Friday Reflections

Circle of Thanks

POINT TO PONDER

'Thank you' is the best prayer anyone can say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, and understanding.

                        - Alice Walker


REFLECTION

We wanted to say thank you to our readers this week for posting your wonderful comments week after week. Last week's post was about mentors and many took the opportunity to thank theirs in the comment section. 

A common theme was the generosity their mentors shared and one reader commented, "The best I could do is hope that one day I'll have 1/10th the ability to help someone else in a similar way, and share some of the lessons I've learned."

Perhaps the best way to say 'thank you' is not in words but to pass on the generosity and knowledge that was given to you. Perhaps that's how one becomes a mentor? And instead of finding a mentor, maybe that mentor ultimately finds you.

We All Need An Alfred

POINT TO PONDER

I have a mentor. I have... guides. I have a lot of guides. Not a lot, but people whose opinions I really respect and who I will turn to.

                                        -Jake Gyllenhaal

 

STORY LINE by Rajiv Shah

Last week we wrote about good bosses. Of the many comments (for which we thank you) two jumped out at me. The first one from SC (thank you, whoever you are!) sparked the idea to write about mentors:

 

SC said:

One really has to be lucky to find such mentors. Thanks for sharing!

 

The second was a little more probing:

 

Curious said:

Is this real? I have heard such stories from "old timers." 

 

Both comments were interesting to me as it became apparent that many of us are in need of some mentorship. And good mentorship at that. But where does one find a good mentor?

Curious echoed my thought when he asked, "Where have such people gone?" 

My answer to Curious is that you can find a phenominal mentor in Gotham City. You see, I went on the hunt this week to find a good mentor and I found one in Alfred Pennyworth. Who is Alfred Pennyworth you ask? Just ask Alfred's mentee, Bruce Wayne, or as he's more commonly known - BATMAN. 

Now Curious, I get that Alfred is an old-timer (the character must at least be in his eighties now), may be a product of a bygone era/value system, and is indeed not in fact, "real." However, the core principles for which Alfred stands are a shining example of what makes a great mentor. 

1. Alfred is experienced. And with that experiences comes knowledge. Knowledge is what makes a good mentor valuable because they can inevitably pass that knowledge on to YOU. And this knowledge might be information you had no idea existed in the first place. Just ask Master Bruce. *Spoiler alert - Clips are from the Batman movies in the Christopher Nolan series and reveal important moments from Nolan's three Batman films* 
2. Alfred challenges Bruce to be better. So should your mentor. Does your mentor have the guts to tell you the truth? To challenge you to be better than you are? Look for someone that you feel comfortable getting a little tough love from because when you start to veer off your path, you need a good mentor to right the ship.  
3. And why does Alfred challenge Master Bruce? Because he knows there is something better for Bruce out there. Your mentor should have foresight. To see pitfalls. Possibilities. Your mentor, like Alfred, should direct you on a path that will lead you to something better that you might not have seen yourself.  
4. Alfred stands by Bruce through thick and thin. When the proverbial poop hits the fan (and at some point it always does), your mentor should be the type of person to be there to help pick you back up. 
5. Why does a mentor, and why does Alfred, do all this? Because damn it, HE CARES. If your mentor cares for your well-being, hell if ANYONE cares for your well-being in this day and age, consider yourself BLESSED. Because if that person truly cares you know that their knowledge, advice, and challenges will be coming from the right place. 
6. Bruce gives back. In any mentor/mentee relationship there needs to be a give and take. Bruce gives Alfred a pretty sweet house to live in, some pretty fine creature comforts, and studly protection. You in turn may not be able to give your mentor a mansion but your point of view, knowledge, and appreciation will go a long way in fostering the relationship. Because like any relationship it's a two way street and your mentor might get some satisfaction in knowing that you are better off because of them. So let them know that they are appreciated (even if that comes as a simple nod in thanks). 

 

Have a Nice Boss's Day ("Good Employees Are Hard to Find")

POINT TO PONDER

 

“The best kind of people (Bosses, Mentors, Friends) are those who come into your life, and make you see the sun where you once saw clouds. People who believe in you so much, that you start to believe in you too. They are once in a lifetime type of people."

 

 

STORY LINE by Anand Shah

I have been incredibly fortunate to have great bosses, mentors and friends during my 38 year career in the high tech industry. Of my many great experiences I have had with them, I would like to share one in particular for my 38^th anniversary in the industry which is on October 8^th, and also for Boss’s day next week which falls on October16th.

 

The gentleman I am going to talk about neither had a top degree or was a graduate of a top-notch university. What he had was a top-notch heart, a lot of common sense, and a deep understanding of human nature. He had graduated from the school of hard knocks. And one of the the things he learned was to hold back from flaunting his knowledge (which was plentiful), instead asking inquiring questions. In turn, we as employees learned through practical experience by doing, making mistakes, and correcting them. Through his approach, he motivated and inspired outstanding performance from his employees.

It seemed to me that his management philosophy was learned from sports, which he dearly loved and played in college until he unfortunately injured his knee. He was not just any ordinary Joe but an extraordinary human being who we affectionately called Joe Z.  I worked for him between 1977-1980 and then our paths crossed again in early 1990-1995 at another company. 

Thanks to the power of LinkedIn, recently I reconnected with him after 18 years. This time I did not want to miss the opportunity to thank him for all he had done for me, so I called him. What he said at the end of the conversation reaffirmed how fortunate I was to encounter such a person in my life. Here is my last phone call with him, which I am recalling from memory:

 

“You have made big and significant impact on my life by not only mentoring me (even though it took me a while to grow up and grasp what you had taught) but also you helped in my personal life as well.

 

You taught me that in order to be a good engineer I need to dirty my hands. Yes, I did clean diffusion tubes with  Brian, changed vacuum pumps with Hank and replaced metal targets with Bob, all of them were maintenance technicians. You asked me to do CV plots after cleaning the tubes so I understood if I had done proper cleaning job. And you know what, you were there first few times with us helping so I appreciated that you were the general who had fought the battle and willing to be with your troops.

 

You came to production area at least three times a day and talked to engineers, operators and technicians. ( This was years before Tom Peters wrote Management by walking around or many books on respecting every human being and their job)

 

Whenever there was a problem in manufacturing area, you held meeting right at that process station to do problem solving. (Now a days they call it LEAN practice)

 

When I wrote my first operational specifications, you asked me “What does Chu, Sharon and Jeannie think about it?” Those three were operators. From that day I never had any specifications passed on for signature until I had gotten the operators approval that they understood it. Not a single one of my spec was held up in production manager’s office, him wanting to ensure that the operators would understand what I had written. (Now a days they call it understanding User Experience)

 

And on personal side: You came to Immigration with me for my Green Card call and when the Immigration officer asked me to leave the country (due to company’s HR error) you went out of the way to call corporate in east coast to help. Then when I chose to go to India instead of Mexico or Canada to get my visa, you not only paid my entire trip and a month salary, you also let me go to Philippines on the way back to India to meet my childhood penpal. That childhood penpal (since I was 16) is my wife for last 35 years and wonderful what it has been.

 

Well that was not it. Later that year (December 78), when I went to Philippines to get married, you and your boss made sure that my air ticket was covered, salary was on and when I checked out of the hotel, the bill was covered. Then our paths crossed again at another company and even though you were very high up in the ranks in a different department and not my boss, you still sponsored many of my ideas. That made all the difference.”

 

REFLECTION

When I called him and recounted my memories and thanked him, this is what he said. "Good employees are hard to find. So I did everything possible to keep them. Looking for new ones (unknowns) is like betting in Las Vegas.” “So you don’t have thank me for all these.”

 

He is long retired but if he ever called me and asked me to work for him again, you can guess what my answer is going to be.

 

Looking back at my work and life, I have been fortunate to have met great people (starting with parents then teachers, bosses, mentors and friends). But the next week is for the Bosses.

 

Let us all Thank them and wish them “Have a Nice Boss’s Day."

Think Like Einstein

POINT TO PONDER

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

                            -Albert Einstein

 

STORY LINE

The following article is an extract from the book How to Think like Einstein by Scott Thorpe (example of Reframe technique taught in OBT class):

 

The problem Einstein solved that gave us E=mc² was an old one. A generation of scientists had been trying to understand why light always seems to be going at the same speed relative to the observer. It was one of sciences’ most important and baffling problems. Many brilliant people came close to the solution, but they all failed because of a rule developed a hundred years earlier by Isaac Newton that stated that time was absolute. It did not run faster or slower. It was universe’s constant. Newton’s reasoning made sense and the idea became firmly embedded in the minds of every scientist that followed and they couldn’t even imagine breaking the “Time is absolute” rule, so they couldn’t solve the problem.

 

Their problem went something like “How can nature appear to act that way when we know that it can’t?”

They failed because they were looking for an answer that did not exist.

 

Einstein simply imagined that time could run faster for one object than for another. That changed the problem completely. A few lines of math started Einstein down a road that has revolutionized our world. Einstein solved science’s most difficult problem by breaking a rule.

 

He asked himself “What would nature be like if it did act the way we observe it to act?”

Einstein succeeded because he was working on a problem that enabled solution.

REFLECTION

We leave this week's reflection with Alber Einstein himself:

“I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had grown up.”