Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs

The above headline describes great management guru Stephen Covey's eighth habit in his book "From Effectiveness to Greatness".

The best example that Covey has quoted which teaches the eighth habit is the concept of Grameen Banking in Bangladesh founded by Prof. Mohamed Yunus, 1983 Noble peace prize winner.

Prof. Yunus - a teacher of economics in a Bangladesh university was working there during the famine, a difficult period for Bangladesh.

People suffered without food. There was starvation.

Yunus questioned the principles of economics which were not helpful or practical to alleviate the suffering of the Bangladeshi people. Yunus was doing some research in the village, when he met a woman and had a long conversation and found out to his dismay that she earned only two US pennies by making fantastic bamboo stools.

When questioned, she said that she has to buy the bamboo from the trader and his condition was to sell it back to the trader for the price he decided. Yunus also found out that bamboo costs only 20 cents and she was in bonded labour to the trader for only 20 cents. He was flabbergasted. Yunus got his students to check how many of the women were there in the village that needed the money and found out there were 42 such women.

Yunus gave it from his pocket and told the women that it was a loan which they can pay back at any time when possible and could sell the bamboo stools to anybody who offered them a good price.

Since the women were passionate about their work the mission was successful. Thinking of expanding the loan scheme, Yunus went to a Bank in the campus and asked them to lend money to the women. The Bank refused saying that the poor people will never be able to repay the loan and the small amount of money required was not worth lending and that the Bank rules do not permit such lending practices. He went to a few Banks and the results were the same. But the ironic thing was that the women repaid the money lent by him on time and that they were doing well in their business.

So Yunus went to the government with a proposal and after two years he was able to convince the government of the merits of his loan scheme. That was the birth of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.

This micro credit movement is spreading all over the world. Yunus found his voice and inspired others to find their voice. It contributed to alleviate poverty in Bangladesh.

"Yunus sensed and responded to conscience by applying his talents and passion to meet that need personally and found a creative solution for the problem and institutionalized the capacity to fill the need of the society through an organization," says Stephen Covey.

Such inspirations come from choice not from position and rank. Mahatma Gandhi who was a great leader in India didn't hold any position nor neither had formal authority. But he inspired vast number of people in India.

It gives fulfillment, relevance and significance in today's new landscape not only in your work but in your whole life. It will lead you to find your voice. Your "voice" reflects on the core elements and four corresponding universal human needs - living, loving, learning and leaving a legacy. A legacy is how a person will be remembered. It is not enough to just live but one needs to add value to it by doing extraordinary tasks so that one's legacy will live on.

Unleashing the potential by inspiring others is the crux of the principle. Stephen goes on to question how many companies use the maximum potential of the work force or whether one's job requires them to contribute their true potential.

Formal authority and management decides what a worker should do and they totally depend on the decision of the management and do not use initiatives or be proactive.

As a result the workers are frustrated. With the advance of technology workers have been downsized. Currently we are in the knowledge worker age. It might downsize the industrial workforce to 90 percent. Quality knowledge workers are so valuable that unleashing their potential offer organizations an extraordinary opportunity for value creation. There is so much of disempowerment in companies and lack of passion as they haven't found their voice, or no one has inspired them to do so.

When you don't believe in yourself, if someone else believes in you and that person helps and inspires you to find your voice: the eighth habit is all about that. In other words, communicating the potential and worth of somebody. When going on the path of effectiveness to greatness there are three components - personal greatness, leadership greatness, organizational greatness. Leadership greatness is inspiring others to contribute their best.

At a time Sri Lanka is poised for high economic growth and improving quality of life for all her citizens, people at all levels have to be empowered to contribute their full potential to this process. People have great ideas but may not have formal authority to implement these. Processes have to be speedily put in place to identify, empower and recognize these people so that the organizations can benefit from this unique form of intellectual capital.

People should not be treated as things that are controlled by others. Accounting books indicate human resources as "expenses" and machinery as "investments". That has to be changed. Human resources should be considered as a long term investment.

The world doesn't have many Mahatma Gandhis or Mother Theresas or Anuradha Koiralas. Each of us should recognize these inspiring voices that live amongst us. Today Sri Lanka needs a conceptual revolution.

Our minds should be transformed to achieve high growth. Speed is vital. This change of mindset should spread to the whole country. Then we will be one Sri Lanka in our minds as well. Our development and moral tasks will be easily achieved as a result.

There are emotional cancers that will block one's voice. They are criticizing, comparing, complaining and contending.

We must cure these cancers which hinder our forward march. We as a country should try to apply these management principles (eighth habit) in our day to day life and business as well as in the political environment.

We have set high goals and targets for the country. To achieve these we really need to have a conceptual change in our minds with the accurate strategic plans. In this context "finding ones voice and inspiring others to find their's" will play a pivotal role as we need highly motivated communities including the public sector and private sector, and others to achieve the set objectives and goals.

Deepika Gunasekera Premier PR