Managing Carrers and Expectations

Managing Careers and Expectations

By

Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan

Executive Director Tata Sons

1. Seek out grassroots level experience

I studied Physics and Engineering at University. A few months before graduation, I appeared for an HLL interview for Computer Traineeship. When asked whether I would consider Marketing instead of Computers, I responded negatively : an engineer to visit grocery shops to sell Dalda or Lifebuoy? Gosh, no way. After I joined the Company and a couple of comfortable weeks in the swanky Head Office, I was given a train ticket to go to Nasik. Would I please meet Mr. Kelkar to whom I would be attached for the next two months? He would teach me to work as a salesman in his territory, which included staying in Kopargaon and Pimpalgaon among other small towns. I was most upset. In a town called Ozhar, I was moving around from shop to shop with a bullock cart full of products and a salesman's folder in my hand. Imagine my embarrassment when an IIT friend appeared in front of me in Ozhar, believe it or not! And exclaimed, "Gopal, I thought you joined as a Management Trainee in Computers". I could have died a thousand deaths.

After this leveling experience, I was less embarrassed to work as a Dispatch Clerk in the Company Depot and an Invoice Clerk in the Accounts Department. Several years later, I realized the value of such grassroots level experience. It is fantastic. I would advise young people to seek out nail-dirtying, collar-soiling, shoe-wearing tasks. That is how you learn about organizations, about the true nature of work, and the dignity of the many, many tasks that go into building great enterprises.

2. Deserve before you desire

At one stage, I was appointed as the Brand Manager for Lifebuoy and Pears soap, the company's most popular-priced and most premium soaps. And what was a Brand Manager? "A mini-businessman, responsible for the production, sales and profits of the brand, accountable for its long-term growth, etc.,etc. I had read those statements, I believed them and here I was, at 27,"in charge of everything". But very soon, I found I could not move a pin without checking with my seniors. One evening, after turning the Facit machine handle through various calculations, I sat in front of the Marketing Director. I expressed my frustration and gently asked whether I could not be given total charge. He smiled benignly and said, "The perception and reality are both right. You will get total charge when you know more about the brand than anyone else in this company about its formulation, the raw materials, the production costs, the consumer's perception, the distribution and so on. How long do you think that it will take?" "Maybe, ten years", I replied, "and I don't expect to be the Lifebuoy and Pears Brand Manager for so long"! And then suddenly, the lesson was clear. I was desiring total control, long before I deserved it. This happens to us all the time - in terms of responsibilities, in terms of postings and promotions, it happens all the time that there is a gap between our perception of what we deserve and the reality of what we get. It helps to deserve before we desire.

3. Play to win but win with fairness

Life is competitive and of course, you play to win. But think about the balance. Will you do anything, to win? Perhaps not. Think deeply about how and where you draw the line. Each person draws it differently, and in doing so, it helps to think about values. Winning without values provides dubious fulfillment. The leaders who have contributed the most are the ones with a set of universal values! V Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King for example. Napoleon inspired a ragged, mutinous and half-starved army to fight and seize power. This brought him name and fame for twenty years. But all the while, he was driven forward by a selfish and evil ambition, and not in pursuit of a great ideal. He finally fell because of his selfish ambition. I am fond of referring to the Pierre de Coubertin Fair Play Trophy. It was instituted in 1964 by the founder of the modern Olympic Games and here are two examples of winners. A Hungarian tennis player who pleaded with the umpire to give his opponent some more time to recover from a cramp. A British kayak team who were trailing the Danish kayak team. They then stopped to help the Danish team whose boat was stuck. The Danes went on to beat the British by one second in a three hour event! What wonderful examples of sportsmanship! Play to Win, but with Fairness.

4. Enjoy whatever you do

Sir Thomas Lipton is credited with the statement, "There is no greater fun than hard work". You usually excel in fields, which you truly enjoy. Ask any person what it is that interferes with his enjoyment of existence. He will say, "The struggle for life". What he probably means is the struggle for success. Unless a person has learnt what to do with success after getting it, the very achievement of it must lead him to unhappiness. Aristotle wrote, "Humans seek happiness as an end in itself, not as a means to something else". But if you think about it, we should not work for happiness. We should work as happy people. In organizational life, people get busy doing something to be happy. The more you try to be happy, the

more unhappy you can get. Your work and career is all about you’re reaching your full potential. Working at one's full potential, whether it is the office boy or the Chairman, leads to enjoyment and fulfillment. A last point about enjoyment. Keep a sense of humor about yourself. Too many people are in danger of taking themselves far too seriously. As General Joe Stilwell is reported to have said, "Keep smiling. The higher the monkey climbs, the more you can see of his backside".

5. Direction is more important than distance

Every golfer tries to drive the ball to a very long distance. In the process, all sorts of mistakes occur because the game involves the masterly co-ordination of several movements simultaneously. The golf coach always advises that direction is more important than distance. So it is with life.

Despite one's best attempts, there will be ups and downs. It is relationships and friendships that enable a person to navigate the choppy waters that the ship of life will encounter. When I was young, there was a memorable film by Frank Capra, starring James Stewart and Dona Reed, and named IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. It is about a man who is about to commit suicide because he thinks he is a failure. An angel is sent to rescue him. The bottom line of the film is that "No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends"

100 Great Google Docs Tips for Students & Educators

For students and teachers, the Google Docs collection provides a streamlined, collaborative solution to writing papers, organizing presentations and putting together spreadsheets and reports. But besides the basic features, there are lots of little tricks and hacks you can use to make your Google Docs experience even more productive. Here are 100 great tips for using the documents, presentations and spreadsheets in Google Docs.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Navigate your documents and screen a lot faster when you use these keyboard shortcuts for formatting and more.

1. Ctrl+Home: Get back to the top of your doc.
2. Ctrl+B: Bold.
3. Ctrl+E: Center alignment
4. Ctrl+L: Back to left alignment.
5. Ctrl+M: Insert comment.
6. Ctrl+H: Replace.
7. Ctrl+End: Go to last cell in data region.
8. Ctrl+Home: Go to first cell in data region.
9. Shift+spacebar: Select entire row.
10. Ctrl+Z: Undo.
11. Ctrl+Y: Redo.
12. Ctrl+spacebar: Select entire column.
13. Ctrl+J: Full justify.
14. Ctrl+Shift+L: Bulleted list.
15. Ctrl+Shift+Space: Insert non-breaking space.
16. Page Down: Move down one screen.
17. Ctrl+K: Inset link.
18. Ctrl+Shift+F: Full screen.
19. Page Up: Move up one screen.
20. Ctrl+Space: Remove formatting.
21. Ctrl+: Heading style 1. Change the "1" to any number 1-6 and get the corresponding header.

Productivity Hacks
These hacks will make your Google Docs experience even more efficient and streamlined.

22. Templates: Use Docs’ 300 templates to get started on different types of documents.
23. Work offline: View and edit documents even when you don’t have access to an Internet connection.
24. Create shortcuts: Create shortcuts and bookmarks for new documents, Google Docs home and more frequently visited pages.
25. Save as different file types: Instead of converting docs to different file types, you can simply change it to HTML, RTF, PDG, ODT and more whenever you save it.

Features and Tools
Make use of features and tools like Docs Translation or CSS Editing to customize your docs and make them work for you.

26. Polyline: Draw shapes and lines in Google docs to make graphs, images and examples.
27. Docs Translation: Find the docs translator under Tools.
28. Snap to Guides: With this Edit feature, you can line up shapes in your doc automatically.
29. Reference tools: Google docs comes with access to a dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia that you can use within the document.
30. CSS Editing: Change the display of your doc by manually plugging in your CSS text.
31. HTML tags: Docs supports, or partially supports, some HTML tags, shown here.

Collaboration
One of the best things about Google Docs is that you get to share and collaborate on projects with others. Learn how to make the most of these features here.

32. Shared foldersCreate shared folders and drag-and-drop items from other folders.
33. Privacy: You can choose to have documents published publicly or privately.
34. Share, don’t email: Instead of emailing docs back and forth, type in email addresses of people you’d like to share your Google document with, and they’ll be sent an editable, web copy.
35. Make changes at the same time: You and your classmates can log into the same document at the same time to make edits.
36. Share a folder: Share entire groups of documents saved in a single file with coworkers and students.
37. Invite mailing lists as collaborators: You can share a document with all members of your email mailing lists with this function.
38. Make a presentation in real-time: Invite others to view a presentation you’ve made as you see it too.
39. Data validation: Make sure everyone is entering data into the spreadsheet the same way by controlling data validation settings.
40. Allow people to edit without signing in: This means anyone, even if they don’t have a Google account, can sign in and edit your piece.
41. Remove collaborators: If you want to take someone off a project, click None next to the name of the person you want to remove.
42. Forum: If you get stuck with a docs problem, you can head over to the forums and find help from other users.
43. Change ownership: Switch ownership of Google docs as project leaders change.

Files, Folders and Filters
Find out how to use files, folders and filters for optimum organization and a clearer display.

44. View and unviewed: You can mark new shared documents as viewed or unviewed, like an inbox.
45. Create subfolders: Make subfolders for better organization. Create, then choose to move it wherever you want.
46. Drag-and-drop folders: Drag-and-drop folders and docs to spreadsheets, documents and presentations.
47. Tag: Tag items with certain keywords instead of going to the trouble of moving them to a folder.
48. Star: You can also star documents, like you would in Gmail.
49. Upload multiple files: Click "select more files" to upload multiple files in Google Docs.

Organization
These hacks are designed to organize your Google Docs, from starting a new assignment to sharing and publishing.

50. Color code folders: Color-code the names of folders.
51. Insert bookmarks: Insert a link to another part of your document, like in a table of contents.
52. Zip archive: Export Google docs, spreadsheets and presentations in a single ZIP archive.
53. Block quote: Use this setting to automatically indent and set aside a long quote in your document.
54. Minimize: Star only the docs you want to see at one time, and minimize everything in the left pane for a minimized view.
55. Annotate with footnotes: Insert annotations as footnotes to your document easily.
56. Preview templates: Preview a template before committing to it.

Edits
With these editing tools, you’ll track comments, save editing history and more.

57. Color-code comments: You can color-code live comments in Google Docs.
58. Revision pruning: When you have too many revisions, they’ll automatically collapse, or prune, but can still be viewed in revision history.
59. Track edits and changes: In Google Docs you can go back and forth between edits that you or collaborators made.
60. Revision history: View older versions of your document, and choose to "revert to this one" if you choose.
61. Find and replace: This version of find and replace lets you match cases, match whole words, find previous words, and more.

Synchronization
Make your Google Docs work with other tools too.

62. Preview docs in Gmail: You can preview Google docs attachments in Gmail.
63. Google Finance: Enter information from Google Finance into spreadsheets with this formula Syntax: =GoogleFinance("symbol"; "attribute").
64. Sync with Office Documents: With Syncplicity, you can sync Google Docs with Microsoft Office.
65. Sync with your server: To work offline, your documents will have to be synced to your server.
66. Google Mobile: Use Google Mobile to access docs on your phone.

Search
Google Docs uses Google search to find documents and more.

67. Search PDFs: There’s a search box in the upper right corner of your PDF document.
68. Search for docs using keywords: If you don’t remember the title of a doc, type in keywords from the document instead.
69. Advanced search: Find documents by selecting who you’ve shared with, keyword, title, and more.
70. Search the web: Highlight a word and search the web for matching websites and images.
71. Search operators: Search operators will help you find starred, hidden and other documents quickly. Example: [is:starred]

Presentations
Learn how to make and present projects with videos, images and more.

72. Embed a presentation in a website: Add your class presentations to your website or blog by publishing and pasting the HTML code that is revealed.
73. Insert tables: You can insert tables into Google Presentations, too.
74. Sequentially reveal objects on a slide: Bullets and text boxes will be revealed one at a time if you select this option.
75. Custom colors: You can choose custom colors to add to your presentation.
76. Hide the gray bar: In presentation view, click on the icon in the upper-right corner of the gray bar at the bottom of your screen to make it disappear.
77. Chat: Chat with your audience in view presentation mode. You’ll need Adobe Flash Player 8 or above.
78. Insert videos: You can add videos to your presentation, minimize and maximize it, and move it around your screen.
79. Hide chat: Keep everyone quiet during your presentation by clicking the left side of the chat module.
80. Organize slides: You can reorder slides, make duplicate slides, and insert new slides wherever you want.
81. Replace image and video placeholders: Depending on your presentation’s template, you can replace placeholders with an actual image or video.

Spreadsheets
With spreadsheets, you can create forms, reports, invoices, portfolios, and other docs that solve problems, save email addresses and more.

82. Google search inside your spreadsheet: Highlight a word, right click, and select Search the web.
83. Print as PDF: Choose to print your spreadsheet as a PDF if you want all formatting to stay intact.
84. Live lookup: Use the following formula in a cell to ask Google to look up quantitative information: Syntax: =GoogleLookup("entity"; "attribute").
85. Roman function: Have numbers displayed as Roman numerals with this formula =ROMAN(number, form).
86. Create forms: Google Spreadsheets has various templates for forms you can create and have people fill out.
87. Edit forms: Add section headers to make it easier to divide up forms and make them easier to fill out.
88. List view: Select list view to load spreadsheets faster, view from your mobile phone and access basic editing features.
89. Protect sheet: Select Protect sheet to prevent certain collaborators from editing it.
90. Automatically add email addresses: If you have Google Apps, the email addresses of the people who fill out the form will automatically be saved.
91. Scientific notation: Adjust spreadsheets so that cells display in scientific notation.
92. Solve: Maximize and minimize values when you solve problems in your cells.
93. Add and delete comments: You can add, delete and edit comments in spreadsheets too.
94. Freeze columns and rows: Freeze rows and columns to stop editing.

Tasks
These tasks, from printing to tracking tournaments, are examples of other ways you can use Google Docs.

95. Print as a webpage: You can print your doc so that it displays as a web page.
96. Insert mathematical equations: Insert Equation makes an equation editor dialog box appear to add an equation to your doc.
97. GoogleTournament: Create brackets, and let Google automatically update data according to the Men’s and Women’s NCAA Division I Basketball Championship.
98. Enable offline access: You can install offline access for Google Docs to edit existing documents anywhere.
99. Track analytics: Track visits to published documents.
100. Update posts: You can republish posts that are already on your web page if you want to make edits and support an updated version.

Source:http://www.accreditedonlinecolleges.org/blog/2009/100-great-google-docs-tips-for-students-educators/

45 Lessons Life Taught Me

 Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:"
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4.. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick.. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument.. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it will not screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie... Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ''In five years, will this matter?".
26. Always choose life.
27. Forgive everyone everything.
"28. What other people think of you is none of your business."
29. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
31. Don't take yourself so seriously... No one else does.
32. Believe in miracles.
33. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
34. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
35. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
36. Your children get only one childhood..
37. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
38. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
39. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
40. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
41... The best is yet to come.
42. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
43. Yield.
44. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

 

Remember that I will always share my spoon with you! Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.