MyTake

One of my students' Facebook status read:  Its often said that nothing fails like success. But I believe nothing is as permanent as failure. Once it gets inside you, it stays there for quite a long time and in this process it destroys everything. I am sure many of us, especially when we pass through the age he is passing, tend to feel this way. Many times we don’t share it with others. Once I saw this post I responded quickly (well within 6 hrs): It depends on the frequency of its occurrence... And one's attitude... Positive people take lesson from that and move forward with caution, care and commitment... Negative people curse it and kill their efforts, enthusiasm and energy. Ultimately choice is with the individual... One must not handover his/her remote to others be it individuals or objects. It did not just end there. It took me back to my own experiences and interactions. It drove me to the lessons that I learnt all the while. It has been really interesting when...

I have been thinking about great people and their faculties.  Just thought about following and feel there are many myths about success and achieving greatness and many times we focus on the activities which may not really be as important as their counter activities.  So thought of Intelligence, Mind and Brain, Institutions, Qualification, Degrees and Diplomas, Destination, Profit, Output, Expectation, Pride, Position, Philanthropy, Rigidity, Styles, Relationships, Companionship, and Competition, Tangibles, Acceptance, Expectations, Dexterity etc.  All these are important and contribute well for attaining targets, however their counter terms as a focal points for action become more important.   Though MORE makes it highly relative and I have no intention, whatsoever to get into an exercise of measuring it.  However I am convinced about the hidden importance of counter terms which needs more concentratio...

Few weeks back I was being interviewed - 'So if you need to give one most important reason for corporate failures, what that would be', one of the interviewer asked.  Without even thinking for a minute, I responded - 'Greed'.  I could observe an accepting smile on his face.  True.  In fact we were talking about the whole case of Satyam and Maytas, the corporate governance issues, the cooking-up of the accounting books, overstated size of employees, etc etc. But after the interview was over, I wanted to ask myself whether it is only the Greed which is the cause of corporate failures or there are some more reasons.  I kept thinking of many reasons for the next week and thought of again going through the book by Jim Collins 'How the Mighty Fall' with the notes of 'Good to Great' as well as 'Built to Last'.  Apart from this browsing through some old magazines and searching out the failure stories (quite unconventional, generally people prefer goin...

His presentation entitled ‘How to be a super achiever’ was simple and direct, interesting for teenagers.  His 6 step model (1. Setting clear goals, 2. Knowing the reason behind the goal/goals. 3.Finding the group. 4. Detailed action plan. 5. Setback dealing mechanism. 6. Faith) for achieving success was quite the same as researched by many academicians, though he made it simple.  He narrated his journey to become best-selling author and emphasized that he is best-selling and may not be best.  It  sets me thinking that the response to market forces has become such that we start thinking more on what sells best and not really what is really best.  May be he is able to relate more to the young Indians and he knows the language of the youth so they are able to connect better with him and he knows that’s what really sells.  I have read most of his books (5 point someone, 3 Mistakes, 2 States, Revolution 2020) and think that he knows the pulse of his audi...