Category: Concepts

Guru

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“Guru” is the Sanskrit term for teacher.  All of us have great respect for teachers and have multiple experiences where teachers have displayed their selfless behaviour in abundance.  I met a teacher cum principal about two decades back and she transformed the image of teachers in my mind.  I was working at Indore in a private organisation and was transferred to Delhi.  As all parents do, I went from one school to another seeking admission for my kids after I arrived in Delhi.

The Delhi school conducted an admission test for my kids and after a series of interviews admitted both my children.  In this process, I was interviewed along with my wife as parents before the admission process was finalised.  However, the real virtues of a teacher was experienced by me when my child turned truant. One day I was called by the principal stating that my child was regularly bunking classes and getting into the swimming pool or to the playground during school hours.

I reached the school along with my wife.  I was told about the misconducts of my child.  I immediately apologised to the principal on behalf of my child and told her to take appropriate action as deemed fit.  I told her that I was fine even if my child was suspended for a few day, as he had defaulted multiple times even after being counselled by his teachers.  The principal’s reply was my biggest lesson in life.

She told me that she need not seek my permission to suspend my child.  That was the easiest decision for her and I was not summoned to take that decision.  She told us, that as parents we had a duty to partner with the teacher to reform our child.  She did not want to suspend but counsel the child in our presence and we ( teachers and parents) work together to help the child correct his behaviour.

There was another occasion when I was transferred from Delhi to Chennai.  My daughter was in the final year of school.  I was worried because when my father was transferred in my final year of school, years ago, my academic performance was impacted due to this transfer.  I did not want the same thing to happen to my daughter.  When I went to the school to enquire about this issue and seek the advise of the same principal, she immediately advised me to leave my daughter in her custody to complete her school education.

I had not known the principal and was stunned by this response.  She calmly said that she had two kids and was staying within the school premises.  It was easy for my daughter to stay with her and complete her final year of schooling.  This advise was not only selfless but unbelievable from someone whom you did not even know well .  The rest is history.  My daughter indeed stayed with her and did well in her academics and today is a successful carreerist in a public sector undertaking.

Subsequently, I have met a few other teachers and each time I have been impressed by their nobleness.  They always think in the best interests of the child.  They are unbiased and highly patient.  They want parents as partners to the progress of the child.  They treat every child as if they were their own. They are always willing to give to each and every child equal space and love. They never expect anything in return.

As in the photo above, this principal( in the white saree) is not only a life long family friend today but also a role model for all teachers in society. I salute her.

My salutations to all teachers today on the occasion of Guru Purnima.

S Ramesh Shankar

Flying birds


I have always been fascinated at the way birds fly high in the sky. I used to envy them and think how lucky they are.  One day I was wondering what the birds would be thinking of us as human beings on earth.  While I envied the birds for flying fearlessly, they may be envying us for enjoying ourselves walking around on the ground.  We believe the birds have all the freedom in the world and they do not need to stay at a permanent place.

On the other hand, the birds may wonder how lucky human beings are that have a permanent place to stay.  Birds have to keep flying endlessly till they are tired and have to find a place every day to rest at night.  They have to earn their food by flying around trees or other places and may be lucky some day and not on other days. We are so lucky we have a home to stay and get food served on our plates every day.

This phenomenon teaches us an important lesson in life.  We tend to compare ourselves with others and feel jealous.  Further, we think others do not suffer as much as we do.  We feel we are always face the most difficult situations while other rejoice.  We never realise that others may be in similar situations like us or may be even worse than us.  It is like me envying the birds in the sky till I wondered one day what the birds would think of me.

Life is a journey and has its ups and downs.  All of us have days of joy and moments of sorrow.  It may be worthwhile to admire others and learn from their goodness.  It may not be worth the while to envy others and die out of comparison.  If we need to compare anyone, it could be ourselves.  We can always be grateful to God for all the joyous moments he gave us when we face some miseries.

It is the attitude of self reflections and learning, which may make us better human beings.  Each living being is created by God and have their own pluses and minuses.  It is up to us to look at the positive of others and learn from them.  Jealousy can only make us move backward in life.  It is worthwhile to fly high in the sky like the birds and dream big.  It may be useful to leave the bad moments of one’s life behind like the birds leave their nest behind when they migrate.

It is up to us to be free and enjoy life like the flying birds.  If we learn from them, we benefit.  If we compare ourselves with them and feel bad, we lose.  Let us learn to learn not only from other human beings around us but from birds and animals, which have enough to teach us.

Today can be a new beginning.

S Ramesh Shankar

Every employee is a brand ambassador


Someone nicely said that ” if you take take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers”. This is true in letter and spirit. We launched an organization development intervention two years back to bring “customer centricity” in our organisation.  We were keen to keep the customer at the centre of everything we do.  While we had many key aspects of this intervention, evolving a “Customer first culture”was one of our major priorities.

It may be easy to measure customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction.  However, we were wondering as to how do we define ” Customer first culture”.  We did workshops across the organization and invited employees who were customer facing and also those who were customer supporting.  This helped us define what “Customer first culture” could mean for any organization.  

Interestingly, employees told us that “Attitude, Empathy & Commitment” were the three key cornerstones of creating a customer first culture.  Then we decided that we need to train our employees to understand what customers felt about us, inculcate the right attitude , build empathy and instill commitment in whatever their role is in the organization.

We trained most of our employees – direct, indirect and even third party employees and contract employees working with us.  At this stage, we realised that the real success of creating a customer first culture would be to make every employee a brand ambassador of the company.  Every action of every employee every day can either promote the culture of customer first or become a impediment in evolving this culture.

Interestingly employees gave us a lot of ideas to evolve this culture.  We realised that we need to share success stories and learn from the mistakes our employees did every day.  We shared all the success stories and evolved rewards and recognition for great customer orientation displayed by employees in different parts of the organization.  This propelled this movement and helped us promote the right envirorment for evolving the desirable culture.

So, almost every employee in the organization was trained. Customer facing employees, customer supporting employees, employees in support functions, our workmen in the shop floor and also the security staff, pantry staff, receptionist et all.  This ensured that every employee kept the customer at the centre of everything she or he did in the organization.  Every employee realised that every action every day was critical for evolving this culture.

This gradually became a way of life.  Our security staff were courteous to every visitor coming to our organization.  Our pantry staff were caring and conscious of our guests.  Our workmen were prompt in responding to customer complaints on the shop floor.  Our support function staff were responsive and proactive.  Our sales and service personnel realised the benefit of having a positive attitude, being empathetic and keeping their commitments to customers every day.

This has not only resulted in more than doubling our customer satisfaction index but has helped the organization grow multi fold in business and profits.

We learnt by making every employee our brand ambassador.

S Ramesh Shankar