Master of one ? Jack of all?

Should you be a jack of all of the master of one?

A successful enterprise needs both. But as usual , there are risks in both. 

Core skill means you are idle when the skill has no demand. Jack of all, means you don't command a premium. 

Core skill may also mean you operate in a silo and not a team player.

Jack of all makes you a potential entrepreneur. Core skill means you need to get ability to manage others to whom you outsource the rest.

What is a core skill today may become a commodity tomorrow that makes you not so valuable. 

Tough choice!!!

Customer, colleague ,vendor

The cycle of customers and Vendors is forever changing. With so much outsourcing around,a customer today could be a colleague or a vendor tomorrow and vice versa.

How best to leverage this cycle?

1. It pays to know how everyone operates be it a customer , colleague or vendor. This way when you change into another role tomorrow , you are not caught off-guard.

2. Network and work your network ! The roles could swap faster than you can imagine.

Life after work

Life after work - Click on this !

Opportunity to change your next Avatar

Many of you must have seen the James Cameron Blockbuster 'Avatar'. Do you believe in Avatar ? Do you believe that this life is one of the Avatars and it could be different in the next.

If this is true, what are you doing to make your next Avatar better? Human beings are some of the very few who have the OPPORTUNITY to DESERVE a better next Avatar, based on the deeds done in the present one. Perhaps this is because we can think, choose and act. Perhaps none of the other species have a chance to do something to improve the quality of their next avatar.

What are you doing to make your next Avatar better than the current one?

Rules for creators

If you are in the habit/business/ profession of creating, the following lines from 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand may be of help.

Disclaimer : please replace 'man' with person. The following were how Ayn wrote them in 1943.

You've gone beyond the probable and made us see the possible, but possible only through you. Because your figures are more devoid of contempt of humanity than any work I’ve ever seen. . . . I came for a simple, selfish reason . . . to seek the best.

Howard, I’m a parasite. I’ve been a parasite all my life . . . I have fed on you and all the men like you who lived before we were born. . . . if they hadn’t existed I wouldn’t have known how to put stone to stone. . . . I have taken that which was not mine and given nothing in return.

“Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”

“You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated”

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons,and to make weapons - a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man -the function of his reasoning mind.”

“It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence--such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.”

“Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?"
Yes."
My dear fellow, who will let you?"
That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”

“Never ask people about your work.”

“I don't wish to be the symbol of anything. I'm only myself.”

Hard + Smart

Great organizations, businesses are built by a few smart people and a lot of average hard working people. Ratan Tata once said that about Tata Motors.

Too many geniuses in the team and they can't work with each other or get any work done. Too many hard working people and their efforts may get wasted without direction.

Make sure you build a team which contains both in correct proportion.

Learning from 'Headlines'

Headlines are everywhere. Magazines , news papers, hoardings , advertisements...

What makes them tick? They compete with billions of messages vying for your attention. They get at the most a second or two,to make an impact ,so you get interested.

They convey in few words what might take an hour to communicate. They use simple words, mostly include the word 'you', are direct and convey the key idea.

Rules that you can use in business communication. Else,you WILL get lost!