Managers - Learn from Superstar Rajinikanth’s mantras
In this blog, I will talk about few things that we can learn from India’s superstar Rajinikanth.
If you are from India, there is no introduction needed about superstar Rajinikanth. If you don’t know who he is, here is the link to Wikipedia page about Rajinikanth.
This blog is based on the book - Rajini’s Mantras written by P.C Balasubramanian. Link to the book.
This book was recommended to me by Amazon.in. The title of the book intrigued me - what better way to learn from the superstar himself.
When I finished the book, I realised that there are so many lessons that could help managers.
So, in this blog, I will share 5 mantras out of 28, which I feel will help managers to become more successful.
Mantras
Mantras in this context can be considered as suggestions or recommendations or advices or guidances.
Mantra#1 : Follow your gut
The superstar indicates that as an individual we must develop conviction to face the outcome irrespective what it could be.
Most of the decisions comes with some risks, only the degree may vary. So when you make a decision, learn to become deaf to what others have to say and follow your intuition.
As a manager, we face a big challenge of making the right decisions. And there are so many of them to say that the decision is wrong or our approach has lot of issues and so on. This puts managers in dilemma.
So, sometimes it is not about anything else, it is all about your gut. And this comes from the experience and past mistakes that you would have done.
The advice from the Superstar is to follow your gut when you know, deep inside that it is the right way. Then stick to it and work towards reaching the finish line.
Mantra#2 : Learn the art of sharing
Why do we work? We all work for money and in-turn wealth creation. When you see beyond this, the superstar say there is nothing other than sharing.
As human, we need to learn to share. We may not be able to share with everyone in the world. But when there is an opportunity to share information, we should not hesitate.
Many managers face dilemma on whether to share their knowledge or not with the team members and peers. Because, if team member become aware of the knowledge and skills, then what manager will do?
As managers or in general as humans, we should look at our progress in life holistically and beyond self intent. This is every difficult, but possible.
The advice from the superstar is to learn sharing the knowledge and skills with our co-workers, team members and family to progress holistically.
Mantra#3 : Focus is the key to success
Even a simple task needs focus. In the current world, there are so many distractions to all age groups and multi-tasking has become a norm.
The suprerstar suggests that we should ignore all the negativity and unsolicited advices. And stop comparing ourself with others.
As managers, we are always distracted with so many suggestions, feedbacks, escalation etc. This demotivates some of them and loose focus on the actual goal.
As managers, we need to learn to focus on our growth and knowledge. It is important for us to adapt continuous learning and improvement approach to grow consistently.
The superstar indicate that we are our own enemies when it comes to growth or wealth creation. So, instead of comparing to others, we should learn to focus on our goals and become better everyday. Otherwise the growth will become stunted.
Mantra#4 : Take victories and failures on your stride
We all have fear of failure. But that should not stop us to make an attempt.
The superstar indicates that if we keep succeeding then it indicates we are not attempting something bigger than what currently is going on.
As managers, we always face the dilemma of whether to change the technology or change the process or onboard a new tool and so on. Even though we know it will help, managers tend to delay the decision.
One of the reason behind this could be, fear of failure. If we know that doing something new will help the team or challenge the team, then at least we need to make an attempt.
The superstar advice is to face both failure and success with equanimity and use failure to challenge ourself.
Mantra#5 : The excitement is only in the journey
Many of us are so much looking forward to complete the project or release and go home.
Superstar indicates that the journey is more important than destination. If one focuses only on destination then the road to reach destination will become stressful.
As managers, we generally focus on timeline, milestones, effort estimation and so many other things. Sometimes we just want to reach the finish line, handover the work to downstream teams e.g support and move on to something else.
Do you recall how stressful it will become sometimes. We will have questions like why the project is not moving in the right direction, why team members are not working correctly, why there is so much misunderstanding etc.
The superstar advice is to enjoy the challenges we face on the way and learn from it to improve ourselves. So, completing a project is also important but also it is equally important to enjoy challenges during execution of the project.
Summary
Mantra#1 : Follow your gut
Most of the decisions comes with some risks, only the degree may vary. So when you make a decision, learn to become deaf to what others have to say and rather follow your intuition.
Mantra#2 : Learn the art of sharing
As human, we need to learn to share. We may not be able to share with everyone. But when there is an opportunity to share information, we should not hesitate.
Mantra#3 : Focus is the key to success
We should ignore all the negativity and unsolicited advices. And stop comparing ourself with others. We need to learn to focus on our growth by taking timely risks.
Mantra#4 : Take victories and failures on your stride
If we keep succeeding then it indicates we are not attempting something bigger than what currently is going on. This could be because of fear of failure.
Mantra#5 : The excitement is only in the journey
The journey is more important than destination. If one focuses only on destination, the road to reach there will become stressful.
Let me know in the comments section on your views about the 5 mantras.
Happy management!
