Lessons for a father - Bringing Emotions To Work

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We have all had those days in our lives. Those are times when our favorite project is cancelled after weeks of hard work; when a customer gives us a lashing when we were actually sure of having a good meeting; when our friend (and co-worker) is laid off suddenly; or our boss assigns us more work when we already had more than our fair share of work.

Been there. Done that. Got a whole wardrobe of t-shirts.

If you are one of those lucky few, however, that have not had to deal with this, then you must know of people who have lost control of their emotions at work, slamming doors, yelling at co-workers or customers, and saying things they ultimately regret.

We all realize and understand how high people’s elevated emotions can run at the office.

In an ideal world, negative emotions would never seep into our professional lives. Work cannot be built around what we like or do not. My needs and demands, especially emotional ones, might not find any place at work. If they do, and some of them are met, we work at a place that is worth staying at. I know I do. That does not mean, though, that I do not have bad days.

Being emotional, even negatively so, might not be the culprit here. I think it is our incapacity to recognize our reactions as being emotional and controlling them before hurting someone else or, as it happens most of the times, ourselves. We require a calibration and an immense control over our behavior in times like those.

Leaders too make mistakes in this regard. There is belief sometimes that good speeches and an occasional loud cheer can tame and control their team's emotions. That is hardly the case. Peter Drucker had observed many years ago that, there is “so much talk . . . about ‘giving workers a sense of responsibility’ and so little about their responsibility, so much emphasis on their ‘feeling of importance’ and so little on making them and their work important.” He equated all this to a “soothing syrup for irritable children.” Even if it does work, the effect is very temporary and, in the long run, does more harm than good.

An organization cannot, even with the best intentions, create permanent happiness. It cannot, if we do not want it to, curb our negative mindsets into positive energy. We are individually responsible for that. And yes, happiness is an emotion. So is pride in our work. Frustration at failure is a very human emotion (one that should not stay for too long!). We are humans after all, and being emotional at work or otherwise is how we do things.

So yes, I would like to (and I am blessed with one!) have a team of emotional people work with me. I would like them to be happy with themselves and take joy in what they create. I would want them to feel bad when things do not go as planned. I would want them to hate failure.

But, I would also want them to have the sense to take a walk, or talk to someone they trust or go workout or have tea and do whatever it takes for them to not impact themselves and others with negativity.

Lessons for a father - Was that really a favor?

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"Can you do me a favor?", he asked.

"Sure, but in return I would need you to...", I replied.

Do you think whatever was done was indeed what was asked for? The person asked for a favor; he asked me to commit a deed for him. Did I do that? I don't think so. What I did, however, was committed myself to a transaction.

Every action, word or thought seems to have an associated cost. How do we move away from this very transactional way of living to one that allows us to treat each other, not as a prospective sale opportunity, but as an opportunity to bond and be human?

We have trained ourselves to look for profit wherever we can, haven't we?. So how would doing something with no prospect of profitability suit our core need? The order of the day might be to change the core need itself to one that builds relationships and looks at that very human thing as having the highest value.

I have always believed that we fail when we expect. Our intention should be to always act as givers with no intention of receiving anything back for what we do.

Here is my reply then to the question asked in the beginning:

"Sure. I will do anything and everything I can to help.".

Lessons for a father - Do Not Forget. Do Move On.

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Tough week this. Physically and emotionally, it took a lot to get through. It will be sometime before my professional team can get through the toll that last week has taken on us.

Having said that, I do realize, and appreciate, that I work with some very strong people. Their mental strength is par none and if I could choose a team of people to work with, I would not choose anyone else.

No matter what we do, we all deal with adversity. Sometimes, unfortunately, the challenge we face in our fight against adversity is just a bit too much to deal with immediately. It takes time and a lot of effort. Life, however, goes on even while we deal with our misfortune.

So what do we do at times like these? We compartmentalize. We push the thought aside and keep moving forward. Over time, we deal with the repercussions of the event. With time, we learn to accept loss and teach ourselves ways of not getting completely and solely engulfed by the event(s) that transpired. 

Compartmentalization does not make us cold, it makes us human. The idea of carrying, but putting aside, grief or anger for more than a moment, with the intention of forward movement, is what makes us strong. We must realize, however, that the negative impact of the event must be dealt with over time to stop a complete breakdown from occurring.

Adversity meets various reactions from us. We must stop whatever we are doing sometimes. At other times, we need to surround ourselves with our professional or familial teams. Some events might force us to ponder alone. Howsoever we might react, the reaction cannot be deemed wrong. It is how we deal with what life sends our way. Our reaction to situations makes us, us.

Lesson for this father this week; forget or not, cry or not, miss or not, talk about it or not, never allow adversity to take over your being and stop you from moving on.

Lessons for a father - The Idea Of Absolute Independence

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Let us start with a premise. No matter what the reason, all violence - especially one that spills innocent blood, should be abhorred and cannot be justified.

What happened in France this week and in many nations around the globe in the name of the divine, even in God's name, cannot and must not be tolerated. The killing of the Charlie Hebdo  staff by, not the followers of a faith but, terrorists has brought a very opinionated and hardly-ever-united world together. 

It makes me think about the idea of absolute independence though. 

Independence cannot make us insensitive. We are free to say, write and express whatever it is that we want, but it must not come at the cost of someone else's ethos. We love this time where we are free to choose whichever side we want, or no side at all, but respect and tolerance is a two way street and it should be kept that way.

Yes, there are people in the world that can do with a little more tolerance towards others. Yes, there are people that need to understand that they or who they follow is not the target necessarily. Yes, a little more loosening up might be required. Yes. Yes. Yes.

But, those who have the power to do so cannot redefine freedom either. If my faith asks me to cover my face in public, I should have the right to do so without the government telling me otherwise. If my faith asks me to wear a cross around my neck, I should be able to do that. If what I believe in asks me to have a beard, I must be allowed to grow and keep one. 

Freedom and independence do not choose. They are universal and people should stop expecting a homogenous world. There is diversity and context in the world and it is time we accept that.

So yes, I hate the fact that I live in a world where journalists can die because they drew a cartoon of an entity. I also cannot begin to understand a world when deaths, for things much trivial and in numbers much larger, in South and Central America, South Asia and Africa are going mostly unnoticed. Maybe, it is time we woke up and realized that we are connected as human being.

We definitely have a lot to think about this week. In the meantime, yes, Je Suis Charlie but also, Je Suis Anand and Je Suis Ahmad and Je Suis Abraham. Most importanly, Je Suis Human!

Hopefully we all can find peace within us.

Lessons for a father - Circle Or Oval Leadership?

I was spending time with my son and his new found love of play dough when he said something very intriguing. I was supposed to roll his play dough into a ball which, although constitutes a 3 dimensional entity, is still being called a circle. Apparently, what he received was not "circle enough" and so he held it in his hands and said "no circle...oval". He then proceeded to press down on what he now had in his hands (the oval that I had created) to make a circle out of it.

That made me think. How many times do we get an opportunity where we push what we have down to make something else instead of stretching it? Do we, as leaders, utilize our strength to force an "oval" into being a "circle"?

If we were to take a point




The question is this: are you a "push downer" or a "pull upper"?