Hemant Rehani, Chief Corporate Services Officer, Writer Corporation

Hemant comes with a rich & varied experience of 27+ years in Technology, Business Process Services, Clinical Research and Culture Transformation across many industry verticals. His career spans an interesting mix of roles as a MD, COO, CTO, CIO, and VP in small, medium & large global corporations and also as an Angel Investor, Advisor, Coach and Mentor for startups. He has a deep understanding of global workplace cultures having lived and worked in 1O different cities across US and India. In his last assignment, as the Global Head of Life Sciences Digital Operations at Cognizant, he led a global team of 5500+ Life Sciences practitioners and doctors based in 20 cities across the world, where he was responsible for delivering business value and digital transformation for leading global pharmaceuticals & medical devices firms.

 

I will make a bold statement here. Most people I have met during my 28 years of professional and personal experience, have no life goals; they are just running through life, working hard, and running after corporate goals. They haven’t spent enough time thinking about what they really want from life, and what their goals are. I have also been guilty of being part of this rat race for many years. In the corporate world, people at all levels strive to be top performers, wish to earn bigger bonuses and get higher salary increments. The good thing, that I have realized, is that – ‘In life, you don’t have to be perfect to be successful’.

Why Set Goals?

Goal setting is a great way of thinking about your ideal future, and for pushing yourself beyond boundaries to turn your future vision into reality. This process of setting futuristic goals helps you choose direction in life. And once you know precisely what you want in life, you know where you must focus and put in efforts. This will also help in quickly spotting the distractions easily, which can lead you astray.

It’s a known fact that successful people and achievers in various fields all set goals. Setting smart goals helps align short-term motivation and action-orientation with long-term vision. It helps you organize your time and assists in prioritisation of tasks. Measuring progress against set goals increases your self-confidence, as you can clearly see your own ability to achieve your goals. For many of us, the definition of success is achieving goals and small daily wins which lead to positive outcomes.

“Your level of success, will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.” – Jim Rohn

One of the key success factors for sustainable achievement of goals is your own personal growth. Self-growth is primarily about self-awareness. For effective personal development, we must do internal introspection while being aware of how the external world is moving and how we are being perceived. Core concepts of growth and learning are the same for our life and work. Just like joy and fulfilment in life is always accompanied with sadness and anxiousness, similarly in the workplace we have both successes and failures, and we must learn to accept it all. We are the most powerful players in our own destiny. This personal power is based on the strength, competence, and confidence that we acquire through our failures (not as much from our successes).

What can we do?

To create a better version of ourselves through self-awareness and learning, we must: o Experience different emotions as different flavours.

  • Be proactive and self-assertive.
  • Explore new ideas.
  • Welcome constructive criticism.
  • Take full responsibility for every action.
  • Practice mindfulness.
  • Feel empowered.
  • Reject victimised point of view.

A true leader is one who stays stable and calm even during a crisis. It is common to see leaders losing their heads and getting overtly stressed-out during crisis situations. Remaining calm and cool headed is a critical prerequisite of all good decision-making, but it is only a fractional part of the need. One of the key competencies for effective leadership is “Lateral Thinking” – a person’s capacity to address problems by imagining solutions that cannot be arrived at by simple assumptions or logical means. This is the soul of creativity. All organizations benefit from it, especially at times of change—when conventional solutions are unlikely to get the desired result.

In today’s digital world, when buzz words like Transform, Reinvent, Reimagine, etc. are being used everywhere, what we need to realize is that all this is possible only through Lateral Thinking by individuals and teams. To drive sustainable and long-lasting success, innovation through lateral thinking is the engine that is powered by a sustainable & green fuel – Empowered People Culture.

Linear thinking relies on logic, whereas lateral thinking is a very innovative and creative process of using your ability to think in a different way. It is important to break the myth that creative thinking is in-born – you can train your brain to think creatively. Here are various ways in which you could do that:

  • Build on one idea to create many more ideas.
  • Ask provocative questions to contest your current thinking.
  • Exchange provocative ideas about new solutions.
  • Brainstorm and convert harvested ideas into practical solutions.

It does not matter what you do or where you work. Everyone has it in them to add transformational value through lateral thinking, especially, in times of change or crisis. It is an increasingly in-demand skill. The ability to solve problems and think critically is one of the main attributes that I search in a person while hiring.

To summarize, here are the core concepts:

  1. Goals: It is very important to set goals that transcend work and personal life. Create goals that help you remove distractions and concentrate your efforts on what is important for you.
  2. Personal Growth: The sooner you find the purpose of your life, the sooner you will start finding ways to achieve happiness. Need to think about what is personal growth to you and why do you need it.
  3. Lateral Thinking: This is clearly the most valuable skill in fast-paced and ever-changing times – and we should know how to develop it.

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