Three Meals are Better than One

This thought is all about how healthy you eat and why we have three meals a day rather than only one. Surprised? I am not a nutritionist and that’s not the kind of topics I write about! Well, the thought is about all our health, but not necessarily through our Diet Plan. Then what?

More often than not, we are advised to eat at regular intervals than one large meal. This activity helps the body constantly burn calories and keep all the organs active throughout the day. It avoids overcrowding of food in the stomach and helps you keep fit and healthy! Just the same way, do you think even our professional goals should be to about consistency in delivery rather than work on “one” big bang? Does this consistency in delivery help us keep active and “one” big bang result in Overcrowding?

Ranveer was known as the God of ideas. Every time the management would get into a problem, he would pop up a new idea and then things would look good. People still remember how the team got saved once  when team was under tremendous sales pressure and Ranveer came up with some ideas to boost institutional sales, which helped achieve targets for the quarter. At the end of the year, Ranveer was confident of getting one of the highest ratings in the company. During his appraisal discussion, he had a lot of new ideas to take credit for– improvement in institutional sales, review calendar formalization, proper allocation of media spends for festive and a lot many more. But his Boss, Amar, certainly didn’t seem to be very happy. Ranveer got upset and asked how can he not get happy with his performance. And then Amar asked a few questions:

è When was the last time company generated some institutional orders? – Did we forget about it when sales pressure got a little relieved?

è When did the last review happen as per your review calendar? – Was it simple and practical enough to be followed regularly?

è What happened to the Allocation of Media Spends for last quarter? -  Did we use the learnings of Festive to make last quarter allocation better?

And suddenly Ranveer knew what Amar was saying. All these things were great initiatives, but happened only once!

The world is full of bright and brilliant ideas, and all of us tend to have some of them. But then, why are only few people successful. That’s because success is not a result of one Big Initiative, but of delivering consistently. Take a look around and see what are the things you really admire – your favorite restaurant serving your favorite soup with just the right amount of salt in it, your favorite apparel store which always stocks “your” size of garments or even your spouse, on whom you know you can depend in the worst of times – consistency wins hands down! Trying a new restaurant or a new shop never gives you the happiness and satisfaction that the power of consistency does.  It helps us not worry about the regular things in life and focus on more innovative and new ways of working / living.

A lot of us have beautiful ideas and take amazing initiatives. The fact remains, that if we do not take the efforts to convert those ideas into processes, and achieve regularity in it, we will never be able to harness the complete benefit of the idea at all.

A lot of times, I have seen that people get into complex models and calculations to arrive at a conclusion and I can instantly tell them that this way of working is not going to work at all – simply because it is not “simple”. The more we try to complicate things around, more the chances of it not being repeated. So the basic law of achieving consistency in work, is to keep things simple. Maybe it’ll not get us to the best level of precision, but if we are able to repeat the activity at a regular frequency, it will give us much better results than the last decimal place of a number.

Another thing which is useful in helping you achieve consistency is measuring of results. If you don’t get convinced about the results of the effort, no matter how great the idea is, you will always feel like postponing the next occurrence of the activity. Measuring of results also helps in determining whether an idea is really workable or not. A lot of ideas do seem very bright on the paper, but in reality, they may not turn out to be as great. Therefore, it becomes really important for us to measure the outcome of an initiative and act upon it accordingly. An idea without action is as good as no idea.

In business, we constantly strive to achieve consistency in everything – be it sales, profits and performance. It is from each individual, that consistency will come. A lot of times, terms like “disproportionate growths” are confused as “one time” and therefore, constant efforts go missing. We need to completely believe that one time efforts may lead to short term success but to be the ultimate success story – the only thing which will work for us is consistency!

Hoping to hear your feedback on the topic!

 PS: You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.

Time has wings

I often wonder, what is one thing which, if controlled well, would help us resolve many of our issues in our life and the answer to that is “Time”! Time is one resource, which is equally distributed to all the living beings on the planet – some know how to make the most of it, and some crib about never having enough of it. But the most unique characteristic of time, is the fact that, it Flies!

Roshan was upset. Just few months back, his Boss was promoted as the country head of this retail chain and Roshan had replaced him as the Business Manager of Central Zone. But he certainly wasn’t very happy with the way things were turning out. He duly completed his day today activities and things were working out well, but he could not understand why everyone had to rush at the final hour to make things happen. When he wanted to advertise for the latest offers for Navratri next week, they got a Page 12  LHS Position. When he wanted Buying Team to buy “Dandiyas” for forthcoming Navratris, they couldn’t manage and his team had to fix an SIS in emergency. When he organized an Employee Engagement activity, the MCs of the event kept forgetting their lines. These things kept frustrating him. Everything would happen, but everything was a compromise. He wondered how to master these things and that’s when he turned to his Boss, Arun, for help. The first thing Arun asked him after listening to his problems was – “What are the plans for Christmas?” and Roshan exclaimed – “Christmas??? That’s way too far!”. Arun, smiled and said – “Time has Wings!”. He continued – “I understand that day today activities are important, and I appreciate the fact that you’ve been carrying them out well, but unless you have an eye on the future, you will never be able to command the present!”.

Time Flies, and believe me, it really does. Every time, you think that there’s enough time for a certain event, think again. Every activity in an event has a certain lead time, and if we do not plan in advance, it is certain that we will lose control on the same. Even if there actually is some time for the event to arrive, if we start planning for it NOW, most probably, the outcome will be as per our expectations. Whilst I agree on the importance of carrying out day to day activities as per requirements you do need to have an eye on the future and act upon it right now! So, to win you need to ensure that the balance of current and future is well maintained in our work and priorities.

Let me give you another example of how time flies.

Geet and Siddharth were room mates in a college hostel. They both worked really hard for the forthcoming midyear exams and were expecting good grades to show their parents in the festive break. When results were declared, Geet broke down. How could he get a “B” grade? He had worked so hard and his exams were fairly decent. He asked Siddharth about his results and Siddharth quietly replied “I got a B too”. Geet immediately concluded that the relative grading system is fake  and no amount of hard work can result in good grades. Now he cant wait for another six  months to prove his parents that he really worked hard. He gave up and then onwards, he only explained his parents that relative grading system was unfair and it was only meant for students who can butter teachers well. Siddharth was upset too. He met his parents and promised them that he would work harder for Annual exams. Within no time, annual exams came. Siddharth got an A, and Geet a B-.

Somebody wise has said “Days are long, but the years are short”. Short term results should not determine our priorities in life, because guess what? Time flies my friend. From one event to another, from one year to another and from one appraisal cycle to another, time does fly! If you have put in your best, the outcomes will be best. Priorities and direction should take precedence.

With these two stories, I have tried to explain how this unique feature of time, has to be captured and exploited by us. Kabir has said – “Kaal kare so aaj kar, aaj kare so ab, pal mein parlay hoyegi, bahuri karega kab?” (Tomorrow's work do today, today's work now, if the moment is lost, the work be done how) .  Therefore, we must leave procrastination behind us, and start acting on things “NOW” to have a better control on our future, which is almost here!

Do you have your future in your hands? Or do you let time fly with its powerful wings? Do write in.

PS: You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.