What Is The 'Shark' In Your Fish Tank Today?

#SridharPeddisetty #Motivational #Inspirational #Leadership #Management #Agile #ProjectManagement 

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish but the water close to Japan has not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The further the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring the fish and if the return trip took more time, the fish were not fresh. To solve this problem, fish companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea and freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen fish and they did not like the taste of frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price and so fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, they were tired, dull, and lost their fresh-fish taste. The fishing industry faced an impending crisis! But today, they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan. How did they manage? To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks but with a small shark. The fish are challenged and hence are constantly on the move. The challenge they face keeps them alive and fresh!

Many of us are living in a pond, which is making us most of the time, tired and dull. We basically are in need of a ‘shark', which is the new challenge that is necessary to keep us alive and kicking. In my earlier post 5 Tips For You To Run Faster Than Somebody Today, I had shared how important it is to not only keep pace with current disruptive phase but to run faster with combination of your experience and knowledge.
As shared in the post Only If You Knew How Much You Actually Know, mantra for your success is your ability to understand the potential of the wisdom you have gained by correlating the knowledge gained in all your experience and using that wisdom to come out of your comfort zone and challenge the status quo.

Summary

To summarize, discover your shark and put it in your fish tank today to keep you alive, energized and fresh. As I had shared in the post Positive Attitude Defines Your Successful Career, we mostly underestimate the power of choice we make everyday and its worth reminding ourselves so often that its our positive attitude towards every aspect of life, which is what makes it a successful journey.

PS: Above was a WhatsApp forward so source is unknown but the message is worth sharing.

Previous posts you might be interested in

• Value Stream Mapping As A Process Improvement Tool
• Only If You Knew How Much You Actually Know
• 5 Tips For You To Run Faster Than Somebody Today

Why Sharing Lessons Learned Is Key For Matured PMO

#SridharPeddisetty #Agile #PMO #LessonsLearned #AgilePMO #ProjectManagementOffice #Project #PMI #BestPractices 

A farmer grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.
“How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.
“Why sir,” said the farmer, “didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

Farmer is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves. So it is with our lives. Those who choose to succeed must help others to succeed. Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all. If we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn. Call it mutualism. Call it a principle of success. Call it a law of life. The fact is, none of us truly win until we all win.

Albert Einstein famously said, "The only source of knowledge is experience" and what better way to gain wisdom from the lessons that we learn while executing projects, programs, portfolios or managing operations. Sharing 'lessons learned' across teams is one of the key aspects of a matured PMO in an Organization. Many of us have not personally experienced the pain of slipping, by stepping on a banana peel, but have learned those lessons through someone elses experiences. 

This is applicable for a matured Organization to have a functional PMO and create an environment of sharing lessons learned across projects, programs or portfolios. Note that 'lessons learned' is not only for documenting failures but also the success stories. The more knowledge shared, the more we gain and lessons learned from successes or failures helps an Organization to leverage on the successes and not repeat failures. For a matured PMO, its an important aspect to share 'lessons learned' on what went well and what did not go well so that an Organization does not repeat past mistakes while following patterns that are proved successful in the past. One template of documenting 'lessons learned' include

• Document the pre-condition(s) and condition(s) in which the negative (issue) or positive event (best practice) occurred 
• Describe how the issue arose and define the problem or positive event encountered, and
• Provide concrete, practical solutions or recommendations based on this experience.

and can be then tagged under 'Lessons Learned Knowledge Base’, which could be managed by PMO. 

"Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.” -Brian Tracy

Why Sharing Lessons Learned Is Key For Matured PMO was originally posted under Prokarma Blog on Oct 5th 2015

5 Reasons To Let Your Team Struggle Today

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #Motivational #Inspirational #ProductiveTeams #TeamMotivation   
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly. What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Struggles are exactly what we need in our life to emerge stronger and smarter. Same philosophy is at times applicable when your team is struggling. As a leader, create safety net just enough not to let the team fail completely but mentor the team to face the adversities themselves. In my earlier post 'Empower Your Team To Own Responsibilities’, I shared why its important to empower your team and let them own their responsibilities. With the empowerment, team is in a better position to learn from their struggles. So here are the 5 reasons why you need to let your team struggle today

#1. Development of second rung leadership - In the face of adversity would emerge your next leaders, who emerge stronger and smarter.

#2. Revaluation of team goals - provides an opportunity to reevaluate team goals and align them as needed. 

#3. Reassessment of team skills - provides an opportunity to reassess skills needed by the team to perform more efficiently. 

#4. Opportunity of change - provides an opportunity to change for the good whether its letting go someone or changing the work culture. 

#5. Better team dynamics - provides an opportunity (provided handled properly) to increase the team dynamics as the team struggles together and emergencies victorious. 

If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. And we could never fly.

Previous posts you might be interested in

• Empower Your Team To Own Responsibilities
• Trust Your Team But Make Sure To Verify
• Is there a rope holding you in managing

5 Reasons To Let Your Team Struggle Today was originally published in LinkedIn

Only If You Knew How Much You Actually Know

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #Motivational #Inspirational #ProductiveTeams #KnowledgeManagement  

Lew Platt, former CEO of HP famously said "If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more profitable"

With all our experience encountering numerous situations, we tend to gain wisdom over a period of time and keep storing all the information in our subconsciousness. We are operating in a world where change is the only constant factor so its always important to keep learning but we do find ourselves struggling to come out of our comfort zone. Struggle is mainly because of the fear of unknown and sense of insecurity in facing failure. If we learn lessons from the success stories around us, one common factor would be the ability of successful people coming out of their comfort zone and using the power of their subconscious mind that actually guides them in correlating what they already know and using that knowledge to challenge their status quo. 

When in doubt venturing into the world of unknown, always listen to your intuition, which is a way your mind warns you to dangers or opportunities because your conscious mind has all the information. In our professional life we learn so many things on a daily basis but tend not to correlate the information for our future success. Working as a consultant helping various sized Organizations whether transforming their delivery groups to successfully adapt Agile practices or their operations groups to adapt ITIL processes or just bring in process improvements at an Org level to help achieve strategic objectives, I always attribute my success to bring in the transformation to the ability of correlating the information that already exists in the Organizations but because of silos, the information is not shared to its potential. 

Mantra for your success is your ability to understand the potential of the wisdom you have gained by correlating the knowledge gained in all your experience and using that wisdom to come out of your comfort zone and challenge the status quo. Personally I benefit by using productive tools like EverNote and MindNode, which helps me organize the information that I learn on a daily basis and then correlating the information for future success. 

Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future - Brian Tracy 

Only if you knew how much you actually know was originally published in LinkedIn

My 7 Lessons Inspired By Dr APJ Abdul Kalam

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #Motivational #Inspirational #AbdulKalam #DrKalam  

“Learning gives creativity, creativity leads to thinking, thinking provides knowledge and knowledge makes you great.” ―  A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

There are some who inspired few and there are very rare who inspired an entire generation, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was one of the very rare ones. Dr. Kalam was inspirational to an entire generation is evident from the outpouring of tributes from all walks of life. He had touched so many lives and ignited so many young minds to believe in the power of thinking, knowledge and on top of it, self belief. Dr. Kalam has shared his wisdom in numerous inspiring speeches he has given with the sole aim of igniting the young minds to lead the nation, not where its going but where it ought to go. Its ironical that he breathed his last doing what he loves doing best, passing his knowledge torch to a new generation of torch bearers.  Below are some of my lessons inspired by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. 

1. A true leader would own team’s failure and let team take the credit for success
2. You need difficulties in life because they are necessary to enjoy the success 
3. All of us do not have equal talent. But we all do have an equal opportunity to develop our talents
4. Do not lean on to an excuse counter and whine about injustice, corruption and wrong doing in the society but be the change agent to fight the evils of the society.
5. The sides of the mountain sustain life, not the peak. This is where things grow, experience is gained, and technologies are mastered. The importance of the peak lies only in the fact that it defines the sides.
6. Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. Thinking provides knowledge and knowledge is power 
7. Failure will never overtake you if your definition to succeed is strong enough

When asked how he would like to be remembered, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam responded by saying, as a ‘teacher’.

So here is to his legacy and a teacher lives on...

My 7 Lessons Inspired By Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was originally published in LinkedIn

5 Tips For You To Run Faster Than Somebody Today

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #Motivational #Inspirational #Agile #ProjectManagement #ScrumMaster   

Every morning when Deer wakes up, it thinks that today I have to run faster than the fastest Lion for me to survive & live and every morning Lion wakes up to think that today I have to run faster than the slowest Deer for me to eat & survive.

No matter who you are, you have to run faster than somebody today nevertheless. Today’s workplace is comprising of Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials and possibly few Traditionalists. Its becoming quite competitive with number of years of experience under your belt does not automatically qualifying you to hold a position but what you bring to the table does.  So its not only important to keep pace but to run faster with combination of your experience and knowledge. Always be a step ahead by

1. Being a vivid reader of whats going in the area of your domain, technical skills or industry in general, which would always help you take informed decisions or contribute intelligently in a conversation. 
2. Surrounding yourself with people smarter than you. Listen to understand in the company of experts to gain knowledge. We often listen to reply, which is counterproductive and sometime back I had written a blog 'Why Active Listening is Key for Successful Delivery of Agile Projects' on similar lines
3. Blogging or sharing your insights with the community on relevant topics. You either would intelligently be able to share with your experience or would do some research on the subject, thus gaining knowledge before sharing. 
4. Get your hands dirty or feet wet by working on a prototype or proof of concept on a newer technology or process to get a better handle. 
5. Being positive in attitude, which would always result in your ability to see through the challenging times.Positive attitude defines your successful career is a blog post I had shared earlier on how positive attitude does matter. 

Always keep in mind that if you are not enough fast, you are not just left behind but are left in the past. 

PS: Above picture was clicked by me in San Diego Safari Park

Note: 5 Tips For You To Run Faster Than Somebody Today was originally published in LinkedIn

Trust Your Team But Make Sure To Verify

#SridharPeddisetty, #Leadership, #Management, #Agile, #ScrumMaster, #AgileMethodologies, #AgileProjectManager #ProjectManager. 

One afternoon a wealthy manager was driving in his limousine when he saw two men along the roadside eating grass. Disturbed by the sight, he ordered his driver to stop and he got out to investigate. He asked one man "Why are you eating grass?" "We don't have any money for food," the poor man replied. "We have to eat grass." "Well, then, you can come with me to my house and I'll feed you" the manager said. "But sir, I have a wife and five children with me. They are over there, under that tree". "Bring them along," the manager replied. Turning to the other poor man he stated, "You come with us also." The second man, in a pitiful voice then said, "But sir, I also have a wife and seven children with me!" "Bring them all, as well," the manager answered. They all entered the car, which was no easy task, even for a car as large as the limousine was. Once underway, one of the poor fellows turned to mr. Manager and said, "Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you." The manager replied, "Glad to do it. You'll really love my place; the grass is almost 1 meter high!"

Claus Langfred, a professor of organizational behavior at Washington University in St. Louis did a survey to measure levels of trust, self-monitoring, and autonomy among 71 self-managing teams of MBA students. In his survey, he found out these team members trusted each other and tended not to monitor one another much. As a result, they had relatively low awareness of each other’s activities, which affected performance and possibly hampering processes and coordination. 

In an Agile world where we encourage the teams to be self performing, role of a manager is more like a servant leader role. Its an important trait for the Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager to trust the self performing team to execute and deliver on business value but verifying the same with stage gates is essential. Each stage gate could include exit criteria, which the manager can standardize for the team to follow. Each stage within SDLC could also benefit from using SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs and Customers) model for mapping the deliverables with strategic goals while focusing on continuous improvement. 
Trusting your self performing team is important but its essential to verify that team is performing to its optimal level as a unit and not showing just individual brilliances, which can be counter productive for the end results. 

Stephen Covey has brilliantly put that "Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. Its the foundational principle that holds all relationships"   

How do you trust your team but verify? 

Trust Your Team But Make Sure To Verify was originally published in LinkedIn

Positive attitude defines your successful career

#SridharPeddisetty, #Leadership, #Management, #Cultural, #Argentina, #Inspirational.

“Live your everyday extraordinary!” ― Charles F. Glassman

I was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing I noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for me.

He handed me a laminated card and said: 'I'm Wasu, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.'

Taken aback, I read the card. It said: Wasu's Mission Statement:
To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.

This blew me away. Especially when I noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!

As he slid behind the wheel, Wasu said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.'

I said jokingly, 'No, I'd prefer a soft drink.'

Wasu smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, lassi, water and orange juice.'

Almost stuttering, I said, 'I'll take a Lassi.'

Handing me my drink, Wasu said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have The Hindu, Times of India, ET and India Today.'

As they were pulling away, Wasu handed me another laminated card, 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.'

And as if that weren't enough, Wasu told me that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him.

Then he advised me of the best route to my destination for that time of day. He also let me know that he'd be happy to chat and tell me about some of the sights or, if I preferred, to leave me with my own thoughts.

'Tell me, Wasu,' I was amazed and asked him, 'have you always served customers like this?'

Wasu smiled into the rear view mirror. 'No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard about power of choice one day.'

'Power of choice is that you can be a duck or an eagle.'

'If you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. Stop complaining!'

'Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'

'That hit me right,' said Wasu.

'It is about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.'

'I take it that has paid off for you,' I said.

'It sure has,' Wasu replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on it.'

Wasu made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.

Above is a WhatsApp forward so source is unknown but the message is worth sharing. We mostly underestimate the power of choice we make everyday and its worth reminding ourselves so often that its our positive attitude towards every aspect of life, which is what makes it a successful journey. 

Have you realized your power of choice today? 

Note: Above picture is clicked by me in the historical Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral

Note: Positive attitude defines your successful career was originally published in LinkedIn

It is always best to know a second language

#SridharPeddisetty, #Leadership, #Management, #Cultural, #Argentina, #Inspirational.

Once upon a time there was a Baby Mouse and Mother Mouse. They lived in a hole in the skirting board in a big, warm house with lots of cheese to eat, where they wanted for nothing. Then, one day, Mother Mouse decided to take Baby Mouse outside of their home. Waiting outside for them was a huge ginger tomcat, licking it’s lips and waiting to eat them both up. “Mother, Mother! What should we do?” Cried Baby Mouse, clinging to his mother’s tail. Mother Mouse paused, staring up into the beady eyes of the hungry cat. But she wasn't scared, because she knew exactly how to deal with big, scary cats. She opened her mouth and took in a deep breath. “Woof! Woof! Bark bark bark!” She shouted, and the cat ran away as fast as he could. “Wow, Mother! That was amazing!” Baby Mouse said to his mother, smiling happily. “And that, my child, is why it is always best to have a second language.”

In the above case, knowing the second language was a life saver and fortunately for us we do not necessarily encounter above situations in our daily life. But having said that, we do however encounter situations where we work with teams and client stakeholders, who come from different walks of life and background. We cannot possibly learn all languages but we can certainly make an effort to understand the culture to appreciate how an information is perceived. Nelson Mandela famously said 

❝If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.❞

So whether you are talking with a team member or a client stakeholder, its important to understand their language and make an honest effort to learn if you want to win them over. 

Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going. ‒Rita Mae Brown

What are your thoughts? 

It is always best to know a second language was originally published as a LinkedIn Post

Don’t Let Fear of Unknown Hold You Down Today

#SridharPeddisetty, #Leadership, #Management, #Cultural, #Argentina, #Inspirational. 
"Failure is blindness to the strategic element in events; success is readiness for instant action when the opportune moment arrives” - Newell D. Hillis

Moving to Argentina with family especially without knowing the language (Castellano, a form of Spanish language) and not knowing anybody in particular, certainly carries an element of a fear of the unknown. Working as a consultant for 16 years with various clients and different settings, experience does teach you to be prepared for the unknowns and take challenges of a new environment in your stride as you grow comfortable into it. We tried to mentally prepare ourselves  by reading as much material available in cyber space to understand the culture, life of an expatriate in Argentina but nothing really tells the complete story till you are here in person. Its been just two weeks since we moved to Buenos Aires, capital city of Argentina and we are already in love with the culture and warmth of people here. Not knowing the language is definitely challenging but when you feel the warmness in people while communicating with you and trying to help you, it just makes the verbal language feel not so important. We are sure there would be some challenges as we adapt living in this beautiful country but we are not letting the fear of unknown holding us down to enjoy our every day life. 

There are many opportunities we possibly miss and many roads not taken because we let fear of unknown hold us down. When in doubt, always tell yourself that if anyone can do it, you can do better. Is there a fear holding you down today?  

Gracias!

PS: Pictures shared above are clicked by me in the neighborhood streets of Belgrano in Buenos Aires city. We understand there are not many from India living in the neighborhood, so when you see some images related with India, it does make you feel closer to home. 

Don’t Let Fear of Unknown Hold You Down Today was originally published in LinkedIn

Believe In YourSelf

As a toastmaster for one of the meetings, I selected the theme Believe In YourSelf. As part of the theme, I shared a motivational piece and few inspirational stories I came across sometime back, which I am sharing here. 

We all pass through life listening to others, appeasing others, waiting for approvals from others

We do not teach to trust ourselves enough. We need to believe in our abilities.   

Think what a remarkable, unduplicatable, and miraculous thing it is to be you! Of all the people who have come and gone on the earth, since the beginning of time, not ONE of them is like YOU!

No one who has ever lived or is to come has had your combination of abilities, talents, appearance, friends, acquaintances, burdens, sorrows and opportunities.

No one’s hair grows exactly the way yours does. No one’s finger prints are like yours. No one has the same combination of secret inside jokes and family expressions that you know.

The few people who laugh at all the same things you do, don’t sneeze the way you do. No one prays about exactly the same concerns as you do. No one is loved by the same combination of people that love you – NO ONE!

No one before, no one to come. YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY UNIQUE!

Enjoy that uniqueness. You do not have to pretend in order to seem more like someone else. You weren’t meant to be like someone else. You do not have to lie to conceal the parts of you that are not like what you see in anyone else.

You were meant to be different. Nowhere ever in all of history will the same things be going on in anyone’s mind, soul and spirit as are going on in yours right now.

If you did not exist, there would be a hole in creation, a gap in history, something missing from the plan for humankind.

Treasure your uniqueness. It is a gift given only to you. Enjoy it and share it!

No one can reach out to others in the same way that you can. No one can speak your words. No one can convey your meanings. No one can comfort with your kind of comfort. No one can bring your kind of understanding to another person.

No one can be cheerful and lighthearted and joyous in your way. No one can smile your smile. No one else can bring the whole unique impact of you to another human being.

Share your uniqueness. Let it be free to flow out among your family and friends and people you meet in the rush and clutter of living wherever you are. That gift of yourself was given you to enjoy and share. Give yourself away!

See it! Receive it! Let it tickle you! Let it inform you and nudge you and inspire you! YOU ARE UNIQUE! 

So trust yourself to do something different, something unique

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