monday musings 285: Inspiration in the skies

Monday Musings: Inspiration in the skies

It would be a lie if I claimed that I did not notice the dimples on the fellow passenger as I took my seat on the rather long flight. The long haul flight took off and everyone got busy in the routine – food, reading, relaxing. She was struggling to plug her mobile in the charging point between the seats and asked for help. I obliged although could not accomplish the simple task as there was something wrong with the plug point. We called the air hostess and struggled together, finally realising that it could not be done – the faulty plug point had however had managed to break the ice. As is the wont of two travellers, we got talking.

Travel companionship is a strange phenomena – no one can predict if it will blossom and if it does blossom then to what extend will it go. It can range from meaningless ‘’my name is- I work/live in-I grew up in-state of Indian politics-Indian businesses to slightly deeper exploration of ‘’what are you reading-favourite authors-books-movies-philosophies’’. Sometimes you just don’t strike the conversation as you want to be left alone to your own means to brood or reflect as the case might be. Sometimes the co-passenger does not give you good vibes and you want to withdraw. Sometimes the vibes are good, conversations starters are aplenty but sheer hesitation nips in infancy what could have been a great possibility. I wondered what would be this one. Thankfully the plug point came to the rescue.

It took an hour or so to wrap up the basic information exchange – of who we were, why were we going to where were we going and other such banalities which forms the basic foundation of what can be termed as ‘sizing each other up’ stage between total strangers – the result of this exchange decides if there is anything whatsoever in common, if there is a chemistry of comfort, an unsaid faith in the vibes, that will decide if the conversation will move to deeper realms or not. I call this the anatomy of conversation between strangers. The half life of such conversations and relationships usually is the duration of the flight. Not always though.

I had a thick Leo Tolstoy, ‘Anna Karenina’ in my hands and she asked me what the book was about. I told her whatever impressions I had about the book – that it was about love, relationships, class and the futility of high society pretentions as described in it. Something changed in her eyes as I spoke – I don’t know which part had that impact. I described Anna the lead protagonist of the novel to her – that she was fiery and beautiful, courageous and iconoclast, fragile and strong, all at the same time. She smiled and said ‘’..Looks like she is a lot like me’’. I asked her to explain.

I have always wondered why sometimes it’s so easy to share our vulnerabilities, our angst and our deepest wounds and hurts to strangers – maybe we just want to be heard or maybe we do not fear being judged. Proximity muddles perspectives – distance sharpens it. May be Anna was just an excuse – she just wanted to share. I had not bargained for the privilege of being ushered into her life in such matter of fact manner – as if there was no fuss in it. The fact that we were strangers was beside the point – inconsequential in the scheme of connectedness.

She tells her story like grannies do – to the point, with a certain detachment that only wisdom has the capability to achieve. She shares that she fell in love at an early age and decided to marry much against the wishes of the family. Youth has a mind of its own. Soon the dream sequence turned into a nightmare as the scourge of domestic violence and mental harassment raised its head. It was difficult to deal with the twin trauma of the situation – of the tyranny of the circumstance on hand and of the corroding pain that it was brought upon her by her own error of judgement. I could imagine her helplessness as a young person tormented by the burden of a choice horribly gone wrong; of her hesitation in seeking help from family who might have said that one thing that a person in trouble wants to hear the least -‘’told you so’’. So one day she gathers courage, calls in the cops, breaks free, reaches out to her family and puts an end to this misery. A few years later love comes calling again when a colleague evinces interest in her. After seeking parental consent she agrees. I ask her if it was difficult to give love another chance. She says it was not very difficult, particularly after a very encouraging discussion with her father. ‘’Just because one choice has gone sour does not mean we stop making choices – we must not lose faith in our instinct to search happiness despite knowing that at the end of the day it’s a roll of dice. Just because it’s a roll of dice does not mean we don’t play the game’’- she paraphrases. In the manner in which she is recounting the story I see neither regret, not pain, neither anguish nor grief – just a recollection of events as they occurred. The nonchalance with which the story is being recounted is so refreshing in times when it is quite normal to parade our version of the story as the only truth. I thought she was courageous and wise beyond her years.

As the plane taxied on the runway a few hours later we bid goodbye to each other like strangers do at the end of the journey – knowing very well this was it. It ends here. The story remained with me though – of courage, of optimism, of dusting off the fall and getting up again to give life another chance. As she smiled with the goodbye, the last thing I remember seeing were the dimples – dimples that dared!!

Monday Musings 284 -The many faces of solution givers!

Monday Musings 284 -The many faces of solution givers!

The great Peter Senge said something to the effect - “Today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions”. I believe it must be taught, reminded and hammered ad nauseam in all leadership development journeys- from the management classes of an MBA to the rarefied galleries of CXO development.

The irony is that there are more leaders who are trigger happy in their zeal for offering solutions however poorly thought through they might be. This unabashed exhilaration of being known as an idea factory makes them a believer of the brilliance of each one of these ideas. We must be fearful of them. In a way, we must question the way this folly of equating quality of talent to his ability to shoot from the hip a-solution-a-minute, and take a reflective pause to ascertain how have we come to this brink. There must have been a systemic fault line that would have allowed things to come to the precipice of mistaking quantity of solutions for the quality of it.

Let’s step back for a minute- Lets look around in spaces that we occupy – teams, functions and organizations. Let’s list down the top 3 problems that plague us and go back in time to ascertain the genesis of those challenges. The pursuit is to find what did we start doing that created a ripple effect of consequences that has led us to what we have on our hands now - a root cause of sorts but a deeper philosophical one. For instance if we reward for how fast have we answered a customer call, it is not tantamount to how fast we have solved a customer problem. The former is a turnaround time to a "part of the process" while the latter is about a credible customer problem solving. However the system which would have put the former as its metrics would have done so in all earnestness to solve the problem they would have been grappling. There is no reason to doubt that they deliberately short changed the system so as to favor a lower order metric instead of a higher order one. May be that choice made eminent sense then – and may be the urgency of the problem blinded the individual who proposed the idea in the first place. The individual blindness to foresee the second and third order consequence to a well meaning solution powered by genuine intent is understandable even though one can take a philosophical position that good leadership is being sensitive to such consequences and may be even predict it – what is not only difficult to understand but is actually unpardonable is when a group of people, a team, a management think tank suffers from such myopia. The whole idea of a bunch of competent people coming together is to be able to see through the consequences of such solutions. Some of those consequences may be difficult to predict and we must live with these – the tyranny of unintended consequences – but those which a group of reasonable minds must have seen, ought to have seen are grossly unpardonable. Such myopia is bad for the organization.

I am fast coming to the conclusions that misplaced, half-baked and myopia of solutions givers are a greater curse than perhaps a lack of solutions - because hopping from one half- baked solution to the next half- baked one lulls us into believing that credible work is happening while all that is happening is pretence of deep work.

 

Let me attempt humor to tell the rest of the story. Here are some peculiar archetypes around on the subject of solution providers. - Enjoy with your tongue firmly in cheek.

1.       The solution factory- He has a solution for everything – sometime for even what is not yet a problem. He rattles an idea an hour – which would be quite tolerable but what is travesty is his firm belief in the inherent brilliance in each one of those ideas. Non-acceptance of his solutions does not deter him from proposing his next.

2.       The fundamentalist – He is the deadliest of all. Like all fundamentalists his trouble is that he not only believes in his solution- but he believes that it is the only solution that will solve the problem. Any other solution is the child of a lesser God. His resolute belief in the brilliance of his own mind is scary if not irritating. Organizations must be most wary of such loose cannons for they wreak the greatest havoc on its future – They might solve the imminent problem and in the process become heroes of the year but they unleash such devastating forces that with time leaves only debris on its way. There is a thin line between passionate evocation of a solution and its fundamentalism – the same way that there is a very thin line that separates a benevolent believer and a destructive fundamentalist.

3.       The nonchalant – This one is the other extreme – equally dysfunctional but much less devastating. His curse is that he has no skin in the game. His solutions, the quality of which notwithstanding, suffer from no escape velocity – because the author himself cares too little in whether they are accepted or not, in whether they worked or not. He gives his two bits and lets it be there. If only he put in a little more of himself in his solution that we come to know if the author himself believed in his story.

4.      Lets Discuss – This is a solution avoider possibly.  Cometh the moment – runneth the man! His pet response at the altar of a problem is to bide more time, ask for more data, and suggest one more rework- basically avoid suggesting a solution. He does not want to author a solution for reasons that could range from plain incompetence to lack of conviction, from intellectual lethargy to fear of failure. He is the second worst- just behind the fundamentalist.

5.       What are the Jones doing –This one only wants to do what others are doing – either the market leader in the industry or his previous company. Aping the market leader is the closest he comes to being the best in a roundabout surrogate way and in replicating what he did in the past company is his way of keeping his past glory warm and alive. His solutions have a stench usually – of irrelevance and imitation.

I only hope behind this tongue in cheek archetype of solution givers described above, you see the dark underbelly of the phenomena. Organizations need decision makers and people who solve problems for sure – but great teams and great organizations are built by not pursuing solutions for the sake of solutions, but the ones which are coherent, deliberate, thought through, not only for their intended consequences but also for unintended consequences. Good solutions must solve – for today and tomorrow. There is no redemption in solving for today and messing the tomorrow. Leader must pay heed to Mr. Senge wisdom - that today’s problems are a result of yesterdays solutions – So beware and watch for what you offer as a solution - they are in all likelihood going to cause the problems of tomorrow!

PS: first published in Peoples matter.

 

Monday Musings 283 – The Lost Summer

Monday Musings 283 – The Lost Summer

The summer as looked down from the 15^th floor window, from behind the artificially maintained temperature is just not the same as experienced on the ground floor of dusty mohallas of mofussil India. Of course I am indulging in the most virile or the most impotent of human activity, depending upon what kind of use it is put to, called nostalgia.

Summer in the heartland of Indian plains, away from either from the cool indulgence of the mountains or the moderating caress of the shores, can be oppressive. I never found it oppressive then, when the notion of an AC had yet not corrupted my comforts. More than three decades ago there was poetry in even the heat. It had its own rhythm, its own festivities, its own celebration.

The mornings would often take birth in the ever cool flowing waters of the stream nearby which would end with the Bael (Bengal quince)l sherbet done gloriously through the thin cotton cloth. As the clock reached 10, the world would start to recede. The charpoy beneath the mango tree would come out for a few hours. The sunlight would shimmer through the thick maze of leaves, not tormenting but ever present – the heat not yet violent but threatening to be so. The crows and the cuckoo would be active in fairly loud conversations without a care for who might be evesdropping.

The mother would offer thin butter milk made from the slightly tangy curd of the night before taken out from the earthen pot. The afternoons would be a tussle between angry parents on one hand, who would want a reprive from the long days – and the recalcitrant children who would want to use the peace to creative use. Tiptoeing to sneak out to go back to the fields, climb up trees or do absolutely nothing was a daily attempt – many times caught red handed, after which it would be difficult to ascertain what contributed to hot cheeks more, the weather or the slaps.

The evenings were often long hours of running in the dry fields which would now be open to alternative uses before the next crop is sowed. Playing indigenous games in the rough terrain of erstwhile paddy fields is an experience difficult to imagine for those who have not done it. Marbles were played with gusto and an increase in the evening count would make the day very well spent. The joys of kite flying would only be matched by the joy of the process of making the kites and sharpening the threads. The kite making often happened in the cool shade of a fruit that would be used as adhesive (i don’t remember its Indian or English name any longer but never seen it outside Jharkhand ever), failing which fresh boiled rice be used as an adhesive(ingenuity and jugaad at its best!!)

The wilderness of Jharkhand has much benevolence – the roads, fields and the desolate lands is laden with tamarind, custard apple, jujube, jamun, and indigenous varieties of mangoes. Summer was associated with a band of vagabonds going in search of these, aim at the fruits with stones and then admire our own accuracy as the fruit would fall down. The spoils would of course be shared. Sometimes the tree would belong to some household and hence the entire act would acquire the seriousness of a covert operation – a kind of surgical strike in the middle of the hot afternoon when everyone would be sleeping. For the longest time I thought mangoes are to be sucked rather than cut and eaten because of the ones we got there – thin peeled, juicy and syrupy. A bucket full of mangoes a person would normally not raise eyebrows.

The bath would often be at the well and the mother would sprinkle Nycil (remember that?) quite liberally.

Summer nights would often also be absolutely still but starry. The roofs would become community bedrooms and it on those still nights when even whispers would sound stereophonic, the children would giggle helplessly and without reasons. There is great joy in community laughter particularly when the only reason is to irritate parents who want you to sleep. Mosquitoes added to the charm. No one had yet heard of dengue, chickegunia and having malaria was like an annual pilgrimage – everyone had it.

Summer then was a season that i experienced – and so did everyone else around me. It was embraced like life, with all its folly and all its prickliness. I experience the summer now from a distance, from the 15^th floor window pane, from the temperature controlled comfort of the room - as if its someone else’s summer. My summer is lost. Not sure if i will get it back ever – and even if i do get not sure if i will enjoy it as much.

Monday Musings 282: Of canine bites and the rest!

Monday Musings 282: Of canine bites and the rest!

The funny just does not stop being funnier by the day. The recent issue of The Economist (no less!) reports ‘’...that the number of canine attacks on postal workers in America climbed from 5581 in 2013 to 6755 in 2016.... In response to such occupational hazards the post office has apparently launched an app on the postal workers hand held scanners that warns of dogs in certain houses... owners of repeat offenders are told to pick up posts a nearby post office....If a loose dog plagues a postman, delivery to an entire neighbourhood can be suspended”

I wonder what an Indian equivalent of this news story that inched its way up from weekly tabloids to the hallowed pages of such a reputed publication would look like!! I wonder what would be a funnier more Indian examples of occupational hazard appear to be. Let me try my hands at some story telling.

1. The Indian sales association reports that the number of cases of nose breaks on its sales persons because of doors being shut on them has shown an alarming rate of increase. As a safety measure it has recommended its members to observe the following – a) Wear a nose guard at all times while ringing the doorbell. b) Maintain a one feet distance from the doors c) always maintain a lean back posture to be double sure. They have been issued a handbook of red zones in every city where such cases of nose breaks have been reported in the past. A predictive index of what kinds of doors cause the maximum nose breaks is in the making – it is reported that wrought iron doors are the worst perpetrators. The association is firming up its mind to demand a ban on all wrought iron doors with the government. It is also rumoured that they might ask for tax breaks for the treatment cost on such broken noses as business expense.
    
2. The Indian doctors particularly the junior doctors and the ones with the government hospitals have been facing the threats of manhandling and physical assaults in the recent past. The governing body responsible for doctor’s education has recommended a mandatory paper on physical education in the MBBS course – with special emphasis on protection against mob violence and ability to run faster than aggrieved relatives. They have also been advised to wear helmets and other sundry elements body armour (either cricketing or paramilitary origins depending upon the history of the hospitals that they are currently serving) during ward rounds, operating theatres and particularly OPDs. An additional certificate in hurdle racing is being mulled to further strengthen the precautionary measures.
    
3. The judges of courts usually associated with equanimity and composure are on tenterhooks given the number of shoes that come their way. They have been advised to attend training course of building reflex actions – which will help them avoid leather bases flying objects often worn on the feet. Sometimes one is able to tolerate the shoe but not its smell, but that is an altogether different issue. Being at the receiving end of a shoe is not justice, poetic or otherwise by any stretch of imagination.
    
4. Indian sportsperson association has created a special induction programs for all players who play for the country to develop very thick skins. They are being advised to build a 15 feet high walls around their houses to protect themselves against abuses, agitations and other cases of poster burning in case they lose a match, and particularly against one specific country.
    
5. Last but not the least, Indian National Maid Association has asked its members to report all cases of mental harassment. The number of cases of work overload, mental torment, threat of violence against maids by very lazy, feudal home owners are on a rise. They have recommended that repeat offenders will be boycotted and in extreme cases the whole housing society will be avoided. There is frenzy and panic in most households that this threat might indeed be executed. Maids in Manhattan or Mumbai are equally revered – and it has been proved beyond doubt that households can function without everyone else but not without maids.
    

Humour – all around us!!

monday musings 281 - Politics & Management: different worlds or not exactly !!

Politics & Management: different worlds or not exactly !!

Does the world of political ideologies touch, impact and shape management thoughts of its times?

May be it does – in fathomable and unfathomable ways. Post the two world wars, management got impacted with the flirtations of global political systems with the two poles of political formations – Communism and Capitalism. The fortunes of these two swung with times, with the general opinion in favour or capitalism, beginning the second half of the twentieth century and certainly gaining momentum towards the last two decades.

One can argue that the intellectual and philosophical basis in favour of globalisation emerged from these ideological beliefs. The notions of rationality of capital, freedom of consumer choice, laissez fare and a general bias towards the primacy of individual rights to hold thoughts, respect for his belief, tolerance to dissent, accommodation for alternative narratives etc got further strength with the concurrent rise of democratic and liberal political systems. A lot of what is known as management or leadership literature today was also generated during those momentous 5-7 decades and one finds some patterns in most of them as basic bedrock – around respect for individuals, allowing space for minority thought, co-creation, bottoms up, so on and so forth. Since the world of leadership literature borrows liberally from the research in humanities, we know that organisations are microcosms of what is the society.

Last few years have seen interesting twists and turns in what were considered as truisms for a very long time. The ideological basis for globalisation for instance is shaken. Country after country is flirting with a different shade of political ideology. The left of the centre, liberal, open border-open window space is no longer sacrosanct. The right of all hues – from a moderate right to a more virulent form of it is gaining traction. Barriers to free movement of capital, people are either being erected or at least being talked about like no other time in the recent past.

The question to consider is this – can a mass shift in political ideology spill over to corporations? Does it have the potential to generate a new kind of beliefs around leadership? If the ethos of the liberal left of yore indeed leave an impression on management philosophies and hence played a role in deciding the policies governing workforce management and Leadership practices, then will the movement towards a political right have an equal probability of impacting management thought and leadership behaviour?

Systems thinking believe that everything is related to everything else and a small change in one has the power to create a large impact somewhere else. Political ideologies are just too impactful to ignore – and any tectonic and decisive shift in them can be ignored only to our peril. There are models around behaviours, change, leadership etc that we use, sometimes a tad too literally – forgetting that those may have been influenced by the spirit of the times that they were created. No wonder that too much of echoing and supporting of the mainstream view is called ‘political correctness’.

So here are the bit for reflection – if the mood of the world is gauged through its polity – then what does these shifts indicate about the next few decades about that one question that all organisations continue to ask – ‘’What do our people want?’’

 Guru

First Published in ''Peoples Matter'' April 2017 issue

monday musings 280 - the retelling of the heretics

Monday Musings: The retelling of the Heretics!

I am told the original meaning of the word ‘Heretic’ is the one gives an alternative opinion. The current usage of the word implies someone who indulges in sacrilege; the black sheep who is foolish and insensitive enough to question the holy cows (is this phrase still allowed or has it been banned; I guess I will soon find out!)

Words change meaning over a period of time and I am sure there are many such words that current usage is way different from what it was. My all time favourite although is the word ‘cute’ which according to the oxford English dictionary has its origins in the 18^th century for the short form of thw word acute and in its earliest meanings indicated a sense of shrewed or clever; which is clearly not what I have meant, however scarce such opportunities have been for me to use it for another person and hopefully which is not what the person(s) who have used it on me meant. (my self esteem depends upon this assumption)

However the fluidity of the word heretic is of particular significance because the word is in vogue these days. What we eat can make us heretics. In fact every time the waiter rattles off the dishes in a restaurant these days, I am besieged by the nightmare of choosing something utterly delicious but potentially heretic. My only saving grace is that my all time favourite potato is on no one’s list – not yet at least. I think potato is the most secular of food items. It goes with everything else – with all kinds of cuisine. Irrespective of the class, caste, religion or community or even nationality, potato has been revered by all. Is there an honorary title called the national vegetable yet? .

But I am digressing and that too on a very slippery wicket (the subject of food can make me a fodder for a few these days). I began by wondering that the original meaning of the word heretic is one who offers an alternative opinion. There are two place where becoming a heretic is downright NOT recommended – in front of the spouse after you have returned very late on a weekday without information(read that as permission) and two in front of the boss after you have received your annual performance report. You better not be a heretic here i.e. offer an alternative opinion. I reckon it is better to remain pious and be alive than be a heretic and be roasted!!

In the not so old days, heretics were burned – now days they are trolled! Trolling a politer version of burning because burning heretics is still not legal. Lynching them is perfectly acceptable as a few have discovered at the cost of their lives. The speed with which trolling is acquiring the status of a mass art form, we will need to pass laws to regulate it. Imagine a law which says –Not more than 10 people a day can troll any one person with a unique Aadhar number. The 11^th person will have to take permission from ‘Anti – trolling squads’; Or imagine another statue which reads like this – you cannot troll a person with the surname Gandhi more than 180 days a year in the interest of human rights (this particular writer will surely support this statue – my surname which was a matter of pride during schooldays has suddenly become so out of fashion. Sigh!)

See I digressed again – and even more slippery wicket. Let’s stick to Heretics. Why do these so called ‘second opinion givers’ have an opinion to begin with. Isn’t mainstream supposed to have all the answers because they have the collective wisdom of the majority mainstream? I mean if sufficiently large number of people endorse an idea does it not automatically become a breathtakingly brilliant idea? It is like statistics – when sufficiently large data points are collected, errors are normalised. The way to understand this is this – if 1 lakhs idiots propose and support an idea, there is great statistical probability that the idea will get rid of it idioticity (is there such a word?). An even better explanation would be – if a million bulls come together to think, their thinking might ape the levels of humans. I am also recommending that the word ‘’bullshit’’ be treated as compliment hereafter because it has the word bull in it, which is bovine – and in the mood of the times, I think all things bovine are clearly sacred.   

This was the last time I digressed. I think I don’t like the word ‘heretic’. If I keep thinking about what it meant then and what it meant now, and continue to bemoan what has the world come to be, then I may end up searching the meaning of the word ‘lunatic’ – unfortunately which means exactly the same now as it meant then.

Guru

 

Monday musing 279 : Philosophise or Perish

Monday musing 279 : Philosophise or Perish

I have been looking at the world of philosophy a little more closely these past few weeks – yeah, philosophy; the same subject that was by and large so looked down upon by most who guided us in the pursuit of our careers. In fact I haven’t met a child who when asked by elders, arguably the stupidest question ever asked ‘’what do you want to become when you grow up?’’, answers he wants to be a philosopher. An engineer for sure, a plumber may be, but never the darn philosopher.

So what does a philosopher do mostly – I mean what is his job description? Well puritanically speaking his job is ‘to think’. Now imagine about all those who look down upon philosophy at the cost of other fields are basically saying – ‘sorry give me anything else to do but not ask to think’. No wonder we have what we have around. A world full of non thinkers and even worse, a world full those who think that they can think and even worse still, those who think that they can afford not to think!

The argument that is abound is that philosophy is mere theorising and has no action in built into it – which is more critical. ‘Just get the job done’ they say! A good job cannot happen without great thinking, for there is always a transmission loss between thought and action. So imagine a system which has not taught thinking to its children, because it thought philosophy was mere theorising (have you ever studied a subject around thinking in your education?) expects great action from them thereafter! Things can be much worse – a quote says it well – ‘’A society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy; neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water’’

Is there hence a space for a little bit of philosophy in whatever we do – writing codes or jingles, selling soap or oil, singing or playing – could we ‘philosphise’ a bit before jumping into action?  Can we learn to think? Not in the 2-minute noodle type of ‘’learning to think’ but deeply and meaningfully. Aristotle demands that you should be filled with ‘wonder’ before you can do any meaningful work, leave aside thinking. Do we have ‘wonder’ about what we do? Are we amazed ever? Do we want to find out more before we jump to offer opinion or solution? May be time has come to have a dash of philosophy in our lives; in a manner of speaking may be its time to have a bit of ‘thinking’ in our lives!

I can hear the sounds of disapproval. Let me share with you what the philosopher does before you say no. In the words of philosopher Bertrand Russell, this is what philosophising could do - ‘’my desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it’’ The idea is to think about the mundane and the common things but in an entirely new way – an ability that is uncommon to say the least.

So here is my two bits to this – I am not a philosopher material and may be this life is too late to do something about it. However that does not and should not stop me from giving thinking better a shot.

I will not let Bertrand Russell’s prophecy deter me – ‘’Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so’’

Guru