them on a a matrix as follows:

The Upholders: Believe in going by their voice of conscience, whatever it takes. E.g. Narayana Murthy of Infosys, who resisted the temptation of greasing palms to get work done and yet came out a Winner.

The Wilters:  They do a trade off with their conscience as in the case of the participant above. They believe in the dictum, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!"

The Tainted: These are the ones who thrive in a corrupt system. They are deaf to their voice of conscience and milk the system for all it's worth.

The Contaminators: These people with low morals, in the pursuit of their own interests, contaminate an uncorrupted system. An example is that of the pharma industry, which in trying to get doctors to prescribe their products, resorted to gifting them all kinds of fancy things from cars to jewellery. The previously noble profession has very few now who abide by the Hippocratic oath. The  industry now cribs about the increasingly fanciful demands of doctors, but they themselves are to blame.

In Conclusion
Every business leader doing business in India, has to take a call and do peace with his conscience in his own way. Some fight successfully, some succumb, many thrive while a few corrode the system.

Each does battle with  his conscience in his own way.






 

Is Your Organization Future Ready?

One of the foundations of business improvement strategies is to align business activity against organizational objectives, customer requirement and business strategy. However, very often, this alignment does not exist and the reason? The teams do not know what the organizational goals and objectives are! 

Evan Apfelbaum, of the Kellog School of Management, once asked a a group at a top American consulting firm what the goal of the team was. He got eight different answers! Which was exactly my experience with the findings of a survey I carried out recently. The survey, conducted on a client’s key executives, was to gauge the organization’s ability to focus on and execute their most important goals. One of the questions in the questionnaire was, “If you know any of the top three goals of your organization, please list them..” To this, 22% said they did not know the top three goals, The rest responded as follows:

 

Goal #1

1.      It should be system driven

2.      Be the biggest ....supplier in India

3.      Number 1 in world.....

4.      Achievement of target set by..... for year

5.      Sound customer base

6.      To be #1 and capture 80-90%.... market in India

7.      Brand image

Goal #2

1.      Individual responsibility for ...  success

2.      Educate the customers

3.      Customer satisfaction through technical assistance

4.      Best customer service

5.      Sales target

Goal #3

1. No compromise on quality product
2. Stand with the competitors with good profit margins
3. Fastest and profitable subsidiary of .... India
4. Collection

This diversity of  views on the goals of the organization is one of the most common occurrences in teams that don’t perform well – if people are not focussed on that one common goal, it becomes difficult to achieve the purpose that it has been assembled for.

According to Locke and Latham, clear common goals affect individual performance through four mechanisms. First, the goals direct action and effort toward goal-related activities and away from unrelated activities. Second, they energize employees. Challenging goals lead to higher employee effort than easy goals. Third, goals affect persistence. Employees exert more effort to achieve high goals. Fourth, goals motivate employees to use their existing knowledge to attain a goal or to acquire the knowledge needed to do so.

In the case of this particular client, as a first step to bring about alignment in business activity, we recommended and executed a Visioning workshop, along with some more initiatives based on other findings of the survey.

Clear common goals that everyone understands, are critical to every organizations business success. They provide organizations with a blueprint that determines a course of action and aids them in preparing for future changes.

Is your organization future ready?

Reference: Encyclopedia of Business 2nd Edn.

The Essential Element of Leadership

For an organization to succeed, it is vital for teams to have clarity of direction. Three elements which can help establish a clear direction for any team are:
- A Team Mission Statement
- A Team Vision Statement
- Team Values

Most organizations who conduct workshops for defining the three elements would do well to remember the words of Charles Schwab, the former CEO of a brokerage house. He used to say that people will work hard for money, but will give their lives for meaning. And the most powerful way of giving meaning to people's lives is by helping teams to define their Personal Mission, Vision and Values, BEFORE they do so for the organization. This will have a powerful impact on the employees engagement with the entire process of defining, as well as the practice of the values. Apart from making their individual lives more meaningful, this sequence of workshops helps in two ways;

1.  the understanding of the importance of values in their personal lives renders the task of defining the organizational values (challenging at best), much easier.
2. it helps individuals draw a line-of-sight between the personal and the organizational mission and values

Living the Vision
The task accomplished, the leader has to embark on what Tom Peters calls "the essential element of leadership" - living the vision vigorously and practicing the values diligently. To do this, he needs to ensure open and continuous channels of communication with his employees. This constant contact will help the business leader to support his teams to live the defined vision, practice the values and to shape the culture and the way that things get done. Here are some way of doing it:

1. Keep leaders, managers, HR staff and others engaged in the process through conference calls, email bulletinsand online forums
2. Create an intranet page focused on the implementation and practice of the three elements where you can put a list of FAQ's as well as experiences of the people with the new practices
3. Maintain focus on monitoring and course correction. Provide channels for feedback and ideas. Document questions and issues and share responses in different media.

Keeping at it
Once the mission-vision and values are sufficiently integrated into the system, its no time to stop. For, to quote Robert Levering, the co-founder of Great Places to Work Institute, "there is no such thing as 'too much communication". He cites examples of two CEO's who did it successfully:

1. One of the values of Genentech, a biotech company was   'open communication'. The CEO did an extraordinary job of being transparent. Any question asked over email, would be responded to within 48 hours.
2. Medtronic, a medical devices company has an event where actual patients come and talk about how their lives have been saved by Medtronic heart devices. This way, employees can see how people's lives have been saved. During the session, says Levering, there's not a dry eye in the house.

 Can you think of similar creative ways of living your values and connecting your organization's vision to it's impact on your customers?  Doing so should pay you rich dividends.

An Attitude to Up the Bottomline

"Sir, I cannot change the behavior of others, but I can change mine." This statement came from Navneesh, a young dynamic sales executive of a high performance metals company.

It happened at a group coaching workshop I was conducting  for the key executives from sales, marketing HR and logistics functions. As one of the activities of the day, I had the participants review their experiences of the past 15 days of their service delivery  interactions with internal customers. These were to be in areas of Coordination, Cooperation and Collaboration, examples of each which were provided,such as;
Coordination: Reduce the need for others to require clarification resulting from unclear communication

Cooperation: Accept feedback from others without being defensive

Collaboration:  Follow up all agreements in writing with customer within two days of oral agreement.

At the end of this review, the participants were to map their feelings about each of these interactions on the Emotigraph. This was a graph with Interaction event on the X-axis and Feelings about the interactions on the Y-axis, which was on a scale of 1-5; where 1=Unpleasant and 5=Very pleasant. The exercise completed, I asked the participants, "Having done the exercise, how many of you felt in the interactions reviewed, that you were right  and the others wrong?

I mapped their feedback on a scale  of 1-10, and the responses stacked up as follows:
90% put themselves between 1 (they were right) and 5 (maybe the other party was right). But Navneesh's response floored me, he placed himself at 10 (the opposite party was right!). When I asked him to explain, his reply was an astounding, "Sir, I cannot change the behavior of others, but I can change mine, and therefore, I always believe the other party is right." One would imagine that this is a wimpish or defensive strategy guaranteed to lose every argument. But one couldn't be more wrong. In point of fact, an attitude such as Navneesh's can help to quickly gain trust and resolve conflicts. The attitude has helped him be a person with with a high degree of a positive 'can do' attitude and one of the highest sales achievers in his team. Where does an attitude such as Navneesh's stem from? It comes from the practice of what Stephen Covey in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People describes as, Seeking First to Understand and then Be Understood. The practice of this habit can lead to rich dividends. It can help employees within organizations to  seek common ground with a colleague and a way to move forward together.

Dr Xavier Amadorin in his book  I am Right You Are Wrong, Now What? Has a more detailed process for the practice of the 5th Habit which he calls LEAP (Listen-Empathize-Agree-Partner) process,  With the use of the LEAP process and strategy, employees can;

• stop trying to force their colleagues to say they are wrong 
• begin to listen in a new way that immediately lowers their own anger and defensiveness, 
• convey genuine understanding, empathy, and respect for the others point of view, even when they disagree with it. 

On the other hand, what happens in organizations where a majority of employees in inter-company service delivery interactions take the stand, "I'm right, you're wrong?" It can lead to frustrating, circular  arguments and situations that stall progress and hurt relationships.

The result? Dissatisfied customers and ultimately - an unhealthy impact on the bottomline.

Dear Wannabe CEO

Dear Wannabe CEO,
The Wikipedia defines Young Turks as, "groups or individuals inside an organization who are progressive and seek prominence and power." Does this description fit you? If it does, then, I am sure you would have noticed the exciting headline in the Economic Times (30th June 2011) which said, " Young CEOs Add More Zip to Companies than the Old! The report quotes the findings of a study of BSE 100 companies which show that CEOs under 50 (the young category) added an average of 26.43% value to their companies as against the old guard (over 55) whose value addition was only 4.34%.  Now you will notice that the young category in this case stretches up to age 50, but I am guessing you as a young (and I mean young) aspiring executive with fire in your belly, fierce ambition and sharp focus are under 30. If you are, then  please read on.

As a member of the old guard, my experience tells me, that as a part of your preparation for the leadership game, you need to gain clarity about a few key factors. Two things to begin with;

• Your Values and Beliefs
• Your Risk-Benefit Quotient 

Sorry to sound patronising, but since many of your tribe rarely make time for self-reflection, I propose the following simple start to your journey.

STEP 1: Take stock of your Values and Beliefs by identifying your school of leadership:  

The clearer you are about what you value and believe in, the happier and more effective you will be.

Values are about how we have learnt to think things ought to be or people ought to behave, especially in terms of qualities such as honesty, integrity and openness.

Beliefs are generalizations that people use to give themselves a sense of certainty and a basis for decision-making in an uncertain and ambiguous world.

Adapting the work of G. Richard Shell, author of Bargaining for Advantage in the context of business, leaders can belong to three schools of leadership:

1. The Poker School - "It's a Game"
To poker players, business is a game and anything that can be done to gain advantage within the rules of the game (generally speaking, the laws of the land), is fair and just.

E.g. The Ambanis

2. The Idealist School - "Do the right thing, even if it hurts."
To the idealist, there is no separation between business and life. If you would not lie to your loved ones, you do not lie to your clients. If it's OK to tell a "white lie" to protect the feelings of a friend or prevent a tragedy, it's OK to tell a "white lie" to protect a corporate ally or prevent a business tragedy. While two idealists may differ in the specific set of rules they live by, they share the rigidity of doing what they believe to be "right", even when it seems contrary to their business goals.

E.g. N. R. Narayana Murthy

3. The Pragmatist School - "What goes around comes around."
The behaviour of a pragmatist may be inseparable from that of an idealist, but the motivation is different. While the idealist tells the truth and treats people fairly because it's "the right thing to do", the pragmatist tells the truth and treats people fairly because they believe it is the most effective way of getting things done. However, they will not hesitate to use deception as a necessary tool in pursuing their aims. Because pragmatists value their reputation (being seen to be honest), they will tend towards "misleading" statements over outright lies.

E.g. Barrack Obama

To which school of leadership do you belong?

STEP 2: Assess your risk-benefit quotient

The JISC Infonet defines risk as: 'A future event (or series of events) with a probability of occurrence and the potential for a) loss or b) impact on objectives that can be either positive or negative.'

No decision can ever be completely free of risk, but you also have to weigh up the benefits. How good have you been at assessing the probability of risk vs. the benefits? Use the Risk Matrix below to assess six major decisions you have made in the past as below;

1.       Analyse each of the six decisions based on two parameters; Risk and Impact

2.       Enter the results of each finding by ticking the appropriate box in the matrix

3.       Enter your scores in the table below.

Zone	No. Of Decisions	Risk Type
Purple		Aggressive risk-taker
Orange		Balanced risk taker
Pink		Unjustified risk-taker
Yellow		Risk averse

 

This analysis should help you increase your awareness of your ability to assess risk vs. the attendant gains. Considering that different positions and profiles need different degree of risk taking ability, you can draw your own conclusions about your suitability for each.

Call to Action

You have assessed yourself for two important factors in your success as a leader; values and beliefs and risk type, but bear in mind these tools are only meant to heighten your awareness of the two. To be better prepared for the leadership game, you need to constantly work on analysing and evolving yourself as a leader, not only in these two areas but many others as well!

All the Best!

Your Well-wisher.

Uday Arur, Business coach

Salaam Salamat

Salamat Irani owned the City Bakery at M.G. Road, Pune. My visit to his
bakery was prompted by a desire to buy Pune’s famous Shrewsbury biscuits 

from the Kayani Bakery. My cousin instead recommended Salamat’s bakery, 

which he claimed baked cashew biscuits to die for. So down we drove to the 

City Bakery on Main Street, a place with shelves and bottles redolent of an 

old world charm. The wall behind the old style counter at the bakery had a 

black board that had a humorous quotable quote written in chalk (changed 

every day).Salamat, the curly-haired, friendly and very talkative owner, 

welcomed my cousin (his school buddy) cheerily and on his introducing us, 

chided him saying, ‘what are you doing Rahul, you are starving your guests!’ 

So saying, he opened a packet of his famous cashew biscuits and laid it on 

the counter for us to eat (and of course sample!). Salamat, I discovered, 

knew all his regular customers and made it a point to address them by their 
names, (‘Good afternoon Mr. Joshi, what can I do for you today?’). It was 
highly entertaining and educative to see how Salamat treated his customers
and so I decided to hang around for some more time to watch him in action.
  

To Mrs. Joshi, who wanted to buy buns, he said mischievously, ‘ only three
buns Mrs. Joshi, you must be starving your family! And what can I pack for
your friend over here?’ (Mrs. Joshi’s friend smiled and shook his head, but
you can be sure he is going to drop in again!) An aged Parsi customer 

doddered in looking for kharis and realizing they were not in stock, turned 

to go away,‘chaalo, paisa bachi gayo!’ smiled Salamat cheekily, eliciting a 

smile from the Parsi gentleman. The next gentleman who walked in was 

looking for jam tarts, which were out of stock, Salamat assured him with,

a 'Sorry Mr Fernandes, but you can get those tarts at 4 pm tomorrow 

evening. They will be waiting for you.’
  

In the mean time a lady at the counter asked him for a bill, ‘That will be 
only fifty dollars, Mrs. Sharma, why don’t you buy some more?’

To a customer who was peering down the glass counter at the trays of 
biscuits, Salamat said naughtily, ‘who are you looking for Mrs. Andrews, 
have you found him yet?’ ‘Oh! Just biscuits, is it? I thought it was 
somebody else!’ To every one of his customers, Salamat seemed to have 

something to say which would make them smile – and of course buy more 

than what they originally intended to buy!!
  

Quite apart from the great goodwill and customer satisfaction generated 
by Salamat, what struck me was the way he seemed to 
actually enjoy what he did.

Salamat, the baker and graduate in law seemed to have a great  time 

doing his work! And his highly infectious joy in what he did clearly
rubbed off on his customers, who seemed to keep coming in for more 
– keeping his cash register clicking merrily!

Mohammad of Khandala

When the boundaries between work and fun blur, you are fully immersed 

in a feeling of energized focus,full involvement, and success in the process 

of the activity. What Prof. Mihaly Csikszentmhalyi might call being in flow. 

And some years ago I had the opportunity to witness one such soul 

operating in "flow".

Mohammad Hussein was a dark short and stocky, had grey short hair and a 
clipped ‘Zodiac man’ beard and worked a waiter at the restaurant of a resort 

in Khandala. This resort is where I was conducting a meeting for
one of my client companies. Sharp at six on the first morning of my stay, 

there was a soft knock on my door and on and on opening it, 

I was greeted with a smiling ‘Good Morning’ by Hussein who bustled in with 

his tray of what P.G. Wodehouse would call ‘the cup that cheers’. He then 

proceeded to place the tray smartly on the table with a ‘Yeh lo sir, badhiya, 

garam, garam chai!’ Apart from the tea, his warmth and cheerfulness itself 

was a great start to the day! At breakfast, Hussein welcomed my entry into 

the restaurant with a welcoming smile and my inquiry about the spread for 

the day was heralded by the lifting of the lid of each of the chaffing dishes, 

followed by descriptions like, ‘Yeh lo sir, badhiya corn flakes, aur yeh garma 

garam aloo parathe, aur yahan sir, first class omelet and toast!’  At every 

break for lunch or tea, Hussein would be the first one to greet and welcome 

the group and serve us attentively. 

By now, all these ministrations by Hussein had impressed me so much that 

I called up my family to invite them to join me at the resort after the 

conference was over. Seeing my family with me seemed to send Hussein into 

a service overdrive! Even though the restaurant had enough empty tables at 

meal times, he would put up a hand written sign on a tent saying ‘Reserved 

for V1’ and on being seated at the table, he would first ask my wife,  

’Madam, aaj kya lengi, chai ya coffee?’ next he would enquire with my 

daughter, my son and finally me (the gallant old soul!). The best part was 

when I gave him a tip on the last day of our stay, he thanked me profusely 

and said that he wanted to sing a ‘Mohammad Rafi saab ka gana’ specially 

for me. Then in a mellifluous voice, and a few furtive looks over his shoulders 

to see if the manager was watching, he proceeded to sing ‘Woh jab yaad 

aaye, bahut yaad aaye’ from the film Parasmani! A warm and sentimental 

touch don’t you think?

It's been now more than six years since I witnessed Mohammad Hussein 

in action but I have warm memories of him. That's what being in "flow" does 

to you. You perform at your best, have fun doing it, please the recipient of 

your actions.

And most important - stay in his memory. Forever. 

"I am Anna Hazare" True or False?

A recent survey  of India's youth conducted by by MTV, showed that over 50% of them were OK with paying bribes to succeed in life. Surprisingly, Anna Hazare's recent campaign against corruption had struck a cord with the very same youth, and they had come out on to the streets in large numbers! So what explains this strange contradiction?

Maybe some kind of an answer may be found in yesterday's Economic Times. In the issue's Blinkers off cartoon by Salam, one executive is telling another, "I can't say for sure what is important...self-respect, integrity or being on the right side of the boss...?" The cartoon aptly sums up the dilemmas and the challenges  of  the youth viz., if self-respect and integrity be part of one's values set, to what extent would one be of willing to sacrifice them at the altar of career success?

 These were also the kind of dilemmas expressed by the young participants at my recent workshop on Goal setting. One of the activities required participants to identify their personal values and the importance of  identifying and living our values in our life. After my presentation one of them asked, "If the value of my time to my company is Rs 3000.00 per day, and I have the option to pay a tout Rs 1000.00 and get a ticket (or a form etc.) delivered at home instead of waiting in a queue to buy one, what should I choose to do? And that's the dilemma most of us face - should I forgo my value of not paying a bribe  and settle for the 'efficient' and 'cost-effective' option of saving my time and pay a bribe? Or do I stick by my values and principles no matter what it costs?

In reply to the participant's question, I cited the example of how Narayana Murthy of Infosys handled such a situation.There were several incidents when Infosys was asked to grease palms to get its work done. in 1996, the company refused to pay a bribe of Rs 4 lakh to buy the land where their Bangalore office was built. Instead, it paid Rs 40 lakh extra, about 40% more than the amount other companies had paid to build offices in that locality. Over the years, Infosys' clean image became a benchmark in India Inc.

So if one chooses to strictly  live by one's values then no price would be too high to protect them. The choice of course is a difficult one for most of us. But for those who choose to tread the difficult path - it can be life of fulfillment.

And success?

The Secret to Long-term Personal Success

The most powerful way to achieve long-term personal and business success, is to redefine success as something internal rather than external. It has been my experience time and time again that success begins with defining values, and then consciously creating a life where those values play a central role. And this is true as much of people as it is of organizations.Using this 'inside-out' approach, I have discovered in my experience as a Business coach and consultant, gives gratifying results. Success I have realized, begins with defining values, and then consciously creating a life where those values play a central role. So what exactly do we mean by values, and how can we plan a values-driven life?

What are Values?
Roy Posner, on his highly informative website, describes values as “a belief, a mission, or a philosophy that is meaningful.” Whether we are consciously aware of them or not, every one of us has a core set of personal values. Values can range from the commonplace, such as the belief in hard work and punctuality, to the more psychological, such as self-reliance, concern for others, and harmony of purpose.

When we examine the lives of famous people, we often see how personal values guided them, propelling them to the top of their fields. In the book, Leadership@Infosys (Penguin India), the editor Matthew Barney describes the time the company had imported its first computer to the office. A customs official indirectly asked for a bribe. Narayana Murthy pretended he did not understand the request. As pay back, the official refused to recognise the a government certificate that entitled Infosys to a concessionary import duty of Rs. 1 lakh instead of Rs 10 lakh. Murhty did not budge. The company paid the higher duty and went through a long process of six years to reclaim the extra money it had paid.

It is this personal as well as business commitment to his values that has brought Murthy such glory - personally as well as to Infosys, the company he created. On a personal front, his commitment to his values brought respect to businessmen as a class. Kiran Karnik1, the former NASSCOM chief explains the reason thus,”For the first time, the middle class had an icon who came from an ordinary background and yet made money without doing something underhand and being upright.” On the business front Murthy’s commitment powered by his intellect, and driven by his values has brought Infosys to the forefront of a new India Inc. since 1981.

we can “create a life of our own making” and live our life with meaning and peace of mind, rather than “letting our life live us.”  An important learning from Murthy's example is that values drives our behavior and also our commitment.                                                   The most important advantage of identifying our values is that the exercise helps us to align and shape our behaviors in a way consistent with our goals in life.

Call to Action

To begin the unraveling of YOUR secret to long-term personal business success, begin by of identifying your values from the list on Roy Posner's site. Using your identified values as your decision making paradigm, you can now create a life of your own making and live your life with meaning and peace of mind, rather than letting your life live you.