Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Have you accepted yourself as a work of PERFECTION?

[Accepting yourself as a work of perfection is possibly the best gift you can give to yourself at the start of a new innings at your employer. This is piece is intended to make you reflect on some questions that will stay with you through your career. It isn't intended to be advice. If it left you with more questions in your mind at the end of the piece,my writing would have served its purpose. For historical posts as well as a collection of some communication with my team you can visit the blogs: http://stephenremedios.tumblr.com/ AND http://letterstomyteam.tumblr.com/ ]

Inspiration is all around us… even in the people who come to you asking to be inspired. That’s my tale for today. I had an email with the subject – “Just another trainee” asking if I had time to chat. Being the way I am, it came as to no surprise to me that I made a quick estimate of how long it would take to finish an email that I was writing and send out a reply saying we could meet in 10 minutes. I had not the vaguest idea about what Walter (fictional name) wanted to talk about! But I was excited. My day hadn’t been a great one. But I was making a conscious effort to choose my experience, and I chose to be happy.

One of the things I learned early in my career was that as a leader, you can’t justify non-delivery of commitments you make to your team on the basis that commitments made to you had not been honored. A ‘leader’ once stone faced told me – “I’m not even sure about what’s happening to my career, leave alone yours!”. So taking a leaf out of Dee Hock, a leader I really admire I implemented one of his ideas - PhD in Leadership, Short Course: Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don't do them to others, ever. Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always. So in my little book, I wrote that day – When you are having a bad day, go out of your way to make sure that people around you experience you as having one of your best days. Make the careers of your people more important than your own. ALWAYS. So in a very special way, Dee Hock inspired what was to follow.

Walter wasn’t sure what he wanted to talk about, so we built rapport for a while, got to know each other better and then I asked the question – “So what can I do for you?” That’s a reasonably powerful question for me because it doesn’t narrow the scope of a coaching conversation. It allows the person being coached to define the agenda. Anyways, what struck me was that Walter had a very rich articulation of what the problem was – nothing he did was good enough, he wasn’t comfortable with the stony exterior that he had developed over some time. I don’t intend to dwell on the discussion we had after the status quo was ascertained, but examine the question we often ask ourselves – “Am I good enough?”. Consider this powerful piece of writing:

*Perfection is a state in which

things are the way they are,

and not the way they are not.

If you're not all right the way you are

it takes a lot of effort to get better.

As you can see, this universe is perfect.

Realize you're all right the way you are,

and you'll get better naturally.

Don't lie about it.

You're god in your universe.

You caused it.

You pretended not to cause it.

so that you could play in it,

and you can remember you caused it

any time you want to.

Choosing to acknowledge yourself as a work of perfection is perhaps one of the most powerful steps you can take to realizing your ample potential. The answer to the question –“Am I good enough” must ALWAYS be a resounding – “YES, YES, YES”.

The second question Walter raised was – “How do I know if I fit in this company?”. This is both a simple and deep question at the same time. I proposed a simple set of counter questions:

- “Have you added value to yourself as a person in the last 12 months?”

- “In the last 12 months have you had to make an compromises in your value system?”

- “If you weren’t working here, where would you rather be working and why?”

- “Is your grounded view of yourself consistent with the view the organization has of you?”

- “Have you experienced any loss of authenticity / integrity in order to be ‘successful’?”

- “Are you modifying your behavior in order to FIT IN?”

- “Are you happy waking up and spending most of your day at the organization?”

There is no finite answer to the question – “When is the right time to quit?”. But I can offer two anecdotes that left a deep impression on me. The first is the sterling example of Adam Gilchrist, who quit when he was still very much on top of the game and a certainty on the team. He however after dropping a catch that he reckoned he should have taken, observed that he had begun to collect the ball deeper in the gloves that he used to earlier in his career. He famously said – “It is better to quit and have people say – WHY?, rather than WHY NOT?”. The second in the example of Brin & Page who graciously wielded leadership of their company when they believed it needed a new direction. There are similar examples in the Indian IT industry too where leaders have been very willing to step aside and make way for the next generation. Leaders in this space aren’t motivated by cues they get from the external world, or third party validation. They are run by their internal compass. And they know, they are perfect.

I was over to the XIMB campus recently where I was asked the question – “How have you managed to build a 10 year career in the same company?”. Before I tell you what my answer was I want to make a small distinction. The distinction between ‘loyalty’ & ‘trust’. Loyalty is derived from old French meaning ‘faithful in carrying out legal obligations’. Trust arises from Old Norse, which meant ‘help, confidence’. Loyalty is company centric, Trust is leader centric. One can remain loyal to an organization while working for many different bosses, but trust is determined by your line manager. Trust then is the space that your line manager gives you to ask for help, and the confidence that he inspires in you as you work with him. Now that the distinction is out of the way, onwards to my response – “My 10 year experience of the company has made me a loyal manager, but the day I no longer trust my line manager, my loyalty will be put to the test!. Thus far this hasn’t happened, and I whistle to work most of the time”. Back then to an examination of your PERFECTION

If you could really accept

that you weren't perfect

you could stop proving you were perfect

If you could stop proving

that you were perfect

you could get that is was perfect not to be perfect.

If you could get that it was perfect not to be perfect

you could get that you were perfect the way you are.

You're PERFECT, get it?*

* Both passages used are extracted from a Book penned by Werner Erhard called - If God Had Meant Man to Fly, He Would Have Given Him Wings.

3 comments:

  1. Its extremely inspiring.I particularly loved these lines
    "When you are having a bad day, go out of your way to make sure that people around you experience you as having one of your best days. Make the careers of your people more important than your own. ALWAYS."
    How I wish that all managers and leader think on these lines.Then workplace would be a heaven for all :)
    Realizing one's own potential to the fullest is the best way to being perfect !!!

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  2. loved the post .. :) tooo good...
    looking forward for more such inspiring thoughts...

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  3. It is an excellent post... specially for the passing out batch who are at the beginning of their career now.
    This has definitely left me with questions in my mind and searching for the answers will certainly help me define my career better.

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