Tag: Building The Leadership Muscle

This is a question I keep asking myself, on a regular basis. How big can I be? Am I playing a game worthy of me? Am I growing? What can I bring forth in me so that I can create a bigger impact?

I am reminded of a quotation by Sam Keen stating “What shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think to ask.”

Over the years that I have spent in business, I can say now with a fair degree of confidence that these and other similar questions are questions that have the potential of stopping you in the rush of your day to day life and get you to observe important aspects of your life which otherwise miss your attention.

So, let’s start – How Big can you be?

But before that, the question to be asked is how big am I being right now?

For you to answer this, we will need to understand what ‘big’ means. ‘Big’ has a different meaning for different people. Let me relate an interesting Akbar-Birbal story that I was reading for my daughter last week that I see is relevant to this conversation.

In the great Emperor Akbar’s court, it happened one day..

He came into the court. He used to have a blackboard in his court, just as you have blackboards in Universities, because he was himself a learned man and his court was full of learned people. He had collected from all over the country all the geniuses in different dimensions.

Drawing a line on the blackboard, he asked the wise men of his court: ‘Can anyone make this line small without touching it’

Now how can you make it small without touching it? You will have to touch it to make it small; you will have to erase some part of it. So, all the wise people were at a loss.

Finally, Akbar said to Birbal, who was the most intelligent person in his court: ‘The court seems to be silent. Have you some idea or have you also accepted failure?’

Birbal went to the blackboard and drew a bigger line above the line that Akbar had drawn. He made the line without touching it. Just with the bigger line, the whole context had changed. Now, in comparison to the bigger line, the first line had become small.

You decide the context of ‘Big’ that works for you. You know the life that you have lead and the games that you have played or are currently playing. The question is, like Birbal, do you want to draw a line bigger than the one already drawn up by you?

Playing big games is a matter of practice. We associate discomfort with fear. You can be standing in the discomfort of the unknown, and yet not be scared. And this takes practice.

I know of several people who would love to play big games, but are simply terrified to do so. The comfort of inertia makes it further difficult for them. The key is not to try and make it large, or much bigger. The key is to draw a line of a length that is slightly bigger than the one drawn earlier, and that’s when you are playing a big game, bigger than the one played earlier by you.

And as you start to practice this regularly, the emotion of fear will change to that of wonder (aha, let me explore this unknown territory..) and that of excitement!

You are what you have practiced till today. You are becoming what you are practicing now. Each one of us faces breakdowns regularly, and when a breakdown happens, according to my coach Bob Dunham, “you do not rise to the occasion – you sink to the level of your practice.”

I have begun writing a book, which is totally out of my comfort zone. However, I have taken on a practice to write a few lines every day, and I can see this is making a huge difference in the way I am now approaching my book. This project does not seem as daunting as it did earlier.

And yet, I am drawing a bigger line right now! Are you?

Sameer Dua, Founder Director, Institute for Generative Leadership, India

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“I am really upset. I was not invited to the informal meeting of all managers earlier in the morning today”, said the Manager of an IT consulting company to her colleagues. She spent the entire day being upset guessing the probable reason for her not being invited.

As human beings, we seek problems. We choose a problem and then spend time understanding or solving that problem. If you randomly look around in your world, you will notice people, all of whom are dealing with some or the other problem.

So, the big question you want to ask yourself is – what problem do I want to expend my energies on? That you will spend time on some or the problem is for certain, why not then choose a problem worthy of the bigness in you?

In one of my now rare Mumbai local train journeys, I came across Prof. Sandeep Desai. He was ‘begging’ for money to set up schools for the underprivileged. He had built 4 schools already and was in the process of building the 5th one. To me, it seemed like he gave up a thriving academic career and chose a new problem to deal with.During my recent visit to the US for my Coach Training program, I was in a discussion with Julio Olalla, the founder of Newfield Network and a pioneer of the coaching profession and transformational learning field of Ontology. He very humbly mentioned that the Ontological work that he and his team have done with government agencies in Columbia have helped bring peace in that country!

Some people choose their maids / drivers / not being invited to meetings and events as their problems; while others like Prof. Sandeep Desai and Julio Olalla make the country’s and world’s problems their own personal problem.

So, the question is “What is your problem?” And while you are answering this question, bear in mind people who fight tigers don’t get bothered by mosquitoes.

Sameer Dua, Founder Director, Institute for Generative Leadership, India

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There are only a very few people when you interact with, you feel gems flowing out of their mouths instead of words. This was one such interaction with Yogesh, the Head of HR of a large IT organization; an accomplished man who was modest and full of gratitude for life, yet had an air of subtle arrogance. An arrogance that comes with certainty.

What you are about to read is seemingly basic stuff, however, if you get to the depth of it, you will see how profound each of these points casually stated are:
1. Yogesh is taking off with his family on a drive from Pune to Leh, Ladakh (what???). It is a 6 day drive one way. The family intends to spend 6 days at Ladakh and then take another 6 days for their return journey. A friend asked him how he intends to spend the 6 days at Ladakh. His reply was, “I don’t know actually – we’re more excited about the journey and haven’t thought of what we will do there yet”. While Ladakh remains an exotic destination, for Yogesh, this trip is not about just the destination. It is as much, if not more, about the journey. He made me question myself, if I am enjoying my journey now or am I too focused on the destination?
2. Yogesh, unlike many parents who are senior executives in Corporate India, makes a great parent. He is excited about this holiday. And another reason for his excitement is his two children who are travelling with him. Spending quality time in the car with them; having that bonding opportunity; sharing life experiences; and, jointly learning life lessons with the family is what he is looking forward to.

He stated “Sameer, in a lot of my road trips, I see these young kids without shoes, in blazing sun wearing torn clothes that seem like uniforms and going to school. What I also see them wear is their smile and their excitement for life. I want my children to see that and learn from that”. He added, “While it is important to have gratitude – you cannot be at the effect of the luxuries of life. Happiness is irrespective of these and you can find happiness in the smallest of things in life. I want my kids to learn this by seeing it themselves, and not by me telling them this in the comfort of my house.”

You can see that here is a parent who has his basics in place. I can only imagine his kids talking to their friends 5-10 years later about this road trip they took as a family. To me this is the making of some quality world citizens of the future.

3. Yogesh writes poetry and has recently introduced a mobile application for Apple and Android. My colleague and I know of him as a busy man involved with various different things. My colleague was amazed to see the mobile app on poetry written by him and asked him with deep curiosity, “Yogesh, where do you get the time for writing poetry?’ Yogesh in his characteristic style responded calmly “I have a lot of time – It is not about the time. It is about the intention.” A lot of us know this already. However, when said so simply, it has an altogether different effect. Indeed, we have the time. The question is, ‘Do we have the intent?’

4. Yogesh has booked a 500 cc Royal Enfield Classic motorcycle. As someone who has owned an Enfield and has a passion for riding, I know what this means. I have no doubt that Yogesh could own a Harley Davidson if he wanted to. However, it is about a dream that he saw when he was a middle class college student who at best could afford a 100 cc Hero Honda. He claimed not to have big dreams, but clearly was someone who was fulfilling each dream that he saw.

I can go on and on about the discussions that we had; about the good social work his organization is engaged in and the lives they are impacting. One gets into a business meeting hoping to be successful and leave the meeting with business in hand. In this meeting, I did not care for the business. I was happier simply listening to this humble man speak and collect the gems that were dripping in the form of words.

Here was a man who was multifaceted – a top corporate executive; a traveller; a biker; a poet; a keen parent and above all an interested and caring human being. (I have intentionally used ‘interested’ instead of ‘interesting’. Many people want to be interesting – here was a person who was more interested in others, and that is what made him exceptionally interesting.)

Sameer Dua, Founder Director, Institute for Generative Leadership, India

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For the fish, the entire world is under water. They don’t even know that there is life outside of water. The fish are incapable of coming out and searching for a new world. And hence, for them to believe that the entire world is under water may be acceptable.

However, as human beings, we have no excuse. Yet, we are caught up in our own worlds such that we don’t even know that there is a world out there that we have not yet discovered.

One of the dictionary meanings of the word ‘world’ is an area or sphere considered as a complete environment. I draw from this definition when I say ‘our own world’.  We consider our realm as a complete environment. Like the fish consider under water as the complete environment. However, our realm is not a real underwater world. Our world is made up of our own perspectives; our answers to questions. We form our own world, our own standpoint and then guard these so much that no one can challenge these. In other words, most of us now do not have a perspective; the perspective has gotten hold of us!

Your perspective is the world inside of which you live. It is like being a fish under water that refuses to acknowledge the other world out there. However, the difference is, this perspective is your creation, i.e., the realm that we consider as the complete environment.

A few thoughts for you to consider..

1. First of all, try to remember, there is a big, wide, world outside your perspective, your creation, which is as real as yours is. It is just that you haven’t discovered this world yet. The acknowledgement that there is a perspective outside of yours is the first step to discovering a new you.
2. The problem starts when you believe that your perspective is the truth. It is like the fish’s truth that the entire world is under water and hence the thought of discovering another world does not even occur to them. Remember, your perspective is not the truth; you have made it your truth.
3. Let your perspective be malleable and not rigid. And this is possible only when you understand that your perspective is your creation. You will realize that you can create any perspective that works for you.
4. Some perspectives are like boulders that we have put in front of us and then we complain that we cannot move ahead because of the boulders in front of us. Alter your perspective, and you will move these boulders out of your way. You will see new possibilities available to you.

There was a middle aged lady who worked in an organization that I recently consulted to. She was convinced that her colleagues, including her seniors and her peers did not like her and wanted her out of the organization. (This is what I mean by the ‘world you live in’) She lived in this world where she believed people did not like her and were out to get her. In one of my informal lunch conversations with her, I did a brief exercise with her.

I asked her to look around the cafeteria and identify everything that was green in colour. With an initial look of question, she jumped into the exercise and started to point me to all the green she saw – the artificial plant; the colour of the tiffin of one of the employees of her company; the green line on the lamp shade; a green checked shirt worn by a passerby; some green design on the coffee machine on the counter; and so on and so forth.

(Take a minute and do this exercise yourself – you’ll find this interesting!)

I then asked her two questions:

1. Had she noticed these green things before I asked her to look for the green in the room?  Her response was – no.
2. Did she notice any other colour when she went out looking for green? Again her answer was no.

You get what you look for. This lady had all this while been looking for evidence that her colleagues were out to get her and guess what she found? No brainer, isn’t it? She found the green – their every small action was considered as evidence that she was not required in the office.

I left that lunch meeting asking her to now look for the greatness in her colleagues. Go all out looking for their greatness in everything. It is very similar to going out and looking for the ‘green’. And when you go out looking for the green, you fail to notice any other colours. Initially, she had trouble doing so, however, with a little practice, she now only finds the greatness in people, at work and everywhere else. She misses everything else that does not point to the greatness of people.

My suggestion to you is to embark on a journey to question your view, your perspective and question it at every step of the way. Make sure you choose what you want to look for – remember you will only find what you go out looking for

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