- Make relationships a priority. Invest time and energy into your existing relationships and the image others may have of you. Also repair damaged relationships, work at understanding others better and acknowledging their needs.
- Don't overplay your personal agenda. The power of relationships is an effective way to promote your own agenda, but it also risks having others perceive you as self-serving and not a team player. Take care to ensure that advancing your agenda is not seen as a misuse of power.
- Maximize your communication network. Consider the people you communicate with most. Is the information they're providing you unique or redundant? Expand your network and find people who may be untapped sources of information.
- Be generous with information. Hiding information can have negative consequences, so share information broadly and with integrity. However, don't make the opposite mistake and pass on information that's confidential or too personal.
- Be the expert. You can't have power unless there are people who perceive you as having power. To be viewed as having authentic "expert" power, be open about your experience, credentials and expertise.
- Reward with words. Give positive feedback often. Experience with leaders across industries shows a ratio of four positives to every negative for a receiver to think feedback has been fair. This ratio illustrates the importance of praising the good deeds.
- Punish with purpose. In today's complex global organizations, many employees are frustrated by the lack of accountability at all levels. When team members fail to meet expectations, corrective (but kind) feedback works wonders. Be explicit about consequences for behavior or results that fall short, and follow through consistently.
- Teach others. Leverage your full power without hoarding it. If you want to empower the people you lead, teach them to use the power available to them.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
The Eight steps to Glory in a Workplace
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
The Bridge Across Forever - Richard Bach
A beautiful book for "every one who has fallen in love" must read - A precious gift for my new Blog site reader Tran.
"The opposite of loneliness, it's not togetherness. It is intimacy."
"Next to God, love is the word most mangled in every language. The highest form of regard between two people is friendship, and when love enters, friendship dies."
“There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.”
"Here's how people live here, in big house-shaped boxes to keep off "rain" and "snow," holes cut in the sides so they can see out. They move around in smaller boxes, painted different colors, with wheels on the corners. They need this box-culture because each person thinks of herself and himself as locked in a box called "body," arms and legs, fingers to move pencils and tools, languages because they've forgotten how to communicate, eyes because they've forgotten how to see."
“From time to time it's fun to close our eyes, and in that dark say to ourselves, 'I am the sorcerer, and when I open my eyes I shall see a world that I have created, and for which I and only I am completely responsible.' Slowly then, eyelids open like curtains lifting stage-center. And sure enough, there's our world, just the way we've built it."
"Look in a mirror and one thing's sure: what we see is not who we are."
"The only thing that shatters dreams is compromise."
"The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it."
“That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.”
“It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost...”
“Do you know what I learned from you? I learned what is possible, and now I must hold out for what I thought we had. I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me. That or nothing. I realized that what I'm looking for is not what you're looking for. You don't want what I want.”
" 'Boredom between two people, she said one evening, doesn't come from being together, physically. It comes from being apart, mentally and spiritually.' Obvious to her, it was such a startling thought to me that I wrote it down."
"We're the bridge across forever, arching above the sea, adventuring for our pleasure, living mysteries for the fun of it, choosing disasters triumphs challenges impossible odds, testing ourselves over and again, learning love and love and LOVE!"
One - Richard Bach
Excerpts from the wonderful book One by Richard Bach - a must read by everyone:
What if you could find a way into those parallel worlds, it whispered. What if you could meet the Richard and Leslie you were before you made your worst mistakes and smartest moves? What if you could warn them, thank them, ask them any question you dared? What might they know about living, about youth and age and dying, about peace and war, responsibility, choices and consequences, about the world you think is real?
Go away, I said.
You think you don't belong in this world with its wars and destructions, its hatred and violence? Why do you live here?
Let me sleep, I said. Good Night, it said.
But ghost-minds never sleep, and I heard pages turning in my dreams.
I'm awake now, and the questions remain. D
o our choices really change our worlds?
What if science turns out to be true?
A tiny change today brings us to a dramatically different tomorrow.
There are grand rewards for those who pick the high hard roads, but those rewards are hidden by years.
Every choice is made in the uncaring blind, no guarantees from the world around us.
The only way to avoid all frightening choices is to leave society and become a hermit, and that is a frightening choice.
Character comes from following our highest sense of right, from trusting ideals without being sure they'll work.
One challenge of our adventure on earth is to rise above dead systems -- wars, religions, nations, destructions -- to refuse to be a part of them, and express instead the highest selves we know how to be.
No one can solve problems for someone whose problem is that they don't want problems solved.
No matter how qualified or deserving we are, we will never reach a better life until we can imagine it for ourselves and allow ourselves to have it.
Commerce is idea and choice expressed.
Look about you this moment: Everything you see and touch was once invisible idea until someone chose to bring it into being.
We can't give money to a needy alternative us in other beliefs of space and time, but we can give ideas which they can turn to fortunes of they choose.
Bad things are not the worst thing that can happen to us. Nothing is the worst thing that can happen to us!
An easy life doesn't teach us anything. In the end it's the learning that matters: what we've learned and how we've grown.
We can have excuses, or we can have health, love, longevity, understanding, adventure, money, happiness.
We design our lives through the power of our choices. We feel most helpless when we've made choices by default, when we haven't designed our lives on our own.
We are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture... We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it into gravel, we can shape it into glory.
We generate our own environment. We get exactly what we deserve. How can we resent the life we've created for ourselves? Who's to blame, who's to credit, but us? Who can change it, any time we wish, but us?
Any powerful idea is absolutely fascinating and absolutely useless until we choose to use it.
There's no disaster that can't become a blessing, and no blessing that can't become a disaster.
You are creatures of light. From light have you come, to light you shall go, and surrounding you through every step is the light of your infinite being.
By your choice dwell you now in the world which you have created.
What you hold in your heart shall be true, and what you most admire, that shall you become.
Fear not, nor be dismayed at the appearance that is darkness, at the disguise that is evil, at the empty cloak that is death, for you have picked these for your challenges.
They are the stones on which you choose to whet the keen edge of your spirit.
Know that ever about you stands the reality of love, and each moment you have the power to transform your world by what you have learned.
You are life inventing form. No more can you die on sword or years than can you die on doorways through which you walk, one room into another.
Every room gives its word for you to speak, every passage its song for you to sing.
What a blessed evening! How rarely are we given the chance to save the world from a new religion!
"We fly up high," I said trembling with insight, "and we have perspective!"
We see every choice and fork and crossroad.
But the lower we fly, the more we lose perspective.
And when we land, our perspective on all the other choices is gone!
We focus on detail: daily, hourly, minute-ly detail, alternate lifetimes forgotten!"
What if you could find a way into those parallel worlds, it whispered. What if you could meet the Richard and Leslie you were before you made your worst mistakes and smartest moves? What if you could warn them, thank them, ask them any question you dared? What might they know about living, about youth and age and dying, about peace and war, responsibility, choices and consequences, about the world you think is real?
Go away, I said.
You think you don't belong in this world with its wars and destructions, its hatred and violence? Why do you live here?
Let me sleep, I said. Good Night, it said.
But ghost-minds never sleep, and I heard pages turning in my dreams.
I'm awake now, and the questions remain. D
o our choices really change our worlds?
What if science turns out to be true?
A tiny change today brings us to a dramatically different tomorrow.
There are grand rewards for those who pick the high hard roads, but those rewards are hidden by years.
Every choice is made in the uncaring blind, no guarantees from the world around us.
The only way to avoid all frightening choices is to leave society and become a hermit, and that is a frightening choice.
Character comes from following our highest sense of right, from trusting ideals without being sure they'll work.
One challenge of our adventure on earth is to rise above dead systems -- wars, religions, nations, destructions -- to refuse to be a part of them, and express instead the highest selves we know how to be.
No one can solve problems for someone whose problem is that they don't want problems solved.
No matter how qualified or deserving we are, we will never reach a better life until we can imagine it for ourselves and allow ourselves to have it.
Commerce is idea and choice expressed.
Look about you this moment: Everything you see and touch was once invisible idea until someone chose to bring it into being.
We can't give money to a needy alternative us in other beliefs of space and time, but we can give ideas which they can turn to fortunes of they choose.
Bad things are not the worst thing that can happen to us. Nothing is the worst thing that can happen to us!
An easy life doesn't teach us anything. In the end it's the learning that matters: what we've learned and how we've grown.
We can have excuses, or we can have health, love, longevity, understanding, adventure, money, happiness.
We design our lives through the power of our choices. We feel most helpless when we've made choices by default, when we haven't designed our lives on our own.
We are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture... We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it into gravel, we can shape it into glory.
We generate our own environment. We get exactly what we deserve. How can we resent the life we've created for ourselves? Who's to blame, who's to credit, but us? Who can change it, any time we wish, but us?
Any powerful idea is absolutely fascinating and absolutely useless until we choose to use it.
There's no disaster that can't become a blessing, and no blessing that can't become a disaster.
You are creatures of light. From light have you come, to light you shall go, and surrounding you through every step is the light of your infinite being.
By your choice dwell you now in the world which you have created.
What you hold in your heart shall be true, and what you most admire, that shall you become.
Fear not, nor be dismayed at the appearance that is darkness, at the disguise that is evil, at the empty cloak that is death, for you have picked these for your challenges.
They are the stones on which you choose to whet the keen edge of your spirit.
Know that ever about you stands the reality of love, and each moment you have the power to transform your world by what you have learned.
You are life inventing form. No more can you die on sword or years than can you die on doorways through which you walk, one room into another.
Every room gives its word for you to speak, every passage its song for you to sing.
What a blessed evening! How rarely are we given the chance to save the world from a new religion!
"We fly up high," I said trembling with insight, "and we have perspective!"
We see every choice and fork and crossroad.
But the lower we fly, the more we lose perspective.
And when we land, our perspective on all the other choices is gone!
We focus on detail: daily, hourly, minute-ly detail, alternate lifetimes forgotten!"
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Flora in Oman - The first post on this subject
all bloggers welcome to post articles here in my blogspot
Nature in its Pristine form
Oman once upon a time some few billions of years ago was under the sea.
The rock formations clearly indicate. Here are a few magnificient pictures.
Shamiya or Shaleem
One of the large never ending coast lines of Oman - and the breathtaking beauty that brings us to that - the road cut through the mountains. Beauty unimaginable......
Thursday, January 01, 2009
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