Come Forward to be Beheaded

Today in 1699, Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru of Sikh’s, called together a huge crowd of over 50,000 Sikhs to join him for a meeting. This was an era in history where Sikhs were facing a difficult phase as they were facing continuous persecution at the hands of the Mughal rulers.

With everyone expecting to hear words of comfort and encouragement to stand strong, they were surprised to see the Guru draw his sword and shout ‘I want a head.’

There was a big silence, but the Guru went on repeating his demand until someone was brave enough to come forward. Guru Gobind Singh took the volunteer into his tent and after a while he came out by himself holding a sword covered in blood! The crowd gasped and started to disperse.

Then the Guru repeated his demand “I want a head” and eventually another volunteer stepped forward and went into the tent with the Guru. Yet again the Guru came out of the tent alone, with blood on his sword. The Guru repeated his action another 3 times until five volunteers had entered the tent to be beheaded.

By now, everyone who was left from a now very much depleted crowd must have been wondering what is going on. Then the Guru came out of the tent with his sword and the five men walking behind him, still alive!

‘This was a test,’ the Guru explained, ‘to see who has faith in their Guru”. This was a test of who was brave enough to fight against injustice and tyranny being suffered under the rule of the Mughals. This was the day the Khalsa was created to instill in people qualities of courage, self respect and confidence to always fight for the weak against tyranny and injustice.

How does this apply today?

Even today we are all fighting to do what is right and what we believe to be worth fighting for, yet we suppress our ideas and not follow through on actions for various reasons. There are lessons here that we can learn and apply to ourselves and in our businesses.

The three most important lessons:

Lesson 1: In the face of adversity, muster your courage and stand strong for what you believe in. If you believe something needs to be changed, be brave enough to start that something. Take a good look at yourself and what you do and challenge yourself to do what you really want to do.

Lesson 2: Have faith in yourself and others. If you believe change is needed, others will follow. The path isn’t easy and people will move away. But as the few who believe and have faith that the change is for the greater good, others will follow. Take that leap of faith.

Lesson 3: Be clear in your purpose. This is probably the most important lesson. Why do you want to do what you want to do? What are the benefits and to whom? A clear purpose can be very empowering and motivational for you to make the changes in yourself, your attitude and behaviours to reap the benefits for the greater good. Change has to start with you.

Happy Vasikhi to one and all.

p.s. If you are not familiar with Vasikhi, please do take the time do find out more.  I acknowledge I have only shared a part of the full story in this short blog.

 

Who is Inspired by you?

Everyone has an inspirational story to …

Have you discovered yours?

 

It’s International Women’s Day 8th March and our 2016 mission is to support 100 women in discovering their own inspiring stories, to be awesome and pioneering in changing perceptions of what we can and cannot achieve.

Most women don’t see themselves as inspiring. This means fewer role models and tough challenges for everyone. By acknowledging your own worth and sharing your own inspiring story – together we can break down barriers that hold women back. So let us help you in being that awesome woman recognised by others.

Book your free consultation on recognising your hidden awesomeness by emailing info@kaurvalues.com or phoning 07590 993094

BONUS OFFER FOR LIMITED PERIOD

To celebrate International Women’s day we are offering our one-to-one “Awesome Woman” personal development program at half price for a limited time only.

Book your no obligation, free consultation by 14th April 2016 to find out more.

We have helped women discover their true strengths, recognise their achievements and lay down strong foundations to achieve their awesome goals.

Nothing is impossible. Let us help you on your journey to achieve your dreams and inspire others.

To find out more – book your free consultation now. Offer expires midnight 14th April 2016.

Leadership and Beyond Performance

Only 32{2d8ca8a57a2be9c4e7c5f608c633b8d2972cbc20ea13f00e48eca0a2f3e4a9f8} of businesses were able to create and sustain a high performing culture of excellence beyond 20 years. The rest failed because of old way of leadership thinking. (Source: McKinsey)

Most leadership courses focuses on quick fixes needed today. This course goes beyond managing best performance. By attending this one day event, you will be able to:

Create a lasting culture of excellence

  • Sustain a competitive advantage in a constantly changing world.
  • Dramatically improve performance
  • Empower others without losing control
  • Have a healthy work/life balance

Book now on “Leadership and Beyond” to find out for yourself how to:

  • Overcome difficult challenges that drains your time and energy
  • Bridge the gaps where traditional leadership falls short
  • Deliver consistently and successfully beyond expectations

This event is designed to inspire leadership that will deliver astonishing business results.

Event Content:

  • How Organisations work – successful ones and brilliant ones
  • The Organisational Triangle of relationships
  • Working with unchangeable processes
  • Barriers to growth and excellence
  • The Big Five constant factors that influence motivation
  • Four levels of goal setting to outperform targets
  • How to change, influence and empower
  • Action Planning

Don’t take our word for it. Previous delegates fed back that by applying what they learnt on this course:

  • Anxiety and stress reduced
  • Fewer performance related issues to deal with
  • Reduction in Sickness and absenteeism
  • Improved Morale
  • Performance targets smashed
  • Time freed up

Bottom line: Ineffective leadership slowly destroys good staff, causing best employees to flee and the remainder to lose all motivation. It takes on average £35k to replace an employee and another £35k for them to get up to speed (Source: CIPD). Can you afford to miss it?

Event Details:    

When:                                                                 Monday 16th May 2016, 9.00am to 4.30pm

Registration and welcome refreshments:    8.30am to 9.00am

Venue:                                                                Holiday Inn, Chapel Lane, Great Barr, Birmingham

Tickets:                                                               £280 per person  (includes all day refreshments)

Please contact Kaur Values Associates – info@kaurvalues.com for more information and available discounts including two for one and early bird.

Would you Fire your Employees too?

A few days ago it was reported that two respected police officers had been fired for sending racist text messages. The Metropolitan Police commented that police officers holding racist views do not have a place in the Police Force. Scotland Yard reported that the officers had “breached its standards in relation to authority, respect and courtesy, equality and diversity” (Click here to read full report)

Some of you will be sympathetic that these officers have had their careers ruined. Some of you may be wondering why were these texts sent when the Metropolitan Police heavily invest in diversity, equality and inclusiveness training.

What action would you take if your employees behaved in this manner? Would you have fired them too?

More importantly in your organisation, what do people really think after participating in diversity and inclusiveness training?

Is your diversity and inclusiveness training achieving the desired outcome? How do you know? If your evidence is numbers and graphs, then I am sorry to say, you are not looking at the complete picture.

The organisational culture is at two levels: what the bosses “see” as a result of their training investment and the “real” culture where people haven’t embraced the changes needed. The “real” culture often stays hidden below the bosses’ radar but is very much experienced by the employees.

There is a lot of talk on how diversity training should address unconscious biased thinking, which is great except you don’t know what you don’t know. You cannot change a person’s values and embedded beliefs by awareness training alone.

What we say and how we behave are indicators of attitudes stemming from our beliefs. The real indicator of whether your training interventions have had the desired effect is to notice what they say and how they behave outside of the work environment. This will reveal whether they are embracing the learning and therefore changing or are they paying lip service and going through the motions of being politically correct in the office.

Your organisational culture is defined by real behaviours from real people and unless you really make an effort to notice, you won’t see the “real” culture.

So, what can you do?

Start by encouraging your staff to build genuine rapport with people who are different to them, by finding connections and exploring similar interests and hobbies. If you think about your close circle of friends, how diverse is it? If your social group isn’t diverse do you really understand some of the different challenges, concerns and viewpoints of other people and cultures?

If you have built up a relationship with someone, you don’t see their colour, gender, disability etc, you converse with the person on the inside. This leads to increased trust and you start to understand each other better. This is your opportunity to understand different people and cultures, leading to new ways of thinking and creating an exciting environment to work in, all of which impacts positively on the company performance.

Changing the organisational culture isn’t easy. We specialise in leadership training that delivers. Our delegates genuinely embrace the changes needed within themselves, proven by the feedback we get from their bosses.

To deliver diversity training that has real impact is the biggest challenge in the workplace. If you would like more information and access to free resources please contact us on info@kaurvalues.com