Recently, I attended The ZONE, an intensive training programme conducted by my friend and mentor, Dato’ Vijay Eswaran. It was the first training I was attending after a very long time, and it turned out to be a very good session. I had almost forgotten what it was like to sit in for one of his trainings, but at The ZONE everything came flooding back. It was simply amazing to see the way Vijay handled the different personalities around him!
With the company’s new motto being ‘WE CARE’, Vijay took the opportunity to find out if his senior networkers and corporate staff cared about each other and the rest of their down-lines and colleagues. One night he challenged the crowd of 200 people to approach one of the participants, Joshua, who was a smoker, and convince him to give up smoking. When he asked the crowd who was up to the challenge, many put their hands up. Then Vijay called upon Devan, who was Joshua’s roommate at the training, and asked him why he had not raised his hands. He asked Devan if he would convince Joshua to give up smoking, to which Devan replied, “No! Because I don’t care.”
This led to a discussion where Devan told Vijay that he honestly feels that no one in the company really cares about each other. Many in the crowd disagreed, and so Vijay left it in the hands of the audience to prove Devan wrong, and correct his perception of things. During the course of the discussion, Joshua also agreed to quit smoking if another participant, Naresh, gave up smoking. Vijay then asked Naresh if he cared if Joshua smokes. Naresh said that he cares about Joshua and would persuade him to quit smoking. Vijay asked Naresh how he could convince Joshua to quit smoking if he himself was still hooked to the habit. At the end of the session, both Naresh and Joshua had made a commitment to each other to give up smoking. Also, Devan, as Head of Human Resources, realised that with his responsibility, he of all people, SHOULD care!
There were also many questions people asked Vijay, which got me thinking. One of the V Partners asked him what a leader should do when a subordinate decides to break away from the group. Should the leader let him/her go?
Vijay then explained that leaders are responsible for building each member of his team so that they are strong enough to fend for themselves and go out there and lead on their own. If this person is capable of taking care of the weakest IR under them, and is able to overcome the challenges of building a team, then by all means, it is best to let the person go and expand his own potential. However, if he is weak and incapable, it is only a matter of time before he comes back and joins his original team.
This discussion went on till 3am in the morning, and while most of us were almost falling over with fatigue, Vijay still looked so charged up. I realised that because of his passion for helping others and his love for all of us, he was willing to sacrifice his sleep in order to bring about some kind of change within the organisation. His energy and charisma was outstanding, and it struck me as to how much I had taken our relationship for granted.
We also went into a discussion about how we could balance Vijay. We had two choices; either take him on, or follow his leadership style. And I strongly feel that it is our responsibility to balance him, to make sure that he doesn’t always win! The point is that we must always seek the truth and defend it. If necessary, we need to point it out to him as well.
Someone even asked Vijay how he manages all the strong personalities he has on board his management team. To which he said, “I manage them by staying one step ahead of them all the time.” His answer was an eye opener for me, because I realised that a leader has to stay ahead by doing more research, and gaining more knowledge and understanding of everything around him/her, so that he or she is always better placed to answer questions and be prepared to face challenges posed by subordinates. Knowledge is power, said Vijay.
We also discussed something interesting called Intent Vs Mechanism.
During the discussion, Vijay asked us all asked what % of intention + % mechanism = 100% result. We started by popping random answers such as 99% / 1% or 50%/50% or 25%/75%, etc.
Then we were made to play a game, where people had to get from one side of the room to the other, by doing some sort of action, be it walking, running, dancing, etc. The challenge is that no one can repeat what anyone else has done, meaning we needed to have 200 different ways of getting across! If the judges were not impressed, you would have to come back and start all over again! This forced people to think hard about ways to get across.
However, at the end of the game, Vijay said that the whole objective was to make us see the difference between intent and mechanism, as it relates to achieving our goals. We had a very lengthy conversation on the topic, and finally came to a very shocking conclusion…that 100% intention + 0% mechanism = 100% result!
In other words, it doesn't matter how you achieve something, as long as your intention is clear that you will have it. For instance, if our intention is to earn money, instead of looking for the perfect business opportunity, we should in fact start by learning more about how money works. Once you have increased financial intelligence, you will be able to tell a good opportunity from the bad and whether or not the mechanism is congruent with your goals. It doesn’t matter how.
T. Harv Eker, author of Secrets of a Millionaire Mind, describes intention this way -- if you are the tree, and your beliefs and actions are the roots, then your results are the fruit. He goes on to explain that you can always tell what your intention was by the fruit you have produced. So, if you don't like the fruit, then change your roots.
Likewise, in our organisation, sometimes we spend so much time criticising the way things are done. But if our intention is strong enough, we should instead be focusing on what we should do differently.