How is it possible that when our mind is jammed with countless thoughts through the day (and sometimes in our sleep as well), we feel that we do not get time for a one-on-one session with ourselves? The reason is simple- We do not get the ‘stillness’ of mind. If our self-conscience is an ocean, thoughts are like surface winds & tornadoes, which make huge waves and perfect storms. Most of the day is spent in navigating these rough waters. If we are able to sooth these disturbances, we will be able to dive deep into this ocean to feel the undercurrents and extract invaluable nuggets at the bottom. So before you talk to yourself, get into the state of ‘stillness’ of mind.

How to get the ‘Stillness’ of mind?’ – You will not get it in one day. The best way I can suggest is to do simple meditation. You can sit in a simple & relaxed posture and just ‘watch’ (and not control) your breath. Over few days you will see that you will slowly move into a zone of stillness where its your self-conscience and your breath which are only tangible elements. Its more of a discipline as it is downright simple and there is truly no ‘technique’. If you do not ‘intellectualize’ meditation, you can learn it fast. Do share your experience in comments and I will share some more thoughts tomorrow on how to achieve stillness of mind.

I have observed in many organizations that once established in the beginning of the year, these goal-sheets are placed at the bottom of the lowest drawer of the workstation, with them being revisited at the end of the year, around the performance appraisal time.  This leads to significant mis-alignment between a highly dynamic business environment and a completely static goal-sheet. Another manifestation of this issue is that the performance scorecard & dashboards of an employee do not match with the metrics (or the targets)  in the goal-sheet.

To put it simply, goal-sheets need to be dynamic. They should be aligned with the performance scorecards (which are used to assess the performance of an employee month after month), and revisited at least once in a quarter. Responsibility to ensure this discipline should be ideally with HR (with ownership to execute with business managers/functional heads)

What I am going to share is a simple and most-effective way to achieve business or personal objectives. Its surely not a big-bang sudden surge of activity and intensity. Its to do few and small things consistently.

Ask a doctor and he will tell you that a 30-40 minute brisk walk can transform your mental and physical well-being in a fairly short-time. Ask a body-builder and he will tell you that even 30-45 minute of weight training can help you develop good muscles within few months.

In corporate world, it does not take more than a quarter to start seeing the benefits of any Execution discipline followed with consistency. If you are conducting weekly ‘flash business performance Review’, do it consistently and do not miss and single week. Soon you will start noticing the difference.

One of the most common are of credibility loss of leadership in the organizations, is their failure to constantly adhere to management disciplines. Consistency & discipline of senior leaders percolates to lower levels in almost real-time.

With an ever-infecting culture of multi-tasking, 24X7 connectivity, social networks with countless friends and hundreds of daily mails, its sometimes difficult and even scary to be alone with yourself. However, there is no harm in trying.

If a short-term ‘shake & energize’ intervention by a CXO would have helped, every organization would have become a market leader.  There are two flaws in this approach.

First flaw is that it is not sustainable. In most cases, business leader loses steam after few weeks, and gradually state of affairs settle-down to their previous levels. Over the time, people also live through this storm as they know that it will blow away. Therefore, whatever is the intervention done by the business leader, he/she should persist with it for few quarters. If it is not possible, rather not start it.

Second flaw is that it does not fix the root cause. By adopting shake-the-world approach, without systematically analyzing and eliminating the issues, a business leader is abdicating his/her Execution responsibilities.

In-brief, as a leader, if you want to do a deep intervention, ensure that you can sustain it and that it will lead to some fundamental fixes

A key factor in fulfilling your personal or business objectives is to focus on karma. Karma can be defined as passionate effort, with a sense of detachment.  The focus is on putting your best efforts, without being bogged down by the anxiety of results.  The idea here is that the intensity and smartness of your effort is in your control and should be your focus.  The results are a combination of many factors, which may be beyond your control.  Taking out the anxiety of the outcome and keeping your eyes on the task at hand will provide you the best possible outcome. As you drive towards your destination, you will reach their faster and safer, if you are watching the road in the front.  The fruits of reaching your destination should be in the back of your mind and should not be a cloud in front of your eyes.

Only one question matters in for a practitioner of Karma- Have I put my best and smartest possible effort?

If you know that taking a 30 minute jog every day, will help you achieve longevity and good health, then so be it.  Do not let your mind creep in through the back-door every morning, and intervene with ‘intellectually-stimulating and convincing’ thoughts like ‘I slept late so am not fully rested’ or  ’I have woken-up late, and if I go for a jog, I will not be able to spend time with my morning newspaper’ or ‘I do not have fresh pair of socks today’ or ‘why not do meditation today?’ or ‘I read a research report that one should give a 2 day break after every three days of cardiovascular regimen’

Give the respect to your mind/ intellect only to the extent that it deserves.  Mind is the one of the toughest adversaries to achieving consistency.