The three most discussed news in the media today are – President Obama’s visit, Delhi elections and Mr. Jaishankar being made the Foreign Secretary. President Obama by accepting the invitation to be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade clearly indicated America’s heightened interest in India. No amount of tweeting and blogs and newspaper articles speaking of heightened interest could have done what this single action managed to achieve. The pictures of PM Modi and President Obama walking around Hyderabad house and then the cosy interaction over tea could never be replaced with a ream of writing about it.
Let’s look at the Delhi elections. BJP and AAP have been going hammer and tongs at each other, clearly making every effort to win this election. Our dear CONgress party chief Mrs. Sonia Gandhi is expected to address “a” rally on Feb 1… My personal favorite Rahul baba has been found finally !!! And a smattering of their leaders are making “some” noise. Again, actions speak louder than words. Poor Ajay Maken is saying his CONgress party is a serious contender but their actions clearly state that they don’t think so :):). Serious contenders would not be searching for their star campaigner (smile) and not know if he will campaign or not and yeah, hopefully say the right things and not be fodder for joke writers. Actions speak louder than words … Infact dear Ajay Maken, tried really hard to explain to Karan Thapar, in an interview about the “great, innovative” ideas that Rahul baba has – actions ??? Zilch.
Now take the appointment of the Foreign Secretary Mr. Jaishankar. In that one action, the Modi government has clearly shown its intent that it means business and will only put the best of the best in critical roles and quickly. Manish Tiwari can tweet to his heart’s content and imagine if this is retribution etc etc but like his colleague Ajay Kumar yesterday, no one in the CONgress party can satisfactorily explain the reason their great leader Rajiv Gandhi dismissed the then Foreign secretary in a press conference. Again there too actions speak louder than words – Shri Rajiv Gandhi didn’t care much for political protocols, and probably didn’t understand them well enough :(.
Our corporate world and personal lives are no different – actions speak louder than words there too. You speak of deeper connect with frontline colleagues, but never have time to meet them, a clear signal that you don’t really care about the deeper connect. You speak of an inclusive culture and take all decisions inside a closed room with the top leadership team, again, actions differ from words – won’t work. You say you care about work-life balance, but keep calling your colleague during his/her holiday, an action that clearly tells the colleague that work-life balance means very little to you. The most classic one that I see often is organizations saying people are everything, without them the company is really non-existent and when you see the goals for any year being presented – the financial and client related goals will be topmost, and the last line or last block will be about people. Hey, actions speak louder than words.
Here are three quotes from three great men, to corroborate this –
Do I need to say more ? Happy Friday. Watch your actions 🙂