Loud Thinking

Posts Tagged ‘My Views’

Opportunity is a situation favorable for attainment of a goal.

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra (born 1925);
former professional baseball player and manager

Listen to Your Customers — Especially When They Disagree

When you’re faced with a decision that’s going to make some customers angry no matter what you choose, it’s hard to know which voices to listen to, or whether to listen at all. But there is no more valuable time to listen to your customers than when they disagree.
Figure out which groups of customers feel which way. If you learn that some customers are alienated by your decision but others are prepared to pay richly for it, you can at least make an educated decision. If you end up making a decision that you know will make one set of customers unhappy, look for opportunities to change their minds.
Whichever consumer group you end up siding with, equip your employees (including your social media community managers) with the information and the tools they need to answer people’s questions and address opposition to your decision.

Adapted by HBR from “Listening to Your Customers When Your Customers Disagree” by Alexandra Samuel.

“The Girl Scouts is an organization that constantly gives you new goals to achieve and that’s what life is all about.”

— Maria Bartiromo

Action is better than inaction..!

Dropping Anwer Ali and selecting Shoaib Malik (who can not send the ball beyond 30 yards circle), is such a huge blunder that it may cost Pakistan very heavily in the T20 World Cup.

Moreover, why PCB is silent over Abdur Rehman’s mind boggling 3 NO Balls very dubious performance. Hope vested interest of some in the PCB, is not waiting for another sting operation like the one conducted by the NOW (News of the World) to further defame the country, which removed the lid over the SPOT fixing scandal of Salman Butt, Muhammad Asif and Muhammad Amir. It is high time the evil is nipped in the bud.

Action is better than inaction.

Shahid Afridi = (India + Bangladesh) combined

Mr. Shahid Khan Afridi, you have again entertained your country men and the cricket lovers all over the world, in an amazing and a miraculous manner.

Mr. Afridi, this time you have defeated and sent back not one, but the hopes of the two teams out of the tournament. It looks you have become the nemesis (an agent or act of retribution or punishment) of these teams.

Never ever in the history of cricket, a one man demolition squad, has thrown a team twice out of the tournament, with such a thunderous performance, like you have done in a spate of 48 hours.

Mr. Shahid Khan Afridi, this war torn nation is really indebted to you for all the joys, smiles and happiness you gave us with your amazing talent and skills of the game.

May Allah Bless our cricket team with even more success and triumphs, in the days to come.

Vision is the ability to think ahead with imagination or wisdom.

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
‘Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple’s self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o’ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, ’tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city’s din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I’ll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

Literature Network » John Keats » A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

Avoid These Confidence-Busting Traps

Confidence is an expectation of a positive outcome. It is not a personality trait; it is an assessment of a situation that sparks motivation. It’s not confidence itself that produces success; it’s the investment and the effort. To muster the confidence to meet your goals, avoid these common traps:

Goals that are too big or too distant. Leaders often like to say they want to tackle BHAGs — “big hairy audacious goals.” But having only enormous goals can actually undermine confidence. Confidence comes from small wins that occur repeatedly, with each small step moving you closer to the big goal.

Blaming someone else. Confidence rests on taking responsibility for one’s own behavior. Even in difficult circumstances, we have choices about how to respond to adversity. When the blame game is carried out within companies, everyone loses confidence, including external stakeholders. Confidence is the art of moving on.

Adapted by HBR from “Overcome the Eight Barriers to Confidence” by Rosabeth Moss Kanter.

Dhaka Debacle..!

There is no shame in going down fighting. As they say, if fate has ordained defeat for you, give it a good fight. However, any team is as good, as its leader. And there can not be a better saying to describe the importance of a leader, than the one associated with Alexander the Great, quoted as below:

“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”

What happened in the Asia Cup final at Dhaka on Saturday, 8 March, 2014 is a classic example of mental bankruptcy of the Pakistani cricket team’s think tank, or the tour management committee, consisting of Messrs Zaheer Abbas, Zakir Khan, Moin Khan and Misbah ul Haq.

At the out set, two basic and important decisions (team selection and the decision to bat first) were wrong: where we made sure that the match was lost, even before a ball was bowled.

Always the basics of team selection stipulates the cardinal rule that only fit players are selected. The whole world knew that Umar Gul, Junaid Khan, Sharjeel Khan and Shahid Afridi were not 100% fit. If at all, we had to take chance with an unfit player, only Shahid Afridi was the person, where the gamble was worth taking. Otherwise, Suhaib Maqsood and other two fit players viz., Bilawal Bhatti and Anwer Ali should have played for the unfit Sharjeel Khan, Umar Gul and Junaid Khan.

Now, coming to the batting first decision, again the whole world knew that we earlier won very close matches against India and Bangladesh, by chasing the target. May be, the long list of unfit players included in the team, was the reason for the surprise decision of batting first, so that the injuries does not further aggravates, in fielding first.

After the disastrous top batting order collapse (exclusive responsibility of which falls on Zaheer Abbas, the chief batting consultant), Misbah and Fawad Alam, almost consecutively played four maiden overs, which practically reduced our innings to 46 overs. Such type of defensive approach is never adopted in an ODI match, under any circumstances; because of its limited overs nature. Yes, Test matches are saved under such type of situations, but in an ODI match, game is only played for victory; and victory can not be achieved by playing record number of dot balls, even if there is a collapse. How can any team forget the adage that offence is the best defence?

Furthermore, unfit Shahid Afridi was not played for his bowling prowess. Obviously, he was included, keeping in consideration his tremendous batting form. As such, at least for the last five overs. Fawad Alam should have been called back, as retired hurt, to allow Shahid Afridi to have a go. Shahid Afridi was our nuclear weapon and the enemy was allowed to conquer us with, worlds most potent weapon in our arsenal, unused. We could not have given a bigger gift to our enemy, that too, in the most important final match.

In the bowling department, we perhaps wrongly believed that only one fit bowler i.e., Saeed Ajmal will single handedly take ten wickets in his ten overs. After all, the Sri Lankans were not in the finals for nothing.

Our most pathetic performance was given in the fielding and wicket keeping departments. Our team’s fielding just gave a look of a third rate club team, if compared with the fielding performance of the Sri Lankan team. As such, Mr. Shoaib Muhammad do not even deserve a stint for the T20 World Cup tour. Pakistani team gave a much better performance in the fielding department, during the last UAE series matches. This proves that our fielding coach, practically contributed in the down fall of the teams fielding level. Hence, he also deserves immediate sacking.

In view of the foregoing, if we have to at least play the semi finals of the T20 World Cup, then the entire tour management committee and the fielding coach, must be replaced with some deserving and capable persons.

Misbah ul Haq, has again proved that that he is not at all capable, to lead Pakistani team to the victory podium of the 2015 ODI World Cup. He is being retained as captain, at our own peril.