How Galloway’s victory in Bradford reflects Future of Imran Khan in Pakistani Election?

First of all, I congratulate George Galloway for his astonishing victory few days ago in British by election at Bradford. I came to know about George Galloway few years ago when I was searching for some video on YouTube and accidentally open an infamous George Galloway video in which he almost made the arrogant news anchor of Sky TV cry with his logical support for Palestinians and their cause. It was “Wohaa, Who is this guy?” moment for me and after that I followed all news and videos related to him as he become one of my favorite public speaker. The guy is very rational in his speeches and supports Muslim point of view on most of the world issues, but there is still a confusion if a born Roman catholic converted to Islam or not.




So what really happened there on 30th March 2012? To know the answer, let’s get into the political history of Bradford. Bradford is always considered as Labor’s political stronghold as party keeps its influence on Bradford for over 100 years and never lost a seat since 1974 until now. Bradford consists of Asian majority with a very vibrant Pakistani population. Historical trends show that Asian and Pakistani community always voted for Labors in all past elections, one of the major reasons for consecutive Labor victories for over 3 decades. So what really changed there? Beside the fact that many Pakistani and Asian leaders along with many Muslim religious leaders openly asked their communities to vote for Labor’s candidate, who was also a British Pakistani, more than 50% of the voters voted for George Galloway’s Respect Party.



As The Guardian pointed out in their news article, the difference was the vote of the rebellious youth, mostly Muslim and Pakistani.



“But in the final 48 hours, the Respect vote started to surge, especially among Asian youth, opening up a serious possibility that Galloway could be taken back to the Commons only two years after losing in 2010.”



Every one, including the political analysts considered Labor party as the favorite until the last day and were expecting no competition in the by election but result surprised everyone. Some are considering it as the most sensational victory in British political history that happened only because rebellious Pakistani and Muslim youth voted for Galloway unlike their elders who always voted for Labor party.



So what is the connection between Galloway’s astonishing victory and Imran Khan’s political future in Pakistan? The connection is rebellious youth who is not ready to vote for the conventional old parties even when their elders are forcing them to. In coming elections, same will happen at number of seats in all over Pakistan where rebellious youth will end the rule of many conventional political families and tycoons. Many are going to loose their family seats they hold for decades just like Labor lost their seat after 30 years. The Pakistani youth knows the people responsible for the plight of Pakistan and they are not going to vote for them anymore. The conduct of Pakistani youth in Bradford elections showed a glimpse of what Pakistani youth is going to do in Pakistan in future elections. I know two things for sure; they are not going to sit in their homes this time on Election Day and they are not going to vote for old political parties.



I have no doubt in my mind that youth has no choice but Imran Khan as their future leader, the only thing needed is to motivate more and more youth to come out and vote at the day of elections from every

The Feedback Stipulation

The Feedback Stipulation:

All working environments demand progress and productivity. Every Organization builds over employee's growth in terms of their skills and experience. Employees are the foundation support within organization and if the foundation is strong and solid, the overall structure of organization will also be well-built. So it is very much important for managers or team leaders to ensure a surrounding that enable employee to enhance his skill set as well as evolve intellectual capabilities with good rate.

Necessity of Feedback:

When we discuss improvement in skill sets of employees and the factors that guarantee improvement in skills of employees, Feedback is the factor that we can not overlook. Feedback from managers or Team leaders is the most powerful factor in order to improve skills of employees, but only when appropriately use. Well written feedbacks leave a deep impact on the readers mind and create an influence of writer. A powerful feedback serves multiple purposes, it not only guides employee to a right direction, but also motivates him.

Basic Structure of Feedback:

Writing a feedback is not an easy task, it needs brain storming, selection of right words, true assessment and right timing. Feedback is not something to write in a hurry, it needs time from writer's end to evaluate subject in detail before writing something. It only needs one feedback to either motivate employee or discourage him, so writing a right feedback is very important.

Right Timing of Feedback:

Before writing a feedback, it is important to ensure that you are writing it when there is requirement and employee needs it. Right timing is an important factor, but often not considered. For example, it is not good to right a feedback to a new employee when he is in learning phase; it creates an extra pressure and reduces comfort level of employee that is very much needed for learning. Similarly, if an employee is doing an excellent job, there is no need for feedback but only an appreciation is required.

Right Reason for Feedback:

When you feel that it is right time to write a feedback, next question is why you want to write a feedback to particular employee? The right answer of the question is to bring improvement in employee, and improvement comes when all deficiencies at employee's end are rightly assessed and highlighted. If assessment is not true, the feedback could spoil the authority and influence of feedback writer.

The feedback should not be of one dimension, but it should be mixture of appreciation of good work, highlight shortcomings, pointing out weak areas with right solutions and setting a goal for employee to achieve. Writing a rightly structured feedback is an art that leaves a strong impact on the reader and increase the influence of writer. It is much more preferable to write a strong feedback in long time instead of writing two liner feedbacks with regular intervals.

Discipline and Creative Chaos

In most of the working organizations, a strict disciplined approach is followed for the employees like a divine rule. It is thought that strict rules ensuring disciplined approach in a working environment gives assurance to productivity. When you follow a strict disciplined approach, it means that you are imposing limits and barriers in front of human intellectual.

There is no perimeter for human potential; it is a God gifted "set of abilities" that varies from person to person. Every human being lives with different experiences and family backgrounds, such variables in lives of every individual cultivate different sets of skills within people. Most often, these set of "born abilities and learned skills" remained unidentified in individuals until they are provided with favorable conditions that enables them to walk through the phase of self identification and self believe. Once filled with self believe, people can have a true grasp of all their abilities and skills that multiply their growth, increase their productivity and static approach turns into dynamic one.

In a strict disciplined environment, it is most unlikely that people can revert to such hidden abilities or skills. Organizations always grow over the creativity and innovation within its employees that is only possible when employees are provided with more comfortable environment. The more comfortable and relax employees are, more creativity and innovation will pour out from them. Human intellectuality flourishes over unconfined surroundings, so providing employees with such feeling is significant if creativity is encouraged.

It is possible that if knots around a strict disciplined workplace are loosed, the momentum within organization gets disturbed, but it is natural whenever change is implemented. It demands a much effective management and more focused vertical eye on employees to direct a new born chaos within employees towards creativity and innovation. If such conditions are followed in any organization, producing a team of self motivated and highly productive individuals is more than achievable.

Responsibilities of Team Leader

Manage, coach, prepare, analysis, innovation, improvement etc are the terms that can jump into mind when think about responsibilities of a Team leader.

Manage:

Team Leader is a first-line manager of his team, so the obvious key responsibility is to “Manage”. Manage at all cost, manage in high load, manage with limited resources, manage with less human resource, manage with less headsets, to make it short it’s all about managing in every tough situation. In our working environment, we often face unpredictable high load as well as limitation of resources, and as a Team leader we need to respond to such challenges instead of reacting. Remember, to respond is Positive and to react is negative. You can either “Cry” about it or you can do something to contain, limit the affects or sometime even can do better.

Innovation:

Innovation is the most fascinating thing one can do in his area of supervision. It pushes your brain, it gives you experience to manage change, it gives you a new ride with you on a front seat and it make you learn how to take calculated risks. If one compare Banking sector with call center industry, than our call centre industry is a new born baby that is still waiting for many improvements, many innovations and many re written SOPs. It is always a single phrase, “I think I can do it in a better way than this”. That’s the phrase, that’s the only sentence that it takes for innovation.

Inject:

Injections, yes, one needs to inject lot of things into your team. Inject in the feeling of working in a team, an injection for sense of achievement and injection for a sense of recognition. The market surveys proved that the first thing that an employee wanted is recognition. What satisfies my team member? Money? Nah, all market surveys rejected that. It is sense of recognition, achievement, work, responsibility and than money down the ladder.

Goals:

Khird kai Pass Khabar Kai siwa kuch orr Nahin!!

(There is nothing with consciousness except information)

Tera Illaj Nazar Kai siwa Kuch orr Nahin!!!

(There is nothing that can improve your condition except Vision)

Common vision for your team is the ultimate solution, so is the academic definition of Team” A set of people that work towards a common goal”. The simple equation that one can derive from the definition is “productivity of the team is directly proportional to the clarity of common goal”. You give them blurred goals and they will fail you again and again, you give them clear goal with common vision, and they will turn into achievers.

Communicate:

Effective managers give 44% of their time to communication, so communicate. Guide them, teach them, motivate them, set goals for them, build in goal oriented approach and don’t let them build stress.

Discipline is the over emphasized term that is used in organizations and very wrongly. If you set boundaries, you limit the potential. It is well proved now that chaos contains much more creative approach than disciplined mind. It is only that you need to channelize chaos into innovative chaos.

My email Reply to My Boss:

I don't know why but I feel like sharing this :)

I was reading an article “East’s decline of research and creative activities“ written by Dr Rauf Parekh, and I feel that I should share some of the content here as the topic of your email and that article is almost similar.

He referred to an old article By Ming Shaw in Times magazine in which he summed up the decline of the East and ascendance of the West and the core reason He talked about is the West adoption of “Creative Thinking and Innovation”, so what I learn from his findings and actual reality is that if you want to see this contact centre at new height in coming year, than we all need to clearly understand the essence of Innovation in our field, and should open our minds to creative thinking, instead of wasting our times in opposing every new idea just because we are not fond of change.

As part of management of the contact centre, we must understand the current organizational culture that is evolving with fastest rate than ever. We need to understand this “Universal Truth” that Innovation, new ideas and creative Thinking is the path that leads you and your work to new heights and resistance to change and innovation is the only path that leads to failure.

In the article, he further explained that the reason why Eastern minds are not that innovative like of West is that East prefers age and seniority over intelligence and creativity.In East, education preaches that elders are always right, it rather punishes anyone who tries to overstep the line that traditional wisdom or old methods have drawn. I read the line and I feel the intensity and application of this line. Its relevance even in the small working environment of “Our Contact Centre”.

Boss, we all as part of management need to transform our selves in people who all have open minds and always be open for change. We need to end this approach of “Karaon ga na karnai don ga” if we want to create an atmosphere where creativity and intelligence flourishes. In his article, he mentioned that the reason East lags behind today, is the absence of unconventional thoughts. Now the question arises, how many of us ever come up with any unconventional thought, how many of us even can think of depriving from conventional methods? Do we have such minds?

I want to share Prof Zakaria Sajid’s foreword to the book “Tehqeeq Ke tareeqe”, in which he said

“Curiosity and knowledge are what human civilization’s progress is made of. Observation, experimentation and development of principles are but manifestation of that curiosity and knowledge, which help us boil facts down and analyze events and socials trends”

Boss, in a society such as ours where following the herd is standard operating procedure, bringing innovation and creativity is not an easy task. We all must change our attitudes towards change. It is high time for us before the New Year, that we change our mindsets, our approach, our directions and work towards a single goal with positivity and determination.

Regards,
Iftikhar Alam

Physics of Taqdeer:

Taqdeer and Loh e Mahfouz are two terms you have to hear hundreds of times if you are born in an ordinary Muslim family, but more than often without any just theoretical explanation that could make any sense. We are told from our childhood that creator gives us free will to choose between good and bad, and we have to decide our own path, but on the contrary, it is also taught that all of our actions are already written and preserved in Loh e Mahfouz and you cannot do against your Taqdeer. Confusion isn’t it!!
The above mentioned confusion between the free will and Taqdeer remains something in which I was unable to find any sense until recently. I read books, listened to sermons and searched websites but the explanation of concept never satisfies me.
Recently, I was watching an episode of a science fiction series “Fringe” by J.J Abrams that build my interest in Quantum mechanics and Neil Bohr’s theory of Wave function that leads me to read about one of the most fascinating theory of our time proposed by Hugh Everett in 1957 known as “Many-World Interpretation” and was further researched and worked upon by other scientists.
This theory states that there are hundreds of worlds running parallel to our present world based on our different choices we made in our past. The basic concept is driven from the experiment known as "Schrödinger's cat" in which a cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with various paths in that chamber one leading cat to poisonous food and other paths leading Cat to normal food.
As the chamber is close, what is the condition of Cat after several hours? It could be still alive or dead, but the "alive" and "dead" cats are in different branches of the universe, both of which are equally real, but which cannot interact with each other. The real condition will be known only when we open the chamber, and the condition of that Cat will be caused by its own choice.
Now, we just have to broad our visions and have to extend this experiment to universal level. What if I replace cat with humans? Steel chamber with this world? Human made paths for cat to God made paths for humans? Does it make sense? This brings a conclusion that our creator made a steel chamber for us i.e. our life, and designed millions may be billions of paths for us in that life based on our choices.

Our Taqdeer is all these parallel worlds, already described and preserved as our Taqdeer but it is our own choices that lead us to our destiny. The concept is real, scientific and very sensible that satisfies both conditions of having free will with already written Loh e Mahfouz. Our creator already preserved all our life paths in a super computer known as Loh e Mahfouz, but it is our choices that will lead us to any of the already described path. To make things more clear, it is like that if we have to take a decision about something by saying yes or no, than it is not written that we will say yes or no, but both paths are already written, one that could be caused if we say yes, and the other that could be caused when we say no, but it’s our own free choice that makes us follow any of the already written path. This is why it is said that best of the supplication is to ask for Allah’s guidance and right path. May Allah SWT leads us all to right path, Amin.

The ability to think beyond the limitations and Iqbal

The Ability to Think Beyond the Limitations:

When I see around the world, I see poverty, sufferings and war. I see a world where 96% of world's wealth is in the pockets of less than 1% of the total population. I see individual failure, collective failure, failed states, failed nations, and a failed humanity where hunger, poverty, crime, war and terrorism are on the rise. I question myself, why is there such an inequity in society, some people with success and majority are failure. Very few are achievers and rest, the masses are losers. Why is it? And the answer from somewhere inside me says, because they don’t deserve it, because very few deserve this success and achievement.

Then what is it that someone requires to deserve success? Again, a voice said "Vision".

There are very few people who actually have vision of their life, who even have a clear understanding of what this life is? Life is a unique gift for every individual on this earth, and life is what they think of it. As Iqbal said

Hiyaat kia hai, Khiyaal o nazar Ki majzoobi
Khudi Ki mout hai andisha Hai gonagon

It is all about how evolved your mind is, how dynamic are you in your approach towards your goals, it is all about your addiction to your achievements and it is all about your "Can do" attitude. When a human acquires all these abilities, then there is birth of an ability that makes you visionary and gives you this ability to think beyond the limitations, beyond the illusion of this materialistic life surrounding you. It is than when you really start deserving the real success.

Be Dynamic:

Iqbal said:

Tu abhi rahguzar main hai, Qaid e Maqam sai guzar
Miser o Hijaz sai Guzar, Paras o Shaam sai guzar

All it means is that the youth is still on their path of life, and what they need is a dynamic approach, they need to pass through the static state of mind. They need to keep evolving their mind, to open their minds for new ideas, ready to bring change in their life. They just cannot be static in their approach; they need to be dynamic and ever evolving. They need to think beyond the limitations of nationalism and racism. They need to think "globally”.


Jis ka amal hai bai gharaz, Uss Ki jaza Kuch or Hai
Hoor o khiyam sai guzar, Bada o Jaam sai guzar

The one who do things just for the internal satisfaction, the outcome he seeks will be something special. One needs to pass through the desire of Jannah and Virgins there, he needs to do good for his own sake, for his own satisfaction, for the love of the creator, and when he is able to do this, there comes the prize one even cannot perceive in his imagination.

Critical thinking skill:

We all know that our 5 senses gives input to our mind in the form of data, our mind than interpret and manipulate that data (Thinking process) and than decide for something. We all have same 5 senses, than why only few have this ability of good decision making? Just because they push their brains to play with the input data with self believe. Most of the people simply don't use their brain to play with that data.

What it requires is passion for achieving something, that passion than push your mind to interpret and manipulate data faster and faster until the level when you start thinking critically, known to be the basic prerequisite for achieving success. The extreme form of this ability gives you strength to see behind the wall, a fascinating and very rare ability to achieve.

As Iqbal said

Woh Hurf e Raz Keh Mujh ko sikha giya hai junnon
Khuda Mujhai nafs e Jibraeil dai tou kahon

This passion, this energy that pushes one towards their goals makes them learn a new world of secrets, true answers, and reality behind every single matter surrounding them. And it requires a place near God, a strong link with your creator like that of the most beloved and closes Angle Gabriel to deliver what this strength demands from you. You need to bring in the spiritual factor in it if you want to gain from most of it. It is than when you become one of the very few people who knows the reality.


Zameer e paak o Nigah buland o masti e shouq
Naa maal o dolat e Qaroon, Na fikar e Aflatoon
Sabaq milla hai yeh Miaraj e mustafa ( PBUH ) sai mujhai
Kai Aalam e bashriyat ki zad main hai Gardoon

Iqbal describe the three most important characteristics for achieving high status of your mind. First, "Zameer e Paak", means pure inner self, clean from all diseases of heart like distrust, racism, pride, arrogance etc, second is "Nigah e buland”, a vision that sees in time, in future, through the illusion of matter. Third is "masti e shouq', passion that makes you obsessive, that push you towards your goals. These are the characteristics you should acquire in order to achieve an evolved mind, because nor money can neither any ideology without spirituality get you to this level.

What one can learn from the incident of "Mairaj e mustafa"? It simply shows that this whole system is within the reach of human intellectual, all the answers are reachable, all the secrets and hidden reality is there waiting to be discovered by our mind.

In one of his other poem, Iqbal said

hai zauq-e-tajali bhi isi khak mai pinhan
gafil tu nira sahib-e-idrak nai hai
kiya khaber sufi o mula ko meraye junoon ki
un ka sar-e-daman bhi abi chak nai hai

The ability to see the extreme reality, to see God is hidden in you, in the followers of true deen. But unfortunately, you don’t know about your own reality, about your own inner strength. You lack self believe, you lack that obsession that drives you mad.
What these sufis and religious leaders know about the real passion? They don’t know it, they cannot explain it, and they themselves are not that evolved today that they can even perceive what reality of this deen, this system of creator is. Their minds are closed, static and not evolved. They are followers, not thinkers, not leaders; they just follow what they read without questioning it, without trying to find logic, without trying to search for a true answer behind every instruction of God.

Summary:

There is one state of mind, a rare one that Iqbal talks about throughout his poetry like "maira Noor e Basirat aam kar dai", and “Khuda tujhai meri tarah Sahab e israr karai", and "Woh Hurf e Raz Keh Mujh ko sikha giya hai junoon" and in many other parts of his poetry. What is this dimension that Iqbal talks about, what this "Noor e Basirat" or " Sahab e Israr”, or "hurf e raaz" is? This is what I understand as state of en evolved mind when human mind is able to see things in right perspective, through the illusion of materialistic life and could see into time. This is what I have tried to explain in this writing, and Allah SWT knows best!!!