Yesterday my two grand daughters came home in the evening at discrete time interval. Both of them are fond of taking soups and a well cooked Biiryani at various restaurants in Pondicherry. They are at the Pre K.G and L.K.G. levels .It so happened yesterday that the Biryani bought from the restaurant was full of green chillies and the young girl mistakenly chewed the green chilly,thinking that it was meat and the hell broke out. She screamed wildly and the glass of water could not succeed in reigning in peace .
Closely watching her, I felt that she would develop a distaste and get angry and would not proceed to eat further. But I was mistaken. After a while she started relishing the food with tremendous enthusiasm, unmindful of our comments. I could learn lot of lessons of life from her. She was all concentration on food only.
Now I recollect her behavior when she began learning to walk. She took her own time to take the first step. Even while belatedly learning to walk, she was very cautious, lest she might fall. Being not sure footed, she measured her steps always.
Once she started walking, touching and smelling things at sight and on the shelf, it became very difficult for all of us to ‘manage’ her. As you know, the children are the most attentive, curious, eager, sensitive, quick and generally congenial, without much bias and prejudices. Indeed we have to learn a lot from young kids, by observing them more closely and spending time with them more passionately. They deserve all the attention from close relatives at home.
Leaders at various levels of organization, too must have ‘this child’ in them, and internalize all the qualities attributed above. So long as the leaders present the views honestly, fearlessly and clearly, others almost accept them without question. This holds good for the employees too. If they are also eager to learn, willing to work without looking at calendar and time and present their views honestly and convincingly, a true leader will quickly understand and implement their vision.So,it is a two way interaction. Let there not be any congestion in the traffic of communication between the employer and the employees.
Closely watching her, I felt that she would develop a distaste and get angry and would not proceed to eat further. But I was mistaken. After a while she started relishing the food with tremendous enthusiasm, unmindful of our comments. I could learn lot of lessons of life from her. She was all concentration on food only.
Now I recollect her behavior when she began learning to walk. She took her own time to take the first step. Even while belatedly learning to walk, she was very cautious, lest she might fall. Being not sure footed, she measured her steps always.
Once she started walking, touching and smelling things at sight and on the shelf, it became very difficult for all of us to ‘manage’ her. As you know, the children are the most attentive, curious, eager, sensitive, quick and generally congenial, without much bias and prejudices. Indeed we have to learn a lot from young kids, by observing them more closely and spending time with them more passionately. They deserve all the attention from close relatives at home.
Leaders at various levels of organization, too must have ‘this child’ in them, and internalize all the qualities attributed above. So long as the leaders present the views honestly, fearlessly and clearly, others almost accept them without question. This holds good for the employees too. If they are also eager to learn, willing to work without looking at calendar and time and present their views honestly and convincingly, a true leader will quickly understand and implement their vision.So,it is a two way interaction. Let there not be any congestion in the traffic of communication between the employer and the employees.
1 comment:
Sir, How do you treat a leader who behaves like a child? I dont mean the one you describe above but the one that throws his toys out of his pram. When I look around I can see our business leaders behaving exactly like children. Who dont like to share what they have and when they are forced too start to wail and cry for everybody to pick them up. And when comforted they quickly forget the hand and lap that comforted them. As somebody said losses are public while gains are private. And our friend across the pond Mr. Obama seems to be championing that.
We all know that the Army, Police and Fire Brigade are crucial for the security of a country. So they can get away with most things including large scale murder in the name of maintaining law and order. Add to this Banks who by virtue of keep the cash flow suddenly have joined that august list. And we just witnessed the biggest robbery in the history of man where all our public money was made private and handed over to a choice few. All kicked off by an unknown Frenchman who seemed bizarrely to bet billions of Euros of his employers money. Once Nicolas Sarkozy gave French public money to Societe Generale to save a few jobs instead of letting it crash and burn. Gordon Brown had to do the same to RBS and Northern Rock and look like a saviour. Very quickly Icelander became terrorists and the opportunistic Americans had to do the same.
End game the angry upset children got their end while we look on haplessly.
And as the bankers do so follow their emulators starting with all those CEOs and their underlings. Very quickly we realise that there is complete truth in the saying that "We have borrowed this world from our children" and that "Child is the Father of Man" is a sense that we had not thought of until now.
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