The age sixteen is referred to as ’sweet sixteen’. This is because at sixteen we are at the pinnacle of teenage, which is the most youthful time of our life. Who doesn’t want to be at sixteen all the time?

Recently, I met J.P.Balasubramaniam who is an entrepreneur, an industrialist and a leader. After our discussion he blessed me. This in English directly translates to “Get all 16 and live a great life”. I thanked him and became curious to know the sixteen things that were part of this blessing. He said it’s an ideal blessing and has been popular for centuries and he enumerated as:

1. Fame
2. Education
3. Strength
4. Intelligence
5. Beauty
6. Good life partner
7. Youthfulness
8. Boldness
9. Health
10. Success
11. Money
12. Good character
13. Good children
14. Enjoyment
15. Long life
16. Comforts

Which of these are important to you in your life? All of these attributes of wealth are so sweet that it’s hard for me to say what’s not important; hence I prefer to redefine ’sweet sixteen’.

I am sure each one of these attributes are important in everyone’s life and leadership is about teaching and helping people to achieve these in their lives…to have a complete and a fulfilled life.

Relationship Management is close to my heart because my personal and professional life has been built on the wonderful relations that I have shared with others.

Relationships are like wine. They get better with each passing day and its the best when it’s old and strong.

My friend Rajesh Setty says, “Relationships are of 2 types, it’s either Long Term or Very Long Term”

Let me take the help of a beautiful story to share my thoughts on ‘Relationship Management’.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy, named Joe, who had sown the seed of an apple tree in his garden. He spent a lot of time watering and nourishing it, till it grew into a huge apple tree. Growing up alongwith, Joe loved climbing  the tree top, eating its apples, and taking a nap under its shade.

One day, Joe came up to the tree and said that he needed money. The tree told its master to pick up its apples and then sell them away to get the money. Joe picked all the apples regularly from the tree and left happily. Joe came again some time later and said that he needed a house for shelter. The tree asked him to cut some of its branches to build the house. The tree was glad to see him happy. After a long time one hot summer day, Joe returned and the tree was so delighted. Joe said, he wanted to go sailing and he could not afford a boat. The tree immediately told him to use a part of its trunk to build a boat.  So Joe cut some part of the tree’s trunk to make a boat and then went away sailing. Many years passed and Joe had grown old with no one to talk to and live with. He came up to the tree and thanked it by saying that it has been his best friend always. Everytime he needed something the tree had always helped him. The tree said it was just expressing its gratitude because Joe was the reason for its existence. It told him to come and rest under its shade. Joe laid down under the tree, embracing its trunk. Both Joe and the tree were glad and had tears of joy in their eyes.

It’s been our practice to learn from stories. With the help of this story, let me sumarize the essence of ‘Relationship Management’:

$ Building and managing a relationship should be based on human value systems.

$ Building strong relationships starts by giving. It could be about giving love, care, time, money, happiness…Universal laws are always true. One of them is ‘What you give, comes back to you in multiples’.

$ Relationships are not built overnight. We have to sow the seed of relationship and nourish it to gain pleasure.

$ Relationships are always mutual (two-way) and should be balanced. Never take advantage of people and relationships, it’s not for granted.

$ Good Understanding and Trust are the founding elements for a strong relationship.

$ The value of any relationship is known only when its lost. Our best effort shoud be to maintain, nourish and strenghten the existing relationships while building new ones.

$ Express your gratitude to people who care for you, before it’s late.

“Relationships are built to last and not to be lost” - Naveen Lakkur

1. Leaders use positive words.
2. Many leaders understand numbers well.
3. Leaders also treat life as a game.

Now, let’s take all these three attributes of leadership and play a small game.

Steps to play the game:
a. If each alphabet is identified by a number in the order of its appearance, A will be 1, B will be 2, C would be 3, till Z which will be 26.
b. Let’s take some of the words such as hardwork; knowledge, luck, etc., which are used in daily life.
c. Associate the respective number of the respective letter of that word and add it up to get a score.

Finding:

* The score for LUCK would be 12+21+3+11=47.
* The score for KNOWLEDGE would be 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5=96.
* The score for HARDWORK would be 8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11=98.

My previous article on The Foundation! triggered my colleague at Compassites to share the scores with me for these words along with the word ATTITUDE, which in-turn triggered me to write this post. It was surprising for me to learn that it was the perfect score!

The score for ATTITUDE would be 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5=100

Luck can take us to a maximum of 47%; having Knowledge can take us to 96%; Hardwork can take us to 98%; and the Attitude will take us the full distance, 100%.

Want to Achieve Your Goal? Build and Have a strong foundation - A Great Attitude…

We come across many people in life but only a few leave a mark with us. It is because of their personality. If personality is a structure, then a great personality is built on a strong foundation called attitude.

It is not easy to define attitude, but the parable below will help understand attitude better.

Once a king decided to take a tour of his kingdom in disguise, to know how happy his subjects were. He was passing through an area where a lot of people were working. He went up to a man and asked him what he was doing. The man replied that he was just a laborer carrying stones, nothing more. The king then went up to another man and asked him the same question. The second man replied that he was earning his livelihood by carrying the stones which enabled him to earn money to feed his family. The king then posed the same question to a third man. This man said that he was involved in building a temple. He was carrying stones to build a place where people will come and pray and experience peace and joy in their lives.

The difference among the three was just their perspective, the way they saw their work and life. With the right attitude, the third man never felt the burden of carrying the stones; rather he was enthusiastic about his work in the creation which will outlast him.

Leaders have great personality, I mean great ATTITUDE.

What keeps the leaders going?
It’s the motivation. Motivation is another distinguishing quality of an emotionally intelligent person. Motivation is like a coin with two sides; the two sides co-exist and act as fuel which drives life.

Side 1 - Self-Motivation: Motivating oneself all the time, especially during times when the going is not good. In sports this is called “pumping up” oneself.

Side 2 - Motivating Others: Every action of ours has the potential of inspiring others and making them following us. We know how even a smile can lighten up one’s day.

It’s hard to motivate others if self is not motivated. The book “Tough Times Never Last, but Tough People Do!” by Robert H Schuller helped me pump up when the going was tough.

Let us list down the traits required to fit into these two sides of motivatoin.

SELF-MOTIVATION:
* Always having a feeling that ‘I am good, I am special’ and action following the feeling.
* Self-motivated people have a goal in life. They know which path to take to achieve the goal and also know by when they can reach their goal.
* A high level of enthusiasm in a person shows that they are self-motivated.

MOTIVATING OTHERS:
* Appreciating people’s actions, however small it may be? Even a small pat can make a big difference to a person.
* Helping people to achieve their goals in a way that it will help them reach faster and in a more effective way.
* Sharing the joy of others during their good times and being the source of support to others during their bad times.

There is no “one recipe” for motivation and it is up to us to find out what motivates us and others. The above list is a partial list. If this post has added some fuel to your life, I invite you to join the club by adding your points on “What motivates self and others” in the form of your comments.

Is your emotional quotient dominating over your logical quotient?

Let me help you answer this question by asking a couple more questions.
1. Do stories inspire you?
2. Do you get associated with the story or characters in the story?

If you are not sure, let me help you again. Here is a story…

There was once a boy who was very famous for his short temper and sudden emotional outbursts. At the slightest provocation he would pick up a quarrel with others and people would run away from him. His concerned father wanted to help his son control his emotions and mainly his anger. He told his son to nail the wooden wall in their home backyard whenever he was angry or fought with someone. The son started religiously practicing this advice and after a few months the whole wall was full of nails! But slowly the boy started feeling much better emotionally, as he rarely got angry now and he happily conveyed the same to his father. Appreciating the improvement, father said, you should remove those nails stuck to the wall every time you feel good because you made someone happy. Some time passed and the boy had removed all the nails from the wall. The son called his father to the backyard and said, father I have learnt to control my emotions and now I have made so many people happy that all the nails on the wall are removed. His father on seeing the wall said, you would have removed all the nails but the wall is full of holes.

The same way we make holes in other’s hearts by hurting them and by not controlling our emotions. Heart is fragile, a hole permanently damage the heart and can never be filled. No wonder they said, “ANGER is just short of DANGER”.

The chances are high that your emotional quotient is higher than your logical quotient, if you get associated with the stories or with any of the characters or if you get inspired by stories.

Controlling emotions is all about, the ability to maintain balance and react in the most appropriate way to every circumstance.

Finally, let me share a quote which has been lingering in my mind for many years.

“A left arrow, the passed time and the spoken words never come back.”