WHAT A LEGACY!

by Dr. Cecil Clements (11th September 2012)

I read this eulogy that was delivered, thought that it was a quote from W.H. Auden, but I’ve not been able to verify it, so give me that little bit of freedom. It says this, “There are many streams, but only here and there, a great Mississippi. There are many trees, but only here and there a great sequoia giant. There are many echoes but only now and then an original voice. There are many musicians but only now and then a Mendelsohn or a Mozart. There are many politicians but only now and then a commanding statesman. There are many people but only now and then an outstanding individual.”

I BELIEVE IN ME

by Dr. Cecil Clements (4th September 2012)

I was trying to gather my thoughts to see what I could share with you when an interesting article caught my attention. It may have nothing to do with the corporate world, yet I think we can glean some principles from it. I don’t know how many of you are into Broadway shows, opera and musicals, but bear with me as I try to use one of them to make a point that I think is very pertinent for each one of us.

It’s the story of a musical that came out last year Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark. When it came out last year, it had devastating previews. Everyone said it wouldn’t work. They had to stop the previews for the press 5 times mid-act; Spiderman was hanging there, some glitch in the wires holding him. The press wrote them off, saying that it was the worst thing. In fact, they likened it to the Titanic, that it was just going to sink.

MEANS TO AN END

by Dr. Cecil Clements (7th August 2012)

I came across on the Internet, a kind of a compendium that 99 OP Jindal Engineering and Management scholars had put together in 2007. They had asked their scholars (these are people who have got the engineering scholarship) “Visualize yourself on your 50th birthday. What would you want your critical stakeholders (they could be your colleagues, your spouse, your children or any person who you consider critical) to say about you?

DREAM TO REALITY

by Dr. Cecil Clements (17th July 2012)

Increasingly these days I hear talk of good values, I hear companies that talk about core values that are based on integrity and honor and find that there’s attention towards ethical decision making. I am always encouraged and thrilled when I hear that ethics and corporate culture can be one, that they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Every time I read the book ‘HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything …. In Business (and in Life)’ by Dov Seidman, I am encouraged by what he says. I’m just going to talk about the ‘5 How’s of leadership’. Dov Seidman is Chairman and CEO of LRN, a company since 1994 and has helped over 15 million people in over 700 companies worldwide. They have offices in New York, Mumbai, Los Angeles and London, but Fortune Magazine calls Dov ‘the hottest advisor on the corporate virtue circuit’, and I think the key word here is virtue. The Economic Times also named him as one of the ‘Top 60 Global Thinkers of the last decade’.

SEIZE YOUR MOMENT

One of my life’s passions is music. I love music; I love listening to music and also love being part of a performance, putting together a sequence of musical events that will be a blessing. I remember many years ago, watching the orchestra get ready. I always enjoy the symphony orchestra. I love to hear the sound of the instruments building up, the cadences, the crescendos and all of that. But even more, I love being a part of the build-up behind the scenes.

I remember being in the choral part, and watching the orchestra and as it began to play with the theme and different variations on the theme, it slowly began to build up the crescendo and the momentum of the whole piece. I watched different instruments as the conductor brought in the violins and the violas and the cellos and the double bass; then the wind instruments came in – the bassoons and the clarinets. Then you could see the people on the percussion; the tympani especially. You could see him moving back and forth to the rhythm, gyrating, playing one beat at a time. Then as the crescendo began to get more overpowering, more and more beats came in.

Beyond Rainy Days & Mondays

I came into the office this morning, it was raining and overcast; I was reminded of a song sung many years ago by the Carpenters. I think it was written by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams and the words go like this:

Talking to myself and feeling old,
Sometimes I’d like to quit, nothing ever seems to fit.
Hanging around; nothing to do but frown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.

What I’ve got they used to call the blues,
Nothing is really wrong, feeling like I don’t belong.
Walking around, some kind of lonely clown.
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.

Acknowledge the Influence

I have been reflecting on the path that I have taken to the point where I am now, and as I reminisced on my academic days, I was reminded about how we chose some of our classes. We would talk to seniors about which subjects to choose and which professors. The general questions would be, “how did you find this professor? Was it an interesting class or not?” Some students would be quite open in their statements about the kind of professor they had, but others would very gently say, “He/she is a good man/woman” and in that statement would be a clear indication that while this person was a good individual, he/she was not a great professor and it was not a good class to be in. so without really demeaning the person, they would let you know that you didn’t want to be in that class as you wouldn’t learn too much.

Dare to Dream

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Orissa, the Prajapati district, into a place called Serango and see the result of dreams that are in the process of being actualized. It was great to stand on a mountain slope which earlier had nothing on it, but now had a school building. And instead of seeing children hanging around doing nothing, I now saw them smartly dressed and in school, doing something productive with their lives.

Living out your Potential

Dr. Cecil Clements
Duration: 14:51 (Compressed for the Internet)

I’d like to talk to you this morning on the theme ‘Living out your Potential’ or being the person you were meant to be. The statement automatically begs the question – are you the person that you should be or God intended you to be? Or has life slowly recast you into a new mold, one that you know isn’t the real you but you seem to have no way or maybe even the desire to change it. Famous philosopher and author, Walden Henry David Thoreau once remarked, ‘The masks of men live lives of quiet desperation’. It seems that despair and tragedy are closely linked. A person who’s living out a nightmare is not living out his or her dreams. And if your dreams are not being lived out, then you’re not living to your truest potential.