Maximise Potential

Successful people have a few common characteristics that make them great. Not every successful person can be a master of all these but awareness of them can help in increasing these qualities in ourselves. The best definition of success I have come across is what Earl Nightingale said “Success if the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” So the key is to define your ideals and goals clearly. Once you do that and you take daily action towards those goals you are in the process of becoming successful. That’s why success is indeed personal and it is not dependent on what others feel about us. If you define what success means to you and your actions move you towards that definition then you are successful irrespective of what anyone thinks or says about you. Following are the 11 common traits exhibited by successful people that I have observed across various fields including sports, business, and arts. Self-Discipline I put this at the top of the list simply because wit...

The Amazon Way by John Rossman is a wonderful book for anyone interested in 21st Century leadership. If we adopt some of these principles our business will become better and more successful. Here are the 14 leadership principles with my take on each. Obsess over the customer:  This is the reason Amazon is so successful. You have to obsess about the customer and deliver world class value. The customer is always right. Getting first time customers is great but if you want repeat business then you need to obsess about them and out deliver the competition. Take ownership of results:  This is a key leadership principle. This is all about accountability. Just like Harry Truman said, “The buck stops with me.” If you don’t engage in blame and take complete ownership you are a true leader. This will also earn the respect of the team. Invent and Simplify : When Steve Jobs went to NeXT he wanted everything to be white and he was all about simplification. Yes, invent great produ...

Carol Dweck is famous for writing about the growth mindset vs fixed mindset. Fixed mindset is when you believe that your talent is fixed, and you close yourself to learn new things. Growth mindset is all about keeping your mind open and believing that your potential expands and is not something that is finite. Here are 6 ways you can develop a growth mindset. Stay Curious  – I love this word curiosity because all of us have need to exhibit this trait to win big in the current era of enormous disruption. Apart from that we can also enhance our talent with knowledge. We only act on what we know and once we increase our knowledge base the chances of our success increase exponentially. When you have a growth mindset you keep your mind open to new knowledge which can enhance your life and it will also enhance your creativity. We all know what deja vu is but we should also experience vuja de. That is basically looking at something we already know from a fresh and new perspecti...

Bob Iger is one of the best CEO’s and his longevity on the job shows that he is someone who has gone through the trials and tribulations to sustain world class for a lifetime. So, I wanted to see what made him tick with his new book “The Ride of a Lifetime.” It is a wonderfully well told story only thing this is real. He identifies ten principles of true leadership and here they are with my take on each. Optimism:  This is the top of the hit parade for any true leader. Tom Peters said, "The race will go to the curious, the slightly mad, and those with an un-satiated passion for learning and dare-deviltry." Optimism is one of the key traits of successful people. All change or innovations that have happened in the world are due to people willing to see something more than others see. Where others see roadblocks, successful people see opportunities. I have come up with ten commandments which can help us be at our optimistic best. You can read it here.  The Optimist's M...

Here are a few books I liked reading for the last 2 months. Books are really wonderful as they not only improve our vocabulary, they are also a good stress buster and if the research is to be believed they can extend life span as well. The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger –   Bob Iger is one CEO I have always admired, and his success is there for everyone to see. This was a wonderful chronicle of his success story. There are a few principles he lives by namely optimism, courage, integrity, the relentless pursuit of perfection and focus. The other thing that struck me was how hard working he is. He is up at 4:30 am daily and exercises daily. So arduous work is the key to his success. There are also examples of how he dealt with negotiations and people. Overall a breezy interesting read. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell  – I know this is a suggestion which not everyone would appreciate. The book is already number one on the NY Times Best Seller list. I have re...

Agile is one of the most fast paced methodologies. The main reason is a lot of customers are moving towards agile is because of the faster delivery, continuous integration and more frequent deployments. The key is to get the end users feedback earlier and make course corrections as needed. The startup culture of releasing a minimum viable product is also an example of this. Agile has proliferated with the advent of devops. The more continuous integration techniques are employed to ensure good execution the better the quality of results. Testing plays a huge part in ensuring agile is successful. Here are the best practices to adopt as you lead agile teams in a global delivery model. Involve QA in Elaboration sessions:  The testing team needs to be in the game from the beginning. They need to take part in all elaboration sessions where requirements are being written and reviewed. Involving the testing team right at the beginning ensures the quality downstream is higher. C...

Summer is truly an enjoyable time and we all go for vacations. However by the time summer comes to an end some of us are exhausted after long trips, drives and lot of activities. So this might be a good time to take a strategic time out and plan for the rest of the year. By the end of summer we could experience some stress and it is very normal. All of us have moments of stress. It is prevalent in all areas of our lives. Stress can be caused by anxiety and it may also lead to it. Stress is generally due to a perceived lack of control. It is also prevalent when we feel we don’t have any time. One of the things I have learned is when stress is about to show up just stop everything you are doing and really understand what you are trying to do. Here are some musings on how we can nip the bud of stress. Do something physical  – I have heard a lot people say when you are stressful do some exercise. When you are under stress it is very difficult to motivate yourself to exer...