In this Issue

	EDITORIAL
	The Big Tree and the Blade of Grass
	Lessons from Selling
	Coaching Notes: The Story of Two Firemen

Newsletter

March 2010

Contrary to general opinion, a promotion is sometimes not welcomed. And we are not referring to Messrs Lawrence J. Peter and Raymond Hull and their hoary old Peter’s Principle which expostulates that "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".

The lingering thought behind our statement is associated with individual and collective comfort zones. Recently, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) upgraded some 25,000 of its players to a higher rating - a decision that lead to wide-spread protests from many of these players.

Rather strange behaviour, if you were to consider that the players were actually being "promoted" to a higher level but were refusing to accept the honour. What made them react this way? The answer lies in the background to the actual USTA decision, one that was both fair and based on computerised results of the previous year’s performance by these players.

Each year over 400,000 people participate in the USTA championships. Players are categorized based on their NTRP ratings. This rating is decided by the USTA based on the present skill level of the players and ranges between 1 (Beginner) to 7 (Tennis Professional). Typically the largest group are club level players with NTRP ratings between 3 and 5.5. Club level tennis is extremely competitive where the top players zealously guard their rankings and continue to win tournaments year after year in their category. By moving a notch higher these players tend to lose their exalted status unless they have the stomach for another fight on the way to the top.

So, the preference to stay put at present levels stems from their desire to keep winning. This pattern has been labelled "sandbagging" by the USTA.

As children and young adults we would never have refused a promotion to a higher grade. However, as we grow older and cynicism sets in, a certain level of comprise accompanies it, setting off the need for maximizing one’s long-term potential with meeting short term rewards.

The corporate world is no stranger to this behaviour pattern. It is not uncommon for sales executives to set lower targets and for managers to set below-par budgets, which they can quite easily better and receive their monetary benefits.

Is “sandbagging”, therefore, a justifiable technique? Do mail me know your comments.

The Big Tree and the Blade of Grass
Prof. Devdas Menon

ISEC is privileged to welcome Dr. Devdas Menon as a Member of our Advisory Board.

Dr. Menon is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Madras. He is well-versed in the various spiritual traditions of Vedanta, Taoism, Buddhism, Zen, Christianity and Sufism and has given several talks and seminars on finding meaning and fulfilment in life through awareness and transcendence of one’s ego-self. His writings on this theme include the acclaimed book titled 'Stop sleepwalking through life!'

We reproduce below one of his thought provoking articles.

Consider a big tree with a stout stem, and standing next to it, a slender longish blade of grass. Which of the two is more likely to survive a severe storm? The students attending a class on Structural Analysis try to visualise the scenario, and soon come up with the right answer. The blade of grass, of course. The next logical question Why so? Takes a while and some discussion, before the answer emerges. Because the tree is relatively rigid and the blade of grass flexible. The rigid tree refuses to bend easily, and this resistance introduces stresses, which keep building up as the wind load increases. The tree's resisting capacity has a limit, of course, and a severe storm can knock the tree down. The blade of grass, on the other hand, gives way from the very start, bending over backwards, and so hardly offering any resistance to the load. When the storm gets over, it bounces back to its original configuration. Interesting behaviour, especially when one begins to realise that this phenomenon also applies in many situations to human beings.

The students are quick to grasp this, and our discussion then moves on to explore: What is ideal: to be rigid or to be flexible? There is much debate, and perhaps there is a sense of unease in discovering that there are no absolute 'right' answers to this one. We find ourselves in noble company, of course, when we note that even brave warriors like the legendary Arjuna had serious problems on this very question, and that too in the middle of a battlefield. We humans mostly like to have security and certainty in our lives, and it is disconcerting when we find ourselves confused. Many of us look for authorities and dogmas to tell us what to do, and even when clear-cut instructions are available (which is not always the case), we often end up doing the 'wrong' things, driven by our own unconscious tendencies. We are then beset with doubts and feelings of guilt after the deed is done.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference is the beautiful ‘serenity prayer’ that expresses this sentiment. The emphasis in this prayer is, interestingly, on serenity, acceptance and courageousness. There is no mention of resistance.

But it is resistance that is our second nature! We tend to resist almost everything that does not conform to our likes and beliefs. When people 'misbehave' or things that we dislike happen, we find inner resistance building up. We are like the big tree. This inner resistance may be expressed outwardly or may be suppressed, depending on our habitual inclinations. Either way, our reactivity takes away our serenity and makes life difficult not only for us but also others around us.

Invariably, we believe that the cause lies outside us and our reactivity is an effect that is 'natural' and hence justifiable. There is a habitual pattern to this cause-and-effect behaviour, which we can discover if we allow ourselves to look inwards with detachment. We then notice a set of resistance patterns in us. These patterns seem to suggest that cause and effect are perhaps inextricably linked to each other. It is as though, because of our innate resistance, we attract magnetically certain kinds of 'loads', which in turn induce 'stresses' that in turn serve to strengthen our resistance and our beliefs about the external cause, in a seemingly endless cycle.

The mere witnessing of this process - which means making conscious our unconscious behaviour patterns - can help us break out of this vicious cycle. Instead of running on 'automatic', which is all-too-common, we discover a whole range of creative possibilities of dealing with every situation in life. Of course, the difficult thing is to allow witnessing, but this can be discovered through meditative practice and continued self-awareness. First, we must learn to find serenity in the absence of any storm, in our day-to-day living. Then, we can discover ways of dealing with the small storms, and then with big ones. Most of the storms lose their power to hurt us when we realise that they are imaginary. It is often like pricking an inflated balloon.

There is much to learn from the little blade of grass. Insignificant in comparison to the mighty tree, it is the blade of grass, acting without resistance that survives the severe storm.

Earlier this year I attended a two day sales course with Blair Singer.

Selling is not my strength and I have signed up for the rest of the course in June.

On the Saturday night we had to buy one of his books and then go out and sell it during our dinner break. I decided that selling it cold was too big a step for me at that stage so, instead, I would barter it for a meal of the same value.

I walked up the road in Earls Court and called at a pizza restaurant that had attracted me on a previous visit. I explained that I was on a course and had a book to sell. Could I either exchange it for a meal or speak to some of the customers there?

No way. The staff member explained that they were part of a chain and that such things were not allowed. Why did I not go to an independent restaurant and try my luck there.

So, I went next door. Here, I was treated differently. The staff member greeting customers treated me seriously and immediately referred me to her manager. He took little interest in the book but said that he would take the book and provide me with a meal.

I learned three things:

1. When doing business, choose people who are already entrepreneurial

2. Sell below the line – there was no audit trail of my sale and the cost of my food would not have shown in the accounts, and my book purchase did not need a budget heading

3. When waiting for and eating my (pleasant) meal, I felt disempowered as I had no control over what I would receive.

When I returned to the course, relieved and pleased, I found that not everybody had succeeded in the task but that some people had sold their books for significantly more than the cover price. They had sold the contents for the book as a training course, which was certainly worth more than the £15 they had paid for it.ont>

Finally, one person sold to a fish and chip shop owner who had already been propositioned by several others. He bought because this person appeared to be more interested in him as a person than in the sale.

The Zahir, by the great author, Paulo Coelho, is the story of a personal journey by the hero to find his wife, Esther, who had disappeared two years earlier. At one point in the story he is run over by a motorcycle and taken to hospital.

During his recovery he has the following conversation with his nurse.

"Marie, let's suppose that two firemen go into a forest to put out a small fire. Afterwards, when they emerge and go over to a stream, the face of one is all smeared with black, while the other man's face is completely clean. My question is this: which of the two will wash his face?"

"That's a silly question. The one with the dirty face of course."

"No, the one with the dirty face will look at the other man and assume that he looks like him. And, vice versa, the man with the clean face will see his colleague covered in grime and say to himself: I must be dirty too. I'd better have a wash."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying that, during the time I spent in hospital, I came to realise that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces and saw myself reflected in them. They, on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, however intelligent or self-confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me and thinking that they were worse than they were. Please, don't let that happen to you."

I would like to have added: that's what happened to Esther, and I've only just realised it, remembering now how the look in her eyes changed. I'd always absorbed her life and her energy, and that had made me feel happy and confident, able to go forward. She, on the other hand, had looked at me and felt ugly, diminished, because, as the years passed, my career - the career that she had done so much to make a reality - had relegated our relationship to second place.

If I was to see her again, my face needed to be as clean as hers. Before I could find her, I must first find myself.

Krishna Kumar
Executive Coach & Founder-Director, ISEC