“If you are not the part of the solution, you are the part of the problem.”

Winning entry for the Article Writing Contest at NICMAR, Pune| September 2008

The world consists of three kinds of people; a very small percentage of realists, a fairly large percentage of optimists and a very generous dose of pessimists. The optimists should be the ones giving this world the right direction but most go to the extreme of becoming daydreamers. In this great mix, we realise that more often than not, we come face to face with the third type of people. While the way to success is by pushing each other higher, the world is fraught with the risk of being pulled down by the pessimists.

Any interaction being two human beings is bound to run into a problematic situation. It could be a small misunderstanding or a major fight. When we scale up this situation to a large organisation, the problems multiply too. It is this sort of an environment where the need for an optimist is felt most and is denied the most. It is human nature to stand on the sidelines and point out deficiencies in others. While the players are in the thick of things and perform the job on the run, most people choose to be mere spectators. Compound this fact with totally unsolicited criticism and we get the recipe for the perfect disaster.

We humans live in a complex world and this gives rise to constant friction. What is needed from each one of us is to figure out how we can contribute to the solutions to the myriad of problems. If we can get ourselves to think positively, then we have resolved half the problem.

More often than not, we face a situation where people come and tell us there is a problem. The nature and scale of the problem is irrelevant to the discussion. What is important is to come up with possible solutions. In a majority of cases, solutions are wanting. While it is easy to stand outside the playing field and point out what is wrong, it is very difficult to come up with a solution or the right technique when one is in the game. Those who just criticize do nothing of value. While criticism is necessary for one to develop, what we desperately needed is constructive criticism; the problem identifier needs to help in the problem resolution too. Unless we can do that, we will always be part of the problem.