Role model or Inspiration

Inspiration is all around us. All we need is an eye, sharp enough to see and learn. Human evolution is a based on the refinement, we gain by seeing other people and modelling their behaviour.

One of the questions, often asked to school children is, “Who is your role model?” And children have different answers ranging from Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa to Abdul Kalam or some other famous personality.

However, when we say someone is a role model, it means we wish to be like them in all aspects. But the truth is there would be some aspects of a role model, which we may not like. Our mind may not be in sync with few aspects of a particular person. This can lead to a misalignment. And even if we try to be like them, we will either end up being mocked for imitating them and lacking originality.

 

Quite rarely, the role model children mention could be their father, mother, or someone they have to closely interact with. To me, it makes more  sense. Because all the leaders we talked about earlier have set very high benchmarks which is difficult to match. Moreover, we don’t know much about their personal life. Whereas there could be people in our life, whom we have seen with our own eyes, who have toiled hard, gone through a lot of struggles, and have come to a stage where they are today. This sort of inspiration feels more real and authentic. It feels that it is something more easily achievable.

 

For example, I have often looked up to my grandfather, Late. Shri. V.V.Dhanushkodi, as a role model. I have not seen him, personally, because he had passed away long before I was born. Still, I have developed a great admiration for him, by hearing about him through my father and a few more elderly people. He was a social oriented person, who rose to fame due to his intelligence and philanthropy. He was one of the few educated people in those days, who also was inclined to do good for the society. He migrated from his hometown Virudhunagar, to Tuticorin and started his own business and became popular amongst the people here. He has personally helped and supported several people, that his photo still hangs in their shops and houses, where I have visited. When I enquire about why they have his photo, they explain the significant role he has played in the betterment of their lives. These are some goosebump moments for me which makes me realize, how great he was. This makes me want to follow his footsteps. However, he died at an early age of 55, due to heart attack. Pondering over why, I came to know he had excessive smoking habit, which affected his health. And probably being a socially influential person, he must have had a big load of stress too. While, I may be inspired by his business acumen and service mindedness, his attitude towards health is certainly something, I don’t want to copy. It is only something, I can learn from.

 

So, there are some limitations in accepting someone as a complete role model. Ironically, there are some bad qualities in good people and some good qualities in bad people too. Rather, it would be wise to look at them as an inspiration for a few specific qualities or behaviour, which we want to learn and adopt in our life. Maybe we can model one good quality from each person. For example, we can model the way we work or do business like someone, we can model the fitness regime of someone, we can model the social lifestyle of another and so on.

 

I always feel that there is some good aspect we can learn from everyone, irrespective of their age, social status, or their achievement in life. If we move ahead with this mindset, we will probably find inspiration from unexpected sources. It could be a small kid, a street vendor, a farm worker or some normal person, who is doing service with all that he could, sacrificing his own needs. There are many such noble hearts and brilliant minds, who remain the unsung heroes in the world. There is a lot we can learn from people who have failed too, as much we can learn from people who have succeeded.

 

So, we must develop a mindset of searching for the good in everyone and try to imbibe them, for our own betterment. When I interact with anyone new, one question that always runs in the back of my mind is "What good value, attitude or behaviour, can I learn from this person?” The answer could be a single word like patience, honesty, kindness, selfless service and so on.

 

   D. Senthil Kannan,

   CEO, PALMS Training & Consulting (P) Ltd., Tuticorin.

   Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

   Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Reputation is an Outcome of Repetition 

You can't buy a good reputation; you must earn it. ~Harvey Mackay  

When we repeatedly do things right, we build a good reputation, and when we repeatedly do things wrong, we build a bad reputation. Reputation is therefore a cumulative account of our consistent efforts in delivering results. So, it is a time taking process and we must be patient and enduring. Like the saying goes, “Rome was not built in a day”.  Reputation is a big asset to anyone, because it is hard earned, over a long period of time.

 

Let ‘s look into a few examples - A singer who gives several hits, becomes a reputed singer in the entertainment industry. A Sports man, who has consistently performed well in the matches, earns the reputation of a promising player. A businessman, who consistently delivers quality products on time, starts to enjoy the credibility of a dependable supplier.  A Doctor, who has a higher success rate in healing patients, gets noticed and becomes the most sought-after doctor in the town.

 

Word of mouth referral is the strongest form of marketing, and it can skyrocket a person to great heights.

  

Just like Individuals build reputation, countries and companies too, build reputation over the course of time. It all attributes to the same cause of consistency in performance.

 

For example, Germany enjoys a reputation for precision engineering, Japan enjoys a reputation for product re-engineering, China enjoys a reputation for its low cost of production, , Finland for the best educational system in the world, US enjoys a reputation as the best marketeers and India enjoys a reputation of being the most competent outsourcing hub, for the rest of the world.

 

In the Corporate world, Brand building is nothing but a reputation building activity. When you are consistent in delivering what you promise, your reputation grows, and your brand becomes recognized. The value of building a brand is immense. The brand starts to sell by itself, with minimal effort. People start to trust a brand so much, that they are not willing to try out any other alternatives. All that the brand has to do, is to ensure they remain consistent in offering the same quality of product or service, that the customer likes.

 

 

Ironically, building reputation is also like building a glass tower. You are catching the eyes of so many people and therefore attract Envy. What attracts admiration attracts envy too. When this phenomenon happens, people are keenly looking for opportunities to find fault and even one mistake will be exaggerated and blown out of proportion to damage your reputation.

We have seen this happening in the Corporate world too. Trust issues based on allegations such as worm found in Cadbury milk chocolate, Zinc content found in Maggie Noodles and so on. All these took the company for a toss, and it took a lot of time and effort to set it right. While few of them survived the chaos and came back, many have become extinct and gone out of the market, because the customers weren’t willing to give them a second chance.

 

So, can someone who has built a bad reputation in the past, set it right? Yes, it is possible, but takes double the effort and it may take longer.  This needs a lot of conscious effort and hard work. First the person must erase the old image, before he can create a new image about himself. Few ways, by which they can do that is by being sincerely apologetic for what happened in the past, giving assurance of what others can expect from them in the future and follow it without a single default, for a considerable amount of time, that it alters the people's perception and existing mindset, about them.

There is a nice quote by Warren Buffet which goes "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it." So, we need to tread with ultimate caution. Whether you are a professional or businessman, be sure to build and guard your reputation fiercely, because once it is lost, it is difficult to start over again.

 

 D. Senthil Kannan,

 CEO, PALMS Training & Consulting (P) Ltd., Tuticorin.

 Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

 Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Empathise to Evolve

There is a beautiful saying "Do unto others what you want them to do unto you". This is the basis of empathy. Once we understand how it feels like, we will be able think about ways in which we can make things better for them. Our level of sophistication in handling people, is determined by the level of our empathy. This is how humankind has evolved so far.

This is one of the very insightful articles, I got to read.

“Years ago, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture.  The student expected Mead to talk about clay pots, tools for hunting, grinding stones, or religious artifacts. Whereas Mead said that the first evidence of civilization was a 15,000-year-old fractured femur found in an archaeological site. A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. This particular bone had been broken and had healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger; you cannot drink or hunt for food. Wounded in this way, you are meat for your predators. No creature survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. You are eaten first. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has taken time to stay with the fallen, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended them through recovery. A healed femur indicates that someone has helped a fellow human, rather than abandoning them to save their own life.”

This is a clear indicator of how the human race, has evolved due to empathy, making it the strongest living species on the planet.

Now, let's take this into context to see how we are evolving further in this direction.

We often talk about inclusiveness. But are we truly inclusive in our spirits?  It is a question to ponder.  We cannot think about inclusiveness, until and unless we develop the ability to empathise with someone.

Please hear me clear. I said empathise and not sympathise. While sympathising, is about feeling sorry for someone and doing what you could to help them, Empathising is about trying to understand someone and being sensitive to them.

So, how can we become more empathetic?

One good method to understand and empathise with others, is to just mentally and emotionally swap roles, with the person you would like to empathise with and see how you would think and feel. For example, when you are driving a car, think of yourself as being the pedestrian on the road. How irritable would you feel to hear the honking of the car? How unsafe would you feel when someone speeds through and overtakes you? How much of discomfort would you experience, when you must push up your speed, to cope up with a fellow commuter, to just stay safe on the road?

While this may be an easy to relate example, it may still be difficult to understand what is beyond our experience. For instance, we might not be able to relate to the physical or psychological experience of a Transgender or Gay. Similarly, we might condemn a beggar or prostitute, but we don't know where they come from and what has put them into such a situation.

So, the first step to empathise is to drop all judgements and genuinely take interest in understanding someone. There is a good chance we can get to know them better, by having a deeper conversation, with an open mind and by being in a listening mode.

For instance, I was averse to the sight of transgenders, but once I had the opportunity to interact with them and understand their side of the story. I could understand the many practical difficulties they face, in terms of not being to get a job, finding a place to live and the social shame that excludes them not just from the society but their own family too. This helped me to gain a different perspective, which I had not had before.

Similarly, we can try this exercise with different segments of people, who we find it difficult to understand. It could be a street vendor, a garbage picker, a prostitute, a beggar, a physically challenged person, a visually impaired person, and so on. Through empathetic listening we will understand. It will help us widen our perspectives and broaden our minds. Once we understand, it will be easier for us to empathise, rather than just sympathise. This will result in us being more sensitive to them and act accordingly.

 D. Senthil Kannan,

 CEO, PALMS Training & Consulting (P) Ltd., Tuticorin.

 Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

 Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com