Vision to Execution ..

In the span of two days, I had a very close encounter with "Modi-Raj" on the ground !!
Vision to execution. And its worth telling this story ...

Mr. Modi addressed the nation from Red Fort on the occasion of 68th Independence Day.

And what an extempore it was !!! His "insider" view on how every two department of the same government are fighting among themselves, his appeal to each MP to build a model village, his assuring tone to the nation !!  All in all a very simple yet extremely ambitious plan for India laid out in that speech.

Right next day, the local BJP MLA called for a meeting of all Residents Welfare Association member to redress different grievances and take down corrective measures to march our ward towards that goal and vision.

He was accompanied by ACP, Traffic and Dept head for each urban and rural development orgs.

The first topic that was picked up was Traffic. The different congestion points, one after another, were being discussed. The traffic police would be the first one to answer to complaint and simply push it over to BDA, BBMP for Road being too narrow and pot holes due to rain (which has not really happened this year). The BDA will push it to BMTC saying, busses park at the junctions.

BMTC passing it over to Health to provide license to street vendors who take up spaces under bus stand shades, and then finally health pushing it over to electricity dept to talk about how there is not enough lighting, so people do not feel safe to wait there and they come to wait for the buses at the intersections.  Eventually all pointing fingers to grieving tax payers for walking on the road and slowing traffic down (like there is a choice).

So it was a perfect circle of pointing fingers, in front of a seemingly frustrated MLA, among the officials. Just few sequences changed, but all along a perfect circle of blame. No way to get out of !!!! No one took the action on them for even one bottle neck of traffic jam.

Finally, traffic police suggested, they do not have enough staff.. and they are willing to provide badges to some citizens to man the traffic during peak hours ! At that point, I saw the crowd slowly dispersing.

So, Mr. Modi - 10 yrs of "No Divisive" topic ... and "no in-fighting among depts" has not come to ground level yet... Or you blame that to State Govt in this case ????

A "Burmese" story of my generation

We have heard many stories of many repressive rulers from 70s-80s and even a bit in to 90s across the world.

Africa, where scores of asylum seekers landed up in USA during Idi Amin, Gadaffi rules. Pakistan - during ever running proxy ruling by military, Afganistan during taliban ruling.

Mostly religious  extremists, or power crazed politicians with military authority has driven these sad stories across countries. And clearly in last two decades, there is a decrease in the count of such countries.

However, I never heard, a personal, heartfelt story of immigrants from Burma to USA during late 80s.

This gentleman, who is a  colleague settled in USA for last 20 yrs, was a student of medicine in Burma - during 80s. A country which is Buddhist in religion - the most peaceful religion ever practiced has one of the longest running military rule. What an irony !!!

During the 80s, the colleges naturally became the center of unrest, and rebel against soldier rule ! The epicenter of the desire to live fearlessly as a normal society.

The soldiers closed all the schools, Kindergarten to University, for 8 years to suppress this !!! Taking away fundamental education for 8 complete years from an entire civilization is actually a huge blow to the society. Most poor countries use education as the only currency to thrive and grow ! And that only thing was taken away for so long.

My colleague becomes almost meditative narrating those days. He somehow made it to the shores of USA, did an engineering degree (switched from medicine) and landed up in the thriving tech industry of Bay Area.

It was a very touching story for me.. and shocking too coming from a peace loving Buddhist civilization.

A new concern for the American Desi's

Since I relocated back to India, a decade ago, and unlike others - ended up actually staying in India all along (not returned back in 2-3 yrs as it happens to almost all of reverse-migrants), I am a popular subject when I go to USA for a short business visit.

However, all along the excitement to talk to me among the fellow country men in the Bay Area tech sector has been primarily fueled by one factor  - 

Perception on a responsibility of title growth that is faster in India within the same company.  Clearly in most of their mind, I have DONE at least one thing right to be perceived as some one growing, and that being "relocating to India". To make it more convincing, I always second that convincingly - "You know what ? I was there at the right time in the right place" ! Which is TRUE, may not be COMPLETE.

But, then quickly the excitement and idea of coming back to India, to try the hands at professional growth, vanishes through a 15 min conversation. "Traffic is horrible. No sense of civility as people defecate/urinate in the public. No bribe no work" etc.

The myriad concerns of the American Desi !!!

However, last week when I was there, and as usual a lot of people stopped by to talk. "how is India ?"
But this time there was a new concern ! Everyone asking the same thing. "I hear kids going to school are being raped by their teachers!"  How can you live in that country ?

All other concerns have taken a back seat ! Its "rape" that has gone to the top of the list. This concern has been expressed in front of me so many times, that it has started influencing my verbiage.

Bell curve paradox ..

The annual ritual of curve fitting employees, creating a performance bell curve is taxing and in a way, very counter to what it is supposed to achieve.

The very intent of creating a bell curve is "meritocracy" ! Identify and reward the people who are better than others, in terms of their alignment to org goals, their skills, capabilities and their ability to work with greater team !

So, say the organization asks the managers to identify Top 15% talent as well as Bottom 15% employees, obviously it becomes tough for managers to identify that bottom 15%. Some, a very few cases are obvious. But then it becomes difficult. The theory says, its all relative, so just stack rank and then do simple math.

So, I ve seen this tussle of getting the Bottom 15 %. And that pains me but does not surprise me.

However what surprises me is, managers, a lot of them, coming and saying I am OK with not identifying less than Top 15% even when they have "quota" to use, because folks , they think, are not really Top folks. The whole relativity theory goes for a toss at the TOP too.

So, bell curve, devised for rewarding top performers, in a way breeds mediocrity by pushing more and more people to the core of the curve from the both sides.

Its like a safe zone !

Hurrah ...

I have always wondered, what governs ONE to cross over that seemingly un-conquerable boundary of physical pain.

Is it physical strength or mental steadfastness ?

Marathoners who like to touch than Finish line (42KMs.. phew! )  !!!

Coming to my own experiments.. I ve always had the dream of completing 108 Suryanamaskar's in one GO. But used to convince myself to give up after 48 / 50 !

Until today morning.. in the HOT Pondicherry Morning SUN - on the beach !

Now, I know.. its the mental strength. The body does drag along :) 92 minutes of perseverance. Last 30 minutes weren't necessarily bearable !!!

Forming Winning Teams : Activation Phase

Going through the exercise of building teams from scratch ! Team that will be the the key differentiation   ! Team that will lead innovation and execution. A team for the future, but well grounded in the present.

And I am refining my ideas of team building through this one, although this is the N'th time for me building a new team from the scratch.

And, through this process, one thing becomes very very clear to me.

You get the bodies together. That's the physical mass of the team and collect it till it reaches the critical mass. Then the job is to ACTIVATE it.

And the activation phase is truly critical. It has three parts to it.

1. Motivate : This is where the team members need to see Purpose of them working, not the tasks. And also where the team motivates back the leadership with the progress being made.

2. Enable: Mostly budgetary. Provide training, tools, equipments etc. Enable the team.

3. Empower: Purpose is set, they have the tools. And you hired intelligent people. Why get in the way ? Cultivate that sense of empowerment.

Easy recipe for an ACTIVATED team.

Bugged down by others expectations

One thing I am constantly battling for last 3-4 weeks is, scores of people coming to me and almost demanding / quizzing me a blue print for their growth in the organization.

Since I took on a new opportunity to build a new team in India, a lot of the people come to me and almost think I am sitting on a pile of coupons for free growth / promo.

There are different types though.

1.  Some who directly go down to their need. How they clearly want to grow and not growing. And should avail this opportunity ! Not interested in knowing "why they are not growing yet"

2. Some more smarter. They come try to convince me, what they bring to the table and to my team, before they slip in to what they expect

Some are genuine, want to do something new, without any expectation. And these are the people who are very very secured in their capabilities. They never have to state what they want. They focus and do their work, and their expectations get filled up on their own over the time.

But the ratio of such people with no expectation is very very minute. I am ok with this. Should not bug me down. However, there is a twist.

Quite a bit of my old team people come in and talk. Their point of view is different. They say, when I was leading them, they handed over their growth to me and focused on work. Now that I am moving out, forming something new, they feel cheated.

Especially they do not like the bit, that I am not opening my arms and taking my old team people to build the new one (which will be the easiest for me). Because I do not want to break my old team.
But the counter argument is, its a personal choice and freedom issue. People want to work in my new team, they should be able to apply and compete for it.

Sighh.. !!! No easy answer..

turning villain ..

After 16+ years of working in the company, and breaking many rules on the way (with the intent of creating better ones), I ve gotten one HR complaint filed against me today. Damn !!

Half of the HR execs found new masala to go after - inquiring what went wrong  !

The process of building a team from the scratch, needs a lot of hiring to happen. And in the current economy where most of the industry biggies are laying off people, I thought "hiring" is a good place to be. And with people internal to my existing company not getting enough opportunity to be part of growing teams, made me think I should focus on hiring internal talent instead from the market.

Now, little did I know, the HR recruiting team does not have much incentive plan around internal hiring (tongue in cheek) !! And there has been ZERO support from staffing team.

No internal marketing of the positions available, no proactive search for people who have registered in company database as looking out of change etc.

So, yes I was critical about the in-capabilities and lack of intention from the staffing team. And the person goes and files a completely diabolic case against me ! That I am scaring people of big up coming lay off and all. Not sure where he got the idea from.

Today, I m most wanted by global HR execs. Interrogation !! Some of my staff and ex-staff go through it too.

17 yrs of love ..

(to my wife on our 17th marriage anniversary)

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
With You,  sixty eight seasons
   ….and moments continuum.
  You cast a spell,  like colors in collision
   Heady  cocktail of passion and poison.

Secure in the realm of your orbiting influence
Tuck in the warm blanket of your potent omniscience.
    I am that present, too lazy to kiss the future, 
   An ocean, uninterested in returning to the shore

Your love, more generous than nature
Your forgiveness,  an eraser to all my wrong answers
O'Mon la belle dame,
  May I  remain your eternal admirer ??
————————————————————————

Acceptability

Changing businesses with their own profit and loss responsibilities, even within a big company is like joining a new company by itself.

I have heard about the nightmarish stories of people changing the org, at leadership levels, and within weeks realizing, they do not fit in at all.

Most of that time, that "fit in" is just acceptability by the existing team to the incoming leader. Especially when they see it as being "planted" by someone else even further up in the organization.

And being "planted" in these cases, is a universal strategy, often just influenced by level of comfort and creating an ecosystem which is very much against the change every one seeking in terms of new challenge. Its hypocrisy in a way. We like to talk about "change" but then we seek the "old" comfort in the new place.

And this acceptability is very annoying at ground level. For example, one complete morning I was in my new office, my calendar is full with appointments, but NO ONE showing up - every one giving some silly excuse 5 mins in to the meeting. Basically, no one really wants to meet and take it forward.

In a team outing, in the bus en-route to destination, the seat next to me remained open ! No one took it. Any sports or discussion I tried to join, it dispersed in moments !

Its a very different feeling, as it has always been the reverse so far .. The "fitting in" is  - to a large extend is "being accepted".

Management Comodity

Since long I ve been nourishing this idea in my head, that the IT industry management professional is becoming a commodity. While the true on-the-ground skills like coding, testing, troubleshooting have become very difficult to find.

The counter argument I heard from managers is, you get a lot of engineers too, may be not many who have that spark of applicability to business (not spark of brilliance - those are destiny's children !).

But then same goes back to management too - Most managers today work in the same level of creativity and spark of applicability to the business. A few 2-5% make solid, soaked transition to a brand of leadership which is again rare.

So, that was all theory on a foundation of gut-feel and 360 observation.

And now I ve good data points to prove a lot of it.

We are building a grounds up team, with new energy and new charter. I have openings for both technical leaders as well as managers.

And for  manager posts I have probably 10 people for each post who have already approached me, but for technical people, hardly a handful !!!

And, managers when approach, ask me how do they grow in this new business. The technical leads, ask what would we build ? How is it going to be different that others ?

With the industry maturing, we should pause and think, are we (the managers) managing ourselves (our expectations vs. value add) well ? Are we seeing that we are out-dating ourselves ? its a matter of just few years, I can sense the movement sweeping the industry and managers feeling the heat of  even landing a decent job !!

To know what to ask for ..

Certain chain of events happening currently, that remind me of a beautiful story from Mahabharat. 7000 yr old story but so relevant till today. Let me narrate it briefly here, although may not be WHY I do narrate this for a couple more weeks...


When the war was inevitable, both Arjun and Duryodhan went to Krsna for asking their share of help from him.

Duryodhan wanted to ask him for his entire Yadav army, which was powerful and voluminous.

When they arrived, they found Krsna sleeping on his back. They waited for him to get up !!!

Arjun waited near his feet. Duryodhan waited near his head. So, finally when KRsna woke up, he saw Arjun first, and gave him the first right to ask what he wants.

Arjun asked for - "Krsna ONLY On his side" ! Duryodhan was happy, he asked what he wanted. The entire Yadav army.

The rest is legend !!!

A good test for Neo-Yogi's

Yoga - Unification with nature ! The absolute calmness, complete awareness and clear vision.

It has YouTube full of promises around No irritation, No anger, unhindered focus and endless tolerance.

So, more and more, I ve seen many people getting on the path of Pranayama, Kriya Yoga, Meditaion etc to achieve that goal. The calmness. The bliss while being among all the usual irritants of the world.

I thought I was one of those Neo-Yogi's. The practice has made me calm. Until today ...

So, after a day of irritation, I would like to use the experience to help other Neo-Yogis test their progress.

Just interact with Airtel customer service. Especially Airtel 4G data customer service. If you pass the test, without any frustration, anger, irritation - "Congratulations !! " You are definitely progressing on the path of yogic bliss !!

National Media Sponsored hoax ..

http://timesofindia.speakingtree.in/spiritual-slideshow/seekers/mysticism/nostradamus-predictions-for-india-in-2014


Yes.. ToI (Tabloid of India) publication in Speaking Tree category ! Does some one even bother to see the original script of Nostradamus (if one really exists today in pristine form) ?

While a lot of us would actually like to foretell a story like this, using the name of Nostradamus and fake French language undermines the basic intelligence of the people who want to see the future the exact same way :)

Hilarious attempt by whoever who has come up with this and whoever guided it to the ToI...