Author: S Ramesh Shankar

Born in Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India, I have been brought up in different parts of India. Graduate in chemistry and post graduate in personnel management and industrial relations. Have been a HR practitioner for 38 years in the industry and have experience in working in steel , automobiles, FMCG and engineering industry. Was head of HR for Siemens in South Asia based out of Mumbai till March 2019. Currently founded hrishti - joy forever, a social enterprise to give back to society and work as Chief Joy Officer.

Learning management from kids

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I have always been a great fan of kids. I have felt energised in their company and learn from them in every interaction. Of course, they do test our patience at times but so do we. I was wondering if it is a good idea to translate today’s management concepts to what we could learn from the behaviour of kids. We may not have realised it during the incident but if we look back, it is interesting and provides great insights.

Mission : I remember an incident from my childhood when I ran for miles behind a gas balloon which had flown away from my hand. While looking back and logically it may look foolish. But the kids have high levels of perseverance and never give up to achieve their mission in life.

Strategy : I am reminded of many incidents where my son has strategised and accomplished what he wanted to get in his life. Once my son wanted to go with his classmates in college for an educational tour. He had made up his mind and had evolved a foolproof strategy to achieve his goal. He first tried with me and then with his mother. He then pursued the same with his teacher and made his teacher convince us of how useful it would be to send him. Thus, although initially we had not approved his tour, he did make it finally.

Conflict resolution : While kids may end up fighting at the drop of a hat, I have seen them resolving conflicts much easier than adults. What I have noticed in them is that they are ready to move on in life. They are willing to forgive and forget. As adults, we tend to carry the grudge for our lifetime. Our egos prevent us from forgiving others and we are worried as to who has to first ring the bell for peace.

Listening : Do we remember how our kids listened to stories at night ? Even today when I see my grandson who is 7 years old listen to my wife I am stunned at his level of concentration. When he is listening to a story, he is in rapt attention. He does not fiddle around a mobile phone or watch TV and also listen. This is what most of us do. Hence, kids can take a class for us on attentive listening, which is critical for success as a leader.

Communication : While behavioural scientists have established that more than seventy percent of behaviour is non verbal, we do not use it effectively in our day to day communication. We need to learn from kids. A child may communicate effectively even without uttering a word. The expressions on their face , the laughter, the cry and et all can speak more than a thousand words.

Interpersonal skills : I have seen kids mingle even with strangers without any bias. Why do adults find it difficult to work in a team even with people known to them ? One of the factors I have noticed in kids is that they do not have any conscious or unconscious bias towards others. They are willing to let go. They take the initiative to interact and are willing to accommodate others in the group. As adults, we seem to have erased these qualities as we grow up.

Perseverance : I have seen kids go up and down the slide multiple times till they succeed. I have never seen them give up in life on anything. Why do we as adults tend to give up even before we give things a try ? Kids have the patience and the perseverance, which we need to learn. As we grow up our patience fades and so does our perseverance. We end up making simple things complicated and thus give up even without a try.

It may be worthwhile to observe the kids around us and learn management from them. The lessons are practical and real life. We can refresh our knowledge, skills and attitude to life. What do you think ?

S Ramesh Shankar

Learning “Motherhood” on Mothers’ day

I am not a great fan of “Mothers day”, “Father’s Day” etc, which are celebrated off late around the world. In my view, it is more a marketing gimmick for selling more products and promoting brands. Having said that, the second Sunday of every year is celebrated as “International Mothers’ day”. I would rather learn motherhood from the wonderful mothers around me rather than promote a marketing gimmick.

What can we learn from our mothers ? I would list five qualities, which I have learnt and admired from the mothers I have interacted in my life. There could be many more and these are my significant five. You could share your valuable five and this way we could learn from each other.

The first quality which a mother exudes is “Patience”. I have hardly seen a mother who does not put in extra efforts to display her patience. Right from feeding an infant or dealing with the antics of a child or bracing with the rebellion of an adolescent, a mother teaches us precious lessons on patience.

Perseverance is the second quality I have learnt from mothers. A mother never gives up. They don’t give up on anything. They are willing to convince anyone for getting their things done. They will follow up with anyone and everyone for the sake of their kids at school or otherwise.

The third quality one can adore in mothers is their “Selflessness”. In today’s world, most of us are so self centred that we forget many a time that there is a world around us. A mother on the other hand is serving others all the time and in this process,most of the time, forgets that she has her own world to live in. She lives for others all the time.

Loyalty is best learnt from mothers. They are loyal to their parents, their in laws, their children , sisters, brothers and their friends. While men may also be loyal, the unconditional loyalty of mothers’ is to experienced to be believed. It is to be believed to be learnt from our mothers.

The fifth quality I admire in mothers is their “unconditional love”. We all express our love and expect the same from others as human beings. However, mothers tend to love unconditionally. I cannot visualise a mother loving someone conditionally. This gives them the power of letting go when the love is not reciprocated in equal measure. This is when most of us find it difficult and feel hurt in our lives.

As I said earlier, a mother is an epitome of humanness. She is endowed with limitless qualities but I thought let me share my best five and request you to comment and share yours so that together we learn from one another.

As in the photo above, a mother appreciates her kid as much as she would do to other kids around her.

Our best tribute to mothers would be to imbibe at least one of these attributes from our mothers and live it every day of our life.

S Ramesh Shankar

12th May 2019

I don’t get what I am searching for…

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Yesterday I was searching for sugar in the kitchen and I could not find it. Isn’t many things in life similar. We are in search of something and we never get it. Let us start from our childhood. Most of us may agree that we did not get the toys to play that we desired for. We may not have got selected to the course we wanted to study or the schools/college which we dreamt of.

This trend continues as we grow up in life. We, in our adolescence want the world in our pockets but end up disappointed. We then move to start our career. Many of us start our career in areas which we did not want to. If we are lucky to get the role of our dreams, we end up in a location which we hate. This factor may look like a never ending journey.

Then once in the job, we do not get nominated for projects we want to be part of. On the contrary, we may end up in doing projects which we never wanted to. I sometimes wondered why this happens to us in our lives. We get transferred to roles much against our wishes. We wonder if it happens only to us. We are disappointed to say the least and also get a feeling if we stop learning at such times.

This phenomenon happens in real life too. We search for peace and we end up in chaos. We want to work in a metro and end up with a posting in a remote village or town. We feel frustrated to say the least. We wonder why such a thing happens. In most cases, we end up cursing our luck. We tend to believe that it is our destiny and we cannot do much about it. We accept it and hope that it passes away sooner than later.

I could not sleep yesterday night since I could never find the sugar in the kitchen. I continued the search in the morning and found it in the fridge in a plastic container(photo above). Then I realised that may be I was assuming it to be at a particular place in a particular type of container and it wasn’t to be. Life is no different. This is what happens in our life too. We believe life is like that and we to have to accept it that way.

We have assumptions and mindsets. In our childhood, we take things for granted. We think we deserve everything we desire irrespective of whether we need it or our parents can afford it. ‘Then in adolescence, the psychology of our rebellious behaviour makes us unhappy at everything which does not happen for us the way we want it to happen. In work life, we believe that everyone around us is dutiful to make us happy. We are expected to get what we want to do and not what the organization wants us to do.

So, this is the real learning of my life. We have to believe that we can make the best of everything which happens to us in life, if we want to. If we don’t get the sugar in the kitchen, we can reduce the intake of calories for the day. If we did not get the toys to play in childhood, we could have spent more time in studies or other hobbies. We could learnt a new skill if we had all the time during our adolescence.

At work, every role gives us a opportunity to learn and grow. If we try to be the best in everything we are expected to do, we will excel and grow at all times. Life has its own way of teaching us lessons every day. I realised that my inability to find sugar in the kitchen while I was making coffee for a friend was one of the ways for me to realise that life is all about our mindset and our attitude.

If we are willing to challenge our mindset, then life has a lot to teach us. It is up to us to make the best of what happens to us. It is the way we look at life, which makes all the difference. If we solidify our mindset and are not adaptive to change, then we have nobody else to blame than ourselves. Let us give life a chance and learn every day through whatever happens to us.

S Ramesh Shankar