Humiliate or not to humiliate

According to the account, Queen Victoria was once at a diplomatic reception in London . The guest of honor was an African chieftain. All went well during the meal until, at the end, finger bowls were served. The guest of honor had never seen a British finger bowl, and no one had thought to brief him beforehand about its purpose. So he took the bowl in his two hands, lifted it to his mouth, and drank its contents down!
For an instant there was breathless silence among the British privilege guests, and then they began to whisper to one another. All that stopped; however, when Queen Victoria silently took her finger bowl in her two hands, lifted it, and drank its contents! A moment later, 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen simultaneously drank the contents of their own finger bowls.
It was the queen’s uncommon courtesy that guarded her guest from certain embarrassment.
This is a very rare but very effective human trait which only true leaders can demonstrate!

Moral of the story
While the most common human trait is to look for chances to humiliate someone else or be neutral when they make a mistake, it takes presence of mind, uncommon courtesy to follow someone else’s mistake in order to guard them from embarrassment!

The Bird & The White Rose

Once upon a time a bird fell in love with a white rose. One day she, the bird, proposed to him, the white rose, but the white rose refused. White rose said "I don't love you". The bird came daily and proposed to the white rose. Finally, the white rose said "When I will turn red, I will love you". One day the bird came and cut her wings and spread her blood on the white rose and the rose turned red. Then the rose realized how much the bird loved him but it was too late because the bird was dead. So respect the love and feelings of the person who loves you.

Good ideas are not the monopoly of the educated

A lady bought some bathing soaps from a shop. When she opened one of the packets, she found that it was empty. There was no soap in there; it was just an empty wrapper! She lodged a complaint against the manufacturer and got her claim. That being settled, there was a task before the management of the soap factory. How had this happened? How could they ensure that the incident did not occur again? They had suffered enough bad publicity besides having to pay the compensation to the lady.



After a detailed investigation, it was discovered, that during the process
of wrapping, it so happened that inevitably, one or two wrappers did get
through, having no bar of soap in them! There was no way to make out the difference between a full wrapper and an empty one. The process of handling each one separately for this purpose seemed to be very cumbersome. So, the technical head was given the job of devising a method to overcome the problem. The man prepared a detailed report and proposed the setting up of a computer based system that would weigh and scan each bar, for the empty packs would not get detected by a normal x-ray machine. He proposed an expenditure of a large amount to put this system into place.


The management heard him out and passed the order to release the funds and to buy the machinery that he had proposed. An uneducated worker said, “Excuse me Sir, for my impertinence, but I have a solution that shall cost a fraction of what you are planning to go in for.”


The management hesitated initially. But eventually they heard him out and
agreed to try out his proposal. The next day, the worker brought a strong
industrial fan. He put it at an angle near the conveyor belt on which the
packed soap bars were coming through and switched it on. The few empty
wrappers that came through got blown off by the fan! The rest of them went past easily.
A simple solution, for a complex problem! This goes to prove that ideas are not the monopoly of the educated.

No one can hurt you without your consent-An Example

On the first day, as President Abraham Lincoln entered to give his inaugural address, just in the middle, one man stood up. He was a rich aristocrat. He said, “Mr. Lincoln, you should not forget that your father used to make shoes for my family.” And the whole Senate laughed; they thought they had made a fool of Abraham Lincoln.

But Lincoln --- and that type of people are made of a totally different mettle. Lincoln looked at the man and said, “Sir I know that my father used to make shoes in your house for your family, and there will be many others here…. Because the way he made shoes; nobody else can. He was a creator. His shoes were not just shoes; he poured his whole soul in it. I want to ask you, have you any complaint? Because I know how to make shoes myself. If you have any complaint I can make another pair of shoes. But as far as I know, nobody has ever complained about my father’s shoes. He was a genius, a great creator and I am proud of my father”.

The whole Senate was struck dumb. They could not understand what kind of man Abraham Lincoln was. He was proud because his father did the job so well that not even a single complaint had ever been heard.

Remember:
“No one can hurt you without your consent.”

What is the source of happiness?

This story is about a beautiful, expensively dressed lady who complained to her psychiatrist that she felt that her whole life was empty, it had no meaning. So, the lady went to visit a counselor to seek out happiness. The counselor called over the old lady who cleaned the office floors. The counselor then said to the rich lady"I'm going to ask Mary here to tell you how she found happiness. All I want you to do is listen to her."

So the old lady put down her broom and sat on a chair and told her story: "Well, my husband died of malaria and three months later my only son was killed by a car. I had nobody... I had nothing left. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I never smiled at anyone, I even thought of taking my own life. Then one evening a little kitten followed me home from work. Somehow I felt sorry for that kitten. It was cold outside, so I decided to let the kitten in. I got it some milk, and the kitten licked the plate clean. Then it purred and rubbed against my leg and for the first time in months, I smiled.

Then I stopped to think, if helping a little kitten could make me smile, maybe doing something for people could make me happy. So the next day I baked some biscuits and took them to a neighbor who was sick in bed. Every day I tried to do something nice for someone. It made me so happy to see them happy.

Today, I don't know of anybody who sleeps and eats better than I do. I've found happiness, by giving it to others."

When she heard that the rich lady cried. She had everything that money could buy, but she had lost the things which money cannot buy.

Funeral Of Growth Stopper!

One day all the employees reached the office and they saw a big notice on the door on which was written:

“Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym.”

In the beginning, they all got sad for the death of one of their colleagues, but after a while they started getting curious to know who that man was, who hindered the growth of his colleagues and the company itself. The excitement in the gym was such that security agents were ordered to control the crowd within the room.

The more the people reached the coffin, the more the excitement heated up. Everyone thought: “Who is this guy who was hindering my progress? Well, at least he died!.” One by one the thrilled employees got closer to the coffin, and when they looked inside it they suddenly became speechless. They stood near the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part of their soul. There was a mirror inside the coffin; everyone who looked inside it could see himself.

There was also a sign next to the mirror that said:

“There is only one person who is capable to set limits to your growth: it is YOU. You are the only person who can revolutionize your life. You are the only person who can influence your happiness, your realization and your success. You are the only person who can help yourself. Your life does not change when your boss changes, when your friends changes, when your parents changes, when your partner changes, when your company changes. Your life changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one responsible for your life. “The most important relationship you can have is the one you have with yourself.”

Recipe for success - Eat the frog

I came across a beautiful article about success. I would like to share it with all of you.

If you are wondering that a person who eats frog must be insane, then the answer is big NO. The long term benefits of eating frogs are substantial – glowing cheeks, shining hairs, muscular body, and a healthy heart. Even now if you are resisting eating frogs then let me tell you how to do it. Let’s start – hold the frog tight and put it in your mouth. Don’t think; just put it in your mouth. Ummm. How does it taste? Yummy, Yummy! What!! You don’t like eating it? Stop lying! Oh okay okay, it stinks, it got stuck in your throat. No, No please don’t vomit, hold your nerves. Yes, that’s it! See it’s over! It is not as hard as you thought. You have swallowed the frog and you are still alive (though the poor frog is not). Now you have gained all vitamins and proteins necessary for a healthy body in short time which pizzas, chips and drinks would have not provided during lifetime.

Daily, we come across activities which we don’t really enjoy. Jumping out of bed at the first alarm bell, making the first sales call, learning from criticism, following up with prospective clients, regular gym routine, planning the day in advance – all these are examples of eating the frog. One doesn’t really enjoy the process but once performed, the results are extra-ordinary. Eating the frog refers to performing the task which is crucial for our growth but performing the task might not be fun. We tend to procrastinate, avoid such task and then later regret our decisions.

The irony is the more displeasing the task appears, the higher is the rate of return attached to it. 80/20 rule applies here also. Generally 20% of your action will result into 80% of achievement. Prepare a to-do list for your day. Now observe and you will find that if you roughly complete 2 tasks out of 10, you will have a successful day. Yes! You have guessed correctly, those 2 tasks are the frogs, the ones which you want to postpone. But the case with the frog is that it is easier to eat it fresh, than to swallow it rotten. The more you procrastinate, the harder it becomes. If you give yourself time to think, the mind will come up with thousands of reasons why it is okay not to eat the frog and avoid brief pain. Do you recollect, last time you decided to sleep just for 5 more minutes and got up an hour later, last time you said to self that you will start exercising from tomorrow and you are still waiting for that tomorrow, last time you delayed reading that business book and now it has become a part of dusty shelf. The formula is simple – stop thinking and just do it!

The difference between highly productive people and others is that the former are good at eating frogs. Entrepreneurs take risk, athletes undergo rigorous practice, leaders take tough decisions – these are activities which ordinary people avoid. You know what is important, don’t procrastinate, just do it. The more frogs you eat the healthier you will be, the more difficult tasks you perform the wealthier you will be.

A Good Quality Of A True Leader

(Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum, Philadelphia, March 22, 2000

Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?


Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience.

In 1973 I became the project director of India's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3...

Our goal was to put India's "Rohini" satellite into orbit by 1980.

I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space.

Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.

By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready.

As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order.

My experts -- I had four or five of them with me -- told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket.

In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure.


That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference.

The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present -- was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in AP]

Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself.

He took responsibility for the failure…
He said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support.

He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed.

Now, I was the project director, and it was myfailure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.


The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite -- and this time we succeeded.

The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference.

Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, "You conduct the press conference today."
I learned a very important lesson that day.

When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.

Do you possess Alexanders leadership qualities?

Alexander the Great, the Greek king, once led his troops across a hot, arid desert. After nearly two weeks of marching, he and his soldiers were near death from thirst, yet Alexander pushed ahead.

In the noonday sun, two of his scouts brought what little water they were able to find. It barely filled a cup. Alexander's troops were shocked with he poured the water into the burning sand.

The king said, "It is of no use for one to drink when many thirst."

Treating those who report to you as partners or associates will not work if it's only a scheme of a strategy. It must be a genuine heart-felt expression.