Monday Musings: 169 – Invest in writing the history of organisations

Monday Musings: 169 – Invest in writing the history of organisations

Organisations have histories like nations, societies, cultures and individuals. Very often they also have legends, folklores and stories, that one generation says to another and the legend or the myth perpetuates. After a while truth mixes with fiction to create strange but deadly cocktails. A larger majority perpetuates the legends and the myths because status quo suits them. No one questions history as it might upset the apple cart.

India is particularly averse to this. We do not allow our myths and histories to be studied scientifically. A few who managed to do so get persecuted. Ramanujam questioned the single narrative of Ramayana in his article ‘A hundred Ramayanas’  through an intensely academic article, whether we should consider the singular canned version of Ramayana, popularised particularly by the TV serial by the same name as the only narrative. In response, his paper was dropped by the academic council in the Delhi university. A book on Shivaji led to the venerated Bhandarkar institute in Pune being vandalized. Movies on historical figures often generate so much heat and dust that directors hesitate to analyse the life of icons lest it shall create mass protests, imagined hurt and if they are (un)lucky enough, a ban. Researchers of all kinds study history, its icons and events to see if there are alternative narratives of them which we might have missed. The popular version need not be the correct version.  The west is clearly ahead of us. Their authors, movie makers and artists can question anything and anyone. This scrutiny makes all of us richer.

But this is not about nations and icons only. It is also true of organisations. We either do not do a good job of documenting history clinically, dispassionately and secularly – and even if do get past this challenge, we do a poor job of referring to it at all times to learn from it. History can be a cross on your shoulders in two ways – History can be a memory that permanently looms on the horizon. Even when it is gone, it is never gone. Classical phrases one hears in such a system  – we tried it and it did not work, it won’t work here, we are different, this business is different, we are a different people, people won’t accept it,  so on and so forth. The second way in which history acts like a barrier when it is a history of failure. If things go wrong once, it might sap the sense of initiative of the whole system. Instead of learning right lessons from the failure, which is to strengthen the muscles of the organisation, the wrong lessons are learnt i.e do not take an initiative at all.

Now let us also talk two bits of how does organisational history gets written, or rather how it should get written, if it is written in the first place. All initiatives, business plans, organisation transformation journeys must be documented by specialised organisational historians. History writing should move beyond collecting and preserving memorabilia – it should capture successes and failures. It should capture the thought behind strategy formulation and its impact both in the short term as well as the long term. Intended consequences must be captured as must be the unintended consequences, and from history writing point of view, it is the latter which must be the focus. Ripples of a stone thrown in water travel far and wide, much beyond the point at which the stone hit the water. Capture collective assumptions, collective stupidity and collective lapses as much as capture collective success and heroics. And if one has to make an error of bias, then capture mistakes more than successes. History writing is not about witch hunting and finding scape goats – in fact people should be mentioned only to make the story real. The real purpose is to learn lessons. Genuine lessons are learnt only when history is secular.

Now as mentioned earlier, India does a shoddy job of writing history. It does an even shoddier job of exhuming it and learning from it. Indian organisations, by and large, are not any different.

Guru

PS: Many large and old organisations have a archives. Some of them like Coke have museums.

Monday Musings 168: When Gods have feet of clay

Monday Musings 168: When Gods have feet of clay

We ae discovering that Gods have feet of clay. This is a season for fallen heroes. The latest one is the highly inspiring ‘blade runner’ Oscar Pictorius, who ran the last Olympics in the so called normal category, now charged with killing his girlfriend. A while back it was the trial and sentence of the legendary Rajat Gupta of McKinsey in the much talked about case of insider trading. Much earlier than that was the fall from grace of the legendary Lance Armstrong in the case of doping and even earlier than that there were stories of Tiger woods, Bill Clinton, OJ Simpson; and closer home we have stories of Satyam ‘Raju’, and the Reebok cooking of books by its managing director, Shubhinder singh prem. What binds them is the fact they had already made it big – their fame, or now notoriety, is not because of what they have done now, but that they chose to walk the path of infamy after they had already been famous.

Almost all of them had so much going for them. They epitomised glory and success achieved through the dint of hard work. They were symbols of what brute ambition could do to the trajectory of an ordinary man. They showcased not only their indomitable spirit, but in their unwillingness to let their circumstance decide the extent of their accomplishment, they became role models to millions. 

When the blade man ran, undeterred by the absence of limbs, a lump rose in the billions who watched him. He made us feel so puny caught in our mundane concerns. It is said that her mother used to comment for him and his brother as they would go out to play “(to the elder one) you put on your shoes, and Oscar, you put on your legs”. Rajat Gupta, was a text book middle class dream come true. He reached the highest echelons’ of the corporate world through sheer drive. When one saw him rubbing shoulders with global business and political honchoes, one could not help admire how much in a single life, bereft of pedigree and a family surname, one could achieve through the sheer dint of hard work – the good old fashioned HARD work! When one read stories of Lance Armstrong’s return from the battle of cancer and go on to win the tour de France over and over again, one remained in awe of the sheer greatness of the man and his feat. He was some kind of a superhuman who made us realise how tiny our vision was how tinier our efforts were. Each of these heroes had so much to offer us in terms of inspiration. Ordinary mortals could only swing between disbelief at what these could manage within one life and our own state of mediocrity.

Then the heroes fell – one by one like nine pins. They gave away all that they had to lapse of judgement, or sudden flare of anger or greed or indiscretion. They grander the rise was, the more tragic the fall became. The moot question is WHY?

What would the shrink say on these matters? What would the psychoanalyst, the therapist, the psychiatrist  offer as an explanation? Is it compulsive flirting with the wrong, the high one gets when he lives on the edge? Is it sheer greed – the unadulterated human desire for MORE? Is it depravity or deprivation at a fundamental level, a kind of unfulfillment, that seeks completion in doing what is wrong but exciting? It is a blinded state of entitlement that one starts believing in as one grows in stature and power? Is it the grandeur of invincibility that one builds around as one fights battle after battle to rise up, and then everything becomes yet another battle?

What do we do with these stories now. Should we continue to get inspired with them or should we not? What will we remember them for – the extraordinary tale till the fatal moment or that one little, but decisive blot that spoilt the story for them? The fall does not take away anything from what they achieved and yet only the story does not tell the whole truth. If the meteoric rise made them God-like, the drastic fall revealed that even Gods can have feet of clay.

Guru

167 Monday Musings: The Contrarian and the Despot

167 Monday Musings: The Contrarian and the Despot

Dipankar Gupta, the renowned sociologists in a newspaper article argued beautifully that it does not suit leaders to hide behind the arguement of the ‘will of the people’ and take a stand on issues of significance, even though they are contrarian to the wisdom of the times. He goes on to illustrate the point through many examples which includes that Gandhiji did not seek popular approval before fighting against untouchability, or Nehru did not hide behind public opinion before promulgating the Hindu Marraige Act so on and so forth.

I can recollect two examples from organisational history that echoes the same sentiment. Henry Ford is believed to have said something like this  “I don’t ask customers what they need, because if i would have asked them they would have said we need faster horses” Similarly the legendary Steve Jobs is believed to have underplayed the findings of customer research in determining what to create and sell. He rather believed in his own convictions on what the customers would ‘want to have’ and then went on to put his money where his mouth was.

So here is the dilemma. It is clear that the mob does not have a mind. It certainly does not have a sane mind. It is nice to believe in democratic processes, collective wisdom, consensus and co creation – as at one level they are great principles to abide by and at another level they are constructs on which this modern society based on free will and individual rights are based.  But it is difficult to ignore evidence that visionaries have always taken a contrarian stand. They have always gone against the popular wisdom, the conventional logic, the established norms – and they have quite literally bulldozed their way through the vox populi and stood by their convictions. It is difficult not to be thankful to their steadfastness, to their bull headedness or else much of what we cherish today may not have seen the light of the day. Abraham Lincon fought for abolishing slavery much against the views of society at large and his own partymen. Raja Ram Mohan Roy definitely did not seek popular approval before picking up cudgels against sati. Transformative change is often led by contrarians.  

Philosophically then, what is that separates from a visionary from a despot – because the methods employed and the attitude demonstrated by both are often quite the same?  To my mind very little. Most of that difference perhaps unravels itself only in hindsight. Perhaps the intent of the person might make a difference but even that is questionable, for we have many a benevolent dictators, who have with the best of intent created very despotic regimes. The road to hell is paved often with good intentions, as they say. In the everyday organisations that we work in where we negotiate not only multiple points of view but often entrenched status quo rooted in individual self interest, what is the sweet spot between pliant co-creation and dogged contrarianism?

A few months back a colleague sent a message (and i wondered quite a bit if there was a message intended for me), which goes like this – “ Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron cruelty may sometime sleep, his cupidity may at some time be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience”.  Most despots actually believe in this despotism and believe that there is a larger purpose in their monochromatic world view – and by the way that is exactly the way the contrarian leaders of yore think.

So i go back to my own predicament – what is the difference between a contrarian and a despot? Philosophically speaking, the jury is still out.

 Guru

165 Monday Musings- Whats your burden?

165 Monday Musings- Whats your burden?

Every life has a burden - burden not in the sense that we understand the word in common parlance, that of being heavy, a cross around the neck, a yoke of the soul that is so heavy that it chokes movement, but burden in the sense of a grand purpose of the life's being. 

The artists burden is to express. The painters burden is to bring the canvass alive with his joy and his grief, his memories and his interpretations. The poets and the writers burden is to weave tales with words that binds readers pain with his. The social workers burden is a larger good. The businessman's burden is profit, and wealth creation. The home makers burden is a happy home. The film makers burden is to tell an engaging story. Each one of us has a destined burden - that only we know and that which lies buried beneath denials & procrastination.

At a very fundamental level, the burden gives direction. It gives reason to act, stretch and go to levels that border insanity. But more importantly, it gives meaning to that insanity. The burden does not let you be in peace till it is listened to, attended to and nourished. It demands of you to nurse it. It just won't let you be! Even when all else is taken care of, an unattended burden can make life look burdensome and even when nothing else is working, the burden well tended lets the eternal hope spring. 

   

Some do not yet know their burden and live like a zombie in a state of hangover where senses are dull, faculties are dim and awareness is poor. You flip pages of a book without a purpose, scanning through lines creating an illusion of reading but never really figuring out the meaning embedded in it. A life without a burden is worthy of sympathy if not pity. 

What is your burden?

Guru

164 Monday Musings: A Humbling 2012

164 Monday Musings: A Humbling 2012

The last Monday of every year begets a musings. This is the fifth new year that my musings are witnessing and for strange reasons of sentimental indulgence i went back and read the previous four. I don't know what i was searching, may be dots that i could connect in retracing the last four year ends that may assure me that i was not only growing old but at least in some ways also growing up. Midway through this exercise i lose interest and i sit down with a fairly empty mind and still fingers on the keyboard.

2012 was an year of breaking certitudes for me. For every truism an equal and opposite revealed itself - in full measure and with its own validity. 

The world appeared to have returned from an economic brink but not quite, as many responsible nations continued to play too close to the cliff. Old theaters of strife and violence continued unabated and new social and political fault lines were discovered. Countries and communities were messed up in the past, while increasingly there is evidence of individuals being messed up. There is no lager cause in the name of which they perpetrate the havoc, but just a sick mind, devoid of sanity and humanity seeking closures. There is solution to the former but i am scared that there is none to the later.

An year can be humbling when it reveals within a short span of 12 months the follies of certitudes, the meaninglessness of permanence. So many opposite can sit together in close proximity - unbridled joy with soul choking grief,  the liberation of endless possibilities with the blankness of Cul de sac, the assurance of confidence with sinking feeling of vulnerability, the vitality of companionship with the disillusionment of relationships, the energy of hope with the gloom of despair, the light of clarity with the shadows of ambiguity. If only the year could have been clearly skewed decisively towards one way, one could have blamed the times, destiny or luck. The fact that the extremes co existed in harmony and in full measures, only reveals its true design - to humble man. The man who had forgotten humility must be reminded. I am reminded to look for 'good in the bad and bad in the good' in 2013.

Here is a list of my resolutions for 2013 in no order of preference - 

Be healthy - run at least 4 marathons (2 in 2011, 3 in 2012, so 4 in 2013 is progress)

Write regularly and widely (31 musings in 2011 but 27 in 2012 is not progress)

Substantial effort to re skill for the next 10 years (Read, Read, Teach, Coach)

Finish the first book (Critical - enough is enough)

Spend significant time with kids (To make everything else worth it)

....and while all of this is being attempted, remember that life must not be taken too seriously - it has a mind of its own. 

Happy 2013. 

Guru

162 Monday Musings: Zen Marathonism

162 Monday Musings: Zen Marathonism

I had always considered running a pretty boring pursuit, an effort so needlessly undertaken, the meaningless huffing and puffing, a voluntary but punishing load on the lung and the limb putting your own balance of mind under a shadow of doubt. That was many Monday's ago. I ran my fifth half marathon today and its a significant personal milestone in two ways. One its a personal best timing but more importantly this was the first time that i did not stop even once in the course of 21kms - and therein hangs my musing.

James Mallory, an ace mountaineer and according to some hypothesis, 'possibly' the first person to scale the Mount Everest (for more on that read 'Paths of Glory' by Jeffery Archer), in response to a question in 1922 as to why do they climb peaks said so eloquently and poetically ".......So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for" Marathoning is pretty much like this - sheer joy, pure, unadulterated, sublime, uplifting! It teaches you so much and reminds you much more.

It teaches you that nothing worthwhile can come without toil, hours and hours of mind numbing practice, even when no perceptible improvement is visible; tending to the garden with sage like calm even when green shoots are nowhere to be seen. It teaches you that every kilometer that passes under your feet takes everything in you, every milestone will extract its pound of flesh - letting you have nothing for free. It teaches you that every subsequent kilometer will appear longer than the last one, and will challenge you harder, forcing you to access the last ounce of your willpower and resolve - and you almost hear yourself torn between the pain and purpose - pain screaming that you are done with it and purpose egging you to stay on course just a little while longer. It has taken me five runs and close to two years to let purpose win over pain. Marathons teach you patience and perseverance more than anything else - for a long run will not cede anything to  the runner with ease. It teaches you to be humble - not to take yourself and your abilities too seriously - for there is always a challenge in life that is larger than us.  

Marathon remind you much more. It reminds you of your limitations more than anything else. It reminds you that at the end you are human. It reminds you that even in completion, the run is larger than the runner, that completing it only makes you miss the run even more badly. The runner is sandwiched between the agonizing wait for the run and the immediate vacuum it leaves as soon as it finished - the 'communion' lasts only for the duration of the run. Marathon reminds you that the truest victory is victory over yourself and your limitations. It reminds you that there always is a challenge out there that is just outside your reach, and in trying to surmount it, the best and the worst in you reveals itself. Marathons force you to deal with your incompleteness, the rough edges and the dignity (or the lack of it) with which you deal with them  reveals your character. 

I have understood myself better through my tryst and trials with marathons and so would you, should you chose to.

Guru   

161 Monday Musings: A reluctant Hero

161 Monday Musings: A Reluctant Hero
He would not be more than thirty two or three may be. The conversation begins with the proverbial small talk. In the course of his life story, he shares that he says he has two sons, one fourteen and the other far younger and i kid with him if he had a child marriage. He smiles but with an effort and continues.

He was like any other young guy, fired with an ambition to do better, rise up the ranks, take the baton forward and hand over to his next generation a situation better than what he had inherited. He falls in love outside the permissible boundaries, the kind of boundaries that exist aplenty, bereft of logic and devoid of substance - but sticks to his decision despite predictable opposition. Soon the two were to get on to build a 'happily thereafter' world for themselves.

A few rains down the years, but a few weeks before they were to wed, life throws at him a strange gauntlet, which is not really his making, but which he cannot watch from the sidelines. His wife's elder sister and her husband meet with a fatal accident leaving behind a ten year old son. Intense thoughts tear the household about the future course of action that needs to be taken with regards to the young boy, and for reasons peculiar to the story, it finally comes down to whether his wife is the best person to take responsibility for the boy.

It was not a simple decision for him. Most discouraged him, few remained non-committal and probably no one encouraged him. The prospect of inheriting a ten year old boy along with the marriage was daunting in many ways - the least of which was inheriting a life long financial commitment. It meant immense emotional investment, it meant dealing with uncertianity about how the peculiar relationship will pan out, it meant dealing with the vagaries of a pre-teen mind who was dealing not only a soul shattering trauma but was also about to deal with the emotional vulnerability of  the what was to come. It meant becoming a parent much before nature meant you to be one. It meant the onerous task of becoming a father much before you learnt the tricks of becoming a husband. 

He agreed - not as much because it was the right thing to do, or a moral decision, or a responsible stand, but because he loved his to be wife. This was the right thing to do, because she wanted this to happen. He would have been fine with any other decision too if his to be wife would have so desired. Its overwhelming to hear the story at this stage, in the realization  how larger than life he is, and just how puny most of us are. Then he clarifies that his decision should not be given a higher nobility than what it deserves, for he did agree to this, or would have agreed to do anything else, should his would be wife had so wanted. It was only about one thing - he loved her and wanted her to be happy.

I get the point. Love - such a beautiful thing - if it had not existed, we would have had to invent it, and he is the hero of the story, much against his wishes.

Guru