Loud Thinking

Archive for 2013

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself. ”

Alan Alda (born 1936);
actor, director, screenwriter

Be a Work-Life Role Model

Everyone struggles to find the right balance between work and life. As a manager, how you personally handle this challenge influences your team members. They are looking to you for signs of what they can and should do. Here is how you can set a good example:

Be open. Talk candidly about your own challenges and strategies for fitting together your work, family, and personal life. Let your employees see you as more than just a person who works.

Appreciate others as whole people. Respect the fact that everyone you work with has a life beyond work. Encourage people to talk about their non-work activities with colleagues.

Be willing to experiment. Ask people about what would help improve their ability to achieve work results while also increasing their well-being beyond work. When employees are involved in designing and implementing solutions, they’re more committed to making them work.

Adapted from “The Ripple Effects You Create as a Manager,” by Monique Valcour

India second most dangerous country for journalists in 2013, after Syria:

India ‘most dangerous place in world to be born a girl’

India is the most dangerous place in the world to be born a girl, with females almost twice as likely to die before reaching the age of five, according to new UN figures. (The Telegraph).

“The more you help others, the faster you will get results.”

— Catherine Gordon

Opportunity is a chance to do something for someone.

“Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity…”

Gilda Radner (1946-1989);
American comedian, actress

Few Suggestions for the All Parties Conference on Security

H’able Prime Minister of Pakistan

AoA.

The PMLN’s government under your leadership deserves full kudos, for giving top priority and maximum time and energy, to the critical crisis areas of energy short fall, economic down turn and the alarmingly poor law and order situation.

Your decisions and actions on improving internal security situation is specially laudable, keeping in view that without genuine peace in the country, all investments in time, energy and money goes waste. In this regard, the APC meeting is the best course of action, for beginning of the journey towards the right direction.

In this connection, the following may be considered for making it a part of the overall national security plan, under formulation.

Currently, we are a derailed nation for all the wrong decisions of the former military dictator Pervaiz Musharraf, which has turned Pakistan into a battle field of all sorts of intrigues of our enemies.

Under the circumstances, Pakistan can not be put back on the track in every field of life, till such time total normalcy and complete peace is restored, in the entire length and breadth of the country, for which Pakistan immediately needs an original and home grown security policy, which should be later on implemented by our own Pakland Security Bureau (a proposed name) personnel who must be highly trained and motivated professionals, as is being done in the USA, by their Homeland Security Department, without any exemptions or discrimination for the VIP’s etc.

Besides other comprehensive details, this policy should also aim in the long run, to make Pakistan a gun free country. This may sound a bit far fetched idea, but then not failure, but low aim is a crime and in order to achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.

Moreover, Pakistan has reached a stage of life and death in the fight against the terrorism, which has virtually blown the country to the smithereens. So, the security policy makers must be clearly told to not just copy and paste the American or Israeli security policy measures. Ours is a different case and we have NO OTHER OPTION EXCEPT TO PREVAIL OVER THE MENACE OF TERRORISM IN THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE TIME.

As such, our security policy paradigms should be proactive, ingenious and visionary. At any cost we have to be a step head of the aggressive designs of our internal and external enemies. This security policy should be an amalgamation of internal, external, defence, religious and national issues.

Furthermore, no security agency can succeed without the active cooperation of the general public.

As such, there is a dire need for motivating general public to remain extra-vigilant in playing their role of defending the motherland, by involvement of entire population of the country, to look out for the stay and suspicious activities of the terrorist, in their near vicinity.

This, in order to make the stay of terrorists at any place almost impossible, it is proposed to actively involve the entire population to look out & hunt them. This objective can be easily achieved, by the announcement of the government, that a reward of Rs. 50 millions shall be paid to any person, who informs the Police about the terrorists staying in a house, hostel, hotel, rest house or any such place.

Similarly, each and every mosque must have a committee (registered with the area police station) for ensuring that no affairs are conducted through the premises of the mosque, which are against the declared national policy of peace and harmony among the residents/population of the area/country. The government must be aware of the vital importance of the Madrissa’s and Mosque’s, in maintaining peace and harmony in the country. As such, all such responsible religious persons, must be on board in the new security policy of the country.

If the war against terror is to be won quickly, the entire population of the country have to be geared up and involved in the task of watch and vigilence.

Wishing you Godspeed in your endeavours to bring peace and prosperity to Pakistan.

Best regards,

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

Create Advocates for Your Brand

Often the most important people selling your product are not your sales and marketing teams, but your customers. Here’s how to turn them into company advocates:
Let them interact. Connect your customers to their peers — other people like themselves who deal with similar issues. Bring them together through live events, in teleconferences, forums, and other networks so that they can exchange ideas and learn from each other.
Market their triumphs. Prospects care about what they can accomplish with your products. Tout your customers’ achievements in any white papers or case studies you publish as much, if not more, than your own.
Have them do the talking. When you need someone to speak about your products or services in public forums or with the media, ask your PR person to take a back seat and give your customers the opportunity to speak on your behalf.

Adapted by HBR from “How to Create True Customer Advocates,” by Bill Lee.

“Figure out what you want. Focus on it. Find people who have achieved what you want and find out how they think and act, and then follow their lead.”

— Bill Harris

“If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.”

— John D. Rockefeller