Success of an Unemployed

The title sounds contradictory. How can an unemployed be a success?

All our life, you owned a business or you worked for a business. When you lose a business or a job it is very depressing. It feels like someone took soul out of your life. It feels like house is crumbling around you. You feel that you are not complete without an employment. Employment provides a status symbol. Employment, also, provides money that helps take care of your family and society needs.

Now let’s take a different approach of thinking. Is there anything else you want to achieve in your life besides employment? When you were born you did not bring anything with you and when you die you will not take anything with you. This means you have to spend everything right here between the start and the end of your life. Then the question comes, how can I spend if I do not have money and I am not employed?

You can help needy who are more vulnerable than you or do what you like to do the most that helps you and others. This may not earn you traditional dollars but it will earn you goodwill and a satisfaction about your life that you did something that did not involve “YOU”. You will be surprised that you will not need a lot of money to achieve your noble goal since you will be void of status symbol, needs beyond necessities and greed that makes you feel like unsuccessful.

A helping mind is always a healthy and successful mind.

You do not have to be unemployed to be successful at heart; you can do this all the time. But unemployment gives us to time to think about purpose of the life.

Success in Transitioning to a Small Organization

A small organization is quite different than a big organization in functioning. Both of them have its pros and cons. I am going to talk about how to successfully transition in a small organization from a big organization.

Generally, a small organization is run very lean where everyone is necessary for an organization to function. It becomes very difficult to reassign resources to fill the gap. This brings a lot a responsibilities and accountabilities to most of the personnel who are working in a small organization.

Generally, a small organization cannot afford to have specialized personnel; everyone has to pitch in and learn new traits to complete a project. You may end up becoming a janitor one day and manage a project the other day speaking metaphorically. You need to be a hand on person to work in a small organization. Following are some of the traits you need to know to work in small organization.

1. Wear many hats
2. It is not what you have done in the past counts but it is what you can do in the present and the future, using your past, counts
3. Compensation is based on the income of the company and not your qualification
4. It is not an 8 to 5 job but whatever it takes job.
5. Working in a team and alone is must
6. Working with no direction or constantly changing direction is must
7. Need to be able to change the focus or the thought process quickly to accommodate current needs while focusing on the future requirements
8. Be on your toes all the time
9. You cannot hide

Some may argue that it is true in a big organization too. I tend to agree with this notion with a qualification. This all depends on who you are and where you are in a big organization. Some needs to be on their toes and others get by hiding.

Success of Job Search

Is it true that for a long time you have been looking for a job with absolutely no luck? You must be asking yourself, what is wrong with the world or what is wrong with me? Why are others not able to see my capabilities? I have spent years working hard and what do I get now? I have followed all rules of networking, contacting people, writing blogs, hiring a coach and polishing my resume; still no success?

I cannot answer any of your questions, but I can try to come up with some ideas to help you.

Are you working smart to get a job? “Getting a job” is different than “Finding a job”. It is active thoughts versus passive thoughts. That brings up another question, “Why are you not working smart to get a job?”

Hold on to your thoughts before cursing me. Let me explain what I mean.

You have heard, “Grass is green on the other side”. I believe that everyone thinks, “Grass is green on my side” while searching for a job. You feel that what you have done in the previous job is the best and no one else can do that job. Your experience is more valuable than anyone else’s experience. You are the best person for the job.

When your thoughts involve only “you” and do not consider the organization’s requirements or expectations, you will not succeed. In life you have to manage a lot of expectations; that goes the same for when you want to get a job. I am not an expert in how to manage expectations, but one thing you could do is to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and answer the question objectively, “why should someone hire you.” Make a list of your personal answers and change your search accordingly.

Always remember, it is not what you have done in the past but what you are going to do in the future. Always make sure you advertise not only your value, but also the benefits you will provide to an organization. Like I stated before, job search is managing your expectations but also how you enhance organization. I do want to warn that managing your expectations is not degrading your dreams but being pragmatic.

This article is not written to provide a list of items to find a job, but to change the thought process of getting a job.

Success of Life

I cannot cover all aspects of life in this one article so I am starting with a small note.

Happiness and sorrow in life are like the sweet and sour taste of candy. You need both to appreciate each one’s taste. Likewise, the difficult situations in life create challenges; once you overcome those challenges, you can start to appreciate the happiness that follows.

Sweetness and sourness in a candy provides a tingling sensation in your mouth. Similarly, the happiness and sorrow in life, helps you understand the value of it and gives you sense of existence. Transitions in life are a part of this tingling sensation; you can then choose whether you want to enjoy the sweetness of life or the sorrow. Remember, happiness and pains are in the same circle.

Success of a Leader

To understand the success of a leader, you need to understand the definition of a leader. Many people get confused between a manager and a leader. A Leader is a person who leads and gets followed. A leader has a vision and his or her followers buy into it. A manager is a person who executes a vision or an operation with a team of people.

As time changes, leaders do not change but they change their approach to lead their followers. A leader shows humility, respect and appreciation for others.

A leader is a good communicator. Sometimes, leader’s actions do the communication.

“A leader without Courage” is not a leader. A leader is the one who can anticipate and convince followers to take the path of success and the higher road. A leader can raise and maintain morale during challenging times and overcomes the resistance to change.

At the end success depends on the state of mind and desire to lead an unselfish goal for the common good.

Success of a Management

Success of a management in an organization depends on the approach that is taken to achieve the desired goal.

It starts with communication, which involves a clear understanding of expectations, looking at other's points of view and understanding the inherited differences among people. When people trust a management and are convinced that the management is with them to achieve the goal, they will respond positively. A coherent team will always be constructively competitive.

How would management go about changing the way people think?
Management needs to develop a relationship with every person. It needs to know the pluses and minuses of that person. It needs to work with the person to resolve any road blocks in the path of moving forward. The biggest one is to explain what is in for that person beyond the money.

How would management handle the economic downturns?
Every management can come up with policies on how to reduce cost by cutting human resources. But the best way to survive in the down turn is by turning to your human resources (people) and letting them know about the situation. Solicit answers from them and enroll them to act on it. Cutting cost and hence your core people do not help when upturn starts.

Success of an Organization

Success of an organization can be found in reasons of failure. A successful plan can be crafted by understanding failures.

In last few decades we have seen successes and failures of same organizations. One wonders why a successful organization gets closer to failure. Most of the time, external conditions are blamed and it may be true. But other times it is the internal failure in the organization. Here are some of the reasons for failures. These will help to define steps for the success.

•Failure to take responsibility: Management (top as well as middle) fails to take responsibility of their personal failure in decision-making and execution processes.

•Failure to understand ground realities: The Organization does not realize the effect of its decision on the actual ground realities inside the organization. The only thing they care about that is cared is the profit number. This works in good times, but the lack of real knowledge shows up in the bad times.

•Failure to appreciate Human Resources: Herzberg’s theory states that the achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility and advancement are required for job satisfaction. But often times these morals are ignored, and when ignored they cause a long term adverse effect on work ethics. An organization thinks that it always knows more than the person who works in the organization. This creates lack of respect.

•Meetings: Some wise person said “Roman empire was not built by meetings but by killing opponents”. Meetings do not have to be blunt or unproductive, but at some point of time someone needs to decide the path and execute.

•Failure to execute: A plan of success will fail if the execution is done poorly. Execution is very easy to misunderstand. People think that if they have a plan and if everyone follows the plan, the plan will work. Execution involves a long process of change control and risk management. Execution of any plan requires quick decision making-skills with responsibility.

Success of a Person

Success of a person depends on the attitude. What is success? Success is in the eyes of the beholder. Success is the state of mind and peace within you.

A person can call success like living in a castle. Another person can call success like living in a small hut. A person can say success is found with a lot of money and another can say success is found with little. A CEO can be successful and an employee can be successful.

Every one of the situations mentioned above can be unsuccessful also. A lot of people staying in castle do not feel successful because they need a second castle. A lot of people having billions want the next billion. People who do not have money or a castle do not feel successful because they want castles and money. The Human nature is for greed by default.

Greed is good as long as it is used for innovation and helps the human being. But most of the time, greed is used to bring the person, next to you, down.

Once you start believing yourself, you reach a level where you overcome negativity and greed, respect other people as well as look at your goals. Traits of a successful person are: a good listener, good communicator, respect for others, does not get swayed by noises and believes in himself or herself.

•Listening – Listening is a skill. We feel like we are listening but most of the times, we listen to what we think other person is saying. The real listening is the one where you do not have preconceive thoughts about what the other person is saying.

•Communication – We assume that others will understand what we are trying to communicate. Communication needs to be a two way process. If the other person does not communicate back, it is a failure of communication.

•Filtering Noise – There is always someone who would say it cannot be done. The way to success is to filter out negative noises and do what your brain and heart tell you to do.

•Let it go – Ego is your enemy. It blinds you. Anything that does not help you then let it go. It can be your ego, anger or greediness.

•Believe in yourself – There are always people who will doubt you and your desire. Believe in yourself more than doubting yourself. Remember one thing; you know more about yourself than the other person.

The traditional definition of a successful person is “Go Getter”, “Quick Thinker” and a “Risk Taker”. But if you count happiness in terms of state of mind or peace with yourself then the means can be anything and that may include “Go getter” attitude also. As long as you understand “Go Getter” is means and not the reason for you happiness, you have started the process of success.