Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Archives for July 2016

The Source of All Happiness: A Spirit of Generosity

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Thinking of Others is the Source of All Happiness

'Little Book of Inner Peace' by The Dalai Lama (ISBN 1571746099) In the Little Book of Inner Peace, the Dalai Lama writes,

In this world, all qualities spring from preferring the well-being of others to our own, whereas frustrations, confusion, and pain result from selfish attitudes. By adopting an altruistic outlook and by treating others in the way they deserve, our own happiness is assured as a byproduct. We should realize that self-centeredness is the source of all suffering, and that thinking of others is the source of all happiness.

Interconnectedness

At a 2006 TED conference, Robert Thurman gave a pithy discourse called “We Can Be Buddhas” on the Buddhist concepts of interconnectedness, empathy, and compassion. Thurman is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, an ordained Buddhist monk, founder of the Tibet House, and father of actress Uma Thurman.

Where compassion comes is where you surprisingly discover you lose yourself in some way: through art, through meditation, through understanding, through knowledge actually, knowing that you have no such boundary, knowing your interconnectedness with other beings. You can experience yourself as the other beings when you see through the delusion of being separated from them. When you do that, you’re forced to feel what they feel.

When you’re no longer locked in yourself … you let your mind spread out, and empathize, and enhance the basic human ability of empathizing, and realizing that you are the other being, somehow by that opening, you can see the deeper nature of life.

The Dalai Lama says that when you give birth in your mind to the idea of compassion, it’s because you realize that you, yourself and your pains and pleasures are finally too small a theater for your intelligence.

Being compassionate is a selfish thing to do.

Doing something loving for a person in your life can give you an emotional high. It helps you focus outside of yourself and on the needs of others. Paradoxically enough, this outward focus and compassionate behavior benefit you. Reiterating this concept, Thurman states:

The way of helping those who are suffering badly on the physical plane or on other planes is having a good time, doing it by having a good time … the key to compassion is that it is more fun. It should be done by fun. Generosity is more fun. That’s the key.

Compassion means to feel the feelings of others, and the human being actually is compassion.

When you stop focusing on the self-centered situation … (and) you decide, “Well, I’m sick of myself. I’m going to think of how other people can be happy. I’m going to get up in the morning and think, what can I do for even one other person, even a dog, my dog, my cat, my pet, my butterfly?” And the first person who gets happy when you do that, you don’t do anything for anybody else, but you get happier, you yourself, because your whole perception broadens and you suddenly see the whole world and all of the people in it. And you realize that this—being with these people—is Nirvana.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Treating Triumph and Disaster Just the Same // Book Summary of Pema Chödrön’s ‘The Wisdom of No Escape’
  2. Why Doing Good Is Selfish
  3. The Dance of Time, The Art of Presence
  4. What Is the Point of Life, If Only to Be Forgotten?
  5. Temper Your Expectations, Avoid Disappointments in Life

Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around

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Every manager should make employee retention a priority and regularly inquire, “How many of my star employees would leave my organization if they could?”

Employee turnover can be expensive. Managers must find and hire replacements, invest in training the new employees, and wait for them to get to up to speed—all while suffering productivity shortfalls during the transition. The more talented an employee, the higher the cost of replacing him/her.

Here’s what you need to do to keep your star employees around.

  1. Identify them. Find key attributes that distinguish top performers from average performers. Then rank your team against these attributes and identify those employees who are critical to your organization’s short- and long-term success.
  2. Perform salary and compensation research within your industry and offer an attractive-enough benefits package. Beyond a particular point, compensation loses much of its motivating power. Consider flexible work arrangements.
  3. Understand what your star employees value and help them realize their values and regard their work as meaningful, purposeful, and important. Often, the risk of losing employees because their personal values don’t correspond with the team’s values is far greater than the risk of losing them because of compensation.
  4. Get regular feedback from your star employees. Ask, “What can I do as your manager to make our organization a great place for you to work?” Let them tell you what they need and what they like and don’t like about their jobs. Adjust their assignments and their work conditions accordingly.
  5. Invest in training and development. Give star employees opportunities to develop their skills and increase their engagement and job security. Hold frequent and formal career discussions to determine employees’ goals and aspirations and coach them.
  6. Give your star employees the autonomy, authority, and resources to use their skills and do their jobs in their own way.
  7. Keep them challenged and engaged. Make work more exciting. Set aggressive, but realizable goals. Move your star employees around into positions in the company where they will face new challenges and develop critical skills. Employees would like to be challenged, appreciated, trusted, and see a path for career advancement.
  8. Appreciate and give honest feedback regularly. Make timely and informal feedback a habit. Don’t disregard employee performance until the annual review. Help employees feel confident about your organization’s future. Earn their trust.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. General Electric’s Jack Welch Identifies Four Types of Managers
  2. Don’t Push Employees to Change
  3. Four Telltale Signs of an Unhappy Employee
  4. Seven Real Reasons Employees Disengage and Leave
  5. Seven Easy Ways to Motivate Employees and Increase Productivity

Inspirational Quotations by Franz Kafka (#639)

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Today marks the birthday of Franz Kafka (1883–1924,) the German-language writer from Prague who is considered a major figure of 20th-century literature.

Kafka described himself as a “peevish, miserable, silent, discontented, and sickly” man. His life was tragic. He grew up terrified of his tyrannical father. He graduated from law school; his job at an insurance company exhausted him. He suffered many mental illnesses and felt tormented by guilt and anxiety. He did not publish much of his written work during his lifetime, had a few love affairs but never got married, and died of tuberculosis at age 40.

Kafka wrote surreal, dark, pessimistic, and disturbing short stories and novels. His fictional world’s repressive nature inspired the adjective “Kafkaesque,” used to describe absurd, gloomy, bizarre, eerie, or nightmarish objects.

'Metamorphosis' by Franz Kafka (ISBN 0143105248) Kafka’s works feature strange and dreadful incidents in innocent people’s lives. In his most famous work Metamorphosis (1915, German: Die Verwandlung,) a young man dies out of guilt-ridden despair after being transformed into a monstrous and repulsive insect. The Judgment (1916, Das Urteil) is about a son who unquestioningly throws himself off a bridge after his father orders him to commit suicide. In the Penal Colony (1919, In der Strafkolonie) is about a machine that kills criminals by inscribing the nature of their offense on their skin.

Kafka was barely known during his lifetime, but attained great posthumous fame thanks to his close friend Max Brod. Just before death, Kafka asked Brod to destroy all unpublished manuscripts. Brod ignored Kafka’s wishes, made significant changes to three manuscripts, gave them better endings, and published The Trial (1925, Der Prozess) Amerika (1927,) and The Castle (1926, Das Schloss.) Only in the 1970s were the originals of these three novels published.

Inspirational Quotations by Franz Kafka

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

For words are magical formulae. They leave finger marks behind on the brain, which in the twinkling of an eye become the footprints of history. One ought to watch one’ s every word.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

How to Prepare an Action Plan at a New Job [Two-Minute Mentor #6]

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Meet with all the people your new role interacts with—bosses, peers, suppliers, internal and external customers, and your employees.

Inquire what they expect to see you accomplish in five weeks, five months, and five years. Ask,

  • “What should we continue to do?”
  • “What should we change?”
  • “What should we do?”
  • “What shouldn’t we do?”
  • “What are the two or three levers that, if pulled correctly, can enable us to make the biggest impact?”

Synthesize their responses and prepare a one-page “plan for action.” Keep it as simple as possible for all your constituencies to understand and buy-in.

Communicate your proposals across your organization: “Here’s what I heard from you. Here’s what I think about it. Here’s our list of priorities and an action plan.”

For more guidelines on preparing an action plan, see my article on doing a job analysis; it’s part of my three-part (parts 1, 2, 3) series of articles on how to write a job description for your present position.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future // Books in Brief
  2. This is Yoga for the Brain: Multidisciplinary Learning
  3. Reframe Your Thinking, Get Better Answers: What the Stoics Taught
  4. Finding Potential Problems & Risk Analysis: A Case Study on ‘The Three Faces of Eve’
  5. Four Ideas for Business Improvement Ideas