A long gap and plethora of thoughts to ponder upon but finally am able to put one of them up here. With the 3rd semester of my MBA program reaching the finish line, I sit to ruminate my learning over the past 4 months and the events influencing this thought. One of the interesting courses which I took up this semester is ‘Talent Acquisition/Management’. This course dealt with the intricacies of acquiring talent in the organization and strategies to retain the same. I would wonder if the core motive behind this was limited only to the organizations and their effective talent acquisition and retention strategies. I could metaphorically relate it to everything in our life – most importantly ‘Relations’.
We strive throughout our life to get the ‘best’ for us – we retain some while we lose some on our journey. When it comes to the organization, we tend to do every bit possible to retain the best employees but we happen to lose out on the personal front. I was contemplating on the scenario where we could have taken cue from even some of these retention strategies – Life would be more enriching. We lose out on our most important people and relations in life for several reasons. Things and even people are taken for granted and we end up on the losing side. Let us try to draw a parallel and understand how little effort and understanding from our end can lead to better relationship management (Strange but even relations need to be managedJ). At organizations, we focus on motivating employees, appreciating their efforts, rewarding them, helping them achieve their goals and thereby engaging them. There is an unsaid bond which the employees develop with the organization. They connect with the organization and stand for the organization. Their identity becomes synonymous to the organization they are working for. What does this transform into for our personal relationships? All that our friends and close ones expect from our relations is this unsaid and mutual understanding. Even a few words of love and care exchanged work wonders. The gestures of ‘I stand by you’, ‘U can do it’, ‘I am fortunate to have you’ and ‘I adore you’ add to the engagement levels of any relation. Understanding and being grateful to the beautiful people we have in life is extremely important. In organizations, we focus on employee engagement. In our personal life, we need to focus on and give priority to our relations. We can’t let our ‘high performers’ quit; it’s a huge setback for the organization. We can’t let the most important people in our lives leave us. Employees join and leave the organizations over the years but some end up having long lasting relationships with the organization. Similarly, we meet several people over a period of time but we build long lasting relations with some. When we have time for all the other things in life – why not the people who matter the most?
We may not be oblivious to the reasons but we hardly do anything to mitigate the effects. There is inertia; there is the ‘Big EGO’, there is the ‘careless attitude’ and there is this feeling of ‘letting go’. It is difficult to say if anyone wins. An Organization thrives on its high performers – Our life prospers with our closed ones and beautiful relations.
Let’s retain them! Let’s respect our relations!
