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PURPOSE & IMPACT

Category: Coaching (page 2 of 5)

Cherishing Our Journeys…

February 22, 2020 / / 0 Comments

There is no one perfect path to meaning or joy. There are multiple paths and we travel through our own paths of meaning and purpose. Every journey is special, in our own minds and hearts. There is no need or reason to compare with others. The end of a journey may be the same but the experiences are very different. We are the only ones who can appreciate the depth and breadth of our own experiences and journeys.

We are on our unique journeys. Each one of us has a really interesting story that could be made into a movie – the movie of our life. That involves happiness, joy, sadness, loss, success, failures, relationships, frustrations, struggles, pain, pleasure, meaning….

We evolve through our lives based on all our experiences and choices. There are conscious choices and there are times when circumstances or inner voice nudges us in certain directions. We cross paths with many people through our lifetimes. Some memories, attachments stay longer, and others start dwindling faster with time. The ones that I remember most are times of joy, unique experiences, deep connections, challenges, pain or vulnerability. Many times, memories are brought back through people or other associations.

As the lead character or protagonist in our own movies, we have been there throughout and are the only ones who can understand our evolution through reflections. Others will most probably not share or relate to the same feelings. They may also relate to the different versions of the lead character that they have experienced at different touchpoints. Expectations may vary accordingly. Through this journey, we ideally discover our authentic selves, pure inner voices more and more. Based on some accounts, this movie may play for us at the end of our journeys.

Every journey is interesting, beautiful, precious, unique and meaningful in its own way. Only if every movie could be seen… There is always time to reflect, cherish, find more meaning and joy.

Have you taken the time to reflect, cherish and celebrate your journey?

“If God wanted the sky to be empty, He would not have given birds wings to fly.” 

― Matshona Dhliwayo (goodreads)

Image source:
https://pixabay.com/photos/sand-footsteps-footprints-beach-768783/

Identifying Experts To Follow In Today’s World

January 18, 2020 / / 0 Comments
via pixabay

We live in a world where there are many who claim to be experts or share expert opinions on multiple topics. The amount and impact of ‘pseudo-experts’ seem to be increasing. On all forms of media, lots of expert opinions on varied topics are shared constantly and many people buy into them and trust quickly without realising the quality of information, the individual who is sharing or the actual source. As a result, low quality or unreliable perspectives find lots of eyeballs and mindspace.

I wanted to share 3 tips that have helped me in figuring out right experts, better quality information and perspectives.

1. Understand background and experience, both of the expert and the source

Look for the background, expertise and experiences of the individual(s) in the relevant areas. The quality, depth and breadth of those experiences and their contributions track record over time also matter. Look for how deeply they may have studied that area and shared quality insights. A basic search on the internet or LinkedIn can help. Do note that the number of connections or titles don’t translate to being an expert.

Ideally, there needs to be a mix of conceptual/theoretical and practical experiences for high quality insights and perspectives. Being an expert in one area does not translate automatically to being an expert in other areas. We tend to see that error or bias quite a bit. It also helps to observe who have liked/endorsed them or their insights or shared further. Credibility has to be developed over time and with consistency.

If studies and researches are quoted in articles or conversations, it always helps to see who or where the research was undertaken. Ask the logical questions about the relevance and environment of those studies. The quality of the institution or individuals who undertook the study can be an important factor in the validity of results that are quoted.

2. Openness to alternate views and discussions

The best experts are open to listening, discussing, learning and debating alternate or contradicting views because they understand there are multiple variables to explore, some that they may not have foreseen or others that may be worth learning or engaging further. An open mindset to a quality discussion and exploration improves the outlook of an expert perspective. Keep in mind that we generally tend to read and believe in topics that we want to believe in or have an internal bias towards. We relate better to certain conversational and writing styles.

3. Observe patiently and do your own research over time

Hold off from jumping to conclusions from one expert opinion or view, unless you have done your homework and looked across multiple expert views or studies. The predictiveness of quality is better if you have been tracking someone’s work over time. Even then, it helps to maintain a broad perspective and expand your senses to multiple experts. If the opinion relates to your own area of work, it helps to reflect on your experiences and the links to the perspectives shared.

As a result of all these, the quality of your insight and perspectives will improve over time and chances of being misled will reduce substantially. Your quality of thinking, actions and growth will be on a better curve.

Have other approaches worked for you?

“Logic, it is often said, is the study of valid arguments. It is a systematic attempt to distinguish valid arguments from invalid arguments.” – William H. Newton-Smith
Logic: An Introductory Course (goodreads)

2019 Reflections & Food For Thought

December 27, 2019 / / 0 Comments

As part of a yearly practice and commitment to myself, the last couple of weeks in each year become a time for deep reflection.

I started writing posts in LinkedIn during a difficult personal time in 2014. At that time, my only thought was that it would be meaningful if my writing positively influenced, educated or inspired even couple of individuals. After 5 years (recent slow years in writing), I’m very grateful for the cumulative 25,000 views, 2000 likes and thoughtful comments from readers around the world. That makes all this very meaningful. A deep thank you to all dear friends and readers who keep checking and encouraging.

There are 4 important self-review questions I love to revisit each year:

  1. How did I live my year, especially in the context of things I aspired to do? What have I learned from my experiences, how have I grown?
  2. How much did I live meaningfully? When did I feel in touch with my soul?
  3. What positive impact did I have on the people and environment around me? 
  4. What are key things in life that I am grateful for?

On general observations from 2019, the following 5 themes and questions kept coming back for me. All of these impact businesses and organizations, in some form or the other.

  1. Leadership styles and principles – Looking at events happening around the world and behaviors (including some of the world leaders), is there a fundamental shift to what people respond better to? Where is the topic of ethics headed (with some blatantly obvious public scenarios)?
  2. Everyone has a voice but… – The power of social media and ubiquitous mobile smart devices is that anyone anywhere can share his/her voice and be seen, heard anywhere. However, there is a really important question regarding how much of that is educated/thoughtful or just ‘noise’ devoid of facts?
  3. Short term Vs. Long term – Are we ever more focused on short term (all sides) in all sectors? How much does this impact actions all round?
  4. Increasing Gap in Society – Collectively, it’s really nice to see most people are willing to give and help others during times of difficulties. That said, is the gap between haves and have nots, rich and poor in society increasing to worrying proportions? Are current economic models supporting that in most parts of the world?
  5. Environment – Without doubt, we are at the mercy of mother nature everywhere, whether we like to admit it or not. How much do we really care about preserving our world for a healthy future and how many truly believe that actions today are helping?

Guessing that these topics won’t go away soon but hoping that they will get discussed actively at all levels and evolve positively. How do you see them?

Warm wishes for a wonderful holiday season, Christmas time and New Year!

I sincerely hope that this post leaves you with one positive thought and action. We evolve through all our experiences.

“Reflect upon your present blessings – of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings (goodreads)

For HR professionals – Making Your Voice Heard

July 12, 2017 / / 0 Comments

We recently saw in the press about an employee situation in a leading IT organization in India. HR was blamed by many. There will be many occasions in organizations that involve difficult situations to execute and the pressure seems high. One of the most common reasons cited in such situations is financial pressure.

Many times, a different contradicting view is not raised by HR because of the fear for their own jobs, to avoid conflict with the leaders who are more powerful, whose support is needed and to avoid personal issues. Business leaders play a key role in making their HR teams comfortable and confident for such discussions.

An important lesson for HR professional here is to clearly listen to oneself, think from multiple perspectives and highlight one’s point of view, when experience and conscience clearly tells something is amiss. You have to take responsibility for a decision that you are involved in and highlight concerns at the time of review. When a delicate situation goes out of control later, you will most probably see others pointing towards you, though you were not the only person in that room. Sometimes, these may involve ethical scenarios that can come back and haunt the organization in a major way (eg. recent harassment claims in a prominent U.S. organization). The situation may require you to take a clear stand that sometimes creates tension.

For any professional, it is also important to build your credibility by constantly interacting with all key leaders regarding your points of view. One needs to develop trust, skill, knowledge and credibility to initiate and influence such discussions.

Poor leadership is seen when business or organizational leaders hide behind HR teams for decisions made and don’t feel comfortable communicating themselves. The best business leaders take responsibility for leading their organizations, initiate discussions through leadership channels and actively partner with their HR teams. They form a great partnership to build an engaged culture and everyone wins in the process, especially the organization. As an HR professional, it is important to realize you are ultimately safeguarding the organization and key stakeholder interest when you bring different and sometimes contradicting perspectives to a complex discussion.

I once interacted with a headhunter team who were sourcing for a HR Head in a startup. They seemed to become upset and dismissive on being asked related questions and ended up responding quite unprofessionally. It made me wonder that if they could not tolerate detailed questions about the organization while searching for an HR leader, what sort of HR professional and team would be hired.

We see this aspect become increasingly relevant for organizations to acknowledge. Many times, issues and scenarios go out of control because of the “How”, not the “What”. In today’s world, where everyone has access to both channels and sources of information, the professional and balanced HR perspective internally or externally, becomes critical for every professional and organization to develop, succeed and thrive.

What Do I See Or Hear? My Point Of View?

December 13, 2016 / / 0 Comments

We have arrived at the start of the last month of an eventful year.

During December last year, I wrote Another Year…Questions To Reflect On…. Those questions are still worth revisiting.

While thinking about my December post for this year, I wanted to touch something that is very relevant and would connect my personal observations to things happening around the world.

Many intense social media discussions involving individuals around the world with diverse, many times contradictory and conflicting perspectives came to the forefront this year. Social media and the increasingly digital world have given everyone a voice. It was not the differing perspectives that stood out for me but rather the quality of (or lack of) open debate or conversation and the increasing reliance on flimsy information.

While mobile devices, access to the internet, information and social media have become prevalent, one thing that is noticeable is the ease and quickness with which many of us (irrespective of whether we are from the developing or developed world) can be misguided. Is the reading habit overall on the decline? What or who influences our perspectives and points of view?

Recognition of quality sources of information seems to be a challenge. Many jump to quick conclusions and fail to do a secondary search or verification, think deeper of what they have seen or heard before developing a point of view. There seems to be a danger of a substantial number of us being misguided, ignorant or unaware. Companies like Google and Facebook seem to be getting serious about finding and taking out false news in their networks. There seems to be too much ‘noise’ that seems to win attention many times, even in the networks of LinkedIn.

The ability to discern quality among the big waves of information that we come across will become a distinguishing and important skill. 

To help ourselves from falling into these traps and developing a healthy point of view, consider three simple points while navigating through what we see or hear in today’s world.

  1. Seek quality information always and try to see if there are inherent conflicts of interest for whoever is sharing it. 
  2. Always review the relevance, experience, expertise of the author or content provider with regards to the topic and the source of your information. Look at the history, background, consistency, credibility and trust factor for your source.
  3. Use more than one source of information before concluding on your point of view. Even a minor difference in perspective could enrich the quality of your thinking and point of view.

This approach requires exercising more patience, a curious mindset and openness before finalizing your point of view on any topic and it is well worth the effort. Perhaps, it is high time that this awareness starts from the education system itself.

As a professional in any area, do remember that your perspectives and thoughts show up in your actions, work and life and personal brand. Are they worth your consideration?

“But I think that no matter how smart, people usually see what they’re already looking for…” – Veronica Roth, Allegiant (Goodreads)

An Approach To Differentiate And Stand Out At Work Anywhere

December 13, 2016 / / 0 Comments

 

This situation plays out constantly in multiple local and multinational environments. A customer walks to a service counter (banks, hotels, airlines etc.), government/corporate office or store with a need for support from the staff.

If the staff member’s response focuses on why your request cannot be processed, won’t work or only through a difficult and inconvenient set of steps, you feel dissatisfied with the service and think it was a waste of time. If you notice a similar continuing trend with the same individual, you will try to avoid interaction with that staff member in future.

If the professional’s response and action focuses on the solutions or alternatives for you as the customer, you feel happy and more satisfied.

It is important to be aware that we ourselves could be in that situation.

The key differentiator for any professional here is your focus and approach to a solution. When your focus and actions are aligned to working out solutions and not getting stuck in problems, your customers prefer to return to you and recognize you as a professional who can get things done efficiently for them. 

While it is important to understand, acknowledge and think through the problem at hand, what matters more for your customer is where your focus, energy and communication are directed. We see many professionals who get stuck in the process or problem side.

On the other side, as customers ourselves as well, it is worthwhile to think how willing and flexible we are.

Even though this is not a new concept or idea, we encounter such scenarios very regularly in our daily lives. It therefore becomes really important to remind ourselves and others about this simple yet powerful message.

Our Journeys In Career And Life – Thoughts From One

November 4, 2016 / / 2 Comments

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I just got back from a journey that involved crossing some of the highest motorable passes and terrains in the world. It was a tough yet breathtaking trip and some time in the wilderness led to reflections and analogies in career and life.

  • To reach a beautiful destination, we pass through tough terrains and hardships.
  • The breathtaking destination is worth the difficult journey.
  • Sometimes, our focus on the destination results in us missing the great beauty during the journey.
  • The journey is most enjoyed when we find a traveling pace that suits us the most. Others’ recommendations and experiences only serve as guideposts.
  • In order to truly enjoy our journey, we need to take appropriate breaks.
  • The journey seems long and slow when we are in the middle of one but in hindsight, it seems to have gone by fast. Be aware to enjoy, experience and cherish the beauty in those moments. In the end of our journey, we remember clearly few emotional moments.
  • When the journey seems challenging and tiring, we inevitably go through moments of difficulties and frustrations. Those moments serve as opportunities to observe, learn about, manage ourselves better and seek our inner peace.
  • In our journey, we cross paths with fellow travelers, sometimes coincidentally and sometimes planned. Some of these meetings are momentary, some involve few more moments of interactions, some may cross paths again in future journeys and some become deeper and our companions. We may never see many again. Sometimes, small crossings leave lasting impressions. Every crossing helps each other’s evolution and leaves us with experiences and learning.
  • The quality of relationship with our fellow traveler(s) is not decided by whether we go through challenging scenarios or differing view points during the journey but in the strength of the overall belief in supporting each other and the ability to bounce back from difficult moments without holding any unnecessary thoughts or feelings.
  • It is important to find our own meaning in our journey. The experience from the same journey and destination can be very different for different people.

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere…”
– Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Goodreads)

 (First posted in LinkedIn on October 1, 2016)

Make Yourself Irrelevant For Higher Growth & Impact

January 14, 2016 / / 0 Comments

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We tend to believe that if we stay important, at least in perception and hold on to the things we do that normally make us feel important, we become invaluable to our business and organization.  This leads to many interesting and unhealthy behaviors – including holding on to information without sharing openly, reluctance to collaborate, unwillingness to share resources, making others feel insecure, and controlling or micromanaging.  We continue to move on superficially without self reflection, personal growth and reach a stage where our egos and fears prevent us from stepping out of our comfort zones – until a major change inevitably hits us and forces us to rethink.

It may be surprising to hear and sometimes hard to accept but making yourself irrelevant will make you more valuable to the business and yourself as a leader and human being.

What does ‘making yourself irrelevant’ mean?
This means empowering and enabling team members to take up some of your important responsibilities and more.  This does not mean stepping away from your leadership responsibilities or not managing.  This also does not mean dropping your troubles and issues on others.  Rather, this is about transitioning your role to leading, developing, transitioning from being a possessive individual contributor to focusing on high impact areas for organizational success today and in the future.

Why is this important?
You create more opportunities for team members to continuously stretch, learn and grow.  You create more space for yourself and the organization for reflection, insight and action.

How can you as a leader start in this journey?
Let go of few elements that you’re currently doing for your team members.  Take a step back, let them own those elements and drive them.  Coach, support them and provide constant feedback and recognition.  Be patient through the process and reflect on the learning together.  Encourage your members to take on more challenges afterward.  Constantly build confidence.  Invite members to join key conversations and discussions.  Let them feel included.  In most cases, your team members  will step up, be happy and grateful for the opportunities to do more impactful work.

As a result, you’ll create more space for yourself as a leader to reflect, do more impactful work, innovate and explore untapped areas in personal and organizational effectiveness.  You’ll create opportunities for others to grow and do more meaningful work.  The extra space created will help stretch your thinking.  During the initial phase, it is normal to feel uncomfortable and insecure as you let go of perceived important elements or activities.  Self-compassion is important.  You’ll become more agile and adaptable to change from both the individual and organizational perspectives.  The business and organization will gain tremendously.  You will be respected as someone who can build more leaders and leadership in your organization.

Doing this successfully and developing this capability as a manager or leader will bring you more (many times bigger) opportunities within your organization. More talented individuals will want to join your team.  If not, there will be other great opportunities waiting outside.

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