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Create a Happier Team

Happy, engaged employees are good for an organization.

Research shows they are more creative, produce better results, and are willing to go the extra mile. What’s more, happiness is contagious; it creates a virtuous cycle that leads to further engagement.

To bring more of that into your team, focus on what psychologists have identified as the three pathways to happiness: pleasure, engagement, and meaning.

Consider whether you are actively encouraging these things in your people.

Do they enjoy their relationships and their environment at work?
Do they laugh? Do they fill roles that fit their skill sets and offer appropriate challenges? Do they feel they’re a part of something that matters?

If the answer is no to any of these questions, brainstorm how you can adjust the team environment to bring more happiness in.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “How Happy Is Your Organization?” by Susan David.

“If, in 10 years, you were to look back at your actions of
today, what would you change? Always be asking yourself in
terms of your goals and how you want to live.”

— Craig Ballantyne

Stewardship is an individual’s responsibility to manage his life and property with proper regard to the rights of others.

“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. ”

Michael Pollan (born 1955);
Author, activist

Ms Andleeb Abbas Sahiba, no words are enough to praise your noble thoughts. You are the number one motivational person in the country. I will request Mr. Najam Sethi to benefit from your services to enhance the performance of our cricketers.

PCB’s Insanity

An article of April 30, 2013

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

PCB has again selected all those batsmen for the champions trophy, who are known failures against quality bowling viz., Misbah ul Haq, Shoaib Malik and Kamran Akmal. Mr. Kamran Akmal is also known for his below average wicket keeping, as well. Moreover, Misbah ul Haq has also proved to be the biggest defensive brain & an ordinary mind, when it comes to the selection of final eleven and bowling changes.

This insane selection of dud players, makes the team highly unbalanced and even more prone to getting out on low scores.

As such, with the inclusion of the above named three players, now only a miracle can save Pakistani cricket team, from a humiliating early exit from the Champions trophy.

“The world has the habit of making room for the man whose words and actions show that he knows where he is going.”

— Napoleon Hill

PCB Must Invest in Future

Posted by Syed Nayyar Uddin on January 7, 2013

It is absolutely the right time to fully appreciate PCB and Pakistani cricket team for basically two achievements. Firstly, for winning the ODI series against India 2-1 and secondly, for completing a very sensitive tour, absolutely incident free.
Now, this is also very appropriate time for the PCB, to finalise its short and long term future plans, with regard to the policy of categorising players for the teams for Test’s, ODI’s and T20′s. This is necessary, because Pakistan will be competing for Test Championship, Champion’s Trophy, T20 World Cup and the ODI World Cup, all within next 36 months.
So, with an eye on the future, the PCB planning should focus on such potential players, who have the capacity or who can be groomed to have the capacity, to deliver for Pakistan, in the days to come. We should not waste time, energy and money on such players, who are past their prime and per se wants to continue playing, just for selfish reasons; but they are practically blocking the future of up coming and young players, for an indefinite period.
In this connection, PCB recently, took a difficult, bold and wise decision of dropping Shahid Afridi from the ODI version of the game. While, not taking anything from the past contributions of Shahid Afridi, PCB’s decision was very progressive and forward looking, but in my opinion, was still a bit late. National interests must not be compromised for personal wishes.
Now, again the time has come to select the players for the different versions of the game, on the basis of talent and capacity of the players, with prime objective of INVESTING in future. PCB should adopt a policy of bearing with the failures of the fresh lot with patience, rather than pursuing with old horses, who have even lost the strength, to easily hit sixes or even boundaries to reasonably good bowlers, or take three or four runs without being exhausted, on a slightly bigger grounds.
According to my observations, PCB must think about the future of the following players in a very rational manner.
1. Misbah ul Haq. He is not at all capable to play till the 2015 ODI World Cup. Even now, he is over age and not capable of steering the team out of a crisis situations, in front of WORLD CLASS bowling, particularly against out of sub-continent teams. So, why not to groom a fresh batsman instead of MUH and on the other hand, give the captaincy to Muhammad Hafeez, for gaining the experience for the coming Champions Trophy and the ensuing ODI World Cup? Moreover, he is the biggest defensive mind in the Pakistan cricket hence, absolutely unfit to lead as a captain of even a club team.
2. Younis Khan. Our selectors took a retrogressive action in recalling him for the Indian tour, from the ODI retirement. Even his presence in the team today in the 3rd ODI, couldn’t save Pakistan from a mere 10 runs defeat against India. His selection for the Indian tour has cost us heavily, in not giving experience to a youngster. He should be decently thanked for his services and let him not block the future of any budding batsman. PCB should not be so callous with the new generation of batsmen, that retired batsmen be made to come in their way. If PCB had recalled Muhammad Yousaf or even Inzamam ul Haq, may be, they would have scored runs more than the newcomers, but then we can’t and must not live in the past, under any circumstances. For that matter, if India lost the ODI series against Pakistan, no heavens have fallen. Similarly, if we had lost to India with fresh legs, it would have been a gain of experience, rather than winning with recall, of retired persons.
3. Kamran Akmal. Just like Shahid Afridi (who can still be selected for some more time and months for his bowling abilities) Kamran Akmal is a spent cartridge in batting; and to continue with him is in fact, deceiving ourselves. He may still give some performances against mediocre bowling, but against world class bowlers, his batting is absolutely UN-DEPENDABLE. As far as his wicket keeping is concerned, he is a below average keeper at the international level. However, there is no shortage of young generation of agile wicket keepers and hence, further continuation with Kamran Akmal, is like living in a fools paradise.
4. Shoaib Malik. There is no doubt that he was past his prime many months ago. He has reached a stage, where its impossible for him to perform against quality bowling, particularly in ODI and T20 versions of the game. If we argue that he performed well in domestic level, then the selectors should be told that domestic level performances are for the new players. International players are judged on their performances against foreign teams. These are two separate criterions for the different levels of players. If the selectors still wants to retain some old horses, for Test matches for some time, then PCB management shall be the better judge. However, these old players must not be used in a way to stop the career of the budding players.
5. Umar Akmal. He was touted in the past to be a player with immense talent. However, he has proved wrong, all his fans and well wishers. In fact, he is the most UN-DEPENDABLE batsman in the team. Not to play him is a risk. However, to play him is a bigger risk. While batting, he is a very risky person for the batsman at the other end. Moreover, mostly his shot selections are very poor. He never puts a price on his wicket. Also it looks that in his failures, there is a big hand of his head coach. Somehow, this man looks a fit case for sending him to a psychologist, for making him a person with some sense of responsibilities and strong mental power, who should be able to focus on teams goal achievement. Till such time he is transformed into a mature person, Umar Akmal seems to be an utterly misfit player in the national squad.

The NCA bosses should also be answerable for their failures, in grooming the budding players like the left handed batsman Awais Zia, who showed great promise, as an attacking batsmen, during the last series in Dubai, against England.

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

Lahore.

Teach Yourself to Think Globally

Managers with cross-cultural expertise are in high demand these days. Fortunately, you don’t need to have extensive international experience or speak multiple languages to acquire a global outlook. Here are three ways to broaden your perspective:

Observe. Cultivate a curiosity about how places operate. Ask foreign colleagues lots of questions, and don’t assume you know the answers.

Study. Formal education—in world history, economics, politics, and international business—helps you broaden your perspective. But informal study is important, too: Read international literature, take in foreign films, and so on.

Open your mind. Understand the importance of bringing out the best in people, regardless of where they hail from or what languages they speak. Respect and explore other cultures, welcome new experiences, and seize opportunities to work with people of other nationalities.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “Join the Global Elite” by Gregory C. Unruh and Ángel Cabrera.

Subject: اے طاۂرٴ لا ەوتی اس رزق سے موت اچھی جس رزق سے آتی ەو پرواز میں کوتاھی
A Fervent Appeal

H’able Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Sahab.

AoA.

I am fully convinced that you still firmly believe in the content and spirit of the subject mentioned poetry, which was also the punch line of one of your elections 2013 advertisements.

However, I was really disappointed by the speech of Mr. Ishaq Dar, which he delivered at the NA on Saturday, 22 June, 2013.

Hope, you remember very well, how the TIMID Pervaiz Musharraf had told the nation that if he had not accepted the US demands of war on terror, Pakistan would have been bombed by the USA, to the Stone Age. Similarly, Mr. Ishaq Dar had tried to scare the nation, by saying that if Pakistan don’t take further loan from the IMF, for the repayment of the old loans, it will go into default. By the way we’ve paid off the principal anyway, as have dozens of countries, some several times over. In any case, when Argentina, Ecuador, even Dubai, defaulted heavens didn’t fall.

Sir, perhaps you remember, in one of my recent emails it was stated that ” Fatemi Sahab, don’t make Musharraf of Mian Nawaz Sharif Sahab. Remember, a timid person can be a ruler but he can never be a leader. It’s the duty of the advisors to never leave the PM or the President, in a state, where he is forced to make decisions, under the influence of fear. This can only be done if the advisor informs the leader, all the strong and weak points in a balanced manner.”

I also hope that Mr. Ishaq Dar knows very well the dirty role of the world lending agencies as exposed in his famous book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” written by John Perkins and published in 2004.

According to his book, Perkins’ function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with debts they could not hope to pay, those countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues. Perkins argues in his book that developing nations were effectively neutralized politically, had their wealth gaps driven wider and economies crippled in the long run. In this capacity Perkins recounts his meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes the role of an Economic Hit Man (EHM) as follows:

“Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly-paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.”

In 1988, economist Davison Budhoo revealed in his 22-page resignation letter – more of an expose of IMF ‘expertise’ – after his 11 years with it: “When we went on a mission, we did not even have the scope to innovate, to look at the country and make projections, that you thought were reasonable… there was already a briefing paper before we entered the country. We were told what we were expected to do, and give conditionality in terms of what the fiscal deficit was and how much it should be reduced; even before we entered the mission… we were expected to structure our findings in relation to the figures in the briefing paper, which were put there without any research, and were predetermined. So the conditionality was also predetermined… In this sense, every IMF mission is fraudulent even today…”

Mr. Prime Minister, not that I am only saying that your government must not take IMF loan to pay the old loan, which will be the biggest trap for our future generations; but in many previous emails I have also clearly suggested more than one solutions (kindly inform if i need to resend those emails again) for Pakistan, to resolve this issue of old IMF loan payments, without taking fresh loans from the IMF.

With Best Wishes and Kind Regards,

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

Lahore.

Sent from my iPad3 4G LTE