All Entries Tagged With: "Effectiveness"

Many people believe that creativity is inborn and only a chosen few are creative. While it is true that creativity is inborn, it is not true that only a chosen few are creative.

There are three different kinds of creative responses. Which is yours?

I sometimes get hundreds of emails a day. I used to get sucked in and spend hours sorting them out. I invariably ended up having a day when nothing seemed to be getting done. Over time, I discovered and started using these tricks and now I feel completely in control and save many hours every [...]

As you grow up and gain experience, you absorb assumptions which then drive your life and limit your choices. You can break away from them with a simple tug if you want to but you don’t. As you acquire more and more experience, your repertoire of blind assumptions grows too, correspondingly limiting your choices. Your experience becomes a hindrance in your being creative.

Let us first see what stops us from making happy discoveries. We have been conditioned to see what we expect. Our preconceptions creep into whatever we come across. We don’t see things as they are but as we expect them to be.

Secondly, we force our preconceptions into whatever we do and want a task to go along predetermined lines. Too obsessed with how things should be, we don’t recognize lucky turns of events and new possibilities.

Saying no is perhaps the most important productivity tool that exists. Saying no is an art. It is also perhaps the most difficult thing to do for most people. I used to dread the occasions where I knew I will have to say no and I used to prepare for such situations for days. Now, [...]

We all know that when a speaker gives an address on stage, his or her choice of clothing is not whatever that was pulled out instantly from the wardrobe. In today’s business arena, image is everything and what a speaker wears is crucial to that image.

An oft repeated fault in many organisations, is to automatically attribute success to the brilliance of the manager concerned or the team. Failure conversely is attributed rather automatically to incompetence. This is a serious flaw. In the above instance the CEO could have requested the ‘star’ performer to make a presentation to all the sales staff and share his insights into the strategy and tactics that in fact led to his grand ‘success’.

Two¬† critical skills which the highest performing managers have in spades are the ability to influence and persuade. The most obvious targets for your powers of persuasion are your team, and sometimes your peers in different departments; but just as you need to manage down or sideways , it’s also critical you know how to [...]

There is much talk of progress and success nowadays. Motivational programs are everywhere. In what sense of the word are we talking? For argument’s sake, let’s confine ourselves to the sense of advancement in career and money-making prospects. This then presupposes that everyone would always be striving to improve one’s earning capabilities and keep on [...]

It’s when events are overwhelmingly beyond your control, that you either find new ways to cope or are pulled down by the undertow. Your usual defenses are inadequate to protect from overwhelming long-term stress. Stress can build gradually beyond tolerance level, or a surprising turn of events like those recently reported in the news can create the kind of vulnerability that demands openness to change.

All of us want to forge ahead and excel in our respective fields. There are different approaches adopted by various persons for achieving their goals. Goals, of course, keep changing from time to time.

Let’s take a look at success. For many people, success or being successful is just as scary as the first time they rode a bicycle. Naturally, many people want to be successful. However, there are few that truly have the motivation to put forward the needed effort and action, and make the necessary sacrifices to get what they want.

The countdown for the New Year has started. Immature persons are thinking hard to decide on a remarkable New Year resolution which can transform their life in a night and experienced persons like us, who are guilty-ridden about breaking their resolutions every year, are working seriously on the reasons of failure and finding a failure-proof resolution.

There is much talk of anger management nowadays. It is good that the negative import of anger is understood now and people have become ready to do something about it if they can.

Control freaks are always in a hurry and in their hurry end up destroying quite a lot of things around them that they themselves have built up. The trick is to let them rant but keep the control of the final action and pacing in one’s own hands

What is the purpose of life? As Albert Camus said, “We humans are creatures who spend our lives trying to convince ourselves that our existence is not absurd.” If we are to believe in what Mr. Camus observed, we’ll also have to admit that the extent to which humans go to achieve this assurance is [...]

I recently was speaking to a middle management professional about work-life balance and was telling him about a simple tool to evaluate if there is a balance between our work and personal lives. This is called a ‘wagon wheel’ and looks like a wheel with spokes on it. The spokes are representative of the various [...]

I came across a very simple but interesting game that soft skills trainers use to demonstrate effect of hidden agendas in a team. Assume that there are three teams named red, blue, and green. Each team has three boxes or cubes – the same colour as of their team names. The teams are supposed to [...]

Think about this… how much have you wanted to achieve, or have achieved, and how much of the same language does the brand you speak? If the answer if not as much as what is reality, then, there is lot of work to do on your ME brand-speak! What’s the ME brand? Each of our [...]

Last week end I took a break at a sea side resort in Pondicherry (aka Puduchery, as it is called now). Much to the chagrin of my wife and kid, I anchored myself for a few hours in the comfortable pool side chairs placed alongside the beach and indulged in my favorite activity – gazing [...]

I am amazed at the various self help and self development books that are currently on the best sellers’ lists. This clearly indicates that many people are looking for a road map to develop and succeed in their life quests. Most seem to be newer edits or versions of age old truths which are just [...]

If at all you want to develop political will, go to the kids, learn from them! I have come across two kinds of people. First kind are the ones who want to get something done and they get it done no matter what (read as beg, borrow or steal). The second kind are those who [...]

Teamwork is not rocket science, and mostly a matter of common sense. Here are 50 simple but powerful ways you could make teamwork work. 1.    Act with integrity; this is one quality that will make a great team. 2.    Credibility as a team-leader is mostly as good as only it is perceived. So display credibility [...]

Learn how to create a balance in your time and work by applying the theory of the Four Elements — earth, fire, air and water — to the way you manage your time. Here is a model of time management that, although highly original and innovative, is based on a theory that is several thousand [...]

I’ve noticed a definite pattern in the countless jam sessions I’ve had with colleagues and clients – the best idea gems often surface in the last few minutes. A morning spent teasing out the best strategy…two hours back ‘n forthing on what to name the campaign… and, just as you’re clearing away the coffee cups [...]

In a hilarious sequence in one of his immortal films Charlie Chaplin ambles into a shipyard and finds himself right next to a big ship with no one around. He cannot resist fiddling with the ship. He notices that the ship has been tethered with ropes. In his inimitable bumbling way Chaplin loosens just one [...]

It is easy to say, difficult to practice. Most small entrepreneurs have problems to control their time. It is fundamental to organize your tasks and schedule. There are also plenty of articles, books and talking about the subject. Why? Let’s start from the end. With more time available you will be able to exercise innovation, [...]

Perfectionism is a curse -  a self limiting belief that paralyze us and keep us from moving forward in our lives. Coaches often term these self limiting beliefs “gremlins”.  We all have gremlins that whisper in our ear.  The Perfectionism Gremlin is probably the biggest offender. Researchers are finding that the need to be perfect [...]

At every point of time, we are doing things. Sometimes for ourselves, sometimes for others. Actions, words, deeds, thoughts flow from us all the time. What should be our approach? How should we deal with the flow? I feel that one have to always “Do Your Best” (DYB). Why DYB? I think that this is [...]

I have a confession to make.  I am a procrastinator.  I can find a reason to do just about anything other than the tasks I dread.  For example, I should be getting a mailing out right now, but I am writing this article.  However, I recently completed a ton of tasks I had been putting [...]

Owning a business is an audacious task. There are numerous things that need to be completed in a day. It gets so frustrating that owners and fitness professionals question how all will get accomplished. The crux of the issue lies not in the amount of time or lack of time, but organization. The successful entrepreneur [...]

In the important areas of our lives, dissatisfaction is a positive – a way to constantly improve. At the same time, dissatisfaction has its limitations. Applying dissatisfaction to many areas of life just leads to frustration and regret. In my first job, as a salesman with Procter and Gamble, at the annual sales meeting the [...]

The editor of a Delhi based newspaper wrote an article bemoaning the fall in standards of the Indian Foreign Service. It was but natural that this article would be followed by a barrage of letters from readers, some agreeing with him and some not amused. Some of the letters were truly insightful and gave glimpses [...]

¬† Most readers will be familiar with, or have heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s best selling business book ‘The Tipping Point’. The author suggests that there is a point at which you need apply only a small effort to create an effect. This is rather like giving the final push to topple a large boulder or [...]

There are many areas to look at in communication: a message is communicated through visual, vocal and verbal means. From that, comes the importance of body language, how we present ourselves, and so on. The visual and vocal elements are indeed very important to effective communication, but we will not touch on that here. Rather, [...]

Everything begins with the way we think, leading to the way we act and behave. By changing the way we think, we can find new ways to do things better and be better in every aspect of our lives. Mind Maps are a profound tool for effective thinking. Their contribution and impact on our thinking [...]

There are some people who are invariably late no matter how hard they try to be in time. It is for the simple reason that they did not manage their time well. Such people always feel beleaguered by different tasks they have to do each day. They feel exhausted and tired. The solution lies in [...]

Here is an example of T-shirt folding that I use when I want to demonstrate the point that “creativity is about making tasks/things faster/better”. The traditional way of folding a T-shirt takes about 15 seconds. A few years ago I received a video clip showing a Japanese lady folding a T-shirt much faster, taking about [...]

Who is a winner? To me a person, who decides to do something and then does it, is a winner. At the same time someone who decides not to do something and doesn’t do it, is equally a winner. A loser on the other hand decides to do something and doesn’t do it or decides [...]