The Third Eye: Efficiency lays pathway for success in professional, private life

New Delhi: Doing things efficiently is not to be treated as a burden of ‘compliance’—if effortlessly built into one’s day-to-day business, efficiency would improve the quality of life and open up a new source of self-satisfaction or a kind of happiness that can only be felt from within, not seen by the world outside.

Being efficient is not a ‘compulsion’. However, one should be aware that it could be the ‘perceived ground’ for one’s performance evaluation by ‘outsiders’ who were used to applying certain prescribed parameters for that purpose. Efficiency is also not something that requires the sacrifice of one’s leisure time.

It is more a matter of developing an attitude and a practice for one’s moral or even spiritual well-being. Any ‘material’ benefit that it brought in as its natural consequence, was to be looked at as a bonus.

Does ‘efficiency’ have a definition and can it be incorporated into a higher purpose of life and made a means of self-improvement? In Hindu philosophy- so precisely defined by Gita- ‘karma’ or duty performed with ‘devotion’, is termed the highest expression of life’s spiritual objective particularly if carried out without being weighed down by the thought of the possible material outcome of the same.

Any ‘duty’ is fulfilled best when it is performed on a note of efficiency for it is only then that it produces an optimal advantage for the beneficiary. Duty is an act of ‘giving’ not ‘taking’ that requires a spend of your energy and ‘resource’ and the return on it lay in the realm of morality and ‘good deeds’ measured by a deeper sense of pleasure touching the heart and soul.

On a mundane note, ‘efficiency’ can be defined as a measure of output per unit of resource used- money, material and manpower with ‘time’ having been added as the new resource- in a situation of global competitiveness. In fact, in today’s world, efficiency is judged by how much an employee produces in a given time and that is the reason why in a developed economy a person is paid ‘per hour’ of work.

Two things govern the output of the worker- one is his or her ‘skill’ development and the other is the degree of ‘concentration’ of mind with which the work was handled. In a successful organisation, importance is attached to orientation programmes designed to help the employee understand the essence of the work and at the same time the leadership tries to ensure that people work in a stress-free environment was often polluted by organisational infirmities.

In a good organisation there was no confusion about credit-sharing and work ethics defined the boss-subordinate relationship, interaction among colleagues and business meetings with clients and other ‘outsiders’.

The CEO of the enterprise has to understand human relations and sensitivities and realise that ‘all business is human activity’. He should know how to constitute best-performing teams- and should be able to appreciate the importance of diversity as a source of strength and fix the mandate of a team leader.

The leader of a team ought to have emotional intelligence in the right measure as he or she should be able to understand and share the concerns of an employee if any, in the areas outside the workplace, especially on the family front.

An efficient way of working should be inculcated by everybody in their personal life as well. If engaged in dealing with a task, no distractions should be allowed to creep in there is a time to work and a time to relax. A mix-up would ordinarily have to be avoided- however personalised the engagement was.

A disciplined lifestyle is an efficient way of living as it allows for a fuller use of time, strikes a balance between mental and physical health and adds to self-confidence. It enables the person to identify an urgency or a spell of difficulty requiring a conscious redistribution of time and resources and visualise the time frame of return to normalcy.

This gives a better sense of control in a situation of emergency in personal life which could come to anybody.

In business some ups and downs and leaders could ride a crisis instead of getting overwhelmed by it- knew what ‘course correction’ was needed.

Practitioners of a disciplined lifestyle would also know more easily, what reorganisation of routine should be put in place to tide throughout disruption. There is a beginning of life and there is a destined closure- one should have this ultimate awareness at the back of the mind- and logically therefore, the best life lived is where no time is wasted in ‘emptiness’.

Efficiency, discipline, value of time, purposefulness in life and fulfilment of pursuits are all synonymous with a successful life.

A sense of enrichment in material and spiritual terms is what defines a life well-lived and this satisfaction is an individual’s own experience not a copy of someone else’s life. This is what makes everybody’s life a unique story that belonged to him or her alone.

‘Efficiency’ converts life into an achievement for it maximises the utility of time, fulfilment of ‘duty’ and contribution to the larger cause of humanity. ‘ Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ is a fine gift of Indian Thought- it elevates everybody’s life as a contributor to the supreme cause of human collectivity.

Valuing life as one’s unique experience minimises the tendency to vie with someone else and blame others for the non-fulfilment of one’s desires.

An objective assessment of one’s strengths and weaknesses, identifying one’s areas of interest and willingness to put in hard work is the recipe for success for any endeavours attempted in life- without the fear of failure putting you down unnecessarily.

Optimism free of false notions, can be developed in thought and practice by sticking to a value system and belief in the honesty of one’s effort.

Madame Curie, the Nobel Laureate famously said after a lab ‘mishap’ that ‘nothing in life is to be feared, it has only to be understood’. A certain level of understanding about life as a finite existence helps to preserve the sanity that was so essential for making a sound decision.

Life is a phenomenon of ongoing decision-making, big or small and it should be understood that well-informed decisions are the best guarantee of success.

In any situation one is either acting as a leader or merely carrying out what someone else had decided-this holds good for both organisational and family settings. One should be a good leader and a good implementor.

Leadership requires decisiveness, initiative and knowledge-based decision-making in place of reliance on any false notions of ‘charisma’, trustworthiness and transparency.

A leader creates an environment within the enterprise that induces every employee to produce his or her best in implementing the organisation’s policies.

Toyota gained market supremacy in its time by ensuring that the workers on the assembly line conscientiously reported on what was not working perfectly- this was setting a benchmark for those ‘implementing’ a decision.

The worker here was observant, doing the job with full concentration and totally involved in the ‘collective good’ for the organisation, to be able to provide useful ‘feedback’.

The leadership of a successful organisation handles the workforce in a manner that information of relevance about the external and internal situation of the enterprise flows in all the time. It believes in the dictum that ‘ nobody knows everything but everybody knows something’.

Those who carry out orders constitute the bulk of the organisational pyramid and they give off their best if they have an assurance of fair play in credit sharing, believed in organisational ethics and sensed a humane, nurtural and principled response from those at the top.

Work-life balance is often a critical factor in determining the quality of life of an individual- one should consciously work for it by linking it to one’s ‘duty’ on all fronts and developing a sense of equitability towards those multifarious obligations.

(The writer is a former Director Intelligence Bureau)

--IANS

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