When I was school going kid, our place was a small city in India. No school buses, so boys and girls were walking to the school which was not more than a mile for the farthest children. The place was a hilly area; extreme hot in summer and chilling cold in winter. In summer the schools were closing at 10 AM so that children can return back home by 10:30. We were 7 brothers and sisters. Like all other houses, we were locked inside the house till evening. We had a favorite game to pass our time. We used to collect small stones from a pile left from previous construction and made competition as to who can pass maximum of 10 stones through the window bars; ¾ inch in diameter and 3 inches apart. Nobody was able to make a score better than 3 per 10 pebbles.
Time passed by and I took admission in Engineering. In second year we have an interesting subject Statistics of which probability was a chapter. One day out of nowhere I thought of calculating the probability of a pebble passing through the gap between two bars if thrown without aiming. I put right size of bar dia. and gaps between bars and selected an average diameter for the pebble. The result was stunning. The probability of the stone hitting the bar was less than 0.5%. Then why the stones were hitting the bar 70 – 80% on most of the occasion. I talked to my professor. He checked my calculations and told me that the calculation was correct. He was not interested in my story of getting an opposite result. Later I talked about my confusion to some elders (My father was dead then, although an extremely busy medical practitioner, he was never short of time to his children’s educational matters) but nobody even listened to my confusion attentively. So gradually this dilemma faded from my memory.
It was late 80s when while reading an article in the Readers Digest, I got the answer to my long surviving query. The query, though had faded from my memory but never disappeared. It was a story of a man taking his son on a hunting session, hunting flying birds with a shot gun. The boy was an excellent shot and had scored excellent results shooting flying discs. The boy got the first bird right. Second he failed and subsequently he failed the next five. The boy was shocked, surprised and full of shame. But the father was not at all surprised because he knew the reason from his experiences. He told his son that after the first failure, his concentration was on his failure and not the previous success. His mind was overwhelmed with the apprehension of failure instead of aiming for success. In all such cases the failure has a much stronger probability. His asked his son to think of the target with confidence of success and memory of his first success. The boy could hit the target successfully thereafter. Lecture of the father not only corrected the mission of his son, provided me with the answer of the question which was somewhere present in my mind since the last 25 years. Because the query was there somewhere in my mind, I could co-related the story with my childhood experience. Now the result of my quest was vivid in my mind. While aiming to throw the stone through the gaps, we were afraid that the stone will hit the bar, and our aim was unintentionally directed towards the bar and we were successfully hitting the bars, which so far we have been considering failure. Think of the great ability Almighty has given to us. A strife which has less that 0.5% probability, we were achieving an average of 75% of success.
But why I want to tell these stories to professional engineers. Nobody is trying to throw stones between the bars. Nobody is going on hunting missions.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the same rule of throwing pebbles and hunting flying birds apply to our quest for successful career. Whether, it is engineering, finance, or simply, a sport. We have to find out whether we are targeting our success or concentrating over the fear of failure.
Have you seen in a cricket match if a very good batsman comes under pressure and becomes afraid of losing, every time he drives a ball, the ball will go straight to a fielder. He is in fact hitting the bar.
Targeting the Success
Everybody has set goal for his or her career. Each of us wishes to reach certain heights which he thinks is achievable. The first thing is to identify whether we are targeting a success or dreaming of a success. If you are targeting a success, you will in your mind think of the steps which can take you to that height. Hence your ultimate target should be broken into multiple targets; we call them steps. You ought to know well in your mind that without achieving; surmounting or circumventing, the first step, you should not dream of the next one. Your strife for the ultimate goal can only be successful if achieved in steps. Somebody has wisely said that success is achieved not in miles but in inches. Move a little further, hold your ground and move further. If, however, you think of an ultimate target, and within your mind, you are thinking only of the comforts and authority of that position, then be advised that you have not started targeting your goal. You are simply dreaming of a goal and chances of you reaching there are remote.
If you are really targeting a goal then try to identify the pre-requisites for achieving success as well as the distractions which may deviate you, away from the right course.
- To aspire for some higher position, you have to prove yourself worth for the present one with a great margin. In present day corporate culture, the success is measured of a team and seldom of individuals. If you are leader of a team, then it becomes more imperative that you get maximum, from every member of the team. Planning is the key. If you proceed without proper planning and did not allocate responsibilities of the individuals properly, then chances of success are remote. Blaming your colleagues and subordinate for your failure is another negative aspect preventing your success. Hence healthy relationship with your colleagues and subordinates will go in your favour. Don’t forget that you can achieve this only by creating respect for you in the hearts of others. A simple rule is that don’t expect from others what your yourself dislike to do. If you are thinking negative, you will form a big list of individuals, who don’t like you and are declining to follow your line or cooperate with you. All your life you will focus on fighting the intrigues (many of them imaginary) of others. Your target towards the goal (success) will be drastically distracted.
- The other important factor is to develop good relations with those who are not part of your team but important for you to achieve your tasks. Like, other department heads, with whom your coordination is essential. You will find people with different temperament, and dealing stubbornly will only result in stubborn reactions. To deal with people effectively is your own responsibility, which if you try to involve the top management, will not create any good impression of yours. Dealing with people so that they give you priority, is not very difficult but it needs most of the corrections in yourself which is the most difficult part of the career. Everybody considers himself perfect and wants others to correct their behaviour. Unless you learn the art of self- analyzing and analyze what changes I can make in my approach, improvements, can be a remote dream.
- While talking with others never forget the golden rule of effectiveness as published by famous human behavior specialist Eric Bern.
What Do You SayActual Words – 7% The way words are delivered – 38% Facial Expression – 55% If high success is my dream, then instead of trying to change the world, I have to focus on the target and make positive changes in my own approach.
- Successful managers never stop achieving knowledge. It is the knowledge that make you distinguished from others. Learning more about your subject, about management, about planning and about human behaviour are the essential tools for becoming successful mangers.
Plans are worthless planning is everything
These are not the words of an engineer nor of a management specialist. These are the words of General Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the allied armed forces during the Second World War. However similar message has been passed by the famous management specialist, Dr. Edward Deming. Never try to implement a plan which has been successfully implemented in some other organization. Don’t forget that every plan is tailor made for a particular environment. For any planning, the first requirement to collect actual data with respect to your strength, your weaknesses, prevailing guiding policy of the company, study of market/ client behaviour, a comprehensive study of client’s complaints or dissatisfaction. Only after collecting the above data, a successful planning can start. Planning is what every leader must carry out and refrain from going with shortcut, and implementing, someone else’s successful plan. Planning is all about setting targets one after another in order to achieve the ultimately set goal.
It is not very unusual that some factors and maybe some people are really trying to create impediment in your way for success. Never waste your energy in getting square with creating impediments for them by fighting their intrigues or clarifying the negative impression they are creating for you. These are the unnecessary distractions and if you fall prey to them, these will distract your focus from your ultimate goal and impede your progress. Just consider that if you are thinking seriously about those who are creating impediments for you, your focus will unintentionally be diverted towards them so much so that while concentrating on your goal, your mind will focus on the impediment and those who are creating the impediments. You will end up hitting the bars. Your performance should speak about you alone and policy of ignoring the impediments will create frustration in those who wish to see you down. Accordance to my experience ignoring the negative thinkers is a safe and positive policy; a policy which always shows positive results.
Don’t forget that Almighty has given you limited energy and resources. It is your own choice whether you use all the energy and resources in building your career or a good part of them in venting out anger against those whom you consider are creating hurdles on your way to success.
Mohammad Fakhar Mahmood
Senior Electrical Engineer, Gulf Consult