MURTo Inspire WE before ME
What does that really mean?
A mission for a company is its raison d’etre…. Or reason for existence.
Our work with customers involves addressing very real problems and issues that people face in their organizations. The problems as stated to us comes in various shades:
• It may be silo behaviour
• A lack of transparency
• Missing collaboration amongst different teams & team members
• It may be the lack of clear leadership
• It may be an issue of people not taking enough ownership for the work that they do.
Almost always, the problem is framed as being “out there.” Something that can be “addressed” through an intervention, the way we would address an external wound. But over the years, one of the deepest insights that we have garnered through running numerous workshops is that, the crux of the problems lies in most of us having a “ME-centric” outlook to the world, rather than a “WE-centric” approach.
We think sometimes that the “individual excellence” focussed education system that we have here in India is partly responsible. But if you think about it, so is the way we think as a society. Other than a few institutions like the Army, where a thinking of “one for all, all for one” pervades, for most others – it is, “me, myself and at best my close family.” This is quite an irony, considering that most Hindu rituals end with the generic prayer, “Sarve Jano Sukhino Bhavantu” meaning “Let everyone be happy” while the Bible inspires us to be “our brother’s keeper.”
We believe that in our limited way, we can inspire people around us – to make this journey from being self-centered “ME-thinking” individuals to being go-givers with a “WE-thinking” mindset. And that, we think will lead them to be better co-workers, team mates, leaders and in fact individuals.
So in every workshop that we do, we try to inspire individuals and teams with this core message, through different subtle and not-so-subtle messages:
• Get out of the Super Star syndrome
• Take your people along
• Don’t become the “Chief Bottleneck Officer” of your team!
• Enable others to act
• Find excuses to celebrate together
• Catch people doing the “right” things!
• And many, many more…
And as much as we evangelise all this – if you were to drop into any of our offices, this is what we try and live every day too.
We feel proudest about this company when people come up and tell us things like:
• “Which one of you is the leader here?”
• “Team FocusU has a great DNA”
• “Your teamwork was exemplary – it worked like clockwork”
We are very normal people, who hope to inspire the people we touch through our work – with an alternate way of being. A world where the hygge and warmth we create together is more important than our individual achievements.
If we do succeed in whatever small measure – do let us know. It inspires us further!