Parental buy-in
We would like to share three scenes we heard/witnessed/experienced this week
Scene 1: There were a group of college students who got togther against several odds to start up something of their own. For fresh engineering grads starting out all by themselves they had made a revenue of around 3,00,000 the first quarter. We came to hear of them in their start up days – they were all powered at the cash register ringing – the sweat that was pouring and even the sleepless nights!! Two quarter later we found one them as we made a visit to an IT MNC – but to our surprise as an employee there!! We wondered what happened to the start-up venture and he told us they had to fold it and the reason was Parental Pressure!!
Scene 2: There was this young man – traditionally brought up – sent abroad for higher studies – who had the burning desire to do something on his own. His parents were not very approving despite the fact that their son had always had an impressive track record. Infact it was this impressive track record that he found that was deterring him from taking the unconventional routes. His parents and relatives were of the opinion “You start something on your own – when you can’t find somebody to give you a job.” This young man chose the strongest opponent – his dad, and worked on him for three long years before his dad relented and told him to go ahead and experiement. Today the dad is the biggest fan for the business that has been started and has infact started propogating this!!
Scene 3: A young student, still studying wondering where to go and what to do. We found her mother escort her to a counselling session for our Business Plan Formulation. The mother patiently listened to what are the aspects of the course, the benefits and why it is a bright time to test unchartered water. To us the mother accompanying her daughter was not a sign of a worried parent coming to check a class – but that of an interested parent who wanted to get more aware!!
Parents are truly a child’s worst critic and best fan!! Seldom any initiative that is done without the parental buy-in can be expected to sustain over a long period. For Entrepreneurs this support is very essential. We feel it is time that parents become mentors – instead of instructors, allowing their wards to make intelligent decisions and not necessarily the decisions that they feel is right for the ward. For this the parents have to keep abreast of aspects in the current scenario. They need not be a step ahead of the children, but are they walking along with them? Seeing the world and opportunities from the eyes of an energetic young man and women?
While the ecosystem is busy making curriculums for faculty and students on Entrepreneurship – are we forgetting educating the parents? Should this not be a vital consideration for us in creating the entrepreneurial ecosystem?
At the same time – it is equally the responsibility of the aspiring entrepreneur to create the buy-in amongst family, especially parents. Most often used method to gain parental support is emotional force – which only gets an approval and not necessarily the support. Young minds wanting to charter the unknown should acknowledge and understand the bases of the parental pressure and try to address them rationally. Emotional selling while is quickest is not necessarily the best method (refer scene-1)
As we step into the E-week celebrations, I hope we give due consideration to aspects of parental buy-in!!
The lonely Entrepreneur
It is often said one gets lonely at the top – but for an Entrepreneur it gets uncannily lonely from day 1 !! Doesn’t it??
As he starts his journey and makes his way very often he is hit by a realisation that he is alone and there have been times where he has refined this feeling and said, “Actually you know what I are not alone I am just feeling lonely.”
Have you felt this way? Though this is a practical situation many of us may have faced in our professional and personal lives, understanding the difference between these two states could unlock a lot of positive responses from us.
Alone is a state of being one gets to when one start off and then suddenly turns back to see no one around. This happens very often when one takes the less trodden path – not necessarily entrepreneurship! This happens rather not so suddenly since people dropping off does not happen all at once, it happens gradually. So by the time the person realizes he / she is alone it is quite sometime down the path. Being alone is not good for too long. It makes a lot of sense to attract more people to start believing in what you are doing and eventually the person who starts the journey becomes one among the crowd. It is like an entrepreneur starting a company and then eventually making the company bigger than self, thereby becoming just another part of it. You were alone when you started but eventually moved out of that state. And this is very important in the journey of an Entrepreneur!
Lonely on the other hand is a feeling. You can feel lonely even in the midst of crowd! No i am not at all being philosophical though there may be lot of philosophy around that statement. There are times when you feel you could have had someone empathize with you – just for your sake. Feeling lonely is a state of mind rather than a state of being – isn’t it? Many people detest feeling lonely – but at times it is good too as it allows your mind to contemplate. When one reflects on it, you may realize that this is the state of mind when awareness is at its highest, thoughts bear fruit, new ideas germinate, and towards the end of that short period, the person experiences perfect bliss in thinking. So at times one should infact seek such moments of being only connected to his inner self.
The real difference between the two words “Lonely and Alone” actually lies in the difference between “Feeling and Being”. Most often you cannot “Be Lonely” and “Feel Alone”. Hence a lot lies in what we use before Alone and Lonely? Is it being or feeling?
Many things change when you take a decision to NOT be alone and NOT feel lonely! Not to be alone – You need to work towards creating something for others – helping them realise their dreams – you need to work on creating your tribe. Because when you create a tribe – they will allow you moments of introspection and lonliness where you can think and create energy to move on – adding on more members to your tribe.
Trust
How often have you placed your trust on someone and how often have you told them incessantly that you trust them. Picture this:
* A mother instilling confidence in her son, “I trust you – you will do well in your exam”.
* A person confiding in their best friend “I trust you with all my heart – you will never do me harm”
* A disciple telling his guru “I trust you to lead me to my destiny”
All the above portray a sense of deep belief – a positive scene.
But then how does the mother react when she finds her son watching television before the day of the exam? How does the person react when he finds some behavior of his best friend not fitting his perceived ideas? How often does the disciple wonder when he cannot understand his gurus instruction – whether he is in the right place?
Aren’t these questions natural? Don’t we all question routinely someone/something we say we trust? But then if you trust – where is the room for questioning?
Inspite of a proven track record how many of us trust Sachin truly to deliver a match for India. What we are doing in all these cases – is “Expecting” and not “Trusting”. But then “Expectation” as an emotion is perceived as bad – just the way we perceive profit as a bad term!!
To trust means to free yourself from any participation (even as an observer) in the act – to be detached from the scenario – to be at peace through the process.
But can this happen when you are a stakeholder in the result?
To trust – you need to give up control!! Where there is expectation – there is participation – and when there is participation there is control!!
So next time when we say we TRUST – we may first want to gauge ourselves to be able to live upto the expectation of “Placing trust on someone”
In search of an Entrepreneur
If ichiban Consultants brought us in contact with small business owners and their constant search for good talent, ichiban Academy our latest initiative in Entrepreneurial learning has brought us in touch with spirited college students. Over the last two weeks, members of our team have been meeting students of a number of colleges and in the process getting to understand some interesting but worrying impressions in these young minds.
- Can Entrepreneurship be taught? Isn’t it an inborn trait?
- I am never going to start a business so why should I understand business planning?
And the winner question was what one of our new course evangelist encountered “While you are an employee of ichiban – how can you ask me to enroll in a course for Entrepreneurship?” – Quite logical?
But are we Entrepreneurs by birth? How many children say “I want to be an Entrepreneur” when asked the question “What do you want to become?”… Is it not something we consider more so by accident.
While one cannot dream for another, the art of dreaming can be taught – can we by providing skills and support for the entrepreneurial journey encourage more dreamers to at least dare to dream? Is this not worthy of consideration?
And should every individual with Entrepreneurial skills necessarily start a company? Who would a CEO prefer for rising in an organization – a person who can do his assigned job well or a person who can understand the today and tomorrow of his business?
Would we all not be better when we have Entrepreneurial mindset working for us in our teams? Are we all not searching for that talent who will exhibit ownership of ideas, problems and our business – whether we are a large corporate or small business? Are we all not looking out for Entrepreneurs?
However by its classic usage and recent popularity – the term Entrepreneur has become highly restrictive in its implication. It is today more of a noun signifying a person who “Starts” his own venture – rather than a person who can exhibit entrepreneurial mind set.
This is keeping a lot of young minds away from picking the necessary skills and techniques that could go a long way in helping an organization they are associated with – be it their own or some body else.
Today an “Entrepreneur Employee” is not an oxymoron but a compelling competitive advantage that every organization is seeking!! It could be truly the time for us to redefine the dictionary meaning of employee and entrepreneur to read the same!!
Let’s Play the Flute
The Indian Flute – the instrument of magical music of Lord Krishna in the Hindu Mythology can tell us a thing or two about how we can lead our day. The flute is from a layman’s perspective a hollow tube of wood with holes at different points. And blowing through this tube one can make wonderful music – music that can stir your soul. Is it the tube that makes the sound? or is it the musician? We learnt yesterday listening to a wonderful flute recital that is the fingers that modulate the airflow through the holes – converting the air to soul’s music.
Isn’t this what life is? Let’s picture our mind as the flute and the holes as our perception, bias, past experience, wisdom, patience etc. When we perceive our day through this mind, through what holes we allow the energy to flow decides the music that we play. When we channelise our present moment’s image through our bad past experience or a scar of distrust – what could emerge in all probability would be a music that is not pleasant. But if we close these holes and allow the present moment to flow through the holes of belief, trust and positivism, the music that we make could be a miracle.
Very often in life we are quick to form opinions, judge others and situations without giving them a fair chance to prove otherwise. This rush to make music is like only blowing through the hollow flute and not modulating it by allowing it flow through our inherent positive qualities. When you do not modulate you get only air from the flute. When you close the positive holes you can jarring music. It is only when you allow every moment of your present to come through the flute and play unto the openings of positive thoughts and belief – will you make music.
A whole new year!! A wonderful opportunity for all of us to set fresh goals and pursue them with renewed vigor!! Every day holds a new promise to perform! Every day is an opportunity not in disguise but in a platter handed over to us.
We have another chance to make our own music. So let’s learn to play the flute!
A resolution and 52 weeks
It is going to be about two years since we turned entrepreneurs! While the first year (2008) was a year of falling, the second (2009) has been filled with realization. I don’t want to use the word ‘learning’, because knowing that learning is a continuous process was in itself a realization.
In 2008 just like any other self motivated young lot we took on many things, we thought big, we ran real hard and by the end of the year we had not moved much! Surprised? Yes, we were too! I think we must have each clocked over 4000 hours of work and there we were – stuck at the same spot. Me and my partner were sitting down in our one room start-up office and looking at each other. Is this really what entrepreneurship does to you?
If I have to bare my heart to you, we were two dejected souls on the eve of the new year, looking back and doing a root cause on the year (2008) that was on hindsight filled with journeys that could have best been avoided. We looked back and we found that we had run a little down many paths. We wanted to do big things, but too fast. So now to think we could adopt one more resolution for the coming new year was something that we were not too keen.
The thing that is true about both happiness and depression is they grow stronger with every minute you indulge in them. So the mood was just growing more somber till the time the spirit of ichiban gave us the normal wake-up kick. While till a point in time we were questioning if we had done things right – the question slowly turned to how do we do the right thing? We took this to our team to get their opinion
It was then our youngest associate asked us “Can one well done resolution be better than 10 half done? Can we take up one single resolve for ichiban that we will manage and sustain no matter what happens in the course of 2009?”
The challenge seemed too small to scale and we did need a morale boost. So we agreed as a team that we will take up one non-business initiative and see it through in 2009.
The discussions moved from creation of a trust, each of us obtaining one professional certification, performing service etc. Somewhere someone said, lets take up a challenge which will demand our commitment every week. This way it is not an event that can be done with but a continuous test.
It was with this twist that the blog “Experience and Expressions” was born. We quickly formed a team that gave a commitment to the organization – no matter what happens – we will have a post once a week every week of 2009. The question then was who will read it. We said we have a network of about 100 people lets start from there.
So on Thursday first January 2009, we started this blog “Expressions and Experiences”. There were challenges just like all worthwhile tasks – but after 52 weeks we now know, if you decide to do something passionately, the world will make way. We now have numerous regular readers of our blog, we have people who comment, we have readers who share it with friends, we have readers who even print it and publish it on notice boards of their offices and we even got an invitation to re-publish one in an online journal.
Today we have 52 posts..98 comments (including those sent to us on mails)..and over 2500 on the mailer list by reference.
But as we said this journey for our blog was not easy. Through their travel, their engagements and most important through the recession we had to deliver the post. Sometimes it came easily from an experience..and at times there have been Thursdays where no idea seemed good enough or worthy of our readers. We have suffered chronic “writers block” Thursdays. But every week on Thursday the blog would get posted – no matter what.
As the editor of the team put it, “it was more than a blog for us..we were all under our 52 week watch. And when you watch over yourself no excuse is reason enough for giving up”.
Although we know this is no match for avid blogging – “ichiban Thoughts” today stand to us as a proof that “One resolution well done is better than 10 half dones”. What just one activity has done is change our belief systems on goals and resolutions. A goal – A resolution – always helps! Small victories fuel larger wins! And as we complete this year we want to thank all our readers for helping us go through with this most beautiful experience. Sharing our thoughts with you have made us better and stronger.
Incidentally yesterday our banker asked in jest “Is your resolution not to make a resolution this year” we smiled and left him in silence!!
We wish you all a great new year and the will to make and succeed in your resolutions!!
Joy of Giving
I stay in a fairly large residential colony. Some houses witness Christmas decorations and red stars can be seen hanging outside a window. Apart from that and the plum cake that makes its way into my house, I have been isolated from Christmas celebration. But what I was fortunate to witness yesterday not only gave me the inspiration for the blog, but a new perspective of how we can view the Joy of Giving. I was walking back to an empty home for the night, so was not hence in much of a hurry!
As I entered my colony, I saw a rather thin Santa Claus walking into the first floor house of the opposite building into a house which I knew belonged to a old Hindu lady living alone. Her Children are NRI who visit her once in two years. Normally a cheerful lady, she was getting older by the day and quieter. So I was intrigued by this Santa who stood outside her door, shaking a bell in one hand while knocking with the other. Some others who were also drawn by this unusual scene gathered along. Out of our deference for Santa did not brow beat him into asking his identity but joined him outside the lady’s door. Reassured on seeing us along with this stranger Santa, the lady opened the door and the lone Santa burst into a merry song..IN TAMIL!!
When Santa opened his mouth to sing it was hard to conceal the identity. It was our iron man (istri wala)..who had borrowed a Santa Costume from his customer. He had heard the lady tell him casually how much she misses her children and how every function is an ordeal reminding her of her loneliness. And this reminded him of his parents back in village all alone by themselves. He wanted to do something to make her feel better. And hence the disguise.
The lady was swept with emotions and gave a bear hug not only to Santa but almost to all of us who had assembled. We were all pulled instantly into the mood of wishing good luck to each other. The whole celebration lasted all but 10 mins but left a night long warmth from having been a part of something good from the bottom of the heart! Going by my emotions, everyone who was a part of the spectator crowd felt as much happy as the lady for whom the visit was staged!
Today the spirit of Christmas often conjures up in one’s mind decorated Christmas tree and presents. Underneath the presents, we seem to have buried the true spirit of “Giving”. If only we can extend the true Christmas spirit to our every day life – it would be so enriching every time we give; not presents – but our time and our attention. A selfless gesture motivates many more in the person who performs it and inspires the receiver to do it unto someone else. It is like a flywheel that picks momentum with every turn.
While we set ourselves ambitious targets in personal and professional life, can we set a simple target for acts of selflessness to be done if not daily – at least weekly? If you have a ward in scouts you can see them going around with good-deed book where they have to authenticate from the receiver an act of good will they have performed. As adults – where is our good deed book?
As we all cross another Christmas season – maybe it will be of value if we can put ourselves to believe:
“Christmas is a state of mind – not a date. Christmas is in the heart – and not under an Xmas Tree!!”
Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and May the new year give all of us opportunities to experience the “JOY OF GIVING”
Hope or Belief?
Sometime or the other we would have been touched by the life of the simple girl Heidi. This wonderful character plays the lead role in the children’s novel of the same name written by Johanna Spyri as her commitment to her dying son. The story line is all about a pleasant simple girl, orphaned young who finds herself as a playmate for a rich but disabled girl called Clara. The story is all about friendship and love between these two girls.
There have been many adaptations of the story and a recent one is being aired in a TV channel between 10:30 pm – 11:00 pm every night. This is the time of my compulsive channel surfing as I try to escape the “Women against women” soap. Of late I have been settling down to this cartoon serial. And everyday there has been a learning for me. The stark difference when you involve yourself in a child’s world which is away from petty jealousy, scheming plans and “first to finish” race – is something that I have found cathartic, purging all the heaviness one accumulates during the day.
The entire story is about how the self-doubting Clara gains confidence to walk. And the energy for Clara to walk comes not from within but from the exuberance that Heidi expresses every time she speaks to Clara about walking. The confidence that Heidi has that Clara can and will walk translates into action every time. But when you see the elders around Clara – though they want Clara to walk, their feelings are marred by the knowledge that medical science has written this off as only a remote possibility. What the Elders exhibit is a strong hope that Clara will walk one day – while Heidi in her undiluted faith firmly believes Clara can walk. It is this difference between Hope and Belief that causes the whale of the difference in the support Clara draws from Heidi and Others.
It is this thought that hit me hard as I was viewing Heidi – why Clara with the best of medical support, love from her family was not able to walk but when she was with Heidi it became a possibility? In both places Clara had well wishers, supporter and especially in Frankfurt she had also best of medical help. But what Clara got in Frankfurt were people who were HOPING she will walk one day – but in Heidi Clara got a friend who BELIEVED firmly Clara will walk. When you believe something can happen you are actively involved in all planes to make it happen – but when you are hoping things will go right you are expecting almost always an external force (most often divine intervention) to bail you out. In other words, “Is the feeling ‘hope’ a diluted version of ‘Belief’?”
How are we when we say we support our friends and peers as they face challenge? Does our action convey fervent hope that the person should come out victorious or does our action convey confidence of belief that they will emerge victorious? Just a thin line between these two – but a line that could make a world of difference to someone!!
Bottleneck
“The neck of the bottle is always at the top!!!” BUT OBVIOUSLY…
However this is not what we hear when we speak as managers. Very often when we are interacting we hear a deep sigh ” I am not sure why my team is allergic to work!” or the even more famous “Nowadays there is no ownership or accountability in the ranks”..”Despite all our efforts, we just don’t seem to be growing”.
The problem that we face in delivery, business and growth is always perceived to be at the bottom. Traditionally we used to assume the head of the structure be it a small project, a Business Development Team or an organization is the person who is bearing the brunt of the problem – hence the root cause of this has to lie some where else.. maybe in people/team below in hierarchy. But very often we find when we do a study, the problem starts from this very group.
The inability of the person at the top to message the organizational or project need clearly and detail the contribution that is expected from each of the team member is a key reason for what is perceived as an execution layer failure. The execution layer often comprises of high energy individuals whose individuality needs to be harnessed to create the difference. But most often the people in the leadership position seek to create consistent and predictable performing group.
While sustained consistency in performance is a remarkable delivery quality – what one needs to remember is the level itself has to be constantly improved. The onus for this often is assumed to rest in the leader – which is the place where the problem arises.
A leader’s role in an organization is to gather, create and maintain a positive momentum of growth. The role is not to fix the speed of the journey. When a person assumes the leadership position in any context, he needs to be constantly aware if he is going to be becoming the bottle neck for flow of thoughts, energy and action of his execution team. The Question is not if the team can keep pace with the leader – but is the leader truly allowing his team to run faster?
Something is better than Nothing BUT Nothing is better than Nonsense
Agree? But then how many of us opt for nothing over something? We all want to be representatives of perpetual motion always doing something. It is ironical that a man spends first half of his life being pushed, cajoled into a false sense of urgency constantly in the need to “DO” something and, then spends his second half of his life in a frenzy to seek peace from “Nothingness”!! Ample proof is the increasing numbers of spiritual students between 30-40.
If one makes a list of things that one has done since this morning, you can find at least 2-3 instances where your actions could have been without any reason, purpose and also involuntary – out of years of practice of having to always do something! You can see such people all around you always – people who have to be doing something.
The favorite candidate tag line during interviews is “I have to have work.. I need to be onto something ALWAYS.. I can’t sit idle”!! You recruit this candidate because he sounds like a go-getter. In the initial days this person represents a busy bee- at times even an entire bee hive. His energy level is contagious and you can see movement all around his peers. There is a sense that they are always unto something. But very soon if you are lucky enough to be just an observer (or unlucky to be his manager) you will find there is nothing coming out of this frenzy of activities. Things seem to be moving while staying all the time in the same place. It is like walking yourself faster and faster on a Treadmill – at the end of a 5 km jog you find yourself in the same place and stinking of sweat! The high energy that was so encouraging in the interview is becoming a deterrent – because action all the time is not allowing time for thinking and planning!
As a part of our leadership training we have a module called the “Restlessness of Rest”. In a brightly lit room we assemble all the participants and tell them they have to do absolutely NOTHING for 10 mins. Never can you find so much action from any senior manager group! From subtle fidgeting, scribbling, walking around the room to more daring making of faces, discordant loud humming, paper planes to composing emails on black berry – one can see it all! You can try it in your unit or organization – it provides valuable insights! By the time we are done with the team we have definitely achieved in them looking at their inherent “restlessness” in a more constructive manner – and thinking how that energy can be utilized constructively by doing Nothing over nonsense!
Although it is rare you can find people who can actually enjoy a moment of nothingness. The bliss of not having to do anything! We owe our lessons on “Nothing” to this senior vice president of a large MNC who has not only mastered this but has also been successful in converting few of us to enjoy nothingness. In one of our early encounters with him we walked into his cabin and seeing him “DOING NOTHING” offered the standard conversation protocol “Sorry to have bothered you!”. He said “It’s alright! I was enjoying doing nothing when you interrupted”.
We thought he was being humorous. It took us many more interactions with him to realize he actually meant we were interrupting his tryst with NOTHINGNESS. His career has been the most impressive and he has been role model to many youngsters in various organization – and he is a firm believer of “Nothingness”. He says it is these precious moments of nothingness that rejuvenates him and he says one needs to know how to enjoy those moments. According to him “Doing Nothing” requires serious practice – these are moments were your mind is NOT thinking on your competitive advantage, progress of your peer or your next pay check! But these are moments where you do NOTHING!
We have personally benefitted in this practice of doing NOTHING especially after we have become entrepreneurs. In the first year we have never had a moment of rest – every minute of ours was consumed by the passion of running our small organization. Somewhere in between we realized we were getting stereotyped in our solutions, our thoughts and ideas. We were sensing a discomfort of burning down faster by running too fast. It was then we happened to meet this person again – when it clicked to us that the art of doing NOTHING becomes significant when you actually have too many things to do.
It takes you momentarily out of your situation – calms your nervous system – initiates circulation of fresh thoughts – channelizes energy and voila when you are finished with doing NOTHING – you can now get onto doing SOMETHING more effectively!
