Business Suicide

How do businesses commit suicide?

1. Ignorance:
Customers are looking for you and you are not even aware. You are not accessible, approachable in this hugely connected world.

2. Incompetence:
Customers are approaching you but you are not responding on time. Not providing right solutions to customer needs and problems.  Responding to calls, mails and orders is slow and incorrect.

3. Indifference:
Existing customers are exiting and you are not inquiring the reason.

4. Insensitive:
Customers have been giving feedback and requests but you are rigid with your product, price, people or process.

5. Inappropriate:
Inappropriate selection of people in organisation or inappropriate allocation of job. Using inappropriate modes of communication.

Vasde raho, Ujad Jao

Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj along with Bhai Mardana ji visited a village where the people were very mean and did not pay any attention to spiritual values or honesty in their lives. Upon leaving the village after some days he rose his hand up and blessed the villagers and said – “Vasde raho”(May you remain here and prosper). Next day they reached another village. 

Here, contrary to the people of the previous village the residents were very kind, honest and spiritual minded. They respected and paid utmost respect to Guru Nanak Dev ji. Guru ji spent some days there very comfortably and then bid farewell to village. While leaving, on outskirts of village Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj rose his hand up again said, “Ujad Jao” (May you get displaced and spread).On hearing this Bhai Mardana ji was taken by surprise. 

He asked the Guru why he did so. The Guru’s response was simple : These people are good people with great values, and if they leave the village and go to different parts of the world wherever they go they will spread these values among the local population. More people will get influenced and become good and ethical ( by doing their sangat). The world will change for the better. Whereas people from the first village had no values and thus must live there only because these are not the values that need to be spread.”

Trust

Did anyone break your trust? Did you feel broken at anytime? Did you feel betrayed or shattered? Is there any way to come out of it?

Suresh Mohan Semwal

You may have heard that, 'You can't fix what has been broken. Even if you try to glue it back, it will never be the same'. I humbly would want to submit that nobody stops us from making it better, why bother about keeping it same? Why not more valuable than before?

Someone rejects you, you become shattered. How about working on yourself and becoming more valuable and let the person who rejected you regret his/her decision.

In Japan, they have an art form called Kintsugi in which breaks and repairs are treated as part of the object's history. Kintsugi means "golden joinery" in Japanese. Broken ceramics are carefully mended by artisans with a lacquer resin mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. The repairs are visible, yet somehow beautiful. These mended objects look magnificent and their value gets enhanced.

Think about it. Every painful experience has provided us golden deeper insights, wisdom and strength. We all have a choice, whether we wish to become wounded or wiser. Do we learn our lessons after such incidents and become stronger or ignore the lessons and become victims? "What doesn't kill me, just makes me stronger.' Think.

Happy Deepawali

I wish you a very happy, peaceful and prosperous deepawali. Hopefully we will also have another Deepawali this Nov'19 when our beloved Ram ji will finally get his rightful place after this century old legal battle. Nothing came easy for him but ultimately he won all battles. Maybe this is the learning He wants us to learn, 'how to pursue the right without becoming wrong ourselves'. Upholding highest virtues & values with dignity & determination. Jai Shri Ram!!

Peace of mind

Once Buddha was walking from one town to another town with a few of his followers. This was in the initial days. While they were travelling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped there and Buddha told one of his disciples, “I am thirsty. Do get me some water from that lake there.”

The disciple walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that some people were washing clothes in the water and, right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. The disciple thought, “How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink!” So he came back and told Buddha, “The water in there is very muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink.”

After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The disciple obediently went back to the lake. This time he found that the lake had absolutely clear water in it. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit to be had. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.

Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said, “See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be ... and the mud settled down on its own – and you got clear water... Your mind is also like that. When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless.”

What did Buddha emphasize here? He said, “It is effortless.” Having 'peace of mind' is not a strenuous job; it is an effortless process. When there is peace inside you, that peace permeates to the outside. It spreads around you and in the environment, such that people around start feeling that peace and grace.

Working under incompetent boss?

At times due to many reasons we are headed by a person who is not so competent technically and otherwise. The person may have reached that position due to:

1. Lack of another competent person available, so was chosen as best option out of only option

2. Job rotation policy of the organization

3. The person is good technically but incompetent in people skills which gets discovered later after talent drain.

I have seen these people and generally I would like to divide them in three categories:

1. Who knows they lack competence and therefore make an extra effort to get along very well with the team so that incompetence does not hinder the achievement of department goals

2. Who knows it and doesn't want others to know and create terror in the team by using authority and surrounding self with chamchas - talented people are subverted

3. Those who are blissfully unaware – they normally come to know only when the organisation informs them in a subtle way

The organisations having the second category of people (who use authority to put people in their place) are able to retain only such sycophants and ultimately the organization goes down the drain.
We all probably like admiration and dislike criticism but who is doing it with us is very important....

In such cases where due to any reason talented person is not able to jump the ship and adapts to sycophancy and stop contributing with his/her full potential. And that to my mind is the biggest loss.
So, What should be done? Is it down the hill after this? Fortunately, NO

Subordinates who are working under such bosses should take the following steps (not in any order), in order to successfully tide over this difficult scenario –

1. Chances are your boss may lack in some critical technical competency – so here’s your chance to ensure your boss doesn’t take you for granted – become an expert in that critical skillset and “Make yourself indispensable”

2. Make them aware of this habit at an opportune time & place and let them know how you feel

3. They would not be terrorizing all the times. So, praise them appropriately when they do something right

4. If things become unbearable and you feel like quitting yesterday, then go to your boss’s boss or HR and inform them.

5. But, if your boss is the ultimate boss – then quit.

Finished drawing

Drawn by Mr. Suresh Mohan Semwal

Do we  ever get  to finish our drawings or it always remains incomplete? Or whatever we drew, however we drew, till whatever point we drew that was supposed to be our drawing? Is there any The End or whenever it Ends that is The End? Is there any perfect drawing or whatever we drew was perfect for us? Intriguing questions... Isn't it? By the way, my first abstract drawing..... 

We all have heard the advice that live to your fullest, do your best, unleash your potential etc. Isn't it? It's like creating your perfect drawing or piece of work.. It's about completing everything the way you wanted to complete, in short, bidding goodbye with satisfaction.

Let's recall the names of some people who are hugely respected and are considered to be role models be most of us I believe...

Martin Luther King, died without fulfilling his dream. Mahatma Gandhi, saw two nations being created on the basis of religion and almost no one practices what he preached.

This list can be endless, isn't it so? 

Therefore, the question, does anyone ever gets to complete his drawing as per his satisfaction? Not many I guess. 

On a second thought, maybe the ending that we plan were not achieved but they're

complete in its own way. 

Just because a child is at a certain age doesn't mean that it's unfinished or incomplete painting. Ageing and dying, is it the completion, achieving what one wants to achieve, is that the completion? 

Our list of wishes never end, therefore we keep adding more after what we have already achieved. Should we just focus on underachieved or also look at what we have achieved as milestones. Is milestone not an achievement? Dying with unfinished goal, is it incomplete? Or it just shows that the person aspired for more than the available time? 

Is there any completion at all? is it complete the moment we decide it to be? Should we label completion as per success parameters of the world? 

I guess, everything and every moment is complete in its true nature. If we are living with wakefulness every step is complete in its order. Nothing is ever incomplete. Everything is perfect. It is how it is meant to be. To realise it we just need to be awake, alert and aware...