Followership

What a real leader would do in a firefighting?

There is a fire. The firemen are trying to put off the fire. What are they likely to do? Each one would do their job (which they are good at). Sometimes they give commands and most of the times they follow. They follow someone who is closer to the fire. They take directions. They ultimate goal is to put off fire.

If we are recovering from a disaster and working hard for a turnaround, "followership" is more important than "leading" (prescription). 

Followership gives us focus, disciple and confidence.

A leader is born when she follows. Followership is another form of Leadership

Switch (Part 1) - Three Surprises

Review of Chapter 1

This is going to be another post on the book Switch. In this post i am going to quickly cover various ideas and insights in section 1 - Three Surprises. There will be 3-5 more posts on the book. The goal of writing the detailed reviews are as follows:

• Discuss the contents so that you can decide why i am recommending others to spend time on this book
• Internalize the ideas so that my recommendation is based on thorough reading and reflecting. Since i read this book for the second time. First time i did not take any notes. Since the subject and book is interesting, i started making notes.

Enough of reasoning. Let us move on.

The first section talks about "Three Surprises About Change". The section provides motivation to read the book further. I have bought many books in the past and hardly can complete any. But when i read the first section, i get the feeling that I should read this. The first section does a good job of giving an overview on Change - what is a good change pattern and what are common misunderstanding about impediments.

The first section introduces us our brain - "Rider" and "Elephant". Rider analyzes, thinks, provides direction and look into the future. Elephant gives us energy, motivation, love, compassion. It discusses few case studies why it is critical to involve both "Rider" and "Elephant" for the change to be successful. How "Rider" and "Elephant" derail the change.

The first section brilliantly demystifies the following the myths.

Surprise #1: What it looks like people problem is often Situation Problem

Surprise #2: What looks like laziness is often Exhaustion

Surprise #3: What looks like resistance is often Lack of Clarity

The following case studies are used as supporting materials

1. Stale Popcorn in Bigger and Less Bigger Bucket to discuss how the situation changes people's eating behavior
2. Clocky - The Running Rogue Clock to discuss Rider and Elephant fight
3. Chocolate Cookies and Radish to discuss exhaustion
4. Stegner's 242 Gloves to discuss what happens when Rider and Elephant are engaged
5. Making West Virginia to adopt 1% milk to be healthy to discuss the importance of direction
6. Saving 100000 lives by Donald Berwick to discuss what scripted change and a successful change

Sum up: Overall the first chapter is delight and sets the stage to read further.

Next: Switch (Part 2) - Direct the Rider, Find the Bright Spots

Want to read all the posts on Switch. Click here

Disclaimer: I neither get commission for a writing review nor using Affiliation of any Bookstore. The whole purpose of these posts is to provide value to my readers and give them information to be better.

Influences

*** Not a rocket science yet a rocket science ***

All the posts that i write here comes from the books i read, the people i meet, my observation on events around me and many other ways - Influences

When i read book, i read with an intention of getting something out of it. I am motivated to read it. The results are mostly conscious.

Events around me - Whether are or not i am motivated, get registered in my mind. It gets registered in my sub-conscious and manifests in some form at later point even if i do not heed. If i have awareness on what happening, i place a filter before the events. My orientation depends on the filter. How i store the information depends on the filter/awareness.

Everyone and everything around me gives me opportunity to learn more and be better and "Influences" my future decisions/reasoning.

Help and Giving

Tamil Nadu floods - see it good and bad sides

Bad sides - Lives are lost, Losing basic amenities of life, Pushing people to migrate to different part of city, Psychological issues, Material losses.....

Good Side - You got to know you are not alone. People are with you. People helped people. People donated to People. Some gave part of their salary. Some gave everything they had. Some might borrowed from someone to give people.

For a common man. "Giving" is big thing. Giving without advertisement for vested interest is another big thing. It shows your deep care for others. "How much" you give is not important. There is no price tag for the help done in needy time.

This picture summarizes everything.

Think, Learn, Unlearn

Think - How to think properly and how to improve thinking.

Learn - Learn right things and learn to learn thing faster

Unlearn - Unlearn things and move on

It is a cycle, that's how i can be a life long student.

Think - Learn - Unlearn - Think - Learn - Unlearn....................you die

Reading, Doing and Habit

Reading gives us knowledge. Doing gives us experience. It is not something that you do not know.

Why we say so?

Reading - I read a book and understand the contents. For people like me it would take 5-6 reads to understand. But i will never be able to understand it completely (read a book that tells benefits of waking up at 5am).

Doing - When i do it, i understand it more. When i understand it more, i am closer to perfection than mere reading (do it few times here and there, see the benefits yourself).

Habit - Do it consistently takes me a lot closer to perfection and the returns are huge (make it a habit and reap the fruits). 

Success lies in reading something, doing it to understand it and making it as an habit.

Weird Questions

Lots of energy is pumped into Chennai relief work and everyone of us see the impact that youths are creating in Chennai during the last week and this week. The students and professionals work tirelessly to arrest the hunger and to put the life to normalcy.

1. Why do they commit themselves so selflessly?
2. Why do they feel that they can listen someone's order in relief activity?
3. Why do they give space to others to give their share of ideas?
4. Why do they collaborate?
5. Who instilled the vision? 
6. How do they chase their dreams?
7. While they are very tiny in the whole, how they get the feeling that their "tiny" things make whole?

While their bosses and teachers say quite opposite.

Vision - Purpose - Passion - Drive - Results - Impact Delivered

Branding Woes

Chennai is getting back to normal faster. The people share everything - food, water, shelter, clothes, emotions and morale. The severely impacted person consoling and giving confidence to worst impacted person. People are migrating within the city and reaching safest places. People continue their journey on becoming self dependent and self sufficient.

But the government's branding continues. The branding started allegedly when chief minister's sticker was pasted on the relief materials donated by a people (often NGO, caring individuals). I have myself seen ambulance displaying chief minister's poster (It is government's (people's) vehicle)

Irrespective of whether it is government's relief or someone else's it is poor branding and it is one of branding woes. If the government ensures that the relief is above everything else, it becomes a great branding. If operations of relief work is carried out with minimal issues, the people are going to think that it is great work by government which would be a GREAT branding.

Certainly the government has to downplay its poor branding (like pasting stickers on someone's donation and pasting stickers on sanitary pads)

Following Framework and Intutition

Intuition and gut feeling helps us to attack a problem in our own way. The disadvantage of intuition is that it is not scientifically proven and it depends on one's experience. Most of the times, it might work and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't work, it becomes our learning.

Following a framework - the advantage is you can rely on it. Within the given boundary, it is supposed to produce predictable results. How the things are done is fairly fixed (it is supposed to produce almost same results irrespective of who is doing it). But the issues crop up when we do not understand the boundary (or rather underestimate the boundary). There is scope for learning by trying to improvise the framework.

Growth lies in using our intuition (solving new problems) and defining a framework to solve it when it is recurrent.

Switch - Book Review after first read

Title: Switch - How to change things when change is hard

Authors: Chip Heath and Dan Heath

I was browsing to find good books on emotional intelligence. While was browsing through the book reviews, i found one of the sites recommending Switch. I did a brief research on authors, their credibility and Amazon reviews. I decided to buy this book. Initially i skim it through about one third and i found that the book was interesting.

After about few weeks, i again started to read the book. Having heard about quotes and perspectives about change like "change is only permanent" and usual boring stuff, i found that this book was interesting. The book talks about change and why it is hard. Some of the myths i had about change are completed busted with sound reasoning. I tend to believe that i can approach a change scientifically if i follow this book (that is after reading only few tens of pages).

The book is split into three parts - Direct the Rider, Motivate the elephant and Shape the path. Each part again split in multiple subsections. First part is how to get started with the change, the second part takes about how to keep going and what to do during the change journey. This book gives you a framework under broader perspective and numerous case studies, success stories and clinics (a quick problem and solution - before reading the solution you are encouraged to solve it on your own)

Are you trying to change something - in life (trying to lose weight, relationships) or at work (take part in change and be a catalyst etc). This book is must read for anyone who wants to understand science of change.

This book deserves another round of reading. I feel i should take notes and use it as a manual, try out in real world and see it working. Books are investment.

I would give a five star (*****)

Want to read all the posts on Switch. Click here

Problem with a Girl Kid

The problem with having a daughter is that you think that she is your kid (and try to protect her) but she thinks you are her kid (and protects you). Beyond the command, the cajole, the cry and so many other things she does, she showers the love of a mom.