My dear friends,
SMILE was evolved at the Centre for Advanced Management & Power Studies (CAMPS) at NPTI during my tenure. The unique Concept of Self-Management, Innovation, Leadership and Elegance weaved together was rolled out on a maturity continuum on the frame of Series of Lectures and Computer based training. This Program has a proven record of improving efficacy of people working in organizations, hand-holding them on a journey from managing self to managing others with grace and elegance.
Relevance of the Program to the Indian Management
The plaguing aspects of the Indian management scenario need tackling the issues of mindsets- crucial for reforms. The effective way could be to impart necessary attributes and ethos relating to Good Governance, Change Management and transformational leadership. With an appropriate holistic approach, people can exercise their might to walk the talk in the right direction. Direction setting itself is a big challenge. The program developed includes several interfaced concepts relating to Self-Management to Managing others, Innovation & Creativity, Leadership and Elegance (right attitude with grace ingrained in every action) etc. An apt term “SMILE” became the acronym for Self-Management, Innovation, Leadership and Elegance. It was a kind of Advanced Management made simple for working professionals, empowering them to win everything with a SMILE.
An important goal of education perhaps is to assist individuals to become more proficient in managing their own potential and behavior. By learning the techniques of Self-Management and Attitudinal Re-orientation together with Innovation & Creativity; individuals can become more self-directed and less dependent on continuous supervision leading to self-managing leadership. We were constantly endeavoring to sensitize individuals to the sweeping nature and implications of change and to develop oneself for thriving in a stress free and extremely productive environment.
The topics covered during the programs were human potential, attitudinal insights, secrets of success/winning, innovative potential, activating brain to become a power house of creative energy, transformational leadership, lateral thinking, vision expansion, team spirit, breaking barriers of Corporate creativity, dreaming and daring, determination, esteem building, strategic value creation, fortitude and perseverance, grace & style and unleashing ingenuity.
Hybrid Learning Model
The SMILE Program was further expanded at REMI (when I moved to REL) on a “Hybrid Learning Model” blending judiciously spaced Faculty-led Learning and Experiential Learning, engaging participants at their workplace and at REMI, spanning 5-weeks for Power Engineers. I feel like sharing with you the essentials of the Program.
Essentials of Faculty-led Learning
Self-Management
- Goal Setting compatible to the purpose of life
- Winners don’t do different things, they do things differently
- Discovery of Self managing Leadership as it happens while learning to ride a bicycle
Innovation
- Too close – blurs your vision, Clarity comes at optimum distance. Bi-focal vision is required to capture beyond.
- Out-of-the-Box thinking
- Using the hole brain
Leadership
- Leadership is a Culture, not a person.
- An organization is nothing but a lengthened shadow of its Leader
- Management is doing things right while Leadership is doing the right things.
Elegance
- Small Aim is a Crime !
- There are some defeats more triumphant than victories
- Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes
Bird’s Eye View of the ingredients of experiential learning at workplace
Self-Management
- A small seed carries the entire tree within !
- Less that 3% people have clearly defined goals and they achieve more than the rest 97% combined.
- Weak point is not weakness but not to know about it.
- It is not enough to have great qualities; managing them for a defined purpose can only make life great.
- Wind may blow from any direction but the direction in which you go depends on how you set the sails.
Innovation
- When all think alike, then no one is thinking
- Mental Lock is a mental Block. Human mind is like a parachute which works only when it is open
- You can make Innovation a way of life
- You have to think beyond the dots to find unusual solutions
- The left hand side of human brain works like a computer while the right as an artist, both need to be activated for success
Leadership
- Boss orders while Leader seeks: Boss exercises the power while the Leader empowers. Thus leaders develop leaders, not followers.
- People above you should pull your hands and people below you should push you up!
- The Purpose of the organisation is to enable ordinary human beings do extraordinary things
- Spread your wings thinking of Big skies (vision & courage), thinking ahead of others (foresight) and thinking fast (competitive)
- Leadership is all about courage to dream big.
Elegance
- Elegance is ‘dignity & grace’ with its own aura of grandeur springing from right kind of attitudes.
- Attitude decides the altitude
- No job is small or big, it is the way in which you do, makes it small or big !!
- None of us is better than all of us
- Genuine praise to the human being is what sunshine and rain are to the flower
Perpetuate SMILE
- Marry the personal ambitions of your life with the organizational “vision & mission” and enjoy a married life at your workplace
- People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel
- A smile is a curve that sets everything straight
- The world always looks brighter from behind a smile
- A Smile takes a moment, but the memory of it lasts for ever
Concluding Contract
On completion of the Program we used to encourage signing of a Contract suggesting as below:
“Now your adventure begins to perpetuate SMILE in your life particularly in your professional life. It’s time to sign a contract with your own self to SMILE throughout life. You have completed a journey from managing self to managing others with elegance and dignity, crossing four distinct milestones: Self-management, Innovation, Leadership and Elegance (emerging from positive attitude). You would have witnessed that the expedition of SMILE not only enriched you in terms of enlarging your mental frames, shifting paradigms, developing bifocal vision, broadening the horizon etc. but also provided you clues to job satisfaction and gross happiness which make you smile on every day basis. Now it is time to churn the wisdom out of the knowledge collected during this voyage and draw the boundaries on which the mirrors of ethics can be fixed to reflect the internal peace and joy that comes out of supreme achievements in SM-I-L-E and is capable of activating all your 639 voluntary muscles including those13 which produce smile. Smile is contagious and so are its four elements. Elegance induces dignity & grace, Genuine leadership develops leadership, Innovation comes out of creativity and Self-management leads you to self-managing leadership. So here are you signing a Contract with your own self. However, the contract signing needs two parties. So one is ‘you before you started the journey’ and the other one is again ‘you on completion of the journey’. One Line Contract you are signing today is – I undertake to smile, revisit SMILE often and continue to smile throughout my life ! ”
Concluding Remark
The Program developed has potential to be universalized similar to “The 7-Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey. It has already been copyrighted with the Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India.
Satyamev Jayate !!!
Best wishes and Regards,
BE(Hons), M.Tech., Ph.D., CBI-Scholar, D.Engg. (Calif.), FNAE, Hon.D.WRE (USA)
Chairman Emeritus, Great Lakes, Gurgaon, NCR, New Delhi, INDIA
Former Director General (NPTI & CPRI / REL), Ex. Director (REC) / Executive Director (IREDA)
No job is small or big, the way in which you do, makes it small or big (c)
Great Lakes Institute of Management 