One. Persistent pursuit of knowledge
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.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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 centred.
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 organising/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.
Two. Accept Failures Without any Grudge
Most people suffer fear in certain situations or at some point of life. Often times it is fear of failure. 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!
Three. Planning Projects and other Important Activities in Details
Planning your activities in each day is important. Here I don’t talk about time management but I am talking about life management. If you want to hear a work life balance it’s necessary that you contemplate about it every day. Most successful people get up early in the morning and spend a few minutes On working out what they need to do in the forthcoming days. They know that it’s necessary to include all such activities which will bring about work life balance. None of your goals can be achieved without a plan of action. No business can be started without it detailed business plan. Plan defines your path. You know where you are heading and where you need to go.
But everything is changing so fast that oftentimes you have to modify your plan. A plan can be modified but basic structure remains the same.
It is said that if you plan your day every day, your activities will work out your plan and contribute to your plan for any particular objective. Just as any daunting task needs to be decided into smaller bits in order to make it workable, your plan for the year needs to be subdivided into monthly plans which can be put to action in your daily activities. In fact planning each step persistently is critical to realise your overall plan. Besides, you must review the progress each day .
Four.Managing the best Human Resource with Utmost Discretion
I had written a poem on time some time back. I repeat some of the lines of the poems to my students to find the message deserving careful consideration. The same lines are repeated:
‘Value of time is often little known
For time’s inherent wealth scanty respect is shown. Any other possession if you happen to lose
you can hope to get it back If you choose.
Wealth of time will never return
Simple lesson though many of us don’t ever learn. Every moment of time you must use
to achieve anything, you may choose.’
In the changing environment I think Time and its proper use have become critical. Fat salaries for corporate CEO’s require harsher targets for the team to achieve. Undoubtedly, this creates great pressure on him. He tends to lose the simple joys of life like quiet reflection in the morning besides yoga or exercise, spending quality time with his family and pursuing at least one hobby seriously that he loves the most.
The good thing for the CEO is that today he/she cannot be fooled by just sweet words or clever flattery. Performance appraisal is based on the real time strategic figures which are computed instantly.
Therefore it is necessary for each one of us to do the following:
Prepare the time log
Work out our priorities each day
Use time planners
Think positively and always put our plan into action.
Each day the tasks can be categorised as under:
Group 1: Routine tasks
Group 2: Ongoing projects
Group 3: Planning and development
Ideally, the maximum time of about 50-60% should be allocated to Group 3 activities. Group 2 activities deserve 25% and Group 1 just 15 %. However in practice we find there we consume 60% of our time in routine jobs, 25% on ongoing projects and just 15% on group 3 i.e. planning and development.
Just give it a serious thought and try to make best use of your time which never comes back. You must spend some quality time with your family.
Thanks for reading.
