Tuesday, December 15, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 15



'You can't stop the future
You can't rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
...is to press play.' 
Jay Asher

Do you remember the 'Sony Walkman' which was very popular in 1970s and 80s? People thought it was the ultimate in the mobile music system! The next 'in thing' in mobile music system was the iPod of Apple. The 5 GB iPod was launched in 2001 which could store around 1000 songs. The founder of Apple Steve Jobs called this as a 'breakthrough digital device. It was also called the 'entire music library of most people'!


But what happened to the Walkman and iPod? Who killed them? It is said that at one point of time nearly one third of  Apple's revenue came from the iPod and about 350 million iPods were sold since its launch.


iPod killed the Walkman. But then who killed the iPod? Obviously the smart phones which has as much storage as an iPod. A smart phone with a micro SD card makes it easy for a music lover to take music wherever he goes.

But the point I want to say is this: when the products become obsolete, so does the technology and hence also the technology-holder. There was a time when a product was build around a technology. But now technology builds the product.

Do you know which build the technology? Of course, its the human mind!

NC Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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Tuesday, August 4, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 14


'The best way to predict the future is to create it.'
Abraham Lincoln
Career building and personality development are closely associated with each other. An educational degree gives us a job. But a job is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. The end is career growth. Job is merely an entry platform. It is up to the job holder to decide what should be the scope and size of the role he wants to play in that platform.


The basic qualification and skill set which got us the job will become obsolete and with that we will also become redundant. You are aware that there is an expiry date and MRP for every medicine. After the expiry date the MRP is meaningless even though people would have purchased the medicine at a premium price.

This is also true of our skill and qualification. Our Degrees and Diploma have a expiry date! When the product which was made with our Degree and Diploma disappears from the market, our education also becomes irrelevant and we become surplus!

It is like replacing a tree or a plant which has outlived our purpose! A good gardener should update his garden. You are the gardener and the garden!

Are you re-landscaping yourself? Is your education and skill relevant today?

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Tuesday, July 28, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 13


'Everybody needs feedback, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than paying a trainer'.
Doug Lowenstein
Information is strength. You need have a lot of information about yourself. The quality and accuracy of this information will decide the quality of your relationship with others.

Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham created a technique called Johari Window to help people to know about themselves, from their own perspective and from the perspective of others. I will try to explain this in simple terms.


There are four aspects of who we are.

There are certain things that we know about ourselves which are also known to others. For example, my height and colour.

There are certain hidden things about myself which I know, but others do not know. For example I may have a weakness for sweets, which I do not reveal to others.

The third blind are consists of things which others know about me, but I do not know. For example, others know that I am short tempered but I am not aware of this  and others have not given me this feedback for some reason.

The fourth area consists of things about myself which neither me nor others know of.

Success in our career depends upon how well we know about ourselves so that we can perform at the peak of our effectiveness and efficiency.

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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Thursday, July 23, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 12


'We all need people who will give us feedback. That's how we improve'.

A good garden gives a pleasant feelings to us. So is a pleasant person. Successful people are pleasant. They constantly 're-engineer' and 'redesign' themselves. They are receptive to feedback and open to criticism.

Research shows that successful people are better at handling negative feedback. I read somewhere that nearly half of the newly hired people fail within 18 months of their hiring. Out of this nearly 25% of the people fail because they are not comfortable to listen and accept feedback.


We are human beings and we will make mistakes and we may not know that we make mistakes. How many of us enjoy the feedback session of the performance appraisal interview? How many of the managers are comfortable to give negative feedback to their subordinates without demotivating them? How many of will walk into our manager's room and ask him to point out areas where we have to improve? We are comfortable when someone praises us and sometimes we may also honestly know that we deserve the same!

There is an old couplet in Tamil literature which says that a king will be destroyed even without an enemy if he is not surrounded by people who will give him feedback whenever he commits mistakes.

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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Tuesday, July 21, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 11

Feedback is the breakfast of champions.
Ken Blanchard

You are in a garden and there is a visitors' book for comments and suggestions. You give your comments. The landscaping expert takes the comments and suggestions seriously and implements what is good and acceptable. The result is a good garden.


Can you ignore your car's temperature gauge? An abnormal body temperature and head ache have a lot to say about your health. An angry customer shouting is a feedback. You cannot ignore these feedback.

This is the power of feedback and constructive action.

You may not be knowing everything about yourself. You should be open to feedback from others. Your career progress depends on how much feedback you receive from others and how you take the same. You need not accept all the feedback. But the most important question is: are people comfortable to offer you the feedback?

Successful people are very receptive to feedback. Successful organisation conduct customer satisfaction survey periodically. They also respond to such feedback constructively and promptly.


But you should have the intelligence and tact to process the feedback and use the same constructively for improvement.

List at least three feedback or criticisms you received during the last one week and write down your immediate response on the same.

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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Friday, July 17, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 10


'There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so'.


Successful people think differently. person is differently.

In one of my mentoring sessions, an young executive was upset that he has not been promoted and that his boss is unfair to him. He was harping on one point: 'have been working for more than ten years and work very hard ...I have not taken holidays for years together...in spite of all these I am not been promoted...'.


I told him that his reasoning is defective. I recalled one of the very old training films by Peter Drucker 'What Do I Contribute' in which he says that promotion is not a reward for working hard which you are already supposed to do. Promotion goes to a person who has expanded the scope of the job and make the job to contribute much more than when he took the job!

For example, when you join as an Assistant Manager and you start enriching your job and perform at a much higher level, the job contributes more to the objectives of the organisation and the job holder is promoted to the level of a manager.

Check if you have done this. Instead of feeling that your boss is not fair to you, ask yourself if you have been fair to the organisation!

NC Sridharan

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Thursday, July 16, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 9


'The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business - or almost anywhere else for that matter'
Lee Iaccoca

In a well designed garden, every tree and a plant will be in their most appropriate place. There will be regular weeding out and watering. The gardener will take care of the manure and water requirement. The landscaping expert will take care that the available space of the garden is fully utilised.



So will be a person focused on his career and future. He knows how to use his available time for productive use. He will focus on how effectively use his time. He knows the link between the 'available time' and 'productive time'.   

We all have 24 hours. If we divide this into 8 - 8 - 8 modules, we have three slots. We should have clear plan for these slots like a well laid out garden. We should spend 8 hours for working and eight hours for resting and sleeping leaving a balance of 8 hours.

Most importantly, the 'precious 8 hours' from 5 am to 9 am and 5 pm and 9 pm are very critical. The quality of how these 'precious 8 hours' are used will decide the quality of our career and thus our life. These 8 hours should be intelligently invested for reflecting, developing and planning.

NC Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Wednesday, July 15, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building -8


'What do you hang on the walls of your mind?'
We are always focused. We are always thinking. We are always doing something or other. It is very difficult to keep our mind completely blank. We cannot be in a condition called 'not working'.
Our attention goes to where our mind goes. The more we are mentally committed to something, the more will be the quality of our focus and so will the quality of our actions. Those who have succeeded in their career understood this simple principle and achieved great things.

We need to ask ourselves the following questions:
  • Who am I in terms of my talents, skill and knowledge? Am I fit today?
  • Where am I working? Which industry? Which functional area?
  • What is my role in my organisation? What is my contribution to my industry?
  • Who are my customers and competitors?
  • In ten years' time how my industry will change? Will my talent, knowledge and skill be relevant in ten years'?
  • In ten years' time what my industry and organisation will be producing?
  • What am doing now to get ready to face the challenges of change in the future?
With the above questions in mind check if you are doing what you should be doing.
NC Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Friday, July 10, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 7


'Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success'.
Career advancement is very easy if you are honest in what you want, chalk out a strategy to reach the same and work on that.  It is a combination of the Right Brain and the Left Brain function. You may be knowing that the Right Side of the brain is responsible for dreaming - while sleeping and while awake! - and the Left Side of the brain is responsible for detailed actions and execution.  


Your ability to visualise what you want while being awake is very critical for realising your dream career. This is the principle of meditation. Meditation is concentrating all your thoughts on one point. You are aware of the Physics experiment we have done in our school days of focusing the sun rays through a convex lens on a piece of cotton. Remember how excited we were seeing the cotton burn!

In real life, the cotton represents our goals and ambitions in life, the lens represents our strategy and detailed action plan and the sun's rays represents our thoughts. When we focus all our thoughts on our goals and ambition and follow a well laid out plan, we will realise our dream career!

This is what great achievers have done.

NC Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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Wednesday, July 8, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 6



'If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that's concentration'.

What will happen if you take your eyes off the road or take your hands off from the steering wheel while driving. This is what will happen if you take your mind off from your goal and do not control the wandering mind!


Do this exercise.

Set a timer for one minute and close your eyes and notice every thought that enters your mind. As and when a thought enters the mind open a finger. When the timer goes, open your eyes and count how many fingers are open. This number indicates how many thoughts entered your mind and it is an index of how disturbed is your mind.  

Next, set the timer again for sixty minutes. Pick up something to concentrate for one minute. Close your eyes and concentrate on that thing only. Every time your mind wanders, internally say 'cancel, cancel' and bring your mind back to the thing and open one of your fingers. When the timer goes, open your eyes and notice how many fingers are open. This number represents how many times your mind wandered and you controlled the same.

If you do this exercise for a few days consistently, you will notice your span of attention and focus going up gradually. 

N C Sridharan
www.timefoundation.com

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Tuesday, July 7, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 5



If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.

Quality of focus for an extended period of time is very important for career growth. Interruptions are inevitable and we should notice interruptions and bring back the mind to the activity on hand.

It is easily said than done. However, we can train the mind to focus on a point. In order to understand why our mind wanders, we have to understand certain basic facts about the nature of the mind:
  • We have to exert and take effort to keep the mind in one place.
  • We have to train our mind to think of one object, and when it wanders away from it, to bring it back to it once again
  • When this is done on a regular basis, will make the mind focused on one point.
There are three types of mind: the disturbed, the distracted and the focused. In a disturbed mind thoughts come and go without any control.  A distracted mind wanders every now and then from a point of focus. A focused mind is one which is pointed on one thing for an extended period of time.

We should know how to navigate from a disturbed mind to a focused mind. We will know more about it in the next piece.

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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Monday, July 6, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 4


'That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains'.


Climbing up any career is as easy as driving a car on a road. But you should know your car and the road! The car is yourself and the road is the career platform you are in.


As in any travel, keeping your focus on the destination is very important. The destination in the career journey is your goal - short term, medium term and long term. Like in any journey, there will be turns and bends, there will be traffic, there will be others to overtake you, there will be good and bad traffic. But you should drive and reach the destination which is your goal. As you are driving, there could be traffic congestions and you may have to wait and you have to wait patiently.

As in a traffic, there could be a diversion and you may have to come back to your planned route.

Mind, by nature, will wander. We need to take efforts to arrest the wandering mind. A determined mind knows how to sustain the focus and manage interruptions. Our ability to conquer our mind is the most essential quality of a successful person.

But how train our mind to focus?
NC Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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Sunday, July 5, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 3



Work hard for what you want because it won't come to you without a fight. You have to be strong and courageous and know that you can do anything you put your mind to. If somebody puts you down or criticizes you, just keep on believing in yourself and turn it into something positive.

In order to work hard you should have a strong mind and a strong brain.

Do you know that we have two factories? Our brain is a chemical factory and our mind is a thought factory!


Research says that approximately 100,000 chemical reactions take place in the brain every second! The hormones and chemicals produced by the brain decide what we do and how we react to various situations in our life. The quality of these chemicals and hormones decide our physical energy. For example serotonin and norepinephine are responsible for depression. If the serotonin level causes anxiety, irritability and sleep disorders which are associated with depression.

Research also say that on an average 97,000 thoughts cross our mind every day. The quality of our thoughts will decide our mental health. If our mind is occupied by healthy and inspiring thoughts, we feel energetic. Uninspiring thoughts will make us feel dull. For example if we yearn  to complete a specific task, we will love doing the activities associated with the same and we will not feel tired. For example, climbing the Himalayas. It all depends on how the task is presented to our mind.

In the ultimate analysis we are how we are depending on what these two factories produce!

NC Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com


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Thursday, July 2, 2015

'Mindscaping' for career building 2



'Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success'.
In order to achieve great thing in our life, should know the difference between the 'mind' and the 'brain'. It may appear to be simple, but many of us are confused about the two. The parts of the body are different and they perform their own unique functions. They are not the parts of the mind.  

For example, we say 'take me into your heart'. We should know that the human heart is just like any other part of the body such as the eyes, ears, lungs, lever etc. You cannot 'take' any person into your 'heart'! You know what will happen if a micro particle enters the heart. Just imagine what will happen if a person 'enters the heart'! Perhaps what we mean is 'take me into your 'mind'!

We have to understand the role of the mind and the body before we start appreciating what is mindscaping. We go to gym or do other physical exercises to keep our body trim. By burning extra flesh and building muscles, we look healthy and bodily attractive. We can call it as bodyscaping!
Just like we keep our body fit and trim, we should also keep our mind healthy and energetic and that is mindscaping!
Have you ever thought about this subtle difference?

NC Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com

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