Sunday, October 23, 2011

Amat Victoria Curam - Victory Loves Preparation

From the looks of the picture, please do not assume anything negative. When I first saw this picture, My mind Immediately raced to a story and every bit of the story made senses to me & correlated with the picture. This article is about what went through my mind.

In a gun battle, just imagine you are lying on the ground & your enemy is standing right next to you pointing his gun. You are left with only 1 bullet & you fire your gun just when your gun jam's up and fails to shoot. You wouldn't want that to happen to you right???? A gun requires a good care whether you use it or not and you really have to clean it, grease it and ensure that all of its components are fitted back perfectly and test fired before putting it to use. This will avoid all sort of technical glitches that you may face during heavy use.

Similarly, Victory is not about firing all the bullets at your enemy and taking them them down but its also about saving your own self. Its not about how many enemies have you taken down, or which side has the minimum damages. Its about surviving till end the and living to tell the tale. If you are NOT prepared to win, you cannot win at all.

In life we blame a lot of things on "Fate" but I would only say that you were not really prepared enough/properly for that moment. You simply did not foresee that things could go wrong and thereby was not prepared to handle it. Yes, you cannot control everything around you, but there are somethings that can be though through before hand which will help you be better prepared to lead less troublesome life. You wouldn't run into a situation stuck with 1 bullet and fire it only to realize that your gun is jammed because you did not take proper care of it. Life requires a lot of careful & detailed planning and living each day to stick to the plan and achieve what you set out to do.

So get prepared to win !!!!

Cheers!
John Mathew.S

Monday, May 24, 2010

Leadership

Leadership is nothing but a power struggle - John Mathew.S

Understanding Power Struggle :

Example 1 : Lets take a family with 2 kids. The eldest one is Halie & the youngest is Andrew. Now, Andrew being the youngest and most mischievous(vulnerable), his parents obviously would have watchful eyes over him and thereby giving him more attention. Now this pushes the eldest kid Halie out from comfort zone and feels a bit neglected and Halie would begin crying often to try and get as much attention as possible from her parents and thereby try to re-establish her comfort zone.

Example 2 :
Lets take a teenager for our next example now and his name would be Mark. When mark is with friends, he tries to earn the "coolest kid of the clan" by showing off his newest tricks, toys, Jokes and so on. He is in a constant process of doing so to remain the coolest kid. He wouldn't let anyone take that place inside his clan as he would be pushed outside of his comfort zone.

Example 3:
There is power struggle in every relationships known to man. At least one of them would point out the mistake of the other which otherwise disturbs the comfort zone and thereby creating an tension/arguments. The boundaries of the comfort zone are re-established with either one compromising or with mutual understanding.

***The idea of the above mentioned examples it to kindle your thoughts to realize leadership behaviors/power struggles around us in almost every situation and to carefully study how each situation is handled by a leader.

Secrets to be a successful leader :


Imagine this. A Cricket team captain should always be positive about the other 10 players and should keep them in the comfort zone. If the comfort zone is disturbed with either one of them, it really affects the teams performance.

The teams successful performance is the captain reward at the end of the day and thereby boosts captains opinion on each individual players. The weakest one is often eliminated/replaced.

The secret of a successful leadership lies in the effectiveness of the leader in managing the comfort zone with the team members and between the team players.

Effectiveness of leadership :


No doubt that leadership is the most effective way known to man to manage/organize/decide the things around him. However, there is certain harm in being a leader for long.

An organizational leader needs to be in the role for specific amount of time to be eligible to moved to the next higher level. The time is often pre-defined by the companies policy.

Similarly, A minister of the state, the Prime Minister/ The President would have to serve a pre-defined amount of time in their role and sometimes they are not allowed to extent them. They are the leaders of the nation and why would the time be limited/Pre-defined. Is it because they need to give others a chance to rule the nation??

It is simply because the effectiveness of the leader decreases over a period of time or rather people do not see him/her a better leader. This thought usually rises over due to the increase in the comfort level of the people while the leader can no longer meet the expectations of the people or see's the expectations as illogical. I must also admit that there has been great leaders who have ruled a nation for almost half a century and there has been nations who has their kings rise & fall often.

As soon as the people do not see him/her as a effective, the person is changed but not the role of the leader.

Is there any another effective way to manage people?????

Monday, May 17, 2010

Sixth sense of Mankind - The Choice Making

Sixth Sense of Mankind – The Choice Making


The Sixth sense of mankind is the sense of making choices. I am not saying that this is literally the sixth sense. However what I am saying is it as important/ vital as the Sixth Sense. The human kind has a very special gift of making Choices and also to look back at the choices we made and appreciate them. Let’s look at an example:


A mother is watching her baby crawling on the table. The baby crawls towards a corner of the table where there is an apple & a knife. For a moment, the mother is scared as the baby might take the knife to play with and might hurt him/herself. The kid first approaches the knife which is seemingly glittering and attractive. However the kid finally takes the apple. The mother who is watching this, is surprised and happy by the choice her baby made.


This simple example tells us about the choice we make and the world that appreciates the choices we make. Everyone makes choices right from birth. The Choices we make creates who we really are.


We wake up in the morning with a choice to get up right away or to snooze for sometime. We have a choice to make on what to wear. At breakfast we have choices, whether to eat or to skip the meal, we have choices in the food we eat. We have choices in the way we commute to work, we have choice in the subjects we study and we have choices in written assessments. We have choices in the way we spend our money. We have choices in choosing our closest ones.


Likewise, we have choices to accept our defeat and to rise up again. We have a choice to improve ourselves / do better than what we are currently doing or continue to do what we are doing. We have choices to look at our inner self or keep saying to ourselves that we are good. We have a choice whether to get angry or to forgive the ones who outdrew us. We have a choice to help a stranger on the road or to ignore him/her.


At the end of the day the choices we make, defines who we really are. It depends if you want the world to appreciate you. The choice is yours whether to be appreciated or to be unnoticed. Make a wise choice always!!!!