Discipline - A hard quality to maintain?
ROY SMITH, attributed, Words of Wisdom and Quotable Quotes
One thing which always made me wonder is the lack of discipline in general - this is not restricted to work place alone but a very general observation in life. This is one personal trait which I believe is going the wrong way as time passes by - May be this is more true in the situations we operate, in India. From my point of view, the lack of discipline can be killing if you are disciplined yourself.
What does discipline give us - For me, it brings in predictability which reduces frustration, heartburn. It also brings in a structure to inter-operate between people and teams.
As a general management professional, I often wonder why people are unable to be disciplined with respect to their time commitments and deliverable. Here is where, I think the problem is:
# Casual Attitude? This is not important to me?
# Overall deterioration in standards and not enough people to lead by example.
# Problem of prioritization - Unable to manage across multiple activities and hence under pressure and struggling?
# Too busy - I am doing a lot of things and am working hard, is it OK to compromise?
While I do set a reasonable standard for myself, I do find myself struggling at times as well - I would attribute that to "problem of prioritization" and "doing too many things" - Surely an area I would focus on improving as time goes through.
The younger generation of managers will need to cultivate the skill of discipline to make sure they become truly professional - I believe that will be difference between "managers" and "successful managers."
Finally here is a quote I loved - Half of life is luck; the other half is discipline - and that’s the important half, for without discipline you wouldn’t know what to do with luck - Carl Zuckmeyer
