“Kapoor, I’ve got wonderful news to share with you. Puri had been fired early this morning. He had been called to the managing director’s chambers at 9.00 in the morning and handed over the pink slip. I have just been given this good news from my boss about Puri, whose second in command spoke to my boss instantly after Puri had come out of the top office”, shouted Chawla on the phone lines . He sounded very jubilant on the telephone lines. .
Puri was our super sales manager who had been hired a year ago to steer the company safely out of the de-growth vortex that had set in into the system due to poor handling of the team by the earlier manager( who currently has been acting as number two to Puri) ). He’d possibly played this match to put down the new incumbent and regain his lost glory. That he had tried this was the most well known fact all over the company but no one expected it to happen so soon. It was also known to the managing director that the entire team of the company was tied for most of the time in war games of one up- man ship. Even though the company had missed the last two quarters’ targets, he somehow believed that either of the fighting group will have the talent to pull the company up and show some improvement.
The team also believed that they had a far better capability and the talent pool than any other organization in the trade yet…..somewhere they had failed to click.
Such a situation is common to most of the organizations with people getting scared of losing their jobs and losing their sense of balance and team spirit.
How bad can that further become? I wonder. Certainly not life threatening, but definitely many careers will be put on the scaffolds given the current scenario of mistrust prevailing amongst the top positions of the not so enlightened business organizations..
In our pervious write up we had spoken about the distribution of power created by the lightening of the spark. We had spoken about the empowerment of all those that we come in contact with to become catalysts in our realization of the great dreams .We, when looking at such situations however get convinced that it is very difficult for all of us to share the illusory powers that we get to wield due to our being in particular chair or position.
The process of spreading empowerment amongst other fellow beings is not an easy task. The world plagued by the uncertainties of recessionary trends and the scare of losing jobs and earnings for the day, is facing tremendous competition between the peers, the boss and the subordinate, the organization and its executives handling it. We have in all manners left behind the spirit of hand holding. The race is on to outdo each other in pleasing every boss that happens to be one or two levels above and then pull down the same B—– through the back biting, letting down in tasks allotted and with the hope to, catch the next promotion ladder. Office politics has become a dirty arena of ensuring that it is the neighbor perched on the adjoining table, or sitting in the next cabin that must go first. We also tend to believe that his going most probably could save our physical self even though my soul may go to hell.
The process of empowering others involves sensitivity. It involves being more social, more acceptable and more yielding in our approach to each other .However in the race to ensure self gratification, who thinks of a neighbor, a subordinate or a team member.
Individuals have been trained to look for support and dependence right from childhood when they are taught to walk by clutching on to the finger offered as an aid .As grown ups too we obviously welcome such extended fingers and it is seldom that we will bite the finger that helps us stand up on our two feet. It is this gratitude that earns us the social acceptability and in turn extends the spark of empowerment to the dependent.
A selfless share of power with the attitude of making others share their grievances and grief, and fears and apprehensions can earn many a smiles back to us for our own happiness. We can imagine the positivity that spreads around when there is a smile observed on every face sitting in the room, we occupy to dispense our daily tasks.
Physically every man after a certain age can take care of his own needs, but it is cerebrally that he needs external interaction and stimulant to grow. Let us make it our task to give everyone who we come across the same stimulant. This process has our own selfish interest involved into it. Do we also not need the same stimulant from some other source? If so why not get the same back from our own people by developing good healthy human relationships, understanding levels and a sense of camaraderie.In the next write up we will focus on as to what is it that can make us not only good leaders but also good companions and human beings to help each one of us get up and get going.
Posts Tagged ‘empowerment’
GET UP AND GET GOING –11
Posted in daily writings and musings of the psychologist, tagged business organisation, empowerment, GLORY, leadership, MOTIVATIONSHIP, POWER DISPERSAL, promotion ladder, recession, SALES MANAGER, sense of camaradie, war games on October 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Get up and get going -10
Posted in daily writings and musings of the psychologist, tagged empowerment, encouragement, energy, human life, ignition, jesus christ, mahatama gandhi, milestones, numerical value, pessimistic abrasions, positive, spark on October 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »
We have had very encouraging comments on the post of the last week and I must thank each one of you for helping me take the discussions further.
But some of our friends have posed very valid questions too. Their question reads “it’s true that the spark is needed but some times the ignition just fails to work. One knows it’s needed but one doesn’t know how to ignite the inner fire and this is the situation faced by so many. Self motivation is rare to find; so many extraneous forces make it impossible”
I had asked the transporter friend the same thing, many years ago and will quote his response verbatim for every one’s benefit and didaction. Here is what he had said, “even the vehicle does not know that it has been built with so much of inherent strength. Left on its own it will never ever start; forget covering the milestones in its life time. Its power needs to be revved up with a positive catalystic interaction with the external forces. While it is true that the engine and ignition system of the vehicle are the internal parts of the vehicle you need the external powerful fuel to add power to the innate muscle”.
Human Life is run on similar doctrine. We have all been empowered with the self-righteous soul and the smart thinking power that can make the massive great seas, sky touching mountains and the vast desserts looked dwarfed in our presence. But all this will happen when this great soul of ours is empowered with a strong and steely willpower. While some may make the positive use of the willpower and achieve the glorious heights, some of us succumb to the weaker momentary negatives and give up to the unhelpful forces of our lives.
The positive impact can come into our life by any mean and at any stage of our life. It can be a solemn oath to prove to your self that you can do any thing. It could also be sometimes to show it back to the people who matter the most in our life or it could even be due to the pessimistic abrasions that you would have had in life due to heartbreaking or shocking experiences. By deciding that we have to demonstrate it in any which way, we have taken the first step of empowering our self. It could though still be a long journey to the wish fulfillment.
But mere empowering of the self may not be enough to win the race to the objective. We need to give power along with to all those mechanism and people too who would become influential and supportive in our reaching the future goals in our life. This is like what my transporter friend had advised, “The spark so generated by the turning of the ignition key creates potential power in the fuel that activates the engine and all its pistons start functioning. The automotive force generated in the engine passes on the activity to the main bearing attached to the shaft driving the wheels and the vehicle picks up speed depending on whether it is a front wheel drive or a rear wheel drive “.
In the similar fashion we need to pass on the energy of empowerment to all our week and strong links in our life to make sure all these contribute to the greater cause of our life which is that of attaining our magnificent heights. Mahatma Gandhi would not have been a mahatma had the people he met in life, not been empowered by him with the thoughts and preaching of Satya- Agraha and non violence. Lord Jesus Christ became a leader of men and women because he had empowered all of his followers and faithful by spreading the empowerment of love and the power of forgiving amongst mankind.
We need to understand a simple mathematical equation that, all zeroes written behind the figure of numerical one do not have any numerical values whereas if we start writing these zeroes after we have written the power of one they all become powerful as the figure of one has now passed on all its powers to the zeroes appearing in front of it”. (Mathematicians pl. excuses me for this layman’s definition). The task is to make all the zeroes of our life make contributors to our getting up and get going .
Alka Mansik Pramarsh Foundation Clinical Psychologists-Family therapists Indore 0731-4263087,9179383554 