Thomas Edison was 67 years of age when his lab caught fire and everything was in flames. He was laughing aloud and his son thought he had a nervous breakdown because his lifelong work was destroyed. Then Edison told his son “ Charles, there is a great value in disaster; thank God, all are mistakes are burnt and we can start afresh.” Within a week, he invented the phonograph successfully. This is the winner’s attitude.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
THE ROPE .........
The night fell heavy in the heights of the mountains and the man could not
see anything. All was black. Zero visibility, and the moon and the stars were
covered by the clouds.
As he was climbing only a few feet away from the top of the mountain, he
slipped and fell in to the air, falling at great speed. He could only see black
spots as he went down, and the terrible sensation of being sucked by gravity.
He kept falling. and in the moments of great fear, it came to his mind all the
good and bad episodes of his life. He was thinking now about how close
death was getting, when all of a sudden he felt the rope tied to his waist pull
him very hard. His body was hanging in the air !
Only the rope was holding him and in that moment of stillness he had no
other choice other to scream:
"Help me God".
All of a sudden a deep voice coming from the sky answered :
"What do you want me to do?"
"Save me God".
“ Do you really think I can save you?"
"Of course I believe You can."
"Then cut the rope tied to your waist."…….
There was a moment of stunned silence and the man decided to hold on to
the rope with all his strength.
The rescue team tells that the next day a climber was found dead and frozen.
his body hanging from a rope. His hands holding tight to it
see anything. All was black. Zero visibility, and the moon and the stars were
covered by the clouds.
As he was climbing only a few feet away from the top of the mountain, he
slipped and fell in to the air, falling at great speed. He could only see black
spots as he went down, and the terrible sensation of being sucked by gravity.
He kept falling. and in the moments of great fear, it came to his mind all the
good and bad episodes of his life. He was thinking now about how close
death was getting, when all of a sudden he felt the rope tied to his waist pull
him very hard. His body was hanging in the air !
Only the rope was holding him and in that moment of stillness he had no
other choice other to scream:
"Help me God".
All of a sudden a deep voice coming from the sky answered :
"What do you want me to do?"
"Save me God".
“ Do you really think I can save you?"
"Of course I believe You can."
"Then cut the rope tied to your waist."…….
There was a moment of stunned silence and the man decided to hold on to
the rope with all his strength.
The rescue team tells that the next day a climber was found dead and frozen.
his body hanging from a rope. His hands holding tight to it
………………………….
………………………….
………………………….
………………………….
………………………….
.................................
................................
Only 1 foot away from the ground !!
Only 1 foot away from the ground !!
Do you believe enough to let go of the Rope ?
Friday, March 12, 2010
How to Stay Positive...when the boss isn’t
A very good article telling the importance of staying positive.....
“Never wrestle with a pig because you’ll both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
How to Stay Positive...when the boss isn’t
I speak to a lot of organizations on the importance of positive leadership and the benefits of building a positive culture that fuels performance. Yet, the most common question I receive after my talk is: “Jon, this makes so much sense but my boss isn’t that kind of leader/manager. So how do I stay positive when my boss isn’t?” It’s a question I know well. I remember when I worked in business development during the dot.com boom and bust. I had a very negative boss and one day I made a few decisions that changed everything. The Energy Bus wasn’t even a thought in my mind yet, but looking back I was already putting the principles into action.
Here are few suggestions that I hope will help you, your team and maybe even your boss.
1. Make Your Bus Great - You may not be the leader of your organization. You may not be driving the "big bus." But you can decide to make your bus great. Every day just focus on being the best you can be and bring out the best in others, tuning out everything else. Tune out the negativity. Tune out the comments. Tune out anything you can’t control. You can’t drive anyone else’s bus. Just drive your bus and make it a great ride.
2. Your Positive Energy Must be Greater than All of the Negativity - In the book Power vs Force, author David Hawkins, MD shares research that 80 percent of the population vibrates to a negative frequency. The fact is negativity is all around us. It’s not just your boss . It’s everywhere. You must remember that your positive energy must be greater than all the negativity. As country wisdom suggests, “Never wrestle with a pig because you’ll both get dirty and the pig likes it.” Instead stay above the fray. Positive energy is much more powerful than negative energy. If you stay positive, the negativity can’t touch you.
3. Live it, Breathe it, Share it - Walt Whitman said we convince by our presence. If you truly focus on being positive and sharing it in an authentic and sincere way then you will do a lot of convincing. Your boss will sense something different in you and they will change the way they behave towards you. They may even ask what’s changed in your life.
4. Invite Your Boss on Your Bus - Give your boss The Energy Bus or another book on positive leadership. I’ve received countless emails from leaders who received The Energy Bus from their employees and it changed the way they lead. Best of all, the leader then invited the rest of the company on the bus. So don’t think you can’t change your situation or organization. You can. I’m convinced that very few people want to be negative. Most people are negative because of stress, busyness, and fear. Most people just need a wake-up call to break out of their rut. Decide to be a beacon of light that shines on others. You’ll be amazed at what happens.
5. If Your Boss Doesn’t Change, You Can - If all else fails then you have a choice. You can decide to stay positive and outlast your boss knowing that truth shines through and eventually a negative boss won’t last - ultimately their team will fall apart, results will suffer and they will be asked off the bus. Or you can decide to change your job. A lot of people do this and that’s why the best cultures that focus on positive leadership attract the best employees. Whatever you do, however, don’t allow a negative boss or colleague to get you down. With 80% of the population being negative, we need positive powerful people like you to offset the negativity.
I speak to a lot of organizations on the importance of positive leadership and the benefits of building a positive culture that fuels performance. Yet, the most common question I receive after my talk is: “Jon, this makes so much sense but my boss isn’t that kind of leader/manager. So how do I stay positive when my boss isn’t?” It’s a question I know well. I remember when I worked in business development during the dot.com boom and bust. I had a very negative boss and one day I made a few decisions that changed everything. The Energy Bus wasn’t even a thought in my mind yet, but looking back I was already putting the principles into action.
Here are few suggestions that I hope will help you, your team and maybe even your boss.
1. Make Your Bus Great - You may not be the leader of your organization. You may not be driving the "big bus." But you can decide to make your bus great. Every day just focus on being the best you can be and bring out the best in others, tuning out everything else. Tune out the negativity. Tune out the comments. Tune out anything you can’t control. You can’t drive anyone else’s bus. Just drive your bus and make it a great ride.
2. Your Positive Energy Must be Greater than All of the Negativity - In the book Power vs Force, author David Hawkins, MD shares research that 80 percent of the population vibrates to a negative frequency. The fact is negativity is all around us. It’s not just your boss . It’s everywhere. You must remember that your positive energy must be greater than all the negativity. As country wisdom suggests, “Never wrestle with a pig because you’ll both get dirty and the pig likes it.” Instead stay above the fray. Positive energy is much more powerful than negative energy. If you stay positive, the negativity can’t touch you.
3. Live it, Breathe it, Share it - Walt Whitman said we convince by our presence. If you truly focus on being positive and sharing it in an authentic and sincere way then you will do a lot of convincing. Your boss will sense something different in you and they will change the way they behave towards you. They may even ask what’s changed in your life.
4. Invite Your Boss on Your Bus - Give your boss The Energy Bus or another book on positive leadership. I’ve received countless emails from leaders who received The Energy Bus from their employees and it changed the way they lead. Best of all, the leader then invited the rest of the company on the bus. So don’t think you can’t change your situation or organization. You can. I’m convinced that very few people want to be negative. Most people are negative because of stress, busyness, and fear. Most people just need a wake-up call to break out of their rut. Decide to be a beacon of light that shines on others. You’ll be amazed at what happens.
5. If Your Boss Doesn’t Change, You Can - If all else fails then you have a choice. You can decide to stay positive and outlast your boss knowing that truth shines through and eventually a negative boss won’t last - ultimately their team will fall apart, results will suffer and they will be asked off the bus. Or you can decide to change your job. A lot of people do this and that’s why the best cultures that focus on positive leadership attract the best employees. Whatever you do, however, don’t allow a negative boss or colleague to get you down. With 80% of the population being negative, we need positive powerful people like you to offset the negativity.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
SECRET OF SUCCESS
A young man asked Socrates the secret of success. Socrates told the young man to meet him near the river the next morning. They met. Socrates asked the young man to walk with him into the river. When the water got up to their neck, Socrates took the young man by surprise and swiftly ducked him into the water.
The boy struggled to get out but Socrates was strong and kept him there until the boy started turning blue. Socrates pulled the boy’s head out of the water and the first thing the young man did was to gasp and take a deep breath of air.
Socrates asked him, "what did you want the most when you were there?" The boy replied, "Air". Socrates said, "That is the secret of success! When you want success as badly as you wanted the air, then you will get it!" There is no other secret.
The boy struggled to get out but Socrates was strong and kept him there until the boy started turning blue. Socrates pulled the boy’s head out of the water and the first thing the young man did was to gasp and take a deep breath of air.
Socrates asked him, "what did you want the most when you were there?" The boy replied, "Air". Socrates said, "That is the secret of success! When you want success as badly as you wanted the air, then you will get it!" There is no other secret.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Obstacles Of Life
In ancient times, a king had a stone placed on a roadway. Then he hides himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the big stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the rock, the rural person laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the rock had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the rock from the roadway. The peasant learned what many others never understand.
Moral of the Story: Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's condition.
Moral of the Story: Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's condition.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
"STAYING ON"
WORRIED A KEY MEMBER OF YOUR TEAM COULD LEAVE ?
THE SOLUTION:
DO A `STAY INTERVIEW' AND HOPEFULLY, YOU MAY NEVER HAVE TO DO AN EXIT INTERVIEW.
Yasmin Taj finds more about this new trend
What do you like about your work? What would keep you here? What makes for a great day at work? Is there anything you would like to change about your job? Do you feel supported in your career goals? Do you feel we recognize you? What kind of recognition do you like? Never heard these questions before? Well, then you might get to hear such kind of questions very soon as a new concept is catching up in HR - `stay interviews'.
According to S Y Siddiqui, Managing Executive Officer, Administration (HR, Finance and IT), Maruti Suzuki India Limited, "Stay interviews are becoming a trend and they are now used to reinforce good HR practices within the company. The concept is based on the `Hawthorne Effect', which states that people who are given attention are a ''motivated lot. The employee needs to be heard since they feel good about being heard." "When job-hopping is the rule rather than an exception and when employee retention has become a critical issue, every company wants to know about those factors that can keep an employee engaged and committed, and stay interviews help the organisations in gathering these hard facts," opines Siddiqui.
Employers are now running from pillar to post in order to do all they can to retain their employees.Though traditionally, organisations used to hold exit interviews with employees who were resigning in order to get their perspective on the organisation and the work culture, it was of not much help to both the employee and the employer.
LENDING AN EAR
"Asking employees at the time of quitting why they are leaving is like asking your spouse how to improve a marriage on the day before the divorce is final. By that time it's just too late," states Hari Nair, Vice President - Human Resources, Sona Koyo Steering Systems Limited. "Stay interviews have been used all along but under different nomenclature - in the form of appraisals and consulting sessions. It is an employee sensing exercise, to detect early warning signals, to know about compensatory expectations so that the company can make a proactive correction at the right time before the employee announces that he/she is leaving. So, it's almost like preventive health care," adds Nair. "Stay interviews are actually an outcome of Harvard Business School's research and recommendation three decades ago, although it has caught up only in recent times. Exit interviews find out why employees leave, while stay interviews focus on what makes employees stay with the company, and thereby an opportunity for the company to do more of those things employees like most," says C Mahalingam, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, Symphony Services Corporation.
At a time when attrition is considered the biggest problem across industries and organisations are trying out all options to make their employees stick around, stay interviews might just be the right step. "The objective and purpose of conducting stay interview is primarily to listen to the employees' views, aspirations and comfort levels, to identify the areas of improvement and read the pulse that is to map the expectations of employees. HR is now looking at the `pull' rather than the `push' factor among employees," states Siddiqui.
NEED OF THE HOUR
A stay interview should aim at sensitivity listening, collecting feedback from employees, identifying the strengths as well as areas of improvements, developing trust and confidence with the employees and ensuring freedom of expression and problem sharing. "We, at Maruti, conduct this process through various forums, such as meeting with department/division al heads, coffee with HR, tea group with Head HR and tea group with MD – Maruti," informs Siddiqui.
At Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd, the concept of stay interviews is considered positive and has an empowering approach. "Stay interviews focus on what is going right, rather than what went wrong.This is highly relevant in the Indian context where every industry is making a hue and cry about the challenge they face in attracting and retaining the right talent," suggests Nair.
For Nair,"The need of such an interview was felt when the corrective action taken after exit interview was not able to contribute much on identifying the real cause of attrition. In some of the cases when the decision was deferred by addressing the significant few reasons of quitting the job, the insignificant many tends to pile up to backfire. Companies these days understand the need for constant engagement with employees. Stay interviews for them have become an indispensable tool to retain their workforce by making employees feel appreciated and motivated."
But then, don't exit interviews do the same? "Contrary to exit interviews, stay interviews are conducted to understand the reasons why the employees wish to continue working for the organisation. Stay interviews should be conducted once in six months. However, this depends on the size of the organisation, " explains Nair. "Similarly stay interviews are more proactive, focus on the positive emotions of people who are enjoying their stay in their company and are able to point to things that the company is doing and should do more of because they are very appy about those things," adds Mahalingam. The huge challenge of retaining talent can be solved to a large extent by adopting the concept of stay interviews and understanding the psyche and needs of the employees. This breakthrough is certainly going to be big in the future.
Publication:Times of India Mumbai; Section:Times Ascent;
Date: Mar 19, 2008; Page Number: 44
THE SOLUTION:
DO A `STAY INTERVIEW' AND HOPEFULLY, YOU MAY NEVER HAVE TO DO AN EXIT INTERVIEW.
Yasmin Taj finds more about this new trend
What do you like about your work? What would keep you here? What makes for a great day at work? Is there anything you would like to change about your job? Do you feel supported in your career goals? Do you feel we recognize you? What kind of recognition do you like? Never heard these questions before? Well, then you might get to hear such kind of questions very soon as a new concept is catching up in HR - `stay interviews'.
According to S Y Siddiqui, Managing Executive Officer, Administration (HR, Finance and IT), Maruti Suzuki India Limited, "Stay interviews are becoming a trend and they are now used to reinforce good HR practices within the company. The concept is based on the `Hawthorne Effect', which states that people who are given attention are a ''motivated lot. The employee needs to be heard since they feel good about being heard." "When job-hopping is the rule rather than an exception and when employee retention has become a critical issue, every company wants to know about those factors that can keep an employee engaged and committed, and stay interviews help the organisations in gathering these hard facts," opines Siddiqui.
Employers are now running from pillar to post in order to do all they can to retain their employees.Though traditionally, organisations used to hold exit interviews with employees who were resigning in order to get their perspective on the organisation and the work culture, it was of not much help to both the employee and the employer.
LENDING AN EAR
"Asking employees at the time of quitting why they are leaving is like asking your spouse how to improve a marriage on the day before the divorce is final. By that time it's just too late," states Hari Nair, Vice President - Human Resources, Sona Koyo Steering Systems Limited. "Stay interviews have been used all along but under different nomenclature - in the form of appraisals and consulting sessions. It is an employee sensing exercise, to detect early warning signals, to know about compensatory expectations so that the company can make a proactive correction at the right time before the employee announces that he/she is leaving. So, it's almost like preventive health care," adds Nair. "Stay interviews are actually an outcome of Harvard Business School's research and recommendation three decades ago, although it has caught up only in recent times. Exit interviews find out why employees leave, while stay interviews focus on what makes employees stay with the company, and thereby an opportunity for the company to do more of those things employees like most," says C Mahalingam, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, Symphony Services Corporation.
At a time when attrition is considered the biggest problem across industries and organisations are trying out all options to make their employees stick around, stay interviews might just be the right step. "The objective and purpose of conducting stay interview is primarily to listen to the employees' views, aspirations and comfort levels, to identify the areas of improvement and read the pulse that is to map the expectations of employees. HR is now looking at the `pull' rather than the `push' factor among employees," states Siddiqui.
NEED OF THE HOUR
A stay interview should aim at sensitivity listening, collecting feedback from employees, identifying the strengths as well as areas of improvements, developing trust and confidence with the employees and ensuring freedom of expression and problem sharing. "We, at Maruti, conduct this process through various forums, such as meeting with department/division al heads, coffee with HR, tea group with Head HR and tea group with MD – Maruti," informs Siddiqui.
At Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd, the concept of stay interviews is considered positive and has an empowering approach. "Stay interviews focus on what is going right, rather than what went wrong.This is highly relevant in the Indian context where every industry is making a hue and cry about the challenge they face in attracting and retaining the right talent," suggests Nair.
For Nair,"The need of such an interview was felt when the corrective action taken after exit interview was not able to contribute much on identifying the real cause of attrition. In some of the cases when the decision was deferred by addressing the significant few reasons of quitting the job, the insignificant many tends to pile up to backfire. Companies these days understand the need for constant engagement with employees. Stay interviews for them have become an indispensable tool to retain their workforce by making employees feel appreciated and motivated."
But then, don't exit interviews do the same? "Contrary to exit interviews, stay interviews are conducted to understand the reasons why the employees wish to continue working for the organisation. Stay interviews should be conducted once in six months. However, this depends on the size of the organisation, " explains Nair. "Similarly stay interviews are more proactive, focus on the positive emotions of people who are enjoying their stay in their company and are able to point to things that the company is doing and should do more of because they are very appy about those things," adds Mahalingam. The huge challenge of retaining talent can be solved to a large extent by adopting the concept of stay interviews and understanding the psyche and needs of the employees. This breakthrough is certainly going to be big in the future.
Publication:Times of India Mumbai; Section:Times Ascent;
Date: Mar 19, 2008; Page Number: 44
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