Sunday, January 29, 2017

"The Motivational Chain Reaction"

Chemistry is a subject which all have studied in school, some who liked it continued its studies further, but most (including me) wanted to it to over. But one thing we all accept is its importance in our existence. It is the thing which explains the functioning of this universe, our world, and human psychology.

                                                
Sun is the center of our existence and a chemical reaction is the reason of Sun's heat and light. One atom (the basic particle which makes everything) collides another atom or nucleus (a smaller particle), bifurcating it and simultaneously releasing a tremendous energy. These two generated atoms collide with other two and make them break releasing energy. This is the chain reaction our Sun and every star in this universe work.

The Similar type of process occurs in the motivation of people. One self-motivated person (atom) given the suitable environment (nucleus) absorbs energy from the environment, motivates people around him/her (bifurcation) and makes the environment better (releasing energy) for the motivation of people.
This process continues from people to people resulting in the motivational chain reaction which enables the organization enhancing the quality of its invaluable asset, its employees.
It helps an organization to possess a set of highly motivated employees which helps it to perform better and attracts high return yielding assets from outside. This helps the organization grow, better reward its employees and motivate them better.


The fuel for the motivational chain reaction 

What is required to start and maintain motivational chain reaction in your organization?
  1. A self-motivated employee: The first component is having a self-motivated individual onboard who can influence others around.
  2. Suitable Environment: Most of the time we have the first component for the motivational chain reaction but fail to give a kick start by providing the proper environment. There are some factors which determine the environment provided to employees, and the below image says it all.
Organizations hire self-motivated people, expect them to turn around tables but fail to provide a suitable environment which results in demotivation of that individual. They fail to realize, a motivated person or team can do wonders even if they lack the required skills, but a skilled and demotivated person will be unable to do his basic job.

"Motivated ass can run like a horse but a demotivated horse can not even behave like an ass".
Organizations need to think, change and be CEO in the above image and not CFO.


Two schools of thoughts of Motivation

When we discuss motivation, two schools of thoughts exists which stand a pole apart.

The old school of thought, "Your company (people) determines your company (workplace)". It is said to choose your friends wisely as they have an impact on your thinking, behavior, attitude, actions and success.

It is a conservative way of thinking which assumes only your company would have an impact on you and not the other way round. It also tells to hold others responsible for the failure and being reactive to the things not in our control.




There are two types of fires, the one which gets extinguished by the water and another which manages to evaporate it.While the old school of thought is being the fire of the first type, cautious not to be extinguished by water, the new school of thought is being the fire which evaporates water,

The new school of thought says "Be such a company (people) so that your company (people) can choose any company (workplace) he wants". Be powerful enough to maintain your flame but to heat the water around you also.

It directs to take authority and be the charge of the things in our control and bring a positive change. What if the organization lacks the environment for motivation, you be the change and start the motivational chain reaction because an individual is the center of the chain reaction, not the environment.
It is a human tendency to always find excuses for the failure and also let others take the first step and be the follower, but some sheep among the flock of sheep who act as a lion, takes the responsibility, leads and shows others how it is done.

Are you the lion and acting as the center of the motivational chain reaction in your organization? If not then it is time and neither wait for others nor held the organization accountable for failing in starting the motivational chain reaction.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Legendary Portrait of Life

The Mona Lisa, quoted as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". To paint this portrait, Leonardo da Vinci required a canvas, an Easel (stand on which canvas is placed), and colours. To paint any painting, painter requires these three things but not every painting becomes a legend.
Our Life is also like a painting, where we are the painters painting on the canvas of time placed on a 3 legged Easel of personal life, work and self-development filling the canvas using the 7 colours of thinking, knowledge, attitude, hard work, perseverance, acceptance of failure, and openness to change.

There are millions of paintings, painted by thousands of painters but only some of them maintain their significance through the course of time. Similarly, there are numerous life paintings but only a few of them are legends.

The question which arises is, what is that factor which makes a painting or life's portrait legendary?

For any painting to become legendary, there are 3 requirements

1. Stable Easel
The first and foremost thing to make a good portrait is that the painter must have a stable easel so that the canvas is stable. The time (canvas) of each individual is divided into his personal life, his work and self-development. Most people try to balance only two legs at a time which result in an unstable easel.

If you maintain a balance between personal life and work but forgot about the 3rd which is self-development, your work will slowly gets affected, which results in disturbance of the work life balance and in turn you have an unstable easel. Similary if you try to maintain a balance between work and self development, personnal life suffers and again easel is destabalized.

2. Canvas Utilization
A good painting is determined by how well you utilise the canvas to bring out the maximum of your creativity on paper. In life, every person on this planet has only 24 hours in a day, its what they do in those 24 hours which makes a life's portrait legend.
If you paint in a small area and leave most of the canvas blank it won't be good picture. A person who wastes his time and not utilize time for his personal life, work or self development will just lead a normal life and cannot paint a memorable lif'e portrait.

3. A meaningful colour combination
The pianting is how a painter uses the combination of colours on the canvas to bring out a meaningful picture. In life's portrait, people uses 7 colours of thinking, knowledge, attitude, hard work, perseverance, acceptance of failure, and openness to change, in their time to bring out the success and happiness in their life.

Every painting brings out some meaning and so if every life. Life is meaningful only if both success and happiness comes together in life. People may or may not posess all the 7 colours of life which determines the quality of their life's potrait.
A legendary portrait of life is painted by a painter who uses possess 7 attributes, uses them in his time while optimum utilizing it and maintaining a balance between his personal life, work and self development and lead a happy life with success.

Anyone can paint a legendary portrait of his life, just he needs to understand what he wants to paint and should be creative enough to bring out his thoughts on canvas because leading a meaningful life is an art more than a science.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

A new dawn of advertising

Gone are those days when companies and their advertising agencies rely on tried and testing media for promotion of product or services. It is the age of millenniums and generation Z, which spend 90% of the time on the internet even for the things which are available otherwise.

In my blog titled. "If old is 'Gold', new is 'Platinum'..!!", I had mentioned about changing requirements of advertisement to reach the correct target audience. Companies have started giving a prominent share of marketing budget to these new methods of communication along with the old ones.

No company can just completely rely on TV, print, radio and other old methods of just reaching their customers. They need to provide some ways to customers through which they could engage with the brands. In my blog titled, " Hitting the Bull's-eye..!!, I had mentioned new ways which companies are using to provide a platform to their customers to directly interact with brands.

The other media which proves to make companies and brands omnipresent is "the internet". The advertising industry has been witnessing a paradigm shift in marketing medium through the social media marketing, mobile marketing, viral videos and short films.

Many companies like Ola, Uber, Quikr, Kingfisher, Commonfloor, Snapdeal, TrulyMadly, Flipkart, Lenovo, Hotstar and much more had routed their advertising campaigns through youtube sensations like AIB (All India Bakchod) and TVF (The Viral Fever). 

This type of medium gives direct reach to the target customer in a subtle way whose effect is more prominent and long lasting than that of TV or print or radio or even the social media advertisement.



TVF Pitchers successfully provided a platform for companies to showcase their brands and became the first sitcom to be listed in IMDB top 250 worldwide.

Then TVF Permanent roommates touched the hearts and showcased brands like ola cabs in every episode through a character named Purshottam.


Movie and TV celebrities endorsement has been a constant practice by most of the companies to register their brands in customers' mind, but always presenting the communication just as an advertisement reduces the impact of celebrities.

But the recent work of advertisement from capital foods, the owner of Ching's Secret has flabbergasted both advertising and entertainment fraternity.

The video titled "Ranveer Ching Returns | A Rohit Shetty Film | Ranveer Singh & Tamannaah" is not another bollywood movie featuring the bad ass actor Ranveer Singh and sizzling Tamannaah Bhatia, but it is a wonderful piece of communication for chings brand.

It was released in the format of any other bollywood movie release format by releasing a trailer and own poster.

The video's trailer was released around a week before the full short film of 5 minutes and 33 seconds, got more than 3 million views and the full movie released on 19th August got 2 million views in just 2 days of its release.


How this marks the new dawn of advertising in India?

First of all, this advertisement which is in the form of a short film starts as any bollywood movie.

Secondly, mentioning Rohit Shetty, a known producer, and director of bollywood movies gives more credibility to it of being a movie only.

Thirdly, it casts Ranveer Singh who is currently the youth icon after winning national award for best actor and Tamannaah, who is one of the best actresses of tollywood. Thus creating excitement in both North and South Indian audience.

The first time any viewer will watch this video, he/ she will expect it being another movie directed by Rohit Shetty having Ranveer and Tamannaah as lead actor and actress.

It creates a win-win situation for all the stakeholders, capital foods getting advertisement, Rohit 
Shetty, Ranveer and Tamannaah getting a publicity and buzz in the audience.

Certainly, short films were made before to inject the brand communication in customers' in a subtle way, but chings have come up with the never before concept which will definitely change a lot in this industry.

In this new dawn of advertising, there were advertising rays of viral video advertising, customer engaging advertising and another ray of short film advertising just emerged from the horizon.