The Anatomy of Leading a Successful Life

‘Good things rarely come quick and easy’.

As the lifestyle of human being is becoming increasingly competitive, it is becoming more important for them to accelerate themselves by being open to change, to be willing to learn, to come out of their comfort zone and to adapt.

While at a career counseling session, I recently met one of the participants who was desperate in need of job but was not willing to work at a location not nearby his home; his absolute reason defined as that he has been used to of working near his vicinity as it saves him time that is required for commuting.

There is a well-known Chinese proverb that says that wise adapt themselves to the circumstances. Having a mind-set to be comfortable with one’s own comfort zone fosters an attitude of helplessness, making it harder for them to progress. You can only grow when you step outside your fortress and venture into the wilderness. It is imperative for one to explore out of their discomfort, being adaptable to change and to understand the importance of learning.

Being willing to give up the familiarity of the known and able to adapt the behavior increases the ability to communicate and build relationships with other people.

I would like to present the example of a Chief Operating Officer of the Procter & Gamble Company, who spent much of the past two decades in various overseas postings. In his recent interview, he stated "I did not expect to live outside US for 15 years. The world has changed, so I had to change too. When you look at my biodata, foreign languages are not my best subjects. But when you move out of your culture, you have no option but to learn their culture and their language."

Such kind of willingness to get out of one’s comfort zone and learn continuously without complaining is a way of adapting to the change and definitely marks a key difference between a successful and unsuccessful human being.

© The blogger is an independent writer and works with Aga Khan Development Network

Superman in the Organization

We all have seen people complaining about the workload and the management’s reluctance to hire new staff to manage that workload. So what is the reason behind management’s decision of not hiring new staff? There are many reasons one of which is the presence of an employee who by multitasking and other ways tries to perform all tasks on time. This employee portrays himself as a Superman, and becomes a Cost Saving Agent in the eyes of management. The management, instead of hiring a new employee, which requires more cost, provides him with a handsome amount of raise in his monthly salary, boosting his motivation level and enabling him to work with more enthusiasm.

In the above scenario, nothing seems to be wrong. But if we look at the other side of the picture, we find that unfortunately this is not true. This employee (referred to as Superman) is harming not only himself but the job market and the organization as well in the following ways:

• Eliminating job vacancies. Organizations usually appoint new employees to minimize the greater workload. But in an organization, where an employee does majority of the work all alone, the organization finds no good reason to appoint new staff, and this is where the problem starts. A problem like closing doors for new entrants. In today’s world where the unemployment level is already high, such employees should not be allowed to eat others’ jobs.

• Putting health at risk. For a healthy life, proper sleep is an important factor. An employee performing all tasks single-handedly needs more than office hours to accomplish tasks. Therefore, he has to work after office hours and often skip holidays. Due to such tiring efforts and continuous working he doesn't get at least 6 hours of proper sleep which affects his health and causes depression, stress etc.

• Losing productivity by multitasking. People often say that doing more than one thing at a time makes you less productive. This is almost true especially in the above scenario. In order to complete tasks on time, the employee multitasks which may be harmful because human brain cannot concentrate on more than one task at a time. And this lack of concentration results in errors, which affects the quality of work.

• Behaving rudely with co-workers. It is human nature that he gets irritated if he works constantly for hours. This is why the office timings always accommodate a break of an hour or two so that employees get fresh. Same thing if we put in this employee’s scenario, we see that after working continuously in order to meet unrealistic deadlines, he gets irritated resulting in an indecent behavior with peers, which may call for a disciplinary action against him.

• Jealousy and Demotivation. In recognition of his efforts, management blesses him with a handsome salary increment, increases his perks and benefits or promote him, which creates jealousy among his co-workers. They see him as a ‘flatterer’ who, for the sake of his own benefits, does all these efforts and pleases management, which becomes the reason of their demotivation. It also ignites the fire of professional jealousy within them which sometimes causes the organization to loose skilled and experienced employees.