The Pregnant Deer

I recently came across this wonderful story and felt worth sharing..

In a forest, a pregnant deer is about to give birth to a baby. It finds a grass field nearby a river and slowly goes there thinking it would be safe. As she moves slowly, she gets labor pain.

At the same moment, dark clouds gather around that area and lightning starts a forest fire. Turning left, she sees a hunter who is aiming an arrow from a distance. As she tries to move towards right, she spots a hungry lion approaching towards her.

What can the pregnant deer do, as she is already under labour pain..?

What do you think will happen..?

Will the deer survive..?

Will it give birth to a fawn..?

Will the fawn survive..?

OR

Will everything be burnt by the forest fire...?

Can the deer go left..? No, the hunter's arrow is pointing at her.

Can she go right... ? No, the hungry male lion is approaching her.

Can she move up..? No, there the forest is on fire.

Can she move down..? No, that is where the fierce river is.

Answer: She does nothing. She just focuses on giving birth to a new life..

The sequence of events that happens at that fraction of a second (moment) is as follows:

In a spur of MOMENT, a lightning strikes, and blinds the eyes of the hunter..

At that MOMENT, he releases the arrow missing and zipping past the deer..

At that MOMENT, the arrow hits and injures the lion badly..

At that MOMENT, it starts to rain heavily and puts out the forest fire..

At that next MOMENT, the deer gives birth to a healthy fawn..

In our life too, there are MOMENTS of CHOICE when we all have to deal with negative thoughts from all sides. Some thoughts are so powerful they overcome us, and render us clueless and helpless..

Anything can happen in a MOMENT in this life. If you are religious, superstitious, atheist, agnostic or whatever, you can attribute this MOMENT to divine intervention, faith, sudden luck, serendipity, coincidence, karma, or a simple 'I just don't know'..

The priority of the deer, in that given moment, was simply giving birth to a baby, because LIFE IS PRECIOUS...! And herein perhaps lies some Lessons for us to internalize:

• Behind the outer appearances of the physical realm are invisible forces that regulate the process of Life.
• Invite these forces to be supportive of you and they will be supportive in accord with your receptivity
• Whenever faced with a set of choices in Life and a dilemma which choice to exercise, always choose one that operates out of Love and Creativity, which is in harmony with the Universal Laws. By steadfastly focusing on giving birth to the fawn, acting in harmony with the Laws of Nature that always Creates lovingly and effortlessly, the deer dropped all fears (imagined or otherwise) and aligned itself to the forces of Nature to guide it through. Nature responded in its own loving way. 

In future, may you always be inspired to have a focused positive insight, oblivious of all imaginary, negative probabilities..

"LIFE is Flowing Like a River With Unexpected TURNS, We can learn to enjoy Each Turn..”

Source: Storydose, SpeakingTree, LinkedIn etc. (No actual writer of the story could be located)

Potatoes, Eggs, and Coffee Beans

Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot.

He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter, moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing.

After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup. Turning to her he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”

“Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.

“Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity– the boiling water.

However, each one reacted differently.

The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.

The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.

However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

“Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean? “

Moral:In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us.

Which one are you?

Source: livin3.com

Human Sigma.. managing the moments where employees interact with customers..

“Quality” is easy to measure and manage in some contexts, and extremely difficult in others. Businesspeople have a pretty good idea how to judge the manufacturing process that yields a snazzy new handheld device, for example. But what about the retail employee’s attempts to sell the gadget? Or the call center employee’s efforts to help the customer navigate its eccentricities? Businesses aren’t especially good at measuring and managing the quality of those processes—or indeed of most work done by non-manufacturing businesses and units.

Yet it’s essential that organizations learn to measure and manage quality in all kinds of business settings. In manufacturing, value is created on the factory floor. In sales and service organizations, and in many professional service firms, value is created when an employee interacts with a customer. Indeed, the employee-customer encounter is the factory floor of sales and services. If these organizations are going to achieve meaningful operational and financial improvements, the employee-customer encounter must be managed with great care. 

Quality improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma are extremely useful in manufacturing contexts, where ingredients with predictable properties are repeatedly combined in the same ways, but they’re less useful when it comes to the employee-customer encounter, with its volatile human dimensions. To address this problem of fit, we’ve developed a quality improvement approach that we call Human Sigma. Like Six Sigma, Human Sigma focuses on reducing variability and improving performance. But while Six Sigma applies to processes, systems, and output quality, our approach looks at the quality of the employee-customer encounter, weaving together a consistent method for assessing it and a disciplined process for managing and improving it. 

As we developed our thinking about Human Sigma, we arrived at several core principles for measuring and managing interactions between customers and employees:

• It’s important not to think like an economist or an engineer when you’re assessing the employee-customer interaction. Emotions, it turns out, inform both sides’ judgments and behavior even more powerfully than rationality does.

• The employee-customer encounter must be measured and managed locally, because there are enormous variations in quality at the work-group and individual levels.

• It’s possible to arrive at a single measure of effectiveness for the employee-customer encounter; this measure has a high correlation with financial performance.

• To improve the quality of the employee-customer interaction, organizations must conduct both short-term, transactional interventions (such as coaching) and long-term, transformational ones (such as changing the processes for hiring and promotion). In addition, the company’s organizational structure often must be adjusted so that the employee-customer encounter can be managed holistically. 

Source: hbr.org

Image Source: barnesandnoble.com

Are you a Leader or a Boss?

While a leader can be a boss, not every boss is a leader. Although leaders and bosses have nearly identical definitions, in effect, they are different in today’s competitive world.

Just the term “leader” evokes more positivity than that of “boss.” However, when people dream of getting to higher positions in life, business or politics, they dream more about being bosses than leaders.

A possible explanation for this is that being a leader requires much more responsibility in a job than being a boss, seeing as being the boss doesn’t necessarily require going above and beyond to impress a superior.

While a boss is mostly concerned with outcomes, a leader feels responsible for the process of that outcome and the people who see it out. Check out some major points that distinguish a leader from a boss:

1. Leaders lead rather than rule.

Throughout history, the best chiefs headed their troops in fights or campaigns or whatever. The troops were not afraid because their leader was right there with them. Leaders are there to lead the team forward and to move together.

2. Leaders listen and speak rather than command.

Bosses tend to give orders; they need their employees to listen and to obey. However, leaders always listen to the opinions of their colleagues and regard them as important.

Leaders are always ready for advising, discussion and any feedback an employee has to offer. This reciprocity makes any individual employee feel stronger and gives him or her confidence to follow the leader.

3. Leaders motivate rather than terrify.

While working on projects, people have their ups and downs. Through this roller coaster, bosses are more likely to intimidate into action while leaders will motivate to action.

One of the best things about leaders is that they offer empathy and prepare a group for the tasks at hand. This is very important, seeing as whenever colleagues are not prepared for certain duties, leaders are there to support, teach and back them up. Leaders know that each employee is on the team for a reason and they have faith in every concerted effort.

4. Leaders teach and learn rather than expect and ignore.

A true leader is the person who has self-esteem, but who is not arrogant nor embarrassed to learn from those with lower titles. They know that it is never late to learn more.

This explains the tendency of leaders to always pay attention to their colleagues, knowing there is always more to  learn from them. Moreover, leaders are not only takers, but givers, as well. A good leader is not greedy for sharing knowledge and experience with someone else; instead, the leader teaches and nurtures new professionals.

5. Leaders take part rather than stay aside.

While bosses choose to stay aside in the job, leaders take initiative. They watch over the progress of work, make adjustments where necessary and aid team members. They choose to be a part of the team rather than bossing the team around.

6. Leaders reprimand rather than scold or shout.

When necessary, a leader offers constructive criticism. However, a leader never scolds or shouts at any individual, especially in public. They do understand that they are dealing with people and no one has right to humiliate others. Rather, the leader talks to the person individually and without any spike in temper.

7. Leaders establish equal relationships.

Anyone who has ever worked on a team knows what it feels like when the manager chooses his favorites and non-favorites. It always causes stress and tension among team members which compromises productivity.

A good leader tries to treat everyone equally and to not allow personal preferences affect the team dynamic.

During your life, you will face two kinds of managers: leaders and bosses. It does not matter how high the position of these individuals; bossy people are more likely to fail while those who lead will succeed.

Maybe the things I mentioned above do not make any sense for you now, but eventually, you will experience the difference and garner a greater understanding of which manager you prefer for your own professional life.

Source: http://elitedaily.com

Live your life before life becomes lifeless..

A boat is docked in a tiny Mexican fishing village. 

A tourist complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their fish and asked how long it took to catch them.  

"Not very long." they answered in unison. 

Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?

The fishermen explained that their small catches were sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families.  

But what do you do with the rest of your time ?

We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children and take siestas with our wives.
In the evenings, we go into the village to see our friends have a few drinks, play the guitar and sing a few songs.   

We have a full life..

The tourist interrupted, I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you!

You should start by fishing longer every day.

You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.

And after that..?

With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant.  

You can then leave this little Village and move to  Mexico City , Los Angeles or even  New York City !  

From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.

How long would that take ?

Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years...replied the tourist.

And after that...?

Afterwards ?

Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting," answered the tourist, laughing.

When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!

Millions..?  Really..?

And after that...asked the fishermen.

After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.

With all due respect sir, but that's exactly what we are doing now.  So what's the point wasting twenty-five years..? asked the Mexicans....

The moral of this story is: 

Know where you're going in life, you may already be there!

Many times in life, money is not everything.

“Live your life before life becomes lifeless”

Source: Unknown
Pic credits: 4vector.com