| ashu |
Posted
on 15-May-01 01:29 AM
Hi Sachit,
I read your comments to an anonymous poster. But I agree
with Namita's suggestions.
Still, as a past president who had had a lot of fun setting up parts of the GBNC system with help of a first-rate team of Nepalis, I couldn't help sharing these lessons
with you and others.
Now, please note that the pronoun 'you' (below) is a
general one.
a) As a PUBLIC leader working for FREE (i.e. as a volunteer)
among Nepalis, accept any criticism with grace, humor and nonchalance.
By criticizing you, however anonymously, at least your critic
is thinking of you, worrying about your this action or that
action, thereby paying you a compliment. After all, who -- apart from your family -- ever thinks about you anyway? :-)
b) The 'supporting math' for a "good" PUBLIC leader may have
this kind of breakdown:
No matter what you do, about 20 per cent of the people will always hate you for whatever reasons they have convinced themselves with. As a PUBLIC leader, you learn to accept their scorn/hatred as the price of you have to pay for reaching out
to the other 80 per cent.
Of that 20, five per cent will try very hard to
discredit/badmouth/speak ill of you in your absence.
You may be tempted to defend yourself, but soon you realize
that these "five per centers" ultimately serve a useful purpose in your work and life: Their personalities can be used as colorful, amusing characters in your satires/screenplays/stories and metaphors and writings.
Or, if you are not a writer, they can be used to remind yourself the validity of the phrase "santaan thari tharika", and let things be that.
Anyway the idea is NOT to fear these emotionally-vindictive
idiots high on brittle ego and low on level-headed
reasonableness.
The idea is to have fun in a way that YOU end up happier, more productive and more influential BECAUSE of them.
Another 20 per cent won't care too much about you and your work,
and that's fine. And the remaining 60 per cent, assuming you
have done a good job, will support you -- even when a majority
of them, being the usual inarticulate fellow-Nepalis (!), may
not speak up PUBLICLY in your favor. That too is life.
So, accept criticisms for all your FREE, PUBLIC work on or off
GBNC.
Accepting criticismns does not mean you have to agree with them
or defend yourself.
It just means that there is space for criticisms/dissent and
disagreement too. And providing such space can only be good
for any growing organization.
oohi
yours in support
ashu
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