Monday Musings 185: New wisdom in old knowledge

Monday Musings 185: New wisdom in old knowledge

Sometimes things make sense only across time, when you connect the proverbial dots. 

More than a decade back I had read a seminal book 'Yuganta' by Iravati Karve. The book came recommended through some colleagues who were active in the area of human behavior while I was this wannabe who carries the drinks while the good ones play. The book, originally written in Marathi and winner of Sahitya Academy award, studies and analyses the central characters of Mahabharata, as if they were normal human beings and not heroes in a religious text. For those who are fed on one standard interpretation of Indian epics, this book will be thought provoking at best and sacrilegious at worst.  I did not understand much about the book because it did not align with my standard understanding about the lead characters based on the popular discourse. For example Yuganta lays a large part of the blame for the war with the selfless Bheeshma - in the many injustices he did and the many he condoned or let happen, only to fulfill his own vows. Yuganta describes the character of Kunti detailing her contradictions, some of them not very kind. Finally, and the one which had the maximum shock value for me at that time, was this seemingly preposterous suggestion that Vidura may be the father of Yudhisthir. The shock value of the whole book notwithstanding, I read Yuganta and forgot about it, more because i did not understand it, never realizing that it was such a celebrated book. 

Last year I read another book based on Mahabharat, called 'The difficulty of being good' by Gurcharan Das, the famous ex CEO of P & G, writer and now columnist. This book also looks into the epic more from a pragmatic standpoint and what it can teach for day to day living, rather than as a reverence seeking religious book. If Ramayana is utopian, then Mahabharata is practical. The book makes us see human imperfections in their true glory and concludes that 'Dharma is subtle' and that it is fundamentally difficult to be good. I have my own views on what is not good with the book, but I give full credit to the author to have attempted a scholarly dissection of the most popular Indian epic which has been rendered stale by looking at it as a monochromatic narrative, frozen in time. It tries to put some life in the epic by viewing it from fresh lens, something Yuganta had done many decades earlier. 

Now comes the third dot, which incidentally is the trigger for this musing. Although I have not seen even one frame of the new Mahabharata on the telly, my better half has - and what she has seen, she has liked it, to an extent that she was moved to talk about it. She found the new Mahabharat 'refreshing', 'more balance for the characters - that each character is presenting his/her point of view' and hence 'we see those characters in a new light'. Kudos to the script writers of the new Mahabharata that they have injected some freshness into a stale tale to an extent that the ordinary viewer is able to discern a difference, see those characters in a new way that she has not seen them so far. 

The point of this musing is twofold. One is that it is time for me to read Yuganta once more. I think I am more prepared to understand the book and hence the epic. The second and the more important one is that we must reinterpret all our epics. We must not only read more and more interpretations of them because there is a lot of work that has happened on critically analyzing them (read the banned-in-DU essay "300 Ramanayans" by AK Ramanujam), but more importantly we must read them ourselves and create our own narratives. Some of these epics, in most of the core religions of the subcontinent has enough and more to consume our lifetimes. If not for the esoteric satisfaction of metaphysical development, then for the mundane joy of reading an old story and understanding it in a new way, these epics must be read and re read. Who knows what they might tell us this time.

Guru

Post script - the cubiclist in the corporate world is a worm busy in its survival. He has the industry report, the competitive analysis, and the monthly review presentation to read. The epics can wait – and by the way so can his life.

Monday Musings184: The inanity of company taglines

Monday Musings184: The inanity of company taglines

LG, the Korean company changed its famous tagline 'Life is good' to 'It is all possible'. As a common consumer who is not trained in the science of crafting company taglines, it appeared to be unimaginative at best and a counterfeit at worst. It did not take me long to realize that it reminded me, and not without reason, of another famous tagline by the footwear giant Adidas, 'Impossible is nothing'.  A little bit of research on the subject also revealed that ABN AMRO BANK has used a tagline 'Making more possible' and Huawei a technology company in Asia is using the tagline 'Make it Possible' or yet another case when HP invent claimed 'Everything is possible'. Frankly there might be verbal jugglery and a distinction of semantics in each one of them, but for the layman on the street, me included, they appear all the same, or least suspiciously similar. What were the creators doing while crafting these lookalikes? Weren’t taglines supposed to be boldly original, thereby differentiating companies in a boringly cluttered market? 

Another example, though not as grotesque comes to my mind, this time a little more subtle. Shahrukh Khan exhorted all of us to 'Thoda wish karo, Dish Karo' in a commercial which wanted us not to be satisfied with less. The intention was to push us 'satisfied with less' morons to want more. Kareena Kapoor has been tugging at our heart strings these days by saying 'Pyaas badhao', again with an intention to want more, desire more, ask for more. Nothing connects the two product lines but clearly the tagline writer looks likes he was 'inspired'. Curiously Shahrukh Khan in yet another ad has also said 'Chalo Paint Karen', suspiciously similar to the Dish TV ad. As I remarked earlier this category is not shamelessly same as the first category but subtly similar in the construct and the imagery.

We know that imitation is the best form of flattery, but guess the taglines of companies by design are supposed to be different. I also wonder at times what is the exact role that these taglines actually play in the success of a company or a brand or is it something that is nice to have. Is it a statement of intent that guides the company in its day to day operation or is it nothing but the worm that attracts the fish to the hook? AIG spoke about 'The strength to be there' before it went turtle and what a deadly combination of hilarity and irony was the Lehman brothers tagline 'Where vision gets built'. I wonder why Enron said 'Ask why’; because that is exactly everyone else is asking since it sank without a trace. 

So look around, in the companies you work with or have worked with or plan to work with - how much these taglines mean to them and how much meaning these taglines have for the day to day decision making. And if you are not the serious kind, then keep looking for and keep enjoying the inanity of some of them. 

Guru 

Monday Musings 183: The anatomy of atrophy

Monday Musings 183: The anatomy of atrophy

Everything begins as a movement, becomes a business and then ends up becoming a racket. 

All status quo generates a need to change from within. Only sometimes the need is felt just in time but most of the times it is late. All status quo germinates an ecosystem of vested interests, however much the system raves and rants about the authenticity of intent. Hence the forces of self preservation will keep change at bay. There in hangs the tale. Change from outside is rarely peaceful and the change from within is often late. 

Every religious system began as a movement to reform the status quo and soon it became an oligarchy, spawning reformist movements as a response, over time meeting the same fate. Reformist movements needed reforms. There goes a Zen story that captures it so beautifully. Disciples of a wise Zen master were searching for truth in a jungle and soon it became a competition as to who will discover the truth first. A disciple came rushing and shared with disappointment that someone had found truth first. The Zen master replies with nonchalance, “do not worry - they will make a religion out of it - and soon the truth will be lost". 

Economic systems which promised El Dorado are nowhere to be seen and those which are still around are struggling for acceptance in the puritanical form and shape that they were conceived. Communism is buried in history and capitalism is a prisoner with the capitalists. If the former had the hypocrisy to deal with the latter has cronyism to battle. Both began with great intent, but got corrupted along the way, like a clean spring from the mountains acquires silt and mud as it flows down the plains. 

Organizations begin with fancy vision, mission and value systems and soon become a caricature of itself. More remain a pale shadow of the promise that they had shown than the ones who blossom to their potential. It takes only a few years of blinking to let the innards get corroded. Academically organizational processes, systems and institutions are supposed to keep a watchful eye on this degeneration, and yet there is clear evidence of all of them failing - sometimes dramatically, and at other times corrupting the fabric like a silent malignancy. Individuals gone berserk can bring even the most sensible organizations to its knees over time. Soon everything becomes a sham, a charade, an act - and ultimately a racket. 

This seems to be an ageing process. Is it natural atrophy, which is the way things will always be? Will things become a racket only because only then it will give birth to the chrysalis of reform? As Peter Senge, a systems thinker says, "Things become worse before they become better". 

God - why are there always more questions than answers? 

Guru 

Monday Musings 182 - The someday list

Monday Musings 182 - The someday list

A friend of mine introduced me to this phrase the other day - what it means is the list of things that we want to do but keep on postponing it for some reason or the other. The modern day cubiclist is a work in progress of guilt and unfulfilled list of things to do. A random conversation with a score of such cubiclists will reaveal to you that it is not an isolated case worthy of being quarantied and treated in isolation, but a pandemic which does not kill but leaves you in state of permanent suspension, bereft of imagination and joie de vivre. This is not to say that the life of the cubiclist is all that bad, but there it is not all that hunky dory either. The drugery of the powerpoint can be lethal. 

Each has his own someday-list which they so ruefully talk about, usually when they let thier guard down aided by the therapeutic effects of a few beers. Some want to do more music, some a little bit more of painting and yet others a bit more travel. Some want to read a bit more, some want to watch some great movies and yet others want to excercise a bit more. Some want to do thier own thing and yet others, like me, want to do nothing. Nothingness has great virtues. 

Whatever it is that they are aching to do someday, is both a liberation and thier greatest bondage. It does not allow you to enjoy what you have and currently do as much as you can, and yet not having it keeps you going in the hope that some day lady luck will shine and you shall reach the El dorado of your dreams. The underlying assumtion is that you will live happily thereafter, but that is another story. 

Each one has his own script that he uses for not being able to do the stuff on the someday list. The most popular of them is not having enough time. Long commutes, late hours and ever increasing domestic chores is a grim reality leaving no time and energy to do what is a springboard to the soul. The less you do them, more acute is the void, which means you do it even lesser. The fall in the abyss is long and hard.  However it is also true that most of the time lack of time is a ruse, a master script on self deception.

The second reason is lack of opportunity. There are a lot with amateur talent which can be chiselled with a little amount of care or who missed doing thier stuff in thier prime because of thier own reasons. The genuine ones amongst these require the most empathy, for the wheel of time cannot be turned back. We must only nudge them to reclaim whatever they can at this stage. There are enough and more tales of late bloomers around that have the potential for inspiration. 

The third type are waiting for enough money in the bank to be able to embark on the journey for which they think they were born for. There is never enough money in the bank to give you that security to jump. Ask me! This is the second worst script of self deception after the no time deception. I can personally vouch that the real reason is often lack of initiative and courage. 

The someday list can either be an inspiration, that eggs you on, replenishes the fountain of hope or it can be an albatross around your neck. 

Guru

By the way, have you ever compiled your someday list. 

Monday Musings 181: Making sense of the world order

Monday Musings 181: Making sense of the world order

Such is the human need for constructs and frameworks, that one would be forgiven if we lose our way in the maze. The globe and nation states have particularly been classified and reclassified in myriad ways, many times countries moving in and out of clusters as frequently as the change of fashion. Let us take a tongue and cheek look at some of them. 

I am sure if the big bang theory of the origin of the universe would not have been propounded, we must have had created a small bang theory, for an explosion it must have been for what we have ended up being! Another interesting theory that has slipped by, almost as an country cousin of the previous one, is the drifting of continents theory. Insects crawl up my spine to imagine, that apart from the galactic movement in empty space, where the earth is hauling itself to i-dont-know-where, apart from the earth singing songs around the sun like a starry eyed teenager, and apart from spinning around itself in the throes of some unseen magnetic intoxication, even the continents are drifting away! I mean come on, there is a limit to  the ridiculousness of this whole thing. When i look around, i see every proverbial Tom, Dick, and Harry, their aunt and her dog, chasing stability in life and the fact is everything else is in motion, chaos or movement. 

Coming back to the subject of classification of nation states, the broadest of them all is the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere, creating possibly the oldest form of divide. Clearly the northern cousins are broadly more developed, richer, and powerful than their southern counterparts. I am told there is no scientific reason why the northern hemisphere must be on the top on the global map, but guess somethings become too routine to be questioned. 

Then there is the classical distinction of a group of nations broadly labelled as the 'west', others broadly classified as the 'east', also called as the oriental. There is some kind of musical chairs between the two when it comes to deciding who is ahead. I have concluded, that the answer to this is how long a view of time do you take to answer this question. Very very long ago, East seem to have civilizational superiority, a little while ago the west seemed to have dominated and rumor has it, the east is planning a coup of sorts to usurp the pole position. Africa, where the grapevine suggests, it all may have started is considered almost as an afterthought and it usually drops through the cracks in this epochal debate between the west and the east. 

Growing up in India, text books informed me that we were the 'third world'. I mean whoever authored the term was highly unimaginative. No creative adjectives, no acronyms, no fancy terminology - just number the damn countries - first world, second world, and third world. I am sure it must have been an economist - cannot expect anything better from them, can we?

Within Asia, there is middle east, south east and far east. There is central Asia which sits in proximity with the underbelly of Russia, but maintaining tenous relations with the larger Asian identity, though there is only that much similarity between a central Asian and a south east Asian as much as between a chimpanzee and a crocodile. Within Europe there is western and eastern divide and some argue, given the length of time they have fought and continue to do so like recalcitrant children, Europe is merely a notion. 

A few years back there were the tiger economies of the south east Asian cluster. Then there is G 20, which is more secular in its construct because you have to be seriously rich to be its member, not some fancy reason of geographical proximity. In 2001 came the phrase BRICS which is where the future lay, as that guy from the Goldman Sachs made everyone believe. Dollars and Euros and some serious money chased the BRICS, but all of that has fallen like a pack of cards. The latest i am told is the N-11 or the new 11. It consists of Turkey, Bangladesh, Indonesia and others. I am sure someone worked very late and hard on his presentation to coin this term. Be ready to hear this term more often in the coming days. 

Where do we truly belong? Well, that i guess is a subject for another musing. For now enjoy wherever we have been placed by whoever worked late into the night. 

Guru 

Monday Musings 180: Compliance and commitment

Monday Musings 180: Compliance and commitment

Modern workplace is a minefield if not a battlefield. Many still find time, space, opportunity, energy and wisdom for happiness and meaning in the nine to no-time schedules. They should be christened as saints, given bravery awards and must be protected under wild life protection act or preservation of rare species, flora and fauna programme.

Our work systems are designed to create the average. Everyone wants the incumbent to follow the job description, the role, the boundaries - no one wants him to stick his neck out, ask uncomfortable and unconventional questions, or follow the non traditional paths. Career choices are made not on the basis of what he truly enjoys, but what would guarantee a basic security of a traditional job. It is nothing short of miracle that so many clones get churned out through the factory shop floor, each one looking like a clone of the other, go about the motions of life, work and career and still hold the pretence of happiness. But scratch the surface a bit and almost everyone wants to do something different, something that gives them more joy, more satisfaction and meaning that what they are doing today. Most will not know what exactly ‘that’ elusive thing is, many just want to escape from the current pigeonhole, and some may actually be fortunate enough to know what they enjoy but cannot make themselves to take the risk of foregoing the security of a well paying job. 

It is not surprising again that such straight jacketed, stuck between walls employees only generate compliance, while organisations need commitment. Actually most organisations take a stated position that they need commitment, while the systems, processes and the culture are designed to elicit compliance. Employees must comply with the boundaries of their role, follow established norms, and work within the broad contours of what is prescribed as ‘role boundaries’. They are also expected to follow instructions, understand orders and obey. When they come up with an idea, it will be ‘value added’ by an over excited supervisor, whether that value is sought or not. Author Malcolm Goldsmith says that such unsolicited value addition “improves the idea by only 5%, but reduces the employee commitment by 50%”, because in his mind, it is no longer his idea but that of the supervisors.

Supervisor behaviour is often the worst culprit, even though there is clear evidence that intellectual lethargy of the employee can be an equal contributor. If a suggestion is given only poorly camouflaged as an order or an expectation, it will generate only compliance. If dissent is considered tantamount to questioning authority, the next time around it will only elicit compliance. If a failed initiative or attempting a new way of doing things is come down upon heavily, the next time around it will foster only compliance. If credit is shared disproportionately or unfairly, then it will encourage compliance. If policies, practices and systems get short-changed at the altar of convenience or whims and fancies, it will promote compliance. Compliance will only do what is absolutely necessary.  It will engender survival mindset. Servility goes hand in hand with compliance, but progress is fuelled by the horse power initiative – the spirit of doing more than necessary, in more ways than known

Commitment is the engine of progress in organisations. Team members and employees do not commit because you want them to commit to your cause. They commit for theirs – and only when they want to. They commit either when it works for them, benefits them; they want to do it for you – which again is a choice whose locus rests with them and not you. Knowing, discovering and triggering your teams commitment is a rare art – but so is leadership.

Just because people have complied does not mean they are committed.

 Guru

179 Monday Musings: Bhag Milkha Bhag

179 Monday Musings: Bhag Milkha Bhag

It is difficult not to be moved by the story of the iconic Milkha Singh and despite cinematic excesses in the movie ‘Bhag Milkha Bhag’(BMB) by the thoughtful Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, it is difficult to come out of the movie without being inspired, in small measure or large. You can treat this musing as a kind of movie review along with how the tale touched.

Partition continues to intrigue me. In story after story, where partition is the central character or in other stories where partition is like the subtext, hanging like a shadow, the bloodiest part of the subcontinent’s history has left individuals, families, communities and nations with memories. The angst and literary expression it has generated is rivalled only with the one generated by the holocaust. However it is clearly not been dissected with as many nuances and perspectives. I guess we are not as fearless and large hearted in dealing with our past and its demons. The impact of the partition on the impressionable young Milkha, despite its barbaric nature has been dealt with sensitivity. One would almost miss the humanity of the maulvi saving Milkha’s childhood friend, raising him as his own and getting him married as an alternative narrative to the mayhem and bloodshed. As the friend quips in a scene, ‘Those times were mad and not people’.

The story to finding his calling in running is beautifully told. Children of disasters must find their calling in something that takes their mind away from the pain, grief and squalor around them; otherwise these have a way of sucking human beings into a bottomless abyss. What better way of dealing with them but to drain your body of every ounce of energy, not leaving enough even to brood, complain and be depressed. Running is a release. Running to the level of having tested your limits, is liberating.

Farhan Akhtar’s chiselled body is a treat to watch. For most middle aged men with mild to more pronounced paunches, his physique is not only a treat to watch but also a matter of envy. He plays the physicality of the celebrated athlete with élan, but misses the plot in portraying the punjabiness of the character. He looks out of place in depicting the demeanour, diction and earthliness of a Punjabi youth of the 60’s. He betrays the Bandra-boy roots.

In my view, the crown goes to Divya dutta, who plays the elder sister to the young Milkha. There are two sequences that will make eyes moist. The one where she finds Milkha amongst the survivors and the other when Milkha returns from the army and makes her wear his India blazer. We are told through other accounts that the real Milkha Singh considers the influence of his elder sister as pivotal and through the movie it’s not difficult to see why. If I had the powers I would give Divya two things – this year’s best supporting actress award and second a big hug.

Finally a word on film making. I wish we make more biopics and more sports movies. Our cinematic record sucks on both these counts. Till that time, kudos to Rakesh Om Prakash Mehra for bringing us this story. I hope that it inspires yet another generation, not only to run but how to live. 

Guru