Impressions and expressions

Having worked closely with a social service organization called TMAD (To Make A Difference) in the past, I gained some insights and had a few thoughts on the management of small non-profits. It all boils down to some simple questions. Here are some of those questions Note: These are more applicable to small and budding social service orgs and not to big names like Red Cross. The question of collaboration: The other day, along with a group of friends, I met the famous Telugu lyricist “Sirivennela” who has some very interesting and valid views on society and volunteer organizations. Just before us, representatives from a social service org met him. He was referring to them and thinking aloud asked us – “Do you think that social service is new and people before you never thought about it? Why can’t you guys collaborate with the already established non-profits and collectively do better work?”. This is an important question. Many small social service orgs do not make ...

"Contribution" is a small word but has a beautiful meaning when we think about it. Peter Drucker, the management Guru, once wrote - "The crucial question is not, "How can I achieve?" but "What can I contribute". This is a profound statement, if we fully understand it. It asks us to replace the quest for success with the quest for contribution. It focuses on "what can be done", a question that leads to action. And importantly, it makes us to find our strengths and values, because our best contributions come when we execute from your strengths on things that we deeply value. The greatest and the most admired people were successful because they found out what they should contribute and focused on the right things during execution. Most of us are so lost in our day to day activities that we rarely stop and ask ourselves the question - "What should I contribute?” Even if we ask, we rarely act on our findings. This simple question, when appli...