How my biggest strength was stopping me from achieving results?

Time Management and prioritizing things have always been one of my biggest strength. First, as a student, and later as a professional, I have always tried to be ahead of time, and plan things in advance. I can’t remember how it started, maybe I just inherited this from my parents or my knack of doing something ‘extra‘ always made me manage my time properly. However, in the last one year, I have realized how this strength of mine has stopped me in achieving more and better results, and what I had to do to not let this strength become a barrier.

The earliest example of time management in my life came from my parents. I still remember my mother used to wake me up at 6 AM every morning while I was 7-8 years old and how my parents made me study for 30 mins every morning before leaving for school. The same used to continue after coming back from school with homework in the afternoon, some playtime in the evening followed by one hour of TV at night. I think the same planning of time carried on when I went to college in Jaipur and later when I started my career at Noida.

Now, as a student, and as a professional who was just starting his career, most of the work I did was individual in nature. It means I had the responsibility of doing something on my own, and I always enjoyed it as I was good at prioritizing and scheduling my time. Most of the success I tasted at work was primarily because of my ability to manage my time and schedule. All this was going well till I started handling the 99acres tech team. This moved me into a leadership role for the first time and I was responsible for the work of the whole team, and it was a team job rather than an individual job.

Are your strengths becoming your weakness?

Are your strengths becoming your weakness?

During that one year in Noida, I found that I made good friends and had a good relationship with people who were good in their work and finished their tasks timely. On the other hand, I felt anger and frustration whenever someone was unable to complete their work timely. I started treating both sets of people differently. In other words, I enjoyed working with people who shared the same traits of time management and resented working with whom ‘I considered‘ poor performers. At that time, however, I was totally unaware that this was stopping me from achieving more results.

Only in the last one year, when I have taken some projects in the social space, like Waste Management and Anti-Corruption, that I have realized how my biggest strength was stopping me from achieving results. As my work grew from personal to interacting with people and teams, it was obvious (not to me 😉 ) that there would be differences in the way people think and work. Different people will be good at different skills, and for the success of any task or project, it is very important to leverage the complementary skills of people so that the output is bigger than the sum of its parts. Instead, what I was doing is aligning people with same sets of strengths and weaknesses together, making the project difficult and more prone to failure.

When I finally realized that how easily I used to get worried and upset when somebody did not replied in time, or doesn’t do what I expected him/her to do, I made a conscious effort not to let this become a show-stopper for the project, and for me. It was not easy in the beginning, as I was more concerned with somebody not replying in time rather than thinking about the project as a whole. The day I stopped seeing this behavior as ‘it should not be happening‘, life became a lot easier and I realized how this way of being has impacted my previous projects too.

Once I realized this, I started building systems, structures and processes that provide necessary help to the people to empower them so that delays can be avoided, or their impact be cushioned at best. This helped in creating a win-win scenario with the team working together with each member contributing in his/her own way and without any resentment, worries, etc. There is still a long way to go for me in this area, and I think the best learning will come when I encounter such situations in future, and how I choose to react to them.

Five lessons I have learned from failure

We all are human beings, we plan new things, we try them out, sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail. Although we always want to succeed and see failure as something which was ‘not expected‘ to happen, failures are inevitable along the way. And more often not, failures teach us more than any success can. Failure is often related with negative emotions. I want to challenge that negativity. Failures have taught me a lot and brought me where I am today. Even me writing this blog post is the result of failed attempt to do so in the past. Let me list down the five most important lessons I have learned from failure :-

1. Nobody is Special
If you think you are extra-talented, or very hard working and dedicated, it doesn’t matter. YOU WILL FAIL. Nobody is a guaranteed winner. We all are human, and like all humans, we will make mistakes too. So if we have any sense of being superior, better than others in skills or knowledge, we should give that up now before life hits us with reality. The only person who does not fail is the one who never tries anything. Many venture capitalists, when looking for a business to invest into, look for leaders who have started and failed before, because they know they are more likely to succeed in the future.

2. Nobody can do everything perfectly
No matter how much multi-tasking we can do or in however many fields we are an expert, we can’t do everything perfectly all the time. There is a saying that an expert is merely someone who has failed more than anyone else in that field. Michael Jordan, considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, says that he has succeeded because of his constant failure. He lost almost 300 games and missed over 9000 shots, which is more than an average NBA player even plays in. He says he has used failure as motivation for his success. So no matter how good we are, we will need help from others to do what we want to do.

One of my favorite quotes about life

One of my favorite quotes about life

3. Plan for the worst case scenario
When taking upon something, I have learned that we must always prepare for the worst case scenario. What I mean is we should always have a Plan B and Plan C ready in case of when Plan A doesn’t work. And more often than not, you will need these backup plans. There is no point wondering over why Plan A did not work out as expected. It is more wise to learn our lessons from it, and move on to Plan B. The famous author Denis Waitley once said “Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.” That says it all!

4. No matter how successful in the past, we will fail again
When we taste success, our self confidence increases and we move ahead with more ambitious plans. At a time when everything has been going well and successes have been coming along on the way, a failure can be even more devastating. It can leave us in the ‘This can’t happen to me‘ state very easily as we were, more than ever, expecting a success now. The point is no matter how successful you have been in the past, you will fail again in the future. That is life, because successes don’t lead you to more successes, but failures do. Even the best of businessmen fail continuously as they expand their businesses. The only difference is that they welcome the failures and see them as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks, in their way.

5. Failures are good, they lead to success
It might seem very ironical, but failures are good. Let me repeat again, Failures are Good. The only thing important is how we perceive it. There is a huge difference when a man says to himself, “I have failed three times“, to when he says, “I am a failure“. For it is said that failure is not the falling down, but the staying down. Thomas Edison, considered the greatest inventor of his time, kept on failing but he continued to try and try and try. He tried so many times that it took him 10,000 attempts to invent the light bulb. But we can see the positive outlook we should have towards failure when he said, ‘I have not failed. I have just found 9,999 ways that do not work.’

So let us try. Then try again. Then fail again. Fail better. Fail forward.. towards success!!

My weekly tweets archive for the week ending 2011-05-23

  • The expression one wears on one’s face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one’s back #
  • My About page, updated.. http://fb.me/12Cq0uZPl #
  • He failed in business in ’31. His sweetheart died in ’35. had a nervous breakdown in ’36. ran for state elector in… http://fb.me/KpogPLc8 #
  • A diamond is merely a lump of coal that did well under pressure #
  • You must do the thing which you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt #
  • Why our villages need to catch up with cities? http://lnkd.in/AmujXe #
  • Has been reading “The 8th Habit” by Stephen Covey over the last week… A wonderful read!! #
  • New poem about your ‘only’ life.. http://fb.me/Nmh7hbaF #
  • “The steeper the mountain the harder the climb the better the view from the finishing line.” – Unknown #
  • JavaScript: Now powerful enough to run Linux http://t.co/ZpybOwF via @cnet #
  • nice read http://fb.me/LosbfeTm #
  • Is it ok to be “Like That Only”? http://t.co/7SyVPgy #
  • “Be nice to everyone on your way to the top because you pass them all on the way down.” #
  • New post, being an engineer? http://fb.me/B5FVN8hR #
  • To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved #

You Have Only One (life)

Life is short,
Make the most of it!
Life is a sport,
Go for the big hit!!

Dance in the rain,
And cherish the rainbow!
You won’t live it again,
Don’t make it a no-show!!

Love and learn,
Laugh your heart out!
This is your turn,
Play before you checkout!!

Life is everywhere,
Life is now!
Go out and dare,
Don’t think how!!

Life is a dance,
Go have some fun!
Take every chance,
You have only one!!

“Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyways.”

“Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyways.”


The Easy Way may not be the Right Way

It was room no 111 in HMS Hostel, Jaipur Engineering College where on the metal almirah of my roommate Vaibhav that this quote was written, “The Easy Way may not be the Right Way”. I used to see and ponder over it many times in those two years that me and Vaibhav shared that room. We had not written it, it was there on the almirah when we got it. I felt many times that it was like a message and was trying to imply something. But in those college days, who cared 🙂

Coming to think of it now, 6 years after college life ended and after being roughened up by the real world, its meaning is a lot more clearer. Everything we do, every problem we face, has two solutions or approaches to it. There will be an easy way, and one right way to do any task. The easy way might seem to be the only option, everybody might be doing that, but we will know whether it is the right one or not from our heart.

Climbing the mountain of life, the easy way or the right way

Climbing the mountain of life, the easy way or the right way

Let me put it another way. Life is like a mountain which we have to climb. There are two ways, the easy way and the right way. The easy way might be the elevator, we can stand on it and it will take us to the top. No problems whatsoever. The hard and right way would be to climb the mountain. This way we will get tired, might even get injured, but it will be challenging and an adventure. Both ways get us to the top, one way lot easier than another. But what we don’t see here is that the easy way keeps us weak and vulnerable. In the mountain of life when we come to a point where the elevator is not working or not available, we will be struck and not have the strength and skills to get past this problem.

What it also means is that going the easy way might benefit us in the short term, but in the long term, the right way will never fail us. In life, there are bound to be ups and downs and a wise man always remains prepared for the tough times. Choosing the path is a choice we have to make, and based on this choice, there will be consequences in future. And the short term good we see in the easy way is also an illusion and not real. For example, we can escape a cop by paying a bribe. That is the easy way, we got out quickly and cheap, and everybody seems to be doing it. But if we look in perspective, it also promotes corruption in society which spreads like a disease. And since we live in the same society, sooner or later, we will find ourselves in a disadvantageous position because of the disease which came into existence and spread when we choose the easy way.

I know it is easy to talk about such things but very difficult to apply when life presents such situations. And that is why choosing between the easy way and the right way is a test of moral character more than anything else. It is about working for the greater good, taking decisions that might seem tough (but right), and making some sacrifices (if required) for a better future for ourselves and future generations to come. So the next time we are faced with a tricky situation, let us ask ourselves, “Am I taking the easy way or the right way?“. The answer to this question and the path we take will decide our future and of the people around us.