MBA - Applied Common Sense.

Financial Incentives - Do they really work?

2012-01-23T12:54:00.000+05:30

In a world driven by money, it is but obvious to think that financial incentives will get the job done. However, I see a basic flaw there. We are technically bribing people to do their job for which they are paid anyway!! A performer is basically a person who has an internal locus on control and is not affected by external disturbances.

When a person loses the locus of control, they end up blaming everything and everybody for all actions. There starts the vicious circle of failure - mistakes follow each other in the view of fixing each other, which in reality is on the contrary.

I was rather amazed seeing how the rats respond to traps with cheese. When the cheese is marginally old, the rats are attracted to the cheese. However, when the cheese is new or very old, the rat does not seem to enjoy it. Similar is the case with financial Incentive - when the incentive is too high or too low, it seems to have negative impact on people.

A though to ponder on perhaps!!

Why Generation C was happy and Gen Y is confused!!

2012-01-08T16:53:00.000+05:30

Imagine a system which gets million of terabytes of data and that keeps increasing over a period of time exponentially - the system is bound to fail eventually. Such is the case of humans in the current times. The centuries of civilization has led to set patterns of customs and traditions which are merely data patterns.

These data patterns are implied on the new borns and then they end up putting these data patterns inside their head and thus their lives are based on these patterns.

Now, let us look at a new perspective: The religions and customs that are practiced, just give a way to realize satisfaction.

Remember the last time you went to a restaurant and ordered something on the menu and had it... then you hated it so much that it never came back to your menu ever again? Thats what brain does - record 'dis-satisfactions' and ensure that the dis-satisfactions are reduced to enhance the pleasure experience.

The generation C (Caveman) was rather oblivious to all this and thus was very happy. Can we imagine a caveman with all the work related stress, a million dollar job, frequent cribs of people around him to be satisfied, looking good just to satisfy on-lookers? Certainly not!!

All these have become a part and parcel of Gen Y that we belong to. It is merely an information overload that is causing this and the never-ending confusion that most of us go through.

So, if you are confused in life, just remember that: 'The solution lies outside all set patterns and practices'. Keep your mind empty and void of all things you have learnt till date so that there is no information overload which might cause a breakdown.

In Search of Inner Peace

2011-11-19T21:19:00.001+05:30

We as humans do a lot of things to make ourselves happy - temporarily. What we do not do anything to fix the problem at a root level usually. It is human to be that way and something that doesn't require too much of an effort to fix either.

During my MBA they taught me the 5W1H approach to find solutions to problems: Why, What, Where, When, Who and How. Which the 5W will help you reach the root cause of the problem, the 1H will help you solve the issue at a grass-root level. The catch is to ask the right question.

Usually, there are no problems in life. It is our own mind playing dirty tricks on us. It makes us feel miserable for what we have done and gives us a 'grass is greener on the other side' feel bringing the perspective of 'damn! I should have done it in that way'. The mind makes you think that you are a loser even though you might be a potential Alexander.

The problem can be dated way back to cave-man times. When the cave-man did not have TV to entertain themselves or gadgets to communicate, they used their mind to simulate things which would help them in the hunt (for food or the other sex). Sometimes, the simulation would go bad and they would get hurt. This part of the brain was not used by humans after we invented all the gadgets and thus made the usage of brain obsolete and thus this became a part of our sub-conscience which keeps coming back to haunt us.

The solution to this is to realise that we are not cave-men anymore. We need to tell our brain to throw the gibberish out and think logically based on data and patterns. I know it must sound crazy but the brain does take orders rather than just giving it.

Next time you feel that you are worthless and are good for nothing, tell your brain that You are the best person in the world who Insurance companies didn't wanna insure because they didn't have enough money!

If you play reverse psychology on your brain's reverse psychology on you, you will see a lot of happiness in your life.

Remember that once we attain a form where the brain doesn't control us, but we control the brain, we become masters of our destiny and commander of our forces

Secrets of Success

2011-11-14T18:42:00.000+05:30

Everybody wants to know the Secrets of Success. In this post, I have tried to unravel some of the secrets of Success which can be applied irrespective of any profession they are in:

1. Be Genuinely Interested in People: Being interested in people genuinely without any hidden motives is most important for a person to be successful.People around you trust you more that way and then you have access to more resources than people who are otherwise.

2. Be Patient: 'Impatience is the new life' might be good as a tagline in ads. Remember the last time you met an impatient person and how you reacted to her/him.

3. Be True to Yourself: When the sun sets and there is nobody else but you, you would have to answer yourself a simple question: 'Am I doing the right thing?'

4. Be Like Water: Water can take any form or shape. It can be as soft a snow flakes or as powerful as tsunami. Water does not stop due to hindrances - it makes alternate path to move forward. Water is calming at the same time immensely powerful.

5. Make Yourself Happy: Answer this: 'When was the last time you did something for yourself?'. If you are trying to recollect, its time you went out and did something for yourself. A person who is not happy within cannot be a performer outside.

Just remember that everything we do in life is to attain Inner Peace. Some get it by freaking out while some get it in solitude. Some people eat to make themselves happy while other sleep. Everybody has their own happiness trigger points. When you discover what they are, that is the day you have truly discovered yourself.

How to get the message across: Clearly

2011-03-16T13:00:00.000+05:30

Communication is a very important tool, if not the most important tool in today's environment. When we pause and reflect on the significance of communication, we realize that effective communication impacts our business and personal success more than any other factor. Communication, in one form or another, permeates all that we do. Whether it's internal to employees or external to customers/prospects, our ability to communicate effectively determines the results. Words, actions and body language have a powerful impact, good or bad, on those with whom we communicate.

If we look back in history and examine the characteristics of great world leaders, we find one common trait among all - effective communicators. You may not want to be looking to be the worlds' great leaders but you can greatly enhance your success by becoming an effective communicator. All it takes is a focus on honing your communication skills. With the right mindset you can acquire the skills by a commitment to working on developing the necessary skills. As a beginning, let's explore the foundational elements that will have an immediate impact on your success.

There are 3 components of getting the message across clearly, which I will try to explain below:

Clarity - Any communication, verbal or non-verbal arouses responses (though they are not visible sometimes!!). Ensure that what you are saying or writing is clear to the intended listener/reader by thinking through the message and the response you expect to evoke. Clarity is essential to effective communication, especially in your written communication. The reader will not have the option to question your meaning or ask for clarity. If your message is unclear it leaves the interpretation solely in their mind which may not be the message you intended to communicate. I remember the joke where a telegram is sent to a father stating 'Your daughter did wonderfully well in bed' whereas the intended communication was 'Your daughter did wonderfully well in B.Ed.'

Conciseness - In this fast-paced world we live in today, brevity is cherished. Quality time is a scarce commodity. Think about what you are saying or writing in the context of fewer words while retaining clarity of message. Email has opened up a whole new world of communication. It is the extreme example of being concise. I'm sure English teachers are going ballistic over the sentence structure (or lack thereof) in most email messages. The balance for effective communication lies somewhere between voluminous, unnecessary words and the choppy words and incomplete sentences of the email world. Always follow the KISS philosophy (Keep It Short and Simple).

Consistency - Once you have developed a clear and concise message that you are satisfied conveys the reasons people will want to do business with you and your company, consistency is essential. We are constantly bombarded with a deluge of information. It takes time for any message to get through. When you have lived with your message day in and day out and are tiring of it, your target listeners are probably beginning to "get it". Imagine you saw a person in different projections everyday. It will be difficult for anybody to predict the project of that person in any given time. Thus creeps in confusion which must be avoided at all costs.

How to Grow in your Career

2011-02-18T17:46:00.000+05:30

The most important thing in the professional life of any person is to grow as an individual and to have a successful career. Many of us try to reach there and some actually do surpass it while others give up on the thought and live a life of dejection and agony. The secret here is to understand what you would really love doing as an individual.

Not many of us understand the concept of 'Personal Branding' which treats everything we so in our career as an act towards the way we are. What we actually are is in reality of what we are, what we think we are and what we do to be the person we think we are. It might sound very simple, but then it is a little complex if you think.

Human minds play funny games and makes you believe crazy things if you so fancy. However, it is essential to tame the beast and keep it inline with who we want to be in life. There is another secret that I would like to share here and its called 'Living in the moment'. When we live in the moment, we are void of fear of the past and worries for the future. I am sure you would think that it is practically impossible to do that. However, if you are able to attain such a level, you will be detached from all negative emotions from the outside and the growth you see in yourself will be phenomenal.

To grow in your career it is not enough if you are really good as an individual. What you really need to remember is that you cannot do everything by yourself. Find a horse that you can ride on and find a dog that will run by your side all the time no matter what. That way you will grow faster in your career than any other individual you have ever known.

Living in the Plateau

2010-11-30T16:55:00.000+05:30

Human mind is an interesting thing. It decides what can be done and what cannot be done by a person. The limitations we think we possess are actually tricks played by the mind. The mind is like a trip wire of an explosive device which plays a horn as soon as you decide to cross it and most humans are scared by the shock of the event rather than the event itself. During my Everest climb, I was told by fellow climbers that people die more often of the shock of falling into ravines and trenches than due to some other hazard.

So, it is essential to tame this beast which sits right on top of us inside the skull. The most interesting part to notice is that we live in plateaus throughout our life. The electric signals generated during all the actions we do in our lifetime is very similar and thus we are unable to enjoy things we do. To break the monotony of life, one needs to climb out of the plateau and into the mountains when the journey is difficult but thrilling.

The plateaus represent the constrictions we place on ourselves and that restricts the individual growth. The constraints are inside the head and if success must be achieved, we must break away from all set patterns. Learn to be the chess player and not the chess piece.

Quantum Management: Quantum Physics Applied to Management

2010-11-14T21:47:00.000+05:30

During that relatively slow-moving “Age of Machines”, this mechanical understanding of the world worked. But now, in the 21^st century, ideas are becoming the basis of a growing part of the economy. Ideas can develop rapidly, and be deployed rapidly. Hence the efficient development and deployment of pertinent new ideas are now focal points of business design. Hence theoretical models that essentially ignore them, or treat them as causal “zeros”, or as mysterious, gratuitous, causally inert by-products of brain process are inappropriate and inadequate. Yet any attempt to introduce “science” into the discussion, must fight the three hundred years of theory and practice that is imbedded in almost every aspect of contemporary society.

There is a plethora of experimental data showing strong correlations between brain processes and associated conscious thoughts. But the cause of these correlations has not been established.

Many older well-established brain researchers are wed to the mechanistic ideas of classical mechanics, which require the physically described brain processes to be the sufficient causes of all mental activities. The apparent causal effects of our thoughts and ideas upon our physical actions are then deemed to be, actually, the causal effects upon our brain process not our thoughts themselves, but rather of the brain processes that are generating those thoughts.

The Harvard professor Daniel Wegner has written the book “The Illusion of Conscious Will” defending this thesis, and there is a covey of prolific writers, including Daniel Dennett, and Paul and Patricia Churchland, who have made a business of defending this mechanistic view.

Of course, insofar as one accepts classical physics as the final definitive science their position is indeed demanded by “science”, no matter how non-intuitive it may be. But the replacement of classical science by quantum science completely frees the idea that our thoughts can be effective causes of physical actions from the odium of being contrary to science.

Quantum mechanics injects concepts into brain activity? But how does it do it? And what benefits accrue from understanding how it does it?

From a business standpoint the problem is how to understand in a rationally coherent way, in order to facilitate its occurrence, the injection if innovative novel ideas into the lawful physical process that sustains the development of the company. There seems to be a logical conflict between lawful development of the physically described aspects and the intrusion of novelty. The classical solution is to conceive the person as a machine within the larger machine that is the universe. But quantum theory provides a different way of resolving the apparent conflict between lawful development and the incorporation of innovation.

The first point is that classical mechanics generates observed behavior at the macroscopic (say visible) level from lawful behavior at underlying microscopic (say atomic) level. But when one descends to the level of the atomic constituents of the brain, one finds that the classical laws are inadequate: one must use the quantum laws. But the effects of this replacement at the microscopic level percolates up to the macroscopic level, and produce there the macroscopic brain analogs of Schroedinger’s famous cat, which is in part thoroughly dead and in part thoroughly alive. The analog of this in the brain will generally be a continuous smear of states, each one being a brain activity that is preparing for a possible action that is intended to cope in some way with the current situation in which the person finds himself.

This continuous smear of alternative possibilities arises from the evolution, via the deterministic quantum mechanical laws, from an earlier brain state that contains inherent quantum uncertainties stemming from Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

The problem, then, is that the mechanical laws, which are the direct quantum generalizations of the mechanical laws of classical mechanics, can do no more: they generate a state of the brain that corresponds to a continuous smear of alternative possible courses for action, rather than to one single possible course of action. Hence further processing is needed!

Quantum mechanics deals with this problem by introducing first a process that basically identifies part of the continuous quantum smear as one conceptually characterized unit. A subsequent process then either accepts (actualizes) this conceptually characterized unit or rejects it, in accordance with a certain specified statistical rule. Then the process repeats, thereby repeatedly infusing conceptually characterized structure into the physically described world.

Thus quantum mechanics involves first injecting into the physical world some uncertainties that the mechanical laws cannot cope with, and then introducing new processes that repeatedly trim back the expanding uncertainties in a way that introduce the concept- associated concepts into the physically described world. A typical concept would be an image of one’s arm rising in some particular way, or of oneself articulating some new idea. The physical counterparts of the concepts act macroscopically, over large portions of the brain.

The quantum laws allow, and suggest, that a focusing of attention on a concept will increase the repetition rate of the act of choosing that concept. If this repetition can be made rapid enough then a well-known quantum effect called the “quantum Zeno effect” will come into play and tend to hold the brain pattern associated with this concept in place, even in the face of strong physical forces that that would otherwise quickly disrupt it. This provides a contemporary science-based understanding of the way in which our willful actions can cause our physical actions to conform to our conceptually formulated intentions.

The bottom line is that although contemporary culture tends to suggest that a “scientific” understanding of behavior must be a basically mechanistic understanding, in which the brain controls the mind, contemporary (quantum) physics entails no such conclusion. On the contrary, quantum mechanics provides an understanding of the mind-brain connection that is not only completely in accord with intuition and common sense, but that also describes the way in which mind-brain process act to fashion the activities of our brains in the service of our ideas. All the empirical findings of neuroscience are compatible with quantum theory, and hence those findings can be used and exploited without descending to the materialist mind set of some of the neuroscientist who are producing the data.

A short recap!!

2010-08-06T18:13:00.000+05:30

It seems like yesterday that I finished my Engineering degree. Well, it has been 4 years now. The journey that has changed me a lot. They say that Life is the best teacher of all. Sad part is that it kills all its students eventually!! After I finished my engineering, I had no clue as to what I wanted to do after 5 years. And now after almost 4 years I think that it was good in one way. I was like a clean slate on which I have now written my career as a Management Graduate. Life is funny isn't it? First it takes away opportunities from you when you need it the most and gives it to you when you least expect. Such has been my life till date. After scoring a 770 on the GMAT, I had made up my mind to be at the IVY LEAGUE. Call it fate or destiny, the recession stuck the whole world. All top B Schools stopped funding students and there I was standing: Knocking on the doors of Heaven. But then I couldn't afford to pay the fees and settled for by current place of study: SMOT School of Business. So far I have been very happy with my decision. The extra adrenalin rush is due to the fact that I belong to one of the first few batches of the college. The impact I can have on the future of the college is truly amazing.

As I sit down praying that the future may hold the best for everyone, I just motive myself by saying 'This is the Best Day of my life' when I wake up and 'The best day of my life is yet to come' before I sleep.

As Og Mandino says in his book 'The World's Greatest Salesman': 'I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. I will hear not those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny. I will Persist till I Succeed'

A new day has dawned!!

2010-05-28T11:53:00.001+05:30

Every new day is an opportunity to grow. The day I was born, I was not able to walk neither could I talk. But as time went by, I learnt to walk and to talk. Such is life.. Each day gives you an opportunity to learn something extraordinary. Yesterday as I slept under the clear sky on a full moon night, I realized that we are blessed to see such amazing wonders of the world. Such magnificance can only be enjoyed if you tune your senses with the universe. There is music everywhere.. Right from the rustling leaves in an autumn setting to a train running in a track.. People walking in a mob also give raise toisic. If your ears are tuned enough, you will be able to hear their heartbeats. There are so many words unsaid that can be heard just by opening yourself to receive. The change has to happen inside out..

Every day when you wake up, you have two choices: to be happy, to be sad. It us what you choose that decide that makes up for the day. So open yourself to the universe and get ready to recieve the unlimited bounty.

I Pee Yell

2010-04-23T23:31:00.000+05:30

Well, it has been a long time since I wrote something and thus I decided to pick this topic to ponder. IPL has been making a lot of money since inception and I always used to wonder how people get so much of money to invest when some people in the country don't even have their basic amenities met. So it turns out as I had presumed it is, a way to convert black money into white. Right from the onset, the idea of ipl stolen from icl, was a mockery. Though it did provide entertainment and made a lot of money and paid taxes to the government. This is yet another perspective to the whole IPL saga. Had IPL not come into existence, this black money would have been stashed away in some European banks and they would be enjoying these profits in the form of deposits. So, according to me Lalit Modi did just this: He peed in his pants thinking nobody will notice and then started yelling. It's like someone who farts closes her/his nose first. People eventually find out who is the culprit. And here is Lalit Modi who masterminded: I Pee yelL

Why did the Chicken cross the Road?

2010-01-26T11:37:00.001+05:30

Plato:

For the greater good.

Karl Marx:

It was a historical inevitability.

Machiavelli:

So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue?  In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.

Hippocrates:

Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.

Jacques Derrida:

Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Thomas de Torquemada:

Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Timothy Leary:

Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Douglas Adams:

Forty-two.

Nietzsche:

Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

Oliver North:

National Security was at stake.

B.F. Skinner:

Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Carl Jung:

The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Jean-Paul Sartre:

In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Ludwig Wittgenstein:

The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road", and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.

Albert Einstein:

Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Aristotle:

To actualize its potential.

Buddha:

If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.

Howard Cosell:

It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history.  An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence.

Salvador Dali:

The Fish.

Darwin:

It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Emily Dickinson:

Because it could not stop for death.

Epicurus:

For fun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Johann von Goethe:

The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Ernest Hemingway:

To die. In the rain.

Werner Heisenberg:

We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

David Hume:

Out of custom and habit.

Jack Nicholson:

'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored) reason.

Pyrrho the Skeptic:

What road?

Ronald Reagan:

I forget.

John Sununu:

The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.

The Sphinx:

You tell me.

Mr. T:

If you saw me coming you'd cross the road too!

Henry David Thoreau:

To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow out of life.

Mark Twain:

The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Molly Yard:

It was a hen!

Zeno of Elea:

To prove it could never reach the other side.

Chaucer:

So priketh hem nature in hir corages.

Wordsworth:

To wander lonely as a cloud.

The Godfather:

I didn't want its mother to see it like that.

Keats:

Philosophy will clip a chicken's wings.

Blake:

To see heaven in a wild fowl.

Othello:

Jealousy.

Dr Johnson:

Sir, had you known the Chicken for as long as I have, you would not so readily enquire, but feel rather the need to resist such a public Display of your own lamentable and incorrigible Ignorance.

Mrs Thatcher:

This chicken's not for turning.

Supreme Soviet:

There has never been a chicken in this photograph.

Oscar Wilde:

Why, indeed? One's social engagements whilst in town ought never expose one to such barbarous inconvenience - although, perhaps, if one must cross a road, one may do far worse than to cross it as the chicken in question.

Kafka:

Hardly the most urgent enquiry to make of a low-grade insurance clerk who woke up that morning as a hen.

Swift:

It is, of course, inevitable that such a loathsome, filth-ridden and degraded creature as Man should assume to question the actions of one in all respects his superior.

Macbeth:

To have turned back were as tedious as to go o'er.

Whitehead:

Clearly, having fallen victim to the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

Freud:

An die andere Seite zu kommen. (Much laughter)

Hamlet:

That is not the question.

Donne:

It crosseth for thee.

Pope:

It was mimicking my Lord Hervey.

Constable:

To get a better view.

Bharath Iyer:

To get to the other side of the road.

A year gone by..

2009-12-31T19:53:00.001+05:30

Another year, another chance
To start our lives anew;
This time we’ll leap old barriers
To have a real breakthrough.

We’ll take one little step

And then we’ll take one more,
Our unlimited potential
We’ll totally explore.

We’ll show off all our talents
Everyone will be inspired;
(Whew! While I’m writing this,I’m getting very tired.)
We’ll give up all bad habits;
We’ll read and learn a lot,
All our goals will be accomplished,

Sigh...or maybe not.

Oh well, Happy New Year anyway!

To my beloved girlfriend..

2009-12-31T00:55:00.002+05:30

'Were you honed from poetry? '
I asked your saddened smile.
For it seems to tell a longing tale -

One of words in oratory
That speaks in languid metaphors
From lips of mind in deep despair

And solitude from inner wars
That over time has rendered life so frail.
I sought to ask your gaze.

For a pain lies deep within your eyes -
One of barren territory
Where no fair heart could ever drift

And hope to venture back content
With grateful memories in a gift:
A land of your affectingly demise..

'Were you honed from poetry? '
I asked your saddened smile.
For it seems to tell a longing tale -
One of words in oratory

That speaks in languid metaphors
From lips of mind in deep despair
And solitude from inner wars
That over time has rendered life so frail.

'Were you carved from doleful prose? '
I sought to ask your gaze.
For a pain lies deep within your eyes -
One of barren territory

Where no fair heart could ever drift
And hope to venture back content

With grateful memories in a gift:
A land of your affectional demise.

'Do I hear a mournful hum? '
I wondered of your cry.
For it sings a song of deep lament -
One of quiet soliloquy

Recited on deserted strands
To waves that have no sense of song

And only wish to fight the sands -
A chant that cites emotional descent.

Do you know your face portrays
The colors of your soul?
It tells me at a single glance
Of how you burned your furnace whole
To stay the fire in our romance.

And see the prismic hues they bore!
I cherished all I ever saw:
Mauve of mystic; browns of rustic;
Reddened tones to match your blush;
Marine of passion, spending out your being,
Leaving you for ashen embers, fleeing
The dying light in hush of night.
And how you lay there empty.

So let me help re-grow the flowers
Once erect in fiery showers!

For now I've seen what love can do
When torn asunder – oh my catastrophic blunder!

But we must realize –
Our flaming want is meant to be!
We are the ocean and the sea;
The earth and moon; the sturdy tree:
All that makes the 'You and Me.'

I Love u baby.. I truly do!!

Registered to: Mark R slaughter

Terrorism, Population, Global Warming : Are they branches of the same tree?

2009-10-29T14:25:00.000+05:30

It was 28th of October, as I was busy writing my Statistics Examination when this notion struck me. Are Terrorism, Population and Global Warming branches of the same tree? To examine our case in a layman language let us consider Greed as the stem of the cause. Now consider the branches: terrorism, global warming and pollution. The problem must have a interdependent solution.

If you consider the world as a class room with let's assume, 50 benches to sit, there are students whom we would equate to the population of the world. As the teacher comes to the class and leaves, there is a lot of noise being made - Relate this to birth, death and other issues revolving around humans. When the teacher gives the class work to do, the class is rather silent - Consider relating this to employment.

Now, if the class had say 100 students sitting in 50benches, wouldn't it be louder than usual?? Anything beyond the control of the teacher - This has to be equated to the Population Growth.

In the class there are students who are sitting, the ones who are busy studying, ones playing pranks on others and there are ones who sit on the floor and stand outside the class as well - Relate all of these of the economies, the G6, G8s and such alongside the poor counties.

The pranks in the classroom sometime turn into fights, which others are mere spectators of - A typical WAR situation.

While the fight was happening in the class room, a student goes and invites people who are not remotely related to the scenario to have a look at the fight, rather than trying to solve the issue by her/himself. - Equate this to Terrorism.

Now, as the class strength increases, the class becomes hotter and hotter. Students leave the class and go out to breath - Equate this to Global Warming.
Just that we do not have a world apart from The Blue Planet to go to as yet.It will take at least another 10,000 years before human race decides to move to Titan, Saturn; but then, the race needs to survive till then in order to do that.

Now consider the dustbin in the classroom. When there were just 30 students, the school could manage the disposal of the thrash. With the new advent of 100students, the thrash might not even fit into the thrash can. Might overflow at one point of time to such an extent that students start falling sick. - Equate this to pollution.

So, when all of these are so much related, the solution has to be related as well. Wouldn't you agree?

Leadership in a (permanent) crisis - A HBR article Review

2009-10-06T11:10:00.001+05:30

A review of HBR-SA, JULY-AUGUST 2009 article ‘Leadership in a (Permanent) crisis’

As a regular HBR reader, I was in a way rather let down by the article which seems to lack the charisma of regular HBRs. On the whole, the whole write-up seems to revolve around application of Kaizen and Emotional Intelligence. As the saying goes, ‘The crisis of today is a joke of tomorrow’.
The author talks about exhibition of leadership qualities fostering adaptation, embracing disequilibrium and one that generates distributed leadership. There are a lot of companies in the world which went up and down with the bubble burst phenomenon of the internet age. The reason for these companies being unable to sustain their growth was their inability to maintain business growth when the regular/conventional source of income for them dried out or started diminishing. Thus began an era of mergers and acquisitions which yet again paved way for larger organizations retaining the major chunk of the markets. The rich became richer and new millionaires were thus born in the process.

Foremost, for any business to survive in the long run, the business process must be able to adapt itself to changes on small and large scale. This may be also compared with the Darwinian theory of Evolution which says that the fittest survive. To remain fittest, one must adapt and recalibrate at regular intervals of time. If we take the examples of dinosaurs, the only dinosaur that still exists is the crocodile. This was possible by the ability of crocodile to adapt to live on land as well as under water.

Secondly, the idea of embracing disequilibrium seems to be a shlep. In a state of disequilibrium, the emotions are already at a heightened state. Any further disequilibrium would certainly result in the employees being shattered to an extent that their morale goes down. This as such impacts the productivity and not facilitating the process of making difficult decisions by the employees. The author also talks about maintaining an optimum level of disequilibrium to continue the progress. To me, this seemed like stretching a rubber-band and holding it there to be used as a slingshot. As time passes, the rubber-band tends to wear out and breaks at one point of time or loses its elasticity. Humans are so much like rubber-bands; they cannot be stretched for a long period of time. If done so, they tend to break down or there is a noted drop in the performance.

However, I totally support the author with reference to creation of distributed leadership. In an era when everybody pitches in to provide solutions rather than answers, it is rather imperative that the decision making has to happen at grass root levels and the leadership has to be distributed. Everybody loves being a part of the solution rather than the problem. So, as the author rightly points out, it is necessary that opportunities are created and thus create avenues to come out successfully from the crisis. However, my concern on this arises from the saying ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’. What is needed in distributed leadership is co-operation and a determined effort to achieve the goals rather than negating each other out.

A crisis, as a wishful thinker would consider that the Chinese equivalent of the word ‘crisis’ consists of two parts representing opportunity and danger, is a mere turning point at which the fall or raise of any company is decided. Once a gale storm passes, it brings with it change that takes a long time to be negated and overcome. The surface is so rough that the prior composition of the land might not exist after such an event. To make the surface usable, any prior experience not involving the gale might not be of much use anyway. Similar is the case with any organization. The past experience not involving such an experience holds little or no significance as per my point of view. So, to restrict the decisions on past experiences would be rather blasphemous. What is required in such a scenario is the ability to adapt and grow with the scenario in hand to survive the crisis and grow once the crisis has been overcome. At the end of this crisis, the company has skills to manage such a situation in the future if faced with such.

The author provides us a case study of Best Buy where a person’s leadership wits are able to transform the company from being gender specific to being the best in business. For me, that is rather an insight than creative leadership. When a person learns to see what is stopping the business from growing, the solution is rather simple: Find a way to negate the issue. As the saying goes, ‘Hurdles are those scary things you see when you take your eyes off the target’. In this example of Best Buy it was more of a focus on the target than creative ways of solving the problem. Or in other words, it is rather an adaptive measure which helps the business grow. Had the business looked at small time fixes to just get over the crisis, it would have proved fatal in the long run. A business fix is like fixing the flat tire of a car; if not done properly, there are good chances that the car will run flat soon. However, too many fixes will make the ride bumpy. In such a situation, what one needs is replacement of the tire or what the author calls to be ‘Pressing the Reset Button’.

Sometimes it is better to start things afresh rather than providing fixes. In such a situation, what a business needs to do is look at its past and try not to repeat its mistakes the second time around. When the business starts afresh, there are a lot of possibilities that the business might go through a lot of dire straits initially. Sometimes even be tested up to the breakdown. In such situations, adapting to the situation does help one and all. Rather than sitting and cribbing about the problems, collective intelligence must be used to solve the problems with intelligent solutions.

Finally, I agree with the author when pointing towards adaptive leadership in general. It is adaptation that makes cacti grow in sahara where other creatures barely exist. Each day brings new opportunities to grow and branch out. All that is needed is perseverance and the grit to grow stronger and better with every opportunity provided. Adaptive leadership is the way the future is going to be.

Review by,
Bharath S Iyer
PGPM ‘09
SMOT School of Business

My First day at B-School

2009-10-04T19:17:00.002+05:30

Waking up, brushing my teeth, having a shower, and matching my socks with my shoes, I was on the road burning rubber to reach my B-School. On the way, I prepared some questions, a few more questions and some answers. Even though I was not used to wake up so early, I was ready to make the sacrifice. After all, as Neil Armstrong once said ‘A small step for a man – A giant step for the mankind.’

On the day of induction, 22-09-2009, exquisite pearls of knowledge were showered upon one and all present by the eminent personality present. All cats look grey in the dark. The day started with an opening address where everybody was introduced to the guest of honor, Dr. Ravichandran – Indian Delegate, WHO, and Dr. Srinivas Raghavan – The father of Speed Post and the man behind the conceptualization of computerizing the Postal Department. These stalwarts went on to let the cat out of the bag about their career which immensely motivated one and all.

After the talk, it was time for a fantastic buffet, where individuals got to know each other better. This was followed by a travel to a place called Deenabandhupuram, far away from the hustling city of Chennai, where we spend the rest of the day getting to know each other better through a few activities and a lot of interactions. I was finally at Ground Zero – The Epicenter.

The Hug!!

2009-09-12T22:44:00.000+05:30

No moving parts, no batteries - No monthly payments and no fees.
Inflation proof, non-taxable, in fact it's quite reliable.
It can't be stolen, won't pollute, one size fits all, do not dilute.
It uses little energy, but yields results enormously.
Relieves your tension and your stress, invigorates your happiness.
Combats depression, makes you beam and elevates your self esteem.
Your circulation it corrects without complicated side effects.
It is, I think, the perfect drug.
May I prescribe, my friend. . . . . . the hug!