WIIFM

In most organisations, leadership responsibilities include the important tenet that motivation to achieve goals is proportional to the extent that self-interests are satisfied. This theory is popularly known as ‘What’s in it for me?’ or WIIFM.

To put it simply, the WIIFM principle states that self-interest is the greatest motivator. The WIIFM principle is used by many motivators to find out needs, desires or motives of their team members.

 

These needs are determined by asking people what they want directly or indirectly by observing what interests them. Unsatisfied needs can make one experience the drive to pursue goals and satisfy his needs.

 

However, self-interest need not be of selfish nature. Not everyone participates in community work to satisfy self-interest of recognition. So many do it because it satisfies their self-interest of making a difference to the situation or maybe just feel good!

 

Persons who involve in positive, proactive work have actually aligned their WIIFM with a broader vision and a larger mission. They are the ones whose self-interest lies in looking at larger interests of society.

 

Look beyond where self-interest stood

WIIFM should align with common good!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Brevity

‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ - In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the words are spoken by Polonius, whose various advices are often quoted by orators.

However, the above quote is ironic in the context of the play, as Polonius is anything but brief in his long winded speeches. Hence, while it is an impressive line, its real worth eludes its articulator.

 

The line implies that to be better at intelligent communication, we must go straight to the point and not beat around the bush. Being brief is an important aspect in today’s fast paced world.

 

However, we feel that to be impressive, abundance is a must. Indeed, when orators are asked to speak for three minutes, they wonder how it is possible to make an impact in such constrained duration. But Lincoln’ famous Gettysburg speech was just over two minutes as it included just ten lines.

 

Effective filmmakers have the courage to edit and leave out the unnecessary, even if they are excellent shots. Ditto for all types of communicators... Brevity comes with the courage and conviction to avoid the unnecessary and focus just on essentials.

 

Use words with frugality

Impact rises with brevity!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Death

Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again…

In one of W B Yeats’s finest short poems, he compares man’s mindfulness that he will die with an animal being oblivious of death. An animal neither fears death nor hopes for life after death. But man consoles himself through religion that death will not be the end.

In ‘Julius Caesar’, Shakespeare writes on a similar alignment: ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths. The brave experience death only once.’ We ‘die’ in the course of our lives many times, through failure of nerve or failing to live in some other sense.

Yet we get another chance to make our lives good; as the poem refers next to:

A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath,
He knows death to the bone -
Man has created death.

 

Yeats is not denying that men die. He is rejecting the notion that mortality is something we should dwell too much upon. An animal dies, just like a man; but an animal does not live its life governed by questions of what happens when it has died.

 

Sure, death will come to all one day…

Don’t let the fact take your life astray!

 

- Pravin K. Sabnis

espresso

Today’s Google Doodle celebrating Angelo Moriondo’s birth anniversary was painted entirely with coffee. Coffee was the hottest item in Italy during the 19th century. However, people had to spend more than five minutes waiting for their coffee to brew which was a huge inconvenience back then.

 

Moriondo noticed that if he were able to brew multiple cups of coffee at the same time in less than 5 minutes then he would be able to serve more customers as well as move up in scale over his competitors.

 

In 1884, Moriondo presented his machine at General Expo of Turin where he got Bronze medal and patent for his invention. His machine consisted of a large boiler that produced heated water through a bed of coffee ground while a second boiler produced a flash of steam on the coffee bed to complete the brew.

 

The term espresso wasn't used until later, after the machine had been perfected by Luigi Bezzerra and Desiderio Pavoni. By the middle of the twentieth century, cafe owner Achille Gaggia patented the first modern espresso machine for commercial use.

 

‘Espresso’, when used in Italian restaurants, has a meaning of ‘quickly made to order’ - possibly to distinguish from brewed coffee made as a whole pot. We can enhance efficiency in terms of time while ensuring effectiveness in terms of specific need.

 

In India we see the use of a large tava (hot plate) to make varieties of dosas: plain, cheese, masala or even uttapas by a single person for multiple customers. We can and we must invent ways and systems to ‘deliver faster’ even when made to order

 

the invention of espresso displays

quicker is an always possible way

 

- Pravin K. Sabnis