Are you a heartist?

Last week I was wondering if my 100th blog could be special but I left it open and not force fit it. I have always benefited more from serendipity and by going with the flow.

And here it happened today.

Are you a heartist?

I first came across this word in an ad campaign that was done a couple of years ago by the Pullman hotel at the Delhi Aerocity.

I believe a lot in heart centric work and heart centered leadership.

In my work over the last 23 years and in my curiosity since long before that, motivation has been a key subject of exploration, experimentation and explanation.

I learnt of the 3-H model from Ken Blanchard’s work.

Essentially, in my understanding, experience and therefore belief, great work happens when the Head, Heart and Hands align within a person. And when this happens within a team and organisation, even greater things can happen where the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

But it’s not an easy task for an individual or even a manager. There are lots of factors that come into play and when do all these external and internal factors align is a challenge.

Here is one example where it was clearly aligned in one individual in a large organisation that has complex interconnected operations and divisions.

I had to use the toilet at the Delhi airport terminal 2 in the morning.

As I look back in hindsight, I am glad the one near the food plaza was crowded beyond measure.

And why do I say that?

I am an incorrigible, hopeless, magnetic story vault.

Like my friend Ameen Haque says, “Great stories happen to people who know…”

So here is what happened to me because that toilet was crowded.

I made my way to the other one near gate number 22 and from the outside it looked nearly empty.

As I went in, I didn’t notice the western commodes on my left hand side. Pressure can bring out focus in you.

As I found two Indian style toilets empty and even as I was about to enter the last one, the cleaner politely called my attention to the western ones and told me that they will be empty in about 5 minutes.

Now I don’t know what made me ignore my body’s instincts and move towards the western ones.

I don’t know if it was the grogginess from having slept for hardly 3 hours last night or was it his politeness or was it because a great experience awaited me or because a story was meant to be told through me.

Anyway I waited.

And like the theory of relativity the wait only seemed to get longer.

It sounded like someone was taking a shower inside one of the cabins; like what happens when a young child discovers the spray inside a toilet for the first time and decides to have a go at it.

Another one was watching funny videos inside.

My body and my mind were telling me to go back to the Indian ones but I stood rooted there.

Finally one young guy who was dressed like a rapper came out of one of the cabins and just dashed off.

What he had left behind was a large pool of water all around.

I was about to go in when the cleaner politely stopped me and offered to clean the cabin.

Something about his grace made me resist my body’s instinct a bit more.

Patience is a virtue that is revealed only in hindsight.

He took a minute and did a great job of drying the floor, cleaning the seat and spraying disinfectant inside the cabin.

I knew I had to tell his story but not before finding out what motivated him.

A little afterwards I requested him to step out for a minute.

Here is a gist of what he told me in response to my questions:

He is Vijay Thakur from Gaya in Bihar, now settled in Dwarka with his family for the last 8 years.

When he started at the airport 8 years ago he was told by his supervisor to do a good job such that he doesn’t topple in life and that people have a comfortable experience in using the toilet and nobody should complain that the toilet was dirty or that there was nobody attending to it and that as a result one would be able to achieve what they want in life.

Solely as a result of all that he had been able to build a house of his own in a 50 gaj  (50 square yards) plot in Dwarka in Delhi.

My NLP trained mind could figure out that he had a balanced meta programme combination between moving away from and moving towards. He was but clearly more about sorting by others than sorting by self.

I was so happy hearing him that my expanded heart wanted to honour this heartist.

On telling him so, he asked me to do whatever I had in mind inside the toilet complex as there are cctv cameras all around and that they are not supposed to accept money.

I told him that I am going to do what I am going to do in full public view. And then I looked for the nearest cctv and purposely pointed towards it and opened my stroller bag.

I took out my plastic bag of stuffed cloth smiley badges and heart pins and asked him to point to the heart that he liked.

You can see the blue one he picked on his shirt, near to his left.

It was my pleasure and honour to pin that badge on him. He quietly agreed to me taking a picture with him and shared his supervisor’s number and his own number.

As I sent the photo on his whatsapp I got a message a little later asking: “What happened to my father?” I replied in brief.

As I typed these lines, I got the following reply: “Yeah 😊 thank you for that.”

Thank you Shivendra Prema Vyyapuri, Meghna Bankar and Rahul Hasija for helping me find and get these heart pins.

😌🙏🏽🙏🏽

Some stories are meant to be told and as I was walking towards the waiting area near gate 33 I remembered those beautiful words from the Kahani song from Aamir Khan’s upcoming film Laal Singh Chaddha: Are we a story or are we part of a story!

Ahoy, heartists of the world.