Power

Power is a wonderful thing to possess...and execute. I always dream of having the POWER to rule the world, change it for betterment and make a difference...the dream started when I was a 5 yr old and continues till date. The reasons why I want POWER changed from innocent ones to the more complicated ones, but nevertheless, the dream continues...

Power is a good thing to have, its how we use it makes all the difference. For eg, Both soldiers and terrorist have POWER of weapons...one uses them for the benefit of mankind and the other uses them for its destruction. POWER in itself is neutral. Over the years as I grew up, my conception of POWER changed. While in school I used to idolise my teachers, and the POWER they had in teaching us. I wanted to be a teacher. I would also idolise my doctor who had the POWER to relieve me from any physical illness, and i wanted to be a doctor. This continued and I wanted to be almost everything and everybody because of the POWER they had of something or the other. Its only when I grew up and looked back I realized, we all have POWER...something or the other. And I realized, with great POWER, comes greater RESPONSIBILITY...responsibility of executing the power in a better way, right way. "Right" again is a very relative word...what is right for me may not be right for you and vice versa. But then thats where we have our "education" and "value" system to help us, right?

With all the IPL mudslinging thats happenning, I am sure almost all of us have some opinion or the other about the whole issue. Our Nation deals with so many problems everyday...like only a couple of months back there was an issue of Shiney Ahuja, and now am not sure if there is any follow up or where he stands today...media, and people at large have forgotten about him because there were so many other "attractions" after him, from Sania-Shoiab wedding to the latest being the IPL Blunder. These issues keep us "entertained" in our otherwise dull life. We really dont bother much about the consistent and steep price rise, or increasing power failure...these are things which we are used to. We worry more about Sania's wedding masalas, and Aamir's pet's name.

Coming back to IPL, and why am I mentioning this with POWER... well what Lalit Modi did, what Mr. Tharoor did, I think we should look beyond...much beyond. Out of sheer curiosity, I googled on Lalit Modi and found his biography in wikipedia. Amazing "POWERFUL" life he had ever since his birth. Born in a wealthy and successful business family, having a Rs. 40 billion business empire, and having some great achievement early in life that included getting arrested on charges of conspiracy to traffic coccaine and assault with deadly weapon with an intent to kill, to indiction on second-degree kidnapping etc...what more do you expect from a personality like his? Do you expect him not to cheat? not to lie? ...Now, he always possessed POWER...and he used them against humankind...he had attended the best of schools and colleges...so education was also there...but what lacked is a "VALUE SYSTEM"...a value system that would have stopped him from doing what he did. And that stops him from doing what he is doing now... and mark my words, he will do similar things again in his life...he has POWER and his CONSCIENCE chooses to misuse it.

Why single out Lalit Modi...what about our great politicians, our leaders, our Statesmen...they all misuse their POWER dont they? Big cricketers, big filmstars, big authors, you just name them, and you will see 99.99% of them misuse the power they have. They all have had the best of education but what they didnot have was a "value system" that stopped their conscience from doing what they did. Open lies, denynig their acts, bribing, malpractising, corruption...these things are accepted by their conscience. So many times we have seen these minirters denynig things till the time they are porved... am sure when they were kid, they were not taught by their parents... "Satyameva Jayate"

And why single out them...what about you and me? Are we not all similar? We lie, dont we? we cheat, dont we? we bribe, dont we? We support corruption, dont we? and above all we also misuse our POWER, dont we? ...Common, dont deny... tell me do you give your maid and driver their due? always? You bargain with the poor vegetable vendor in your local market for Re. 5, but you accept steep price rise and dont raise a voice...why? with the vegetable vendor you have POWER, with your Government you have no POWER till the next election, so you shut your mouth, close your eyes, and kill your conscience there...so you see? We all do this...and if we are busy doing this, how will we teach out kidds not to lie, not to support corruption etc? What "value" are we passing them to? Tomorrow my son can be a Lalit Modi, who knows?

So you see, we all have Lalit Modi within us. We are not much different from him. But may be, just may be your and my conscience is still alive...thats why we are condemning him...may be by doing so, we are actually condemning ourselves? Think about it...and dont let your conscience sleep forever...wake up and be a "true" human being, before being a "successful" human being... Your honesty would be your biggest "success", "achievement" and "triumph"...go for it...and stop giving this society more of Lalit Modis....

Ladies n (Not so) Gentlemen...

Do men and women communicate differently at work? Yes, according to the proponents of "Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars" school of thought. In the corporate culture and in an organization where we spend more time in meetings (calls conferences) than the combined time spent in the loo, cafeteria, and smoking zones...I have found women mostly to be self-effacing and apologetic, whereas men are convincingly confident...even when they dont have the slightest idea of what they are talking about.

Before you rule me out as a nut feminist, consider this...a real life situation I expreinced in a call about a week back. It was a call chaired by my project manager(male)... its a different thing altogether that apart from scheduling the call he did nothing...some would say its his job to "delegate" jobs to others, to which I would say "no comments". Anyways, so the situation is...he called for the meeting (virtual as participants are spread across the globe)...he asked me to send him the probable agenda of "his" call which he copy-pasted and sent to all 30 minutes before the call (Delegation, if you may). Now, he and I are in the different location as well...and amongst innumerable worthless gifts we human beings have received from technology, like mobile phones, t.v remote (worthless if you have a husband at home) etc, one such gift used at offices is "instant messenger"... your constant enemy invading whatever little personal moments you have in the office. So here we were, all joining the call over phone...now the minimum I would expect from my project manager to do is have a attendees list ready - as he sent out the invitation he would know who all are joining, right? Wrong...because he is a MAN. Now the attendees were as follows (names changed to the extent possible):

Jeerav Kumar (Project Manager - Male)
Lifebeyonddreams (Me-female)
Mad-hobby (Female)
Mega (Female)
Brain Bloody Witch (Male)
Steep Macaroon (Male)
Lusan S Michael (Female)
Lead Burner

Now all these peole are known to each other, we work in a Global Project...

Now the call began...Jeerav initiated the call with attendence...everybody said their respective name and he reciprocated with a "Hi X, how r you doing?" in his desperately-trying-to-acquire-an-American accent. So far so good... Lusan introduced herself as "Hi this is Lusan S Michael"...to which our great Project Manager said... "Hi Michael, how r you doin' man?"... And this moment ladies and gentle men, I fell off my chair and did all I could to stop me from LOLF loud and clear through the call! How can a "female" voice be Michael? How can someone named "Michael" join our call when we dont have any member by that name. And Lusan, who is called Lue...how can "she" be "man"???!!! But then these obvious things didnot occur to our great project manager (may be he should have delegated the job of taking attendence to somebody else)

Communication differences can be especially pronounced during business meetings. Especially those mind-numbingly "important" meetings where a gaggle of men and women perch and/or slouch around a conference table and/or shout over the phone and discuss critical project issues like project scope, project budgets, project picnics, and football scores. And play BuzzwordBingo in a laudable effort to remain semiconscious.

Unfortunately, how far you move up the corporate ladder often depends on your conference table talk. Why? Because your boss doesn't have time to check out your work. (S)he's much too busy sleeping through meetings.

So you can see how important it is to learn to communicate like a ma... I mean ... boost your communication skills.

But help is at hand. Simply assess your abilities with this MCQ (Meeting Communication Quotient) Quiz:

1) When you have an important point to make you:
a. Jump in the instant somebody stops to breathe.
b. Politely wait until every male in the room has spoken ...including the CEO's cute three-year-old.
c. Wave a white flag in the air and hope someone notices.

2) When somebody uses an unfamiliar term you:
a. Figure if you don't understand it, it isn't important.
b. Hope someone else asks what the @#$%$#@$ the speaker is talking about.
c. Say, "I apologize for my stupidity, but would you please, if it isn't too much trouble, explain X?"

3) If you don't have any original ideas to contribute you:
a. Wait until you hear someone say something brilliant and rephrase it, pretending it's your own.
b. Sit quietly, absorbing what everyone else has to say.
c. Beg for forgiveness.

4) When someone's secretary asks for beverage orders you:
a. Request exactly what you want.
b. Say, "anything will be fine."
c. Head for the coffee machine.

5) If the CEO directly solicits your opinion you:
a. Say what you think he wants you to say.
b. Say what you think your boss wants you to say.
c. Look behind you to see who the CEO is speaking to.

All done with the quiz? Good. Now it's time to check your responses ... and to hire a communication coach if you answered "c" even once.
Whom should you hire? Any male can help settle ... I mean "improve" ... your score.

Youngistan Ka Wow!

One challenege I would like to throw at Ranbir is place the Pepsi bottle in a room and have Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif sitting in the same room. And if you wanna add more thrill to it, you can also invite Salman Khan over...now ask Ranbir to go get his Pepsi from there...