Category: Emotions/Relationships

Partnerships

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In my book, partnership is when two individuals or entities work together towards a common goal.  In real life you look at partnership with friends, family or your spouse.  The relationship is unconditional and the expectation of support is mutual.  The summation of two is more than the simple addition of  individuals.  Partnerships ensure that we complement and supplement each other in all our efforts.

Now if we look at partnerships at an entity level, it is the symbiosis of two organisations to leverage on each other strengths.  It could be with a business goal or even with a social objective.  Partnerships ensure that the entities are able to enable each other to succeed.  History is evidence to successful partnerships between companies in the corporate sector and other sectors.

In today’s world, we also see partnerships between two countries.  It could be technological partnership, social  or any other field of common interest.  When multiple countries join hands it may end up as multilateral colloboration among those countries.  The success of partnership depends on mutual respect for each other’s strength and ability to give as much as your receive.

Interestingly, partnerships at individual, company level or country level are based on similar principles.  The first principle of partnership is the choice of the partner.  If you have to fully thrive on the benefits of a partnership, you have to choose the right partner for setting up for success.  A simple example could be the choice of your partner in a team sport like tennis.  If you choose a partner who complements your strengths and manages your weakenesses, then you are sure to succeed.

The second principle of partnership is mutual trust.  No partnership in the world can succeed unless they trust each other unconditionally.  After you have selected your partner, you need to ensure that your trust unconditionally.  The moment one of the partners seeds mistrust, the partnership is doomed to fail.  History is witness to successful and failed partnerships in the corporate sector.  If we examine the reasons for success or failiure, trust would be a defining factor in all such cases.

The third principle of a great partnership is giving your best and enabling the other partner to succeed.  This is true at individual, organisational or country level.  The best of partnerships thrive when they give their best and enable each other to succeed.  We can examine this character in all successful partnerships.  We will find that the more you give, the more likely you will reap the benefit of the partnership.

Thus, partnerships thrive on choice, trust and giving.  It is equally true at individual, organisational or country level.  It may be worthwhile to mention that none of us as individuals can succeed in society without establishing partnerships.  If married, you thrive only when you are able to complement your spouse to succeed.  It is equally true in companies and nations.

It is time to partner .

S Ramesh Shankar

Taking for granted ?


Do we take people for granted ?  I assume we do.  It starts from the family and then extends to society and organisations too.  Let us start from the family. Do we take our parents for granted ?  Yes we do.  We almost assume that they are duty bound to take care of us and our needs for the rest of our lives.  We are not much bothered about them but if they do not support us when we need them we feel betrayed.  

The story is not very different with our spouses.  Whether we both are working spouses or not, it is a fact that we take each other for granted.  Let us assume that our spouse is not working in an organisation but a home maker.  We almost imagine that they do not have much work and no tensions at home.  If we  get what we want at home on time, we assume that it is their responsibility and hence take it for granted.

On the contrary, let us assume that both spouses are working.  Even in this situation, we do not balance home and office work.  We tend to take for granted that our wives will take care of our home as we are busy at work.  We do not even realise that our wives also have work pressures and balancing home and work is not easy.  Hence, taking your wife for granted is more true than not.

Now, let us move to the organisational sphere.  Do we take our team members, colleagues and bosses for granted ?  Yes, it is true that many of us are so self centred that we look at the world only from own prisms.  We are not much concerned as to how it impacts our team or even our peers.  We take them for granted.  Sometimes, we also take our bosses for granted and assume that they will cover up for us in any crisis.

Why is it that we take everyone in life for granted ?  I assume it is a psychological phenomenon.  Human beings tend to believe that the whole world exists to support them.  We assume our family members, colleagues at work and members of the community are duty bound to help us to be successful in life. When this belief becomes one sided, that is where we start taking people for granted.  

The moment we start believing that we have to give before we take help from others, this problem will perish.  We have to learn to respect everyone and not take anyone for granted in life.  There is nobody in life, who is obligated to you.  We are born alone and will die alone.  But, we need the support of everyone in life to be successful.  Help is always mutual and respect is earned rather than given.  Hence, taking people for granted could lead to more distress than happiness.

We should neither take people or things for granted.  It is like taking a turn while driving your car by looking only at one of your side view mirrors as shown in the photo above.  This is like the driver taking his skills for granted.

Let us learn to respect people from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

Pain versus Joy


The pain of one should not become the joy for another.  This is what exactly happened when a CEO of a respectable industrial group lost his job.  While most of us may not be aware of  why the CEO was sacked and whether it was a fair step or not, we took the liberty of commenting on it and also shared jokes on the social media.  I was a bit hurt and thought I should reflect on it.

All of us go through ups and downs in life.  Should the sorrow of one individual give joy to another.  I do not believe so.  Lets examine it from a sports perspective.  If we play a game and lose the match, we do not end up attacking our opponents.  On the other hand, we shake hands and congratulate our opponents for winning the game.  That is true sportman's spirit and that is the way all the games are played in the world.

Why should life be different ?  Today someone may lose his job.  Tomorrow, it could be us.  Why should we laugh at someone losing his job and share jokes on the social media.  What joy can it give us ?  If someone is in pain, we may need to empathise.  We cannot be happy and making fun of it.  We have to remember that it could happen to us and we may not be amused if someone laughs when we lose our job.

We may need to reflect on our day to day behaviour.  Do we rejoice at the pain of others ?  We could share jokes and have fun if someone shares a good news with us.  A  promotion at work or a medal in a game is worth sharing joy.  But, if someone is in a crisis, we need to put ourselves in their position.  We need to reflect and pray for them to get out of their crisis.  It does not matter whether it is because of them or inspite of them.  The fact that they are going through a pain must make us empathise with them rather than rejoicing.

We can look back at life.  We may have topped our class in school or college but do we ever rejoice at our classmates, who failed.  We don't and we should not.  It is quite possible that while we have topped in school, we may end up failing in a subject in college and our ill behaviour may haunt us when others laugh at us at our failure.  It is in moments of crisis, we need to be humane.

In the photo above on the border of south and north Korea, the people of both countries hope to unite some day again. The separation of the two countries could have meant sorrow for some and joy for others.

The situation is no different at the workplace.  While we may succeed in a project and a colleague may fail, we cannot afford to rejoice at the failure of our colleagues.  Our success today is because of the contribution of many of our team members.  Tomorrow if we laugh at the failure of others, the same team members may lose their trust in us and may not be happy to support us to succeed.

The joy of others can be a source of happiness for us.  We can celebrate joy and share pain.  This is the way life will teach us to balance the good and the bad and share our joy and pain in life.

Let us celebrate joy and share pain with others.

S Ramesh Shankar