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?