Every year end, some go through the blues of new year resolutions. I definitely fall in that category - doing some serious introspection and trying to think of what should be done differently. There are a few items that I have carried forward without any action taken for quite a few years now like learning guitar / music. There have been a few that I did take action on and saw results too like getting fit, weight loss - but I missed the rhythm somewhere along the way. I need to sustain few things on a daily basis without getting bored. Gaining control over mind seems the overarching goal in any of these resolutions.
On other ambitions, there are a few items I should have done differently in retrospect. But the important thing is to keep pushing oneself do new things, get out of comfort zone to get to new learnings and more important than that is to move on.
Time is onething that moves on without any need for anyone to track. 2009 has been a drag, but an interesting one that challenged the status quo and provided a lot of food (or fodder many times) for pensive thoughts. I am glad to see the end of it.
I am sure 2010 will be a milestone year for me in the journey towards excellence that I would strive to achieve in all walks of life. Definitely thats an optimistic note to end 2009 with.
Wish you all a very happy, prosperous, healthy, safe 2010!
Ramesh Sriraman
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Learning from Kids (LFK) Series
Many learning organizations are trying to understand Gen Y behaviour and their needs. Hence there is intense focus on "Learning from Kids". I am just trying to blog my thoughts on this topic (not in the context of business though) based on my observations of my kids and their world.
As part of family time around entertainment, I was showing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmdAF4ihedM Indian remix versions of nursery rhyme "Twinkle Star" song at home. My soon-to-be 3 year old son (Adhithya) immediately shot back almost screaming at the top of his lungs - "Hey, it is MY song"! It was as though others trespassed in an area that belongs to his world.
I don't think any grown up can so emphatically say the same statement with the same passion, ownership claim along with the same innocence. As grown ups, I think we tend to deny ourselves freedom in our thinking on our own account. Environment around us (depending on the company we keep) makes it harder to make one feel successful and might slight or undermine even genuine achievements leading to "Prick the balloon" effect.
I think this is a key attribute (boundaryless enthusiasm based on (un)limited wisdom) we need to learn from our kids.
Will try and grow this LFK series...
As part of family time around entertainment, I was showing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmdAF4ihedM Indian remix versions of nursery rhyme "Twinkle Star" song at home. My soon-to-be 3 year old son (Adhithya) immediately shot back almost screaming at the top of his lungs - "Hey, it is MY song"! It was as though others trespassed in an area that belongs to his world.
I don't think any grown up can so emphatically say the same statement with the same passion, ownership claim along with the same innocence. As grown ups, I think we tend to deny ourselves freedom in our thinking on our own account. Environment around us (depending on the company we keep) makes it harder to make one feel successful and might slight or undermine even genuine achievements leading to "Prick the balloon" effect.
I think this is a key attribute (boundaryless enthusiasm based on (un)limited wisdom) we need to learn from our kids.
Will try and grow this LFK series...
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Being Down to Earth in the Cloudy world
Don't think anyone can ignore the buzz around "Cloud computing" even if they want to be sorta normal (or should I say "new normal") and down to earth.
Similar to "down to earth", some businesses can also stick with the old wisdom of being in "clear blue skies" if they don't want anything do with "clouds". We only need rain bearing clouds at the right time and nothing more than that - definitely not the bits and bytes up there. We don't want all the data centers of the world to be hosted up in the clouds hanging precariously in a virtualized fashion obstructing the view of stars in the dark of the night!
Ok, so what will happen to Johari window! it will get transformed in a big way with all this happening. "Known to self and others" quadrant will expand at the expense of "known to self and unknown to others". With such open and unbridled growth, Your own Shadow will come back to haunt with "Unknown to self and known to others" and "Unknown to both" offering boundaryless possibilities for hackers to throw surprises disrupting equilibrium. There will be delirium all around!
Then people will want to command and control their destiny and collaborate only when needed. Its all cyclical anyway. Retrofit, Learn, unlearn, relearn and start the cycle over.
Similar to "down to earth", some businesses can also stick with the old wisdom of being in "clear blue skies" if they don't want anything do with "clouds". We only need rain bearing clouds at the right time and nothing more than that - definitely not the bits and bytes up there. We don't want all the data centers of the world to be hosted up in the clouds hanging precariously in a virtualized fashion obstructing the view of stars in the dark of the night!
Ok, so what will happen to Johari window! it will get transformed in a big way with all this happening. "Known to self and others" quadrant will expand at the expense of "known to self and unknown to others". With such open and unbridled growth, Your own Shadow will come back to haunt with "Unknown to self and known to others" and "Unknown to both" offering boundaryless possibilities for hackers to throw surprises disrupting equilibrium. There will be delirium all around!
Then people will want to command and control their destiny and collaborate only when needed. Its all cyclical anyway. Retrofit, Learn, unlearn, relearn and start the cycle over.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Beyond a point, there is no point!
If I ever start a company, I would like to keep this as a tagline. This is a good amphiboly and can be interpreted in many ways depending on the mood. Sigh and resign to the fact that enough has been done and nothing more is possible! Or kick into action now as one has waited long enough for things to fall in place! Or get into a Bhagavad Gita mode of everything that happens, happens for good. There can be other interpretations possible too - like mathematically speaking, astronomically speaking, atomically speaking etc... Think I've come to the point in this blog, where I can say: i've put fwd my point and beyond this point, there is no point in continuing further...
Ra
Ra
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Basic instincts!
Noticed a funny thing today morning while walking in the marina.
A seemingly rich man came to the beach with his dog for a walk. Dog found some garbage thrown on the road side interesting and started sniffing. It refused to walk along with the man. The rich man got so offended by its action, he started punishing it for its "bad"behaviour!
However rich the person may be, he has forgotten that a dog will always remain a dog - it doesn't the urge to adapt to the rich lifestyle of its boss. Basic instincts are waytoo powerful to undergo a change!
A seemingly rich man came to the beach with his dog for a walk. Dog found some garbage thrown on the road side interesting and started sniffing. It refused to walk along with the man. The rich man got so offended by its action, he started punishing it for its "bad"behaviour!
However rich the person may be, he has forgotten that a dog will always remain a dog - it doesn't the urge to adapt to the rich lifestyle of its boss. Basic instincts are waytoo powerful to undergo a change!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Onion inspirations!
May be it is due to the time spent daily to cut vegetables at home. Onion grabs special attention due to the special effects it creates. Makes even the tough ones like yours truly shed tears. I am not going into the science of this, but there are few learnings from onion processing!
Let us take the big onions first. I can't think of a better example to understand layered architecture than what onion provides as food for thought. Either you peel one layer after another or cut across to get a cross sectional view, one can witness all the great architectural attributes - each layer on top of underlying ones displaying wrapper pattern, perfect and snug fit with each layer adopting to quirks of underlying layers, bulb like structure that has a central control point at the top. May be there are more similarities and learnings to infer / apply, but I will stop here for brevity and leave the rest to reader's imagination.
Let us move on to small onions now. They are no less though they are smaller in size. But this gives the flexibility to understand mergers and acquisitions concept i.e. 2 (or sometimes even 3) smaller entities are subsumed into a bigger whole with the same wrapper concept in perfect unison and blend. Best part is, the internal entities retain their shape and structure though it is not visible to the external world. What a marvellous example for natural display of many (mostly 2) in a box and for identity management.
Now let us delve on the learnings that can be infered from rotten onions. One may notice that onions have tremendous resilience to contain the rotten mess to only one layer and not let it affect neighbouring layer. Imagine if the same independence can be achieved in systems architecture or in org structure - art of co-existing with other non performing departments in close proximity and still not get influenced by them retaining one's health in the pink.
Another wonderful thing about onion bulb structure is - each layer encompasses other in a full fledged fashion. There is no skip level concept at work here. I've not seen that yet. Yet, each layer is visible till the top. There is hierarchy, yet there are no hierarchical problems like suppressing downstream layers! Every layer unites at the top showcasing equality.
Onions themselves are pungent; but rotten onions really smell like a lot of trouble. They have the ability to attract attention and cry for help to be discarded away. That way they do their self appraisal in the most honest fashion! It is very easy to throw the bottom performing ( 5 to 10% ) ones out. Remaining rotten ones are very good at hiding their inefficiencies and get others to hide it as mentioned above.
In whatever way we look at it, onions are a great source of inspiration for offering guidance to thinking in many domains. In this blog post, I have attempted to scratch the surface on onion's contribution to system architecture, organization structure and performance management. But the possibilities IMO are endless. More later. Have fun till then.
Ha hahahaha
Ra
Let us take the big onions first. I can't think of a better example to understand layered architecture than what onion provides as food for thought. Either you peel one layer after another or cut across to get a cross sectional view, one can witness all the great architectural attributes - each layer on top of underlying ones displaying wrapper pattern, perfect and snug fit with each layer adopting to quirks of underlying layers, bulb like structure that has a central control point at the top. May be there are more similarities and learnings to infer / apply, but I will stop here for brevity and leave the rest to reader's imagination.
Let us move on to small onions now. They are no less though they are smaller in size. But this gives the flexibility to understand mergers and acquisitions concept i.e. 2 (or sometimes even 3) smaller entities are subsumed into a bigger whole with the same wrapper concept in perfect unison and blend. Best part is, the internal entities retain their shape and structure though it is not visible to the external world. What a marvellous example for natural display of many (mostly 2) in a box and for identity management.
Now let us delve on the learnings that can be infered from rotten onions. One may notice that onions have tremendous resilience to contain the rotten mess to only one layer and not let it affect neighbouring layer. Imagine if the same independence can be achieved in systems architecture or in org structure - art of co-existing with other non performing departments in close proximity and still not get influenced by them retaining one's health in the pink.
Another wonderful thing about onion bulb structure is - each layer encompasses other in a full fledged fashion. There is no skip level concept at work here. I've not seen that yet. Yet, each layer is visible till the top. There is hierarchy, yet there are no hierarchical problems like suppressing downstream layers! Every layer unites at the top showcasing equality.
Onions themselves are pungent; but rotten onions really smell like a lot of trouble. They have the ability to attract attention and cry for help to be discarded away. That way they do their self appraisal in the most honest fashion! It is very easy to throw the bottom performing ( 5 to 10% ) ones out. Remaining rotten ones are very good at hiding their inefficiencies and get others to hide it as mentioned above.
In whatever way we look at it, onions are a great source of inspiration for offering guidance to thinking in many domains. In this blog post, I have attempted to scratch the surface on onion's contribution to system architecture, organization structure and performance management. But the possibilities IMO are endless. More later. Have fun till then.
Ha hahahaha
Ra
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Wrong peg in the Wrong hole!
Firstly, think one should figure out what is wrong - the peg or the hole! Chances of both being wrong can only be exciting as a blog title and nowhere else!
Still, if one thinks a given environment is not the right fit for his/her personality type (many a times this may be the case), i.e. peg is right but the hole is wrong - that is a big problem and it needs to be solved quickly.
Here are some approaches:
- at any cost, don't get aggressive; take it out on yourself (if you can at the gym!)
- create / engage with another place where you can feel truly ecstatic and loved (don't think bar or clubs or in any other self indulgent fashion here!)
- become completely submissive to something else (may be to The Almighty!);
- create opportunities to do something new and exciting
- find the right hole or become the right peg for the best among chosen holes.
Anything else you can think of? Post a reply and keep this happening.
Ra
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Just like that...
Many know that illustrative example / analogy is a sure shot way of teach a new concept. Story telling also works on the same philosophy. People having exposure to different fields tend to observe an analogy or a pattern across them. Expression commonly used is: "do you know how x applies, very close to that here is y - only difference being...":.
My practice school project (4th year in engineering) in CAD Division, NIC Delhi was one of that kind: marrying Genetic Algorithm concepts (of survival of the fittest, mutation, reproduction) to Optimization that results in quicker convergence to the problem.
Similarly today's claims to modern management germinate from applying home concepts (of care, nurturing, empathy, bonding and fun) to work place. Likewise, if one may reap some benefits by putting work place concepts like goal setting, division of responsibilities, operational excellence, leverage at home.
If one has researched and understood one field in depth, it is enough to easily digest other similar ones. If you've seen one, you've seen it all - applies to a great extent in many places. I think this is the reason why native language expressiveness and thinking prowess makes such a big impact on individuals in terms of expansiveness of thought and action.
This kind of cross domain concept application can be used as a strategy as well for problem solving. One takes their transferable skills and previous experiences to tackle new problems. Management skill is one such - 'project management', 'people/team management', 'operations management', 'financial management', 'business management' - multiple faces of a general manager. Once you become a true general manager (a bit of everything - breadth, and master of nothing as one can hire consultants for the depth), it doesn't really matter what is the domain underneath.
It looks like: instead of diversifying to become master of all trades, if one focuses on one thing and soaks in it from all dimensions, guess it would result in much better pay-offs in the end. This applies to learning new skills as well in be it art or languages or social. But to get there, one has to have had tremendous focus and unparalleled synthesis in previous avatars of career to root oneself as an effective 'general' manager!
Learn to say "Just like that" and that is the secret for success.
Ra
My practice school project (4th year in engineering) in CAD Division, NIC Delhi was one of that kind: marrying Genetic Algorithm concepts (of survival of the fittest, mutation, reproduction) to Optimization that results in quicker convergence to the problem.
Similarly today's claims to modern management germinate from applying home concepts (of care, nurturing, empathy, bonding and fun) to work place. Likewise, if one may reap some benefits by putting work place concepts like goal setting, division of responsibilities, operational excellence, leverage at home.
If one has researched and understood one field in depth, it is enough to easily digest other similar ones. If you've seen one, you've seen it all - applies to a great extent in many places. I think this is the reason why native language expressiveness and thinking prowess makes such a big impact on individuals in terms of expansiveness of thought and action.
This kind of cross domain concept application can be used as a strategy as well for problem solving. One takes their transferable skills and previous experiences to tackle new problems. Management skill is one such - 'project management', 'people/team management', 'operations management', 'financial management', 'business management' - multiple faces of a general manager. Once you become a true general manager (a bit of everything - breadth, and master of nothing as one can hire consultants for the depth), it doesn't really matter what is the domain underneath.
It looks like: instead of diversifying to become master of all trades, if one focuses on one thing and soaks in it from all dimensions, guess it would result in much better pay-offs in the end. This applies to learning new skills as well in be it art or languages or social. But to get there, one has to have had tremendous focus and unparalleled synthesis in previous avatars of career to root oneself as an effective 'general' manager!
Learn to say "Just like that" and that is the secret for success.
Ra
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Dreaming my dream!
In a spot contest checking on how many mobile numbers one remembers, I will get stuck with just one number - that is my own. It is a little embarrassing to figure that I don't even remember near and dear ones telephone numbers nowadays. While on travel, I just can't get myself tomemorize hotel telephone number or my desk number at work. Predominant operating rule is - if you know how to get it, that's enough. Why waste precious (?!) mind space to store such temporary data? Adopt Gajini style.
After years of softening of the grey cells, imagine if one has to go through an examination that has memory recall based evaluation technique. Of course, I did step in to such courage zone activity of going back to school and successfully completed my MS in Management Systems (BITS Pilani + SPIC collaboration) after clocking 8 years ofwork experience. Now sitting on top of 14.5 years of experience, even if its open book style of evaluation, I wouldn't fancy my chances of finishing a paper on time leave alone talking about getting a respectable score / grade!
Though may be a bit extreme, I seriously think growing kids should not be exposed to the new age way of living out of search engines feed. Else it will lead to shallow learning / research. Such "take it easy"approach will not facilitate "connecting the dots" to see a bigger picture / macro form / synthesis.
Whatever be the domain - technical or soft skill or spiritual, I sincerely think the approach to learning is important. Choices are absorb or digest or assimilate; gain chitchat or information or knowledge or wisdom. As kind and varietyof information one receives explodes, everyone needs to evolve a synthesis based content leadership skill if you will. Absorbing everything like a black hole without connecting it to overall life experiences or proven learnings will just result in overflow and waste one's time and energy.
As you would have figured out by now, I do take few things really seriously (for a change!). I am a big fan of structured thinking, systems and frameworks. Humble submission is in order - I am not living it yet; but definitely this occupies a great deal of my mind share.
My dream is to innovate a beauty, timeless classic and create history. Anything short of that, it is not worth indulging in and a waste of time.
After years of softening of the grey cells, imagine if one has to go through an examination that has memory recall based evaluation technique. Of course, I did step in to such courage zone activity of going back to school and successfully completed my MS in Management Systems (BITS Pilani + SPIC collaboration) after clocking 8 years ofwork experience. Now sitting on top of 14.5 years of experience, even if its open book style of evaluation, I wouldn't fancy my chances of finishing a paper on time leave alone talking about getting a respectable score / grade!
Though may be a bit extreme, I seriously think growing kids should not be exposed to the new age way of living out of search engines feed. Else it will lead to shallow learning / research. Such "take it easy"approach will not facilitate "connecting the dots" to see a bigger picture / macro form / synthesis.
Whatever be the domain - technical or soft skill or spiritual, I sincerely think the approach to learning is important. Choices are absorb or digest or assimilate; gain chitchat or information or knowledge or wisdom. As kind and varietyof information one receives explodes, everyone needs to evolve a synthesis based content leadership skill if you will. Absorbing everything like a black hole without connecting it to overall life experiences or proven learnings will just result in overflow and waste one's time and energy.
As you would have figured out by now, I do take few things really seriously (for a change!). I am a big fan of structured thinking, systems and frameworks. Humble submission is in order - I am not living it yet; but definitely this occupies a great deal of my mind share.
My dream is to innovate a beauty, timeless classic and create history. Anything short of that, it is not worth indulging in and a waste of time.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
I Talk
Ever seen a person who seems to be blissfully unaware of "modesty" as a trait and indulges in a lot of "I" talk? It is ok to tolerate if someone else is all song and praise for an individual assuming it is all merit based and at right level. But for an individual to go on a trip of his/her own achievements, I think it takes a little extra conditioning - may be due to person is in high spirits or constant reinforcing of greater than others kind of feeling or in top down communication or lack of competition or plain old senility.How do you deal with this kind of imposing behaviour? Cotton plugs to ears. Let me know if you have other innovative approaches.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Plug 'n Play AND Eject on time to Play it Free!
Imagine the power of all the restraining forces - be it constraints, bonds, beliefs, responsibilities, moral duty, society pressure, comparison cripple, your own past decisions, consistency in our day to day decision making!
Depending on who we are and the journey taken so far, we have implicitly or unknowingly slowed down the speed of our action train. Thought train may race miles ahead creating a divide between wannabe plane and what-u-can-be plane!
Many people think and get excited by just being aware of wannabe plane itself makes them young mentally despite their biological age. But true to their self, they may feel like a martyr.
Imagine decision making power without having these. This limitless freedom can only be obtained by doing limited enjoyment of the present assets, limited leverage of current relationships! Be limited to be limitless! A kind of disassociated association.
If only we can tune our mind to do such "plug and play and eject", it will give us a lot of power to experiment new paths and our reach will be limitless. We can play the game free from any clutches.
If this sounds too quixotic, least that we can do is to revisit all the "I cannot do this because..." statements and be aware of the gap between the 2 be-planes!
Depending on who we are and the journey taken so far, we have implicitly or unknowingly slowed down the speed of our action train. Thought train may race miles ahead creating a divide between wannabe plane and what-u-can-be plane!
Many people think and get excited by just being aware of wannabe plane itself makes them young mentally despite their biological age. But true to their self, they may feel like a martyr.
Imagine decision making power without having these. This limitless freedom can only be obtained by doing limited enjoyment of the present assets, limited leverage of current relationships! Be limited to be limitless! A kind of disassociated association.
If only we can tune our mind to do such "plug and play and eject", it will give us a lot of power to experiment new paths and our reach will be limitless. We can play the game free from any clutches.
If this sounds too quixotic, least that we can do is to revisit all the "I cannot do this because..." statements and be aware of the gap between the 2 be-planes!
Take it Easy - Dil pe math le!
Everyone I guess goes through this transformation in AI management at some point from being totally not organized to some form of organized way. I am here to share my journey on this.
Initially I used to be proud of myself of not having to write anything down because I thought I never postpone anything actionable. If something was there to be done, it will be done then and there, here and now - kind of world. This is the best situation to be in and may be the challenge level of tasks I attempted to own and do were within my capacity to promote that mental make up. I even used to brag about this to others that how can you not reply to something soon after reading it; or keep a backlog of unread mails. That's preposterous proposition then.
From here, as you shift from being an individual doer to a managerial role and/or when you expand your interest to many other things and/or when you enlarge your social circle and/or offlate become active in the new buzz of social networking, you tend to be inundated with too much of traffic than you can manage. It becomes too much of a pain to cull out AIs, manage your must-read or catch-up list and things accrue just like the stuff you keep.
At times, to do away with the guilt feeling I do some Bulk shift delete action on all the subscription based mailers. So much for keeping one updated with latest technology trends, industry happenings, favourite open source projects etc...
On AI management, I have observed something wierd. Obviously there are going to be various islands of priority with which your AIs will evolve. Besides work, my other buckets are - financial, personal, family, leisure, read-list, household, automobile and various sub-categories under these.
Doing this creates an awareness first and then a kind of weariness of looking at ageing AIs. But recently I had an experience of few really long pending AIs being knocked off just like that without much of effort from my end. Suddenly it looks like nature has decided that the time has come for one to help Ramesh Sriraman to be out of that AI/trouble. A helping hand shows up and eases the situation.
I really don't know how to explain this - power of sub-conscious mind or one just needs to talk about the problem and it will be solved or every dog has its day or something else... My learning out of this is to take it easy; a time will come for everything to be cleared. Dil pe math le, yaar.
Initially I used to be proud of myself of not having to write anything down because I thought I never postpone anything actionable. If something was there to be done, it will be done then and there, here and now - kind of world. This is the best situation to be in and may be the challenge level of tasks I attempted to own and do were within my capacity to promote that mental make up. I even used to brag about this to others that how can you not reply to something soon after reading it; or keep a backlog of unread mails. That's preposterous proposition then.
From here, as you shift from being an individual doer to a managerial role and/or when you expand your interest to many other things and/or when you enlarge your social circle and/or offlate become active in the new buzz of social networking, you tend to be inundated with too much of traffic than you can manage. It becomes too much of a pain to cull out AIs, manage your must-read or catch-up list and things accrue just like the stuff you keep.
At times, to do away with the guilt feeling I do some Bulk shift delete action on all the subscription based mailers. So much for keeping one updated with latest technology trends, industry happenings, favourite open source projects etc...
On AI management, I have observed something wierd. Obviously there are going to be various islands of priority with which your AIs will evolve. Besides work, my other buckets are - financial, personal, family, leisure, read-list, household, automobile and various sub-categories under these.
Doing this creates an awareness first and then a kind of weariness of looking at ageing AIs. But recently I had an experience of few really long pending AIs being knocked off just like that without much of effort from my end. Suddenly it looks like nature has decided that the time has come for one to help Ramesh Sriraman to be out of that AI/trouble. A helping hand shows up and eases the situation.
I really don't know how to explain this - power of sub-conscious mind or one just needs to talk about the problem and it will be solved or every dog has its day or something else... My learning out of this is to take it easy; a time will come for everything to be cleared. Dil pe math le, yaar.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Too much too soon!
Whatever is the reason - may be I look too young for my age! or I may not have the mature looks for others to relate to my claim of achievements or I have garnered experiences, learnt lessons ahead of time - I have had this feeling of 'too much too soon' on a handful of occasions.
If one looks at ideal time and age to do a certain thing, there is cost to pay for faltering on both sides. If you fail to achieve on time, there is a lot of worry and frustration depending on the comparison group, soceital pressures, your own outlook towards things and the entire mix. On the other hand, if you achieve things earlier than the usual time, its not all good and great cheer either.
Looking at this differently, there are well understood hierarchies giving natural stepping stones for every goal - be it for learning, for capability enhancement, for personal career growth, for organizational growth, for wealth creation, for family development, for self realization. One has to go through those stages in a complete fashion and take utmost care not to jump the hierarchy.
Doing a brownian movement hopping here and there across the hierarchy can lead to swiss cheese holes and will show up poorly on some evaluation account - if not externally, definitely when one does introspection.
There are many man made maturity models that define the hierarchies and then there are natural evolution that exist out there. In natural hierarchies, there is a vast scope for maturity within each of those stages and they may not grow to next level at all for a lifetime making it nearly impossible for this too much too soon syndrome to happen. One must learn to crawl, then to walk and to run kind of thing.
Either the man made hierarchy needs redefinition or one's own preparedness before attempting to achieve next level success has to be clearly understood to derive maximum satisfaction out of the journey.
If one looks at ideal time and age to do a certain thing, there is cost to pay for faltering on both sides. If you fail to achieve on time, there is a lot of worry and frustration depending on the comparison group, soceital pressures, your own outlook towards things and the entire mix. On the other hand, if you achieve things earlier than the usual time, its not all good and great cheer either.
Looking at this differently, there are well understood hierarchies giving natural stepping stones for every goal - be it for learning, for capability enhancement, for personal career growth, for organizational growth, for wealth creation, for family development, for self realization. One has to go through those stages in a complete fashion and take utmost care not to jump the hierarchy.
Doing a brownian movement hopping here and there across the hierarchy can lead to swiss cheese holes and will show up poorly on some evaluation account - if not externally, definitely when one does introspection.
There are many man made maturity models that define the hierarchies and then there are natural evolution that exist out there. In natural hierarchies, there is a vast scope for maturity within each of those stages and they may not grow to next level at all for a lifetime making it nearly impossible for this too much too soon syndrome to happen. One must learn to crawl, then to walk and to run kind of thing.
Either the man made hierarchy needs redefinition or one's own preparedness before attempting to achieve next level success has to be clearly understood to derive maximum satisfaction out of the journey.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Ignorance is bliss!
Don't know how often people encounter this experience, but I've gone through this a handful of times. With a lot of enthusiasm and vigour, I will start chasing a new idea or concept thinking that I am the one who has thought of it. But after spending some time and by talking to others about your idea, you realize that there have been others who have attempted a similar approach or a variant of that idea that is significantly close to my idea or they are chasing the same end goal as I want.
Current culture of starting with search, posting in a forum or high response alias to get quick answers or atleast a jump start definitely goes a long way to avoid this problem. Still one has to get lucky to get the right answers or atleast right pointers.
Much of one's worries can be simply wiped off by checking doing a quick poll of what others are going through or by observing solutions adopted for similar problems. In these days of public discussion, data and human reach, the worst thing is to assume that you are the only one having that problem. Still there are many people who suffer from "me and my unique problems bog me down" syndrome.
Another point of view to look at this ignorance is that it gives a chance for something new - a new dimension or a new combination or a new insight or a better understanding - to be born.
"Ignorance is bliss" is indeed true provided one stays abreast with rest of the crowd; but total ignorance can be too costly and painful.
Ra
Current culture of starting with search, posting in a forum or high response alias to get quick answers or atleast a jump start definitely goes a long way to avoid this problem. Still one has to get lucky to get the right answers or atleast right pointers.
Much of one's worries can be simply wiped off by checking doing a quick poll of what others are going through or by observing solutions adopted for similar problems. In these days of public discussion, data and human reach, the worst thing is to assume that you are the only one having that problem. Still there are many people who suffer from "me and my unique problems bog me down" syndrome.
Another point of view to look at this ignorance is that it gives a chance for something new - a new dimension or a new combination or a new insight or a better understanding - to be born.
"Ignorance is bliss" is indeed true provided one stays abreast with rest of the crowd; but total ignorance can be too costly and painful.
Ra
Friday, May 8, 2009
Teacher's mindset, aka CLO?
I am sure we all have our glad and sad memories of experiences with teachers. But in this post, I would like to talk about a certain"teacher's mindset" that may be prevalent in a few people outside teacher community as well and there may be many exceptions within teaching community as well.
Teacher's mindset that I am alluding to here is - a firm belief thattheir subjects (or students or victims) do or say or act or basicallylive their life courtesy their instructions. Imagine this in a limitless fashion amounting to pervasive intrusion + control that kind of chokes till the victim just suffocates. You can instantly recognize these people, if they have a high need to verbalize instructions even after they notice the victim does a certain thing autonomously so that they get satisfaction that the work is done because of their instruction(s) only.
I encounter this daily with my mother and felt like a victim many a times. But after being cooked through this furnace for quite sometime, I have started cherishing these experiences once I understood the psychology behind it. But believe me at times it can get to your bones, she is the inspiration for this blog!
When the onslaught happens, take a couple of deep breaths - that helps. Many parents - especially mothers - make this mistake too: unnecessarily dole out same instructions daily even when they know their kids are aware of it and will handle things themselves. Sometimes this external stimuli /moral policing does help on forgetful or preoccupied days. But not on a daily basis.
I've seen this behaviour / mindset at play in workplace too. When "convenient", certain team leader will paraphrase what his / her team member said in a meeting to make it look correct or to register as a fact that the input came out of the conditioning, grooming, instruction from Him / Her. "Everything that is said, done out here is because of me!"kind of mindset. Another dimension to this is - there is nothing newthat will come out of the team unless it is from me. Thinking positively, these kind of folks can aim to become of Chief Learning Officers of an organization. Well, that kind of steep ownership is good. Some may clothe this monstrosity in the name of passion as well. But it would really be credible when such steep ownership is reflected to own failures (will you claim responsibility if your student has become a thief, corrupt or immoral?). If you do, well and good. I salute you.
When dealing with such persons, knowing what's at play - the genetic need behind it - is half the battle to tackle them. But only humble consideration I would like those Chief LearningOfficers to have is: while displaying such wild passion, please shower some compassion on your victims (aka students) as well! They can and in fact they do exist and can live on their own mind and mind their ownbusiness as well. No one took the credit away from you anyway, so thereis no need to act out of insecurity day in, day out.
Ra
Teacher's mindset that I am alluding to here is - a firm belief thattheir subjects (or students or victims) do or say or act or basicallylive their life courtesy their instructions. Imagine this in a limitless fashion amounting to pervasive intrusion + control that kind of chokes till the victim just suffocates. You can instantly recognize these people, if they have a high need to verbalize instructions even after they notice the victim does a certain thing autonomously so that they get satisfaction that the work is done because of their instruction(s) only.
I encounter this daily with my mother and felt like a victim many a times. But after being cooked through this furnace for quite sometime, I have started cherishing these experiences once I understood the psychology behind it. But believe me at times it can get to your bones, she is the inspiration for this blog!
When the onslaught happens, take a couple of deep breaths - that helps. Many parents - especially mothers - make this mistake too: unnecessarily dole out same instructions daily even when they know their kids are aware of it and will handle things themselves. Sometimes this external stimuli /moral policing does help on forgetful or preoccupied days. But not on a daily basis.
I've seen this behaviour / mindset at play in workplace too. When "convenient", certain team leader will paraphrase what his / her team member said in a meeting to make it look correct or to register as a fact that the input came out of the conditioning, grooming, instruction from Him / Her. "Everything that is said, done out here is because of me!"kind of mindset. Another dimension to this is - there is nothing newthat will come out of the team unless it is from me. Thinking positively, these kind of folks can aim to become of Chief Learning Officers of an organization. Well, that kind of steep ownership is good. Some may clothe this monstrosity in the name of passion as well. But it would really be credible when such steep ownership is reflected to own failures (will you claim responsibility if your student has become a thief, corrupt or immoral?). If you do, well and good. I salute you.
When dealing with such persons, knowing what's at play - the genetic need behind it - is half the battle to tackle them. But only humble consideration I would like those Chief LearningOfficers to have is: while displaying such wild passion, please shower some compassion on your victims (aka students) as well! They can and in fact they do exist and can live on their own mind and mind their ownbusiness as well. No one took the credit away from you anyway, so thereis no need to act out of insecurity day in, day out.
Ra
MBx
I see that there have been many documented paradigms on this much talked about topic - Management By X, Y Z in the recent past. For example, management by Objectives (MBO) versus Management by Means (MBM), Management by Command and Control versus Management by Collaboration, Management by Situation versus Management by Absolute, True North versus True South, Western versus Oriental, Prevention versus avoidance, Proactive versus reactive, Intent versus Content, Strategic versus Tactical, quadrants versus continuum and the story can go on forever. Just depends on how much one has read and digested.
Another dimension that provokes intense debate is (I may be denting my carrer prospects by saying this, anyway here goes) Management or Leadership! For a hard core bigot, may be these terms may look loaded assuming extra significance. But this post is written in a light hearted fashion with the mindset that after all these are all word play. Com'on - why bind ourselves to expression using a language that has its own boundaries how much ever expansive it may be in its form and reach. So one part of me asserts that one can equally replace the word Management with Leadership and there will be no harm done. What is amusing to notice is that for each certain way of management principle, there is a contrasting style postulated.
In the spirit of innovation, I would also like to add a style viz. Management By Being. Basic idea is to let each entity display its own individual characteristic and evolve in its own fashion. This can also be called Bindaas style. Oh, is this already covered by Management by Chaos? Well, important lesson for all the management gurus who have an impulse to postulate new theories is to research on what is already documented and practised. This in itself will consume life time energies, I think.
Allow me to end my circastic note here. Remain happy with the observation we all hava huge set of M or L style repertoire to choose from. I would compare this with fashion - changes too often and cyclical (classic, retro, modern, genX, ). Damn those adjectives. :-)
Another dimension that provokes intense debate is (I may be denting my carrer prospects by saying this, anyway here goes) Management or Leadership! For a hard core bigot, may be these terms may look loaded assuming extra significance. But this post is written in a light hearted fashion with the mindset that after all these are all word play. Com'on - why bind ourselves to expression using a language that has its own boundaries how much ever expansive it may be in its form and reach. So one part of me asserts that one can equally replace the word Management with Leadership and there will be no harm done. What is amusing to notice is that for each certain way of management principle, there is a contrasting style postulated.
In the spirit of innovation, I would also like to add a style viz. Management By Being. Basic idea is to let each entity display its own individual characteristic and evolve in its own fashion. This can also be called Bindaas style. Oh, is this already covered by Management by Chaos? Well, important lesson for all the management gurus who have an impulse to postulate new theories is to research on what is already documented and practised. This in itself will consume life time energies, I think.
Allow me to end my circastic note here. Remain happy with the observation we all hava huge set of M or L style repertoire to choose from. I would compare this with fashion - changes too often and cyclical (classic, retro, modern, genX, ). Damn those adjectives. :-)
Products vs Services
A random thought occured to me to explain this better via a simple, easy to relate analogy. Being in the product business is like trying to invent a new grain or spice like rice, wheat, corn, pepper etc... Being in the services business is like preparing the food out of this... There are so many cuisines around the world that are permutations, combinations of these basic ingredients creating so many flavours to suit climate, taste buds of people around the world. I will try and explode this analogy into deeper meanings and introspection later.
Ra
Ra
Oh, that romantic scratch in my car...
While in the car driving, when I am waiting for the light or in a heavy traffic jam, I am usually busy flipping through FM radio channels or listen to my fav music or make calls. But today morning there was an attention grabbing incident outside. No, not the street propaganda or door to door vote hunt for elections. It was a romantic bike chase.
The girl on her Scooty whizzed past on the right (managing to squeeze through opposite side traffic). The boy got onto the left side of my car and got stuck because of vehicles before him. She gave him that smile with "Hey, I am here ahead; you are behind, what a lazy boy are you?" kind of look. I see that the boy is going through a sea of emotions - joy from the fact that she is interested in him; excited because she is teasing him; perplexed because his eyes are not that adept enough to communicate and he doesn't want to use his mouth to shout above the traffic din attracting others' attention; frustrated because he is surrounded by vehicles and he is stuck. He lowered his neck and peeped into my car to have a brief look at the insensitive fellow Martian (that's yours truly) who is blocking his progress to the Venusian his heart is so fond of!
After 10 loooong seconds of such intense battle, the traffic cleared and he managed to catch up with this sweetheart, but in doing that he managed to leave behind a mark in my car! Yeah, every emotion leaves behind a scar, but if people mind on whose expense / wall the scar is made it would be of mighty help.
Indeed, 'twas good to watch live drama with flurry of emotions in such a flash free while waiting for traffic to clear up. But I am old enuf to know that nothing comes free in this world; so the scar is the price I've to pay I guess. I wish that bloke and his angel all well in their journey of emotions with the hope that they go through it together throughout!
The girl on her Scooty whizzed past on the right (managing to squeeze through opposite side traffic). The boy got onto the left side of my car and got stuck because of vehicles before him. She gave him that smile with "Hey, I am here ahead; you are behind, what a lazy boy are you?" kind of look. I see that the boy is going through a sea of emotions - joy from the fact that she is interested in him; excited because she is teasing him; perplexed because his eyes are not that adept enough to communicate and he doesn't want to use his mouth to shout above the traffic din attracting others' attention; frustrated because he is surrounded by vehicles and he is stuck. He lowered his neck and peeped into my car to have a brief look at the insensitive fellow Martian (that's yours truly) who is blocking his progress to the Venusian his heart is so fond of!
After 10 loooong seconds of such intense battle, the traffic cleared and he managed to catch up with this sweetheart, but in doing that he managed to leave behind a mark in my car! Yeah, every emotion leaves behind a scar, but if people mind on whose expense / wall the scar is made it would be of mighty help.
Indeed, 'twas good to watch live drama with flurry of emotions in such a flash free while waiting for traffic to clear up. But I am old enuf to know that nothing comes free in this world; so the scar is the price I've to pay I guess. I wish that bloke and his angel all well in their journey of emotions with the hope that they go through it together throughout!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
In Mid April, I went through twin grind of shifting both my residence and office location from a spacious one to less roomy (exactly 1/3rd) one. Iam writing this to share my thoughts and learnings out of thisaccidentally coincidental moves.
I always thought it is my Mom (or dad when he was alive) or in general the elder generation that has the tendency not to discard, instead tend to keep stuff even if it is in the attic. It was a revelation to us (I and Sowmya) when we figuredout that we had the same genes in us too when we indulged in this move exercise. How else could we explain the vast pile of clothes, toys, books and gadgets that we had kept buying without bothering to do any kind of sanity check!
Many justify their need to keep stuff as it serves as memorabilia. In fact, I was quite amazed when my wife and Amma recollected on what occasion we bought the item in question, memories associated around that in an accurate fashion - this going back to 10/20/30/40/50 years in the past! I could never imagine doing the same without help (like a useful comment or tag in a photo)! Sure the weaker sex has loads of memory power.
My learnings out of this are:
- Tis' worthwhile to shift once every 4/5 years, though very energy sapping and tiring. Helps take an inventory of things and do some retrospective thinking on what we really need.
- Buy / keep only what you need and discard the rest. Till the body aches from shifting remain, you will have heightened need to throw "stuff". But your faithful "hoarding"gene will come back right on! So beware. Always remember to keep it lean and fit (be it your body or stuff you keep)!
- Keep a chronological digital library in a family web site for memorabilia needs.
- Develop a passion and practice disassociated association with material things! Don't grow too fond on anything lest it will grow on you in a cancerous fashion - too much than what you desire or can afford!
- Remember that keeping or using more than you need is equivalent to robbery or cheating! Of course, this is conservative or Gandhian thinkingand contra to neo-"contribute to economy with your buying power display"!
Ramesh
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Excellence in Interpersonal Communication
Though there is a lot of gyan around this: accept others as what they are, don't have any expectations, never get angry, always do good to others as you would expect them to do to you, move on - forgive and forget, no vengeance, hold no regrets, what's happened has happened for good, dont speak words that will come back to haunt you later, control your temper, be in good health and shape, spread the goodness and happiness all around you, smile makes life beautiful, take all the feedback in the positive spirit, do meditation, cleanse yourself, reprogram your mind body and soul to divine bliss! - entire philosophy makes a lot of sense and moves one to a dream world. Just to be brought back by a human disturbing your divine thought process and remind you that you are just simply human! Be human as to err is human and to forgive is divine. Don't know what's divine all about, but that's something unhuman definitely. Allow me to err and end this blog post by saying that one should expect me to blow cold, blow hot and act human! Till a next random thought hits my mind and I feel a certain need to blog about that thing, let me remain in peace.
Ramesh
Ramesh
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Keep it simple and short!
This being my first blog in public, I would like to keep this really simple and short. In this fast paced world, key differentiation for any personal communication will be succinctness. Giving one's time to others will become the biggest virtue. To make each moment count and valuable, each one has to judiciously choose and use as minimal words to convey the intent and content with brevity. I am acutely aware that this in many ways is an antagonistic thought to all the new age Web 2.0 tools including blogging itself. 'Everyone can publish' as a freedom needs to be exercised with caution so that others are not forced to read some nuisance. Oh, I need to keep this one short too... so lastly, let me take this oath to stop the urge to express myself in so many words! I will spare a thought for others' time and end it here. Always follow the KISS strategy - Keep it short and simple!
Lovingly yours, Ra
Lovingly yours, Ra
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