Not Bureaucracy, but Attitude is what that Matters

Not Bureaucracy, but 

Attitude is what that Matters

A few years back, I went on a business trip to Malaysia.  I chose to use the Trichy airport, as it was nearer to my place. Here, I happened to encounter a stinking incident with the officer at the airport immigration counter, which really put me off. So, here is an account of what happened:

I and one of my staff were travelling together. To my staff, it was his first time trip, outside the country. So, he was a bit nervous about the various formalities like the baggage scanning, immigration, customs clearance and security checks.  His fears went right. The immigration officer who called him into his counter to process his passport, started asking a number of irrelevant and meaningless questions, like do you have enough money to travel abroad, have you made currency declaration in your passport and he also started to demean my staff by saying, “you have not even gone to a neighboring Indian state, but you wish to visit a foreign country”.  I was watching all this and at some point of time, I got so irritated by his attitude that I stepped into the counter to the rescue of my staff. I told the immigration officer, that he is my staff and I can clarify all his doubts. It is only after I could show some personal affluence, the immigration officer decided to keep his mouth shut and clear his immigration.

Now in contrast, to what happened in Trichy I saw something very pleasant and innovative at the Kuala Lumpur Airport, which is worth mentioning and appreciating. On our return from Kuala Lumpur to Trichy, we were passing through the Malaysian immigration clearance. At each immigration counter, there was a small board along with 3 push type buttons of different colours. The message on the board read, if you are satisfied with the service of this immigration officer, press ‘green’, if not satisfactory press ‘yellow’ and if you had a problem with the officer press ‘red’.

The lady who processed my immigration, did not ask me a single question. She saw my immigration form, my passport, did her work in less than 2 minutes and returned back my passport with a smile. I was so pleased with her service that in return, I simply expressed my thanks by pressing the ‘green’ button. Perhaps, if there was something like a ‘pink’ button for excellent service, I would have pressed that.

Just see the contrast. The work done by the immigration officer in Indian airport and Malaysian airport was the same. They both belong to the same bureaucratic tribe, yet one was able to give a heartwarming happy experience and another a heart aching miserable experience.

 ‘Bureaucracy’ is not so much a dirty word as it sounds. The dictionary meaning of bureaucrat just says ‘a non-elected government official’.  I appreciate that, bureaucrats are keen on following rules and procedures and doing their best to keep the systems in place. But in the first place they should realize that all rules and procedures were formed to ease the handling of people and issues, and not to create untoward hardship to them. The common man gets irritated, when these bureaucrats make use of the powers bestowed upon them to cause hardship to him.

Bureaucrats have got a key role to play in the execution mechanism of the government. If only they could do their work with a proper understanding of their work, with thorough knowledge of the process and with a positive attitude, they can create a visible difference in the country.

IT IS NOT BUREAUCRACY THAT MATTERS, BUT IT IS THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARDS THEIR WORK AND PEOPLE THAT MATTERS.

   D. Senthil Kannan,

   Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

   Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

   Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

 

Let us not turn Blind, to Blindness

I came across this piece of statistical information, from one of the websites, which I wish to share with you with a fond hope that you may like to consider the idea of donating your eye, after your death.

Eye donation is still not very popular among us Indians, because it involves an action after our death and very often considered a social taboo.

 “There are currently an estimated 15 million blind people in India. 6.8 million of these suffer from corneal blindness with vision less than 6/60 in at least one eye, and of these, about 1 million have bilateral corneal blindness. If the present trend continues, it is expected that the number of corneally blind individuals in India will increase to 10.6 million by 2020. Of these at least 3 million can be benefited by corneal transplantation. Thus, to effectively meet the ever growing demand, we need around 150,000 corneal transplants to be performed every year. However, the current supply is only 22000 corneas per year. “

Now this gives a great scope for many blind people to see, if more number of people volunteered to donate their eyes after death.

Of the many type of physically handicapped people, I come across in life, I have had a special empathy for the blind. Eyes are the windows to the world and it is quiet unimaginable to live a life, not experiencing the beauty of seeing God’s creations.

In my school days, I was a member of the Interact Club – the junior wing of the Rotary Club. During this period as a member, I used to visit the blind school on specified days and spend some time with inmates of the blind school. I used to serve their need of communicating with their loved ones, by writing letters on their behalf. As they dictate word by word, I pen them down, in inland letter sheets or post cards , which is then sent out. In these moments, I have been able to experience their pain and emotions, as they share their thoughts and feelings through their letters. I cherished doing such acts of service, for it  gave me a great amount of soul satisfaction. It is at that age, I decided that I will donate my eyes to a blind person, when I die.

In my first year of college, on my 19^th birthday, I visited the Sankara Nethralaya Hospital at Chennai and informed them about my willingness to donate my eyes. They gave me a form and asked me to fill it up. After which they gave me a small card, which says, “I am an eye donor” with the name and phone number of the hospital. They asked me to retain this card, in my wallet.  It is like carrying ‘a will in your packet’.  I felt as if I have done a heroic deed, on that day. Only a little later in life, I realized that donating our eyes is not in our hands, but in the hands of our family members.

So along with donating our eyes, comes two additional responsibilities.

No.1, we need to educate our spouse and children the need for eye donation and our desire to do so. Because after our death it is they who need to take the action of calling the local hospital to come and collect our eyes. The eyes  has to be removed within 6 hours of a person’s death. There may be a lot of emotional turmoil in the family, at that moment, yet they have to be calm and composed enough to willfully discharge our wish, and prove to be the real heroes.

No.2, we need to take care of the eyes, we have volunteered to donate, by eating the right food, taking good rest and keeping it in ideal condition, so that it is useable.

Donating our eyes could be one of the noblest act of service we could do, because it can light up someone’s world with infinite possibilities. Let our eyes, that would otherwise be burned or buried along with our corpse, go for a better cause.

If this article could convince at least a few readers to donate their eyes, I feel I have travelled a extra mile in spreading the noble cause.

 

   D. Senthil Kannan,

   Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

   Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

   Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Do you Ask or Do you Tell?

If you start to observe closely the way how people communicate, you will realise that there are predominantly two types of communication styles. One is ASKING and another is TELLING. So what is the difference? The difference is simply in the way you phrase the sentence. That is all! But the type of response you get when ASKED Vs when TOLD could be significantly different. For example, when we are in need of something or need to get something done, we could either ASK or TELL.

 

If we are an TELL person, our communication style will be something like this:

v  Please get me some water to drink

v  Come and meet me at 5pm.

v  I want to discuss something important, right now.

v  I  have installed new software and don’t know how to use it. I need your help.

 

Whereas, if we are an ASK person, our communication style, for the same above statements, would be something like this:

v  Can you please get me some water to drink?

v  Will it be OK for you to meet me at 5pm?

v  When is the best time, I can talk to you?

v  Can you help me with this new software?

 

On the surface level, both the statement types looks polite and courteous, but ask yourself which one sounds better and which one has a likely chance of getting someone’s cooperation?

 

Perhaps, it is the second f that in a TELL statement the onus is on the “I, whereas in an ASK statement the onus is in the “You”. When we TELL, our communication is self-centred, whereas when we ask, our communication style is, other centred. That is why when we ask, people feel respected, whereas when we tell, people feel commanded. People tend to respond positively to request than to orders.

 

When you ASK, you generally get either a positive response or a genuine response. I am purposefully using the word genuine response, instead of negative response, because most of the time, the reason for us to TELL instead of ASK, is that we are afraid to hear NO as an answer, so we put our statements, in the form of instructions. But the truth is when we TELL people to do something, it is a sort of a compulsion on them and therefore their willingness is minimal. With minimal willingness, we often get a half-hearted co-operation or a low quality work done.

 

By asking questions, we encourage people to think for themselves, rather than just bull dozing our ideas and plans on them. When we are looking for a genuine co-operation and thinking in terms of developing a long term relationship, with someone it is always better to have their consent, before entrusting them with any job. Moreover, when they say YES willingly, they take personal responsibility and therefore there is no need for supervision.

 

Question yourself, “Do I ASK or do I TELL? Identify your style and if you are a TELL person, take conscious efforts to become and ASK person. Try this with the members of your family, circle of friends and colleagues at your work place. See what difference it makes. You will find that you are able to get more out of your relationships.

 

It may sound that this is just a diplomatic way of manipulating a person to get work done. Well, it is not! It is just like having a sugar coating in the tablet. Though we know that it is bitter tablet, that cures; it is the sugar coating that makes it easy to swallow. Is it not? Similarly, when our words are sweet, people love to help us, even if the work is hard.

 

 

D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Aging with Dignity

Old age is a part and parcel of everyone’s life and everyone has to go through this period at some point of time. Every family would have some elders and to take care of the elderly, is not an easy task. Here are some thoughts, on how we can take care of the elderly in our evolving life style.

 

If such a situation arises. I think that the RETIREMENT HOMES are an ideal choice. There is an ongoing debate everywhere, as to whether it is right to leave our parent’s in retirement homes? There are many people who criticize such acts, as being selfish, insensitive and ungrateful. This fear of social criticism, makes it difficult for many children to take this decision. We need to understand that to care for the elderly, should come out of our heart and not for the sake of social approval. Anything done out of compulsion loses the spirit of the act. So, this idea of Retirement home, is a WIN-WIN situation for both the parent and the son. There is no doubt, that it would be great if children can take care of their parents, however not everybody is lucky enough to take care of their parents at their old age.

India is known for its joint family system. It is something westerners are awestruck about. It is even difficult for them to imagine how so many relationships such as grandparents, parents, sibling, daughter in laws, children and grandchildren live together in a same house and peacefully co-exist. But that is the specialty of our country. However, the trend is now changing and like western countries, India is slowly moving from joint family system to nuclear family system. Not many elders are able to come to terms with this change happening, because it is something new to them. It makes them feel insecure. Like all changes this change too is painful to many, but we need to accept the new reality.

 

One of the inherent cultural practice, of our country is taking care of our parents at old age. It is an unwritten rule in our country that, the son should take care of his parents, at their old age.  It is based on a simple principle of ‘give’ and ‘take’. As a small child, we were dependent on our parents to take care of all our needs right from physical support to emotional support. So as a grown up, when our parents grow old and reach a stage of dependency, it is our moral responsibility to take care of them. So this has been a practice for many years.

 However, in the current context this has become a cause of concern, as the son, finds it hard to balance between the needs of the parents on one side, and the needs of their spouse, children and career on the other side. In a choice between past responsibilities and future aspirations, it is always our future aspirations that take our priority. There is nothing wrong about it. Everyone aspires to grow in their career and make a mark for themselves in this world. The sad part is opportunities are not always available in one’s home town or nearby locality. So this creates a need for people to migrate to different cities, states or even different countries in quest of pursuing their dream career. However, not all parents are comfortable with such migration, and it is not easy for the son also to take his parent’s wherever he keeps migrating.

 So, when such opportunities come, there is a moral dilemma, From the son’s side he does not know how to leave the parents and go. From the parent side, they have always wanted to been an enabler of their child’s growth and not an obstacle to their growth. It is a tricky situation on both sides. So, what could be the solution?

 So, rather than having to leave them alone in a house, where there is no one to take care of, it is much safer for elders to live in retirement homes. It also, gives them a sense of dignity. They can mingle with people of their same age, make friends, cherish old memories and live in peace.

 To take it one step further, I would say that it would be a lot easier, when this idea of moving to a retirement home is a self-initiated choice of the parent rather than an act of the children. This gives them the feeling of voluntary choice and not a compelled act.   A parent is someone who has always been on the giving side to their children. Why should old age demand a role reversal? They can very well, bless their children to progress in their life and retire with dignity.

 

   D. Senthil Kannan,

   Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

   Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

   Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Why we are late for meetings?

Do you notice that it has becoming more and more common for people coming late for meetings?

If you are a member of any social organization, you would fully agree with me. When there is a meeting scheduled at say 6.30pm, we hardly find anyone there at the stipulated time. People start trickling down slowly from 6.45pm onwards and if we are lucky we can start the meeting at 7.00pm or it could extend till 7.30pm. Meetings starting 30 minutes to 1 hour late, from the announced time is becoming more and more common and acceptable.

I, as an organizer of many meetings and events, see this factor of people turning up late, becoming very casual and the worst part is no one seems to be really worried about this. Adding to this, people jokingly comment IST does not mean Indian Standard Time, but it means Indian Stretchable Time. But I think this is not a joke that we should laugh over, rather something we should feel ashamed of.

One of the things, we Indians are extremely bad at managing is TIME or rather being punctual. I think we need to look into this issue seriously, because it gives a very bad image of our country and our work culture. We are good to give excuse as to why we are late, rather than finding ways to be on time.

So, I was just pondering as to why people are late and I could come out with three possible reasons.

•      Priority

•      Difficulty

•       Superiority

Let us look into each factor in a little more detail.

 

Priority:  Generally a meeting information/ invitation is circulated at least a week in advance and so the concerned person would have blocked that time for the meeting, if he is interested in attending.  However there could be some last minute unexpected happenings which could distort the plan, such as a surprise guest at home or having to take someone to a hospital and so on.

These type of situations are unavoidable. As time management is all about priority management, it is understandable, that at this type of situations, people may get delayed to arrive at the meeting after attending to these emergencies.

Difficulty: Another reason could be few people have difficulty in managing time. This is because they don’t have a proper system in place such as maintaining a calendar, diary or a mobile reminder app etc. So they tend to forget their existing appointments and commit the same time for another appointment too. This leads to turning up late. Few other people are not just conscious of how much time it would take to get a work done and therefore not good at anticipating the time needed to complete a job. So they may tend to take up an overload of work and later feel that they are not able to finish it on time and therefore one delay would leads to another, ultimately making them late to arrive at the meeting.

This type of situations could be avoided by better planning and learning to use some time management tools.

 

Superiority:  Some people want to give an image of being a very busy person and consider their time value to be superior to that of others and they feel it is OK for other to wait for them. This VIP culture of making people wait is the most unacceptable part. This is common with politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen too. Let us say they have been invited as the Chief Guest, they tend to think that they need to arrive late, to maintain their pride.  But I think, true dignity is when they turn up on time and be a role model to others.

This type of situations can be easily avoided if one starts becoming conscious that others time is equally valuable as their own.

One of the noteworthy things, I have observed while attending meeting abroad is that, most of the participants arrive at least 15 minutes early. Once they arrive they don’t create any commotion. They just choose a comfortable location for them to sit and pick out a book from their bag and start reading it. When it is time for the meeting to start they just put the book back and get to the meeting seamlessly. For them being early is not a waste of time, but it really avoids last minute hurry and panic. Moreover they have also learnt the art of using waiting time into productive time.

While some reasons for being late is acceptable, many or not.  So, let us take time to analyze, which one of the above factors is stopping us from being on time for meeting and take proactive measures to correct it.

   D. Senthil Kannan,

    Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

    Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

    Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

The Green Icon

As the convenor of the Environmental Panel of CII Thoothukudi District, for the year 2011-12, I was instrumental in organising a one day environmental conference titled the ECO Summit. We had some of the top brains, who talked on various environmental related issues and how we could proactively engage ourselves, in mitigating the risks associated with environmental hazards and disasters.

One of the key speakers of this summit, was Mr.M.B.Nirmal,  the founder of Exnora International – A NGO based in Chennai who enjoy international repute today, for the enormous amount of work they have done in cleaning and greening the environment. This simple unassuming speaker shared his life story, in a witty way, but it was something that touched our hearts. The audience were both moved and inspired. If each one of us carry this little spark he lit within us, we are sure we will make our life purposeful. I hope sharing his life story, would inspire you too, to stretch beyond all limitations.

Nirmal was basically from a very rich family and they had a number of properties in Chennai. His father, ran into severe business debts, owing to some high risk business ventures and they had to sell all their property and their family literally came to the streets. Nirmal’s mother was persistent that she will not go and live in a rented house after having lived such a rich and royal life. With the very little money their family was left with Nirmal could only find a house in the slum, which he readily bought. It was a very painful period in their life. One of the visitors, who came to visit Nirmal’s family in their new dwelling, asked Nirmal, “Can’t you find a better place to live”. Nirmal was taken back. He had no words to say. He was in such a bad financial situation. It was that day he told himself, “My present conditions do not permit me to move to a better place, but I can make the place I live a better place.” This thought got so deeply rooted in his mind, that he focussed all his time and effort in making this slum, a clean and green place. He educated the people living in the slum, about the need for hygiene and he involved them in the process of making the place, green and clean. In his pursuit toward making the slum a better place for everyone to live in, he used creative approaches and brought about innovative solutions. It was not easy for him to convince people who were in the practice of open defecation, to use toilets. Inspite of creating toilets, no one was using it. He did innovative things like calling“public toilet” as “people’s toilet”.  In order to motivate small children to use the toilet, he painted the toilet walls with animals and cartoon images and renamed it as “Toy-let”. These small changes made a big difference, in people’s behaviour.This created a sensation, in the city and soon many people started coming to him, asking how he was able to do it. By duplicating his success model, more and more places, got cleaner and greener. This is how Exnora was formed.

Exnora is now talked about worldwide. The amount of toil, Nirmal has to put to make it a reality is something commendable. His untiring effort, determination, optimism, passion and contagious enthusiasm, has made a world of difference. In his own words, Nirmal says, “I am an incurable optimist”.

Today, Nirmal happily boasts about growing 1300 plants within his small apartment. His apartment is being visited by people across the world, who cannot believe their own eyes.

When you ask him, what is his goal at the moment, he says,“I want to be recognized as the world’s best thinker of our times.”

And if you think Nirmal is just an environmentalist, you are mistaken. He is a Motivator, Mind Programmer, Humorist, Orator, Trainer, Social Reformer. How can one person don so many roles? This really makes me wonder. He is an exemplary evidence, for those who question the limits of human potential. Let the life example of Nirmal, inspire us to stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities. For those of you, who are not aware of him, I am happy to introduce Mr.M.B.Nirmal - THE GREEN ICON. 

   D. Senthil Kannan,

  Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

  Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

  Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Stop Assuming, Start Clarifying

The way we commute has changed dramatically with the advent of Ola and Uber Cabs. Here is an account of my first time experience with this type of cab service and the insightful experience that followed.

 

I was in Chennai and I had to do some local travel. On having seen many newspaper ads and having heard from friends about Ola cab services, I thought I would give it a try. So, I downloaded the app from the Google Play store and installed it on my mobile.

 

Using this app, I made a request and within 3 to 5 minutes a cab arrived. As I was new to Ola, I was not sure of how it works. I did not check my SMS too. I was just amazed to see an Ola cab approaching me, within few minutes of sending a request. I just got into the cab and said Adayar. The car started moving towards the destination. After few minutes of travel, I got a bit curious to know how this system works. So, I initiated a chat with the cab driver, asking how Ola is doing and how is it they are able to reach the customer so quickly.

 

So he started explaining the process and in the process he said, “just like you would have received a SMS from Ola giving the driver name and car number”. It was here, I got a bit puzzled. I told him, I did not receive any such SMS. He said, that I should have received it. So immediately, I picked up my phone and checked to find that it was there. So I just read out the message loud which had the car number and driver name. The driver was shocked. He said that was not his name and that was not his car number. It was then he figured out, that he has made a wrong pick up and blamed me for not checking out his name, before boarding the car. I from my point of argument said, “It is you who should have verified the customer name, before I boarded the vehicle.” After all the finger pointing, I asked him to proceed to my destination. He said that it was possible, as the trip is monitored by the Ola team and he has to drop me back at my pick up point and pick up the right customer.

 

I had only two options. Either I get down right there and board a different vehicle or go back to the point of pick up, where the right cab assigned to me, would be waiting. I chose the latter and so he drove me back to my starting point which was around 3 kms. He then dropped me back, where luckily the car assigned to me was waiting.

 

It was altogether a funny episode, but it also made me reflect on my flaw of assuming, without seeking clarity. A saying goes, the word ASSUME itself means, don’t make an ‘ASS’ of ‘U’ and ‘ME’. I realized I had just done that, by making one such wrong assumption.

 

Many times in life, we make some quick assumptions like this and end up in trouble. No doubt we are too busy and we act in a hurried manner, but that should not disturb us being sharp in our day to day activities. We need to pay attention to details.  We need to be more effective in communicating and make sure that the other person has clearly understood what we have told them.

 

Does it not happen, that many a times, we give some instructions to our subordinate, colleague or family member, assuming that they have understood, but end up seeing that they have totally misunderstood and done something totally different.  Later we blame them for doing it wrong.  If we take the little extra effort to clarify our communication, we can avoid ending up in such a messy situation.

 

Let us stop assuming and start clarifying.

 D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com