“Half Full or Half Empty?”

Most of the days when we open the newspaper early in the morning, the headlines that stare at us are that of some scam or the other. In the last few months we had Aadarsh Housing Society Scam, Common Wealth Game Scam, Telecom 2 G Scam, Illegal mining scam.

What do we read from this? One way to look at this is to feel disheartened that our society, government and bureaucracy is in a state of continuous degeneration and the world in general and our country in particular is on a slippery slope. A slope that is leading to moral disintegration and anarchy; a modern Sodom or Gomorrah awaiting fire of destruction from heaven!

Another way to look at this is that we have had such scams all these while and the increased activism by citizens, judiciary, and news papers supported by technology tools are help to unearth and unravel more of these. Better reach of news through print, television, internet, blogs, facebook and tweeter is helping better dissemination of these stories far and wide and make many of us aware and alive.

I believe the most powerful of all is the transparency and exposure that could help to bring about better social deterrent and citizen vigilance. This increased transparency could and is becoming some sort of a check to many and could bring about some sort of discipline and moderation in our society.

If we take a deeper look, most of the scams and injustice that will catch the attention of the wider press are those that are sensational and it involves political and bureaucratic elite, celebrities or because it is gory. But what affect the life of the majority are the corruption, callousness and lack of service orientation of the institutions that facilitate our day-to-day life. It could be getting a land title certificate, a birth and death certificate, paying our electricity bill, getting a mistake rectified in by Income Tax Assessment, getting a ration card and due ration against that card, treatment at a government hospital, getting complaint redressed by the police man and so on.

When it comes to areas where stakes are very high, the corruption or lobbying, which is often a sanitized version of corruption, often is there to influence decisions and policies. This happens in most places in the world. But many countries successfully manage to make the life comfortable for our day-to-day needs. This helps to reduce waste of time and gives peace of mind for the common man.

It is in these areas that we are quite backward compared to many others. Is it because we don’t pay the officers and employees a decent wage that they have to resort means of corruption? Is it because we don’t have proper checks and balance in service delivery that deters inefficiency and insensitiveness? Is it because service orientation is not a part of our culture? Or a combination of all?

Citizen activism and exposure can have a larger impact in this area. It is here that the technology tool can be a great support to each of us can play a role in building a social momentum. “I PAID A BRIBE.COM” is an excellent initiative in this direction. It accepts the fact that there are times we have not way except to pay our way through. It gives an option to anonymously present our experience. It also gives us an option to recognize instances where we could get work without bribe or when we got an opportunity to resist.

If a larger cross section of the society joins in such initiatives we will definitely see some results. We don’t have to give too much of our time nor do we have to inconvenience ourselves by being seen as a trouble maker or a whistle blower (which often is bad for the concerned though good for the society as a whole) or be a martyr. We don’t even have to take a moral stand of not paying a bribe to get what we want. We just have to anonymously share our experience and encourage our friends to do so. At the least it will help the next person to find out what the market rate (of bribe) for a service at a certain location. As an economist would say efficient price discovery!

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness” Unknown

Moon shot and Mouse trap

Once upon a time a mouse decided to take a walk out of the burrow. As he came out of his burrow, he saw a lion lying there in the shade. His first instinct was to scram back into the burrow. For some reason he decided to stand there and take a look. The lion had just finished a sumptuous meal and was in a good mood. He called out to the mouse.

“Hello little mouse, what are you up to?”

“Oh! Just trying to see if I can have some fresh air” little mouse replied

“What is the big deal about fresh air? If you decide to come out of that hole you can always have as much of it”

“It is easy for you to say that. You are so big. So nothing can happen to you. But for me, I have to be very, very careful.”

“My life is a misery. I have to be always on the lookout for the cats, the dogs the foxes and all such creatures who are trying to make a meal out of me” The little mouse continued.

“Oh! Is that all? The solution is very simple” The lion replied

“Really? Please oh king; please tell me what to do”

“Just become as big as me” The lion replied.

“But how is it possible?”The mouse asked

“That is for you to figure out. I am the king, I only make policy decisions” Lion replied

***

“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." President John F. Kennedy declared in his speech to U.S. Congress, May 25, 1961.

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” Later he described so about this audacious goal at a speech in Rice University, Houston.

In 1969 Luis Armstrong walked on the moon.

***

What is the difference between the above two stories other than that one is a made up story (not by me) and the other is a true story.

Both were tough challenges and ambitious goals. The first one was set by a leader without thinking through the competence of his team, what is realistically possible with the resource available; a wishful thinking.

The second one was founded on understanding on what could be achievable, supported with the right kind of resource allocation, and total commitment by the leader.

We see samples of both among our corporate leadership. Some set whimsical challenges for the team based purely on bravado or the latest management fad. Then they squeeze the team hoping that this pressure, threat and fear will deliver results.

Some set the goals founded on what the team is best at, what can give them a dream to strive for and then give them the necessary resources and training, induct complementary talent, give a free hand to deliver and extend them a hand of support when they hesitate.

This I suppose is the mark of a visionary leader. And the wisdom to see this difference is what we need to pray for.

''There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.'' Unknown

Bureaucracy – Nature or Nurture ?

One of my good friends is a senior civil servant. As he joined government service straight from the college and his career experience was only in the government sector. He is a very diligent officer and likes to give his best to the assignments at hand. He is familiar with the general public complaint about government servants that they are bureaucratic, slow, process oriented than result oriented, corrupt, insensitive and so on in contrast to the private sector which is result oriented, quick on their feet, nimble and innovative. The difference portrayed is often that of hellhole and heaven.

Recently he had an opportunity to work in a team, which consisted of civil servants and veterans from private sector, offering a public service. He was excited about the opportunity to work in such a dynamic team which combined best of both worlds, working for a common purpose, to make a meaningful contribution to the society. He looked forward to working in a place which mixes the divergent ideas and culture. In this post I take a peep into one of the interesting observation by my friend regarding the working style of people from both sides of the divide.

As per my friend, he experienced very similar bureaucratic tendencies even among the representatives of the private sector. “What is the big difference that you guys talk about?” he asked me. He confessed that he may have been expecting magic or may have had excessive expectation from the experts from private sector.

My take on this is as follows. In private sector creative and entrepreneurial people set up new companies and new businesses. They get a team to work with them to implement these enterprises. As the companies get bigger, more of the managers and the employees that join the team are normally risk-averse and are happy to do what they are told to do. Some organizations maintain the dynamism and have dynamic growth while the others settle down to maintenance mode.(Read “Be Relevant or Perish – Part II for some more thoughts on this)

In government too we see similar pattern. Outstanding and dynamic officers set up new departments, new organizations, new services or new ideas. Then they move out and maintenance managers take over.

In both cases, when the organizations get to be under the control of managers and administrators comfortable with ‘status quo’ the service level deteriorates and the organization becomes moribund. The big difference is that in private sector, the competition and limited entry barrier for new ideas, may force the dinosaurs to extinction and new and vibrant companies will eventually take over. (Unless they are sort of utility companies existing as natural or legal monopolies).

But in government sector neither the moribund institutions or departments die nor new departments are created in competition with the existing ones. (Have you heard of competition for police, registrar of companies, pollution control board, land registration department etc?). This could lead to eventual degeneration in service quality. Sometimes a new dynamic officer comes in for a stint and situation improves till he lasts. The cycle goes on.

As far as the public is concerned their experience shows that they have to deal with a large cross section of non-performing government departments which frustrates them in their day-to-day life; both for normal living and in their business ventures. They have no other option or competing choices. On the other hand, when they deal with private sector service providers they have different service providers, which give them a choice, freedom to demand service and walk out if they are unhappy. (There are many cases where the private sector can get away with shoddy service levels).

So in the end what drive this divergent behavior? Nature or Nurture? When it comes to risk taking every human being lie somewhere in a continuum with extreme risk averseness on one end and extreme risk taking on the other end. Risk averseness come out of our basic survival instinct of the human ape. As we progressed the survival has grown to encompass survival in the society, protecting our economic security, pride, career, acceptance and so on. Risk taking comes out of the other dimension of survival that tries to find new opportunities for food, a mate and position which in the modern society also takes the form of riches, social standing, prestige and so on.

Majority of people are risk averse in nature and their actions are determined by this need to reduce uncertainty, what in corporate circle refer to as CYA (Cover You’re A…). Such people try to play by the letter of the law, make no judgment calls, or tilt the apple cart. This means that it is in the nature of most of the human beings to build up rigid, straight jacketed restrictive systems. On the other hand there are some who are very comfortable in challenging the status quo. They try to venture to road less travelled and create environment that encourages many to follow. This means it is also a matter of nurture.

The companies, institutions and society need both; a healthy ecosystem that safeguard its citizens from excessive uncertainties in social and economic spheres at the same time encourage and support innovation and risk taking, The challenge for the leadership is to find this healthy balance with the right mixture of rules, norms and incentives.

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." Eleanor Roosevelt


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Be Relevant or … Part 2

In Part 1 of this post we discussed about the intellectual obsolescence of individuals if they fail to keep themselves relevant. Such obsolescence is applicable not only to individuals; but also to organizations and companies.

Most often companies and organizations get started by people who are visionaries, who have exciting new ideas, who are willing to take risks and who are willing struggle to see their dreams coming to fruition. They get a team of people who share their passion to work on these. Once they succeed, some of these organizations consciously build processes to ensure that they upgrade their knowledge base, encourage their people to actively participate in this knowledge build up and infuse newer ideas and newer talents so that they don’t become obsolete in the changing world. They place their best people on their biggest opportunities and not on their biggest problems as Jim Collins observed his bestselling book “Good to Great”. They move from Good to Great and enjoy enviable corporate longevity.

Many organizations after their initial success forget about this need for continuous upgrade. They get caught up in their current competencies and current success and their focus shifts to defending their current turfs. Their priorities are maximizing short term benefits and comforts and they get excited with unproductive corporate rituals that do not create value for the clients and thus to the organizations. Jack Welch and Lou Gerstner have explained about their experience on corporate bureaucracy in established and successful companies like GE and IBM and how it stifled the growth and innovation even to the extent of brining the organization to near extinction. As the famous adage goes the ‘Barbarians at the gate will walk in and dominate the board rooms’. Those who cannot feel comfortable with this leave and those who are happy to maintain status quo get to be the majority. Quoting Jim Collins again; “Most companies build their bureaucratic rules to manage the small percentage of wrong people on the bus, which in turn drives away the right people on the bus, which then increases the percentage of wrong people on the bus, which increases the need for more bureaucracy to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline, which then further drives the right people away, and so forth.” (Good to Great, P. 121).

When this happens, the value creation suffers and organization becomes internally focused; focused on a variety of processes and rituals creating lots of paperwork that keeps everybody busy, that gives reason to pat each other’s shoulders irrespective of creation of new growth opportunities for the company. Product innovation and service upgrades stop and secretarial, legal and bureaucratic trapeze come to the forefront. Internal debates cease to be on ideas; but on gossip about events and people.

This is the reason the mortality rate of companies is quite high. I am not referring to the almost 90% mortality of the start-ups within one year of their launch; but of companies which have successfully established and performed at least for a decade. Look around, successful companies which have sustained their success or even survived for 25 years are very few anywhere in the world. A Business week article has pointed out that "The average life expectancy of a multinational corporation-Fortune 500 or its equivalent-is between 40 and 50 years. This figure is based on most surveys of corporate births and deaths. A full one-third of the companies listed in the 1970 Fortune 500, for instance, had vanished by 1983-acquired, merged, or broken to pieces.Human beings have learned to survive, on aver-age, for 75 years or more, but there are very few companies that are that old and flourishing" [1] And that is why companies and organizations have to have a conscious strategy to address this".


The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking. Albert Einstein



[1] http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/degeus.htm

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Be Relevant or Perish

I remember a story by Somerset Maugham. I don’t remember the details, only the outline. This is the story about a gentleman, let us call him George, who at the age of 45 decided to call it a day from his active career and worldly responsibilities to truly enjoy the remaining part of his life. He was not married and had no immediate family to worry about. He was not a very rich man either. So he put all his saving in a pension plan, which would give him an annuity for 25 years. He planned his annuity in such a way that the payment would run out when he turned 70. He claimed that if he was still alive after the last annuity payment, he would end his life too. For the next 25 years he had a very pleasant and enjoyable life; but, he was still a healthy man when the last cheque arrived. He did not have the guts to end his life and had had to struggle to for his life after that.

This is an extreme case. But we see variations of this around us, among people and among organizations. Some are outcome of conscious decisions, some are outcome of irresponsible planning and some are outcome of circumstances.

Many people do save for their retirement. The nest egg they build up may give certain payout which is quite comfortable. But the saving they have is invested in a fashion that the assets no more appreciate and therefore the regular cash flow remains the same in absolute terms. With the kind of longevity we enjoy these days, many would live for 20 to 30 years post retirement. As the times goes, even with a moderate inflation, the buying power of the regular cash flow diminishes, and on the other side the expenses increase; especially on account of health related costs. By then there are no more avenues for new income opportunities as we are outdated and or incapacitated.

Many of us are familiar about this possibility and plan for this. But there is yet another facet of our life where we often forget about gradual obsolescence. It is about our competence and skill sets. We study hard and acquire skills and qualifications as youngsters. Then we get into a career or profession or business, based on the skills and expertise we have built. Once we are on a job or profession some of us fail to continue with the discipline of investing in ourselves; in updating our skills sets or familiarizing with new developments in our domain or acquiring new skill sets. We get caught up in our immediate and urgent demands of our job, our family and our social obligations. This is specially so for those who have managed to get placed in government jobs or other organizations which are large and stable and need lots of people to handle routine activities. In other words, an organization where uncertainty related to sustenance is low. We get caught up in pushing papers, bureaucratic maneuvers and window dressing; actions that don’t build the business or build people.

Over a period of time, our relevance diminishes gradually. New blood comes in with new skills and new ideas. We get passed over for newer challenges and newer opportunities or even promotions. (Unless we are in an organization which is already dominated by such people in which case we can be a part of the decaying organization and hope that it doesn’t go under before we retire!) As we go up the ladder, the positions and opportunities are limited and competition gets tougher. Unless we can prove that we are the best for the job, we are overlooked. We feel that we are not compensated or given credit for our past achievements. We forget that new opportunities are based on our relevance for future demands and not for past performance.

On the other hand some of us continuously build on our strengths so that our past experience complements our new skills and capabilities we acquire and together they are still relevant to the world around. We don’t deep freeze our brain but try to keep it still active and inquisitive. Those of us who have consciously worked on this dimension go onto see their value appreciating with time and till such time our health permits we continue to be in demand for what we can deliver and not what we have delivered. (Then we will be in the fortunate position to choose whether or how to monetize or enjoy this value.)

“I dread the word success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s goal in life. Like the Male Spider that gets eaten up once it succeeds in its courtship. I like the world of continuous becoming. With a goal in front and not behind” Barnard Shaw

Dare to Differ

In his famous book “Wisdom of the Crowds” James Surowieky has brilliantly explained how a number of average people can pool their collective wisdom to make outstanding estimations, decisions and predictions, better than what many brilliant people achieve individually. He does not claim that this is a magic solution. Neither does he claim that if zillion monkeys are given typewriters, possibly we will see the complete works of Shakespeare. (If that was the case we should be seeing at least one at www!). He is making a point that if we find a method for pooling together inputs from a large number of independent individuals with divergent views, then there could be many questions where the crowd would can come up with better results.[1]

Nature has also endowed such skills and processes to harness collective wisdom of agents who are individually endowed with limited knowledge and skill to build brilliant solutions. The way ants forage for food, the way bees select locations for their new hive, the way termites build mounts with weather control systems using natural energy with the sophistication that human beings have not yet achieved, are a few examples of how nature uses the wisdom of the crowds [2]

Democratic process we use in election of government, price discovery of goods and services in the markets and exchanges where various assets are traded among a large cross section of participating agents are examples how humans harness this wisdom of the crowds.

There are a few critical requirements for achieving meaningful results from large groups. They are: (i) diversity of knowledge of participants (ii) independence exercised by the agents (iii) mechanisms to pool this divergence; that bring about unimaginable solutions.

In the animal kingdom of ants and bees, this divergence and independence is hardwired. Human beings are also capable for this divergence; however there are many contexts and environmental conditions where this fails and the crowd or mob behaviour set in; where divergence fails and the group follows some crazy bubbles, fads or madness. (There are examples of such mob behaviour also among animals when nature uses this to trim overcrowding)

We have seen this in market bubbles, we have seen this in the similarity of strategies used my multiple fund managers, we have seen this in mob violence and so on. This depends on the context and the environment. Sometimes this is also misused by political leaders to serve their purpose.

Not just bee colonies or exchanges can benefit from the wisdom of the crowds, companies can also benefit by building environment that encourage diversity and dissent. Many company leaderships and bureaucracies don’t nurture environment for such dissent. The hierarchical structure and the feudal culture often suppress dissent, insecurity of the leaders encourages sycophancy and misguided sense of loyalty promotes conformance. Dissent is often equated to disloyalty to the organisation whereas it could be an expression of true loyalty. As Howerd Zinn observed; “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”

Orson Welles has expressed this with a very interesting, rather cynical, example in his book ‘The Third man’: “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror murder and bloodshed. But they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!” [3]

This is not to suggest that the companies should encourage violence and conflicts. But it is essential to encourage diversity, dissent and competition for good ideas, if we plan to build performing teams. Very often in the normal corporate settings this does not occur naturally unless leaders actively encourage and incentivize such behaviour.

“Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it” Mark Twain


1. Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowieky
2. Smart Swarm, Peter Miller
3. The Ape in the corner office. Richard Conniff

Break the silos

I understand that one of the primary missions of Google is to organise world’s information. As a part of this dream it embarked on a project of scanning books and creating a digital library as early as 2001. It approached this dream in a systematic fashion. It worked on strengthening the technology for speedy and efficient scanning, it interfaced relentlessly with the libraries to give it access to their treasures and it established infrastructure to handle this volume. It also had to address legal issues relating to copy rights.

Although they had proceeded quite ahead, even by 2006, they were still far short of their ultimate dream of having a large number of books in their digital library. This was not yet sure place to hit upon the scanned images of many books we are looking for. So in 2007 it came up with an innovation. It added to its book search a means to link all publically available information about any books from various sources like online library catalogues, web references on books, book reviews and a host of such sources which had rich information about any books.

They really did not have to wait till 2007 to launch this innovation. They had most of this information available with them as early as 2004. It is just that the team of Google book search did not get the idea to look at the other division in their own company and make their project more meaningful. Once they linked all these silos the outcome is truly marvellous. {1}

Today, if you want to know about practically any book, the best place to search is Google Books. If it is not available in the list of scanned books, we still can get a lot of information about the book we are searching for. As they have huge cache of scanned books, we can even search from these scanned books, on the basis of key words. A truly brilliant functionality!

We learn some lessons from this little story.

Silos within: One of the core strengths of Google as a company is encouragement they give and the environment they create for people with diverse skills and from diverse teams to interact with each other. That is one reason though late, such a solution evolved. Even then the solution which in retrospect looks so obvious did not evolve overnight.

But in many organisations we see silos; the silos that don’t talk to each other, the silos created and protected by leaders who lack vision; the silos maintained by insecurity; the silos encouraged by Tuglaks who believe in ‘divide and rule’. These silos then become sinks for innovation where status quo becomes the norm.

Cross Pollination: If there are mechanisms in place to inter-connect silos, if not break them, the benefit that we can mange would be beyond imaginations. We will find learning from one group which solved a problem, giving ideas, and generating new solutions to the problems in another area.

In his book “Future of Management” Garry Hamel has discussed the key ingredients that are required for longevity of organisation and institutions. One of the five key factors he has discussed is the contribution of diversity of knowledge, culture, ideas, and expertise present in any group.

Passion and Commitment: In any team, company and organisations there are two kinds of people.

(i) Those who are there only for a salary. They come to office, do what is required of them to do, to the extent they can get away with, they react to emergencies and problems more in the nature of blaming somebody or to cover their derriere than to find a solution. Their priorities are driven by what makes then look good and what their bosses are excited about than what is important for the organisation. They keep looking at the clock for the closing time; their leaves are planned for their convenience with no regard for organisational challenges.

(ii) Those who share the dream, the vision and are passionately committed to and involved in what they are part of. They have in the back of their mind, processes running looking for new ideas and new solutions from everything they read, see or come across. They behave almost like young men/ girls who have been smitten and are constantly looking for ways to please their loved ones. Their priorities are driven by what can make a difference to the team/ project/ company / organisation they belong to and how they can make the life better for their clients. When they are so passionately involved they are able to crack insurmountable problems. It is this phenomenon that is expressed in the famous quote from Alchemist “If you believe in something the whole world will conspire to make it happen for you”.

These learning are relevant for any organisation whether private or public. Any organisation that attempts to break down silos, encourage cross pollination of ideas and instil commitment and passion will see emergence of unique solutions, killer applications and exciting products that elevates them to new heights. Those who fail in these are destined to have a place in the history a place they will share with dinosaurs.

There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination, compromise, and integration. By domination only one side gets what it wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish.- Mary Parker Follett


[1]Planet Google, Randall Stross

“Are you being watched?”

Radia tapes controversy is about the tapping of tele-conversations of Nira Radia by the informant agencies, the celebrated lobbyist had with a cross section of powerful people from industry, politics, press and a host of other power brokers. This incident has raised a host of questions.

Is it right to tap private conversations? We can say that when there is serious suspicion about possible legal violations, the law enforcing bodies have the right to eavesdrop to help them in their enforcement or to protect the sovereignty of the country. On the other hand how do we ensure that this right is not misused for political gains and industrial espionage? What kind or processes do we put in place to ensure that this is not a means to suppress dissent and democratic processes?

Then the next question is whether it was right to have leaked this information to public domain? These were not private conversations or business secrets or even some escapades which have no social relevance except for satisfying the voyeuristic inclinations of a perverted few. These were conspiracies by people in power, to defraud the public. Don’t the public have a right to know?

The ‘wiki leaks’ has established a forum for the whistle blowers to bring to light conspiracies, corruption and machinations of very powerful people which otherwise would not have been possible because of possible repercussions. It has got kudos and criticisms.
‘The organization won a number of awards, including The Economist's New Media Award in 2008 and Amnesty International's UK Media Award in 2009. In 2010, the New York City Daily News listed WikiLeaks first among websites "that could totally change the news", and Julian Assange was named the Readers' Choice for TIME's Person of the Year in 2010. Supporters of Wikileaks in the media have commended it for exposing state and corporate secrets, increasing transparency, supporting freedom of the press, and enhancing democratic discourse while challenging powerful institutions. At the same time, several U.S. government officials have criticized WikiLeaks for exposing classified information, harming national security, and compromising international diplomacy.[Human right organizations such as Amnesty International criticized WikiLeaks for not adequately redacting the names of civilians working with the U.S. military. Some journalists have criticized the lack of editorial discretion when releasing thousands of documents at once and without sufficient analysis. Among negative public reactions in the United States, people have characterized the organization as irresponsible, immoral, and illegal.’ [1]

Incidences like this and revelations of this magnitude were once only occasional occurrences. But the progress in technology has gradually been chipping away the concept of privacy and secrecy the way we are familiar.

The ubiquitous availability of electronic communication and electronic recordings are giving a different dimension to private conversations. I am not talking about spying which is still considered illegal (except if it is by the authorities who have the right to do so) I am talking about stronger evidences that can reveal the truth about what transpired in a meeting where you and I were present.

For example, although oral contracts always were recognized by law, it was often difficult to prove the validity of the contract. We addressed this by having more people to participate our discussions who could act as witnesses. But even then it was your word against mine. So in critical meetings we started the practice of signed minutes. But this again had the limitation of doctored minutes, ingenuity of the minute writer and limitation of human memory or event the minutes getting lost. It also could not capture the nuances of the conversations which are discernable only when we listen to the way dialogues were delivered. Now the technology provides us with tools to have voice notes, voice minutes and even video notes. It is perfectly legal and even moral if you are not eves dropping or if you are not sharing it with those who are not meant to have access to it. It is ‘the true minutes of meeting’ that can better represent the truth.

Earlier paper documents could vanish could not be traced and would have been too painful to track. But today the mails and files are stored for eternity at very low cost and computer can help us to trace and track these with ease based on key words, dates and so on.

More and more of our friends are going online and share photos and videos of events where we were a part. More people are going to blog about us, more people are going to study, dissect and publish opinion about what we do. We have limited control over these. The higher we go, the more publically relevant what we do, the more open is going to be our acts of commission and omission.

Wiki leaks and the likes of it are going to make whistle blowing easier. Legal enablement of the right to information reduces our ability to hide and obfuscate under official secrets act. Cheaper storage, stronger searches, powerful algorithm to match and generate profiles will make it easier for anybody to obtain a much better understanding of what we are and what we do. As the Economist observed in an article, Wiki Gaga, “Such freedom may test the limits of democracy, in which rights to speech are balanced by duties to privacy and security” [2]

All these are nudging us to change the way we talk and behave. Be more honest in our dealing and more truthful or at least careful in our uttering and behaviour. Bluffing our way through is not the obvious option any more. When we mess up, remember it may not remain a secret all the time. On the other hand we must also learn to be less judgemental about human follies often revealed out of context in the digital world and learn to forget and forgive

As Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University has pointed ‘Our character, ultimately, can’t be judged by strangers on the basis of our Facebook or Google profiles; it can be judged by only those who know us and have time to evaluate our strengths and weaknesses, face to face and in context, with insight and understanding. In the meantime, as all of us stumble over the challenges of living in a world without forgetting, we need to learn new forms of empathy, new ways of defining ourselves without reference to what others say about us and new ways of forgiving one another for the digital trails that will follow us forever.’[3]

I am not making any value judgement of whether this is right or wrong. I am only pointing out that we are moving towards a more open society and whether we like it or not there is a pretty high chance that what we thought to be confidential may not remain so and we have no option. (Read up “Privacy Fantasies” for some futuristic thoughts on this topic)


“You already have zero privacy - get over it” Scott McNealy, Cofounder of SUN Micro System

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks
2. http://www.economist.com/node/16335810
3. The Web Means the End of Forgetting. The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-t2.html?_r=1)

My first love

Once upon a time there was a kid who, like most of us, feared examinations. So he prayed to god to give him a magic pen that could help him answer all the questions correctly in any exam.

One day in his dream a fairy came to him. She promised to grant him one wish. Promptly he asked the fairy for a magic pen. The fairy took him to a big palace and told him that there is a magic pen in a chamber deep inside that palace.

“I cannot take you all the way in. You have to pass through seven gates and each one is guarded by a scary ogre.” The fairy told him

He walked to the first gate and as predicted the ogre was there.

“If you want to pass through this gate, you need to answer three questions” The ogre told him in a booming voice.

The ogre asked him the questions and he had no idea about any of them. (The ogre did not allow life lines or dial a friend option).

“If you want to try again, look behind you, there is an almirah full of books, read them and you will get all the answers” the ogre told him

He sat there for days and read all the books and when the ogre asked him questions he was ready with all the answers. This was repeated at all the seven gates and finally after many many days he reached the inner room.

He was excited. He looked around for the treasure ‘the magic pen’. The room looked empty. He was sad and felt cheated. He wanted to hit the fairy who took him for a ride. He started crying. Suddenly the old fairy was with him.

“Why did you let me down?” he screamed

“I have not let you down my boy. You don’t need a magic pen any more. You can take any pen to write the exams. The magic is in your head” The fairy replied softly. She had a little twinkle in her eyes

This story that I read as a little boy left an indelible image in my mind. I believe it is this story that set me up with my first love “BOOKS”. All through the years my love for books has only grown and each one of them has added one more ‘magic’ into my mind.

When I observed the rapid growth of internet and the power of Google, initially I felt that it was time to say good bye to my first love. If I have any questions, the answers are a ‘Google search’ away.

Then I realised that Google has not yet reached the level where it can ask the right questions for me, though it can help me to find the right answer. Not only that, it makes this answer available to anybody, from anywhere in the world at really no cost. The information and knowledge is no more restricted to the privileged few who can afford. But now I need to be even more knowledgeable to know what questions to ask and I need new ideas to make a difference. The ‘written word’ is still one of the few triggers that can help me in this.

Technology has now added more options, I can read e-books and articles from the net, from the kindle, I can review from the net what I want to read, I can get summaries of big fat books that would distil the wisdom for me, my friends and the virtual communities could share their opinion with me on what I intend to read and the audio books help me to fall asleep imbibing the ‘spoken word’ without disturbing my kid or my wife with the reading light.

With all these I have only got closer to my first love these days and not drift away...

“The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.” Theodore Parker

Note. There are still millions around the world who do not have access to this magic of written words or the access to the net. This is one area in which a small contribution can serve many generations. I have been very impressed by work done by ‘Room to Read’ and I believe this truly is one of the most admirable charities in today’s world.

Fire in the belly

Over the weekend I was at IIT Kanpur. I was there to talk to students who had come from the best engineering schools across India to participate in the Asian leg of the annual Intercollegiate Programming Competition. The top team from India will be selected to participate in the world finals which will have about 80 teams selected from about 60 centers across the world.

I spent some time talking to the judges who have been associated with this event a number of times. One of them was a young lecturer from Bangladesh who had reached the finals twice.
The profs told me that in the world competition the top ten places are always bagged by the teams from Russia and China. The best performance from the teams from India ever was a rank of 29.

“How come India which is supposed to be a powerhouse of software development does not fare well?” I asked

“The Chinese kids do a lot of preparation. The colleges give them enormous support. In fact I understand that they even give really good team members relaxed schedule to complete their other curriculum schedules” one of the faculty explained.

I found it quite familiar. We hear similar stories about the focused development support institutions and government provide for development of international competitiveness in different fields including sports in countries like China and Russia. We also need to build such national priorities and support systems to see our competitiveness boosting.

“But then how do you explain the kids from Bangladesh doing better than Indian kids”

“That is a different dimension of performance. These kids are full of passion and are desperate to prove to the world that they are good” The Professor explained.

“With the IT Industry booming, our kids are sure of the job opening irrespective of their academic performance. So they don’t want to put in the hard work needed to be even to participate in the world finals; forget being the world champions.”

“In the Asian leg, practically no teams from IITs ever reach the top positions in the recent past. It is the students from the institute from the next rung that end up in the top 10. In fact the team from Indonesia & IIIT Hyderabad topped this year.” the Prof continued.

“I agree. The inner passion to demonstrate our software credentials helped leaders like Moorthy, Nandan, Bagchi, Soota and their team to slog it out and build large software powerhouses from India. Our kids have it easy these days!”

I remembered what my good friend Ajay had explained to me as a possible contributing reason why Jewish race has managed to win more than 175 Nobel prices though they form a very small proportion of global population. They had been exposed to multiple occasions of severe persecution and they were pushed to their limits for survival. This trial by fire could be one of the reason for their outstanding performance in various fields.

It is a well understood fact that whether it is in sports, computer programming or business one of the key essentials for success is ‘fire in the belly’, a ‘burning desire’ to make a mark. It is of equal importance at the top, at the bottom and in between. If the top dog has no ambition to build, his team will also settle down and relax. If the top dog has ambition but he fails to build a team that share his dream then too the results will be limited. When any organisation get to be dominated by people who have retired in their hearts, it will be the beginning of the end.

And that is the challenge that any leadership faces..

“If you ask people to reach, to think creatively, and produce extraordinary results, they usually will. Too often in our modern world they are simply not asked” John Wood, Founder, Room to Read

To be or Not to be: Part 6 - The Larger Good ?

I was about 18 years old and I used to be a very active member of a youth group in our area. We had a great bunch of talented guys and girls in this group and we used to have lots of fun cooking up interesting stuff together.

Once we decided to organise a cultural evening; an evening of drama, songs and dance for us to perform and show-off. I was the secretary of the group and played an active role in organising the program. I wanted to use this as an opportunity to get wider participation from the youngsters in the area. So I invited them to participate in the event. Among them there was a girl who was very talented, good looking and a bit arrogant who had never actively participated in our earlier programs except for occasional guest appearances. (Let us call her Monica) I asked her to participate in our cultural evening and she agreed. (May be she could not resist my charm!) She volunteered to be the Master of Ceremonies (MC). She sat through the rehearsals to get a good idea of the various programs, helped us to organise them in a creative sequence and worked out nice introductions for each item which was developed with quite a lot or research to include nice quotes and humorous quips. I was really impressed by the work she did.

On the day of the program, we practiced the whole day and late in the afternoon I went home, had a bath, put on nice clothes and returned to the venue. Then a delegation of few guys from our group who were part of many of the main items for the day, like drama, skit and group songs, approached me.

“We don’t want Monica to be the MC today” Their leader told me.

“Why? She has put in a lot of efforts for this and has done a fabulous job” I replied.

“We don’t care. If she is the MC we will not participate in any programs today”, retorted their leader.

“But you should have expressed your concern earlier. Not at the last moment”

“Nothing doing, it is our decision now”.

I tried my level best to persuade them; begged, pleaded, appealed to their sense of right and wrong and tried to call their bluff. No luck.

If I didn’t heed to their demand many of the items of the day would be cancelled. Many youngsters (in addition to the few who led the anti Monica rebellion) who were part of these programs would be devastated. Also, with the star items cancelled the program would be turn out to be a flop.

On the flip side, if I did heed to their demand, it would be unfair to Monica who had put in so much of effort to knit up a wonderful story line for introductions. Not just that, without the MC, the punch of the program would also be lost; unless I convince her to sacrifice for the greater good, share the story line and get somebody else to do the MC Job.

We can argue the merit of each of these options. Sacrifice many for one? Or Sacrifice one for many? It was double bind, a Morton’s fork; I was stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea.

We face these kinds of dilemmas in our day to day work. Take a few examples; (i) A client comes to us with a complaint. The mistake is ours; but it will be difficult for him to fix it on us. If we accept his demand, there is a cost to the company and one of our colleagues could be in trouble. (Recently Toyota had to go through a similar kind of situation) (ii) We made a goof up in our work. It is easy to bury the mistake and our role in it; but the company will have to pay the price. (iii) We want to push some of our agenda; but one colleague could stand in our way. Should we try to get him out of the company?

Some of us have a simple rule. Choose the option that serves our purpose the most. Some of us want to do what is right. Even this distinction is often blurred and contextual. There are two important factors that will determine whether and when we will compromise doing the right thing. It is the balance between the stakes involved and the strength of our moral conviction in the particular case.

Then what is that could leverage our moral conviction? May be the habit that we develop (Our parents, teachers and Society helped us to develop) would encourage us to choose the right thing most of the times. As Aristotle observed “Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts”. If we develop this habit, we will at the least try to reflect for a moment what is right instead of just what we want. When more people think in this manner most of the time, we will have a civilized society.

Sometimes it is difficult to identify what is right. The reasons tell us one and the conviction the other. From time immemorial the thinking man has tried to find a method to figure this out. Mythologies address this question extensively. Yet do we have the answer? When we get “the answer” to this question, I think we will become one with the god; attain the “true nirvana”

Till then it is a search, and that is what we call life ...

About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. Ernest Hemingway

100th Milestone Part II - Learning

Continued from last week.. My experience in blogging

My enterprise of writing a weekly blog has helped me enormously. Most importantly it taught me the meaning of the quote “If there is a will there is a way”

It has also taught me the discipline of thinking through issues and doing some research. Normally many thoughts and ideas drift through our mind. But when I sit down to consolidate my thoughts as a post, it helps me to focus and get a better hang on the related issues, it questions some of my assumptions and it forces me to take a position which I am not afraid to share.

Some of what I write are original. Some are new ways of presenting an idea or thought, some are sharing of experience and some are remixes of interesting stuff. The postings I like best are based on my experience. They also frustrate me the most, because it is quite an arduous task to remove the characters and the context to distil the learning. Nevertheless, it is fun. There are of course occasions when I long to reproduce the incidences and the context in ‘as is’ format, which would have been much more hilarious. But then my good senses prevail and I postpone them for my post retirement entertainment :-)

I realized that taking a position in public (not in front of a few people whom we know) is scary for many reasons.

(i) When I articulate my stand in a few written words, it may not succeed in communicating what I meant. (may be my failure in communication)
(ii) As I try layered writing which helps the reader find a meaning in their context, sometimes some people read a meaning that I never imagined. Especially some creative minds may work overtime in coming out with divergent interpretations
(iii) Sometimes the underlying meaning touch some sensitive heart (especially if is perceived to be rubbing them the wrong way) and could bring about a violent reaction. This is specially the case when I write about public policy or governance.

I have realized that these are the risks I should I accept if I decide to publish my thoughts. But I do believe that it is the right of every reader to interpret anything that he reads and to react or respond as he chooses. I cannot and should not complain..Like Voltaire remarked " I don't agree with what he says; but I will defend to death his right to say so"

Writing my blog has been an enriching experience because it improves my articulation, the feedback I get from smart people extends my horizon of learning, it gives me an idea of how different people react to the same stuff and most importantly it forces me to think.

After every posting I am filled with trepidation on how it is going to be received. How many people will read it and how many will like it. The tracker tells me that on an average there are 150 to 200 clicks for each of my posts which come from all over the world. Half the readers are from India and another quarter from US. I get readers from UK, Denmark, Korea, China, Australia, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, Austria and so on. It really makes me feel good and encourages me to continue with my initiative.

Another great benefit of this venture is that it has helped me to be aware and familiar with the new options evolving in communication technologies and social media. I look at the new blog features, figure out new gadgets to be attached, experiment with social media and viral marketing options. It has also given me lots of new friends who are willing to share their ideas.

Some of my friends who have been reading my posts on a regular basis have been nudging me to consolidate all my blogs to a book. The idea excites me. Two things are holding me back. (i) I am scared (ii) I seem to have very little time to take up this project. But now I feel confident to take a public position again. This confidence arises from the partnership that has been promised by one of my old time friends Sankarankutty, who is well read, has a good writing style and has a sophisticated taste for artistic expression; complementing what I have and don't have.

As most things about life this too is a journey...

There are high spots in all of our lives and most of them have come about through encouragement from someone else. I don't care how great, how famous or successful a man or woman may be, each hungers for applause. - GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

100th Milestone- Part 1 - The Journey Begins

This is the 100th post in this blog. Therefore I decided to share my experience in blogging; how it started, how it progressed, the learning from this venture and how I hope it will proceed. I decided to post this as I got a feedback from many of my friends that they would like to attempt this and they are curious about how a lazy guy like me got around to doing it.

I had been nurturing for a while a dream of developing an ability to write some sensible stuff that others would find interesting and/or meaningful and eventually be acknowledged as a writer. But, I could never get around to sit down and write though there have been times when I felt that the ideas that flitted across my mind were worth sharing. I felt too lazy and gave excuses to myself why I could not find the time.

Any writer, beginner or an authority, would need an avenue to express his creation and share the same. In the good old days we were limited in this opportunity and only a few could find the avenue either in book publishing or in placing articles in any publications. It was practically impossible for an individual to share his written expressions to a wider audience without this support.

The World Wide Web and particularly the social media like blog have changed all this. This has given an ability to all of us to publish at practically no cost. So a couple of year’s back I decided that I would setup a blog. But I still would not get started. I convinced myself that this was because of my busy schedule. I had to find a way to ensure that this doesn’t end up being an abortive enthusiasm for a project that that I would not sustain. To put pressure on myself, I announced to the whole world (my friends, relatives, colleagues, acquaintances et al) that I would post at least one article every week. The fact that there were enough friends who used to loudly wonder (maybe to tease me) when I delayed a few days made sure that I lived up to my commitment.

The next challenge was to come up with an idea every week on which I could pen 500 to 700 words and put it out there for everybody to see; especially since many of my friends who read my blog were brilliant people who mostly gave an honest feedback on how they felt. This has also exposed me to the different tastes of different people. When a particular posting was liked very much by some people, others had a different opinion. Among all the feedback I get, the one that still scares me is the feedback from Dr. Indira Rajaraman, my teacher from my IIM days. She is still a teacher and gives her feedback within 24 hours after I post and would comment on content, style and even spelling. I feel proud whenever she has no correction to point out.

I got some caveats from my friends when I started this blog. (i) It will bare to the world my thinking and make me predictable. (ii) On account of the kind of work I do, I may offend somebody with what I write. (iii) If to avoid being controversial I don’t share my experience the stuff I write may get to be quite mundane. Therefore I decided on some ground rules.

(i) I will not write anything about the work I am doing. If there are any lessons from my experience that are worth sharing, I will remove the incident and people, distil the lesson and share in a layered format that will help the readers to understand the learning in their life's context. In many such attempts that I made on layered writing, I got feedback from variety of people on how they found it very relevant in their context

(ii) I will acknowledge contributions and ideas from others including the stuff I read. I won’t stoop to plagiarism.

(iii) I will try to be honest in what I write and I will avoid reference to a person except if he is public figure and there is something worth sharing about him.

To be continued....

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Lao Tzu

To be or not to be-Part V; Moral Choices

I knew a few drops of whisky could hit my senses and make my head go around. But recently I was, in a matter of few hours, exposed to two extremes of justice and morality and the experience was enough to make me dizzy.

It started with me spending some time with a person whom I describe as the Bhishma because of his stature, his acute sense of right and wrong, his confidence and willingness to stand up for what is right and his strategic acumen . We spent some time discussing about challenges we face if we decide to take positions which could rock the boat or force some change.

On the way back home from the meeting I was reading the book “The idea of justice” by Amartya Sen. The discussion with Bhishma still alive in my mind, I was able to better appreciate what he meant in his heavy and erudite style when he explains “It is fair to assume that Parisians would not have stormed the Bastille, Gandhi would not have challenged the empire on which the sun used not to set, Martin Luther King would not have fought white supremacy in ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’, without their sense of manifest injustices that could be overcome. They were not trying to achieve a perfectly just world (even if there were any agreement on what that would be like), but they did want to remove clear injustices to the extent they could.”

The various facets of this thought were floating in my mind and I was trying to relate the same to the challenges that we face on our day-to-day life. I came back home and decided to relax a bit with some light humour and put on the old serial “Yes Minister” which portrays the blunt reality of the world; the world of political expediency, horse trading, empire building and corruption. Particularly, in the context of what I was discussing and reading during the day the contrast was striking.

“Being in a cabinet minister is a complex business Annie. So many conflicting considerations” Said Minister Hacker

“Like whether to do the right thing or the wrong thing?” Asked his wife Annie

“I must tell you about government. You must always try to do the right thing. But you must try never to get caught doing the right thing, because doing right is wrong.” Hacker continued.

“The thing about the government is principle. The thing about principle is you must never rock the boat. Because if you do all the little consciousness will fall out”

“You must always follow your conscience; but you must know where you are going. So you can’t follow your conscience; because it may not be going the way you are going.”

I could not stop laughing. I felt totally spaced out; sort of intoxication of mind. It reminded me of the conflicts we face between our intentions and compulsions, the challenges of wanting to do the right thing and the need to be ‘pragmatic’, the difference between profits and exploitation, being a responsible corporate citizen and maximising the shareholder value at any cost.

These are questions for which it is difficult to find the right answer. These are issues for which we have to make our own choices. The collective total of the choices each of us makes will determine where our society is going. But, if we wait for the other person to take the lead, it is going to be a long wait.The thought expressed by Immanuel Kant “Bringing reason to the world becomes the enterprise of morality rather than metaphysics, and the work as well as the hope of humanity” (quoted by Dr Amartya Sen in his book “The Idea of Justice) makes this point much more elegantly.

“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is little like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian” Dennis Wholey

Soul for Sale

Last week I had a chance to spend few hours with an elderly gentleman and his wife. He is more than 70, still tall and handsome with an extremely winsome smile and an unending repertoire of jokes that he could crack at opportune moments. His wife who is above 60 is full of charm that made it abundantly clear that age can never quite conquer her spirit.

I was able to nudge him into telling his story which turned out to be so captivating that I even forgot to refill my glass.

“I have been always a lucky man” he started off.

“Being the youngest in a big family I enjoyed lot of love and affection and I learned to cherish and value them at a young age though it broke the bread to smaller helpings”

“My father was not a rich man, but with his powerful personality he was able to imbibe in me a strong sense of right and wrong and compassion for fellow living beings”

“When I finished my graduation, I came over to this big city of Mumbai in search of a job. After I finished my interview and was walking along, I saw the board of this professional institution and I decided to walk-in and enquire”

“As luck would have it, the guy whom I started to talk was from my native state and he explained to me everything about how to apply for an admission.”

“I tried hard and got myself an admission; the only problem was how to fund my studies.”

“But I was lucky to get some part time job that I could do before I went to school and after I finished my school”

“Then I started my practice and I realised that one of the key essentials for making lots of money was the skill to fix deals with the various approving authorities”

“I had decided in my life that I will never pay a single penny as bribe even to a policeman on the street”

“For me success was not making lots of money; but making sufficient money and a having a sound sleep”

“I did not have too many needs and I had a wonderful wife who was totally undemanding and utterly dependable”

He looked at his wife and the smile they exchanged had the same intensity of affection that one would sometimes see in a newlywed couple.

“I got many assignments where I could perform without greasing palms”

“I was even an active member of Rotary and even it’s President. I might have been the only member who came for the meeting in a bus as I could not afford a car. I did not find it any demeaning and my many of my fellow members were willing to accept me for what I am worth as a human being”

“When I got two adorable children, my wife left the job she had, to give them a home though the budget did get tighter”

“I have always been quite lucky. Couple of weeks back, with no apparent reason I went for a medical check up and was diagnosed with cancer. It is one of the least harmful varieties and it appears that it is in quite an early stage”

I have narrated only excerpts of his story. I realised that he was not particularly lucky or unlucky. There was nothing unusual or extraordinary about his story. It is just that he was clear in his mind about his priorities, what he considered as success and the price he was willing to pay. He had the usual mix of sorrow and happiness, moments of stress and moments of exhilaration that all of us experience. What made the difference was the equanimity with which he took it all. Looking for the brighter side to be content and lighter side to laugh, looking for opportunities to extend a helping hand. I think this richness of spirit that ran through his life was what made it a spellbinding story; more exciting than the dizzying heights of prominence his son has achieved!

Take a look at the madness that goes around. The definitions of success, lies we are willing to perpetuate and the games we play; Aadarsh housing society, Common Wealth Games, financial skulduggery of our bankers, weapons of mass destruction, unending conflicts at Palestine, WorldCom, Enron, Anderson and Satyam, 9-11, 26-11 the list goes on. We have no qualms in selling our souls for 30 pieces of silver.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Bible

Quadrants of Success

I recently read a new book by R Gopalakrishnan. It is titled “When the Penny Drops: Learning, What’s Not Taught”. It is a very interesting book in which he shares many of his experiences and his insights of what makes a successful leader. I liked one particular framework he has presented in this book to understand the challenges for leaders. I have tried to use this framework to take a deeper look into managing uncertainty which I had discussed in my earlier postings “Scaling Up, The Art of the Impossible” Part1 and Part II

As can be seen from the diagram, a four quadrant matrix is used to understand the challenges in managing uncertainty. These quadrants are defined on the basis of the ability to identify problems and solve them. One axis is the level of uncertainty relating to problems and the other axis is the level or uncertainty relating to solutions.

In our early stages of career we are normally in the first quadrant. In this quadrant, the necessary ingredient for success is a good repository of knowledge, skills, techniques and tools; i.e. domain knowledge, standard operating procedures, standards, tricks, tips and tools. What we need is to dance as per specific tune; we should know the steps and we should know the tune. In this level, the level of uncertainty is quite low.

From there we graduate to the second quadrant. In this quadrant we graduate to the next level of uncertainty. We strengthen our problem solving skills and we develop an aptitude and skill to undertake root cause analysis. Once we are able to identify the problem, we apply the appropriate tools to solve them. The requirements at this stage are analytical skills and deductive capability. We figure out what type of dance the crowd like and then we perform the same.

From here we move to the third quadrant. At this stage we are move to the realm of pushing the envelope of knowledge. We take up assignments wherein we need to figure out solutions for problems which have been haunting us for a long time. We should have deep inquisitiveness and enjoy innovation. Learn to handle the frustrations of experimentations, learn to persist on a path and learn to discard an idea on which we have invested heavily when it has hit a dead end. We conceive and develop a new dance style.

The Ultimate Challenge is in the fourth quadrant; the quadrant of a leader. Here as a starting point we need to have a vision, a dream of where we are trying to go. The daring to “where no man has ever gone before” as Capt Kirk would say. The problems are unknown and the solutions are not there. It is a embarking on a search with reasonable clarity of the shape of the dream. A big picture idea of the geography of the space we are operating. We have to try to solve an array of possible problems that we need to address. We need to learn to get things done from people on whom we have no control or direct influence. Here we don’t know who our audience is going to be and we don’t know what kind of dance they may like. (For some tips and tricks on this read on Hitchhiker’s guide to Corporate Galaxy Part 1 and Part 2 )

The famous serenity prayer describes the strengths we need at the second, third and fourth quadrant brilliantly. In the second quadrant of uncertainty we need to have “serenity to understand the things that we cannot change”, in the third quadrant we need the “courage to change the things we can” and in the fourth quadrant we need the “wisdom to know the difference”

In any organisations we need people in each quadrant and we need processes to address the needs of each quadrant. We also need skills to identify the growth path for each employee that will address his skill and comfort for a quadrant. Some may never move out of the first quadrant and only few can ever perform in the fourth quadrant. We need to have appropriate transition strategies across quadrants including when to anchor person in a quadrant.

For any organisation to sustain and grow it will have to have at its helm few people who are comfortable and capable to be in the fourth quadrant. One of the primary reasons for organisations decay is their failure to have such leaders.

“You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'” George Bernard Shaw 

Games in Perspective

With 38 gold medals, India came up second, just behind Australia, in the Commonwealth Games that was held in October 2010. "Delhi has delivered. The competitions went well, and it was a comfortable, satisfactory experience," said Commonwealth Games Federation President Michael Fennell regarding India's performance as a host.. Both are commendable achievements for India. But, this high profile event also brings to the forefront some lessons worth pondering about.

Last minute heroism: “We have this great Indian culture of doing everything at the last minute. Whether it is marriage or anything else, but we do end up doing it well,” quipped Indian Union Minister S Jaipal Reddy. This is a culture we appear to be developing from our childhood. The school and college folklore is about those 'cats' who managed to 'crack' the exams without studying, attending classes or doing projects. Planned and systematic effort with commitment to milestones are often seen as weaknesses even in workplace. Last minute rush and 'touch-and-go" finish are perceived as mark of genius and heroism. What we often forget are the wasteful efforts, avoidable expenditure, possible risk and  unwarranted  tension for the participants and last minute compromises that result on account of such heroics.

There can be no doubt that one of the contributors of the astronomical cost overrun associated with CWG could also have been this last minute heroism. It was not just the cost; there was terrible loss in reputation for India in the world stage which almost led to boycott of the games by many nations.

Blatant Corruption: There are serious concerns of financial bungling and corruption; not just incompetence, but willful malpractices. I don’t think this financial mis-handling is an exception. The team that was put in place to manage the games cannot be in any way more in-efficient or more corrupt than the leaders of  many other large projects. The prime difference in this case is that it was a very high profile event (or that some were unlucky to get caught?). It again highlights the need to have more transparency and better accountability in public expenditure. A vision as a country we need to aspire for is a vision to improve our rating in corruption index and not just increase in medal tally.

It is heartening to note that some actions are being taken to identify the culprits. I hope this will not end up as temporary eyewash.

Sensational Journalism: The press played a remarkable role in bringing to public attention the bungling and corruption that took place. But often the press gets carried away and give gossips, exaggerations, innuendos and aspersions more importance than it deserves and fails to place facts in perspective. Looking through the press reports and TV coverage up till the opening ceremony, I got a feeling that we have messed up the games so badly that it would be a total failure and a national shame.

But what I saw in the TV, what I read in the press and the narration of those who witnessed and experienced the conduct of the games gave a comfort that the implementation had a certain quality that we can feel proud of. The medal tally could also be an expression of a resurgent India. First time in history we came second, ahead of England.and Canada

The news reports focused more on the warts and putrefying sores with practically no reference to anything positive till the games opened. I agree, it is important to play the role of a whistle blower but it is also important to recognize the efforts of many officers, laborers, volunteers and athletes who gave their wholehearted best with no malice in their hearts.

This again is nothing unique about CWG. What sells in media both in press and in TV is sensationalism and it has become the fashion. A sense of balance or willingness to place facts in perspective seems to be losing its glamour and a yellow hue appear to getting more popular.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” Marcus Aurelius

Aadhaar – The First Milestone

“Aadhaar” Unique Id (UID) for Indian residents was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of India on September 29 2010 at Nandurbar District of Maharashtra at a function which was attended by a large contingent of political bigwigs including Ms. Sonai Gandhi, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Ashok Chavan, his deputy Mr. Chhagan Bhujbal and the UID chief Mr. Nandan Nilekani.

This ceremony sent out two messages. Firstly it demonstrates that we have been able to keep the promise of rolling out of this project within 18 months. Secondly, by commencing this project at Tembhali in Maharashtra State which is a tribal village, it shows our commitment that we intend to give focus to the poorer segment who today suffers the most on account of lack of broadly acceptable identity.

Aadhaar is a new tool which could find multiple applications in a variety of areas. It can help to prevent ghost claimants, repeated claimants and proxy claimants of various benefits offered by governmental and aid agencies which in turn can reduce leakage. It can also help to give direct benefit to deserving candidates instead of carpet bombing of benefits which is often cornered by unscrupulous people.

But, this does not mean it is a panacea for all problems; even for the problem related to targeted social protection measures. It just means that we have a stronger tool which if properly employed can significantly reduce leakage and improve targeted delivery. UIDAI has come out with papers on how the UIDAI can be of help in different fields. Some of these ideas will fructify and some will not. But there is no doubt that such a tool can be truly transformational. The transformation we have seen in financial markets, especially in capital market on account of sensible use of technology to improve efficiencies and reduce fraud have helped us to become one the best settlement infrastructure in the world from one of the worst in the world in less than a decade.

We see in the press, from the so called intelligentsia the concerns on the cost –benefit balance of this initiative and issues of privacy. Sometime it appears to me as issues blowm out of proportion. Aadhaar is not unique in the world. Many other countries have already attempted this exercise. America has been using Social Security Number as a unique id for it residents. What is unique about our Aadhaar is the magnitude of challenge of issuing a unique id to a billion people and using the technology and processes to prevent duplicates or keep it to absolute minimum.

Nobody is claiming that the Aadhaar project can eliminate duplicates to absolute zero. But I have confidence that if properly implemented, technology and processes are available that can keep uniqueness to such high levels that no other methods can match. With such powerful identity verification tool, a large number of agencies providing services to millions of peoples, (banks, ration shops, insurance companies etc, etc) can save enormous cost of identity verification.

Other concern is about privacy. Let us look at this a little more deeply. Aadhaar takes only very few demographic details (name, gender, date of birth, address, parent’s name, etc ) along with biometric details. In a true sense, it need have taken only biometric details of an individual and it could have issued a unique number. But today’s level of technology needs few more fields for exception handling and more importantly the users of this identity has not reached the level of technology sophistication to map each of its clients on the basis of only a number with biometric mapping. Therefore, Aadhaar requires few critical demographic details.

The list of demographic data insisted at the time of issuance of Aadhaar is so general and is even less than the details taken for KYC verifications by most services providers. There is practically nothing in there that can be used for racial profiling or such measures. The UIDAI act is specifically providing for the same.

Aadhaar does not make this information available to anybody even for verification. Its verification service is limited to a “Yes/ No” response to an enquiry of whether a biometrical reading (finger print) taken from a person and the Aadhaar claimed by that person matches with the Aadhaar database. This does not compromise any private data.

Next concern is that once this number is widely prevalent among various service providers, it will be easy to integrate these data to develop total profile of people. If profiling is a concern or to be prevented fighting Aadhaar is not the solution. Today most service providers have so much of personal information like name, date of birth, even cell number which is sufficient to map one person among the multiple data bases with the current level of technology. What Aadhaar prevents is the ability of one person faking multiple identities among multiple service providers. I don’t think this is a right we need to offer to any person or protect.Though it sounds a bit harsh, the opinion expressed by Richard Posner, (Judge and legal expert from USA) has raises an interesting point. “As a social good, I think privacy is greatly overrated because privacy basically means concealment. People conceal things in order to fool other people about them. They want to appear healthier than they are, smarter, more honest and so forth.”

If we are concerned about misuse of profiling we need to establish legal frameworks that will prohibit such actions, we need to have mechanism to protect those who blow the whistle on violations and we need to have rules on the extent to which data can be shared across agencies. There is no point in preventing issuance of UID which comes with a host of other merits. It is barking up the wrong tree. But, it is fashionable to fight the establishment which I think is one of the strengths of a democratic society; with so many people barking at so many trees some may just hit the target!

“When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.” David Brin - American science-fiction writer b.1950

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Privacy Fantasies

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Privacy Fantasies

The technological leap in integration of varied sources of data raises a number of questions on privacy. I have attempted a time travel of 200 years into the future to take a look at these concerns. I would consider that the 200 year time period that I have given for these developments could be an over estimation than an under estimation.

New Delhi, January 15th, 2210: The Society is grappling to come in terms with the impact of the recent invention and proliferation of the Mind X-Ray Vision (Mind –X); a tool that helps us to read and feel with ease the thoughts and feeling of people around. The ultimate tool for transparency; its impact on human relationships, family lives, corporate strategies and matters of governance is unimaginable.

For a society that for years has progressed with the right, option and capability for privacy of thoughts and fantasies, this new invention is a totally disruptive development. A person who can wear this tool like a watch in his arm can now read the array of emotions that passes through minds of the person with whom he is now conversing. No more suspense about what he is thinking; of whether he is happy, sad, suspicious or is aroused. It is no more a matter of guessing.

A truly scary and a loss of control for some and a feeling of freedom and power for the other! It could allow us to be honest about our feelings and misgivings or it could make us self-conscious about what bubbles at the bottom of our heart.

The strategies for competition can no more be built on secrecy, obscurity or obfuscation but based on open manoeuvres. It is no more a game of poker; but a game of chess.

Isn’t this the next transition in the long journey to transparency? Some years ago we got the gadget that could search googols of digital information to find the answers to a question that popped up in our mind and transmit the answer back to our brain. The googols of information also contained sufficient information about each of us from the day we were born that there was practically no private life. This was possible with the tremendous growth of internet, Google and Social Networking in early 21st century.

In a way we have come full circle from the small village life we spent few thousands of years ago where there was practically no secret and everybody knew everything about everybody else in the village. The world has become one big village.

The worries and concerns on the Mind-X reminds me about the privacy concerns that were out there when the internet, Google and then Face book became popular laying bare the information that were once considered private. It was a scary proposition then. With the exploding computing power and the sophistication of the data mining tools, it became practically possible to develop individual profiles with publically available databases. The government with its right to access more confidential data had much more detailed data.

It taught us not to be judgemental about another person based on few incidences of indiscretion and accept the fact that most people become responsible over a period of time. It has also taught us on how to be more sensible in our conduct and how we publish it. There were worries that this increased transparency could be misused by the government and its agencies. There were also incidences of such events. Then many of these transgressions also became matter of public knowledge. But then we learned to address these issues. It brought about stronger checks and balances on how such interlinked data could be used even by the government.


Similar sentiments were expressed when photography became popular in late 19th century. Louis Brandies, one of the most renowned legal experts who also was a justice in the supreme court of United States and his partner Samuel Warren discussed snapshot photography, a (then) recent innovation in journalism that allowed newspapers to publish photographs and statements of individuals without obtaining their consent. They argued that private individuals were being continually injured and that the practice weakened the "moral standards of society as a whole” {1}

But then, can we protect privacy by arresting the growth of technology? Can we stop the usage and proliferation of new technologies for the benefit of our society because it can also be used to harm it? Tools are nothing but tools and it is for us decide how to use it. If we want a government that is fair, we need to elect one and we need be willing to play an active role in making it one. We also have to strengthen the governance structures and its oversight in how the information is used. If we are concerned about our reputation, we have to learn how we manage it.

We can’t fight an idea whose time has come. Mind You, Mind-X is here to stay!

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant." — William O Douglas

{1} Source Wikipedia 

“Rule of Law”

“Vendor Lock-in” is a major concern for any buyer, especially if the product/ service procured is of high value and has long-term implication on future procurement. The concern is quite natural and justified because if the product/ technology has locked-in the buyer, it is quite possible that the seller could use this dependency to extract more than what is fair.

There are quite a lot of discussions on this topic and there are quite a lot of strategies that try to address this. The mirror image of this is the “buyer- squeeze”. In this case the buyer who has significant market power can use the market power to squeeze the vendor to extent that he really may really bleed to death. (take a look at "Market Power & Relationships" for a discussion on Market Power in interpersonal relationships)

Different companies address this problem in different fashion. Some try to avoid over dependency on single buyers; some try to build in strong contracts and so on. One of the most difficult buyers in this respect can be government; especially because of the buying power and the plea of executive necessity. If the legal structure is not sufficiently evolved this risk can be quite high. This is very critical when we are exporting products or services abroad.

Indian law in this aspect has established quite a strong principle on this matter. Our law makers have appreciated that if this issue is not addressed properly, some executives, with short-term view could use this plea of executive necessity to drive his personal agenda and this in long term would discourage availability of high-quality service providers from both within the country and abroad to deal with the government.

The judgment by Justice P N Bhagvati who has served as the Chief Justice of India has addressed this matter lucidly in Motilal Sugar Mills case (AIR 1979 SC 621). I have quoted some parts of his judgment for the sheer beauty, brilliance and clarity of this judgment. "The law may therefore now be taken to be settled as a result of this decision that where the Government makes a promise knowing or intending that it would be acted on by the promises and, in fact, the promisee, acting in reliance on it, alters his position the Government would be held bound by the promise and the promise would be enforceable against the Government at the instance of the promisee, notwithstanding that there is no consideration for the promise and the promise is not recorded in the form of a formal contract as required by Article 299 of the Constitution”

He has further elaborated, “Why should the government not be held to a high "standard of rectangular rectitude while dealing with its citizens"? There was a time when the doctrine of executive necessity was regarded as sufficient justification for the government to repudiate even its contractual obligations, but let it be said to the eternal glory of this court, this doctrine was emphatically negatived in the, Indo-Afghan Agencies case and the supremacy of the rule of law was established. It was laid down by this Court that the government cannot claim to be immune from the applicability of the rule of promissory estoppel and repudiate a promise made by it on the ground that such promise may fetter its future executive action."

When we try to understand the strength of the rule of law of any country, the existence and enforcement of such fair dealing by government in any contractual relationship is an excellent indicator.


Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton