Your core belief decides what you are

“Do you know that we have different opinions about the same situation?”

“Because we have our own perspective?”

“True, but perspective is one thing, another is the lenses we wear.”

“Take an example of the current situation in Maharashtra, where the former commissioner of police has made allegations against the state Home Minister who asked to collect ransom of 100 crores by every month to one of the pawns who was a controversial Assistant Police Commissioner, accused of murder and putting the gelatin laden car in front of the house of business tycoon. Now few people are criticizing the home minister on this, others are trying to defend him.”

“Yes, maybe these are just allegations and there is no proof of such dealings.”

“You are right, but then all have their own perceptions about the situation.”  

“Exactly, and how the perceptions are made?”

“Based on the experiences.”

“And how are the experiences created?”

“May be based on the feelings.”

“Exactly, now how feelings are influenced?”

“Based on how we react, respond to the experience.”

“Perfect, and what is the basis of our reactions and responses?

“Our core belief.”

“How does it work?”

“Core beliefs are a person’s most dominant ideas about themselves, others, and the world.”

“You are right. Do you know how they act?”

“These beliefs act like a lens through which every situation and life experience is seen. Because of this, people with different core beliefs might be in the same situation, but think, feel, and behave very differently.”

“So, when your belief is not right, what do you do?”

“Even if a core belief is inaccurate or wrong, it still shapes how a person sees the world. Harmful core beliefs lead to negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, whereas rational core beliefs lead to balanced reactions.”

“Absolutely.”

“So, in this case people who are defending the Home Minister have the core belief that this is the conspiracy against a specific caste or party. In other case, the one of the Ministers was the accused of abatement of suicide and the religious leaders and his community was defending him citing the same reason.”

“Gosh, this is ridiculous. What are those examples about self, can you make it more relevant to the personal experience?”

“Yes, you asked the relevant question, you are smart.”

“Is it your core belief?” He laughed loudly.

“Of course, that’s why you are my mentee.” I smiled. “Take an example of two people with different core beliefs receiving a bad grade on a test. Person A’s thought, “I failed, I don’t know what the issue is.” And he gets depressed. The impact on his behaviour is, he does nothing.”

“And Person B?”

“Person B thinks that he did poorly because he did not prepare for the test. He feels disappointed and he plans to prepare before the next test.”

“Explain in detail”

“So, Poor marks in the grade is the situation, this Situation has triggered the thought based on their dominant belief like ‘oh I failed, what can I do (Person A) and Oh I did poorly because I was not prepared. (Person B). The feeling was depressed ( Person A) and disappointed (Person B) which resulted behavioural action like ‘what can I do- no change’ (Person A) and I will be prepared for next test- change (Person B)”

“Understood. So, to summarise, our core beliefs, positive or negative, decide our feelings and consequent thought process which results into our behaviours, right or wrong.”

“That’s correct. You summarise it very well.”   

“What precautions should we take while dealing with people who have negative core beliefs?”

“Let’s understand few facts about core or dominant beliefs, these are following,

• People are not born with core beliefs—they are learned.

• Core beliefs usually develop in childhood, or during stressful or traumatic periods in adulthood.  

• Information that contradicts core beliefs is often ignored.

• Negative core beliefs are not necessarily true, even if they feel true.  

• Core beliefs tend to be rigid and long-standing. However, they can be changed.

“This is useful, so people supporting the rapist and corrupt politicians have the problem with their core beliefs.”  

“I won’t answer that, you have to find yourself.” I laughed.

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Peel the onion

Today to her (wife’s) surprise, I volunteered to cook dinner. I am not that expert in cooking; however, the easy recipe is of course Khichdi, easy and fast to cook. You only need rice, dal, spices, tomato, chili powder, salt, onion etc. You can add ginger, curry leaves, coriander and garlic to make it tasty. Finally, I could cook the Khichdi. My wife and son enjoyed eating that. While preparing for the Khichdi, thought came to my mind, that isn’t in our life everything is like Khichdi and onion? The same taste as Khichdi and different layers like onion? When you peel one scale, you get another in onion and we have a lot of ingredients in life like Khichdi. Our life is full of emotions like different spices.   

When we go in deep, we have different meanings in life. Such layers are everywhere in life. While communicating and understanding human beings you can use the metaphor of onion. Outer layer sometimes is fragile, sometimes rigid, sometimes dirty, but as you peel the layer, you get different insights.

Human beings are made up of upbringings, culture, value systems etc. overall surrounding and society has an impact on our lives. In emotional intelligence, we always use the word, “empathy, understanding the perspective of another person”. However, it is interesting to understand how those perspectives are built over a period of times. Sometimes, it is necessary to build trust by tearing layers and self-disclosing and sometimes just being curious and making another person included to understand him/her.       

Different researchers and authors have come up with different theories around the onion and that is very cool to understand. Few are related to the culture; few are related to change management but underlined philosophy is the same.     

In case of organizations, organizations also have their own personalities, i.e. culture of the organizations. The outer layers are composed of the patterns of behaviour observed while interacting with employees and managers. The next layer encompasses the beliefs, norms and attitudes of that culture. The middle of the onion represents the underlying cultural assumptions and values. As the most hidden layer, these aspects of culture are much harder to recognise and understand, but all of the other layers are built upon the center of the culture onion. Therefore, careful analysis and a better understanding of the different layers as well as how they interact and influence each other is necessary.

You can very much analyse those behavioural patterns of human beings and also employees in the organization by applying this model. Sometimes the underlying reason of behaviour may be totally different than what we assume. Even though we say that values and upbringing decide the behaviour, it is also the experience a person has in the specific situation in past and recent. Responses are always interpreted and manipulated differently. The question is how we are accurate in understanding those. You can be closed to accurate by peeling the onion.  

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle, Vitality in Human Resource: Adding human dimensions in HR processes

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)    

What are your Values?

Values: They Make Sense…

 When I was child, one day, I found the coin of 50 paise on the street while coming home from the school. 50 paise was also reasonably good amount for me. I could buy 10 candies with 50 paise that time. When I reached at home, I showed  the coin to my mother happily…I thought my mother would allow me to take candies with that coin. But when she saw it, she started asking questions after questions. She ensured that I really found it on the street. Then she said..

“Have you tried to find the owner of this coin?” I said, “No, nobody was there that time…"

“Son, this is not our coin, somebody must have lost it and we don’t have the claim on this. Please go in the temple and put it in the donation box.” She ordered firmly.   

Above incident taught me a lot. The integrity and no claim on other’s money are the fundamental values, I learned and I still follow the same today…

Fundamentally values mean our belief on something, the way we work and the fundamental dos and don’ts while living our life. Values are beliefs about what is more important to any individual in life. These values are based on the purpose of our life.  Values represent basic convictions that a “specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.”

Milton Rokeach created the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) which consists of two sets of values:

Terminal values: These  values are desirable & end-states of existence. For example a world of peace, a sense of accomplishment, a world of beauty, equality, freedom, and salvation.

Instrumental values: These are preferable modes of behaviour or means of achieving the terminal values. For example, capable, cheerful, courageous, imaginative, logical, loving, and responsible.

However basically all values are for the purpose of life…may it be fulfilling our need, performing our obligations, achieving our aim or goals, discharging the duties as citizen- corporate or social, or satisfying our conscience etc..

Our values are developed from family background, our childhood perceptions,  surrounding, our teachers, reading, education, friends, inspiration from our role models… sometimes it keeps changing as per the situation, however there are some values which came from our parents and elders on which we would not like to compromise.

We should keep in mind that our value system govern our thinking, influence our attitude, motivate our actions. They decide the right or wrong of a choice and they determine our image as a person who is right or wrong, trustworthy or untrustworthy.

If your personal values are aligned with organizational
values, then only you would get sense of achievement.

What’s about the individual values and organizational values?

There are lot of changes in the way we operate.  Every company is focusing on “new way of working.” The value systems, also, have undergone a gradual shift over the past few years. This shift is driven by an increased focus on customers and on the individual contribution that employees can make to the business. This shift in values creates an interesting dilemma and potentially serious issues for managers wanting to introduce top-down changes or large change initiatives today. Now everyone in the organization is on Facebook, twitter and companies are recruiting social site experts to gain the competitive advantage. The value system is also changing the basic assumptions. For example, in past people were not open to speak about their pleasure & personal issues unlike today. Now everybody wants to drum his life open on the social media without thinking the consequences of the same.   

Does this means values are also changing? Earlier companies were managing the business and changes thereon under a strict chain of command. Managers had tight control over employees and they would expect compliance with any change. Elders and parents were playing the role of command at home… 

In the organizational context, the individual have different types of vales. These values are

Interpersonal: Values that refer to relations with others.

Extrinsic: Values that refer to motivating factors at work.

Intrinsic: Values that relate to personal beliefs and attitudes.

When somebody does the job in the organization, his values also reflect in his behaviour. However if values of the person contradict with organizational values, then dissatisfaction is common phenomenon. It also has the impact of the culture of organization. For example, if family first is employee’s value and his job in the organization has a tough issue for getting the time for family, there is a contradiction. After few days, employee either have to compromise on his value or he would have to find another job.

In life, you finally have to decide which value you would like to compromise over other. But keep in mind few values can’t be compromised… what are yours’ that you would not compromise?     

If you are an employee, check if your values are aligned with the organizational values. If you are a manager, check how you assess your employee for values and coach our employee so that he gets engaged.  

Are your goals align with your values?

Rajesh was our performing sales manager.  He was always ahead with setting ambitious targets and putting the number in place.  He had a target for volume of sales and acquired new business.  He was travelling a lot in a year and away from his family on week end and holidays.  

Although he was successfully implementing his plan and having positive results towards meeting his goals, he was not overjoyed. Why? It had nothing to do with his job, but had all to do with his family life. He missed time spent with his wife and sharing memorable experiences with his son. He was away from home too much.

One day, he was discussing with me his pains and reaction of his wife and son.

“It is hard time for me, on professional front I am successful, but on personal front, I am totally disturbed.” He told.  He was missing a lot his wife and son and even they also were missing him.

Don’t underrate me dad!

We sometimes underestimate our kids. My 9-year old son, Atharva came to me and asked for the tool kit. He has the habit to make experiment mechanics on his toy cars. He also makes something hybrid instruments, designs from existing toys and broken material. His room is full of material which I would have thrown.

“What will you do with this, another experiment? Ok. जे करायचे ते कर, पण पसारा मांडायचा नाही. (do whatsoever you want to do but don’t mess up) ” His mom  

“I want it for fixing the lock of balcony door. It got jammed.” He replied.

“How will you repair the lock?” I asked “Let me do that” He fully ignored me and grabbed the toolkit from me.

He took the toolkit, adjusted the screwdriver, and unscrewed the lock from the door. He got the spring which was malfunctioned. He observed the whole lock and tried to fix it.

“Give it to me. I will fix for you.” I just took it from him.

I tried it unsuccessfully. He was trying to guide me through the whole process. But I could not do it.

He grabbed the kit once again angrily and fixed the spring at appropriate place, fixed the lock on door successfully.

“See you were underrating the kid. He did that.” Mom

“I know. There is always logic in mechanics. You have to place appropriate component at appropriate place and try.” He replied.

“And second thing, you should not underestimate him anymore.” My wife 

“I am sorry, I failed to understand you.” I raised my hands.

This is a typical example, how we deal with children at home and juniors/subordinates at office. Atharva has taken an initiative to fix the lock. Then he, himself fixed it. He was not expecting any help from me. He expected only the availability of tool. He knew that he would fix the problem. I would have just observed him and offer him support when he needed.       

In corporate environment, typical managers ask the people to take initiative and then they have reservations on their capabilities.

I learned a lesson. Don’t undermine the capabilities of the people, neither of your kids nor of junior. Second if they come with some initiatives and solutions, trust on their capabilities and offer support only when they needed. Observe their performance what they are doing. I could not fix the problem. Imagine if you step in the job your junior doing and you end up by not resolving the issue. 

I am sharing what 'I Saw and I Learnt' at BlogAdda.com in association with DoRight.in.

Values and ethics in your leadership style..... Challenge?

Ethics and values go hand in hand. Leaders are role model for the people. They watch their leaders, may the leader be political or entrepreneur. People always observe them and get influenced by their behaviour? That is the reason, why leader has more accountability to exhibit the right behaviour than followers.

Who is a good leader? There are lot of research, books and material available on leadership and we try to follow the same in our personal life. But there are some inbuilt traits which has the major impact on our personalities and consequent to that on our success. One of the factors is our values and ethics driven by values.

Hitler, Saddam Hussein are at one side, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King is at another side. All were leading somebody but what they gave to the society and their country? What ethical content should be given to leadership? What is ethics? What is leadership without values? Let's examine the power of ethics in leadership, a key success topic.

A leader is a person capable of influencing the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of other people. In order for a leadership to be ethical, that influence must be based on principles and values.

The charisma of many leaders such as Hitler and Hussein have led thousands and millions of followers to carry out atrocities and injustices, to commit crimes against their fellow citizens and against humanity and, in their actions, to contradict what they preach in their public speeches with such energy and “magic.”

However, this lack of ethics in leadership is not limited to the area of politics. Only recently we witnessed the serious consequences of the ethical flaws of business leaders, Raju in Satyam case. We had also the example of Enron and Andersen in the United States and the more recent case of HP CEO Mark Hurd.

If we begin with the definition of leadership as the ability to move other people towards a common objective that they would not achieve on their own, these three famous people in contemporary and current history, along with others, fit this definition perfectly. But, how ethical and value based is their behavior?

Ethics studies man’s behavior within a framework of common moral rules that have been mutually agreed to. Ethics is created by man, with a broad religious and moral foundation, for the purpose of facilitating coexistence.

I am ethical when I obey the rules and laws agreed to by society, the laws and guidelines for social behavior. I am ethical when I practice what I preach, when I base my behavior on moral principles.

Ethics plays a fundamental role in leadership because leaders inspire others to action, to achieve a vision with confidence.

Confidence grows from the credibility leaders inspire. And they credibility, in turn, arises from their integrity, from how close their walk matches their talk. If leaders promise something and fail to keep that promise, their integrity fails, they lose credibility and, consequently, their people lose confidence in them. The team spirit breaks and the possibility of making the vision a reality is weakened.

With so many spiritual and material temptations, we find it difficult to react based strictly on moral principles. External pressures can be pushing you to say YES when you should say NO.

We are not perfect, but as leaders, we have the responsibility to weigh our actions, no matter how simple they appear. In being leaders we are like a shop window, exposed to the eyes of our children, our loved ones, associates, employees, clients, providers, friends and neighbors.

Humility allows us to admit that we are weak and to ask for help to act with rectitude. Courage allows us to acknowledge our errors, forgive ourselves, express forgiveness, and be reconciled. Humility and courage help us improve the way we lead ourselves and others, to achieve inspired visions in our lives and in the lives of others.

What are your values? Under which principles do you act in your life? The impact of ethics in leadership is very high. Living a life faithful to what we endorse, "Walking the Talk,” practicing what we preach, is the great challenge. It is my daily challenge and I know that it is also yours. Be great in the small things and you will be a great leader.

The Poor Boy

That little boy has a curiosity about children waiting for their school bus. The 5-6 year old boy with running nose, long shirt and without pant is observing all the children. His parents are construction workers. They stay in temporary shed provided by the builder. When children gather on the bust stop, he also comes outside from his hut and just observes children.

He must be curious about what these children do and why they wait there. Instead of playing why all these children goes somewhere from their home. He perhaps also must be thinking, why he is not admitted in school as these children.

After some days, he comes closer to the children. His intention is to speak with the children, but he hesitates. Perhaps he wants to ask the children where they go, what they do etc etc. But he does not dare. He has the fear of ladies, mothers of children, standing with the children.

One day, the boy dares to speak with the children. He walks towards the children.

One girl sees him, “Oh, dirty boy, what are you looking here? get loss from here.” Her mother smiles and anybody can see the pride on the face of mother, “how brave my daughter is?” she must be thinking.

“Oh, he is a poor boy, must be dirty, but he is also a child.” Another boy responds to the girl, “But see how happy he is?”

On this response girl shows funny face to the boy.

“No need to make funny face. If any rich child than you says same to you, will you not hurt?” Another boy takes the side of poor boy.” Mother of this child feels more proud now.

This is a small incident, however teaches us the different perspective of thinking pattern of two different children. I think it comes through the influence of the value education from parents.