Productivity of an organization is a collaborative effort of all the stack holders where:
There are no misunderstandings….managers communicate clearly the tasks to be performed by the employees….
Good listening skills empower the staff to correctly perceive and work in tandem… gathering the relevant data and presenting to the higher ups for policy decisions….
All above and many more productivity relating activities depend on communications. Therefore, good communication skills form the nucleus of a progressive organization. Clear effective communications at all level are necessary for an organization to prosper. The wastages are cutout and both the employees and customers find their satisfaction using this highly effective tool. Let’s look at the following:
Good Communications Avoid Misunderstanding: Misunderstandings created by poor communications can be very expensive to the organization. The resulting confusion can cause heavy losses. Unclear instructions often make the juniors confused and afraid to clarify. The result is disastrous.
Effective Communications Provide Direction: The team efforts have to be aligned with the company’s vision and goals. It’s only when all concerned contribute to the goals that both top line and bottom line rise. This is not possible without effective communication.
Healthy Communications Breed Healthy Culture: every organization carves out a culture of its own. When the staff members coming from different backgrounds effectively communicate with each other, corporate culture becomes healthy. Therefore good training in communications is critical towards promoting a healthy corporate culture.
Focused Articulate Communication Encourages Accountability: It’s only when an organization practices effective communications skills that the staff are empowered to keep one another accountable. Effective communication provides such instruction as enables each employee to know exactly what is expected of him/her. In the process a good level of accountability with one another is maintained. This in turn increases productivity.
In the competitive environment of today, business houses have to harness their resources to maintain an edge in the market place. This is possible only if at every level clear, lucid communications are practiced.
Thanks for reading.
Month: August 2014
Fear- a Bane or a Boon?
Most people suffer fear in certain situations or at some point of life. But some people may say that they never experience fear. They are the ones who don’t speak the truth. Fear is a normal human response to very challenging tasks. However, it becomes a bane if a person suffers fear without any reason. If they suffer from unfounded fears. The funny thing is, we meet such people in abundance. This is funny as well as unfortunate.
According to Bertrand Russell, many a time the source of fear is superstition. Cruelty of one kind or the other also causes fear. The management professionals are often attacked by this malady if they are perfectionists. There is nothing perfect in life. One may say only nature is perfect. All human beings have only to work towards achieving perfection which happens to be mirage.
One American once said that his life had been full of misfortunes which never took place. Fear of death is worse than the death itself. Left to itself, fear grows from bad to worse. Fear follows the most important of the Murphy’s laws – ‘left to themselves things go from bad to worse’
If this is the case and what should one do? Fear is a question. First of all you have to answer it yourself. What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the doctor goes in to the history of the disease to find a cure, you have to bring to light all the reasons which had been the cause of your fears. And then you have to use fear as your friend. Tell yourself, ‘fear is here with its gift of energy and heightened awareness’. In this situation you can learn the best lessons of your life and act most efficiently. In fact heightened feelings enhance your productivity. You achieve greater heights. Since we know that fear robs our mind of power of reason and action, we should fight it out by doing things we fear the most. You must try to start or take action in a project which you have been procrastinating for a long time. That you can do by invoking your courage. And what is courage? ‘Courage is fear that has said its prayers’, as wittily explained by Dorothy Bertrand.
Remember fear is a dark room where negatives are developed. So don’t get in to this dark room. Fortune helps the brave!
Thanks for reading.
Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov was born in 29th January 1860 and died on 15th July 1904. Though he was a doctor by profession, he is remembered as one of the finest short story writers in the world. Some of his stories have been adapted as plays, films etc. He died young at the age of 44 years. He practiced his medical profession throughout his literary career. Jocularly, he would say ‘medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress.’ 
Young Anton.
He also wrote a number of plays. These are: ‘Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard’. However his play ‘The seagull’ was a big flop. That’s why he stopped writing plays. He introduced stream of consciousness technique in his stories. This was well ahead of time. But his treatment of this technique was quite simple and therefore his stories are merited by one and all. Later Russian literary writers lauded creativity of technique and his imagination.
Painting of Anton Chekhov.
He had to spend lot of time attending to his patients. At times, they would come from far of places. He had also to visit the patients who could not come to his clinic. Such visits were time consuming but he continued. His interaction with patients gave him lot of material which he used in literary creations.
Anton with Leo Tolstoy.
Today is his death anniversary. Our deepest regards to one of the greatest short story writer the world had seen so far.
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3 Aspects of Personality.
Simply said, any person must assess himself/herself on the 3 important aspects of personality: i) Acquiring knowledge ii) Developing an ability to explain what you know iii) Using your knowledge for your work and activities.
- Acquiring Knowledge: One acquires knowledge with formal educations. More importantly practical knowledge is acquired once you entered your business or profession. Every day can give us some lesson provided we sit down and contemplate to review the day. So knowledge is a continuous, never ending process. Even when we have learnt something in our formal education, we may have to supplement the same with additional information during life.
- Ability to transfer knowledge: Anything that we do is a collaborative effort, today. Thus, you have to communicate your ideas, your views and so on. Unless you are adept in this aspect of personality, your growth will have some kind of limitation. So ability to transfer knowledge and make others do what you want to them to do is crucial to the success of your project. If there is any deficiency in this ability to communicate, the same will show in the progress of the project.
- Putting knowledge to work: One may have acquired great knowledge but unless they put it to use its value will never be discovered. So, thoughts are not enough. Thoughts must be converted in to action. It is the action which can bring about any result. The more efforts you put in, the better results are rewarded. But one should never have the expectation that all efforts will bring in results. Some time you work very hard but the result are not commensurate with the amount of efforts made. That is the way life works. No one should ever expect the poetic justice in life.
It is observed that those who excel in the first aspect of personality may become philosophers and the kind. They are generally good advisors but not so good in performance. They need to develop a perspective so that they are not lost in the ocean of knowledge. Knowledge is unending, indeed. They have to limit themselves to what is needed by them.
Other people, who are quiet, apply their mind and rely more on action. They are often the risk takers. They are the mostly likely people to become business leaders. They hire people for various functions which they feel that they are not able to perform. But because of their rich and sometime checkered experience, they have a lot to talk about. But they tend to become self centered.
People who develop excellent ability to transfer knowledge become teachers, lecturers, public speakers, trainers and performers. The nucleolus of their progress always remains communication skills. The world today, is heading toward the situation where communication skills have assumed a great importance. We spend more time on conference calls, on social media, on organizing/conducting/participating in meetings and so on. The human communication skills have only brought about all the progress that we see around us. During the last century world has seen maximum material progress which has been achieved with maximum communicative collaboration.
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Thoughts are Important
Thought is a process of using your mind to consider something. Thought can also be a product of that process which may be known as idea. Such a thought or an idea is conscious deliberation but we get many thoughts without our conscious effort. Thus, we may be thinking of certain things at most inopportune times. For example during our prayer, if we are not able to concentrate, certain unhappy, weird or even obscene thoughts may just crop in. At times, it is difficult to control thoughts. It requires constant efforts on the part of our consciousness to meditate on certain topics. When we are totally involved in the process only then unnecessary unrelated thoughts can be kept at bay.
Positive Thoughts
We must have only positive thoughts. These positive thoughts will encourage us to take action on the decisions that we make. Wandering thoughts are a waste. Haphazard thinking on a subject or a problem will not lead us anywhere. So the important point is that we must have an objective before starting to meditate on any subject. Solutions to problems can be found or worked out only after deep thinking, focusing or meditating on the subject.
How to secure positive thoughts? Positive environment will surely help breed positive thoughts. When you see only good things, listen and read good material, it will help generating positive thoughts. Thus, we should expose ourselves to decent and encouraging media. It’s also good to have role model/models that would influence our thoughts. Since thoughts also depends on our interaction with others, so good progressive people as our contacts will be helpful.
Our Wishes and Desires
Our wishes and desires also influence our thoughts. Therefore it is best to fix goals: short term goals, medium term goals and long term goals. After crystallizing the goals it’s necessary to devise action points and to act on these. At the same time, reviewing them regularly is necessary. Such a course of action will surely carve out the course of our thoughts. Since we can always school our desires or wishes which should be positive we will be able to generate positive thoughts.
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Goals, Thoughts and Action
Once we have fixed our goals and our action points, if we keep on thinking about these, we will be encourage to take action. When we action our plan it gives satisfaction. This in turn enhances our self esteem and believe in ourselves. On the one side we moved towards achievement of our goals, on the other we are creating an environment for nurturing positive thoughts.
It may also be worth to think of our major achievements of the past. We may have had identify the pillars of our success but recollecting this is also helpful. At the same time lessons that we have learnt from our failures during the past should also not be ignored.
On an average an individual has around 50000 thoughts during 24 hours. The above process will control our thoughts during the period that we are awake. However thought process continuous during our sleep. These cause various dreams good or bad. Our day to day positive thoughts and believe in ourselves is bound to have positive impact on our thoughts during the sleeping hours.
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Speech Controls Your Life.
Yes, your speech does control your life. When you say something, it’s a kind of commitment you are making to your own self. Therefore it is significant. Your speech depends on your thoughts. It is instrumental to your actions. So the speech is connected with both, your thoughts and your actions. When you are careful about what your say, in fact you are controlling your actions. Further it also means rejecting some of your thoughts and selecting some others. On an average an individual has 60,000 thoughts during 24 hours. Even when you sleep, thoughts keep working in your mind. But your conscious speech surely tries to give some direction to your thoughts.
Knowledge depends on what we read, our interactions with other people and our experiences. All these form the background material. It is upon us to make choices on what to use and how to use. Some people do not learn from their own experiences, however bad. They keep on making the same mistakes again and again. Shakespeare’s tragedies explain the phenomenon in greater detail. Each of the tragic heroes of his plays is inflicted by a habit which in the end causes his destruction. In Shakespearian literature, it is known as the tragic flaw.
One may argue that it is only fiction and has no relation with life. These tragic plays were written about 500 years ago. The tragic flaw or the destructive habit may be an exaggerated one. Yet, if we look at our lives closely, we will find that many of us keep making the same mistakes again and again. These faults are known to others through our speech and/or dependant actions. Often these are also known to us. But if we strictly control our speech these faults will also be controlled. We can change our lives altogether.
Some people are prone to corruption due to greed. Some others are obsessed with power. Even though we all know that arrogance is not good, yet many are extremely arrogant. They cause immense harm to the society and often to themselves as well. Arrogance or any other personality flaw is evident in our communications. These are visible to others as well as known to us. The moment we decide to control our speech, these flaws are also controlled. What you speak and how you speak also displays your manners and culture.
I consider that for most of us who are fortunate to be blessed with 3 basic needs i.e. food, shelter and clothing; speech becomes the most important human need. Thus desire to express is important. Leaders lead by expressing what is good for the persons they lead. Their expression or speech surely impacts their behavior and actions. Likewise people who want to progress in their respective fields have to use their speech with discretion.
Now let us see how to create and maintain good communication. The Bhagwad Gita emphasizes that clear, controlled speech is a great human asset. In order to have good voice and develop clarity in speech one has to practice deep breathing. Besides you have to maintain good health by taking proper care of your food, exercise, abstention from worrying and tensions. Thus when you are caring for your speech you are also looking after your health. Deep breathing as a habit empowers you with more enthusiasm as you consume more oxygen. Deep breathing is also a requirement of good speech.
Throughout the world we have good examples that great leaders have excelled with their excellent speeches. Our own Mr. Narendra Modi is a shining example.
Thanks for reading.
William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare was born in April 1564. Some people say he was born on 22nd April others opine 23rd April 1564. He died at the age of 52 years on 23rd April 1660 that means almost 400 years ago.
How is it that his popularity as a dramatist has not faded out? The reason is his philosophy, the wisdom that we find in his plays and the energizing wit and humor of his comedy. In fact, these transcend the limits of time and space. He has dealt with human emotions – anger, ambition, jealousy, credulity, indecision etc: these habits are found in the people even today.
In this post I propose to discuss his wisdom as is evident from the 3 pieces I have picked from 3 different plays.
HAMLET
Hamlet was a victim of indecision. Indecision was the bane of his life. Unfortunately today also we find many of us suffer from indecision. In the process we undergoavoidable mental agony. I give below the oft quoted words of Hamlet.
To be, or not to be: that is the question: whether’ it’s nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?
In sharp contrast are the following words taken from his play As You Like It.
As You Like It.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
These words, I find, are even more relevant today than were in his own time. ‘Exempt from Public Haunt’- we are in dire need of getting a break and going to the nature from our daily hectic life. And the best place is back to the nature. We have lots of resorts by the sea side, on the scenic mountains, and similar places where we are away from ‘Public Haunt’. As Shakespeare says we can speak to the trees enjoy running brooks/trees and find all the goodness of the world in nature.
Finally I have picked up a very significant point from the tragedy- Macbeth. :
Macbeth
When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors.
The philosophy of this word is as true today as at any time. Often we do not want to act as Williams yet due to our fears we are motivated to indulge. In many other plays to I find Shakespeare’s massage to imbibe courage in ones personality, speaks louder than words.
Thank you for reading.
