Change Management

During our school days, we learnt about Inertia.. There is an Inertia of Motion as well as Inertia of Rest. So, whenever something is in motion, it takes an extra amount of an effort to bring the object to rest and also in case some object is in the state of rest, we need to apply extra pressure to make it moving but once it starts moving, less pressure / force is required to keep it moving. These laws of Inertia, clearly tells us about the Nature's resistance to Change.

We as humans follow the same laws of Nature, i.e., Resistance to Change. When we start our career, we try to find jobs based on our knowledge and available opportunities. We try to adapt to the existing culture of the organisation we join. We always try to put in extra efforts to get noticed.. get appreciated and try to move up the ladder in the organization chart. We slowly develop the habit of following the culture set by the Management Team. In the initial stages, we always try to adjust and never raise questions about the culture or try to change the culture.. May be we do not have the "say" and we just try to be the integral part of the existing set of environment.. to be "one" of them.

Everything goes well, till sometimes the management tries to bring in a different set of rules.. a different environment.. a different culture. The reasons for doing the same can be anything.. may be a need to grow more.. or to grow faster.. to even a change in the Management.. it can be anything.. 

Even the talk of all such changes, start the bouts of criticism.. rounds of rumors . rounds of management's efficiency, knowledge, over confidence,.. The talk of the town is more negative then positive. A very few people accept the change easily, that's Natural, that's what Nature teaches us.. Inertia..

In my opinion, such "Change Management" is a crucial skill set for any Leader. The individual or the set of individuals who drive such change in culture should also possess a few more skill sets, like - Patience, skill to Guide Teams, give Directions, skill to motivate teams to accept change, skill to even direct the Talks making rounds in the town in a positive direction. 

Like when we drive a car, we have a set of Gears. Low Gears to start with.. when force/torque required is much more and then higher gears and glide mode to continue the journey with low force/torque requirement achieving good fuel efficiency while speed is maintained. In case car needs to be stopped or need to turn in a different direction, car has to be slowed down with shift to lower gear and then changing the direction in the slow speed and then slowly increasing the speed with movement to higher gears and coming back to same speed without wasting any time..

We do manage Car in our daily life easily, whatever be the Traffic condition and n number of twists n turns. Why not apply the same logic to our Life.. The change of direction in case of a car can be considered as a Good Example of Change Management. Before changing direction, car slows down.. may be in similar fashion while managing Change in our Life, we should slow down slightly to add More Control, More Focus. Moving to a low gear implies get ready to put in extra efforts, more torque.. take the turn slowly implies never force the change in haste, always go slow.. in a controlled speed. After the change of directions, start changing lanes cautiously. In same fashion, once any change in Life occurs, move cautiously, understand the implications.. understand the environment around and once you are confident then start increasing the speed. The Increase in the speed do require a few more shift in the gears, a greater set of efforts and within no time.. you are back to normal speed.. i.e, the Change has happened successfully.

Slow Speed, greater efforts, caution, understanding limitation, moving forward as per the ambient conditions can easily help anyone to Manage Changes in Life.. its worth trying than resisting the Change.. resisting the Growth.. Do it.. n.. Enjoy the Life!!!

India Vs Pakistan - Is it a Proxy War?

Last week was full of News articles about How an Indian prisoner was beaten up at Pakistan High Security Prison, went into Coma and finally lost his Life..

The Indian prisoner in Question was Sarabjit Singh, a resident of Bhikiwind, a small village in Punjab, near Indo-Pak border. He was caught by Pakistani Authorities at the border and charged for Terrorist activities and branded as a Spy for the Indian Govt. As per his statement, he just wandered into porous Pakistan Territory in a drunken state..

Whatever may be the truth but he spent almost 23 years in Jail, supposed to be hanged, somehow got reprieve from Pakistan Govt.. Everyone tried hard but could not bring him back to India alive.. 

Everyone is raising question now that how a High Value prisoner can be beaten up easily without the involvement of Authorities.. no one will be able to find that truth..

If we look at the background, both India and Pakistan started at the same time, as these two nations were created by Britishers at the time of Independence. For many it was Independence but many remember the time as "Partition".. It was like division of property between two siblings when they don't want to live together. This is the usual practice, followed still today, in our part of the World.. Such divisions, happen to satisfy the demands of all the siblings involved, everyone wants a fair share of the property and wealth.. At the time, property was India and the siblings fighting to get the fair piece were Jawahar Lal Nehru and Mohd Ali Jinnah.. and so Britishers divided the nation in two parts - India for Jawahar Lal Nehru and Pakistan for Mohd Ali Jinnah. To justify the division, Religion was used as an excuse.. what followed was History..  India declared themselves as a nation with free choice to follow any Religion but Pakistan declared themselves as a Muslim nation. India declared that whosoever wants to live at India, can do so and whosoever wants to move to Pakistan can wish to do the same.. Pakistan declared that anyone wants to live at Pakistan must gets converted to Muslim Religion and that single announcement ruined the lives of millions of Hindus living at Punjab (portion which went to Pakistan). In fact, Punjab bore the maximum brunt of the partition as it got divided into two - one in India and other at Pakistan. Many Hindus have to rush to Indian territories, to save their lives, leaving behind all their wealth and businesses. Many lost their lives, during the transition, due to religious clashes.. In all, it was a setback for both the nations, citizens on both sides of the border got hurt, lost their lives, businesses n near n dear ones.. unforgettable moments..

Now, after 65 years of partition, if someone compares India and Pakistan, these two nations are absolutely poles apart in their standing on World Forum, in terms of Growth, Industrialization, Infrastructure, Education..almost everything.. India on one hand moved ahead with policies of Growth, with an eye on future but Pakistan stood firm on bitterness about what it could not get during Partition and tried to build a different nation than India. They somehow depended more on religion than on growth strategies, which pushed them more n more towards fundamentalism & hard-line aspects of religion.. In fact, the people in Power, used Religion as a medium to increase the hatred against India.. in almost all forums..

India and Pakistan went to war, many times, officially or unofficially, sometimes in direct confrontation or sometimes through other routes but Pakistan never succeeded in winning the War. So, Pakistan started Proxy war, by using other channels, like promoting terrorist activities and Jehadi elements n many other means.. Everyone understands that this Proxy War is between the Governments and not between the people of these two nations.. Somehow the people in heart remained as siblings of same parent. They still respect each other.. We love Pakistan's Sufi singers and they love all our Bollywood movies.. We do always love to fight on Cricket field but the competitiveness of both teams creates an atmosphere to be remembered, to be cherished.. we both love our Cricket and its icons.. Sachin Tendulkar, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Zaheer Abbas, Sunil Gavaskar, Wasim Akram, ... all looks part of the same team. Lahore and Karachi are known for their cuisines, mainly Mutton dishes.. In fact, I was at Singapore 10 days back and I found out a small Pakistani Restaurant in a Food Court in Tekka Market.. the Mutton Curry was so delicious.. that I visited that restaurant 3 times during my 5 days stay.. 

I had the opportunity of staying with Pakistani guys for almost one and a half years at Saudi Arabia. I used to work there at that time and I was the only Indian in a group of Pakistani Technicians.. no one can believe that I learnt Punjabi, which is my mother tongue while living at Saudi Arabia with Pakistani guys. I am born and brought up at Delhi, which is a cosmopolitan city and so was never exposed to Punjabi language except for a few days of the year when we used to go to our parental house at Punjab.. but at Saudi Arabia, with Pakistanis, I was speaking Punjabi most of the time. I realized that the language, the culture, the human Values are still the same at both ends of the borders but its the involvement of Government agencies which push us apart and try to create a state of War.. although a Proxy one..

In my opinion, people to people contact should increase and the agencies at both ends should try to somehow end this Proxy war, so that everyone can focus on growth rather than defeating the other party n live harmoniously like good siblings.. live n let others live.. n let others Enjoy the Life..

Continuous Improvement

Yesterday, I met a childhood friend, who used to study with me at Air Force School and we spent good amount of time catching up on the lost action.. it was great fun.

During our discussions, we realized that it has been 30 years, since we last met.. surprising.. time just moves so fast..

Later on, when I was back at home, I tried to visualize those last 30 years, it was an indeed a Great Journey of Life for me, starting with six Great years of Hostel Life (OMG..) and then 24 years of career, in which I traveled a lot and met hundreds of individuals / personalities, who had shared their thoughts with me and many of them did left an impression, always to be remembered.. 

All those individuals must have shaped my thought process and somewhere.. somehow.. in between without realizing much..  I started leaving an impression on others.. unbelievable.. I am not sure, how and when.. but yes, its true and I believe it happens with almost everyone. When individuals grow with responsibilities, they tend to accumulate wealth of experiences and those experiences help them to solve puzzles for others.. it looks to me as a natural process.

With experience, individual grow and get more n more  responsibilities and one of the task at their hand is setting Goals for others.. even I do the same in my current set of responsibilities.. but the task which is very close to my heart is setting goals for myself. 

I do it regularly and try to achieve all these goals within set time frames. One of the my ongoing goal, always remains is "Continuous Improvement". Somehow, I had grown a habit of following this practice of Continuous Improvement, its very easy and very helpful to achieve New success in Life. This practice can be applied on any task, any project, any field.. and this helps you to manage the changes going on in your Life.

Follow a few simple steps to follow this practice. Just try to break down any project or task in smaller steps, to understand the Workflow. Go deeper with each of the smaller steps to understand the details and with each dip, you will realize a few pointers wherein improvement is feasible. You work to carry out the improvement, without getting disturbed by an idea of failure.. yes.. there is no formula to get 100% success.. just try.. and keep on trying.. ultimately you will find success.. you will reach a feeling of achievement, may be small or may be big, depending on the change/improvement you bring to the project. With each visit, such small improvements are possible, an individual just needs a will to drill down the details and another set of will power to knock down the problem areas, however small they may be.. it works.. it brings the change.. it brings the improvement.. it brings the joy n the taste of success.. its possible..

Try and Enjoy the mantra of Continuous Improvement and it can also easily help you to master Change Management. Enjoy the Life..

Building Relationships..

As Life moves on, everyone of us faces n number of turmoil.. creating moments of uncertainity, sometimes even bringing Life to a standstill.. wherein it becomes difficult to make decisions as the road to the future seems foggy..

In my opinion, in such scenarios, we should stick to a basic fundamental of Life, i.e., Building Relationships.

When we talk of any Relationship, be it with your family or friends, a wife.. a husband.. son or a daughter, parents.. or grandparents, friends or colleagues.. an individual is able to feel the emotions of the other person easily, be it the moments of happiness or sadness, the success or failure.. An individual can easily understand those emotions in a Relationship and always Enjoy the Happy moments and try to find solutions to suppress the  sad moments for the other individual. An individual easily takes the role of a Solution provider and try to use all his or her experience to help the relative in distress..

So, its always fruitful, to build more n more Relations, be it with your Neighbours, distant Friends, more n more Colleagues, with all of your official Business Partners n Clients.. with anyone n everyone, with whom you interact regularly, either in your private moments or in official terms.

Once you start building these Relationships, you start to understand the thought process of the other individual more closely. It becomes more n more easier for each individual to understand the needs and desires of the other individual. It brings more Solutions to the table than conflicts. It creates more moments of Happiness n Joy in Life. It creates Harmony in the Society..

It helps.. try and Enjoy the Life!!!

Understanding Priorities

Venue - Home, Dwarka, New Delhi, India; Time - 2.08 pm; a laid back afternoon.. Its a Saturday, wife at office, son at his Fiitjee classes, me - no task at hand.. what to do.. already through with unlimited cups of coffee..

While browsing through mails, networking sites, News columns, somehow I reached my own Blog space.. surprisingly the last Blog was posted in Feb 2011..its been 2 years now..

The time just flows..when I looked back, I realized that I got a new responsibility at office during Mar 2011, it was a challenge and to fit in..I dropped my anchor and announce my arrival by changing my routines from 10-5 to 5-10, starting at 5 am in the morning and normally working through 10 pm in the night.. 

It was time to list out the priorities to succeed in the challenge and unconsciously I dropped off activities, which were low on my priority list at that moment..I never realized it or even I never regretted doing the same..writing Blogs is one such activity. It was close to my heart but really not important in the scheme of things to succeed..

I did it..anyone can do the same to succeed in Life. 

A human can multi-task but there is a limitation to do the same. Even a PC runs slower when some applications start at the background, like any Windows update or some Virus Scan activity or anything.. same is the case with Humans. If they try to attend to hundred of things at one go.. there is good chance, they fail in completing many tasks, they can not stand by their commitments at many times..

So, its always better to list out your priorities, choose the important few and focus only on those important ones.. leave behind the ones which can be left... don't be over-committed.. Its a safe way to accomplish your commitments and achieve success..

Try the same n Enjoy the Life!!!