Building into the System

Work experience of 8 years count nothing in front of experts who have been involved in the field of development for decades. With due respect to all the experts, it is a high time question (?) to ask yourself what differences have been made to the community and what visible changes have been made in the life of voiceless and disadvantaged people.

We work in projects, we work with local community, local organizations and government organizations to showcase beautiful and amazing goals. And when we put forth the results, we just count the numbers, showing them in bold letters with beautiful pictures. We talk about great terms like sustainability, synergy, coordination, partnership, gender mainstreaming, social inclusiveness, disaster preparedness and response and so on. Using these terms are becoming more of a fashion.

Now back to reality. I was just randomly looking at the progress and contribution my professional life has brought towards the development of the nation; towards the perspective of being independent (linking to livelihood). And the result was as expected and as clear as a mirror. My performance might have contributed towards changes, changes in the lives of people which is very low, most probably I can just count them in my fingers. Looking back to where I started, I am feeling that I surely  have been lost. I was just focusing on capturing results based on numbers and a check-list with things "Done or Not Done".

Have I thought about sustainability? I would say Yes. Because I have been involved in attaining results towards livelihood. But what have I done to sustain that livelihood? Have I supported on preparing a concrete business plan, market analysis, supply chain mechanism? Mhmmm .. Sort of!! I did initiate on preparing a broad supply chain mechanism book but very much limited to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector.

Similarly in the sector of synergy, coordination and partnership, projects are so much guided and limited to their own pre-designed concept; the core essence of why the project has been developed get faded out leaving behind the necessity to serve for the community. Professionals get so much attached and intimidated with their projects that they forget the bigger picture of organizational vision, missions and goals. One of the examples that I had to sadly face was with one of the managers (at the high organizational position). I was under his supervision and expected guidance on a very urgent issue. I knew he had to supervise two other projects apart from mine. But I did not expect a response so blunt.

The issue was related to building synergy between the projects at Surkhet. And his response to that was, "My first priority is XYZ project, then ABC project and then yours. I will finish my priorities and come to your point later". And that "later" never happened. We did our best to build on the synergy and partnership. But this is not going to happen unless it is built in in the organizational system. No body is going to care about it because it does not matter to anybody except the organization itself. Employees get hired, they deliver as per their TOR and leave. If things that matter are built in in the system, employees are compelled to do it by default. Otherwise someone's priority might not be the priority to others.

There is another example of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI). Every projects cover the numbers of people disagregated by gender and social inclusion. But how much of that is contributing towards gender mainstreaming. Have we ever thought about it? What changes have it brought to the community? Have we ever critically thought about it? We might have thought about it but it hardly gets documented and talked about. I personally feel that the number of women who have been involved in decision making processes, whose voices are being heard now and who have been visibly involved as a change agent in the community have significantly increased as compared to eight years' back. But articulation and visibility of these things are very much lacking. Few projects show what they have done very profoundly. But lots of others lack.


It is very much necessary that we start thinking about the organizational system that needs to improve how we show our results and portray our progress. At the end, the system reflects where to organization will lead to. I know this is going to talk time, firstly to realize where we lag behind and secondly to exercise on improving this further. Building the important terms into the system for better results still requires a long way to go.

I am starting the exercise NOW, when are you??
  

Behind the Scene

Let's talk about the Movies. Everyone loves movies. I am just excited to talk about it, imagine if I get a chance to watch one. Anyways, let's move on to the point now. The characters you see in a movie are just the tip of an iceberg, they are the faces shown on the movie screen. There are less characters on the screen and more behind the scenes to make the movie perfect and watchable. Similar is the case with life, handling projects and achieving success.

I have seen and met people who credit themselves for achieving success, for completing a project and for having a happy life. On a contrary, if they meet with failure, what do they do? They simply point the finger on others and blame others. This blame game ruins both personal and professional life with your team. And when you need them the most, they are going to run away because nobody wants to be used and nobody wants to be a part of the team if they are not going to be given their share of credit.

As I grow professionally, I have even met people who work less, talk more and act like a king. Well if you want to be a king, you need your army and citizens and you need to be responsible. I wonder why people tend to forget this simple phenomenon that if you want to be a leader, you need followers and if you want to be a manager, you need a team to guide and lead.

Every task look easy on the superficial level. But when you go deep, you understand the essence of team work. There are meetings, planning, budgeting, communication, advocacy, activities and documentations that need to be delivered on time. If someone says that they are brilliant people with multi-tasking ability and conduct projects alone without a team then you might need to doubt on the output, outcome and impact of such projects. The project might be accomplished but it's long term sustainability and validity might be doubtful.

The projects that we work at the social and community level is highly influenced by the local population and political leaders. They are the main HEROES behind the scene who have the power to make or break the project. If they are positive, your project is going to be highly successful with maximum rate of sustainability. Otherwise, it is going to be a complete loss of investment. That is why we prefer to say that any project taken in the community is theirs rather than ours. This has two benefits. One it increases their ownership. Next, after the completion of the project, the community are willing to continue the project themselves increasing the possibility of sustainability.

The power of thoughts

We all have a huge mental power; filled with both positive and negative thoughts. Where we want to use that thoughts depend entirely on ourselves. If we use this power on good things, everything turns out to be wonderful. If we take too much stress, it is going to make us miserable and ruin our life. 

Sometimes we hear amazing stories of survival even after the doctors have given up. It is because of their positive attitude towards life. It is because they love their life and never give up to live it to the fullest.  

The more happier and more beautiful thoughts you have, the better your life is going to be. As well said by Ronald Dahl - "If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sun beams and you will always look lovely". That is why meditation is scientifically proven to bring positive changes in human life. Meditation brings your heart, mind and soul in complete harmony, improving your power of concentration, intelligence and peace of mind. This ultimately leads you towards happiness. The connection of heart, mind and soul has been beautifully portrayed on a venn-diagram by Rafael Hernamperez Martin in 2013 as follows:

Life is full of highs and lows; success and failure; happiness and sadness. But we should never forget that one complements the other. It should be remembered that the day light shines after the dark night and the rainbow glows after the rainfall. Whatever the situation, we have the power to make it leap ahead or depress us. At the end everything is going to be a memory, both good and bad. So treasure every moment, have positive thoughts and sometimes just let it go.  

Life Lessons

Life is a wonderful gift. It turns out complete waste if you keep complaining more than living it to its fullest. Nobody and nothing in this world has a perfect journey. At some point one has to experience the situations that you pray not to occur to anybody. But that does not mean you stop living. You fall but that teaches you how to stand; you pray GOD and you feel your prayers are not answered but that helps you make yourself more stronger and independent; your love and trust gets broken but that opens a new path to meet a better person who you deserve; your friends get parted but does not limit you on making new ones. People move on and life goes on.

Start treasuring the best ones who supported you and loved you throughout your life; they are your HEROES and whom you should look up to. Always remember the most important thing is you having someone whom you love and who loves you. Feel lucky.

Now-a-days, people are selfish and cruel. It is not their fault. The world around us is so much on rush that it makes them so. These "I" centered individuals keep making fun and dominating "WE" centered individuals. Ironically the former wins the professional race than the latter. But the interesting fact shows that the former loses the race on personal and family happiness index. At the end what matters most is "Family"; "Happiness" and "Self-Satisfaction". 

For earning self-satisfaction always remember the kind words shared by Chico Xavier "Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning; anyone can start over and make a new ending". So, if you are not satisfied with the results, start over again and avoid repeating the same mistakes again. 

People say that life would be very boring if it was perfect and without mistakes. I agree but it is worth noting that the mistakes you make should never hurt any innocent. As much as you value yourself, value others and automatically your life will be filled with wonders. Always feel good about yourself, pamper and gift yourself whenever you feel like and always think positive. Life is too short to ponder on negative stuff and mistakes.

Happy Living!! 

Defining Success

People define success in many ways; as per their convenience. And when we try to track ourselves on how successful we are in certain field, we get highly confused. For me, there are lots of factor that contribute and exhibit the level of success we are heading at.

"Success" literally means "the accomplishment of an aim or purpose". I think any accomplishment could be evaluated in terms of emotional, mental and physical output. Some can be calculated while the others can just be felt and observed.

At every step of our life, knowingly and unknowingly, we have an ideal image of a successful person that we want to be like. At some point, if we fail to attain that image, we feel disappointed. But it is out of ignorance that we mislead ourselves. Because we are aiming the wrong aim; we are setting a wrong goal for ourselves.

Let me put this the other way round. There is no such person who can be termed as "Unsuccessful" if s/he is contributing her/his effort and time on it. If you do not devote yourself in any task; then you do not lie under the criteria to be evaluated for rating your success. It is a very simple process. According to my review on people whom I refer as successful, if you want to reach that level then 

1. you have to be fully (100%) involved in what you do.

2. you have to do your best unless you yourself are satisfied with the attained result. If you are not satisfied, redo it, take expert opinion and do not hesitate to ask for help.

3. you have to have an ability to uplift others, support others in need, share your expertise and ideas, document and share your success. 

4. you have to stop making excuses and blaming others for not achieving your part of goal.

5. you have to have both team spirit and individuality to work on your subject.

6. you have to have patience. Rejection does not mean you have failed. It just means you tried your best but someone just worked a step harder than you did. Success does not come overnight.

7. list out 5 people who would be interested and happy to help you in each task. Make sure they know that you have selected them as "Guarding Angels" and never miss giving them credit when you achieve your success.

These factors contribute to succeed our physical output, which can be evaluated as per our need. But does the success in the physical output contribute to our emotional and mental output. May be or may not be. 

The majors factors that contribute to succeed our emotional and mental output are happiness, positivism, mental peace, creativity and sound sleep. These, however, could not be measured. But it does contribute a lot in attaining physical output and having a happy and balanced life.

So many people are much focused on success at work, that they end up neglecting the most important part of their life; their family and themselves. Work is a part of life. Work involving both fun and family gives it a life and value; and that is what drives you towards success. As Albert Einstein has put it together, "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value".

I have met a lot of people who know how to advocate themselves to show how successful they are. It is great in the field of entertainment and advertisement; but when you are dealing with critical subject matters and using their story to make personal profit for yourself; it is not a right thing to portray. 

I have also seen people who use others to reach their goal. After attaining that goal, after reaching success (as per what they say), they start picking on their supporter, bossing around, treat them badly, never give them credit for what they have done and still expect a positive response. Duh! Hilarious. If the supporters are dumb enough to support such douche-bag again, the supporters will actually not be able to succeed on attaining their own success. So, there should be a clear demarcation on your list of "Guarding Angels" and the list of people whom you want to guard as an angel.     

Success does matter and the success of the person whom you guard matters the most. When you are guarding someone for success, you should as well succeed on attaining emotional and mental output and self-satisfaction. If that is missing and you feel that your effort is being wasted then STOP. Saying "NO" to someone is not a wrong thing to do. Sometimes it makes you feel great and help you concentrate on attaining your own aim for success, giving you much more power to value yourself and your self-esteem.    

Quality control

When talking about quality control, the first thing that comes on my mind is the responsibility. If I complete my part of responsibility and you complete yours; and then in aggregate if some expert put their view on it for the thumbs up or thumbs down; the process of quality control would be checked.

We talk the talk about big stuff on quality management system and quality control and when it comes to act on it, everyone vanishes in thin air. Suddenly there is no budget for quality control; everyone becomes so busy with meetings, reporting, field work, deadlines that they do not give a damn about the quality control unless at the end of the project term when you urgently need to make sure that your work estimate is going on as planned. Then you suddenly remember the system out of blue and want it done in no time.

I wonder why people do act and start working when the deadline approaches and give no damn concern until they have enough time.

If you ask me why do we need to bother about quality management system? The simple answer would be: because we need to bother about realistic results and transparent documentation. None of the projects do better than expected and hardly do achieve the realistic scenario. And most of the projects go horrifically wrong, just achieving the numbers and not the actual motive of sustainability.

If there is no system and you conduct a quality check with minimal documentation, what would you expect? Definitely a negative numbering with higher risk of failure. And you can not complain the person who conducts quality control for not searching enough data and documents. It is a complete state of panic sometimes when you start searching for records which is just a year old. Imagine searching past records since the start of the organization. Drop down dead!

However, it is never too late to start afresh. At least having something to record is better than having nothing at all. But the crucial part is the understanding of the urgency of such systems within the organization and how seriously the seniors and board of members prioritize it for implementation. 

Seeking Advice from Experts is better than via Internet

There are huge lot of overloaded information in the world. And you have internet to access over it. However, it is difficult to make confirmation on better and genuine ones.

I extract information via internet most of the times when I get confused while working on certain topic; may it be related to my job or my personal interest. But particularly when it comes to get advice on health and medicines, I would suggest to consult doctors and experts rather than the internet. Saving a few penny and name can cost you your life.

The thought passed over on to me when I heard that a teenager got pregnant and tried to abort her pregnancy via internet information. She was compelled in doing so since she did not want her parents and relatives to know about it. To avoid shame and blame, she took the risk on her own hands.

What is being done can not be undone. Trust your parents more and make at least one of your family members your secret keeper. That way, you will have your strength and back supported all the time. Only trust the ones who are trustworthy. And internet is hardly the one you should trust and rely on. However, it is a good source to get advise now and then to cross check your findings.

I have three secret keepers, my MOM, my sister and my husband. They know everything about me; every trauma I go through; every happiness and joyful moments of my life; my dirtiest jokes; my darkest secrets; the time when I am the best of ME as well as the worst of Me. I keep no secrets with them. I choose them to be my secret keepers because I trust them; I know they are always there for me; we love each others company; we disagree on topics and find solutions to agree on; we respect each others space; and give time and patience to know and understand each other.

Life is never an easy journey. It comes with lots of ups and downs and you meet people who are either supportive towards you or take advantage of you. Always trust your instinct and before taking any serious step, never forget to seek advice from your secret keeper. If you doubt the advice, always consult with an expert.