Bamboo In The Wind

Sometimes we must change the way we do things. Routine can be during and monotonous. At work, conduct group meetings on a hilltop, take teams on a  hike, conduct focused 1-1s while taking strolls in a park, take time off from sessions and meet team members to know what's on their minds. And how about taking your parents for a drive in the mountains, taking your family on a refreshing cruise, or camping in the woods and discovering yourself? Change is an intrinsic desire. One that reconstitutes internal order by altering the frame of mind. Change is the aftermath of taking action. Positive change is a result of taking action that works for us.

Self-discovery at work is usually unheard of. That is because work presents a square peg in a round hole. What we enjoy doing rarely matches the work we are assigned. And that is fair from the organization's point of view. The workplace needs helping hands to pursue its own enjoyable journey. Usually, the story of the starting member resonates with a few others, and work takes off. But as more and more people join hands, it tends to be half-hearted participation. People choose organizations for economic reasons, progress reasons, or social reasons. But it is rarely the case that the growing organization gets people based on the core philosophy. No matter how much we talk about the culture and proliferating it organization-wide, that depends on how well they connect at various organizational layers. And when that alignment is at stake, people focus on compliance rather than fulfillment of what they like. It's a complex and delicate balance that every organization struggles with....

In industrial org structures, growth has been permission driven. It tended to be a function of how your bosses saw you and judged your potential. Of course, selfless superiors could hop over their insecurities, spot you, and give you a real chance. And getting an opportunity to present your work was an achievement in itself. If you ran into superiors who were entangled in their own insecurities... then well, good luck...! You can be sure that they will shred your work into pieces, look for signs in you that please them. Your opportunities depended on how they saw you given their own insecurities. You rarely had the skill to understand the psyche of your superiors lest know they had any misgivings. But they always did. And you. You were stumped by their decision to use you or not. Thankfully in the new age economy, that is not true anymore. You are attractive to everyone if you are interested. Interested and experienced in something you can catch others' attention on. If you have do...

Giving your best requires, among other things, being at your best. But the more interesting question is whether "being" comes first or "giving"? It is a tricky question that requires inspecting what each term means to us. On the one hand, the state of  Being represents acting in concert with concurrence with the self. With minimal resistance and maximal acceptance of who we are and what we are about to involve ourselves in.  We are perfectly ok with what we might do and how we do it and agree with the ramifications of how we might come across. Thus it represents an inside-and-out approach to everything we do. On the other hand, Giving is a state of acting proactively and deliberately. Working with awareness, care and attention needed; creating circumstances that allow positioning ourselves, minimizing blind spots, and increasing the odds of favorable outcomes.  It's thus outside and in approach to doing things. You may not always have the desired experience, bu...

There are little things that we turn into nagging issues. In hindsight, they look so trivial, yet we treat them as anything but trivial.  We make a big hue and cry. We begin to find the world around us is unfair to us. Most dissatisfaction stems from unreasonable thought-process. The resistance to making an effort to understand is at the root of it.  The question then is how do we know what we face... First, get out of the hideout! Shed the fear of storms.  It is just a storm in a teacup!

We think we have an idea of how to get work done. While it may be enough in some cases, in most other cases, it requires spelling out more. Instinctual decisions are significant for situations that warrant spontaneity, where a sense of urgency is paramount. We need more than one option to get work done for most other things. We need to identify places we might need to rethink if things don't go as planned. A plan is a mind map of what we need to do when things go right and how we need to respond if they don't. There is rarely room for surprise when we have mindmap in our back pockets. All we are doing is navigating the situation with a reasonable response. And that is usually enough to get past almost anything!

Unless we are open about our inhibitions, we are unlikely to make an effort to overcome them. We may not know the right way to do it despite knowing our inhibitions and even with the best intentions to get rid of them. Perhaps the best approach to adopt is to learn from the environment. What we discover is rarely new. Someone from a different walk of life has most likely encountered it. Accept their experience with an open arm. It might save you from turning the wheel all over again. It takes humility to respect what others already know, learn from it, and adopt it. 

Beware of disengagement! If we come down hard with a strong point of view, there is a chance that someone may decide to quietly walk away. Not because they don't like our viewpoint. But because they feel that they are not heard. Such forceful is our approach that others might feel constrained and contained when expressing themselves. Disengagements show signs of reluctance, disinterest,  disagreements, and silence. More importantly, such signs stem from the perceived lack of room for expression.  Why should that happen when we think we are well-intentioned? The quality of our intention is our perception. It becomes real through our words. Words make their way to others and convey a specific tone and meaning. That is the recipient's prerogative, not ours. How we are being heard determines how our intention is seen. If meaning expresses warmth and open participation, then whole-hearted reciprocation is imperative. However, if our approach turns out close-ended and unidirectional...

Declaring your intention to yourself proves to be a vital one. Intention comes out of mulling over what is on your mind. But those are just superfluous thoughts. Writing down what is in your mind helps you see your desires. However random it may seem, writing down refines thoughts. If something is unclear ask yourself a question. Write down the question and then write your answer. Do this iteratively until you get a solution that identifies a particular action. Usually such actions are the steps you can start with for fulfilling your actual intentions. This is the first dimension of the clarity of your thoughts. Because the actions are based on your clarifying intention, why you are thinking about them, and how they serve you or others. The other way to achieve the same effect is by opening up your thoughts with those you trust and get them to provide feedback.  Ask them how they see your line of thinking. Ask also how they would deal with it if they faced similar thoughts. Then as...

How often do we think we must get it right the first time? What if we don't? We put ourselves down. There is an unsaid rule that we must declare failure if we don't get it right. All systems around us are built with this industrial mindset. Built around finding faults in what we produce and then declaring it inadequate. Such systems affect how we measure our efforts. We tend to be hard and abandon our actions when we don't get desired outcomes. What if we rejected such systems that make us think of excellence in a narrow, instantaneous manner? After all, is there anything wrong with not getting it right on the first go? What if, instead, we allowed ourselves the grace to try again? This time, doing it differently, in a slightly different setting, with a change in the composition, by deploying new viewpoints?  Allowing us the grace to be iterative in our approach is not such a bad thing. In this world of instant gratification and a mad rush to succeed, it is easy to think th...

There is enough noise out there already. Everyone wants to be paid attention to. The expectation is we will review and accept offers.  Alas! That is rarely the case. There is already heaps of work on everyone's plate. And there are similar offerings from so many others.  Why should we look at what you have? In business, an easy way to filter out those seeking automatic attention from those with something of substance is to wait! Those who care to follow up with proactive details - show the understanding of why you might need them - will receive additional scrutiny. Who knows, it may even result in actual business. Following up is a sign of you taking your work seriously. And if you do, you are worth our time!

The common belief is that following up on something you set out to change is essential. It is rarely enough to expect it to keep moving. There is inherent friction in the environment. What you believe in often does not resonate with others. It has the potential to stall the efforts of change you initiated. The way to get around that is by effectively communicating the reasons the changes are needed and the impact of the change on the change-makers when it materializes. If there is a clear understanding of the benefits the energy level rises, and friction goes down. Such is the power of getting the buy-in. Buy-in results from transparent processes to weigh the upsides and downsides. Upfront articulation of risks and sacrifices required and clarity of the benefit if you succeed. Nagging follow-ups are the way to push through the change you seek without developing buy-in. There is no way out!

Predicting the odds of getting through anything complicated depends on your response to the perceived difficulty. When you stumble upon something unusual or unexpected, it creates a sense of uncertainty. You feel frozen, turn rudderless, and are forced into inaction. Arresting in your tracks is a typical response. What gets you out of it is dealing with fear in the present. Anxiety is often about staring at failure, disappointment, seeing reality differ from the distorted reality you believe in, and a loss of face, money, or fame. Evaporating the clouding of thoughts as soon as there are signs of being stuck is critical. For that, you must stay through such fear and see what it is about.  When you learn to see through fear, it loses its influence on you. Your present begins to dissolve in reality on the ground. You beg in to think and take steps to escape the helplessness the fear forces on you.  Whether you face work or life problems, your reaction requires controlling t...

The process of stepping forward is based on getting a nod from the self. It's a very personal affirmation that what you wish to do is a step that provides you with an opportunity to expand your horizon of experience.  It is such an intimately internal process that you often do not even realize that you are exercising a decision-making model that guides your following action.   The foundation of such a decision-making model is called conviction. It centers you around core beliefs that provide you shelter for retracting from adversities. Convictions cannot be adopted. They cannot be bought off the shelf. Convictions are developed. You learn their effects through the experience of how your actions affect your environment. Beliefs form when you register the positive impact of your efforts consistently.  Convictions are your original signboards for directions to take. Or avoid!

The symptom of not doing enough is common. But is the sign a real one or a perception? It requires inspection. Upon quiet, honest introspection, we find that we like bashing ourselves for being insufficient. There is a build-up of what more should have been done. The battle of satisfying our own expectations weighs us down tremendously. Interestingly, expectations stem from our worldview. The viewfinder we use is feeble and shows us the world the window offers us. For, the viewfinder is all we know and have access to.  What if we poked viewfinders in many walls and different directions. We ought to be surprised by the world we begin to see. We find many things that align without expectations but others that won't. At first, we might want to ignore something we don't align with. Unfamiliarity is troubling. It brings stretch to our known imagination and scares us with uncertainty when our vision does not provide signs of relevance to the world now a particular viewfinder offers. ...

There is nothing more satisfying than seeing the self nod in agreement. It is a sign of internal rhythm in resonance with our physical surroundings.  The reality of our world is indeed brutal to consume. It commonly breaks the sanctity of how we know everything should be. It is no surprise! We are always taught to be sensitive, accommodating, and caring. And yet, our surroundings do not seem to have the same value system for some reason. Such a differing value system is a real awakening, and we often shake our heads in disbelief. It creates a conflict within us about which way is right. Ours or theirs? We begin to regress. When we see ourselves nodding in agreement, we can be sure we are close to finding the answer to that. And the correct answer does not focus on what is right or wrong. It answers for us what we understand. We understand why our belief system is the way it's and why others are different from us. It helps clarify the basis for the beliefs we possess. And hence dif...

The choices we make decide how we feel. Circumstances manifest from the choices we make and lead us to follow on emotions we see. Some choices put us in a tough spot despite looking like good options. Reasons are plenty, but the key ones are: We are swayed by herd thinking. We end up choosing something that many others do. We do not know how certain decisions affect us. The intellectual, physical, and emotional labor required to make our choices a reality are ill-understood and underestimated. That is a surprise waiting for us, and we need to build a technique for dealing with it spontaneously. Because there is no early warning. How do we deal with it? Know that surprises bring unexpected downward spirals. We will have poor outcomes. We might feel low.  We start imagining ourselves from other's points of view. The way out is to accept we are what we are. The low point is an imaginary and irrelevant data point in the long run. We are a sum of many decisions we make over a very long ...

Have you ever been to a game of cricket? Both sides are tense when the match is in slog overs. The Fielding side intends to change the field to suit the bowling plan. The batting side is keen and looking to penetrate the fielder's gaps or hit over the boundary. The stadium is intensely involved, and the final few overs are sure to offer a nail-biting finish. As the bowler gets ready, you see the batters at the two ends at the center of the pitch decipher the fielding plan. Then the batter on strike slowly walks back to the crease and thinks for a bit. The batter signals the umpire about requiring a fresh guard.  What the batter has done is a pause, create doubt in the minds of the bowler for what he is thinking, and take a moment to recompose himself and revise a plan for a few scenarios the bowler might bring to him. In other words, by taking a fresh guard, the batter has prepared for scenarios he might encounter and charted a plan to appropriately respond or counterattack. This i...

We are put off by bad behavior. We do not think someone can act in a way that affects us. But that is just our thought. People have their own ways of dealing with interactions. Their communication is marred with situational emotional responses. Our upbringing, surroundings, and environment shape our expectations. But the problem with expectations is that they are our worldview of how something should happen. When expectations are breached, and things don't go as per our belief system, a surprise awaits us. The surprise generates enormous friction inside. Something that burns us from the inside. Hopelessness grips us, and the future looks bleak. Time and again, we run into a situation that repeats this pattern. We must look inside and inspect if our efforts, behavior, and understanding of the problem are not the reason. We need to tell ourselves the truth. It is hard work because we like to tell ourselves the stories that make us look good and blame others. But our efforts are hones...

Complexity is a symptom of cramming too much information in the head. There are implicit assumptions that need understanding. There are base concepts used as building blocks that we need to know about. The complexity begins to dissipate only when we break down the information and find examples that help us understand the complexity. We must have a building block of more minor, easy-to-understand knowledge and results of experiments. When we have that, it becomes the basis of understanding the concept we find complex. They say biology is an expression of chemistry. How do we know? It appears unfathomable. Here is an example of establishing a high-level understanding of this statement with specifics. We know a healthy and balanced diet can keep diseases at bay. Diets enhance (or even degrade physical state. Diseases represent a chemical state (or change) of humans. Diet offers us needed nutrients such as Proteins, Vitamins, Minerals, and Fibers. Within the nutrients needed, Proteins are...

Early to bed is early to rise. No alternative plan can beat that without resistance. Finishing the weekly Gym regimen starts with a focus on the first-day commitment. The first commitment to daily walking starts with strapping your shoes and stepping out of the house. Significant monthly goals are unachievable without a plan for the first day and the first week. Finishing anything important requires learning to focus on the near-term small steps. They are far more likely to contribute to long-term objectives than any planning. Near-term, adjacent small steps can overshadow a broad picture and create a fear of losing focus on big targets. A comprehensive view, once internalized, does not warrant too much attention. So fear of losing it is futile. Smaller steps, in fact, provide the potential to realize progress toward it. Smaller steps emerge only when we put a long horizon of what is achievable in a state of oblivion!

Opinions rarely coincide. And that is expected. You bring your history, education, and cultural peculiarities to cement your outlook toward looking at the world around you. Biases play a vital role in anything of substance. You rarely find yourself passionately debating matters that do not affect you. On the contrary, err on neglecting them as trivial and brush them aside. An open mind allows for reviewing your biases. An open mind provokes a review of how you approach and weigh in on matters. To someone with an open mind, there is no distinction between what is important and trivial. Because in such difference lies a unilateral bias. An open mind permeates the accommodation of varied, aligned, and differing perspectives. It knows to stack them for a closer inspection of what was brought out. Plotting such a broad range of opinions allows for looking at the world from a different, sometimes a new, frame of mind. It also has the potential to reaffirm what you already know. Opinions will...

They: Overcome fear Are organized Organize productive conversations Get the actions started Architect what is to be made Don't hesitate to make a change Act when things don't work Offer feedback; also seek it Make working fun, measurable, and sincere Contribute everything they have Build expertise, automate routine, and share everything they learn Are hands-on in aspects of work they are good at Build practices for repeated outcomes Care for people Help those around them Create focus so others have direction Generate productive interactions going Find the courage to share the progress (or lack of it) Starters are those who get people involved and get them to believe in the cause. They build stories that can be trusted. They are on the streets finding the first users and listening to what the users have to say. Starters are in arts, crafts, finance, legal, marketing, and technology in every aspect of work that is out there. The characteristics are the ones that make them one.

Have you ever cared to look at the journey that brought you here? Grappling with this question has consequences. You go through reels of memory and relate to what all you accomplished and how. It makes you peel all the critical moments of your work and life. You might be surprised; those moments bring out the memories of what carried us through those moments. And, it brings out who took us through those phases. Many things we embark on or accomplish are because of unconditional support and trust from passers-by who extended their hands. We never imagined they would be part of our journey. They did not have any reason to! Their trajectories were momentous. But they did! You did not know what these passers-by nudged in you. You never knew they did it. But now you realize they did! Why? They know their holding hands help make a move; inside of you. That's probably all they are out to do. We would not have noticed if we had not cared to look at our journey. That is indeed gracious. Und...

This  dialogue between Denzel Washington and his younger son from Fences is rather intriguing. It provides vital lessons about what it takes to build life credibly and how and where to place priorities when the resources are finite. Denzel's delivery of the message is direct and tells the harsh realities that take over in life, and still, we must have a clear line of sight of what is important over what is urgent. Interestingly, the scene also provides glimpses of how we take relationships for granted and the sense of entitlement that emerges from them. It explains the responsibility of the head of household and what all they have to do to provide for those they are responsible for. Dezel's no-nonsense communication to his son is an excellent lesson that continuous bending over backward goes on despite compassionate leadership and supposedly good personnel-friendly practices in life and at work. We must draw boundaries between what is permissible and what is expected from tho...

So much of our time goes into protecting what we have. Whether we use it or not does not matter. What matters is that we need to have it should we need it in the future.  We accumulate articles, things, memories, and contacts for years in the hope that we will have a way to use them or that something from it will be needed in the future. But that day never arrives. Nothing that is preserved is ever accessed. No contact that we thought would access you ever get in touch! Except for those that matter. Those that you care about. The exciting thing to try then is to Remove everything you have. Dispose of articles and things that don't matter. Erase memories. We don't need to keep reminiscing. Once you have done that, let your plate rebuild. Accommodate the new things you need now. Let contacts that get in touch on their own get access to you. We realize that not much has changed. Nothing we removed is missed. Not even a bit. In fact, the rebuilding process is energizing. We accumul...

The daily grind is brutal. Excruciatingly painful. It makes you hide in a corner. Does not let you get up from the bed. There is no motivation to do anything that can get you out of the situation. You are dragging yourself every day.  What is the purpose of doing something if you don't enjoy it? You ask. It's a fair question. A vital one that begins the reversal of your fortune.  Answering the question deserves counter-questions. How did you arrive at this place of unlikeable? What sequence of your action led you here? You place the onus of the situation on circumstances and others. You like to think they have an equal stake in what you do. They don't. Theirs was an opinion, not an insistence that you do something. You adopted their version of capable you. They sure spotted your potential. But they did not know your drive and habits to convert the dream into results. Your drive and habits did not coincide. Notice how elusive you are about giving the truth to yourself.   Y...

Results are an outcome of walking the path of discipline. There is wilderness when you practice with discipline. No one knows whether the results will show up. What one does know, however, is that if the efforts are honest and the direction is correct, that can undoubtedly lead to desirable results. There is certainly potential for that. A disciplined path requires you to define "What." Once described, you accept that it will not be abandoned in the face of uncertainty. Uncertainty shakes confidence. It makes you hollow and lonely. The chances of you leaving the path are high. This is when you need the discipline to have a sense of "Who" to consult. Knowing your "Who" list is a great asset in times of uncertainty. It's your sounding board for how long and far to keep the course. You could use this neutral voice that can take emotion out of your decisions. It can tell you if it's time to let you and call off your pursuit. You need those "What...

There are many reasons to call it quits. It is easier to quit than to persist. There are comforts in what you do, the safety net you have in present relationships, and the cushion of financial support; many such reasons stop you from taking risks. Taking up something new is by means risky. Always. There are discomforts of uncertainty, fear of failure, disappointing someone, and losing crucial relationships. There are bleak signs of where you are headed. And that's true about anytime you engage in new terrain. Marching ahead requires a balancing act. You need to deal with comforts and discomforts boldly. And that involves composure to consider why you are taking up something that looks uncertain. Engaging with new is a responsible act. It is an act of making a change possible through your work. It is an act of making something better for someone. It's stretching yourself in the direction and being the conduit for the change. Doing so even when you see that you might fail. And pe...