122 - Monday Musings - Futures Thinking

122- Monday Musings - Futures Thinking

Over the last week I got introduced to a new field of enquiry that has been emerging in the academic circles. This is what they call the futures thinking. What the futures thinking essentially does is to study the possible existence and creation of alternative futures include the study of underlying worldviews and myths that underlie them. Let me share with you what it basically espouses and what could be the possible significance that it holds for us.

If left to itself as things stand today, a future will unfold - either in our individual lives or in the teams we belong or the organisations we work for or the nations and societies we live in. This future is a result of the choices we have made in the past and the ones we are making as of now. But it will be naive to believe that that is the only future possible. There are distinct possibilities of alternative futures that exist. Let me illustrate that with an example. Our current state of health is a result of the way we have led our lives so far and the choices in terms of food and lifestyle we have made for ourselves. If we let things go the way they are going, we will end up with a certain health say a decade or two later. Futures thinking suggests that there are alternative futures that is possible and we can create a ‘preferred future’ (the one that we would like it to be) if we take appropriate actions today. Another way of saying it is ‘today is the first day for the rest of our lives’. Now think of the preferred futures that we want to create for our families, teams and the organisations we work for.

The pioneers of futures thinking are Ivana Milojević and Sohail Inayatullah authors of many books renowned academicians. Futures thinking has six pillars (see www.metafuture.org).

1. Mapping the Present and the Future through methods and tools such as the futures triangle and the futures landscape

2.Anticipation the Future through methods such as emerging issues analysis and the futures wheel

3.Timing the Future, understanding the grand patterns of change, macrohistory and macrofutures.

4. Deepening the Future through methods such as causal layered analysis and four quadrant mapping

5. Creating Alternatives to the Present through methods such as scenarios and nuts and bolts

6.Transforming the Present and Creating the Future through visioning, backcasting, action learning and the transcend conflict resolution method.

My own inspiration from the futures thinking hinges on two points – One that it provides a framework for understanding the work that I (and of course others) do as a manager. It gives a template to put in place actions, systems, procedures and practices that will lead to a preferred future. Outlining the preferred future itself is so inspiring and uplifting that all the trials and tribulations in the course of achieving it become mundane. The second point is that it provides hope, that we may not be doomed to live with all the imperfection of our current situation and that there is a possibility to create something more worthwhile and fulfilling. The practical plausible possibility of that future is a reason in itself to give things an honest shot. Future is not opaque act of crystal gazing but a conscious attempt to reach the El Dorado of our aspirations.

May you live the future of your dreams.

Guru

Monday Musings 121 - The death ofautocrats

121 - Monday Musings - The death of  autocrats

The longest democratically elected left front goverment in the world lost to the lady in slippers and a white sari. Whoa!. I am not a political analyst not a psephologist, but hopefully a reasonably aware manager. The significance and the reasons of this colossal victory must not be lost, as it has not been, if we go by the miles of newsprint dedicated to it. Add to it the defeat of the DMK in Tamil Nadu, and i call it the defeat of DMK and not a victory of AIADMK for the obvious reason that the voters would have voted any moron to get the extreme nepotism that was on display in the last 5 years out of power. Now link it to the pro democracy movement in Cairo and later on in many middle east and African countries and you can spot an unmistaken hint of a pattern - we can smell the death of autocrats.

Despots and autocrats have been as old as human civilisation. Man's search of absolute power cuts across millenia and cultures - from monarchs to sultans, from communists to right wing dispensations. Managers in todays organisations are as infected by this need, as were rulers of the past. The shelf life of such despots has only decreased over time. They may have lasted a few centuries earlier, then they lasted a few decades and now probably they will last only a few years. That is because, in the true Newtonian spirit, for every force there is an equal and opposite force to balance it out. This is nowhere more evident as much in case of human nature. Just as there is a deep seated need in man to abrogate himself to the heady concoction of unbridled power, there is an equal urge in the fellow human beings to be free to live life and make choices. Hence no where in human history absolutism has lasted forever.

As managers and leaders of extremely talented and young minds, where the notions of age, vintage, hierarchies are challenged everyday and the lines of the leader and the led is fast eroding, we can only ignore this phenomena to our peril. The children of the 20th and the 21st century will resist being led by designations. They were and are rebellious against all form of control - from parenting to bosses. They will throw such despotism, even it comes in sophisticated forms and hidden under the dubious wraps of language of patronism. The need in todays times of all team members is to be left free and explore thier talents. That puts a huge challenge to the leaders in todays times, to find the perfect sweet spot which balances freedom and yet operate within the boundries of organisational systems, processes, and cultures. This is easier said than done. A little nudge lets that balance go awry. As leaders we must always be mindful that despotism, however sophisticated and comuflaged it might be, is no longer a valid source of leadership. The led will only be allowed if they want to - and most often than not, the source of this leadership is competence. The only validation of great leadership is the number of voluntary followers one breeds under him, not because they believe you can threaten them with dire consequences if one does not toe the line, but by fostering a genuine respect for your abilities as a leader. And once you achieve this stage, they may not like you, but they will respect you and allow them to be led by you.

Difficult? - sure - but surely a worthy pursuit.

Guru

Monday Musings 120 - Demagogues

Monday Musings 120 - Demagogues

So Osama is dead – and curiously separated only by a letter, Obama is behind it. It will be a while before the self congratulatory bravado and chest thumping of the Americans will subside – not that it is completely unwarranted. I mean come on, the guys deserve a few beers for all the doggedness that they have demonstrated in pursuing their prey for a decade, through the unfriendly terrains of Tora Bora to the allegedly hospitable-to-Osama neighborhood of Abbottabad.

I have been fascinated by the demagogues peppered across history. Demagogury “is a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears, vanities and expectations by the use of rhetoric and propaganda and often using nationalistic, populist or religious themes” Cleon and Alcibiades in ancient Greece, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin as modern day political avtaars, and many controversial religious demagogues within India have furthered the cause of this art form. Osama bin Laden, surely belonged to this elite club. But this is not about Osama.

20th-century American social critic and humorist H. L. Mencken, defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." And that is my basic predicament – what makes an otherwise smart, aware, perceptive, sharp and enterprising set of people to so grandly fall prey to the machinations of the demagogue? Does the demagogue really believe in what he preaches – for I doubt he really stands for anything. I have always wondered if Hitler really believed in the purity of the German race – superior at the cost of Jews, or did Bhindrawale really saw a Sikh kingdom based on political freedom or do all aspiring demagogues in our political system today, from Gujarat to Maharashtra really believe in what they say? Do they really represent, completely and comprehensively the constituencies they profess to represent and serve? And if they don’t, then how come they succeed in so magnificent a manner that they do?

But say they do and succeed they must – and there is something so fundamental in what they say, that it connects with a large enough constituency, usually angered over a historical wrong, which has not been corrected or assuaged with the balm of time or a mass catharsis of which is still pending. History they say, is often written by the victorious. So as circumstances change, power equations correct themselves, its times to rewrite history – change the name of the roads, chowks and cities, create historical figures where none existed, or invent a new yarn about the heroes, unsubstantiated, uncorroborated, untested by the principles of scientific or historical research, but romantic enough to provide fancy to the incredulous masses – who in any case are hungry for idols and heroes in their boring lives.

Demagogues do not exist in vacuum. They need a fertile ground to flourish – often a people scarred; with a real or imagined wrong that they were subjected to. Take away this feeling, however strong it might be, and you have cut the umbilical cord. Societies need counter balances to such forces of demagoguery. The price that the rise and fall of a demagogue extracts from its people is humungous. I am sure the Osama phenomena is no different. And they say about history, those who do not learn from it, are doomed to repeat it.

 Guru

Monday Musings 119 - 21 years

21 years

It will be a while before the commentaries and opinions extolling the world cup victory will subside. Every small cog in the giant victory machine will be dissected, every small decision that led to the victory that might have worked only as a quirk of fate will be eulogised as a strategic masterstroke and even the minutest of the significance of this victory on the nation, society, team (the neighbours aunt, her pet and his cousin) will be magnified many times over. To be fair, this hysteria is well deserved. Man does need a reason to forget his woes.

Lest one mistakes me as a cynic, let me clarify, that the strand of thought that has caught my fancy this week is far from it. It is actually a sublime piece of inspiration that to my eyes has either been overlooked or at best may not have been given enough attention to.

Sachin Tendulkar has attained divinity in the cricketing world is now stale news. Almost every correspondent worth his journalistic salt who interviewed him post this victory asked him ‘’How does it feel to finally win the world cup after 21 years in this business?’’.  One does not need to be a astrophysicist to know what he would have answered. However, apart from the predictable script of i-am-thrilled-elated-this-was-what-I-was-waiting-for he said something profound and beautiful. He said ‘’I had kept the dream alive’’.

Consider this for the man for whom there is nothing left to achieve or conquer. Calling him a genius is mocking him (Of course one cannot call GOD a genius, can you?). He is beyond a genius because he is the benchmark for genius now, the gold standard on which geniuses will be measured. He has secured his place firmly and permanently as a legend. Even a man of his calibre, his genius, his stature had an unfulfilled achievement to deal with. And how does this larger-than-life super achiever deals with an unfulfilled desire – well guess what – he decides to keep his dream alive. I always thought that recourse was for lesser mortals!

The second and the more mind boggling part of this story is that even he had to wait for 21 long years to fulfil this desire/ambition/aspiration – whatever you call it. Now, if blessed with all the talent that he does, with Gods on his side and the heavens having blessed him, with destiny delivering him and fate protecting him (these are some of the explanations that one hears when one tries to unravel the phenomena called Tendulkar)  - he needed 21 long, painful, excruciating years and 6 heart breaking outings at the world cup – then heavens protect us ordinary souls. I am already gasping for breath. Have I even nourished an ambition continuously for 21 months – truly, genuinely and done all that it takes?

So here is a rapid fire round. What is my world cup? and how long am I willing to play with excellence to win it? Am I willing to give it a shot for 21 years with the same passion or will I give up in between? Do I even understand the perseverance to last with a dream for 21 years? As I said I am gasping for breath. Hopefully you have better stamina.

Guru

Monday Musings 118- Of a Cup and thereafter

118- Of a Cup and thereafter

So India does it again after 28 long excruciating years. A large number of those who came out on streets were not even born then, others were toddlers, adolescents or early adults. As my better half succinctly puts in her unique style which is perhaps rooted to her being the better half, that the last time India won the world cup she was three and half, this time its her daughter who is three and half. If we go by this simple mathematical prediction, then it does not augur very well for the third win.

Everyone will have something to say about this win as one must. There is no doubt that beginning late last night the country has practically erupted to express their joy on winning the coveted title. That it came after 28 long years only makes it special. That now India is number one in all forms of the game makes the subcontinent’s domination complete. That there is nothing more for the God (read Tendulkar) to achieve is rather a poignant realisation – what will he play for if not for the pure love of the game?

Some individual achievements or team achievements around us have amazing powers. They can uplift entire societies, inspire an entire generation, sow the seeds of defiance against the humdrum of ordinariness – it may just prove the proverbial inflection points in the lives of many as history has time and again proved.

Most of us live very ordinary lives in the sense that our sphere of influence is limited. But the quest for glory in human beings, however repressed or unarticulated or unrealised it may be, continues to trouble him everyday. Since by the nature of things only a handful of us get to liberate ourselves from the shackles of this ordinariness, the sight of achievement and that too this grand, is bound to remind even the most phlegmatic of his own desire for fame, glory or achievement. Glory is an aphrodisiac that most of us cannot resist. So when we find a bunch of young, brash, on your face middle class Indian boys, beating the hell out of every other cricketing nation, we feel vindicated in our desire to aspire more than our current means. In the celebration of those 11, we find our souls celebrating the victory, not only as citizens proud of its nation, but as I see it, more as individuals who want their own lives adorned with as much glory – and since that may not be possible anytime soon, they immerse themselves in the celebration as if THIS was the victory that they were waiting for. No wonder, Indian streets witnessed not an expression of happiness yesterday night, they witnessed hysteria.

I believe India has got its ‘Ýes we can’ moment and it will have its echoes beyond the sporting world. It will inspire a whole generation to dream beyond what their current means allow them to. It does not matter which space of life they occupy – sporting or otherwise, this will provide a fillip for their quest for excellence. Those young lads did not only get us the cup, they may have got us something more precious – Audacity of HOPE – making us believe in our own dreams. There is always something or other in the circumstances that we find ourselves in, that may make our chances bleak in our own eyes, but this victory will reignite the one thing that is so central to our quest – belief. I am in no doubt, that for this generation this is going to be their Ýes we can’ moment.

1983 not only sowed the seeds of the awakening of Indian cricket, but also of the aspirations of its people to want more. It will be interesting to see what seeds 2011 will sow.   

Guru

Monday Musings - 117 - Of another world

Monday Musings - 117 - Of another world
In a wonderful article in the Sunday Express, Shombit Sengupta, who is an international creative business strategy consultant to top management, wrote about the stimuli in his transformational journey from a refugee colony in West Bengal to the creative streets of Paris. He talks about the primacy of the stimuli that he drew from the world of art, particularly mentioning about one Subhinoy Kaku, a poor artist, who inspired his affair with art. I liked the central theme of his writing, the premise that our lives are shaped by the stimuli we are lucky to be enriched with, however insignificant or even painful they might appear at that time. I look at my own stimuli.

Jhinkpani, the hamlet that i was born and where i spent the first 15 years of my life, in the tribal mining districts of todays Jharkhand, is my most defining stimuli. It is only in retrospect, and the complete corruption by the comforts of my current sitiuation, that i realise that that life was tough. Hopping on the shoulders of an elder cousin to cross over a rope bridge on my way to school, swaying dangerously over a river was exciting then. Crossing overflowing paddy fields during rains with shoes in one hand and the school bag in another, only to wear them once you reached school was fun. The soot of the kerosene lamp, called deebri or playing with the molten wax of the candle, smashing the moths that came along with, for the entire duration of school education owing to lack of electicity was normal. Eating out meant 10 paise worth of muree (rice flaks) and dried or soaked gram. Summer holidays was flying kite or killing chameleons - the later a truly ingenuous sport where we used to keep a count of how many we killed with the perfect sling shot or a direct hit with a small stone. Holi meant a day long excursion into the forest to cut trees for the wood bonfire a night before.

Tribal societies offer tremendous opportunities for alternative worldviews. I remember the village oracle who would through his magical powers, would heal, cure and tell the location of the lost cattle and do black magic cure for just about problem. I remember his cure for an eye sore for me once - rub the eye with 7 leaves of berry and let them dry - as the leaves dry, so would the sore. It is only now in hindsight and armed with the so called rational education that i can question that worldview - but i cannot ignore that the first 15 years of my life i not only lived that life, i actually believed it. The day long football tournament would have a goat for the winner and a sheep for the runners up team. There was the annual çock-fight where ferocious cocks would lunge at each other for the coveted prize.

I know that i might be susceptible to a romanticised account of that part of my life - but all said and done i cannot erase or wish away that stimuli. If man is a product of his stimuli, then of all the ones i was fortunate to have had, that phase characterised by a brilliant confluence of Sikh, Bihari and Traibal ethos, shaped by the sheer resourcelessness, and very authentic- low cost-original pursuits of pleasure, stand out in my mind as the most defining one. What is your stimuli?

Guru

116- Prisons of one Kind – Part 2

116- Prisons of one Kind – Part 2

I am almost forced to write a sequel of the last musing owing to some blatant misinterpretation of the last one from some quarters. The fundamental premise of the last musing was that each one us is programmed and shaped by a complex interplay of circumstances and histories and have something unique that drives us. Often that is our biggest strength and sometimes our Achilles heel. Redemption as individuals lies in being aware of what drives us, so that the possibilities of our drive becoming a barrier in the way we relate to others and interact with them can be understood and avoided. In the course of outlining this point I illustrated it with someone whose primary drive was power.

Apart from power other drives of individuals is that of glory, importance, relevance and so on and so forth. Ironical as it may sound negative emotions like revenge and point-to-be-proven can also be a potent enough drives. There is no hierarchy within these drives in terms of how has far worse debris of consequences of one drive is over the other. Each one is equally devastating once it goes out of control. While each one of them is capable enough to uplift us from the mediocrity of existence and propel us into unknown levels of accomplishments and success, each one when left unguarded has the potential to become a menace for people around. Let us not fool ourselves to believe that some of those consequences are more bearable and hence more pardonable than others. In reality each one has the lethal potential to choke people around us. The debris that we leave behind as we interact and relate to others might be different in each case, but debris it unquestionably it is. And it stinks.

It is ironical that Organisations spend millions to teach its workforce a wide array of skills which can broadly be called ‘people skills’ – and with very questionable results. The reason is not very difficult to fathom. As managers grow in hierarchy they do not need domain expertise, as much as they need abilities to relate to people in productive, mutually fulfilling and inspiring way. Armed with the best of intentions, managers being the human beings that they are, and governed by the drives and complexes outlined above, leave their peers and subordinates to clean the debris that the managers leave behind, rather than focussing on the business agenda at hand. The attempt should be to increase awareness. I wish there was short cut or a crash course to increase awareness – organisations would be happier places to work in.  

Finally our drives are our biggest strength. Let us not debunk them or undervalue them or underestimate their power to shape our destinies. But for God’s sake, let’s be AWARE of them – just in case it has become a prison. We owe it to us.

Guru

Many years back I had read a brilliant book called “The road less travelled’’ by MS Peck which is a more academic source of authority on this subject. It was many years later that I truly discovered that book in everyday action.