Loud Thinking

Count your age by friends, not years Count your life by smiles, not tears.

– John Lennon

He who finds a new path is a pathfinder, even if the trail has to be found again by others; and he who walks far in advance of his contemporaries is a leader, even though centuries may pass before he is recognized as such and intelligently followed.

Ibn Khaldun

The term of life of a dynasty does not normally exceed three generations.
For in the first generation are still preserved the characteristic features of rough, uncivilized rural life, such as hard conditions of life, courage, ferocity, and partnership in authority.
Therefore the strength of the ‘Asabiya is maintained …

Ibn Khaldun

“Throughout history many nations have suffered a physical defeat, but that has never marked the end of a nation. But when a nation has become the victim of a psychological defeat, then that marks the end of a nation.”

― Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History

“The visible sign of utter love is an undying smile.”

—Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Humanitarian

“First, I eat healthy; it comes from the inside out. If you eat right, your skin, hair, nails will look good. The same if you have negative thoughts – they can give you a bad look, too; we reflect what we eat and think. Being happy and doing what I love really reflects.”

— Kate del Castillo

With She-Toilets, Chennai shows way in sanitation

An eye opening (for all the political parties in Pakistan)Times of india Report dated 16 June, 2014.

WHY FRUITS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYETEM ONLY IN INDIA.

WHY PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN WILL NEVER SEE A TRUE LOCAL GOVERNMENT PEOPLES SELF RULE?

MAY BE THIS IS THE REASON WHEN POLITICAL SYSTEM IS PACKED UP IN PAKISTAN PEOPLE DISTRIBUTE SWEETS BECAUSE PAKISTANI PUBLIC KNOWS THAT THESE POLITICAL LEADERS ARE NOT SINCERE WITH THE PUBLIC.

IS DEPRIVING PUBLIC FOR DECADES FROM THE LOCAL BODIES ELECTIONS NOT A VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF PAKISTAN?

CHENNAI: The Chennai Corporation is aiming for a clean sweep to tackle problems of female hygiene and access to sanitation — special ‘She Toilets’ have been planned for women in 348 locations across the city and will be opened by the end of the year. They will also be the first e-toilets (electronic, fully automated toilets) in the city. The toilets will have sanitary napkin vending machines and incinerators.

“This is also the first time Chennai Corporation has done a detailed survey and mapping of where public toilets are required and where the public oppose it,” said a senior corporation official. “Earlier the corporation would only ask the zonal engineer where to put up a toilet.” These 348 locations include bus stands, markets and open spaces.

The toilets will come as a relief to women who work outdoors all day such as vendors, construction workers and police officers. “We have to stand on the road for at least five hours while on bandobast duty,” said Leela Sri, a woman constable. “There are very few public toilets that we can use and most of them are filthy.” Leela, who has been on the job for 11 years, said she and her female colleagues are prone to urinary tract infections and fibroids. “If more of these toilets for women come up, the next generation of policewomen need not face such health problems,” she says. Kerala State Women’s Development Corporation recently introduced these toilets.

The most attractive feature of the e-toilet is that it flushes automatically even if a person fails to flush. “It is fully automated and after five uses, the unit automatically cleans up the entire toilet. The fans and lights turn on and off a person enters and leaves,” said Suneetan Nair, marketing officer, Eram Scientific, a Trivandrum-based firm that developed the product for Kerala, and one of the bidders for the project in Chennai.

To prevent vandalism and encroachment of public toilets, the She-Toilets will have GPRS devices. “All units have will have a GPRS device to alert the officials concerned in case of theft or vandalism,” Nair said. “It also has a voice complaint system where a person can simply press a button and record a complaint about the toilet,” he said.

Chennai currently has a little over 900 public toilets, inadequate for its 65 lakh population. “We tried public- private partnerships to help maintain toilets but it failed. Now we will form a public toilet monitoring wing in the corporation for existing toilets,” the official said. With the help of a non-governmental organisation, the corporation will conduct a 20-day survey to study the problems of existing toilets. “We know that the city is short of 2,000 toilets,” the official said. “We will ensure this is corrected by March 2015.”

Accommodate Older Workers

Corporate workforces are aging. Some companies have made strides to adapt, and they have seen improvements in retention and productivity, organizational culture, and the bottom line. Don’t fall behind. Use these practices to accommodate your older workers:
Flexible retirement. Give employees the option of working part-time. You retain experienced, talented employees and they get a flexible schedule and a paycheck.
Creating new positions or adapting old ones. Retrain older employees for jobs that better suit their current needs and skills. For example, can you transition an older worker out of a physically taxing role and into a training position? Could a long-time cashier move to customer service?
Changing workplace ergonomics. Companies should adapt for those who need extra support. Inexpensive tweaks like custom shoes and easier-to-read computer screens can make a huge difference.

Adapted by HBR from “ Four Ways to Adapt to an Aging Workforce” by Michael North and Hal Hershfield.

Dear Mr. Dalai Lama

Greetings.

Sir,

As know very well, about the worst form of genocide of Muslims by the Buddhists in Myanmar (Burma), which has shamed the Nazi German genocide of the humanity, during the World War II.

However, now there are reports from Sri Lanka, as well, where Buddhists every now and then indulge in atrocities and discriminatory violence, against Muslims.

Sir, Muslims and Buddhists are peaceful people who abhor violence in its every manifestation.

As such, you are requested to kindly immediately intervene personally, to stop spread of violence against the Muslims by the Buddhists, anywhere in the world, lest this situation may not go out of hands.

Love begets love.

How happy is your organisation..?

By Junaid Tahir

It’s a known fact that the efficiency of any organization is concretely linked with the work satisfaction index of the employees. You can hire good people by tough hiring criteria, you can ensure their attendance by installing time-in and time-out devices; you can ensure their availability on their desk by close monitoring through IP cameras etc however you cannot guarantee or enhance their creativity index, their efficiency and their loyalty factor by all these policing techniques. While most of the entrepreneurs want their teams to be the most effective ones and even they want them to move from effectiveness to greatness (as Stephen Covey tells in his book ‘The 8th Habit’) but least of them take the real effective actions in order to achieve the same.

In order to have highly collaborative and creative teams there should be an environment where teams should love what they are doing. Every morning if an employee while coming to office is enthusiastic and charged about the day, then he will make things happen. However if he is coming to office with sad heart or negative attitude then you have already half lost the project. So the point is that a culture of friendliness and trust needs to be ensured. Encouragement and consistent gratitude needs to be in place since it acts as a fuel and empowers the acceleration of the teams and the project tasks. Below are some of the points you must consider for the sake of monitoring the happiness and satisfaction index of your organization:

1- When was the last time you did an anonymous company-wise survey to seek feedback from each of the employee? What was the score?

2- One of the known questions from Gallup® is that “Do you have a best friend at work?” Being in-charge of your organization when did you noticed last time about any employees who don’t have their best friends at work? If yes, what have you done with your empathic skills to judge this and then took any action to nourish the culture of friendliness?

3- Do you have a rewarding culture in your company? Do you give spot awards, appreciation certificates, monetary rewards, free coupons or professional trainings?

4- Your employees are like batteries, do you measure their ‘charge level’. Remember your mobile battery icon becomes yellow and red when charge level is 25% and 10%? Same is the case with employees. You need to have close observatory and emotional intelligence and analytical skills to monitor such things.

5- Do you ensure that your employees have a great work-life balance? Are they stress free (work related stress) on weekends? Are they over loaded or under loaded or rightly loaded? Are your managers and team leads capable of assigning the right task to the right person?

6- Do you have family like environment where employees share their emotions, concerns and jokes? Do they laugh/smile while working (not applicable for customer facing employees)? Did you plan any family level or team level get together or any other team building activities?

I believe with the above recommendations you can observe, analyze and eradicate the most common causes of disengaged employees and eventually increase the productivity of the organization.

A final comment is that you should not treat your employee only as a physical human being, instead treat him as a compound of body, heart, mind and soul. Stephen R Covey recommends that once you start behaving according to this philosophy, employees start generating great results for the organization. If you would like to explore more on this, “The 8th Habit” book is the rich source of knowledge and wisdom; Google it to learn more.

JT.