The Presence of mind @ Work

The Objective of this writing is, certainly , not to impress anyone. When you get a thought hundreds of times a day , and if you are convinced that this is worth sharing, you just can’t get away with it. The outcome is – this writing. The Objective of this writing will be obvious when you finish reading the entire content.

If I asked you what is the most amazing thing to you – I would get different answers as each of us is unique and our individuality differs. There is one thing that most of us would not deny as the most amazing thing – The power of the Human Brain and the Intelligence of a person.

Philosophically , Intelligence is the presence of mind with the appropriate information and How it helps to solve the problems / issues / open up a mystery. To imagine , We can think of these three entities as concentric circles of varying radius at various times : Information , Presence of Mind, Intelligence. The Presence of Mind makes one smarter.And the truth is – Everyone likes Smart People.

Mohammed Siddiq had a note in his desk, “ If I have 20 hours to cut a tree , I would spend 16 hrs sharpening my axe” – These are very famous words. It’s been a long time since we sharpened our brain. It was those times at college , when we prepared for our aptitude and quantitative skills. Some of us would have had the opportunity to attend some thinking activities and to participate in some thinking exercises : Lateral thinking , Problem solving , Puzzle solving and logical debates and so on. We would have appreciated ourselves when we were able to solve some of the problems and we enjoyed working in a team when we contributed to the solutions. It’s an enlightening fact that we enjoyed those times. It’s a been a long time though !!!.

Hariharasudhan Ramanathan does solve Sudoku every morning – When I asked him – Why do you do that ? He said that it’s a good way to start a day. Any thinking exercises will help improve our presence of mind and intelligence. Which is very much required in Business and at work. Harishankar has got Good Presence of Mind – His influence has also made our friends to be conscious and sharp.

There were so many smart solutions because of presence of mind or intelligence : I was fascinated by two of them. First , Astronauts had a tough time to write something in space as the space lacked gravity. The pens that they took to the space did not write because the ink did not flow from top to bottom; there was no gravity. Some scientists spent a considerable amount of money and time to invent a pen which can be used in space for writing but the smart Russians did use pencil instead of Pen. The Presence of mind is staying at the problem always – In this case , the problem was not that the astronauts did not have a pen – The problem was that they wanted something to write in space. It’s not the pen but the writing .Second , Soap manufacturers had this problem – that in the delivery line there were some soap boxes which did not have soaps inside it. About 2-3 % of soap boxes that were delivered to the retail stores or to the Customers did not contain soap. It was a huge blow to the reputation of the Soap manufacturers. One firm spent time and money to invent a sensor which would send some detectible rays through the soap boxes that are on the delivery line and detect whether the soap was really inside or not and another smart firm kept a fan which blew air on soap boxes that were on the delivery line – The blew of air from the fan removed all the empty soap boxes from the delivery line. Smart- aren’t these solutions ?

I cannot end this thought without saying about Drupad Patel – He was my manager at Charlotte. He was sharp and intelligent. What impressed me was that He always asked right questions at the right time. If normally, a person takes n minutes to write an email , he would take n + x minutes to write an email which is copied / sent to Drupad. He would spend that extra x minutes especially to answer or to provide all the information that Drupad will ask in his reply email after few minutes the email has reached him. The same thing happens whenever he joins a Bridgeline. Simply put , Drupad demanded respect by his Presence of Mind.

Presence of Mind – or Asking right questions at right time is something that we can obtain by self-training and by observing and learning from people who have already attained it.

Nagendra Gudipati , my friend at Charlotte, used to burn lights at work. I asked him once – Why do you spend so much time being awake ?– He told me casually that he is training himself to stay long at work and somehow those words convinced me that it’s possible to train ourselves to do anything. As Adidas and Nike say : Impossible is Nothing and Just do It.

Of course, Its practically difficult not to have any assumptions at work but It is possible to assume only a very few things and only if it demands in cases where – Perhaps, Assumption is the only way to move forward or to step ahead. The more we assume the more we become blunt because we can assume almost the entire thing as perfect or as expected and that leaves no room for improvement or for Progress. The point is – If it is possible not to assume – and if we can get information / answers to our questions – Why do we have to?

Presence of mind is – Thinking about the Consequences / effects / action points when the other communicates – at the pace of the other involved in the Communication. Simply put, asking the right questions at right time. If we could demonstrate this at few instances – Everyone who works with us will be very conscious and cautious and they will spend more time in getting answers for the questions that we will ask – as Drupad and many others were able to.

What do you think – Should we do?

Organization(or Team) and its Success depends on the people it posses and how it nurtures them. To be competitive at work (to be a pyramid of proper shape) – apart from having commitment (to accomplish the task – synonymous to the base of the pyramid ) – One should also be equally competitive in the 4 walls of the pyramid too – Technology , Business , Communication and Intellectual ability – We have been forgetting the last, steadily, at a constant rate.

Together , If we could demonstrate these at work – We demand respect neither by asking nor by requesting but by the way the work is done. Whoever works with us will know that they have to be extra-conscious and cautious.

When Everything is said and done!! , What we would have achieved is – Excellence.