Monday, August 31, 2009
Asset Valuation - Fine Example
Friday, July 3, 2009
Why do we Nod to say No and Shake our head to say Yes ??
clipped from: 
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Excellence -- An example
The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high. "If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?" the gentleman asked. The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, "I will know it."
The desire to excel is exclusive of the fact whether someone else appreciates it or not.
"Excellence" is a drive from inside, not outside. Excellence is not for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction and efficiency..
Friday, June 19, 2009
UnParalleled Determination
In 1883, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea to build a spectacular bridge connecting New York with the Long Island. However bridge building experts throughout the world thought that this was an impossible feat and told Roebling to forget the idea. It just could not be done. It was not practical. It had never been done before.
Roebling could not ignore the vision he had in his mind of this bridge. He thought about it all the time and he knew deep in his heart that it could be done. He just had to share the dream with someone else. After much discussion and persuasion he managed to convince his son Washington, an up and coming engineer, that the bridge in fact could be built.
Working together for the first time, the father and son developed concepts of how it could be accomplished and how the obstacles could be overcome. With great excitement and inspiration, and the headiness of a wild challenge before them, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.
The project started well, but when it was only a few months underway a tragic accident on the site took the life of John Roebling. Washington was injured and left with a certain amount of brain damage, which resulted in him not being able to walk or talk or even move.
"We told them so." "Crazy men and their crazy dreams." "It`s foolish to chase wild visions."
Everyone had a negative comment to make and felt that the project should be scrapped since the Roeblings were the only ones who knew how the bridge could be built. In spite of his handicap Washington was never discouraged and still had a burning desire to complete the bridge and his mind was still as sharp as ever.
He tried to inspire and pass on his enthusiasm to some of his friends, but they were too daunted by the task. As he lay on his bed in his hospital room, with the sunlight streaming through the windows, a gentle breeze blew the flimsy white curtains apart and he was able to see the sky and the tops of the trees outside for just a moment.
It seemed that there was a message for him not to give up. Suddenly an idea hit him. All he could do was move one finger and he decided to make the best use of it. By moving this, he slowly developed a code of communication with his wife.
He touched his wife's arm with that finger, indicating to her that he wanted her to call the engineers again. Then he used the same method of tapping her arm to tell the engineers what to do. It seemed foolish but the project was under way again.
For 13 years Washington tapped out his instructions with his finger on his wife's arm, until the bridge was finally completed. Today the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge stands in all its glory as a tribute to the triumph of one man's indomitable spirit and his determination not to be defeated by circumstances. It is also a tribute to the engineers and their team work, and to their faith in a man who was considered mad by half the world. It stands too as a tangible monument to the love and devotion of his wife who for 13 long years patiently decoded the messages of her husband and told the engineers what to do.
Perhaps this is one of the best examples of a never-say-die attitude that overcomes a terrible physical handicap and achieves an impossible goal.
Often when we face obstacles in our day-to-day life, our hurdles seem very small in comparison to what many others have to face. The Brooklyn Bridge shows us that dreams that seem impossible can be realised with determination and persistence, no matter what the odds are.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Firing Employees - An Alternative
Cost-cutting is an essential component of survival.
Companies are looking to save money, and cutting salaries yields larger savings. Restructuring correctly is not an easy task, nor a decision to be taken lightly.
Before you start firing employees, here are three alternatives to consider:
1. Automate decision making and manual tasks
Workflow software automates employee tasks enabling to relocate employee resources from their current jobs to jobs that need manual intervention, thus releasing workloads and making the employee's contribution to the company more efficient.
2. Make existing employees more efficient.
Your goal is making employees work smarter, faster, more consistently and with more focus on value creation.
- If organizational changes cause employees to find themselves less effective - retrain and relocate them.
- Automating and improving internal business processes increases efficiency, productivity, and operational visibility facilitating better utilization of available human resources.
3. Re-evaluate employees that don't contribute
- Look for the person who is invisible and flies under the radar
- Look for the person who never says anything
- Look for the person that has others doing his tasks
- Look for the person that has survived because of their social skills, not their productive skills.
- Look for the person that their work quality is never above mediocre
Talk to these employees, explain your concerns. Get their approval to be moved to another group in the organisation for a trail period. Enable them to "start a new page".
Moving these employees from their current group to another group causes vacuums in the organization, leaving opportunities for existing employees to grow and show their worth.
Your employees are the ones that ultimately deliver customer satisfaction and create value in your business.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
My extempor after a long time
My topic of choice would be: Our Quest for Knowledge
Each one of us has been gifted some time to spend here in this world. We all are born with a particular specification (genome in biological lingo). We all then spend initial years while learning the ways of this world. And then a time comes when one gets a chance to have a first hand experience of this world. This transition happens quite a many times in our life span it seems. Any such transition. say, from a mother’s lap to the floor, from home to school, school to college, one company to another company, one business to another business, one region to another region, gives us an immense opportunity to learn new things, things which are peculiar to the new environment and hence is new to us. Change is always for the better, be it in short term or long term. And hence I believe that the process of learn, then un-learn and re-learn keeps continuing for us as long as we wish it to continue. And I personally believe that the day we stop this process, our growth would cease. The very belief that each day that I live would give me an opportunity to learn something new or look at something I already know from a different perspective instills energy and motivation within me. I just hope I keep myself among people and in an environment where I can stand upon my belief without any doubt.
I intend to keep it as a record for myself, so that I can come back and look at it every time I feel lost or alone here in my journey in pursuit of happyness.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
!! Do it Anyway !!
I read this article at http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/2009/03/Better-Days-Ahead.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER and found it quite a learning. Hence have put it here for future.
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"Do you like doing things for people?" I asked a friend.
"Yes, most of the time," she replied.
"Most of the time?"
"Well, I love to do things that are unexpected. I like to do little things most people wouldn't think about doing," she said.
"But why did you say most of the time?"
"Well, sometimes after doing those little things people take advantage of you. I mean, they expect you to do it again. They ask you to do it. That's when I don't like it."
It was odd that I had this conversation. This just happened to me. I too love to do little things. I will pay for a meal card for the people in the office every time we have a meeting there. Not a big thing. It's a little thing. $5.30 will pay for almost five lunches. Hey, big spender!
But it's not the amount, it's the idea, the fact that I did something.
I also ran out a few weeks ago and bought a bag of animal crackers for a friend at work. She was having a tough day and not very happy at all. I drove down to the Wal-Mart and picked up a huge bag for under $2.00. Her smile was worth it.
But this week she said, "Bob, we ran out of crackers. We love them so much." I didn't want to do it. I smiled and she persisted. I finally admitted, "It's different when I do it because I want to, but now you are trying to make me go get them. It's not the same."
So that voice inside of me struggled with it. I tried and won out over that feeling and stayed right there in the office a while longer so as to avoid caving in. That is until I overheard her talking. The boss was having "one of those days" and unfairly chose her to point the finger at her in front of everyone. She was almost in tears when I heard her sharing the moment with a coworker. I had to go.
It’s about five miles to the store from there. I had to park at the extreme lower end of the lot. It was bitter cold—in the single digits on Tuesday. But when I got out of my car I stepped into summer. How?
Seagulls. Yes, there were three or four gulls flying above me. I heard one cry out as it glided on the cold, brisk air above. I immediately closed my eyes and I was transported from a strip mall parking lot to the seashore at Wildwood, New Jersey. I pictured in my mind that I was walking along the boardwalk, and the birds provided the perfect background sounds. "Ahhhhhh, summer!"
I hurried to the cookie aisle and found what I was looking for. Rushing out to the register, I walked through the bakery and stopped dead in my tracks.
"I'll get some bread to feed the gulls. Just like Wildwood!" I rushed out the door and walked down to the other end of the lot.
A bird flew over and I motioned that I had food. It hovered above waiting patiently for the treat. I ripped open the bag and threw a slice in the air. He grabbed it just like they always do. I looked around for the other three birds and...out of nowhere...without exaggerating...at least thirty gulls came to see what I had.
"Screeeechhhh...Caaaaaawwwwww!" They crashed into each other as they dive bombed me. I was overpowered by the number and finally dumped the entire loaf on the ground and ran to my car. I was laughing and so full of excitement. The tip of my nose was frozen and the tears of joy running down my face burned against my dry, cold skin. "Summer! I love it!"
So what 's my point here? Every time you do little things, big things happen.
Upon my return I expected her to be thrilled that I went out of my way. She hardly acknowledged me. I shrugged it off and left. I did what I thought in my heart was the right thing to do.
She got the cookies. Me? I got to feed seagulls at the Jersey shore in early March, and I got a glimpse of better days ahead.
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