Monday, January 27, 2014

Art of Diplomacy

      I recently had a chance to serve for two years in a Non profit organization and had a chance to experience some of the best practices of human behavior. One can do Yoga either in the morning or in the evening but earlier the better since you gain more mileage out of it. So I wanted to take up the role much earlier just to make sure I learn from people regarding the various traits of human relationships. Being a guy who observes people I could have not asked for a better atmosphere to learn things.
      
     Diplomacy is one of the most powerful words in English dictionary as it is basically as ‘Art’; Cooking is an art since everyone gets the same ingredients to make a dish – what makes a great dish compared to a good dish? Well it just depends on the nuances of cooking and that what makes it an art. Same way being diplomatic is an art by itself. The way you respond/react/talk has so much to do with your individual behavior. Diplomacy at time may even be boring or tend to be cliché but do we get tired of a nice dish irrespective of the number of times we had tasted the delicious dish. It just depends on what context we use our words and actions. Observing few senior people I learnt one of the best practices to have in your kitty is to be diplomatic.

      Being diplomatic comes with experience though. Once we are exposed to real world situations and conversations that we are normally not used to accustom in our day to day lives we may tend to act in a very immature way. That’s where the learning curve starts. At times even beating round the bush may seem to be appropriate. It takes time to get into your system to acknowledge some of the ways in being diplomatic.

     Diplomacy has so many different dimensions to it – a very slight variation in a sentence may tend to be more diplomatic. How exactly you draft an email, how exactly to react to a situation, on what basis a decision was taken, how you stress something and you subtly convey something everything plays a role if you are to be considered a diplomatic person. At times you might wonder am I losing my own individuality by adjusting to things around you but later you come to know best way to handle anything is to be balanced in your approach by giving yourself enough time for dust to settle.


     Diplomacy is definitely signs of maturity – I used to dream that I wanted to pen my thoughts on any single topic and come up with a book. May be this is the topic which I should cash upon since I have so much of contents to write. I am aware this is just a wish list but nevertheless I am happy that I have gained some invaluable lessons which are much more worth than writing my own book. 

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