HOPE To Kindle OUR Lives !!!

There are optimists and there are others.  While one group sees it as light at the end of the tunnel and the other considers it as tunnel vision.  

 

The quotes below capture aspects that have to do with light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

- Albert Einstein

 

When we stop questioning learning stops and so does development. Imagine what would happen when a drug company stops asking questions about pain. Questions lead to answers and progress.

 

 

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. 

-Martin Luther King Jr. 

 

All the pools of disappointment will only dry away but the lake of hope is infinitely deep and wide.  You will always find if you look for it. 

 

 

Hope is a Talent Like Any Other !!

- Storm Jameson.

 

Might seem Strange but true, talent is something that helps us achieve and so does hope. Keeps the fires burning

 

Where there is no vision there is no hope

-George Washington

 

As this of any team that was dejected, that was lost, that was drifting and they had probably lost sight of their vision.

 

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.

-Benjamin Disraeli

 

 

After all who does not want the BEST.  But Yet, Keep Your Plan B in Mind.

WHERE LIES THE ANGER? FINALLY DISCOVERED

A very interesting one posted by the former Principal of my school Don Bosco Matriculation School,  Chennai.

Read below...

A monk decides to meditate alone, away from his monastery. He takes his boat out to the middle of the lake, moors it there, closes his eyes, and begins his meditation.

After a few hours of undisturbed silence, he suddenly feels the bump of another boat colliding with his own. With his eyes still closed, he senses his anger rising, and by the time he opens his eyes, he is ready to scream at the boatman who dared to disturb his meditation.

But when he opens his eyes, he sees it’s an empty boat that had probably got untethered and floated to the middle of the lake.

At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization and understands that the anger is within him; it merely needs the bump of an external object to provoke it out of him. From then on, whenever he comes across someone who irritates him or provokes him to anger, he reminds himself, “The other person is merely an empty boat.

The anger is within me.”

Now Don't Junk That Degree Please.... !!!

In the last two days I  was surprised to read the buzz in social networking and messengers like Whats App around the fact that Ernst & Young decided to dump their degree classification criteria at college entry level hiring.  But the way it was interpreted based on news reports is very different...Looks as if you no longer need a degree to get into E&Y.  And already this decision  (interpretation of no need for degree) is getting huge thumbs up in Social Media forums.

This goes to show how naive people can be and how quickly they start jumping to conclusions and also how something like this becomes a thing everyone's thinking of copying without even understanding.

The biggest shocker came when I read and hear seasoned professionals  praising the decision and Yo !!! They are already advocating removing entry criteria of having a degree for entry level jobs.   Ranging from "I told you, there was no need for fancy degrees"... to "Yes there's not an iota of evidence that there is a correlation between college degree and success." and ....  You know "Bill Gates, didn't have one, See how successful he was".   Soon pundits will be competing with each other to see how they can do away with criteria of having a degree as an entry level job requirement.  

Don't jump to conclusions so soon.  Read between the lines.... For all you know...and read... E&Y is not doing away with criteria that college degree is needed to get an entry level position.  Probably  they are only doing away with the tougher filter criteria when applying for an entry level job.... for which  you need minimum number of A or B grades in the subjects learnt at college degree program to qualify to participate in their selection program.   It is like saying lower the eligibility from 60% (or 50%) cut off scores and just allow them to apply for your job even if they just cleared their degree program.  Although it looks misleading (even a tweet on the web page of the company says it scraps away requirements of degree for a job) I would guess they are not really doing away with need to have a degree.

There will be "experts" who will say "Why do you even need a degree?,  See Bill Gates didn't have one"  But the question is how many people like Bill Gates do you find every day in life.   These are exceptions.  If Bill Gates or Dhirubhai Ambani did not have degrees so what... they were surrounded by people who had degrees and college education.  You don't come across people with these stories every day in the bus or at the street corner.  Both Bill Gates and Dhirubhai Ambani had teams and teams of highly qualified degree holders who helped them run their organizations. They were visionaries and inspirational and that's what made them what they are, not the fact that they did not have a college degree.

Now the E&Y story and the buzz it created  raises the key question again... "Is A College Degree Really Needed as entry criteria for a job position at entry level".   In a manner of saying it means,  do you need a degree to take up a job in an organization.  I belong to the category of Aye Sayers.  College degrees are meant to provide holistic, all rounded personality development,  provide knowledge and understanding in a certain field of study and prepare the students to take up careers.   They are supposed to make a well developed person and not just an intelligent person with no understanding of  social realities,  appreciation of arts, society and philosophy and so on.  Probably the reason why E&Y Decided to delink the minimum performance criteria in the degree was due to the fact that they found little correlation between "performance" and "college grades".   Following can explain that...

a) Success in career =/=  Success in exams.   Life success is dependent on whole lot of factors beyond just grades (which are dependent on mental ability in most cases of curriculum design).  

b)Education has become very competitive and lucrative field.   Colleges want to avoid detaining students  hence majority pass out of college even though they don't really deserve to.  Holding back students for non performance is proving expensive for the colleges. They also face the risk of litigation by the affected students.  So there can be little evidence of those who succeed in school only succeeding in real life.   They start a new race altogether (see next point)

c) College curriculum is getting distant from reality of industrial and organizational practice and so people are finding it difficult to cope and the best students find themselves outwitted in the rat race in organizations. 

d) People see that whether you slog and perform at the really top end of the class or you just enjoy your way through college and clear the bar by cats whiskers distance from the cut off point for graduating you still end up going to work starting off at the same level as the direct fit with jobs is very low. So every one starts off on ground zero when it comes to work organizations.   Then starts the new race.

e)Also the main aim of a college degree is not to just prepare you for a job.  It aims to prepare you for a life, a good way of living, understanding, being and relating with people in our lives.  Hence maybe a poorly balanced output.

So lets not get carried away even if some organization may do away with the criteria of a degree.  Remember today's  solutions are tomorrows problems. Imagine if you employee people without a college degree what will your customer (who's paying for the work you are doing)  pay you for a job that is now done by non graduates , which was earlier done by graduates.   More OR Less... That's the Question?

The larger question is for educationists,  management thinkers from schools and colleges who need to wonder how they would address this issue of  lack of any seeming relation between what degree scores you have and how you do in your job at work.  Otherwise degrees will be just like the tickets that take you to the destination but you would need a visa stamp to enter it.

Your Attitude Will Get You There....

One of Zig Ziglars famous lines goes like this…. “Your Attitude, not your aptitude determines your altitude”   How high you rise comes from how you approach things.  

Sample this…

There was a foundry foreman Jack who was supervising his workmen striking away at the sand moulding machine one morning.     A gentleman came and stood by and was observing.   The foreman said “Hi Steve,  It’s been long time I have not seen you”.  They both conversed about how they met twenty five years back at the foundry and how the technology was different then and how the foundry had only one workshop and now it had over 40 workshops across the state.

When the gentleman left one of the workmen came up to Jack and said.  “Jack, Wasn’t that our Chairman whom you just spoke to a while ago.   Is it true that both of you started work this foundry at the same time several years ago?”

“Of Course" Said the foreman,  "Both me a Steve signed up for work the same day 25 years back,  Today he’s the Chairman and I’m the foreman”. 

And he continued in the same breath…

“The only difference twenty five years back was that I came to work for the 1$ to the hour and he came to work for the foundry”

Yes, Cant’ be truer the point made by this simple narrative is that how you look at your work, your task, your role, your part in the play makes the difference in how you approach it.   You clearly see that Steve had an attitude to work very different from John.     So what Zig ZIglar said in his statement is best illustrated by the simple story.

Arise, Awake and Find Your Altitude!!! Happy New Year.

(The simple story is adapted from one used by Rob Thomas as an introductory message in a book Understanding Big Data)

4P Framework for Career Choice Making

This is the time of the year when students studying in the final year of their graduate or post graduate degree courses would be making career choices on what they would be doing post college...To take up a job after graduation,  to pursue higher education, to follow their dreams, to take up something unconventional. However today the young generation at this critical point in their career are faced with abundance of choices.  When choices are many decision making becomes difficult, rather stressful and several interference's come into play. 

 These include Peer pressure,  popular choices of the day (remember the engineering and medicine craze of the 1980's and 1990's) , family pressures all play a part of being among the various interference's.   In such situations how does one bring back focus on their career choices.  A simple way is to ensure you are clued in to 4P's.  A simple yet powerful way to ensure that you are in synch with reality and make a more informed choice.   A brief discussion on the 4 P framework for effective career choice making is elaborated here.  

The first P is Purpose.  Sounds simple but you first need to have a clear purpose if you don't want to get swayed by the happenings around you else,  the slightest winds of disruption around you will distract you.   Most young college graduates think their purpose is clear but not more than 10% of them have actually written down their purpose.   Where do you want to go?  What do you want to do?  Writing down your purpose increases the chances manifold that you will achieve it or move in the direction to achieve it.   Writing down your purpose brings focus into your mind.   This is something you should take a few solitary moments to pen down.   Discuss it, if you need, with a close confidant - a friend, a family member.   State what you want to achieve and by when.  Write it down in a place where you can read it as often as once a day.  The mind has a beautiful way of rewiring itself when you are focused on your objective or purpose. (Read my Blog on Attention & Focus).  One thing that most students who are graduating worry about is what others will think of their choice.  It does not matter.  Your choice is something that is very important for you and if you don't make your choice to do what you want then you will only be living other's choices.  Your's or Others?  The Choice Is Your's.

Once you have your Purpose, you need to drive it to action.  This leads us to the second P which is Plan.   Plan helps give wings to your dreams.    You have to make deliberate attempts to make things happen and only a plan can take you there.   You need to understand your strengths, your values and how they align with your purpose.   Do you have what it takes to give wings to your dreams?  If not - Go Get It !!  It is never too late when you are making a choice for your life's dream.  A career is not a short term venture but something that where you can end up spending 3 to 4 decades of your life in a field of your choosing.   This can be the company you start your career with, the industry in which you want to work or even the field of profession you want to choose.    A plan needs to have milestones.  Break your journey to the destination into manageable bits.  For e.g. if you want to get into a career on animation and gaming it is not just enough to do a few courses.  Talk to a few experts who are already in the field of animation and design.  Spend a few hours talking to them, understanding what stumbling blocks they faced in their career and how did they overcome this.   Work on areas where you have assessed gaps vis a vis making entry into the career you are focusing on.   You also need to understand what would be the best place to start your career. Look for organizations that provide fertile learning ground and good training for early career starters.   Sometimes you need to trade this off with a few thousand rupees of salary that you may other wise get but with few training opportunities.   Finally just like you put purpose on paper you should try to do the same with your plan. 

The third P is very critical and most college graduates don't think about this till it is too late in the day.  Position...  It is like your brand promise.  What is that makes you different from others who are competing with you.  Chose something that is your strength.  Something which you can talk about as your USP.  Marry this P to the previous one if you want a job with a specific industry or have narrowed down to a particular choice of organization.   How will you position your key strengths during the selection process.   Things like Good communication skills,  hard worker and attention to detail are all given today.  You need to show how you are ahead of the learning curve,  what unique skill, capability or talent you have that is hard to come by.    This will help you stand out in a crowd.   You need to start working on this P early on in your college degree course.   Colleges where Training & Placement Departments drive this as a focus area to work on for their graduating classes will be ahead of the curve when it comes to fruitful placements of their graduating classes. 

Perseverance...the final piece of the 4P framework.  One needs to have a drive for perseverance in order to sustain  the focus or career interest area.   Perseverance helps to galvanize action,  overcome stumbling blocks, expand your horizon and achieve excellence.   When it is combined with performance it can create a transformation for individuals.  Remember the budding guitarist who strummed hours on end and became part of the rock band... or the avid writer at school who turned into a budding author or journalist.... or the accounting wizard who went on to become a seasoned Chartered Accountant.  All these examples can be found in real life.   What we are talking here is the never say die attitude that you carry with you and which will help aspirants sustain the quest for what they are looking in their careers. 

While it is important for individual students and graduates who are making career choices to consider these 4P's and strive towards using this simple framework to make a informed and aware choice, it is also in the interest of the educational institutes to set this focus as part of their mentoring the final year students.  Placement Counselors and Training Officers of colleges can subtly encourage students to think on these lines.  The earlier you make the start in college better are the chances that students don't get into last minute confusion and end up  enjoying the careers they strive for.

Attitude Makes the Difference

Not Intelligence, Not Chance, Not  Hard work.  It is Attitude that finally makes somebody a great performer, it is attitude that defines success and it is attitude that takes you a long way.

Who cannot forget Zig Ziglar quote:  "You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor make the attitudes to fit those situations"

It is easy to say -  have a positive attitude,  your attitude decides your altitude and so on but the question I have is what really determines your attitude.  If having a positive attitude alone made you a winner everyone would have been there and done that.   Why is it only some maintain a positive attitude and rest of them do not.  That's the question I want to explore in this piece and the next.

Is attitude determined by behaviors exhibited or is it vice-versa? 

To understand better:  An attitude is a learned tendency to exhibit behavior in a certain way.  The way I think,  feel or display behavior on / to an  issue, a person, a group, a subject, a trend are all examples of  attitude.   

We can be conscious of our attitudes or - they can be sub-conscious (blind spots about the attitudes)

Attitudes can be influenced in either positive or negative direction and it is here that role of managers  leaders and other key influencers in organizations is very important.  A person can develop a very positive attitude towards work and at the same time a very negative depending on the experience.    It is the experiences we have or the conditions we are exposed to that determine our attitude towards a phenomenon, place, person,  event etc.

So behavior changes according to the attitude toward something.  However remember that it is the behaviors itself that influence attitude.  If you want a person to change from a extremely negative attitude towards say "gender diversity"  it cannot happen just by feeling it.  He / she has to actually start being more accepting of the other gender being equally contributing in team work or other gender being as competitive, or the other gender being as hard working or whatever the negative bias he or she has about "gender diversity"

So next time you find you are carrying your problems in your mind and it is affecting you negatively you need to check whether it can be attributed to attitude you have about something.  Can you change the way you are affected by just changing your attitude? As a manager you need to see what behaviors the person needs to change if the attitude has to change.   Well more about how managers can work on attitudes with examples in a coming post.  

Meanwhile if you have something to share, your experiences, your observations, your thoughts are welcome.