The Christmas season recently drew to a close with tons of leftovers and parties. The Straits Times in Singapore recently reported about 20-30% increase in food wastage during the festive season, so much so that additional waste trucks have to be deployed to take away the waste.

Christmas is a lot of things to alot of people. In the midst of giving and receiving, my question is “Do we give back to society enough?”

Recently, I had the privilege of taking part in a carolling night where a large bunch of friends went to a shelter for the homeless to bring some joy, games and food to them. It was a simple act, but to see children and their moms screaming when playing games, singing along with you in the songs and being extremely happy when they receive gifts and glow-in-the-dark luminous sticks, you can’t help but be very happy that you have given them something that most people yearn for: joy and happiness.

My purpose of this post is to encourage you to give back to society. Dedicate a day or two to serve the needs of the less fortunate than you. Choose to esteem them better than yourselves and treat them like kings and queens. I sincerely believe that if we take time to give and not focus on ourselves all the time, we start to see how precious is each and every person. That’s where we start living.

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity – Martin Luther King, Jr.”

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When it comes to working in teams, most people often hesitate in asking for help. In fact, some leaders often think of the many reasons why their staff do not want to take up certain projects or additional work.

In my work with people, my experience tells me that unless I can share the reason for doing things with other people and delegate work out, I can never truly be transformational in what I do. The role of a leader is to create a team and galvanize them towards an objective. However, in most cases, whenever we think of the people we need to spearhead certain initiatives or even join our team, we can sometimes give a lot of reasons why he/she is not willing to take it on. We say NO for them.

Statements like the following:

“I’m sure that she will be great for this role, however she has just completed a major project and I don’t think she will take up a new role right now.”

“It will be great to have him on our team, but there’s just no way he will come in. Our remunerations will never be close to what he’s getting.”

I understand that those above are real concerns, but if we do not ask, we will have totally closed the door for that person to work with us. In fact, there are many instances when I am surprised over and over again that people do want to give more of their time, money or effort to something they believe in.

Here’s a conversation I had with whom someone I wanted on my team:

“Glad to have been able to know what you are passionate about and the marvellous skills that you possess. Right now our aim is to develop and mentor new members. Personally, they are a great bunch. However, if I have you helping out in the mentoring process, I know they will surely soar in their work scope. There’s no promise of more incentives, but I can guarantee that this will be an extremely fulfilling work because you will be able to teach and impact lives.”

Guess what? This lady with superb counselling skills joined us and played a pivotal role in building the team.

Never say NO for other people. Give them a reason, share with them your vision and they might just surprise you with a big resounding “YES, I’m willing to be involved!”

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