When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you are trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but do not quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
When Things Go Wrong
Getting Old
One of my friend shared this long time back. Slightly longish but good read. Enjoy
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were
Kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived,
Because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint,
which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine
bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with
pans.
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and
Fluorescent 'spokey dokeys' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in
cars with No seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it
tasted the same. We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop
with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside
playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no
one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top
speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running
into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as
we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.
We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99
channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile
phones, no personal computers, and no Internet chat rooms. We had friends
and we went outside and found them.
We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really
hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no
lawsuits. We had full on fistfights but no prosecution followed from
other parents. We played knock-and-run and were actually afraid of the
owners catching us.
We walked to friend's homes. We also, believe it or not, WALKED to
school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was
just round the corner.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs
of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood. The idea of a parent bailing us
out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion
of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and
responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
And you're one of them. Congratulations!
Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids,
Before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
For those of you who aren't old enough thought you might like to read
about us.
This my friends, is surprisingly frightening ...and it might put a smile on your face:
The majority of students in universities today were born in 1983...they are called youth.
They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and
The Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel.
They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena or Belinda Carlisle.
For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.
AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they
were born. Michael Jackson has always been white.
To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't
Imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.
They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are Films From last year.
They can never imagine life before computers.
They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the Famous Five.
They can't believe a black and white television ever existed and don't
Even know how to switch on a TV without a remote control.
And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.
Now let's check if we're getting old...
1. You understand what was written above and you smile.
2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.
3. Your friends are getting married/already married.
4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.
5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.
6. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old
days, repeating again all the fun you have experienced together.
7. Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some
other friends because you think they will like it too...
Yes, you're getting older and still rocking away to the 80's music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were
Kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived,
Because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint,
which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine
bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with
pans.
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and
Fluorescent 'spokey dokeys' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in
cars with No seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it
tasted the same. We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop
with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside
playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no
one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top
speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running
into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as
we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.
We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99
channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile
phones, no personal computers, and no Internet chat rooms. We had friends
and we went outside and found them.
We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really
hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no
lawsuits. We had full on fistfights but no prosecution followed from
other parents. We played knock-and-run and were actually afraid of the
owners catching us.
We walked to friend's homes. We also, believe it or not, WALKED to
school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was
just round the corner.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs
of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood. The idea of a parent bailing us
out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion
of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and
responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
And you're one of them. Congratulations!
Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids,
Before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
For those of you who aren't old enough thought you might like to read
about us.
This my friends, is surprisingly frightening ...and it might put a smile on your face:
The majority of students in universities today were born in 1983...they are called youth.
They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and
The Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel.
They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena or Belinda Carlisle.
For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.
AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they
were born. Michael Jackson has always been white.
To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't
Imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.
They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are Films From last year.
They can never imagine life before computers.
They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the Famous Five.
They can't believe a black and white television ever existed and don't
Even know how to switch on a TV without a remote control.
And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.
Now let's check if we're getting old...
1. You understand what was written above and you smile.
2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.
3. Your friends are getting married/already married.
4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.
5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.
6. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old
days, repeating again all the fun you have experienced together.
7. Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some
other friends because you think they will like it too...
Yes, you're getting older and still rocking away to the 80's music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools, and the Formation of Social Networks
Read this long time back. Interesting thoughts..
New research shows that when people need help getting a job
done, they'll choose a congenial colleague over a more capable
one. That has big implications for every organization-and not
all of them are negative.
by Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo
One of management's greatest challenges arises from a natural
tension inherent in every organization. People are brought
together because they have the variety of skills that, in
concert, are needed to carry out a complex activity. But this
variety inevitably leads to fragmentation of the organization
into silos of specialized knowledge and activity.
It's an understatement to say that resolving this tension is
crucial to success in today's knowledge-based and
collaborative business environment. How do you ensure that
relevant information gets transferred between two parts of an
organization that have different cultures? How do you
encourage people from units competing for scarce corporate
resources to work together? How do you see to it that the
value of a cross-functional team is more, not less, than the
sum of its parts?
The answers to such questions lie not in an examination of
organization charts but largely in an understanding of
informal social networks and how they emerge. Certainly,
organizations are designed to ensure that people interact in
ways necessary to get their jobs done. But all kinds of
work-related encounters and relationships exist that only
partly reflect these purposefully designed structures. Even in
the context of formal structures like cross-functional teams,
informal relationships play a major role.
In this article, we offer somewhat surprising insights into
how informal networks take shape in companies-that is, how
people choose those they work with. We then discuss some of
the benefits and drawbacks of this phenomenon and offer ways
for managers to mitigate its negative effects and leverage the
positive ones.
How We Choose Work Partners
When given the choice of whom to work with, people will pick
one person over another for any number of reasons: the
prestige of being associated with a star performer, for
example, or the hope that spending time with a strategically
placed superior will further their careers. But in most cases,
people choose their work partners according to two criteria.
One is competence at the job (Does Joe know what he's doing?).
The other is likability (Is Joe enjoyable to work with?).
Obviously, both things matter. Less obvious is how much they
matter-and exactly how they matter.
To gain some insight into these questions, we studied four
organizations selected to reflect a wide range of
attributes-for-profit and nonprofit, large and small, North
American and European. We asked people to indicate how often
they had work-related interactions with every other person in
the organization. We then asked them to rate all the other
people in the company in terms of how much they personally
liked each one and how well each did his or her job. (For a
more-detailed description of the studies, see the sidebar "Who
Is Good? Who Is Liked?")
Who Is Good? Who Is Liked?
These two criteria-competence and likability-combine to
produce four archetypes: the competent jerk, who knows a lot
but is unpleasant to deal with; the lovable fool, who doesn't
know much but is a delight to have around; the lovable star,
who's both smart and likable; and the incompetent jerk,
who...well, that's self-explanatory. These archetypes are
caricatures, of course: Organizations usually-well, much of
the time-weed out both the hopelessly incompetent and the
socially clueless. Still, people in an organization can be
roughly classified using a simple matrix. (Indeed, with
relative ease you can probably populate the four boxes
depicted in the exhibit "Whom Would You Choose?" with the
names of people in your own company.)
Whom Would You Choose?
Our research showed (not surprisingly) that, no matter what
kind of organization we studied, everybody wanted to work with
the lovable star, and nobody wanted to work with the
incompetent jerk. Things got a lot more interesting, though,
when people faced the choice between competent jerks and
lovable fools.
Ask managers about this choice-and we've asked many of them,
both as part of our research and in executive education
programs we teach-and you'll often hear them say that when it
comes to getting a job done, of course competence trumps
likability. "I can defuse my antipathy toward the jerk if he's
competent, but I can't train someone who's incompetent," says
the CIO at a large engineering company. Or, in the words of a
knowledge management executive in the IT department of a
professional services firm: "I really care about the skills
and expertise you bring to the table. If you're a nice person
on top of that, that's simply a bonus."
But despite what such people might say about their
preferences, the reverse turned out to be true in practice in
the organizations we analyzed. Personal feelings played a more
important role in forming work relationships-not friendships
at work but job-oriented relationships-than is commonly
acknowledged. They were even more important than evaluations
of competence. In fact, feelings worked as a gating factor: We
found that if someone is strongly disliked, it's almost
irrelevant whether or not she is competent; people won't want
to work with her anyway. By contrast, if someone is liked, his
colleagues will seek out every little bit of competence he has
to offer. And this tendency didn't exist only in extreme
cases; it was true across the board. Generally speaking, a
little extra likability goes a longer way than a little extra
competence in making someone desirable to work with.
If someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every
little bit of competence he has to offer.
Of course, competence is more important than likability in
some people's choice of work partners. But why do so many
others claim that to be the case? "Choosing the lovable fool
over the competent jerk looks unprofessional," suggests a
marketing manager at a personal products company. "So people
don't like to admit it-maybe not even to themselves."
Yet is such a choice unprofessional? Is it a mistake to steer
clear of the competent jerk when we have a job to do?
Sometimes, yes. We may forgo the opportunity to tap a
competent jerk's knowledge and skills because we don't want to
deal with his patronizing, brusque, or otherwise unpleasant
attitude-which is arguably a modest price to pay for the
valuable assistance he can provide. We may even shun the jerk
simply to deny him the satisfaction of lording his knowledge
over us.
Sometimes it can be difficult to pry the needed
information from the jerk simply because he is a jerk.
But there are justifiable reasons to avoid the jerk. Sometimes
it can be difficult to pry the needed information from him
simply because he is a jerk. And knowledge often requires
explanation to be useful-you might, for instance, want to
brainstorm with someone or ask follow-up questions-and this
kind of interaction may be difficult with a competent jerk.
Furthermore, in order to learn, you often have to reveal your
vulnerabilities, which also may be difficult with the
competent jerk-especially if you are afraid of how this might
affect your reputation in his eyes or in the eyes of others to
whom he may reveal your limitations. By contrast, the lovable
fool may be more likely to freely share whatever (albeit
modest) information or skills he has and, without any
intention of gaining an advantage, help others put them to
use.
The Likability Bias: Pros and Cons
Some people are liked pretty much universally. In other cases,
likability is relative: One person's friend may be another
one's jerk. This is because our positive feelings can result
from people's inherent attributes or from the situations we
find ourselves in with them. This distinction is important to
keep in mind as we try to manage this tendency of people to
favor likability over competence in their choice of work
partners.
Social psychologists have long known that we like people who
are similar to us; people we are familiar with; people who
have reciprocal positive feelings about us; and people who are
inherently attractive, either in their appearance or their
personality-that is, they are considerate, cheerful, generous,
and so on. Each of these sources of personal likability can
contribute, for better or worse, to the formation of an
informal network.
For Better. That we like people who are similar to us-for
example, in their background, their beliefs, their interests,
their personal style-is one of the most solidly documented
findings in the social sciences. After all, these people make
us feel good because they reaffirm the validity of our own
characteristics and attitudes. But there's a business, as well
as a psychological, benefit when similar people choose to work
together: Their similar values, ways of thinking, and
communication styles help projects flow smoothly and quickly.
Benefits also result when we work with people who aren't
necessarily similar, but are familiar, to us. When you launch
into a task with those you already know, you don't waste a lot
of time figuring out what to expect from them or explaining
what you mean every time you say something. In addition,
because you are usually relatively comfortable with
individuals you know, you're likely to be more accepting of
their differences.
We also like to work with people who seem to like us. This can
produce a virtuous circle in which everyone is more open to
new ideas, more willing to help, and more trusting than would
typically be the case. A similarly positive environment can be
created if you work with someone who has an attractive
personality-someone who is empathetic, for example, or
generous. You know that you'll have liberal access to her
intellectual resources, however abundant or modest they may
be, and are likely to reciprocate by freely sharing your own
knowledge.
And a person who is physically attractive? Well, in such a
case, the job you do together can be, in some indefinable way,
simply a bit more enjoyable than usual.
For Worse. One of the greatest drawbacks of choosing to work
with similar people is the limited range of perspectives that
a homogeneous group often brings to bear on a problem. A
diverse collection of colleagues-whatever the tensions and
misunderstandings that arise because of their
differences-provides an array of perspectives that can lead to
truly innovative approaches to accomplishing a task.
Even groups composed not of similar souls but merely of people
who are very familiar with one another miss the chance to
integrate the fresh perspective that new players bring to a
project. Working with the same old colleagues can also dampen
debate: People may hesitate to challenge or reject a bad idea
put forward by someone they know and like.
There is also an obvious downside when we gravitate toward
people because they like us or because they are pleasant to
work with. These individuals, however terrific they may be,
aren't necessarily the ones most suited to tackling the task
at hand. The required expertise or knowledge may lie
elsewhere, in someone who in fact doesn't like us that much or
isn't attractive.
One other danger of people working primarily with those they
like: They may simply have a good time and get nothing done.
An experienced venture capitalist recalls the case of a very
capable manager who hired individuals based on his personal
affinity with them. "His team had a great time going out for a
beer, but the quality of their work was seriously
compromised," says the dismayed investor. "If you keep hiring
only people you like, you can kill a company."
The objective, therefore, is to leverage the power of liking
while avoiding the negative consequences of people's
"affect-based choice"-to use the psychological term-of work
partners. Keep in mind that we're not talking here about
formal work relationships: You work with your boss and your
direct counterparts in other divisions whether you like them
or not. We're talking only about people's choices of informal,
though work-related, interactions. Even so, that doesn't
preclude executives from doing some things that will
positively affect those interactions and the often
task-crucial informal networks that grow out of them.
We offer three basic approaches. First, where possible,
manufacture liking in critical relationships. Second,
carefully position universally likable people so they can
bridge organizational divides. Third, to put it bluntly, work
on the jerks. The first tactic acknowledges that whether you
like someone or not may depend on the situation. The second
and third tactics acknowledge that being a jerk or being
likable can be an intrinsic characteristic of a person, almost
regardless of the situation.
Manufacture Liking
Given the central role that our feelings about people play in
our work relationships, is there anything a manager can do to
foster positive feelings toward one another? The answer,
perhaps surprisingly, is yes.
Promote familiarity. In a well-known psychological experiment,
a person shown a photograph of himself and a reversed image of
the same picture consistently preferred the reversed
photograph-simply because it was the image he was used to
seeing in the mirror! And just as people like the images
they're used to seeing, so they tend to like other people
they're used to seeing around-they, too, are known and
predictable. Familiarity is, in turn, one of the reasons why
physical proximity strongly affects the degree to which people
like each other: Research has shown that regular exposure to
someone generally increases the comfort and pleasure of
interaction.
The power of familiarity to generate positive interpersonal
feelings argues for some careful thinking about the design of
office space. This could involve anything from mixing up
people's work spaces ("I generally don't care for people in
Finance, but I've actually grown to like Sarah since she moved
into the next office") to creating areas in an office that
foster informal, watercooler-style chats.
You can also design processes that give people an opportunity
simply to become acquainted and thus make them more
comfortable with each other. The "peer assist," a knowledge
management process in which team members aim to capture the
expertise of other colleagues before starting a project,
generally involves some initial interaction-say, a cocktail
party-the evening before work begins and any work-specific
goals are addressed. This allows people to get to know one
another a bit, independently from the work at hand, while
relationships are still emotionally neutral and haven't yet
been subjected to any task-related interference, such as the
potentially competing interests of the assisting and assisted
parties. Less formally, all-office get-togethers on Friday
afternoons can be more than culture- and morale-building
exercises. They offer an opportunity for people from different
functions and units to become familiar with one another, thus
making it easier for them to share knowledge in the future.
Redefine similarity. Similarities can be created where they
might not naturally arise. It's no secret, for example, that
marketers and researchers tend to be wary of one another.
Their personalities, as well as their departmental
allegiances, are generally very different. But if you create a
product management team that includes both marketers and
researchers, there is a chance their similar identities as
"Product X people" may begin to feel stronger than their
dissimilar identities as "marketing people" and "R&D people."
Superimposition of the shared identity, by overriding natural
differences, may lead to increased cross-functional
cooperation, both formal and informal.
Foster bonding. Often, however, cooperation fails to emerge
despite a redefinition of similarities. Where there exists
powerful forces of distrust or animosity, either because of
strong dissimilarities (for instance, loyalty to different
premerger companies) or because of a troubled history (years
of competition between functional areas over budget
allocations, for example), you won't be able to get people to
like each other simply by inviting them to some TGIF
gatherings or by sticking them on a cross-functional team.
Promoting positive feelings in those circumstances requires
stronger methods.
One involves putting people through an intense cooperative
experience. In a famous experiment conducted more than 40
years ago by social psychologist Muzafer Sherif, groups of 11-
and 12-year-old boys were brought together in a camp setting.
Initially, they were randomly assigned to two groups. These
were kept separate to foster ties within each group, and
competitive activities were designed to produce animosity
between the two groups. Then, to see if exposure to one
another in a fun environment could reduce the hostility that
had been generated, the competitive activities were suspended,
and the boys got together for such benign activities as
watching movies. In fact, though, hostility increased, with
fights erupting at every turn. Sherif figured that something
else was needed: a situation that would force the boys to
cooperate with one another. So he created several. For
instance, a truck taking the two groups on a camping trip
broke down, and all of the boys had to push it up a steep hill
to get it going again. Over time, episodes like this decreased
hostility and, by the end of the camp experience, the number
of boys who said that they had a best friend in the other
group quadrupled.
The Outward Bound-style off-site experiences used by many
companies are based on this venerable psychological principle.
Such tactics can be problematic, however, because novelty and
authenticity are critical to their success. The moment they
become trite or feel manufactured, they lose their
effectiveness. The challenge for managers, therefore, is to
constantly find new ways to take advantage of this old
concept.
Leverage the Likable
What should managers do to make effective use of people-fools
or otherwise-who are likable almost regardless of the
situation? Perhaps the best way to capitalize on their
personal qualities is to have them play the role of "affective
hubs"-people who, because they are liked by a disproportionate
number of people, can bridge gaps between diverse groups that
might not otherwise interact.
We don't necessarily like such people because they are similar
or familiar to us. More likely, we are drawn to their
attractive personality traits, sophisticated social skills,
and old-fashioned "chemistry''-a chemistry that may arise from
our sense that these people genuinely like us. Such
individuals aren't necessarily the best performers (although
they can be-that's the lovable star). More commonly, because
of the time they devote to interacting with people, they may
actually lag slightly behind their peers in terms of
measurable performance. But their ability to establish
positive working relationships between groups that would
otherwise tend to be disconnected can be crucial to an
organization's success. Managers can do several things to get
the most out of such people.
Identify them. Attentive managers know if they have someone
who could play-or is already playing-the role of an affective
hub. But most managers aren't closely enough attuned to the
emotional dimension of work to recognize such an individual.
Take the case of an employee in one company's IT department.
She was the person who dealt with breakdowns in the technical
infrastructure of the company. Although less technically
proficient than many of her colleagues, she acted, in the
words of one, "as a coral reef barrier when the user community
in the company had problems. Because she was liked by
everyone, she could deflate users' frustration and anger,
insulating us geeks from complaints and allowing us to solve
the problem." After she was laid off in a cost-cutting move,
her job was divided among more technically competent people.
The result? "It was a disaster," according to her former
colleague.
Granted, it's often difficult for a manager several steps up
in the firm to identify and assess the value of such a person.
One aid is the increasingly common 360-degree evaluation,
which typically includes questions about how pleasant someone
is to deal with. A more systematic approach is to perform a
social network analysis with surveys whose questions are
specifically designed to collect information on relationships
between workers and on the structure of the network formed by
those relationships.
Protect them. Even when affective hubs are identified and
their value to the company is acknowledged, such soft
contributions may be deemed less important than more
quantifiable ones. When told about the concept of affective
hubs, members of a management team at a large technology
company exclaimed almost in unison: "Damn, we just fired him!"
They went on to describe someone who was beloved within and
outside the organization, a person other people would turn to
when they wanted to make contact with someone in another part
of the business or at an alliance partner. "It's not just that
he knew everybody," according to one member of the team. "It's
that everybody really liked him, and they were happy to do him
a favor." Even though people were aware of his critical
informal role, it wasn't enough to save him from being one of
the first to go in a round of downsizing.
Position them strategically. Clearly, you don't want to waste
the talents of an affective hub by letting the person languish
in a job that is only loosely connected with other functions.
Such individuals should be put in a position to link people
from different parts of the organization who might otherwise
resist-or never think of-collaborating with one another.
Affective hubs also are useful in positions central to the
diffusion of new ideas. Think, for example, of a program
designed to communicate new practices or principles throughout
an organization. How do you select participants? Do you chose
managers? Star performers? Or do you chose the people who,
because others will listen to them, are going to be good
evangelists for the new ideas?
Work on the Jerk
Competent jerks represent a missed opportunity for the
organization because so much of their expertise goes untapped.
Dealing with jerks is so unpleasant that colleagues simply
can't be bothered with them. What can you do with such people?
Reassess their contribution. The individual performance of the
competent jerk is great. But how does he contribute to the
performance of the organization as a whole? Does he help the
people who work with him or actually hinder them? Take the
case of an investment bank that hired an extraordinary
rainmaker in a difficult and highly profitable market the bank
wanted to enter.1 Unfortunately, the qualities that made the
new hire a phenomenal producer in this rough-and-tumble market
also alienated lots of his colleagues. Over time, it became
clear that the newcomer's manner was violating the culture of
respect and polite behavior that helped define the company.
What, then, to do about it?
Reward good behavior; punish bad behavior. If the
contributions of the competent jerk are significant, it's
probably worth trying to turn him into a tolerated, even if
not actively liked, star performer. Changing the behavior of
adults is never a straightforward proposition, of course, but
some things can be done. Jerks who can be charming when they
wish-but choose to do so only when convenient-may respond to
incentives. The rainmaker was one of those. He could be very
charming to potential clients but was not to his coworkers. So
when it came time for him to be considered for a managing
director position, the bank denied him the promotion.
Socialize and coach. Although the rainmaker could have quit,
taking his revenue-generating skills with him, he did not. His
boss adopted an aggressive coaching stance, scolding for bad
behavior immediately after the fact, rather than waiting for a
year-end performance review. The boss was effective in
explaining in detail how the behavior was
self-defeating-information that a self-interested and
ambitious individual is likely to take to heart. After
coaching from his boss, the rainmaker's behavior improved, and
he was promoted the following year. (Sadly, there are people
who are disliked because they are socially incompetent and
probably never will be truly charming. For them,
interpersonal-skills training, rather than incentive-based
coaching, may be preferable.)
Reposition. If likable people can improve an organization when
they operate in highly interdependent roles, competent jerks
will probably do best when they work independently. There is
often a place for people who don't need to be liked so long as
they get their jobs done-even if you must sacrifice widespread
access to their expertise.
* * *
Obviously, simply being liked doesn't mean a person is
valuable to an organization. We all know the fellow that
people adore whose performance is continually disappointing-to
the point that his colleagues end up disliking him because he
repeatedly lets them down. We all know the woman who builds
relationship after relationship that ultimately go nowhere, at
least as far as the organization is concerned.
Still, it's easy to be mistakenly dazzled by a high performer,
even if his expertise is never tapped or shared because people
don't want to work with him. And too many managers fail to
appreciate the benefits that a likable person can offer an
organization, particularly if those benefits come at the
expense of some measure of performance. Building an
environment in which people like one another-whether by
creating situations that make liking people easy, by fostering
those likable people who can play the role of an affective
hub, or by improving the behavior of competent jerks-can help
all employees work more happily and productively and encourage
the formation of strong and smoothly functioning social
networks.
New research shows that when people need help getting a job
done, they'll choose a congenial colleague over a more capable
one. That has big implications for every organization-and not
all of them are negative.
by Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo
One of management's greatest challenges arises from a natural
tension inherent in every organization. People are brought
together because they have the variety of skills that, in
concert, are needed to carry out a complex activity. But this
variety inevitably leads to fragmentation of the organization
into silos of specialized knowledge and activity.
It's an understatement to say that resolving this tension is
crucial to success in today's knowledge-based and
collaborative business environment. How do you ensure that
relevant information gets transferred between two parts of an
organization that have different cultures? How do you
encourage people from units competing for scarce corporate
resources to work together? How do you see to it that the
value of a cross-functional team is more, not less, than the
sum of its parts?
The answers to such questions lie not in an examination of
organization charts but largely in an understanding of
informal social networks and how they emerge. Certainly,
organizations are designed to ensure that people interact in
ways necessary to get their jobs done. But all kinds of
work-related encounters and relationships exist that only
partly reflect these purposefully designed structures. Even in
the context of formal structures like cross-functional teams,
informal relationships play a major role.
In this article, we offer somewhat surprising insights into
how informal networks take shape in companies-that is, how
people choose those they work with. We then discuss some of
the benefits and drawbacks of this phenomenon and offer ways
for managers to mitigate its negative effects and leverage the
positive ones.
How We Choose Work Partners
When given the choice of whom to work with, people will pick
one person over another for any number of reasons: the
prestige of being associated with a star performer, for
example, or the hope that spending time with a strategically
placed superior will further their careers. But in most cases,
people choose their work partners according to two criteria.
One is competence at the job (Does Joe know what he's doing?).
The other is likability (Is Joe enjoyable to work with?).
Obviously, both things matter. Less obvious is how much they
matter-and exactly how they matter.
To gain some insight into these questions, we studied four
organizations selected to reflect a wide range of
attributes-for-profit and nonprofit, large and small, North
American and European. We asked people to indicate how often
they had work-related interactions with every other person in
the organization. We then asked them to rate all the other
people in the company in terms of how much they personally
liked each one and how well each did his or her job. (For a
more-detailed description of the studies, see the sidebar "Who
Is Good? Who Is Liked?")
Who Is Good? Who Is Liked?
These two criteria-competence and likability-combine to
produce four archetypes: the competent jerk, who knows a lot
but is unpleasant to deal with; the lovable fool, who doesn't
know much but is a delight to have around; the lovable star,
who's both smart and likable; and the incompetent jerk,
who...well, that's self-explanatory. These archetypes are
caricatures, of course: Organizations usually-well, much of
the time-weed out both the hopelessly incompetent and the
socially clueless. Still, people in an organization can be
roughly classified using a simple matrix. (Indeed, with
relative ease you can probably populate the four boxes
depicted in the exhibit "Whom Would You Choose?" with the
names of people in your own company.)
Whom Would You Choose?
Our research showed (not surprisingly) that, no matter what
kind of organization we studied, everybody wanted to work with
the lovable star, and nobody wanted to work with the
incompetent jerk. Things got a lot more interesting, though,
when people faced the choice between competent jerks and
lovable fools.
Ask managers about this choice-and we've asked many of them,
both as part of our research and in executive education
programs we teach-and you'll often hear them say that when it
comes to getting a job done, of course competence trumps
likability. "I can defuse my antipathy toward the jerk if he's
competent, but I can't train someone who's incompetent," says
the CIO at a large engineering company. Or, in the words of a
knowledge management executive in the IT department of a
professional services firm: "I really care about the skills
and expertise you bring to the table. If you're a nice person
on top of that, that's simply a bonus."
But despite what such people might say about their
preferences, the reverse turned out to be true in practice in
the organizations we analyzed. Personal feelings played a more
important role in forming work relationships-not friendships
at work but job-oriented relationships-than is commonly
acknowledged. They were even more important than evaluations
of competence. In fact, feelings worked as a gating factor: We
found that if someone is strongly disliked, it's almost
irrelevant whether or not she is competent; people won't want
to work with her anyway. By contrast, if someone is liked, his
colleagues will seek out every little bit of competence he has
to offer. And this tendency didn't exist only in extreme
cases; it was true across the board. Generally speaking, a
little extra likability goes a longer way than a little extra
competence in making someone desirable to work with.
If someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every
little bit of competence he has to offer.
Of course, competence is more important than likability in
some people's choice of work partners. But why do so many
others claim that to be the case? "Choosing the lovable fool
over the competent jerk looks unprofessional," suggests a
marketing manager at a personal products company. "So people
don't like to admit it-maybe not even to themselves."
Yet is such a choice unprofessional? Is it a mistake to steer
clear of the competent jerk when we have a job to do?
Sometimes, yes. We may forgo the opportunity to tap a
competent jerk's knowledge and skills because we don't want to
deal with his patronizing, brusque, or otherwise unpleasant
attitude-which is arguably a modest price to pay for the
valuable assistance he can provide. We may even shun the jerk
simply to deny him the satisfaction of lording his knowledge
over us.
Sometimes it can be difficult to pry the needed
information from the jerk simply because he is a jerk.
But there are justifiable reasons to avoid the jerk. Sometimes
it can be difficult to pry the needed information from him
simply because he is a jerk. And knowledge often requires
explanation to be useful-you might, for instance, want to
brainstorm with someone or ask follow-up questions-and this
kind of interaction may be difficult with a competent jerk.
Furthermore, in order to learn, you often have to reveal your
vulnerabilities, which also may be difficult with the
competent jerk-especially if you are afraid of how this might
affect your reputation in his eyes or in the eyes of others to
whom he may reveal your limitations. By contrast, the lovable
fool may be more likely to freely share whatever (albeit
modest) information or skills he has and, without any
intention of gaining an advantage, help others put them to
use.
The Likability Bias: Pros and Cons
Some people are liked pretty much universally. In other cases,
likability is relative: One person's friend may be another
one's jerk. This is because our positive feelings can result
from people's inherent attributes or from the situations we
find ourselves in with them. This distinction is important to
keep in mind as we try to manage this tendency of people to
favor likability over competence in their choice of work
partners.
Social psychologists have long known that we like people who
are similar to us; people we are familiar with; people who
have reciprocal positive feelings about us; and people who are
inherently attractive, either in their appearance or their
personality-that is, they are considerate, cheerful, generous,
and so on. Each of these sources of personal likability can
contribute, for better or worse, to the formation of an
informal network.
For Better. That we like people who are similar to us-for
example, in their background, their beliefs, their interests,
their personal style-is one of the most solidly documented
findings in the social sciences. After all, these people make
us feel good because they reaffirm the validity of our own
characteristics and attitudes. But there's a business, as well
as a psychological, benefit when similar people choose to work
together: Their similar values, ways of thinking, and
communication styles help projects flow smoothly and quickly.
Benefits also result when we work with people who aren't
necessarily similar, but are familiar, to us. When you launch
into a task with those you already know, you don't waste a lot
of time figuring out what to expect from them or explaining
what you mean every time you say something. In addition,
because you are usually relatively comfortable with
individuals you know, you're likely to be more accepting of
their differences.
We also like to work with people who seem to like us. This can
produce a virtuous circle in which everyone is more open to
new ideas, more willing to help, and more trusting than would
typically be the case. A similarly positive environment can be
created if you work with someone who has an attractive
personality-someone who is empathetic, for example, or
generous. You know that you'll have liberal access to her
intellectual resources, however abundant or modest they may
be, and are likely to reciprocate by freely sharing your own
knowledge.
And a person who is physically attractive? Well, in such a
case, the job you do together can be, in some indefinable way,
simply a bit more enjoyable than usual.
For Worse. One of the greatest drawbacks of choosing to work
with similar people is the limited range of perspectives that
a homogeneous group often brings to bear on a problem. A
diverse collection of colleagues-whatever the tensions and
misunderstandings that arise because of their
differences-provides an array of perspectives that can lead to
truly innovative approaches to accomplishing a task.
Even groups composed not of similar souls but merely of people
who are very familiar with one another miss the chance to
integrate the fresh perspective that new players bring to a
project. Working with the same old colleagues can also dampen
debate: People may hesitate to challenge or reject a bad idea
put forward by someone they know and like.
There is also an obvious downside when we gravitate toward
people because they like us or because they are pleasant to
work with. These individuals, however terrific they may be,
aren't necessarily the ones most suited to tackling the task
at hand. The required expertise or knowledge may lie
elsewhere, in someone who in fact doesn't like us that much or
isn't attractive.
One other danger of people working primarily with those they
like: They may simply have a good time and get nothing done.
An experienced venture capitalist recalls the case of a very
capable manager who hired individuals based on his personal
affinity with them. "His team had a great time going out for a
beer, but the quality of their work was seriously
compromised," says the dismayed investor. "If you keep hiring
only people you like, you can kill a company."
The objective, therefore, is to leverage the power of liking
while avoiding the negative consequences of people's
"affect-based choice"-to use the psychological term-of work
partners. Keep in mind that we're not talking here about
formal work relationships: You work with your boss and your
direct counterparts in other divisions whether you like them
or not. We're talking only about people's choices of informal,
though work-related, interactions. Even so, that doesn't
preclude executives from doing some things that will
positively affect those interactions and the often
task-crucial informal networks that grow out of them.
We offer three basic approaches. First, where possible,
manufacture liking in critical relationships. Second,
carefully position universally likable people so they can
bridge organizational divides. Third, to put it bluntly, work
on the jerks. The first tactic acknowledges that whether you
like someone or not may depend on the situation. The second
and third tactics acknowledge that being a jerk or being
likable can be an intrinsic characteristic of a person, almost
regardless of the situation.
Manufacture Liking
Given the central role that our feelings about people play in
our work relationships, is there anything a manager can do to
foster positive feelings toward one another? The answer,
perhaps surprisingly, is yes.
Promote familiarity. In a well-known psychological experiment,
a person shown a photograph of himself and a reversed image of
the same picture consistently preferred the reversed
photograph-simply because it was the image he was used to
seeing in the mirror! And just as people like the images
they're used to seeing, so they tend to like other people
they're used to seeing around-they, too, are known and
predictable. Familiarity is, in turn, one of the reasons why
physical proximity strongly affects the degree to which people
like each other: Research has shown that regular exposure to
someone generally increases the comfort and pleasure of
interaction.
The power of familiarity to generate positive interpersonal
feelings argues for some careful thinking about the design of
office space. This could involve anything from mixing up
people's work spaces ("I generally don't care for people in
Finance, but I've actually grown to like Sarah since she moved
into the next office") to creating areas in an office that
foster informal, watercooler-style chats.
You can also design processes that give people an opportunity
simply to become acquainted and thus make them more
comfortable with each other. The "peer assist," a knowledge
management process in which team members aim to capture the
expertise of other colleagues before starting a project,
generally involves some initial interaction-say, a cocktail
party-the evening before work begins and any work-specific
goals are addressed. This allows people to get to know one
another a bit, independently from the work at hand, while
relationships are still emotionally neutral and haven't yet
been subjected to any task-related interference, such as the
potentially competing interests of the assisting and assisted
parties. Less formally, all-office get-togethers on Friday
afternoons can be more than culture- and morale-building
exercises. They offer an opportunity for people from different
functions and units to become familiar with one another, thus
making it easier for them to share knowledge in the future.
Redefine similarity. Similarities can be created where they
might not naturally arise. It's no secret, for example, that
marketers and researchers tend to be wary of one another.
Their personalities, as well as their departmental
allegiances, are generally very different. But if you create a
product management team that includes both marketers and
researchers, there is a chance their similar identities as
"Product X people" may begin to feel stronger than their
dissimilar identities as "marketing people" and "R&D people."
Superimposition of the shared identity, by overriding natural
differences, may lead to increased cross-functional
cooperation, both formal and informal.
Foster bonding. Often, however, cooperation fails to emerge
despite a redefinition of similarities. Where there exists
powerful forces of distrust or animosity, either because of
strong dissimilarities (for instance, loyalty to different
premerger companies) or because of a troubled history (years
of competition between functional areas over budget
allocations, for example), you won't be able to get people to
like each other simply by inviting them to some TGIF
gatherings or by sticking them on a cross-functional team.
Promoting positive feelings in those circumstances requires
stronger methods.
One involves putting people through an intense cooperative
experience. In a famous experiment conducted more than 40
years ago by social psychologist Muzafer Sherif, groups of 11-
and 12-year-old boys were brought together in a camp setting.
Initially, they were randomly assigned to two groups. These
were kept separate to foster ties within each group, and
competitive activities were designed to produce animosity
between the two groups. Then, to see if exposure to one
another in a fun environment could reduce the hostility that
had been generated, the competitive activities were suspended,
and the boys got together for such benign activities as
watching movies. In fact, though, hostility increased, with
fights erupting at every turn. Sherif figured that something
else was needed: a situation that would force the boys to
cooperate with one another. So he created several. For
instance, a truck taking the two groups on a camping trip
broke down, and all of the boys had to push it up a steep hill
to get it going again. Over time, episodes like this decreased
hostility and, by the end of the camp experience, the number
of boys who said that they had a best friend in the other
group quadrupled.
The Outward Bound-style off-site experiences used by many
companies are based on this venerable psychological principle.
Such tactics can be problematic, however, because novelty and
authenticity are critical to their success. The moment they
become trite or feel manufactured, they lose their
effectiveness. The challenge for managers, therefore, is to
constantly find new ways to take advantage of this old
concept.
Leverage the Likable
What should managers do to make effective use of people-fools
or otherwise-who are likable almost regardless of the
situation? Perhaps the best way to capitalize on their
personal qualities is to have them play the role of "affective
hubs"-people who, because they are liked by a disproportionate
number of people, can bridge gaps between diverse groups that
might not otherwise interact.
We don't necessarily like such people because they are similar
or familiar to us. More likely, we are drawn to their
attractive personality traits, sophisticated social skills,
and old-fashioned "chemistry''-a chemistry that may arise from
our sense that these people genuinely like us. Such
individuals aren't necessarily the best performers (although
they can be-that's the lovable star). More commonly, because
of the time they devote to interacting with people, they may
actually lag slightly behind their peers in terms of
measurable performance. But their ability to establish
positive working relationships between groups that would
otherwise tend to be disconnected can be crucial to an
organization's success. Managers can do several things to get
the most out of such people.
Identify them. Attentive managers know if they have someone
who could play-or is already playing-the role of an affective
hub. But most managers aren't closely enough attuned to the
emotional dimension of work to recognize such an individual.
Take the case of an employee in one company's IT department.
She was the person who dealt with breakdowns in the technical
infrastructure of the company. Although less technically
proficient than many of her colleagues, she acted, in the
words of one, "as a coral reef barrier when the user community
in the company had problems. Because she was liked by
everyone, she could deflate users' frustration and anger,
insulating us geeks from complaints and allowing us to solve
the problem." After she was laid off in a cost-cutting move,
her job was divided among more technically competent people.
The result? "It was a disaster," according to her former
colleague.
Granted, it's often difficult for a manager several steps up
in the firm to identify and assess the value of such a person.
One aid is the increasingly common 360-degree evaluation,
which typically includes questions about how pleasant someone
is to deal with. A more systematic approach is to perform a
social network analysis with surveys whose questions are
specifically designed to collect information on relationships
between workers and on the structure of the network formed by
those relationships.
Protect them. Even when affective hubs are identified and
their value to the company is acknowledged, such soft
contributions may be deemed less important than more
quantifiable ones. When told about the concept of affective
hubs, members of a management team at a large technology
company exclaimed almost in unison: "Damn, we just fired him!"
They went on to describe someone who was beloved within and
outside the organization, a person other people would turn to
when they wanted to make contact with someone in another part
of the business or at an alliance partner. "It's not just that
he knew everybody," according to one member of the team. "It's
that everybody really liked him, and they were happy to do him
a favor." Even though people were aware of his critical
informal role, it wasn't enough to save him from being one of
the first to go in a round of downsizing.
Position them strategically. Clearly, you don't want to waste
the talents of an affective hub by letting the person languish
in a job that is only loosely connected with other functions.
Such individuals should be put in a position to link people
from different parts of the organization who might otherwise
resist-or never think of-collaborating with one another.
Affective hubs also are useful in positions central to the
diffusion of new ideas. Think, for example, of a program
designed to communicate new practices or principles throughout
an organization. How do you select participants? Do you chose
managers? Star performers? Or do you chose the people who,
because others will listen to them, are going to be good
evangelists for the new ideas?
Work on the Jerk
Competent jerks represent a missed opportunity for the
organization because so much of their expertise goes untapped.
Dealing with jerks is so unpleasant that colleagues simply
can't be bothered with them. What can you do with such people?
Reassess their contribution. The individual performance of the
competent jerk is great. But how does he contribute to the
performance of the organization as a whole? Does he help the
people who work with him or actually hinder them? Take the
case of an investment bank that hired an extraordinary
rainmaker in a difficult and highly profitable market the bank
wanted to enter.1 Unfortunately, the qualities that made the
new hire a phenomenal producer in this rough-and-tumble market
also alienated lots of his colleagues. Over time, it became
clear that the newcomer's manner was violating the culture of
respect and polite behavior that helped define the company.
What, then, to do about it?
Reward good behavior; punish bad behavior. If the
contributions of the competent jerk are significant, it's
probably worth trying to turn him into a tolerated, even if
not actively liked, star performer. Changing the behavior of
adults is never a straightforward proposition, of course, but
some things can be done. Jerks who can be charming when they
wish-but choose to do so only when convenient-may respond to
incentives. The rainmaker was one of those. He could be very
charming to potential clients but was not to his coworkers. So
when it came time for him to be considered for a managing
director position, the bank denied him the promotion.
Socialize and coach. Although the rainmaker could have quit,
taking his revenue-generating skills with him, he did not. His
boss adopted an aggressive coaching stance, scolding for bad
behavior immediately after the fact, rather than waiting for a
year-end performance review. The boss was effective in
explaining in detail how the behavior was
self-defeating-information that a self-interested and
ambitious individual is likely to take to heart. After
coaching from his boss, the rainmaker's behavior improved, and
he was promoted the following year. (Sadly, there are people
who are disliked because they are socially incompetent and
probably never will be truly charming. For them,
interpersonal-skills training, rather than incentive-based
coaching, may be preferable.)
Reposition. If likable people can improve an organization when
they operate in highly interdependent roles, competent jerks
will probably do best when they work independently. There is
often a place for people who don't need to be liked so long as
they get their jobs done-even if you must sacrifice widespread
access to their expertise.
* * *
Obviously, simply being liked doesn't mean a person is
valuable to an organization. We all know the fellow that
people adore whose performance is continually disappointing-to
the point that his colleagues end up disliking him because he
repeatedly lets them down. We all know the woman who builds
relationship after relationship that ultimately go nowhere, at
least as far as the organization is concerned.
Still, it's easy to be mistakenly dazzled by a high performer,
even if his expertise is never tapped or shared because people
don't want to work with him. And too many managers fail to
appreciate the benefits that a likable person can offer an
organization, particularly if those benefits come at the
expense of some measure of performance. Building an
environment in which people like one another-whether by
creating situations that make liking people easy, by fostering
those likable people who can play the role of an affective
hub, or by improving the behavior of competent jerks-can help
all employees work more happily and productively and encourage
the formation of strong and smoothly functioning social
networks.
Everday I want..
A nice jingle in the Vodafone Add
Everyday I want to fly, stay by my side
Everyday I want to dream, stay by my side
Every morning I wish I could just play
Wish the mornings would just stay…..
Everyday I want to fly, stay by my side
Everyday I want to dream, stay by my side
Youtube Video for this add is here.
Everyday I want to fly, stay by my side
Everyday I want to dream, stay by my side
Every morning I wish I could just play
Wish the mornings would just stay…..
Everyday I want to fly, stay by my side
Everyday I want to dream, stay by my side
Youtube Video for this add is here.
Jyotidham by Karsandas Manek
જ્યોતિધામ [મંદાક્રાંતા]
કરસનદાસ માણેક
============================== ===========
મેં ગ્રંથોમાં જીવનપથના સૂચનો ખોળી જોયાં;
ને તીર્થોનાં મલિન જળમાં હાડકાં બોળી જોયાં;
અંધારામાં દ્યુતિકિરણ એકાર્ધ યે પામવાને
મંદિરોનાં પથર પુતળાં ખૂબ ઢંઢોળી જોયાં;
સંતોકેરાં કરગરી કરી પાદ પ્રક્ષાલી જોયાં;
એકાંતોનાં મશહુર ધનાગાર ઉઘાડી જોયાં;
ઊંડે ઊંડે નિજમંહિ સર્યો તેજકણ કામવાને,
વિશ્વે વંદ્યા,પણ,સકલ ભન્ડાર મેં ખાલી જોયાં!
ને આ સર્વે ગડમથલ નીહાળતાં નેણ તારાં
વર્ષાવંતા મુજ ઉપર વાત્સલ્યપીષધારા.
તેમાં ન્હોતો રજપણ મને ખેંચવાનો પ્રયાસ,
ન્હોતો તેમાં અવગણનના દુઃખનો લેશ ભાસ !
જ્યોતિ લાધે ફક્ત શિશુને એટલી ઉરકામ !
મોડી મોડી ખબર પડી,બા,તું જ છો જ્યોતિધામ !
કરસનદાસ માણેક
============================== ===========
મેં ગ્રંથોમાં જીવનપથના સૂચનો ખોળી જોયાં;
ને તીર્થોનાં મલિન જળમાં હાડકાં બોળી જોયાં;
અંધારામાં દ્યુતિકિરણ એકાર્ધ યે પામવાને
મંદિરોનાં પથર પુતળાં ખૂબ ઢંઢોળી જોયાં;
સંતોકેરાં કરગરી કરી પાદ પ્રક્ષાલી જોયાં;
એકાંતોનાં મશહુર ધનાગાર ઉઘાડી જોયાં;
ઊંડે ઊંડે નિજમંહિ સર્યો તેજકણ કામવાને,
વિશ્વે વંદ્યા,પણ,સકલ ભન્ડાર મેં ખાલી જોયાં!
ને આ સર્વે ગડમથલ નીહાળતાં નેણ તારાં
વર્ષાવંતા મુજ ઉપર વાત્સલ્યપીષધારા.
તેમાં ન્હોતો રજપણ મને ખેંચવાનો પ્રયાસ,
ન્હોતો તેમાં અવગણનના દુઃખનો લેશ ભાસ !
જ્યોતિ લાધે ફક્ત શિશુને એટલી ઉરકામ !
મોડી મોડી ખબર પડી,બા,તું જ છો જ્યોતિધામ !
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep
Robert Lee Frost
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep
Robert Lee Frost
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
tow roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
Robert Lee Frost
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
tow roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
Robert Lee Frost
About My Blog
Hello, This blog about nice & motivating poems, quotes, articles, presentations etc. At a times, I may post some laughter to be in lighter side.
Regards,
Rohit
Regards,
Rohit
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