Saturday 18 June 2016

Realisation: The art of knowing Self

Nature and nurture influence human beings. I heard this first time in my school when my teacher asked me to speak on it in a debate. I did not understand about these two words at all at that point in time, but could speak well whatever was told me. Got public applause, too. Destiny was not leaving me behind not to understand it. In my Genetics class in college later, I was theoretically and practically taught the importance of - nature and nurture. As said, incidents repeat themselves in one’s life, when same was asked by my professor of Psychology in one of the classes. The incident ran for me for more than 3 hours wherein I was supposed to tell me “Who am I”. I said and said and said repeatedly without know about what all realisation is, unconvincingly but un-tirelessly, who I was. Finally, I could not succeed in convincing my professor. I failed. Failed miserably.

But the lesson that was taught  to me directly by my professor and what I learnt indirectly  left me perplexedand  knowing that I don't know who am I? Incident left a mark on my mind. So,  whenever I got chance to know about 'myself',  I tried hard.  But I learnt eventually,  deftly who this myself in me is. 

Thoughts once in your mind, never leaves you. And, incidents repeat themselves as said above.

Recently, I was giving a lecture on Relationship to a heterogeneous group of professionals from a very large organisation.  Interestingly, while speaking on the subject, I found people in the room were least interested to know about the subject but became more interested to know about REALISATION, as I was referring to it time & again.

I later thought to share my views to my readers & followers through this blog.

Let’s look around, people at different stage of life are busy with one or other profession to earn their livelihood to survive, without having realisation about themselves. They however, interestingly use the words: I-ME-MINE-MYSELF repeatedly without dropping the hat. To me, they do not understand the real meaning of these words and therefore are aloof to realisation.

I could see there is a relationship between I-ME-MINE, but myself is quite different than these three words. It is the epitome of the I-ME-MINE.

‘I’ that is 'Emotional - self',  denotes the state of mind. It therefore makes one drive to look for ways and means to survive. The nature has supported it and therefore has built the ‘Old Brain’ first which is full of emotions. Fear- the basic emotion is the emotion which makes one survive. It primarily entails physical self in the mind . What a person believes about self.

‘Me’ that is 'Biological - self',  on the other had conveys about self-belief of one’s existence. All biological systems and activities inside a human body, makes one think of ‘thyself’ every other moment. Hunger, thirst and pain are prominent in making it happen. You remove these three from human body, ‘me’ will be lost, as these provide support to ‘physical self’.

‘Mine’ that is 'Relationship - self',  the last in three, exhibits worldly possession of existence.  May be relationship also comes under this category. It is most easy to understand. It tells more and more about relationship with living and non-living things.

Then comes ‘MYSELF’. Undoubtedly, the most difficult of to understand, but most commonly misused while narrating about oneself. And, this is the seat of REALISATION. 

Myself, does not display any relationship with I-ME-MINE. It is the source of these three which primarily depict existence. Nature and nurture come hear handy to know thyself- discreetly one-by-one. Nature has given you various emotions and the thinking brain. Emotions as read by thinking brain help in making one, MYSELF. Reading emotions although depends on new brain, the new brain gets its energy from old brain through five senses. How one treats all these senses to trigger emotions either naturally by being in a certain environment, makes his/her –MYSELF.

Yes, certain techniques and heuristic comprehension can make one know about his/her ‘Myself’.

 


Realisation is external depiction of ‘Myself’.

In organisations, people come for I-ME-MINE and this throws up challenges of dis-engagement or partial engagement. Organisations do try various ways and means to increase engagement by they end up increasing their I-ME-MINE. This worsens the situation further.

The need of the day is to make people realise about themselves, in other words to make them know about their individual ‘Myself’ which is very distinct to I-ME-Mine and needs very different interventions.

Leaders need to bring in unique and unheard interventions to make it happen.  These interventions could be blend of GENETICO-PSYCHO-ENVIRONMENTAL in nature.

Lets come together to make REALISATION a reality.




Friday 17 June 2016

Gamification in HR: Need of the Day




My article on GAMIFICATION: NEED OF THE DAY was published on HR Plug website. You can access article on the link below.




Thursday 9 June 2016

The Abilene Paradox: A killer disease in Organisations

Couple of years ago when I entered corporate world with some ‘pieces of papers’ - called degrees, I was quite fascinated by stories about it. In general, open culture, respect for knowledge & hard work etc but in particular, decisions making process wherein ‘everyone’ was included in deliberations and discussion in a team before taking a decision.

This hallucination continued for some time, as being junior it was “Master’s Voice’ only screaming in your ears with some instructions to do only and being pulled up on one pretext or other. Fact to me remained was that there was no point of my being part of any deliberations and consensual decisions, as I was a junior. I could solace in the rationality that being junior I may not be knowing much about ‘business’ perhaps that could be one reason of my not being part of deliberations. In my fantasy, I used to think that all team members do partake actively & openly in decision making process and more commonly at senior level, until there is a dictator in a team who doesn’t allow such things.

Reality, is always far from facts. No matter what, today I understood, a decision is taken by a person only at a time, rest remaining people in a team only second it in one or other form, although they differ to the decision taken. And, this I first observed at my home. Either of parents taking a decision, other parent along with kids were supposed to say yes to it, not forcefully but ‘naturally’, reason to not to hurt others, including the decision maker. I was confused a bit first, then out of curiosity started observing what happens in other’s houses. Story was same. No change, no alteration. Ditto, the same. I used to be bewildered by such mockery happening at all levels of society. By the way organisations are also a level of society.

Then came down heavily on me, corporate culture and theories of participation, teams etc, to boost participation of individuals in decisions.

But somewhere in my heart, I was not very much convinced with the ‘discussion based decisions’ theory, as being taught & said. It was only few years ago, this enigma of mine was solved when I came across the research paper of Jerry Harvey on ‘The Abilene Paradox.

‘Abilene Paradox, as explained by Harvey, is inability to manage agreement’. It can be explained further as people take actions which are quite opposite to what actually they want to take, consequently defeating the very purpose of consultation, deliberation. It’s different than the inability to manage conflict.

In organisations, people privately know about nature of the situation or problem facing the organisation and corresponding steps that would be required to cope up with the situation or problem but do say & accept something that is in agreement with a senior. In the whole process, information being shared is not what actually one wants to say and therefore, a decision taken is based on wrong information; resulting into catastrophe to the organisation. Moreover, such wrong decisions lead to more frustration, anger, irritation and dissatisfaction among people in an organisation. Perhaps, one of the reason of people leaving organisations to find something new in other organisations. Story but remains same, everywhere.

The Abilene Paradox to explain through an example is like a decision taken by a senior, coming to know about the decision taken is not correct, will continue following decision and would not change the course as changing course may communicate low about the senior. The second in command below him would not like to dare against a decision taken by his superior as it may annoy him. The manager below him would of course not talk about his apprehensions about the decision taken as both his seniors are committed to it. Heart-in-heart, all three know, the decision taken is wrong and should be corrected immediately but because of their own fear of losing face, they continue to fail.

In meetings, it is a common phenomenon wherein an idea which was not agreeable to many becomes agreeable, the moment the senior most supports it. Everyone starts speaking well about it.

It’s what happens in fact. All efforts go in vain as people are wary of ‘losing something’. But, eventually it hurts everyone, as organisations fail.

Knowing disease of ‘Abilene Paradox’ is one, but finding out medicine for it is different. The real medication to me is building trust among team members and respecting them. Trust building starts from the team leader. The leader has to take actions, else it is simple deceiving.


Leaders should build trust to avoid the Abilene Paradox in their teams,  else succeed to fail and make their organisations fail, one day.

Monday 6 June 2016

Should hires play the waiting game?


My point of view on the subject as published in the HindustanTimes, 7-June-2016