Developing Purposeful Organisational Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 10)

In the previous article, we explored what purposeful organisational leadership means and why it matters. In this post, we focus on how leaders can intentionally develop purposeful organisational leadership, turning purpose from a statement into a lived reality across the organisation.

Start with Leadership Commitment

“I hold the view that leaders are better able to contribute to the flourishing of life if their actions are guided by a deeper sense of purpose” (De Silva, 2024, p.6). Therefore, purposeful organisational leadership needs to begin at the top. Senior leaders must embrace the organisation’s purpose as a guiding principle for decisions and behaviours. This commitment is not symbolic; it requires courage to prioritise purpose even when short-term pressures tempt compromise.

Make the Organisational Purpose Your Guiding Light

The starting point for developing purposeful organisational leadership is a clear purpose statement. This is not a marketing slogan; it is the organisation’s reason for being and its unique contribution to the flourishing of life. From this foundation, leaders can craft a mission statement that defines how the purpose will be delivered and set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) to drive long-term success.

Continue reading “Developing Purposeful Organisational Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 10)”

Purposeful Organisations (Purposeful Leadership – Part 9)

In the previous articles, we explored the first two branches of purposeful leadership: self and people. In this post, we turn to the third and final branch, purposeful organisations. If purposeful leadership begins with the individual and extends to teams, its ultimate expression is in organisations that are guided by purpose rather than vision.

Beyond Vision: Why Purpose Matters

Traditional organisations often define themselves through vision statements, aspirations of what they want to become. While visions can inspire, they are frequently inward-looking, focused on growth, dominance, or profitability.

Purposeful organisations, by contrast, start with a deeper question: Why do we exist? The answer is not about market share or shareholder value; it is about contribution to the flourishing of life. “Flourishing workplaces require the re-creation of organisations to give life to a truly postmodern era of collaboration in order to facilitate organisations to flourish on this planet for future generations” (De Silva, 2024).

Purpose is not an add-on, like corporate social responsibility (CSR). It is not a department or a project. It is the organising principle of the entire enterprise. Every policy, process, and decisions flow from the purpose. Every role is designed to serve it. Every strategy is evaluated against it. Purpose becomes the compass that guides the organisation through daily decisions, complexities and change.

Continue reading “Purposeful Organisations (Purposeful Leadership – Part 9)”

Complexities of Purposeful People Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 8)

In the previous article, we explored how leaders can intentionally develop purposeful people leadership, an approach that transforms teams and organisations by aligning individual purpose with collective contribution.

While this aspiration is noble and deeply impactful, it is not without its complexities. In this post, we examine the challenges, paradoxes, and tensions that arise when we choose to lead people purposefully.

Cognitive Aspects

One of the first complexities arises from how people cognitively make sense of the notion of purposefulness. The concept of “purpose” is often misunderstood or conflated with goals. While goals are specific outcomes we strive to achieve, purpose is the deeper reason behind those goals, the “why” that gives them meaning. This distinction is not always clear, and many team members may struggle to grasp its relevance. Some may view purposefulness as abstract or philosophical, disconnected from the practical realities of work.

Moreover, individuals interpret purpose through the lens of their own experiences, beliefs, and values. What feels purposeful to one person may seem irrelevant or even threatening to another. Leaders must navigate these differences with sensitivity, helping people explore and articulate their own understanding of purpose without imposing a singular definition. This requires patience, dialogue, and a willingness to embrace ambiguity.

Continue reading “Complexities of Purposeful People Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 8)”

Developing Purposeful People Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 7)

In the previous article, we explored the concept of purposeful people leadership and its importance. In this post, we delve into how leaders can intentionally develop purposeful people leadership, an approach that transforms teams and organisations by aligning individual purpose with collective contribution.

Purposeful people leadership begins with the leader’s own sense of purpose. When leaders connect their role to their higher purpose, they begin to see their primary responsibility not just as managing tasks, but as developing their team members, purposefully. This shift in perspective changes everything. The team is no longer a means to an end; it becomes the very reason for leadership. The leader’s purpose expands to include helping team members discover their own purpose and align it with meaningful roles.

This development process starts with purposeful conversations. Leaders engage with team members to understand their aspirations, strengths, struggles, concerns about their world and values they aspire to live by. They help individuals reflect on their personal purpose, articulate a purpose statement and explore how it can be expressed through their work. When people are placed in roles that resonate with their purpose, they flourish. Their contribution becomes authentic, passionate, and sustainable.

Continue reading “Developing Purposeful People Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 7)”

Leading People Purposefully (Purposeful Leadership – Part 6)

Purposeful leadership extends beyond the self. Once the leader becomes purposeful, the natural next step is to help others, team members, and teams become purposeful. This is not a directive process but a deeply human one, rooted in example, empathy, and engagement. In this article, we explore the second branch of purposeful leadership: leading people purposefully.

Purposefulness in people is transformative. It improves their personal lives, relationships, health, and peace of mind, and this inevitably enhances their effectiveness and contribution at work. The workplace becomes more than a place of transaction; it becomes a space of meaning. Families benefit too, as individuals carry their sense of purpose home, influencing their roles as parents, partners, and community members.

I have experienced this transformation personally. At the age of 27, I had climbed the corporate ladder rapidly to become a director of two subsidiaries of John Keells Holdings, Sri Lanka’s leading conglomerate. At the time, I was driven by ambition and the goal of professional success. I worked long hours, including weekends, and neglected many aspects of my life. I was overweight, frequently ill and hospitalised, disconnected from my young family, absent from church, and unaware of the importance of developing and empowering my team. I had no sense of purpose, only a relentless pursuit of achievement.

Read more: Leading People Purposefully (Purposeful Leadership – Part 6)

Everything changed when I discovered the notion of purposefulness and wrote the draft of my first purpose statement. I began going to the gym, spending quality time with my family, returning to church, reading, cutting excessive costs, investing the savings, and cultivating emotional maturity through meditation. This personal transformation awakened a desire to help my team grow. I began teaching them about purposefulness and supporting their development. As a result, my quality of life and work improved significantly. It was no longer a choice between work and life; it became a commitment to both work and life, harmoniously.

My doctoral research reinforces this understanding. As I wrote in my thesis:

“My research suggests that being purposeful helps understand life from a more holistic and altruistic manner, leads one to conduct life with decent human values, helps make choices beneficial to the flourishing of life, improves caring for the well-being of family and self, and choosing vocations which are aligned with an evolving life-purpose. Adjusting one’s lifestyle in this manner takes courage, determination, and self-discipline. However, persisting with such an aspiration leads to an improvement in the quality of life, generating happiness which, in turn, encourages persisting in being purposeful.” (De Silva, 2024)

I invite you to reflect on how you are leading people. Are you helping them become purposeful? Are you creating conditions for their flourishing? If not, what needs to change?

You may explore literature from my blog http://www.ranjandesilva.blog, my website http://www.ranjandesilva.com, and other sources. Speak with your trusted advisor. We will further explore the notion of purposeful leadership and methods of transformation in the upcoming blog posts.

In the next article of this series, we will explore how to develop purposeful people leadership, how leaders can intentionally cultivate purposefulness in others through structured development, coaching, and empowerment.

References

De Silva, R. L. G. (2024). Living Purposefully: An Inquiry into the Life of a Leadership Development Practitioner. (Doctoral dissertation, Hult Ashridge).

The Complexities of Purposeful Self-Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 5)

The image depicts the complexities encountered when attempting to enact purposeful self-leadership
Illuminating Purpose Amidst Complexity

In the last post, we explored how to develop purposeful self-leadership by articulating a purpose statement and taking small, meaningful steps to live in alignment with it. While this process is deeply enriching, it is not without its challenges. In this post, we explore the complexities of attempting to enact purposeful self-leadership in our lives (De Silva, 2024).

Understanding the Notion of Self-Leadership

The idea of self-leadership is inspiring. It suggests that we can take charge of our lives, lead ourselves with clarity and conviction, and live in alignment with our purpose. However, understanding this notion deeply can be complex. Many mix purpose with goals when in fact it is not. A goal becomes more meaningful when it is based on a purpose. It requires us to accept responsibility for our thoughts, emotions, and actions—something that can feel both empowering and intimidating. The concept may seem abstract or idealistic, especially when life feels uncertain or overwhelming.

Continue reading “The Complexities of Purposeful Self-Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 5)”

Developing Purposeful Self-Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 4)

We explored the notion of Purposeful Self-leadership in the last post, part 3 of this series titled ‘Start with the Self’. Today we explore how to develop Purposeful Self-Leadership and in the next post, we can explore the complexities of such an aspiration. In the first two articles of this series, we explored the two key concepts of purposeful leadership: purposefulness and leadership, and the three branches of purposeful leadership: self, people, and organisations.

Developing Purposeful Self-Leadership starts with articulating a purpose statement depicting our sense of purpose at the current stage of life. The first version of the purpose statement is only a glimpse of our purpose as finding purpose is a lifelong journey. However, having a sense of purpose begins the quest and gives us the drive and desire to be purposeful. Being purposeful improves our clarity about our life purposes and helps us fine-tune our purpose statement, leading to us being more purposeful. This cyclical process not only improves our sense of purpose and purposefulness but also attracts abundance to succeed in vocations aligned with our life purpose, gives us happiness and peace of mind (De Silva, 2024).

Continue reading “Developing Purposeful Self-Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 4)”

Start with the Self (Purposeful Leadership – Part 3)

Purposeful leadership starts with the purposefulness of the individual holding the leadership role. How can a purposeless individual help people and organisations to be purposeful? I am not claiming that all leaders are purposeful self-leaders. Many are not, and as a result, the people and businesses are not purposeful. In this article, we explore the notion of purposeful self-leadership. Given the need to keep these articles short, we will explore how to develop purposeful self-leadership and the complexities of such an aspiration in subsequent articles. In the first two articles of this series, we explored the two keywords of the concept of purposeful leadership: purposefulness and leadership and the three branches of purposeful leadership: self, people and organisations.

A useful question to ask at the outset is what is purposefulness and how do we know we are purposeful?

Continue reading “Start with the Self (Purposeful Leadership – Part 3)”

The Three Branches of Purposeful Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 2)

In the first article of this series, published last month, we explored the two keywords of the concept of purposeful leadership: purposefulness and leadership. As I mentioned earlier, I allow the series to unfold as in the process of finding purposefulness. Being purposeful means creating a positive impact on the people and environment one encounters (De Silva, 2024). As I reflected on this series, the idea of writing about the three branches of purposeful leadership emerged.

I use the metaphor of ‘branches’ rather than categories, boxes, or containers because I see the three core areas of purposeful leadership growing in unison, but at different speeds and proportions, much like the branches of a tree. The bigger branches grow stronger but perhaps more slowly, while the smaller branches grow faster but are not as strong. However, all branches, big or small, have a purpose in the growth of the tree.

Continue reading “The Three Branches of Purposeful Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 2)”

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Green (Purposeful Leadership – Part 1)

A plant with the words Purposeful Living on the pot, given by my eldest daughter for Christmas 2020.  This is a photo of it on the 1st of January 2023. It has grown with the thesis.

Purposeful Leadership contains two ideas, purposefulness and leadership, which cannot be simplified or explained using a short definition. This is substance for a book or many. I commence this series of blog posts, not knowing the nature of articles nor the number of articles. I allow the series to unfold as in the process of finding purposefulness

I must start somewhere, hence let me explain purposefulness in an over-simplistic manner. Purposefulness is a mindset that guides thinking, decisions and actions, with the flourishing of life being given importance.  Flourishing of life begins with one’s own life, that of family, team, organisational stakeholders, environment, society, and the world at large. It’s simply for the flourishing of all forms of life. Being purposeful is a challenging aspiration, given the cognitive, practical, psychosocial and contextual complexities of the world we experience. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile pursuit as discussed in my doctoral thesis; Living Purposefully:  An Inquiry into the Life of a Leadership Development Practitioner (De Silva, 2024). Leadership is about the intention and effort to influence oneself, and those connected with oneself in personal and work roles. Therefore, purposeful leadership is enacting self-, team- and organisational leadership for the flourishing of life. 

Continue reading “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Green (Purposeful Leadership – Part 1)”

The Moral Foundation of Value

“The first principles of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all really hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws” – Marting Lucher King Jr.

The importance of value for organisational and personal purpose came into my radar about 25 years ago when I was in the mid thirties in age. I have incorporated this notion in my leadership development practice in developing leaders and helping them transform organisations. As I started inquiring in to this notion as a part of my doctoral studies a few years ago, having learnt to look at things critically from different paradigms, I realised the complexity of the notion of ‘values’.

Continue reading “The Moral Foundation of Value”

Values – The Compass of Morality

Think of the last time you had to make a difficult decision. A time where options were difficult to pick from. A time where the more materialistically profitable option did feel right. I have faced many such situation. I would like to share my personal experiences to help shed some light on this dilemma.

When I have such a dilemma I reflect on my aspired values to find direction as per the quote by Idowu Koyenikan in the visual above. The five values I attempt to live by are summarised I the following statement.

Continue reading “Values – The Compass of Morality”

Developing Values

We inculcate values during our formative ages, influenced by family, teachers, religion and the society we live in. I always found it is difficult to ‘train’ people to live values as they are already part of each person. I also agree with the above quote by Jennifer Cruise; values do not take us get anywhere, they define us. Therefore what is the point of having values in an organisation and developing team members to live by organisational values.

Continue reading “Developing Values”

Being The Person You Are Destined To Be

Six questions you need to ask yourself to be the person you are destined to be – A presentation by Marshall Goldsmith.

Engage in this sincere presentation by Marshall Goldsmith and reflect on the six powerful questions he is prescribing. You may at-least start thinking in a manner that leads you to discover who you are meant to be. Enjoy the journey.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.

Continue reading “Being The Person You Are Destined To Be”

The Courage To Fail – Path to Success

A Thought Provoking Talk by Les Brown

As you watch this video, reflect on your attitude towards failure, rejection and setbacks etc. What steps would you take to reinforce your attitude or change your attitude to enjoy success?

The Inspiring Leader

Leadership – A poem by SpatulaRead by Mathew Coger

As you listen to this poem, reflect on your current attitude about leadership. Does this move you into thinking of doing what you are doing as a leader or to change your leadership approach? What baby steps would you take to reinforce your good leadership behaviours and/or transform.

Purposefulness in Team Members – Can It Be Developed?

Developing Purposefulness in Team Members – My presentation at the Asian & African Retail Congress in Mumbai India,

A presentation made to leaders in the retail industry at the Asia & Africa Retail Shopping Center Congress. Practical application of leadership and personal develop ent methods delivered with powerful concepts and personal experiences.

As you watch this video, reflect on steps you are taking and further steps you can take to develop purposeful team members in Your organisation.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Step 2 – Show the video – let participants absorb, take notes and write down questions to ask later

Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion

Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video

Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.

Attitude of Gratitude For Those Who Raised You Up

You Raised Me Up by Westlife

Reflection Guide:

As you listen to this song, reflect on those who raised you up so that you can stand on mountains and walk on stormy seas, specially during times of troubles and heart burn with an attitude of gratitude.

Lyrics

When I am down, and, oh, my soul, so weary
When troubles come, and my heart burdened be
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence
Until you come and sit awhile with me

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas
I am strong when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas
I am strong when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas
I am strong when I…

Songs for Growth

Emotions that Motivate you

A Power Packed Talk by Tony Robins

As you watch this video, reflect on your motivation (motive to take action). How does emotion (energy in motion) creates that motivation from within that helps us make a difference?

How To Create Delightful Self-Sustaining Service

Ron Kaufman discusses his New York Times bestselling book Uplifting Service,

A proven path to delighting your customers, colleagues, and everyone else you meet. The book exposes a massive wound in a subject area that has become buried in weak distinctions, inadequate practices, and popular but shallow clichés. Ron explains the 5 key elements to build a self-sustaining service culture that can uplift an individuals, transform an organization, and ultimately change the world.

As you watch this video, reflect on steps you can take to engage the fickle minds of your children, team members and yourself.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Step 2 – Show the video – let participants absorb, take notes and write down questions to ask later

Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion

Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video

Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.

The Coin That Makes The Difference

What can a coin reveal about your service mindset? Listen to Ron Kaufman and discover.

As you watch this video by customer service guru Ron Kaufman, reflect on the ‘coin’ that is preventing you from reaching specialness. What will it take to pick up YOUR coin and get rid of it today?

Can The Fickle Mind Be Engaged?

Engaging the Fickle Mind

A post-lunch keynote by Ranjan De Silva that kept an audience of almost a 1000 professionals entertain, energised and engaged at the National HR Conference of Sri Lanka, organised by the Institute of personal management (IPM). A real life testimony of how to engage the Fickle Mind.

As you watch this video, reflect on steps you can take to engage the fickle minds of your children, team members and yourself.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Step 2 – Show the video – let participants absorb, take notes and write down questions to ask later

Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion

Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video

Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.

Say ‘No’ to Distraction and Say ‘Yes’ to ‘Mastery’

Robin Sharma – on the dangers of your devise and other non-value adding addictions on your success and how to gain monomaniacal focus, using practical and neurological information.

As you listen to this powerful speech by Robin Sharma, reflect on steps you can take to kill the distractions of your life, build purposeful habits and give life and energy to your special talent … to achieve mastery purposefully.

What’s your dream?

I Have a Dream” is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was a defining moment of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history. 

(please note – Under the applicable copyright laws, the speech will remain under copyright in the United States until 70 years after King’s death, through 2038.)

As you listen to one of the greatest speeches ever delivered reflect on your dream for a better world and a baby step you can take to start the journey of making that dream come true.

Getting Your ‘Adult’ into the driving seat of your life.

Eric Berne’s – Transactional Analysis presented.

This Video is created to learn the secrets of understanding Self and others. Eric Berne is the founder of the Transactional Analysis. In this video you will learn about Ego States and Transactions that will help you improve communications and relationships.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Step 2 – Show the video – let participants absorb, take notes and write down questions to ask later

Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion

Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video

Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.

Interfaith harmony – Childlike Joy

The Cardinal of the Catholic Church of Sri Lanka and a Senior Buddhist monk during a moment that capture interfaith harmony and childlike joy. The picture speaks for itself. Let’s hope and pray that this type of authentic harmony and joy spreads far and wide to heal this world.

Do You Find Passion or Does Passion Find You?

Inspirational speeches and interviews by Jeff Bezos

As you listen to this compilation of speeches and interviews of Jeff Bezos reflect on what makes you passionate and what you can you do to allow passion find me?

Joyous Humility

Mental Toughness for the Sri Lankan Cricket Team

This is a moment of Joy and Humility. The humility of being trusted to spend 3-days with the Sri Lankan Cricket Team in 2003 in helping them in developing mental strength. The joy of learning from this amazing team while been entrusted to share some essential mental techniques with them. The joy of liberating and galvanising the energy, passion and confidence of this team that makes a cricket loving nation of 20 million proud.

Think With Your Heart

Emotional Intelligence

This short video introduces Emotional Intelligence using interesting animations. This will show the importance of emotional intelligence and how to improve emotional intelligence.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Step 2 – Show the video – let participants absorb, take notes and write down questions to ask later

Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion

Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video

Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.

Pandemic and Relationships

Image Credits: Americaamplified.org

When lockdowns happened in mid-march I got standard in Dhaka without flights to return home. Therefore my experience is quite different to those who were with families and had to spend a lot of time with them while working or not working from home. However since returning home about 2 months ago I have been largely working from home that gives me the experience to reflect on that reality as well.

Being away from home with the uncertainty of when I will return home increased the concern towards me by mother, wife and daughters at home as well as my siblings and other relatives from various part of the world. The 10 weeks in Dhaka resulted in more communications with all my close family and other relatives more than ever before. Conversations among relatives resulted in each one inquiring from others about how they are affected by the pandemic, the impact on livelihood etc. Therefore there was concerned among each other for each other, much more than usual. Continue reading “Pandemic and Relationships”

Gems of Wisdom

Compilation of speeches by A P J Abdul Kalam

Listen to the wisdom of A. P. J Abdul Kalam in a compilation of his speeches and interviews. Reflect on the message that matters most to you. The variety of insights are so diverse and insightful, each person listening to this will takeaway gems of wisdom most relevant to you. Reflect on a change in attitudes, behaviours and actions that you will make as a next step.

Interfaith Respect for a Better Word

A picture from the interfaith conference in Sri Lanka a few years ago. The respect for each other and their views points gives hope to make this world a better place. Please reflect on a baby step you can take to create interfaith harmony in your own community, be it the neighbourhood, workplace, school, social organisation or any other organisation you are associated with.

Standing Up Peacefully

Mahathma Ghandi’s protest speech from the movie; ‘Ghandi’

Reflect on how you protested injustice in the past. How would you protests after having watched this. Learn principles of non-violent communication.

What’s Your ‘One In A Million’ Long Shot?

When You Put Your Heart In It – Kenny Rogers

As you listen to this song, reading the lyrics below if you choose to, reflect on those long shots you took, where you felt the chance of success was one in a million. Reflect on how those efforts played out.

Lyrics of the song:

We knew it was one in a million, It was such a long shot,

Somehow we’ve got here together, and who knows what will happen,

Anything can happen, If we keep getting better, And we keep on believing.

When you put your heart in it, It can take you anywhere,

Who’s to say that we can’t make it, It’s the same dream that we share,

When you put your heart in it, It can take you anywhere.

This road was so long and winding, It was such a hard road,

But we can’t stop once we had started, We were always getting closer,

Suddenly it happens, A chance in a lifetime,

Now we’re gonna take it, We can make it.

When you put your heart in it, It can take you anywhere,

Who’s to say that we can’t make it, It’s the same dream that we share,

When you put your heart in it, It can take you anywhere…

Do You Love Leading?

Empathy & Perspective, an inspirational Speech By Simon Sinek

Everyone can be a leader. Everyone don’t want to be a leader. Everyone don’t have to be a leader. You need to love your people to be a leader.  As you listen to this inspirational speech, reflect on if you love being a leader. If not why not? What steps would you do?

Inspirational Speeches

What Inspires You?

A collection of Ranjan De Silva’s favourite poems recited by him with short introductions and debrief of each poem at an online Rotary meeting between Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections Sri Lanka and Rotary Club of Nanganallaur, India.

As you listen to these poems reflect on what inspire you. Is it the selection, a particular poem, the themes, the words, the way they are recited, relevance to you, your mindset or anything else?

The poems include;

  • If you think you can you can
  • Little Cloud
  • Risk
  • Rose
  • Cookie thief
  • Love is separateness
  • Plea of a graceful lady
  • Determination of an extra-ordinary man
  • Forgive me when I whine
  • Anyway

Soul Nourishing Poems

Measuring What Matters

The Human Performance Index at Work

HPI is the sum total of the actions, interactions, behaviors and collaboration of leaders, teams and individuals at all levels of a business that have direct or indirect impact on business performance. HPI is the answer to measuring the quality of organisational cultures that is vital for performance improvement. It also works as a tool to help make strategic  decisions that enable creating a winning work culture.

A presentation by Ranjan De Silva at the Bangalore HR Summit 2011, titled HPI at work at Agora, the leading supermarket chain in Bangladesh.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Step 2 – Show the video – let participants absorb, take notes and write down questions to ask later

Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion

Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video

Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.

learnings-that-matter-1

The Rituals of Success

Five Rituals that Predict Success – Inspirational Speech by Robin Sharma

These are 5 rituals, that Robin Sharma encourage you to wire into your daily life through consistent practice, because as you know so well, consistency is the mother of mastery. It’s not what you do once every year that is going to allow you to live a legendary life, it’s what you do every single day. In this Robin shares with you the 5 Rituals that help you become successful in your business and in your life:

The 5 Rituals are: The ritual of early rising, The ritual of strategic time-blocking, The ritual of over-delivering, The 60-minute student, and The ritual of private reflection.

Inspirational Speeches

Is EQ the answer that IQ could not provide?

In the name of psychology and neuroscience, Daniel Goleman shares his insights on why IQ is not an accurate predictor of how well one does in life. A new metric is called for, one he calls, ‘Emotional Intelligence’. Everyone has the capacity to develop their emotional skills and improve their EQ. This video shows you some examples of ways to cultivate your emotional intelligence so you can put them to work at home, in the workplace, and in your relationships.

Attention! The word ‘depression’ in this video simply refers to feelings of sadness and not ‘clinical depression’.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video. Continue reading “Is EQ the answer that IQ could not provide?”

The Beautiful Paradox

coaching pic

This is one of my favourite pictures that depicts the essence of learning. This is an executive coaching process underway for senior executives of the John Keells Holdings at the Cinnamon Citadel Hotel in Kandy, the Hill Capital of Sri Lanka. A peer coaching process where peers who participate in the coaching process, becomes a part of the coaching team together with the coach.

The beanbags and the dress code signify the informality of the process, the blend of colours signifies the diversity of the aspirations, hopes, concerns, issues, methods and solutions of the participants. The disorderly nature of the white chairs in the background with bags thrown around signifies the messiness that needs to be experienced in the learning and growth process. The flip charts signifies the formality of the work to be done. The sweets, water, snacks and tea provided shows the care taken to ensure the comfort of the participants.  The intense listening and focus of the participants shows the seriousness, rigorous and the respect show to each other and the process.

Overall a beautiful blend of the soft and the hard, the messiness and the orderliness, the informality and formality, the soft and the hard touching hearts and minds for real, purposeful transformation.

Pictures that speak

Paying it Forward

Because you Loved me – song of gratitude by Celine Dion

As you listen to this song, reflect on those who helped you and are helping you grow to you your fullest potential. What kind of sacrifices did they make and are making? These could be your family, life partner, friends, teachers, colleagues.  Is this person who helped you, your own self? Feel the emotions you experience as you listen to the song, each time with a different person in your life in mind, including yourself. Could you give a name to these actions ? Reflect on what you would do to pay forward?

Songs for Growth

Being a Point of Light

Points of Light – By Randy Travis

When you see what’s wrong and try to make it right, you become a point of light.

As you listen to this song, reflect on the times you were a point of light, when others were a point of light for you and when you could have been a point of light. Write down situations in your life that you can and you will be a point of light to make this world a better place.

Songs for Growth

Say It Like Obama

Learn how to deliver an inspiring speech from one of the best in the trade; Barack Obama.

By the time Barack Obama had finished speaking at the 2004 DNC, Democrats across the USA knew they had seen the future of their party. How does he do it?

Learn the elements of his speech from political speech experts featured in this episode including: Michael A. Cohen Author, Live From The Campaign Trail, Mario Cuomo Former Governor of New York, Robert Lehrman Chief Speechwriter for Vice President Gore and Professor of Speechwriting American University, Charlton McIlwain Professor of Communication, New York University, Jeff Shesol Speechwriter for President Clinton and Founding Partner, West Wing Writers.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.

Continue reading “Say It Like Obama”

Life is Worth Living

Life is worth Living – an inspirational song by Justin Bieber

As you listen to the song, reflect on the how you feel when you look at the long road ahead in your life, on who who gave you direction and help when you were confused, and on the mistakes you made and how you responded. Moving on reflect on how would you respond to such situations and how would you help others who are on the journey of life.

Songs for Growth

Abundance Magnet

Abundance Magnet
Image Credits: Brainhackers.com
Last week I started this series,’Purpose Quest’ to illustrate with narratives of how we search for purpose. We explored the question, Are we Searching for Purpose or is Purpose Searching for us?   Today let me focus on one aspect of the story that I wrote last week, attracting abundance. Once the various social distancing norms were coming in to place and clients started postponing the various sessions that were planned, I was concerned about its impact on cash flow for my organisation and family. Therefore  while starting to engage with government authorities in getting myself home and ensuring that my family back home in Sri Lanka was safe and comfortable, I started reflecting on the situation related to my practice. While there was some anxiety with regard to the situation, I was able to release such emotions using Releasing Techniques that I was learning and teaching since October last year. I will write about how releasing helped in an upcoming post. After having released the anxiety, my reflections reminded me of three principles and beliefs that could help; ‘God does not give challenges we cannot handle’, ‘focus on the process and let the outcome take care of itself’ (the 3rd principle of Mastery we teach during our Mastery of Self – NLP learning sessions) and ‘give and you shall receive’. So what steps did I take and how did it turnout? Continue reading “Abundance Magnet”

Little Things to Big Things

If You Want to Change the World, Start Off by Making Your Bed – William McRaven, US Navy Admiral

One little task leads to another and to another and to the big achievements. One little person can be the strongest link. One little hope leads to big hopes. One little bit of compassion leads to unlimited love.

As you listen to this inspirational speech, reflect on the little waves you can create now that will create ripples leading to waves that makes this world a better place.

Inspirational Speeches

Danger or Oppportunity?

Reflection Guide

Yes the pandemic has many dangers in the medical, economic, social and psychological fronts. While recognising and reflecting on it, do reflect on the opportunities you have already recognised and yet to recognise.

Unlocking the Power of Mind

An introduction to Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and simple steps on how to unlock the power of mind and unleash our potential. A powerful and thought provoking 27 minute presentation by Ranjan De Silva at the ‘Unleashing Your DNA’ seminar at Zayed University Convention Center, Dubai, UAE.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video.

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Step 2 – Show the video – let participants absorb, take notes and write down questions to ask later

Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion

Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video

Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.

Please send a message if you would like to receive a white paper that can help in your learning process.

I hope this learning process was useful in providing online learning to your team during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.

A Tribute to the Champions

This song ‘We are the Champions’ by Queen is dedicated to all the front line people such as medical care givers, military, pilots, cabin crew, delivery people, taxi drivers, hotel staff and numerous organisations such as the Rotary movement who is fighting the pandemic.

Please remember to smile and say a big thank you to any of the champions you meet. They need all the encouragement to keep fighting.

Is Your Purpose Searching for You?

purpose quest-1

This series of ‘Purpose Quest’ will be illustrated with narratives of how we search for purpose. The question is, Are we searching for ‘purpose’ or is ‘purpose’ searching for us?

On the 14th of March, when I boarded the Sri Lankan airlines flight UL 189 to Dhaka I did not realise that I will have to stay in Dhaka for 10 weeks due to flight restrictions. The WHO had declared Covid-19 as a pandemic a few days ago. My mother was encouraging me to stay back without going as I had just recovered from a cough. I was hearing how passengers coming in to Sri Lanka from Europe were being taken to quarantine centres.  Was the universe trying to inform me and help me make a purposeful choice?

Continue reading “Is Your Purpose Searching for You?”

Variety is the Spice of Life

Soul Nourishing Poems

Over the past two months I switched to a daily blog from the monthly blog I used to write. This was prompted by the pandemic and lockdowns that provided me the opportunity to spend more time indoors and online.

Learnings that Matter

I initially started with online learning videos and soul nourishing poems to share my life work for those needed to learn and those looking for inspiration while being at home.

Quotes for Reflection

Thereafter I introduced quotes for reflection and yesterday I added motivational speeches. Some of this work is from others who have inspired me, some from my colleagues and some my own presentations.

Inspirational Speeches

As I was reflecting on the purposefulness of my life yesterday, my mind went on to the online work I am doing. Something from within prompted me to expand my contribution to have one type of blog everyday of the week.

Songs for Growth

That prompted me to think of other types of work that inspired. Music and Art were two other areas that came to my mind and therefore I decided to experiment with ‘Songs for Growth’ and ‘Pictures the Speak’.

Pictures that speak

I needed one more. What is the seventh category? And then, ‘Purpose’ which is the core philosophy of my life, that I have been writing for the past 4 years, but have not focused too much on over the past 2 months popped in to my mind. Yes I miss writing those ‘purposeful living’ blogs. So the seventh category became ‘Purpose’ Quest’.

purpose quest-1

I invite you to join me in exploring the wonders of life through these seven categories. I welcome comments, feedback , life experiences, ideas and questions from you so that we can create ripples that makes this world a better place.

Pressure Reveals the True You

Pressure Reveals the True You 

Watch Michelle Obama’s speech about her husbands Presidency and reflect on the pressure situations you had been in and how it help reveal your true nature and core values.

Inspirational Speeches

Potential in to Reality

Potential Into Reality – The Leadership Challenge!

Your organization is a corporate leader. Your leaders reflect some of the best available global talent. Your aim is to of course optimise their individual AND collective potential. You also need to ensure that their priorities synergise, that they can leverage off each other to innovate productively, and that together they are creating a leadership and performance culture that will sustain your growth and progress in the years ahead.

The following process can help you get good value from this video: Continue reading “Potential in to Reality”

To Love is to Nurture – A Soul Nourishing Poem

Meditate on the poem and reflect how you make sense of the notion of Love. Does this prompt you to re-think the way you make sense of Love. Does the new way make you feel more peaceful internally. Reflect on baby steps you would like to take to test in reality your new way of making sense of love. 

Enjoy Bette Midler’s song recited in a poetic manner, defining ‘Love’ by Ranjan De Silva

Soul Nourishing Poems

People, Technology or Innovation?

People, Technology or Innovation – A candid discussion between Kamal Munasinghe and Coach Kamrul Hasan.

Learn about what is required for business success; people, technology or business? Kamal, a CEO of a leading Apparel Manufacturer in Bangladesh talks about business using his own industry experience, responding to thought provoking question from Coach Kamrul Hasan. Gain a practical perspective from people who have been there, done that.

The following process can help you get good value from this video:

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Step 2 – Show the video – let participants absorb, take notes and write down questions to ask later

Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion

Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video

Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.

Please send a message if you would like to receive a white paper that can help in your learning process.

I hope this learning process was useful in providing online learning to your team during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.

The Road Not Taken – Soul Nourishing Poem

The Road Not Taken – by Robert Frost

Has the pandemic given you the opportunity to take a road not taken? Imagine the positive difference it can make for you and your little world. What baby steps would you take today in identifying that road and the baby steps you need to take today.

Arousing Sympathy

www.ranjandesilva.com

Reflection Guide;

Jennifer Niven’s wish for measles or small pox or some easily understood disease has been granted with Covid-19. Her intention was that the disease will help people be more sympathetic. Reflect on how the pandemic has helped you to become not only sympathetic but also empathetic and compassionate. Reflect on baby steps you can take to make the best our of this opportunity.

Is Covid the Greatest Disease?

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Reflection Guide:

Reflect on the greater disease of humanity, the hunger for Love and hunger for God. Reflect on what we can do to show a little LOVE to those who need it so that we can ensure the greater disease is not forgotten in the pandemic. Reflect on how to protect your family, friends and self from the spiritual disease, in addition to the medical disease. 

Quotes for Reflection

 

Mindfulness Leadership – Learning Video

Free Online Videos

 

For Leaders

at All levels

 

Mindfulness Leadership by Tanzi Usoof

Learn how to be a better leader by using mindfulness practices. This is a skill which is even more important during times of anxiety when your mind is full. Learn how to empty your mind of the anxiety, worry, clutter etc. so that you can fully focus on your teams and inspire them to perform at their optimum.

I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.

The following process can help you get good value from this video:

Continue reading “Mindfulness Leadership – Learning Video”

Blurring of the Boarders

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Reflection Guide:

Reflect on the divisions in your life such as interests, beliefs, geographic boarders, status, economics etc. that has become irrelevant in your life due to the Pandemic. Reflect on how such blurring of the boarders are affecting you positively and negatively, in the short term and the long term.  Reflect on baby steps you can take to power-up the positives and negate the negative.

Is the medical crisis curing the ecological crisis and causing an economic crisis?

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Reflection Guide:

Reflect on what we have done to create the medical crisis that is curing the ecological crisis and causing an economic crisis. Reflect on the change in consciousness we need. Reflect on one simple step we can take to make this world a better place, medically, ecologically and economically.

Quotes for Reflection

Love is separateness

Love is separateness: recited by Ranjan De Silva 

Love is Separateness is Soul Nourishing Poem by Khalil Gibran written by M. Scott Peck in his book The Road Less Travelled. Parents sometimes fail to appreciate the individuality of their children, and instead regard their children as an extension of themselves. It is a mild but nonetheless destructive forms of parental narcissism. These are perhaps the finest words ever written about child rearing,

I hope this could be useful in nourishing your soul with hope, aspiration, positivity and confidence to deal with the present and gear up for the future.

Please feel free to share this poem with others who can benefit and communicate with me if you would like to share your thoughts.

Soul Nourishing Poems

Don’t Give Up – Soul Nourishing Poem

Don’t Give Up recited Tushar Das

Poem that reminds us never to give up and never to give in as there is an answer for everything. Live your life with an attitude of gratitude.

I hope this could be useful in nourishing your soul with hope, aspiration, positivity and confidence to deal with the present and gear up for the future.

Please feel free to share this poem with others who can benefit and communicate with me if you would like to share your thoughts.

Soul Nourishing Poems

Interaction Personalities – Learning Video

Free Online Videos

For Leaders at all levels and Sales & customer service Professionals

 

 

Interaction Personalities (10 mts) by Ranjan De Silva

Helps understand your quality of interactions by understanding the five interaction personalities of yourself and others. This in turn helps improve the way they interact with others, especially when dealing with conflicts. Includes free self assessment to find out your interaction personality. 

I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.

The following process can help you get good value from this video:

Continue reading “Interaction Personalities – Learning Video”

Winners – Soul Nourishing Poem

Winners: recited by Ranjan De Silva

A Poem dedicated for winners. This poem describes behaviours of real winners and appreciates them. This poem is an ideal gift for those in your life you consider real winners.

I hope this could be useful in nourishing your soul with hope, aspiration, positivity and confidence to deal with the present and gear up for the future.

Please feel free to share this poem with others who can benefit and communicate with me if you would like to share your thoughts.

Soul Nourishing Poems

Transform Yourself – Learning Video

Free Online Videos

 

Today’s learning video – for  everyone

 

Transform yourself through Jump Movement

By Ineke Hurkmans & CoachKamrul Hasan

JUMP method is a simple but powerful 7-step process. Its a world-class method to bring your inside out for your self-empowerment.In this video, you will learn about the 7-step process and guidelines to perform it.

I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.

The following process can help you get good value from this video:

Continue reading “Transform Yourself – Learning Video”

A Better Way to Sell – Learning Video

Free Online Videos

Today’s learning video – for those selling anything or service anyone … thats everyone 

 

A Better Way to Sell (10 mts) by Ranjan De Silva

Helps you generate spectacular results by learning a better way to sell through Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). We All sell ideas, our talents, our brand image, our professional practice & products etc. Find out a better way to sell to generate better results

I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.

The following process can help you get good value from this video:

Continue reading “A Better Way to Sell – Learning Video”

The determination of an Extra-Ordinary man – Soul Nourishing Poem

The determination of an Extra-Ordinary man: recited by Ranjan De Silva

A poem for all the men and the men in the lives of women who sees this poem. Reminds us of what it takes to be a real hero. Please share this as a thank you gift with the special men in your life such as your grandfather, father, husband, brother, son, friend, teacher and guide.

I hope this could be useful in nourishing your soul with hope, aspiration, positivity and confidence to deal with the present and gear up for the future.

Please feel free to share this poem with others who can benefit and communicate with me if you would like to share your thoughts.

Soul Nourishing Poems

 

EQ – IQ Balance – Learning Video

Free Online Videos

Today’s learning video – for people at all levels in organisation

 

EQ-IQ Balance by Ranjan De Silva (6 mts)  

Helps understand the importance of having the right  balance between our Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ). It helps understand the reason why we think, make sense, decide and act the way we do. It also helps in understanding others better and how they think, make sense, decide and act, thereby improving relationships.

Includes free self assessment to find out your EQ-IQ balance.

I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.

The following process can help you get good value from this video:

Continue reading “EQ – IQ Balance – Learning Video”

Natural Abilities – Learning Video

Free Online Videos

Today’s learning video – for Leaders at all levels:

 

 

Natural Abilities (10 mts) by Ranjan De Silva

Helps understand the four natural abilities and how getting your team members in to their natural ability areas helps you to achieve near optimum performance. Includes free self assessment to find out natural abilities.

I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team members, family, friends and self during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.

 

You can watch this alone or learn with others in-room or Online.

The following process can help you get good value from this video:

Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.

Step 2 – Show the video,

Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion

Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video

Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.

In addition, we can also arrange online sessions or executive coaching for your current and future business needs. Please inbox if you would like to discuss options.

The Hero’s cry –  Soul Nourishing Poem

Today’s Soul Nourishing Poem is: The Hero’s cry by – Eddie Pinero

Dedicated to all heroes in our lives. We remember their names not because of a lack of mistakes but because they looked the universe dead in the eye and dared to give what it takes

I hope this could be useful in nourishing your soul with hope, aspiration, positivity and confidence to deal with the present and gear up for the future.

Please feel free to share this poem with others who can benefit and communicate with me if you would like to share your thoughts.Soul Nourishing Poems

If You Think You Can You Can – Soul Nourishing Poem

Today’s Soul Nourishing Poem is: If You Think You Can You Can  – recited by Ranjan De Silva

I hope this could be useful in nourishing your soul with hope, aspiration, positivity and confidence to deal with the present and gear up for the future.

Please feel free to share this poem with others who can benefit and communicate with me if you would like to share your thoughts.

Soul Nourishing Poems

Mindfulness Based Customer Service – Learning Video

Free Online Videos

Today’s learning video is for Customer Service and Sales Professionals at all levels.

 

Mindfulness Based Customer Service by Tanzi Usoof

Learn how to provide better customer service by using mindfulness practices. This is a skill which is even more important during times of anxiety when your mind is full. Learn how to empty your mind of the anxiety, worry, clutter etc. so that you can fully focus on the customer with the intention of being of service to the customers.

I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team members, family, friends and self during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.

How to get best value from the video:

Continue reading “Mindfulness Based Customer Service – Learning Video”

Leadership Complexities -Learning Video

Free Online Videos
Today’s learning video is for those in Senior Leadership Positions;
 
Leadership Complexities (10 mts) – Helps understand deep-seated leadership competencies and tips to deal with it. Includes free self assessment to find out own leadership complexity.

 
I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team members, family, friends and self during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.
How to get best value from the video:

Continue reading “Leadership Complexities -Learning Video”

How to Survive and Rise from the Pandemic

I hope you, your family and team are safe and in the event you or a loved one is affected by the virus, I wish you strength in dealing with the situation.

We are all in some way affected by the Covid-19. Many of the conversations are about the impact on health, economy, jobs, livelihood, etc. This is real and we need to first accept it and respond to the immediate realities. Once some of these immediate realities are responded to, it is important to reflect on how to rise and move in to the post-coved future. These 7 steps will help you in the process. Watch, reflect, customise, use, discuss and Share.

A 7 minute video with 7 tips on how to deal with the present & gear for the Future.

The Purpose of the Pandemic – Purpose of Living – Part 37

Animals and people near pond
Image Credits: Vectorstock.com

We are all in some way affected by the Covid-19 virus and wondering how it is going to affect our lives. Many of the conversations I read are about the materialistic impact such as health, economy, jobs, livelihood, etc. This is real and we need to first accept the reality and respond to it. The response needs to be at different levels; global bodies like the World bank and World Health Organisation, governments, business organisations, NGO’s, social groups, communities and individuals. It is heartening to see this happening at different levels, although much more still needs to be done. Once some of these immediate realities are responded to it could help to reflect on the bigger purpose of the pandemic.

Continue reading “The Purpose of the Pandemic – Purpose of Living – Part 37”

Take a JUMP in to your purpose – Purpose of Living – Part 36

Jump-blogI have learnt that we keep discovering our higher purpose as we live life once we discover the notion of purpose and is conscious of its existence. This had got me in to the habit of reflecting, reviewing, refreshing and re-writing my purpose every month.
The first part of my current purpose statement is;

Inspire others to live a purposeful life based on their own evolving beliefs, values and methods.

This is based on my discovery of how my beliefs, values and methods evolved during my first-person inquiry and my discovery of how different people have different beliefs, values and methods that evolve as they attempt to live purposefully, during my second-person inquiry. First- and second-person inquiry are methods of action research that I adopt in my doctoral research into the notion of ‘purposeful living’. Continue reading “Take a JUMP in to your purpose – Purpose of Living – Part 36”

How to use messages from our subconscious mind to live a purposeful life? – Purpose of Living – Part 33

purpose and subconscious
Image credits: theconversation.com/

The question for today’s blog post is; How can we use messages from our sub-conscious mind to live more purposefully? We have been exploring the notion of purpose and purposeful living over the past 33 posts and hence I assume the notion is clear to you. Therefore, let’s directly move on to exploring the sub-conscious mind and how we can use it to live purposefully.

The idea of deeper levels of information processing was developed and extensively studied by famous Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939). According to him, the mind could be divided into conscious, subconscious and unconscious levels. The Conscious Mind – defines all thoughts and actions within our awareness. For example, the beauty and pleasance of the smell of a red tulip. The Unconscious Mind– defines all past events and memories, inaccessible to us no matter how hard we try to remember to bring things up. For example, the first time you had ice cream, or how it felt to be able to speak for the first time. The Subconscious Mind defines all reactions and automatic actions we can become aware of if we think about them. For example, our ability to ride a bicycle: once we get skilled we stop thinking about balancing, when to pedal, when to break, when to speed up, when to slow down, when to bend etc., but when we think about it later, we become aware about all the action we took.

Continue reading “How to use messages from our subconscious mind to live a purposeful life? – Purpose of Living – Part 33”

Stress & Life Purpose – Purpose of Living – Part 31

Stress and Life Purpose
Image credits: lifealchemyblog.com

Managing stress was at the center of a coaching discussion I had with a CEO a few months ago. He was very successful and his success is attributed to the hard work he put in to his job. He gave his job first place and was willing to work late in to the evening, work on weekends and travel extensively for the success of his organization.

He had not adequately developed his team to take over responsibilities as he preferred to get things done on his own. While this worked for a while, it was taking its toll when the organization grew to a larger scale. He was also having issues at home as his two teenage sons had lost interest in studies and sports and preferred a lazy life engrossed in video’s and games using the expensive devises the father had purchased for them. His wife had given up trying to get him involved in family matters and was trying to manage on her own, but the absence of the father’s love, guidance and attention could not be compensated adequately by her. This is a source of stress when he returns home.

Continue reading “Stress & Life Purpose – Purpose of Living – Part 31”

Is Selling a Purposeful Profession – Purpose of Living – Part 29

purposeful sales person 2
Image credits: businessknowhow.com

I was at a cocktail party listening to an interesting conversation between two other guests who were in the same huddle as me.

Person A: What do you do?

Person B: I sell financial services.

Person A: What do you really want to do?

Person B: I want to be banker.

I asked A why he asked that question, and B why he responded that way. A said, “isn’t selling a profession that is not respected?” B said “yes”, it is so difficult to sell because customers look at him with suspicion. In my three decades of being in business and playing the roles of seller, buyer, leader, trainer, consultant and coach of sales professionals, I have encountered this attitude towards sales on many occasions.

However, my personal attitude towards sales is the opposite. As I reflect on the questions – how is it that people have developed this attitude towards sales, and what would be the best way to help people to look differently at sales? – the notion of purposefulness continues to come to my mind. Perhaps if I can find out if ‘sales’ is a purposeful profession, then it might help me to engage with people who have diverse viewpoints regarding this question.

Answering the above question requires understanding what is a purposeful profession. While I have attempted to answer this question in the earlier blog posts regarding purposefulness, there is no definite answer due to the complexity of this question. I believe that a purposeful profession needs to be of service to the flourishing of life and supported by noble values. Let’s examine these two aspects in relation to the sales profession. Continue reading “Is Selling a Purposeful Profession – Purpose of Living – Part 29”

The Purpose of the Mens Cricket World Cup – Purpose of Living – Part 28

CWC-2019-Captains
Image Credits: http://www.cricketworldcup.com

Over a billion people have been engaged with the ongoing Men’s Cricket World Cup over the last month. It all started with everyone hoping the cricket teams of their respective countries will become the world champions. The fact remains that only one team will be the eventual world champions. This blog is not about trying to predict the eventual champs, it is to discuss the impact of such sports extravaganza has on the lives of people.

The International Cricket Council organizes the Men’s Cricket World Cup as well as other global competitions related to Cricket to propagate cricket as well as raise funds. I am not sure which comes first. Is it to raise funds to propagate cricket or propagate cricket to raises funds. Well it doesn’t matter, perhaps both ends feed each other. There could be other reasons, for example to raise the standards of the sport and of those who are involved in it such as the players, coaching staff, umpires, referees, cricket boards and administrators. These aims could have a higher purpose that impacts the lives of people and I would like to address such issues in this blog post. 

My blog post of the last two months addressed the impact of violence, religion and politics on the lives of people in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bomb attacks in Sri Lanka, one of the former world champions who are now at the bottom of the table, struggling for form. Yet the entire nation was hoping that they will become the champs again. Teams from other countries besieged by violence such as Pakistan and Afghanistan are also in contention. The founders of cricket, England, is amid perhaps their worst political crisis related to Brexit. They entered the tourney as one of the favourites. Countries such as South Africa, Bangladesh and the West Indies are besieged with their own political and economic crises.  Continue reading “The Purpose of the Mens Cricket World Cup – Purpose of Living – Part 28”

Attacking the Innocent – What is the Purpose? – Purpose of Living – Part 26

easter attacks - condole april 19
Image Credits: fairmail.info

It was Easter Sunday (21 April 2019). I was in my flat in Dhaka, attending to some important business matters when I got a message that a bomb had gone off at St Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade, Colombo. Having not heard of bombings and terrorist violence for the past ten years, since the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka, I hoped it was a hand grenade thrown by a business rival involved in unscrupulous business, with no injuries; these were the rare occurrences we heard of over the past ten years. Then the news started pouring in with photos and videos of simultaneous bomb attacks in two other churches and luxury hotels as well. My immediate concern was for my family who would have been at an Easter Mass at the same time. After calling and ensuring they were safe, my thoughts went out to the victims. I started hearing news of people known to me or families of people known to me having lost their lives or being injured, among the 253 souls that departed and 500 plus injured. I had visited St Anthony’s Church many times and I could picture the carnage as if I was there. It is considered a miraculous church and people from all religions visit to reflect on their challenges and ask help from St Anthony to resolve them.

Continue reading “Attacking the Innocent – What is the Purpose? – Purpose of Living – Part 26”

When purposes clash at the workplace – Purpose of Living – Part 25

collegue purpose conflits
Image credits: http://www.insperity.com

Have you ever faced a situation where you have a purpose that clashes with the purpose of a colleague, such as your boss, peer or a direct report? Has this situation led to misunderstandings, arguments, anger, click formation, politicking and even violence that starts affecting the business of the organisation? How did you handle the situation? Has it made you become disgruntled about the notion of ‘purposeful living’ and even resulted in discouraging team members in living purposefully. I will try to address this issue in this blog post from the experience I have had in dealing with such situations as a team member from within the organisation or as a consultant and coach from outside the organisation. Continue reading “When purposes clash at the workplace – Purpose of Living – Part 25”

When Purposes Clash in Families – Purpose of Living – Part 24

When purposes clash
Image credit: http://www.keyministry.org a caption

Have you ever had a situation where you have a purpose different to the purpose of a family member, such as a spouse, parent, sibling or child? Has this situation led to misunderstandings, arguments, anger, violence or estrangement? How did you handle the situation? Has it made you become disgruntled about the notion of ‘purposeful living’. I will try to address this issue in this blog post from the limited experience I have had in dealing with such situations.

Recently I had the opportunity of counselling a couple who were facing such a situation;  the husband is a successful chief executive of a company and the wife is a senior manager in a bank. They have two adorable children. The family is financially sound with means of passive income. The husband was very caring to the family and they were always happy. The wife had always been supportive of the husband, specially in the early days of their marriage when he was struggling to move up the corporate ladder, while caring for the children. Continue reading “When Purposes Clash in Families – Purpose of Living – Part 24”

Finding Purpose in giving – Purpose of Living – Part 23

purpose in giving - jan 19
Image credit: http://www.stapostle.org

It’s interesting that the month of January 2019 was a month where I did as much free work as paid work. The first free assignment was to provide a keynote address at the new year celebration of a leading organisation in the insurance industry to inspire the staff of over 1000, who were gathered for the celebration, on the 1st of January. The second free assignment was to continue to help the administrators, parents and past pupils of my alma mater, St Anthony’s Collage, to take forward the strategic plan that I facilitated in formulating one year ago. The third free assignment was to help an important arm of the government of Sri Lanka to develop the leadership of a very important category of officials in becoming better leaders and making a better contribution for the development of the country. Continue reading “Finding Purpose in giving – Purpose of Living – Part 23”

Purpose of Living – Part 21: Inspiring others to live a purposeful life

inspire
Image credits: http://icorecoach.com

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the next ten blog posts. I invite you now to reflect on the ninth aspect in the model of purposeful living– inspiring (the dark blue colour circle in the model). While this is the ninth and final circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine circles, it’s not necessarily chronological. There could be also other circles that are yet to be discovered. Once we gather momentum in living purposefully, we start inspiring others to live purposefully as well.

This blog-post deals with our responsibility to inspire others to live a purposeful life. We can inspire others by design or by accident. On one hand, others can get inspired when they see the improvement of our quality of life as we attempt to live a purposeful life.  Living a purposeful life includes; living with a set of positive values, engaging in spiritual activities, looking after our health, building quality relationships, building financial stability, developing intellect and allocating time for purposeful activities. On the other hand, we could use our roles in life to inspire others. These roles include being a parent, sibling, relative, teacher, leader, colleague, author, speaker, and social figure such as a sportsman, entertainer, business leader, religious leader and social leader etc. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 21: Inspiring others to live a purposeful life”

Purpose of Living – Part 20: Learning & Growing as we Struggle to be Purposeful

struggle-has-purpose
Image Credits: Grouphigh.com

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the next nine blog posts. I invite you to now reflect on the eighth aspect in the model of purposeful living– Learning & Growing; the bronze colour circle in the model. While this is the eighth circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine circle process, it’s not necessarily chronological. Learning and growth that occurs due to an experience could make us feel fully alive and of service to the world and this can make us reflect and find purpose. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 20: Learning & Growing as we Struggle to be Purposeful”

Purpose of Living – Part 19: Responding to the Universe

universe responding to purpsoe
http://www.breathethinkwriterelease.com

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the next eight blog posts. I invite you to now reflect on the seventh aspect in the model of purposeful living– Responding (the dark green colour circle in the model). While this is the seventh circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine circles, it’s not necessarily chronological. An opportunity received could make someone feel fully alive and of service to the world and this can make him/her reflect and find purpose.

This blog-post deals with responding to the opportunities provided to us from the universe. I use the word universe to describe the energy system, a higher power that makes this planet tick. Those who are religious would make sense of this higher power as God, Allah or the Almighty. Whatever we call this power, I feel we are not intelligent enough to understand this higher power and it requires faith or a brilliant scientific mind. I believe the opportunities can come our way or we can go looking for the opportunities. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 19: Responding to the Universe”

Purpose of Living – Part 18: Rituals for our Purpose

Care Of New Life - Watering Young Plant
Image credits: https://imerys-filtration.com/

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the next seven blog posts. I invite you to now reflect on the sixth aspect in the model of purposeful living– Rituals; the red colour circle in the model. While this is the sixth circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine steps, it’s not necessarily chronological.

This blog-post deals with rituals for our purpose that we have now started to glimpse, based on the processes suggested in the last few blog posts.  Rituals helps us to internalise the purpose, remind ourselves that we are in this world for a bigger reason, helps us decide to take some baby steps during the day towards living a purposeful life, energizes us, makes us feel more valuable, helps us to make decisions, solve problems etc.

Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 18: Rituals for our Purpose”

Purpose of Living – Part 17: A Representation for the Purpose

Purpose artefact cropped
An artefact representing my life-purpose – read the post for an explanation of how it represents my life-purpose

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the next 6 blog posts. I invite you now to  reflect on the fifth aspect in the model of purposeful living – Representation, the light beige colour circle in the model. While this is the fifth circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine steps, it’s not necessarily chronological.

This blog post deals with creating a representation for our purpose that we have now started to glimpse, based on the processes suggested in the last few blog posts.  A representation when seen regularly helps us to internalise the purpose, remind ourselves that we are in this world for a bigger reason, helps us decide to take some baby steps during the day towards living a purposeful life, energizes us, makes us feel more valuable, helps us to make decisions, solve problems etc.

Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 17: A Representation for the Purpose”

Purpose of Living – Part 16: Building Self to be Fit for Purpose

Building ourselves to live purposefully

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the last five blog post. I invite you to now reflect on the fourth aspect in the model of purposeful living– Building – the light blue colour circle in the model. While this is the fourth circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine steps; it’s not necessarily chronological.

This blog-post deals with building ourselves to be fit for purpose. I believe that God almighty or the universal energy system, or whatever way you make sense of the energy that makes life tick, would send us the opportunities to make our contribution to life. It could be a calling, a vocation, an opportunity to serve or an opportunity to further develop ourselves.

When I had a glimpse of my purpose 22 years ago, I decided to build myself by developing my spirituality through regular prayer and meditation, my health through regular visits to the gym, my relationships through spending more quality time with my family and team members, and my knowledge through re-introducing the reading habit to my life. These are four areas where we need to build ourselves; spiritual, physical, relational and mental. I started improving in these four areas and I felt successful and happy as a result, giving me peace of mind resulting in the improvement of the fifth aspect; emotional. I found I was getting less angry and was less frustrated when things did not go according to my plans. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 16: Building Self to be Fit for Purpose”

Purpose of Living – Part 15: Purposeful Choices

purposeful choices
Image credit: http://www.emzingo.com

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the last four blog post. I invite you to now reflect on the third aspect in the model of purposeful living– The choices (the orange colour circle in the model). While this is the third circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine steps; it’s not chronological in real life.

This aspect deals with making choices once we have a glimpse for the beginning of what our purpose might be. When I had a glimpse of my purpose 22 years ago, I made choices such as finding opportunities to improve my knowledge regarding personal development through Neuro Linguistic Programming and organisational development through continuous improvement by reading and conducting training for my team at Keells Super, and attempting to apply this knowledge in my work and personal life. I started spending more time with my family because helping them grow and see them grow gave me joy. They are the oxygen that energized my flame. These choices were relevant to my purpose, which was about helping myself grow to my fullest potential by helping others to grow to their fullest potential. I started going to the gym regularly as I wanted to keep my body in shape so that I am fit to do purposeful work. I started to pray and meditate regularly and felt peace of mind. I also started to be more helpful to others thereby building high quality relationships. I knew all these were in some way connected to my purpose as I really felt good doing it. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 15: Purposeful Choices”

Purpose of Living – Part 12: Making Sense of our purpose – the space

psychic energy
Image credits: http://getcontent.wordpress.com

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the last blog post, the eleventh in the series. I invited you to explore a model of purposefulness that has been developed over the past three years of my doctoral studies. This is still work in progress and will continue to evolve in this year of writing my thesis and beyond.  However, I believe it has potential to help us make sense of our purpose because my professional practice over the past 20 years and my doctoral inquiry so far over the past three years has informed me of possible ways of making sense of our purpose.

The model as it stands now, presented in the previous (eleventh) blog post is based on the notion that our sense of purpose, that may evolve with life, is related to making a positive impact on the process of life using the talent, passion and compassion of each living being. I used the metaphor of the sun that provides us energy and inspiration, to explain purpose and the nine planets as the various aspects related to living purposefully. These aspects are related to each other through the space it resides in and I have a hunch that the space is the real thing. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 12: Making Sense of our purpose – the space”

Purpose of Living – Part 11: Making Sense of our purpose – the overview

planetary model of purposefulness
Ranjan’s Model of Purposefulness

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the past ten blog posts in this series. I believe it is now time to explore how we can make sense of our purpose. One reason I believe the time is right is because my professional practice over the past 20 years, and my Phd inquiry so far over the past three years has informed me of possible ways of making sense of our purpose. I believe some of the readers have already explored their purpose given various experiences and learnings in their life, and from the suggestions in the ten blog posts in this series so far.

Over the last three years the model of purposefulness has changed from having four components to nine components and from linear to loosely related. This change has happened based on an action inquiry process that took place as I tried to make sense of the notion of purpose by attempting to live a purposeful life in an inquiring manner. Inquiring into the notion in my family life, work life, social life, academic life, reflecting in to my experiences, taking new actions based on the reflection, reflecting based on action, and continuing the action-inquiry process. The model of purposefulness has evolved in this process and I believe it will continue to evolve.

The model as it stands now is presented in this blog post and I will explore the components and their relationships in depth in the blog posts to follow. I believe our purpose is something universal, related to making a positive impact on the process of life. The process of life consists of living beings, both human and other than human, the environment we live in, the resources we need to live such as food, water, fresh air, clothing etc., the infrastructure we need to live such as healthcare, education, transportation, communication, housing, and processes that ensure peace, harmony, joy and morality such as worship, entertainment, sports and marriage. Therefore, each living being has a role to play, based on their talent and passion to make a positive contribution to the process of life and I believe that would help us find our purpose.

Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 11: Making Sense of our purpose – the overview”

Purpose of Living – Part 10: The Action Logics (Post – Conventional) Viewpoint

Action logics - post con copy
Post – Conventional Action logics & Life Purpose

We explored the notion of purpose from the viewpoints of Abrahamic Religions, Eastern Philosophies, Early Sciences, Modern Sciences, Philosophy, Psychology, Ecology and Action Logics (pre-conventional) viewpoints in the past blog posts in this series. Let’s now have a look at this notion from an ‘Action Logics (post-conventional)’ viewpoint.

I started the previous blog post with an attempt to understand the notion of ‘Action Logics’, which tries to explain the ‘logic’ behind the ‘action’ we take. Most unspontaneous actions are based on decisions, which are rational, and therefore they could be based on an intention, reason or purpose. The four pre-conventional action logics; opportunist, diplomat, expert and achiever, explored in the last blog post was based on the degree of mutuality and expertise.

Let’s attempt to explore post-conventional action logics in this blog post based on the proposition by Greuter Cooke (2002). According to a research study in the USA of about 4300  adults, it was found that 18.2% belong to the post-conventional group. While it is difficult to define post-conventional, to me it seems like those who are more mature, wiser, selfless, seeking happiness through harmony, simplicity, generosity and spirituality, would fall into this group. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 10: The Action Logics (Post – Conventional) Viewpoint”

Purpose of Living – Part 9: The Action Logics (pre-conventional) Viewpoint

action logics -pre con copy
Pre-conventional Action Logics

We explored the notion of purpose from the viewpoints of Abrahamic Religions, Eastern Philosophies, Early Sciences, Modern Sciences, Philosophy, Psychology & Ecology in the last few blog posts in this series. Let’s now have a look at this notion from an ‘Action Logics (pre-conventional)’ viewpoint.

Let’s first try to understand the notion of ‘Action Logics’. It tries to explain the ‘logic’ behind the ‘action’ we take. Most action is based on decisions unless it is spontaneous. If decisions are well thought out and rational, they could be based on an intention, reason or purpose. This shows that actions can be based on a reason or purpose.

Therefore, the logic behind decisions we make that determine actions we take, could have an impact on the quality of the decision and the resultant action. The notion of action logics[1] has some potential in understanding this phenomenon.

The developers of the ‘Action Logics’ model proposes two broad categories of Action Logics: pre-conventional and post conventional. According to a research study in the USA of 4300 plus adults, it was found that 85% belong to the pre-conventional group. While it is difficult to define pre-conventional, to me it seems like those who are more materialistic, achievement oriented, less mature, younger and competitive would fall in to this group. Let me try to make sense of the four pre-conventional ‘Action-Logics’ in relation to purposeful living. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 9: The Action Logics (pre-conventional) Viewpoint”

Purpose of Living – Part 8: The Ecological Viewpoint

mahogany landslide may 2017
Natures Wrath: Landslide of a Mahogany Plantation

We explored the notion of purpose from the viewpoints of Abrahamic Religions, Eastern Philosophies, Early Sciences, Modern Sciences, Philosophy and Psychology in the last few blog posts in this series. Let’s now have a look at this notion from some of the Ecological viewpoints.

It’s May 2017. I got a call from the account manager from the company that manages my Mahogany plantation in the Ratnapura district of Sri Lanka. I have some bad news to share with you. What is it? I ask. One of your Mahogany plantations in Munihinkanda has got affected by the recent landslides. We have not been able to access the plantation yet as the authorities have restricted access to the plantations until they are able to confirm that it is secure. What is the extent of the damage? I ask. About ten acres of the plantation has slid down to the river below and we feel it includes one of your plots too. Interestingly I was calm as I heard this news, although the financial loss was going to be quite severe. As I digested this news my mind went to the time that a rubber plantation of a larger extent belonging to my father was destroyed due to a cyclone about 40 years ago. I remembered my involvement in the process of transporting the fallen trees to help my father recover at least a part of the losses. My mind wonders to the hundreds of lives lost due to this storm and thousands who have lost their livelihood as a result. Perhaps the reason for me to be emotionally unmoved by my financial loss could be because these are more severe than the personal financial loss I have incurred. I have watched with dismay so many natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunami’s, floods, landslides, forest fires etc. happening in various parts of the world. It seems like it is getting more and more intense.

Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 8: The Ecological Viewpoint”

Purpose of Living – Part 7: The Psychological Viewpoint

psychology of purpose
http://www.webpt.com

We explored the notion of purpose from the view point from Abrahamic Religions, Eastern Philosophies, Early Sciences, Modern Sciences and Philosophy in the last few blog posts in this series. Let’s now have a look at this notion from some of the Psychological viewpoints.

Although having been appointed to boards of two of the companies of John Keells Holdings, at the age of 27, after having been appointed Marketing Manager of that company at the age of 24, largely due to the gold medal I won at the final examination of the UK based Chartered Institute of Marketing examination, and many corporate successes, I had a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness in my life during my early thirties. The various solutions applied to deal with this emptiness were related to attempting to think and act positively after having attended the ‘Mastery of Self’ playshop during that period. I also find many of the participants attending workshops I facilitate grappling with such emptiness.

Positive psychology – A science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions promises to improve quality of life and prevent the pathologies that arise when life is barren and meaningless – addresses this feeling of emptiness, described with the word ‘barren’.  The exclusive focus on pathology that has dominated so much of our discipline results in a model of the human beings lacking the positive features that makes life worth living. Hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, spirituality, responsibility, and perseverance are ignored or explained as transformations of more authentic negative impulses (Seligman, Csikszentmihalyi, 2014, p.5).

Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 7: The Psychological Viewpoint”

Purposeful Living – Part 3: The Religious Viewpoint

purpose and religion
Image Credits: Alternate.org

My work over the last 20 years around the notion of purpose has informed me of diverse viewpoints about purpose. These viewpoints are defined by the values and beliefs of different persons I was fortunate enough to interact with. Attempting to articulate at least a glimpse of one’s purpose may require an appreciation of such values and beliefs, so that such a purpose does not conflict with who the person is and his/her viewpoint of the nature of the world. Therefore, I would like to dedicate this blog post to various religious viewpoints regarding purpose of life. The next blog post will be dedicated to the scientific viewpoints regarding purpose of life. Continue reading “Purposeful Living – Part 3: The Religious Viewpoint”

Purposeful Living – Part 2 – The Importance of Living Purposefully?

million dollars on the mountain
Image Credits: Elevated Christian Network

Let’s examine the question; why is it important to find our purpose? Some would say; we have lived all these years without a clear purpose or we know what it is in our mind and our life is moving on well, so why do we need a purpose? I have come across a very small percentage of people who have a clearly articulate purpose, but most of them would say; I think this is my purpose, but I am not sure if it is the right purpose. The following interactive story, titled the million dollars on the mountain, helps audiences of my workshop to start understanding the importance of a purpose;

Ranjan: Imagine a cheque for a million dollars drawn in your name on top o a mountain. Would you like to go get it?
Continue reading “Purposeful Living – Part 2 – The Importance of Living Purposefully?”

Purposeful Living – Part 1 – What is the difference between a purpose and a goal?

purpose
Image Credits: http://www.purposedriven.com

The notion of ‘purpose’ has fascinated me, since I discovered it more than 20 years ago. I have attempted to live a purposeful life and help others to do so during my practice of helping individuals and teams live their potential. A concept in the centre of this endeavour is to help those who I am fortunate enough to interact with, discover ‘purpose’ and ‘live purposefully’. I have also chose to inquire in to the notion of purpose in my doctoral studies that I am pursuing at the moment. I invite you to read and reflect on this series of blog posts, take action that you are driven to take after reading them, reflect again on the action you take and take further action based on such reflection. I find this cycle useful and I hope it serves you too. It will also help my inquiry if you are willing to write to me about your experience.

The first of this series of blog posts is to explore the difference between a purpose and a goal? Let me take you to the second half of the first day in the ‘Mastery of Self – Through Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)’ playshop, where we attempt to understand the concept of purpose. We start this section by trying to clarify the difference between ‘purpose’ and ‘goal’. While there is a discussion on this question, an answer that generally comes out is; purpose is the bigger reason why we pursue various goals in our life. It is the big ‘why’ of our choices. For example, if you are attempting to get a qualification, ask your self ‘why? If you keep repeating the question ‘why’ until there is no answer remaining, that might help you understand the difference between ‘purpose’ and ‘goal’ and perhaps give a hint of your higher purpose. So lets try to find the reason for pursuing the qualification;

Continue reading “Purposeful Living – Part 1 – What is the difference between a purpose and a goal?”

How to change your habits with Action Inquiry

ranjans-reflective-model
Ranjan De Silva’s Reflective Process

Joseph tends to get angry when his wife Judy asks him too many questions? He notices this tendency and realizes that his response hurts Judy. But this thought does not come to his mind when he is angry. He feels this is not helpful for their relationship, which has been deteriorating gradually.

You may have faced similar situations with family, friends, colleagues or anyone else you have regular interactions or you may know others who are facing similar challenges. Have you ever wondered why it has been sometimes very difficult to change a habit?

While I have been using techniques of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Transactional Analysis (TA) to help myself and those who come for my guidance, to change habits, I was fascinated by the power and potential of Action Inquiry in achieving real and lasting change.

Continue reading “How to change your habits with Action Inquiry”

Universal Energy Sync – For Success and Happiness

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Image captured by me at the Ashridge Business School in January 2017

This image is the sunrise at the ‘Ashridge Business School’ captured earlier this month during my quarterly stay there. I consider this my spiritual home that nourishes my soul as I pursue my doctoral studies. This is a place that helps me grow towards my fullest potential, giving me real inner happiness during the process.

 Perhaps you are one of those people who is always tasting success and living happily. Perhaps you are one who observes others in this way of living. Perhaps you are one who is searching for the ‘how’ to achieve such a state of life. This blog is designed to discuss how such a state of life can be achieved.

While there could be millions of ways of making sense of success and happiness, my personal belief is that success comes from improving in areas that are purposeful to me. I am refereeing to action that is driven by a higher purpose as I keep on my quest to make sense of what that higher purpose is. Happiness is what I experience when I am in the process of improving in areas important to me.

What is important to me is my purpose that helps me to be of service to the world and thereby helping me to provide a comfortable and purposeful life for my family and me. This requires me to improve my spirituality that gives me peace of mind, and improves my brain, which helps me learn and teach, improve my body, which helps me act effectively and efficiently, improve my relationships, which provides the love to live purposefully, improve my emotions to be in joy, improve my finances to help fund my purpose and improve the use of my time choosing to do purposeful work.
Continue reading “Universal Energy Sync – For Success and Happiness”

Preparing for a fruitful 2017

fruitful-2017
Image Credits: http://www.pinterest.com

2016 is almost over and I hope you made good progress during the year. Some of us would say it was an awesome year, some would say it was an average year and some others would say it was not a good year!  The best we can do is to use the learning from 2016 so that we can make 2017 a better one.

I am pleased to present a simple four-step process to help you prepare for a fruitful 2017.

Step 1: Let’s start by doing this simple reflective exercise to take the resources from 2016 for a better 2017. Answer the following question in writing or in an artful form such as a picture, poem, collage, structure etc.

  1. What were my biggest successes in 2016? What did I learn from it?
  2. What were my biggest failures in 2016? What did I learn from it?
  3. Who am I grateful for 2016?  (Those who helped me and was tough on me)

Once the above is done, allow some time for the energy and learnings to settle in before starting the preparation for 2017.
Continue reading “Preparing for a fruitful 2017”

Understanding and Dealing with Misunderstandings

blogLet me use the words of the ‘Cookie Thief’ poem by Valerie Cox, I recite at trainings and the ‘ladder of inference’ developed by Coghlan & Brannick (2014, p.31) to attempt to figure out why we have misunderstandings. I will interrupt the poem and use the seven steps of the ‘ladder of inference’ model during the interludes in this attempt.

 A woman was waiting at an airport one night, with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

 She was engrossed in her book but happened to see, that the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be. . .grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between, which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene. Continue reading “Understanding and Dealing with Misunderstandings”

Intelligence: Is it a Window into our Purpose?

multiple_intelligence_wheel
Image Credits: http://www.rotation.org

My previous blog titled ‘why try to be a banana when you are a peach’ attempted to discuss the idea that we are unique and for me living purposefully is trying to discover if I am a Peach or a banana or something else and trying to live as one. I also feel that having a glimpse of what might be purpose would help make choices on how to live and we can get confirmation if those are congruent with purpose through bodily signals. I believe it is a life long search, and that living our life inquiring what our purpose might be, could help us find happiness… what ever that might mean to each of us.

In this blog post I would like to discuss if an exploration in to multiple intelligences could help us in the pursuit of finding purpose in our life. Howard Gardner introduces the concept of multiple intelligences and suggests that each one of us may have some predominant intelligence in us. The list of intelligences he suggests are; bodily physical, verbal/linguistic, mathematical/logical, visual/spatial, musical, inter-personal and intra-personal. The following description might be helpful in starting to think about our predominant intelligence.

Continue reading “Intelligence: Is it a Window into our Purpose?”

Why try to be a Banana, when you are a Peach?

peaches-bananas
Image Credits: http://www.keywordhut.com

I could be the most delectable, the most delicious, the most wondrous peach in the world, and I could offer it to everybody.  But there are people who are allergic to peaches.  Then they may want me to be a banana.”  And so often we become a banana for other people who want peaches.  What a messy fruit salad.  Isn’t it all right to say to them, “I am so sorry I cannot be a banana? I would love to be a banana if I could for you, but I’m a peach.”  And you know what?  If you wait long enough, you’ll find a peach lover.  And then you can live your life as a peach, and you don’t have to live your life as a banana. All the lost energy it takes to be a banana, when you’re a peach!

This is a part of a poem I love, written by the author of ‘Love’ Leo Buscaglia. It had an amazing impact on my life and the choices I make. This has helped me to continue to search for my God-given gift by asking the questions; what do I love to do? What am I good at? What is important to me? These reflections have led me to find a sense of my ‘purpose’ and I continue to ask myself questions to inquire if that is my purpose. Such inquiry has also changed the questions and I ask and the third question above has now changed to; for what or who am I in service of?

Continue reading “Why try to be a Banana, when you are a Peach?”

Natural – Abilities: the new Success Mantra?

Unique ability
Image Credits: http://www.buzzel.com

Let’s first try to understand what is ‘Natural-ability’ before trying to understand what your Natural-ability is and how to use this potent idea in improving your effectiveness individually and as a team.

Natural-Ability is a description for a level of ability. To simplify it let me offer four broad levels of ability. At the bottom is ‘Inability’, where we just can’t do a particular task. The next level is ‘Learnt-ability’, where we can do a particular task. The third level is, ‘Excellent’ where we not only can do a particular task, but we can do it well. We can get up to ‘Excellent’ level through training and developing our skills. But to get to the fourth level, ‘Natural-ability’ we would not only be really good at doing a particular task, but we are passionate about, it energizes us and it inspires others. It is simply something natural in us. Therefore I believe we cannot get to the level of Natural-ability by training ourselves, it should be within us. It is a word used to describe your natural strengths. It also highlights your responsibility to put your talents to work for the shared purposes of those with whom you make a commitment of this tremendous energy.

Continue reading “Natural – Abilities: the new Success Mantra?”

Purposefulness

Have you ever wondered about the purpose of your life? Why on earth are you here? Those of you who may have been to one of our workshops or any other relevant learning experience, may have an idea about the concept of purpose and know at least the beginnings of your purpose. Given below is a poem I wrote as I reflected on where I am with regard to my purpose, together with a group of us who are co-inquiring about our purposefulness.

Purposefulness the poem June 16

I recommend you do some creative journaling about where you are with regard to your purpose using a poem, song, photo, drawing, pottery, mask, handicraft, dance, writing, mind map, formula, graph or any other form you are most passionate about to understand about your current purposefulness. Please share them with us if you wish, we would love to see them and help you make sense of it.

The photo of the tree in the picture that includes the poem above inspired me to write this poem.

Why we do, what we do – Part 2

why we do what we do - part 2
Image Credits: http://www.linkedIn.com

We examined why we do what we do from the Action Logic framework Introduced by Greuter Cooke (Cooke 2002) where we discussed the four pre-conventional action logics; opportunist, diplomat, expert and achiever. Click here to read the previous blog. This paper takes us to the post-conventional action logics; Individualist, Strategist, Alchemist and Ironist.

We need to remember that only about 15% of adult population, based on research done on a sample of adults in the United States, operate with post-conventional action logics. I suspect the percentage may not be too different in other parts of the world, but I feel the percentage may be higher in the east (countries around India and China) due to the long history of mindfulness practices such as meditation, yoga etc. that we adopt. It is also important to note that those in lower action logics may find it difficult to relate to and practice higher action logics, but those operating in higher action logics, finds it easy to relate to and operate in lower action logics as required.

Since the transition from pre-conventional action logic, let’s go back to the example of Sara, I wrote about in my earlier blog, who transitioned from a ‘expert’ action logic and learnt how to listen, take feedback and discuss different options presented by her colleagues. This approach not only helped her to make better decisions, as she is richer in perspectives, it has also strengthened her relationships with her colleagues.

Continue reading “Why we do, what we do – Part 2”

Why we do, what we do?

why-we-do-what-we-do
Image Credits: http://www.ccfla.com

Think of the last time you reflected upon an action you took? Remember asking yourself the question why did I do what I just did? Sometime we may not even ask this question, thinking it is the way it is or it is meant to be or you were too busy to do so. Even if we asked this question we may not think deep enough to reflect on the root causes. Sometimes, even if we thought deep enough, we may not reflect on alternate ways of responding to the same situation the next time. Sometimes, even if we thought of alternate ways of responding the next time, we may not reflect on alternate actions we could take the next time. Those who go through this whole process and take alternate action the next time, and continue to follow this process, will find tremendous personal growth.

Continue reading “Why we do, what we do?”

Paradigm Prisons into Paradigm Prisms

Paradigm Prisons to PrismsWe are one of seven billion people in this world and each one of us sees the world from our own paradigm. This short blog post will examine the dangers of getting imprisoned in a paradigm and the benefits of becoming a prism as prisons are restricting and prisms are reflecting.

For example, when it comes to a decision of buying a family car, each family member would look at the decision from a different paradigm. The father might look at technical performance and fuel efficiency, the mother might look at the spaciousness and colour scheme, the teenage son might look at how classy it looks and how fast it can go and the teenage daughter may not care about any of this. When each family gets prisoned in their paradigm, they will not be able to come out of it to look at the decision from other paradigms, leading to possible misunderstandings, conflicts and even permanent damage to the quality of relationships.

Therefore the question is, how do we get out of the paradigm prison?

Continue reading “Paradigm Prisons into Paradigm Prisms”

Power of Purpose for Leadership Success!

Purposeful Leadership
Image Credits: salitabacchi.com

What makes a difference between an ordinary leader and an extra ordinary leader?

While there could be many reasons for this difference, I would like to propose the idea of ‘Purpose’.

I remember the time where I was responsible for business results in a company before I found my purpose. My primary focus is to achieve profit target of the company. This was pursuing a goal set by my company; it was not even a purpose. My life was about going to work every day, making decisions on how best to be better than competitors and using (yes using them without thinking of their growth & welfare) the people allocated to me in achieving these goals. Unknowingly I was neglecting my health, spirituality, my relationships, my financial health and I was squandering my time. I remember those days where I was hospitalized with stress attacks, struggling to pay my bills, gaining weight and working long hours. Fortunately I had a drive to educate myself, perhaps to overcome the fear of financial challenges and the passion to spend time with my children, perhaps because blood is thicker than water and, as they were such adorable children.

My life changed when I was fortunate enough to write a purpose during the first Mastery of Self playshop I attended. What was powerful about the purpose was it helped me to know myself deeper and to see the life I am designed to live. Formulating a realistic five year and Continue reading “Power of Purpose for Leadership Success!”

Month End Booster!

month end booster
Image Credits: http://www.boost.it

I remember the time I used to be so enthusiastic about a new year and formulate an exciting plan. However after a few months there is disappointment realizing that I had made only insignificant progress in executing the plan.

 

Over the years I have formulated and refined a method of ensuring my plans get achieved by carrying out a month end (or next month beginning) booster and I would like to share it with you. As I always say, just because this worked for me, there is no guarantee it will work for you. Therefore I invite you to try this out and adjust it to suit your situation so that it works for you.

Continue reading “Month End Booster!”

Passion Killers and Passion Ignitions

passion killers vs ignitions

We are born as passionate beings and somewhere down the line some of us started seeing the diminishing or absence of that passion. This piece of writing will attempt to identify the reasons for the diminishing of passion, the role we play in killing passion and what role can we play to ignite that passion. I have found that using the energy within the hearts and minds of our teams by igniting their passion as one of the most productive and cost effective ways of driving performance.

Reflecting on our childhood where we had all the energy to live life will confirm this. Observe a baby showing the need for affection with her passionate cry for attention. Observe children passionate about playing the games they love to play. Observe children passionately asking for the toy of their choice from their parents. We also carry this passion to our adulthood in areas that are important to us. Observe a young man passionately pursuing to foster a relationship with the woman of his dreams. Observe a musician singing his heart out entertaining his fans. Observe and entrepreneur passionately promoting his business.

Continue reading “Passion Killers and Passion Ignitions”

Gearing up for an Awesome 2016

plan 2016
Image Credits: dreamtime.com

Let’s make 2016 an awesome year! Trust you have already done the two activities recommended in my blog in taking the best of 2015 to make the best of 2016. Having done that would help in making this activity even more powerful. The first blog is about doing a gratitude list; people and happenings durign the year that you are grateful for. This activity makes us generate the positive energy required to gear up for the new year. See more details about this activity following this link. The second blog is about taking stock of 2015. See more details about this activity following this link. However if you are short of time you may do the activity in this blog post as a stand-alone activity and make a note to re-visit the earlier two activities if time permits.

We prepare our mind for success and failure based on how we programme, condition and prepares it. A positive mind will activate the ‘Reticular Activating System’ [RAS] to experience [see, hear, feel, smell, taste] positive situations if we are looking for it and open to it. Therefore if you are looking for the ideal ‘Masters Degree’ to pursue in 2016, once you see, hear and feel yourself enjoying pursuing the masters degree successfully in your mind, your brain will filter and pick up ides for the ‘Masters Degree’ from the millions of stimuli bombarding us every second of our life.

Gearing up for an awesome 2016

Given below are two processes. The first process will help you come up with an inspirational plan. The second is to take steps in implementing the plan. Given below are the steps in coming up with the inspirational plan; this can be done individually, with your family or with your team.

Step 1: List down three big goals you [or your family or your team] would like to achieve in 2016.

Continue reading “Gearing up for an Awesome 2016”

The New Year and the New You!

New Year 2016We all look forward to the New Year and celebrate it in different ways. There are those who clean up and pain their houses to give a new beginning. There are those who wear new cloths as the New Year dawns. There are those who go to a place of worship and take part in religious celebrations to usher in the New Year. There are those who eat, drink and dance at hotels, home or parks to usher in the New Year. There are those who stay at home and do traditional rituals such as boiling a pot of milk for good luck. There are those who do not do any of these or sometimes don’t even know it’s a dawn of a New Year. Whichever group you belong to, it is interesting to reflect on the deeper change that happens in you during the transition in to the New Year.

 

New Year is about renewal. When we renew ourselves we eliminate accumulated negative energy and replenish ourselves with positive energy. That’s what exercises, a shower, a make over, an inspirational reading, an authentic conversation, a paying off a loan, waking up after a refreshing sleep, meditation etc. does to us. It gives us new fresh positive energy that helps us get a new start. Perhaps that’s what New Years do t us.

 

There are certain things in our life that does not change, while we renew ourselves;

 

It’s a New Year although it is another day

It’s a new vision although it’s the same purpose

It’s a new attitude although it’s the same mind

It’s a new passion although it’s the same heart

It’s a new you although it is the same face

 

Have an awesome 2016 … May it be the best of your life!

 

Ranjan De Silva

Take the best of 2015 to make the best of 2016 (Part 2): Taking Stock of 2015

taking stock
Image credits: http://www.littlemisadventures.com

Part 1 of this series, “The Gratitude List”, was published on the 20th of December. Here is part 2 for you. Taking stock of this year helps generate the energy, creativity and aspiration to plan an amazing 2016. Here is a process that has worked for me. As I always say, what works for me may not work for you. So therefore there is no ‘Right’ process. However I invite you to test this out and improve it to suite your situation if required.

 

Step 1: List down the 3 biggest achievements during the year.

Step 2: List down the 3 biggest setbacks during the year

Step 3: Do some reflective writing with regard to each of the items list in step 1 & 2 above using the following process. Find a quite place, get a nice notebook and a pen that writes well and take your time doing it. First complete the biggest achievement and set back before going on to the next.

  1. Describe the situation
  2. What were you thinking/feeling before, during and after the situation
  3. What was good and/or bad about your behaviour during each situation
  4. What sense can you make about your behaviour and potential to change in each situation
  5. What alternate action could have been taken during each of the situations?
  6. What steps would you take to make each situation better if it arises during the next year?

 

You could also follow the above process with your life partner, family and/or team. It will be an amazing bonding exercises too.

 

I will be back with further guidance in helping you to do a spectacular transition from 2015 in to 2016.

 

Wish you purposeful living with happiness and excellence.

Take the best of 2015 to make the best of 2016 (part 1): The gratitude List

gratitude
Image Credits: www.huffingtonpost.com

As we wind up 2015 and start looking in to 2016, let me propose a few steps we can take to take the best of 2015 and make the best of 2016.

The first step I propose is a gratitude list. This is a list of all the people and happenings in 2015 that we can be grateful for. It is amazing how many great things happened to us and sometimes they go un-noticed or we take them for granted. A gratitude list helps us to recall them, reflect on them and record them. This activity will energize us to start looking at 2016 with more eagerness, more energy and more enthusiasm.

Here are a few items in my gratitude list. This is still been written and as I write it I remember more people and events I can be grateful for.

  • For Lord Jesus Christ for guiding, keeping and protecting me as I dealt with the various opportunities and challenges provided to me during the year.
  • For Lord Jesus Christ for giving us the opportunity and means to visit holy places in Italy (the Vatican, St Anthony’s shrine and other places of religious and historic interest) and to be able to take my mother and the family on this pilgrimage.
  • For my mother for always been there for me to share my challenges and success.
  • For my wife Jennifer for being the guardian angel to my 3 daughters during the year, specially when I had to be away from home serving my clients
  • For my wife Jennifer who managed all logistical aspects regard to my affairs in Sri Lanka, allowing me the space to focus on serving my clients.
  • To my eldest daughter Natasha for continuing to inspire me by balancing all her roles as a Phd candidate, As a mentor at Apple, as a teacher at the City University and as peace ambassador for the Olympic truce and doing all of them at an exceptionally high standard.
  • To my second daughter Menasha for excelling in her Masters studies in fashion marketing and being their with her sister and soul mate Natasha.
  • To my third daughter Radeesha for being so adorable and loving and for her wonderful culinary creations of cakes, pastries and what not.
  • To my business partner for giving me a free hand to develop the business in this region and to lead my team serving our clients.
  • To my team members Caroline, Ejaz, Fahim, Farzana, Florentina, Lester, Partho, Prarthana, Riaz, Siddeshwar, Tanzi, who helped in designing, developing and delivering our services to our clients.
  • To my clients who trusted us with their most important asset, their people and gave us the opportunity to serve them.
  • For the faculty, batch mates, my supervisor Geoff and my Doctoral Support Group (Roger, Britta and Kavitha) of the Ashridge Doctorate in Organisational Change (ADOC) for being a part of a new journey of self discovery and learning deep in to the body of knowledge that gives me new ways of learning, thinking and serving the world.

I recommend you do your gratitude list and stay tuned in. I will be back with further guidance in helping you to do a spectacular transition from 2015 in to 2016.

Wish you purposeful living with happiness and excellence.

Ranjan De Silva

Wrong

you-are-wrong-and-i-am-rightWe may have heard this word tons of times from our childhood. You are wrong! That’s the wrong answer! You have wronged me! that’s the wrong way to do it! I have many times wondered about the meaning of this word. What impact does this word have on our lives? What impact does this word have on our relationships?

There are specific activities that need to be done in specific ways. An aircraft has to be flown in a specific way and needs to follow a specific flight path and altitude. If the pilot deviates it can put the passengers in danger. A surgeon has a specific way to perform a surgery. If the surgeon deviates it can put the patient in danger. A driver has to drive on a specific side of a road. If the driver deviates it can result in an accident. In this case it may be appropriate to use the word ‘wrong’. That the wrong flight path, that the wrong leg you are operating and that the wrong side of the road you are driving.

Continue reading “Wrong”

How Marketers can Add Value to the Organisation

marketing blog
Source: http://www.networkintellect.com

Organisations consist of people who are varied. People come from varied cultures, mindsets, beliefs, philosophies, and background. This diversity creates varied dynamics of interactions. Therefore it is unlikely that there are two similar organisations on this planet. Therefore there is no standard formula or right answer or wrong answers. Therefore the best I can do is to provide the clay for you to create a pot that can hold the value you can add to organisations that suits your reality and your aspirations using your creativity and your knowledge.

Why do you need to add value to organisations? I had learnt somewhere in my journey of life that the more you give the more you get. This concept became true to me as I tested it. The more I gave to others the more I received. The more time and I focus I gave my studies the better results I received. The more value I gave my existing clients the more new clients I received. The more knowledge I gave , especially free of any fees, the more knowledge I gained.

Continue reading “How Marketers can Add Value to the Organisation”

Great Teams are made through Regular Team Evaluations

Sir Albert on what counts

We don’t get what we expect, we get what we inspect! Things that are evaluated get elevated! Therefore measuring team effectiveness and taking improvement actions based on the feedback   is an essential aspect of creating great teams.

In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How great is your team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first ten aspects regarding Burning Platforms, Team Alignment Around Critical Goals, Clearly Agreed Way of Working, A Great Decision Making Process, Information Flow is Encouraged, Great Leaders Don’t Mince Their Words’, Positive Crisis, Great Conversations, Radical Conversations and Regular Team Activities, have already been posted in this blog (please search this website to find the earlier instalments). Here is the Eleventh and final installment, Team Evaluations.

Continue reading “Great Teams are made through Regular Team Evaluations”

Team’s that Learn Together, Sticks Closer and Work Better

Image Credits: anythinghr.blogspot.com
Image Credits: anythinghr.blogspot.com

In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How great is your team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first nine aspects regarding Burning Platforms, Team Alignment Around Critical Goals, Clearly Agreed Way of Working, A Great Decision Making Process, Information Flow is Encouraged, Great Leaders Don’t Mince Their Words’, Positive Crisis, Great Conversations, and Radical Conversations, have already been posted in this blog. Here is the Tenth installment; Team Learning.

Team’s, who learn together, stick closer and work better. While we learn every moment of our life, including when at work, great teams have planned processes to create that learning inside and outside the workplace.

Continue reading “Team’s that Learn Together, Sticks Closer and Work Better”

Radical Action Conversations – Makes Great Teams

Radical conversations
Image Credits: http://www.teeveetee.blogspot.com

In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How great is your team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first eight aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’, ‘Team alignment around critical goals’, ‘Clearly agreed way of working?’ ‘A great decision making process’, ‘Information flow is encouraged’, ‘Great leaders don’t mince their words’, ‘Positive Crisis’ and ‘ Great Conversations’ have already been posted in this blog. Here is the ninth installment; ‘Radical Action Conversation’.

Radical Action Conversations are authentic. They go beneath the surface and deals with ‘adaptive’ issues that hinders real execution. Such conversations deals with engagement issues, honesty issues, relationship issues etc. that people may generally try to avoid to maintain false harmony. It encourages team members to be in ‘Adult’ mode rather than ‘Parent’ or ‘Child’ mode as described in ‘Transactional Analysis’. Such conversations are about identifying and dealing with assumptions team members make in their decisions, prejudices, actions, relationships etc.

Consider this. Your organization is working on a product launch that requires coordination between planning, manufacturing, marketing, sales, legal, finance and supply chain teams. The project is running late and at the current speed the launch could be delayed by more than 2 months. This can give a major advantage to the competitors who are working on a similar product to meet the same need of the customer.

The discussions at the management meetings are very technical. They speaks about the delay in finding the right raw materiel, delay in gearing up distributors and delay in configuring machines in the factory. The team discusses this and decides on some steps to speed up, but the situation is the same at the next meeting. The team resorts to unproductive conversations such as fake, dormant and aggressive conversations to avoid facing the real issues. See my blog post ‘Great Conversations’ for more details of unproductive conversations.

This becomes a radical conversation when the team starts talking about the adaptive aspects such as the trust issues between the marketing and sales manager, the integrity concerns of the supply chain manager and the competency concerns of the factory manager. The team starts focusing on facts, when the focus changes to transforming rather than debating reality, when there is willingness to challenge and explore assumptions, when tough decisions are made based on these conversations and when clarity of accountabilities and commitments are achieved. Discussions at future meetings focus on tracking actions decided, agreeing on course corrections required and ensuring execution with both discipline and speed.

Such Radical Action Conversations will see relationships growing rather than cliques being fostered and team capability clearly growing through the engagement. Radical Action Conversations requires skill and courage and it takes a lot of effort to develop team with this capability. However this is not just useful but essential for a great team!

Engaging the Fickle Mind

Engaging the Fickle Mind - cover 17 June 2015 copyHow many times a week do we look at our smart phone? Do we look at it first thing in the morning? Do we look at it before 7.30 a.m.? Do we look at it during meetings? Do we feel lost without our devices? I am sure the answers to these questions might not only be interesting but it will start us thinking.

Study UK’s Daily mail (www.dailymail.com) surveyed 2,000 smartphone owners about their tech habits. They found the average user now picks up their device 1,500+ times a week, reaches for their phone at 7:31am in the morning, checks personal emails and Facebook before they get out of bed, use their phone for three hours and sixteen minutes a day and almost four in ten users admitted to feeling lost without their device. (see the 4 mts video below about these dangers)

 

Technology has given us so many options of interest that our mind keeps wondering from one to another at an alarming rate. We may be at a meeting and our smart phone alerts that it’s a friends’ birthday and we pick the phone to wish her. When we open Facebook to do it, we see a friend request from an old friend. As we start accepting it, we see a photo posted by another friend. Then we remember there is a customer meeting and we may be late to get home and we start messaging someone at home to pick up a child from school, and then she tells you to bring some extra cash as the plumber was coming to fix a leak the next day. All this happens in about one and half minutes. Therefore we live in a world where our mind gets more and more fickle.

Some feel this is beneficial as it helps us to do many things rapidly, become knowledgeable in many fields, be able to handle more things than ever before, be able to respond fast, be connected with more friends more often, find new opportunities be more efficient, smarter, successful etc.

Continue reading “Engaging the Fickle Mind”

Great Conversations make Great Teams!

Image Credits: www.dailyhappyquote.com
Image Credits: http://www.dailyhappyquote.com

Remember the last time you were engrossed in a conversation? Conversation where real issues were discussed! Conversations that were authentic! Conversations that were value adding! Conversations that made time stand still! Conversations that made things happen! Conversations that got continued! These are the conversations that make great teams.

In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How Great is Your Team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first seven aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’, ‘Team Alignment Around Critical Goals’, ‘Does your Team have Clearly Agreed way of Working?’ ‘A Great Decision-Making Process for a Great Team’, ‘Information Flow is Encouraged’, ‘Great Leaders don’t Mince their Words’ and ‘Positive Crisis’ have already been posted in this blog. Here is the 8th installment regarding the 8th aspect; ‘Great Conversation’.

Continue reading “Great Conversations make Great Teams!”

Positive Crisis – Makes Great Teams!

Image credits: www.matthewroda.com
Image credits: http://www.matthewroda.com

Have you ever wondered what makes a movie interesting? It is the crisis in the movie, even when it is a comedy or an animated children’s film there is some crisis and you will realise how boring that movie could be without that crisis. Similarly meetings become interesting when there is a crisis to deal with. A project becomes interesting when there is a crisis to deal with. A team becomes interesting when there is crisis between team members.

In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How great is your team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first six aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’, ‘Team Alignment around Critical Goals’, ‘Does Your Team have Clearly Agreed Way of Working?’, ‘A Great Decision-Making Process for a Great Team’, ‘Information Flow is Encouraged’, and ‘Great Leaders don’t Mince their Words’ have already been posted in this blog. Here is the seventh instalment regarding the 7th aspect; ‘Positive Crisis’.

Continue reading “Positive Crisis – Makes Great Teams!”

Great leaders don’t’ mince their words!

Image Credits:http://www.imgarcade.com
Image Credits:http://www.imgarcade.com

Coming form an Asian background, we sometimes become over-cautious about the impact our communication makes on others, especially those senior to us. Therefore we end up saying things others want to hear, saying things that are not fully accurate or not saying things. This article tries to highlight some of the reasons behind this and some practical steps great leaders take to overcome it.

In my blog post on the 7th of May 2015 titled ‘How great is your team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first five aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’, ‘Team Alignment around Critical Goals’, ‘Does your Team have Clearly Agreed Way of Working?’, ‘A Great Decision-Making Process for a Great Team’ and ‘Information Flow is Encouraged’, have already been posted in this blog. Here is the sixth installment regarding the 6th aspect; ‘Candour with Respect’’.

Great leaders do not just encourage candour with respect but they insist on it. Candour is a quality that is essential for a winning team. Jack Welch in his book ‘winning’ mentions that candour was a vital quality for any GE leader. Candour is about speaking out the truth with courage even if it would create conflict or hurt someone else. Good communicators also know how to select the right words, tonality and body language to make it as positive and productive as possible.

Great leaders insist on candour using the following mind-set, thinking and behaviours,

Continue reading “Great leaders don’t’ mince their words!”

Great Information Flow to Make Your Team Fly!

Image credits: https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/
Image credits: https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/

We love to hear good news! When bad news comes our way some times we tend to get upset, our body language and tonality shows that we are not pleased with the information and some resort to further unproductive behavior of shooting the messenger! Shooting the messenger can be in many forms. Some would question the messenger and ask them to justify the information. Some others may ridicule them as being negative or incompetent. Some others may even resort to retribution in the form of impacting their rewards and recognition negatively. However great teams have great leaders who behave positively and encourage information flow! In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How Great is Your Team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first four aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’, ‘Team alignment around critical goals’, ‘Does your team have clearly agreed way of working?’ and ‘A great decision-making process for a great team’ have already been posted in this blog. Here is the fifth installment regarding the 5th aspect; ‘Information flow is encouraged’. Great information flow requires the following mind-set, thinking and behaviours; Continue reading “Great Information Flow to Make Your Team Fly!”

Connecting & Connections!

Image credits: http://www.connections4children.com
Image credits: http://www.connections4children.com

Living in the Internet world we know the value of connectivity. When we go to a restaurant, cafe, hotel, hospital, airport or any other public place we look for Wi-Fi connections. The theory of ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ originally set out by Frigyes Karinthy in 1929 and popularized by a 1990 play written by John Guare, is the theory that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away from any other person or thing in the world. Therefore a chain of  “a friend of a friend”  statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.

Surekha Ahgir Yadev in a recent blog mentions that the most important phrase for expats in Colombo, Sri Lanka is; ‘I Know a Guy’. She says Colombo has a surprisingly sophisticated corporate scene, excellent Internet connections, an array of professional advertising and digital marketing agencies – but it has hardly any human headhunters and nothing much in the way of talent-matching services. Finally she discovered that everyone knew everyone else and if you asked someone for the right person for a particular job, the common term she hears is ‘I know a guy …….’. This again shows the importance of connections.

When reflecting on my insights during the month of January 2015 for my monthly ‘Team Leadership Newsletter’, I realized that I had been working on many connections during the month. These are the connections that built us, the connections that will sustain us and the connections that we need to give back to. Focusing on these connections helps us to live a happy, fulfilled and successful life. Let me explain how I connected during the month to give you a practical illustration.

  1. Connecting with ourselves: Connecting with ourselves includes understand our deeper hopes, aspirations and fears as well as our strengths and improvement areas. It includes connecting with our higher self, the sub-conscious mind. Over the last month I paid more attention to my subconscious communications such as gut feel, aha’s and dreams and responded to them and found my decisions were better and I was more peaceful and happy.
  1. Connecting with our family: The family is our base, our foundation and our support network. We need to be in touch with our family so that we are reminded of our roots [values] and support each other. During the month I had quality family time starting the new year with the family, attended the holy mass celebrated by pope Francis with the family, spending time with my immediate family at home, communicating with my daughters studying in the UK on What’s App and Skype, spending time with my brother who was staying with us during a short visit to the country and connecting with some other relatives. I found this quality time really nourishing for my being.
  1. Connecting with our higher purpose: While I reflect on my purpose and plan my day in line with my purpose everyday, I continued to do this more intensely this month. This helped me to take decisive actions in spiritual, mental, physical, relational, emotional and financial aspects everyday so that my life was balanced thereby feeling great in body and mind.

Continue reading “Connecting & Connections!”

A Great Decision-Making Process for a Great Team!

Image Credits: http://www.catalog.flatworldknowledge.com
Image Credits: http://www.catalog.flatworldknowledge.com

In my blog post on the 7th of May 2015 titled ‘How Great is Your Team?’ I promised to go into details of the eleven different aspects that make a great team. The first three aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’, ‘Team Alignment Around Critical Goals’ and ‘Does Your Team Have Clearly Agreed Ways of Working?’ have already been posted in this blog. Here is the fourth installment regarding the 4th aspect; ‘A Clear Decision-Making Process is Present’. A good decision-making process helps us to update each other regularly, consult each other early and work together to co-create value to our customer.

1. The first step in this process to identify the different decision-making units in the team. A large organization would have a board of directors, an executive leadership team, an operational leadership team, functional teams and cross functional teams that are responsible for key performance indicators and generally they also become the decision-making teams. There could also be smaller decision-making teams within a larger decision-making team. Eg: While the marketing function may have a core team, there could be smaller decision-making teams for each brand. Some members (generally senior members of the marketing function) may represent many brand teams.

Continue reading “A Great Decision-Making Process for a Great Team!”

Praefectus of Tough Love!

Fr. Stephen

It was such an honour to be invited to write a message for the magazine to be published for the celebration of 50 years of priesthood for our beloved Father Stephen Abraham former Principal of St Anthony’s Collage Kandy, Sri Lanka.

My first encounter with Father Stephen was when he spoke at the college assembly soon after taking over as the principal of St Anthony’s College Kandy. While I was not mature enough to know a good speech from a bad one, the tone of his voice and the charisma of his personality were electrifying. I cannot remember any of the words uttered by this great man given the passage of time but his personality made us have mixed feeling of hope, respect and fear.

Father Stephen was such an encouragement to us sportsmen of the college. I cannot remember any match that he was not present at. He would always give us a word of advice and encouragement if he meets us before a game and he would remember to acknowledge us when he meets us at assembly or in the corridor the next day. He also insisted that we focus on our studies and it was always a treat when he walked in to class during the absence of a teacher or take an occasional class.

Continue reading “Praefectus of Tough Love!”

Getting things done … Superbly!

David Allen and Ranjan De SilvaDo you generally find that your email inbox clogged with unattended mail?

Do you find that there are many important things to attended to?

Do you find that some important projects don’t get your required attention?

Do you find that some important task are neglected or delayed?

Do you feel that there are some task that you need to attend but you get drained trying to do them?

Do you find you just don’t have enough time to do tasks you enjoy doing that energizes you?

Well, if the answer to one or many of these questions are yes, then many of the answers are with David Allen, the author of many books including, ‘Getting Things Done’ and inspirational speaker.

I was fortunate to be at David’s session today, organized by Right Selection, the company who also represents me in the Middle East. While I generally have an empty email inbox, have things quite well organized with most things done by the end of each week with, and adequate time to do things I am passionate about, I found David helps put things in perspective and provides concepts and a process that helps get things done.

Here is a summary of the learnings for you.

Continue reading “Getting things done … Superbly!”

The Beauty of Diversity

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Image Credits: Leanin.org

A new client of mine recently requested me to design and run a workshop for their top team on ‘valuing differences’. I was excited about the prospect of doing this as this is at the core of my company and our mission statement also states it explicitly:

To be the best possible global catalyst in organizational and personal transformation. To help the world celebrate its diversity and re-discover its unity.

Inspired by our mission and the prospect of designing a new workshop that resonates so well, I named the workshop ‘The Beauty of Diversity’ which the client loved too.

The objective of the workshop was to help participants realize that we are very different from each other in many ways, that all the different versions of us add value in different ways, one person alone does not have all the different aspects and therefore we need to work with others who are different to ensure all angles are covered, that the diversity adds synergy and by celebrating the beauty of this diversity we not only add synergistic value but also re-discover our unity.

I approached the design of the workshop by helping participants look at 4 areas of differences;

  1. The thinking and decision-making mode: technical or behavioural.
  2. The working preference: quick start, fact finder, implementor or follow through
  3. The brain activity dominance: left brain or right brain
  4. The communication preference: Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic

The participants had an opportunity to do 4 assessments to ascertain their modes & preferences before the session and that helped us to have some interesting discussions regarding the diversity in the group and the richness and value of that diversity. Each area was learnt with the support of concepts, video’s exercises, discussions and soul-searching sessions that led to personal action plans.

After receiving an amazing transformation the participants left the session with a commitment to deploy their energy to value the beauty of diversity [rather than trying to change others to be similar to them] in order to enjoy personal and organizational growth, success and happiness as this approach helps not only synergize but also be a better closer knit team.

Better Team Leadership with ‘Adult’ Ego state!

adult-300x164Transactional Analysis [TA] introduces the fascinating concept of the 3 ego states in us: Parent, Adult & Child. While TA is used extensively in relationship therapy, it is a powerful and potent tool for improvement of leadership.

 

The ‘Parent’ ego state has a positive side and a negative side. The positive side is nurturing and protective. The negative side is uses fear and force to control and is cynical. The ‘Child’ ego state also has a positive and negative side. The positive side is fun loving and carefree and the negative side is being a victim, looking for approval and whining. The ‘Adult’ state is the more mature, rational, long term, restraining and professional.

 

TA therapist recommend that we should develop an adult value system and be in that ego state as much as possible for more healthy relationships. Creator of TA Eric Berne in his book ‘Games People Play’ illustrate how two individuals get into a pattern of behaviour and continue to be in that pattern. These are referred to as ‘Games people play’. There are many games and they will continue if they are complimentary even though they may not be productive or healthy.

 

Let’s see how the ‘Adults’ ego state helps better leadership.

This is a conversation between ‘Tom’ and his manager ‘Joe’.

Continue reading “Better Team Leadership with ‘Adult’ Ego state!”

Does your team have clearly agreed ways of working?

teamwork
Image credits: http://www.studenthousingmatters.com

In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How great is your team?’, I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that makes a great team. The first aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’ and ‘Team alignment around critical goals’ have already been posted in this blog. Here is the third installment; ‘Does your team have clearly agreed way of working?’

In recent senior team strategic and leadership facilitations for a leading insurance company, I asked the question: what kind of work should you be mostly doing? The answer was: ‘Strategic Work’. Then I asked: what kind of work do you mostly do? The answer was: ‘Operational Work’. Then I asked what do you think the reason for that is?. After a short discussion it was clear to everyone that it was due to the absence of leadership that requires developing, delegating, engaging, energizing and create an environment for healthy interactions to get freed up from operational responsibilities to find the time to do the required strategic work.

There are 4 possible ways of working based on the responsibilities and roles of the team. These levels include strategic, tactical, operational and interactive. It is important for the team to have clarity and alignment regarding this and to know which other related teams operates in which way with clarity of the interface relationships.

  1. Strategic work: Strategic work involves being able to predict the future business environment in the areas of political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal, referred by the acronym PESTAL. They need to do this by having intellectual connections to various channels of information, being able to extrapolate current happenings to the future, being able to see strategic intentions of actions, behaviours and information provided by business movers and shakes. It involves planning for the long-term taking the strategic realities in to consideration. Being able to make investments in people, technology and business relationships in the present to prepare for the future.  A large potion of senior leadership time should be allocated to strategic work. A moderate amount of next level leadership time should be allocated to strategic work. Junior team members should understand the strategic relevance of current decisions and plans and should provide information that has strategic implications to enable higher-level leaders to improve their effectiveness of their strategic work.

Continue reading “Does your team have clearly agreed ways of working?”

Leading a Team is like Conducting an Orchestra!

image credits: nsight2success.com
image credits: nsight2success.com

Leading a team is like conducting an orchestra!

The quest for better leadership is still on and will continue to go on forever. One of the reasons for this is the ever-changing mindsets, expectations, challenges and demands presented by the ever-changing world around us.

There are many tools being used to create better Team Leadership and the next few blogs from me will analyse different tools and methodologies available to create better team leadership.

Let’s first see what is ‘Team Leadership’. Is it the same as or different to ‘Leadership’? Leadership can be used in many situations and ‘Team Leadership’ is an art of leading a team as against leading an individual or a set of individuals.

Team leadership has the following challenges that require the responses indicated.

1. Objectives of the team – The larger, more complex and the more challenging the objectives of the team, the type of ‘Team leadership’ differs. It will require skills such as making the team see the big possibilities, making the team believe in their collective ability to achieve the objectives, and it requires aligning the team under a common plan to achieve the objectives.

2. Size of the team – The larger the team is, the less time the team leader has to provide for each team member, the larger the team is, the more complex will be the relationship issues, the larger the team is, the more effort it will take to keep the team motivated. Appointing a few deputy leaders who take over responsibilities for smaller teams within the team and having more team interactions than individual interactions can overcome this.

3. Diversity of the team: The more diverse the team is, more the differences of opinions will be, more the potential conflicts will be and this will require more involvement of the team leader. Proactively helping team members understand each other through team building exercises and radical conversations, selecting the right mix of team members for various projects and investing more time on participative planning and briefing will help overcome this challenge.

4. Resources available (or not available): The resources available or not available for the team in relation to the tasks at hand can pose a challenge to the leader. The leader should use Continuous Improvement techniques such as Kaizen to get the team working together to make the most of existing resources.

5. Conflicts in the team – A team leader will lead different levels of conflicts in the team. Therefore it is important for the leader to be a good listener, mediator and counsellor using techniques from mainstream psychology, transactional analysis and Neuro Linguistic Programming to prevent, defuse or resolve such conflicts.

Continue reading “Leading a Team is like Conducting an Orchestra!”

What is your teams burning platform?

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Image Credit: http://www.businessleaners.com

The concept of ‘The Burning Platform’ was first introduced by Daryl Conner who used the metaphor of an Oil Rig worker who had to leap into the water to save himself when the platform of the rig was burning. In this situation if the worker did not jump there was certain death as he would have got burned on the platform and jumping into the heated water with debris was possible death if he was not rescued within 20 mts. So he took the call based on the odds of saving his life although both options he had had a high risk of death. What he essentially tries to say is that sometimes we need to take a call in a hopeless situation such as a burning platform and such a call can ignite and motivate us to unite as a team and do the impossible.

 

Therefore counties unify when there is a burning platform. A historic example is Japan after world war 2. Similarly there are many examples of people uniting when there had been a suicide bomb attack, sports teams uniting after a heavy defeat, companies uniting when competitors launch a game changing product etc.

 

However the concept of burning platforms, if taken literally can be misunderstood to mean that a team needs a disaster to unite. There are 4 Types of burning platforms as shown in the following matrix.

burning platforms_001

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lets examine each of these burning platforms;

  1. The Platform is burning: This is a problem faced by the team in the present. This means we are in trouble and need to take immediate action. Examples of this situation are; competitor has launched a game changing product, one of our factories have been destroyed by fire, A quality issue that has put us in the danger of loosing our biggest customer, trailing 0 – 2 in a soccer game, civil commotion affecting the supply of vital raw materiel etc.

 

The leadership response: In this situation the leader needs to gather the entire team and collect information regarding the situation from all team members, asses the crisis quickly, show the team how it can affect each member and the team, collect ideas on how to deal with the situation, formulate a plan and assign team members to take action. Given the situation and its personal impact, the team will [at least temporarily] put aside their differences and work together to deal with the situation. This process can bring diverse team members together, generate creativity, ignite the passion and create synergy. Teams coming out of such situations are generally stronger and are geared to achieve greater results. In this situation the leaders challenge is to convert fear and confusion into confidence and hope.

Continue reading “What is your teams burning platform?”

Leadership is inefficient!

ImageLeadership is about developing team members to carryout the important responsibilities in the organization. This is essential if we are to grow and take on higher-level responsibilities. Developing team members requires time. Therefore leadership is inefficient in the short run. However it is a great investment of our time and energy to reap near medium term to long-term results, as having a developed team will help produce more value and great results.

Given below are 10 common areas where this inefficiency can happen.

  1. Getting the right team member in to the team: We need to first ensure the team member with the right attitude and skills are recruited into the team. This requires spending time on determining the profile of the ideal team member, preparing the right evaluation techniques and spending quality time evaluate the candidates.
  2. Taking time to direct: When a new team member is recruited or transferred in from another area of the organization to our team it takes time to induct and teach. Time needs to be allocated to introduce the new team member to the other team members, work environment, mission, vision, values, customers, products and work processes.
  3. Listening: It is important to actively listen to the team member to understand his/her level of absorption, development, enthusiasm, motivation and concerns. This will enable us to ensure the new team member feels at home soon, ready to take on responsibilities that we are planning to delegate.
  4. Handing over responsibility: It requires us handing over a task that may have taken us 1 hour to complete and it takes our team members double that time as he/she consciously and carefully does the job as requires. We need to have patience knowing that there is a natural curve of gaining efficiency as the skill and confidence improves.
  5. Detailed briefing: It is important to provide a detailed briefing for the responsibilities to be delegated. It requires determining how much of authority needs to be delegated. It requires documenting the details, some of which is in our mind and we do as second nature. Sometimes we neglect to provide the finer points thinking it is common sense. Sometimes what are common senses for us is not so common for others.
  6. Checking work done: We need to also invest time to check the progress of work and the quality of work. This requires reading weekly updates, walking into the areas of operation, speaking to those on the job, discussing variances and brainstorming solutions.
  7. Praising: We need to lavishly praise good work. We need to praise the progress in the process, not only wait for the outcome. While this can take time, it is an important activity to reinforce good behaviour.
  8. Improvement feedback: We need to also give improvement feedback for areas that needs to be better. Instant feedback can be detrimental as it can go packaged with negative emotions such as anger. Therefore it is better to give it some time to cool down, visualize how best to most productively provide the feedback and do so, so that this becomes an effective development activity. The cooling down periods takes time.
  9. Dealing with demotivation of others: Delegating responsibility to one person can demotivate another team member. Therefore it takes time to keep others informed, engaged in other value adding activity and communicate consistently so that we keep the entire team motivated.
  10. Dealing with conflict: It is quite likely for conflict to arise between team members as they work on projects and various tasks as they discharge responsibilities delegated. Therefore it is the leaders responsibility to defuse and manage the conflict to create strong team bonding. This of course takes a lot of time and the energy.
  11. Reporting up: The leader is ultimately responsible for tasks delegated and the reporting responsibility lies with the leader. When we were doing the tasks ourselves it was easy to report in detail as we were at the thick of everything. However when it is delegated we need time to get all the details, ask questions to get clarifications and write the report.

Continue reading “Leadership is inefficient!”

The Super Job

Here is the quiz of the century?

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Those doing the Super Job!

  1. Can you guess the Job that needs the most hours per week?
  2. Can you guess the Job that requires staying on your feet most of the time?
  3. Can you guess the Job that requires you to have meals late and sometimes even skip them on behalf of your customer?
  4. Can you guess the job that requires staying up the whole night quite often and then starting early morning again and going on till late night?
  5. Can you guess the Job that requires a good knowledge and skills in medicine, finance, banking, teaching, home science, networking, sales, negotiating, human resources, teamwork empathy and relationships all at the same time?
  6. Can you guess the Job that needs the most amount of multi-tasking?
  7. Can you guess the Job that requires sacrificing things you desire on behalf of the customers despite all the qualifications and responsibilities listed above?
  8. Can you guess the Job that does not pay you despite all the qualifications and responsibilities listed above?
  9. Can you guess the Job that does not earn gratitude despite all the qualifications and responsibilities listed above?
  10. Can you guess the Job that sometimes results in humiliation and insult from the very people being served despite all the qualifications and responsibilities listed above?
  11. Can you guess the job that requires unconditional and selfless love to their customers?

Yes the answers to the above questions are one and the same. MOTHERS. Let’s remember and pay respect and gratitude to our mothers and all the mothers we know. Lets start today as someone thankfully invented mother’s day to remind us of the most precious person in our life and make every day of our life mothers day.

 

I dedicate this blog post to my own mother Carmen, the mother of my children Jennifer, my sister Kishani, my sisters-in-laws Bashi and Mirani and all the other mothers in my family, all the mothers known to me and all the mothers in this universe. God bless you all.

How great is your team?

You have just boarded a plane which is already 4 hours late after being given hope that it was going to take off earlier many times resulting in multiple visits to the boarding gate and back to the waiting lounge. Then you sit in the air craft for one more hour without the air conditioning working and no proper explanation from the crew for the reason for the delay. After one hour you are asked to de-plane as there is a technical problem in the aircraft. A further 3 hours wait biting into a sandwich provided by the airline with no clear apology for the delay. Attempts to find out about connecting flights falling on deaf years of annoyed ground staff. Back on the plane that thank fully moves. But it stops again. Pilot announces that we are waiting behind 7 other aircrafts to take off as we had missed our original slot. And finally the plane takes off after a 9 hour delay.

How some people think of teams
Image Credit: http://www.dilbert.com

 

In this situation why do you think things went wrong? Who could have fixed it? Check-in manager? Pilot? head of Engineering? The CEO? Perhaps not anyone of them! Could it be all of them, if they had worked as one team? There could be individual hero’s who would have tried to make the passengers comfortable, speed up the boarding process etc. but it takes a team to make the difference.

 

Therefore it is clear we need teams when it is difficult for a group of people together to deliver a goal.

If you see similarities of the above situation in your workplace, perhaps you need to assess the quality of team work. Given below are the qualities of a great team. Rate your team against each of these qualities on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being poor to 5 being excellent.

  1. We have burning Platforms that unifies team. Rating: _____

A burning platform is a critical task that needs to get done before a crucial dead line that requires real teamwork. EG: Getting the ERP system running before the beginning of the next financial year. Getting the new product into the market before the heavy buying season. John F Kennedy created a burning platform when he said lets get a man on the moon safely in a decade from now!

  1. There is clarity about our critical goals. Rating: _____

If our goals are clear we know what we should do and should not do. When the British rowing team was preparing for the Olympics and had to make a decision they asked the question, ‘will this make the board go faster?’ This helped them to turned down dinner invitations and even attend the opening ceremony.

  1. We have clearly agreed ways of working: _____

There are 4 possible ways of working based on the responsibilities and roles of the team. These levels include strategic, tactical, operational and interactive. It is important for the team to have clarity and alignment regarding this and to know which other related teams operates in which way with clarity of the interface relationships.

Continue reading “How great is your team?”

How credible are you?

One of the most valuable assets of a leader is personal credibility. Credibility is a perception and we are perceived as credible by our habits. A habit is formed when behaviours are repeated over a period of time.

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Image credits: http://www.warriorforum.com

Here is an opportunity for you to do a self-assessment of your credibility. Given below is a list of 8 credibility habits and a brief explanation of each. In order to know your current level of credibility, read each value and mark a score from 1 to 5 [Poor to Excellent] in front of each habit. You could also give this list to your team members and ask them to rate you to see the difference between your self-assessment and the perception of others.

 

 

  1. Show Up On Time: Rating: ____

Questions to ponder: Do I do things on time. Do I arrive at meetings on time? Am totally present, emotionally, mentally and spiritually in addition to just my physical self.

  1. Do What You Say: Rating: ____

Questions to ponder: Do I make promises I can definitely keep even under pressure? Do I keep the promises I make? Do I under promise and over deliver? Continue reading “How credible are you?”

Big Leadership Lessons from Little Sri Lanka

With the celebrations of winning the world T20 2014 Cricket title still riding high and the entire nation positively charged, it would be a good time to reflect on the leadership lessons.

Image credits: http://www.espncricinfo.com

Lesson 1: Never give up: After having won the cricket 50 over world cup in 1996, Sri Lankan cricket has had ups and downs. Ups, mostly because of the cricket infrastructure in the country producing brilliant talent and downs mainly attributed to cricketing politics and administration. Sri Lanka has come to the finals of many a world level tournaments and ended up runner-up. This time around too, many were having fears of another loss in a final, but things went Sri Lanka’s way, not by accident but by design. Therefore leaders keep learning from mistakes, growing with challenges until they reach the target.

Lesson 2: Team work : While Sri Lanka became the world T20 Cricket champs no Sri Lankan player featured in the top 5 run scorers or wicket takers in the tournament. This is due to all players contributing their very best when conditions required them. Therefore a player like Kumar Sangakkara who failed to score much during all the games during the run up to the final, showed up and became the match winner at the final. A player like Rangana Herath who bowled Sri Lanka to victory in the crucial match against New Zealand was not very suitable for the conditions in some other matches. The player of the tournament was from India, the runner-up. Therefore there are no individual winners, but the team wins. Continue reading “Big Leadership Lessons from Little Sri Lanka”

Turning Stress in to Success – A practical Illustration

Image Credits: www.gvsu.edu
Image Credits: http://www.gvsu.edu

I had the fortune of helping out a person to overcome a highly stressful situation. Lets call him Frank.

He was quite a successful businessman and his success was partly due to a business partnership he forged with another individual who was more senior, who had more experience and who was more successful. Lets call him Robert. After awhile Robert had lost control of his lifestyle and had started to face some financial challenges too. Robert kept assuring Frank that it was a temporary cash flow issue that most companies go through.

After awhile Robert requested Frank for financial help and due to the gratitude he had for Robert, he responded. Frank was promised an early return of the loan. The loan amount was so big, it virtually wiped out all his savings; a part of it was reserved for his daughters’ higher education.

The promised day passed and Robert was not in a position to pay back. Many meetings with Robert and constant follow up did not help. Robert needed more financial help and mentioned that a new loan will help him seal a deal and get out of the financial mess, enabling him to pay back Frank. Frank gave the last bit of saving he had trusting his business partner who helped him to be successful.

Continue reading “Turning Stress in to Success – A practical Illustration”

Great Communications Syncronises ‘Intent’ and ‘Impact’ and this Requires ‘Heart & Soul’

Compare the intent of your communication with the impact of your communication. If there is mismatch then surely there is conflict. Great communicators know how to synchronize the two and this requires us putting our heart and soul into communications. This was a powerful message delivered by at the learning event : ‘Heart & Soul of Real Communications’ on the 21st of January 2014.

So how do we start achieving this magical balance?

This requires us to be a students of impact of our own communication on other people and our intent of that communication. We need to use our ears to listen to the emotional impact created on the other person. We need to be empathetic. We need to see it from our soul, that is to know the positive energy it creates in the other person. Understanding of spiritual intelligence is key here.

Continue reading “Great Communications Syncronises ‘Intent’ and ‘Impact’ and this Requires ‘Heart & Soul’”

Great Teams Build Great Organisations and Great Organisations Build Great Teams!

Top Performance requires us to ensure that top teams are set up, developed, nurtured and rewarded appropriately. Most companies miss this important point. Here is a summary of the insights from the ‘Top Performance through Top Teams’ session held on the 21st of January 2014.

Inappropriate strategy deployed by the organisations to measure/improve business performance is one of the key reasons that teams remain average teams delivering average performance.

  1. They focus too much on individuals
  2. They focus too much on how to work than how it works (excessively process driven)
  3. They create and run ‘Vertical Organisations’ – Hierarchies are created to fix responsibilities, which in turn dilute the authority resulting in indecisiveness / delays/non fulfilment of commitments made to all stakeholders
  4. When an organisation faces a problem, if they have mediocre team members, they will strongly believe in maintaining/defending status-quo.
  5. The biggest untracked cost of such companies is commitments made and not followed up.

Therefore following are the appropriate strategy for the organisations to measure/improve business performance.

Continue reading “Great Teams Build Great Organisations and Great Organisations Build Great Teams!”

Galvanizing Your Team for a Great 2014

Image Credits: marketzingsolutions.com
Image Credits: marketzingssolutions.com

Wish you a successful, growth giving and happy new-year of excellence.

New years every year brings so fresh hope to teams and leaders. This is the time we think of making the New Year the most spectacular year of all. While we start of with this intention we find it fizzles off really fast.

The reason for this is because a bigger mission or purpose does not support such efforts. This is because such efforts are not done with the engagement of the hearts and minds of the teams who are responsible to deliver such results. The reason for this is because such efforts do not have a disciplined approach.

Given below are a few simple steps that can help you to gear up for an amazing 2014.

Get together with your immediate team and go through the following process.

Continue reading “Galvanizing Your Team for a Great 2014”

Gearing up for an Amazing 2014

ImageNew years every year brings so much hope to so many people. This is the time we think of giving up bad habits and making a fresh start. Most people take a fresh step with a good intention, only to find themselves slipping back to their old habits very quickly.

The reason for this is because such efforts are not supported by a bigger purpose. The reason for this is because such efforts are not done with the enlistment of the deeper subconscious mind. The reason for this is because such efforts do not have a disciplined approach.

Given below are a few simple steps that can help you to gear up for an amazing 2014.

Continue reading “Gearing up for an Amazing 2014”

Obstacles: Love them, Hug them!

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I had the fortune of meeting a Managing Director [MD] of a large group of companies many years ago and about a year ago, over a dinner he was sharing some of the challenges faced by his organizations. Since organizational challenges excites me and gets my creative juices flowing I guided him with some initial steps to over come them.

Later on he had requested me for a proposal to carry out a culture transformation in his organization. After having given the proposal we were not able to formalize an assignment as various challenges were coming our way.

Firstly he wanted to hire an experienced CEO for the organization and that took time. However I continue to guide him and was also giving him guidance in the process. Later on once the new CEO was hired, he had his own viewpoints about bringing in an external consultant and our assignment further delayed.

Continue reading “Obstacles: Love them, Hug them!”

Attitude of Gratitude to my Alma Mater

When I feel blessed about what I have achieved my mind automatically takes me to people and events that I am grateful about. Whilst having a deep sense of gratitude to my parents, family, friends and social contacts, one major aspect that made the difference to me is my Alma Mater St Anthony’s College Katugastota in the hill capital of Sri Lanka.

One can’t ask for a better place than St Anthony’s to shape up a young mind and body to become prepared to take on the world. I believe great products from college would have felt the same. Beneficiaries of our alma mater are old Antonians of the calibre of Sir William Gopallawa, the first President of Sri Lanka, Mr. T B Illangaratne, renowned politician and dramatist, Justice Asoka De Silva, World famous professionals such as Prof. Malik Peiries, Dr Patrick Nugawela, Dr C. R. Panabokke, Prof C Suriyakumaran, World class sportsmen such as Mr. Muthaiah Muralitharan, Entrepreneurs such as Mr. Sumal Perera & Dr Lawrence Perera, Musicians such as Mr. Rookantha Gunatilleke & Mr. Stanley Peiris, Military officers such as Colonel A C Lafir and hundreds of other Ministers, Officers of the armed forces and police, academics and business people.

As I look back with an attitude of gratitude to St Anthony’s, I get a deep urge within me to do what I can to help the college continue to do the good work it has done for me. This was further reinforced when I was honoured as one of the top 100 Old Antonians during the 150-year celebrations of the college. Therefore when the opportunity came for me to be a part of the Antonian Rugby Trust, I was delighted to take it; I continue to serve in the advisory committee. I also had the privilege of providing mental toughness training to the rugby team.

The motivations of different people are different. Some do it for the gratitude, some do it for the glory, some do it for social status and others do it to develop business networks. When the motives are different there is bound to be conflict. Such conflict can make those who do things with nobel motives disgruntled. When this happens some feel like walking away, minding there own business and not doing anything for the college and some others decide to persist. I always believe such obstacles helps us to further develop our goodness. Such opportunities help us to help others to become better people. Such opportunities strengthen our resolve to be more generous.

We all belong to various religions and philosophies and we learn the need to give back to the world, do good to others and do our part to make the world a better place. When we split due to differences we lose the opportunity to accumulate goodness credits. On the other hand when like minded people like us who have walked the nooks and corners of the college, who have sat in the same class rooms, who have listened to the same teachers and who have sung our college anthem proudly gets together we can do wonders. So lets get together re-energize ourselves with nostalgia and do what we can do to uplift the standards of our alma mater so that we can celebrate the successes from a far and accumulate stories of before, during and after our time to tell our children and grandchildren.

The Motto of our alma mater ‘Lux De Coelo’ means light from heaven and was taken from a prayer sent from the Vatican when college was inaugurated. I consider this true when it comes to my life. So let the light from heaven that has brightened our being continue to shine in us, our families and the generations of Antonians to come. May god bless you all.

Gearing up our children for excellence!

Family units, social infrastructure [such as our places of worship, schools, mass media and social networks] is set up to develop our children to be great assets to our world. These institutions help our children gain the right attitudes, beliefs, behaviours, values, knowledge and skills. We are Imagewho we are because of the sacrifices made by so many who have touched our lives and I am ever-grateful to them.

When I first attended the personal transformation ‘playshop’ Mastery of Self [MS] through Neuro Linguistic Programming [NLP] I was amazed at the tools that are available to unleash our god-given potential in a balanced systematic and purposeful manner. While I got so much out of it to make my life a success from that programme, I felt I should have attended this programme when I was leaving school or even during school.

Continue reading “Gearing up our children for excellence!”

Courage: What will it take for us to display more of it?

Watching Malala Yousofzai speaking at the UN on her 16th birthday about a year after she was shot on the head and neck by the Taliban, motivated me to write this blog on Courage.

While her entire speech was inspiring and can be watched in the embedded video, I would like to quote the following part to illuminate this blog;

“Dear brothers and sisters; do remember one thing. Malala day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights. There are hundreds of human rights activists and social workers who are not only speaking for human rights, but who are struggling to achieve their goals of education, peace and equality. Thousands of people have been killed by the terrorists and millions have been injured. I am just one of them.

So here I stand… one girl among many.
I speak – not for myself, but for all girls and boys.
I raise up my voice – not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard.
Those who have fought for their rights:

Their right to live in peace.

Their right to be treated with dignity.

Their right to equality of opportunity.

Their right to be educated.

Dear Friends, on the 9th of October 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends too. They thought that the bullets would silence us. But they failed. And then, out of that silence came, thousands of voices. The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Continue reading “Courage: What will it take for us to display more of it?”

The Beauty of Giving

Ignacy J. Paderewski – Image credit: en.wikipedia.org

Herbert Hoover – Image credits: old-picture.com

I recently received an email from a friend that had an inspiring story. On researching the story for authenticity I had to do a few amendments to it to make it more factual. An article by General Edward L. Rowny confirms the authenticity of the meeting of the two great men featured in the story. While I cannot confirm the authenticity of the details of the story the overall event is factual and worth sharing.

A young, 18 year old student and a friend of his decided to host a musical concert in Stanford University in 1892 to raise money for a worthy cause.

They reached out to the great pianist Ignacy J. Paderewski. His manager demanded a guaranteed fee of $2,000 for the piano recital. A deal was struck. And the boys began to work to make the concert a success.

Continue reading “The Beauty of Giving”

Empathy – Key to Healthcare Success

I was moved by the ‘Empathy’ video on ‘YouTube’ [see the embedded video]. This is a video every health care provider, be it a medical practitioner or non-medical practitioner must watch. The CEO of Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, USA, Dr. Toby Cosgrove, MD, showed this video during his 2012 state of the clinic address.

Dr. Cosgrove, who I had the fortune of meeting during a 2 week intense healthcare leadership course I attended in this magnificent hospital in April 2013 says; Patient care is more than just healing – it is building a connection that encompasses mind, body and soul. If you stand in someone else’s shoes, hear what they hear, see what they see, feel what they feel, would you treat them differently?

Continue reading “Empathy – Key to Healthcare Success”

Jack of all trades… Master of none …true or false?

Image Credits: en.wiktionary.org

I first heard the saying; ‘Jack of all trades, is a master of none’ from my dad. While I took this as face value and later felt it is valuable mindset to have, I now wonder if this is true or false. On one hand it is humanly possible to be the best in all trades as there are millions of them. We would not have the time to master everything in a lifetime or just even explore them. Anyway I don’t think this statement suggests that anyone attempts to be a master of all trades.

We also don’t have the time in our lifetime to be a Jack-of-all-trades as well. But what do you think the original writer meant by the use of the word Jack. If it is the Jack from the pack of cards, then we are referring to the person who does all the work for the King and Queen. Therefore, by doing all the tasks required he learns many things, but will he ever be the master of any of those subjects.

Recounting my experience, I was in the collage rugby, athletic and chess teams. I was also a Boy Scout and I studied the subjects required to be an engineer. I believe  I excelled in the engineering class when I lead a team of my classmates to make a electronic scale in the late 70’s. While it was very primitive and shabby we believe it was one of the first such attempts in Sri Lanka. It was viewed by the then President of the country J R Jayawardena and a later Prime Minister  Ranil Wickremasinghe.

Continue reading “Jack of all trades… Master of none …true or false?”

The Power of Emotions

Image Credits: theft.com

As I was sitting on my flight out of Dhaka and reflecting on the 4 full days of 9 hours each that I spent on my feet inspiring over 100 souls, I was moved from within to share my experience in my next blog. At that point I received an AHA (a term we used for an inner learning that happens to us when we are open to inspiration) about the power of emotions.

I was fortunate to learn about the power of emotions when I first attended the life changing learning experience, ‘Mastery of Self’ many years ago. Up to that point I knew that I was emotional and I felt it is weak to be emotional.

I recounted many incidents in my early childhood where I was bullied by schoolmates, ridiculed, insulted and laughed upon. I remember going to a safe place and crying to ensure that I was not seen by them and be more ridiculed. Sometimes I could not hold my emotions in front of them and it was visible in my voice as I responded. Nevertheless I excelled in sports and scouting while being an average student despite this improvement area and it helped me to make progress in life.

Perhaps it is the culmination of these experiences that prepared me to totally accept the teachings of Mastery of Self and later make it a powerful factor in vocation of helping people and organizations to find a better way to live and work.

The idea that people get motivated when they feel good, when they feel valued, when they are appreciated, when they are engaged, when their needs are met is so obvious, so simple and so powerful but it had to presented in a manner which deeply penetrated my soul for me to start seeing the obvious and doing the required.

Emotion is Energy in Motion. The Chinese word for energy is Woolee, which means patterns of living energy. Therefore when energy is in motion we can influence it to form the patterns that create positive energy. We can use that energy to create positive results.

Continue reading “The Power of Emotions”

The teacher will arrive when the student is ready

The month of April 2013 epitomized the caption! Yes there were many including myself who were ready for the teacher. It was a great month of personal growth.

The month started with 60 souls from various organizations and walks of life taking part in the Mastery of Self playshop that was conducted in Sri Lanka. This was the first 2 days and all of them left feeling more valuable than ever before, more empowered than ever before and more purposeful than ever before. They come back for the final 2 days on the 6 & 7 of May.

Then I travelled to Vietnam where I conduct the same session for another 60 souls from Fashion Garments a company of the Hirdramani Group in Sri Lanka. The impact created was the same and I go to Vietnam again to do the final 2 days of the training on the 11 & 12 of May 2013.

From Vietnam I travelled to Dubai to conduct a 2 day training on advanced negotiation skills and a 1 day training in work life balance. While the numbers were around 16 participants in each session, the impact created for them was tremendous.

After having helped unlock potential of so many souls in the first half of the month, the second half was about me going back to school. Yes I was a participant with 15 other senior executives from the health care industry who took part in a 2 week long intensive leadership development session for health care CEO’s held by the Samson Global Leadership Academy of the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Continue reading “The teacher will arrive when the student is ready”

Pope Francis – the Epitaph of humility

Pope FrancisIt was late night last Wednesday; I was doing some work on my laptop. After finishing off one task I just logged in to Facebook and saw a photo of the white smoke coming out of the Vatican with a comment ‘We have a Pope’

I immediately switched on the TV and was thrilled to see the live broadcast and the new Pope was about to make his first appearance. I was pleasantly surprised to hear than the new Pope was from South America, I was thrilled to hear that he had chosen the name Francis which is also the name of my late dad. It was mentioned he lived a simple life and had given up his official residence and car back in Argentina and rode the bus with the others and used the opportunity to connect with the masses.

As he walked on to the balcony and looked at the crowd it was easy to see how humble the new Pope was. He was also confident and looked like a man ready for a mission. What a mission it is going to be, given the challenges facing the Catholic Church.

In one of his first sermons he mentioned that we should be ready to repent, accept our faults and ask for forgiveness from those we have harmed.

Meeting the press for the first time Pope Francis was relaxed, confident and full of humour. He told that the name Francis was chosen when the cardinal next to him embraced him and told him ‘don’t forget the poor’ as soon as he was elected.  He then named himself after St Francis of Assisi who devoted his life for the poor, who was known to be committed to peace and who was known to be a reformist of the catholic church.

The event of the election of Pope Francis also created new social media records with over 1.2 billion tweets from all over the world sent out, in relation to this event. This shows that people around the world, specially the young are touched by his election and are filled with hope for a better tomorrow. Pope Francis is known as the Techie Pope as he has his twitter account @pontifex. His holiness who already has 1.9 million Twitter followers sent out just 1 tweet: Dear Friends, I thank you from my heart and I ask you to continue to pray for me.

Everything about Pope Francis in this blog that I was fortunate to experience gives me the feeling that he is an Epitaph of Humility and gives me hope that he will be able to bring diverse groups of people, not only the various denominations of Christians, but also various religious groups together so that we can a live in a united, respectful and peaceful world.

Getting the Best out of Life!

Lee Kwan Yew: Image credits: www.alhaj.wordpress.com
Lee Kwan Yew: Image credits: http://www.alhaj.wordpress.com

I

I took over the leadership of Apollo Hospital in Dhaka a few months ago to continue to stretch my self, to learn a new industry domain [health care] and to learn to lead a team of over 1700 consisting of some of the best medical consultants, specialist, doctors, nurses, patient care assistants, health care managers and other non-medical staff from this part of the world.

It is also a complex and highly responsible job and requires maintaining world-class operations in line with the JCI [joint commission international] standards the foremost health care accreditation in the world. It is only my hospital in Bangladesh and a hand full of hospitals in India, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia can boast of this standard that is tough to get and maintain.

In addition to the above objective the spin off benefit I have got is the ‘wake up call’ regarding life in general. The knowledge I gather everyday being in this operation is amazing and that has made me more pay more attention to myself as well. It is in this backdrop that I received an email from one of my friends on getting the best out of life by Lee Kuan Yew.

 One of the profound lines in a speech given by him was; “The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge. This made me read the rest of the article, leaving a side a list of other things I had planned to do and I felt really good that I found the time to read it. I am happy to share the entire article in its totality below. Please do take the time to read it. I do not know the source of this article, but I give credit to whoever wrote it and seek permission to re-produce it for the greater good of humanity.

If you’re not interested in the world and the world is not interested in you, the biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, that’s real torture.”

 MY CONCERN today is, what is it I can tell you which can add to your knowledge about aging and what aging societies can do.

You know more about this subject than I do. A lot of it is out in the media, Internet and books. So I thought the best way would be to take a personal standpoint and tell you how I approach this question of aging.

Continue reading “Getting the Best out of Life!”

Love is for giving, that’s why we should be forgiving! – my valentines day thoughts!

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Image credits: http://www.timeanddate.com

It is great to have Valentines Day, the same way we have mother’s day, father’s day etc. While many commercial enterprises have used these days to make money, it at least reminds us to express our love to our loved ones, at least once a year.

But why celebrate such important days once a year? Why not every day? Why not make every day Valentines day, Mother day, fathers day and perhaps a few new important days such as reach out to enemy’s day, make up with fallen out friends day, get in touch with old friends day etc.

While Valentines Day is about celebrating love by giving surprises such as gifts & visits and special dinners & cruises it is will be great not only to ‘give’ but also to ‘forgive’. After all, love is for giving and that’s why we should be forgiving.

Forgiving is tough if we hold on to the past hurt and pain. Sometimes it is our ego that won’t allow us to forgive. Holding on to the bitterness only creates negative energy in us as we carry those negative feelings in us. Accepting that we are all human, we are not perfect and we all make mistakes helps us in the forgiving process.

Forgiving helps us to repair relationships and therefore it is beneficial to fostering quality relationships, or closure so that we can rejuvenate relationships or move on with confidence.

When the almighty god always forgives us, why not we take a cue and follow suit.

Leadership Lessons from the Clinton Bengazi Hearing

There wHilary Clintonas much to learn watching Hillary Clinton’s appearances last Wednesday to talk about the events in Benghazi that left the US ambassador and 3 others dead, in front of House and Senate committee.

Firstly it was a great example of someone in a senior position being held accountable for her decisions and actions. For her it was an opportunity to bring to a closure her 4 year stint as US Secretary of state on of the most important jobs in the world. Some also say it is the a prelude to the 2016 presidential campaign where she is expected to run for the presidency of the United States of America; an example of long-term planning and taking action now to create the future.

The disciplined approach of the hearing where every member in the hearing committee was given a specific window of opportunity to question Mrs Clinton and they stuck to time without going over-board. They did not continue to argue and go beyond time even if the answers given to the questions were not to their satisfaction.

Once aspect that was significant was the respect. Every senator who questioned her, even from the opposing Republican Party started her by congratulating her for a job well done. It is so important to respect others even if they are our bitter opponents.

In answering the questions thrown at her, Mrs. Clinton showed in-depth knowledge, composure, humility, emotion where relevant, the occasional loss of patience. She displayed good listening skills and was professional in taking responsibility.

As always there are those who think she did a great job and others who think she did some damage to her chances of becoming President of the United States of America. My attempt is not to make a verdict on it but to help us learn from this important event. Continue reading “Leadership Lessons from the Clinton Bengazi Hearing”

Celebrating a spectacular 2012, filled with amazing learning and growth!

ImageWith the Mayan Calendar reaching the end of its current cycle, 2012 was eventful with the economic downturn continuing and there were many efforts in many countries around the world to get out of it. Then there were the various natural and human made disasters such as the various storms, earthquakes, wars and killings that added more burdens on the leaders grappling with the economic crisis. Political leaders had new challenges to deal with, dividing their attention between the economy and the new challenges.  There were elections in many countries such as the USA, Russia, France, Spain, Egypt and it is hoped that the new leadership will have new vision and a new mindset to solve the challenges faced by the world.

Then there were the celebrations with the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen, The London Olympics, the re-election of Obama, the launch of path breaking communication technology [Quad Core] for smart phones and tablets such as the iPhone 5, iPad 4th Generation, iPad mini, Samsung Galaxy note and Windows 8. And of course the first video on You Tube to reach a billion hits; Gangnam Style!

Continue reading “Celebrating a spectacular 2012, filled with amazing learning and growth!”

How to master yourself and win in your life

When I was first nominated for the ‘Mastery of Self [MS] through Neuron Linguistic Programming [NLP]‘ in 1995 by my employer John Keells Holdings, I never knew what an impact it was going to make in my life. When I first received the notice to attend the workshop I thought it was something to do with computer programming. I was right and wrong. I was right because it was about programming a computer. I was wrong because it was not the desk top or the laptop or the palm top. It was the neck top super computer the most powerful information processing system in the world.

I was fascinated learning about the potential of the brain. I was fascinated learning about the power of the NLP tools to release that potential. I was fascinated by the inspirational impact made on all the participants. It was not a seminar or a workshop but a playshop, an experience where we learn with fun and activity in a child like manner, exploring the wonders of our real potential and talent. Continue reading “How to master yourself and win in your life”

Olympics 2012 – ‘Imagine’ the great manifestation of possibility

A picture of the Olympic Logo on the Tower Bridge taken from the London Bridge during my visit before the Olympics.

The 2012 Olympics that just concluded was one of the greatest manifestations of possibility that I had experienced.

My family and I were in the UK just before and during the opening ceremony that made us fortunate enough to feel the energy in the country this great spectacle was taking place. We were not able to witness any sporting events at venues at circumstances required us to return end of July, but we were fortunate to be able to witness this great spectacle on TV and the internet.

The first possibility that was manifested was the participation of almost all the countries of the world, 204 in total and every country having both male and female sportsman. All sports had a women’s version as well resulting in some teams such as USA having more women Olympians. What a great equalizer.

It was amazing to see conservative countries such as Saudi Arabia who do not permit women to drive, having women participating. I was fortunate to switch on the TV to see the women’s 800 m heat where Saudi Arabia’s Sarah Attar was running. Although she came last, she got the biggest applause to show that this was a victory for humanity.

World records were many manifesting that there is no end to improving human performance and endurance. Tianna Madison, Allyson Felix, Bianca Knight, Carmelita Jeter of the USA 4x100m relay team establishing a new world record at 40.82 destroying the 27-year old record and Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Yohan Blake, Usain Bolt  of Jamaican 4×100 relay team establishing a new world record at 36.84 will remain in our memories for ever. These amazing human beings showed that we can be individuals stars and teams at the same time.

Continue reading “Olympics 2012 – ‘Imagine’ the great manifestation of possibility”

Liberating Passion at Agora – Leadership lessons Learnt as CEO of Agora over the last 3 years!

ImageLeaving the Agora team was one of the toughest things I had to do. The words, tears, flowers and gifts from the teams in various outlets, office, warehouse and distribution centre was simply heart-warming. I never realized I had made such an impact in the hearts and minds of over 700 team members over the 3 years I led them as their CEO.

After being in Team and Leadership Excellence consulting for 10 years, subsequent to 16 years in corporate life for 16 years as Director for Keells Foods and Keells Super, I took on a new interesting challenge as the CEO of the Agora Supermarket Chain [owned by the highly diversified Rahimafrooz Group] in Bangladesh in July 2009.

This was a 3 year assignment to prepare the company for Rapid expansion. I took over this assignment for 3 reasons; Firstly because Agora was close to my heart as I helped start it as a consultant in 2001 and hence  I considered Agora my own baby and I wanted it to be successful. Secondly because I wanted to validate the guidance I give so many companies around the world as a consultant, by being in the hot seat for a while. And thirdly because I respect the Rahimafrooz Group and the family that owns it for running a company driven by ‘Values’ using ‘world-class’ management methods.

My dream was to make Agora a world-class company, the pride of Bangladesh and I write this blog with a mix of emotions that include happiness, sadness, fear, pride and hope.

Firstly I am extremely happy that we together created a company with a positive work culture that was built on the ‘Ultimate Aspiration’, ‘Values’, ‘Agora Aponjon Promise’ [Aponjon is the Bangla word for ‘dear one’ or ‘near one’ and this is the promise we deliver to our ‘guests’ or ‘Aponjon’], quality policy, good leadership, supportive team work and passionate team members. We also made the company profitable building on this culture and taking measures to improve the brand image, value to our guests, business knowledge, planning and execution. We also invested in a brand new state of the art distribution centre, new outlets and a new ERP system [SAP and WINCOR NIXDOEF]. All this helped the company to become profitable for the first time in my first year in office and become a leading revenue and profit contributor of the Rahimafrooz Group [the group that owns Agora an many other companies] providing better benefits and promotional opportunities to Agora’s team members.

Continue reading “Liberating Passion at Agora – Leadership lessons Learnt as CEO of Agora over the last 3 years!”

Anything is possible – Creating a World without Poverty – with inspiration from outer space and inner space!

Inspiring Millions, Creating a better World
With Muhammad Yunus, Ron Garan, M A Muhith & Monica Yunus at Social Business 2012

When I received an invitation from the Yunus Centre to attend the Social Business Day 2012 at Sarvar Bangladesh, I was excited at the prospect of listening to a man who is one of a kind. I had heard of Prof Muhammad Yunus many years ago and had once met him at the Dhaka Airport Business Class Lounge where we had an interesting conversation about the quality of leadership in Bangladesh. Professor Yunus is a Nobel Lauriat for introducing Micro Credit to the world. After its amazing success in Bangladesh, it has been adopted in many countries around the world including the United States of America.

I was also intrigued to know that NASA astronaut Ron Garan will be the key-note speaker. While getting an opportunity to listen to an astronaut was interesting, I never knew the significance of Ron Garan’s presence, his relationship with Professor Yunus who also invented the concept of Social Business that also spread around the world in the same manner micro credit spread.

It was amazing to discover that Ron Garan took Muhammad Yunus’s book; ‘Creating a World without Poverty’ with him during his 5 1/2 month in space. The book therefore travelled 65,340,224 miles in 2,624 orbits during 164 days in space together with Ron. Ron Also took with him the Bangladesh national flag to honour the motherland of Professor Yunus.

Continue reading “Anything is possible – Creating a World without Poverty – with inspiration from outer space and inner space!”

Making of a Marketer!

Great Marketers in the Making. Click image for more pictures of the conference

Sri Lanka’s future is in good hands! This is the feeling I had as soon as I walked into the ballroom of Colombo’s Galadari Hotel on the 17th of March 2012. This feeling became stronger as the day went by to see the enthusiasm with which the 270 CIM students participating in the conference absorbed the wisdom dished out by the 4 Chartered Marketers of the Chartered Institute of Marketing [CIM] who had reached the top in organizations and the panel discussion that followed.

Deepal Sooriyaarachchi who spoke first outlined what it takes to be a ‘Future Proof Marketer’. He talked about the importance of knowing your strengths and improvement areas and making sure that marketing is the right profession for you. Then he went on to talk about the importance of knowing your job, profession and the company well so that you can market your products with confidence. Managing your career with the 4 essential steps of learning, mastering, managing and leading was highlighted as one of the essential requirements. Knowing your team was highlighted as essential for success as it is vital to have good team work for success.  To top it up it was important to know your market and the world we operate in. While all of these aspects were important, I felt the key message was the need to have a firm set of ‘values’ and live by them remembering that we are human and we need to add value to humanity all the time.

Continue reading “Making of a Marketer!”

Leadership Lessons from Sri Lankan Cricket

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Image credits: http://www.espncricinfo.com

As we take a short breather from the hectic cricket season where Sri Lanka played in South Africa, Australia and Bangladesh over the last 3 months with ups and down bringing joy and sadness to millions of Sri Lankans around the world, the leadership lessons have been tremendous.

The world cup loss to India on the 2nd of April 2011, which was surrounded with controversy [that I will not comment on as I do not have the required information to do], the resignation of the captain and the financial crisis of the cricket board had left the team in turmoil.

Continue reading “Leadership Lessons from Sri Lankan Cricket”

Marketers are great CEO’s in the making!

Yes, marketers are great CEO’s in the making. The level of success is dependent on the understanding of the complexity of the job and the steps that needs to be taken to get to the top.

Marketing is one of the most challenging, interesting and rewarding jobs!

The needs and attitude towards marketing is different from various perspectives; firstly the practitioner, who has taken the brunt of it, tasted the successes or licked their wounds, the practitioner’s boss, the CEO who calls the shots and the marketing consultant who brings a second opinion.

Let me speak from the vantage point of someone who has played all three roles. Firstly practicing marketing as the Marketing Director of Keells Foods & Keels Super and Pizza Hut in Sri Lanka. Secondly, as the Managing Director of my own company and next the Chief Executive Officer of Rahimafrooz Superstores Ltd. Bangladesh. Finally, providing, strategy, marketing and leadership consultancy for companies in over 20 countries.

Continue reading “Marketers are great CEO’s in the making!”

Hardware or the Software … in so many aspects of life?

Recently I stumbled upon a TedX video of David Damberger titled: What happens when an NGO admits failure. It is a real eye opener for NGO’s who spends money in providing infrastructure such as tube wells. What they forget to do is investing some money on maintaining such infrastructure by employing people, training them and providing a source of funding and following up. David talks about how he saw this happening and making the same mistake himself. He sees how the tube wells provided were unusable a few years later due to this issue.

A success story in this aspect is the foundation for goodness run by Kushil Gunasekara in southern Sri Lanka. A village names ‘Seenigama’ he was fostering got completely wiped out due to the Tsunami on the 26th of December 2004. He got the support of various donors, well-wishers and those who were affected and re-built the village. He made it sustainable through various activities such as running 2 BPO’s and other industries and the village is a thriving one now. They have produced 6 national players for Sri Lanka in various sports among other achievements. It is a fascinating story and you can see their details at http://www.unconditionalcompassion.org/indexc.php.

Continue reading “Hardware or the Software … in so many aspects of life?”

Celebrating the life of the father of a genius!

I was saddened to see an email from my business partner, friend, brother and coach, this morning about the loss of his father. I feel for this loss personally as I love and respect him and I knew his father had a special influence in making him the genius he is.

Unfortunately he could not be by his side before his death or attend the funeral as there was not enough time for him and his wife to get back on time for the funeral as the Islamic traditions require burial within 24 hours.

I can imagine the pain his mum was going through after losing her sister a few days ago and now her husband. It may also be tough for her not having her son by her side. I can also imagine what he may be going through, not been able to bid good bye to his father and not been able to be there.

Continue reading “Celebrating the life of the father of a genius!”

My first personal website …. finally!

This is my own site that will help build my personal brand. I have had 220 visits to the site in the first 24 hours and half of them were through Facebook. Thank you for the interest shown in my site. Please visit regularly and remember to follow my blog in addition to watching videos, reading articles, checking out the photos of my work, checking out what my clients tell about me etc. I will also be loading more articles, audios, videos etc. I welcome your feedback and would like to use this to share ideas for the greater good of people. Wish you Excellence!

Experiences and insights during my journeys to guide business leaders – in and out of work!

I have been learning a life time and this has really accelerated over the last 14 years as a leadership and team development consultant, coach, catalyst and trainer. While I have resisted blogging all this time to avoid adding to the clutter, I have been inundated with requests for my blog. The requests have sky rocketed after I uploaded the video of one of presentations in Dubai at the ‘Unleashing your DNA’ seminar, where I spoke on the topic; ‘Gearing up for excellence’. There have been almost 500 views of this video in 2 weeks.

My work takes me to many countries and I am blessed to meet people from many cultures, stay in various hotels, see new place and eat in various restaurants. These travels and teachings give me many experiences and insights and I wish to share these with those I am blessed to interact with.

Continue reading “Experiences and insights during my journeys to guide business leaders – in and out of work!”