I have come across so much skepticism whenever I discuss executive life and basic values, that I am reminded of the story of the preacher who ended his sermon with ‘Remember my brothers and sisters, there is no buying and selling in heaven’. A bored executive on one of the last pews, got so fed up that he yelled back - ‘That’s not where business has gone anyway’.
Yes, “business has gone to hell” - is the refrain heard from executives everywhere. But we cannot sit back and passively accept this state of affairs. We need to do something about it. And the best summary that I have come across is one put forward by Cyrus Vance in his excellent book ‘Manager Today, Executive Tomorrow’. Vance gives eight
basic attitudes. These are:
1. >From birth to death we are alone
There is no one in the entire world who can help us or be with us all the time. Surely one’s parents are there through infancy, childhood and perhaps a part of adulthood. One may have brothers and sisters and friends. They will all be with you some of the time through the course of your life.
And again, in reverse, this will happen with your own wife and children who will be with you part of the time. But the own permanent company you will keep is yourself. Because from birth to death, you are alone - only interspersed with periods of togetherness. That is why you have to learn to enjoy your own company - to convert the concept of ‘loneliness’ to a concept of ‘aloneness’. Loneliness is negative, depressing, sorrowful, stark. Aloneness is positive, enjoyable, rejuvenating. There would seem to be a lot of sense in this guideline. It makes you less dependent on other people, on the movies, TV programmes or the video films. It is important to face up to the reality that from birth to death you are alone, and adopt a positive attitude towards this inescapable truth.
2. No one in this entire world owes you anything
This is a very difficult attitude to adopt because we are all brought up to believe that everyone should do things for us. We all have expectations, sometimes very high, and some totally divorced from reality. This is because we do not understand and accept the positive success generating attitude that ‘no one you meet in your entire life owes you anything’.
If anything is given to you, it can be graciously accepted. If it is denied to you, it is pointless being annoyed. There are no rights or favours that are done for you or to you. Much of the unhappiness in the world today is not because people have less than in the earlier generation. It is because expectations have changed and increased, and when
these expectations are not met, people get annoyed and revolt.
3. The word progress means different things to different people
Most people measure their own progress based on where they stand in relation to those friends who have perhaps gone places and are apparently very successful. So, because my friend who graduated at the same time twenty-five years ago, is now an Assistant Director with World Bank in
This is because I am measuring my own progress by the achievements of other people. Vance suggests that we measure progress by the objectives we have set ourselves in life, and how far we have achieved these objectives. It’s like the basic rule followed in athletics and racing: ‘Always look forward. Keep your eye on the finishing line. If you look back to see where the others are, you may slip up in that brief moment and lose the race’. Never mind about what other people are doing or have done. Let them do their own thing, as you are doing yours. Let them follow their own star, while you follow yours. Because progress means different things to different people.
4. In life realise that you are going to win some, lose some
Some people get so spoilt as children, where their parents give them everything they ask for from ice cream to clothes and expensive toys, that they cannot face a situation where they can’t get something they want. They do not realise that like in a one-day cricket match, only one side can win. The really complete person faces up to this with some disappointment, but without the depression bordering on wanting to commit suicide. Because he knows that in life, “you win some, and you lose some. You don’t win all the time”.
5. A life without problems is impossible
Most of us are looking for the ideal life, where we will encounter total happiness and contentment without any clouds of sorrow. But this is a dream. It never happens. Perhaps it happens in novels, in unrealistic movies, and in short stories. But not in real life. Life is always a graph of high and low points, of peaks, and valleys. Some may have longer periods of peaks and smaller intervals of valleys. For others it may be the other way round. But we all have a due share of both, whether we are born rich or poor, intelligent or dull, handsome or ugly, brown or white.
6. No matter what others say, you never stop learning
There will be the pessimists and cynics who keep telling you that the world is a cruel place, that merit really gets you nowhere, that every where it is now a question of how you can buy your way through with either money or influence, or both. That the boss goes by how many favours you have done for him rather than by how well you have done your work. There are others who will tell you that there is nothing new in the world, that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, that all supposedly new knowledge is ‘old wine in new bottles’. But the world is changing so fast, with technology being updated every day, not just every year, and new concepts being put forward and old theories disproved. It is a fast changing world. At last 70% of the products you buy today, were not available 50 years ago. Unless you keep learning and keep abreast of what is going on, both in your own field as well as in the general environment, you will be outdated and soon obsolete.
7. Change is taking place all the time and you must welcome it
Most people don’t. They prefer the familiar, the standard routine with everything in its place. People don’t like to change their homes to bigger houses and better surroundings because of the fear of the unfamiliar. It is only the positively oriented who welcome change and enjoy it. They do not wait for everyone else to change, and then join them. They are amongst the first, ‘the change agents’. They realise that ‘the only permanent feature of life is change’. Change also involves learning or relearning, which is resented by most people. But the change agent does not resent it inspite of the trouble. It may involve, because he understands and accepts that he must welcome change.
8. You must choose optimism instead of pessimism
It is so easy these days to be pessimistic. The examination papers are leaked out and sold, there is cheating at the exams, you can’t get admission into professional colleges even with 90 per cent marks, jobs are only obtained by influence, fast progress in one’s career needs a god-father, the country is going to pieces, there is corruption everywhere, the old sense of ethical values has totally vanished, the price of necessities is spiralling.
All this is enough to depress any normal human being. But it can’t be allowed to happen. As Henry Thoreau said, “Men were born to succeed, not to fail”. The person with positive attitudes looks at the bright side of things and moves forward. He looks for ways and means to bring about changes and improve the environment. Instead of being totally influenced by others, he makes an effort to influence others. All the time he asks himself ‘what can I do about it?’
Courtesy By: Jagdish Badal, Asst.Manager, ICFAI Flexi Education Network (IFEN), Corporate – Sales (Team -1), E-mail: Jagdishbadal@ifenindia.org
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