English Is evolving into a language we may not even understand

Communication skill is one thing that taken for granted in most of the corporate world.Today I was in an important meeting and I got a manager who proudly said to the crowd," to toast who never submit,please to so. I laughly know who haven't to so."

That update threw me off from my morning dream and I tried my level best to decode his message. As I knew it's an important message underscored by a department manager.

After a couple of minutes, it make sense as i manage to break the Da Vinci code. what he meant actually is that "to those who haven't submit ,please do so. I roughly know who haven't do so."

English Is evolving into a language we may not even understand.Any language is constantly evolving, so it's not surprising that English, transplanted to new soil, is bearing unusual fruit.

Soon, when Americans travel abroad, one of the languages they'll have to learn may be their own.

Perhaps below visual analogy can paint a better mental picture who think it's fine to speak in a so called evolved English without a single pinch of
shame.

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Judging Others

I'm always amazaed with the rate of speed we judging someone. And more often, we confused between voicing an opinion and judgement.

An opinion is simply your view, whatever that may be - but independant of what the other person may feel or think. Judging is when the independance disappears and you decide what is right for another, and coming to a fixed view about what is, however an opinion is an open view.

We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.

And whenever you feel like judging someone, please have below story in mind and the lesson close to heart.

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Bringing in Osho for you...ReTHINK

God happens only when you have moved out of the way and left yourself totally empty, spacious. It is a very strange phenomenon: The guest only comes inside the house when the host disappears.

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The need to be right!!!

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.” -Goethe

If you agree with everything, there not much of a discussion, not much of a conversation and definitely not much of an exchange of ideas.Remembering past occurrence as my boss always says, we don't want any yes man in our organisation.

At another extreme we have people who makes a point of disagreement with everything's being said. The highly argumentative person who demonstrate superiority through disagreement. One gracious fact emerge here as too often, academics or highly educated people behave in this manner extensively because they have been encouraged to do so.

The Need To Be Right

This is very much tied up with ego. An argument is a battle of ego. When you agree you seem to be submitting to the other point of view -so you lose. When you disagree you are asserting your ego and indicating that you may be superior.

Ironically, if you insist always winning an argument you end up with nothing more than you started with -except showing off your arguing ability. A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing ego.

Ancient Greek (about 400 BC) thinking habits of logic, reason, argument, truth and the importance of man(kind). Before the last Renaissance the thinking habits of the Western world were derived from dogma and theology." ..." The search for truth - as distinct from dogma - was to be made through the exposure of falsity by means of argument, reason and logic. This reason, not dogma, was to decide what was right and what was wrong".

Unfortunately, many people with a high intelligence actually turn out to be poor thinkers. They get caught in the ‘intelligence trap’, of which there are many aspects. For example, a highly intelligent person may take up a view on a subject and then defend that view (through choice of premises and perception) very ably. The better someone is able to defend a view, the less inclined is that person actually to explore the subject. So the highly intelligent person can get trapped by intelligence, together with our usual sense of logic that you cannot be more right than right, into one point of view. The less intelligent person is less sure of his or her rightness and therefore more free to explore the subject and other points of view.

A highly intelligent person usually grows up with a sense of that intellectual superiority and needs to be seen to be ‘right’ and ‘clever’. Such a person is less willing to risk creative and constructive ideas, because such ideas may take a time to show their worth or to get accepted. Highly intelligent people are often attracted to the quick pay-off of negativity. If you attack someone else’s ideas or thinking, there can be an immediate achievement together with a useful sense of superiority. In intellectual terms attack is also cheap and easy because the attacker can always choose the frame of reference.

And provoking statement that totally not in phase with most of the managers out there but trust me, it's the fact.

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Paint your story the humorous way

 

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How do I get people’s attention? Just as crucially, how do I keep it?

The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern. We can’t succeed if our messages don’t break through the clutter to get people’s attention.

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2 things your MBA fail to teach you

How many times have you sat at your desk, doing something you'd rather not, thinking a raise or bonus would make everything so much better? How many times have you thought that raise or bonus might actually hinder your performance? The answer to the second question is probably a much smaller number, but scientific data show this may be the case when it comes to certain tasks.

Daniel Pink, author of the bestseller A Whole New Mind and the new book Drive, says the key to high performance and satisfaction isn't about money; it's about internal motivation, what he calls Motivation 3.0.

There is a huge gap what science knows and what management does.The same gap that suck good worker's productivity like a quick sand.Ironically this is not totally the fault on the employees but merely the ignorant of the so call manager who label themselves as leader.

Behavioral scientist often divide the job we do in 2 categories which I doubt any top notch MBA class will touch on this.

• Algorithmic – a task which follows a set of established instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion.
• Heuristic – a task that has no algorithm, you have to experiment with possibilities and devise a novel solution.

You might ask at this point.So what's the big deal genius!

Because a breakthrough is not to be achieved through algorithmic task but in fact through heuristic task focus!

A key reason: Routine work can be outsourced or automated; artistic, empathic, non-routine work generally cannot.Keying in tonnes of excel grid,copying hard copy of data sheet in soft copy or sending scanned fax copy is an example of algorithm work. You can just outsource this to a secretary and not getting an engineer to get this done.Also, the other thing that changed is what people are doing at work. We're doing less of the routine, rule-based algorithmic work, whether that means turning the same screw the same way over and over again on an assembly line or even adding up columns of figures over and over again. The vast majority of white-collar work and even much of blue-collar work today requires much more conceptual thinking, much more creativity. 

In the U.S., only 30% of job growth comes from algorithmic work, while 70% comes from heuristic work. A key reason: Routine work can be outsourced or automated; artistic, empathic, non-routine work generally cannot.
External rewards and punishments can work nicely for algorithmic tasks but they can be devastating for heuristic ones. Solving novel problems depends heavily on the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity.

Working as a grocery checkout clerk is almost an algorithmic.You do pretty much the same thing over and all over again.

During this 20th centuries, many work WAS algorithm work.And it's not just jobs where you turn the same screw the same way all day long.Knowing these 2 difference will help manager in great deal in identifying the mismatch of an employees role and the whole rewarding system.

And the science is very, very clear that traditional mechanisms of carrot-and-stick, if-then motivators [i.e., "If you do this, then you get that"] don't work for creative, conceptual tasks. 
Because what those if-then motivators do is that they focus our attention and they concentrate the mind. And so if you say to me, "Ray, I'll give you $500 to do something," you have my attention. I'm completely focused on that task. And I'm thinking, "What does she want me to do?" Because I'm going to do that. 

Now, that's very good if you want people to carry out a prescribed set of instructions, because it focuses our attention in a very narrow way. That's actually very helpful in certain ways. If you're stuffing envelopes, just focusing on stuffing envelopes, you'll get it done faster. If you're processing something on an assembly line, focusing on that one particular task will allow you to get it done faster. 

The problem is that for creative conceptual tasks, you don't want a narrow focus. You want a wide focus. If you have a narrow focus, you're not going to have a solution to a problem. You're not going to make anything close to a conceptual breakthrough. 

Why do you think organizations continue to operate under the old assumption of carrots and sticks?

I think there's actually a mix of reasons for that. One of them has to do with the fact that these if-then motivators have worked for a long time. The other thing about it, which I think is an even somewhat harder problem to solve, is that they work, or at least they seem to work, in the short term. 

For example, say an executive director of an association says to her staff, "We need to come up with a new idea for recruiting members, and I'll give whoever comes up with the best idea a $2,500 bonus." I can guarantee that that executive director's staff is going to start scurrying with activity. And so that executive director says,

"Oh, look what a great leader I am. Everybody's working so hard." 

The problem is that you've fostered activity, but you haven't fostered any kind of creative thinking. These if-then rewards actually deliver either results or the appearance of results in the short term, so that fakes us out. 

However, if she were to say to her staff, "Hey, we really have to come up with something new for recruiting members. I think it can really play a big role in our organization. And I think you folks have the capacity and the talent and the drive to really come up with something great. So why don't you take the next month or so and try to come up with some great ideas. Organize it the way that you want. … I'm here to help you, give you resources and feedback, and what not." 

Then, if those people do come up with an awesome idea, after the fact she could say, "Now that you've come up with this breakthrough idea, thanks." I mean, I think thank you is a pretty important form of feedback. She could then recognize them in front of the rest of the staff, or recognize them individually. She could even offer a small cash bonus.

Because it's after the fact, it's not trying to control their behavior; it's a form of recognition and a form of feedback, and it's far less corrosive. So I think that's a way to combine it. The danger is that if you start doing that, some people will expect a now-that reward every time they lift a finger. 

Organization leaders need to say, "How much time in the last week have I spent helping identify progress people are making, helping recognize and celebrate progress that people are making?" My hunch is that the answer to that is going to be very, very little. And even upping that a little bit can be really powerful.

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Over saturate market forced companies to rethink

If you had a stack of pennies as tall as the Empire State Building, could you fit them all in one room?
How many ping-pong balls would fit in the Mediterrean Sea? Can you swim faster in water or syrup? When there’s a wind blowing, does a round-trip by plane take more time, less time, or the same time? Today, a number of companies have taken a page out of the Google playbook and have begun asking interviewees brainteasers, logic puzzles and mind-bending riddles. The question you probably have right now is, Why?



Tech companies have long asked prospective employees to answer off-the-wall questions in an effort to identify the most nimble-minded applicants. But since the Great Recession, many non-tech companies are now asking would-be employees to estimate the number of bottles of shampoo produced in the world every year, or how many integers between 1 and 1,000 contain a 3.

(MORE: Suze Orman’s New Prepaid Debit Card)


TIME Moneyland talked to William Poundstone, author of the new book, Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, about these unconventional interviewing methods, how Google revolutionized the interview, and how he would weigh his head.

When did this method of interviewing prospective employees begin?


Oxford and Cambridge, which for at least 100 years have had very difficult admission interviews. They give you curveball question like, “Does a Girl Scout have a political agenda?” But I think IBM was the first big company to do this. This was just after World War II, when computers were very new and they realized that programming a computer is not electrical engineering. They were getting people from all sorts of fields, so they started throwing in logic puzzles as a way to see if people were capable of thinking in new ways. These types of questions have been part of the culture of tech companies for quite some time. But the incredibly tough job market has done a lot to spread this to more mainstream companies.


What type of companies do this now?


I’m now finding that more people are reporting them from non-technology companies. It’s very big in banking and consulting, but even in retail, where you would never have had questions like that in the past.


So these questions are even popping at employers like Walmart?


Yeah, which is kind of overkill, I think. But companies are almost desperate in this job market because they’ll get 20 applicants, all of whom would’ve been great if the economy had been better. But they have to find some rationale for saying, This is why we’re going to hire this person and not these 19 other people.


The most famous example of this seems to be the Google billboards. Can you explain those?


Back in 2004, Google had these billboards where they would ask for the first 10-digit prime number found in the consecutive digits of e, and you were supposed to go to a certain website, if you were smart enough to figure that out. You could then send them an e-mail and your resume.


(MORE: Will Tensions With Iran Really Push Gasoline to $5 a Gallon?)


How are these questions better than the information gathered from a more traditional job interview?


There’s so much evidence that traditional interviews really don’t tell you very much. But research has shown that work sampling works: The best way to predict how someone is going to do on the job is to pose questions that are similar to the sorts of things they’d be doing. One of the reasons that Google’s interviews are so notorious is that there’s so much work in the interview. If you’re a coder, you might spend 80% of your interview doing actual coding problems. But they also throw in these offbeat questions. One of the things they hope to address in the interviews is, Are you open to new ideas? Can you think in flexible ways?


As the job market improves, do you think these types of interview questions will continue?


I think when it does get a little more normal, places like Walmart will stop asking really difficult questions.


I was surprised that your book is really meant to prepare anyone looking for a job, even outside the tech sector.

The book is designed for people who want to get a little confidence with these kinds of questions. Just reading them over, going through the explanations I give, tends to build people’s confidence.

So how can people prepare for these interviews?

These questions are difficult questions, which means that the first approach that pops into your head is probably going to be wrong. So a good approach is just to say, Well, I think the obvious approach would be this, but that’s probably not going to work, and then give your analysis of why the obvious approach fails. That gets you talking. You want to avoid dead air. And usually once you analyze how one thing’s wrong, that’s a good first step towards just brainstorming various other strategies. They like to see people who are very free with ideas, even if they’re half-baked.


Do you have a favorite brainteaser?


One that I like is: How would you weigh your head? Because there’s no really good answer to that. Smart people usually think of the Archimedes’ Principle. Archimedes had to weigh this crown for some king to find out if it was solid gold, and he stepped in the bath in ancient Syracuse and realized that the water level went up and he thought, A-ha! Eureka! He could dunk the crown in water to find it’s volume. You can kind of do that here. You could fill a basin of water to the brim and if you dunk your head in that water and collect the water that spills over, the volume of that water is going to be exactly the same as the volume of your head, which is helpful. But they’re not asking for the volume, they’re asking for the weight of your head. And you can say that the density of the human body is pretty close to that of water, just from the fact that we barely float in the swimming pool. It’s an approximation and it’s not necessarily a great answer, but maybe someday someone will come up with a definitive answer.


In a lot of these, it seems as if it’s not about the answer. It’s about working your way to an answer.


It’s about the thought process. Because with a lot of these, where you have to estimate something crazy, like how many ping-pong balls could fit in the Mediterranean Sea basin if it was drained, the interviewer doesn’t know the answer.


How frustrating. So I’m assuming that you’re qualified to work at Google now?


Probably not in terms of having the actual skills to work there, but I’m pretty good with some of these offbeat questions.

You could ace the interview, at least.

[laughs] Yeah, I suppose so.



Read more: http://moneyland.time.com/2012/01/11/are-you-smart-enough-to-work-at-google/#ixzz1jokiHo1P

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Are you smart enough to work at Google?

And here is the enlarged version

 

 

 

 

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Strength based organization

The benefits of engagement and strengths

In the 1990s, Gallup concluded a decades-long study into employee engagement. One of the key findings was that employees need 12 essential elements from their workplaces. These elements -- measured by the Q¹², Gallup's 12-item assessment of engagement -- reflect a sense of belonging, growth, and contribution. They are also deeply emotional. Though workers do need to be paid -- and though they do like status symbols such as corner offices -- they also need emotional fulfilment. If workers' emotional needs are met, they become engaged with their companies, and their productivity, profitability, retention rate, and safety rate increase

Gallup published its groundbreaking work on strengths. In Gallup's terminology, strength starts with an innate talent -- a tendency to think and behave a certain way -- to seek harmony among group members, for instance, or to enjoy learning for its own sake.

A talent becomes strength when it's refined by skills, knowledge, and practice then consciously applied to something that needs doing -- such as practicing international law.

Engagement starts with managers. To manage toward engagement, leaders must understand the 12 elements and apply them to every worker every day. Strengths, however, are a little different. Strengths develop from innate talents and look different in different people. To develop and work from their strengths, employees must know what their talents are and learn how to hone them into strengths. To make the most out of employee strengths in an organization, managers need to know the strengths of each employee. Then they must create opportunities for employees to use them.

Gallup research has proven that the best way to develop employees -- and net the greatest return on investment -- is to identify the ways in which they most naturally think, feel, and behave, then build upon those talents to create strengths -- the ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance.

Discover What's Right With People, Then Build on It

All organizations seek to improve performance. To get there, though, far too many follow conventional wisdom: Focus on fixing weaknesses. Find what's wrong with your people and try to correct it. Unfortunately, that "wisdom" leaves them struggling on the path to mediocrity.

A growing number of organizations have learned that although weaknesses can't be overlooked -- and must be managed -- fixating on weakness is a mistake.

Gallup Study: Engaged Employees Inspire Company Innovation

National survey finds that passionate workers are most likely to drive organizations forward

When it comes to innovation, business leaders aren't necessarily looking to traditional sources, like research and development departments, to contribute big new ideas. Rather, they're counting on ideas from their employees, customers, and partners to help drive the organization forward. And engaged employees are most likely to contribute those innovations, according to a recent Gallup Management Journal (GMJ) survey of U.S. workers.
GMJ surveyed U.S. employees to discover what effect employee engagement may have on team-level innovation and customer service delivery. Gallup researchers studied employee responses to several items about innovation in the workplace to see which factors differed most strongly among engaged employees (29% of respondents) and those who were not engaged (56%) or actively disengaged (15%). (See graphic "The Three Types of Employees.")
Gallup research has shown that engaged employees are more productive, profitable, safer, create stronger customer relationships, and stay longer with their company than less engaged employees. This latest research indicates that workplace engagement is also a powerful factor in catalyzing "outside-the-box" thinking to improve management and business processes as well as customer service.

When GMJ researchers surveyed U.S. workers, 59% of engaged employees strongly agreed with the statement that their current job "brings out [their] most creative ideas." On the flip side, only 3% of actively disengaged employees strongly agreed that their current job brings out their most creative ideas. (See graphic "Creativity on the Job.")
The study also showed that engaged workers were much more likely to react positively to creative ideas offered by fellow team members.

When asked to rate their level of agreement with the statement "I feed off the creativity of my colleagues," roughly 6 in 10 engaged employees (61%) strongly agreed, while only about 1 in 10 actively disengaged employees (9%) gave the same answer. This suggests that higher levels of employee engagement not only increase the likelihood that individual employees will generate new ideas, it also suggests that idea generation among engaged employees can be amplified when it occurs in a team setting.

GMJ researchers also explored the role that workplace friendships play in promoting innovation. About three-fourths of engaged employees (76%) strongly agreed with the statement "I have a friend at work who I share new ideas with." On the other hand, only 2 in 10 actively disengaged employees (21%) strongly agreed that they have a friend at work with whom they share new ideas. Clearly, friendships do play a significant role among engaged employees when it comes to setting the stage for idea creation and refinement.

The results also suggest that there are significant differences in how engaged and actively disengaged employees view their company's encouragement and acceptance of innovative ideas. Only 4% of actively disengaged employees strongly agreed with the statement "My company encourages new ideas that defy conventional wisdom," while more than half of engaged employees (55%) strongly agreed that their company encouraged such ideas.

Innovation and customer service
GMJ researchers also investigated the effect of employee engagement on customer service innovation. Nearly 9 in 10 engaged employees (89%) strongly agreed that "At work, I know where to go with an idea to improve customer service," contrasted with only 16% of actively disengaged employees.

Engaged employees also involved customers in the innovation and improvement process. When asked to rate their level of agreement with the statement "At work, we give our customers new ideas," 74% of engaged employees strongly agreed that they shared new ideas with customers, contrasted with just 13% of actively disengaged employees. (See graphic "Sharing Ideas With Customers.")
Gallup's employee engagement research has consistently shown a connection between employee engagement and customer engagement. One factor that can influence customer engagement is an employee's willingness to change -- or to "learn and grow" -- to meet the customers' changing needs. When Gallup asked workers to rate the statement "I have grown in my ability to positively affect our customers," the results were telling. Almost 9 in 10 engaged employees (85%) strongly agreed that they have grown in their ability to positively affect their company's customers, while only 2 in 10 actively disengaged employees (19%) strongly agreed.
Finally, more than half of all engaged employees (51%) strongly agreed with the statement "At work, my coworkers always do what is right for our customers."

This was in stark contrast to the actively disengaged employees: Only 1 in 10 strongly agreed that their coworkers always do what is right for their customers.
Gallup's research into the relationship between employee engagement and innovation strongly indicates that engaged employees are far more likely to suggest or develop creative ways to improve management or business processes. They're also far more likely to find creative ways to solve customer problems or to involve their customers in creating service innovations. Company leaders who want to drive growth through innovation should first create an environment that welcomes new ideas -- and should make engaging employees a key component of that strategy.

Results of these surveys are based on nationally representative samples of about 1,000 employed adults aged 18 and older. Interviews were conducted by The Gallup Organization by telephone quarterly from October 2000-October 2002, then semi-annually thereafter. For results based on samples of this size, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling and other random effects could be plus or minus three percentage points. For findings based on subgroups, the sampling error would be greater.

The Q¹² items are protected by copyright of Gallup, Inc., 1993-1998. All rights reserved

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Osho Insights - The moment you relax you are in the present

Osho - Meditation is a state of total relaxation; not of concentration, not of contemplation, but of relaxation. When one is so absolutely relaxed that there is no tension either in the body or in the mind, then suddenly there is an opening of the heart. Only in total relaxation does the heart open, it becomes a flower. Without its opening one remains unfulfilled, discontented.
The opening of the heart as a flower is the ultimate ecstasy; there is nothing more than that. One has come to the highest peak, one's life has blossomed. And that is the meaning of Teresa. Teresa means a reaper, a harvester. When one has come to the blossoming, the flowering, the ripening, then one can reap the crop. Then life is tremendously significant, a gift of god. Otherwise it is just a possibility, and nobody can be blissful with only a possibility. It has to become actual, it has to become a realisation.

in Osho Quotes on Relaxation, Osho Short Insights

Being with me means only one thing: learning how to relax. The moment you relax you are in the present. The past is a tension. Relaxation is going beyond time - no past, no future. One simply disappears into the infinity of the now and the here. And that is springtime as far as the inner ripening, flowering, is concerned.
Source - Osho Book "Just The Tip"

Point to ponder...

When Mozart was composing at the end of the eighteenth century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be given verbally, by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St. Stefan's Cathedral.

In twentieth-century society, the noise level is such that it keeps knocking our bodies out of tune and out of their natural rhythms. This ever-increasing assault of sound upon our ears, minds, and bodies add to the stress load of civilized beings trying to live in a highly complex environment. ~Steven Halpern

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