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

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

Empower Your Team To Own Responsibilities

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #Delegation #DelegationManagement #Agile #ProjectManagement #ScrumMaster #TeamWork   

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant - Robert Louis Stevenson

We all understand the word delegation but seldom put the art of delegation in play. I wrote an earlier blog post on Trust your team but make sure to verify, jest of which I am extending in this post. We need to learn the art of empowering our team to own responsibilities while creating the safety nets around those responsibilities so that even if they fail, they do not hurt themselves bad. Remember, it is often your best people that make the worst mistakes, because your best people do the most complex work. When we take so much pains to hire the best possible talent with the good intent to keep them in the team for long term, we might as well encourage them to pursue their ideas while giving them the tools they need to succeed.

The key to start empowering your team to own responsibilities is by making the list of tasks, which play to their strengths better and letting them own those tasks. Major constraint of not letting your team own tasks is because of the fear of losing control and facing consequences of the result. It is understandably difficult at times to think about pulling hand out of projects while letting the team own them but the fact is that the more your team feels that they are trusted to do their jobs, the more commitment and interest they will show in their work. Remember that you have hired smart people with right attitude and the best way to find whether you made the right decision or not is to just let them play it. More often the brightest of ideas come from the most unlikely sources and only way of knowing that is by empowering.  

Effective managers know from their experience that they can climb greater heights and achieve their professional goals only by delegating the work to their talented team of people.  By empowering, you are creating the next generation of leadership so always remember the quote "Do not count the number of followers you have but the number of leaders you created" 
Having shared this, there are certain tasks, which at times just cannot be delegated out. Jay Goltz has shared one such funny experience in his blog The one task I can’t seem to delegate and also there is this humorous piece

Mom: "Son, please go to the market and buy 1 bottle of milk. If they have eggs, bring 6”.  Son came back with 6 bottles of milk.   Mom: "Why the hell did you buy 6 bottles of milk?" Son:“Because they had eggs"

What are your thoughts on empowering your team to own responsibilities?  

Empower Your Team To Own Responsibilities was originally published in LinkedIn 

What is making you feel proud today?

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #Innovation #IncredibleIndia #TheMakersOfThings #InnovationTechnology #FrugalInnovation  

Patriotism is a thing difficult to put into words. It is neither precisely an emotion nor an opinion, nor a mandate, but a state of mind -- a reflection of our own personal sense of worth, and respect for our roots. Love of country plays a part, but it's not merely love. Neither is it pride, although pride too is one of the ingredients. 
Patriotism is a commitment to what is best inside us all. And it's a recognition of that wondrous common essence in our greater surroundings -- our school, team, city, state, our immediate society -- often ultimately delineated by our ethnic roots and borders... but not always. 
Indeed, these border lines are so fluid... And we do not pay allegiance as much as we resonate with a shared spirit. 
We all feel an undeniable bond with the land where we were born. And yet, if we leave it for another, we grow to feel a similar bond, often of a more complex nature. Both are forms of patriotism -- the first, involuntary, by birth, the second by choice. 
Neither is less worthy than the other.―  Vera Nazarian 

Today I came across a YouTube video by the ‘The Makers of Things’, which is about India and how now is the time for India’s innovation, which finally seems to have come of age. Motto behind ‘The Makers of Things’ is to create a place that celebrates design and innovation!, where designers and innovators who are making beautiful things happen are featured - so they can spur more!.

Watching such videos always bring a lump in my throat thinking about how the perception about India and the innovative opportunities it presents is changing for the good. Social media has evolved in recent times and has its positives and not so positive impacts in society and arguments for and against are relative and subjective. One thing definitely positive about social media is the sharing of constructive knowledge and redefining the reach of the knowledge to a larger audience across the world. Sometime back Karl Moore had written a piece in Forbes The Best Way To Innovation An Important Lesson from India, in which Karl articulated it very well on why frugal innovation in India is a success story because of its limited financial resources. What Karl shared sometime back, India proved it by launching its ultra-budget spacecraft 'Mangalyaan' by becoming the first nation to succeed in sending a spacecraft into Mars' orbit on its very initial attempt.

India’s innovation success story is an idea whose time has come! 

What is making you feel proud today? was originally published in LinkedIn

Change context of your life to get rid of stress

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #Inspirational #StressManagement

Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. -Natalie Goldberg

In this enlightening interview with Oscar award winning film maker Shekar Kapur, Sadhguru explains how to get rid of stress. Its an interesting perspective how Sadhguru shares his thoughts on stress and the very notion of stress management. Stress management with a simple google search fetches ~38,500,000 results in less than 0.37 seconds, which possibly explains how much importance people associate it with. Thousands of books are available on stress management with many experts advising us on how best to manage stress. In this interview, Sadhguru shares how he does not understand the notion of stress management. He explains that normally one manages something which is precious to them like family, children, business or wealth so its hard for him to understand why manage stress, which should not be precious to anyone. Sadhguru goes on to put it very beautifully explaining how to get rid of stress by changing the context of our life. Since we do not have control over the circumstances or situations surrounding our life, its how we react to those situations in life, which helps us get rid of stress.

Stress is just an inability to manage the inner situation, not the outer situation. Inner situation could be your thoughts, your values or your beliefs conflicting with how you react with outer situations and thus creating stress. This reminds me of a story my mother shared once about a monk, who was passing through a town and in that town there was a notorious person tormenting the people. When he saw the monk, the person started abusing and throwing insults while the monk kept smiling. Surprised by the monk’s reaction, people asked why he was not reacting and feeling angry because of all those insults & abuses. To this, monk calmly responded with a smile that the insults & abuses belong to the person which he is trying to give me and by not reacting, I am just not taking in those insults & abuses.

Quote from William James best summarizes the essence of this post “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another"

Change context of your life to get rid of stress post 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

Lessons Inspired By Chanakya

Lessons Inspired By Chanakya was originally published as an article in LinkedIn

It amazes me how much culturally rich India is and how much we can learn from our glorious history. Chanakya was a renowned Indian scholar, who served as a teacher, philosopher and royal advisor. Other day I was fortunate enough to watch a youtube video of TV serial Chanakya, which used to be telecast on national television in India during early 1990's. In this episode, there is an interesting Q&A session which takes place in the court of king DhanaNanda (last ruler of Nanda dynasty) involving his court priest and Chanakya's student from Takshashila University. Q&A session goes like this

Court Priest: Who is greatest enemy
Chanakya's student: Pride

Court Priest: What is wealth of the poor 
Chanakya's student: Knowledge

Court Priest: Who is a honorable man
Chanakya's student: One who is benevolent

Court Priest: A woman's virtue
Chanakya's student: Her modesty

Court Priest: Who is the most heroic man 
Chanakya's student: A generous person

Court Priest: Against whom we should protect wealth
Chanakya's student: From thieves and state officials

Court Priest: What is the root of happiness
Chanakya's student: Religion

Court Priest: What is the basis of religion 
Chanakya's student: Economy

Court Priest: What is the basis of economy
Chanakya's student: State

Court Priest: What is the basis of state
Chanakya's student: Conquering the senses

Court Priest: What is the basis of conquering the senses 
Chanakya's student: Humility

Court Priest: What is the basis of humility
Chanakya's student: Serving the weak

Court Priest: Where does the King's welfare lie
Chanakya's student: In the welfare of his subjects

Listening to this Q&A session, it makes me feel that answers given by the student are so righteous and relevant even today. So what lessons did I learn from this

#1. Always be humble in life. John Wooden quoted "Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."

#2. Be respectful to one and all. One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what others have to say.

#3. Your team's success is your success and their failure is your responsibility. 

#4. Somebody can steal your money but nobody can steal your knowledge. So share your knowledge as the more you share, the more you gain. 

#5. Integrity is the most important quality. Samuel Johnson quoted "Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."

#6. Happiness is in thoughts and not in things. Charles Spurgeon quoted "It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness." 

#7. Serve others. John Holmes quoted “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.”

What are your thoughts? Please share your comments.