Life –Ultimate Class Room

We have so much waiting for us. Each of us comes into the world with a need to learn many things. Life is the ultimate classroom. Each of us has different problems to solve, tests to pass. Events will swirl around us uncontrolled, regardless. Our response is something we can control. Choose to say beautiful words, to hear lovely words. Banish harsh, angry and foul language from the inner spaces of your heart. Perhaps you could set a song for the day in my mind. Those who met us would see the sparkle of that song in our eyes and feel the rhythm of its harmony in my limbs.

Social Bonding

No man is an island, but a part of the Main,’ said the pensive poet John Donne. Man is a social being, and interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people. It is to be able to see what motivates them, how they work and how to work cooperatively with them. Interpersonal intelligence is the inward sense of being able to understand oneself, to form an accurate model of oneself and to operate that model effectively to live life. Professor Howard Gardner of the Harvard School of Psychology told me that the two aspects of personal intelligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal, form the most important foundation for a happy, fulfilling life. To those who define success as happiness, these two elements can be the bedrock of a happy life. Sensitive people can empathize with others. They can understand the feelings of others as though they were feeling it themselves. This skill involves being able to pick up subtle verbal, tonal and non–verbal signals from others. Charismatic leaders are able to reach others by breaking the barrier that exists between people. A charismatic speaker can make thousands of people react like one mind. The Upanishads say that the divine spark or life force exists in all—the leader, the leper, the judge and the criminal. The concept of a life force is recognised in all cultures. It is called Chi by the Chinese; Light, or Holy Ghost, by Christians; Prana by the Hindus; Mana by the Kahunas and; Bioplasmic Energy by Russians researchers.

Problem Analysis

Innovation is to analyse your problem in depth and make sure that everyone understands all aspects of the problem. Answer these questions together. Record all points using a poster and post-it slips. What is the present situation? Why has the problem arisen? Why should it be solved? Why is it a problem for me personally? What thoughts have I already had, or what efforts have I made to solve the problem? Why are these thoughts or efforts insufficient or unavoidable? What kind of action can I initiate towards solving this problem? What would the ‘ideal’ solution be? If you can able to answer the above questions, it will guide you to not only to find out the right solution but helps you to find new resolutions.

Toward an Innovative Workplace

The lack of resources forces us to innovate. § Tough times help us adapt. § Tough times force us to think outside the box or even eliminate the box. § Everything changes—people, products, companies; men, materials, machines, methods, markets and money (the six Ms). § Creativity is the spark and innovation the fire in the fireplace, which cooks and bakes. § Creativity involves four components—the Creative Person, the Creative Process, the Creative Product and the Creative Climate or environment. § An environment replete with the positive emotions of love, peace, bravery and compassion provides a positive climate, which nurtures creativity. § Creativity training at IBM, whose motto is ‘Think’ resulted in producing the largest number of patented inventions. § Innovation should be part of everyone’s job description. § Vision and leadership are necessary to inspire a widespread commitment to innovation. § The lack of collaboration between departments stifles innovation. § Motivation of employees and innovation complement one another. § Team work drives innovation. § The ability to thrive in an environment of rapid change is essential. § Money and resources are essential lubricants of the innovation process. § Conformism and stereotypes hinder creative problem solving. § Innovation should be focused on specific business goals. § An open atmosphere ensures greater productivity. § Efficient meetings are a trademark of innovative organisations § Innovation centres drive innovation.

Learn to Deal with Others and their Feelings

A drug addict once explained the difference between sympathy and empathy. He said, ‘You can never feel anything but sympathy for me and what I need is empathy.’ The he said, ‘Empathy is the capacity to feel my pain in your heart.’ To be ‘socially tone deaf’ * can lead to a life littered with broken relationships. Develop the capacity to pick up subtle verbal, tonal and non-verbal signals from others. Learn also the ability to send out soothing, nurturing signals to others, thus creating a positive interpersonal field. Unlike in a magnetic field, where positive attracts negative and vice versa, a positive, emotional and spiritual field, attracts positive people and events and, in addition, transforms even a normally negative person into a positive one. ‘How can I develop this skill?’ I ask. ‘Practice working with people and listening to them with the same attitude as you would towards a beloved child, or respected parent. Your word, tone, your very glance should be completely focused on the person. Don’t dilute the interaction by playing with your Blackberry, talking on your cellphone or fiddling with your laptop. When you are with someone, pay complete attention. Anything less will only elicit a lukewarm response. Those who can create positive fields around themselves attract and build lifetime relationships.’

Nurturing work place

Many of us spend most of our time at work. If we do not enjoy our work, if we feel overwhelmed by it, it will surely damage us. The constant pressure of negative emotions causes inescapable damage to our arteries and other delicate tissues. It also slows down the body’s capacity to repair this damage. To work at something you love, to be ‘self-actualized’ in Maslow’s terms, is to protect yourself against dying young. As Khalil Gibran wrote, ‘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.’ Politics can make the blood boil with suppressed rage and unexpressed anxiety. ‘Fast tracking,’ being a corporate star, will extract the inevitable price of damage to arteries if you are not ‘mindful’, if you are not aware of the impact of everything you do on your system. Reisman speaks of the ‘lonely crowd’. Loneliness, a sense of exclusion, is a poison that can cause illness as easily as a virus or bacteria. Loneliness is the most lethal of modern diseases. For example, newly widowed women have a higher rate of breast cancer than married or single women.

Power of Communication

Here are a few steps you can take to improve your communication as a brand: • Let what you think, say and do be the same thing • Listen to feedback and make people feel safe to express ideas, opinions and feelings. • Be aware of how your brand is being built. • Be aware that silence also speaks. • Avoid conflict. If it cannot be avoided defuse it. • Return missed calls, emails and other queries.

Taking India to the World - Excerpts from the book Innovation Secrets of Indian CEOs

It all started thirteen years ago when Ms. Ranjani Manian met a young American mother with an active two year old baby, thrust into the heat and dust of Chennai. Joanne Grady Huskey, wife of a US diplomat, was happy and relieved with the help I could extend in a strange new place. I had been a foreign language instructor after a liberal education at Elphinston College, Mumbai and the University of Sorbonne, Paris. That is when I realized the need to help strangers to become friends in a new city. Global Adjustments was started with just two women helping eighty families in a giant automotive plant. Today it is a pan-Indian Company which makes the company a one stop shop for expatriate relocation needs in India. I love simplifying India’s rich and complex reality for the world. I really enjoyed writing ‘Doing Business in India for Dummies’. Now, with our portal globalindian.com, I love being part of the plan to help Indians do well on the global stage. I would like Global Adjustments to become a world leader in the field. ‘It’s been fun. Everything from teaching Americans to say “Namaste” to telling Indian professionals that frying an appalam in a US apartment may set off the fire alarm’. Our expansion into realty and magazine publishing has been very satisfying. ‘At a glance – understanding India’ is our cultural magazine for expatriates. Our teams of trainers and personal relocation experts have also been well accepted. Both my parents were General Managers of large companies. I am happy that I wandered into the world of entrepreneurship. There are no text books here, no trainers, and no manual of procedure. That’s why it’s been so great to blaze a pioneering trail that makes India proud.

Life is the Guru

In India, the teacher is called a ‘guru’ – he who eliminates the darkness. So this means that whoever teaches, is a guru. There are gurus for every discipline and skill. Since 1962, on September 5th, India celebrates Teachers day. On that day, the birthday of Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, children give their teachers gifts and are even allowed to teach the class, while teachers listen. We know that learning can be had from various sources. Not only from books and teachers in classrooms but also from the experience of life itself. The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself. All of us long for a teacher who gives you something to think about besides home work. Uddhava is said to have asked his friend Krishna, “Who is a guru?” Krishna points at an eagle in the sky and explains, “That eagle soaring in sky can swoop down to earth in a single instant and pick up its prey. As far as vision is concerned, that eagle is your guru. Look at the lion in the jungle, how splendid is its gait. As far as physical grace is concerned, that lion is your guru. Those who love you, teach you. Those who hate you, teach you more. Victory is a teacher but failure is a far greater teacher. Everything, every event in your life is sent to teach you. Whether you learn from the great classroom of life, depends on you.” From teachers we not only learn subjects but also lessons on how to live. We watch our teachers and learn life’s lesson from them: compassion, dignity, courage. A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others. “The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth," says Dan Rather. Over 100 countries celebrate Teacher’s day once a year. In war torn Afghanistan, students honour their teachers with special food, cookies, music and presents. Any day is a good day to write a love letter to all your favourite teachers, including your first teachers – your parents. “If you want happiness for an hour -- take a nap. If you want happiness for a day -- go fishing. If you want happiness for a month -- get married. If you want happiness for a year -- inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime -- help someone else,” Chinese Proverb

Creating Joy in Family Life

Today everyone has a chance to maintain links with the extended family through the internet. It is a nourishing and often supportive network. Today, however, the family, as the ‘shock absorber of society, to which the bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world,’ in the words of Alvin Toffler in his landmark work Future Shock, is going through a transitional phase. The breakdown of the joint family has led to a loosening of extended family relationships. The powerful mother-in-law of the joint family is emerging as the subdued caretaker of children, helping the educated daughter-in-law augment the double income of all upwardly mobile young couples. The large, amorphous, supportive joint family that supported a wide variety of people and bestowed unconditional love for the crippled, the old and the helpless, has been reduced to the nuclear family where everyone is in sharp focus. Much like the modern corporation, there is no place to hide, no place for passengers, and everyone has to pull their own weight. It is our mission to restore to it its traditional role as a place of rest and healing, albeit in a new paradigm. There should be one person in the family who can cushion the blows of the outside world. Someone who is not too busy to listen, give support, and manage the daily tasks of living. This could even be a paid caregiver or cook. Networking with parents, in-laws, neighbours, domestic help and friends is the key for working mothers.

Steps for Personal Health

1. Take care of your health. You cannot deliver a prize-winning performance with a broken-down body. 2. Force the world to look at issues like: What kind of world are we leaving for our children? Where have leisure, poetry and caring been banished? Why has the door been shut on the smiles and joy of our children? Why do we have no time for our friends or small acts of kindness? Why are deadlines so terrible that they extract death as the price? None of us would mind dying for great causes, but to die for a power-point presentation, seems slightly frivolous. 3. Do not get stereotyped into how others see your role: as a mother or an all forgiving rescuer in the workplace. Encourage men to discover their so-called feminine qualities of sensitivity and caring. Do not stereotype men! 4. Affirm women who are role models instead of trying to find chinks in their armour. Network with them. There is a queen-bee complex, which causes successful women managers to surround themselves with male managers and discourage the entry of women. Identify this and speak up when required.