Dr. Shailesh Thaker - Best Management Training Blog - Top Management Consultants

Archive for October, 2009

Greek philosopher said, “To move the world we must move ourselves.” (Remember, Socrates had never written anything, it is his first disciple Plato who has written for him.)

We have to take responsibility of our lives and deeds. We are totally responsible for what we gain, what we lose, what we see, what we hear, what we do and what we experience. We cannot lead our selves where accountability is lacking.

Life never creates anything for us. We have to create something in life. It is only possible if we decide to make ourselves move first.

There is a very popular saying that great souls have wills but feeble have only wishes. We cannot wish ourselves to be successful. We have to be responsible and act.

Louis L’Amour says very profoundly, “THE WATER DOES NOT FLOW UNTIL THE FAUCET IS TURNED ON.”

ACTION in direction with speed is a new learning.

The greatest lost to all of us is the wasted time to make the way successful. We all need control on the habit of procrastination.

Ideas are not enough, talent is untapped, unleash our potentials, Plans are most of the time on the paper, willingness to do have less values……unless they are followed by vibrant actions.

What is the right use of my time right now!!!!!!

Greek philosopher says,” To move the world we must move your selves.”( Remember, Socrates have never written anything , it is his first disciple Plate has written for him.)

We have to take responsibility of our lives and deeds. We are totally responsible for what we gain, what we lose, what we see, what we hear, what we do and what we experience. We cannot lead our selves where accountability is lacking.

Life never creates anything for us, we have to create something in the life. It is only possible of we decide to make move our selves first.

There is a very popular saying that great souls have wills but feeble have only wishes. We cannot wish ourselves to be successful. We have to be responsible and act.

Louis L’Amour says very profoundly, “THE WATER DOES NOT FLOW UNTIL THE FAUCET IS TURNED ON.”

ACTION in direction with speed is a new learning.

The greatest lost to all of us is the wasted time to make the way successful. We all need control on the habit of procrastination.

Ideas are not enough, talent is untapped, unleash our potentials, Plana are most of the time on the paper, willingness to do have less values……unless they are followed by vibrant actions.

What is the right use of my time right now.!!!!!!

 I drove to the San Francisco UPS headquarters, a block-wide fortress of freight. A staffer of human resources took me to get me a uniform and pointed me towards the locker room. I changed out of my street clothes and into the brown outfit. I had the locker room to myself; after buttoning up my shirt I took a second to stare into the mirror. As I changed into this new brown uniform, I was changing my attitude. I was becoming one of them.

For a decade I had worked as a journalist, covering business and the rise of branding. But, by that fateful morning, I’d decided to leave my desk behind and dive deeper into a subject that had long intrigued me: the role of corporate cultures in large companies. In what became a two-year adventure through the world of commerce, I served as a driver’s assistant at UPS, poured coffee at a busy Starbucks cafe, folded garments at Gap, rented cars for Enterprise, and sold iPods at an Apple Store.

Though my mission was primarily to study modern workplace cultures—reporting that turned into my 2007 book, Punching In—I came away with an appreciation for the roots and benefits of on-the-job happiness. Companies like the ones where I worked are not necessarily aiming to create staffs of happy people. They seek hard workers that believe in what they do, and if this makes people happy, that’s a secondary benefit. Happy people, in other words, don’t necessarily get the job done.

 And yet some workplaces are definitely happier than others. Employees at Gap, I discovered, couldn’t wait to leave; UPS drivers, on the other hand, often enjoyed their work and were even able to discover a larger meaning in what they did. Just how companies create positive work environments was something that revealed itself to me slowly. I learned that it had a lot to do with how employers choose employees, and how applicants decide just where to apply.

 Here are my three secrets to happiness at workplace.

 One: Go for flow

 “Dude,” said one of my colleagues at Gap. “This place messes with time. It slows down, it crawls, it moves backward.” He was right: At Gap (we were told to never call it “the” Gap) my chief duty was to fold clothing that had been unfolded by customers, a Sisyphean task. Sisyphus, you might recall, was condemned by the gods to keep rolling a boulder up a hill for eternity. And that’s just what working at Gap felt like: an eternity. This was also true of working at Enterprise rental car and Starbucks, where all of our movements were measured and monetized. Perceptions of time, I found, are closely linked to the employees’ feeling of freedom: The more constrained the environment, the slower things moved, and the less happy employees were.

 In contrast, work at the Apple Store was set up so you were focused on accomplishing goals, not filling up time. At Apple, most product layout was left to one “visual merchandiser” who was passionate about keeping the store neat, leaving others like me to interact with customers, share information, and be ourselves instead of following a script. I was judged about what I did instead of how I did it. By having long leashes, Apple employees could forget about the hours and get into the “flow” state, so well articulated by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in which one is “completely involved in an activity for its own sake.”

 Anthropologist Edward Hall originally described the way in which time is viewed in the workplace. Most hourly jobs treat time as monochromic – “an infinitely divisible linear ribbon that can be divided into appointments and other compartments, but within which only one thing can be done at a time.” But at Apple, the polychromic view of time prevailed, so that we could do several things simultaneously, manage our own tasks, and feel pride in accomplishing things, as opposed to just waiting out the hours. This certainly made me happier, and it seemed to work for the other employees as well.

 Two: Foster authenticity

 Apple helped work hours fly by in part by encouraging employees to be themselves. At Apple I got to hang out, share my knowledge, learn, and stay current with cutting-edge technology. In each discussion with a customer, I continued to feel more at ease, and interactions with my colleagues even came to feel natural. Employees at Starbucks were told to “be authentic,” but Apple gave us a more honest variation on this theme. “Be who you are,” a recorded voice told me in training. “You know the feeling you get from people who just say what they have to say.”

 This notion of authenticity is key to success. If workers feel like they are a part of a plastic, inauthentic culture, they may feel less “real” themselves. UPS has a workplace culture with 100-year-old history and traditions. Through the camaraderie among drivers, the day-to-day company rituals, and the leeway I was given on the road, UPS came to feel like a place where I belonged. And at UPS I gained a strong sense that I was a part of the thumping, beating heart of capitalism, connecting sellers to buyers and family members to each other. It felt much more critical than any other job I held. Its culture felt authentic to me, in a way that even Apple did not.

 To function, a culture has to be organic and move of its own accord. People have to believe without being persuaded to do so. Through all my jobs, once the corporate minders pulled something out and identified it as a part of the culture, it immediately loses its authenticity for me. Evolution of the culture is crucial, and to evolve means to change. As a new worker, I had to feel that I could not only join the culture but also add to it.

 Authenticity occurs, to some degree, in the mind of the employee. UPS and its culture worked for me. Starbucks did not; I viewed the training I received as simply teaching me how to act. But, I remember talking to a fellow barista named Steve after a busy shift: He loved the hard work and the flow state it engendered. Unlike me, he viewed himself as having gained the skills of a craftsman. All of these workplace cultures are fabricated, so what feels authentic to one employee might feel inauthentic to another. Selection, by applicants and employers, is the best way to create happy workers.

 Three: Find the right match

 It may seem obvious, but it took me almost two years as a front-line employee to understand that not every prospective employee (even if they are all “good” and “hard-working” people) will excel equally in each workplace. We all have different needs and wants in a job, and we will succeed by being matched well to the place where we work. The smarter companies knew this and worked hard to identify the right talent before hiring.

 The Container Store, a chain of some 30 retail outlets, didn’t hire me. The company, which hires just six percent of applicants, made the right call—I would have been a poor match for the job. Unlike me, many of the other applicants in our group interview had the requisite passion for organizing and selling storage systems.

 Thus, asking employees about their passions, and gauging the quality and truthfulness of their responses, is critical. The first thing that companies can do to maximize the happiness of their employees is to pick those employees wisely, by choosing people who will flourish in their particular corporate culture.

 Similarly, prospective employees should try to identify those places in which they will flourish most. Applicants for the Container Store are fanatical about organization and about sharing their organizational skills with others. Apple isolates true enthusiasts and true believers in Apple products, of which there are many. People who self-select for UPS are extroverted, athletic, and restless, which are perfect traits for UPS employees—but perhaps not so good for Starbucks baristas, who spend much of the day standing in one tight place.

 To attract employees, you need to offer them something that goes beyond money: a brand, a calling, a community. This force is larger than a person; it is a force that feels worth allying with and merging into. Some companies mold their corporate cultures to appeal to the population they hope to recruit and employ.

 In the best situations, the applicant hears a calling to the company long before applying; there is something out there that makes the place seems like the right fit. In the best case scenario, there is a moment when you are working at that place when you feel alive, when you are no longer questioning and thinking about life on the outside, life before the job, life after the job. In that moment, you are the job. It’s a rare, elusive feeling, I discovered. But, it’s the secret to happiness at work.

In graduate school, I had one professor who encouraged us to notice what surprised or disturbed us. If we were surprised by some statement, it indicated we were assuming that something else was true. If we were disturbed by a comment, it indicated we held a belief contrary to that. Noticing what disturbs me has been an incredibly useful lens into my interior, deeply held beliefs. When I’m shocked at another’s position, I have the opportunity to see my own position in greater clarity. When I hear myself saying “How could anyone believe something like that?!” a doorway has opened for me to see what I believe. These moments of true disturbance are great gifts. In making my beliefs visible, they allow me to consciously choose them again, or change them.

What if we were to be together and listen to each other’s comments with a willingness to expose rather than to confirm our own beliefs and opinions? What if we were willingly listening to one another with the awareness that we each see the world in unique ways? And with the expectation that I could learn something new if I listen for the differences rather than the similarities?

We have this opportunity many times in a day, every day. What might we see, what might we learn, what might we create together, if we become this kind of listener, one who enjoys the differences and welcomes in disturbance? I know we would be delightfully startled by how much difference there is. And, then we would be wonderfully comforted by how much closer we became, because every time we listen well, we move towards each other. From our new thoughts and our new companions, we would all become wiser.

It would be more fruitful to explore this strange and puzzling world if we were together. It would also be far less frightening and lonely. We would be together, brought together by our differences rather than separated by them. When we are willing to be disturbed by newness rather than clinging to our certainty, when we are willing to truly listen to someone who sees the world differently, then wonderful things happen. We learn that we don’t have to agree with each other in order to explore together. There is no need to be joined together at the head, as long as we are joined together at the heart.

Recently, one afternoon I went to a pottery shop on the outskirts of Tokyo and happened to meet the head potter who had stopped by to check on her staff.

After looking around the shop, I asked the potter if she had a few minutes to chat and explain her work to me. The first thing she talked about was how a potter never knew what was going to wind up coming out of the kiln. “Each kiln opening,” she said, “was somewhat like Christmas morning. Sometimes you get many wonderful gifts, and sometimes you wound up with coal in your stocking, like when most of the pieces explode in the kiln due to severe changes in atmospheric weather conditions.”

“It is the serendipity,” she said, “that makes the work so magical. It helps you stay humble, and you learn to surrender and accept the unknown.”

Next she talked to me about design and functionality, topics important to every potter. “No sense in having a good looking piece that is awkward to use, and no sense having a boring piece that is highly functional,” she said.

 Since, I had decided that I very much liked her work and was definitely going to buy something, I picked out three pieces. I set them on the counter and asked the lady to tell me a bit about each piece.

 “Let me share with you how I recognize the hoped for imperfections in my work,” she said, “by talking about the pieces you have an interest in.”

 “Notice this first piece. The glaze is not of consistent thickness over the inside surface. I tried the best I could do to smooth out the glaze,” she said, “but this is a very tough glaze to work with. Nonetheless, for me, it’s the inconsistency that makes for the range of color that shines forth in this piece.”

 “With this next piece, you notice that the bowl is not fully round in shape. I am a small woman, and this is a large piece for me to throw on the wheel. In fact it’s the biggest piece I am currently able to throw. I love making some of this size, because these bowls really test my limits. There’s a certain tension present when the shape goes out of being fully round, and this is what draws me to this piece. I hope when people look at it they get the sense that I am testing my limits.”

 “Finally, with this third piece, you’ll notice the price is considerably less than the other two pieces. I feel it is a good piece of work; in fact, I feel it is a bit too good and looks like it could have been machine made. That is why the price is less than for the others.”

 “The shape is perfectly round, and the glaze flows evenly over the entire pot, so the piece does not have a sense of uniqueness. I’ve stopped making this shape and size, because I know how to make them all too well. When they come out this perfect, I feel like the soul of the pot gets left in the kiln. It does not come across as being one of a kind.”

 She bowed ever so much and said, “Do you have a moment? I have some locally grown strawberries, and it is always best to eat them at this time of year with a warm cup of tea.”