Submission is not Subduence

When you apologise or accept a bad, it is submission to the fact that given a possibility, you could have changed it. This is possible when you are conscious of your actions. This is the phase where your growth is unhindered, because you know the result of an action and you are malleable to amends. You wish to make a statement that you were given the right to choose and you own the right and wrong in decision or action. In the particular case, the fact states that you could have made it better and you accept it, often sad but yet as a experience to not repeat.

Subduence is executing others wishes. You are handed a checklist and asked to comply. You have a choice or opinion, but the way is chosen. You are either in or out. When freewill is passed over to a note that demands action according to set wishes, you do not allow yourself to submission. In essence, you have lost what you could have owned.

Submission allows amends, Subduence is rigid. In long term subduence allows you to carry on with your current life. Submission allows you a change of course. Be concious and you can never be subdued, EVER.

Touching the Ground

In hindu culture, it is a habit and practice to touch the feet and ground of elders and in front of gods.  Traditionally, this is an enforced rule. But in reality, it teaches you an important lesson - Being grounded to realities irrespective of the heights you reach.

In Managers too, this needs to be an enforced trait. I recently was struggling to find words explaining the role of an Instruction Designer to a senior manager. The commentary was how and why we cannot use fresh talent from college to analyze content and write them up. It was difficult conversation.

Today, I realized that may be, I being aloof from the ground is not helping matters. So under the able guidance of my senior most ID, I requested to be mentored in writing an existing storyboard. Not that I came out trumps from the exercise, but I got enough words to express the travails and troughs a designer needs to go through to get a great learning flow and seamless understanding of content.

Touching the ground this time wasn't a conscious exercise. But it is good to add to my arsenal at least once a year to be hands on with tools and techniques used by the team working with you.

Creatives

When something is not right, the proposed plan is not going to work, the management decisions are slit and drowned in the throats, the first signs of revolt will be from creatives. The pen-down strikes is famous and will be in the form of key thought provocators to leave for greener pastures than to fight a battle losing their age and time in what could be used in more fruitful creative pursuits.

Creative people are not ones who always start from clean canvas and start from scratch. Nor are creatives who always yearn to create everything new everytime. That is a bad attribute and such individuals never can get close to being a creative. Creatives are an inspired gang who go beyond social prophecies and exist to live for their spirits and create their self satisfaction boundaries. The boundaries that are truly personal. It is not that they do not need social attention (as in Maslow social layer). Their cravings are for their belonging within environment that allows them to contribute their own ways. Creatives find places more viable where they can take up existing chaos and are able to thrive in seeing the path within.

Organizations looking at managing Human Capital programs for creatives need to go beyond compensation, training programs and creating their growth paths towards creating opportunities for networking, interactions and empowering them with resources to allow the creatives to explore themselves.

Creatives need empowering managers.Managers who allow 360 degrees freedom to move themselves around as long as ideas, thoughts and deliverables are harmonious in existence within an individual. This is because creatives are self-managed with their time, are conscious of the efforts and are controlled in executing their ideas. Creatives look towards shipping their work often and are eager lot in seeking feedback. Hence managers practicing frequent positive toned feedback and holisitic examples towards honing their character is a desired way for managing creatives. Many times, managers give feedback for homogenizing creatives within their groups for ease of appraisals. This works against creatives in continuing their work.

Creatives are idea fountains who don't pass on fads and jump into every visible opportunity. They need time to sink and sync up with relative environments. When they take the first step and mind it, it shouldn't be a management mandate, they are sure to see it to their fructification.

"Half creatives" look up and around for taking up their work and seeing it executed by others. But it is not the completely developed individual who has the creative abilities to network, seek, inspire, work around and get their desired results. Self and all-round developed creatives always and always will be the first to see their results. It is an insult to present their ideas to them and make them a second recipient.

Creatives are inspired by work. Not that they need to see their titles and select the work that is assigned in their job description. Creatives job description is simple: Get the job done. Run till the last mile. Seek and see the satisfaction and glee in the customer.

Are you a creative ?

Be Cranky, be Bold, be Risky: Digress to Initiate is a success habit

Often, I had realized (thanks to my boss for pointing it out) that the team which signs up for a bold new initiative or idea, digresses a bit to get the mojo to make the initiative a success. I deliberately follow what my mentors taught me: "Be cranky, be bold, be risky". It was too personal a learning that I didn't pass it along. But when I observed my teams who are ready to take up new ventures, I realized that they have taken these lessons onto themselves.

Be it a new productivity tool, a process change initiative, a team wide initiative like Knowledge Management, a New Product Implementation, an over-committed project, deadlines that are in past, initiative takers do not follow the path of management, existing processes or rules of organization. They need to digress, they need to create fun, they want to find  doing something out of realm, each one have to find out the personal connection, and they need to reinvent new methods for the initiative to succeed.

While lots of books have been written on how innovations, new products happen with top-down evangelism and many celebrated failures before a great hit and a sustainable model is evolved, I think often overlooked fact is how many times digressions has taken place by individuals and how it helps initiatives thrive in organizations and particularly when it is driven bottom-up and has created blue-oceans across industries.

At least my team seems to find their mojo from this and hence almost any new initiative often has a tangible and good end signalling start of a new phase. How has initiatives been shaping in your workplace ?