The downside of feel-good stuff! How the endless streaming of ‘positive’ content on social media affects our lives.

Imagine seeing a rainbow. You see it, get excited, but it is so short and brief! If only you could see it often.. Now, imagine seeing a rainbow everyday! Would you be as excited on seeing it? What do you think? Before marriage, a couple dreams of spending all of their time together. After exchanging wedding wows, a couple saves their marriage by spending at least some time apart! What is happening? We are being human. That’s it. We surprise ourselves in how we respond to our own fond beliefs. One such fond belief is in the power of feel-good stuff to create positive energy in our life. So strong is it that we willingly flood our consciousness with the positive stuff – positive quotes, heart-warming stories, cutesy images, funny videos, ribtickling jokes. Social media is awash with the feel-good stuff. Every morning you wake up, the jokes & the motivational quotes have already queued up for you. Every official engagement ends with you checking your phone and getting onto the feel-good ride. You cherrypick the special stuff and selectively share it with whoever…

Events, Seminars, Conferences- Do you learn anything?

Business events are for networking and business generation. Well and good. They are marketed as learning opportunities. Not so well and suspect. In my limited experience, what you get to know are things that you could possibly know by reading on your own. If the speakers have inspirational quotient, go ahead and indulge yourself. Once you have indulged enough, even that becomes mundane. Why does the learning not happen? Dialogue is missing. An event can be a community in the making. But organizers do not look at it that way. To build a community requires staying connected throughout the year. A shared purpose, collaborative projects, assessments and surveys keep the fires burning. The event is then ripe for a dialogue, a conversation that goes beyond exchanging information. In a dialogue, people explore meaning, purpose, and values. They challenge and support each other by combining enquiry and advocacy. But most industry meets are seasonal events that are folded up lock,stock, and barrel until the next year comes. The events are ends in themselves. So, what do we have, right now? Instead of dialogue, we have experts addressing us. Sharing…

A spiritual leader speaks on ‘Conscious leadership’

I listened to Radhanath Swami on Saturday. His book, ‘ A journey home’ is a beautiful read. The event was organized by Artha forum, an endeavour that seeks to tap into ancient wisdom for the lessons it can offer to modern business. Here are the two things that are the heart of the matter to me. I use my words to convey his message whenever I cannot remember it verbatim. 1) Kunti in Mahabharata had this to say, ” The disqualification for enlightenment and self-realization or – whatever word you resonate with – is having too much of ….too much of wealth, too much of…beauty, too much of…skills, too much of… education…too much of power.” When you have too much of a worldly good, you tend to become arrogant. You lose your bearings. You lose your way. 2) What is the way to overcome this challenge? To not be accursed on account of having too much. Radhanath Swami invoked the idea of trusteeship, an idea steeped in India’s historical and cultural heritage. How does it work? Considereverything as the property of God. And…

Learning from every experience. A shift is all it needs.

It was an uneasy conversation. You have this very capable subordinate. She had asked for a change of job responsibilities and duly got it. But she is new to this work in which you are an old hand. So, you offered to help and mentor her. The immediate context was that you  overheard her struggling to connect with a valued client. You just happened to pass by her desk when she was talking. When you called her in to offer help, she knew where this was coming from. And her demeanour showed she did not like this one bit. She politely declined any offer of help and said she will ask for help when she needs it. You quietly reflect on the conversation.Here was a capable individual who could do with a little help. But she takes quiet pride in her work and is very sensitive about any offer of help. She interprets such an offer as a lack of confidence in her. You accept you got it wrong from the word go. Given the context, she was going to react this…

A leader’s impact – what do you seek for yourself?

A leader has an impact. What kind appeals to you between the two that I share. The first impact. “I have full faith in my leader. I don’t have to think” This impact makes you as the follower feel everything is being taken care of. You do not have to figure anything out on your own. The leader has planted in you the vision. The leader has pointed to the destination and chalked out the path. The leader is walking down that path. All that is left for you to do is follow. Success is guaranteed by the leader. The second impact. ” I have full faith in myself. My leader makes me think” This impact makes you as the follower feel that everything is not taken care of till you take care of a few things. And you have to figure out a lot of things.The leader has shared a vision with you. The vision makes you see how you have it in you to uncover the destination and create a path.  You see yourself walking down that path along with others.…

The Awards Controversy & A Way Out

There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil. – Alfred North Whitehead We, in India, love the feeling of having had our say. In that, we are not special or different. What is special and different is our ability to say the same thing over and over again. With every round of repetition, we think less and less about the whole thing. Our mind is made up. We are right. What else is there to think of? There are people who believe that those who return awards against the perceived rising intolerance in India are creating an issue where none exists. And there are people who believe that those who return awards have highlighted an issue of grave concern. Both sides of course believe that they are right and the other side is wrong! Do we see both sides actually talking with each other? Of course, not. They talk past each other. Each side selects facts most convenient to it and interprets the facts in…

HR – A rousing manifesto

For a thousand years, HR has been eyeing a seat at the business table. We live in times when a business has to be ready for standing orders. But this is lost on HR professionals. Leave aside the seat at the table. It has no power to inspire. Is there anything that can? Can we find something that can make our vision soar and see how we in HR can make a dent in the universe? I propose the words that follow. They move. They inspire. If you feel it in your bones, if you tremble with unbearable excitement at what it means to live these words, you are onto something special. “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Advice Given – Ignore Politics. Guess What. Politics Won’t Ignore You!

I read about an HR head sharing advice he got from a senior leader on the subject of politics. The gist of it was – “Be aware of politics, understand the dynamics. And ignore it while continuing to do the right thing for you and your organization.” As a politics student, I beg to differ. Politicians have given politics a bad name. Our own ineffective participation in the political process as citizens and voters has given politics a bad name. Politics is not a dirty word. If you equate politics with everything negative and refuse to have anything to do with it, you haven’t quite grasped its essence. Politics is an inescapable part of our human condition. You might think you have washed your hands off, but politics impacts you all the time. In other words, you may ignore politics but make no mistake about it, politics is not ignoring you! What is politics? It is the process of resource-allocation in any set-up. How to use any resource – food,wealth, time, material resources, arms, energy, any resource.On what basis is this…