You will be a Man, my son!

In the past few days, almost on a daily basis, there have been instances of mass killings across the world. Weapons have ranged from guns to bombs to knives and, the most outrageous, a truck. These instances have raged much debate. Debates on religion, gun laws, stress in today’s world, etc.

These are the only stories that news channels covered as well. If anyone wanted some news and switched on a news channel, he would only see killings and more killings. The conclusion? The world is not a place to live anymore and that our future is doomed.

My son is almost 2 now. Fatherhood brings about a very positive and much needed change in you. You start looking at the world differently. You develop feelings of sympathy, concern and affection for all children and people in general. The nature of throwing caution to the wind during bachelorhood and the not-so-serious life as just a husband disappear. What comes to fore is a lot of responsibility; responsibility to provide the best possible and the responsibility to contribute to the world a great person.

My wife and I are very certain that we do not want a son who is mega successful professionally but lacks human values. I would love to raise a mediocre child with great human values. And to start, I need to tell my son that what he sees happening in the world right now is not the wholesome picture. The focus of the world is on all the ills and the disastrous events. The correct focus would bring a huge difference of how we see the world and what we want to build it in future.

Who my son grows up to be is a result of what we, as parents and grandparents, teach him and, more importantly, what he learns and follows. If all goes well, here is what my son will grow up to be.

My son will love people around him. He will trust them until they break his trust, repeatedly. That is how lives are brightened. That is how we build a world worth living, a world that makes us believe it isn’t a punishment. He will value people for who they are and not for what they are. Designations and financial standing would not be his criteria to decide how he would present himself to people. He will respect and love the lowest in the social hierarchy as much as the highest in the social hierarchy.

My son will know to trust. We have developed this acute sense of doubt. We doubt everything and everyone – the doctor who is most recommended, the neighbour who is so good to us, the maid who does an awesome job of keeping the house in order, even they aren’t spared from our doubting nature. We have developed this attitude of being in doubt until proven otherwise. Strange, because we are the same people who have developed machines and programmes where the rule is that all is well until a bug is discovered! What’s more, when we get the same reaction from others, when others doubt us, we get offended and lose our cool.

My son will live life to the fullest because for him life will not be a punishment. The religious texts say that man was sent to earth as a punishment for disobeying God. In my own firm view, this is a story that man himself has created. God loves his sons and daughters. Life on earth is not a punishment but an opportunity – to make things better, to bring change and bring a positive, reassuring influence on people. Life is what you make of it. No one can dictate what life should be. Your life is your own and you are the master of it. Shape it as you wish. You may go wrong, but trust the almighty. He will help you correct the course.

My son will not complain. He will change something that he doesn’t like. If he can’t change it, he will adapt. Too many people complain about too many things through the day, every single day. Complaints have become a part of human character. As we progress and lives become tougher, our complaints are bound to increase.

Being anti-establishment, protesting against the system/law/government does us more harm than good. We aren’t freedom fighters, we are as free as free could be. My son will grow up in a very conducive environment, in a free country, in a free world. He will have no need to revolt or protest. He will bring change where he can and will do it in a manner that does not need the world to know what is wrong but will make the world notice and appreciate when the right is brought to light.

My son will be on the side of right. He will practice what he would preach. He will be true to his word. No matter how tough the choice is, no matter what the consequence of choosing the right would be, he would never deviate from this principle. Upholding ethics would be his responsibility and his first reaction in all situations.

I will teach him to differentiate between religion and God. History is what our ancestors wanted us to know. Religion is no different. God did not create religion. Man created religion. I often hear people saying that if God breeds hatred and intolerance, then why follow God? The fools do not know that men make their word sound like God’s. God gives you strength; religion makes you weak. Men build religion as they like or want it to be. God never asked for religions. God only taught his children truth, love and joy!

My son will follow rules because that is the right thing to do and not because someone’s watching. I see 2 wheeler riders wearing a helmet when they see a cop; four wheeler drives who create contraptions of the seat belt so it seems they are wearing the seat belt but they are not. I see parents telling their children to toe the line because they are watching. This is not the reason why rules should be followed! Rules make the world a better, more organised place. In most cases, they make the world a safe place. My son will follow rules because he would believe in a better world not because he would want to avoid a fine!

My son will be a true believer in God. He will not be a God fearing person, he will be a God loving person. He will know how to distinguish between right and wrong. He will not be blinded by faith. Instead, he will develop a stronger vision, thanks to his faith in God.

For those, who by now have a doubt if I would raise my son to be an ascetic, an idealist, an impossible person, I have only one thing to say. I will teach my son what he needs to learn to become a great human being. If he imbibes even half of what I teach him, I would be happy as a clam. You may think that if he becomes what I desire him to become, he will end up being gullible. It is in fact the opposite. My guru, Aniruddha Bapu, will give me the strength to become a good parent. I am sure, if I try hard enough, I will succeed. The first year of my fatherhood didn’t go as well as I planned it to be, thanks to the obscene working hours. I have corrected myself and will ensure my son has all the necessary support to blossom into a person who loves everyone and who is loved by everyone. What’s in it for him? I have just one thing to say – “You will be a Man, my son!”

I am a religious fanatic. Now what?

The large scale debate last year on intolerance seems like breathing its last. Of course, there could be someone wanting some limelight for a potential political career who may bring up the issue of intolerance again with a speech covered live by most media channels! Till then, let the debate rest in pieces.

The commonest ground for intolerance has been religion. The feeling of “my religion is better than yours” has led to dialogues, discussions, debates, heated arguments, fist fights, social upheavals and battles. The recent Dhaka attacks saw people getting butchered because they were unaware of the religious texts of a particular religion. There has never been any consensus on which religion is the best. The question is, what is religion?

God has existed. Faith has existed. Religion is man-made. Invented and fuelled for man’s personal gains and his insatiable need of power and authority. These men have reduced religion to being a means of survival for the meek. They have made it a point to ensure that those in need of strength and support, flock to them for a dialogue with God. And these are the people who have created the huge divide that exists among religions.

A few people I know are of the opinion that one should not believe in God because that will help in reducing religious intolerance. I would term those people as ignorant individuals. They believe that following God is the reason why people get into religious intolerance. It is not God that says we should be intolerant. No avatar of God has ever asked us to be intolerant. It is the self-appointed but very narrow minded agents of God who have taught us to be intolerant. If those (that believe that religion is about making people irrational and therefore one must not follow God) were to get the real picture and spread the word that God is not religion and religion is not God, they would do much better service than try and convince people not to follow God at all. That in my mind, is also fanaticism that leads nowhere.

I have been lucky to be born into and raised in a family where belief and faith in God has a lot of importance. I have imbibed values that define ‘Indianness’. I am by definition a ‘Hindu’ because I pray to a certain set of Gods and follow certain festivals and rituals. But Hinduism is not my religion. I don’t need a categorisation by which Gods I follow. I have utmost faith and belief in the almighty. And I really don’t see how being or not being a ‘Hindu’ will change that. I am certain, if I was raised in any other family, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or any other, I would still have the same outlook if I had the same upbringing.

I am not a God fearing person. I am a God loving person. I love God as I love my mother and my father. I don’t fear God because he is not a policeman or a judge. He is a parent and I am his child. I will not do wrong because I know if I do that, I will hurt Him. Exactly like I did not do anything that my mother asked me not to do; only because I knew I would hurt her.

The question is, if my religion is not Hinduism or any other that is generally found in the drop down list of religions, what is my religion? My religion is Humanity. I think that is the only religion required. Rest are all beliefs and faiths. And all lead to one destination, God. The names might be different but the end is the same. Thanks to a few mindless and selfish individuals, the world today stands divided by religions.

I help people when I can. I ensure I keep people happy around me. My heart feels pain when I see someone in pain. Ever since I have become a father, sorrow fills my heart when I see little street dwellers. I try to empathise with people. I buy a balloon from the vendor who chose not to beg but earn his living, and have bought them packets of flour to feed their families. I buy pens from the blind salesperson because he chose not to give up in life. I try and help as many as I can. I can’t help them all; I would if I could but I can’t. So I help as many as I can.

My guru, Aniruddha Bapu, asks us to live by 3 principles – Truth, Love and Joy. While I won’t say that I live the first one to my best, the other two, I live by to the best extent possible. My life has changed. I see a better world. I don’t fret in traffic jams. I don’t stare at the person who cuts into my lane. I don’t seek revenge for every wrong done to me. I respect others and their points of view. I do to people what I expect them to do to me. I don’t think and work according to only my convenience; I keep other people’s convenience in mind as well.

A Hindu world, a Muslim world, a Christian world – these are all misleading. The only world we need to create is human’s world. Care for each other. Love each other. Laugh with each other and cry for each other. That is the world that we need to gift our children. Let us not make them grow up to be rigid, hateful, and vengeful. Let us make them love humanity. Let us raise them to love peace. Let us train them to make this world a better place.

I believe in God. My religion is humanity and I am a religious fanatic. I wish and hope everyone becomes that. The world needs only that kind of fanaticism.

How petty we are!

A couple of days back, my organisation planned a community service initiative. About 20 of us visited the Thane centre of Access Life, an organisation that provides shelter and care for children suffering with cancer and their families. This facility is primarily for those families that cannot afford a place to stay in Mumbai. In a world where there are several financial support initiatives for the disease, this is a unique initiative as it takes care of the other side of the disease that gets unnoticed though is equally challenging.

We reached the centre and were introduced to the children and their families. There were 6 children at that time though the total strength of the centre was 11 children and their families.

All the 6 children were patients of blood cancer. One baby was only about 2 and a half year old. The oldest was about 12. All of them are currently undergoing treatment at various hospitals in the city. Having seen a cancer case closely in my family, I cannot even imagine the emotional stress the parents of the children are going through in making sure that the treatment is complete and the child recovers. We were told that 2 of the 11 children were in the last stages of the disease. We all understood what it meant but none spoke the words.

I am fortunate to be working for an organisation that believes in these initiatives. Not only did we get the second half of the day off for the visit, the company also spent on food, games, transportation among other incidental expenses. Had this not been taken care of, we would have been confined to the four walls of the office thinking that our world is the only world that exists.

Ever since my father self was born, I have started looking at the world at large and children in particular with an emotional view. The suffering of a child makes my heart ache and my eyes swell. Not just the children that I saw at Access Life but even the children of street dwellers. The reaction that comes next is a feeling of gratitude to my guru Aniruddha Bapu and God Almighty for giving my son a life that is so comfortable, happy and fulfilled.

Back to Access Life. We spent about 2 hours with the children and their parents. We started off with an icebreaker session with the ubiquitous selfie and moved on to a magic show. The children were thrilled to see the illusions and so were the parents. Then we did some sketching and painting, and finally rounded up the evening with some snacks. The time just whizzed past. We were revelling in their joy. Not for once did any child put up a face of a critically ill child. They were enjoying every second that we spent with them. They have thrown a challenge to life – pin us down if you can!

A visit to such places puts life in perspective. How petty we are complaining about the heat, about traffic, about water supply, about our bosses, the bonus, the government, the programming schedule on television, the absconding house maid and so much more! These kids don’t know how tomorrow would be. They are battling life. And they are smiling through it. We chase sales targets. They chase the sunrise. We have the comfort of eating what we want, they look at and then look away. We (not me) use all kinds of hair products to prevent that split ends, they enjoy the baldness. We forget God in our pursuit of a lifestyle, they have daily conversations with Him.

The visit made me question, what am I doing with my life. Why do I complain? Why do I not count my blessings? Why do I focus more on what I don’t have? The children made me realise that I am a small, a very small human being. They are the young, yet large hearted people, who deserve the world. They deserve the smile and the laugh. They deserve the good times and the fun. They deserve the comforts that they don’t have.

One thing is for sure, I will keep trying. I will keep creating opportunities to meet such children, old people, less privileged (or more?). I will yearn to put a smile on their faces. Thanks to my organisation, I will get such an opportunity every quarter but I will look for more such opportunities. Very few people, those who I am very close to, will get to know about the donations I make towards such initiatives. I believe spending quality time with those who need it is as much important as money for these causes, . Money provides for the treatment and the necessities. These people need more than that – they need smiles, little joys of life and times that make them forget their ailment or sorrows and help them live every moment to the fullest.

I know a week from now, I will be sucked into the usual. Targets, daily cribbing, complaints, and the likes. The reason I want to periodically go back to such places is that I need a thwack on my head. Time and again, I need to realise what others are going through. Time and again, I need to see the realities of life other than the four walls of my house, the four walls of my office and the confines of my car. I would urge you to do the same. We all need time out to see what life really is. What we live is not the real life. We need to get the true perspective.

May God give the children strength. May God help them deal with their agony and pain like every petty problem they deal with day in and day out. May they get cured and see happier days forever.

PS: For not a moment am I saying that your problems are petty or small. To each, his/her problem is huge. However, if you had to give weightage to a problem that has a small aspect of life versus a problem that is a problem of life and death, which one would you give more weight? There, you now know where I am coming from!

What do you focus on?

Imagine 10 people locked in one room. There are 9 good people and 1 person with a criminal record. There is no weapon anywhere and there is police guarding the door of the room from the outside.

What would the good people focus on? One another or the criminal? Isn’t the answer obvious? In all probability, the good people will focus on the criminal. Why do you think this would happen? Because they are confident about one another but not about the criminal? Is it lack of trust for the criminal? No. Think harder and do the 5 why test. The answer ultimately would be that the good people in the room are fearful. They focus on the criminal because they are scared that he would bring misery to them.

This is a life lesson. Just look around yourself and you will find a whole host of people who are conditioned. This conditioning has resulted in a reflex – to focus on ‘what’s not right/good’ first and then look at (if at all there is any intent to) ‘what’s good’. From the highest official in the system to the youngest employee, most would have this reflex. Show them a proposal, they will first look at what is lacking. Show them a creative and hear a lot about what is wrong. Show them a review presentation and they will first look at where they can drill holes.

This behaviour, this reflex comes from a deep seated fear, an insecurity. We fuel it so much that it starts controlling us. So much so that you would find many who would only look at the wrongs or the shortcomings and not pay any attention to the rights or the benefits.

When we focus on the wrong, we do ourselves huge disservice. This focus is self-consuming. It breeds on itself. The more you do it, the better you become at it, the stronger attachment you build with it. The result? You grow weaker and weaker. Has it ever happened to you that you did 100 things right and did not get the appreciation and you did one thing wrong and the whole organisation doubted your ability? This is a very common experience. Why does it happen? Because you are surrounded by weak people. People who focus on the minus than the plus.

Do a quick introspective test. Do you also have this behaviour? Looking first at the wrong and then at the right? If yes, you are a victim of the fear of failure or some other fear for sure. It could also be the fear of building a team not as capable as yourself - “he is not like me so I need to make him like me”. A strong person on the other hand will look at what is right and build upon it. The strong person knows that if he strengthens the strength, the weakness will get eclipsed. I remember Ajay Srinivasan, Chief Executive, Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group, from a chat a few years ago. He was asked how he deals with people’s weaknesses. He said that he doesn’t focus on weaknesses. If he did that, the entire world would appear incompetent. He focusses on the strength of people and pushes them on that strength till they make it so pronounced that it overshadows their weaknesses.

Team leaders need to be more particular and avoid falling into this trap of focussing on weakness. A motivated team is one that feels inspired at all times. A definite murderer of inspiration is a bias for criticism and focus on shortcomings. When on one hand the team hears long discourses on how they are incompetent or have erred and on the other get a passing reference to a job well done, they feel suffocated. Then it is a downward spiral. Their performance suffers, the teal leader criticises more, the performance falls further and it just is an endless reaction. Why would any team leader want that? The truth is, there are such people aplenty in the corporate world.

Even Hanuman needed to realise his strength before he could make the journey to Lanka to meet Sita. We are but mere humans. We need to realise our strengths. We need an environment that is nurturing.  All this can happen only when we look at people’s strengths and push them on them to make is a real game changer. And when we do that, success will be on our side, every single time. 

Job satisfaction is archaic!

One of the three life principles that my guru, Aniruddha Bapu, proposes is happiness or joy. The other two being truth and love. Happiness is much understated and not in focus. Even in the corporate world, happiness can create significant impact on the workforce and the organisation at large.

Personal life is not driven by rules. You can choose to be happy and choose not to be so. In my previous post, I have delved deeper into the concept of happiness. I have seen both kinds of people in equal number. You need to have the will to be happy. If you do, you will find ways of being happy. If you don’t have the will and focus on what is not so good in life, you will always struggle to be happy. You are the master of your happiness or sorrow.

In professional life, however, things are a little different. You are not the master of what all you do and will have to comply by the rules of the organisation, unless you are an entrepreneur and make rules for your own organisation. Though the rules are different, one thing is common in personal and professional lives – happiness creates magic. Through my working life I have been part of teams/organisations that are unhappy and also those that are happy. What I say next is not conjecture but a conclusion based on keen observation of dynamics within teams and organisations.

There used to be a time when job satisfaction was the measure of whether a person likes his job or not. Job satisfaction is a dead term today. So what does job satisfaction entail? Good salary, good boss, good team, good future, etc. Everything put together that would make you stick in the organisation. Given today’s lifestyle, job satisfaction seems incomplete. You may have all that job satisfaction would need as ingredients, still something would be missing. You may be satisfied but not happy. Ever heard the statement, “Something’s missing!”? That something, the X-factor, is happiness.

Supervisors, team leaders and organisation leaders have a huge task of driving happiness in their teams. Happiness in professional life doesn’t come the same way as it does in personal life. That makes it more challenging. When the organisation’s management does not believe in driving happiness but you do, it makes it even tougher.

As a supervisor, here are certain behavioural traits that can help build a happy team.

1. Freedom to work

The toughest thing to do when transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager is the unwillingness to let go of control. It is tough to give away the things that brought you success thus far. That is precisely the reason why you will cast a shadow of unhappiness on your team. Let go. Let them work as you liked working. Give them freedom. Oversee and guide but don’t control.

2. Be a superman

No, don’t wear your underwear over your trousers. What I mean is that your team would look for a person who can salvage a situation, no matter how bad they get. This is closely linked to my earlier point on freedom. Only when the team has the confidence that failure will not result in disaster, will they value freedom and only then will it drive an aspect of happiness. Celebrate failures but don’t make failures a habit for your team.

3. Don’t expect them to be you

Huge mistake when supervisors expect their teams to reflect how they were. There is a reason why they are supervisors; their exemplary performance. Stop declaring that you did much more at their age and that you achieved a lot more at their age. Neither it motivates them nor makes you a person to look up to. All it does is frustrates them, something you can’t afford if you want your team to succeed. A constant focus on ‘I’ makes the team become distant and detached, and when that happens, happiness suffers.

4. Spend time outside of work as well

Go for lunches, Friday drinking sessions, dinners, etc. with your team. Helps them know you as a person and helps you know them as people. Many a time you will learn something about them that you would never have imagined. That little knowledge could be your trump card in making a happy team. But when you go out of office with your team, don’t be the boss. Be a friend. Drop the authority. No work discussions, just fun and laughter. Be one of them and see them connect with you like you never imagined.

5. Develop a sense of humour

In my experience, I have noticed that team leads who have a sense of humour, are loved more than the ones who are serious. The reason is simple. You need that time off, that time when you can ‘lol’. We spend more time at work than at home. Creating moments of laughter therefore becomes very important. Having a good sense of humour makes the team come closer to you. It demolishes the barriers that may otherwise exist. And when the barriers are demolished, when your team starts liking you, automatically you start driving happiness in your team.

I read a definition of job satisfaction once that stuck with me – If you get up in the morning and do not feel the urge to skip work, you are experiencing job satisfaction. How very true! This is the litmus test. However, I would go further. If you haven’t been to work for a bit and miss being there, you are a job happy person.

Gone are the days when people would come to work and spend the mandated hours and head back home. There is more involvement and dedication at work today than there was ever before. That is the reason why creating happiness becomes all the more important. We are spending far too much time at work than at home. Home is where love is, relationship is and that’s the reason home is home. You can’t make work as good as home. How about creating the degree of happiness that makes it a place you would like to be in?

Creating a happy team needs only one investment – happiness. Trust me, in my experience, it is not difficult to drive happiness in the team. And a happy team is a successful team. The success will be exponential. Unlike a rule of the stick where success would be immediate, in a happy team, success will be slightly delayed. However, when the tipping point is reached, success will start pouring in, much more than what you would see in the rule of stick.

Last but definitely not least, people who are happy at work and happy at home will help create a happier world, a brighter world, a better world. So, what kind of team would you like to build?

There is something about Sachin...

It was Gudi Padwa, the beginning of the new year for Maharashtrians and regarded as one of the most auspicious days in the year. It actually turned out to be a great day for me. On April 5, 2016, at 5 pm IST, I was scheduled to meet the one star of India who everyone wants to meet, Sachin Tendulkar. What’s more, I was to meet him in his house, the famous landmark, 19-A Perry Cross Road.

Thanks to the management of my company, IDBI Federal Life Insurance, we have embarked on a very exciting journey. We have adopted sports sponsorships as a means to build our brand. For an Indian who has always been excited by the proposition of sports, it turned out to be divine intervention in an otherwise regular day job. What took my job to a whole new level of awesomeness was our signing on Sachin to be the face of our marathons in Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata.

It was my Sadguru, Aniruddha Bapu’s blessings all along. I was the one to lead the deal with Sachin’s team, and my team and I am at the forefront of managing sponsorships for my company. This meant that when it was time to go and get the papers signed with Sachin, I was, by default, one among the 4 from my company.

5 pm that day seemed like midnight; the wait seemed endless. There we were, the 4 of us, in front of his house. I do not know about the others, but I was excited to the core but was putting on a very cool dude countenance. Deep inside, there was a concoction of feelings - excitement, nervousness and achievement.

We rang the doorbell and were taken to the guest room on the first floor. It was a long walk. All through, I avoided looking around, trying to blend in, wanting to make it look like a no big deal. Now when I think back, I should have seen the details of that house! How many people get to be in that house???

There we were in the guest meeting room waiting for the little man with a big personality. The sliding door opened and he walked in with Anjali in tow. We were all greeted very warmly and were offered sweets, typical of a welcome on Gudi Padwa. Then he sat and we started talking. I am very good with my cricket knowledge. In fact, my CEO, Vighnesh, who has been a Mumbai Ranji player, spends a lot of time discussing cricket with me. However, all through the meeting with Sachin, I was trying really hard not to talk cricket. You see, even my pronunciation of cricketing terms could be cues for him to know of my level of incompetence in the sport. You don’t show off your writing skills when you sit with a Nobel Laureate or a Pulitzer prize winner.

The discussion was varied, IPL, his schedule, his commitments, his charity work, etc. Then we signed the papers, took loads of pics (Anjali was very kind to volunteer to click a pic; a gesture that shows the magnanimity of the first lady of Indian cricket), chatted a little more and moved out. While we exit the house, there was a group of men standing right across the lane. I felt like a celebrity myself. After all, I was emerging out of the temple of cricket!

Again, luck was on my side and so were the blessings of Aniruddha Bapu. I was to meet Sachin in less than a week. This time around, to do more than just sign papers. I was to have a chat show with him at the press conference to announce our association with Sachin and the launch of IDBI Federal Life Insurance Mumbai Half Marathon. What’s more, the entire press conference was to be webcast live on the Mumbai Half Marathon Facebook page. So, it was a chat show with Sachin and Vighnesh and I was live on FB. Nerve wracking stuff but I had to maintain my cool.

Before the chat, I took Sachin through the questions I would ask and he discussed the responses with me. A full ‘me’ time where I was directing Sachin; kind of a Ramakant Achrekar feeling! Then we started the press conference and it all ended in 30 minutes. We wound up from Taj Land’s End and moved to Mehboob Studios for a still shoot with Sachin. Wound that up in an hour and a half and ended a day, which I can very safely say, had been one of the most inspiring days in my life.

I have had the good fortune of meeting and seeing a number of celebrities up close, mostly sports celebs but also film celebs. Never had I felt an aura as strong as Sachin’s. He is 5’5” but when he is around, he is the tallest man. He is like the sun and everybody else assumes the role of planets, literally revolving around him. There are reasons why he has the magnetism. Here are what I think are the reasons.

There were stories about how Sachin could not finish school, about how he was given a pass certificate even though he did not. I am not sure about the authenticity of those stories. Even if they are true, let me assure you, Sachin needed only to know how to read and write; he needed no exams, no courses, no terms. That is the greatness of the person. So early in his life, when most kids would be twiddling their thumbs, he knew what he wanted to do and he knew what it would take him to get there. He realised the role of education and ensured he got what would be necessary. Then he went on to create history. There is enough written about his training days, so I would not repeat the same here.

The most striking thing about Sachin is his self-awareness. It seems like his Johari Window is incomplete because there is nothing that would come under “Not known to self”. His strength comes from his self-awareness and it is this quality that helped him through his career. If you dig deep into the 24 years that he played for India, you will find numerous examples where he knew his shortcoming and he worked tirelessly to conquer it. His confidence in his abilities also comes from this acute self-awareness. And that is the man in summary for you – a person with unmatched core strength built on the foundation of super self-awareness.

I would not think twice before saying that Sachin would have been as successful in whatever he would have chosen to do in life. His confidence in himself would have taken him to great heights, whatever the choice of profession. There is a very thin dividing line between confidence and arrogance; Sachin respects that, and what you see in him is the outer limit of confidence. Some brilliant cricketers of the day are way into the arrogance zone. And that is the reason why in future, while there may be better record holders than Sachin himself, there will be no one who would be able to match his stature, his personality.

Sachin is aware of what he has achieved in life. He is also aware that his achievements will take a superhuman effort to surpass. All this awareness can easily give birth to a megalomaniac but it is the self-control that keeps him safe. His self-control has been documented many a time and you can click here to read about one such inning. Sachin holds his father in high esteem and his father had told him that the most important thing in life is to be a good human being. He lives by that advice and his self-control in the way he conducts himself emanates from that advice of his father’s. He his humble, yet reserved. He has a force field around him and that is the kind of person he is. You have to be blessed to make it into his inner circle. Another trait of great people – you can win their hearts with great difficulty; their trust parameters are tough to achieve! But when you are in the inner circle, you get more rewards than the most rewarding frequent flyer programme. (Okay, that’s a really bad analogy but I really don’t have an appropriate analogy for this!)

In the months to come, I will have more opportunities to meet the ‘God of cricket’ (a term that he is not very fond of, I am told). In each interaction, with the other professional tasks I will have to accomplish, one personal task would be to learn more from the man who is a living example of core strength, confidence and self-control. Mission “Become a great human being”!

Top 5 leadership necessities

In my over 11 years of working in various corporate houses, I have concluded on the top 5 things that make a leader. A leader is not a manager and vice versa. Given the aspirations and the mindset of today’s young professionals, a leader must display the following.

1.       Practice what you preach

2.       Focus on people’s strengths and not their weaknesses

3.       Celebrate failure

4.       Compassion

5.       Make the company’s vision a shared space

Much of my learning has been influenced and shaped by the lighthouse of my life, my guru, Aniruddha Bapu. While he is godlike to many, my greatest learning has been seeing him as a leader, as someone his people love and respect at the same time. Someone everyone looks up to and draws inspiration from.

Read on to read more about my learning in vast subject of leadership.

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There have been reams of text written on leadership. Yet, there are very few practitioners who can be classified as leaders. What is written about leadership is read for theoretical pleasure and not for practical application.

There is often this debate between the 2 terms – manager and leader. A quick look at the etymology of the word manager would reveal its origin in the industrial revolution when the owners of manufacturing units needed someone to look after their factories, especially in their absence. These people were supposed to “manage” or control the business and the workforce on their behalf and therefore, they were managers. That is the precise reason why the term manager is no more valid in most corporates in today’s world.

The world today is of enablement and empowerment more than control. A leader is someone who facilitates just that. A leader drives people to give their best. He is not someone who would ‘manage’ work, he would ensure his people get what they need to deliver their best. Thus, theoretically, the leader may not have any functional knowledge of his subordinate’s area of work but he will definitely know what makes the subordinate click and perform according to the expectations of the organisation. A leader is a provider and not a controller.

Best leadership is learnt by observation, not so much by reading. Observation on 2 counts – become the good examples and avoid becoming the bad ones. Bad examples are mostly those of the ‘bad bosses’. Based on my observations of more than a decade’s working life, here are the top 5 things that I consider make a good leader.

1.       Practice what you preach

Role models really work in the corporate world. Role models for executives could range from extremely successful entrepreneurs to successful leaders within the organisation. While a youngster today would like to be Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos, he knows his best chance is becoming the CXO he admires in office. Similarly, he looks up to that successful boss in his team. That could very well be you! You have to be the successful role model.

The first step in becoming the role model is to practice what you preach. You may talk for hours on some management funda or a behavioural trait to have, but if you don’t demonstrate the same in you, you will not be able to impress the same upon your team. There are the theoretical managers who would read a lot about these traits and behaviours and counsel their teams but will themselves never practice any of those. That is where one loses his/her team. A demonstration always works best. There has to be a reason why demo is regarded as a critical phase in product purchase decision journey, especially for complex products; leadership is a complex product!

2.       Focus on people’s strengths and not their weaknesses

Did Steve Jobs have no weakness? Did Mahatma Gandhi have no weakness? How about Martin Luther King?

Everyone has at least one weakness. Improvement or undoing of a weakness is a hard task. Something that may take years. A better way out is to make the strength so powerful that it shadows or outshines the weakness. It is like the sun; the dark spots are not visible to the naked eye because the rest of the sun is so bright.

A leader will know his people. He will know their strengths and their weaknesses. He will push his people on their strengths to help them make the strength even stronger. A manager, given his nature and inclination towards control, will try and correct the weakness. It is a wasteful exercise. Correction in weakness will bring a person to a par level. Making the strength even stronger will ensure he/she shines above all else.

3.       Celebrate failure

When failure comes to people with the right attitude and those who display sincere dedication in what they do, leaders celebrate. They wouldn’t call for a party but will acknowledge the failure and motivate the person to do better the next time. This definitely does not mean that the leader would celebrate failures many times over. Managers like to ‘control’ failure not realising that there are bound to be failures. When failures do happen, managers turn defensive and look for who to put the blame on because in their minds, they had ‘controlled’ the failure and if it has happened, it must have been someone else’s fault.

A leader acknowledges failure and doesn’t blame a person. He takes the blame on to himself or the entire team. He would then figure the root cause and train his people to avoid such failures in future. The reaction is not defensive but constructive – plan to undo any future occurrence. The biggest learning from failure is ‘how something doesn’t work’; a very valuable lesson indeed.

4.       Compassion

To understand this aspect of leadership, one has to consider the case of Captain Swenson. In a raw footage on Youtube, Captain Swenson was on what became a rescue mission for his forces in Afghanistan. When he landed at the site, he noticed one of his soldiers badly injured. When this soldier was put into the chopper, Swenson kissed his forehead. Why did he do so? Isn’t the army supposed to train soldiers to be tough? Isn’t this gesture just away from conventional thinking of how the army operates, and that too the US army which is regarded as one of the toughest armies in the world?

Captain Swenson is an example of the modern day leader. He gave his team mate an assurance that he was there for him. His team looked up to him and when he showed that kind gesture, not only did the injured soldier but every team member watching would have been reassured.

In corporate world as well, leaders need to be compassionate. The team needs to know that when everything would be out of their control, the leader, their ‘manager’ would make it right. Leaders need to make their teams feel safe. That is exactly what Simon Sinek mentions in his TED talk – Why good leaders make you feel safe. This quality would be most useful to promote the culture of ‘celebration of failure’. If the leader is not too moved by compassion, no team member would be bold enough to take a dig at something new or audacious; the fear of failure would haunt his/her mind.

5.       Make the company’s vision a shared space

This is among the most important pieces in making a good leader. More often than not, the company’s vision is a well-kept secret and in a language that even the CEO would have a tough time decoding. For a company to stand above the rest, every employee needs to connect with the vision and for that, the leader plays a critical role.

Many a time you would hear employees say that they do not know why they are doing what they are supposed to do. There is a strong chance that they think so because they have been directed and not involved in working towards the company’s vision. There is also a chance that the company’s vision may just be for display on the website and that the company may not be working towards the same. In that case, the leader’s job is tougher and even more critical. The leader needs to create a vision for the function or for the team and work towards it. He/she needs to ensure that the team works collectively and complements the efforts of each other towards a common goal. This keeps the team energised.

Being what would be considered a good leader is not easy. One needs to keep eyes and ears open and observe well positioned people in the organisation and it would be clear what makes a good leader and what doesn’t. Many a time, it makes more sense to see what doesn’t make something happen. Those are the things to avoid. As long as you avoid those, you have a good chance of making a good leader.

The problem is us...

There have been so many discussions around what happened recently in JNU that I have lost track. One thing is for certain, everyone has a different perspective to the whole issue and from that person's standpoint his/her perspective is THE perspective and the only one possible. That is my biggest worry. We are not looking at things objectively but just as how we would like to see them.

The most irksome behaviour is to target and malign parties and individuals and not offices of responsibility. Similarly, people have developed loyalties to parties and politicians that blinds them from an objective and unbiased analysis of the work those parties and politicians do. The result is catastrophe. Detractors will continue to see the wrong and blame the person/institution. There will always be detractors for everyone. In the end, everyone will be wrong and bad.

We need to learn be objective in our evaluation. Recognise and laud good 'efforts' and criticise the not so good 'efforts' – not the person/institution, but the work he/the institution does. If there is something wrong that the person does, criticise, as vehemently as you can. If that same person does something good, recognise that as well. Most of us fail miserably at that.

For instance, I have many friends on Facebook who are anti Kejriwal. They attack him for the slightest wrong. None of them laud something good that he or AAP does. Ask people of Delhi about the odd-even formula and most will say it was a great initiative. Yet, the anti-Kejriwal camp would find flaws in it. More so, those who have no link with Delhi at all, would also comment on the initiative and try and rubbish it. The vice versa is also true. Everything not so right that Kejriwal did, people who like him as a person or those who stand by his ideology, kept silent about it or found logical explanations to prove that it wasn’t actually so bad. They used the Red Herring method to divert the discussion.

Similarly, there are haters of Modi and ‘worshippers’ of Modi. Even when Modi does something right, his detractors start with finding flaws in it. When he does something not so right, his admirers adopt red herring and divert the discussion. They try to protect his image and his honour even if it is by insulting or maligning others.

It isn’t and must not be about Modi vs Kejriwal or any other person against another one. It is and must be about India and people who live in this country. Anything that goes against it, we must all stand together and condemn it. Anything that works in favour, we must all stand and applaud.

We need to learn to become fans and haters of acts and not the people behind those acts. It is easier said than done, but it is the need of the hour. In the past few months, I have witnessed so much hatred in this country, it just makes me sad. Hatred for the sake of hating people; not looking at the bigger picture.

When with the people we love most - spouse, parents, children - we can be so objective in our evaluation (“What you did was not right”, “I don’t agree with you”, “This could have been done better”, “Let me help you improve this”), why not with people and institutions who run our city, state, country? Only when we applaud the good and condemn the bad will they also become more accountable and get to know what is right and what is wrong. Till such time, they will be right for their lovers and wrong for their haters. And in such a case, who would you listen to more? In the end, it is a stalemate and a cause of huge concern for the country!

You haven’t achieved much!

He is 45. He is yet a Senior Manager. He hasn’t really achieved much!

Even I have found myself involved in such conversations at times. Now when I look back, I was immature. Success and achievement are subjective terms and are heavily dependent on points of view. When you walk on the road, you see so many luxury cars. Would you term the owners of those cars as successful people? Most probably you would and in all probability you would be right. But that doesn’t mean that the person occupying the small cubicle in your office, way above age for his designation and role, is unsuccessful.

As individuals we have career goals and life goals. It is a fine mix of the two that determines how you would like to shape your life. It is like the temperature control knob in your car; just replace the extremes with the two goals. The ideal balance would be to have the knob in the centre – ideal work life balance. Those who have worked even for a short while in the corporate world would know that such a phenomenon is utopic. In reality, the knob would be biased towards one side.

There have been tonnes written about work life balance. There are theories that suggest that not every day can be balanced. There are times when you have to focus on work more than your personal life and the other times it’s vice versa. One has to make most of the crests and the troughs. When work demands more time, give work more time. When personal life demands more time, give personal life more time.

Today’s stress on professional success and growth has resulted in limiting the definition of achievement only to professional life. Also, that is the most visible and tangible measure of success. Companies and organisations stress on competition and the result of competition is a winner – often times termed as an achiever or a successful person. This is the reason why that old guy in the small cubicle seems as an underachiever or, in harsher words, a failure in life.

Step back a little. Why did men start working in the first place? To earn a livelihood. Why did they want to earn a livelihood? To feed their family and fulfil their necessities. Was there a work life balance principle then? Perhaps, but not stated as such. Though the cases in which there was an imbalance in work and personal life would have been more for survival than for “success”. The first instance of usage of the term “work-life balance” was in 1970s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was not until 1986 before this term was used. So, the term is not too old. What brought about the rapid proliferation of the term in board room discussions was the woman workforce. They were the ones that really needed that balance between work and home. As we travel into the deeper realms of the 21^st century, the term has taken a more universal relevance and every individual debates whether he/she has work life balance or not.

So, coming back to where we started – the dichotomy between work and personal life. Increasingly, we find people wanting to climb up the ladder of success in the corporate world faster than their peers. Good for them. Being ambitious is the first step towards success in the dog-eat-dog corporate culture. Others also get inspired or infected by the success of such people and also want to achieve success as they have. There is but one flaw. If everyone becomes successful, there would be parity and “success” would lose its competitive meaning. That brings us to what I call the osmotic pyramid of success. There are the success idols – people who have achieved much in life and much earlier than others. There is the mass of successful people and this is the largest group among the three. If this wasn’t the largest group, then the world would not have moved on; success drives growth and forward motion and this mass drives overall success in the world. Then the third group is that of success chasers. They are not consistently successful but are chasing success, wanting to catch up with the successful masses, inspired by the success idols. All three are permeable groups. These are not hard coded silos; each group has a membrane separating it from the other and under certain conditions, transfer to and fro is allowed (osmosis). People move among the 3 groups; more to and fro movement being in the bottom of the pyramid. This model is also in line with the bell curve definition of performance appraisal.

Why do people move up or down the groups? One reason is because their calibration of work and personal life changes. When there are important landmarks in their personal lives for which they have to sacrifice a bit of success at work, they move down. When they are gunning in their work life and are dedicatedly working towards driving success, they move up. There are also factors like burn-out, skill-out (not upgrading skills to meet the ever-changing world), etc. that contribute to the downward movement.

Among all this, there is a group that resides in its segment forever. They would mostly be seen in the bottom 2 groups. Everyone in the organisation feels they have no ambition, they care two hoots about success and at times, the manager even thinks of asking them to leave. However, managers are helpless as their performance may not be exemplary but is always found “meets expectations”. Let me introduce you to the successful lot of personal life.

This is an animal that is growing in number in the world. This species does not care about quick success that comes by sacrificing family time. This species will continue to do what it is expected to do. Mind you these people are not those who will not demand what is due; they are smart people. They will extract all that the company owes them, commensurate to their effort and results they drive.

Many may consider them primitive as their work principle is aligned somewhat to that of the ancient man – work to support the family and fulfil their needs and dreams. For them success is determined more by what they do for the family than what they do at work. They are not failures. They always exhibit the spark. They are late bloomers. When the early achievers burn the midnight oil for their professional success, these people work as much as is needed to make them grow professionally at a steady pace. They know that the needs and dreams of the family will grow and that they need to themselves grow to keep pace with that. They plan their professional lives according to their personal lives. Many end up exactly at the same place as the early success stud – the difference being, the early success stud has by then earned a lot more and has enjoyed the pole position for a longer time. Neither achievement is significant in the eyes of this species.

The personal success chaser is always there for the family – every important landmark of the child, every parent teacher meeting, every emergency situation, every doctor’s appointment, etc. For him, family comes first. He believes at the end of it, family matters most and if he is unable to devote time for the family, it beats the purpose of working. Many a time, this species looks down upon the early success achiever who, in most cases, sacrifices a lot of family time for the ambitious plan for success he has. There is one problem though. When the personal success chaser is made to compromise on family and personal time, he starts showing a slump in performance. The reason is that he comes under stress – stress that makes him falter and this results in poor performance. To get the best out of the personal success chaser, let him have his personal time and he will deliver the best at work.

There are examples in which the early success studs realised later on in their lives that family is important. They pause, look back and recalibrate their lives. In many cases, the recalibration leads to more family time. In some extreme cases, recalibration results in bidding adieu to professional life to maximise personal life before resuming professional responsibilities. Of course, quitting is an extreme step and not everyone can take such a drastic step but they would not have needed the extreme step had they calibrated their lives suitably, right from the beginning. Take the example of two CEOs - Mohamed El-Erian, the former CEO of the global investment firm Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) and Max Schireson, ex- CEO of 10gen (the MongoDB company). Both these gentlemen achieved professional success very early in their lives. They focussed extensively on their professional lives before incidents that changed their calibration. These are names that we know because they are renowned people who took the extreme step. There must be many more people taking these decisions about recalibrating their lives due to realisations about what life and family demands from them.

There is a third kind of people. These are people for who, making a difference in the world is most important. They chase their dream so aggressively that they sacrifice their professional success. Take for instance the youth that has taken up education of the underprivileged children as their challenge. They strive hard to achieve success in their chosen cause. There are so many instances where youngsters have quit their high paying jobs to seek what gives them the most joy. The list on this page mentions just a fraction of the many who have taken the road less travelled. I know of people who work to bring cheer to old age homes. There are others who work to bring joy in orphanages. They may not climb the ladder of success at work but they are way more than successful in what they aim to achieve.

Every individual has a different goal in life. He strives hard to make it successful. More often than not, he is able to succeed. Judging others from our point of view is being very immature. The only thing that we should judge is if we have been successful in what we set out to achieve.  Achievement is not defined only in terms of size of wallet or designation or the height in the corporate ladder. Success is very personal. I set my targets – if I achieve them, I am successful. Many are also pulled back by limitations; limitations that we may have no clue about. That guy in the small cubicle may be one such case. He, in his evaluation, may be a super successful person given his limitation.

My guru, Aniruddha Bapu tells us a similar principle. One must not compare one’s devotion with others. Often, we hear people compare the time they spend for Pooja versus what the other person does. And still, the other person seems to be getting all favours from god. Bapu says, there cannot be any comparison. The only comparison can be versus where one was the day before. Moving forward in devotion and ensuring you are better off than the day before is the only comparison one must indulge in. The queue to god does not have many people in it. We all have our own queue. And we must move ahead in our queue, closer to god. Exactly as everyone’s aim in life is different and we must never comment on their success or failure basis our definition of success and failure.

The next time you say, “He is not that successful”, pause and think. He might be looking at you and saying exactly the same thing. From his point of view, you may not be a success story to tell!