Is Happiness a Myth?

Life has never been challenging with the modern complexities in the society. Majority of us are in a battle for happiness. A perceived happiness hindering our minds abilities to be self contented. The moment you reach your life's next goal, the quench for the next keeps us pondering what is the real happiness, where is the real happiness.

Society the complex creature

If analyzed properly, the stimuli that we receive from the current society, the society that we wish to live in and the highest level of the society are impeccable. From a grin of a celebrity on a red carpet to the television advertisement telecasting the next Ferrari car, attracts our subconscious to believe that the happiness is there.

Facebook... Twitter.. Linkedin Please!!!

The modern society is filled connected through networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin. People share their life experiences on these networks. Again what we see is a perception of a friend's life, the perception that the friend wants to create, the predicament of how an amazing life the friend has. Is that the reality?

Blinded we are!!!

Is happiness a myth? Is anyone in this world happy. The more you work towards, the perceived happiness. The more you realize you are reaching far from the reality.

The happiness a small child has when the child gets on receipt of the first gift. When was the last time you were that happy? When was the last time you laughed as if it was the last day of your life. Life is complicated enough for us to worry about what the future holds.

Live simple. Do small changes to life. Life is too short to run after a myth. It is your life own it.   

Confusing P's of Marketing

As a student of marketing I always fascinated the  fact that many people misinterpreted the word marketing to Advertising. I have even heard top management in some companies using marketing synonymous to advertising.

Marketing goes way beyond what human mind can grasp. It goes to an extent of studying the human brain and doing the most difficult thing in the world which is understanding humans.  Marketing it is not just a management practice or a department with highly paid staff. The philosophy attempts to analyze human behavior and predict the possible changes in needs and wants of humans.  The more you learn this subject the more you get amazed of its power.

Marketing Fruit Salad

The Marketing mix is the bread and butter for Students of marketing. We learn to manipulate the 7 P's (Product, Place, Price, Promotions, Physical Evidence, Processes and People) to optimize the level of delightfulness of the customers. From a marketing budget perspective a common perception is the to sell more the marketing budget allocation should be centric towards Promotions. This is evident from huge advertising budgets  Ex: JPMorgan Chase spent $1.88 billion in year 2013

Focus on Product

But from a contemporary view perspective it always surprises me the level of emphasis on "Product". Day in and day out we read stories of how apple became successful through extensive focus on product design.  When will we ever learn a lesson. Marketing department is responsible of identifying the customer needs and wants and delight them ensuring that they generate profit. Surprising to see why the marketing departments are not getting involved in product design. 

Leverage on the Rush or the outcomes from the Rush

It is evitable that Sri Lankan society is going through significant socio cultural environment changes. With effects from globalization Sri Lanka is shifting more towards a westernized culture.

Walawwa is no longer luxury

40 years back, if a Sri Lankan lived in a Walawwa they were considered to be the richest people living in this country. Walawwa used to be a symbol of inherited wealth. Living in a Walawwa was the luxary 40 years back. If you observe the current Sri Lankan social behavioral patterns it is evitable Walawwa is no longer the luxury living place but apartments are. Real Estate industry has cleverly positioned apartments as the ultimate luxury mainly through the choice of place of the apartment buildings where most are located in prime locations. They also augment their product offering through value additions like fitness centers, community socialization areas, and security services in addition to luxurious furniture and state of the art apartment designs.

Healthier Life Styles

Nowadays the society is becoming more and more concerned on healthier life styles. Generation before this was not concerned on health and they are increasingly having health problems which are indirectly pushing the younger generations to be more concerned on healthier life patterns. The modern society is pushed through various stimuli around them to spend time and money on physical fitness. So many business opportunities are out there leveraging on these transforming life styles.

Sri Lanka among top boozing nations

Sri Lankans drink till they die. Sri Lankan culture was enriched with its routes strengthened through core

principles of Buddhism. The fifth core principle in Buddhism is you should not booze. The reason is it affects the “Samma Ditti” or alcohol effects the state of mind. But now Sri Lankan society is boozing for purposes like fun or devastatingly because life is a problem to them. Sri Lankans no longer looks for solutions they drink alcohol for temporary sensation. These trends are shifting the core routes of Sri Lankan culture and there are a lot of businesses leveraging on these life style shifts.

 New Sri Lanka Rushing

If you closely observe these trends societal trends a question that arises is the new Sri Lanka rushing. If you look at the core reasons of why a preferred luxury living option is apartments, or why people are concerned on healthier life styles. Or why they booze don’t you think that new Sri Lanka is rushing.

Key reason for opting for apartments is the convenience of place, less travel to office. An average Sri Lankan now spends more than 55 hours at office where as the expectation is only 45 hours. The workplace has become more competitive that people are making all their decisions based on the career that their involved in. Healthier life styles, more than anything else Sri Lankans are having health concerns because of the enormous stress levels. Unbearable stress levels demands for people to look balance both physically and mentally.  Even boozing it is the same reason; people look for a temporary escape from their current state of mind. Percentage increase of working women is directly proportionate to the increasing trend of women boozers. Sri Lanka is rushing at a deadly pace.

From a business perspective, majority of the businesses are centered on the outcomes of a rushing nation. But there are fewer businesses focused on the root cause of all these outcomes. Sri Lanka is rushing there is tremendous opportunity both while rushing and around the outcomes of rushing.

Kumbhakarna Syndrome Explained

Most of you have heard about King "Rawana". King Rawana defines the prehistoric era of Sri Lanka with his kingdom still seen as the highest state a Sri Lankan king has ever been in. King Rawana had a brother named Kumbakarana. Kumbakarana is known for this very famous trait of his where he sleeps for days. Not a single person in this world is able to wake Kumbakarana up. Even today a person who sleeps too much in Sri Lanka is called a "Kumbaya" evolving from the Kumbakrana story. 

One fine sunny warm day Kumbakarana went to sleep. Since it was warm day he was not wearing the typical heavy King's clothes but was dressed in light clothes since he was going to sleep and he orderred his servants to keep the window open expecting that breeze flowing through the windows will suit the warm weather conditions. He went to sleep on this warm day and he went on sleep for days and days. One fine day he wakes up and starts shouting at the servants why they have kept the windows open? Kumbakarana has slept througout a season. It was the winter season the environment has changed and you can't keept he windows open in the winter season. 

This is an amazing example of how important it is for us to understand that the enviromment around us is changing. If you do not adapt to the environmental changes then you end up being just another kumbakarana.

Walt Disney any childs dream with 200 outlest across the globe with a theme "It's a small world after all" ventured in to France where 17 millino Europeans live less than a two hour drive and 310 million can fly  there in the same time or less. Everyting sounded perfect French Government granted $ 1 Billion worth incentives expecting 30000 jobs. Company made a blunder in understanding the French Culture.

1. Monday Vs. Friday - Friday and Fun both starts with "F". Friday is the Fun day in the calendar. Walt Disney went with the same assumption and capacity planning was done in away that they expected more people to come on Friday. Assumption was wrong majority came on Monday.

2. No Wine - In Sri Lanka serving wine on a Themes park would have been a crime but in France people have wine for their every meal its a part of their culture. Not having wine in restaurants was a disaster. 

3. Europeans don't eat breakfast - Again incorrect assumption, Americans eats the Lunch and Breakfast together. But French had breakfast, breakfast was very important to them. 

Walt Disney had made a blunder in analysing the evironment. Walt Disney being the giant it  failed to realize that the seasons change, envirnments change.

There are some companies that levrage heavily on changing environmental conditions. An example is Diet Coke, in 1981 Coke invested on Diet coke predicting that peopl'e life styles would chagne and be centric towards being healthy. Diet Coke is now ahead of Pepsi and second to Coke 2nd Best brand in the carbonated drinks market. In 2013 Sri Lankans are concerned about being healthy eating less sugar where as Coke predicted this trend way back in 1981. 

The envirnoment is changing everyday observing these changes will define how successful a comapny or how successful a person is. 

Finding your True Passion

Over the years we have seen many personal development gurus talking about how important it is to find what you like to do, what you are so passionate of doing. The reason is this passion will drive you to go beyond your capacity. These statements was misleading me and I was talking with few of my other friends with similar backgrounds, are you doing what you really like, and are you passionate about what you are doing. They were doing exceptionally well at their current positions and surprisingly the responses were not in line with what the famous personal development gurus were thinking.

Majority of us are not sure of what we really want out of life or what we are really passionate about. For most of us life is a mystery, which at times does not make much sense. But further analysis showed the success behind some of the young executives is not mainly due to their passion on what they do. They are challenge seekers. Generation Y unlike Generation X are driven with challenge and there is red ocean competition between young executives to prove that one is better than the other. 

Generation Y has built a lot of self-ego around them and continuous challenges has proven to become a critical motivator for these young executives representing the Generation Y. Time has come to revisit the traditional techniques and methods that were deemed to be the mantras of success.

One has to challenge himself to understand his boundaries; it may as well be limitless. Time is ripe for most of us who spend 9 hours working on the same old job, same old role to rethink and challenge our status quo. More comfortable you are in what you do, the opportunity to grow is hindered. Time has come to challenge ourselves to go beyond what we have already achieved. 

May be you could be wondering why your next promotion is not working, what to do to ensure that you get your next promotion. I was going through a motivational video and the advice was very simple. You need to “Work on  Your Work”. You need to continuously improve on the way you work, how you work, processes or tools used, invest on skill building or it could be investment on a professional qualification. Unless you are willing to challenge yourself, our horizons will always be limited.

Be Different - Be an Eagle

Eagles Fly above the Clouds when it Rains

Nature is amazing. The way nature adapts with impossible solutions to problems is amazing and there is lot to learn in all aspects. I was going through this video and the presenter was taking this amazing example to depict how different animals adapt different approaches to the same problem. 

If you look at the sky when it is raining all of you can see birds flying all around searching for shelters under trees and other shelters. But there is this special bird that adapts a different tactic to the same problem of avoiding the rain. This bird does not fly in search for shelters, this bird flies above the clouds to avoid the rain. By this simple change of approach in solving the same problem, Rain is never an obstacle for the eagle to go its destination.

Steve Jobs way

Similarly in life also we come up with so many problems but we continue with the same approach even knowing that for a fact that it is not the ultimate solution. One of the amazing innovators in our own time Steve Jobs the master mind, Master craftsmen, specialist designer had the same attitude from him it was never about trying the same solution for the same problem. For him it was always about looking for ways and means to innovate , find better and effective ways and means of doing it better. If not for Steve Jobs all of us would be carrying with us the difficult to carry walkman CD Player with less storage space for our mobile entertainment. Steve Jobs saw the world differently he came up with this amazing concept of     i-pod which has changed the mobile market like a storm.

In our lives we should also challenge our perception, we should challenge our attitudes and thinking differently think innovatively. What is innovation from a conceptual framework Innovation is having a conceptual idea, Technical knowhow to execute the idea and the ability to commercialize.  But starting point to become great innovators like Steve Jobs starts from the little changes that we do in our lives, the little things that we do to innovate and improve our normal lives.

You might Die Tomorrow

One of the greatest psychological philosophies that Steve Jobs had was he always thought what if I die tomorrow. He had that feeling everyday and wanted to ensure that he wants to live the life he did. Who knows we might die today, tomorrow or day after tomorrow. Are we living the life that we want to live.

Gamification - New Performance Management Mantra

Traditional Performance Management Systems

There are many reasons why the traditional performance management systems fail. One of the most common reasons for these performance management systems to fail is the in ability to objectively measure a person’s performance, because performance is measured by people and human subjectivity can play a significant role in the accuracy of performance predicaments.

There are many evolved concepts of performance management systems like 360 degree appraisals, Balance Score card which attempts to minimize the subjectivity towards a certain individual. These performance evaluation systems are further strengthened through concepts like performance normalization which eventually increases the number of people who evaluate a single person’s performance leading to lower levels of subjectivity.

But still with all these evolved performance management systems in place don’t we still hear conversations, “He got a better ranking due to this manager and not because of he is a great performer”. Still these performance management systems have not been able to accurately diminish the top down approach to performance evaluation and possible subjective appraisals.

Concept of Gamification

Gamification is the new buzz word in the field of performance evaluation. Gamification techniques strive to leverage people's natural desires for competition, achievement, status, self-expression, altruism, and closure. For example game players play to earn more points and get a  good rank amongst the other game players. They are concerned about a socially engineered brand. Likewise evolved version of this concept is used in performance management.

Gamification utilized for Performance Evaluation

This challenges the traditional performance measuring mechanisms and takes performance measurement to a next level optimizing social networking dynamics. Rather than a manager evaluating the performance, the whole society evaluates the performance. For example an employee helps another employee on finishing some task where the manager would not have the exposure of this. Hence aspects like team working may  not be taken into consideration. But what if the second employee who was helped by the first employee goes and thanks him on a social network for helping him with the task. The concept of like’s, raves, badges are utilized by the gamification performance management system.

Through concepts like gamification a person is socially evaluated and also this encourages organizational wide appreciation. This will eventually mould the workforce into social team workers constructively contributing towards company growth.