Footprints on the Mountainside

This post could be considered the ultimate guide to professional excellence, or any relationship for that matter. Why do I call professional excellence a relationship? Because it is. What you do, is important, but it is how people see it that matters - that’s how it is about relationship.

1. Get over your obsession with presenting perfection already. For one, it is too open to interpretation, and thus too vague in terms of what needs to be done. Instead, get obsessed with initiative. Attempts to be perfect block most of our initiative and leave us anxious. Learn to accept that you are doing what you think is best, and if it doesn’t turn out to be so, you then know that for sure, rather than imagining consequences and fearing them. <— this is not as easy as it sounds.
2. Embrace the goals you have committed to. This means, don’t take the lazy man’s way just because what seems best looks tough. Doesn’t matter if it is finding the strength to run an extra mile for your weight loss goal, or doing extra research to bring in thought provoking perspectives for that corporate presentation. It is about adopting the goal in your heart, and making the effort to stand by it through tough terrain.
3. Don’t panic. It is those who try who fail, or succeed. Know that you have tried, and respect yourself for it, even if things fail, because failures when accepted and learned from bring great strength and sure knowledge of what to avoid.
4. Acknowledge the people you are with. This doesn’t mean mindless agreement. It is simply acknowledging that they see things in a certain way, or feel strongly about certain things, regardless of whether you agree or don’t. Accept that they have their own stands which are as valid for them, as they are for you.
5. Throw those approvals and disapprovals out. They do more harm than good, because you end up constantly judging people rather than understanding them.
6. Standing up in the face of all for what you believe in takes courage, but is counter-productive, if it means that you end up deciding for everyone (or attempting to). It helps to present your stand on it, and your feelings about it. “Let us throw away the current policy on tea breaks - people are getting lazy” may not be as effective as “I see the tea breaks disrupting our schedule, and few of us seem to want tea at that time. Can we re-look at them and see if we can come up with something that suits us better? I suggest….”
7. Contribute, don’t dictate.
8. Don’t just agree, act. Agreement is passivity. Action is what causes positive change.
9. Try and be sensitive to the state of being of the person you are with. A colleague who looks harassed has a concern you could perhaps help him with, rather than as him to review your latest invention.
10. Blame alienates and frustrates - even blaming yourself. Learn to see the person as a whole that is much more than a specific action.

Not as simple as it looks.

Those who are in touch with me know that I have a keen interest in human behaviour processes and am actively pursuing my self-development journey with ISABS.

Its Summer, and its time for the National Event being held in Goa. After a lot of anxiety about being able to complete my logs and get them approved in time, I have finally been cleared two days before I am supposed to leave.

Needless to say, this is an exercise in pressure to be planning a trip to Goa two days before departure in the holiday season. Keeping fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

This time, I will be doing my Phase B of the Professional Development Programme. This is going to take two weeks, and hopefully I will be emerging on the other end intact and wiser.

I am a little anxious about my ability to cope with the intensity of the process work and can hardly believe that I made it this long. Seems yesterday that I attended my first Human Processes Lab. Time certainly flies when you are celebrating it.

Will keep ya’ll posted on proceedings and my condition

One of my more bizarre “potential clients”. I could write an entire book with the entertaining questions I get.

Got an email from a Sarita Sharma today asking for a quote for a training programme. Fabulous. I was online and sent one across immediately.

Got a response asking only for accommodation and food costs and need the outbound training complimentary!!! So now in a world of 20% extra with your toothpaste, there’s this new thing of free outbound training from a training company, while you book a hotel that is not theirs in any case.

Go figure!

Its becoming a habit. I have a conversation with someone that sets me thinking and I come here and write about it

This time it is about Kanheri Caves and what is happening out there.

When I learnt climbing, Kanheri was a regular haunt of climbers. On Sundays and public holidays, the place was literally swarming with outdoor people. A public bus service ran up to the caves from the Borivli station. We used to use that shabby bungalow to hold training camps. Those were the good old days.

Today, the crowd is hardly there. For some bizarre reason, the authorities have forbidden climbing there. Probably something to do with their weird sense of preservation of ancient monuments.

Let’s face it. Rock cut caves that have withstood the centuries and have fairly nothing in terms of paintings or delicate art are not exactly going to crumble when they see climbers. In any case, no one actually climbs the cave walls (mostly - no promises - climbers are crazy). Climbers sweat a lot, but I am fairly certain that caves will not faint or erode from it.

Sarcasm aside, I see this as a situation changed for the worse:

1. The area has hardly any people any more, and trouble with anti-scial elements is on the rise. Earlier, the abundance of the climbers made it a pretty busy area with an abundance of fit and valuable free people who were passionate about the sanctity of the place likely to come across trouble makers.
2. Climbers generally have a well developed sense of affinity with nature and served as excellent policing of trash throwers and often brought back stray trash they found in remote spots. Today, you have families throwing garbage all over the place with no one to try and make them aware of the need not to do such things.
3. The social feel of the place. The climbing community, the families and the overall busy feel brought an impression of a busy, thriving place with immense value to a variety of people. Today, there are few people who dare to go beyond the main area for fear of the isolation, except for couples who use the caves like private bedrooms to make out in.
4. Monkeys are a menace there. A busy community makes it less likely for someone to be attacked and hurt. A simple suggestion of not bringing any eatables to the caves would have sufficed to discourage moneys over time when they realized that there was no food stuff forthcoming. However, the authorities are not interested in anything like that, even after repeated suggestions of solutions, complaints about monkey attacks…..

I miss the old Kanheri Caves, where I as a teenage girl could walk around without fear; where we were there to stop tourists from littering, rather than make occasional visits and be depressed by the litter; when monkeys could actually be scared away without resorting to extreme measures……..