COMSATS Institute Of information Technology

Crisis and Conflict Management

BOOK REVIEW
“CHANGE YOUR LENS CHANGE YOUR WORLD”

Submitted To
SIR SHAHID ADIL
Submission Date: 30TH NOVEMBER 2009

Submitted By
Hamza Hassan
CIIT/FAO9-MBA1-011/LHR

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology

M.A. Jinnah Campus, Defence Road
Off Raiwand Road, Lahore
Introduction to the Author
Faiez Seyal is an authority on the philosophy, practices, principles and psychology of
CHANGE (including personal, group, organizational, and societal), an identity he
has established through his consistent ability to help individuals and organizations
recreate their destinies. He is a great influencer, motivator and a coach for this
generation. In the last one and half decade of his career in Pakistan, Faiez has
successfully completed over 250 training and consulting assignments in a wide range
of disciplines including participatory organization planning and change strategies,
manpower and job analysis, organization and work redesign. Others include,
strategic management, organizational effectiveness, leadership development,
organizational culture transformation, developing learning organizations,
restructuring, business performance improvement, team building, management and
HR information systems, vision formulation, executive recruitment, reward and
performance management, training of trainers, total quality, ISO 9000, and re-
engineering, etc.

Faiez pioneers the professional and public speaking profession in Pakistan and is a most-
sought after speaker in the country with clients ranging from leading national and
multinational companies to Pakistan Army, Punjab Police, NGOs, educational
institutions and hospitals. For the corporate world of Pakistan Faiez has his series of
unique "…from the inside out" seminars addressing virtually for almost every issue faced
by 21st century organizations. . He is a best-selling author of "The Road to Success",
"Born Again" and "30 Second Manager" and is presently working on books on self-
healing, organizational culture, managing change and leadership.

He is a graduate of internationally acclaimed SHRM Program of Harvard Business

School. He has received his professional training from the world-known National
Training Laboratories (NTL) Institute for Applied Behavioral Science, USA and
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, England. Faiez is also a Licensed Master
Practitioner of NLPTM from Richard Bandler; a Certified Human Systems Development
(HSD) Consultant and a Certified HSD Trainer from Academy of Educational
Development, USA. He is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development (CIPD), England. He has a master's degree from Pakistan and another from
the University of Central Oklahoma, USA. He believes in his continuous professional
development and so he has participated in countless training programs, conferences,
symposiums, and workshops, throughout the world.
BACKGROUND OF BOOK

The book starts with the story of the writer Faiez Seyal himself. The story concludes how
a boy of 16 years started supporting himself by teaching the primary classes and after
getting married at the age of just 17 with nothing in his hand to support him, he struggles
very hard to fulfill his promise. Then he moves abroad for higher education with his
family and comes back after completing his education to serve his country. Still he was
feeling something missing despite of having a good job. Then after extensive soul search
and self-analysis he finds that he was made for some other purpose so he started guiding,
leading, motivating peoples through different books, seminars, coaching classes and
counseling.

The story itself is very motivating and gives a lesson that one must continue his struggle
in any condition and have faith in the Almighty. Then the writer clears a few myths about
success by explaining the examples of successful people, how they faced problems and
difficulties through their journey to attain success.

In the first chapter writer focuses on accepting the responsibility of one’s life. He
believes that the prime cause of failure is not accepting the responsibility of life and
whatever good or bad the life of a person is; it is all due to the choices he has made. One
must challenge the status quo and believe that he deserves the best, as he is unique. He
should stop blaming and complaining and tell himself that I am consciously and willingly
choosing the response to any situation or event. He must consider the fact that whatever
response he chooses will have a major impact on his life. As a whole an individual must
totally accept the responsibility for his career, health, happiness, time, past, present,
future etc.

In the second chapter the writer emphasizes that a person must know himself. Knowing
oneself means that a person must know who he is, why is he created and what are his
preferences, liking and disliking in his life. He must understand the contribution that he
can make towards his own life. Faiez explain that one should never be a copycat and he
must have a belief that I am unique and special and no one in this universe is like me.
One easy way to choose the career as well as a life purpose statement is to develop a
hierarchy of preferences. These preferences might include money, respect, appreciation,
recognition and many more.

In the third chapter the writer suggest that after soul searching and self-analysis the next
step towards a successful life is to define and develop a mission and a vision. One must
understand that life without aim and vision is just like a boy without soul and a flower
without fragrance. He believes that the successful people go to their love not to their
work. Lives without dreams and vision will not be motivated enough to achieve
something. Faiez suggest that for defined preferences one should list down activities that
he enjoys. Then using these preferences and activates one should define his mission
statement. After life mission statement one must define a career for him.

After assuming the responsibility of life, discovering the purpose of life and setting up
the vision, the fourth chapter involves starting to think positively. One thing common in
the successful people is that they are extremely positive thinkers (optimistic). Even after
extreme severe conditions they still believed that there is always sunshine after the
thunderstorm. One must believe that there is some benefit from even each disaster.
Always a high self-image can help a person thinking positively so developing a high self-
image is crucial. The writer suggest that one must program himself for success by
learning the vocabulary of success and by using big and positive words to express
himself. One must keep believe in himself, his mission and dreams no matter what others
think about him.

In the fifth chapter writer explains that no matter how good the plans might be and how
motivated a person is, nothing is good to happen unless a person takes some vital
decisions and convert his plans into actions. For a start one must develop a detailed plan
for his mission. The detailed plan includes weekly/monthly activities and goals. One
must take thoughtful decision and then he should stay very committed to his decisions.
For attaining success one vital thing is to bear pains and a sacrifice. A person must decide
against short-term benefits in contrast with the long-term benefits. One must save time
for important activities and stay committed to make progress towards one’s mission. To
achieve success one must leave the comforts and expose himself to new challenges in the
every day life.

The sixth chapter is all about-facing the set backs and failures manly. One must
understand that set backs and failures are God’s way of teaching a lesson and to make a
person strong. There is always a hidden opportunity in every disaster. The writer believes
that there is no ultimate setback and there is always a silver lining after a cloudy night
and that a person never fails unless he accepts failures and stops trying. One must
remember that major decisions of life are taken at the time of set backs and failures, not
success. Successful people bounce back stronger like a ball after hit hardly by a wall. A
person must see the setbacks as a learning process. One should understand that he can
never change the winds but can always adjust his sales according to the wind.

The seventh chapter focuses that one should keep a strong focus on goals, staying
determined and persisting with patience. Faiez believes that the focus towards goal
should be strong enough to make him get out of bed early in the morning and going till
late night, a person must possess a strong will and determination to do what he wants to
do in his life. So the patience and preservence are the keys to success as the road to
success is never easy. The writer believes that good relationships with people are the
asset of successful people. One must learn to be social and live with the people n a way
that they love your presence. Spreading of ideas and making a team of people who share
your similar thoughts and beliefs will also help in the journey. Considering people at
your own level and status will also make a person a very acceptable member of the
community. The writer says that always believe in continuous learning, learn through
observations and experiences.

The eighth chapter is all about living with character. Character is the foremost thing that
will help a person in holding a position in the society. There is a big difference in what
“is right” and what “we like”, one must understand that difference. Honesty is the best
policy so one must be honest to himself as well as to others. Faiez suggest that one must
define certain principles of life and then he should always follow those principles, no
matter what the situation might be and what people comment about them. One must be
more concerned with his obligations more than his rights and before taking any decision
a person must put himself in other’s boots.

The ninth chapter is all about living with a service attitude. The service attitude is to
serve the society by contributing in the welfare of it. Faiez suggests that one should
practice “law of giving” i.e. more you want of something, more you give away of that.
He believes that a lot of problems prevailing in the society are only due to the reason of
“lack of service attitude” so one should at least spend 10% of his income in welfare act.
One should stop all the actions that are painful and cause discomfort to others. Those
who are unable to help the society in the monetary terms, they can contribute in the term
of other services. The writer advises to list down possible ways in which a person can
help the society and then decide the way he wants to. And most importantly never expect
anything in return of the service attitude.

The last and the tenth chapter is all about living in the way Allah Almighty has described.
The writer says that you must believe that you need a very sincere friend to live a happy
and peaceful life and that friend can be no better than Allah Almighty. Live in the way
God has designed for you and leave the rest to him. No one has seen the future except
Allah almighty so one must involve him in decisions to have proper guidance and have
blind faith in Him. One must remember Allah almighty in good times so that he
remembers him in bad times too. Never forget that a person prays for himself and not for
Allah so always seeks his guidance and be thankful at achievements as well as failures.

The best thing I found about the book is its convincing style. The writer through different
quotations and lives of successful people cleared the myths about success and the
pathways to success in an excellent manner. The deep study of Faiez about Islam and its
preaching has also added elegance to this book. Each chapter of the book is very
comprehensive. The book is written in a very easy language and no difficult vocabulary
is used. As a whole the book is perfect blend of Islam and its implications and a must
read for everyone.