Musings on a Saturday Morning

I have been taking part in a weeklong recitation of a section of an Indian epic. Today will be the last day of the recitation of this section. Here are some of my musings from participating in this pleasant activity. I thoroughly enjoyed this activity.

The section "kanda" is Sundara Kanda सुन्दरकांडा from Ramayana  रामायण by Valmiki वाल्मीकि . This is a mandatory scripture/ epic/ folktale/ great literary from India depending upon who you listen to. Some people are mesmerized/ thrilled/ relax the religious fervor associated with this work.

Literature

This was written in a meter that goes by the name Anushtup chanda अनुष्टुप  . Interesting, that most of the sacred / popular chants that I am aware - are in this meter. I have no idea why this is so.

Hardly any observed the lyrical prose of the sounds which roll through this work. Especially the sections where the author indulges liberally - when the monkeys destroy the madhuvan मधुवन in ecstasy when they learn that the lost female lead सीता of the story has been found.
The author is brilliant when he does not repeat a single description of the environment, when the secret agent narrates what he saw. The entire beauty of the forest where the female lead is imprisoned is described in section 15 सर्ग of this of kanda. It is narrated again - in a different way in two places and none of the words are repeated. After going through 55 sections, only one well worn phrase occurs - "Hanuman is the only one who accomplish his assigned task"  कार्यसिद्धिर्मति ससचीवा तस्मिन्वानरपुंगवा .
Sanskrit is so close to German sentence structure that it can start sentences with the word "Not" as in Nicht - as in न .

Text

Scripts - there were almost four different versions of this entire script amongst the 50 or 60 people in the audience. I was struggling at times to correlate with the main reciter/ priest and the words I found in telugu or devnagari scripted copies of this work.
Folks with different linguistic backgrounds, seem to articulate the Sanskrit words differently. Telugu and Kannada folks say it differently than Tamil folks, the sounds ळ , ल and ग .
These same folks would be scandalized if anyone brought out the words in their primary languages, the way they bring out the sounds from Hanuman Chalisa. This is again set in the Anushtup chanda or meter, but written in the vernacular Awadh by a 16th century poet/saint Tulsidas. I got hold of the devnagari scripted work and the words are written and spoken differently in south Indian scripts and songs.

Reciting Poetry

I realized that the way you recite the poetry can be done with a religious fervor, with a theatrical fervor or with a literary fervor. The priest who is leading this recitation has used a combination of both religious and literary slant.

Organization

When you meditate on the prime character in this episode, you realize that organizations today hate to be in a situation like this.

You don't want to have only ONE individual who could accomplish this extremely demanding task of going across a vast ocean (by those standards), and come back safe. 

You don't want your only performing individual to go berserk in enemy territory (or adversarial client).
You definitely don't want to have your team celebrate AND go on a rampage before they have given a report of successfully accomplishing the task (section 53).
You hardly come across an employee who is the only one who could accomplish a task, and yet does not  boast how great he is.

I will reserve the philosophical musings for another post, if you liked this so far.

Corporate version of 15 aliments

This is one exception to my rule of never publicly commenting on views of religious leaders.

But what to do when the leader happens to be the Leader of the Vatican?

Here is the corporate version of the leader's message * to his team to improve.

1. Feeling immortal, immune or indispensable: Your role is valuable only if you continue to generate revenues, add value to your team's success and develop new products/ services to your customers.
2. Working too hard: You must take vacation to recharge and reenergize to reach higher goals.
3. Being spiritually and mentally hardened: Strive to keep your emotional and intellectual outlook young and fresh without developing a dinosaur attitude to business, organization and culture.
4. Planning too much: Enough said. I have seen some 'leaders' take 14 months to share the goals for her team.
5. Working without coordination: Working hard to undermine the other team's progress !
6. Having "spiritual Alzheimer's": The corporate equivalent is forgetting what it means to be young and energetic and fresh on the job/ role.
7. Being rivals or boastful: You have to work to not fight turf battles or promote yourself at the expense of other teams.
8. Suffering from existential schizophrenia: Do not devote yourself to building an empire, but connect and reconnect with customers, products and your team members.
9. Committing the terrorism of gossip: About internal politics. It is better to indulge and gain insight into markets, what the customers are asking/ saying about your products and services; about what rivals could be building and delivering better than you. It is good to gain market insights rather than political insight of your organization.
10. Glorifying one's bosses: Some people survive only because of this.
11. Being indifferent to others: Coach and help team members and support other teams across the organization rather than letting them fail.
12. Having a funereal face: Be enthusiastic about your team, their day and their work. Some people creep into leadership/ managerial roles with the mindset that they have to be somber and serious at all times. Build skills to energize the room with your presence.
13. Wanting more: Stop building your turf and your empire (in your mind).
14. Forming 'closed circles' that seek to be stronger than the whole: A fist is stronger than five fingers and many hands coming together is stronger than fists fighting each other. Break silos in your organization to build stronger companies that acquire more customers and more markets.
15. Seeking worldly profit and showing off: Some managers and 'leaders' spend more time in PR and building an outsized profile than quietly delivering results. Just look at the 'personal profiles' on business magazines of individuals. That is almost the kiss of death of the company.

My apologies to anyone hurt by these comments.

Fear works. Motivation is overrated

This was the pithy summation that I had to agree to my colleague's observations as we neared the completion of a major program. Across the board, in a culture that was driven by collegiality, comfort and acceptance of the average lead to subpar business performance on every metric.

When we embarked on this transformations program, every measure to educate, enlighten and motivate this group to improve the operations did not succeed. 

A very demanding manager succeeded only because he  instilled a complete reign of absolute fear of missing a deadline. I had to applaud his success when all other techniques of keeping the focus on goals did not penetrate.

Fear works. Communication, convincing techniques of change are overrated.

Of course, since the team did not buy into the common benefit of the program, they are ready to go back to their old habits of internal strife.

Leadership or Pursuit of power

Observing the immense display of infighting in the Indian Parilament and the voices of the pro and anti-state division factions, you have to ask a basic question.

1 who wants to be called an Indian vs who identifies himself or herself as belonging to a particular state?

2. What does the identity of a residency or heritage of a state mean in India today?

3. All the current 28 states and Union Territories are identified by either geography or language.

It is futile to assume that duration of residence or origins of ancestors dictates the regional affiliation.

A Bengali will be a Bengali anywhere in the country. A Malayalee will always be a Malayalee. 

A Telugu will always be a Telugu.

If the investments of a few individuals can be protected only if they have  a state to back them up, then no investor can ever set up investment projects anywhere except in his or her backyard.

Every district is practically destined to become its own state!! And it's own country!

When regions start figthing among themselves to control limited resources, it marks the end of collective growth and beginning of collective destruction of all.

There is no voice to be heard of what the future unity of India is supposed to look like.

Accidental Learning is the best

I was struggling with defining the challenges of the project.

It was not risk, it was not people, it was not technology. For the first time in several years, I was stumped for a solution.

I stumbled on a talk given by Daniel Goleman on his new book "Focus". In the middle of the talk, he mentions a certain class of problems as "wicked problems". And a series of linked wicked problems is a "mess".

That pointed me to the solution as well. I realized, after framing my project as a wicked problem, it's solution.

You have one of two options, authoritative or collaborative approach to such problems. I had been using the collaborative approach in a charged atmosphere under tight time constraints. 

It is the authoritative approach that finally worked.

Poverty of leadership- political vaccum

To anyone who followed the sad events of the last few weeks in Delhi, India- it would have been abundantly clear that there was a complete disconnect between the 'political class' and the mood of the people.

The subsequent statements and labeling of the victim of the ghastly crime, indicate a total inability to channelize the mood and opinions of the population they are supposed to rule.

The PM of India ended up being a political clown who could not give a channel and voice that would align and coalesce the discontent of the people on the streets.

I was aghast at the calling the victim of the heinous crime 'hero' and 'daughter of the country' or 'brave'.
If she was the hero, who was the villain. If she was the hero and she was brave, were the rest of the characters who rule the 'scene' absolute cowards?

The general tone of the people on the street (as mentioned in the press and media) was that the system should change. Well - they too are part of the system.

In a culture that treasures 'face' and 'izzat' there can be no more shame than the mothers/ sisters/ daughters/ fathers/ female relatives publicly spitting and disowning the perpetrators when they are convicted.

I am hoping that an astute 'social communicator' like the film and TV producer Aamir Khan can come up with a show on his Satyameva Jayate  that could instill this much needed change in behavior towards females in India.

As a person of Indian heritage, I am ashamed to read that this happened in India.

Business Process and Simplicity

While on vacation in India, I had to figure out the  right customer service to call for a service issue with my local bank. Interesting: I can operate my bank account from anywhere on the web. I cannot speak to "one number" that could fix my issue. The poor CSR on the call uses words like "sir - you can check using the IVR - blah blah". And this is supposed to be the one of the leading fastest growing banks here in India.

Did I tell you that the calls get disconnected immediately when I get transferred?

While growth pains are inevitable, the process needs to improve, and achieve simplicity - no matter what geo the customer calls you from, no matter what channel the customer contacts you, and prompt follow up emails are essential.