Trizsigma

FIFA world cup is a celebration of team work. Teams work hard for a single goal. They celebrate together and then look for another goal. Goals are many, but purpose is same - being excellent team. Whole arena has rewards and has punishment. And in end it is celebration of human spirit.

They rub each other, they get yellow card, red cards, injury, and still we run. Team has collection of stories and skills. Someone is striker and someone is defender. No-one’s role is small or big. Just it is important. If I have to summarise lessons in FIFA world cup..

In Turkey, wearing veil was a culture. A reformer came and gave dictate that it is mandatory for prostitute to wear veil. This small step changed the whole country. Other women left wearing it. By linking a religious ego satisfying product to a lower standard, he killed a habit.

I came across an interesting TED video on building trust by the Harvard business school professor Frances Frei. It gives new prospective in eroding value of society “Trust”.  Trust has three pillars and if anyone gets shaky, we lose trust.

Three pillars are empathy, logic, and authenticity. Let’s discuss one by one.

Most of us don’t like to work. Most of us are working in wrong fields. It is difficult to force fit self when you don’t like the work. In transactions, life is more miserable. Routine jobs slowly kills our creativity. They are necessary evils. We can’t ignore transaction from strategy.

Though companies are trying hard to soften the burden by trying employee friendly policies. We have come long way from hard working , ruthless worker culture to today’s somewhat employee friendly office culture. Machines have played an important role.

Society is going through an intense battle. It is battle of equality or supremacy of a gender. This battle is being fought at every family unit. Feminism is a fast evolving concept. In India, girls are proving themselves in fields like competitive exam or sports. It is where competition is fair. Places where practices are not fair like corporates, judiciary, bollywood, or politics, it is still difficult for a woman to rise. She has to compromise a lot like her time, emotion, or even body to grow. #metoo was recent revolution which has exposed this dirty secrets across the world.

Life is getting very fast nowadays. Making it productive is a challenge. Everything needs consistent focus. Disruptions in time and focus are common. Mail, unwanted phone call, or social media alerts are common disrupter. Focus span is reducing for individuals. In world of multitasking, we do complete normal routine work. But excellence demand a passion. No one wants to see long videos or long forward. Even movies we see now in fast forward. 

HR professionals are human engineers. They are supposed to be expert in people motivation, fear and engagement. Their policies must be aligned to organization need and goals. Based on specific organization culture or politics, they mould their policies. We are seeing almost all organizations have chosen to benchmark polices of leaves, gender laws, diversity, events, or organization structure or levels.

For an outsider (other than HR professional) like me, many of their decisions look strange.

We all saw Smith and Warner cried in press conference. Crime was violation of ethics. These Australian cricketers had violated their perception to win game by right ethics. It sounds strange the anger among Australia for their act. Not every Australian lives on values and ethics. Is it just Smith and Warner’s responsibility to protect country’s image.

We expect good people to do more good. We punish even the slightest deviation. If a bad man does smallest good, people respect him for it. For example, if a corrupt politician does good act with a poor. We treat him as god.