Communal Divide - A tool to divide and rule....

According to Bipan Chandra, in his book “Communalism in Modern India”, communal riots are not caused spontaneously and also that they are rarely caused by religious animosity. They arise due to conflicting political interests, which are often linked to economic interests. While our leaders would like us to believe that communal conflicts in our country, especially the recent ones, are an outcome of religious differences they are not.

Yes, we have religious differences and a past that has some times not been the brightest example of our ability to live united. And yes, the foundations of our boundaries and our culture are rooted in deep-seated and often divergent political beliefs. But we are human beings capable of compassion, tolerance and peace. And yet, our leaders have been able to diminish the functions of our sensibilities and convince us that there is a divide and have been able to trigger hatred of those on opposite shores at each other, profitably to satisfy the power and economic benefits of a political class that is crass and unabashed at methodically deconstructing the dreams of our founding fathers and freedom fighters who gave their lives so that we could be free. Free from the oppressions of colonial rule, oppressive landlords and the unscrupulous laws that sought to divide us as a united people and rule to exploit our weaknesses. 

We have faced Fifty-eight major communal riots in 47 places since 1967, ten in South India, 12 in East, 16 in West, 20 in North India with a total death toll of 12,828 (South 597, West 3,426, East 3,581, North 5,224). This is in the land of many religions with none speaking of hatred, conflict and killing in the name of God. Whichever name you give to your God, no God, in any meaningful interpretation of any scriptures has ever spoken of murder and bloodshed as instruments of a spiritual journey.  

Religion is not about domination or doctrines. Nor is it about erecting temples or building churches or mosques, or attending public worship, or participating in any form of display of rituals. Religion is about intellectual wisdom and a spiritual journey. And for long now our political leaders would not like you to think so. Because in their business, if religion were to become your personal guide to whichever higher purpose suits your souls, there would be no divide between people across religious borders that can be exploited for personal benefits. As long as we as a people can keep fighting with each other instead of focusing on the real issues that need serious national debate, the ruling class can get away with administrative inefficiency, a complete lack of personal values and the most menial forms of corruption.

The time is upon us to question whether this nation needs to be built on religious principles. Is religion the purview of the State? Are our individual guides of religion really so different that the simple matter of coexistence must be the foundation of political and national debate? Are political parties playing us across the board – Congress or BJP, the Left or the Right or the national and regional political parties in the name of religion?

Swami Vivekananda said “religions do not come from without, but from within.” It is in our personal space where our religion resides. And no one, no leader, politician or religious leader can prevail over our own internal thoughts, beliefs and triggers. For till the day that they do, till the day we make decisions and commit to actions based on religious divide that has been inculcated in us from without, we can never be truly free…

Intention – the true power of democracy….

 

We have, as a nation and as a people, shrunken to remarkable depths of lack of purpose and a telling vacuum of values. We have been gripped by selfish fear and doubt of affecting good in the world. Not because we do not have the resources or the opportunity but we have come to a fantastic lack of will to make a difference. As Roosevelt says in his inauguration speech in ’33, “our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for.” And yet there lurks within the corners of our hearts and minds the plague of self-doubt and apprehension that have become hurdles to progress. We have stopped fighting and, more seriously, lost the intent to fight in our hearts. The lack of intent has led to us seeing the ill and inequity in the world and yet not taking cognizance of it. It has led us to hearing the cries of suffering but not listening.

We are the world’s largest and most dense democracy. Being as that may, we have, instead of exploiting the great miracles of it, become victims of it. Our leaders have gone from being humble representatives of our aspirations to becoming the directors of our fate. Stubborn, incompetent and corrupt, our representatives have exploited our lack of intent, our doubts and our selfishness at every opportunity that we have presented them to corrupt them into incompetence, stubbornness and incredible lack of loyalty for the land and the people whence they derive their birth and ascension, the land and labor on which they have set up their empires of tyranny and the people who they have been elected to represent in national decision making and governance.

How did we get to this place of hopelessness? Is it the system that is to blame, or the law of the land, or is it the executive layer? I think the biggest bearers of the burden of blame must be us. Every individual who has sacrificed our sense of ownership of our country, our right to question the people we have elected and drowned in accomplishing narrow goals without a wider purpose, is to blame. What separates us humans from the less evolved is our ability to form intentions that rise above the fulfillment of base instincts and material greed, and act upon these intentions. The Irish tell a story of a man who came to the gates of heaven and asked to be let in, St. Peter said "Of course just show us your scars", the man said " I have no scars", St. Peter said " What a pity, WAS THERE NOTHING WORTH FIGHTING FOR?"

Today, more than ever before, we need to demolish our corners of comfort and rekindle the long extinguished wicks of anger. More than ever before, we need to channel our doubts and fears into a conduit for demanding more – first from our own selves and thence from our leaders if we are to survive as a nation and rise to a glory that is quickly getting covered in the realms of past glory. More than ever before we need to stand up and take responsibility for what is failing around us and fight to rebuild what has fallen by the way. It is only then that we can realize our true place and full potential.

No one is beyond reproach and unaccountable for their actions. No one owns our destiny more that our own selves. No one can do wrong and get away without punishment. Those that seem powerful and untouchable today rose from among us, were poorly chosen by us and must be dismantled by us before their greed and selfishness can dismantle our most prized possessions – our national identity and pride.  Subhash Chandra Bose once said in a speech to the SOLDIERS of India's Army of Liberation, “History had taught me that every empire has its inevitable decline and collapse. Moreover I had seen with my own eyes, cities and fortresses that were once the bulwarks but which became the graveyards of by-gone empires.”

Change is brewing around the corner, waiting for the strength of our collective intentions to call in the forces that will drown the beast who has long fed on our weaknesses and impotence. Let’s unlock our intentions, long buried under, and join to build a better future…

The JIHAD of Cosmetic Perceptions.....

India’s leading news channel for 3 years in a row was doing a segment on what our silver screen’s leading ladies look like behind the layers of treatment and make-up. Besides the obvious ludicrousness of Anushka’s new lips and the pitiable raggedness of Kareena and Rani without their make-up, the obvious thought that stays behind is the question on what drives the thriving investment in appearance excesses.

   

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has projected that the market size of Indian cosmetics industry which is currently (2012-13) estimated at Rs. 100 Bn, will double to be worth Rs. 200 Bn by 2014 due to emergence of a young urban elite population with rising disposable incomes and increase in working women looking for lifestyle-oriented and luxury products. And, According to a global survey conducted by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, India was ranked fourth in the list of top five countries in the world for the number of people going for surgical and non-surgical procedures to enhance their features. The survey included the top 25 countries representing 75 per cent of all procedures performed by board certified plastic surgeons in 2009. Overall the estimated number of procedures done in India in 2012 was 1.14 million, which amounted to 6.2 per cent of the world’s cosmetic surgeries. It is a big jump for India who was not even in top 20, 10 years ago.

These present a very potent and rich market and the sharks, now having tasted blood, want more. How did we get here and how can this be exponentially grown? India has a female population of 615 million with 50% between 0 – 25 years of age. If we can somehow get all of them to spend at least Rs. 100 a month, that’s Rs. 738 Bn a year in potential revenue. And of course, the more the more the merrier! And, why not! When, all that it takes is the ability to create two sets of perceptions that play with basic human instincts and insecurities thereof.

Most cosmetic marketing is centered on drawing and fueling a male fantasy and thereafter chop away at the female sense of self-esteem. And this is not much of a secret and millions of pages have been written on this. Take a look around at some of the cosmetic advertising – they are all centered on a benchmarking of appearance perfection (dry hair, dry skin, skin marks and the likes) and how you (or your ladies) can get to that image manipulated and make belief perfection enabled by the product or service on sale. If you can make a woman appear, appear being the operative word, as the perceived outcome of your product or service, and make it convincing enough, there are two seeds of doubt you have sown. In the mind of the woman you have successfully sown the question of ‘can I get there’? And, in the mind of the male you have successfully sown the seed of desire ‘that’s what I deserve or should aim for’. In essence you have defined the acceptable standard of beauty, based almost entirely on leveraging perception to manipulate an evolutionary imperative.

Evolution, in many words, dictates that opposites attract based on the desire of the fittest offspring! The fittest that can survive in the big bad world! The process of advertising and marketing focusses on redefining the idea of what is fittest. Once the definition of fittest is penned down as fair and flawless skin and, for some reason, silky long hair, the entire basis for social outlook has been transformed. To survive, you no longer need physical and intellectual acumen and adaptability. You just need to look like ‘this’!

That is the first part of the transformation that will ensure that an origin of ever flowing money is created. The next part of the problem is to sustain and reinforce that belief on an ongoing basis so that, like most broadcasted messages, the desire and insecurity is never diluted – keep that stream alive and growing. The website Heart of Leadership posts a survey report that finds more than 90 percent of girls – 15 to 17 years – wanting to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance. Now that is what represents (with counterparts across age groups) a solid stream of women trying to look better and therefore spending. How do you keep that need and desire alive and growing? Make sure that every target is sufficiently exposed to an endless stream of images that portray the benchmark of beauty and associated success. This is really where our plastic beauties come to play. Surgically appropriately implanted and painted in the right proportions to cover the natural flaws, any woman can be made a goddess of the perception of beauty.

What one fails to notice is the fact that the end product does not exist naturally in reality. It never ever has as against the cosmetic industry that has flourished since the days of the alchemists’ concoctions. After so many pages and sermons of this fundamental wisdom that nature survives through flaws and perfections balancing each other, common sense and truth still loses the battle to the apparent lure of the perception. Small wonder it is that under the paint of cosmetic portrayal hides a monster that is self-destructing with every layer that is added and washed away.

No one is born knowing that fair and flawless skin and long and silky hair do not make a beautiful you. It is gradually fed into your blank slate neurons until you are indoctrinated to the core or eliminated from the race. The pursuit of beauty has, over the years, assumed the proportions of a subconscious religion – something that everyone believes in and it does not take too much depth and intellectual smarts to achieve – it only takes money. And the more money you can spare, the greater the conviction of your religious alignment; most often to the point where the individual loses of the distinction of reality and doctrine. In many ways you can compare this with religious fanaticism. It is a jihad of the cosmetic capitalists against the common sense and natural order of things.

Customer Experience - Cultural Alignment Vs. Lip-Service

Most large organizations spend large sums of money on developing guiding principles of corporate culture – mission and vision statements, high cost training/grooming programs in addition to other Quality and HR spend and, last but not the least, the huge sums of money paid to external “experts” who are supposed to create magic. While most of this spend is well intentioned, the outcomes are mostly quite destructively disruptive and most of what remains after the battles have been fought and paid for is a wide lip-service campaign – banners, posters, videos and the whole nine yards; without any actual improvement in the level of customer experience.

In my previous blog on the subject on how customer experience is a fusion of Cultural Alignment and Proactive Design, I spoke about how great customer experience is not as objectively measurable as we would like to believe. It is really a function of every person in the organization the customer is interacting with, having a strong belief in the well-being and benefit of the customer in addition to a way of work that is personalized to the context of the customer as against by randomly sampled survey responses.

Most Customer Experience improvement programs in companies are designed around building a broadcast based multi-channel communication effort towards the organizational frontline, based on a limited perspective that a certain list of things, based on surveys and focus groups, that form the core of what customers are expecting. We discussed earlier how the expectation of customers is determined by the context of the interaction. Hence, any program designed on the assumption of a sample based feedback mechanism will have short terms impacts, at best. Most often however, it leaves a trail of confusion amongst the company frontline and things tend to go backward than making any meaningful move forward.

The most important aspect of developing a corporate culture is to realize that every team within any organization will impact, directly or indirectly, the experience of the customer. This therefore requires that every department is shaped, by the nature & flow of processes and the nature of people, keeping in mind that the end recipient is the customer. Whether you are tightening screws on hardware, typing in customer address and phone numbers or actually speaking to the customer. The accurate fulfillment of what each individual does will impact the customer in some degree. Hence, everyone must be aligned to the same principles. 

The second most important thing is to ensure that the bridge between agreement and alignment is eliminated. Most managers and their respective reportees agree that customer comes first. But when actual execution is at stake, more tactical and cost centric measures take priority, thus leaving the importance of meeting a customer’s expectations as an agreed good to have – seriously short of a must have that everyone aims to achieve FIRST.

The last, and possibly the most important realization is the toughest to swallow, especially at the senior management level where the dollars and percentages of the short term tend to drive decision making. Great Customer Experience does not walk in parallel with continued pressures on reducing cost. If you want cheap, cheap is what you will get, and most often, cheap is not great. The ability to understand every customer’s context and design solutions and products to be able to cater to it, will cost money in the short term. However, once institutionalized, the long term benefits in the dollar and percentage terms multiply. Manifold.

And therein lie the secrets to the development of successful corporate cultural.

1. EVERYONE must be aligned to the same principles.
2. Meeting a customer’s expectations is a must have that EVERYONE aims to achieve FIRST.  
3. Great Customer Experience does not walk in parallel with continued pressures on reducing cost.

One last thing – you know your organization best. So, while frameworks and other 3rd party models are a great way to take a fresh look at what you are good at and draw a path towards greatness, it is generally counter productive, much like customer experience in itself, without context. If your culture is working as is, it is the right place to be and let no one, no matter how well recommended, tell you otherwise. 

Great Customer Experience = Cultural Alignment + Proactive Design

Customer experience is not really a set of feedback forms and derived charts and measures. Being the worst abused performance metric compounded with being thoroughly misunderstood by most ‘experts’ and ‘leaders’ trying their own various means of measuring something as abstract, has taken a steep toll on the approach towards customer experience across the board. Only a handful actually get it right and even when they do, the structure is short lived and fall into bad habits of endless charts and measures post the tenure of the visionaries who are at the focus of getting it right.

 

The first step to getting customer experience right is to be able to come around to understanding that it cannot be numerically or objectively quantified accurately, no matter how sophisticated the technology or how complex the statistical methodologies. The key is to be able to cast yourself in the shoes of the customer and asking oneself, what would one want out of any particular interaction. And given that every customer, and their needs thereof, being unique in some respect, the quality of experience is a function of unique expectations crafted as a derivative of individual backgrounds, situations and contexts.

 

Say this to any expert and the first reaction will be one of statistical smugness. Yes, no matter how diverse people behavior, all of these can be cast into a scatter-plot and statistically defined based on demographics and nature of the interaction. One of my biggest realizations from life is this – my expectations (and I suspect this as true for most customers) when I am facing a computer issue an hour before a critical presentation and my expectations in the similar situation when watching the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy will be very different from whoever owns my experience at said time. I am demographically the same person in both the situations and the statistics of people from my past and present state will say with 95% confidence that I will be happy with a computer issue resolution that does not take more than 20 minutes of my time and failing a working computer, have someone come over to my house in 2 days to replace the motherboard on my computer. I am not questioning the statistical methods of arriving at this conclusion, but I do not agree with it. A score of 8 on 10 out of a preset questionnaire that asks me whether my computer issue was addressed does not make for a happy me! Because, in reality my problem is not a bad computer! My problem is a computer that failed to deliver its purpose when I needed it to most.

 

No hardware troubleshooter over the phone, online or any other medium, without a magic wand, will make me happy if I do not have a working computer before the critical presentation. The ability to back up the entire contents of my computer that I can access over my mobile device and project in the event of a bad computer is what will make me really happy – a 10/10. And that makes for good customer experience. A proactive design driven by a culture to ensure that the customer who has been sold a served a promise, be served that promise under extreme situations.

 

This brings us to discussing what makes for great customer experience – cultural alignment and proactive design.

 

Cultural alignment is not a script and posters with smiling faces reaffirming that the customer comes first. I have met employees of different companies who smile and sell the customer first countenance but in the safety of their homes, swear by the competitors promise. ‘Customer First’ as a philosophy has run out of shelf life sometime back and the era is of putting the customer at the very center. While, in fancy representations of a smiling customer at the center, the philosophy is easily expressed, the adoption of an organizational thought process that act starts, collaborates and circles back to the customer is one of the toughest things to do. And this is the weakest link in the chain to great customer experience. While most people will agree that great customer experience means empathizing with the customer, the hurdle is that very few are actually aligned to that fact. Alignment is very different from accepting the broad principles. The reason for this is that empathizing is often done wrong. The trick is to place yourself in the customers shoes and not becoming “I” in the shoes of another person.

 

Most of us are, literally, so full of ourselves that we, most often, make the customer fit into our shoes and go from there. Going back to my earlier example, a computer savvy computer hardware and software specialist would, 9 times out of 10, assume that that the next step is obvious – restart the computer. 60 minutes before a presentation that may make or break my career, the most obvious does not always strike a chord – irrespective of how sweetly it is said. And if I am as tech savvy as the person trying to solve my worries over a phone call, the obvious is not why I would have called in the first place. What might therefore work other than designing a pitch that holds true for a statistically significant sample?

 

The answer is the ability to be imaginative in applying Murphy while thinking about the customer. What can go wrong will go wrong and the only assumption that holds true that status quo is the only thing the customer will be happy with. Everything else is just the subject of hours of intellectual wrestling. So a bad computer ahead of a TV show and a bad computer ahead of a critical presentation are just two of a million combinations possible between me, my computer and my average day in life. Culturally, an organization aligned towards providing good customer experience, must be able to expect and plan for the worst, and treat the context and situation of the customer as their own self in that situation. And then think through and deliver the interaction as one would expect in for themselves. And the interaction may be at any stage of the value chain with or without any actual contact with the customer. A product designer must think as fondly of the customer as the person who calls the customer to collect on an outstanding payment.

 

Is this holistically always possible in a world of economic and other resource constraints? Yes and no! No, you cannot do everything that has to be done right. But then if I start with a list of practices (best practices as we have heard every so often) we are going back down the path of scripts, tools and statistics. And therefore, yes, it is possible to achieve the nirvana state of customer experience orientation with a bit of contextualization and, coming to the next critical item, with some proactive design.

 

I have been a customer of Progressive and Geico. And I had an accident each in their company. When I called into the Progressive helpline to report the accident, the first thing they asked me was if I was okay. Geico asked me if my car was in driving condition. This is the difference in culture. Progressive had a rental car and the towing vehicle reach my accident spot at the same time. Geico sent me a towing van and then I took a cab back to the nearest hotel. Progressive kept me updated on the status of repairs and my claims through the process, even at stages that I did not quite care about – somewhere in the process they informed me only once, almost apologetically, of the deductible. Geico’s first update was an estimate of repair expenses and deductible and asked me to go online and approve. The next time they sent me an update, proactively, only when my car was ready to pick up.

 

Who do you think gave me a better customer experience? The answer, and the solution therefore, are obvious - proactive design with the customer’s woes and expectations in mind. Organizationally, once a decision has been made to differentiate a service or a product (without that, what’s the point of being in business?), design is a continuous process that starts with the customer, continuously collaborates with the customer and ends with the customer.

 

Once upon a time a couple of guys independently thought of making bottled beverages. One of them decided that the best way to do this was to drop the drink to a receiving bay in free fall for about 23 feet. The other decided after taking an aerated drink from the free fall machine, to create a built in conveyor belt to carry the beverage from its slot to the customer. Every time a customer took the free fall route, a shirt was stained and the second guy created the conveyor belt to prevent the fizz caused by the jolt of the free fall. This hypothetical example shows how a customer woe was converted into proactive solution that improved customer experience eliminating the anguish of a stained shirt.

The combination of a cultural inclination of giving the best possible experience to the customer by creating a great consumption context and a process that focuses on proactively designing for the best possible outcome for the customer in normal and adverse situation forms the founding blocks of creating great customer experience. No product, in today’s environment, is consumed in isolation and that is the key. A car is not an engine, interiors on 4 wheels. A car also includes connectivity, great roadside service, innovative financing, great mileage and cheap & accessible maintenance. Because the owner of a car is no longer a guy who just needs to go from point A to point B quickly in a good seat and listening to a radio!

Towards Complete Failure…

You know that the political leadership has reached the peak of corruptibility when the governed people look at every move and action with suspicion. I was speaking to a few random people and the Chidambaram comment of the weakening rupee not deserving the panic it is encountering came up for discussion. There were some opinions of intellectual sort and some kept quiet. The comment that stuck to my mind the most was the claim from one person, known as someone with significant optimism in general who said, "I am sure someone somewhere is making illegal money off of the rupee depreciation." This gentleman, while he had no plausible explanation of how anyone was making money but the conviction that some money was changing hands to allow for the weaker rupee, was absolute and unshakable.

And that’s proof that the country is in dire trouble. We have reached a stage with the current Indian government where the common average aam aadmi, the median that the government is so inclined to champion the cause of, begins suspecting your every move. Whether it is good for the country, bad for the country or anything in between, the average Indian has begun suspecting the very core of what holds together the democratic form of governance that is India. Too few people have spent too much effort in making too much of undeserved money over the last few years and this has led to a complete lack of belief and trust of the people in the system. And when the system established by and for the people, loses hope and faith of the people, democracy is cracking at the seams.

The problem is that the cracks do not span across a specific political party, leadership lobby or region. It spans across the ruling class irrespective of political ideologies or affiliations. So a change in leadership from one political tower to the other is not going to cement the cracks that are threatening to transform into crust shattering rifts. I do not know what the solution is. I have some inkling of what the outcomes might be.

Political Crisis is generally preceded in appearance by economic crises and plenty of this is available for introspection today if you take a look around. Economic crises also follow political downfalls because of the paralysis of policy, decision making and implementation. We have seen enough and more indicators of the Indian economy failing consistently – weakening currency, dropping credit ratings, slowing GDP growth, etc. No matter how much our leadership claims that the signs are not worth the panic and the world is slowing down and taking India down with it, the possible truth is that the leadership has no idea of why the world is spiraling out of control and even lesser idea of what can be done to stop the free fall.

And economic crisis is generally followed by unemployment, crime, civil unrest and eventually an absolute and complete socio-economic breakdown.

The obsession with the future…

John Maynard Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead." And it is perhaps all that we can predict with any level of certainty, about the future. And yet we strive every day to change the outcomes and influence the future. Makes sense, since it is in the future that we will end up spending most of our time, anyways. However, the fact is that our influence on the future is limited only to a small extent because we cannot forecast what factors will drive the shaping of the future.

A story I heard some time back was of a guy who was scared to die, what is clinically called Thanatophobic. His phobia was very specific though – somewhere in the intersection of Thanatophobia and Dystychiphobia. He was absurdly scared of dying in an accident. I don’t think there is a clinical term yet but, this man was killed in the most absurd way (God rest his soul)…! He lived almost in a child safe cocoon with the inclusion of having his groceries delivered home. He was pale from lack of sunlight and fresh air exposure. He lived the safest possible existence until he died from a brain bleeding caused by his shower head falling on his head in the midst of his bathroom.

So, here is my point. The future is the equivalent of a roll of the dice on a swanky Vegas casino (or any other gambling destination of your choice). And in the long run the house (the alternative or uncertainty) will win. Yes, tomorrow I will wake up, water my plants and get to office after navigating some really irritating traffic. To that end I can predict the future but is that proof of a certain future or that my life is really boring! And yet, fortune telling is such a booming industry that some places have legal definitions of fortune telling and license regulations.

Eastpointe, MI is one such example that details quite extensively what qualifies as fortune telling, and lists acceptable tools, including crystals, coffee grinds and the occult, as well as proper usage of one’s powers, which can be summoned for “effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses,” among other things. It’s quite an interesting read.

“Fortunetelling” shall mean the telling of fortunes, forecasting of futures, or reading the past, by means of any occult, psychic power, faculty, force, clairvoyance, cartomancy, psychometry, phrenology, spirits, tea leaves, tarot cards, scrying, coins, sticks, dice, sand, coffee grounds, crystal gazing or other such reading, or through mediumship, seership, prophecy, augury, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, mindreading, telepathy or other craft, art, science, talisman, charm, potion, magnetism, magnetized article or substance, or by any such similar thing or act. It shall also include effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses or advising the taking or administering of what are commonly called love powders or potions in order for example, to get or recover property, stop bad luck, give good luck, put bad luck on a person or animal, stop or injure the business or health of a person or shorten a person’s life, obtain success in business, enterprise, speculation and games of chance, win the affection of a person, make one person marry or divorce another, induce a person to make or alter a will, tell where money or other property is hidden, make a person dispose of property in favor of another, or other such similar activity.

Quantum mechanics, more commonly accepted these days as the predominant rules that explain the physical universe (not much help with the metaphysical world), says that outcomes cannot be predicted. Much like the Schrödinger’s Cat experiment (for those of your who do not think very highly of Physics or not a fan of Big bang Theory here is a link that explains the experiment), the future is indeterminate until you are contextually present in it.

Why then the absurd obsession with the future? I have asked myself this question as to why, knowing that we have limited power, if any at all, to influence the outcomes of the future (assuming anything we do is a triggering mechanism towards some outcome), we obsess so hard about what is to be of us tomorrow. There are different theories surrounding the subject – the one that makes the most sense to me, from a pragmatic perspective, is that the future is random within a broadly defined range, at best. Will the end of the world happen tomorrow or not (well the last one failed pretty uneventfully, thank God, fate, destiny or just the carefully engineered balance of power by the global policy makers or whoever)? There are plenty of prophecies left yet. The two that are closest are by Nancy Regan who before her death in 1997 claimed Armageddon would come in 2020 or alternatively Dr. F. Kenton Beshore’s prediction that the world could end in 2018.

I think that humans are inherently built of hope. Hope is the center of our existences and most of our purpose in life is defined in terms of our hope for better outcomes. And it always feels nice to have hope substantiated by some form of authoritarian pretention. And that is really the answer. All our prayers and dependence on the agents of future are basically manifestations of human hope – our greatest strength and weakness at the same time.

The Burden of Legacy

I have often grumbled and cried foul about the world around me not being one in which merit is not the only driver of progress. There are other factors, (most irritatingly one called tenure) that get in the way. And mediocrity gets away with being mediocre. But then, on some mornings I try to imagine a world which was only inhabited with prodigies with IQs that make Mumbai skyscrapers bow down in shame. And the problems of that structure became very obviously apparent – at least it did to me.

 

Imagine a world of geniuses where everyone had a very high capacity of being able to crack problems and get the solutions right, every time. What that would do is (i) make everyone lazy, complacent and non-competitive since there would be very little to compete against with a clear path to victory, and (ii) it would make for a very high individual and collective ego, in turn leading back to add more to the lack of competitiveness and complacency. One and all become victims of the “what’s the best you can throw at me” attitude that makes for very little aggression, if any and hence leads to the absence of progress where progress should be the natural outcome. I call this the burden of legacy, for the lack of a better description.

 

By comparison, consider the world made of a triangular hierarchy of ability and intelligence, the way it is. Sure, it makes for a lot of cause for grumbles and agony, but what it also allows for is the ability to get a big picture painted and creates aspirational outlook within people therefore enabling competitiveness. And we all know that healthy competition leads to healthy creativity and ultimately progress of the group. Imagine a surgical team. From the nurse and aide to wash and make instruments available to the master of the art, the surgeon, everyone has (i) their calling according to their skills, (ii) the aspiration to learn and grow up the value chain and (iii) a distinct part to play, essential to completion of a complex surgery. In an operating room with 12 – 15 surgeons and one patient, there will no doubt be a lot of creative haggling, discussion and debate however; the chances of the patient’s survival at the end of the process will be greatly reduced.

 

Now let us take this scenario and magnify it proportionately to form a looking glass to look at a competitive market for a particular kind or a set of similar products or services. Imagine a Company-A that has been pioneer at many things and has been regarded with respect by shareholders, stockholders and (the most important!) the media. Company-A is able to skim the best talent, make the best work environments and offer the best value in the market. With this legacy we stride ahead not noticing with so much focus as Company-B comes out of nowhere and does the same things that Company-A holds the pioneering rights to. Only, they do it cheaper, better and faster. Company-A has become lazy, unwatchful and somewhat myopic suffering the burden of legacy. Except in Company-A, no one perceives the lethargy that has crept in as a sign of a burden of any sort as their leadership continues to be proud of the past and dependent on it to sell and be profitable.

Company-B, by comparison, is agile with a lesser baggage, creates an environment within that allows for agility and infuses the aspirational spirit where everyone is trying to excel. What it also does is attacks at everything from every direction, most often in the blind spots of Company-A. And very soon Company-A realizes that Company-B is everywhere where the former boasted of invincibility. It finds itself trying to play catch up, reacting violently against moves by Company-B (though lawsuits, negative publicity – sometimes blatant and sometimes subtle and other not so healthy means).

 

What should Company-A do? Well, many millions of papers can be written in hindsight that would talk about how they should have changed strategy, restructured leadership, focus on core competency, build relationships, etc. All of that and more basically mean that Company-A needs to (i) identify their burden of legacy and (ii) shed this burden. There are a million enablers but the objective of the journey should be to become proactive and not reactive.

 

What does a Company-A typically do? It will continue to bear its burden of legacy, fight back drastic change and bask in the comfort of ‘it’s worked for us so far’ or ‘our model is more robust’ or ‘we can withstand the storm and will come out on top of it’.

 

Sound familiar. Look around you and you will see history spotted with examples.

• · Apple, the legacy vs. Google, the agile.
• · Microsoft, the legacy vs. Google, the agile.
• · Ryze, the legacy vs. LinkedIn, the agile.
• · IBM, the legacy vs. Dell and HP, the agile.
• · TCS, Infosys and Wipro, the legacy vs. Cognizant, the agile.
• · GM and Ford, the legacy vs. Toyota and Nissan, the agile.
• · Americal Airlines, the legacy vs. Southwest, the agile.
• · McDonnell Douglas, the legacy vs. Boeing, the agile.

I do not have a conclusion to write here because it is a matter of perspective, really. What is it that each company must do to face and rise to the challenge is an outcome of multiple factors like state of the economy, state of the business, availability of resources, trends, competitive landscape and many other things. Shedding the legacy burden is no easy task but it must be done from time to time. What it needs is the ability to (i) continuously raise the bar, (ii) measure everything that can be measured and be critical and (iii) be open to the possibility, every day, that things can be different and better.

 

Is there a right answer? The answer is definitely an emphatic NO. Is there however, a right direction? The trick is to be able to think and strive towards the fact that there is always a comparatively righter direction.

Diminishing Power of Law & Order....

There are too many things that have become plagues to the once beautiful city of Pune. The worst of it is the condition of law and order in the city. There was a time when Pune was one of the cities where you could throw caution to the wind at any time during the day, evening or night. The law and order enforcement was focused on actually protecting the people and keeping the city, well, in order. Today, as I see things go from bad to worse across the entire span of police enforcement dominion, from traffic through to crime prevention, I cannot help but wonder if lawlessness is a natural outcome of commercial progress.

I am a daily victim of the nightmare that is traffic congestion in this city. And, while no one is competing, traffic in Hinjewadi is by far the highest ranking incidence in the list of traffic mismanagement. Very commonly you would see police personnel huddling at a cross section while vehicles stand in paralysis, having locked up in a multi-directional flow. Run if you are riding a bike as you will necessarily stand the highest chance of getting caught (while every one else can break the rules at will), haggling over satisfying police greed; unless you are in shabby clothes with what I call the knock-off Nehru cap. That, of course, signifies a free pass from all forms of traffic violations from driving on the wrong side to the bikers equivalent of jaywalking when high. On the rare occasion that you stand a chance of getting caught in a 4 wheel drive, your free pass is either a yellow license plate or some nature of saffron insignia; signifying that the drivers belong to a creed lawlessness that must be allowed to flourish. I have seen cops stop cars and bikes and all manner of vehicles but never one with the insignia. And dare you protest or come into a conflict that it's rightfully yours to engage and win, you are abused if your stars are aligned. There have been incidents where protesters have become victims of violence and damage. As the cops stand by watching, of course.

Which brings me to the incidence of criminal behavior. As it had come to pass, these days, there is some incidence of criminal activity you get to hear almost everyday. And it ranges from snatching phones and purses, through assault to abduction of women. And all in broad daylight. This was a once in a while occasion where you would get to hear of criminal incidents in Pune. Maybe it is just the diminishing fear of police or of God or of whoever is the angel on the shoulder, but it has unfortunately become a city where it is unsafe to be out on the streets.

The Pune Police website says "You can be a law abiding citizen by being a law enforcing citizen . ANNONIMITY ASSURED Inform the police regarding crime, accident or any offense
on dedicated lines : 26121685 / 26208100 - (extn.)295. or Police Control Room at 26126296, 26122880, 100." But how true and effective is this? One of the things that has seen a keen increase these days is police discrimination. On many occasions, there have been instances of people having actually reached out to the police where they have been either snubbed as people from outside the state (if you can speak Marathi, all is well) or been asked to pay for results. This points to only one corollary that the police themselves are hand in glove with the criminals of this city. 

While I am still proud to say that Pune is safer than the bold and unabashed violence in some other parts of the country where murder and rape are the substances of daily (almost Page 3) consumption, I am deeply saddened by the fact that we are headed in the direction. 

I refuse to believe that low police funding is a reason for this since I see VIPs getting their kids married in full police protection. I can (with a great deal of difficulty) understand why some lowly minister and politicians need police protection (for all you know they could be shot at or killed by true patriots). But why kids and invitees need to be protected by the police, is beyond comprehension. So, there is sufficient funding and there is sufficient source of funding, were it not to find its way into the private coffers of the cops.  Someone needs to put them to good and effective use.

We have a good code of law, a painfully slow judiciary and now an almost defunct police force with the responsibility to implement the law. Must it require national media attention before someone decides to act!!!

Absolutely Unjustified…..

Responding to How Free Freedom is? - From THE END VIEW by Addu

The Sh** Sena (no puns intended, please do not arrest me!) is a party or rather a congregation of unsettled minds who have suddenly lost the only man who had the aura that appealed. And the son, shadowed by a fairly popular nephew needed something to start making a mark finally (to his credit he runs the most popular Bus Service between Pune and Mumbai, although very very few people really know about it). This is how the father remained relevant – essentially making very drastic and controversial statements. The only agenda for his party was to encourage laziness in the name of a boundary that was loosely defined by a language. So the son does the first thing that is most relevant in his bereaved mind – get someone arrested.

Let’s see what one of the arrested women said. “Everyday 1000s of people die but still the world moves on. Just due to one political leaders death... everyone just goes bonkers. They should know we are resilient by force, not by choice. Respect is earned, not given and definitely not forced. Today Mumbai shuts down due to fear and not due to respect.” And for this she was arrested. Is it just me or do I sense a terrible insecurity in facing the truth. The raw truth! And her friend LIKED it. A police case was registered and the women were arrested the same evening. Besides my awe at the unbelievable speed of action on behalf of the Mumbai Police, I am at a lack of words to describe the level of stupidity and directionless sense of misadventure demonstrated by this action.

The fact that this was designed to fuel an agenda is further demonstrated by the Sh** Sena calling for bandh in Palghar district in protest against the suspension of two policemen for arresting the two young women. A spokesperson from the party said “….’s death has been a shock to the entire nation. Sainiks showed tremendous restraint in controlling their emotions”. Even if I consider an understanding of shock to a section of the country I do not understand the issue of “tremendous restraint in controlling their emotions.” This is a behavior I have seen once before when a South India demi-God (read actor) passed away. What would a lack of restraint have meant? Besides bringing the commercial capital of a country to a standstill, would lighting the city on fire be justified? Or just breaking and shattering a few windows? Or just a hammer on the knuckle of Freedom of Speech and Expression?

I was there and all I saw and heard were people enjoying a surprise holiday in the middle of the week. I even know a few who drove to Mumbai for respite from the humidity. If this is not something one can protest against in a public domain of expression, we are not an independent country but one that is run by the goons of public politics.

Thankfully for the women the soldiers have turned their attention now to the illegal monument they are bent to build and the tiff with the local Municipal Corporation. It’s almost as if the law of the land does not mean anything anymore.

PS: You would have noticed me using ** here and there and that is because I am scared of being arrested and beaten up without just cause.

Wise Words of Bob Marley.... "...Perfect guys don't exist..."

Leadership, Fanaticism, Terrorism, Stupidity.......

Mumbai came to a standstill. When was the last time I had seen a city come to such a standstill? I think that was during one of the many religious curfews in the past. All through the evening the news channels said that this was due to people paying their respects - hence all the shops were shut down. But then again there were continuous Police broadcasts to 'keep calm', 'stay indoors' and 'do not heed rumors'. Is it me or is it everyone who sees a contradiction?

Was this man a leader? Undoubtedly he was a leader. And a very influential at that. Was he leading for the right causes? I doubt that very much. A leader whose demise can bring a city to it's feet in terror of possible violence is not really what I'd call a patriot leading for the betterment of his country. Quite a few of the shop owners told me that all they really gave a shit was about not getting pelted for a cause that was not their own. So who turned up to his funeral? 20 - 30 lacs of people, no less. A friend of mine summed it up well "majority of the people were Biharis and Muslims who had turned up, just to make doubly sure."

In one interview this man had once said "if a peaceful solution cannot be reached, we must pick up arms!" Sure! But what for? To support regional reservations over merit. Now that seems rather anti progressive, does it not? I for one am a believer in ability and ambition. If you have it in you, you should not need to know a language or be from somewhere specific to survive and excel.

And the man who displayed his stupidity across the range, from joking about Kalam's hair and openly propagating meaningless violence was sent off in full National honours - gun salute, trumpets and everything. We really have become a nation without a spine!

This man was a leader no doubt; but he propagated fanaticism and terrorism as a solution to incompetence. And the number of people who turned up to his funeral to celebrate a life that was marked by the most unpatriotic agenda just goes to show the commonality of stupidity that is impeding this country from progress! I wish he takes his ways with him and his son and nephew do realize that the country needs more than religious and regional politicking to re-surge and prosper. And small wonder that the rift in direction is beginning to show.

This man's epitaph could have read "Here lies a man who led millions to a better future" and instead this epitaph will probably read "Here lies a man whose last rites kept millions indoor out of fear". A man who can inspire so many people with not much of an agenda, could have done so much more....    

Ambiguity – How much is the right amount?

Almost all of us have and most of us try and follow the law of maintaining power through ambiguity. But in a leadership position it is crucial, and almost make or break, to know when to stop being ambiguous and draw clear boundaries. The knowledge of the appropriate degree of grey can mean the difference between an initiative being successful and completely failing. As with most things, the degree of grey is a variable that depends on the definition of the end goal and the size of the team or organization trying to drive towards the success of that goal.

How does ambiguity help?

• Spawns Creativity: Ambiguity always keeps people trying to guess their next step and their intentional attempt is to overcome the ambiguity, which very often does lead to creative and innovative outcomes in the right direction.
• Productive Competition: Some level of ambiguity in direction and control even allows for a great deal of productive competition.
• Avoid Unproductive Challenges: I have met people who would maintain ambiguity in how much they communicate to ensure that the path taken to the end goal remains unchallenged until the alternatives are reduced to a minimum. Ambiguous information flow is one of the only ways that work when it comes to getting what you want in a pseudo democratic environment.
• All Round Perspective: Ambiguity in organizational structure, in addition to spurring competition, ensures a somewhat flat organization; and can help the leader get a better perspective of the functioning machinery
• Shielding Lack of Clarity: Ambiguity is a very useful shield especially when the end objective is not very clear but the direction has very many and overlapping alternatives

In the modern day we see cut-throat competition, no matter where you look politics, business and even religion! And without doubt, everyone has an agenda or an end objective that is lesser than the greater good. While we all talk and write about transparency and seamless flow of information, in a world with absolute symmetry of knowledge (presence or absence of it) there would be no competition and hence it would stifle growth and competitiveness. But, human nature as it stands, cannot survive in a world with a ceiling on top and four walls – he must grow. In a world, or any cross section of it, of limited resources and potential, the room becomes one with a ceiling that contains a small exit. To grow therefore man must overcome adversaries to find their way through the bottleneck and grow. As resources get more constricted, everyone must maintain or attempt to maintain leadership through ambiguity. Overlapping ambiguity is often like putting layers of grey together until it is a dirty black. Hence the importance of the need to know where the black and white must show separately and where the grey is productive.

To come to a meaningful conclusion on the subject, I have have to go back to the banality of 2 X 2 matrices to define the right amount of grey. I must at this stage make a few confessions of my own lest this be misinterpreted.

• My analysis is based not only on my working experience but from what I read and see around me in all spheres of life
• My 2 X 2 is based purely on my attempt to understand the problem of how much grey is the right amount of grey and not based on elaborate research of human behavior in leadership positions. I would like criticism and counter opinions
• Some of the terms used do not have a lot of referential basis and are a figment of my thinking process

As I have mentioned before, the right amount of grey is dependant on two factors

1. definition of the end goal
2. size of the crew driving towards that end goal

To that end I have defined the following two categories of End Goals.

1. Direct Benefit End Goals - End goals that are targeted towards a decided benefit with no other factors or goals deriving from it, while it may derive from many In-direct Benefit End Goals (explained in the next point). E.g. top line and bottom line growth, winning the mayoral elections, outranking competition in a scholarship examination.
2. In-Direct Benefit End Goals – End Goals that contribute to a Direct Benefit End Goal and are essentially meaningless unless defined in perspective. E.g. Employee Satisfaction (drives productivity and profitability), maximizing campaign contribution (ensures a bigger campaign and hence the potential victory in the Mayoral votes), etc.       

The size of the crew, ironically, is itself a dependant variable and has some ambiguity around it. The ambiguity can, in some sense, be explained as the difference of importance between a 2 people crew trying to manage a $ 2 Bn portfolio of wealth for a certain RoI and a 200 people crew trying get the same RoI through a transportation business. In an attempt to meaningfully resolve this will need us to define crew size standards and that is quite outside the scope of what I am trying to achieve here. So I will use economic value per employee (EVE) as a definition – typically (and there are definitely exceptions) a high EVE means a smaller crew and a small EVE means a larger crew, assuming that the end objective is measured in congruent terms (like RoI). I will leave the definition of EVE in some degree of ambiguity but I think most readers will easily understand what that means in broad terms.

So now that we know what the parameters for measuring degree of ambiguity let’s move towards defining what level of ambiguity is the right amount. Hence the matrix below.

LOW GREY

This is applicable for high stake outcomes that are owned by a small band of people/employees. A very typical example is the CXO office comprising of the CFO, CEO, CPO, COO, etc. responsible for the outcome of the next shareholder meeting. At that level of decision making and outcome, it is crucial for everyone to be on the same page in terms of what needs to be achieved at the end of the race. The only aspect of ambiguity that can be left is in terms of direction setting of the individual towers. Any greater ambiguity without consensus at that level generally leads to disagreements as every member will have stake in the outcomes; this can lead to disaster. Hence, the level of ambiguity should be minimal and only to the extent of how stated objectives are to be implemented towards common goals.

MEDIUM GREY

This is applicable for the likes of senior and middle management, who will be responsible for the execution of executive objectives. What is critically important to remember with the people providing oversight of execution is that they also have a significant stake in the outcome and hence must have relative clarity of strategic decisions, well defined structural clarity and end objectives. This level of personnel will be defining targets and metrics for those in the lower ranks of the value chain. To that extent it is often constructive to maintain some ambiguity about the vision and other abstracts allowing for creative outcomes and freedom of choice in terms of how stated objectives can be achieved.  

LIGHT RAIN CLOUDS

These are the people on the ground, managing the execution, typically junior management and the equivalent. At this level it is important to have clarity of the tactical tasks that are to be achieved and the measures of success that will be used to measure quality and other parameters of the task at hand. This layer, most often comprise of people without the big picture and a tendency to raise objections and challenges to the way the big picture is to be painted (exceptions to this thumb rule however must be treated as such). Hence keeping the big picture abstract (e.g. “becoming the best customer service company” really conveys no strategic direction but a good feeling) is important to ensure smooth functioning. What needs to be enforced however, is a set of measures of success in line with the overall objectives being set by those in the Medium Grey.

Some level of control and structural ambiguity is sometimes maintained to allow for healthy competition that fuels creativity albeit with necessary oversight – healthy competition very often becomes unhealthy rivalry turning into a destructive duel. 

HEAVY RAIN CLOUDS 

These are the actual executioners – typically low on maturity and ability to comprehend the world larger that instruction driven outcomes. Any strategic or control system clarity means very little at this level except for defined metrics and tasks. A low level party worker or back office personnel will have to take task orders from a variety of people and explaining to him how that will contribute to the overwhelming success of the organization takes a lot of effort and very often wasted effort. Making control structures very transparent also leads to hierarchical thinking in the mind and can be counter productive.

A word of caution…

It is important however, at all states of grey, to know the exceptions. A creative and visionary within the Junior Manager should not be stifled with ambiguity because his inputs and thoughts might actually be well worth listening to. Similarly a non-mission-critical support function’s middle manager might be left with a little more ambiguity to ensure a path of least resistance where the support is delivered and the objectives are not challenged. One must, therefore, know the machinery very well before deciding on the level and quantum of ambiguity to thrust upon.  

It is also important and essential to follow up on ambiguity. Ambiguity is not the equivalent of keeping people in the dark. Unless otherwise proven, one must assume that everyone is intelligent enough to figure out some or most of the puzzle. Questions and clarifications to that end must be responded to with a balance of black & white and grey.