Love

Love is a stimulus and not something to stop you in your journey.
--- The Alchemist

I have started blogging more than I did 5 years ago on this blog.Probably its one of the happiest time for me.
I realized true love recently.It is a wonderful feeling.Completely unconditional ,caring and full of empathy.Its a divine feeling and something that's very difficult to explain.
May be a hug or a kiss shows it externally but the internal thoughts are more difficult to describe.

Thanks Ruchi for being there all the time.

The Uber Experience - Pune

After coming to Pune, I have been a frequent user of Uber cabs.

Reasons are simple

• It comes on time ( Convenience)
• It charges equal to auto charge minus an haggling ( Pricing)
• It helps me reach office / home on time ( Time saving)

Recently I met the Top Uber cab driver in Pune. Some of the simple consumer insights that he gave are worth following in other industries as well :-

• Ask water to consumer once he is on boarded
• Keep the car clean
• Uses Google navigation effectively
• Eulogizes Uber like anything as if it made his life better ( He used to drive Shivneri bus Mumbai to Pune for 5 years)
• Gets the best rating and gives the best rating to most clients
• Continously checks for daily feedback and finds if there is any area of improvement
• Maintains a track record and his observation on what the customer might rate him

His rating had gone below 4.7 on 26th January and he brought it near 4.8 in one month time after talking to his wife.He does not have FM yet but plans to keep that different by his talks and might use CD player in future.

He also told my wife on how he keeps looking young because he has tomato, milk and home cooked food stuff.

For him his moment of recognition came with the diary that Uber gave him and recognized him in Novotel hotel ( one of the mid size good hotels here) along with his family.

But the most important part of the conversation was his self confidence and can do it attitude once his rating had started to drop a bit. May his tribe increase.

Lessons for me :-

• Every customer touch point is important
• Self confidence takes you a long way along with self talk
• Never get into the over confident zone and keep track of self performance

Learning to learn

The rules of learning have changed. Please refer the  HBR link
You need to be more aware, have curiosity like a kid and be vulnerable ( fail and fail fast).
One can become more self aware through self talk.

Self talk
The trick is to pay attention to how you talk to yourself about yourself and then question the validity of that “self-talk.
To become aware, one needs to have more self talk and question self and other person Point of view.This is also one of the key parts of being emotionally intelligent and improve creativity.

Emotional intelligence

I recently attended a 2 day workshop on Emotional Intelligence by Satish Mandora. I could connect more with it since I had received a feedback in October 2015 that my mind, body and soul were not in sync. I was also asked to improve my communication skills and be more aggressive. I think they meant to make me more assertive as I can never become an aggressive person to show anger and fire people. In the past, I had received feedback on looking for role clarity and becoming a facilitator as next level of growth for me. I am thankful to all my senior colleagues for all the feedback I have received in last 1 year. This was much more than I received in my previous roles probably because my knowledge has taken me to places I have been. It’s now upto creating the right attitude, skills, habit and strategy to take me to the next level. Its also important for me to do a lot of self talk to help my cause.

1. The 5 areas of EI are: Self Awareness, Self-Management (Self Regulation), Self Motivation, Social Awareness (Empathy) and Social Skills.
2. The Ice berg model has 4 levels, from top to bottom they are: Results, Behaviour, Feelings and Belief
3. The 4 classifications of Emotions are: Intolerable, Tolerable, Pleasurable and Too Pleasurable
4. In the equation A*B=C; A is Activating Event, B is Belief and C is Consequences.’
5. The learning that we have is in 4 phases (Learning cycle) :-

a. Unconscious incompetence ( don’t know cycling)

b. Conscious incompetence (know parts of cycle i.e. brakes, handles, etc.)

c. Conscious competence ( know cycling but less confidence at turns)

d. Unconscious competence ( complete knowledge and think other things while cycling)

6. 4-box model of Skill Will Matrix and the leadership styles

Things that I intend to do in future with the learnings

1. I will have a face to face interaction with colleagues to understand their “Iceberg model” of (his beliefs, feelings and behaviours”) and explain the results I expect from him.
2. Have “Expectations “clearly defined with roles and responsibilities and objectives
3. Share “concern” ,demonstrate “Confidence” in Colleagues abilities ( be in Pleasurable and Tolerable zone) and bring more Optimism in his behaviour
4. Treat colleagues with empathy during the discussion. Listen to him empathetically, appreciate his achievements and try to understand reason for his shortcomings /complaints without preconceived notion.
5. Try to guide Colleagues and improve his will and skill by guiding him
6. Use the 5 golden pairs i.e. ( Goals to set priorities, Consequences with different alternatives, discuss problems instead of blaming, discuss the person instead of behavior demonstrated and not labelling and regulating self behavior)
7. Move from becoming the big “I”(know it all), dot(know nothing) , small “i” (know something) to bundle of I’s ( know emotions)

I have decided on 3 goals related to health (exercise, marathon, swimming), finance (home, car) and social (writing book) outcomes that I will try to work in the coming days. Will keep updating the blog as I progress.