Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Nagesh Belludi

Hiring: If You Pay Peanuts, You Get Monkeys

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If You Pay Peanuts, You Get Monkeys During the economic slowdown last year, a manager had a choice between two consultants for a critical project to turnaround the prospects of his division. The first candidate was five years out of business school; his billing rate was $370 an hour. The second, more experienced candidate’s was $510 an hour. Without much deliberation, the manager hired the first candidate because he would fit in the manager’s budget. Things did not work out as well as the manager had expected. Three months later, after considerable delays and missed opportunities, the manager fired his consultant and recruited the second candidate anyway. This consultant had an earlier experience similar to the situation at hand and succeeded in his mission in due course.

The best don’t come cheap

Recruiting is the toughest responsibility of a manager. Prudent hiring processes start with a realization that talented professionals are the heart of successful organizational endeavors. Many managers simply do not take in this fact and signup those who cost the least instead.

Economic downturn or lower project budgets are no reasons for careless hiring decisions. It is exactly during though times that managers should recruit the best people. And, the best don’t come cheap.

Now, I am not saying that high-priced consultants and employees are necessarily good. The converse is not automatically true either. Market demand for talent often dictates billing rates and compensation of skilled professionals. There is often a strong reason for them being in demand and commanding premium fees. No manager dare overlook such considerations.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Seven Real Reasons Employees Disengage and Leave
  2. David Ogilvy on Russian Nesting Dolls and Building a Company of Giants
  3. Competency Modeling: How to Hire and Promote the Best
  4. Fire Fast—It’s Heartless to Hang on to Bad Employees
  5. How to Hire People Who Are Smarter Than You Are

Inspirational Quotations #320

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Take yourself as you are, whole, and do not try to live by one part alone and starve the other.
—Janet Erskine Stuart (English Catholic Nun)

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
—George Washington Burnap

All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Coaches who can outline plays on a black board are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their player and motivate.
—Vince Lombardi, Jr.

The ideal of beauty is simplicity and tranquility.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

You cannot govern the creative impulse; all you can do is to eliminate obstacles and smooth the way for it.
—Kimon Nicolaides

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
—Archilochus

Zeal will do more than knowledge.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written. And guess what? It’s all available. All you have to do is go to the library.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.
—Vince Lombardi (American Sportsperson)

A disciplined conscience is a man’s best friend.—It may not be his most amiable, but it is his most faithful monitor.
—Austin Phelps (American Presbyterian Clergyman)

Learn from the Top Performers in Every Field

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Learn from the Top Performers in Every Field

During Q & A at a career-planning workshop that I led recently, a member of the audience asked me, “Where could I get the best education in life?” This article elaborates my response.

You learn best from imitating the techniques of the successful

“What the outstanding person does, others will try to do. The standards such people create will be followed by the whole world.”
* The Bhagavad Gita

The best way to educate yourself is by observing the top performers in every field and by identifying and applying their effectiveness techniques to your circumstances. Your inspiration may be somebody you interact with, somebody you can hear about in the media or a fictional character from a novel or movie.

Try to imitate the best performers in a discipline to be successful in that discipline. Study their educational and professional backgrounds, their work style, successes, and failures. Identify how they go about conducting their everyday affairs. Try to copy the stock picking and capital allocation skills of Warren Buffett to become a successful investor. Piggyback on the thinking of the best mutual fund managers; replicate their portfolios to benefit from their stock selection process.

Read about the techniques of Sherlock Holmes to improve your reasoning and problem-solving skills. Impersonate your favorite stand-up comedian ahead of a presentation or public speech to improve your delivery. Study the footprints of the leaders in your organization if you want to follow their lead.

Imitate different attributes of people you encounter every day: the cheerfulness of an administrative assistant, the persuasion skills of a seasoned negotiator, the resourcefulness of a car mechanic, and the dexterity of a customer service agent.

Role models are inspirational

Looking up to others is rather instinctive. As kids, you looked up to your siblings, parents, or family members. At work, you learn from observing your colleagues and bosses.

When we learn of role models, read their stories or watch of them on TV or in the movies, we identify in them a part of ourselves; we associate with their struggles and victories, their hopes and despairs.

When we identify with a role model who has accomplished what we seek yourselves, we not only learn from them but also become more confident in our abilities.

This technique has its limitations

Naturally, the influence of role models is neither always practical nor necessarily productive. Your perception of popular role models (sportsmen, artists, businesspeople and other celebrities) is often incomplete and based on cursory assessments of them. Media accounts of their trappings of wealth, fame, and success or their unseemly lifestyles can just as easily turn them into negative role models. Excesses and faults are as common in everyday life as they are in the news. Exercise judgment in what you identify and implement. Hence the corollary: Learn from the shortcomings of the unsuccessful.

Call for action

  • When people make a positive impression on you, reflect on what they did and how they did to impress you. Explore what you can learn from them.
  • Identify the top performers in your field. Seek to understand and adopt their techniques. Improve or tailor them to your personal circumstances and improve yourselves.
  • Study the biographies and memoirs of your favorite historical leaders. Read news stories and case studies of people you admire. Learn their techniques.
  • Think of personal and professional skills that you would like to improve upon. Identify one or two people in your organization who are especially skilled in these areas. Observe them or ask them for advice.

Learn everything you can from others, implement what appeals to you, and discard the rest.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Champion Positives, Sideline Negatives
  2. Some Lessons Can Only Be Learned in the School of Life
  3. Five Ways … You Could Elevate Good to Great
  4. Don’t Blatantly Imitate a Hero: Be Yourself
  5. Five Signs of Excessive Confidence

Inspirational Quotations #319

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A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.
—Rupert Hughes (American Historian)

The point of the teachings is to control your own mind. Restrain your mind from greed, and you will keep your body right, your mind pure and your words faithful. Always thinking of the transiency of your life, you will be able to desist from greed and anger and will be able to avoid all evils.
—Buddhist Teaching

Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy-the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.
—Norman Podhoretz (American Political Activist)

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order. Life refuses to be embalmed alive. The more prolonged the halt in some unrelieved system of order, the greater the crash of the dead society.
—Alfred North Whitehead (English Mathematician)

Greed is the root cause of all sins. Greed is the cause of all problems that one faces. Greed fuels the growth of enemies. Excessive greed destroys one’s life.
—Subhashita Manjari

Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.
—Sicilian Proverb

In a higher world it is otherwise; but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to change often.
—John Henry Newman (British Catholic Clergyman)

When you are in doubt, be still, and wait. When doubt no longer exists for you, then go forward in courage.
—Unknown

The Easier Way to Build Wealth

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“Work a lot, spend a little, save the difference, invest it wisely, leave it alone. It’s not that hard. We just make it harder than it needs to be. Paying too much attention to the details of markets is a chief culprit.”
— Morgan Housel in Motley Fool

It is amazing that most people just do not seem to accumulate enough wealth despite making a comfortable living. Many live from paycheck to paycheck, even with steadily rising incomes. Borrowers often fall behind on their mortgage payments. Credit card and consumer debt is growing at an alarming pace. Employees in the prime of their lives are not setting aside anything significant for retirement. As a result, many baby boomers cannot stop working at the usual retirement age because they are not ready to fund the rest of their lives.

Every Dollar You Make Equals LESS than a Dollar for You to Spend

Are you sometimes disappointed at not realizing your dreams of building wealth or becoming financially secure? The overwhelming odds are that at the root of your feeling of financial insufficiency is how you tend to spend.

A common folly is to assume that every dollar you make equates to a dollar you can spend. In reality, you need to make much more than a dollar to spend each dollar. Apply the following some simple arithmetic to calculate the true purchasing power of your income.

  • Suppose that you are employed in the United States and you are in the 28% tax bracket. If you pay 6.2% in Social Security deductions, 1.45% in Medicare deductions, and your state income tax rate is 4%, then your total deductions are 39.65% of your income. On every $1 you earn, you pay $0.3965 in deductions. Therefore, for every $1 you make, your purchasing power is just $0.6035. In other words, you have to earn $1.65 (1.65 = 1/0.6035) to spend every $1. For instance, you would have to earn $3,811 to buy a 47″ flat screen TV that costs $2,300.
  • When you invest your money, you do not pay Social Security or Medicare deductions on dividends and capital gains. If the tax rate on long-term gains and dividends is 15% and your state income tax rate is 4%, you will retain $0.81 of every $1 you make in long-term gains and dividends. Even then, you have to earn $1.23 in dividends and capital gains to spend $1.

Harness Your Purchasing Power

“Anything you do to make yourself more valuable will pay off in real purchasing power.”
—Warren Buffet

There are only two ways to get rich: make more money and spend less. The first method is relatively difficult: it is never easy to get a significant raise or a better job at a better place, win the lottery, take a second job, sustain a secondary source of income, or consistently make sizeable gains in the capital markets. It is easier to build some discipline in your spending habits.

  • Track all your expenses for a month. At the end of the month, analyze your cash flow. Scrutinize your expenses in terms of ‘wants’ and ‘needs.’ Happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs. Consider ideas for cutting costs and their consequences. Examine your discretionary spending. Scale down or dispose of unnecessary services or subscriptions, irrelevant utilities and features. Consider reprioritizing your expenditures with a medium- and long-term perspective.
  • Examine your spending instincts. Be mindful of the perils of consumerism and materialism. Do not let your rising income fuel increased spending. Simplify your life.
  • A one-time windfall, bonus, or tax refund is no excuse for indulgent spending. Be selective in your purchases without abandoning your plans for paying off debt, saving money or funding your retirement account.
  • Seek to be disciplined and prudent, not necessarily thrifty or frugal. Cultivate an appropriate financial discipline without hurting the quality of your life. Reward and treat yourself for your achievements. Invest in anything that makes you feel good, happy, or helps you realize your goals.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Yes, Money Can Buy Happiness
  2. The Extra Salary You Can Negotiate Ain’t Gonna Make You Happy
  3. The Problem with Modern Consumer Culture
  4. You are Rich If You Think You Have Enough
  5. Wealth and Status Are False Gods

Inspirational Quotations #318

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Science has heroes, but no gods. The great Names are not our superiors, or even our rivals, they are passed milestones on our road; and the most important milestone is the hero yet to come.
—Eliezer Yudkowsky (American Scientist)

Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
—John Wooden (American Sportsperson)

There is work that is work and there is play that is play; there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of these lies happiness.
—Gelett Burgess

Happiness is a Swedish sunset; it is there for all, but most of us look the other way and lose it.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
—Chinese Proverb

Hatred is the sign of a secret attraction that is eager to flee from itself and furious to deny its own existence. That too is God’s play in His creature.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

From success to failure is one step; from failure to success is a long road.
—Yiddish Proverb

This is mine, that belongs to others, this is how narrow-minded people think. Broad minded people consider this whole world to be one family.
—Subhashita Manjari

A man who does not think and plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances. It was somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at the time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise.—Strong men believe in cause and effect.—The man was born to do it, and his father was born to be the father of him and of this deed, and by looking narrowly, you shall see there was no luck in the matter, but it was all a problem in arithmetic, or an experiment in chemistry.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

I don’t think anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it. I think if you are determined enough and willing to pay the price, you can get it done.
—Mike Ditka (American Sportsperson)

Don’t let what you can’t do stand in the way of what you can.
—John Wooden (American Sportsperson)

Not Everybody Wishes to Climb the Corporate Ladder

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You have probably met corporate people who are five to ten years from retirement and have remained in their bottom-of-the-ladder “contributor” roles (as engineers, programmers, accountants, salespersons, etc.) for decades. Don’t they typically report to managers 10 to 15 years their juniors? Ever wonder why they never assumed managerial or leadership roles? Are they simply incompetent or unenthusiastic? Enquire around and you may be surprised to learn that they may have perhaps never desired to climb the corporate ladder. You will possibly learn that,

  • They are not aimless. In reality, at some point in their careers, they made a conscious choice to not pursue the traditional career advancement paths and stay in their roles as “senior contributors.” Their dominant priorities lie elsewhere: usually with family, community, faith, and creative interests. They view their careers as means to other ends. They set goals for what they seek to achieve, create a plan, and relate to their values in the right way, everyday.
  • They are quite influential in their organizations. They gain credibility not by virtue of positions or titles, but from years of experience, awareness of processes and historical perspectives. They seek to mentor young engineers and offer their opinions and judgments when consulted by management. They gain an immense sense of satisfaction by helping their organizations grow. They are widely respected.
  • Their salaries are quite comparable to people who have identical spans of service in their organizations and have assumed leadership roles. They are highly valuable contributors.

The “senior contributors” are not the only ones who have shunned the corporate ladder. Many women choose to work three days a week once they have kids. Husbands of career-minded moms have relinquished their rewarding careers to become stay-at-home dads and support their wives’ careers. Frequently, executives decline international assignments that could keep them away from family. All these people tend to feel in command of their life and career—they are more contented in their careers and have a stronger sense of work-life balance. For sure, they can teach the rest of us a thing or two about setting the course of our lives.

The long-hours culture is not for everybody

You probably recollect the days when corporate people had reasonably secure jobs, showed up at work every workday, clocked in, worked eight hours, clocked out, stopped thinking about work until the next workday, and enjoyed four weeks of vacation a year. They could maintain a healthy separation between work and personal time. Alas, those days are long over.

In today’s workplace, the demands on our energy, time, and creativity constantly overwhelm us, despite access to technology, computers, and other productivity tools. We have so much on our plates that we only rarely complete things WHEN and AS we would wish to. The workday is longer, the pace of work is faster, and most projects tend to be open-ended. The pressure to learn new skills is prominent. A successful corporate career demands a high-level of performance for sustained periods. At what cost, though? Unsurprisingly, the pressure to work harder and longer results in poor physical health, stress, anxiety, lesser time with family and friends, fewer opportunities to pursue hobbies and creative interests, and insufficient rest and relaxation.

Work or life or both—its your choice

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
* Henry David Thoreau

There is no magic potion or canned method for balancing your work and life. Finding balance is rather an exercise in finding a healthy perspective that works for you. Nobody but you can make the right choices and work out what is best for you to bring about a sense of satisfaction of physical, mental, financial, intellectual, professional, and social well-being.

Everyone has to find his or her own individual balance

The quest for work-life balance begins with defining what balance means to you. Reflect on what you value most in life and prioritize them. Include your family in your contemplations of choices and consequences. Establish a set of boundaries between an adequate amount of effort and return. Consider your personal and professional aspirations, the family and social life you desire, your hobbies and interests and your goals and dreams.

Ask yourself, “How much is adequate?” and, “How much success and money is good enough?” Set boundaries and limits between what you must do and what you want to achieve in the short term and in the long term. The choices you make and your ability to respect the limits your set for yourself should shape your work and career, not the other way around.

Explore alternate arrangements at work

After you reflect on what could constitute a sense of individual balance for you, examine your career objectives. Once you are clear about what you want, consider the potential consequences to your employer. Discuss your options and proposals with a trusted advisor, the human resources / personnel department, and your boss. Most companies care for their employees enough to offer options for part-time or flexible schedules, working from home or sabbaticals.

Lead a life to your own script, not to others’

The world will shape your life, if you let it. Establish what you want to achieve in your life; do not let others impose their proposals for you. Make the right choices and live true to your values. This is, in essence, the key to finding the illusive work-life balance.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Great Jobs are Overwhelming, and Not Everybody Wants Them
  2. The Great Resignation, The Great Awakening
  3. Beyond Money’s Grasp: A Deeper Drive to Success
  4. The #1 Cost of Overwork is Personal Relationships
  5. The Truth About Work-Life Balance

Inspirational Quotations #317

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Know contentment and you will suffer no disgrace. Know when to stop and you will meet with no danger. You can then endure.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

A lofty idea must be had, not of what one is doing, but of what one may someday do. Otherwise there is no point in working on.
—Edgar Degas (French Painter)

It’s never a good idea to wait to do anything; given the uncertainty of life, just get going.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Ability is a poor man’s wealth.
—John Wooden (American Sportsperson)

The day you decide to do it is your lucky day.
—Japanese Proverb

A diamond is a chunk of coal that made good under pressure.
—Anonymous

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

Real knowledge, like everything else of the highest value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for, studied for, thought for, and, more than all, it must be prayed for.
—Thomas Arnold

Whoever is friendly in adversity, is indeed a true friend. In prosperity, even a wicked person wants to be a friend.
—Panchatantra

A goal is created three times. First as a mental picture. Second, when written down to add clarity and dimension. And third, when you take action towards its achievement.
—Gary Ryan Blair

Humility is a Mark of the Great

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Humility is a Life-long Pursuit

“Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honor is humility.”
* The Holy Bible (Proverbs 18:12)

We live in a world that misconstrues the virtue of humility as a sign of meekness, timidity, lack of resolve, and, in general, a personal and leadership inadequacy. Could anything be more imprudent?

As the following narratives of great people will illustrate, humility is the bona fide characteristic of the truly accomplished and well-adjusted people. These great men and women live the life of modesty, unpretentiousness, and supreme confidence. They do not bear a sense of self-superiority and pride.

The Humility of Dr. Albert Einstein

“Einstein taught the greatest humility of all: that we are but a speck in an unfathomable large universe.”
* Time magazine, recognizing Albert Einstein as the Person of the Century

Sometime in the ’50s, Don Merwin, a producer of the ‘This I Believe’ radio program, visited Albert Einstein’s home in Princeton, New Jersey. He was to record Einstein speak his essay, “An Ideal of Service to Our Fellow Man” for the program. Don Merwin later recalled his experience: “I started setting up [the bulky tape recorder], and Dr. Einstein, who was a very amiable man, was chatting with me and expressed curiosity about tape-recording, which was fairly new in those days. He said, ‘How does it work?’ I started explaining the electronics of it, the way that the recording heads imprinted a signal on the moving tape. All of a sudden, I froze up. I said, ‘I am lecturing to Albert Einstein on physics!'” [Source: Allison, Jay, et al. (editors) “This I Believe: the Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women.”]

The Humility of Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna

Look at this 2007 picture from Deccan Herald, via Churumuri. Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna, the 79-year old celebrated Indian Classical vocalist, expresses deep reverence and seeks the blessings of the 96-year old Dr. Gangubai Hangal, another legendary vocalist.

The Humility of Sri Veerendra Heggade

How about this 2009 picture from Karnataka News (via Churumuri?) Sri Veerendra Heggade, the widely respected guardian of a prominent temple in South India, holds an umbrella to shield from sun blaze the chairman of a culture convention at a parade in the latter’s honor.

The Humility of Peter Drucker

I have read of many an instance of the humility of Peter Drucker, the most influential management philosopher of the modern era. Here are two anecdotes:

  • Executive-education student Cathy Taylor remembers Peter Drucker conscientiously writing down autograph seekers’ names on a napkin to get the spelling correct before he made the formal inscription.
  • Forbes magazine publisher Rich Karlgaard remembers Peter Drucker “apologizing for taking so long to answer the doorbell at his modest home in Claremont, California. He said he was still adapting to his new artificial knees.”

Call for Action: Try to Practice Humility

Humility is simply the absence of pride. Humility and modesty are the marks of a genuine individual. However, practicing humility is often easier said than done. Deplorably, our society and world of work characterizes humility as significantly antithetical to the impression of the intelligent professional and competent leader. It is rather easy to succumb to the temptation to enhance our ego.

Hard as it may be, try to practice humility whenever an opportunity arises. Here are few remainders to bear in mind.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. No Duty is More Pressing Than That of Gratitude: My Regret of Missing the Chance to Thank Prof. Sathya
  2. Gandhi on the Doctrine of Ahimsa + Non-Violence in Buddhism
  3. What Do You Want to Be Remembered for?
  4. Admit When You Don’t Have All the Answers
  5. You Are Not Special

Inspirational Quotations #316

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Asks the Possible of the Impossible, “Where is your dwelling-place?” “In the dreams of the Impotent,” comes the answer.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. That which the truth nourishes should thrive.
—Eliezer Yudkowsky (American Scientist)

To speak or not to speak—when that is the question, silence should take the place of speech.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
—Og Mandino

My creed is this: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

Action is the foundational key to all success.
—Tony Robbins (American Actor Author)

A thought is an arrow shot at the truth; it can hit a point, but not cover the whole target. But the archer is too well satisfied with his success to ask anything farther.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
—Mary Wollstonecraft (British Children’s Books Writer)

Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature. As man emerged out of the animal, so out of man the superman emerges.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

Everything actual must also first have been possible, before having actual existence.
—Albert Pike (American Military Leader)