This is a comparatively long article; I suggest you read it completely with ample time in hand. It will be worth your time.

I never talk about discipline without talking about Love. The reason being, Discipline is a tool that can be used for both good and evil. Discipline without love leads to perfect manmade disaster, and love without discipline results into failure and despair. Love needs discipline to manifest in material world. Love eventually could lead to discipline but not the other way round. It is like men and women, only together they can create a perfect world. It is a perfect example of discipline and love in working, and this is working for millions of years. Nothing on this earth is possible without discipline and love. If you observe starting from Galaxies to the atomic level, and organism of all forms on earth you will notice discipline and love everywhere.

In my profession, I have worked with families to save home and with corporate to cause unprecedented success. My approach always has been to identify the deficit in any of these two factors and fill the gap. I also eliminate elements that erode those to maintain the delicate balance. This approach has caused miracles. Eventually we at NGL have mastered this art. You too can apply these in your life and get extraordinary result.

Discipline is an extraordinarily powerful tool. With right level of discipline placed appropriately a group of 10 people can outperform a group of 1000. A group of highly discipline people can do far better than group of people with higher intelligence. By reinforcing discipline, you can increase the efficiency of your workforce up to 10 times.

Discipline is necessary at a personal level and group level to achieve success in any undertaking. There is a delicate correlation between personal discipline and group discipline, and it is the common love (cause). This correlation unites individuals to form a group. The group discipline makes it possible for a group of individuals act as a single organism.

Discipline has two components structure and adherence.

Structure

A structure is a set of rules. Rules are laid out to sufficient detail, and in some cases left at an abstract level. Each rule in the structure having a correlation with the love(cause). Structure is of two type, personal structure and group structure. Personal structure observed by each member of a group at personal level. Group structure is observed by each member to operate at group level. Personal structure and group structure must complement each other.

For example, social structure like traditional family rules keeps the smallest unit of society i.e. family intact. Organizational Process and procedures are the structure at the workplace. It is seen that rate of divorce are higher in nontraditional society where society has not laid out specific set of rules for families to follow. The success rate of undertakings are low in organizations where processes are not laid out properly.

Sometime there are serious flaws in the structures. Some structures are outdated, and do not fit into the 21st century lifestyle. Sometime there is misplaced structure. An alien group structure adopted where it conflicts with personal structure of all or some member of the group. Sometime the structure has not changed with changed love(cause). It is like you are married to one lady with whom you are no longer in love, and you are in love with another you are not married to. In such cases nothing works, because in one case love is missing and in another case the structure. Alternatively, to say if your organizational mission has shifted, where as your structure has not changed.

Personal structures are the rules that each individual observes, that make him/her a suitable member in a group. Many individual alter their personal structure to work well with group. Each of us does make changes to our personal lifestyle when we get married, so that marriage can work. Similarly, people do alter their personal structure to suite to the group structure when they join an organization.

Some people fail to see the importance of it and do not make sufficient adjustment to their personal structure. That either makes them less effective in the group structure or they stress themselves to exhaustion adjusting to that group. many organizations completely overlooked this aspect. I have observed the same in many of my client’s and a focused coaching solved the issue. Many organization give diary, calendar and some orientation to influence personal structure positively.

An expert can spot absence or flaws in the structure after careful analysis. In such cases, a new structure brought into force or alterations made to the existing structure. Detail study of the structure and its various components is out of scope of this article.

Adherence to the structure

Many organizations fail due to lack of adherence to the structure. This happens even though there is a perfect group and personal structure in place. The reason for lack of adherence to the structure could be many. Environmental and psychological factors prevent people to follow the structure at times. However, the primary factor is always missing link with love. In the presence of strong love, people follow the structure at any cost and eventually group succeeds at any circumstance.

Some psychological factors prevent people from adhering to the structure and have discipline. Those psychological factors do keep people occupied and inattentive to present. I have noticed such cases with many of my clients. In such cases instead of over analyzing the reason of non-adherence, we have worked on reinforcing the love factor. That is the job of a motivational speaker and personal counselor. A well-planned and executed motivational speech has produced excellent result.

The detail of the motivational techniques and counseling procedure to enforce love is scope of another article.

Love

The reason I used the word love instead of cause is spiritual. Many terrorists or outlaw group operates with extraordinary discipline to achieve their objective. Though they have a cause, the cause not originated from love. If the cause based on fear, hatred, impulse or greed then the outcome is always disastrous. A cause originated from love always leads to creative and happy outcome.

Love is a creative force. Love is so creative that, it can create structure and provide motivation to adhere to it too. A strong love can overcome the shortfall of structure. That is the reason some small a closely-knit organization without much structure in place perform better proportionate to a bigger organization with great structure. In presence of strong love couple coming from completely two different cultures, create a workable structure, adhere to it and make a lovely home. Understanding the creative force of love and channelizing it to produce extraordinary result is a book in itself.

Recommended further reading: Leadership a balancing act of power and discipline