Success through Super Systems- A Single Dynamic to Steer You through Your Life’s Decisions

By Muthuswamy N

We cannot decide situations and events that crop up in our life but certainly the response to any situation is only and firmly in our hands. Armed with the concept of appropriate Super Systems for any role, we are able to give the most fitting response and thus we become effective, successful and happy.

This book helps us in finding whether we are taking the right or wrong decision at the right time- however simple or complex the decision may be and whatever field the decision may belong to, just at the time we are taking any decision, both in our official and personal lives. As such this book is as much for management professionals, government administrators, politicians and students, and for the common man.

I hope the concepts outlined in the book concerning Super Systems gives a clarity that is otherwise difficult to get, when we are in a difficult, confused or delicate situation in life, when we have to do a certain thing with guts but not with just blind guts. The confusion arises because of the conflict on our mind between right and wrong, good and bad and indeed any two opposites that are always there. Instead of becoming a slave to one of the opposites and get confused and paralyzed, we are able to come to a firm and clear decision and action, thus producing a telling effect or result. The result is success and the ensuing happiness. This approach combined with the approach of making our mind comfortable with any two given opposites that my previous book ‘Success through Opposites’ propagates and makes feasible with vaccinating our mind, make us very effective indeed in any role we play with the resulting success and happiness.

The concept of Super Systems gives a clear thinking on what is right and what is wrong in navigating in today’s life. The book proves that it is easy to be good, not difficult to be good even in today’s world and yet we can be effective, successful and happy by following the concept of super system.

The concept of Super Systems essentially re-engineers our thinking process and enables us to look at the total rather than just one subsystem and to arrive at the optimum of the total system rather than just one sub-system involved in a given role. The book prevents us from falling into the trap of just optimizing one sub-system at the cost of the total system, be it management of corporations, institutions and indeed nations. The re-engineered thinking process results in making apparent complexities simple and enables us to come out with creative simple but brilliant solutions to problems that are easy to implement and monitor- in any role we are called upon to play in official and personal lives.

The book gives examples of right and wrong Super Systems for roles in life and the consequences of choosing them. The book gives lucid examples from the fields of Management of organizations and nations, politics, and family. The book also gives examples from the great epic of India, the Mahabharat. The book gives methods to change the wrong Super Systems in our mind put by us advertently or inadvertently based on our upbringing, education or experience and replaces them with the right ones. The book talks about the harmful effects of ‘I’ as the Super System in our mind, the beneficial effects of the opposite of ‘I’ as the Super System, and the critical importance of having the external customer as the Super System for management, governance and family on our mind.

The book also lists the uses of Super Systems in our lives –both official and personal. The concept of SS gives direction and a single point focus as we play the roles that we may be called upon to play in our lives. The Super System gives core purpose and core values to both our personal and official lives. Super Systems help us to take better quality decisions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Muthuswamy N
• Release date: Aug 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311572950

Muthuswamy N

A management consultant with a proven track record over 35 years of driving business success among large and small corporations as well as business entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs through innovative strategies based on the principles of energy. He has over 16 years of industry experience with Voltas and IBM India prior to over 35 years of consulting experience in India. He was executive director of Baroda Productivity Council that grew 7 times in 9 years under his leadership, and made it the largest local productivity council in India. Presently he is the Chairman of Quest Systems Private Limited – a general management consultancy company founded by him. Quest specializes in “effectiveness” using principles of energy discovered and developed by Mr Muthuswamy, that drive effectiveness in any field. The improvement effectiveness comes as a result of re-engineering our thinking processes-the quest way- that generate surprisingly simple and practical ideas, methods and solutions in home and business life, resulting in success and happiness. Throughout his career, Mr. Muthuswamy has used principles of energy and has helped recover companies in virtual death-bed to roaring successes. One of the companies which was in the brink of bankruptcy, and had accumulated loss over seven years, of more than its capital, turned profitable within 18 months of the engagement. It is now a thriving corporation with a record 500% growth over a 2 year-period. He has used the same energy laws to guide over 100,000 students – both school career guidance and other career guidance services -in career paths that match not just the aptitudes but their interests and personalities, receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback. PEGS (Or Personnel Effectiveness and Growth Strategy,) a workshop which uses principles of energy to change attitudes, has been a hall mark of training effectiveness, in the sense it produces visible results of attitude change in participants. this program has benefited thousands of workers and staff in several industries and has been a roaring success. He realized that these energy principles of effectiveness that evolved throughout his career, based as they are on energy laws, are applicable to any field of human endeavor and across differing cultures. He also realized that implementation of these principles in actual practice become far more easy and certain, if solutions are built into the computers, hence he founded Quest Systems as a company that offers unique systems for better effectiveness. Our software division is wholly involved in building effectiveness solutions only. Our solutions have effectiveness algorithms built into each one of them. Mr. Muthuswamy is the author of the book “Success through Opposites” published in the United States of America. The second edition of this path-breaking book is self-published as an e-book, and available in Smashwords, the largest e-book publisher of the world. His second book, also published as an e book trough Smashwords is expected to be available by June 30, 2015. His third book Success through PICKS is expected to be available by the year-end 2016.These books are available at all book stores afflliated to Smashwords like apple store, flipkart in India etc. Through this 3-series books, Mr. Muthuswamy is confident that the is offering a structured and different thinking process to make people successful and happy, in both their personal and official lives. :

Book preview

What situations and events crop up in our lives is not in our hand, but certainly our response to these is firmly and only in our hands. Armed with the concept of appropriate Super Systems for any role we play in our official and personal lives, we are able to give the most fitting response to any situation and thus we become effective, successful and happy.

SUCCESS THROUGH SUPER SYSTEMS

A single dynamic to steer you through your life’s decisions.

By

Muthuswamy N

Copyright © 2015 N. Muthuswamy

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photo copying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, from the publisher.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Dedication.

I dedicate this book to the billions of people around the world who instinctively know how to be happy and feel successful in whatever conditions (educational, economic, cultural, social, and political) they happen to be in.

And to those who are striving to find happiness and a sense of personal success in their lives in spite of the far superior conditions (educational, economic, cultural, social, and political) they have been fortunate to be in.

To those thousands of students, industrialists, businessmen and directors and managing directors who have said that I was talking about something different, new, practical and of great practical value, and thus encouraged me to write this book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Muthuswamy N is a veteran management consultant, with over 35 years experience shaping the fortunes of small and medium companies across India. He is Chairman of Quest Systems (www.thequestway.in), a general management consultancy firm that he founded in 1980. Always endorsing the long and sustainable view, he has solved problems in all walks of life, turning around numerous companies from the brink of extinction to tremendous levels of success. He has created original and proven products in management and managerial effectiveness by simplifying complexities, using his concept of re-engineering thinking processes. Using these products, he has also guided over 100,000 students to their right careers over the last 30 years.

Muthuswamy N holds a degree in engineering from Madras University, and a post-graduate diploma in Systems Management from Jamaal Bajaj Bombay. His passion for problem solving emerged during his 16 years of industry experience, with IBM and Voltas, as well as with the Baroda Productivity Council that grew 7 times in 9 years under his stewardship, to become the largest productivity council in India, ahead of all the metros.

Contents

Dedication.

About the Author.

Introduction.

Chapter 1: What IS Success?

Is Success what you conceive and get or a return of thankfulness to you from others you serve?

Success - Perception or reality?

Success is nothing but the response from the receiver systems.

Do we have systems to track response from receiver systems?

Summary of chapter 1

Chapter 2: What are Super Systems?

Can you look at yourself –not in a mirror- but through a window?

Johari Window.

How to cut Hidden Self

Hidden Self and child upbringing.

Hidden Self and Management.

Hidden Self and Politicians, bureaucrats

Hidden Self and Pakistan.

Hidden Self and RTI (Right To Information) Act of India.

Hidden Self and Mahabharat.

How to cut B

Blind Self.

Blind Self and Family.

Blind Self and Management.

Blind self and politics, governance & bureaucrats.

Blind Self and Pakistan.

Blind Self and Ramayan.

How to cut Dark Self.

Summary of chapter 2.

Chapter 3: The critical importance of Super Systems.

The only thing that is in your hand to get results smartly.

The Super System- end result Flow Diagram.

Critical Observations from the Super System - End Result Chart.

Super System- End Result Chart - an example.

Summary of Chapter 3.

Chapter 4: Universal and Permanent Super Systems.

Count these systems out and be in peril.

Super Systems on Official side of life.

Super Systems on Personal side of life.

Summary of Chapter 4.

Chapter 5: ‘I’ as the Super System.

The one thing you should eschew for spontaneously becoming a

catalyst leader.

SS1 and absence of ‘I’ as the Super System in Personal life.

SS1 and absence of ‘I’ as the Super System in Official Life/ Management.

‘I’ as SS and the external customer relegated to below ‘I’.

‘I’ as the Super System and Politics.

‘I’ as the Super System and Press.

‘I’ as the Super System and Mahabharat.

The features of ‘I’ as the SS.

Symptoms of ‘I’ becoming the SS.

How to change the Super System in our mind

Summary of Chapter 5.

Chapter 6: The Opposite of ‘I’ as the SS.

Do you have an opposite (except your spouse?)

Nothing exists without its opposite.

Opposite of the human body

UE as the SS: Positive effects.

UE as the SS: Negative effects.

Changing to Spirituality and making Spirituality as Super System.

UE, Spirituality as SS and Family.

UE, Spirituality as SS and Organizations & Management.

UE, spirituality as SS and Politics.

UE, spirituality as SS and Mahabharat.

Advantage of visualizing the arena or stage of all our actions being filled with cosmic energy or UE around us always.

Super Systems and Decision Making.

Summary of chapter 6.

Chapter 7: The external customer as the SS.

The only visible God for every one including you.

The criticality of the external customer as the SS.

SS1 in official life

The criticality of external customer SS1 in any organization.

How to make the external customer SS1 and keep him so?

Can our suggestion ‘Never Say No to customer and Make it Happen’ be the core purpose of any organization?

What is meant by giving unconditional (+) to SS1?

Who are SS1 in official life in different fields?

SS1 and Core Purposes, Core values of Organizations.

SS1 and Core purpose.

What is core purpose?

What are core values?

Core ideology vs. core purpose and core values.

Examples of differences between organizations and purposes: Why shareholder wealth optimization and profitability cannot be the sole purpose of any organization.

The way the organizations with external customer as their SS1 make the core purpose and act and demonstrate in actual practice.

SS1 as purpose is far superior to SS2 the company and money.

Telling Truth though unpalatable to SS1 vs. telling lies to create a make-believe image of your organization in the eyes of your SS1.

Politics and telling lies to SS1.

Lies and Advocates.

Lies and the Press, Media.

‘I’ as Super System is disastrous.

The critical importance of SS1, the external customer, other than for core purpose and core values.

How do you treat your customers?

How do you get to and treat your customers who have complaints against you?

SS1 in Personal life.

The family SS1.

Summary of chapter 7.

Chapter 8: Other Personal and Official Permanent Super Systems.

Have these systems in mind too!

Other Permanent Official Super Systems.

The organization SS2.

The Boss, SS4.

The Internal customer SS3.

Other Permanent Personal Super Systems.

The children SS2.

The parent / Spouse SS3.

The Permanent Personal Super Systems in western society.

Summary of chapter 8.

Chapter 9: Are there any other Super Systems?

Can you too think of any other systems?

Temporary Super Systems.

The employees as SS.

Anti Super Systems.

Clash of priorities between Super Systems.

Summary of chapter 9.

Chapter 10: Uses of Super Systems.

Have you thought about the importance of your life purpose and sense

of values?

SS gives direction and a single point focus.

SS gives core purpose to both official and personal lives.

SS gives core values to official and personal lives.

SS enables us to judge the intentions of people much better than any other means of judging others’ motives.

Super Systems help us to take better quality decisions.

Super System guides us to choose the right decisions from a number of alternative decisions and for empowering people in both official and personal lives.

Super Systems as signals for Decision making under uncertainty.

Common Super System builds team work, far more easily than by any other method.

Super Systems help in conflict resolution both in official and personal lives.

Managing resistance to change

Summary of chapter 10.

Chapter 11: Super Systems and Mahabharat.

Want to see Mahabharat (the great Indian Epic) differently?

Bhishma’s Super System.

Karna’s Super System.

Drona’s Super System.

Dhritarashtra’s Super System.

Draupadi’s Super System.

Krishna’s Super System.

Yudhishter’s Super System.

Duryodhan’s Super System.

Sakuni’s Super System.

Summary of chapter 11.

Chapter 12: Success through Super Systems - a Summary.

The only thing you need after the first reading of the whole book.

Conclusion.

References.

Introduction.

These are the day-to-day questions we face in our life:

Family:

Should I go by what I feel I should do, or should I go by what my well-wishers are asking me to do that is different from what I feel I should do, particularly when my well-wishers’ advice does not appeal to my logic at all?

Should I simply go by what I think is right or should I go by century old values, as for example, can I marry someone from outside my caste, religion, country?

When I should go by what my authority figures at home say and when I should not?

Management:

Should we spend the huge profits we made recently on acquiring own space or building for our company, giving a facelift to the CEO’s office or the CEO’s residence, buying a fancy car or should we spend the money on the current customers of our business, say on gifts or offering discount to them or on equipment that gives a big advantage to our customers? Or should we use the surplus on our employees? If we take a decision on this issue and decide to spend the profit on any one or more of these, is the decision right or wrong?

Should we diversify now or later? What should we diversify on?

Should we geographically expand and if yes, when and where?

Should we have a return policy of materials bought just like in the United States or not?

Should I go by what my boss says or should I plead with him how what he says may not work?

When we are not clear on what to do, what do we do? Postpone the decision? Is postponing the decision right, or by postponing the decision, are we missing out on a golden opportunity?

Is there a way to clearly define what is right and wrong and delineate the two pro-actively rather than after the decision takes effect?

When Ford announced $5/day pay (vs. $1 industry average) for workers in the early part of last century, the captains of the industry in the US condemned the decision as the most foolish ever attempted in the industrial world. Who was right – Henry Ford or the captains of the industry?

Ford reduced prices of cars by 58% between 1908 and 1916, though Ford had more orders than it could fill and could have raised prices… Ford was lowering the prices anyway, even in the face of a shareholder suit against the practice. Was this decision right or was it a decision that did not make commercial sense at all and therefore commercially foolish?

Say Jim Collins and Jerry Porras¹: George Merck II has said ‘we try to remember that medicine is for the patient. We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow. On the contrary, John Makeen said ‘so far as humanly possible, we aim to get profit out of every thing we do. I would make 5% on 1 billion $ sales than 10% on 300 million.’ So he branched out acquiring and diversifying". Both appeal to logic. Which decision was right and which wrong? Anyone can say this after the results come out of these two opposite view points. But is there a way to figure out before the decision is made as to which to follow? In other words, is there a way to predict which path has a greater chance of leading to success and which to failure, before the decision is made to follow a specific path?

Politics:

The greatest power on earth, the United States, has consistently failed in its foreign policy. The USA has consistently won battles and lost the war, and has consistently propped up people who later became terrorists or dictators who turned against the US itself. If the results are consistent, there ought to be a basic flaw in the very approach. What is this flaw in the US’s foreign policy formulation, its decision making and execution that leads to the consistent failure?

Pakistan failed every time against India militarily and, that too, very badly. This resulted in Pakistan losing one of its limbs and the result was the birth of a new Nation, Bangladesh. So Pakistan, very clever as the ruling clique there is, created terrorism as a tool of its foreign policy. Has this tool succeeded or has terrorism that was created by Pakistan boomeranged on Pakistan itself? More importantly could Pakistan have seen the repercussions of its actions in creating terrorism and avoided creating terrorism?

Al Quada, the terrorist outfit, wants to unite all Muslims across what Al Quada calls artificial boundaries, meaning the boundaries of different countries where Muslims live today, and wants to create a huge pan-Islamic State, through terrorist acts. Should this be viewed as a great vision from Osama Bin Laden or his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri? Or are they just simply pursuing an illusion and getting badly hurt in the process? Is there a simple but effective way to arrive at decisions in such matters?

Sense of Values: Is it difficult to be good now-a-days?

The book It is difficult to be good ¹³ by the Indian author, Gurcharan Das quotes Mahabharat extensively to prove the point that, even in those days, it was very difficult to be ‘good’ But I believe Mahabharat proves just the opposite and says it is easy to be good; Mahabharat dispels the myth that there is absolute ‘right’ and absolute ‘wrong’. When you do what you think is wrong at the right time (situation) it is good and when you do what you think is right at the wrong time, it is bad. I repudiate the theme that it is difficult to be good ¹³. Mahabharat says just the opposite: it is easy to be good!

Krishna’s exhortation to Arjun not to run away from the battlefield but to fight on (the Bhagavad Gita) and be happy to fight on, gives a clarity on what is right and what is wrong, which no other literature - in Management or otherwise- does. This book will give a glimpse of getting at the true sense of values - not the absolute but the relative, in Management of enterprises or nations, family and indeed the whole life. Once we re-engineer our thinking process and bring clarity on what is right and what is wrong to our thinking, we become quietly confident and comfortable in our actions. Such a thinking process leads us to a state where it becomes easy to be good, and not at all difficult to be good! The book outlines the single most critical first step that we have to take, so that we have maximum chances of attaining success, not with pain but with happiness.

This book is written with a purpose to make all of us happy in whatever role we are in and whatever we do, in canalizing our resources to the ‘right’ end.

But before we tune ourselves to be comfortable and courageous to do what we have to do in a given situation, we have to tune our minds to be comfortable, not just with one but with both of any pair of opposites. This is what my earlier e-book Success through Opposites ⁹ describes.

We become slaves to one of a given pair of opposites because of an unavoidable process of recording in our mind that starts as soon as we are born. However, once we recognize our slavery to one of a pair of opposites, getting out of the slavery is easy and quick!

We sincerely believe human beings are born to be masters and not slaves to just one opposite of a pair of opposites! Becoming a master is possible only if we tune our mind to be comfortable with both of any pair of opposites. This is possible through a simple process of vaccinating the mind, which my earlier e book Success through Opposites describes. Such a tuned mind easily thinks in opposites- which is a pre-requisite for doing whatever is ‘right’ in a given situation with ease.

This is in tune with what ‘In search of Excellence’ (Simultaneous Loose - tight properties ⁴) and ‘Built to last’ ¹ (No tyranny of the OR) have discovered in their profound research.

Which of a given pair of opposites we have to follow in a given situation is decided by the larger system we have put in our mind, at the time we take the decision: Therefore if we put wrong larger system in our mind, the opposite we choose in a given situation will be the wrong one! If we put the right larger system in our mind, the opposite we choose will be the right one or the appropriate one for the occasion. So we are not subservient to any one of a pair of opposites irrespective of the situation. We are out of the shackles of one of the opposites and are free to choose any one, quietly confident that we have chosen the right opposite for the given situation.

We are driven by our driver, our mind. We reach destinations our mind dictates. We reach goals set by our mind. So what is essential is to tune and make the mind set the goal to give plus to the right larger system we are serving in whatever role we are in, currently. Once we train our mind this way, effectiveness and success become easy, effortless and automatic, and what is more important, success comes with happiness and not pain. And it is easy to be good.

This book talks about the importance of the larger systems we put in our mind, knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly; and the consequences of putting the right larger systems we are serving in a given role, and the consequences of putting wrong larger systems for that role, in our mind. More importantly the book explores the right larger systems for any role - both in our personal and official lives.

This book thus helps us in finding whether we are taking the right or wrong decision at the right time- however simple or complex the decision may be and whatever field the decision may belong to, just at the time we are taking any decision, both in our official and personal lives.

Eliyahu M. Goldratt, the father of the Theory of Constraints and the author of the famous book ‘The Goal’ lamented the absence of and felt the need for a single dynamic to steer the dynamic of the interaction between people with different agendas and different levels of understanding² and to reach a sure consensus on the required change and on the actions to accomplish the change². We feel this book gives that single dynamic: The concept of Super Systems.

Chapter 1.

What IS Success?

Is Success what you conceive and get or a return of thankfulness to you

from others you serve?

Success - Perception or reality?

Do you consider yourself as successful? If so, why? And if not, why?

Are you a successful father or son, mother or daughter, brother or sister, husband or wife? Are you a successful executive, CEO, boss, subordinate or an entrepreneur or industrialist, a professional or a consultant?

Is it your judgment that you are successful or is it the judgment of the other party concerned? Like if you say you are a successful husband, is that your feeling or claim or is your wife telling so? Like if you say you have created a great company, is that your claim or are your customers telling so?

When you say and feel strongly you are successful in any field or role, that feeling is certainly your perception, may not be others’. When the relevant other party says you are successful, that is the other party’s perception of what you have accomplished. So success- like everything else in life - is a perception of one by oneself or by the relevant others.

We can put one’s success in a 2x2 matrix and derive the clarity that only a binary thinking - thinking in opposites 9- can give:

There is no doubt about the successes in Cell 1 - those that one feels one has been successful and the relevant others also feel that he/she has been successful.

Examples: A mother who feels she has been a great mother and her children spontaneously acknowledging, genuinely feeling and expressing so about their mother.

A company chief strongly believing he/she has created or is running a great enterprise and the affiliated systems- particularly the actual users of the products / services of the company- feeling the same way about the company, e.g., IBM, Tata group in India.

An employee feeling he / she has been doing a great job and his/her boss and internal customers expressing the same.

The leader of a nation or a state feeling he / she has been doing a great service for the people and the people also expressing the same as e.g., Mahatma Gandhi.

An advisor or a consultant feeling he/she has contributed very significantly to the company and the receiver of the contribution acknowledging and thanking the consultant spontaneously.

A sportsman who has contributed significantly in a victory according to him but is also acclaimed by the crowd, e.g., Sachin Tendulkar, the football and the basket ball greats.

When one feels one is successful, no doubt one is happy. But if this feeling belongs to cell 1, what one thinks is a success is not his presumption or imagination or perception alone but is reinforced by the response from the relevant other. The perception is thus turned into a reality. What makes one’s own perceived success or happiness into an authenticated one is the response from the relevant other that receives one’s service. What transforms your perceived happiness to bliss is this authentication from the system you serve. And this bliss lasts till one’s life and beyond! This bliss is not a short-lived happiness but a long -term one and normally outlives one generation or more.

Like the ones in cell 1, the contents of cell 3 where one feels he / she is not successful and the relevant others feel the same way, are realities and not presumptions - for the same reason of authentication by the receivers of our services.

Thus true and lasting successes belong to cell 1 and the non-successes or failures to cell 3.

However, the contents of cell 2 and 4 are not so sure indicators of success.

Cell 4 contains those experiences or events that the relevant others feel we are successful but we ourselves don’t feel so. This could be because of our humility, our not knowing what great job we are doing, low self esteem because of which we belittle ourselves, or simply because of our being aware of what all remains to be done yet or what possibilities still exist and remain unfulfilled. But what is certain is that we are successful whether or not we accept because our relevant others genuinely feel and say so - respond that way. So our perception needs correction here - if not entirely at least in degree. What we think is not such a great success is success nevertheless. This too will give us happiness and this has the propensity to live beyond one’s life and is of the long-term category.

Examples:

A mother who feels she has just done her duty as a mother and her children spontaneously acknowledging, genuinely feeling and expressing that their mother is indeed great! Mother Teresa, to whom all children were hers and she was doing only her duty!

A company chief strongly believing he/she has done quite a normal thing but the affiliated systems- particularly the actual users of the products / services of the company- feeling that the product or service is unparalleled. Apple’s iphone!

An employee feeling he / she has been doing the job after all and his/her boss and internal customers expressing the job done is outstanding.

The leader of a nation or a state feeling he / she has been doing one’s bit for the people and the people expressing spontaneously and genuinely that the accomplishments of the leader are extraordinary, Yudhishter the Pandava king, Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat, India, and currently the Prime Minister of India. You may disagree here but ask the people of Gujarat, the relevant others for the role he has played as CM (chief minister) instead of getting carried away by the propaganda either way.

An advisor or a consultant feeling he/she has contributed what one is supposed to and the receiver of the contribution acknowledging the contribution to be a key factor in the envisioning and direction of the enterprise spontaneously.

A sportsman who says he did what the situation warranted but has a following that treats him like a hero, as e.g., Sachin Tendulkar, M S Dhoni, the current Indian Cricket captain.

Now coming to Cell 2, its contents are just the opposite of Cell 4 contents. Cell 2 contains those experiences or events that the relevant others feel we are not successful but we ourselves feel we are. This applies to most of our current day politicians across the world. Examples: Indian ex-ministers P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Mani Shankar Iyer, in the Manmohan Singh government and practically all the spokesmen of political parties in India. Another example is the character, Duryodhan in Mahabharat. This could be because of our overconfidence, arrogance that we can never fail, our feeling or assuming what great job we are doing, having too high a self image, or simply because of our being unaware of what all remains to be done yet or what possibilities still exist and remain unfulfilled. The Congress party in India currently fits in as an eminent example. But what is certain is that we are not successful as far as our relevant others - in the case of political parties, the people at large -genuinely feel we are not!

So our perception needs correction here - if not entirely at least to a significant degree. What we think is such a great success is not so - at least not as great as we are presuming. This correction will give us an opportunity to see reality and aim for higher successes instead of being contented with what ever little success that we have got and presumed that that was such a great accomplishment.

Truly, success is nothing but the total response (quantitatively and qualitatively) from whomsoever we serve. Qualitatively we can give plus (+) to the system or minus (-) to the system we are serving. The system responds appreciatively to what we do, if we give (+) to the system from our hearts. If we give (-) to the system that we are serving, the system responds with criticism and gives back the (-) to us. This is Newton’s third law, or the age-old energy law of India, the Law of Karma.

In either case, the larger the size of the system that gives response, the greater the success or failure we get. Look at Bill Gates, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln. On the other hand, also look at Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and also the political leaders who give (+) to themselves and (-) to the system they are supposed to serve, namely the people. But even such criminals were successful in the short term, but in the long term, they get all the -‘s they gave to the larger systems back- simultaneously and in full measure- and they become failures in the long term. The number in the system or the size of the system served in each case critically decides the degree of success or failure and the quality (whether we gave (+) or (-) to the system) decides the type of response we get, namely whether we are successful or end up as failure.

Success is nothing but the response from the receiver systems:

Thus we may conclude that whether or not one is successful depends on the quantity and quality of response from the system to which one’s product or service is directed. Even an individual feeling that he/she has been giving excellent service or product - with great humility and internal authentication - will be regarded as successful only if the people using his /her service or product feel that the product or service is truly great and therefore respond accordingly. The end- result of true success is happiness - not just in the short term but over a long term and normally totally out of proportion to the efforts put in. The ultimate end result for the supplier system is internal harmony and bliss with thankfulness to the receiver systems that authenticate our success through their response.

Do we have systems to track response from receiver systems?

Therefore what is imperative is that we should have systems of obtaining this response (authentication or otherwise) from the systems we serve, to keep us continually on the path of success that would give us happiness - currently and over a long period of time i.e., short term and long term. This critical aspect of tracking the response from the systems we serve, we will cover in chapter 2.

Most people take good care of their own families; they are successful wives, husbands, parents and kids. But the quantity dimension is small and limited to their family. Therefore the vast majority of them think that their success is limited. But they are immensely more successful if you compare them with families that are split, where one of the parents walks out for whatever reason. Some of them enlarge their service to society instead of limiting their service to their own family. As the size of the system they serve becomes larger, their sense of success and the size of their success too become larger.

On the official front, people can take only the boss as the one who receives their services. In this case the number you serve is only one. To increase the size of the system you serve, you think of whom you and your boss together serve predominantly- the internal customers - of your department. Larger than the internal customers is the company you serve and the largest of them all are the external customers of the company. This way you may increase the number of people you serve on the official

Reviews for Success through Super Systems- A Single Dynamic to Steer You through Your Life’s Decisions

[DiDonovan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Success Through Super Systems: A Single Dynamic To Steer You Through Your Life’s Decisions comes from a veteran management consultant who has worked with companies throughout India, creating and applying products and management approaches for various companies. His survey of success opens with reflections on what constitutes success and how to measure it, creating a foundation for analytical applications before moving on to identify the basics of 'super systems', identified here as systems between businesses and customers and the kinds of verifications that take place between them.

Communication models for improving self-awareness, identifying and understanding the latent powers in the 'Hidden Self' and how to use them, and taking R&D and other linear management approaches and tempering and improving them with a healthy dose of psychological insight are just a few of the approaches used in Success Through Super Systems, a model of thought that requires more than a small dose of psychological introspection from the business managers while considering its special attributes.

Quest Systems has developed a wide range of these models and applications and their philosophy is embedded in chapters that are as precise about their potential as they are about the common pitfalls of typical business approaches. The tips also incorporate spiritual reflection and discussions of how to overcome obstacles to success on different levels.

From perceived values and preferred values to examples drawn from Indian literature, spirituality, and business traditions, Success Through Super Systems outlines an approach that considers the roots of success and failure in a variety of systems and encourages a fluid understanding of how to identify the correct 'Super System' for a particular role or goal.

The reader who will gain the most value from Success Through Super Systems won't be the business manager used to linear thinking and problem-solving, but those who can appreciate the added value brought to the table by a blend of psychology, spirituality, and cultural understanding. This is a text that should not be hastily digested, but slowly absorbed for its ability to offer lasting food for thought and discussions of not a single system, but a variety of 'super system' options. The dynamic promised may seem singular at first; but its wide-ranging concepts strive for clearer thinking and include examples for both business and life pursuits in a complex, thought-provoking read filled with powerful opportunities for change.