Beyond Weekend

Success and Happiness

2010-01-31T12:57:00.002+05:30

"Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."
- Albert Schweitzer

I came across this quote few days back and it made me ponder.

Does success give us happiness? I still believe, yes, though with a caveat that it could be for a span of time. After certain time a success no longer may make us feel elated and the benchmark of defining our success changes. And rightly so, as this is the key to progress, the urge to do more, to research, innovate and create.

The chances of success in a pursuit is definitely very much higher if you love what you do and are passionate about it. The best part of being passionate about doing something is the enjoyment you would any way get just 'doing' it irrespective of the end result. The end result will also be a reflection of your passion. Like as I believe, the best recipes are always prepared by the most willing cooks or the best analysts are the ones who delve deep passionately into their subjects.

Tracy Moris writes "The key is to not confuse happiness with success. Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. In other words, instead of waiting for your circumstances to make you happy, you have to decide to be happy no matter what your circumstances."

There is no eternal success and there is no eternal happiness, so the journey is the key and to decide to be happy irrespective of your circumstances is the first step to sustain happiness.

There is another perspective to success and hapiness. Everyone would have different benchmarks of success and happiness. So it is never appropriate to comapre ones success with another's. We may percieve a person to be more successful than another, however you never know, the 'less successful' person may be the happier one.

The key is to introspect and honestly answer:

"What makes me happy?"
"What am I passionate about?"
"What do I want to do?"

With this I will leave you with another thought: Can we dare to measure our success by the happiness we have?

photo credit: Bindaas Madhavi via Flickr

What Matters Now - is to read, think and take action

2009-12-18T00:58:00.002+05:30

What Matters Now is an ebook which you must read. It talks about the Things to THINK about and most importantly TAKE ACTION.

72 great thought leaders have contributed to this book by sharing what they are thinking about.

This is a brilliant compilation of articles being shared by Seth Godin and available for free.

You can download it here: What Matters Now

One single word, one single page each is all that took the great thinkers to share their thoughts -enough to provoke you, to make you ponder and to "shake things up".

A sneek peak into few of the articles:

Seth Godin on Generosity: If you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. They want to engage, to interact and to get you more involved.

Jacqueline Novogratz on Dignity: Creating ways for people to solve their own problems isn’t just an opportunity in 2010. It is an obligation.

Howard Mann on Connected: We walk the streets with our heads down staring into 3-inch screens while the world whisks by doing the same. And yet we’re convinced we are more connected to each other than ever before.

Rajesh Setty on Enrichment: You are only as rich as the enrichment you bring to the world around you.

Mark Hurst on Speaking: Be honest, be authentic, and speak from your passion. Yes, it means taking a risk. But the results might surprise you.

Many great thoughts from the following authors:

Read it. Share it. Take ACTION.

What have you learnt today?

2009-08-30T18:34:00.000+05:30

At work you are expected to successfully deliver every task, every project, on time every time. If you fail once, you may possibly not get the chance again. Every piece of work you deliver carries with it the 'attributes' - was it precisely what was required, was it delivered on time; have YOU added value with YOUR contribution? Take a moment to think - your deliverables show your qualities. If you were the stakeholder would you say "Wow!" by the stuff you delivered?

To continuously live up and exceed the expectation of your customers and stakeholders, continuous learning is key. Learning the skills and gaining the knowledge to deliver 'Wow! quality work' is an essential component of an individual's growth. Always remember, if you can't live up to the expectation or even deliver more than what is expected, then someone else will!

Are you learning to live up to these expectations?

What have you learnt today? What have you learnt in the last one week, a month, an year?

What have you learnt which will help deliver more for your customers?

Action:

Create a learning log. Write down what you learn every day. If you are not learning, it will show!
Have a learning goal. What should you learn to deliver more and add more value to your work? Anticipate your future deliverables (short term and long term), analyze the industry trend, understand the customers' need and their business and design your own learning plan.
Set timelines by which you would achieve these specific learning goals. Smart learning in quick time is the necessity of today.
Track your learning on a regular basis. Are you progressing in the right path and on time?

You grow not by years of experience but by the knowledge you acquire and implement.

Keep learning. Keep growing.

#Th!nkTweet: Bite-sized lessons for a fast paced world!

2009-07-01T23:59:00.004+05:30

I read Rajesh Setty's latest book #Th!nkTweet: Bite-sized lessons for a fast paced world! and re-read it the very next day.

It is packed with wisdom and the bite-sized lessons will provoke you to think and think again. The benefit of a book comes only when we take a learning out of it and then practice the insights in our daily life. This book shows the path to immense learning through 'bite-sized lessons', all written as tweets within 140 charecters. Indeed, Rajesh proves here that 140 charecters is enough to make us think.

This may be a small book which would take you just about an hour to read through but do not judge the book by its thickness. It is a book which should be read and re-read, to think, introspect and put the learning into practice. In todays world where time is most valuable, this book has a very high ROI for the time you spend on it. The tweets will provoke your thought and let you introspect on the way you live today!

Foreword by Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) says it all in a tweet - "#Th!nkTweet is a cool little book filled with twinsights, twumor, and twinfluence of Twitter."

I take another learning from this book 'project': Rajesh has been into tweeting since December 2008, that was about six months back, only. It is inspiring to see how he has been able to leverage the twitter platform to come up with his idea of publishing tweets in a book form. You can do wonders if you have the vision and you know where exactly you want to go.

You can follow Rajesh in twitter at @UpbeatNow

You can buy the book at Happy About (publisher) or Amazon.

To read more on this book and to follow the buzz around it, check Rajesh Setty's website. If you enjoy the book, let others know.

Thanks again Rajesh for this great book and wish all the success.

Enjoy reading and quick learning!

(Book cover photo source: rajeshsetty.com)

Mind Mapping - capturing your thoughts freely

2009-04-11T17:42:00.000+05:30

Mind Mapping is a technique by which we can capture our thoughts and logically put them together based on their dependencies, relationships or associations. If you have not used this technique, this post would be useful to introduce you to the power of mind mapping and the value you may get by using the mind mapping technique.

When we brainstrom to solve a problem, to capture the approach to a new project or even managing our To-Do list, we probably record our thoughts on the whiteboard, on a notepad, in a document or spreadsheet. I do find it a bit restricted to logically document my thoughts when I record in spredsheets. In turn I risk to not capture an idea. Its difficult to record the free flowing ideas when limited by a few rows and columns. A whiteboard ofcourse makes it easier, but does not allow to quickly share with my colleagues who are located around the world. The alternative to this is to capture my thoughts in a Mind Mapping software.

To see what Mind Mapping is all about, watch this video. Here Tony Buzan, who is known to be the inventor of modern mindmapping speaks about this powerful technique.

(courtesy: iMindMap at YouTube)

There are many Mind Mapping tools available on the internet. I personally use a open source mind mapping software, FreeMind. Its easy to document my thoughts logically and then export it to a spreadsheet, a document or even in a pdf, if I do need to share my ideas with someone not using this tool.

Hope this helps to capture your thoughts with ease and without limitation and increase your productivity and creativity.

Servant Leadership

2009-03-29T00:10:00.002+05:30

Last week I heard about Servant Leadership from one of my colleagues. The concept made me interested and I went on to do some reading. This leadership philosophy has resonated in me and I am in search of a deeper insight of this in today's corporate world.

Servant Leadership is a leadership philosophy where you serve first and then be the leader. This philosophy was presented by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970 where he said:

"The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature." (courtesy - greenleaf.org)

A servant leader is identified of having the following charecteristics:

Calling - a calling to serve others
Listening - a keen interest to listen to others views
Empathy - an ability to understand others situation
Healing - to emotionally support when things are not all well for someone
Awareness - an awareness of the surrounding and being informed of the happenings
Persuasion - others work for you because they want to and not because they have to
Conceptualization - an environment to encourage others to share ideas openly
Foresight - an ability to anticipate the future happenings and trends as much as possible
Stewardship - to work for the larger benefit of the society
Growth - help others grow
Building Community - develop a sense of being in a community among the team members

There is a sense of calmness and selflessness in the leadership approach. Collaboration, empowerment and foresight are so necessary in today's corporate life. Servant leadership talks of all this and more. It encourages a sense of bonding and a spirit of team work to achieve organizational goals where many are surely more 'powerful' than one.

Does Servant Leadership appeal to you? How many of the above charecteristics do you practice? Are you a servant leader?

Thanks for reading.

About Beyond Weekend blog

2009-02-22T00:14:00.004+05:30

Why is the blog named Beyond Weekend?

I have heard so many people say with a sigh of relief, "Thank God its Friday" and with an excitement in the voice, "Have a good weekend". At the same time I know of "Monday morning blues".

This made me think. Are we not so happy during the week? Are we stressed and do not enjoy what we are doing at work? Well, yes often we are much happier and relaxed during the weekend than the weekdays because we are not really excited about what we are doing at work. There would surely be a few more reasons. Personally I have always felt and believed that the quality of work and productivity would hugely increase if we enjoy what we do and reduce the stress at work. If this is true for a large population of employees it would have a significant impact on a team or even an organization.

Hence the thought came of having this blog, where I capture my learning and share my random thoughts about being happy at work. In turn, I believe, we would achieve success and contribute towards having a more profitable organization. In the process we develop or show traits of certain attitudes which emphasizes our personal brand.

I related to the Friday evening feelings and named this blog Beyond Weekend. How would a Monday morning be if we can have the inner joy and excitement of the Friday evening? Can we achieve it and contribute to let others achieve it as well?

My blog is in search of answers and documents my learning. I also end up sharing my view points.

What is Beyond Weekend?

My viewpoint to manage the complex work life with a goal where we look forward to be in office on Monday mornings and enjoy every moment of each work day.
I also share my learning towards building an individual's brand and capture my random thoughts about the brand you.

Some of my initial posts where I gave a structure to my thoughts can be found in these posts:

About Me (after a why and what, the who behind this blog)

Learning is key to our growth and I always consider myself a student of leadership and management.

I started my career as an IT Systems Administrator and worked on various technologies and managed systems and networks. My work allowed me to interact with various people around the world from different cultural, academic and technical backgrounds which enabled me to learn a lot. Some of this would naturally be reflected in my blogs.

Currently I am responsible for IT Service Delivery in a leading global IT organization.

Thank You,
for showing an interest and reading my musings. I highly appreciate the time you have taken to read through the pages on my blog and wish it was atleast a bit useful. I would be grateful if you would express your thoughts and make this blog an interactive platform for us to learn from each others view points. Leave a comment below the posts or you may directly contact me here.

Disclaimer: All the views I express in this blog are my own and not of any organization I am associated with or had been associated with in the past.
Wherever I have quoted someone's valued work or a blog or website I have pointed to the source wherever possible.

Beyond Code: Learn to distinguish yourself in 9 simple steps!

2008-12-07T22:38:00.007+05:30

Thank you Rajesh for this great book. It was a wonderful gift making Beyond Code available for free.

Rajesh Setty's Beyond Code is about 9 simple steps to distinguish yourself. I read it and I could very closely relate to it. It is like a handbook you should frequently refer to and ensure you are practicing the principles which would help you be distinguished in the crowd.

The book is divided into two sections

Inner game (the game we play with ourselves): Learn, Laugh, Look, Leave a Lasting Impression, Love
Outer game (the game we play with the external world): Leverage, Likeability, Listen, Lead

The topics are practical and you must introspect to relate more with your self. There are exercises at the end of each chapter and you must sincerely do them. They superficially look simple but once you sincerely do them you would realize how thought provoking they are and help you to relate your situation to the learning.

This book is a must read for all of us who are in the IT industry. We are too focused on the technical skills which benefit us in the short term but here Rajesh has shared his insights on how to distinguish ourselves and get superior results in our life. This is a book you should read, re-read and ensure you practice the learning. If atleast few around us learn something out of this book we would definitely have a better workplace to live in.

This book has touched me also because Rajesh is a IT person like myself. He was once a IT consultant and now an entrepreneur and investor.

You can download the book free from Rajesh Setty's website or buy it here.

Thank you Don (Don Frederiksen) for sharing about Rajesh's book on your Lead Quietly blog. You have not only shared the great book Beyond Code but also guided me to the world of Rajesh Setty's blog - Life Beyond Code, which is very insightful reading.

Friends, practice the learning and I am sure it will bring a huge difference to your life and 'who' you are. Make it viral and share your learning.

Have a good week ahead.

Live as if there is NO tomorrow

2008-11-10T01:38:00.012+05:30

Do you see people coming to office on Monday mornings with a gloomy face? I wonder how they have spent their weekend. Was the Sunday evening start of the frustration? Possibly the agony of the coming week looms large on them. The harsh reality of a struggle they would encounter through the work days. Well, there may be many around us with a similar state of mind - if you care to look around - entrapped in an emotional state of negativity.

One such guy I know, is Ravi (name changed). I knew he was bored with the job, yet he was in it for the past eight years which he still believes is his career. I knew him well, and I understood that he was trapped in a career he hated. Yet, the social responsibilities 'forced' him to move on. In effect, every day in office for him was another boring day - as if to go through the chores and watch the clock tick. The lack of enthusiasm was contagious enough to not only touch his quality of work but of his peers! I saw that as a negative parasite sat in a so called, positive (but rotting) sack where much was at stake. Yet, the guy was expected to contribute, deliver and fulfill the goals his manager gave him.

One day over a cup of coffee, I asked Ravi, "Why would you like to do something that you do not like?" Ravi's response was exactly what I anticipated, "What options do I have? I am into this job and I have to pay the EMIs and the bills. I never wanted to do this kind of work but I studied engineering and I was always told that I must work for a good company."

"And, what would you like to do, given a choice?"

"Not sure, but I do not enjoy what I do."

I wondered, "If you really do not know what you want to do, what makes you happy, then how the hell would you know what would you like to do in your life?"

Probably that was too difficult a question for Ravi to answer spontaneously, but we went back to our work.

Few weeks later, Ravi came up to me and said, "Can we talk for a moment?"

"Sure"

As we walked over to the coffee machine, Ravi said "Well, I intensely thought what I wanted to do. I know exactly what I should do....."

"So are you quitting?"

"No, I am not", he thoughtfully said. "I would continue to do what I am doing. But I have noticed the interesting pieces within the clutter of work I hate to do. I clearly know that the interesting stuff will give me enough motivation to finish my other chores as well."

I was puzzled, "How did you manage to suddenly change your frame of mind?"

"Till few days back I blamed my destiny that I was in this job, struggling through the days. But I realize today, that though I blamed others for my destiny, it was me who chose to accept and it was me who is bearing the consequences. But today I believe, its me who is responsible for where I am and its me who must change it for better ..... Until I exactly know what I want to do in life, I would try to enjoy what I do and bring out my best to deliver the best."

He paused for a moment to continue, "Well, at the end of the day every moment in office is a moment lost in life. Who can control the moments of my life most, other than me? I am completely transformed and motivated to ensure I enjoy every moment - a moment is past the very next moment, and is eternally lost! Its only one life to live and I would like to live as if there is no tomorrow."

Couple of moments by the water cooler that day, left a lasting impression on my outlook.

Goal setting

2008-11-08T23:59:00.018+05:30

You can do wonders if you can identify what exactly your GOAL is.

As an individual or a team, we must know what we would like to achieve in order to have a clear focus. As a manager it is imporatant for us to ensure that our team members know precisely what we would like to achieve, and what their individual deliverables are. Often in organizations employees are engrossed in ambiguities. Ambiguities, to me, are just a state where we do not know which path to take and what decisions to make to reach a specific goal. Often that is because we are not even sure what we would like to achieve and what our goal is! Being able to handle ambiguities well is extremely important.
When we set goals there are few rules which we should follow:

Document your goal - Write it down. Think over it to ensure it accurately describes what you would like to achieve. Refine it and make it brief such that the 'goal statement' is crisp. Revise it such that it is clear to anyone who reads it and not just you.
Define a timeline - All goals must be attached with a timeline. When would you like to reach your goal? Without a timeline there is a potential to loose focus on it over time, without realizing the fact that you are astray. However, it is extremely important to define practical and realistic timelines. Many projects face delivery pressure because realistic timelines were not planned. A tight deadline agreed with the customer creates immense pressure for the employees and stake holders and the fall out is a poor quality of delivery. We should be careful about this and if required, negotiate with the stake holder of the deliverable.
Create mile stones - If your goal has a vast deliverable, for example delivery of a complex project, define smaller mile stones. These mile stones should be like sub goals leading towards the larger goal. Attach a time line to each of the mile stones and track your progress. It allows you to check that you are on track.

One of the useful method, I have been practicing is to write down on a planner every Friday evening, what am I going to do on each of the days next week. It clearly gives me an idea what are the things I need to work on. My deliverables are clear with no chance of missing out a task. As a matter of practice if we note down things, it clearly does not go out of our mind and at the same time help us to prioritize.

Seeing a list of 'tasks' which are the milestones to my goals gives a fair understanding about the time I would need to complete them. There would be tasks which would be easy to do and some which would require some thought. But overall it gives me a complete control of the things we need to deliver. It gives me much needed control on my time.

A definite goal setting also helps in preventing any rework. If we know exactly what we would need to deliver then it is much easier to plan. I would blog on the planning part in another post. Precise planning would automatically increase the probability of delivering right the first time.

All times are good times, only if...

2008-09-21T21:33:00.007+05:30

I have not posted lately in my newly started blog. My job assignments have taken priority over any other thing in the last few weeks. Hopefully I would do better time management to post more regularly.

I am traveling now and came across a great line on a desktop calendar in the guest house room I am staying.

It says:

this time, like all times, is a very good one,
if we know what to do with it

You are, what others believe you are

2008-08-26T10:32:00.001+05:30

You are, what others believe you are!

Even before you read the rest of this post, take some time to ponder on the statement and relate to your experiences. Have you ever been in a situation where you realized that others had a different perception about you, even though you thought differently about yourself? If you can think of, then that would really be a moment to look back and analyze what caused it.

Its self introspection that can change us. There may be innumerable 'soft skill' trainings that we might attend but unless we believe in the concepts and realize the benefits of the classroom lecture the real transformation will never happen. Beyond weekend approach is based on the methodology to transform ourselves into happy human beings using a powerful 'tool' called self introspection and the power of analyzing situations followed by decision making. So back to what I was saying...

Handling others perception about you - this is a key to your own growth in an organization and managing your reputation. Would you buy a product which does not have a good review? Or, would you go to a movie in the weekend which had a poor rating in the Friday newspaper? Our critics are the most powerful advertisers of ourselves - positively and negatively. Relate it with situations within the organization and you would realize that this holds true for each one of us as individuals.

This is perception management and it is so important in today's work culture. The way you manage others perception helps you to build your own brand - the brand YOU.

Beyond Weekend approach

2008-08-13T23:26:00.010+05:30

Beyond Weekend approach is based on the fundamental principle that:

Our attitude at work influence our state of mind which affects our happiness.
Our attitude impact our customers, managers, subordinates and coworkers.
Our reaction to situations and response to people influence the attitude of others.
The attitude of others influence us and affects our state of mind - positively or negatively.
Positive attitude produce positive reactions and negative attitude produce negative reactions.
This is contagious and positively or negatively affect the overall health of an organization, which in turn influence our work life and impact our happiness at work.

In Beyond Weekend we look at the rudimentary ways by which we can generate positive reactions in our workplace to produce positive results.

Instead of looking around and expecting others to make us happy, here we identify what WE can do to take control and make ourselves happy and create a positive influence on others. The positive attitudinal stepping stones lead us through the journey of happiness.

We will identify the stepping stones here and build the foundation of the Beyond Weekend approach.

Introspect, implement and share these 'stepping stones'. Practice the positives and let a chain reaction start to ignite the happiness within your work place.

Who should read this blog

2008-08-07T00:06:00.008+05:30

You should read this blog,

IF, as your own self,

you believe happiness is important in life, including life at work
you want to introspect how you are managing your work days and wish to make them better
you feel stressed at work and looking for relief
you have Monday morning blues quite often and interested to throw that feeling away
you self-doubt about your contribution to your organization and wonder about your self-esteem

IF, as an employee in an organization,

you want an office environment where you can be to enjoy work
you want to succeed in your career (and in your 'job')
your boss isn't happy with you and you're not sure how to handle this
you crib after every appraisal, year after year
you find more negatives in your company than positives, in people and policies around you

IF, as a supervisor, manager or a leader,

you can dare to treat your team as your own baby
you agree or disagree to a view that employees are equally important as customers
you want to have a successful team
you wish to be with people working as a family and delivering results
you feel proud of what you do and the great team you have
you have to deal with attrition, too often
you feel sandwiched between your management and your subordinates

And, last but not the least
IF, you would like to contribute in our discussion

about your experiences in life at work - bitter and happy and how you managed it
share your positive and negative feelings and enrich us all, and make us think what you have thought
collaborate to let ourselves learn together from each others experience

I must take this opportunity to Thank You for reading this till the end. Hope you would find the articles and comments in this blog useful and make it interactive through your valued comments.

Have a great week ahead, always.

Background of this blog

2008-08-04T23:12:00.008+05:30

In today's competitive world I observe that there is great focus of the corporates in the training of their employees. Companies not only train their staff on enhancing their technical skills and product knowledge but also spend huge amount of time and money nurturing their soft skills.

In the area of soft skills, the trainings vary from sessions on customer relationship management, employee motivation techniques, extensive leadership trainings and the list is endless. There is great innovation on how the trainings are delivered to touch the employees. The trainings are designed with an intention to bring out the best in people which in turn should improve the performance of the organization and hence increase profitability.

I believe, one area where we should focus on is the happiness of employees at work. There are few companies that explored this area and benefited out of this. As employees and managers we are trained on various management techniques and leadership skills to bring out the best in self and others. Employee happiness is one such state which would help that cause and benefit the employees and the organizations equally.

In this blog I intend to explore the horizon beyond weekend where the week days can be as happy and colourful as a weekend can be. I firmly believe that happy employees contribute to greater profitability of their organizations, which in turn benefits each one of us including you and me.

Contact Me

2008-08-04T00:01:00.003+05:30

To contact me, please use the form below to send me an email.