The practicing Governance, Leadership and Self development with happiness Model 3A+3F

The practicing Governance, Leadership and Self development with happiness Model 3A+3F

What is a 3A and 3F model?  

3A – Self awareness, collective awareness, Eco awareness

3F – Flexible beliefs, feelings, freedom of choice

When they are integrated they provide synergy and empowerment to get effective outcomes.

Global Happiness Index (GHI) that is being used in Bhutan has following pillars and attributes.

4 Pillars:

- Sustainable development.

- Preservation and promotion of cultural values.

- Conservation of the natural environment.

- Establishment of good governance.

These are 9 contributors to the above 4 pillars.

- Happiness – physical

- Mental and spiritual health

- Time balance

- Social and community vitality

- Cultural vitality

- Education

- Living standards

- Good Governance

- Economic vitality

Madhya Pradesh is soon going to have a happiness ministry and I propose the 3A+3F model for implementing the happiness concept in Madhya Pradesh;

Since 3A+3F is an abstract model. I shall first try to explain it through few stories and awareness habits in few ensuing blogs before finally unfolding the 3A+3F model in its abstract form so as to enable the readers to understand the logic behind this model.

It is said that the technology is now doubling up every year and so is the convergence of technologies. Few of the examples are mobile phones and the computational power of computers and artificial intelligence.

With the convergence of technologies we are drawing more consciousness from the universe into the eco system of earth with profound changes and paradigm shifts in the lifestyles of people, other living organisms and the environment. The exponential growth in technologies is causing massive system failures in Government and institutions, which nobody desires. The old mental model of command and control, social and economic theories etc., all need a paradigm shift. The purpose of this blog is to explore the global scenario to prepare ourselves to meet the future challenges and lead a meaningful and stress free happy life.

Human beings design technologies with a purpose to make life happy, satisfied, exciting and collectively peaceful. What should be the new construct of living such a life? First let us look at SAS, which is considered to be one of the happiest companies in the world.

SAS is a software company, having a turnover of more than $ 3 billion in 2015. It is a closely held group led by James Goodnight seventy three years of age and one of the 50 richest persons in America. The company provides software services to major fortune 500 companies and worldwide employs more than 13000 people; even "Google" has adopted many of its features to make their employees happy. Goodnight has been SAS CEO Right from its inception in the year 1976 and till to date in last 40 years, the company has always earned profit year after year. During the economic down turn at the fall of year 2008, Goodnight made an astonishing announcement and commitment to its employees that no one would be retrenched and he further said to his employees, don't worry and just get back to work and do the best with whatever potential you have. The result, the company had a positive growth of 2.2 percent in that year.

Goodnight was authentic and confident of his abilities to deal with massive human problem of layoffs necessitated by the economic down turn. The man is a businessman and he would not have dared to do this unless he was confident of the collective power of his group of people. He did not speak from the point of benevolence but he thought that such an approach makes a business sense. He was different than others. He knew that his North Carolina based company is privately held and debt free and was strategically placed as business analytic software company. He firmly believes that talented employees at SAS are his real assets. The attrition rate in SAS is just about 3% as against the industry's norm of 25%. This low rate of attrition saves the company a whopping $ 100 million every year in terms of hiring new talent and their training so,

“What did Mr. Goodnight do”?

• Provide support and necessary tools to each employee to do his job in best possible manner by invoking his natural talents aligned to the goals to be achieved.
• The work is interesting and challenging and is not monotonous.
• Employees are engaged and feel empowered.
• Hires the best committed talent, for each job on average there are more than 200 applications and the job is advertised only for a week.
• He expects' every employee to have a good family life and uses flexible timing in a big way, it is a culture and not an exception.
• He expects parents to be with their kids during the first day of opening of their school or to take time off for important school functions.
• Encourages employees to be care givers to their aging parents and others by doing this, he makes employees trustworthy and loyal and knows that his employees will deliver results because the company, cares for them. He knows that the productivity of stressful employee reduces his productivity and impacts the collective productivity as well.
• He does not believe in the regulation office hours of 9 to 5 but leaves the autonomy to the employees to do work with flexible beliefs, feelings and exercising freedom of choice within the ambit of the organizational interest and discipline.
• He knows that multiple layers of hierarchy is a hindrance to creativity and innovation and therefore SAS has only 3 layers of operational management, and only a handful of people report directly to him.
• Promotion are based not only on personal performance but the capacity of the employee to build growth capacity of other people by collectively working with them and promote their work without taking personal credit. Each employee has to be a coach or a mentor in some sense.

SAS is regularly voted as the world's best place to work. Goodnight says that he can easily reward employees with higher salaries and forget about all other initiatives and perks. But Goodnight realizes that such initiatives and perks are necessary as they are the symbolic representation of how he and his company value its people and when people are treated like they are important and can make a difference, their loyalty engagement and commitment goes up. It's his way of taking work force temperature and it works!

Goodnight is very approachable and is happily married for 48 years. People can come to him with new ideas and he deals with these ideas with flexible beliefs, feelings and exercising freedom of choice, the three attributes we shall talk about for creating self awareness, collective awareness and eco system awareness.

Before discussing the possibilities of new humanistic model practiced at SAS, it is pertinent to know briefly about the difference between the brain and the mind. Brain is like a network of synaptic connections, which do electrical firing of neurons. Different parts of the brain get activated for each of the activities such as music, emotions and pictures etc. Brain does not produce consciousness but every event in the consciousness has representation in the brain and is stored as a memory. Brain is hardware and mind is software that regulates the flow of energy and information not only in the body, but in relationships and context to self, you/we/us, ecosystems and the entire universe. Mind interacts with universal consciousness (whose origins are yet unknown, maybe it’s a fundamental non local property of universe). Consciousness creates mental fields by observation, sensing and feelings. Mind correlates with self (I), us, ecosystem and the universe. There is a sense of connectivity between all living beings and other objects in the universe. The vast store houses of recorded experience, information, data and knowledge are now available to mankind through collective awareness via Google, internet, face book and twitter etc. on a click of a button. They act as planetary mind. These entities have become more powerful than the power of most of the nations. Coupled with connectivity, the national barriers seem to be breaking permanently and the world is becoming one global village.  

In such a scenario a new humanistic model based on flexible beliefs, feelings, and freedom of choice in relation to I (self awareness), us (collective awareness) and eco awareness is essential for everyone to enjoy the peace, happiness and bliss, which is present in abundance in this universe.

In order to get nearer to the source (seed) of the consciousness, we need to analyze.

I in me – imprinted memories and past events in the brain

I in you, we and us – Flexible beliefs, feelings

I in now – Freedom of choice

The relationship of I/you/we/us and eco-system shall manifest in form of self awareness, collective awareness and eco awareness. In socio-economic & technological context flexible beliefs means capacity to suspend habitual & preconceived judgments.

Flexible belief system allow 'I' to act in terms of own and in consideration to others, of feelings and emotions and to work towards a greater good of others, the self interest is also served by reflection. Freedom of choice means allowing self and others to make their own choices as per their heart's yearning as long as it does not harm others.  

To use and activate this model (3A+3F); we should refrain from imposing old irrelevant beliefs and experiences while in the state of “I” in now, should be aware of one's own self awareness (who am I), Collective Awareness (who are you/we/us) and Eco Awareness (the connectedness of the universe). For collective awareness feelings and emotional sensitivities have to be practiced through empathy and sympathy and for eco awareness the greater good of universe has to be considered such as respect for environment. One can practice freedom of choice by being fearless, transparent, courageous and candid. This is possible if you have integrity, honesty, credibility, commitment, passion and character.

The above humanistic model perfectly jibes into SAS success model created by James Goodnight.

In the recent past Mahatma Gandhi also followed similar model to mobilize, empower and synergize, Indian people towards achieving independence of India in the year 1947.

What we are today is shaped up by our resources, knowledge, skills, insights, foresight, wisdom, awareness, relationships and environmental experience, gained over years of struggle, movement, action, momentum and results.

We can understand life by looking backwards but must live in now with an eye on the future.

We learn through our experiences. Our present and future effectiveness depends on the correct interpretations of our previous experience with reference to a particular situation. Experience coupled with new insights and awareness brings clarity of purpose and the action required to attain objectives.

This humanistic model has the power to change the existing scenarios to desired outcomes by changing people's behavior through empowerment and synergy.