I am reminded of a story I read in a recent SM forward. No no, I won’t fill up my article with a mindless copy-paste, but to bring the area of relatedness and cutting to the chase here’s what it was about……
A question by Arjun to Krishna prompts the story about how Karna was more generous than Yudhistir. Story goes to tell how when asked for sandal wood sticks for a yagna during the rainy season (hey, was this in Mumbai? ☺) by some brahmins, Yudhistir delivers wet, unusable ones but Karna on the other hand chops off the (dry) doors of his palace and converts them into usable sticks for the yagna. Yudhistir did give but Karna made sure they were useful. If asked for the doors of his palace, Yudhistir too would have done the same, but Karna thought about it himself. This is because Karna loves to give not just due to the preachings of the Hindu Dharma.
Now, I am reminded of this story because this is so much applicable in our IT service industry. Almost daily we face situations where customers come to us with problems. What can be done with these problems?
Solve it with a traditional technical solution (go to the forest, collect the sticks, deliver them)
Solve it with workaround solution (buy sticks locally, deliver them)
Solve it with an industry best practice (everyone is using alternative fuel these days, suggest that instead)
…………….
Solve it with love (chop down the doors!)
Premise blinds us sometimes. Tradition bogs us down sometimes. Inheritance restricts us sometimes. If the mind was a clean slate and the intent was to give the customer what he wanted not what we ‘think’ he needs and there was an accompanied love for doing this right then our world would be so different.
Every situation lets out a different reaction from different people. Situation needs to be handled. Task needs to be completed. Some will do whatever it takes to ‘Let it happen’, some will ‘Help it happen’ and some will ‘Make it happen’. Finally it’s a choice which each of us make. The love of doing a job brings in energy, fills us with exceptional strength, helps us break boundaries, brings out the dormant passion, make us roll up sleeves and get into the thick of things rather than being an instructor from outside the ring, in short makes us happy.
While being completely sold on ideas of automation, artificial intelligence, machine connectivity and learning, etc. I’d still give utmost importance to the human element behind more such discoveries. Someone felt the need, took off on it with the zest and passion required to make such an important invention. All these are but ideas coming out of minds so eager to discover, make stuff better and love doing so! I love to see the spark of such people around me, I love to be surrounded by many such wonderful peers and colleagues. Their energy rubs off and makes the whole environment charged up.
So today, are you working on a traditional solution or you’d love to add your own zing to it? Do you, like Karna, love to do what you do? If you do, you have some very lucky and happy customers!
Have a go at it……..happy chopping!
