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.

When people take your goodness for granted ???

In my long corporate career, one question I have not yet found an answer to is when people ask me – “Do you need to continue to be good to people, even if they take your goodness for granted “. Honestly, I have not yet found the response but I would still take the risk of saying – please continue to be good to people since if they do not reciprocate it is their problem, not yours.

I recall once a CEO told me that he was very kind and affectionate to his staff. However, he finds that his driver and some other staff take him for granted. He noticed that both his predecessor and successor did not treat their staff with respect but they were never taken for granted. This may be true in many instances in life – both within family circles, with friends and in society at large. But I would still recommend, let us be good to others the way we want others to be good to us.

I should confess that I cannot claim that I have the virtues of Mahatma Gandhi, who could forgive even his worst enemies. Gandhi believed forgiveness is Godliness. I am less human than Gandhi but I can profess that being good to others ultimately brings you good things in life.

I can share at least two real life experiences, which have reinforced my belief that being good to others irrespective of their being not considerate to you, could be difficult but worth trying. I recall once one of my senior colleagues did something unpardonable to me. I was hurt and distraught but realised that I had done no wrong. So I decided to forgive him and move on in my career and continued to be good to him. He faced one of the most difficult situations in his personal life after this incident. God has his own way of dealing with people who treat you unfairly. This senior came back to me after this incident and sought my help for some issue to which I responded positively.

In the second instance, another senior colleague almost misbehaved with me for no fault of mine in front of my boss. I was deeply hurt but decided to forget the incident and move on in life and my career. This person met with a serious road accident and was bed ridden for almost a year. So God finds his own way to give feedback to people, who treat others with disdain. Inspite of the unpardonable behaviour of my senior colleague, I called the person concerned and enquired about his health.

Incidences like these may happen both in personal and professional life. We all feel hurt and annoyed as well and it is human to feel that way. However, if we are honest and believe we had not made any mistake, we need to learn to forgive such indecent human beings and move on in life. God takes care of them in his own way and teaches them life lessons.

Our ability to believe in ourselves and being honest to ourself and people around us is important. This gives us the moral courage and authority to move on and forgive the unforgivable. Some things in life are challenging although can be dealt with in a human way. Our ability to forgive and forget helps us get back on track.

One of the best quotes I have heard is -“To err is human, to forgive divine”.

Lets keep trying

S Ramesh Shankar

Ten golden rules for a successful marriage

I have been married for almost four decades now. I did marry a girl of my choice with the consent of our parents. However, whether it is a love or an arranged marriage, it may not survive unless both partners agree on same basic principles of life.

I have tried to distil my life experiences of my own marriage and other successful marriages of friends and relatives, which I have witnessed so that we can continue to learn and refine these principles of life.

I am calling them the ten golden rules for a successful marriage. I am not suggesting that it may work for everyone. However, you could consider this as the starting point and evolve your own principles of life, which may work for you.

1. Trust : Trust is not given or taken, it is earned. We can earn trust of others by our deeds and actions and not our words. Nobody believes what you say but they do admire you for what you do. Marriage is no different. Each partner will trust the other when they see actions, which reflect the intent of the person and not mere words.

2. Mutual respect : One needs to respect each other every day and in every possible way. Each of us are different and may have different qualifications and abilities. The fact that we have agreed to be partners in life bestows the responsibility in us to respect one another. Respect has to given first and earned later.

3. Give and take : Marriage is an equal opportunity partnership. It is a give and take relationship. Whether it is sharing of responsibilities at home or fulfilling one’s obligations as a partner, it is always give and take. We need to learn to give first and take later. It may also be important to mention that give and take does not mean it is a contractual relationship. It is a partnership and the responsibility to make it win win lies on both the partners.

4. Respect individuality : In a marriage there are two individuals, who voluntarily agree to live together as partners. However, we need to realise that we are two different individuals by nature and have our own personalities. Our ability to respect each other’s individuality will help us evolve as better partners in life.

5. Let go and forgive each other : Conflicts are an integral part of marriage. We can neither avoid it nor ignore it. We need to learn to deal with it openly. Our ability to let go and forgive each other may help us resolve conflicts expeditiously. If we continue to carry the grudge and not willing to forgive each other, we may end up like computer disks where the memory is full of conflicts and nothing is deleted and this would definitely crash some day.

6. Agree on dos and donts’: One simple formula which has worked for me is to agree on Dos’ and Donts’ in life between partners. What is acceptable behaviour and what is not acceptable behaviour ? This list does not dawn from the sky but we need to evolve them together through our experiences in life. We can always add to our list or edit the list but the list is always binding on both of us.

7. Resolve conflicts mutually as far as possible : The best way to deal with conflicts in organisations is to enable two individuals or groups to sit together, discuss and resolve issues bilaterally without any third party intervention. Marriage is no different. We need to understand that conflicts will arise at every stage of life and it is our ability to sit across, discuss and resolve between us as partners, which will enable a happier marriage.

8. Talk to parents or elders on either side for any guidance: While the best way to resolve issues in a marriage is between the two partners, it may not happen sometimes. In such situations, it may be a good idea to talk to our parents on either side or elders or friends, who can help us resolve the issue. This way we may realise our limitations and may not repeat the same mistakes all over again and this does not become a public issue.

9. Listen to each other actively: The most difficult aspect of a successful marriage is listening to one another. While each of us will readily agree that the other person is not listening to us, we do not realise that listening is always a two way street between two parties. If the other party is not willing to actively support you, one can neither speak authentically nor listen to the other.

10. Take time off whenever you want to be alone with mutual agreement : It may be a good idea to take time off to be alone even in a marriage once in a way. When you miss someone, you may value the person more. Hence, it may be a good idea to plan and take time off periodically to be left alone so that one can reflect and also understand the value of the other partner in our lives.

I am not claiming in any way that these principles are absolute and universally applicable to all. It is just my own experience, which has taught me over the years and I do not claim to be a perfect partner in my life as yet. However, the fact that I have survived in a successful partnership for almost four decades means there could some value in these principles of life.

You may consider them, distil them and evolve as your own ten golden rules, which will best work for you.

Let the journey begin today.

S Ramesh Shankar

(Gifted to my son and daughter in law on the occasion of their first wedding anniversary on 11th Nov 2023.)

The workplace of tomorrow

The workplace of tomorrow ,is going to be radically different than what we have seen so far. Nobody would have imagined how businesses will transform overnight and thereby, the places of work too. I am trying to predict the workplace of tomorrow based on my imagination and insight. If it comes true, you can give credit to the teams with whom I worked in my career , as they instilled this wisdom in me and if it fails, I take responsibility for it, as I failed to assimilate knowledge over the years ,from my teams.

1. Work from anywhere : Work from home has become the norm in the days of the lockdown in most organisations today. In tomorrow’s organisation, work from anywhere will be the norm. This is because organisations will realise, that if majority of their employees are able to connect online, it does not matter where they work from. In the past, many old age leaders felt insecure allowing employees to work from home, since they were not sure how productive they would be. However, thanks to Covid, work from home was thrust on organisations ,as the only alternative and most organisations and employees have willingly and effectively adopted it.

2. Offline to Online : While most of us have got used to fulfilling most of banking needs online due to internet banking and mobile apps, it will be seen that ,most business transactions will move online. People will prefer to buy everything possible online. This would mean that physical infrastructure will have to give way to a robust IT infrastructure. What we have seen in the days of the lockdown is that, the internet speeds are impacted due to heavy overload as the service providers were not ready for this catastrophe.

3. Interpersonal to intra-personal behaviour : All organisations focussed a lot on building teams and thereby developing interpersonal skills of their team members. This is likely to give way ,to focus on individual behaviour, which I have termed as intra-personal behaviour. How do I behave when I work alone at home and still have to deal with other teams online. This would mean conscientiousness and self discipline. Employees and their managers have to trust each other and focus on deliverables rather than the time spent by the employee at the workplace.

4. Manufacturing will get robot driven: We will see a radical transformation in the shop floors of production units. We may see more robots and automation , take over manual labour. This would mean that human beings have to move up the value chain and focus on quality, productivity and innovation. The minimalisation of human interface in production lines , will see improvement in quality, productivity and consistency. This does not mean that human interface will vanish from shop floors. It means that human beings will add value to what robots can never do even in the future.

5. Remote Servicing : An interesting development will be that ,servicing will become more remote ,than it is today. Most service centres will provide remote diagnostics and will be able to service products remotely. Even today power plants are monitored remotely and even troubleshooting and repairs can be done remotely through connected devices. In the digitalisation era, it may become possible for all products to be monitored and serviced remotely except for possibly replacement of parts. Even that may change ,with modular design where consumers may be able to replace parts themselves based on artificial intelligence and remote service guidance.

6. Paperless organisations : One of the positive outcomes for the future will be ,that organisations will truly become paperless. Everything will be transacted online. From the offers of employment to employees to purchase orders to suppliers and invoices to customers, the entire value chain will be operated with the aid of online -connected technologies. This will not only ensure efficiency and effectiveness, it will also eliminate waste and non productive processes within organisations.

7. Boundary less organisations : One of the dreams of organisations is to dissolve the stringent boundaries between functions within the organisation, which actually come in the way of delivering value to customers. In the future, we will see that such needless boundaries will not only disappear within the organisation but will also vanish between organisations. All institutions which add value to a customer or supplier, will form a continuum and thereby produce more, with less, in the future.

8. Social equity : The transformation of workplaces in the future will have a positive outcome ,in terms of social equity amongst employees. Employee value addition will be clearly measured by outcomes and not by efforts and time spent. This means that people contributing the same or similar outcomes are likely to get paid similarly. This will become necessary rather than obligatory ,as it will be otherwise very difficult to monitor remotely ,how employee performance can be differentiated.

9. Employment types : Organisations will no longer have all employees on their rolls. It will be a combination of full time employees, part time employees, consultants, gig workforce, contractual, interns and short term employees. While all these categories may exist in most organisations of today, the proportion of full time employees to others may reverse. This means most organisations will try to operate with a basic minimum number of employees on their rolls. The rest of the workforce may consist of, all or most of the above categories of employees.

10. Work-life-balance : The line of demarcation between workplace and home, is going to diminish further. While this will bring in flexibility both for the organisation and the individual employee, it will have its repercussions ,in terms of relationships both at the workplace and at home. Family and marriage as institutions will be under strain and hence psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists , counsellor and coaches will have a bigger role to play in maintaining harmony at the workplace and at home.

If all or any of the above predictions come true, I may be lucky as I will survive as a student of management. However, if all of them bite the dust, then I have to start writing on philosophy in the future.

Being a born optimist, I believe that the changes in workplaces will benefit organisations and individuals, as long we prepare for it and train our employees to embrace the change.

S Ramesh Shankar

7th April 2020