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.

Journey is as important as your destination

Most of us love to go on vacations. We plan for days together about where to go. We choose our destination based on our interests, the company we are likely to have and the time we have for our holiday.

However, we forget one simple rule of life. We focus so much on the destination that we forget the journey. We do all the research to find out everything about the place we plan to visit. The places to visit, the weather, which may help us to plan the clothes we need to take. We also plan the people we have to meet at our destination.

In this whole process for planning our holiday, we forget that there will so much to do on the way to our destination. Imagine you going on a holiday in a car with family and friends. In my view, the journey is more joyful than the destination. We focus so much on the goal that we forget to enjoy the journey.

Life is no different. Each of us have a lot of goals in life. We have a lot of ambitions. We meticulously plan to reach all our life goals. But most of the times we do not end up enjoying the journey to our destination. For eg. One of our goals may be to graduate from a prestigious university in a beautiful state. We focus so much on our academics that we do not have time to see places in that beautiful city. We do not have time to admire nature or meet wonderful people around the university.

This is so true almost in every aspect of our lives. We resolve to go for a morning walk every day to the park. Our goal is to keep fit and maintain good health. This is laudable. But while we are walking 5 kms a day in a beautiful park, we don’t enjoy the green trees, wild flowers, the singing birds or the blue sky above us.

Then as we get ready to go to work or college, we are running against time. Even if we are taking a public transport, we have so much to enjoy along with way before we reach our destination. We close our eyes and miss to see the world around us. We may get opportunities to meet nice people along the way. We may observe good Samaritans around us serving society and so on.

At work, our focus is on target to achieve for the day. There is nothing wrong with that goal. But we fail to wish people around us. We do not remember to wish a dear colleague on her birthday. We may even find it difficult to find time to have a healthy lunch break.

In our social life, we are not different. We neither remember festivals and occasion to celebrate with family and friends nor remember to wish them even if we are at home on a festival holiday. We think sending and receiving messages on social media the best past time in life. We do realise that social media does not convey emotions. We do.

Imagine missing a sight like in the photo above and not pausing your journey to admire this beauty as in the photo above.

It is time to wake up and enjoy the journey as much as the destination. We all are born on a pre determined date and possible our return date to heaven is also fixed. The time in between these two dates is at our discretion. This is the journey we need to enjoy as life. We should not spend our life worrying about the ultimate date. After all, all of us have to go some day. Some go earlier while others may go later.

Time to enjoy the journey is now.

S Ramesh Shankar

22nd November 2018

Everyone has an expiry date

Today I read in the morning newspapers that a senior bureaucrat in the government is retiring at the end of this month and neither is keen on an extension nor an alternate role in government. I salute this bureaucrat. All of us have to realise that we have an expiry date. Unless we give way, we cannot give opportunities for others to excel and prosper in all fields.

I have seen this phenomenon quite prevalent in corporates. The senior managers starting from the CEO think that they are indispensable and never want to let go. We all have to realise that there is a pre determined expiry date for all of us. It is like a medicine when manufactured has a pre printed expiry date. Life is no different.

When we are born on earth, God has already decided our date of death. Similarly when a food item is produced the expiry date is printed on the packaging itself. We need to realise that in our careers too this is applicable. We all have to come and go. We may be excellent in whatever we do but we need to give way at the right time for the next generation to take over.

This is equally true in sports. We find many senior sportspersons reluctant to hang their boots even when their talent is fading. They want to live in the past glory and do not give space for the younger talent to prosper. It is better to realise that we need to give way when people ask – ” Why now ? ” rather than “Why not now ?’.

Even in the family, we need to realise when our role expires and we need to give way to the next generation. We should not hang on to power as if nobody else can do better than us. We may be surprised that the next generation may do better than us. They are smarter, more energetic and may work differently.

This is equally true in our political system. Our political leaders never want to retire. I recently read about a veteran politician changing political affiliation just to get a parliamentary seat. It is true that our political system does not specify an age of retirement. However, all political parties should decide that everyone should retire and give way to others at a particular age.

It is more about our inability to accept the reality of age and cling on to our positions and roles. We have seen this in organisations, sports and politics that the gen next always surprises us positively.

All of us have a responsibility of giving way and letting go. We need to realise that everyone has a start date and an end date. While we can continue to excel in whatever we are doing, we need to give way when the time comes to retire. We should not find ways and means to delay this decision. This will harm the organisation more than we can imagine.

I have always believed that when working in an organisation I was aware the day I joined as to when I need to hang my boots and enjoy life as in the photo above.

Life is fair to everyone. We all need to realise that there is a beginning and end to everything in life. We can do everything to begin well, work hard and excel in whatever we do. But the day when we feel we have reached our peak, we should learn to give way.

Let us learn to give way always.

S Ramesh Shankar

18th November 2018

How to love and enjoy your work ?

One of the oft repeated questions to me by employees is – “ How do you still enjoy your work after working for so many years ? . Most employees are complaining about work, their bosses, the organisation or the environment around and wonder how can one enjoy work in such a scenario.

Some times employees change roles and have new bosses and new environments. At other times, they even change their organisation and move to another location but still the crib continues. So, I was wondering if it is worth reflecting on this subject – “How to love and enjoy your work ?

The first realisation in this journey of work is that we are the only one who can change our attitude to work. If we decide that we have the best job on earth, nobody else can stake that claim. On the other hand, if we are to find reasons why we are not loving what we do or enjoying our work, we need nobody else to give us the reasons. The day we realise and internalise this basic truth, it may be easier to answer this question to oneself.

The next step is to ask – “ What is preventing us from loving our job or enjoying our work ? Let us look at the possible answers and try to dive deep inside us to find the answers for ourselves. First challenge could be a demotivating boss. Now, the question to ask is whether we have the option or authority to change our boss. If the answer is no, which is the case in almost every situation, we need to find how do we enjoy work irrespective of our boss.

If we look within and ask ourselves – “What do we enjoy doing at work ? , we may be able to find the answer. Then, the next question to ask is “What is preventing us to do that ?. We may suddenly realise that our boss is nowhere in the picture. It is either our own lack of initiative or efforts, which may be coming in the way.

Another reason which people say is they do not have great colleagues at work to learn and grow. The day we realise that we are also colleagues for someone else and they may be thinking the same about us, this feeling will disappear. We need to lead by example and influence others to change in a positive way to make the environment vibrant around us.

Yet another reason which people say is that – “We do not have enough freedom at work ? The day one realises that empowerment is not given but taken, this may also change. Nobody on earth can prevent us from innovating, trying out new things and if we succeed taking credit for it and if we fail owning up responsibility to learn and move on.

Another common reason is the organisation culture. Culture is not building, computers or physical infrastructure. It is the people, values and the way we treat each other. If we feel the culture is not conducive , we also have a responsibility to influence and change the culture. History teaches us that a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King single handedly could influence a nation – then why cannot we influence the culture within our own organisation if we want to. To make it simple, we can start with our own team.

If you do what you love, then you will love what you do as in the photo above.

The lessons I learnt in my long corporate career is that if I want to love and enjoy my work, nobody can prevent me to do so, except myself. I need to take charge, empower myself, try out new things and create a fun work place, where everyone enjoys along with me and thrives to experiment and learn every day. Have we all not seen one team member who is always having fun in any team with any boss and in any organisation. It is time to become that team member today.

Let us start today.

S Ramesh Shankar

10th June 2021