Ramaa’s Adventures & NonStop — Part 4 (The Magic Words)
“Dada, do you know what, you can be a magician”, said Ramaa.
“How do I do that?”, I asked intrigued.
“It’s simple. You just have to say the magic words!”
“And what happens when we say them?”
“Everyone becomes happy”
“Wow! That must be pretty strong magic Ramaa. What words are these?”
“Sorry-Please-ThankYou”
Magic Words & NonStop
A few months back, Saurabh had written about the culture of gratitude and forgiveness at NonStop, where he spoke about precisely the above magic words. As part of the company strategy, we aggressively encourage the team (starting with the leads) to make good use of this magic whenever one sees an opportunity. In the year 2021–22 to our surprise, we are proud to see that this magic happens ~25 times every day @ NonStop i.e one of these words (Sorry-Please-Thanks) is said collectively by the team at least 25 times/day since Apr’21.
Now, you might think why such hype about so simple things…shouldn’t they be obvious. However, with whatever I’ve experienced in the past 6 years helping build an organization, I’ve seen that it is the smaller things in life that mean a lot in the long run; and need to be reminded of time-n-again to get good and effective at it.
What you say significantly impacts how you make others feel. I’ve seen people say things that they didn’t mean; and mean things that they didn’t say. Many a time I’ve made foolhardy statements, which when I thought about in calmer times, made me rethink/repent/facepalm.
On the other hand, I’ve experienced the positive power of magic words (Sorry-Please-Thanks) first hand. I’ve seen faces brighten up, smiles shape up, body language become positive, and much more when I used these magic words.
All good (and bad) things begin small, get traction by repetition, and slowly but surely define and then become the culture of a person, family, community and organisation.
These words have the power of making small positive changes while working as a collective, and they go on to impact the brand that you as an individual and then as an organization build.
Empathy at the core
In all of ~6 years at NonStop, we as team and individuals teams have tried our best to imbibe in ourselves this all-pervading philosophy of Empathy, sometimes with great success, and at times not so much. We’ve sincerely tried to understand each other's personal-n-professional aspirations, problems, successes, and failures. As a team, we’ve attempted to be in our clients’ shoes by being with them…be it budgeting issues, or tight delivery timelines. As an organization we’re learning to understand the other side when we deal with technology partners, and contractors. Nothing is perfect yet, we make mistakes time-n-again, but we acknowledge them, and move for the better…coz such is life #NothingIsPerfect 🙂
I’ve also experienced that inspiration, empowerment, and motivation are the rewards of walking on the path of empathy. It is one of the easiest (yet hardest) ways to achieve satisfaction and happiness for you and everyone around you.
At NonStop we try out different ways to inspire and encourage our peers-juniors-n-seniors. We have Slack channels named #heros, #beyond_nonstop, #beyond-challenges where everyone in the team shares-n-cares about each other, and (hopefully) find their own way towards achieving empathy.
I strongly believe that Empathy should rightfully be at the core of any organization, and the easiest way to get on board this journey is to become a magician, and start using those Magic Words 😇
Peace ✌️
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If you’ve liked what you read, then you might like these stories too:
- Ramaa’s Adventures & NonStop — Part 1 (The Mess)
- Ramaa’s Adventures & NonStop — Part 2 (Law of Wasted Efforts)
- Ramaa’s Adventures & NonStop — Part 3 (Rituals-n-Routines)
You can also follow NonStop’s publication where we share technology, business, and life learnings 😇
