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“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”- Andrew Carnegie  

As a continuation of my previous article on Step 1 of 7: Be Discontent, which discusses the idea that "We are what we choose to be and get only what we have worked for," Here, the emphasis is on the crucial next action.

How many times have you gone back to your management and demanded for stiffer performance targets? What is extraordinary about you?  

When efficiency and productivity improve, one should achieve more output with same or reduced time and effort. If it is not so, improvement was not achieved.   

This reminds me of a process manager who once mentioned, “We have made a lot of recommendations on technology automation, but none of them got approved, so what is the use of thinking improvements at all?”  

“Did your proposal carry the business impact?" “How many hours of productivity or full-time employee hours were proposed to get saved using your ideas?” I asked.  

“No, no… that did not have an impact on full time employee hour’s cuts though!" She replied.  

“You got what you deserved”, you should stop worrying about it and move on, and don’t be judgmental about it. I responded with a smile. It was evident that she didn’t like my response. 

Push back on productivity targets is not uncommon in corporate world. Improving productivity is perceived as threat to loosing FTE’s (Full Time Employees). Why would a manager like to lose his empire?    

“How can I improve my hourly output and quality?” rarely crosses the mind, and even if it does, fear grips – what if I lose my job? And matters rest in peace.  

This way, we lose the sight of the bigger picture and trade off the opportunity to harness our ability to innovate and improve our professional skills.   

Ordinary desires needsneed ordinary efforts, extraordinary desires needsneed extraordinary efforts. Planning step number two is to have ‘extraordinary’ desires, if you wish your company to look at you for its survival.   

If you set yourself more challenging and higher goals, you make a good starting point. If you achieve them you win bargaining power. It is like a glowing 1000 volts bulb, whose illumination is noticed even from a far-off distance. No amount of company politics can stop the illumination. If your company fails to recognize the illumination, others will. World is a big place, there is no dearth of room for achievers.   

Setting your eyes on ‘extraordinary desires’, is just the beginning and sparks a need to venture into the unknown, and how to achieve it? Journey begins with scepticism, and it is fine. Don’t worry you have just started. This now lends us to our next step.  

About the Author 

Sreedher Kadambi serves as the Principal Consultant and Managing Director at Skil Global Business Solutions Private Limited. With over two decades of experience, he specializes in consulting for Operations Excellence practices within the industry. Kadambi has collaborated with over 20 diverse business segments across India, the USA, and the Middle East, catering to small, medium, large-scale enterprises, as well as multinational companies. Additionally, he holds a position as a visiting faculty member at the Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur.? 

Kadambi has contributed to the field by authoring numerous articles and case studies focused on the implementation of world-class operational excellence practices, available, under blog section, on www.skilglobal.com. He is also the author of "Cracking the Six Sigma Black Belt Exam," a publication by McGraw Hill, which is currently out of print.?