Fertilizer of Challenges

The truth is - life is indeed full of challenges. So why not face them instead of running away from them? The more we run away from them the more they get back to us.

Isn’t it better to find ways to get above them, under them or even better through them? The answer to this question depends on which category one belongs to – Achievers (As) or the Not-so-patient hard workers (Ns).

There are very few people who know how to work their way through the maze of challenges to attract all the good things in life, while the remaining just don’t make it. Its not that the remaining are not hard working but what they lack is perseverance and patience. They expect instant gratification. They expect that the moment they give out positive energy the very next moment they will receive a huge surge of positive energy in return.

Another difference between the achievers and the not-so-patient handworkers is that for achievers the results as well as the process matters where as the not-so-patient hard workers want to see tangible results. Due to this attitude they fail to realize and enjoy the intangible benefits of personal pride and a sense of achievement that are accrued during the process of overcoming the challenge, which are far more valuable than monetary returns.

The biggest difference between As and Ns is that of attitude. As invest their energy by accepting challenges as a means to learn and grow whereas Ns are wasting energy in either circumventing them or approaching challenges in a wrong manner.

One major aspect that can transform a not-so-patient hard worker to an achiever is ‘self-trust.’ Achievers truly believe that the seeds of opportunities lie within and they can be germinated with the fertilizer of challenges.

©®Chitra Lele

A small piece of poetry from my word weaving village

Rise and Shine

Through the boundless vertex of time & space,
do not let trifles disturb the tranquil mind in the race.
Every long lost dream will lead to noctilucent stars,
Rise and Shine; see how the cloudy sky clears.

There will be times when you call it quits,
it is in these times that push to the limits.
Splendor of Success & the Glory of Growth;
form the fabric of life; the ultimate truth.

Face sweltering summer; nipping blast of winter with vigor
dancing flowers, swaying trees are the spirit’s power.
Well constituted character is the base of moral worth;
is the true beacon of light which will guide forth.

Triumph over troubles; count the gains not losses
only then victorious tribulation embraces.
Jump onto the self-motivation bandwagon
and all the troubles in no time will be gone.

Drop apprehensions to keep going in the chase
replace cynicism with meaning, in grace.
Take a blissful dip in waters of eclectic bless;
and woes & sorrows will surely cease.

©®Chitra Lele

SMS Flood TV Channels - Pros and Cons of SMS-TV Marriage

Practically every TV channel today is encouraging viewers to SMS.Since SMS is immensely popular among mobile phone users, especially the youth.Cashing in on this popularity, media companies TV channels, in particular are spurning a host of polls,contests etc etc.

This aspect has 2 sides to it let me illustrate with examples
First lets check out the negative side, at times under the guise of a noble cause the channels make millions. The poor mobile owner sends an SMS believing that he is either being charged a paltry sum and that he is helping a noble cause, but the fact really is that he is making TV-SMS tie ups richer by emptying his own pockets.

The Positive side to it is providing an accessible easy online help point in times of distress. Chaos everywhere. Hundreds of people killed. TV Channels covering it LIVE.There is revenue sharing involved at the moment for all the channels and the Cell service providers but at the same time they are doing a great job of providing online help lines, makes things easier for the affected families, thereby reducing the running from pillar to post pandemonium.

Definitely SMS enabled TV marketing enhances viewer loyalty and audience levels and acts as a good feedback response mechanism for TV, but at the same time its upto each individual user to decide how much one really wants to spend(waste) money in one's on-line presence.

Happy Viewing and SMSing(hope you strike the right balance).

©®Chitra Lele

My Mind begins to wander…….

My award wining poem – received the Editor’s Award from the international Journal of Enchanting Verses (Paris), chosen from 2000+ entries from across the globe.

The press release link is:-
http://www.prlog.org/10101802-the-enchanting-verses-international-brings-out-its-third-issue.html

As nature beckons me with enchanting gestures,
my mind begins to wander into greener pastures
As I tour through reflective processes of my mind,
I get teleported to a different realm, one of its kind.

Seeing through the misty glass of my mind,
I experience myriad of feelings gushing by
which get translated into the daily grind,
but at the end of it all, my mind heaves a sigh of joy.

As my soul drifts into many horizons anew,
my mind begins to wander in quest of energy renew-
as dreams and possibilities satiate my head,
I get inspired to get way ahead and set lead.

Once again I return to life filled with action,
and paint a landscape of filled with imagination of great times-
singing joyfully I dance all the way with gumption;
this is the symphony of each soul that rhymes.

As the windows of my soul are suddenly thrown open,
my mind begins to wander entwined with melody soften-
these euphonic sounds in my memories will stay
with me forever to the end of each day.

Alas my subconscious reveals the divine master plan-
I set foot in the world of the ‘inner self’,
stay connected to the Divine Being for entire life span,
to continually preserve and evolve my Essential self.

©®Chitra Lele

Random Musings

All the so-called "secrets of happiness" will not work unless you do. There is no point in waiting for things to happen. The process of effectuation is not all that difficult, what is required a little bit of presence of mind. All the answers lie within you, all that needs to be done is cull out these pointers.
Not to forget that this universe itself is vast awning of innovation and inspiration. You can definitely draw out clues from the same to seek the answers to the problems in life.

Once you get into the habit of self awareness and observation then problem solving becomes alot more easier and enjoyable. Once you are able to clearly identify the gaps then you can also identify strategies for filling up these lacuna. It is a complete learning loop that you need to go through in order to add to your wisdom reserves and enrich your experience base.

©®Chitra Lele

Implementing KM system - The Quality Perspective

Firstly we need to pinpoint what all elements will go into making a Total Quality Knowledge Management System, according to me the following elements form the substance of KM – quality oriented->Identify knowledge requirements,Obtain existing knowledge assets, Identify knowledge gaps, Address knowledge gaps to fulfill requirements, and Continually preserve and expand knowledge to reflect dynamic requirements.

Thus KM is a continuum perspective since it transforms data into wisdom.

When Knowledge management complements and enhances other organizational initiatives such as total quality management, business process re-engineering and organizational learning, then it begins to provide a new and urgent focus to sustain competitive position and enhance the quality aspect too.

Total Quality Knowledge Management can be described as the application of knowledge management practices to achieve quality management principles that include
Customer focus, Leadership, Involvement of people, Process approach, Systems approach to management, Continual improvement, Factual approach to decision-making, and Mutually beneficial supplier relation.

The Following points can be imbibed for implementing KM for improving quality processes
Develop Basic Process Competence.
Identify Missing Metrics.
Consider Benchmarking.
Work to Diffuse Internal Knowledge/Practices.
Provide Supportive Learning Environment.
Address Known Knowledge Gaps.
Check/Recheck Assumptions.
Make the Implicit Explicit.
Learn from Malfunctions.

Conclusion
Knowledge in and knowledge of the process is fragmented. No one person/group of people has a full understanding of the entire process. This points to the potential value of a KM effort that enables efficient access and sharing of high-quality, relevant, timely knowledge up, down, and across organizational lines, especially those functional and organizational lines that result in fragmented processes.

©®Chitra Lele

Energy sharing

Energy is the most valuable intangible asset of an organization.

Energy sharing is all about collaborative leadership. Each member is a leader in his own way as he comes with a unique baggage of skills, personality and myriad team experiences.

Energy sharing enables the teams to not only achieve the mission but also successfully set performance goals and develop robust strategies to manage change.
In the process of identifying star potential do not introduce unnecessary competition; rather look for ways in which knowledge energy can be shared by identifying the skills. Apart from building positive vibes in the professional setup the leader needs to have off-site team activities which will help foster cooperation and trust.

How do you eliminate negative energy or non-performing energy? ->The team members need to know their roles and expectations clearly. In spite of clear definition, if they still they do not give their best then merely removing them from the team won’t solve the problem. The leader and the concerned members need to discuss the gap and document the findings and problematic behavior. It may so happen that the concerned member may have been assigned a role not befitting his skills and that is why he is not able to contribute. Another example is that he has been trained for the assigned role but it may so occur that due to some internal structural changes he is assigned to a different role altogether. In such cases alternatives need to be worked out. This is where empowerment and cross-training comes in handy.

In case of members who act conversely to the team culture and their actions are against the team values then such members need to be dealt with on the highest priority level. The coach needs to act quickly to get these toxic members off board. Depending on the performance benchmarks and team feedback the leader can marginalize them and finally remove them. Toxic, non cooperative resources are the biggest threat to the leader’s status and team morale.

It is not about energy sharing within the team limits only; it is about energy vibes flowing from the management towards the team too. The management needs to ensure that the team believes that it’s not just about organizational growth but also about collective progress.

Advantages
A.There is continuous improvement.
B.‘Grow Together’ becomes the mantra for the climate of co-existence.
C.Energy sharing is a source of competitive advantage. It is the base of a knowledge economy.
D.Team members and top management will work in unison by deriving value from information energy shared amongst them.

©®Chitra Lele

Technology driven workforce

We are faced with technology by the bucket load both at home and work. At work technology and teams leverage one for the other. In current times teams in any organization act as enablers of business and this is possible due to the powers of technological innovations, by a large measure. In organizations it is the people who make the difference; hence organizations should exploit the powers of technology to capitalize on this human energy. Day-by-day technology is affecting employees at all levels of organizations, from the executives to middle management and the front line staff.
Integration of the two would mean not only harmonious co-existence but also leveraging one for the other. This influx in technology has caused changes in the way human resources plug in to the workflow. The following aspects have proven to be helpful in using technology power for the betterment of business results.

Tech Savvy
Tech savvy employees can handle most of the administrative aspects on their own due to the availability of online systems for aspects right from leave application to travel booking to time sheet logging. These online tools make life easier and help the organizational tiers to focus more on strategic aspects of work.

A Critical Tool
Technology is no more looked upon as an add-on business requirement rather it is considered a major tool for information gathering and sharing, knowledge management, data analysis and interpretation, problem solving, decision-making and communication.

Process Capabilities
Business is about managing capabilities and not mere task level functions. The power of latest electronic tools can be used to capture and integrate information and inputs on the current processes. The processed information can then be used to gain a better understanding of the loopholes in the existing value chains and in turn help to build robust strategies to overcome the loopholes. Modern technology in a way helps businesses to reduce operating costs and increase efficiency by automating and streamlining existing business processes.

Integration of technology and organizational workforce means not only harmonious co-existence but also leveraging one for the other. Leveraging of technology for workforce management implies digitizing and automating the workflow patterns thereby resulting in time and cost-savings.

To survive the shockwaves of turbulent times businesses, both large and small need to be upfront in building their technology base and also be willing to spend on training needs of the workforce so that they can harness the powers of technology in the right sense.

©®Chitra Lele

My views of having an Object Oriented approach to Security

The need for a new approach arises because the existing approaches are unable to stem the security issues increasing day-by-day. The root cause of any security problem, be it a virus attack or hacking, is simply bad software, which in turn comes from incorrect application of Software Engineering principles.

My proposal will not address all security threats,but will definitely set stage for building a robust Security Architecture and System.

Building blocks of this approach
1) Any problem domain can be characterized as a set of objects that have specific attributes and behaviors.
2) Objects are inherently oriented towards security through scope specifiers for its attributes.

This makes it easy to view systems and users decoupled in a scenario background, taking advantage of the best features of Object Oriented systems, even for a system that was not specifically designed to be Object Oriented.

The Value Addition of OO apporach:-
The existing approaches are more of 'find-and-patch' or 'make-fix' nature. However, the object-oriented approach insists incorporating security mesaures into the system time and again at every stage right from the Concept initiation stage to Post-Implementation maintenance stage.
The second advantage of the OO Approach is based on the main principles of the Object Oriented Architecture - Reusability. Any project built using this apporach can be re-used elsewhere without any hassle.

©®Chitra Lele

Geek and You shall find IT - Digital Delivery

Syndication is best described as the right content being received by the right person at the right time and right place. Users can consume the content in an experience they control.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a new technology you can use to have information sent to you, rather than having to go hunting for it. Many Web sites, offer RSS as a way to splash news and execute marketing strategies.These feeds are becoming more and more popular, more sites are offering these free services, and more users are streaming the content. No more hunting and rummaging, information comes to you on its OWN right at your doorstep...! RSS eliminates all the hassles associated with Email newsletters, which we typically call SPAM..because the user has control as to what he wishes to receive. In future alongwith Website management,Content Management Comapnies will have to plan for Syndication strategies as well to keep the users coming back to thier websites.

In technical jargon RSS may mean Really Simple Syndication, but for consumers/users all around it definitely stands out as Really Simple and Sensible.

Happy Streamin'!

©®Chitra Lele

Quotes coined by Me

Offlate, I have started framing quotes churned out from my mind mill, ofcourse with a poetic twist to them.

1)Reach deep within yourself, transform the landscape of your life, and strengthen the moral frontier- to revamp the inner sphere.

2)The first toxin that should be thrown out from the emotional baggage is Anger.

3)Detach from external control to re-attach with the universal reality.

4)No More Excuses. Only deadline driven milestones!

5)Learn to move on. Stop worrying, stop moping and listen to the inner clarion.

©®Chitra Lele