Lalita Raman | Transitions Intl - Part 5
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Transitions Intl / Articles posted by Lalita Raman
11 September 2013 In Change, Character, Coaching, Emotions, Employee Engagement, Habits, Integrity, Lead From Within, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

“Resilience” And You

“Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, then it’s not the end.” Unknown For me this quote is a gentle reminder of building resiliency. Resiliency and character is built through tough time and adversities. Resilience draws from strength of character, from a core set of values that motivates you to make efforts to achieve your vision. It helps you to overcome setbacks and bounce back on the path of success. You need to be self-aware, have self-control and acknowledge there is a set back and be willing to persist. In an organizational capacity, resilience is the ability to pick yourself up despite the hurdles because you are responsible for others and see yourself as a support to others. In several organizations and in the political arena of many countries, you hear statements like the growth will be maintained amidst numbers consistently proving otherwise. You continue to hear positive futuristic statements and that it is “business as usual”. However, reality is that no effort is being made to review, examine, critique and change the path to achieve the goals or work towards promoting the economy of the country or the growth of the Company. The internal structures and policies

7 September 2013 In Communication, Conflict Leadership, Emotions, Lead From Within, Leadership, Life By Lalita Raman

Leadership Lessons From The Movie “42″

Life offers the strangest twists and turns for some of us. Some of these challenges agonizes you, tortures you and you are left wondering what did you do wrong? Why “me”? I’ve always considered life’s challenges as a way to learn and when I get into a negative mode, I realize that negativity pulls me down further and I need to bounce back from that thinking. In my journey to date, I have been inspired by my parents, some of my friends, my family, people whom I’ve read about or met, books that I’ve read and some of the movies that I’ve watched. I saw the movie “42” recently. 42 tells the story of Jackie Robinson and, under the guidance of team executive Branch Rickey, Robinson’s signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first African-American player to break the baseball color barrier. The story focuses mostly on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers season and somewhat on Robinson’s 1946 season with the Montreal Royals. Drag your thoughts away from your troubles…by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. – Mark Twain Jackie Robinson, despite support from Branch Rickey and later from some of his team members, was not without troubles and hardships. His color

6 September 2013 In Character, Communication, Habits, Lead From Within, Leadership, Life, Organizational Leadership, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

Are You Walking Your Talk?

“I’ll get that done by tomorrow morning.” “Just leave it to me, I’ll help you get that website of yours up and running by the end of this weekend.” “Hey, you’ve often said that you and I should collaborate together on a topic of common interest where we can work together. You have been interested in leadership workshops and speaking sessions. How about we collaborate on that and see how it goes? Are you interested? You always say that you are interested and then despite several follow ups’ from me, you don’t revert on how we can work together. You make statements on how we should think about working together and yet there is zero follow through!” How many times have you been in one of the above situations where your friends or business partners or acquaintances commit in words to do something yet there is no follow through action? Our desires dictates our priorities which in turn shape our choices. Our choices in turn determine our actions. Thoughts translate into feeling, feeling to words and/or action, actions become habit, and habits crystallize into character. The formation of a good character, therefore, is largely dependent upon the right unfolding of thoughts and feelings. A

6 September 2013 In Lead From Within, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

What Michael Jackson Teaches Us About Leadership and Life?

Last Sunday, I watched the Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour show by Cirque Du Soleil. I’ve always been a big fan of Cirque Du Soleil. There is a lot to be learnt about life and leadership from their shows, which I shall cover in a later post. Watching the show, I couldn’t help think about the impact that Michael Jackson made through his music and his songs. His songs had and have a lot to offer on love, life, leadership, humanity, team spirit, togetherness, leaning in, and every little things that matters in life.  Despite several criticisms, if you look at the legend that this man was, you will realize that Michael Jackson expressed his charisma, hope, humanity, compassion, sincerity and love through his music. Some of my favorite Michael Jackson quotes are: “Hope is such a beautiful word, but it often seems very fragile. Life is still being needlessly hurt and destroyed.” ― Michael Jackson In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.”

3 September 2013 In Character, Emotions, Lead From Within, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

Does Your Behavior Reflect Who You Are or Desire To Be?

→ How often are you inspired by a person whom you meet or read or hear about? → What is it about them that makes you listen or to follow what they are doing or learn a lesson or two from them? A friend of mine, Carole called me last week saying she wanted to meet me. Carole is one of the most cheerful person I know and on that call she sounded hassled, frustrated and dejected. I know she had suffered a huge financial loss recently having trusted someone she thought was a friend. The trust that she had placed on this person was misused, mishandled and every aspect of her belief and friendship was broken. I had learnt from her that she was making efforts to get her money back and the process had been none too easy. When I met her that day, she shared with me her experience with a person whom she had met with regard to getting her money back. This person whom she met is wealthy, well-connected and this is a known fact among most people in the city we live. Now you would think, this person would have some class and it is not necessary for him to

2 September 2013 In Change, Coaching, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

Are You “A Wannabe” or “A Go Getter”?

You meet your friend Jane for a coffee and in the midst of her conversation with you, she remarks, you know I love writing and am planning to write a book. I want to finish writing at least four books before the end of 2013 and publish it over the course of the first quarter in 2014. You meet her after 3 months and ask her how she is progressing with her book. She says she has made little progress but she is going to focus and get it started with renewed vigor. You meet Jane again after two months and she has not made any significant progress on her book. It is already July and she is still procrastinating on her first book. You wonder how she is going to make her dream of finishing four books by the end of 2013 achievable. How often have you heard yourself and others wish similar things? Are these just dreams or wild wishes that cannot be translated to reality? I hear an overwhelming “no”, from you. So what makes dreams come into reality ? We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort

1 September 2013 In Coaching, Comfort Zone, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

When The Going Gets Tough

“I’m stuck.” “I feel I’m running on a hamster wheel with no scope to get off. “ “I’ve no time to think or look at anything else because I’m always swamped with so many things I’ve to do.” How often have you felt this way or heard your friends, partners, colleagues say this at various points in your day or their day? Several of my coaching relationships start at this point. We all go through this at several points in our life or at specific points in our day. Is it a regular phenomena or something you feel at specific points in your day or specific periods of time at a stretch? If you look around you, you’ll realize many people are stressed out or at a breaking point. What are these stressors ? Is it with work? Is it with some transitions that you are going through at work or in life? Is it with overall life in general in terms of your dreams and priorities? What is the cause of these stressors?  Is it fear of being dispensable and losing your job or not being able to advance in your area of talent? Or being forced on account of lack of choices ? What about your day-to-day stressors? Is it because you are

1 September 2013 In Character, Coaching, Communication, Habits, Lead From Within, Leadership, Life, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

Live Life By “Letting Go”

Life is the best teacher, a friend, a soul mate. She teaches you what none others can teach and it is in living life through the challenges she throws at us is what makes life. There are things in life you can’t hold on for ever and life isn’t for ever either. Life from the day you are born, moment by moment, tells you to let go. Nothing lasts forever, you are at this stage in your life because you have let go of your childhood, your youth, some of your age-old habits and idiosyncrasies. Through the years of your life to date, you may have different ways of doing things, you may have changed your job, your career or possibly even some of your relationships that were not working for you. In the transitions in life be it natural, by accident or by choice, you have been able to move forward because you have let go of something. Yet, there are modes in your lives where you continue to grip on some things that you expect to last forever. You refuse to Let Go. This could apply to your relationships, projects that you have put your heart and soul and yet don’t

31 August 2013 In Coaching, Customer Service and Sales, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Life, Organizational Leadership, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

How Are You Connecting With People?

Businesses and organizations run because of the people, the relationships and the connections between people. When we network with people we look for common interests or topics to break the ice, strike a conversation and thereafter get into a discussion. In a business scenario, during interviews, a set of questions is asked by different people in an organization of a potential candidate. In each of these situations, be it at work (or in daily life), there is  judgment being made based on skills, qualifications, the ability to make an elevator speech, the way a person talks or present themselves, all of which are external factors.  Also, in today’s age of social media, there is an eagerness to strike a conversation with people who have large number of followers, or if they are famous. Again these are extrinsic factors. However, part of the judgment rests with our own gut feel or our intuition. In today’s world there seems to be a lot of communication and modes of communication but is real connection happening? Leaders connect because they are human and understand that trust and rapport can’t be built without real connection. Meaningful communication is possible only with real connection. How do you connect?

31 August 2013 In Coaching, Communication, Habits, Lead From Within, Leadership, Personal & Professional Development By Lalita Raman

Fake It Till You Make It Or Feel It Till You Make It

One of my sister’s friends’ colleague Anita, submitted her resignation recently, since she had found another job. Whilst she was serving her notice period, she still kept hoping that she would be asked to stay in her current organization. She was almost nearing the end of her notice period when my sister’s friend asked Anita why she wanted to stay back. Anita did not have any job in hand. She had pulled a fast one since she believed in doing so, she would get a salary hike with her current company. You have probably heard of “Fake it till you Make it” ever so often. I have always wondered about this statement. Do you fake →your values, authenticity, talents and skills? →your job, salary, what you can afford? →your emotions, compliments and the way you articulate? →who you are? Fake it till you make it or become it seems to be losing its essence in the way people are using it. I have always understood “Fake it Till You Make it” as, to get over your negative self talk, to believe in yourself, to achieve your dreams and not have your inner critique take over. From when did it become not being authentic, or being a hypocrite or