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.

Wrong tools for the right change

Are you using the right tools for Change in your organization?

Recent headlines in India are all about two leaders (Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare) trying to bring about changes in the law to rule out corruption.
Both the leaders used moral virtue as a platform to highlight the social evil of corruption in government.
Both leaders adopted non-violent hunger strike - the same technique efffectively used by Mahatma Gandhi when fighting for Indian Independence- to force the government to pass laws banning corruption and bring senior leaders under that law. They are barely successful in their efforts.
You can pass laws, but you cannot make individuals change their behavior unless positive change is recognized, encouraged and celebrated.

How does the business world do this

Businesses try to bring about change in their organizations every day -to be more competitive, to increase customer service, to perform operations faster, to innovate and perform the same tasks at a lower cost.
In corporations, employees are provided incentives when they adopt the desired behavior. They are encouraged collectively and individual successes are celebrated when behavioral changes occur and desired results are demonstrated.

I have seen many change efforts in companies, which invested millions in systems, not investing enough thought and efforts in encouraging change in behavior in their teams.

So the two leaders might learn something from this. They may ultimately succeed in getting the law passed. They will celebrate a momentary triumph. Ultimate and lasting change in corrupt behavior will occur when they spread the culture of integrity, passion for people doing their jobs for salary without demanding a bribe.

Successful campaigns for change adopt a very personal story ( a specific individual or a specific event) that touches emotions of love, hunger and values  family, community etc.

None of the campaigns that I have read about these two leaders touch on these aspects of change.

What are your observations on change and how did you succeed in deploying a change in behavior in your organization?

What is Inner Peace

Last week I watched Kung Fu Panda 2 movie. My daughter asked me this question where do you get inner peace if you want to get it. I think I finally got it in a devious way.

You are very unhappy when you don't have inner peace.
You are always asking, searching and (worst) sad when you don't have inner peace.
Others know it when you have inner peace.

Forget Coupons - now Free eBooks to sell eBooks

If you are an avid reader like me on a budget for books and you have an eReader, you are left with reading from the limited eBooks selection offered by your library.

The evolution of this publishing segment is fascinating.
Amazon has finally decided to partner with Overdrive and allow public library books to be borrowed and read on Kindle. Once that happens, the number of devices that permit borrowing of books will grow exponentially.

Now RosettaBooks is giving away 5 eBooks to increase their (poor sales). What's in it for the publisher? They get the email addresses and contact information of potential customers by giving away royalty free books that were not selling well anyway!

Me - I am looking forward to eBooks being released without Digital Rights Management. This happened when Apple used its marketing muscle to dispense with Rights Management - allowing you to download music once and then allowing you to share/ use it with your friends or on multiple devices.

Parallels between commercial and illegal supply chains

I just finished reading the recent book by Fredrick Forsyth. Usually his books are well researched and gripping - well some were very gripping. This book was about a fictional war against the illegal substances. The protagonist accomplishes this by destroying the supply routes of the smugglers. That's when the distribution and logistics challenges and similarities with supply chains of global businesses became apparent.

Businesses strive to maintain deep visibility into their supply chains to guarantee availability and still have the lowest inventory levels possible. The smugglers never promise the exact date but demand sticking to exact procedures when the delivery is made.
They insist on product transfer with no delay under strict quality controls with dangerous consequences for quality mismatch. Quality sampling is conducted at every stage of transfer of materials.
Hmmm - businesses face no such dangers in delays of product transfers but incur costs and losses that ought to be avoided.

Payment terms are very tough by commercial standards - suppliers insist on COD for low volumes and 50% deposit for trusted distributors with the rest upon delivery.


Freight losses or lost-in-transit due to intervention by law enforcement agencies is apparently acceptable at 10-20%. It is unacceptable for regular commerce to have that kind of trans-shipment or distribution losses.

Supply chain managers of pharma and food products face far more regulatory oversight to prevent contamination or dilution of the product. All supply chain managers struggle to contain costs or keep them flat for increasing volumes.
They should make a study of the efficiencies of these smugglers - at least for the insight into what motivates each link in the supply chain to stick to their delivery schedules or provide updates on material movement.

None of these guys know of EDI but they seem to do a better job at moving their stuff. Their information networks are very tightly coupled, with no paper work to track the movement of product, yet very efficient.
Note: This is written in jest and random musings upon reading a new book of fiction.

Free or Paid? HTML 5 or Flash? To Apple or Not?

Over the weekend, I got to test drive the Apple iPad with 64G (wifi and 3G). I did not switch on 3G service yet.
Disclosure: I am a big fan of the Apple design, user friendly design and don't own any stock of Apple.
That said, after the initial oohs and aahs from the family and friends, I tried to put on all my favorite stuff on the tablet. Music - check; Photographs - not check; PDFs - check; personal email accounts - check; personal calendars - check; personal contacts - uncheck; work email - uncheck;
My personal style is to have everything in one place and Apple attempts to make an admirable effort in that direction.
I love reading- so I imagined this would be a great hub. Fat chance.
Amazon with its Kindle app and Apple with its iBooks have are building 'Books' portals for themselves.
The number of books available on iBooks is miniscule compared to the availability on Kindle.
This is where they end. There is competition for them in the form of other readers which have much better Digital Rights Management (DRM) capability. Why is this important?
There are 9000 titles available in eBook format which I can download to any computer that supports the DRM control. With this feature, the local public library allows its membership card holders to reserve, download and read these eBooks for the specified duration. After that, the DRM is 'expired'. So what? Well - it does not work on Kindle , it does not work on iBooks because neither of them support the DRM control.

Whether it is Apple or Kindle (owned by Amazon) who figure this out first - they will get to control a much larger user base because - now - even library books can be downloaded to your [insert your platform].
Apple iPad is going the HTML5 way. Amazon with its first mover advantage and a larger publisher base - still does not have a footprint in this area.
Imagine - the thousands of public libraries - you can download the library book to your device, read it for the duration - renew it or just let the loan period expire. It probably would make more people read more books.

How would the commercial portals - Kindle or iBooks make money? Licensing fee from libraries. Increase in the user base. Advertisements. Preview of new books. Suggestions of new books to read that are not yet on the library book shelves.

For now, I test drove the iPad. My family is driving the iPad because - I am not interested in paying for books every week - when I can get them for free from the library; I can't get multiple calendars to sync to one device; I cant add multiple photo albums to the iPad without tearing my hear out. I got my iPod (second gen) that keeps me humming !!! I will probably Apple but not today. Where is its user friendly interface?
In case you are wondering - I did the obligatory visit to the Apple store - and no use there.

What are your thoughts? Let me know if you have figured out a solution to any of the challenges that I faced. After all, there must be an App for that.

Lets take a different view

We strive to take a different view, ask others to see from our point of view, try to see their point of view, view things through others writings.
I can go on.
I bet very few of us see the Astronaut's view from their mission vehicles. And get a chance to admire the view.
Douglass Wheelock on the International Space Station shares his photo views on Twitter - Astro_Wheels.
See this amazing island in Indian Ocean http://twitpic.com/372xbh

Some of the pictures prompt - what if questions - such as the night view along the river Nile.
I wonder how some of the other countries would look under the night sky - lit up along the paths of major cities and 'civilization'. Each of them dependent upon the darker areas for resources - yet decrying their demands for equal light !!

Can you give me the best practices on (pick your topic)

I get variations on this question nearly every week. Any good consultant can search the net and give you something in a neat package. A good consultant will share what worked recently from her experience. Excellent consultants will ask you more about your specific situation - and tailor his/ her experience, search the data banks for something that is most like your situation. She will also caution on what needs to be done by you and your organization to realize the benefits of that best-in-class practice.

Now can you give me the best practices on "effectively using consultants?" Thats for a later post.

Three economists walk into an Irish bar

It is rare to see comics bringing relief to the gloomy economic news. What better than the Irish jumping into this subject? Read on at this http://tinyurl.com/33vygqt While folks in Ireland are cracking up on the state of their economy, NY Times has come up with an interesting tool to make sense of the US deficit. This can be an interesting tool to teach basic economics to high school kids as well.
We need humor as well as visuals to explain and bring folks closer to complex ideas

Why are you not doing this?

I have been asked by very well meaning friends and business associates this question about my own blog.  There are a lot of blogs - just as voices, that do not say anything that has not been said. Very few make me sit back and think. This is an attempt to write/ comment about my interests that hopefully will join that limited set of blogs that make you think.