Time Management - Lesson Learned , Decades Ago

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During my eventful tenure with one of the largest Indian corporate "Bajaj Auto Ltd", I learned one of the most rewarding lessons of my life: Utilization of Time , and such a huge concept was explained in few minutes by  the Boss of my immediate Boss: DVP.

It dates back to late eighties when  ISO 9000 was a new but promising concept. Obviously, it invaded  most of the growing and reputed companies of that time. 

So, a huge "System Awareness" program was initiated  by the Management across the rank and file, and I was selected as coordinator of my dept with the responsibility to formulate the policies and document all activities pertaining to our working.

I was very much Excited, initially , as any it happens with a new venture , but a disproportionate allocation of time  triggered an alarm in the existing system and after an initial round of
discussion my boss recommended a review meeting with his boss, the Divisional Head, to resolve this issue.

The purpose of the meeting was to find out: How I could do justice to my regular job as well as the developmental one like ISO 9000 with proper utilization of available time.

Well, let me share with you what exactly transpired between me and the super boss -- The conversation, that I remember to the best of my memory:

DVP : Hi Abhijit , how are you?

AK   : Fine.Thanks. How are you sir ?

DVP : Excellent, but I have a serious problem!

Anticipating a huge firing, the reputation he enjoyed , I slightly raised my eyebrows with a question mark and he delivered the statement of my life 

"Abhijit, I am really excited to notice that you are running short of time with some additional  assignments in hand. May be you are the right person to suggest me what do I do with so much of free time available. Look at my incoming Tray, its empty. Does it mean , my job is in danger?"

Perplexed, and before I could answer,  his Boss, the Plant Head entered the cabin with a big smile  and started thanking Mr DVP profusely, "how could you complete this project so quickly ? "

"Nothing special sir. I just delegated it to the right persons I have recruited and groomed for these type of assignments. I did nothing sir, they actually did it." Answered DVP.

Well, the Plant Head left after a minutes and our meeting ended with his comment that I shall never forget in my life:

"Abhijit, if you are running short of time, please try to understand there's something terribly wrong with your overall system. Pl, review it asap, and reduce the clutters.

Believe me, I took it as a challenge and with no modern Time Management Tools like GTD etc at my disposal, successfully reduced the clutter with:

1.Making regular notes on priorities and re-evaluating daily schedule periodically. 

I think, maintaining an hourly schedule is too ambitious an objective, and I will simply conclude that it's exaggerated by people suffering from Too Busy Syndrome.  Hence, a daily schedule is more than sufficient.

2.Taking immediate action on every tasks and re-entering incomplete tasks at the bottom of the next schedule, I mean the list of task for the following day. That's it. Doing the same even today, but instead of a dairy  its my blackberry now.

After a month I happened to meet him in a planning meeting. With a confident smile he asked me, ' So Abhijit, hope you have switched over to my party:  Guys with disposable time.

I just smiled back.

Where There is A Will, There is A Way

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An experience, it was: Watching the Hindi movie “My Name is Khan” — and, it was no less than how I felt while connecting with the blockbuster “Avatar.”

Incidentally, my soul went into a perfect sync with this amazing movie - right from the beginning - and through-out the show I was on a different plane with no other thoughts cutting across my mind.

Well, I’m not writing a movie review but highlighting the motivational power of this fascinating story: In which, Khan, the central character, proves beyond doubt, that, if there is a will there is a way.

Fighting against every negativity you can imagine, he maintains an unbreakable positive frame of mind focusing on his primary objective of meeting the President of United State of America -- and finally achieves it.

His concern for an old lady and her son interferes into his priorities, but that doesn’t dilute the importance of his primary objective. And, that’s an important message to all fighting souls: Attending to intermediate objectives is important, but never at the cost of primary. It’s all about balancing between priorities and attending to all of them with sincerity and dedication.

Winning over a demanding psychological disorder – autism – Khan successfully demonstrates the power of positive thinking, flushing out all obstacles from his way – one of the toughest journey, undertaken, ever, by anyone – to a seemingly unreachable destination.

Also, how important is the role of mothers in autism affected children’s life – for improving their language skills by engaging sensitively with them – has been perfectly highlighted in this movie.

Wonderful experience with tons of motivational inputs!

Oh GOD! Pl, Help Me to Help Myself

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We hope, a lot, against all hopes, that everything would be alright -- one day.

And, it starts happening, gradually, may be slowly but certainly, with every indications, until one day the mirage disappears, suddenly, and we realize that we've not really moved ahead at all -- still confined to the same black hole of hopelessness.

So painful, it is, to realize that we've been fooled by destiny, devastatingly and without mercy, that we lose faith in the supreme power -- most of us term it as GOD.

How do we cope up with such situations, is, perhaps, the ultimate question pertaining to our existence ?

And, the answer is pretty simple, in my opinion: Learn to accept that nothing is guaranteed in life, and we must master the techniques of living incrementally -- on daily basis.

Don't igore your past but learn the lesson and forget it; focus on future but be prepared to accept the failures.

I mean, live like a true sportsperson: Accepting both success and failures, gracefully!

Difficult but possible, and is the only solution for living a meaningful life.

Never Run Away from Problems

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“In a day, when you don’t come across any problems, then you
can be sure that you are traveling in the wrong path…”  John F. Kennedy

What is a problem: An obstruction that’s not allowing you to do
something you wish to; a disturbing thought that’s spoiling your
peace of mind; or something you would prefer to ignore but unable to
do so.

In short problem is an act of interference in your life by unwanted persons, or undesirable developments,  or both.

Many a time, I have noticed that our immediate reaction to any
problem is to push it down the priority list – not now, later,
approach – and focus on simpler tasks.

We develop a habit of ignoring the need to act on problems by
delaying our attention as much as we can, until it becomes unavoidable
— perhaps, too late to work-out a practical solution.

Why we run away from problems? In fact, I’ve done it a number of times in my life — and faced the consequences too.

In one such case, I waited for more than a decade for letting things
cool off. When that didn’t happen, I took a stern action and
- surprisingly – it worked!

Good that it worked, but, it could have worked at that time also —
10 years ago. Unfortunately, I never tried just because I was scared
to take action. Perhaps, I assumed that it wouldn’t work.

A wrong assumption kept me running away from that problem for 10
long years — depriving me of a normal life – before, finally, taking it
on with full force — and working out a solution!

But I lost 10 precious years of my life and the sparkles of joy and
happiness that could have been a part of it, had I acted then, in time,
decisively!

So never run away from problems rather attend to it, and identify a workable solution as early as possible. Image Credit

Cross-Posted from Fighting Soul's Blog 

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A Bridge Too Far? Not for All!

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In Business, job and in family matters: your inner-circle members are counting heavily on you for navigating them safely through to a stabler zone -- a continuous and never ending process!

As an entrepreneur you're expected to honor your commitment to self: success; as a leader, you're expected to perform better than the rivals: growth and as head of the family you're expected to be a never-ending source inspiration: both internal and external. Continue reading

Are You Getting the Right Seat on the Right Bus?

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According to management guru and best selling author Jim Collins, the most important question entrepreneurs need to ask themselves is, " who is on the bus?' Bus is the company.

So it's very important for the owners to know if they've got the right people on the bus, and I think this question needs to be extended a bit to, " are you getting those right people in the right seat?"

Some of the organizations I've been dealing with for hiring miss out on this point; they're extremely cautious during interviewing, and somewhat clueless thereafter -- my personal opinion.

And that eventually leads to a stress-full situation for the candidate - struggling to realign according to the needs - failing to meet the expectations of the management for no faults of theirs.

I've witnessed a few incidents in my executive search career when high profile candidates - recruited by me for reputed clients - reverted to me with piled up frustrations.

Several attempts to thrash out the differences were met with a silence; recruiters reach is up to the boarding platform of the bus, and beyond -- no entry. However, candidates neither realize nor accept this argument; ultimately holding recruiters responsible for the mess.

I understand and agree: Assessing why employees are  not up to par is an internal matter of the organization, so is the required corrective action. But what's the harm in getting some opinion from the concerned search firm, which wouldn't be that useless, I believe? 

I think leadership must look into this issue seriously and work-out a result-oriented strategy to ensure perfect synchronization of employees' expertize and organizational expectations, and candidates should do their best to find out details of the proposed offer -- before closing the deal.

Talent hiring is not about getting the best available candidates only, but putting them in the right place - seat - also!

Do you agree with me on this issue ?

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Control Your Mind for Making Miracles Happen in Life

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That our thoughts affect our physical health has been know to us for a long time, and in my personal life also I have seen how strong determination and will power can expedite physical healing process when one my close relative recovered almost fully from a devastating Brain Stroke -- something unusual!

Bedridden for more than a year and all cognitive skills erased from the memory, he practically learned everything again including walking, writing and talking. It was a recreation of childhood learning processes but much faster.

Even the doctors were surprised to notice the degree of improvement, and one them even told me that it was nothing less than a miracle.

But miracles don't happen on their own, in fact nothing. What makes a miracle happen is human will power or mind power and I haven't yet come across a better example in my life, so far. 

I am sure, he made that miracle happen through creative visualization that helps you to
imagine circumstances in your life unfolding exactly as you want –
perfectly.

As the scene plays out in your mind and you feel the
powerful emotions that come with those positive images, the scenario
actually will begin to play out in your life, says Joe Vitale, as quoted in an article by Polly Campbel.

I call it "Rising from the Ashes."

So never feel helpless in a frustrating health situation; establish Mind & Body connection and let your mind heal your body.

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You Have the Ability to Make Big Things Happen in Life

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'Making Things Happen' in life is the core message of this blog. Apart from my my own thoughts and ideas on this concept, I have been regularly highlighting the best available resources: articles, videos, presentations etc.

I strongly believe:

All of you have the ability to lead and inspire, and nothing can prevent you from making things happen in life, if you decide to.

However, it requires a huge preparation and the first step in my opinion is, building an unbreakable self-confidence and believe in self.

Keep telling yourself that you can do it; soon you will notice the rise of huge emotional strengths within and you will start believing in yourself. It may take months, even years, but possible. The moment you start believing you can do it, you have almost done it!

Watch this video, draw your doses of inspiration and promise to yourself that you will never give up!

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Never Spoil Relationship with Colleagues All Through Your Career

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Nothing moves on its own, not even your career, and you need a hell of a push to keep it moving up: both by self and also by others.

But, who are those others and how they influence your career through such 'push-and-pull?'

Your subordinates, peers and superiors -- not only in current organization but also, where you worked earlier.

I once lost out on a promotion deal: one of my ex-colleagues - we both disliked each other and made no secret of it - happened to be in good book of my current boss and his negative feedback cost me the promotion and a good career. 

'Was it right or wrong on the part of my boss?'

Obviously wrong, because he should have verified the facts with a third-party before drawing any conclusion -- which he didn't.

But nobody bothers, because that's how - usually - such issues are being worked out in the Corporates world: recommendations, either way, play a  vital role in deciding the reward!

Similar incident happened with a friend of mine, but in his case it was a new
assignment that was almost finalized by the employer, before retreating suddenly.

Same reason: negative feedback by an ex-colleague.

So never spoil your relationship with anyone, anywhere, all through, because you don't know, who at what point of time - may be a decade later - may pull you back.

I was fortunate that a superior shared the fact, and I learned a lesson.

Take care!!!

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