Multiplying Strengths...

It was a special Saturday - special because all the kids in my family were together at one place. My brother's family had come from UK after the pandemic after 3 years for about 5 weeks. This was the last weekend and we gathered together in one place in Chennai.

"What should we do today?" as one kid triggered the thought, "I am tired of the drive" said one. "I am bored of the movies" said another. "It was a lot of parks already" exclaimed one more. I was just back from a business trip and this was my first weekend together with all of them. As I was listening carefully to the conversation, I said "come on children, I have an activity for all of you together. It's an old activity but something you have not done together" and they came running.

"What's that" my niece asked. "It's finding the lost things" I said. "What? What do we find?" asked my daughter. "A lot of nice things that you might have forgotten" I winked. "Amma, are you asking us to clean the house" she instantly knew from her experience. "The one who starts will get the lost treasure" as I said, my brother's daughter immediately volunteered to start it followed by my daughter. My niece was the change agent here. "Hey Siva, come lets do it together with some music. It will be fun" they prompted my brother's son and he joined too.

"Chithi, you are so mean. Is this a fun activity? I don't want to do that" it was my sister's daughter at first. "Amma, it is not fair if she would not do any work and we do everything. You need to ask her to do something too" Harshu protested. "Hey, lets just carry on. We will find the lost treasure" my niece Kanishka prompted her to continue. I smiled watching the kids.

As I noticed, each one had a different strength. Kanishka was good at sorting things and I asked her if she wanted to pick up all stationery lying around and put them into different boxes and sort them all and she did it with ease. My daughter was good at neatly putting up show pieces in an order artistically like a story and engaged herself with that. "Rithu, you are the tallest of all. We are unable to reach the top without you. Can you dust it here and put up a nice decoration what you like here?" as I asked the one who didn't like the work at first, she instantly agreed and did it too. Although she thought it was mean of me to start a cleaning activity with them, she was happy to be acknowledged of her strength of "being the tallest" and started joining the group.

Siva, the silent of all, my nephew was neatly putting out the toys in order. Seeing the whole activity, the youngest toddlers of the family (4 and 2 year olds) joined the activity. "Ammmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Sai Pranav and Sai Mithran will break and spoil the things. Take them away" my daughter was afraid that their work will get spoilt. I calmly smiled and continued cleaning the book shelf.

My son took the pencils at first and scribbled. "You need to put it here" as my niece showed him the stationery box for color pencils, he followed her. He started engaging in the sorting too. The youngest one started taking the show pieces and throwing them too. Slowly my nephew playing the song made them dance. I playfully made them put back the things slowly and not fierce fully that it doesn't break. My nephew was good at babysitting too and he supported. The little ones cackled, laughed, clapped and danced to make the environment lively and lovely.

The songs were loud, the music was high, the work was faster, the sweat in the heat of Chennai was more, one got tired in between, one brought water, the other picked up some pace and motivated the rest and finally we were done. The book shelves were neatly sorted and a lot of missing treasures lost over time were got. The kids felt nostalgic to see old memories of our family pictures, their old handwritings and scribblings as toddlers, their trips together and we spoke of fond memories - wasn't this a lost treasure that brought in smiles!

It was a great team work with a common goal - work was distributed, each one had different strengths and different tasks to do. "Dusting does not overtake sorting nor does babysitting overtake someone singing". No work was small or big - one couldn't have made the goal complete without the other. It was at the end coming together, bringing all the strengths together, different mindset together, handling resistance, unfair feelings, emotions, child's play, carelessness, over carefulness and working together that made our goal accomplished.

Once we reached our goal, the sweat, the tough times, the irritating moments were forgotten but what we saw as a result together made us celebrate. The music or merry together during tough times is what brought down the stress from us - it was important for us to enjoy the game knowing it was not our favorite - who would like cleaning!

"You are the tallest one" it was important to acknowledge that someone could have the strength that no one else has. It doesn't have to be an ego game to acknowledge someone's strength openly nor do you have to feel small when you say it.

"Children, now its time for your earnings. I will give you the money that you earned. Collect them in your piggy bank and next year during vacation lets see if you collected more" I smiled handing over small notes to the kids. "Amma, she did less work and why would you give her also some money" - it was my daughter. "Yeah athai. Why do you give her?" it was my brother's daughter joining the question. Familiar question ;) I smiled.

"Did you enjoy the activity?" I asked them. "Yes, it was fun" they said. "Are you happy with how the room looks now?" "Yeah, its nice". "Did you like the music" "yeah, it was great". "Are you happy for the money you got?" - "Of course". "Then, its time to stop there and cherish what you achieved together. Do not look at what each other got. There is a reason why she gets - each one of you feel your work was more and the other one's work seems less. This comparison breaks the energy and happiness you built over the last hours. Do you want to fight and not look at each other or play happily" - "Play happily" - "then lets go!" They were convinced but not fully.

Doesn't this relate to our corporate lives? It could sound a stressful or uninteresting job at first but when you come together as a team, focus on the strengths of each other openly and look at the goal together, it is easy to move towards achieving it. In this togetherness, you would know no skill is big or small, it is important to play together and create winning moments.

You would always have young energies (like the toddlers in the group). The super seniors like my daughter would be super cautious and worried if their work will be broken by kids - its not about hierarchy but about being super careful. That's where mentorship plays a good role. How did my nephew engage them not to lose them but also support them in learning the work to contribute? That's the key for seniors to give away their egos and create an empowered environment for young ones to learn and be comfortable to take up things.

We work with different minds and hence its important to understand that not everyone will be in the same pace and same interest zone but beauty lies in understanding each other and not cornering someone just because they are different. Your strength only multiplies when you bring uniqueness and different strengths together and see what difference you can make.

A leader never sees the resistance or strengths of individuals in the team as threats. Rather he/she only brings a way to accept resistance and bring this uniqueness add value to the team. Likewise the leader also brings the strengths of the individual to the right table and brings the benefit to the organization than knocking them down.

The team is a team until they see each others strengths as power but the moment they start looking at financial benefits, comparison of work, comparison of personality traits - they forget that all the happy moments and results are gone creating unhealthy environment that only fires negativity. It might sound philosophical but reality is when you focus on the goodness, only goodness returns.

A lot of times we focus on bringing like minded people together. We call it "Birds of one feather flock together". But I see deep meaning in bringing "Birds from different feather and still making them flock together" as the job of a leader.

Dealing with people and the concepts sounds easy from outside, but to make it work the real way and with deep meaning - one needs to pay deep attention and be a coach!

The weekend activity with my children at home was a deep leadership lesson to takeaway!