Mango Times!

Yesterday one news flashed that Indian Post Office is going to deliver Mangoes directly to customers. It led me to think what a disruption is happening at time of crisis. Post office has a wide network in the country which was once happened to be a lifeline for delivering the personalized news. Now it is geared up for delivering Mangoes and breaking glass ceiling of its status quo.

What a collaborative disruption is happening at time of corona pandemic! 

While taking name itself of mango brings mouth watering. But have we ever thought that Mango can't be just juicy, pulpy & sweet fruit but can it be also teach management lessons to us?

I am wondering what lessons can be learnt from Mango that can be applied to corporate world. There are following thoughts that came to my mind:

1. Mango is found to be in immense variety with different tastes. Even some of mangoes used for specific recipes like salad, pickle, juice, chutney, ice cream, mango bar. In same way employees in the corporate world posses unique strength. Each of employees can't be compared to others. We need to capitalize their strength to meet the company objective and even selection of mango or employee should be done as per specific need.

2.  We enjoy the mango with its pulp and juice not the skin and seed. After the relishing its pulp and juice we throw out the skin & seed and never complaint of colour of skin and size of seed. Every employees posses certain strengths and weaknesses. We should focus on demonstrating their strength rather their weaknesses without considering appearance. So other lesson is learnt that never judge the person by their appearance. Let them demonstrate their talent. This lesson can also be applied in the society.

3.  Mango is available only for short time unlike other fruit like Banana. Farmers put a year of focus efforts to bring pulp and juice to it. We can learn that for any project to accomplish a focus and time bound effort is required. If time and focus are not given importance nothing concrete can be achieved and appreciated.

4. If we are putting effort with purpose to accomplish a project and it is getting delay or some obstacle come across , other team members subordinate the project jointly to accomplish the task on time. This happened in case of crisis of covid 19, supply and sales of mangoes are stuck. Now, post office department is coming forward to rescue mangoes' farmers.

What do you think any other lesson can be learnt from Mango or any other fruits? Just think over it and eager to know your views.

~K.K

21 Days Of Lockdown

Today we are completing 21 days of lockdown due to pandemic of Covid 19.  In these days we heard several words resonated in our mind -Lockdown, Quarrantine, Social distancing and Work from Home. We acknowledged these words not just to live with them but same time these words also open the doors of learning, thinking, contemplating, exploring, sharing & caring for ourselves and others too. 

 So I am introspecting myself how was last 21 days? how do I used it? What are changes that I made to myself and others?

First let's acknowledge that this is not usual time and we are also not use of it. But situation is made such that we can see this as a great opportunity for bringing change in ourselves not just for personal well being but collectively also for family, society and nation. 

So I am summarising how I spend last 21 days of lockdown:

1. When I got up in the morning everyday I pray to supreme and spiritual power that governs entire universe to give strength to all human being to fight against invisible enemy and come back to normal life quickly.

2.  At this point of time, extending support to front runner warriors looks difficult while ensuring social distancing but still we can do it. I am happy that I supported to front runner warriors by donating to PM Cares fund and also to funds raised by my school mates within capability.

3. My wife always considered herself digitally challenged. She always afraid of using laptop and using various basic tools, browser. I tried to assist her to learn various tools quickly like ppt making, using word doc, online meeting through Zoom to take online classes for her school students.

4. Engaging children in this period within four walls is really a difficult task. My brother, suggested me a programming language,Scratch for kids at very reasonal charge. Actually children like animations, so with this programming language children can become consumer to creator of animation. Now my son is enjoying with MIT developed programming language, Scratch learning from scratch.

5. In last 21 days I could write 6 articles on my blog manudrishti.blogspot.com

6. I finished two books. One is self help book, Happy Money. This book talks about to consider the money as an energy. It gives simple tips how to increase your wealth. This helped me to change my perspective towards money. Other book is from Sudha Murthy's, The old man and his God. It contains short and simple varied life experiences of author that enlightens us with food for thought.

7.  We all know the benefits of 

yoga and meditation. But somehow I could not able to start them in regular days. These days, I promised myself to do 'meditation' and 'Surya Namaskar'. These are very important for healthy mind and body. Even Lord Krishna asked Arjuna to do Surya Namaskar before Mahabharta. It is said that by doing so one can't be poor and can't be in adversity. It looks true when mind and body are healthy, both manifest for healthy action. The best part is that when I initiated 'Surya Namaskar' every family members follwed the same including kids. Happy to see a healthy habit getting born in my family

8. I attended couple of webinars, one on storytelling and other on content writing. Learnt simple tips to improve my storytelling and writing skills Still exploring for adding professional skills. Now it is zeroed down to Tableau and Data Analytics. Hope to start them tomorrow.

9. I am regular in Toastmasters club. This time I attended weekly online meeting and attended workshop on 'Effective Evaluation' by TM Prakash Tamhankar. It was indeed a great learning for me 

10. I could able to spend much time with family that I missed out in regular days. This time an essense of togetherness emerged happily and lovingly, doing daily chores together cooking, cleaning & brooming. Everyone contributed a bit. Even our 'Alexa', Amazon Prime, Netflix and DD Channel, each of them helped us in enhancing our bonding in each time we spent together.

Now lockdown of 21 days is getting over and another lockdown -2 is starting fromn15th April to 3rd May. So I am planning for much more use of my time effectively and efficiently.

Want to know know how did you spent time in last 21 days and how are you planning in next lockdown?

~K.K.

Power of Words!

Life looks very boring in lockdown period. No physical connection with family, friends & collegues. No time to refresh to go out, spending full day and night at home appears to be tiresome. Life has come to stand still that man have never thought in recent past. 

But in this challenging time, there exist an opportunity. With this in mind I was just exploring myself how I can engage myself with new skills. The best way I can find to engage with learning through digital world crossing all the boundaries of time & physical presence. So with this exploration I got an update from my younger brother, Neeraj to listen to a webinar on story telling. Being a toastmaster I know the importance of story telling and aroused interest in me. So I immediately registered and listened to it. Speaker, Lavanya Prasad was no exception but a true story teller based on her own experience. She started with asking everyone to write about yourself and tell in 30 seconds. After sometime few of them was asked to tell about themselves. Most of them talked about as an individual reflecting a successful indentity. But what she mentioned something which really struck me. She said that one has to introduce himself or herself with a touch of failure in your life. This may create more curiosity for others to know about your story and connect to others immediately.  More of time, people introduce himself or herself by mentioning the success story and this may not give a reason to craft a story. So we need to develop the habit for crafting a story by rewinding ourselves the moment we failed and how we come out from our failure. 

Other aspect of story telling is power of words. She shared one video that was quiet interesting. The video shows that a blind beggar was sitting side of busy street. He mentioned in cardboard " I am blind please help me". He was getting money from people from passer by. One day one lady came to him and took out out card baord and wrote something at back of card board and displayed it. From that day everything was changed for blind beggar. Many more people started giving money generously. After few days that lady who wrote came to him and saw that he was getting more money. She was quiet happy and contented. She wrote on card board ' the day is beautiful but I can't see it, please help". With change of words more people started feeling the emotions of a blind beggar and generously started giving money to him.

 In same way in our day to day work while interacting with friends, family, collegues, supporting staffs, driver, shopkeepers etc. the words come out from mouth play a significant role in our life. The words can take our life up and down and twist & turn. Words can make us or break us. We need to choose the words diligently and pass on to others that can make others feel great and make the environment pleasant. The spoken words can be like a music to ears uplifting mood and elevating the desire to connect. This is a Power of Words. Let's practice it. 

~K.K

Where Is Our God?

Yesterday we were flipping Netflix to view a movie and we all in family unanimously agreed to watch PK. 

We were enjoying every bit of scenes and dialogues of an alien coming to Earth and struggling to find his stolen remote control to get back to his home planet. While searching his lost remote control he started finding God to plead for getting back his remote control. His journey of finding God led him to learn & emulate all the means and hardships. He accepted and acted rituals of all religions to find God. Finally he reached to the point that it is the man that has made God and created immense difference in human mankind.

This movie has sparked to think and introspect on our long and deep rooted believe system towards God. The learnings that we have from this movie are following:

1. It is man who created a fashion of different attire for Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christiian, Jain. It is nowhere a mark of God in our body visible at time of birth of a person to differentiate our religion. 

2. Most of people in this world are God fearing. Fear has led him to follow the pursuit of unaccounted rituals to please God not mankind. Act of offering milk to Shiva and Chadar to Prophet, Innumerous money & Bali offering to hindu Goddess are seen common. Will it possible to offer all these act to mankind?

Now bigger question arises where is our God?  What are its form? How does it look like? 

Let's take present context of the world, the world is grappling with the most treacherous time the mankind has seen in recent times and man and man made God are lockdown. But in this difficult time millions of people are lockdown, still many of people dare to offer the service to the mankind. They are working relentlessly without wearing the fashion of religion. It is quiet obvious that they forget that they have also family waiting at home, even they are more prone to get infection of covid 19 and risking the most to their life. They are actually God within us. If we recall our mythology, Rama & Krishna were incarnation of God served as a human being. In recent history of mankind, Gautam Buddha, Mahavir, Adi Shankaracharya, Mohamad Prophet, Guru Nanak, Jesus Christ, Mahatama Gandhi, Mother Terresa and many such like people all were human beings served their duties as mankind but revered as God. Like them, those are offering services to mankind in Covid 19 pandemic are God which may be recognised later. But with our intellect to decide whether they are true God among us. 

Can we offer prayers to them? Can we shift our attention & offering from man made God to true spirit of God? We should have firm believe that true spirit of God will end pandemic soon. Our God is residing within us serving the. mankind. 

~K.K

Ways To Get Away From Information Overload,!

Yesterday I had meeting online with our all India business head across the country. He talked about our performance in FY20, upcoming challenges in the world of VUCA( volatile, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) and also emphasised on self upgradation technically, commercially  or acquiring new skills. He also explained how company is grapling with certain challenges in current situation of covid 19. 

Other than all these, one thing that really struck me on how to resilient in world of information overload. Every now and then, we all are connected with several social media with text message, pictures and videos.We all can acknowledge and accept that today information overload making our life a roller coaster ride with inconsistent and uncontrollable time & mind management. So it appears that more we connect to outer world digitally more the information we get and invite for innumerous distractions. Even many a times information are repetitive and undesirable hence information are big source of distraction rather useful information. I observed that too much of information confuse us on our decision to pick the best and relevant information, shorthen our attention time towards regular course of action and finally register minimal storage in our memory. It is important to note that day by day information are getting increased and hence it is imperative to shield and control ourselves from information overload to enhance our productivity and efficiency.

Now question arises how to control ourselves from information overload and how to filter out the best and relevant information that are useful and applicable to us.

I have thought on some of useful tips that I am practicing them.

1.  First thing we should do that when we get up in the morning, don't touch mobile phone. In place of that we can practice some attitude of gratitude or meditation or reading some inspirational article. In case we get up and switch on mobile data we find many whatsapp messages. Our mind attuned to go through them irrespective of importance. Doing so leads us to get into practice of giving our mind control to information. So first do something that you can take control of your mind rather mind is controlled by others 

2.  We found that alerts from various websites and apps keep on pouring on. We may have never bothered to de-alert them and relentlessly keep our attention distracted several times a day. So we need to de-alert all such alerts to enhance our attention.

3.  Among all social media, whatsapp commands highest attention time. It is because we are connected through several groups and individuals. Even some of the group openned in past and they may be still continuing, which may not be relevant in present context. So need to identify all such groups or individuals that are unrelevant and either exit the group or put for 'Mute Notification'

4.  Source of information for our knowledge and wisdom through various apps that should be kept in first page of screen of mobile to get notice by our eyes while flipping the mobile.We can go through to specific set of information that I am intended to do it rather taking time to identify them among clutter of apps.

5. It is important for us to reflect on the information that we are getting seamlessly. So storing such information works as a treasure. To keep a storage of such information we can use some useful app like 'Pocket' or 'Evernotes'. With these tools we can categories the information and keep on storing. Weekly review of stored piece of information makes our mind refreshing and enriching.

I am sure with above tips that can shield us from information overload. If you have other ways please share to me in feedback. Your feedback will be always appreciable.

~K.K