Hence, Understanding each of them can help you slowly eliminating those factors from your life. Below are the factors which normally stop you from being assertive.

5. Self Belief:

Most importantly, the prime factor which stops us from being assertive is our self-belief. We have some pre notions which might stop us from being assertive. These pre notions might be, If you speak assertively, you might hurt someone or, you might ruin a relationship if you speak assertively, or someone might feel embarrassed if you speak assertively or with assertiveness, you might be loosing all that you have and so on. These kinds of beliefs can stop you from being assertive.

Believe me, these are just thoughts. You will have the biggest loss if you are not assertive is – You will be unable to clearly express yourself to others, yourself and you will live with low self-esteem which is not less dangerous than living with the fear of dying.

4. Wrong Understanding of Situations:

There are some cases, where we might understand the situation wrongly and don’t communicate assertively. Though, you cannot be assertive every time. You need to judge a situation and be assertive. But, there are several instances, where you might react and communicate passively or aggressively whereas, the situation could have been handled better with assertiveness.

While we cannot plan any communication or any behavior properly as this is an instant reaction that happens at our subconscious level when you start practicing assertiveness, we start training our mind with assertiveness as well and the more we practice, the more it is trained.

3. Poor handling of Stress or Anxiety:

You might come across lots of incidents, which make you stressed and anxious. Your physical body reacts to these stress and anxiety and as a result of which, in most such cases, you are unable to think and act clearly. And, in these situations, framing assertiveness in your communication style is almost impossible until and unless it’s your natural style.

Again, as explained in the above point, assertiveness teaches you to calm down, analyze the situation and then, perform better reaction to that -which helps you overcome this challenge.

4. Your Culture and Values:

Your culture and values play an important role when it comes to practice assertiveness. It might be the way you are bought up, the way you are taught which might stop you from freely express what you think and feel and express yourself clearly.

You have to realize whether such values are creating any barrier to your assertiveness and if the answer is yes, you have to simply change the way you look at your values. There is nothing more dangerous than living with low self-esteem.

5. Your Skillsets:

Assertiveness can be learned and that’s why you are reading this blog. It may be possible that you understand what assertiveness is but you are confused about how to start the same. So, in lots of situations, your current skills become a great determinant of your assertiveness.

So, here is the plan to overcome this challenge :
Search some good courses/ books on assertiveness. Unlearn everything and learn and implement in your life. Make a plan to implement the assertiveness step by step. Don’t do it at once or overdo it. It’s a practice and learning is a journey. Hence, assertiveness can be practiced slowly and you can see how your life changes. Your surroundings will not change but what it ill change is. – your outlook, your way of looking towards it and your way of reacting towards situations. And that’s what is required. Changing yourself rather than the situation!

If you have any among these 5 factors that might stop you from being Assertive, I am sure you can overcome those with proper strategies.

I wish you a fulfilled life with healthy self-esteem!

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post 5 factors that might stop you from being Assertive appeared first on The HR Monks.

When we came to this world, we had no control over our birth process, we had no control over how we will look, what will be the color of our hair, our eyes and so on.

We had no control and it just happened. Similarly, we will have no control over how we will die. It will also come inevitably someday. But, what about the journey in between, that we call our life?

As I was in sales, I had the opportunity to meet lots of people and worked closely with them. I have seen one of the most common factors which stop people from living freely is FEAR.

Fear of losing a job, Fear of not being able to meet expenses, Fear coming out of insecurity and so on.

I read somewhere, Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. I can clearly say based on my studies, that if we start giving importance to any fear, that fear slowly becomes our reality. And as a result, all our actions and plans are based on that fear.

We try to find security in insecurity and anxiety, we live to make everything secure and as a result, sometimes we live paycheck to paycheck, sometimes, we sustain ourselves but forget to live the way we wanted.

Hence, I thought of choosing and writing 3 things among all that can help you to reframe your fear and help you start living freely.

1. Your Expectations:

Our expectations about achieving something, that we call our dreams or goals – these are the fuel of our life. These are what help you to go forward in life.

But you must have a balance in what you achieve and what it takes to achieve that. There is no harm in chasing a big dream but it should be meaningful to you. Every big achievement requires sacrifice, every growth requires pain – there never was and never there will be any shortcut to achieve something big.

It requires time, energy and lots of sacrifices and hard work. So, you must be well aware that what you want to achieve is meaningful. If it’s not meaningful, there are high chances that after achieving that, you might not be happy. There is no harm in lowering your expectations. What matters the most – it should make you happy.

Sit with yourself, think about what you want to achieve and ask why you want to achieve and see if it’s meaningful to you. If it is something that can make you happy and you are ready to give everything that it takes, just go for it! Else, work on the same and fix the missing part!

2. Living Within Your Means:

Your finances, your income, your money – these help you to experience life better. So they are very important in life. But, more important is to live within your means. In true sense, how much money you make is what you are left with after all your expenses.

For example, let person A is earning yearly INR 20,00,000 with yearly expenses of INR 18,00,000. So, A is left with INR 2,00,000 yearly. On the other hand, say person B is earning yearly INR 10,00,000 with yearly expenses of INR 5,00,000. So B is left with INR 5,00,000 yearly. So, B might not have a great lifestyle, may not do frequent parties – but makes more money than A.

Living within means can be done in two ways – by reducing your expenses and by increasing your income. Whatever it be, living within means helps you to live better and with more freedom.

Unnecessary spending, frequent debts, high EMIs, not investing, not donating – these are some of the factors, which can affect your quality of living in the long-term. So, its time to look back and find out if there is anything that you should improve upon.

3. Self-Care:

A good physical and mindful state makes you fearless. Your physical body is the instrument through which the energy flows. A proper physical body will help you experience life better and with more freedom. You can only realize the value of good health once you are not having that.

Self Care is taught in the ancient books of Ayurveda as well. Eating Mindfully, Physical Exercise, Taking Proper Rest, Meditation, Personal Hygiene- these are some of the must-dos when we talk about self-care.

You can get tons of information on these topics. And practicing these doesn’t take much time. If you are not practicing self-care, its time to start that. Make small plans which you can easily do daily and start practicing and slowly scale it.

For example, going for a walk for 10 minutes and meditating for 5 minutes is good enough to start with. You need not focus on the result when you are starting. Rather, you should focus on doing it daily.

It’s important to make your new habits as easy as possible and practice it for a month. Then you can slowly scale this up and improve further.

There are a lot of other factors that help in living freely but I have picked these three as I found these MOST COMMON three things you can do to achieve freedom. Lastly, I thought of sharing one of my favorite lines which I firmly believe in:

The best way to handle fear is by experiencing it!

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post 3 Things You Can Do to Achieve Freedom appeared first on The HR Monks.

 5) REPETITION

Even if you know something, repeating the same will give you a more clear concept. The more you repeat, the more your brain will open up on that topic. Repetition is the mother of all skills.

Even if you know something, if you get an opportunity to learn it again, just go for it. Mastery can only be achieved through repetition.

The best way to understand this can be by taking the example of any sportsperson. They keep on practicing the same thing again and again and then achieve mastery.

Not convinced? Try reading a book again which you have read recently, you will understand the difference in your understanding of the book.

You may know something but repetitions of that bring the mastery out of it.

4) ACCEPTING YOU’RE NOT KNOWING

One of the most powerful statements that can help you become more open to learning is accepting that you don’t know everything about something.

You may not know something – that’s absolutely ok. Not Knowing something doesn’t mean you will be unable to know that thing. There is no harm in accepting you don’t know something and trying to know it further.

The more you become ready to accept that you don’t know, the more open to learning you become.

3) LEARNING FROM EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE:

While books help us learn some concepts, schools and colleges help us learn predefined topics, but our life gives us opportunities beyond all these. 

You can learn from everyone and everything around you. You can learn from everyone including kids and nature as well. A perfect example of what I said can be – you can learn Assertiveness from a kid and Adaptability from Water.

You simply need to be aware of the fact that there’s something to learn from everything and everyone and your brain will be programmed to extract the learning and learn.

2) LEARNING FROM SITUATIONS:

What you call a situation is an incident that occurred. Maybe you have not liked it, or you have simply loved it – whatever it be, those are just incidents. Our life experience is nothing but the addition of those incidents.

With every situation, there lies learning. If you find out learning from each and every situation, two things will happen:

1)You will learn more and 

2) You will control the situation rather than situations controlling you.

1)MAINTAINING DAILY LEARNING JOURNAL

You don’t need to buy a journal. A place to write your daily learning is enough to create a learning journal. At day end, you can mentally revisit the way you spent the entire day, the people you met and I am sure you can find out answers to two questions – 

1) What are the possible things you learned today? and 

2) What you could have done to make it a better day?

By answering these two questions, you can collate all the points and fill up the journal daily.

This daily practice can really change the way you look at things, make you more aware and this can transform and impact your life with a huge change.

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post Learning is a Journey. 5 ways to improve your learning appeared first on The HR Monks.

While I am seeing people around me busy preparing for this festival of light, I thought of writing a blog on “ Lighting your inner self” this Diwali. Here is what

Lighting for Self Awareness: Sometimes, in this journey of life, we become very busy in creating our life by fulfilling our wishes, availing the best facilities, fulfilling responsibilities and making our and our loved one’s life secured that we lose our self-awareness.

Our life starts with one confirmation – we all will die. So, probably the meaning of life is far beyond just earning money, buying a house, buying cars, raising children, strive for great savings and then – die. All these are important parts of our life but probably they are not the ultimate or only purpose.

Lighting for self-awareness can answer you what you want from life and what’s the purpose of our life. Every person has a different answer. So, if you are not yet aware, probably it’s time to light your inner self and become self-aware.

Lighting for Thankfulness: As I mentioned above, every life is different, so every situation is. For example, today – this Deepawali, someone might be struggling for INR1000 and looking for way-outs to earn that, someone might be spending INR 1000 from their hard-earned saving to celebrate Deepawali, someone might have spent more than INR 1000 to gift others and someone might have bought firecrackers for more than INR1000. Hence, though we are born with the same process, every life and every situation is different.

Sometimes we get so much indulged with our needs and wants, that we start seeing and focusing on what we don’t have rather than what we have. Also, we start comparing other lives and feel dissatisfied or jealous. So, that is your situation, its time to light your inner self and thank for whatever you have till now. You have already got the best possible gift – your life. And, there is a reason behind everything that happens to us – we might not realize the reason immediately, but there is a reason for sure.

Though we all should strive for betterment, we should be thankful for what we already have. And once you are aware and happy about what you have, you start working and strategizing better for your betterment.

Lighting for Forgiveness: Another factor that might create a dark layer between us and our inner core is forgiveness. I will again refer to what I wrote above – every journey is different. So, its quite obvious that people might not match up your expectations. Also, there might be a situation where you have done something wrong with someone. But, both cases have already happened. You have no control over that anymore. Believe me, everyone does whatever is best for them in that situation.

So, if you are not happy with something that’s done by someone, you should simply forgive them and if you realize you have done something wrong with someone, seek forgiveness and go ahead. You can do that silently by talking to your inner self as well. You will get nothing if you hold grudges – you will feel negative if you do so. If you are facing such, its time to light your inner self and find out what’s there you are holding and forgive those or seek forgiveness and go ahead.

Lighting for Hope: Again starting from the top – Every life is different. We might have different plans. If it’s worth and not harming others, you can achieve whatever you want from the core of your heart. Only attracting that will not work – you must believe in what you want to achieve, have the strategies to achieve what you want and constantly review yourself and your actions. Your faith, plans, strategies, and actions – they define whether you will be able to achieve something you want or not.

Most of whatever happened in our lives and where our life is currently – they are results of what we believed, what we planned, how we strategized and whether we have taken action or not. There might be something that you want to or wanted to achieve or do – but you gave up. If it’s worth enough and makes your life meaningful, its time to lighting your inner self, change your belief and work on achieving what you want. It’s never late to achieve something you want until you die.

Lighting for Giving: There is a theory that whatever you give, comes back. And that’s one of the prime reasons, I have seen many people giving with the only purpose to get back. Some people / big companies do charity – but in some cases, it’s to save taxes. There are few people, who give poor people something on some specified days – because someone predicted it will help them get something they want. These are not giving.

Our life is a beautiful gift given to us. And when we were forming, there was nothing in our control. We were not knowing how we will look, how our eyes will be – we never had any control over that. In this world, we don’t process anything. We have come without anything – so, nothing belongs to us permanently.

So, if we are blessed with something more than others, we must share that with the universe. It helps you to maintain the flow of energy as well. Also, to start giving, you need not have more. If you don’t have much to give – you can give experience to people for sure.

People remember the experience more than any material thing. So, sharing a smile, helping people to achieve something if possible, loving people, sharing knowledge, sharing some guide to improve skills which can help people – there are so many things you can give. The only thing is you need to have the intent to give. So, if you have not started the practice of giving every time, probably its time to lighting your inner self with the light for giving.

Though it’s not easy to light your inner self like you can light a candle or diya or switch on a light or light a firecracker. It takes time to light your inner self. It requires practice. But at least you can start today lighting your inner self by being aware of these 5 lights and make your life illuminated!

May you illuminate your life by lighting your inner self with self-awareness, thankfulness, forgiveness, hope, and giving. The best light is always within us! Happy Deepawali! 

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post Lighting Your Inner-self While You Enjoy The Festival of Lights appeared first on The HR Monks.

I still remember my first day of my M.B.A. The first thing that our class was asked is “What is Management?” We all were saying different answers and then our professor told “Well, management is to get things done by others. That’s all.” And the class started.

I was very happy with such a simple job the manager does – just getting things done by others and that’s all. But, then came the whole syllabus of M.B.A and I understood that there are a lot more works that a manager does. Then a day came I was with an offer letter. And then it was my entry into the corporate world. Fortunately, I was under a boss who is an M.B.A from a prime institute.

I was very thrilled as I will now relate what I learned with my workplace and I again reiterated those words – Planning, Control, Motivational Theories and so on. During the first six months, I was under the pressure of learning new things and performing and was in a race to complete my probationary period.

After that, it was a race to perform. And slowly, I actually forgot what I read in those books. I thought I might have forgotten those I don’t read those books anymore but later I realized that I actually forgot those as those are not seen practiced daily in the workplace I am working. After 2 years, I too became a manager and I had a small team to manage. But, I hardly remembered what I read in the book.

After almost 9 years, in a corporate gathering, I had an opportunity to meet a renowned Executive Coach who also, has done his M.B.A from a prime institute and had a great career where the last job being CEO of a Multi-National Company.

Currently, he is an Executive Coach and I have seen him meeting my CEO several times. Probably my CEO is being coached by him. He delivered a great speech on “Coming Trends in Management” and I was astonished there was nothing related to what I learned in M.B.A. Slowly while chatting in that gathering I went near him and introduced myself.

I was slowly contributing to the discussion in that group to gain his attention. And I was successful. I was able to garner his attention. After some, one to one exchanges of thoughts, I suddenly asked “Well, I need some clarity from you. I am unable to find a few answers. It will be great if you can give me 15 minutes time someday.” He asked “Why not now?  Why you need to wait for some more days to get clarity. Let’s make this time the right time.”

I was so happy and immediately asked. “Well, one unresolved query is constantly haunting me. I am finding almost no link between the words Management what I read in M.B.A and what I am actually practicing or I see my some of my peers & seniors, who are premium institute pass out, are practicing. Also, I have seen lots of instances where people who don’t have an M.B.A degree but they hire Top Level M.B.A in their company. In that case, why they don’t do M.B.A themselves?” At a go, I asked such a long question. I was very clear about what I wanted to know.

The Coach was quiet for a few moments and was only looking at my eyes. I was a bit uncomfortable as I was thinking I might have asked a wrong set of questions. “Hey, what a question!!!” he started surprisingly. “In fact, it was my query as well when I started my career. But it got resolved slowly over a period of time.” Then he started “What you learned in M.B.A were theories, tools, methods, and different concepts. These concepts empower you to do your works more effectively than a person with no M.B.A degree – provided you implement the same. These things can be learned easily without doing M.B.A also but studying M.B.A ensures you have learned those things in a structured manner and under a knowledge expert. That’s what M.B.A is all about.”

“Now coming to the second part which you named Management” he started again. “Management is different from an M.B.A degree.”

“What?” I was surprised. What is he saying? Suddenly everything and every meaning in my life have changed.

My education loan seemed meaningless.

My inner feeling started questioning me. “I prepared for 1 year for M.B.A, then 2 years of studies. I have wasted these three years?”

“Is the pride of me and my parents in front of society and family, their appreciation…all these are false?

For a few seconds, I thought that the entire world has stopped. Probably the coach understood what I was experiencing internally. He smiled at me and said, “Well, I am not saying M.B.A is useless what I meant, Management and M.B.A is different.” I felt he was trying to console me but my earlier queries became more complex and I was unable to understand how to react even.

“Please tell me the difference. I am utterly confused.” I directly asked without wasting a single moment.

“M.B.A gives you a good certificate which certifies that you know the theories, tools, methods and different concepts that a manager has. And how much you know is certified by the grade you received. But whether you will be able to implement the same in a great manner is not certified. Hope I am making sense” replied The Coach.

“Yes. But I am still unable to understand the difference.” I replied.

“Well, a great manager may not be an M.B.A and a great M.B.A may not be a great manager. A manager may learn what is taught in M.B.A through different resources over a period of time and an M.B.A may become a great manager over a period of time.” said the coach.

“I am mostly confused,” I confessed again.

“As I told earlier, M.B.A is a set of tool and Managers is what you become. Management is much beyond an M.B.A degree. People prefer hiring M.B.A because they think they will get people ready with the tools to be a manager. And the more premium the M.B.A institute is, the more it certifies that the person has acquired knowledge from the best experts under great infrastructure and facilities. And hence the chances of becoming a great manager are high.” The Coach explained. “M.B.A is a certificate with a set of tools that you acquire but the Manager is what you become. Management is a behavior and it’s different for each of us. But there are a few things which we can change or work upon to become a great manager.”

“Hey, Coach you are here? I was looking for you” a sudden voice came up. I saw it’s my CEO. “Good Evening Sir.” I wished him. “Good Evening Dear,” he replied.

Then he told The Coach “I wanted you to meet someone important in the lounge.”

“Oh Sure!” replied The Coach. He saw me and said “Excuse me for some time. Do well. See you soon”

“Sure” I replied and the very next moment, I gave my business card to him with an expectation to get his business card. And I was successful. I kept on seeing him till the time he was not fully out of my sight. I was not enjoying the gathering anymore. My colleagues were chatting. Good Food, Fine Drinks, and I were not enjoying anything. I wanted to stay alone sometime and I went out of the hotel. I sat in my car. Switched on the AC. I loosened my Tie and was thinking about what I learned. And while thinking, I planned to write a note every day about what I learned on that day.

After reaching home, I took out my Mac Book, opened a new Page and wrote 4 leanings:

1. A person without an M.B.A degree can also become a Great Manager.
2. Even if I am not from the most prime M.B.A institute, I have the opportunity to become a great manager. 
3. Everyone has the capacity to become a Great Manager.
4. And lastly, “Management is what you become. It’s a behavior.”

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post M.B.A. and Manager – My Takes – Why Management is Different from M.B.A degree? appeared first on The HR Monks.

Myth 1 – “Assertiveness is almost same as Aggressiveness.”

Some people might think they are assertive while being aggressive, because they can clearly state  what their needs are but, the main difference lies in not violating or hurting or disrespecting others and the words to use, the body language and the tonality of what you say. There is not a fine line, rather a huge difference between being assertive and aggressive. 

Myth 2 – “If I am Assertive, I will get whatever I want to” 

Assertive is not a tool or magic or quick fix which guarantees you that you will achieve results. Its a communication style which makes a great impact on your life if implemented properly. This is not a winning tool or a debating style. Assertiveness helps you express yourself properly and clearly in a way that respects your needs and wants along with others. When you practise assertiveness, sometimes you will get what you want, sometimes you will not get what you want and sometimes you will get some of what you want in a mutually beneficial way which will be satisfactory to everyone with whom you are communicating. Assertiveness will help you be clear and state clearly what you want and also help you maintain healthy relationships.

Myth 3  – “ If I am Assertive, I need to be Assertive “ 

When you understand assertiveness and start practicing it, you will clearly understand the situations where you need to be assertive and where you need not to be. There will be some situations where being assertive might not be helpful. For example, if you are handling a drunk person who is getting aggressive and violent, or where some urgent work came up at office and you wanted to go for a movie, or if you are handling someone who is in deep low on emotions – Assertiveness might not work at initial stage. As discussed earlier, we keep in changing our styles of communication and adapt one style as dominant style. This means, you can keep assertiveness as your dominant style and you should be intelligent enough to understand when to use other styles of communications as well. And this intelligence can be built by being aware of your communication. 

Practicing assertiveness can help you having clarity on your needs and wants without supressing the same of others and it can boost your self esteem, help you garner clear relationships and can live boundlessly. And, it transforms you both – professionally and personally.

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post Three things that Assertiveness Is Not appeared first on The HR Monks.

Today is the birthday of Swami Vivekananda, I thought of writing about one of my favorite lines by him. Though M.B.A and all these related stuff were not present and not at all structured in that era, still, if you read Swami Vivekananda’s works, his letters, and his thoughts – you will find we have probably moved backward. Not in terms of Management Jargon or Dress or Lifestyles. But, probably in terms of thought and implementation.

On 1st October 1897, Swami Vivekananda wrote a letter to Sister Nivedita from Kashmir. You can see the link here – http://www.vivekananda.net/KnownLetters/1897JulDec%27.html

I have selected the below few lines from the said letter.

“Some people do the best work when led. Not everyone is born to lead. The best leader, however, is one who “leads like the baby”. The baby, though apparently depending on everyone, is the king of the household. At least, to my thinking, that is the secret. . . .”

In fact, I came across these lines in 2006 and I was trying to match the same with my experiences of “Leaders and Leading” and I feel the inner meaning of these lines is a vast book on Leadership and Leadership competency model. Among all points that generally come to my mind when I go through these lines, I am putting forward four points, which, I feel can easily be understood and implemented.

• You give priority to a baby at home: Whatever be the condition, every person gives priority to the baby at home. The baby never demands such priority openly but we all give that out of our own wish. Similarly, probably the effective leader can be the person who is given priority by others out of their own wish. It’s beyond following the decorum or so-called rules of boss management.
• You feel Happy spending time with baby: Whatever situation you are into, whatever challenges you might be facing – whatever it be, you will always feel happy after spending time with a baby at home. In fact, in some cases, you will simply forget the challenges you are facing, or stress or any painful experiences when you are with a baby at home. Probably, an effective leader should be that person with whom every follower/ member stays happy. Leadership is not about scaring people, rather it’s about building people.
• You feel satisfied serving the baby: I still remember several instances, where after a meeting or con-call, employees become demotivated. I have seen many employees working just for the salary. I have seen lots of employees who cannot enjoy Sunday because of Monday again they have to be at work. In most of the cases, they overcome all those just to avoid any adverse effect on their financial life and lifestyle. An effective leader may be someone, serving whom can be one of the most satisfactory things for the employees/followers.
• You can go to any extent to satisfy a baby: Just like we use all our resources and can go to any extent to satisfy the baby at home, effective leadership can be present where people/ employees/followers can go to any extent to serve or achieve a common goal. This extra mile, this extra pain or this extra initiative may not be the demand of the leader. Rather, it might be coming from the other end automatically.

We might relate lots of competencies, lots of managerial science and lots of managing arts with these but in simple words, Effective Leadership is present where people are Motivated to Deliver, Happy to Stay with, Satisfied to Serve and Initiative to Implement and perform.

And this normally happens when the leaders serve to be served. One of the highest levels of leadership is considered as Servant Leadership. It’s applicable to any field, any industry and in every sphere where leaders are needed. It’s not about becoming servant but, it’s about serving others which in today’s era, we may say – Creating Values. Think of any effective leadership and you will find the essence of such effectiveness lies in serving others. You can start from Swami Vivekananda or Jesus Christ or Gautam Buddha who served people and created values and were the best leaders, or you can go through what value is created by the leaders like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose or Mother Teresa, Or you can study the leadership of Steve Jobs or you can explore the top 50 leaders of 2017 – whatever it be, you will find one thing in common and that’s creating values and serving to be served. And needless to say, they can Lead people like a Baby.

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post Leading Like Baby – Key To Effective Leadership appeared first on The HR Monks.

There are a couple of important planks of employee engagement that must be recognized. Firstly, an engaged employee is one who is passionate and highly involved in their work and gains a sense of fulfillment from what they do.

Anyone can be passionate about their work – whether a surgeon, an office manager or a waiter. If they truly care about and enjoy what they do, and believe that their work is important, then they will derive satisfaction it.

But it takes more than this to make up the puzzle of employee engagement. The worker must also be satisfied and content with their working conditions and environment, and feel respected and cared for by their organization.

Together these two factors drive engagement for an individual. Gallup’s recent State of the American Workplace study shows that on average in US companies, 30% of workers are engaged, 52% are disengaged, and 18% are highly disengaged.

Gallup puts the cost of these disengaged workers, in terms of lost productivity, at between $US450-550 million each year.

So, let’s now look at the 30% of workers that are engaged, and how they contribute to better outcomes for your business.

When you have a high proportion of engaged employees in your workforce, a spin-off effect will be that you enjoy low rates of attrition or staff turnover. People will stay with the company because they are happy where they are.

This is a major cash saver for your business because the fewer resignations you incur, the less time and money you spend hiring and training new people.

You will also find that your customers receive a high level of service because your staff members are dedicated, enthusiastic and strive to deliver good work.

Happy customers are loyal customers who will continue to come back, again and again, to spend their money with you, adding to your bottom line.

You may also benefit from word-of-mouth referrals to increase your customer base, above and beyond your own advertising.

Employee engagement is also strongly correlated with higher productivity. As your productivity increases, work will be completed faster, leaving time to take on additional work, drive output, and boost sales.

(A note of caution – although higher productivity creates an obvious opportunity to give additional work to your staff, tread carefully on this path. If you overload these hard workers with too many tasks, they will burn out and the level of engagement and productivity you’ve been enjoying will start to fall away.)

Ultimately, building an engaged workforce will allow you to grow your business by expanding your customer base and making more profit which can then be invested back into the organization.

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post What is the Vital link between Employee Engagement and Profit? appeared first on The HR Monks.

What is Motivation?

Motivation is just a feeling. We made it very important to our discussions and with lots of theories but forgot that the fact remains the same – Motivation is a feeling just like other feelings. And like other feelings, you don’t become motivated – You feel Motivated.

While Talking About Employee Motivation, it’s the feeling of the employee. Everyone has different factors of motivation like money, status, power, responsibility and so on but all those are normally available in a Job. The only difference about this feeling is that this feeling is related to you, the organization, the culture, the environment and much more. If we club together everything, we can say, its the Job Attitude which actually affects the Employee Motivation.

What is Attitude?

Before going ahead, let’s understand the meaning of Attitude. The word attitude has actually three components that move simultaneously. The first one, being Sense which actually creates our pathway to understand something or believing something.

The second one is our Feeling, which is generated by our sense and believe and the third one is Action which is the behavior resulted out of the sense and feeling.

These components are actually inseparable and are closely related to each other and highly dynamic. And it happens so fast that it’s almost impossible to understand which component affected what.

What Is Job Attitude?

When we use the word Job Attitude, we are actually describing all work-related attitudes. It’s a combination of all the positive and negative beliefs, evaluations and feelings an employee holds about the work, work environment, and the Organization. And Job Attitude is the biggest driver in generating Employee Motivation. Some of the critical factors which affect the Job Attitude are:

Job Satisfaction – The satisfaction level of an employee on the job he or she is doing. The more satisfied one is, the more positive feeling the employee generates.

Job Involvement – The easiest way to understand Job Involvement is when the employee feels that the extent of performance in a job is actually the measure of his or her self-worth. Hence job involvement includes the psychological involvement, competency levels, meaningfulness of the job, the work environment and much more.

Organization Trust – It’s the extent to which an employee trusts the organization. This factor is mainly influenced by the manager as trust comes out of organization clarity, the opportunity to contribute, opportunity to grow, mutual respect, the way employees are treated, the extent of organizational support and much more. The more trust the employee believes, the more positive feeling is generated.

Employee Engagement – While employee engagement is nowadays a trending topic, I thought of writing the way I understand the engagement of an employee. Highly Engaged,

Engaged, Disengaged, Highly Disengaged employees have one thing in common – They all put the time to their works. But the difference lies in their passion for work, their energy at work, their commitment to work and their level of connecting with the organization.

Who can actually influence the employee job satisfaction resulting in inspiring Employee Motivation?

While there are lots of surveys available to measure such feelings but the feeling can be better understood than measured. Take the case of any relationship that you have. Do you understand the feeling of those relations or you measure those feelings? For example, I have never conducted any survey to measure the feeling of relations with my parents, my girlfriend or anyone in that case. But, when it comes to employees, we start measuring it.

Probably, we will have a logic coming to our mind that it’s impossible for any organization to feel all the employees and that’s why such surveys are done. But, if it’s so, then why there is the concept of breaking down the organization into departments, functions, regions, and teams and appointing various levels of managers? It’s done so that small teams of employees can be taken care of by one person responsible and that way, the ladder should go up so that the entire organization is taken care of. The survey can be done one time to understand at an organization level, which are the factors to be improved overall but, the manager contributes the most important role when it comes to Employee Motivation. And if the manager cannot understand the feeling of their employees, probably it’s time to look into the relationship skills before we look at the performance graph, goal sheets, and other things.

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post Small factors can influence Employee motivation more than Employee Motivation Initiatives appeared first on The HR Monks.

“There’s a sweet spot for assertiveness. If you’re below the range, you’re not going to get your way. If you’re above it, you’re not getting along with others,” 

– Daniel Ames, professor of management at Columbia Business School

Managerial mettle is tested many times in your career. At times you cannot sell your idea or suggestion to your boss. At times you also face problems in delegating orders from the top to your subordinates.

Do you end up being in a catch 22 situation under ambiguous instructions from higher ups? An adage tells it is impossible to make everyone happy. Thus managers face tough time many times.

Lord Buddha has a remedy for this:

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection”

In simple words, you need not compromise your rights, thoughts, and feelings, in order to go higher up the ladder or save face.

If managers lack self-esteem they cannot be happy with themselves. Neither they would be happy with others. In moments of stress either a person becomes passive-aggressive or passive with their Bosses. And many times in such situations they become aggressive with their subordinates.

This is not a solution because you cannot always justify means by ends. The bigger managerial effectiveness depends not on what he/she does but “how” he/she enables it.

Down you know how to balance between the boss and the subordinates effectively? There is only one solution that is to be Assertive. Assertive communication creates an image of your persona which draws respect not only from your subordinates, but you Bosses will happily lend you an ear.

Being assertive with the boss?

How to be assertive with your boss? It starts right from when you meet him/her physically or talk via phone. No verbal cues here matter the most.

In person when you meet your Boss, greet him/her with a smile. In phone wish your boss with happy, enthusiastic and energetic greetings at the very onset.

Use their name and make eye contact. In the phone, while talking, just look up and raise your chin. If you call or attend the call and look down the floor while talking, your voice automatically becomes submissive.

Take time before you answer the questions. But be positive in your body language.

Rest you should follow the assertiveness tips while talking to anyone. If you search on the web, you would have lots of articles for help.

Being assertive with the subordinate?

“The right amount of assertiveness, respect for others, and intelligence is what makes a great leader,”

 – Lauren Zander, co-founder and chairman of the Handel Group

Though service should come before self, but former President of India, A. P.J. Abdul Kalam has advised that love for the job is a greater priority than love for Company. Steve Jobs also made a quote in the same vein. According to him loving your job is the most important thing in life. Until and unless you get ultimate job satisfaction, you should not stay in any such company.

Zander warned in an article that being overly assertive is often interpreted as self-promotional or arrogant among subordinates.   “The costs of being overly assertive are not immediately apparent to us. If you yell at a subordinate, she may do what you asked but she may also go home and update her resume,” says Ames.

In order to be an effective manager, draw a line around yourself. You need not have to demand respect for you personally, either in a pub or shop floor because respect is earned. But make sure they do have respect for the authority of the position you hold. This is done by setting examples straight and leading by example.

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post How to balance between the boss and the subordinates? appeared first on The HR Monks.