Category: Everything else

On the Red, Blue, Green notebooks

This week’s learning draws inspiration from ‘Success Principles’ by Jack Canfield –

Jack Canfield once attended a seminar on ‘Happiness‘ . As soon as he entered the room, he noticed red, blue and green notebooks on the tables. He went to his assigned seat and found a red notebook.

There was a problem though. He didn’t like red. He wanted the blue that the person next to him had. As people streamed in, many looked around uncertainly as soon as they saw their books. He realized that most of them were likely to have similar feelings.

That’s when the facilitator walked in. ‘Let’s address the elephant in the room everyone’ – she said with a smile.
‘How many of you don’t like the color of your notebook?’
2/3rds of room raised their hands.
‘Then switch!’ She cried ‘Trade the notebook with somebody else who has the color you want. That IS the first rule of happiness folks. You have the power.’

As Uncle Sam implicitly tells us, we have the power! If we take a quick look at the various factors in our life that cause us unhappiness, where can we take the initiative and make switches?

Here’s to simple switches to improve our happiness this week!

Where Competition is Useful

I’d brought this up in my Leadership is Overrated – Part II and thought I would explain further.

If perspective is the most valuable commodity on the planet, competition helps greatly in keeping this commodity.

In essence, let’s take a simple situation.
John works for a small 100 person company. He is one of few in his peer group and is doing very very well. He is much loved by all his superiors, colleagues etc and is essentially on a ‘high’.
A few years down the line, John is pitted against his peer group thanks to MBA school admissions and he realizes, in horror, that his growth and training have been woefully inadequate. And that he wasn’t as ‘cool’ as he thought he was.
In short, he had been ‘drinking his own kool aid’ and it was competition that woke him up.
Herein lies the single greatest value add of competition – keeping perspective. It helps keep our achievements in perspective and keep us grounded. And for those of us who are competitive, it can help us spur action as well..
But, aside from that, competition (in my humble point of view) does more to breed insecurity and unhappiness than almost any other force on the plan. Competition for money, attractiveness and the like helps very few and leaves the rest unhappy. So, let’s brush aside the ‘competition is good for us’ myth and move on ahead.
Do we think Microsoft sleeps better at night knowing Google and Apple are waiting to take over their market share wherever possible? Or Coke because of Pepsi?
Let’s stop singing praises of competition and just use it for where it serves it’s purpose.

Your Greatest Strength is Always Your Greatest Weakness

I write this as I just had a discussion with a friend about her mid-year review where her improvement point turned out to be an inverse of her biggest strength.
In my case, for example, one of my big strengths turns out to be my energy. However, this pops up in all places – most of all by fidgeting. I hardly sit still.. and I imagine if I had to, I would implode. (And, if you are wondering – yes, my legs are tapping away as I write this post. But, of course!)
Now, I do understand there are times and places where fidgeting doesn’t help – serious meetings for example. And in situations like that, I do work hard to keep it down. But then, that saps me of a considerable amount of energy! Now, as with most things, it does help having a balance.
Previously, however, I used to feel very bad about my constant fidgeting. Thanks to some nice advice from a wiser friend since, I’m less apologetic about it these days. I’ve learnt to accept that it comes with the package..
I’m not advocating lack of balance but just that every thing has a flip side. And it helps to be aware of that..
(Just as a test, do look out for your ‘improvement point’ in your next feedback and take note of whether the weakness mentioned is a flip side of your greatest strength)

Leadership is Overrated – Part II

Before I begin the next phase of my leadership rant, I will recommend a great book. This book is called ‘First, break all the rules‘ by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. ‘First, break all the rules’ analyzes what great leaders do. This is backed up by close to 25 years of research by the popular analytics firm, Gallup and is a gem.
Moving onto the issue itself – my hypothesis is that every organization doesn’t need tons of great leaders.
Can you imagine Apple with 2 Steve Jobs like personalities? Can you even imagine the kind of fireworks that would cause? (And historically, it did. Jobs did leave Apple and come back..)
What has worked for Apple is to have Steve Jobs lead the charge and have many great managers all the way down who stay true to Jobs’ philosophy.
Similarly, every great organization has a few leaders on top and the rest below are simply great managers. If we go back to the ‘shirtless dancing guy’ episode, that group did not need 10 shirtless dancing guys, they just needed one. In fact, 10 such guys would have only divided the group and caused chaos..
The point I am trying to make is simple – Leadership is a talent. Just like football. There’s only so much you can do to ‘instill’ leadership qualities. Schools can give students opportunities to lead but all this does is bring out the ones who have the talent.
Great management, on the other hand, can be learnt. And, as a result, taught. Great managers can codify what they do and pass it on. That’s precisely what ‘First, break all the rules’ does.
That’s not to say great management is easy. In truth, it is bloody difficult. Imagine you are a star in a football team to whom natural talents come easy. Now imagine you make the transition to managing a team – having to bring together a group of likely less talented lads, having to control a couple of arrogant stars and having to just be the ‘catalyst’ and make your group succeed. Suddenly, it is not about you. There is no place for insecurity.. there is only place for coaching, mentoring and letting people do their thing.
The good thing however is that it is difficult, not impossible. I would argue what we need is not a world full of leaders. We just need more potential great managers – people bred with self confidence rather than insecurity, bred with the understanding that competition doesn’t decide self worth but is only worthwhile to help maintain perspective and bred with the understanding that leadership is not everything.
It would help us remember that people do not leave companies, they leave managers. And great companies/organizations as a result simply have many great managers. And we need more great organizations in this world.
And by great, I mean purely in terms of quality.. (I hope you did not naturally picture a mammoth organization when you heard ‘great’ – if you did, then it’s not necessarily uncommon and that’s a discussion for another post.. :))
To be continued (1 more post to go..)

The Noise from the Bad Stuff

There’s a distinct Eckhart Tolle influence on my posts these days thanks to listening to Stillness Speaks for 15 min as I waft off to sleep every night. The wonderful thing about the book is that I have read it many many times (it is my default book when I have difficulty falling off to sleep) but still, I am continuously amazed by it’s depth.
And for the past few days, the one idea that I have been observing most is –
‘In this world, things are getting worse and better at the same time, although the worse is more apparent because it makes so much ‘noise”

I am reminded of this every morning after I finish reading the newspaper.
How did you feel after reading those newspaper? Were you reminded of all the evil, corruption and bad character in this world?
(That’s why you have got to love the Sports section…)

Leadership is Overrated – Part I

Firstly, here is a popular video I posted ages ago. I think what’s most remarkable is it’s simplicity.
(Only the first 3 minutes and 10 seconds)
Let’s remember the lessons again –
1. Firstly, if you are the type standing alone – nurture your first few followers as equals so it is more about he movement and not just about you
2. Biggest lesson – Leadership is over glorified
3. We are told that we all have to be leaders. To start a movement, have the courage to follow a lone nut.
Contemporary wisdom is all about nurturing leaders. I think we will always have great leaders as leadership, like football or basketball, is a talent.
I believe what we are lacking is not great leadership, but effective management.
To be continued..