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@KeepUpWithKaustubh

The road not taken in HR corridors

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

When you’re in a real relationship, you can feel it in your bones. Your gut tells you this is forever, your pulse tells you it’s now or never, and a deep, physical form of happiness gushes through your veins. At the core, that’s what a relationship is. You’re either all in or all out. The rest is just a fa?ade.  

But wake up and smell the coffee, the cynic inside you shouts.

Today,

A newlywed bride NEEDS to be coy.

The man you love NEEDS to take care of you.

Your employee NEEDS to function like a mass-produced copy of every other hire.

You don’t NEED to bother your boss with a laundry list of questions.

Every conceivable relationship today is encased in glass boundaries, to the point of suffocation! No sooner do people get into relationships, than they have a rule book thrown in their faces. Relationships NEED to go by the book and deliver on certain expectations.

The moment we get into a relationship, be it personal or professional, the first thing we do is name it. BEWARE! NAMES COME WITH BOUNDARIES AND EXPECTATIONS. As soon as we name it, we set some boundaries for both of us. We expect them to already know what we feel and what we want. And when things don’t turn out that way, *crack* we are heartbroken. However, this isn’t our mistake, we’re conditioned. But again, isn’t this a boundary we have trapped ourselves in? As soon as two people in any kind of relationship understand this, they can shrug off the labels and make way for two souls to connect. Because at the core of it all is the pure connection of two people, unadulterated by templates, boundaries and the expectations piled on by residual relationships and conditioning.

Effective leaders rarely fall into the trap of templated relationships. By setting this boundary of an employee and an employer, managers may never get to connect with their teams. Unwittingly, they would already be on the path to a dead end. What if I told you that nurturing individual relationships could ensure that everyone involved performs to their fullest potential? Consider this. Some team members respond well to an initial spurt of micro-managing before being able to internalise the system and then take flight. Others seem like a natural culture fit to a team and find the same stage of micromanagement restrictive? So how does a manager judge how to approach a relationship? I’d say let’s strip the relationship of all the usual qualifiers. After the initial interview, let’s forget the educational qualification, prior work-experience etc. Start a conversation afresh, as between to souls untarnished by assumptions. I bet that would make thing more effective, and certainly make for a more enjoyable ride.

So, rather than expecting someone to be the way you like them to be (or worse still, what you think you should want them to be), try and find out what’s exceptional about them. Let them surprise you. This won’t ever lead to disappointment.

On the other hand, people often wonder how apparently beautiful and long-lasting relationships come to an end. How a perfect couple everyone thinks will be together forever, parts ways. One reason could be falling short of expectations in the long run. In relationships, partners often hold each other responsible for their happiness. They start demanding contentment for the other which when not fulfilled leads to complaints. Let me say it straight – relationships are hard work, and boundaries just make the problem way more complicated! There are societies, however, that have managed to work their way around labels. In Portland, Oregon (one America’s most sexually tolerant cities), couples are known to have fruitful, long-lasting relationships that are non-monogamous. I don’t recommend this as the solution, but just that relationships should be allowed to unfold the way two souls grow, and not be text-book definitions. Word of mouth may be fantastic for marketing, but disastrous for relationships.

Many of you must have raised your eyebrows by now. But on what grounds? We have been taught that only monogamy is the ‘right’ way to approach romantic relationships and anything outside of that is seen as cheating. However, even experts say that what we term ‘relationships’ and ‘love’, aren’t as clearly black and white. Bruce Lee once wisely said, “I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.” I couldn’t agree more.

The world is moving at a fast pace. Cultures are changing and so are relationships. The workplace with the best work culture (and not just the highest pay) is considered desirable by the millennial. Earlier managers were used to ‘manage’ their teams. Now, the team doesn't always want or even need to be managed. Instead, people want to be coached. The relationship needs to be reciprocal. There is so much of new media and technology that the old guard can learn from the new. Did you know that in France, employees are protected by a ‘Right to Disconnect’ law? According to this law, French professionals are not accountable for answering emails that come in after hours. Some employees in Norway are allowed to count travel time as a part of their workday. Imagine the difference a law like that could make in a city like Mumbai. The best part is, all these employees and their companies are doing exceptionally well even without serving the conventional business boundaries.

I agree that today’s relationships have become transactional. We look forward to being benefited from it in some way or the other. But why don’t we decide to fill our emotional bank balance rather than focusing on relationship ROI? I challenge you to put a price on the smile on your child’s face when you come back from work in the evening, or the joy in your parents’ sigh when they hear your voice on a long-distance call.

Why don’t we let souls and our gut drive relationships in this world rather than a restricted material outlook, myths and templates? Why don’t we break the boundaries we have set and let people and relationships surprise us? Why don’t we stop expecting and start expressing? Why don’t we change ourselves rather than expect others to change? Let’s break free of boundaries to create a borderless world where relationships are bound only by the soul.