Give Credit To Team, Take The Blame Yourself

Great Victory by Team India today. Indian cricket team has shown that they belong to another planet- a planet where you have the will to believe in yourself. Belief is great. Belief in yourself can make you do great things. This belief was given by their leader First Kohli, the Indian cricket team captain. Have you ever noticed that almost whole Indian Team is flaunting their beard like their leader. Take Murali, Rail, Pinata, Ajinkya, Jadeja,etc. Even Ashwin kept beard albeit a different one.

Have you also noticed that though he is in sublime form, a form of a lifetime, seldom does Kohli talk about himself. Whenever the team wins, he is always putting the team first. Leadership is all about giving the Credit to team while taking the responsibility for the bad decisions & results. When the team knows that their leader is behind them then the belief also goes strong. And once the belief is strong, then there is no one who can stop you.

Have You Been Procrastinating Something For Long?

Procrastinating is not a sin actually. If you see lot of innovations around the world, they might well have come from people who are very lazy. Lazy people don't like to do work. They procrastinate till the very last moment. But they also have some boons actually. They do not like to put in too much of hours into their work. So they put pressure on their brain to develop ways on how they can cut short the time and method to complete the task. In their way, they develop some amazing Special purpose equipment which will make their task easier. If you have been a procrastinating for some reason or other, you will find an easy way to do the given job.

One fine evening or morning decide that today you are not going to do anything unless you complete what is possible in that time. For example, if you want to draw a plan, write emails, talk to some supplier or customer, anything of that sort, just decide that you are going to do that today. If you can put in 20 % of the work away, then there can be nothing better than that. If you do not have time, outsource your task. Guide others to do that. Pay for that, so you have the value of that. 

You can also decide that as long as you do not complete at least 50 % of the task or the major portion of the work, you are not going to eat a burger (whatever is your favorite). You may well see that you will take out some time to do that long pending thing. Often it is not the time that is a hindrance to your work, it is rather the start of the work that is a problem. If you shun everything and just focus on the job for a mere 4 hours, you may be able to plan or complete the whole job. You can also devote some time in the weekend for the task. You can do your things in other time, but don't touch the time earmarked for your project.

Sharpen Your Saw

This is the last medicine prescribed by Stephen Covey in his book 'The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People'. In his book, he explains seven different habits which can make you increase your efficiency & achievements significantly. The last one - Sharpen Your Saw - is the most underrated one. Normally we think that we have achieved so much and so know much about the business. We tend to not listen to others or do not want to absorb new things. We are very much comfortable with our knowledge. 

There is very good example given in the book. One man joins a company of wood cutters and is given responsibility of cutting trees. On Day 1, he cut 10 trees. On Day 3, he could cut only 9 trees and after a week, he could cut only 7 trees. His supervisor is worried and warns him that if he does not give good results, he could be fired. The man explains his supervisor that it is not that he is doing anything less. He is working as hard as on Day 1, he is also not doing any time pass activities. The supervisor watches him the next day and after seeing the results advises him to sharpen the saw. He observes that the intensity of the worker is okay, but he has not sharpened his saw from Day 1. In result, though he is working as hard as earlier, the axe was not good enough to cut the same number of trees.

The technology today is changing faster than earlier. Today is information age and in this age, it is difficult to remain at your best without technology. Technology is the thing with which you can leverage yourself and become the best. But for this, we need to forbid our ignorance of the technology and brace it. Not just technology, we need to be update in our area of working. We need to read different types of books so that we can come across different ideas written by different people. You may remember the story of 6 blind men who were asked to describe an elephant. Each of them described differently, one said that elephant is like rope, other said it is like wall while the other one said it is like trunk of a tree. All were right, but no description was complete. Similarly, we need to respect and read the views of other writers and take whatever is applicable to our lives and profession. 

Failure Is Not Opposite Of Success, It Is Part Of Success

There are many bright students who score heavily in their school years. If they get slightly less marks, they are depressed. Some of them take the feeling to heart and others work again to regain their position. In the road to success, many a times people fail. When you decide to go on a new mission, it is not necessary that there is a road. You may have to make a road on which others will follow you. And when you make a road, it is not necessary that you will be successful at each attempt. You may find a hard rock which you cannot do anything about. What do you do? Find a way around. You should not consider the hard rock as failure to make a road. You have to reach your destination. There is no road defined. You have to make it and you have to decide the time. 

In fact, you should develop a new conscience in which you should not consider failure as the absolute thing, thing which is clearly opposite to success. Because it is not objective - Yes OR No (Success OR Failure).  In every story of success, there are numerous stories of failure. But the real story behind this success is that the person did not QUIT despite so many failures. Had the person quit, his story might not have been known. Not quitting is also very necessary to succeed. Not quitting is related only as far as destination is concerned. You can make and quit roads at any point of time. You see that rather than being opposite of success, it is rather a part of success story. 

Before arriving at the design of Taj Mahal, they might have gone through different iterations in design. Only after cancelling those designs could they arrive at the final design that made the Taj Mahal as one the of the seven wonders of the world. You too can make one wonder. It is not necessary that it should be the one which the world knows. Rather it should be the thing that you dedicated your efforts to.

Diamond Can't Be Hidden

You must have heard million times that if you're diamond, then you can't be kept hidden for a long time. You will shine through the heaps of sand. Similarly, if you have a set up which is very good, customers will soon come to you. If you care about the customers & supply them high quality material, then no one can stop you. You can't be hidden despite your disadvantaged capital, location, etc. People will find you. It will be a question of whether you are ready.

But as a diamond won't be attractive/costly without the cuts & polish, similarly you too will need systems, 5S & presentation so your value increases. Even if you can make news due to your quality, bigger fishes will stay away because you lack the polish. Your value will multiply if you have these big fishes as customers. Because the mere mention of their names as your customer is like a certificate to you. You will get more recommendations.

As a result, your value will multiply. Get the polish now.

Discipline-A Lesson From Art Of War Writer

I have heard a great story about Sun Tzu, the writer of famous book 'The art of war'. He was quite new & not known commander then. One fine day, he is invited by King to show his method of training. He calls some soldiers and orders them some things. They obey. Not the one to be impressed, the King asks him whether he could put discipline in the royal ladies.

Sun Tzu calls all the royal ladies in front of him and tells them to stand in line. Once there, he gives them small orders like sit, stand, look back, right or left. One of the ladies cannot control laughter & seeing her others begin to overheat Sun and not obey him. Even after one warning they are not serious. Sun Tzu immediately orders the death penalty for the first disobeying lady. He even disallowed king to enter into matter.

After that all the instructions given by him are followed and soon Sun Tzu becomes famous. Sometimes, it is difficult to be strict, but it is nevertheless important. The small step can bring in large difference in discipline levels.

Use It! Reminder!

You have called your prospect. He tells you that he is out of town and he will come back after two days. You need to call him after two days. You get busy in some activity and ten days pass. Suddenly you remember that you had to call the prospect. This time he says that he has already closed the deal with someone else. 

Payment is due from one of the customers. You call him to ask him about payment. He tells you that some fund problem is there and you should call him after 3-4 days. You forget to call him and it is now 10 days. He again makes some excuse. Then after fifteen days pays you. 

You need to bring something while coming to office the next day. But you just forget about it due to your daily routine. All these things happen because you are not able to remember that you have to do them. You can improve your efficiency if you can remember to do the task. However, it is not as easy as it seems. There is something that you can do about it. As soon as there is some task, you can immediately take out your calender and enter that. For example, you need to call for order or payment after two days. Take out your calender, go on the date and enter - call 'customer 1'. The time should be put as such when the customer is free or most likely to heed you. 

You will get an alert just before that time. You will be able to take action. Don't remove the reminder until the work is done. If it has to be pushed to some different slot, change the date or time by going on edit. You will definitely do better by using this calender - a time management technique.