Sunday, March 17, 2013

171 Monday Musings: What NOT to do

171 Monday Musings: What NOT to do

To do or not to do was a Shakespearean dilemma, but it is as much a dilemma of the cubiclist, a creature whose life begins and ends at the cubicle. While you must have noticed, but i shall still insist, it is not the cabin, but the cubicle that this ailment besieges. 

All wisdom that is peddled, through books and blogs alike, by the arrived and the wannabe, exhorts us what to do. The subtext is difficult to hide, that this-is-what-i-did, so now i have the divine right to share it as prasadam for all corporate salvation. Eat it and you shall be redeemed from your lowly life. Mind you, this is never articulated this way, but you can hear it at unexpressed frequencies. Like dogs who hear sounds at frequencies much lower than humans, you must be able to hear what is left unsaid, or else you shall burn in eternal damnation. 

It is in this context, that a refreshing thought was shared recently from the tribe of the arrived, why not focus on what-not-to-do! Why cannot there be a compendium of things that one must NOT do, stories of things that were done but with disastrous consequences, manner in which things were done that yielded suboptimal results so on and so forth. What a brilliant idea sirjee!!

Imagine a book called "10 step guide on how NOT to build a career" or another one "How NOT to build a business" or yet another one "10 ways of NOT leading teams". Imagine articles upon article which talk about failures and near misses and messes, written by none other than the best. Imagine Jack Welch were to write about "My 10 mistakes in GE" or Steve Jobs saying "How i messed up at Apple". Imgagine what a treasure it would be. 

Now imagine if all the role models we hero worship in organisations, were to take a one hour coaching session per month talking about mistakes they made in life and what did they learn from them, rather than only glorifying only on what they did successfully (and by the way what they did successfully is as important, but is only a part of their story), how much more richer will be their narrative. 

Imagning, is not such a bad thing. 

Guru

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