Category: Blogs

In a village there was a washerman named Pataka. Once, after having made love to his young bride for a long time, he fell into a deep sleep in her arms. A thief then entered the house to steal the goods inside. At that time his ass was tethered in the washerman’s courtyard and his dog lay on the floor. 

‘Comrade’, said the ass to the dog, “this is really your business. Why don’t you make a commotion and wake up the master?”

‘Good sir,’ replied the hound, “you mustn’t interfere in my affairs. Don’t you know that I guard the master’s house night and day? But he has been free of care for so long that he doesn’t realise any more how useful i am and pays little attention to feeding me. Indeed masters pay little attention to servants until they have problems. 

Ass replied, ‘listen you blockhead,” – 

Is he a servant true indeed

Who makes demands in times of need

The dog replied – and what about the master who is kind only when there’s need of you.

‘You wretch!’ cried the ass in a rage, -are you so wicked that you will neglect your master’s affairs when there is an emergency? Well, so be it. I must do what I can to wake the master up.  Saying this, he began to bray with all his might. The washerman was awakened by his screams. Incensed at his sleep having been disturbed, he got up and thrashed the ass with a stick.  (Source of the story is Hitopdesa by Narayana Penguin, 1998)

In course of my journey as a Recruiter I have come across many managers, owners of businesses, bosses who are very transactional in nature. The element of nurturing people is generally overlooked in the pursuit of fatter bottom-line figures. And then I do see some key people leave you at a stage when you need them the most. Not that businesses close when people leave but when good people leave it surely is counterproductive. Such stories do present great management lessons for top managers and entrepreneurs who do not show deep interest in building people. 

I close with a worthy observation by Prakash Iyer in his book, The habit of winning which reads as, “In our lives, we tend to look up all the time at our superiors. We seldom find time for those folks who are looking up at us.”

Shekhar Sinha

I want to close my day today with a story that Sir Ken Robinson, world renowned creativity expert, is fond of telling. It goes as – An elementary school teacher was giving a drawing class to a group of six-year-old children. At the back of the classroom sat a little girl who normally didn’t pay much attention in school. In the drawing class she did. For more than 20 minutes, the girl sat with her arms curled around her paper, totally absorbed in what she was doing. The teacher found this fascinating. Eventually, she asked the girl what she was drawing. Without looking up the girl said, “I am drawing a picture of God.” Surprised the teacher said, “But nobody knows what God looks like.”

The girl said, “They will in a minute.”

This story is a great reminder to all of us that young children are wonderfully confident in their own imaginations. Most of us lose this confidence as we grow up. Isn’t it true. We are all born with tremendous unique talent but we lose touch with them as we spend more time in the world. Our education system too stifles creativity and is too narrow in assessing capabilities and intelligence. It hardly helps us identify our strengths so that we build on them. 

Do not let people fool you into believing that you can’t do anything big, that you are worthless coz people see the world not as it is but as they themselves are. So only worthless people can tell you that you are worthless. You are capable of achieving any goal if you are passionate about the same. Think for some time…well! when was the last time you really thought.

If you are reading this post make a pledge to think for at least 10 minutes daily. Try to build greater self awareness and team it up with self regulation and motivation. See what wonders you can achieve. We all are born geniuses in our own ways like the girl in the story. You can do anything if you decide to do. Measure yourself against your goals. Compete with yourself and see how you grow faster than possibly you can imagine. Many a times we don’t know what we are capable of until we push our own selves. For next fifteen days just think differently. For next fifteen days analyse why you react to situations and people the way you do. for next fifteen days see yourself more than you see others and their actions. For next fifteen days believe in yourself and act more to get things done. For the next fifteen days observe if you really work 10 hours a day honestly and don’t get demotivated with failures. 

And please answer this, HOW INTELLIGENT ARE YOU, ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10, 10 BEING THE TOP? 

Cheers to a great life ahead…

Shekhar Sinha

This morning I was having coffee with a sales professional from a leading MNC Pharmaceuticals firm who is looking out for opportunities outside his firm. On deeper probing, why he wishes to quit, he suggested that last year he was rated as the best performer in the zone and that he is simply the best among his peers. This best rating he received entirely because of his great skills and passion with which he drives initiatives. He continued, this year the story is not so rosy and he has been cautioned several times by his boss for suboptimal performance.  He said that certain initiatives in his region have not resulted in great results because of bad demand, poor economy, unprofessional team members, stronger promotional spends from competition and so on so forth. And now he feels he may not get expected promotion/growth etc and hence he is looking out. 

Poor Kid, huh, the universe is conspiring to make sure he fails. The conversation reminded me of a chapter, titled, “Don’t Blame Me” in the book “The Art of Thinking Clearly” by Rolf Dobelli (which I am writing for the benefit of those who may not have read the same. Possibly, post reading you may reflect and check if you too belong/don’t belong to the DON’T BLAME ME CLUB.) He terms it as the self serving bias. In short, we attribute success to ourselves and failures to external factors. To make it clear if you do well in an exam, you are a genius and if you don’t, then the paper was not fair. 

So why we do this? One reason Rolf suggests is that it feels good, plus it does not cause any major harm. But Beware, in a modern world with many hidden risks, the self serving bias can quickly lead to catastrophe. We find examples of this everywhere. We manipulate ignorance, guilt, abilities and information to the extent that we fail to see how it boomerangs and hurt us. Some seniors in order to take credit for all the work done by his team, fail to understand the adverse impact it has on morale of other team member/subordinates with whom s/he has to work again. We plagiarise, create information asymmetry, act unprofessionally to see our peers get into difficult situations or to take credit and feel great about the same. We feel no body will know. But the truth is you can’t hide such things for a long time. Many of us seldom try to help our colleagues do better in what they do. In fact some of us hide information that can help our colleagues in performing better for fear of the fact that s/he will rise faster than us. Such display of attitude is cancerous and inflict the growth of firm which directly impacts all of us somewhere. 

Great CEOs / Managers direct credit for a job well done to those who truly deserve it, not to show their greatness but because they genuinely feel so. They think right, act right and live comfortably with the fact that some of their subordinates are better than them. There is greater fun in managing people who are better than you. Don’t spoil their chances by manipulation, instead shape their life for better if you can. Imagine you saying that you shaped early thinking of Indra Nooyi or Sundar Pichai, even if you could never reach their chairs. Today a great junior can help you evolve as a better manager. Have the right attitude to accept that we can have better subordinates than us. I am proud to have at least 5 people in my team, who can drive my firm better than I am doing and I am blessed to have a senior who is ever energetic in shaping right thought processes. I accept, in all humility. 

As I close this post following lines titled, “Isn’t It Strange” by Alfred Tack is worth pondering. Helps us build self awareness. 

If someone else don’t do his work it is because he is lazy. If I don’t do it, it is because we have too much to do.

If someone else criticises, he is carping. If I do, I am trying to be constructive. 

If somebody else sticks to his point of view, he is pig headed. If I won’t budge, it is because I am firm. 

If somebody else omits to seek my views , He is rude. If I neglect to seek his, it is an oversight.     

If somebody else takes his time with things, it is because he is slow. If I do, I am painstaking.

If somebody else is friendly to me, he has an ulterior motive. If I am friendly to him i am quite simply friendly to him.

If somebody else does more than what is asked, he is being officious. If I do, I am showing initiative.

If somebody else sticks up for his rights, he is only thinking of himself. If I stick up for mine, I am showing strength of character.   

Shekhar Sinha