Sage speak: Attention! To stand (and work) at ease!

Observation, to what's happening around us is essential everywhere. We need to take the time to cultivate the habit of paying attention so that we can make our work easier. And career progression will be the happy outcome!

OBSERVATION is one of the key tactics of modern corporate behaviour. Indeed it has long been the norm for humans and animals generally. Which lion did not notice a herd of succulent zebra wander across his range? Which gazelle overlooked a crouching leopard? Similarly, it is essential for every corporate citizen to be able to taste the essence of what is happening around him all the time, not merely to survive but to thrive! Sniff the corporate corridors to check which way the wind is blowing! Know when it is appropriate to get your oar in and when it is prudent to maintain a low profile!

Paying attention means to understand a nuance and to get to the root of an issue unerringly. If you understand what the problem is from the inside, the better solution you will be able to emerge with and apply to come out on top!

Miss Marple, Agatha Christie's octogenarian sleuth, relied on her acute abilities of human observation and careful sifting of detail to solve her cases. Nothing missed her rheumy eyes and no case remained unresolved! Like her, one requires to be open to the subtleties of external happenstances, and correlate them with what you already know. Become a gatherer of information. Its become so much easier in this day of IT enabled everything and the ubiquitous television talk shows.

Once you get into the habit of gathering information, you will be able to do your simple arithmetic and add the two and two that you've discovered! The resulting sum will stimulate you into feeding it into your mental database, find existing parallels, and come out with reasonable outcomes. Knowing how a colleague or a boss feels at any given moment will provide you with an advantage that is phenomenal. Most HR professionals talk about empathy. Why should this be the province of HR alone? They make use of it, why shouldn't you? Walking a mile in their shoes not only tells you how they feel but how they go about their life, information that is critical to your growth! You have the advantage of knowing how they react to you and you will be able to leverage it to your advantage. The corporate jungle does after all, subscribe to the universal law of the survival of the fittest!

C & K Management ltd., one of the country's leading training houses in the field of soft skills and personal development emphasises the need to develop the skill of being attentive to the stimuli that abound around us. "Never be too absorbed in yourself," says P.Pain, corporate trainer and popular lecturer, "When you show an interest in others' welfare, you become so much a part of their lives that you are the recipient of their inner feelings; feelings that you can use constructively to smoothen your career path." She continues trenchantly, "If you have place for recording the actions of people and trends in your mind, good. If not, develop those skills and make the space!"

To conduct a career with the ease and aplomb of a winner, you need to be able to foretell a disaster before it happens! You need to take an advantage before someone else does! You need to be at the right place at the right time before someone else gets there! Every great professional has arrived at the top of his profession by keeping his eyes open, his ear to the ground and his nose to the grindstone. It worked for them, let it work for you!

Observation, or paying attention to what's happening around us is essential everywhere. We need to take the time to cultivate the habit of paying attention so that we can make our work easier and so that we can stand at ease! Career progression will be the happy outcome!

S.RAMANUJACHARYA

professor1@sify.com