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 every day

 

I have always believed that learning and education need not go together. I have met people in life who have never gone to a formal school but know the world. On the other hand, the best of professionals from the world’s best educational institutions ,do not sometimes inspire us, with their knowledge or skills.

I was reflecting on this subject on “what inspires you to learn from whom ?”. I thought about the people I meet every day and got my insight.

I meet people who have worked in multinational corporations in very senior positions but their every day behaviour puts me off. Then I have met graduates from the best educational institutions in the country, whose arrogance repels you from them.

On the other hand ,I meet a housekeeping staff in my community, who inspires me every single day. Starting from her genuine “Good morning” wish to her enchanting smile, everything about her makes me a good learner.

I meet her everyday and learn in every meeting of mine. Her work ethic is unparalleled. She comes to our community at 630 am so that she can earn a little more by taking additional responsibilities beyond her work hours which commences at 8:30 am.

She is meticulous in her work and does not need any supervision for her quality of output. Her smile is endearing and I have never seen her in a tiff with any of her colleagues. She is ever willing to take up additional work and support her colleagues at work.

She volunteers to make tea for all of her colleagues and is the first to come to work and almost the last to leave. I have never seen her complain about anyone or about work to me or any other office bearers of the community.

She is ever helpful to her colleagues and to everyone who seeks her support. She goes out of the way to get support staff for our residents whenever they need one. I had recently wanted a temporary housekeeping staff since my regular help was down with typhoid.

She recommended a young widow to work for us. This girl came and did her duties in the absence of our regular staff. I assumed she was her relative or friend. But my respect for her went up when I came to know that she did not even know her but wanted to help her since she came to know that she is a young widow with two children and was in the look out for a job.

So, my insight from all these experiences is that you need a great attitude and willingness to share ,to learn from others. This lady is the best in whatever she does and her attitude is worth a million. She is always smiling and willing to share. I am not even sure if she has any formal education. But that does not matter ,for you to be the best in whatever you do and also share your smile with others.

I wish I could be as simple, grounded and caring as my colleague in the community is.

May be worth trying.

S Ramesh Shankar

8th Jan 2022

How to motivate ?

How to motivate self and others ? A simple question but possibly the biggest challenge which most employees are facing post the pandemic. Employees have lost jobs and Managers have lost members of their teams. In both cases, its a huge crisis and after all that, how to keep oneself motivated is the key question ?

I was taking a session for a group of managers of a multinational corporation this week. While I was requested to design and take this session, I was told that they do not want to listen to theories on motivation but on “How to motivate team members and self after we face difficult situations at work ?

I was a bit stumped. But, after having worked in industry for almost four decades , I sat down and reflected on what motivated me, what demotivated me, who motivated me and tried to answer these questions to myself, based on my own personal experiences at work and life.

I realised that I had all the answers but still found it difficult to implement them in real life. So, I decided to ask the participants the very same questions which came to my mind, while designing this session. The outcome was fascinating. Let me summarise what I learnt from this session and how I found answers to these fundamental questions in life.

On my first question on “What motivates people ?”, I asked them to reflect on any incident in their personal or work life, where they felt highly motivated. What happened and what were the factors which motivated them at that moment. The answers revolved around freedom at work, challenging opportunities, empowerment, recognition, opportunities to experiment and fail and so on.

The next question was “What demotivated them the most ? “. The answers revolved around micro management, public criticism, lack of recognition, lack of freedom at work, routine and ritualistic work and so on.

My next question was “Who ultimately helped you bounce back in life or work ?”. While many shared it was their parents, siblings, friends, colleagues or bosses, most of them felt that it was ultimately the individuals themselves.

This whole session was engaging for me. When I then moved to some of the basic theories of motivation like Maslow, McGregor and Herzberg, they realised that all these theories point to the same factors which motivate people, demotivate people and so on. So, the inference can be that, we know all the answers in life and work. So, what prevents us from asking ourselves the right questions at the right time ?

It may be important to realise that the factors which motivate or demotivate us as individuals, are not very different to what it does to others. So, the answer is simple. We need to do to others , what we want others to do to us. This is equally true at work and in life.

Then the participants said that it is easy to conquer the world but may be more difficult to conquer oneself. That is the crux of the matter. It may be easier to advise others rather than oneself. It is also fun to give advise rather than implement any idea.

Another important lesson from my corporate life is that your followers at work or your children at home follow what you do and not what you say. It is better not to say anything and make them follow by doing things, which you want them to. Leaders always lead by example not by quotes.

So, I decided that I need to share this great insight with as many people as possible. Let us sit down and reflect. Let us look within ourselves. May be we have the answers for the most challenging questions in life. We also need to realise that we are responsible for bouncing back in life and work and whether pandemic or otherwise. Everyone else can support us but it is upto us to stand up and get back.

Lets look within.

S Ramesh Shankar

28th Oct 2021

Eating to live or living to eat

I sometimes wonder whether we eat to live or live to eat. It may not be either or, as it could be both too! I eat to live. I believe, I eat food to survive but some may live to eat and it is fine too. Eating to live or living to eat is a personal choice and everyone has a right to live life their way.

I have never enjoyed cooking. I enter the kitchen only when it is inevitable and I have no choice. I do help my spouse when she needs help in cutting vegetables or doing some other chores in the kitchen. But cooking is not my hobby. Sometimes when people ask me what I would like to eat – I would reply – anything and they would be amused. The people who enjoy food want to plan for it and put in a lot of efforts to cook and relish it.

I can spend an entire day with fruits and snacks to survive and not cook anything if I am alone. But for some others, this may be a torture. So, if I have a guest, I need to cook good food for them if they enjoy food and not offer snacks just because I can manage with them.

In my view eating to live or living to eat is a personal preference. I neither believe my philosophy of eating to live is wrong nor someone else enjoying food and living to eat is wrong. However, the problem is when one thinks the other is not ok.

When people want to take you out for dinner to a famous restaurant in a new city and you are not that excited, they feel disappointed. They may be right in feeling unhappy as they are putting in extra efforts to make you happy, but they don’t realise that food is not your priority. On the other hand, if you say no, you are making then unhappy since eating good food, is life for them.

In my view neither eating to live nor living to eat, is right or wrong. What is wrong is our belief that the other person is not enjoying life as we are doing. We tend to typecast people based on our own frames of life. The moment someone does not fit into our frame of life and living, we feel they are wrong.

Our ability to live life on our own terms and letting others live their own way, is a better way to enjoy life. The day we realise that we have a right to live life our way and others their way, we may be right. We also have to learn to respect the opposite of our worldview of life.

It may be easy to say this, easier to write about this but rather difficult to practise it. In life, most things we adore may not be what others do. The day we learn to live life our way and let others do their way , we have arrived.

Life is all about live and let live.

S Ramesh Shankar

15th Oct 2021