Healthy Fear

In a world that is becoming arrogant and fearlessness is treated as a virtue, I am here trying write the virtue of healthy fear.

Fear of Law:  Every citizen should have fear of Law of the state. This conscious fear is what keeps the crime rate down and helps the society with providing a conducive environment for peaceful living. The moment this fear goes down among people, the order gets perturbed and it becomes difficult to lead a happy life.

Fear of Failing the Parent: This is what keeps many kids to work hard and progress in life. This fear is helpful in multiple front including the studies and conduct. I kind of had this fear on most part of my student life and I can say looking back today that this fear was the major motivating factor for me to get into premier institute like BITS pilani. 

Fear of Spoiling Self/Family Repute: This fear is closely related to above but more importantly this drives the conduct. This fear keeps a person going in ethical path and alerts him/her at every instance of temptation to deviate from it. A person who doesn't have this sort of fear is a potential candidate for doing down the inappropriate path.

Fear of society: Lack of the fear of society has its own repercussive impact on the orderliness. We can clearly observe this in today's context where crime in broad day light has increased. While doing a bad deed, it is this fear that controls an urge to boldly commit this.  Eve teasing, acid attacks, public parks turning to romance addas etc are few examples of impact of absence of fear of society.

Fear of Boss: This is what drives many staff to proper goals at organizational level. This could be in many ways respect and fear that makes a staff to put more productive output. Fear of failing my boss in the confidence he vested in me, is the only motivating factor to keep me working in office day in day out.

Fear of Exam: Needless to say this is what keeps a student alert and the Brahmastra to make him study. This is the crucial aspect of current educational system. Personally I feel that the zeal to learn is what should motivate a student to study, but that's become a rarity in McCauley's educational system.

Fear of God: This fear is what keep conscience repeatedly tell us not to commit sins. Absence of this fear is what is going create devils out of humans. Its really difficult to handle these sort of people to ethical route.

Fear of Failure:  Even though considered by many as a bad trait, this fear of failure in a limited/controlled manner is what helps a person to focus on the task and keep him/her to put necessary checks and balances to complete it.
 

Management Traits

I cannot call myself an expert at Management training but having performed that role for few years now, I wanted to document few observations that form integral part of job role

1. Risk Planning:
Preparedness for uncertainties and managing them effectively with out impact to bottomline forms primary expectation from any manager. As part of risk plan, a manager is expected to think of all possible things that could go wrong and identify solutions to avoid or mitigate the impact. In few circumstances the solution can also be acceptance of the risk and adequate communication to stake holders about the risk.

2. Conservatism:
Conservatism forms another important aspect whether it comes to accommodating buffer time/budget or ensuring adequate backups are present for each resource.

3. Relationships:
Working relationships are a must for any person not just for a manager. But managers need also have to have a technique for building and using these relationships to his advantage to meet the bottomline.
Cordial relations with the subordinates, bosses and peer group is going to be advantageous. But need to be wary of the fact that too much of lenience given to subordinates can come in the way of work. Too much of lenience taken from boss can be subject to boss's anger. Also informal/social relationships outside the project/work hierarchy can also be useful in the long run.

4. Result Orientation:
At every stage in the project situation, manager should ensure not to lose sight of the goal/result. It is the responsibility of the manager to work any hurdles in the way to ensure the desired results are achieved.

5. Conflict Resolution:
Conflicts are quite possible in day-to-day workings and some occasions these conflicts can hinder the progress. Manager should ensure the conflicts are resolved amicably in the first place to ensure results are not compromised. In the event of difficulty in amicable settlement, manager is expected to use the authority vested with his role in solving them.

6. Emotional Intelligence:
No denying, managers are also after all humans and are subject to emotional tussles at times. But it is expected that a manager, instead of getting carried away by emotions, must control them and put them to effective use in the delivery of project.

7. Adherence to set policies and procedures:
Managers must respect and adhere to the organizational policies. There might be instances where the personal opinion of a set policy might be negative but that must not lead to non adherence.

8. Ethics:
Last but not the least. manager must abide by the ethical standards and conduct himself as a  role model. This could include things like doing no favors basis personal relationships, not using authority to undermine or harass some one, no misappropriation of funds that are in his spend authority.


 

New Year Resolutions

It is customary for people to start the New Year with a bunch of resolutions. Only time will tell how many get implemented. Irony is that most resolutions hold good for every new year, either because they are work in progress stage or never implemented. So this time around I wanted to document my new year resolutions for record purpose. :-)

Satsang:
I have a handful of friends who are both intellectuals and philosophers in their own right. Every meeting we used to have was a learning experience and had meaningful discussions about life (along with few paltry worldly things) What I missed most in last year was their company due to busy schedules of each one of us. As Adi Sankara says
 Satsangatve Nissangatvam
Nissangatve Nirmohatvam
Nirmohatve Nischalatatvam
Nischalatatve  Jeevanmuktihi

So first resolution is to start meeting up with my good friends more often

Observe Ekadasi in Spirit:
I have started observing Ekadasi fasting for nearly 3 years. Initial days there were few hurdles like my own family ridiculing that I am doing things that are way ahead of my age. I could steer them clear as most hurdles were external. Over last one year new type of internal hurdles started where the observation of fast is not being done by myself in spirit. Few times due to temptation, few other times due to weakness/illness, the norm was not adhered to. Wanted to set corrective action on this parameter.

Reading and Writing:
I owe an apology to myself for not paying adequate attention to my favourite vocations readinga nd writing. The target setting for my self go forward are writing one blog each month, one story (in my tiny notebook) every two months and reading one book each quarter.

Saying No to Procrastination:
In Bill Watterson's Comic series Calvin says he has learnt two important skills for life ie., Procrastination and Rationalization of it. This has been the way most part of last year for me. This year I want to put a cautious policing on ensuring I am not postponing what ought to be done.

Updating and Upgrading Knowledge:
Even though I cannot really say I have not learnt anything last year, most learning has been on the job. The effort needed to upgrade the knowledge was not done adequately. So resolution is to put some efforts in upgrading knowledge on Banking, IT trends. Also getting up to date on current affairs through regular reading of newspapers.

Puja:
Even though a firm believer and have got aspirations of spiritual progress, the efforts in the direction have not been consistent. Want to make a more consistent and being more predictable is the goal for future.

Less Eating Out:
Had suffered health setbacks twice last year due to excessive eating out. Even though not a preferred thing for me, my role of people manager in office has made me to eat out for 1/3rd of the year. Goal is to cut this down lot more in the new year.

Financial Discipline:
By any standard I am not a person with expensive habits or can be branded as a man of financial indiscipline. But first few years of career. I was not fully aware of the power of compounding and the need for financial planning. Now that I am more literate on the area, want to take it into future. Also need to put a check on emotion linked spend habits.

Personal Discipline:
I cant really boast of myself as very well disciplined person. At the same time not very bad at it too. But this is one aspect I admire in few of my colleagues and friends and would like to mend my ways in following aspects
1) Sticking to predictable work hours and better leave planning
2) Disciplined eating habits and resisting temptation
3) Attending scheduled meetings where my presence will add value
4) No work on weekends and spending that time with family and my other vocations like reading & writing
5) No Colas and drinking more water.
6) Lead a stress free life, both from work and personal stand point
7) To extent possible avoid any instances that can cause emotional roller coaster.
8) Lead a stress free life
9) Writing a TODO list daily and sticking to it
10) Taking a vacation each year
11) Continuous assessment on where I stand on the resolutions.