Just Answer One question.

The Thought

What is that one question if you could ask everytime, can dramatically improve your performance at work? What is the objective of your business/ you? What is that which you are aiming for?

You may be in retail business, or into media, you might be manufacturing steel, or a doctors treating patient.
With endless webpages on mission statements, and how to make a unique vision statement, businesses tend to miss that, if it has to be unique statement, it cannot be found on net.

In today's world, do what you want to earn profit, but all the business or you exist here for just one thing.

"Making things Easy for customer or people to work with you". Period.

You may be a local retailer, your objective
making it easier for people to get the daily stuffs, near and quickly in the best rate possible.
You may be a Salon, your objective
making it easier for people to re-fresh their looks/or refreshen up and ensure other people talk about it
You may be a Media industry, your objective,
making it easier to find the news the customer wants to find, and do it quickly.
You may be a Educational Institute, your objective,
making it easier for students to upgrade all their skills, and do it better and faster than others.


You see, facebook, why it has eaten up the share of Orkut.
Simple, once you know the buttons, its easier to do things in facebook than it is to do in Orkut.

You see Linked in, less and less people visit it, although the proposition they offer,
" Connecting with professionals" is very powerful.
The reason, its hard to navigate.

So if you are in a Business and wish to do something valuable, just answer one question

" What one thing that I do which will make things easier for my customer or people to work with me".

Remember,
Its the powerful questions which matter most.

Guilt as Motivation

The Thought

Did you notice, you now do the work you never wanted to do? Are you aware that you are constantly upgrading yourself towards doing things which you never liked? 

What threat does this system lies and how you can bypass this?

The guilt is defined as a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation.
Since ages the people in power have realized this concept and have used it efficiently to ensure that the workers continue to push themselves towards generating more work, in turn more profits by constantly upgrading themselves and this is done by the power of guilt.

Lets see how this scheme is constructed.

1. The person in power will walk upto you and will whole heartedly introduce in front of everyone that you are now the head of the Project X. Or if you are in a College, they ensure that you are now The head of the students, or assignment leader.

2. Then instead of clearly telling you the expectations and outcome, will ask you to improvise and think upon the output and propose a report.

3. And the person in power is smart enough because he has figured out what exactly the output he looks for and has identified the key pitfalls. So he will continue to encourage you to do more task, improve it, till you cross the deadline of time and project stands at the verge of failure.

4. Since you were the head of the project, you are clearly the victim who had the whole responsibility to accomplish the results. Now you are the Guilty of the crime which you never did, but were made to do.

5. The time is right, the rod is hot, the person in Power hits the rod hard, by either of the two ways.
a. Bringing in the person whom you are not comfortable working with, and making him the head for the project.
b. Having a closed door meeting with you and giving you one last chance to prove your metal.

Voila. The work is done. Now all the person in power has to do is, to just Monitor your pressure and ensure that you are getting enough words of Wisdom and appreciation for work.
By this way, he takes all the benefits and praise, for getting one more project successful.
The important part is, either you grow or the New team leader, but for sure, The person in Power will grow.

How can you by pass this.

Simple, If you can define the outcome and objective better than the person in power can define, you are going to be the king. The person in power will always search for you, no matter where you are and what you do.
So next time, you are given the project, instead of telling yourself about the benefits this project will have for you, define the benefits that the person will have from your project and then define the outcome.

Remember if you don't know where you are going, you will reach somewhere, but not where someone else wanted to reach.

The Power of Rest

The Thought

Technology has enabled one to remain in touch, whatever happens, whereever the person is, and whatever the time is. But the Downside of it, is harsh. Is the price paid for such technology upgradation is worthy enough.

The blackberry beeps, Google chat Pings, Facebook Updates, Twitter tweets. Yeah, I am a social media Guy, and I choose to remain a Hunter.
But check the Girls version of it.
Aisha Tune, sharing what they are doing, or planning to do, the Cute Guy they found.........
Well the world has really changed and with so many options in hand, the most needed and aspired thing is "REST".
My last post talked about "Attention", this basically is the extension of it.
Only after a powerful Rest can you give complete attention.

The recent News headlines where Sachin tendulkar wrote after hitting the Double ton in Srilanka,

" Plenty of rest is required to perform".

Ask yourself, when was the last time you took that "Plenty of Rest".
No, not plans of it, but the real "Complete Rest".

If you haven;t go for it ASAP, before Life ensures you take a Bit Painful
"Complete Rest".

Power lies in Balance, and anything which is more is bad.

Enjoy and soak into the power of Rest.

The Power of Facebook

The Thought

What does a Youth actually want, subliminally, and what is that which facebook alone is able to provide.

A recent article which catched the attention told that the biggest threat to google is now facebook, because Time spent per user in facebook is 6 Hrs while that in google stands at 2 Hrs.
I do understand that there might be some biaseness to this but, then its for sure that facebook has taken google into a stiff position. What exactly has they done which google could not do?


Google, is primarily a search engine. With Enourmous websites, and n number of data in it, searching what you need is a huge trouble. Google helps you search it, quickly, easily and better than any other options available. But what does Facebook do?

Facebook, lets you meet friends, thats what is a simple evident which you all might agree, but
lets see it this way.

Human being started as an Hunter, for Food, shelter, he has hunted his way up, till farming came into existence.
Farming gave the Humankind, ability to stay at a place, and develop.
While most beleive that hunting has became a kind of "bygone" era, kindly Stop!.
Hunting has just changed its forms.

We are still hunters, but the Forest and animals have changed to " Other materialistic" things.
Facebook lets you be a Hunter again, and what best,
if you have the most powerful tool in the world (I believe its) Language and words, you are sure to hunt some really nice people around.
If you note, you might have an average 400+ friends in your facebook, but always, around 30 people will remain Online and if you post something, around 20 comments will drop in ( only when U write something exceptionally brilliant and breathtaking ), Wondered WHY?

Because as A hunter, you can have only a particular number of "Things" in your zone of attention.
Second Point is
The Facebook lets you become a Farmer too. Recent data reveals,
FarmVille has become the most popular game application on Facebook, with over 82.4 million active users and over 23.9 million Facebook application fans in May 2010.

Imagine why, because, we are still Humans, and the crux is

before we wanted everything and now we want to be everything.

100th Post- 5 Key lessons to take home- Reorganize yourself

The Thought

This happens to be my 100th post. An important day, as from last 100 days, I have ensured to do one thing except breathing consistently is blog my ideas. Thanks to so many people, specially Google, for providing a platform which is so unique and dynamic. There are 10 things I wish to highlight for you to reorganize your life.

1. The Brand Promise: The first post of my blog, Brands make a promise, and you are a Brand too. Way back I wrote on " The brand you", lets extract from these two post.
You and your appearance makes a promise, define it today. Pen down ten things you want to be known for.
Honest, professional, problem solver, creative, ideator, slow, what is that which you want to be known for.
Once you define it, you know what to avoid.

2. Search your customer and Woo him: Stop hunting, be a farmer.
 The idea you must move ahead with is, dont be a hunter, the age is long gone. The target is moving, and so are you, its hard to hit, and the waste is pretty high. Instead start focusing on the art of Farming. Pull your customer rather than push them. And did you note, the same applies to your relationships. Are you still pushing and hunting ( Guys! Note).


3. Experience is a great teacher, and Learnings are everywhere, just open your eyes and be aware.
Management lessons from Mom in kitchen. 

4. The world is changing, faster than you think,Being Updated is the need of the hour.
The changing world brings lots of fear, but also breeds lots of opportunities beneath it. Be ready to dig a bit deeper and your pot of gold is waiting for you.

5. Small Conversations, all that you missed is what counts.
At the end you will think about all the things you could have done, rather than things you have done.
Remember, its the small acts of kindness which matters more.

A bonus Take away: Consistency is really the Key, and guess what's the secret,

When you find this answer, they won't change the lock ( answer to the famous quote: "Whenever I find the key, they change the lock").
Consistent people remain persistent.

Cheers.

Status update

The Thought

Status update, has become the lifeline of youth. The uncanny desire to update about self and the environment has led to multiple issues.You are in Orkut, as well as facebook, you are figuring out Google buzz, writing a blog in blogger/blogspot.com, trying wordpress and could not understand it ( happens with few), you have request pending for hi5, its been long you have updated Linked in profile, ( yes you have that too). And there are services which you have not even heard of but if you knew you will surely give it a try,www.friendfeed.com,www.bebo.com, www.friendster.com, www.jisko.com etc etc.

Its not possible to update yourself in all these social, personal webspace. Why we do it and how to do it better?

Humans by nature want appreciation.This neeed for appreciation from the peers along with show casing that you have achieved something great has remained one of the prime need of human.
Since we have already produced all the products that humans need, and now are producing goods and services which humans want, only those underlying needs are left untouched which, are intangible, like, the need of appreciation, the need of being recognized etc etc.
What these social websites have done is given you an option to showcase your inherent talent and share with the world ( please read "your world" only) to see and if the like, appreciate you.
You know who is your friend, when they comment on your status update.
The more comments in the status update, the more happier one gets, and inherintly believes that he/she is wanted and belongs to the society.

But, with the endless number of social websites and networking option, one has made their presence felt, but now are having less and less time to status update all these profiles. Is there a solution?

Yes, there is and the solution is absolutely free,

there are two good websites who will help you solve your problem.
The website called "Hello TXT ", allows you to configure upto 50 account services, from varying websites and all you have to do is just update at one place.
The other is "Quub", which also does the same job.
Go
try yourself,

visit
http://hellotxt.com/
https://www.quub.com/

and Enjoy " Status update".

The Sunday and the Monday

The Thought

Monday like any other day doesnot bring ray of hope, or a new opportunity for professionals. For long we have been ditched to agree that its Monday where the problem lies. In fact the problem lies a day before Monday, i.e Sunday. What is this problem and what can be the solution..........

Long back an ad of Tata Safari Decor took eyeballs, it was around 2008, when the ad starting lines were
" I always wanted to quit on Monday mornings". click here to see the ad.
The ad surely persuaded good enough MBA classes to discuss and  consumers to buy.
The problem most see on Monday, is they wish to continue to live life like Sunday, but due to work, they have to give away this fun day.
The success of this line and "Reclaim your life" campaign does tell us, that maximum of workers are not happy with their job. Most of us have missed the bus and now lack the courage to chase it again.

We are not enjoying the work, or feel that our abilities are not being utilized completely.
Just couple of days back, I was taking an interview of the prospects for a particular post in an organization.
I asked one common question to all,

" How much do you expect"?
What amazed me was that, no one, absolutely no one spoke anything other than monetory terms.
Someone could say, " I expect a healthy working environment", or " Opportunity to handle one project per month individually"or " one New thought to work every weekend"........... etc etc.

The idea is we have monetized everything, and the parameters of success is now ,based on how much money you have earned, rather than, how much value you have added.
and with that thought prevailing everywhere,
its very common to expect employees, to feel stuck on Monday morning, as they are not looking forward to work, but are afraid of the money that they will loose if they quit.

An Idea:

In each month, give 24 Hours, without monitoring to all your employees. The only condition should be to share the results at the end of 24 Hours, and be set to be amazed and surprised with even the level 4 employee.

Can you create an organization where every Employee look forward to come on Monday?