Sunday, February 22, 2009

Vivekananda

To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. "I will drink the ocean," says the persevering soul, "at my will mountains will crumble up." Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.

Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

What is the use of talking of one’s mistakes to the world? They cannot thereby be undone. For what one has done one must suffer; one must try and do better. The world sympathizes only with the strong and the powerful.

What about this marvelous experience of standing alone, discarding all help, breasting the storms of life, of working without any sense of recompense, without any sense of putrid duty, and of working a whole life, joyful, free -- not goaded on to work like slaves by false human love or ambition?

Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?

This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself.

We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark

“Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future.”

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Selfishness and Friendship

There were two childhood buddies who went through school and college and even joined the army together. War broke out and they were fighting in the same unit. One night they were ambushed.

Bullets were flying all over and out of the darkness came a voice, "Harry, please come and help me."

Harry immediately recognized the voice of his childhood buddy, Bill. He asked the captain if he could go.

The captain said, "No, I can't let you go, I am already short-handed and I cannot afford to lose one more person. Besides, the way Bill sounds he is not going to make it." Harry kept quiet.

Again the voice came, "Harry, please come and help me." Harry sat quietly because the captain had refused earlier.

Again and again the voice came.

Harry couldn't contain himself any longer and told the captain, "Captain, this is my childhood buddy. I have to go and help."

The captain reluctantly let him go. Harry crawled through the darkness and dragged Bill back into the trench. They found that Bill was dead.

Now the captain got angry and shouted at Harry, "Didn't I tell you he was not going to make it? He is dead, you could have been killed and I could have lost a hand. That was a mistake."

Harry replied, "Captain, I did the right thing. When I reached Bill he was still alive and his last words were 'Harry, I knew you would come."'

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Underperforming Team Member

Had a discussion on underperforming team member issue.
It started with a topic that whether underperforming unprofessional team member be allowed to attend a meeting if he/she turns in late for the meeting. To add to the confusion that team member is your friend.
My way of managing such project-
Underperforming unprofessional team member: Lets keep friendship issue aside. The fact that he/she is ur team member indicates that he/she has a potential to contribute. As a manager u should be able to tap in his/her potential. If I disallow him/her from attending the meeting, I will miss on his/her inputs on the task of the project. Based on 80-20 principle, if he/she is going to contribute something in 20% of the input that will give result to 80% output, my loss will be huge if I miss on his/her inputs. He/She may have valid reasons for coming late. But in any case I can not miss on the inputs.

Friend: If that person is ur friend, u should know what r the reasons behind such a behaviour. U should help that person deal with those issues and should have courage to forgive that person and make up for that person on professional front. Of course there is difference between friendship of convenience/pleasure and real friendship(Friend I am talking about is real friend).