Create a positive field

 A mental process which draws a magic circle of love around all those who are participating.  A prayer or mantra said together.  A common exercise, a company song, common goals.  A handshake, a friendly look, an encouraging word.  Thinking, believing and acting in a positive manner.  Laughter and shared jokes.

Elevate everyday experiences to the level of sacredness!

When work is done with love, it fills the body and mind with bliss and transforms any place into a sacred space. As Khalil Gibran writes in The Prophet, “What is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth from the strings of your heart, as though your Beloved were to wear it.” What is required to fill your blood with the chemicals of bliss is an attitude transplant. Soar on your positive attitude. Decide to approach all events, all people, and all things with affection, reverence and ‘Sraddha.’ This reverence is due to all, because of the divine spark that dwells in everyone whether he is a legend or a failure. Sometimes it is obvious. It is the silent flame of consciousness that reaches out to you from a flowering creeper or a healthy pet. Sometimes this life force has lost its vitality and is dimmed by dirt, lethargy and lack of care. Clean the glass of your Life’s lamp. Make the light shine through. It is essential to look into our emotional, mental and psychological environment, as our thoughts and emotions directly contribute to our wellbeing or otherwise. Meditation can clean up the field and contribute enormously to an individual’s psychological and physiological wellbeing.

Action Plan to Enhance Positives

• Write a love letter to your parents • Buy tickets to a music concert and give away some of it. • Treat yourself to a full moon dinner with loved ones. • Take your dog to the beach. • Plant a tree and take care of it (a tree is an oxygen factory). • Give away seeds. The monsoons are awaiting to make them grow • Feed the birds. Do God’s work

Creating A Life Changing Network

Celebrate the Positives

Celebrate the positive in all interactions. Rest assured that God did not create you for the sole purpose of correcting others or making them unhappy. When we say namaste, we say ‘I bow to the Divine in you’. ‘Vasudeva Kutumbakam’ say, our holy book – the whole world is your family. Imagine the rich network of love you could create, where your children can be nurtured if you believed and practiced this. The most inexpensive ticket to happiness is helping others and making others happy. So spread happiness like Amul butter on bread. It will stick to your fingers. Create a happiness committee in your street, which meets every month to create a happy street. Every month as you decide to install comfort touch, celebrate Diwali or have a painting competition for kids, neighbours become friends.

Action Plan to protect your legacy

• Commit your dream to paper. Be clear about your legacy – give details. • Build ownership in those empowered to take it forward. Listen to divergent opinions and let go. • Start detaching yourself and don’t give too much advice and cramp the style and enthusiasm of those on the job. • Remember life is short. Let not your legacy become ashes and dust when you die. You have responsibility to leave the world a better place. Start the task now!

Take them everyday!

Take short relaxation breaks, at least thrice a day. 2. Eat fresh, energy-giving foods. 3. Take a walk outdoors during lunch break. 4. Stay away from politics and back-biting. 5. Involve your spouse and children in your work. Bring them to the office during lunch break or on a Saturday. 6. Spend time reading and improving your mind. 7. Get involved in activities that will benefit others. 8. Develop an absorbing hobby or skill—driving, dancing, gardening, carpentry, painting, amateur radio, etc. 9. Keep in touch with your close friends and extended family; use the power of the internet. 10. Plan to cut off from work on weekends.

Steps to increase everyday happiness

• Do the crossword as you age • Take up a course of study that will improve your work skills: may be computer literacy • Eat a piece of dark chocolate 4 times a week. • Have at least four interesting, intimate conversations with family and friends every day. • Spend at least two hours outdoors. • Participate in at least one group activity. • Have a good belly laugh. • Forgive and forget and what you cannot forgive, forget. • Find a meaningful job to do, even if unpaid. • Live in the present and enjoy it.

Complete the Action Matrix

Study your Action Matrix and let every team state its goals clearly and understand that goal. The Innovation Champion can put together the whole matrix filled by different teams and circulate it. The innovation process is an enjoyable process. The teams have had a chance to design an implementation action plan. It is probably a course of action, which has the fingerprints of all participants. This naturally ensures the buy-in of the team. The most important part of this process is that it integrates the viewpoints of all stakeholders and turns spectators into participants. This is about win-win solutions. It is about collaboration compromise and co-operation. It takes into account how people think and feel and acknowledges their need for affirmation and nurturing. The action matrix is the map to be followed in implementation.

World Kindness Day

The world kindness movement began incorporating NGO’s on November 13th 1988. The actions on this day make everyone feel that kindness is cool. Young, trendy people, caring adults, celebrities participate to make kindness so viral. Corporates who participate in my year long Innovation Initiatives have a Make Things Better (MTB) Board in the front office. Anyone can post a note which says ‘You made things better by ………………, about a team member’. The person who gets the maximum MTB notes, is recognized, as also the person who posts the most MTBs. Kindness, generosity and co-operation can spread faster than violence or hatred. A study conducted by San Diego and Harvard Universities provide laboratory evidence that co-operative behavior is contagious. When the people benefit from kindness, they “pay it forward” by helping others who were not originally involved, and this creates a cascade of collaboration that influences dozens more in a social network. Research and Shakespeare have both shown that kindness benefits both giver and the receiver, filling the blood stream with neurotransmitters of relaxation and contentment. Serotonin and endorphins elevate the mood. Doctors have to do less when people are kind and content. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about the ‘most curative herbs and agents’ of gentleness and kindness is ensuring health and well being. So on World Kindness Day, start a daily, lifelong habit of kindness. Let’s start to: 1. Hug all the loved ones in your life who rarely get a hug – your parents and grandparents. 2. Write love letters to them recording how you feel, before it is too late! 3. In Singapore, they gave away 45,000 yellow flowers last year. 4. Canada had a Kindness Concert. 5. Put out grains and water for birds to feed. 6. Adopt a elder who has no visitors and cheer up that elder by visiting him once a week or fortnightly or monthly – whichever is feasible. As the Dalai Lama said, “My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.” Send this to all your friends. Let’s go viral with this.

Proactive Change

The results of transformative change are all around us this summer. Sunflower plants busting out from seeds where they have slept tightly curled, butterflies leaving behind their worn out cocoons, flowers dressing up the bare limbs of trees. This time as the financial year begins it is the time for the 3Rs rest, relaxation and rejuvenation of proactive change. Change is the only certainty in an uncertain world. This year you will change merely because everything around you will change. What you can decide is whether you will lead the change or become a victim of it. Think about proactively changing things in the following areas of your life. 1. Personal 2. Family 3. Professional 4. Social Personal: Create goals that will improve your skills and build on your strengths. Tap into the passion that you have kept tightly leashed because you had no time. Did you always want to learn to play the guitar? Sign up now. Was Bollywood dancing what lights your fire? Do it. Sign up for a distance learning programme. Family: Ask your family members to suggest change each of them would like. Try to see if it can be done. Don’t be a casualty of the corporate rat race. Professional: Have a chat with your team mates. Volunteer for a tough blue sky job. Create a daily ‘huddle’ in your workplace so that everyone can meet and talk for a few minutes every morning. Make sure everyone participates. Work on making it a fun place. Social: Create a face book page for your family and friends. Keep in touch, share pictures, keep them informed and interested and involved in an interesting activity: a get-together for all your friends, an annual family reunion, a pot luck meet and eat for all your neighbours. Things will change anyway. Make sure they change in the way you want. And remember a butterfly is not an improved caterpillar. Just as a sunflower is not an improved seed.

Management systems and implementation : Steering Committee

Create a steering committee to lead and co-ordinate the Innovation Initiative. The Chief Innovation Officer is usually the chief executive. He is supported by the Innovation Champion and at least two members of top management. This committee will conduct monthly reviews. They will ensure smooth process flow while inspiring the teams to deliver results. The duties of the Innovation Champion will be as follows. • Ensuring that innovation spirals meet regularly. • Organizing training of the trainers and others on an ongoing basis. • Regular follow up to ensure that tasks agreed are carried out. • Facilitating collection of monthly reports and preparing a consolidated report. • He will handhold teams, encourage and promote innovation across the company. The steering committee meets once a month to review and take corrective action. Footfall in the working areas and daily workplace meetings can encourage greater commitment and engagement. The launch should keep the whole organization informed and excited about the plan. The floor should be kept open for those who would like to participate. All teams can meet to gather forces for implementation. The management of innovation depends on the structure created to institutionalize it. Sustained innovation should be recognized as a critical element in organizational structure. Large companies have now finally begun to recognize this. They should ensure that support is provided for innovative projects with potential.