Two faces of the coin

By watedroplet
Life has its own way of teaching things. I was lucky enough to secure a good job. This job gave me power over many things. Now, power means to command. This sounds very good, but in actuality, getting work done by your juniors is the real skill of leadership power. Within a few months of my posting, I understood this. So, rather than being bossy, I chose to be participative with them and sweetly make them all work with me. This worked well. This was my first lesson of life—the two sides of power and how to balance both of them and how to make your leadership most meaningful to everyone. The darker side of power, which wants to rule and ruins everything, is always overwhelming. We need to be careful with it; otherwise, it will overpower us and ruin things beyond repair. I am glad that I was in a situation where I had to choose the humble power aspect, which tries to work with everyone without hurting them. 
Similar to this lesson is my introduction to the passion hypothesis. I still remember the early years of my career when I landed in a place where I never wanted to be. My mind always said, "You are in the wrong place. "You are not meant to be here." I believed it and remained sad and preoccupied. The problem was that I could not leave that place and run away. This constraint actually showed me the truth of the passion hypothesis. Today, I am reading this book, "So Good They Can't Ignore You_Why Skills Trump Passion," and I can see the enlightenment I gained 20 years back is well documented. Yes, I did not have passion for that job, but over time my attachment with the profession deepened, and the situation now is such that I feel I am incomplete without it. I changed my profession, but still I find ways where I can draw much of the knowledge from my previous professional skills and incorporate them in my present professional skills, and I enjoy doing this. 
In this book, it presented the two sides of mindset towards work. The first one is the craftsman mindset, which I will be discussing first. The second one is the Passion Mindset.

CRAFTSMAN MINDSET

As I was exploring this mindset, the description in the book compelled me to accept this mindset. I will begin with my experience and then will carry it to other populations I know to explain this mindset. I remember those days when I started my first job. The first few months were full of fear as I was slowly getting exposed to every work independently, and I was responsible for them all. It took me some time to acquaint myself with the routine and the way people want the work to be done. I had knowledge; I knew to do things, but what I didn't know was how to incorporate all these that yield the best possible results for the benefit of all. Over time, I mastered this skill of presenting my knowledge and skill that yields the best results. This took time, but I was able to master it, and the outcome was mind-blowing. Once I learned this, the way people saw me and the respect they gave me were totally different. I can see and feel the difference in how people can no longer ignore me. I still remember one night when a young sailor came with a fever. He was in a very bad state, and the treating physician was trying to figure out the right cause. The physician asked me to monitor his BP, even though it was monitored by another person. We found the BP was on the lower side, signaling some serious illness. The physician took prompt action, and the young sailor was rightly diagnosed and got the right treatment on time, which saved his life. This is how we develop our skills that cannot be ignored. I could have been negative here when the physician asked me to monitor the BP, as it was the job of another person, but I felt that this was the need of the hour for this client. I gave up my ego clash and focused on the skill set that needs to be served to the client for his betterment. This choice and discernment made me stand out amongst my team that contributed towards the better service to my client. This made me fall in the crowd the physicians could rely on. This description of one incident recollected all such moments in my service that made me stand out. 
The book studied the musicians and performing arts people to understand the craftsman mindset. I will try to make you understand it with different examples. In my school life I came across many teachers; how many of them do I remember now? I think two of them have made the most lasting impression in my psych. One was my vice principal, who used to teach mathematics in our senior secondary classes, and the other one was our biology teacher in class 10, who cleared her UPSC exams and became a district collector. Why do I remember them only? I was not a very good mathematics student in my 10th class, but when I came into 11th, the way our mathematics teacher taught those concepts of mathematics still lived in me to date. Even after being cut off from this subject, I still have confidence in applying and solving problems of those kinds. How is this possible? This is because of my math teacher, who took all efforts to clear our concepts in this field and help us use them wherever we need them. Now, my vice principal has many years of experience, which he applied to improve his teaching skills so that today he was able to pave a strong base for mathematics in our lives. This was not there when I was taking math classes from other math teachers in our school. I only remember Das Sir, who also gave me a similar strong base in mathematics in my high school days. 
Similar was the story with our biology teacher. She was not a trained teacher, but the way she put the biology subject to us in 9th standard actually helped me a lot to take biology in my senior secondary classes. She was not a trained teacher, but she used her knowledge and analyzed the way we learn things and incorporated it into her teachings. Since she herself was preparing for competitive exams, her teaching always had a streak of competitive exam preparation standards. This was the element that boosted our morale to excel in the subject that was missing with other trained biology faculties. 
They both made their teaching stand out, polishing various segments of teaching that suited our needs and actually were planned to benefit us the best. This personalized kind of alignment made it such that we cannot ignore their teachings. They were so good that we can't ignore them. This output-centric approach to work is the Craftsman Mindset. In this mindset, you are focused on being good, which means improvement and betterment. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Posts most loved

Judgment fear

By watedroplet
Image
  Reaching the end, now I have discussed with you everything we can do to show self-love. This topic will be incomplete if I do not discuss this one barrier, which has the capability to pull down everything.  If we have open wounds, we can dress and heal them; if we have ulcers, we can take care and medicine to get them healed; if a fire breaks out, you can call the fire brigade and help, but what will you do if you are judging yourself or you are being judged? Judgement fear is like a cancer that flourishes within no time. It ruins our self-confidence and self-esteem; it kills love and understanding between me and my inner self; it convinces us that self-love is not for us; it is a property of few.  The sting of judgment is poisonous. No one escapes it. I had learned how to fill myself with positivity; I knew how to keep myself charged and encouraged; I took good care of self-compassion and self-care. In this balanced state I fell into a situation where I offended one o...
Read more

Discovering my cooking mind

By watedroplet
Moving out of the house remains the biggest dream of everyone. Mine was the same. Studying in a college was quite good. I hardly remember missing my family. Getting a job was icing on top. Now life seemed settled. This was the moment when I felt relaxed and content. Then I started thinking about what to do next. My mother is a good cook. I always longed to cook like her, both creatively and tastily.      In my school days, I saw my friends cooking tasty dishes in sixth class, and I was nowhere. I also wanted to cook good food like my mother and like my friends.      I still remember the first dish I prepared. It was "aloo bhuji." I prepared three or four large potatoes. My potatoes were getting sticky to my kadhai, but still they were not cooked well. I put water on it, and it started sticking more. I have used more turmeric also so that I get a good yellow color. I also used more cumin powder.      My family members said it was okay, and whe...
Read more

Savour that mouth waters

By watedroplet
 I still remember this meal. It always made me content. On my nights off I would sleep like a log and then get up at 12 noon and rush to Kondhwa Road to the South Indian Restaurant. Pack the brown rice, and prawn curry or fish curry. The hot steamed rice with prawn curry ah! So yummy. Prawn curry Kerala style. Ingredients Prawns—500 grams Crushed garlic—1 teaspoon Crushed ginger—1 teaspoon Turmeric—2 teaspoons Coconut oil—2 tablespoons Curry leaves Mustard seeds—1 teaspoon Cumin seeds—1 teaspoon Green chillies Onion—1 chopped Kashmiri chili—1 teaspoon Coconut milk—300 ml Kokum rinds—2 Salt to taste Method 1. Soak kokum in hot water for 15 minutes.  2. Marinate cleaned and deveined prawns with salt, turmeric, and chili powder.  3. Heat the pan and sauté mustard and cumin seeds.  4. Add onions and fry till translucent.  5. Add Kashmiri chili and roast for a while.  6. Add prawn and kokum water.  7. Prawn is cooked when it curls and turns red. ' 8. Add co...
Read more