Mind Speaks - Planning and execution

Planning and execution

Well, well, well. What at an exciting game of Twenty20 cricket it was. Australian team was really floored by the brilliant overall team work of Team India. Each player looked responsible and played a pre-defined plan to perfection. The exuberance of confidence and focus level in them were at its peak that some times I felt the Team forgot the art of celebrating wickets. Not many times we get to get such an occasion to execute a plan to its perfection as it was displayed on the field yesterday by the Indian Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his bunch of young heroes. Whether we win the finals against Pakistan or not, they have already captured the hearts of millions of Cricket fans, irrespective of whether they come from India, Pakistan, England, Australia or wherever.

Keeping the nerves and keeping cool is an important element, required all the time in life to achieve success and victory. Not many people practise this art or at least even attempt to learn it. Till some time ago, I myself was one who never achieved this target. It is very easy to get intimidated or distracted and lose the focus of our objectives. In life, every one has to have a smaller objective and Bigger Objective. While working short term for the smaller objectives, our prime focus should be on the Bigger version of it. The pace and methodology with which we should go about should be strategically developed for the execution of such a strategy. But many times, we tend to focus on the smaller objectives and which will totally take us out and away from our Bigger objectives. We can illustrate this situation many times by small events happening in our life. One such incident happened to me even yesterday. I was driving down the highway early morning towards Dubai from Abu Dhabi and it was a very foggy morning. With not much traffic and with music on, my concentration was to watch out for a diversion to particular place I had to go. I was almost sure that I was nearer to that diversion and at this time, I happened to watch closely in the side mirror a beautiful car approaching mine. With a passion for automobiles, I was unable to take my eyes of her, slowed down the speed and watched the beautiful Blue Rolls Royce Phantom passing me like a race horse. I took a closer look at it, the number, the model and even the driver and realised that it was owned by the most prominent businessman from Abu Dhabi. I enjoyed it and all this happened within the matter of 1 or 2 minutes at the speed of 120+ kms on the highway. In the same instance I realised, I missed my very important turning, crossing it, making me drive for a retour of about 25 kms and valuable time of almost 45 minutes in to the rush hour traffic of Dubai City.

This is just a small example, it did not cost me much as I had kept a leverage time of 45 minutes before my appointment just to explore the location I was visiting to capture the surroundings with my camera before the very important meeting. To arrive early - I do this strategy many times if time permit, because it will give me some time to relax and also familiarise myself and de-stress from the drive towards the place. While looking through the view finder of my camera, I transform myself into a positive self once again, and in the background ready myself with my plans and strategies.

This is one way of grooming towards a positive self at all times. I have found Photography as a creative pursuit which always help to improve Positive Thinking and create a Quality attitude. When we take a camera and focus on an object, we will never be satisfied until and unless the object is clear and focussed. With the newer technologies and advanced options, the modern day digital cameras aid better towards perfection. Most of the equipment comes with several controls and if we have to come out with a quality output, we always have two options. One, to use the automatic mode all the time and get the picture perfect. 2nd to study the manual and learn the nuisances of those controls and execute the options and get a perfect picture. We can use, option 1, if we do not favour risks or do not have time factor. Whereas we use option 2, if we do not mind taking risks and have fractions of seconds or minutes to change the settings before each of the shots. In reality, life and those around us, is also like the camera we use. Many times, we let them do what they are supposed to do, and wait for the result. Some other times, we take risk, talk to them, groom them and extract desired results from them. In both cases, the capacity and capability in store with them are the same, but the productivity may vary and results depends on how the machine or man were able to understand our ideas or visions and transforms them in to a wonderful product of Quality.

We saw the 2nd method very well executed by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who marshalled just ordinary resources, who were with him, and who were playing with senior captains like Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganuly before. A small amount of pep talk, his own performance and initiatives to lead from the front, and the result, Team India is now in the finals of the World Twenty20 cricket tournament in South Africa. A different approach, keeping the fundamentals in place, that’s all he did. It turned out to be Powerful and they all seemed to be the right person’s for the right job. It’s working like a magic so far. Time will tell whether Dhoni is our magician for the hour.


However, how far we keep the momentum going, we do not know? Because, Team India is prone to politics and already, in today’s news there is an article about Yuvraj Singh’s dad talking to press about his son not being made the captain of the Indian Team!

We don’t care, who the captain is. We want performance and Quality Performance. The choice is yours and those around.

GOD BLESS AND HAVE A GREAT DAY.

Ramesh Menon
23092007