VOLUME IV CHAPTER X
‘SAY’ – DON’T ‘TALK’
To make a high impact in any meeting you shall avoid “verbal diarrhoea” – too much of talking. In 1949 Nov, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, India’s Ambassador to USSR was invited to address the Vivekananda College Union at Chennai. During tea after the meeting, the author asked Dr. Radhakrishnan, “ Sir, what is the secret of success in public speaking” he advised:-
“ You must speak only when you feel a compelling necessity to say something.” He also advised the author always to be the last person to speak so that he can say what others have not said and also be remembered by the audience. He also asked the author to say with conviction and certitude.
To keep your dreams intact, you will do well to avoid these lapses-
- Don’t think you are the wisest person.
- Don’t use strong abusive language, displaying your anger.
- Don’t indulge in theatrical antics.
- Don’t raise your lung power.
- Don’t show off.
- Don’t inject any negative thoughts.
- Don’t fog the issue.
- Don’t try to act as a messiah.
- Don’t play both sides.
- Don’t plagiarise ideas.
Be a high impact executive. Your speech should have a positive purpose, meaningful orientation, chaste vocabulary, elegant phrasing, pleasant delivery, you have to set an example for high quality behaviour and also impress what is unacceptable behaviour.
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VOLUME IV CHAPTER XI
20 POINTS TO REMEMBER
To keep your dreams on track, cultivate the following so that no issues develop in the school.
- Give up the thought “I am big, I am superior”.
- Avoid talking without purpose, and unaware of consequences.
- Learn to handle every person or situation with finesse.
- Learn to yield so that you may gain later.
- Realise that you have to be patient and tolerant on some occasions.
- Don’t be dogmatic regarding your ideas belief and actions.
- Never be narrow-minded, mean-minded and selfish.
- Find out which is truth and which is a lie.
- Don’t carry tales.
- Never be conceited.
- Never be greedy and over ambitious.
- Always be smiling, use courteous and endearing words.
- While in speaking and in behaviour never be uppish and snobbish.
- Learn to lose prestige to win esteem.
- Never forget to thank and praise.
- Never try to be everything to everybody.
- Don’t believe all that you hear.
- Don’t make a mole into a mountain.
- Try to understand why other feel, talk and act as they do.
- Never forget to show respect to age, authority and women.
For you to remember:
BE HUMBLE –YOU WILL BE PRAISED.
APPRECIATE –YOU WILL BE ADORED.
GREET AND RESPECT – YOU WILL BE GREETED AND RESPECTED.
DO ALL THESE – YOU ARE A PRINCIPAL!
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VOLUME IV CHAPTER XII
ENSURE RIGHT FIT
To keep your dreams on track, you have to create these things in the minds of the staff:-
a) Make them understand that the satisfaction they get from a successful completion of work is in itself the reward for individual effort.
See the joy on the face – the glow, the rush of the adrenaline, the jump, the bounce. That is the reward for 3 hours of nonstop breath-taking, nerve- racking, tension piled 180 minutes.
b) Make them realize that results measured mainly by the achievement of the overall objective – successful completion of the Annual Sports Day, an Exhibition, a Camp, a Conference – it is not an individual contribution that is focused. All have contributed in their own way for the success.
Mapping of roles to the right people is necessary. You can’t ask a new teacher to be at the entrance and welcome parents and visitors. Only a senior teacher can do this work.
Have a flat functional hierarchy, too many layers of reporting will undermine initiative.
Ensure that all rewards are for the team – like a relay team.
When you join as a Principal, don’t think you will occupy the chair only for a short time say 2 – 4 years and so will not take any initiative. Such Principals will just focus on keeping the status quo. Why shall I do something which will rock the boat? – This attitude will be visible.
Shorter or long term stay – you shall leave your footprints firmly. Manage the school in such a way that you shall be remembered even after you leave.
The head of a company said :- “I am not coming to run the company forever. But I need to make sure that there are strong people at the top when I leave”
Be like a plantain, growing schools all around to continue the line and not like a banyan tree, under which nothing will come up.
The author had found that Principals who had a good mentor – mentee relationship earlier as a teacher take a lot of interest in developing their staff, whereas one who had been subjugated into a service position avoids this due to his inferiority complex and impatience.
In a big famous school, for years the successor Principal came from within. But. at the fifth generation level, the Management brought in a person from another school. That person could neither forget his past not understand the present. It was a 60 year old school. The dilemma was – He forgot to forget and failed to understand.
The Chairman of a private school had a mania for appointing Christians as Heads of the institutions in his group. At a point of time. it became the talk of the town that one family was enjoying Rs.2 lakhs salary and all perks. This also is not conducive to growth.
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ONE WHO KNOWS (VOL 4 – CHAPTER X – XII)
– DIMENSIONS OF A PRINCIPAL –
( Dimensions of the Life and Work of a Principal )
332) One who thinks that every pupil has to shape up as a work of art even as they say in Rolls Royce Co, that they think of each car as a work of art.
333) One who finds a staff supporting an errant staff and tells him –
“You cannot make him victorious.
But you can only postpone a little bit his defeat and fall”.
334) One who knows that he can be the best speaker only if and when he becomes a good listener.
335) One who remembers Dr.Washington Carver’s words:-
“You can’t keep a man in ditch unless you are willing to get in with him”.
336) One who always thinks about how much he can do when he is alive.
337) One who can never be dragged down so low as to hate him.
338) One who knows that a plant needs certain things and the soil has certain things to give and it is the farmer’s duty to make the right adjustment between the two and so also that the child needs certain things and the school has certain things to give. The teachers job is to make the right adjustment between the two.
339) One who knows that in USA for babysitting one has to pass an exam and get a certificate which she should show to the mother, which says she knows,
– Child Psychology
– Behaviour pattern
– How to handle them
– Food that will suit the kids and what don’t suit them
– Expectation of parents
And so also that teachers who apply for teaching should also be certified and know well student psychology, their age wise behaviour pattern, how to handle them, how to provide intellectual food, expectation of parents, how to shape them
340) One who knows that children’s health is written on their faces with indicators such as:-
– Dry flaky skin or lips
– Facial hair
– Jaw – up/low
– Soft yellow spots on eye lids
– Eye bags and puffiness
– Facial asymmetry
– Discoloured complexion
– Rashes and blotches
– Receding chin
– Fatigue
– Morning head ache/ sleepiness
– Digestion problems
341) One who knows that the core strategy of self control is to cool the now and heat the later, to push the temptation in front of him and bring the distant.
342) One who develops a school where not all questions have answers, but all answers can be questioned.
343) One who knows that kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
344) One who knows that he should create context in his customer’s (parents) schooling basket and be more relevant to them.
345) One who knows that he will be judged by his ability,
– To build capability in his staff
– To increase leadership bench
– In competing intelligence in the educational market
– To manage the marginal performer
– To retain top talent
– To do predictive analysis
– To introduce value creation activities
– To have a focus on strategic HRM
– To create a culture of innovation
– To maintain positive relationship with staff
– To work with retirees using their experience
– To engage with the Colleges of Education (catchment area)
– To get back talented staff who had left before
346) One who knows to help his pupils sail beyond the sunset.
347) One who has the inspired knack of a story teller of taking up a small detail in the large canvas and pinpoint it with the skill of a documentary photographer.
348) One who is like a musician who can make music in the silence between notes.
349) One who knows that if he should respect time, time will be on his side and that if he abuses it, it will pass him by along with all its opportunities.
350) One who knows that like Sanjay Subramaniam’s concerts, every class meeting must be different as usual.
351) One who knows that the manager who holds himself physically certainly makes for a pleasant sight, but more importantly reduces stress.
352) One who knows that teaching is a spiritual calling, a creative process, and an art where the mind is stretched, angled and torqued to extremes.
353) One who knows that in painting the process and canvas are together and that in the classroom the canvas and the process are juxtaposed or super- imposed like the UNO rings. The painting (teaching) and finishing (learning) both happen simultaneously.
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EMINENT THINKERS (VOL 4 – CHAPTER X – XII)
(Whose ideas have been adapted for Education Management)
- Alfred Nobel
- Zora Zehgal (artisit)
- Jorge Luis Borges
- Leon Estinger (Sociologist)
- Graeme smith (Cricketer)
- Franz Kafka
- Epictetus
- Sri Veda vyasa
- V.S. Reddy (MD – Hyderabad Metro)
- Parasaran
- Sujatha
- Crazy Mohan
- Lord Buddha
- Osho
- Ayn Rand
- Uttaradhyayana sutras
- Albert Camus
- Maharatria
- Henry James
- Albert Bandus A
- Patriarch Alexy II
- Bedouin Proverb
- Prof. of Ghent University (Belgium)
- Prof. of Concordia University
- Gadssad
- Kalyani Chawla (VP Christian Dior)
- Dinaz Madhukhar
- Kiranbedi
- Selvaraj (Novelist)
- Manjin Gokhale Hoshi
- B.S. Haldane
- Hozda Tribe
- Miksic
- Ranier Maria Rilke
- Valerie Jarett
- Peter Turchin (Scientist)
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Whenever and wherever you put yourself in touch with GOD, that is the state of meditation.
– Sri Sathya Sai Baba
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