Wake Up the Leader in You Date:   Wednesday , October 31, 2012 Infozech is a provider of products and solutions for the global Telecom industry helping Next Gen Service Providers towards Cost Optimization and Revenue Management. Headquartered in New Delhi, India with a subsidiary in the U.S., Infozech was founded in 1999 and today is an ISO 9001:2008 certified company with an expansive product portfolio. With the increased prevalence of Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, the total messages we receive everyday have grown exponentially – be it status updates, text messages, emails, phone calls, the web has become overwhelming. Finding out what really matters is an achievement in today’s world of ringing phones, blaring televisions and Farmville notifications. There is so much noise around us, that the mayhem deprives us of our ability to pay attention to what is actually important. It is like saying that you are trying to go from Mumbai to Pune for a meeting, but all the attractions on the way keep hindering you. Ultimately, you are so delayed, that you miss the meeting. In context of the business world, these appealing distractions keep us entrepreneurs from executing the ideas that primarily matter and make the difference. All the distractions that you face on the way to the top may seem important and very appealing, but attending to them only keeps you from reaching your ultimate goal. Some of these distractions may be so appealing, that they change your direction altogether. For example, while trying to build a cell phone app, you may get so many suggestions and opinions, that in the end, you may modify your business idea to such an extent, that your purpose is lost and you find yourself making a game for Facebook. Needless to say, every entrepreneur has a leader in him. But leaders also need direction. And it is more important for them than for anyone else, because behind these leaders is the rest of the world. For the most part, leaders make their own paths, they discover their own roads and they pave the way for the others to follow. But the increasingly loud noise around us can very easily take us on the wrong path. As the world becomes more and more complex, the choices become harder to make and decision making becomes one of the hardest jobs we have to do. This tends to make the leader in us 'dormant'. He has so many ideas, so much advice and so many possible roads to travel, that the execution aspect takes a back seat while he ponders over his new options, that by the way, come flowing in on a daily basis. Also, the turns on the way are so numerous, that entrepreneurs tend to make wrong decisions based on poor judgment. We need to simplify our lives by conquering complexity and waking up the leader in us. I urge you to conquer the madness and wake up the leader in you. There are constraints or distractions which prevent us from achieving our goals. Some of them are fairly common. However, there are some ways by which you can stay far from the trap. 1. Awareness of facts - A leader will delve and find out real facts of the situation : On July 31, India saw the biggest power breakdowns in the world. 600 million people in India were without power. Airports, hospitals, Railways were impacted. However, there was one essential service that kept working through this crisis – the Telecom network. It kept running despite the fact that telecom towers require a huge amount of electricity to keep working. This is because the leaders running Telecom have long realized the problem regarding availability of reliable power. In response to this, they have created backup mechanisms by using Battery Backups, Diesel Generators and the like. Their omnipresence and awareness is what kept the telecom industry from falling with the others. At this time of crisis, they knew what they had to do. They were prepared. When it comes to entrepreneurship, risk taking is what we do on a daily basis. Uncertainty is our middle name. We do not know what is going to happen next. In such circumstances, being aware is the most we can do. The telecom industry knew that they could not depend on the power supply. That is why they built a robust back up system that would keep them going in their time of need. As expected, when the time came, they had a contingency plan built out and ready to execute. The disorder and noise did not distract them from doing what they had to. 2. Keeping Focus – The many things to take care of : There are just so many things to worry about that there is no real end to it. Solving one problem will create another. Normally there are so many problems to solve, that trying to solve all of them together ends up solving none. The Telecom networks rely on a constant and large supply of Diesel to ensure an uninterrupted, impeccable network. Over the years the cost to ensure constant power through diesel supply has gone up. Today, the industry annually spends nearly $2 billion on it. However, the reason the Telecom industry's leaders were able to achieve their goal of setting up an uninterrupted network is that they solved the more important problem first. The Telecom industry's first priority, till recently, was only to ensure 100 percent network time. Having achieved their first goal, they have now started focusing on the problem of managing the costs of diesel, which was their second priority. Prioritize your problems. Then solve them one by one. Save yourself the trouble of attempting to solve a million problems at once. The bottom line is that is not going to happen. 3. Acting on shortcomings : Just being aware and keeping focus is not enough. Taking action is an integral part as well. A leader who is aware and focused must not fail to take action accordingly. Even at this point of time, there will be a lot of noise which will threaten to distract him and make him doubt his decision. In these situations, remember that it is just noise. Most of the times, it has no substance to it. Often, leaders are given very little time to execute. Noise around them can delay action. One eminent example that I can recall at the moment is of Titanic. If you have seen the movie, you would recall that when the crew saw the iceberg, they had to turn the ship in a matter of seconds. The decision had to be taken and put into action rapidly for the ship to survive the hit. But after they failed to avoid the hit and they knew that the ship would sink, they had to come up with a strategy to save as many lives as possible. This led to another round of rapid decision making and simultaneous implementation. What I am trying to convey by telling you this story is that once you have taken the decision to execute, do not fail to do so. Ignore the noise and 'just do it'. Here is a small test Are you 100 percent into reading this article? Or are you thinking about tomorrow's meeting, or whether your new prospect will close? Are you quickly reading through this article so that you can check your email for the second time in 10 minutes? All this is noise which takes away your attention and distracts you from your immediate goal of reading and learning. In case you are able to silence your mind from this noise, you will be able to accomplish your purpose of reading this magazine and learning from it. In whatever you do, focus on your goal undeterred by self-consciousness and distractions. Do this for the next two weeks and see the results. I promise you that the change will be phenomenal and its effect will change your lifestyle in more ways than you can imagine. However this is one of the things that only 'you' can do for yourself. Only you can 'wake up the leader in you'. The only question is: "Will you do it?"