What is best?

So often, we have choices and we are trying to decide what is best. Is it the biggest, cheapest, tastiest? If I take that, does it mean someone else is worse off than me, better off than me?

How we make decisions and decide what is best is a very personal issue. Take a cake sliced up to share, for example. We may want to take the biggest piece, but someone else may want more icing, others may want more chocolate sprinkles. This is where what is best for you, may not be best for someone else.

If we think about what is best based on how someone else fairs, this external validation can cause harm. If we think we won, we may end up getting upset by someone else thinking they did. If we think we were being gracious, someone else may think we were selfish. Almost, it seems we cannot win.

So when deciding on what is best, you need to use your personal criteria. After that, include others so that you remain considerate.

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

Take time

Do you ever take time just to hear the quiet? Take time to smell the roses, It think someone said some time. We hear this a lot, but do we really consider how important it is to do this.

We talk ourselves out of it because we are busy; we aren’t in the right place; we can’t do it right.

Sometimes, just look out the window. Stare at a bird or a tree. Even just for seconds. Take some time. It may just focus you; relax you.

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

Feeling Good

“Birds flying high you know how I feel;  Sun in the sky you know how I feel; Breeze driftin’ on by you know how I feel. It’s a new dawn; It’s a new day; It’s a new life for me yeah. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me, ouh. And I’m feeling good” Sung by Nina Simone, written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. From Metro Lyrics

In the largely consumer society that we find ourselves in, we are often encouraged that we will feel good when we purchase a new thing or do a new activity. Whilst this may be true, I am reminded that we can find the feeling of goodness with nothing much: The sun in the sky, the dawn.

Nina Simone wrote some melancholic songs and, with the life she had, you could feel that it was all she should have written. But even with the hardship and prejudice she experienced through her talented life, she managed to sing these profoundly cheerful and grateful songs.

Sometimes, just remind yourself to feel good, because it feels good. It is a new dawn and a new day!

https://youtu.be/D5Y11hwjMNs

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

Communities of quality not quantity

Do you think about how all these digital offerings get created? We see the founders promoting their products, giving interviews and being the front of a great company. What we don’t often see is the people working hard to make it so.

Nitesh Thadani is one of those people. He is a hard person to discover. Building great products, setting up the strategy for digital businesses. Most of all he is delivering the products and leading technical teams.

Roger Willmott, CTO at OneHydra found just that: “Nitesh was instrumental in re-building a dysfunctional development team and non-working development environment into a fully production environment in 4 months. Delivery went quickly from 2 releases/year to 1 major release per month, and then fully agile with 2 week iterations. Nitesh demonstrated great motivational and people management skills.”

He is the man behind the woman at Treniq. From her ten-year reign in the marketing industry to her current position behind Treniq, Sheetal Sachdev is an authority on bespoke furniture.

Treniq is the manifestation of the love for unique products, shared by two people: Her and her long-time friend, Nitesh. He, a technology evangelist who worked as a Vice President in a leading UK bank as well as co-founding a profitable venture in the past. They combined their expertise in marketing and technology to bring you Treniq – an amalgamation of trendy and unique – exploring new territories in both design and practice. Showcased within the luxuriously eye-catching, user-friendly walls of the online shop is a collection of handcrafted unique furniture and home accessories, created by designer-makers from around the world.

They are just getting started. They have big plans and their customers are at the heart of them. They want to build a community around the love of fine furniture and craftsmanship. They are promoting quality, not quantity and re-igniting the desire for bespoke furniture, bringing the designers closer to the customers.

Being the man behind the woman and behind a lot of stable digital programs, you may not see much of Nitesh in the limelight, whilst he is busy keeping his reputation is tact. But if you do get a chance to meet him, you will have a great chat over a coffee.

Here’s to a productive good quality week!

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

What is the opposite of Giving?

How have you answered the question? Did you use the word take or receive? 

Receive: To be given or presented with

Take: Capture or gain possession of

Which answer would you prefer? How you answer probably says a lot about how you perceive the act of giving.

From http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

Are you special?

I seem to have been in front of the Android adverts a lot again and I love their tag line – different but together. I have commented across a few blogs about wanting to be part of something, but also unique.

I love the phrase – You are unique, just like everybody else! It is similar to the Android tagline and sums up humans very well.  Does it make you special? Well, only your loved ones can tell you that. But remembering your uniqueness is very important.

When we are dealing with politics and electioneering, people, especially, like to categorise us: workers; job seekers; ABC1; BCD2; parents; pensioners; voters; apathetic; rural; urban; students; youth. The list goes on. In truth we are a bit of a lot of those, all in different measures. Our recipe is different, we are not the same as the person in the same category.

Remember that. You bring your own thing to the table.

Be unique, just like everyone else.

Hope you enjoy this little clip: https://youtu.be/vnVuqfXohxc

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

Helping one person at a time

I struggle with feeling like I am making a difference in the world. I am too selfish to give all my property away and go off and live and help the poor. My well digging skills are not up to much and frankly, I am city girl who likes concrete and street lighting. Even putting me in the middle of a field at dusk in the UK freaks me out. So how can I help, how can I make a difference?

A lot of people may look at me and say that I don’t and I can’t. Maybe they are right. But I am heartened by the thoughts that a long journey is taken one step at a time. My assistance may not be epic, my changes may not affect a population, but they do affect someone. Even if that someone is just me.

I believe that it is not about the words you speak (or type) that is going to change someone else’s behaviour. They need to see you walking the walk. They are more motivated by seeing the behaviour. It is more real.

Unless you are in the public eye, very few people see your behaviour. If you manage to make someone else think or feel or act, even slightly differently and for the greater good, then you have done a good thing.

Remember, you can help, sometimes, it just takes one person at a time.

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

Inspired by People

In the spirit of fortuitous connections, I was fortunate to meet Willson somewhere that may not have been best suited for either of us. We both wanted to find out more about Interim roles and consulting so rocked up at a CV/skills workshop.

I think we both realised we were perhaps not suited to the approach being offered when we both admitted to being mindful and meditating on a regular basis. The second thing we both had in common was the fact that we both loved to read the paragraph at the top of a CV when we recruited as it gave us insight into the person. This was not something that the facilitator thought was worth much time.

By that time, the person running the workshop, I think, was not sure how to deal with us. We caught up over coffee after that and had a good laugh about it.

This shows that you never know when or where you will find someone who is likeminded and being open to that is the wonderful part of networking.

Willson helps companies design and implement organisational change. He does this in companies that have a high technical component in the more traditional/established businesses. He focusses on bringing the people along. So many organisational changes take the form of processes, procedures, tools and systems. People forget that a culture change of sorts needs to happen within the people. That generally needs to start at the top, with leaders being part of the change, not instigators of it, whilst they continue on as usual.

He supports and challenges leaders, through coaching and team facilitation, to make sense of the organisational and behavioural changes they need and want to make.

Not only that, he produces documentaries. His first documentary was “Like a huge deep breath…”, an observational film on a group of learning disabled dancers with the Corali Dance Company. It was screened at the Starr Auditorium, Tate Modern, on 21st January, 2011.

Corali is a committed group of people made up of performers with learning disabilities and artist collaborators and educationalists who do not. Corali exists to explore the unique creativity and expression of people with learning disabilities by putting on original performance works and by offering on-going professional development, education and training opportunities.

What interests him, is promoting voices of people who are not often heard.

He is on the board of Inspired by People that is a team of people using their own valuable skills and experience to support projects in developing countries whose aim is to empower and support the most vulnerable people in the community. He is eager to apply his experience and skills with charity organisations. He is interested in supporting vulnerable communities, with a particular focus on psychological health and well-being.

If you get the chance to meet Willson, you will find he is open to new opportunities and experiences and always looking to learn more about himself and others. Tell him we sent you!

Here’s to more fortuitous connections!

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

Letting people down

What constitutes letting people down is different for everyone and often is based on the importance a person puts on an particular situation. This is so person specific, it can be hard to navigate. You cannot go through life without letting people down. Things come up, stuff happens, you forget, you fail, these are all things you cannot necessarily control. This is life. How you handle it, you do have control over.

• Common courtesy is the first step

o    Honour that the situation is important (maybe not for you, but for them)

o    Appreciate the time and effort someone else has gone to

• Set expectations

o    Tell people early on whether you are able to do what they are asking, you can’t do everything, so say so quickly. Don’t waste people’s time

o    Let them know when/how you can do what they are asking, they then know when it will be delivered

o    Prepare for the worst and hope for the best

o    If something goes awry, tell them as early as possible, don’t wait until they chase you for it

• Most importantly: Deliver

o    Do what you have said you will do

o    If you can’t deliver, say so as early as possible and be part of the alternative solution

If you deliver the majority of the time, you will generally find that people will give you a lot more leeway if you have to let them down. If you do it regularly, you will find that you are not someone people expect to deliver and you may stop being asked.

Make letting someone down a rare occasion.

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

Talking about doing

I read an article written by Naz Shah and it has stopped me in my tracks. I read about what she has been through and what she is doing to make lives better for others. More importantly, she tells us why she is doing it: For her mother and her daughter. She has and is ‘doing’. She is putting herself in a place, through much adversity, to make changes, not talk about it.

It is humbling. So much so, that I feel useless. What am I doing to make a difference? What can I effect change with? Here I am, writing a post about it, oh the irony…….

However, in writing this, it has allowed me to organise my thinking in order to take some action. I recently spoke with an inspiring lady and she stated: ‘There is no trying, just doing.’

I really believe that you can make change one person at a time and I continue on my journey of life in that fashion. This cannot be predictable or scalable. Each person needs something specific for them at that particular time. This is what drives me. It may not be newsworthy or fame inducing, but it is what I know I can do.

I suppose, if everyone feels that way, we can make a difference. That is what Naz Shah is doing after all.

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine