Tag: social

Masked smiles & Altered lives.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As ironical it may see, but we live in the age that we have no other choice but to wear that smile of ours, albeit masked, but we need to wear it anyways! The challenge- to be sure to smile at the right time by knowing the smiles behind the other masks! As organisations and societies emerge from the shadows of the pandemic, what is going to be very important is the re-connect that we bring about, person to person, how that re-connect happens will go a long way to decode how societies emerge- whether they are more cohesive then ever before- with an overdose of empathy or whether they deteriorate further and the society continues to be masked not only to keep the virus away, but also to keep humans away form each other! Join me here as we explore what’s unfolding and what is that we can and cannot, do about it!

All of us know this very archaic statement about “humans being social animals”- I guess this age old statement has all the words in the right order! The last one is perhaps the most crucial one that we keep on ignoring, that as humans we too are “animals”. Needless to say when the social fabric of societies undergoes unintended or at times crafted stretch beyond an allowable limit; we see the animal manifest within the societies that we move about. This animal element then could be the individual, the community as a whole or the leadership that directs and builds a pathway to that effect! How this helps or harms the construct of the evolving society is really another story, what I really want to discuss is what perhaps is evolving behind the masks and why that space is so very critical to manage and measure the altered lives that we will encounter as we move ahead!

Even as a layman, if you think about how we tend to connect and communicate, perhaps even before the spoken words- it’s often the smile that either welcomes us, keeps us at a distance or ensures we don’t waste our time in the place that we have found ourselves in! That is the power of the smile- a crooked thing which apparently sets everything straight! Now with that formidable (and in some cases even infectious) smile staying hidden behind the veil of the mask- it’s going to be anyone’s guess what the encounters of the future are going to end up like! In all probability people will resign themselves to the virtual smiles through the digital connect of video calls, rather than the earlier in-person warmth! Sure enough, the smile is but a component of human interaction and not the complete interaction so why bother if that’s masked? Well if you want to learn more, do get in touch with an expert for Non-Verbal Communication or someone who excels at Body Language and they will be better equipped to tell you the art and science of what happens when people cloak themselves up and we are unable to read the vital cues- sure, no one will possibly get killed- but given the diminishing intelligence that people have- you never know!

Go back to your normal working day, perhaps some time last year, before all this nonsense of the pandemic crept up- what do you see, rush hour hustle to reach your office or business headquarters, that pooled cab, those conversations, those jokes, that stiff upper lip- which was possibly cracked opened by another smile from a perfect stranger on the subway, that laughter and those moments of stress through the meetings- which were well read and relaxed by a ill times joke- all these and many such instances were only possible because all the cues were given away by the presence or absence of a smile! Certainly wearing a mask, in the given context is vital to ensure you still remain in the present and don’t figure as a number in some morbid list, but with the masks on, and the decoding becoming tougher by the day, as people get more and more tough business situations to deal with- what’s going to manifest is primarily more and more curtailed, truncated conversations- limited engagements- which are just to the point of meeting business objectives and that’s about it! This will leave out the human completely and knowingly or unknowingly each one of us will become a part of this- cyborg kind of setting wherein our conversations increasingly become limited, referring to spread sheet column numbers, diagrams, percentages, etc. etc. and no one seems to be bothered about what’s happening within the person with whom they are engaging- good or bad- intentional or unintentional- well contexts can be many and reasons too could be valid or invalid- but what is certain is that, these engagements will end up stamping out the smile and remain focused on the masks rather then the smile behind will leave and this will eventually leave an unalterable mark on the development and engagement of human collaboration in the times ahead! For some sectors it may help, yet for other it may harm progressively stalling the spirit of collaboration, trust, interdependence which are vital for a few things, no matter how much automated we are or aspire ton be! So how do we go about this? Can this be stopped? How do we cope with this?

To begin with the earlier we realise, as Individuals, Societies,Communities that the whole essence of being a human is about being together and for each other- is when this menace can be altered and we can rescue humanity from being turned into a primitive level of cyborgs wherein all of us just end up being extensions of our digital presence by work, position or influence! For this to happen, we need to see what seems to be cloaked away in plain sight! We have been told about wearing the mask- sure enough do it- but no one asked you not to smile- no one asked you to become curt- no one asked you to loose that warmth in your voice- so re-create that- so what if its all coming from the filter of the mask- so be it- put that extra pep in the effort and ensure that your personality and it’s vibrancy is able to come out shining through the physical mask and that physical mask doesn’t end up becoming a psychological mask that subdues your brain, your power to assert, communicate and express yourself- don’t ever allow that to happen because no one is asking you to do that and no one will ever nor can anyone ever! This clarity of knowing that physicality of the mask to cover and protect you has and cannot have any bearing on your ability to express and assert yourself is of fundamental importance! The human brain is a little funny, the moment you create imagery and demonstrative influences around it- the mind games begin and then the whole response or reactive mechanism is nothing but how strong you rationalization, scientific approach and common-sense is! The moment you unwittingly add even the smallest element of emotion to this unfolding drama, all hell will break loose and you will end up not only masking your face, but also your mind and your ability to think!, playing straight into the hands of those who are possibly directing your society right now!

So, to keep it simple, remember your faces is masked not you! The more you succumb to the emotional melodrama through the forced down narratives chances are that you will end up thinking or rather begin to direct your ability to think in the direction which serves the interest of everyone else but yourself and you will just go on to prove the points like a few of the social influencers are trying to right now- like you know, “work form home” is awesome, “sabbatical is a great time” and so on and so forth! Remember, we are in midst of not only a pandemic, but a global reset and all the unfolding narratives that you see near and far- are all competing for only one thing- no not the cure for the pandemic- but for deciding the direction of the altered society as it emerges out of this pandemic! Think about it- do you really think that it would have taken a pandemic for global MNCs to spare a few dollars on home furniture and ask employees to work from home? Wouldn’t it have saved them millions of dollars by not having to pay rents or build those awesome buildings with great infrastructure to begin with (which they sold so often & so brashly as they attracted youngsters at campuses and in the competing firms to come and work from them)? Think! So what’s the plan? Read on!

Being a blog, I wouldn’t want to get into the intricate details about what the social directors aim to do and why, whether thats right or wrong, that’s not the point! The whole point is to tell you all just one thing, guard your face but unleash your smile! Even if you are masked, when you smile, the mask will give away that vital cue and that is the essence of being human and being connected with each other- to look after each others’ back and collaborate as we navigate the uncertain times! If you ask me, this time that we are witnessing is the modern equivalent of the ice age, unless we stay connected, communicative and wise, our individual weaknesses will end up empowering the greed of a few to stall our creative abilities and take away the very freedom that we cherish so much to be who we are by exercising the choices that we have- in the society that we live about!

Altered behaviors, will sure enough be there and we may alter our behaviors as we go along, nothing to complain about that bit, but what is essential and fundamental is that any and all altered behaviour must be a result of our human connect and the empathy that we hold within and not because of some social dictate that has been pushed down our throats! Take a moment and read again, if you need to, but this is the most fundamental difference and this alone will decide if societies will progress or regress they come out of this pandemic! Our choices and ability to choose have to remain intact as they weer before, as I keep saying our face is masked not our mind- as long as you remember this one thin- rest assured all your actions will be aligned to the right path of individual progress and when many of us do this, society will move ins a directions which serves the greater good to many rather then ending up serving a few and short changing ourselves in the bargain!

So, if you ask me, what are my final words here, keep that warmth glowing behind that mask- your face may be covered but nor are your eyes and neither is your mind- let that smile flow as it normally does, let the eyes express and the voice radiate the warmth and genuineness that you have for your fellow humans! Unless we make a resolve to stay connected even as we adorn the masks, re-connecting anytime in the future will be too little too late- because by then we risk ending up becoming a complete digital extension of that video meeting room ID number and everything human about us will be at a grave risk!

I leave you here, with these thoughts, urging you to wear your smile (albeit behind your mask) and always remember: That human connect is vital and no matter who says what, don’t let anyone mask your thinking and your mind- for there resides the power to change your today and your tomorrow!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one! Until then stay safe, and smile! 🙂

NEWS and social alignment.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

I am pretty sure, with the seemingly unending work from home crisis, the entertainment played through the news channel is the last thing that anyone of us would have ever wished for and neither it is something that our rational mind is ever comfortable with- It doesn’t want to know- you know! Join me here, we we try to make sense around the nonsense played out in the garb of journalism and news broadcasting the world over; depending on where you are the chances are you are been treated to either a binary or a multicolored spectacle of narratives and ideologies, each trying to win your mind and heart so that it serves the purpose and even if it doesn’t the channels end up being the ultimate winners in this game of mind control. Nor am I complaining, neither am I suggesting to hold a moral high ground- because each one of us is equipped with a base level intelligence to know that magic tricks no matter how creative, scintillating they seem to be, never have found the solutions to the real world problems! So let’s move ahead and make some sense of the noise that has entered our lives!

Sure enough, I don’t own a media house (and I am so thankful I don’t , in these times!), but let’s try to understand as layman and observers how the whole aspect of NEWS has ended up being where it it today- cluttered, noisy and divergent! Before you jump the gun, like with every vocation, we have had pioneers, innovators and those rare breed of selfless geniuses even in this space. But as they were very few of them in the long period of evolution of the NEWS space, the risk it got to the business was unlike for any other business! Hence unlike the earlier formative days of coming to life, the business of NEWS today, is the business of building and crafting narratives played out to a certain audience for a specific agenda– helps a few times, possibly harms a lot!

With the advent of science the earlier phase of industrialization, as printing technology and inks became a reality the possibility of recording developments, documenting what was unfolding around saw an explosion of sorts as far as growth was concerned, add to that the access to education and being literate (we will come back to this towards the end), it changed the dynamics of societies the world over and with every passing year form then on we have add more and more literate people- resulting in more access to documents- documents which were not merely books of fiction but records of governance which now became records of accountability that could be held up to challenge when governance failed and appreciate as it flourished. To this evolving scenario, we had multiple pathways of the human mind coming up- philosophers, sociologists, psychologist, politicians, innovators, business tycoons- every segment of the society through this access of the printed world- wanted to create a mark of their own and gain what is important- control and as the communication media changed from print to radio to TV and to the menace of the online in the last 30 odd years- the mad craze for Control- Control of narratives has never been as fierce as we see it today- to the extent that groups and individuals are happy to sabotage companies, governments just to have their narrative win over the others! With so much happening around- you thought that the print world was always and only limited to the great works of art and literary classics that propagated the value of the essence of being human and need for collaboration and sharing! Well, as they say, as the coin is flipped, one side retains its polish and the other hits the dirt, the one that shines is what holds the power, control to drive the narrative and with that the hearts and minds of the people!

Through the last 100 odd years, the concept of NEWS- that is sharing information about latest development within the societies across regions, continents and the world in general evolved and through its evolution the wise people who owned this machinery of news curation and dissemination realized the enormity of the power that this had to influence, direct and control social behaviour, opinions and attitudes. This perhaps, if you ask me was the turning point in or recent history as humanity learnt to leverage on the power of this medium to further pursuits of greed- either political, capitalistic or both to serve a few masters while doing dis-service to the others!

From being a mirror that reflects and shares the happening as they really do, the world of NEWS suddenly has become on “Mirror Mirror on the Wall” kind of magic- wherein every person that seeks is, is served as per who that person is! This is where our modern day societies have ended up being- a society where every individuals truth is a different reality, hence we have created societies which are intrinsically more divergent rather being cohesive and the apparent cohesion gets ripped away in no time as some uneven pressure is applied to the social fabric either through policy change or some mis-communication! Guess what holds the key to correct all these imbalances that are created by this new magic mirror- yes- NEWS again! So what is really happening here? Is there anything that can be done to regain some level of rationality and sanity?

As I said earlier, power and ability to move masses in a direction of ones’ choice is perhaps the greatest high that rulers ever get! Whether its a kingdom that you are a part of or a nation that has elected representatives ( whatever form they come in), the fact remains that people at the helm of providing service unto others, are driven by motives- when that individual motives of the people in power is not aligned to the larger motives that the society aspires for, is where the problem begins and and then narratives are created and crafted in quick succession to ensure that the narratives of the leaders override and prevail over all other narratives and thereby as the divergent voices get drowned in the noise of the people who drive the mainstay narrative. Things rapidly alter and how that manifests largely depends on whether that overriding narrative has been used for the larger good even while serving self-interest or whether only the self-interests of the people who drive the narratives are being served!

So how do we survive this? Well it’s deceptively simple, depending on where you are, chances are there could be anywhere from perhaps 20 odd to over 800 channels broadcasting NEWS by the minute and to that, not to forget the online players, news syndicates, news aggregators, its a big party in a sense! Now that you have only 24 hours in a day, and have that need to win your daily small battles ranging from getting the grocery to paying your bills to safeguarding your income to taking care of those weird mood swings of all the members that you deal with- pets included! Sure enough, the last thing that you want to do and should ever do is flip the switch of that idiot box or your latest smart TV and get stuck on some ranting, screaming and yelling for some cause by a few people who have been agitated by all that- the first thing that you need to do is evaluate- How much of what is been ranted off, actually impacts you now or forever- and if that’s not worth your time, just flip the channel and if it does, listen, get a complete picture, research on other conflicting narratives and then take a scientific rational and informed decision in the way you can- bitching, frowning and sulking doesn’t help anyone especially if the context is something that will impact you! Needless to say if you have ever noticed that these sold narratives are often loud, nosier and are almost always accompanied by a dash of fear mongering or an undercurrent of hate which basically strives to create a division within the social strata (because that serves the political maneuvering).

Well, given the limitations of a blog, I really don’t have the space to get into intricate details about how and why you should try to retain your sanity and control over the narratives been served to your every evening prime time! But what all of us can surely do is (depending on what role and impact we can create in the society that we live) we can choose the amount of time that we can spend to understand and decode the narratives and then applying our own rationality and wisdom see if that narrative fits what we observe and even the slightest deviation is an indication of something not being right and that almost always is perhaps the first sign of curated narratives been driven down the society. Not all of us will have the power to change or stop that, but each of us, as individuals have a formidable power to change the outcome by doing what is right rather then getting sold into the narrative! In case you happen to be one for them, who are empowered by sections of the society to voice your views and narratives than, the more you do it with logic and facts, higher are the chances that a powerful counter-narrative will be created and that gives society a decent choices to evaluate and make a informed decisions as it deems fit in the contextual settings that may be prevailing!

The whole aspect of NEWS creating narratives, draws power from the inertia of those who can create equally powerful counter-narratives! It seems strange, but well at times fact is stranger than fiction! It never really matters what is been said, who is saying what they are saying or what is the method of communication adopted- whether we have anchors yelling, howling, screaming on the channels or we have fist fights breaking out in the studios as part of a planned script- the most important part here is- what is that you and I choose to do as we witness this, when do we say enough is enough and when do we begin to apply our rational, scientific and logical mind to what is been told to us to be a problem and we actually are able to see what the problem really is! As more and more empowered individuals begin to do this diligently, slowly but surely change happens and in no time will you see all these unproductive nonsense loose its acquired sheen, because all of that drama only works- when there is an audience for it and importantly a paid audience! The show of the clowns ends when the circus halls are empty!

There is no point, raising fingers, for or against anyone- because eventually all of us come from the same societal bucket and if you think that the waters are stinking, well that‘s a time when the society needs to come together more than ever to do an agreed, principle based change to correct what’s gone horribly wrong! Think about it! You always see political class and every media channel having divergent, opposite and at time useless views about every thing- whether someone asks or not- but when it comes to the question of existence- like an act of war or a pandemic like the one we are facing now- all of them (thankfully!) come together to stand uniformly behind the nation that they come from! This act tells you something, apart form the fact of people being patriotic, it also shows you what the real priorities are and why all else is nothing but a drama played out for the audience of a nation, directed and produced by …well … you people are smart…go check for yourselves!

I leave you here with these thoughts for now, think twice before you decide to consume everything that’s laid in front of you; gluttony too is a sin and in the modern times that we live, its poisonous enough irrespective of the golden cup that it comes in!

Stay wise, stay safe, rationalize and apply your intelligence empowered by your wisdom! Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece!

Simplifying Success.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Well before you jump to any conclusion about what this article is about- let me right away help you with that bit- read on if you agree, believe and want to understand why “success” is a mirage, the way it is largely talked about- and in reality has more to do about “you” and “what you end up doing with that “you” part of you! Well don’t get confused; success is nothing more or less, but the story about you- me and each one us- success is about how we calibrate our existence and aspirations in the contexts that we are provided with- at times by choice and few times by compulsion! So, join me here and lets understand what really “success” implies and how you can do what you can and must do; importantly also what you mustn’t do!

As individuals we would have defined success over a million times by now! Whether we started that with our first essay at high school, debates during college elections or that typical Monday morning corporate rant about the progress and work of the organization or the team that you lead or are part of – virtually every day of our life- we are introduced to some story of success and the barometer of that success interestingly keeps changing! Well yes- What you measure as success matters, but importantly what also matters is how are you measuring what you measure and are you really measuring what matters? This I believe is perhaps the most important questions that we must pose to ourselves to first understand what is our definition of success and it’s only when that self-definition of success is congruent and aligned to the one that defines success for the form you work at or the business or cause that you live for- that magic will happen and eventually you will end up touching and experience success the easy it is meant to be!

As we look around the world that surrounds us, the person making a quick sale of burgers is as successful as the top-end fashion store down the lane, or the investors in the stock market or that off politician who lives to keep his promises! To begin with everyone’s success is everyone’s individual and contextual truth! So any comparison even between two or more people doing even the same things doesn’t really make sense for the simple reason that no two people are the same ever- even if you were to ask them to draw a simple circle on paper- both of them would do it the way they see a circle or more appropriately the way they are able to express the circle! What matters is how well the same person is able to get the circle more and more right with each time that he keeps at it and that is yet another real measure of success! It’s never about the other person- it all starts with the individual and ends with the individual for the simple fact that no two individuals are the same and each one us brings our personalities into whatever we choose to do- irrespective whether we serve a burger, sell a diamond or make the buck in the marketplace! It is always about how well we can keep doing what we do- over and over again and if that is scientifically reproducible and has finesse- is what success is really all about! You may want to ask me right about now, isn’t success about being above everyone else, lead the race, be that “number uno” and all that crazy stuff? Well, my question to you right back is – Who told you that?

The whole problem, like many other things with humanity is- these “acquired beliefs” were right from the time you show some abilities of cognition, each and every person around you starts to corrupt your amazing brain and the pure grey cells with the whole unwanted dose of “being better than”, “he did that/ she did that”, “you know what” all these kind of narratives and many more like these and what we end up doing is set our brains and ourselves in the trap of always seeking to know where we stand vis-a- vis “someone! Now, this someone could be your co-worker, boss, junior, that vegetable vendor, that beggar on the street, that business tycoon or that sly gambler- well what we end up programming ourselves into are these paranoid comparison seeking machines- who always seem to be anxious to wake up every morning to see how much gain or loss we have ended up doing to ourselves because of “others”! The moment we see we are better off (rather we assume and perceive- which is a different malaise altogether!) than a few or more of the “others” around we are relaxed and feel confident about ourselves for no real reason and yet at other times when we see more tycoons or that odd school friend who suddenly seems to have hit the jackpot of his life- we are left wondering and end up making ourselves feel more anxious and uncomfortable ever thinking what a low life we are (which again in many cases could be far away from what the reality is!). The important fact that perhaps no one told you or possibly you have forgotten to record and etch is that the “other” really don’t give a f**k to what you think, perceive and how you end up feeling about yourself by looking at them, for they continue to do what suits them and that’s the reality of life! Each of us, works to what we can, to the best we can and there’s nothing more and beyond that can be added to this fact and this is the foundation that we all stand upon, whether we like it or not; we build on the foundation that we stand upon- this depends on how we reflect within and how we cherish and aspire to build the structure that we desire! No one ever built a great monument by emulating an existing masterpiece! Know that for now and always! So how do we about knowing what success really is for us as individuals?

Start from the start! Whatever you choose to do- has to originate from within you- Self-Awareness is perhaps the greatest master-key that each of us have to our own lives! It is about not only knowing what all you can achieve given the contexts that you operate within, but rather it’s also about what you must leave out, when and how much is enough- that is basically knowing your trim level! Another important aspect to work towards your success is stop looking for role models- yes I heard it- you are probably thinking I am out of my mind – but this is a fact and the quickly you learn this the better for you and your aspirational part for your ever elusive success! There are a hundred reasons why people become successful and trust me when they do- not one of them want to tell you the whole truth and their real contextual settings around what made it possible- because that is where the secret lies- that bit is perhaps the most ordinary and non-glamorous stuff and it has a perhaps the biggest potential to rob away all that unwanted attention that people end up getting because”few” perceive and create the “noise” about them being “a success story”! People who cherish success from the confines of the social compulsions- and entrapped in the conformity bias- will always do whatever it takes to camouflage the ordinary as some extraordinary bullshit and weave fiction within the threads of reality to create a mirage which doesn’t make sense but people are made to believe because that billion dollar worth mansion makes everyone believe what they see and this is the space which you really don’t even want to get into unless you too want to end up complicating your success story for the times ahead! Let me explain this bit!

Consider this, you come across this person who has become a burger legend- suddenly you have his details all across the tabloids, the local TV channels, radio stations, the social media everyone is going ga-ga- about this sensation who seems to be in his mid twenties and then you have that amazing PR and talk show and that paid- talk show- going all across the nation- where this person speaks how he got inspired by the humble burger! (I mean really?) and then goes on to tell how he walked down the pavement saw a kid who couldn’t have a burger because it was expensive and that became his mission in life! (I mean..whatever!) Further then it cuts to the present- so I worked hard and here I am! Well, how does this shit sound? Inspiration right- now let me tell you what would really have happened! He would have used his rational brain to sense a business opportunity to sell burgers at a specific price point and went to meet a few investors, or a bank ot to his rich uncles (who are obviously hidden from the star gaze) borrowed or begged that money and started a store and which was going to be profitable (read success- for this person) and that’s about it! So now this narrative got a bit low key, boring and non- engaging right? Well, yes, it is and this is the fact of life! Success stories are always more than what meets the eye and unless you train your rational mind to dig and see what is beyond the obvious, all that you will end up doing is end up comparing yourself with fairy tale characters and end up living and being successful in a non-existent world! Don’t fall prey to the trap of believing what is said, shown and sold because “AB” or “XYZ” said or showed or awarded- use your grey matter and rationalize what you see and limit yourself to the stories and the contexts that matter and are relevant to you within what you want to achieve and as you want to define your “success” everything else is pure crap of nothing more than entertainment value! Remember, each one us goes to the heaven we construct- no one else’s heaven or angels are coming to your funeral!

Humanity has reached a pivotal point, wherein a globally connected society has started to turn onto itself to facilitate greed, narratives and ideologies that serve a few and end up harming many! The whole smokescreen that begins with the “very need to define success” is a big illusion! Think about it rationally, if as humans we are different, emotionally intellectually and even as we understand, perceive and communicate- irrespective of all other things around- why and how can “success” be calibrated to a few and pre-decided formats? The answer to this question lies in the annals of societal greed and mass manipulation through coerced narratives to drive societies in a direction that a few want and these “few” unfortunately are the very role models and those aspirational characters that many of us would eventually succumb too, unless we fail to see what really is beneath and around this big smokescreen!

The “few” are and will always remain anxious about everyone else around because of two primary tings; firstly the largely ordinary part of their “extraordinary” success story- the worry of that being exposed and secondly there being a complete lack of depth to do anything worthwhile in the real essence of it! You see, when innovators have faith in the solution that has been devised they collaborate and share and move ahead together with a team and partners so that the benefits reach far and wide and can be adapted to suit and serve the varying contexts around the world- case in point renewable energy sector! A brilliant example wherein harnessing the bounties of nature has crossed boundaries and that has enabled empowerment like nothing else! Sure enough not all regions have been able to benefit to the same extent- but that largely has had to do with the ability and competence to execute a brilliant solution more than anything else! Remember, “real success” never remains within the confines of the “few”, it seeks a pathway and reaches the multitudes, who are then able to empower themselves by adapting the richness of the solution in the contextual settings that suits the given society! So what’s the takeaway? Simple…

“You” are the foundation of your success and stop developing/relying on what you see, are told and what you perceive- everything may or can be a mirage! Your heaven is what you see at your funeral and no two people ever go to the same heaven even though their funerals may be alike! Your “truth” is your reality and this contextual setting is the essence to decide how high, how far and how fast will you be able to surge ahead and when you will stall with the idea that you have! Remember, the idea is never extraordinary, it is the method of application and execution of an idea that makes an ordinary one into an extraordinary success story! It really doesn’t matter what your definition of success really is, it could be that 5$ a day or that 5000$ an hour bit, what matters is how much of it comes from within you and how much of it do you really own and control; because even the greatest idea and thought will be undone once that control and intrinsic value which comes from within is lost! Stop the unwanted and unwarranted comparisons, be aligned to who you are, what you aspire to be and work to the best of what you can be given the contexts that you are set up within and against and once you have this core alignment synced in- you will touch your aspirations and taste the success as you should- irrespective of what others say or as they perceive what you do!

I will leave you here, grab your drink, reflect within and seek who you are to begin with to seek what your aspirations are and from there can begin the story of your success in an original way!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, until than stay safe and stay wise!

Success through disruption.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Scholars and historians may not always agree on all the things that have been ever said or recorded, but the one thing that all of them will always agree upon is the singularity of the fact that- All great success and progress of humanity has been through or amidst disruption and more importantly, the greater the disruption that humanity has been hit by, even more greater has been the resurgence and the pursuit for success to ensure that humanity lives to its name of being the most adaptable and intelligent of all species on the planet! Ironically enough- it is often the dumbness and stupidity of the same species that lands humanity in tight corners to begin with! Join me here as we explore how and why success through disruption seems to be so refreshing and exciting even though it may at times charge a premium as as as far as the price and cost at which such a success eventually manifests!

I you see through the last 300 years of world history, it has been sprinkled with long periods of calm with ensuing periods of unrest, war and chaos in between- Importantly at any given time, there always has been one region or area of the world which has been in a flux of unrest (for whatever reason) and strangely enough this small pocket of unrest always has gone to dictate what the whole world should focus upon and thereby all efforts of humanity would be automatically aligned to resolve that space or pocket of oddity and with that would come in the rush to seek success by any means or ways just to get that pocket of the planet into the – normal way as seen and perceived by the majority! Needless to say, as soon as the leaders of the world would resolve one pocket of unrest or uncertainty there would be another few developing and this never ending cycle goes on like a perpetual machine along with it- creating and destroying lives, livelihoods and economies- all of this ever happened with a singular plan to have perpetual success for a select few at all times even as the rest are left ever struggling through their chaos and turbulence to seek his ever elusive success of calm and peace which seems ever away from their view point- at times for reasons of their own making and yet at other times because of situations are simply beyond their control and are in fact designs of someone else!

Through this fog of chaos, if you carefully observe, success has embraced those societies and nations which have held their ground for the core values that they stand for and have not relented even an inch in what they ever believed and what they thought was the greater good for their people! What works for societies sure does work for individuals and that is why when individuals (who are the basic element of the society) bring in resilience and that desire to be successful, magic happens and times of disruption provide the perfect contrasting backdrop which ensures that even ordinary success (during other times or times of peace) ends up becoming stellar performance worthy of awards and accolades! This very element of being able to get attention and getting noticed is what makes success earned through disruption and that’s why disruption is a blessing- as long as you are anchored to what you seek! So how is success through disruption different than other times? Read on!

In the normal course of times, when everything is settled and things are all fair weather, many people want to try many things and thereby- irrespective of the individual cases of merit- that never ending competition to even seek attention- fails many efforts and at times even the best of the best! You see, attention seeking techniques can be manipulated without checking or validating the real merit that a particular story warrants- don’t believe- watch any news channel you will know what I mean! Next, this clutter of attention seeking behavior then further dampens the genuine interest that actually propagates and drives success!This vital step ends up creating false starts- where wrong projects or stories get highlighted and races ahead only to succumb on account of their own intrinsic failure of having no depth or merit! When the seas are calm you have many ships out there heading for the harbours and it is these crowded harbours that create bursts of attempts for success- in any which way- that goes to undermine individual talent, intellect and impact that any of those ideas can ever have in the real sense on the society or a nation!

On the other hand, when the weather is adverse, you have very few mariners out there and rest assured they are the best of the best, for they have learnt the art and science to tame the storms, at times through prudence and persistence and at other times, through costly lessons of having borne the brunt and re-build themselves all over again to take upon the storms and tame them all over again! It is these pioneers who believe in what their thoughts are , ideas are even in face of seemingly adverse contextual settings, that hold the key to create impact on societies and nations in big way- for the simple reason that- they are ready to venture out when there is not much of crowd! Hence the very few who do venture out get all the attention and support (if needed) to deal with the challenge at hand and get a ready audience who is eager to hear what their ideas about the new definition of success is!Not to be surprised then, it is these very ideas and these very ideators who then wear the hat of the pioneer to direct societies and nations in a direction that suits and defines their success!

Ironically enough, since there is much less competition even among pioneers during times of distress, that even the most average idea and thought ends up being a heroic one and this extent of paucity of alternatives either builds a strong and intelligent society or creates an even deeper sink hole purely depending on the merit of the idea and the definition of success that it brings along with it!

So in a way, if you see, times of disruption are perhaps the best times that one can eagerly await for when it comes to put forth a clutter breaking idea or thought and weaving a new narrative for success- something that makes the oder and earlier narratives obsolete and makes the new one aspirational, desirable and likeable! So what are the kind of ideas and who are these ideators and how do they possibly manage it? Well here you go!

To begin with, more often than not these ideators are someone like you and I,the normal people that you come across through the routine of your life! These are really those ordinary people who have an extraordinary ability to see something of value even as majority of us tend to frown and keep complaining about- how the normal has changed! These people have the intrinsic ability to see the new normal and embrace it long before we understand it and even as majority of us are struggling to adapt! Next and more importantly, these people are great readers of their contextual settings and know the gaps very well and carve out ideas that fit those gaps- whether these are product related or service oriented in such an amazing way that- it all looks simply natural and something that society was possibly ever waiting for! I am sure, if you look around you will find a number of such ideation cases which have been very recent but seemed so very natural the moment they got activated! Finally, since there is a genuine dearth of courageous innovators who have the ability to mix, simple, powerful solutions and communicate them through their charisma- success- real success is far infrequent than one would have thought! Even among the pioneers who come in shining armour during desperate times, only a few survive the turn of a decade and hardly any a generation later- unless and until their ideas have been foundational and potent enough to withstand the onslaught of time and ever evolving human intelligence!

Well, if I have to kind of wrap the things up for this article, here is the crux, embrace disruption and be thankful for it, for you may never know which part of your easy life that you live was a consequence of an earlier period of rapid stress and disruption- which was heeded to by some amazing pioneers and their ideas luckily for you and me, tuck long enough to make our lives that notch easier and bearable to live! Disrupted times are times when there are very few people on the stage of the world and that ensures that each one of them gets their chance to fame and glory-who succeeds and who doesn’t largely depends on how great, simple and powerful the thought is, how well that resonates with the contextual settings of the time and how effectively the whole package is communicated to the society to make it desirable, likeable and successful!

I will leave you here with these thoughts; hopefully we are yet somewhere still in the flux of our current times; perhaps few moments over your favourite drink and who knows! magic happens and you may be the the one who comes up with the next simple, powerful and compelling idea that writes in a new narrative for the society to embrace!

Ciao for now, I will be back soon with another article! Until then stay wise, stay safe and embrace your contextual disruption!

Be formless to create form.

~ PA ~ 2 Comments

Learning from the elements around us is perhaps the biggest and the brightest classroom that we can ever walk into and it is in these open classrooms that the greatest and the most richest of learnings happen! Join me here as we explore to understand how by being formless, we can create within ourselves formidable power to bring to life the manifestations and dreams that we hold within!

If you have been ever inspired by nature- say, the great beach fronts or the lofty mountains that are sprinkled around the planet- it’s always worthwhile to remember that each of these magnificent and beautiful works of nature have only been possible through the power and perseverance of the elements who have remained formless for long stretches of time (continue to be so always) and have chipped away bit by bit what came in their way to create what inspires us today! This perhaps is the most fundamental of all learnings that we can ever collect and follow as humanity! It is this simple yet powerful fact that- it’s never about that great act done on one fine day- rather it is the efforts and smaller contributing acts that have gone to create that one big day- when the order was changed or the narrative was changed in a way that created a new lens to look at the same things in a different manner!

Even the great warriors of medieval times, knew this secret and often, nature and the terrain played a vital role when it came to devising strategies of war- when kings got them right- nature rewarded them by being on their side and ensuring a victory for them and when they got it wrong- nature became as ruthless as it can be and lessons learnt even by those costly mistakes went on to make permanent amends in the way wars were fought later! Such is the power of the formless forces of nature- water, light, wind and thunder. It’s no wonder that humanity has always been fascinated by them- their power and the pursuit to tame them to ones’ advantage is even today the centerpiece of all conflict across the world! So what is formlessness all about? What is there that we can learn from all this?

The word, “formlessness” is deceptive, the reason being that the moment we hear the “less” part of the word- our brain automatically gets programmed to discount the first part of the word and that’s where many of us end up doing a fatal mistake! We don’t understand the word “form” in its entirety to begin with and thereby completely miss out on gauging the depth and importance of the power that ” being formless” can bring along with it!

Form- as the word implies gives definite structure and dimension and this is what always makes us comfortable- as humans we are hardwired to deal with the finite that comes our way and depending upon our individual or collective capacity decide how to tame the finite or the form that stands in front of us – whether its about encountering a big animal or a small hostile group or its about taking upon an enemy group at a war theatre- the moment we are able to determine the “form” as humans we are equipped to devise strategies to defeat, delay or divert the challenge in front of us – all with one motive of “we” being the survivor at all costs! The moment this definite “form” gets ambiguous all hell breaks loose and this is where “formlessness” assumes proportions that baffle humanity even today! Consider this, we are more relaxed as we deal with dogs and cats- even if they are untamed- now suddenly you come across a snake- what happens- it still has form- it still is definite- but yet- the instant reaction (and in most of the cases the best one to have) is to move away as quickly as possible and just get into a zone of complete avoidance and fight only if no other option exists! So what just happened here- even when there was form- just because it is an “unknown” and completely new form to deal with- our brain takes us straight to the primordial, flight or fight response and this survival technique works well and has been perhaps the only reason why humans have been successful and survivors until now!

It is when the unknown becomes- formless that the real test begins and that is where the power- the ultimate power to create lies! If you have ever seen water flow down a stream and then see it grow as you hiked along to see it changing form from a serene mountain stream to a fast flowing stream then onto become a roaring river- complete with rapids and then descending down dramatically through waterfalls, gorges cutting across valleys and finally making itself as vast and as deep it can as it flows through the flood plains onwards to merge onto the Sea or an Ocean- what is happening here- well at every stage- water- which is finite- assumes radical formlessness by altering the way it behaves given the kind of obstacles and challenges that it faces enroute through its flow! This is what empowers formlessness- the strength of formlessness comes not from being formless but rather being able to alter oneself to meet the challenge head on and overcome it by becoming a completely new version of oneself! This is the essence and soul of the concept of formlessness- the ability to alter- stay dynamic and being able to prevail in face of the adversity that stands in front of you in the path that you have chosen to walk upon!

As with water, so with wind, so with fire- as long as we know the finiteness and the dimension of these entities we are comfortable to deal with them, the moment they present themselves as something which we are unsure how to deal with, these very elements become menacing problems and have the potential to etch new order simply by the power that their formlessness brings along with them! Think about it! The fire that you see bruning softly in the fireplace or the flame on the stove is the same element as what constitutes the forest fire! The fires erupting in the forests are no way techncially different then the ones’ that you have tamed and which have provided you life with are- yet the moment the element of fire- gets loose- it becomes one formidable entity which you really want to get away from- as far as possible! What does this all say about us and what is there for us to learn and take away from this space?

If you analyse the worldly problems that you face, day in and day out- you will see a similar trend- as long as you seem to have the ability to tame, deal, manage the problem that you are dealing with, everything seems to be just fine- this is the space where you are still holding the water in the jug on the table and this is the moment wherein your lighter still obeys you and lights the cigar when you command it! The moment you start to run out of ideas ort deal with your existing problems and as they start to transform into something else that what you have anticipated them to be- their finite forms quickly start to transform into something unknown and something far formless, then what you have earlier bargained for and this is where the water in the jug is threatening to run off as a flash flood and that lighter is threatening to set you ablaze, even without you trying to turn it on! So now the million dollar question what do you do? How do you deal with everyday fluidity and formlessness around you? Well the answer is deceptively simple, yet powerful! You attain formlessness in an equal measure to mitigate the power of the problems that you face! This alone is the wise way ahead- attain formlessness and create form- once you have mastered this element, no matter what the challenges that you come across- you will always find a way to stay a step ahead, over or above what the challenge seems to be and eventually will be able to create a definition for that problem so that it loses its potency of being a formless headache and this can be achieved only by you becoming formless and formidable! but how exactly do you attain formlessness? What’s the trick here?

Being formless, or becoming formless is all about being fluid, adaptable and responsive (not reactive) to the what’s happening around! It’s about changing your currencies, your priorities and being able to take those quick seemingly unworthy detours to ensure that you stay away form the grips of the problems that plague you, but you are always within striking distance to hit back at the problems and challenges and more importantly you get to choose when you hit back, how and with what intensity! This is the power that formlessness alone can bring to you- the power to choose when you deal with the challenge at hand and how exactly you deal with it! Once you have reached this space of being able to remain or stay formless- you will realise that it is this very space where you can co-create magic- you can create forms- alter narratives and create lasting impact by giving new directions to societies and individuals- on how they gho about dealing with what they face and suddenly your formless energies have acquired form by new acquired behavioral patterns that the society now adapts to and adheres to! In a way, the formlessness of an individual which gives vital power to deal with seemingly overbearing challenges creates and directs form to be developed within chaos and ambiguity which further empowers societies and communities at large! This is the true power and way to create form by assuming formlessness on an ongoing basis and when leaders do this- magic happens and you have responsive and vibrant societies that thrive on the power of individuals to steer them away from harm no matter how high or how deep the challenge that they face- individually and collectively!

The real essence of formlessness is being able to remain fluid and focussed to create forms and outcomes that serve the greater good and serve them well in time, so that the formless leaders are ready for the next challenge and today’s challenges are converted to routine tasks which people are left to manage with- to grow- learn and progress!

I leave you here with these thoughts for now; think about the last time when you acquired formlessness, what was it like! What purpose did it serve and how did that help you as an individual and how has that impacted the society that you work for? If not yet, when do you propose to assume formlessness and for what purpose? What is the form that you want to create by being formless yourself!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, until then stay wise and stay sublime!

The hour-glass (effect) comes next.

~ PA ~ 2 Comments

Even as we emerge out of the shadows of the pandemic and pick up the pieces of what is remaining to rebuild and revisit our lives, livelihoods and priorities the fact remains that, we are not going to be coming back to the way the things were earlier at least for the next 12 – 24 months depending on which part of the world you are! Even as we overcome what has hit us, we must prepare for, what I like to call as the Hour-Glass Effect, something which has already started and will go on to dominate our lives for a couple of years at least! This article is about, understanding what this is and what we can possibly do or not do, to be sure that we have our dear life in the right areas of the emerging hour-glass! So here we go!

Let’s examine on the political front, what we see around is that there is an increasingly sharper division among the political class the world over, unlike the earlier times when there was space in the middle to ensure that a dynamic and progressive balance is offered to the nation (to keep moving ahead) without any extreme alignments to the right or the left, now it has become the survival of the either ends of the ideologies that the world of politics is known for- irrespective which nation you belong to what state government you are ruled by- if you are living in a democratic set up- you either are making a choice between a radically polarized nationalist front or trying to hold on o a liberal and more accommodating popular front.Well there is nothing, more that I want to suggest here; each of us is free to choose our own path to to our grave- doesn’t matter which end you lean because at both ends what you have are politicians, the real problem is the stretching of the hour-glass right in the middle- the stretch which would have normally been of an adequate proportion seems to be drawn out and made more and more thinner with each political move and this is what throws the society into further chaos- because the society is compelled to collapse onto itself with no space to move, act or even breathe- let alone exist!

If politics plays its part, how can society be left untouched! At the very moment that I am writing this, thousands of families would have either made it to the upper- more opulent part of the hour-glass escaping the intense pressure and crush at the thinned out central space and there would millions who would have been pushed down back to the bottom – most of them reaching back where they would have been a few years or perhaps even decades back! Don’t be surprised, its relatively simple- as the political class go on to play what they are good at, the economic indicators are often let loose to alter the disposition of societies- at times willingly and few times accidentally by oversight- it’s anyone’s guess about what it is – with regards to the events that we are witnessing now! As this happens, the societies move and adjust to get into the old two class system- those who have and those who don’t and each of these sets then begin to carve out their own goals to co-exist with or without confrontation and as this happens over the period of time you see once again the coming of age of the so-called middle strata- middle class once again and the whole cycle start again as the hour glass gets flipped by then! This is what really happens and given the lifespan that each one of us has- rarely will we have a chance to witness the whole cycle through the meaningful period of our lives- and as depending when this cycle hits us individually either we become those dazzling sunrise entrepreneurs or we are forced into the oblivion of darkness through early exit form the professional stage with no time or resources left to re-build or re-start anything meaningful all over again- simply because there is no time left!

If nations,societies can be impacted then what makes you think, that as an individual you will be spared! In fact to be honest, it is the impacted individuals who go on to make the choices which determine the stretch of the hour glass and the quantum of right choices then enables one to reach a comfortable zone within the right space in the hour-glass and bad decisions are routinely rewarded with uncomfortable positions and spaces which manifest as societal discord being played out in the streets on a daily basis! So you see, it is about the choices that we as individuals make that determines the stretch of the central section of the hour-glass and if we are wise and swift enough to make the right one, we are bound to be at the right place no matter how many times the hour-glass is flipped or shaken! The beauty is that the choice always remains with us and within us! So how do we go about ensuring that we are in that sweet spot and are able to be in a zone that is safe enough ton make the adjustment but stay relevant at all times? Well read on!

The trick is deceptively simple, firstly irrespective of everything and anything else, follow the old maxim of creating friends and enemies that you can live with but get get killed by! Once you have the contextual settings around you in control you are certain to always calibrate your aspirations, risk appetite and recklessness in direct contrast to your immediate surrounding- this ensures that even if you hit the deepest and the oddest of all potholes, you will survive and live to tell the tale and begin all over again! Next, calibrate and define your achievements/ success stories to yourself not to the settings around you! You see, if you are going ton end up building sandcastles by the beach, they will not last, that’s a fact, at some point of time either the sea will claim it or the crabs will use it! As long as your success comes from within you, because of who you are and not because of what is told to you- about who you are- you will be just fine! Each one of us is unique, needless to say, even the thought of comparing our success/achievement with anyone else around is the dumbest things that we can ever end up doing!, so never ever do that! Finally once you have a refined sense of what makes you- who you are; once you have a refined understanding about what is your definition of success; you will always then be scanning the contextual settings around you- at all times; not to compare but rather to know what’s out there which may harm and stall your progress. Your heightened self-awareness will go a long way to provide you with that vital early-warning system which will tell you well in time (more than others) to make the needed amends so that as the flip of the hour-glass occurs or as the constriction commences you are well ahead and safe enough to manage yourself and those around you!

Well the hour-glass will flip and will continue to constrict and expand around the centre in an endless cycle – that is perhaps what life is all about! What matters though is that in the short times that we have, it will only make sense that we make an effort to be at the right place within the hour-glass so that no matter how hard it is shaken, or how tight the constriction is, we are able to prevail for our own well being and for the people who depend on us- whether that’s our family, our society or our nation or the global community, depending on who you are, larger will be the dependence and higher the need to prevail and overcome the hour-glass effect and the only way to do it, is by – Being who you are!

I will leave you here with these thoughts for now, to reflect and contemplate , where you are within this hour-glass and how well you are prepared for whats happening now and what will happen later- because the hour-glass will keep flipping as and when its time arrives!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article! Until then stay safe, stay wise and keep time!

The “expert”syndrome.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

Frankly speaking, I never thought life would be so exciting! We live in times when facts are stranger than fiction! Even the best fiction writers would not have been able to imagine the way we see intelligence and dumbness been played out every now and then! Join me, as we explore a funny, innocent looking and possibly the most damaging trait that lurks amongst all of us, nope, not the virus, this story is about the “expert” syndrome. We have a look into how this possibly originated, how it has evolved (or kind of devolved); so here we go!

As much as I wish to avoid, but I helplessly gravitate towards the topic of the “pandemic” ( not that I am obsessed by it), right now perhaps there is no other topic around the world that unites humanity the way the pandemic has! Either you are suffering more or suffering less, but the fact is you have earned yourself a ticket to this global show! Importantly this is a live study about how “experts” just ended up screwing the fate of millions of people the world over- by punching the right buttons at the wrong time and how the birth of overnight “experts” has possibly added to the chaos, creating more drama rather then providing solutions!

To begin with the pandemic is not a health issue, to begin with! Yes, sure enough a virus has crossed over from an animal to humans and this has in fact more to do with understanding the Virus, its behaviour, its potency, its vulnerabilities and ways to block, inhibit and restrict it form creating dis-ease or illness that can lead to fatality!Now just look who all are responsible in formulating strategies around the pandemic, no it’s not the virologists, neither are the immunologist , it is the doctors (who are supposed to pull those log tubes and ensure you live your life, even as they try to treat you with whatever they “think” works because “someone” told them so!). Sure enough, doctors will alone be able to save your life and keep you on this side of the world, no one is discrediting them, but the problem is that unless the “real experts” don’t give real solutions, all that doctors are left to do is struggle by trying out options and facing the never ending wrath of the patient’s families even as they are hanging on to their own dear lives with each passing moment! Other times, if it’s not doctors then depending on which country you reside in, it could be the head of the major religion that is followed in a country, or leaders in clinical research, bio-statisticians- yes, those gifted people who crunch numbers, extrapolate graphs and show the grim scenarios- straight out of a Hollywood movie- so that everyone is happy with any number less than that- this is the same shit like what you used to when you explained your maths scores to your parents- The conversation goes something like this-“Hey Dad, you see I got a C, and you should be grateful its not a F, something like that”! When all of these fail; you always have those invincible politicians becoming overnight Virologists and Health experts- who come on television and ask you to do everything and anything- from clapping, to banging your utensils to asking you for helping those who are more affected then yourself- so basically you burn down your house to provide warmth to the community! Hold your thoughts, with this pandemic here and let us visit another set of “experts”!

Alongside this pandemic, the world is also witnessing an increasing period of military tension and aggression whether it is encroachment of Indian land by China, the fragile nerves around the middle-east, the uneasy clam around the South China sea, The newly defined US- China Cold War ( I think a better term could “American Chop Suey” War!) Importantly, the war theaters of the world for some strange reason seem to be immune to the virus- making me wonder does the virus really exist! (well, don’t bother- it does!). Now with regards to this military flare up, if you are lucky to be in India or the USA, just switch on your Idiot- Box (yes the good old television) and flip to any of the news channels- you will be left dumb founded at the variety and diversity of suggestions/solutions and action plans thrown every few minutes, guess by whom? Yes, “the experts”! These experts have the answers, solutions, action points for all problems that the world is witnessing in real time and in few cases there are also animated VFX enabled decks which can play out scenarios with complete end-to-end detail and remember this- For every challenge that the world is facing- by evening all TV News channels the world over- have managed to get the experts (even before the nation or the government can lay their hands on their grey matter!). These experts then spell out strategies, action plans and hidden motives about the subject with great accuracy and convincing tenacity (putting even Nostradamus and other modern day fortune tellers to shame) the entire topic is laid open- all thread bare- often you are left wondering to which side do they belong- or are they the aliens from Mars who want to see humanity fight and finish off each other! Thankfully, the only commonality with these “experts” is that, no one is listening to them- no not even their audience! So what’s really happening- what is this phenomenon all about- why do we end up wasting prime satellite broadcast time what is this all about? Read on!

Since time in memorial, as civilizations have advanced, there has been the urge to dominate society with knowledge, information or power, the days we live today are no different, the only slight change perhaps, has been that we are also plagued by the space of mis-information, pseudo- knowledge and “self-proclaimed experts” more than ever before! The real problem accelerates because , even as the “real experts” are busy chipping away the challenge one step at a time- away form public glare- you have this abundance of “so-called experts” who seize the moment and occupy the void space of the real experts and convert the it into a glorified entertainment zone with no real sense or substance! Now, you may want to argue, why is that even allowed in the first place? Well, sadly that is how social engineering works to further what is called as “building narratives” and “getting social acceptance on opinions that are being sold” (irrespective whether they make sense or not)!

Consider the case of the pandemic, experts all along have debated, discussed and emphasized on cutting off people to people contact- well nations did it- what happened- did the situation improve? Well no if you are talking about absolute numbers, but yes, if you want to consider delaying a problem as a solution! If you are still wondering why this would have happened, well the answer is simple- remember I mentioned about “Immunologist” well yes, who were the centre piece to provide a solution- were all but ignored and not paid heed to as the world should have- you want to ask why? Well, you see creating economic adjustments and narratives and the promise of a new drug in the market makes vibrant economic sense and irrespective whether how accurate it is or not- the fact remains it serves the purpose of the few who drive and direct the societies the world over and once this is supplemented by the entertainment over media- you have a water tight case and everyone now believes that lock-downs are good! Wait until they realise that the cure has been worst than the disease and that by itself will be another story of social chaos!

Likewise, do you really think, armies across the world would decipher their strategy, potency and abilities over news channels and TV shows, well certainly not, than why the circus- this is called as opinion building- I mean you want citizens of a nation to support a decision of your’s to go to war- how would you get it done? Well, yes the classic way- ignite the patriotic lamp, create an enemy- communicate the over exaggerated threat and inform that this is the only way and you are the only one who can do it! That’s it! The nation is ready to go to war! Now, if you are wondering why would anyone do this, well, it plays well to the audience in the one countries who have just rudely awakened to their patriotic nerve and secondly helps to create a new order by bringing in distraction, chaos and uncertainty, not for one, but many countries around the world! In the connected times that we live in today, if USA catches cold, India will sneeze and the converse is also equally true!

So even as multitudes of ” so called experts” burn the midnight oil, fry our brains and occupy TV shows at prime times and keep throwing off solutions by the minute, the real experts are busy doing what really matters and the way it should be done- with focus and direction to create solutions to the problems at hand! You see these “overnight experts” have advise for everyone; whether it is the President of the USA or the Director General of WHO; they always have a suggestion for everyone, but for themselves! We should be thanking our stars, that The White House or The UN is as yet not taking these stunts seriously, if that happens, it will be the last sign of overall annihilation of intelligence form the face of the earth!

The only reason why this “expert” syndrome exists is because we are now kind of attuned to some “breaking news”, “some development”, “some news”, which may be good or bad, to make us feel our lives contextually better or worse each time that we switch on the TV and we are always left saying, “Great it was not me” and then moving on as if noting happened to the next circus! You see the real geniuses of the world don’t have time for TV shows and ranting off strategy on prime time! They are serious about what they do and they know what is at stake, likewise real politicians, statesman and business houses, they never waste time ranting off their next moves, secrets as a prime time event! Often,the ones’ who hardly have a figment of understanding of what’s really unfolding end up occupying the void places left by the real experts and since public memory is short, they are always forgotten and at times they themselves forget what is that they had said about a problem and often end up contradicting themselves as time flows!

The easiest way to note and steer clear of the “expert syndrome” is by knowing who is speaking about what! If the people who are speaking are not the ones’ who are solving the problem at hand, then no matter what, you can be rest assured they are just occupying the void and creating an entertainment quotient! Think about it! Had they really been experts and there is a criss at hand, where would they really have been? In a TV studio or at the place – Ground Zero- where the solution have to be found and implemented?!

Before I begin to sound like another “expert”, I will leave you here, urging you to reflect and check for yourself, how many “experts” you really know and if you too are an “expert” which one are you- the real one or the pseudo one!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, until then stay wise, stay safe and enjoy your expertise at what you really do!

Make a choice: People or Process.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Organisations often have something to guide them by, at times these are called as values, belief systems, way of working, agreed way of working, “the way we do it here”, you can take any of these approaches, but all of these will eventually end up taking you down one of the two only possible routes- either you are managing, striving for or struggling for a people centric organisation or a process centric organisation. This short read, we take a look at what this all means, and how it impacts us and what we can do about it, before we decide to join that dream job coming your way!So let’s roll!

Sure enough both these approaches have their own advantages and strengths, let’s not bother about weaknesses, because where strengths are, diametrically opposite end of it, you will find the weakness! If you are wondering even for a moment why does this matter- identifying whether a particular organisation is people centric or process centric, well hold your thoughts for now! By the time we finish this piece, I am sure you will be scampering to find some solace and once you know well, that you are aligned to, developing or contributing to one of these types, you will further appreciate why you are either a great fit or a misfit based on who “you” are and the type of organisation you have landed yourself in!

Fundamentally speaking, humans are always good at one of the two things- this, even as we have both the attributes- either we are good on the being creative and ingenious or we are great at doing repetitive and predictable tasks with great accuracy. Sure enough, we can do both and we end up doing both of these and everything that comes between these two extreme ends with varying degree of comfort, the fact however being that we all are naturally inclined to one thing over the other and when we find a workplace that reinforces our natural alignment to its work methodology- we excel at the function that we do and the contextual settings help us accelerate and excel as long as we continue to put in the required efforts!

If you take a short trip back into history and search for people who made a mark for themselves, name-fame -fortune, you will see a common thread, majority of them were mavericks- they ended up doing/creating things like no one had ever before, or their approach to run or govern a society was unlike anything ever before and their ability to think creatively, different;y, what is normally termed as “out-of-the-box” ended up creating our world the way it is today. Certainly this does not imply that those who continued to do routine functions are worthless, in fact they too are worth their weight in gold as they continually better the way they do things and create new benchmarks of doing the same thing over and over again with more finesse and sharpness! So what does this tell us? Well in a very simplistic manner it tells us that the ability to be innovative/creative, being able to set new ways and rules is one set that we have within us and the ability to better, develop something that’s already there by being at it-also called as perseverance- ensures that we create more value to something that already exists either by process or offering services-by doing what is meant to be done in a more refined and quality centric manner!

Typically organisations, which thrive on research , product development, innovation and new -age breakthroughs, creative pursuits lay heavy emphasis on the people that they have on board and that’s but an obvious choice! When you have people who are radically unique by way of their ability to think, collaborate, confront, debate and further a common idea- that’s the space where magic happens! Each individual will bring a new approach around a conventional problem at hand and that’s what will create pathways to developing/creating something unlike ever done before!- Certainly this approach is out rightly expensive and this route is normally deployed only when the odds are very high- typically when the solutions innovated/service provided have life-changing abilities or are able to influence people en-mass across regions and continents! Consider the world’s leading space exploration company- which has been at the forefront of space science ever since its inception- yes you got it NASA- what do you think they are hiring people for – following processes or for creating them afresh and leading humanity into a new frontier when it comes to space? Like NASA there are many more examples among different sectors wherein organisation have disrupted the way we go about our life through their products/services and this was possible because of the teams that they have had- the kind of people that they had onboard! This is how people centric organisations stand out and deliver! Needless to say this becomes possible only when the right people are onboard in the right contextual setting! This is how People centric organisations thrive and excel!

The other approach which has been equally successful and stood the test of time as well, is the approach wherein the Process is of vital importance. No this is different from red tapism and bureaucratic delays, this is more about following an established chain of command and staying within a span of control so that the whole unit works like a well oiled machinery and at any given time, even at a moment’s notice, the whole unit can align itself to increasing delivery pressures or adapt itself to meet the necessities of time! Sounds familiar, think you know a few of them, well yes you do, the defence forces, law enforcement agencies, medics, paramedics, you will find these instances even across various functions normally aligned to production of various goods and services, in the case of the manufacturing or world of services, you will come across the vital indicators like, well laid out clear structures, methodologies, process steps and communication channels which enable people to work individually or as teams to deliver what needs to be delivered under different conditions with no compromise on the quality of the finished product or service! This is where magic is created by being good at what is being done and doing what is being done in a better way each time it’s done!

Now you may be wondering, so why do organisations struggle all the time with n endless talent deficit! Why do we have organisations complaining about the quality of talent? The answer is deceptively simple! Organisations face challenges with talent when end up having onboard the wrong people for the right job! The problem is not of the people- the problem lies with the expectations placed on the people- who are basically not who you are really looking out for! Consider, you are a manufacturing firm and want to hire some kick ass engineers to supervise the forging unit- well things will work out for you as long as you are hiring an engineer with an orientation to follow rules, process and someone who believes in creating incremental changes by being in the system over a period of time, now instead of this if you end up hiring an eccentric innovator- he will start by stripping down every process and every work flow that you have ever built over the years with a single objective of simplifying and doing the things the way he would like to because that’s what his core intrinsic approach and belief system is- to create and construct something new!

None of them are right or wrong, neither the individuals nor the organisations, it is all about being wise and sane enough to know what you are hiring for- knowing what is that your organisation stands for and being able to decipher well , who are the people – that will be able to align themselves to the aspects of the business! Once you have the right type of people aligned to the right needs of the business, you have created enough space for both of them to grow and excel! If you are a process centric organisation hire people who are aligned to the way of the process centric environs, if you are an organisation that thrives on innovation and individual greatness, build an empire which celebrates individuality and also rewards collaboration, that’s how you will be able to excel in that space!

The choice, of whether to develop a people centric organisation or a process centric one should always resonate with the core requirements of the business and importantly this is something that should be loud and clear- visible through way of working and communication, so that even people who wish to embark on the journey with you are able to appreciate if they have boarded the right flight and look forward to the journey with equal enthusiasm as much as they have for the destination that lies ahead! More often than not you will come across organisations which are part process centric and part people cntric- when you are around that kind of a hybrid space- what really matters is having the right people at the right places for doing the right things!

I will leave you here for now, to reflect and think, what are you, a process person, or a creative wizard, what is the organisation that you are working for- people cntric or process centric, and what type of organisation will you like to build, if you ever want to build one! Keep thinking for now!

Ciao for now, I will come back soon with another article soon! Until then, knowing yourself create value in what you, by doing it the way you do it!

To solve a problem, define the problem!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Guess, the title says it all, never before in our lives (not that it was not important earlier) has it been important than now, to learn the vital art and science of “defining the problem well”! Unless we don’t define the problem well, we will have it visiting us again and again- disguised as something else, even as it remains the same fundamentally! Through this piece we take a quick look at understanding what does it take to define the problem and how that helps us all to live with one less headache to manage! So let’s roll!

A few months back, I had written , why “The Virus is not the problem”, and I am glad I did it, because as days and weeks have passed, this is what has been really true, sure enough no one is denying that the virus is fatal and can kill, but what needs to be foretold and given due emphasis, is the fact that it is not merely the virus by itself which is fatal or has the potency to kill, rather it is the contextual settings around it which alter its fatality and potency- The virus can harm, only if you allow it to harm by being reckless, unhygienic and inconsiderate for the health and safety of yourself and the people around you! Had the fact remained that it was only about the virus- the number of lock downs (partial and total) that the world has seen would have by now completely ended the whole pandemic- but that is not whats happening! The virus has opened up the scientific community to an extent where they seem to be more at logger heads rather than collaborating to find a solution, Immunologists, Virologists and the Physicians all have a story to tell and each one of them is right- the problem is that each one of them is right to the limited extent of their knowledge about their subject and experience and frankly the virus gives a damn to that bit! Allow me to quickly explain!

You see, the virus will be able to infect you, only if the health conditions of your body allow it to do so- which is an area that you alone control! Whether you have been healthy or reckless, it has always been your choice and you have now the only option to follow the guidelines that suit you, based on what you have ended up doing to your health, even before the virus made its appearance! So at one extreme end, if you have had a disciplined life and respected your health alongside your job sans all the non-productive garbage that you normally would end up doing as part of the so-called lifestyle (which in itself is a dis-ease), you would have nothing to worry or at the most, have a limited challenge to face a virus- this or any other, for that matter! On the other hand if you have been reckless and on a never ending party all through your life, high on everything that you are not supposed to be on, well in that spaces, you are the ideal candidate that this virus would like to see you wrapped up in a body bag!

So this way, it is not only about the virus- the story starts much before the virus comes to the scene and that is the only truth with every problem that we face ever! We set ourselves up for problems and challenges even before they arrive by doing or undoing what we do and what we do/ undo further determines whether we will prevail or succumb to the problems as and when they make their gracious appearance!

Let’s leave the virus alone for now and let’s focus on our world of work; right now many companies are in a frenzy to sack people- sacking of the very people- whom they would have hired paying competitive and at time more than competitive wages and incentives- just with one intent- to have the best so that the clients know- that you have the best and the finest and thereby attract business and revenue to your stable! Fair enough, then why sack now? I mean have you ever heard about a Captain of a ship who asks passengers to jump into the ocean or change ships or throws passengers with lifeboats in the middle of ocean because there is a fuel problem and he must reduce the tonnage of the ship?! Or have you heard about the pilot who decided to drop off half the passengers mid-route because he had a change of mind?! Well, you may say, what can the businesses do, if they don’t have the money- well, so see the problem is not you, it is the money! and what makes you responsible for everyone else’s salary? I mean, had you been able to deliver what you required to for a calendar year and justified your costs, then the organisation would have been duty bound to hold on to you- no matter what! No one throws off a Ship Navigator or Flight Engineer off the ship or plane no matter how heavy it is! So this is where it finally comes back to! The real problems start when organisations end up paying whatever they can afford or are asked for (without verifying adequately)- hoping that the returns will come back to them as told by the hotshots, as they speak for themselves, negotiate and argue at the interview; but as that crucial delivery begins to falter and eventually fail, it ends up becoming a loss for the organisation in the normal times and during these crazy times, like we live in now, it is the next closest thing to a complete financial meltdown! Next, it starts a whole new finger pointing game from the HR team to the Business teams and back to HR in a never ending loop asking only one question, “Why the heck did we hire this person!” and more importantly “Who hired this person!”

The whole point of taking these two dissimilar problems was to drive home a point that no matter what the problem is, unless you are able to define it well and set it up correctly contextually, there will be no solution that comes your way and you will end up being visited by the same variants of the problem from time to time! A disciplined and healthy lifestyle even through normal times is a checkmate for any infection/pandemic, likewise prudent and wise decisions while picking up assignments and offering assignments saves a lot of unwanted melodrama to both the employer and the employee as well, because even if one of the entities goes on to promise what they can’t provide – failure will be certain!

So if you, want to keep that drama quotient a little quieter in your life, begin by defining your problem, define it well and see where the buck stops! Check if you have control; lesser the control you have in managing or to prevail over a problem, the more likely you may fail! More control = Less failure. Next, engage in what you can manage- promise what you can deliver- whether it is the next salary you want, the next business deal you want to crack or the next target that you want to set up, be practical and realistic- one simple way to set and plan for things is – your objectives must be just enough to give you the moment of “aha”, joy or achievement, but at no time through the process of achievement or post the achievement should you be exposed to burn out- mental or physical- because that will mean that what you have achieved is merely a fluke and asked to do it all over again you will just wither away by the mere thought of it! So, it is vital that your ambitious pursuits, at all times remain confined within the walls of sanity, because the line between eccentric success and madness leading to doom is a very thin one!

Whether its is a problem that you have been facing because of a job loss, or the impact of a health crisis, the real problem is not these events- as they unfold- but how we set ourselves up, long before these events- in terms of our approach and belief systems about ourselves! To solve problems, you may like to start working on yourself from within through a course correction of your belief systems that serve and do away with those that don’t serve anymore- perhaps correct a few, omit a few etc. This is a dynamic and ongoing exercise and perhaps the only approach which will enable and empower you to analyse the development of events around you even before they tend to manifest into complete problems! Always remember, never confuse unfolding events as the problem! The events around indicate how things are going to form, reorganize and morph in the times ahead- learn for those indicators and prepare yourself to thrive in that new evolving order post the chaos and ambiguity! Just as we are unique, so will be our problems and there will never be a one-size fits-all formula- there never is- hence as you keeping walking ahead in your lives, doing what you choose to do- consider, retaining sense around insanity, learn what you require to, laugh off, what you must and ignore all that you can!

I will leave you here with these thoughts for now; go ahead and grab a coffee and ask yourself , “How good have you been in defining your problems and how much more better can you get at that!”

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece! Until then stay wise and stay anchored!

Bouncing back and racing ahead.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Through this article, I share with you few basic, common-sense led plain speak approaches which may just help you that bit extra to bounce back and race ahead, whether it is about yourself or about the team that you lead or an organization that you are responsible for, or, in that rare case if you are leading a nation! So let’s see what these simple steps are all about and the kind of impact that they can create, when executed well! Before we move ahead, it will help to always remember that humankind is perhaps the most unpredictable species of all, and at times may end up doing quite the opposite what it’s mind will ask it to do, just to teach someone else a lesson, irrespective of what compounding damage that kind of reckless act may cause, and no where in the animal kingdom, will you ever find any other “social animal” displaying this kind of behavioral disposition, hence, this disclaimer to let you know,there are no easy slides to heaven and why no matter what anyone tells you; rational wisdom suggests that common-sense always holds the foundation to give one an ability to bounce back and keep surging ahead! So here we go…

Through my engagements and shared learnings over the years, there have been few broad and common approaches- which when mapped to individual specificity of a problem tend to provide a more meaningful way through , over or around the problem! Here are a few of them (and yes, these are not the only or holy grail of problems solving!, so keep adding to this what life has taught you and I am sure you will do exceedingly well, at times surprising yourself!)

Measure what matters

Find the “Why” of your discomfort

Be a Realist- Not an Optimist, nor a pessimist

Clarity of Thought and Communication

Plan for others around you as well

Keep milestones close and within view

Cultivate your common-sense

Be grateful and thankful

Keep what you must and discard all that you can

Measure what matters: We live in an era where we are bombarded with information 24×7 across touch points and irrespective whether we are interested or not! In this kind of an environment and the mad rush to stuff information down the throat of people regardless whether they have a discerning mind to understand, evaluate and conclude rationally with that information they are served is perhaps the most paradoxical problem of over indulgence after obesity (which is caused by overindulgence of food- most of the times!). Even in the current crisis that the world is facing, people are bombarded with statistics, number of total cases, deaths, new cases so on and so forth, what point is being missed out is real sensible data, what are the real active cases today? , what is the fatality percentage, what is the percentage of population infected from the total population and importantly what is the severity or potency of the infection! If people had focused on these parameters, over half of the 184 nations would have never gone ahead with the dumb lock down strategies that they initiated in the first place! Hence it matters and always it is only about measuring what matters and is relevant as we deal with problems  in the real essence of it!

Find the “Why” of your discomfort: If you have read “Start with the Why” by Simon Sinek, you probably know what I am suggesting, If you haven’t read that book, do yourself a favour and do read it! One of the most fundamental mistakes that people tend to get into is trying to solve a problem – thinking that “what they are solving is the problem”, truth actually can be far away from that and in few case the people happen to be the biggest problem, because of their limited intelligence and skewed perceptions of the world around them- which is nothing more then defence mechanism to either hang on to their dear job, career or a failing business, simply because they can’t imagine a life without their business cards! Unless you do not come up face to face with the singularity of your problem or challenge that you face and understand that all solutions and remedies begin by altering yourself from within as you try to set things straight, no matter what you say and do, you will end up wasting the valuable seconds of life coming back to the same problem over and over again – albeit with differing intensity but continuing with the broader flavor of distress will tend to remain the same! Once you have found the true “Why” rest assured that will give you enough bearing to keep moving in the direction which will remove you away from the senseless loop and give a sense of forward motion even as you untangle the mess of the problem at hand!

Be a Realist: Not an Optimist, nor a pessimist: As much as thinking negative, being hopeless, constantly nagging, cribbing and sulking is bad, dancing about and fiddling away meaninglessly as if everything is always great and you are experiencing heaven even as the world around you is turning into a hellish nightmare, can be far more damaging to a point where people start to actually doubt your mental construct and frame of mind- whether you are displaying psychopathic behaviors or have a complete hard disk failure!  The whole challenge with the “Stay Positive” movement around the world has been that few of the so called masters have ended up making it a big joke unto itself, I mean you may have an individual being diagnosed with terminal cancer and you want that person to stay positive? or a person in a terrible terrible financial mess and you want that person to believe that  all will be glad stay positive? Shouldn’t it rather be asking these people to first understand what the situation is then help them rationally evaluate what are the meaningful solutions that are available to them so that they can lead the time at  hand in the most productive manner so that their pain is comforted and there is a sense of achievement in the way the simply carry out their day to day chores or start ton re-build their financial credibility one day at a time? Certainly let’s not even bother to talk about the “nothing will be good ever- ultra-pessimistic way of thinking- that is painful even to write here forget about thinking that way! Having a true assessment of the situation in a given context (which comes from deciphering the “Why”) and mapping it to ones’ individual abilities and competencies is the only way to make the best of any situation that comes your way! Nothing more and nothing less! Staying real, pragmatic and exhibiting courage to confront and deal with the granular reality of the moment will alone help one move ahead and simplify ones’ ability to know the real challenge within the fog of ambiguity!

Clarity of Thought and Communication: This is of utmost important, especially when you are dealing with others and others are looking unto you for guidance and leadership in crisis, whether it is a small crack team that you manage for an assault as an officer, or whether you lead a team of 100 professionals which are working to meet team objectives- the sooner you can provide or rather continue to provide clear communication (which can only occur once you have ample  clarity of thought). This clarity has be at all levels, what is expected, what is being asked and what is been provided to have the tasks accomplished- this all can only be manifested when there in intrinsic clarity of thought about how the team is being led and what is the shoreline that has been earmarked to anchor the team – if required. When Leaders provide clarity at this level- the same is resonated down the line and that makes the jobs of the leaders a breeze and that sets up the team and the organisation for a fast recovery to everyone’s surprise! Importantly, the sensible and impactful communication pieces are Realistic and don’t share misplaced optimism and unwarranted pessimism! 

Plan for others around you as well: Very often when crisis hits, the first and natural response is to make oneself safe and have your immediate responsibilities (family) accounted for, likewise when it is a team that you lead, you are the leader for that unit of your’s and it only makes sense that you lead, guide and provide for you teams like you would for your family in the way and manner that is aligned to the organisation culture and ethics! No one is asking you to become a cult leader or go out of the way and pick up fights with senior members for your team, the point here is to be responsible and accountable so that even in worst case scenarios wherein you need to have a few members offloaded, that whole process remains dignified, so that if ever you need them back, they will be happy to oblige and join you back! This approach of being emphatic, sensitive, and accountable to every member of  ones’ team should be intertwined in the soul of the leader and that empowerment of the soul must be used to take calls and decisions which make sense and serve the larger good!

Keep milestones close and within view: Often people- leaders like to share milestones- what will happen in next one year, three years, five years, well good- nothing wrong with it, but real fact of life remains, that even if the leader remains (which by itself is a miracle- because people leave even at leaderships levels around 3-5 years) there will be new people in the team on an ongoing basis- and each time you have new people – if you were to make the same presentation, it will end up being routine for some and “wow” for few others! The only way to beat this type of  meaningful shit is, spell the broader strategy few times through the year, make it a decisive point and revisit that only when you need to and through the course of the journey have meaningful milestones which are more relevant, visible and actionable- perhaps having monthly or quarterly ones’ that keeps everyone updated, everyone feels involved and everyone gets a sense of forward motion! This will un-complicate whatever you try to pursue and keep enough cohesion to make things easier so that even when hurdles are met, the team knows what needs to be done to overcome them!

Cultivate your common-sense: Human mind works well as long as it is sharpened and that sharpness only comes alive and working when we are presented with compelling cornered spaces and challenges which have no routine parallel! This is where, trusting and following your common-sense, gut feeling becomes all the more important! You may have tons and tons of data and metrics to deduce and take scientific decisions, nothing wrong with that as long as you are choosing one robot over the other or one product range over the other, but the moment decision making starts to impact people without bringing in the human element in the framework, disaster can strike! Consider this, currently many firms are laying off, announcing wage cuts (as if doing a favour that you still have a job), but not releasing, where will they get that very talent back which would have been nurtured, trained and developed over a period of time to meet the organisations exacting requirements in coming times?, Sure people are aplenty and so is talent, but the time needed to retain and re-equip which will be dangerous lost opportunity (in the hands of a right competition can spell a disaster for the business) and can cause severe unpleasant business damage! Even more funny is what does the wage cut say? Does it suggest that an individual was paid more then  their real worth or does it say that ones’ worth has gone down or does it say that the hiring strategy was astray to allow that kind of omission to occur and pay someone what they were not worth of in the first place? What is the messaging that is being sent out? The only and only sure way of doing away with all this unwanted nonsense is cultivate common sense so that even rational decisions; when and as they are forced upon can be routed through the test of common sense and than action can be taken once these decisions stand the test of common sense! 

Be grateful and thankful: This simple exercise will work wonders for you as an individual or as leader of a team, be grateful for what you have- as you start the day, your mind, the resources that you have access to so that you can go ahead an weave the magic that you need to, playing your role and discharging your duties so that you keep creating the subtle difference which matters and keep the momentum going in the forward direction! Being thankful helps, it helps you to begin with so that you know what you could have achieved or not and what is that you are able to achieve or not with the people and resources around! Once you have reached this space of being grateful and thankful, and you begin to rub off this simple yet powerful thought within your team, you will see magic happen as the narrative will change from what is not there to what can be done with what is there!

Keep what you must and discard all that you can: If life is a walk, a marathon or a race, depending on how you see it, in any case, it will always make sense to reduce the baggage! De-Cluttering will help you individually and also as a leader! Knowing what to carry along, what helps and letting go off  things and people that harm and obstruct is the key element to ensure that you are able to bounce back fast and in time to make the most of an approaching wave which can propel you further ahead and give you that much needed early mover’s advantage as businesses race to be the first one’s to re-engage with their clients and customers!

I will leave you here, perhaps you want to add a few more elements, remove a few, the choice is your’s; for you alone know what is the contextual reality of your world and these are but beacons which can help you to glide along safely without running into mountain faces and odd weather, so that as you embark to your climb, you have all the power you need from the people on your team and the machine that you have! 

Ciao for now, will be back with another piece soon!

When the cure is worst than the disease.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Continuing with our rant on how stupid, dumb and mind-numbing decisions are being taken on a routine basis- all around us, this short piece is an attempt to see how we may eventually end up harming ourselves more by deploying half -measures, knee jerk reaction and imitation strategies, even as we try to do away with responsibility, accountability and ownership and use of meaningful scientifically validated rational actions! This is a journey to explore what it looks like from within in a typical case of “When the cure is worst than the disease”! So let’s roll!

To make it simple, we will see the different scenarios with increasing level of complexities which go show you how hurried diagnosis can actually make the cure worst than the illness! So here they are,

Anxiety Driven Disasters

Conformity Seeking Disasters

Information Led Disasters

“Always Agreeing” Disasters

Anxiety Driven Disasters: As the Coronovirus decided to embark on a world tour, educational institutions were caught off guard, the ones’ that were not technologically ready, needless to say suffered the most and this is where from where we get our first learning lesson! A few schools in India faced this, even as the different state governments urged schools not to ask for fees until the sessions for the next year began sometime in June/July; schools required to pay their staff so that they are able to retain their talent (which by itself is another subject altogether!). So when some parents (who yet refuse to believe that we are living in a cornered space) who had paid the fees and yet others who showed willingness to pay the fees, were told that you can pay later as schools will take time, they cam back with a boom to the schools saying, “Why can’t you go online and start, we can throw that money at your face, this is not done, we work in IT companies, we work from home, students can study from home”, so on and so forth… This trigger sets us up to the point from where everything now starts to rapidly go downhill! Well, the schools being who they are, ramped up fiercely, put extra time, teachers worked extra hard to get the content into the online format to ensure it stays meaningful and relevant for the students on this new medium and the parents were informed that, the schools were ready to start online sessions on time and that we can move ahead! This is that golden moment when the same parents who were ranting all through for their child’s loss of education etc etc, came back to the schools and started to say,” How do you expect a child in Grade I to have a laptop and use it?”, “I can’t lend my laptop for such a long time, I have office work!” So this is how shit manifests! 

If only, the  parents had not decided in haste, caving  in to their anxiety of  “What do I do with my child, who is free and I don’t know how I can add value to the Child’, and  completely outsourced their kids to schools and institutes, this episode would not have manifested, likewise only if schools had the conviction and authority to let the parent’s know that, “They know more about Education” and would have not heeded and given in to the parent’s anxiety, all this colossal waste of human manpower and ingenuity would not have gone to waste! Well there is certainly a lot of good stuff which will come through all this mayhem, but if you ask me this is a very elementary  level or rather a limited damage scenario emanating form a mismanaged crisis! If you are wondering what are do more damaging scenarios look like, we have our next type..waiting for us..and probably playing out near you even as you read this article!

Conformity Seeking Disasters: This is by far, one of my favorites because it is possibly the simplest to explain! The pandemic is a live example- The brash, blatant and unwarranted lock downs, shut downs, and whatever you may be calling them around the world have just ended up playing to the people who would have wanted the things to manifest the way they did! If you step back for a moment and maybe rise high- and take a bird’s eye view – you will understand- what we are dealing with is a virus attack- which has spread across different regions, nations, cities which are different demographically and socioeconomically as well, the one size fits all solution (read Lock down- which was in all probability planted into the minds of a few to be replicated by others!) has been needless to say a more bigger disaster then the virus- wiping away livelihoods, incomes, businesses and all chances of revival and hope in an unprecedented global meltdown much worse then the disease! You can pick and choose a nation of your choice, check the average number of daily deaths ( before Covid19- say for same time last year) and check them now- you will have your answers! If you are wondering why nations and leaders can get way laid- well the simple truth is – we all have evolved from Chimps and as the saying go, when uncertainty hits, it’s but natural to imitate and do what someone else has done- because if that has not harmed the other chimp, I too will be safe, hence as the first nation marketed “Lock down” as the holy potion for victory, others blindly followed, getting into a traps- which for some nations has been far far worse then the actual impact of the virus spread by itself! These episodes set off another set of economic disasters- which will run parallel to the primary challenge and will end up exhausting further the rapidly depleting and diminishing intelligence within societies to recover from the mayhem of a health emergency and financial emergency!

Information Led Disasters: I have touched this topic in my last article, this is played out more in the arena of businesses, because they thrive on their decisions both strategic and operational through important cues and visible indicators coming out through governments and regulatory agencies- so when the governments are all caught up in their own shit of “Conformity Seeking Disasters” any and all direction coming from them to businesses will be at the best confusing and contradictory- which in turn becomes a fatal blow that takes away even the remote chance of businesses surviving by trying to innovate and suggest alternative course of actions to revive and stay relevant! Businesses soon start to imitate each other, “what’s happening within my sector?” they ask, “What did they do?” in hushed whispers everyone is asking each other and then the conversations start, OK, “They have a turn over of xxx, they laid off abc, so I have a turn over of yyy so I will layoff pqr!”..Well this madness really has no sense because in this climate of Information (read Mis-Information), different contextual realities and race to Confirm and facilitate Capitalist greed, there never seems to be another way to get things done and so the death spiral among businesses starts, the result, well unemployment yes, but more importantly loss of Human Talent which comes biting back as a fierce competitor in a few short years and by then the people who have taken the decisions today are all but irrelevant and there is a new set of people grappling with this new unwanted competition for no fault of theirs! So well yes, this is one more aspect when impulsive, short sighted, best described myopic, unwarranted and unchecked haste creates a long term problem which is greater then managing a few businesses or sectors and ends up being a larger socioeconomic societal or national level problem!  

Always Agreeing Disasters: When crisis hits, even battle hardened, officers will tell you, they need on their team people who can speak their mind – to anyone – certainly respectfully- but one must say what they intend to- they must speak- courageously enough even when authority seems to be faltering and making decisions either in haste, impulse or on facts which are unverifiable and lack credibility- either because of the content quality or the source! When nations are run by people who lack courage, conviction, vision and simply don’t dare suggest or question authority on the scientific rationale behind decisions being taken- it is all but certain that the future is doomed because it will always continue to hand around over the horizon which never is reached and which can never be touched! Whether you have been part of a corporate that had called for a meeting of all your unit/ SBU CEO’s and all “agreed” (read “YES” people)  to cut costs and have people thrown out and calculated mathematically, myopically without understanding “Who” was being ejected out (the person- the experience- the competency angle) – it’s just a matter of time before the people who acted in such haste and impulse get the taste of their own medicine! Very often within the corporate corridors- the so called “CEO’s” (many of which I have found to be struggling with the true essence of that designation label and are nothing more then glorified managers at the very best!) act in haste and then later regret for what unfolds in due time- rarely do they get time and space to do damage control and many of them fade away into corporate obscurity with no future reference or direction like a satellite turned off and set on an endless revolution around the Earth for no joy! If you think this is bad, well when you amplify these kind of mishaps pertaining to “YES” people at governmental level especially if they are part of the strongest nation on the Earth or part of the largest democracy- just imagine how horribly wrong things can go when you have “YES” clan advising every critical aspect of  national security, financial wisdom, healthcare, social justice, growth, business environments, environment, think of an area and then just imagine how horribly wrong things can go! and yes when do go wrong, as they usually will go with a decent predictable timeline- the events that unfold make national and international headlines!

Well, I will leave you here, giving back your solitude, think and feel what you are witnessing, wherever you are, whatever  you may be doing, perhaps you are a national leader or a school teacher or a doctor or a pilot or a business leader or the average person who works for a living, take a step back, see the kind of decisions that are coming your way  or your are obliged execute;  try to decipher their source and the coded messages within the narratives; that alone is the way to salvage your today and safeguard your tomorrow to ensure that no matter who says  what, “The Cure mustn’t be allowed be worst than the disease!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece!

The real story behind the Layoffs.

~ PA ~ 2 Comments

If you happen to be one of those people who have recently been asked to move on with some dignified (according to the employer) monetary compensation and a possible restraining order (that you will not speak negative about the firm for next 12 months), because the world is in a crisis and because your “not so long ago market leading firm” is collapsing and about to perish, this article is here to help you see through what would have happened behind the scenes, so that even you know how much you are really to be accountable (and if you indeed really are) and what does it speak about the modern day “futuristic caring organisations”! So let’s roll!

If you have been used to reading my articles for sometime now, you know it too well, I like to be to the point, simple and clear, no ambiguity, no opinionated bullshit and no creation of unwanted emotional stress, present the picture and leave it for your perception and interpretation based on how kind or unkind life has been to you! There is a good reason why we all as humankind are unique, even twins will be different, one may be absolutely sane while the other one may be a certified psychopath! So from my perspective there are broadly the following reasons that precipitate Layoffs, if you have any more apart form these, feel to add them to these coveted list!

White Elephants and Peacocks

Disconnected Processes

Right Team for all the Wrong Reasons

Incompetent Leadership

Business Led Strategic Opportunism

White Elephants and Peacocks: Well these roam about across businesses and organisations, easy to find, detect and trace! As the name suggests, they exist as long as the senior leadership enjoy their antics and can more importantly afford their salaries at the expense of someone else (that could be public money in case of PSUs or listed companies or money from Investors and parent companies!). Once the senior leadership changes, or has a change of mind (not to be confused with wisdom) they will change the sets of White Elephant and Peacocks with a spooky predictability- that’s why you find that few companies have their white elephants and peacocks getting changed every 2-3 years- it keeps their corporate zoo busy and adds to the meaningless excitement!  These are the ones’ who make most of the routine layoffs on an ongoing basis irrespective whether the economy is up or down, whether we are in midst of war, famine , surplus, whether we are growing at 10% or 1%, irrespective of everything and anything else, these are the ones’ who keep the HR teams busy hiring and firing them on a regular basis, larger the organisation, multiple such instances! You may want to ask me- but why do organisations get these White Elephants and Peacocks in the first place? Well hold this question to the end, once we have completed the other types, you will begin to see a singular thread which possibly will answer all your questions and provide ample enlightenment! So let’s leave this circus here and move ahead…

Disconnected Processes: Processes lead to Layoffs? Well, yes they do, normally you would have read them as “automation led layoffs” sounds familiar now right?, So here the question to ask is, why would an organisation create a pathway of automation without figuring out a smooth transition wherein the number of people are gradually phased out through “normal routine loss of workers”. The answers that you will end up getting based on the type of organisation you are dealing with, will be something like these, “we want to build a futuristic place of work”, “we want to flood the market through spewing out tons and tons of our products-irrespective whether someone wants them or not”, “machines are more reliable then people”, “this SBU doesn’t resonate with the new management’s line of thinking” etc etc. So you may start to wonder, why is it so hard to plan a strategy of 2-4 years duration to embrace automation, re-skill needed labour or workforce and then reuse  excess workforce through re-skilling and re-utilization aligned to the new process? Why do people start coming up with “Job Ads” to hire new people for the new process? Well hold this question, we will answer this towards the end! Let’s move on to the next one!

Right Team for all the Wrong Reasons: Through my experience, one truth that has established again and again is the fact that, Even as people come in all hues and shades of psychological make- whatever one may want to say, People are good.. always good at who they really are!–Everything else remains to be an acquired skill which either develops or fades away depending upon what opportunities are made available or not to an Individual and the Team that one belongs to! Often you will find in some sectors, that when a Head of a Unit leaves, the whole team moves, what does this say? Well if you ask me, it is the classic case of having a right team and asking them to do all the wrong things! Consider, you have  team of excellent communicators and sales professionals and you inform them that they will have to route their sales pitch through scripts and call centre outbound calls and them just keep sending pre-formatted templated emails to prospects- well you know what a true bred salesperson is going to tell you! well yes, he is all likely to ask the senior leadership to “FO” and not teach him how sales is done and managed! Now you may have a valid question, Why do organisations hire right people and ask them to do things which they aren’t supposed to do or make them do things the way it is detrimental to their growth or the process? We will answer this too towards the end…so hold on to this!

Incompetent Leadership: This certainly is the perhaps the most apparent and visible factor as Layoffs happen! Layoffs are almost always seen as Leadership Incompetence and in many cases- most of them that hold good- this is not about the Incompetence of Individuals at the top, that is different, this is about the collective intelligence or lack of it at the top that translates into Incompetent Leadership! One more face about Leadership Incompetence is that the more larger an Organisation, more are the chances of the same getting manifested and more are the pathways of Incompetence manifestation- imagine a debilitating attack on the nervous system from within- that is what Incompetent Leadership does! You may now argue that, how is that when majority of top management comes from famed business colleges/engineering/medical degrees from institutions (which most of us only can aspire to be an alumnus of), how can they be so dumb? or rather incompetent? Well sure enough that’s not how all of them are, most of them would be sane and wise- as long as they are all by themselves- the moment you add them to a team which comprises of similar people and calls for applying collective wisdom- and is trying hard to realize an utopian dream-shit happens and that’s when you start listening, “A” has joined the board, “B” has left the board and so on and so forth! So what, has this got to do with layoffs, well as these leaders struggle with their own collective challenges- they often get lost in a maze of inconsequential things and as this seeps through the organisational structure, the effects start to show and the resulting layoffs happen!

Business Led Strategic Opportunism: This is by far the most often invincible and the real reason behind many layoff stories around the world! This is what leads to creation of compelling PR narratives and creating diversion, distraction and deviation from real issues and this is the one reason which superimposes itself on all the above reasons and plays out choosing one or other type above! Human greed with no end, senseless capitalism and the ability to decide the fate of the majority by a few eclectic minority- when goes wrong- layoffs are perhaps one of the most minor things that manifest, the world has witnessed more murderous and damaging aspects of Business driven greed and Capitalist domination with no end in sight! If you think Conflicts and world wars were fought for territory, well you are right, but partly because each of them weer funded deep and long and that funding didn’t come only from government taxes but also through the invisible hands of the capitalists who favored one side over the other so that when everything settles down they get their pie of the cake to exploit and continue with their never ending hunger for world dominance through wealth creation and managing that!

This strategic led intervention when micro-managing- chooses the timeline for the elephants and peacocks, starts to throw spanners into the operational wheels so that collective wisdom start to falter and even the highly skilled and qualified individuals start to fail collectively! It is this factor that creates imagery of adding SBUs, shrinking units and hiring the best and then without much noise doing away with the best! This is what creates a narrative that wipes off every gain and every note of what Individuals and teams would have achieved in the organisation for the organisation and has the power to play down every achievement in face of some other narrative that is completely opposite to what real facts could be!

You may be a CEO and if you think you drive the business, you are wrong, equally wrong as the last executive who got laid off even as he had given all that the job called for! Layoffs are a narrative which are a dynamic camouflage to a larger purpose which is held close to the heart and mind of the business owner who is in turn dictated by the people who own the ecosystem wherein the business exists! If you think It’s your fault or mistake…think about it all over again! Ask one simple question- If you were really that bad and incompetent- Why would they hire you to begin with! 

As the old saying goes , not all is white and neither all is black- we live in an era that is colorful as it gets and has these specks of grey here and there, at times these grey’s block out everything around and that is the philosophical essence of what layoffs truly are! They are not the measure of the competence or lack of it of an Individual- rather they are a statement of how change is being allowed to come in- Transformation – as they call it- whether that’s a positive experience or not- depends on which side of a table you are sitting and what is the bargaining power that you bring to the table!

I will leave you here, and just to say this- Layoffs are good, like everything else, as long as you know how to make use of this blessing in disguise- be glad that it happened now as it happened for some other time perhaps would have been more painful- As long as you are bound by corporate slavery- Growth is Optional and Layoff is a Certainty!

Ciao for now, I will leave you here with your coffee, to think and reflect and make yourself Layoff proof if you can!  At Simplifylives, we are able to help and guide those who need help during these times with regards to their professional challenges and ambiguity, drop us a mail and we will be glad to assist!

Say no to Corporate Slavery! Embrace Layoffs!

Moving forward through turbulence.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

The world provides ample opportunities to learn and reflect; as long as we are ready for it! When humanity faces ambiguity, it has always relied on the founding bedrock of established and proven approaches to overcome the challenge at hand and then move ahead! This short article I bring forth a few of them – the easiest one perhaps and the most simple ones, which when practiced at an individual level are potent enough to see you through most of the turbulent weather that life may have in store for you and ensure that you stay on your flight path to the destination of your choice! So let’s race ahead!

Anchor your anxiety: Whether it is the pandemic that you are dealing with or it’s after effects, as we deal with problems large or small, one needs to remember to stay in control and one of the easiest way to achieve that is to “Anchor your anxiety”. Anchoring your anxiety comes an Individuals ability to clear the clutter and see through the smokescreen that the mind is presented with. It is only when this has been done, that one can see beyond the chaos, what really does exist and more often then not, the proverbial devil is nothing but a figment of an overthinking mind which has gone into a steroidal overdrive of imagination! Once you figure out the fact and clinically cut that away from the fiction created by your mind- you have done a great service unto yourself by anchoring  your anxieties- unfound fears of things not going your way, rather going a way which can be counter-productive to your desires! This is the crucial first step, if you want to remember that way and always begins when you start to wonder, “Why is this abc person or  pqr event or incident, bothering me so much, what is the real “why” behind the apparent reasons that are projected over to the mind.

Trust your Intuition: Your Intuition is your internal compass- this keeps  you in good shape and no matter what the weather seems to be across your windscreen, as you keep moving ahead, it keeps pace with you and plays the role of a much needed early warning mechanism. This further ensures that you always have an inbuilt and  working risk avoidance or risk mitigation system at hand to overcome the odd            bumps or incursions that tend to creep up into your path! These odd bumps or incursions can either come with a fair degree of warning or at times appear out of the blue! Either ways, if you have a working and tuned Intuition, that can do real wonders for you and ensure that you are able to overcome most of the times and continue to stay on course to your planned destination, may be with some unavoidable yet meaningful detours on the way!

Choose your route:  Experienced mariners and navigators have one thing in common, even if they rule two different realms of transport, they are experts when it comes to charting their course in their space! They know exactly when to cruise, when to slow down and when something is safe enough to take that risk or when it is wise to move around and take a longer path, if that ensures that they will reach the destination! Likewise when stuck by uncertainty and ambiguity, even though it may seem difficult and unclear at the beginning to chart a course or look ahead, once you start forcing your mind to seek direction from the clutter that it first seems to see, you will eventually start to get a sense of clarity and direction which will help chart the course which at some times could be as simple as what you decide to do tomorrow and at times can be a compelling detail about how you want to keep moving ahead.

Break the routine: The human brain is an amazing machine, yet it has it’s own lethargy, when it is presented with similar conditions over and over again and it tends to start assuming things and that can be dangerous– if you want to know what I am talking about- well just consider remembering these few things- how many lace-holes does your shoe have for the lace to pass through, or how many teeth do you think you have! Well the point that I want to make here is that, the brain gets easily bored with routine and then starts to play the game of assumption and these assumptions then start creating non existent demons, eventually leading to complete ignorance to real issues and not being able to dig deeper and see through what is being presented. A break from routine upsets the predictable pattern that the brain would have been tuned into and thereby helps it retain it’s optimum alertness levels as it normally should! This alert brain is vital as you strive to move around and over through turbulence!

Re-build yourself: As long as individuals stay invested in themselves, no matter how big the problem seems to be, they will always be able to find a way to overcome and keep going ahead! Re-building oneself is like carrying out that engine overhaul or that complete strip down maintenance of the building or your bungalow, where you remove all that is rusted, ain’t working and replace it with what you require moving ahead and what you possibly did not have as yet! Perhaps, new gadgets, tools equipment, areas so on and so forth, likewise when it comes to U, you will have to see what is holding you back and check what you can possibly do, to eliminate all that is working against you and holding you back and add up all that will help you! Certainly this is easier said then done and this has to be an ongoing exercise, irrespective how calm your journey appears to you at the moment! This re-building is all bout adding skills, wisdom, street smartness and components of perseverance in the new emerging contexts that you start to feel as you continue to move ahead.

Make your journey too a destination:Unknown to most if us, travel detours and turbulence are an opportunity to learn, practice and get familiar with something that we would have otherwise missed out. Having a mindset to explore every moment of the journey will do two things, firstly it will make every moment an unique destination unto itself and secondly the learning that comes to you through these moments will definitely come in handy as you keep navigating and charting the course of your life! Still unable to get this bit, well try and recall the last time you have  shared a chat or an idea with a stranger on your flight or on the train that you boarded, what kind of stories did you hear and what is the story that you shared;was that a learning and uplifting experience or was it counter productive. Like wise when mariners and aviators chart their course and when they do hit the rough odd patch, as they will some or the other time, they apply all their learnings to ensure they keep everyone safe and even as they come out of the odd space, they have yet learnt something new either about the problem or the way they handled it! This way the learning goes on and each of those moments becomes a captured moment- a destination unto itself!

Focus on what matters: Whether it is the theater of war or the scene at a fast paced workplace, with multiple things simultaneously developing and popping up with passing time, and the mind being fed with more and more information very second, the ability to take reasonable and rational decisions gets even more challenging and the only way to manage this and ensure that this clutter doesn’t fog your thinking is to stay focused on what really matters! You have to develop a dynamic approach to ensure that you receive the most critical and vital information that is relevant to the contextual moment of time that you are transiting, because one moment later that information in all probability will become redundant and you try to apply that content a bit earlier, chances are that a preemptive assumption may put you into a more grave situation and precipitate unthinkable complications for trying to rush through by assuming what is not there and what would have possibly never manifested! Timing is the essence here and staying focused on what really matters in the contextual moment of time is the key! Through your journey, you will be hit by an onslaught of information nuggets, some wise, some useless, your ability to judge and pick and choose at the right time will eventually determine the quality of your judgement and the resulting action will speak volumes of your success or missed chance in an equal measure!

Learn to “Let it go”: There will be times when you will have to simply let go of things, consider this, you are a pilot and flying into an airport and the weather near the destination airport has suddenly changed over the last 20 minutes and now there is no way that you can land- so what do you do- well nothing- but divert to your next secondary airport. Now in this case if you were to try to go against and execute a dangerous landing well, you would have landed with a certain degree of risk, but the cost of risk is too big to allow for someone to even try that! Many challenges and odd patches are similar that we face, whether it is the moment where you are supposed to speak up to you boss, your government or people in authority, what you need to understand is the singular fact that fighting battles and wars which have a pre-determined outcome is never a wise strategy!-Learning to choose and pick your battles is of utmost value and knowing when to Let off is even more valuable! The lesser the baggage you carry, lighter will be you journey moving ahead! 

Make your own lemonade: As the saying goes” When life gives you lemons, squeeze them and make your own lemonade” Your intrinsic ability to see a challenge clearly and knowing how to crush it completely to your advantage is of prime importance, fighting with the same problem over and over, eventually may make you fall in love with the problem and succumb to it- whatever that may be, but once you learn to deal with a challenge with intent, focus and a will to crush it completely once and for all, you will see how liberating that feeling is- when you know that you have possibly not only cleared away a threat permanently but also have created a strategy to deal with it if it ever resurfaces in the manner and the intensity with what it would have earlier fostered!

Believe: Believing in yourself perhaps is the one of the final things that i have on my list! The ability to have faith and self- belief is vital for one to be able to cover come challenges and turbulence and let me tell you this is not about misplaced optimism or a gung-ho macho approach, rather it is a deliberating and slow non glamorous approach which depends only and only on all the accumulated experience and wisdom that you would have gathered to make those critical decisions in a crisis which eventually ensures that you either live to narrate the story or go down in history with your final moments being constructed on the theories that come up based on circumstances! This belief within you must stay and remain- always- this is the only attribute which can either ensure you that you sustain and overcome the turbulence or loose out at the very end moment and end up vanquished even as success and victory was within your reach!

I leave you here, with these thoughts, for you to reflect and think what are the other things/ attributes that you can think of and which perhaps may be more relevant for you in the unique way that you approach world! As I said, this is not the “Know it all” and “Elixir of Success” this is merely a starting point to start getting collected and identify what are the aspects that help you and what are the things that harm you- so that the next time you hit that odd patch, you know exactly what to reply on, how much and what not to run after!

Ciao for now, will be back with another piece soon!

 

Adapting to a new way:The human factor.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

The best thing that happens when disasters strike; everyone and anyone suddenly becomes an expert and has definite answers to “what could have led to the disaster”, but rarely is there an answer ever found even from the certified experts about the “Why” part of it-  why was it allowed to develop into something that it would have and why were the early warning mechanisms either absent or why did they fail! Well this  piece looks into the human aspect of what people can expect coming their way and what could be the possible ways to navigate these times! Whether it is about an Individual, a business or a nation- People are at the very foundation of everything that we do, no matter what you say otherwise and if the people story begins to fail, in no time you will have failing Individuals who will translate into failed societies, resulting into a full blown humanitarian crisis!

As Human Beings, we have evolved through the years to survive, prevail and better our societies- immediate and the next with a single purpose of making life as comfortable as we can- how  we go about doing that- largely depends on the other aspects of demographic distribution, climate and opportunities which are heavily moderated by the agreed society type and governance models! Mankind has been a witness to many large scale potential wipe out events- whether they have been wars, famines, epidemics; but each time eventually societies have emerged out of the challenge, albeit changed and stronger- for the better or worse- well that is left for you to decide- because the answer to that question directly relates to who you are Individually are and how much impact do things bring upon an individual and what the Individual then decide to do with it- React or Respond! This time will be no different, but since the scale of the event has been global- there will be deeper scars and the time to heal will be longer then usual- which in itself will end up leaving fractured communities and societies as the unwarranted byproduct of the healing process! At the core of bounce back, will be the choice of behavioral attributes that will make the difference between successful adaptability and an ever going struggle to cope up with the new ways and developments!

Whether it be work, private lives or the grandeur of business and public life, as we move ahead and out of the current global slow down, Individuals who display a saintly level of patience and perseverance especially when they are occupying leadership positions will be able to thrive individually and put their teams and the businesses on a super fast growth trajectory, sure enough, contextual settings will matter, if a nation is sinking it really doesn’t matter whether your business strategy is a prize wining one or not!  What this singular grain tells us is that, as humans, we will want to move ahead and calibrate our surroundings to the known levels of familiarity and feeling of being secured at the earliest to begin with, which will be rapidly followed by an intense period of observation and social change which will tend to do away with everything and anything that does not serve its purpose in the new systems and designs of work and life that societies and individuals will now begin to adhere to! Whether this works to the help or harm an Individual or a society will largely depend on the intent of the governance model- which way they would want these steps to move- whether to expand and settle to close to earlier expressions of freedom and access or whether they would want to have a restricted and controlled environment for the next 12- 16 months with an aim to go by the maxim citing, “To Err on the side of Caution”!

To put it in another way, businesses that value people and are able to evaluate qualities exhibited, the value systems displayed with fine prudence will be able to hold on to the most prized and coveted Individuals-who  in-turn will play a pivotal role to drive the business ecosystem. If there is a slight error of judgement in evaluating people and their attributes, as businesses emerge from this disruption, the ones’ who have made bad choices with regards to people will suffer even more greatly in times ahead and will end up loosing any advantage that they would have built in the earlier stages as they will no longer be managed by gifted and professional individuals!

Among the Individuals who will be able to steer themselves and all that they lead (whether a business or a community), patience and perseverance will be the two fundamental pillars, which will be worth their value in Gold which they will be able to utilize in the changing times, even as they demand  consistently evolving individuals. These leaders will be able to sustain and manage the tantrums and discord that will come their way through eccentric or sporadic human behaviors and  complicated business environments with ease and confidence which will further propel their cause and ensure that the lives that they influence and lead are aligned to the all important growth mindset!

People who have been natural introverts or calibrated extroverts will be able to tide over the changing dynamics with more ease as compared to extroverts who belong to the sub type of social butterflies-who thrive on meaningless interactions- which are good to see and observe but carry no valuable content or quality of engagement! Needless to say irrespective of what type you belong to, having a thinking and rational mind which anchors on science and common sense will be of prime importance!

This also happens to be from the anchor point of history- that moment in our lives, where across the layers and maze of society, we will witness that two distinct patterns emerge! The first one will be a set wherein Leaders will create more followers and the second one where Leaders will create more Followers- which of these sets becomes more powerful over the other and takes the popular lead will end up deciding the future fabric of your social engagement and the way we are able to move about doing business, and thereby creating our limiting beliefs and new bench marks of societal confirmation biases for the next decade or so! Which one of these approaches is right or better over the other, well largely depend on the contextual settings of the society, what my understanding is that, Evolved and literate societies will create more Leaders and this will provide these societies to emerge rapidly once again as “Thought leaders” and thereby consolidating their dominance around the world as Nations which create and set standards for the other nations to follow!

I will leave you with these  thoughts, so that you can take them  further and reflect on your experiences; possibly devise strategies that align with your Individuality, reality of you and the group that you lead! So that as we emerge in the times ahead, collectively as a society, we are still able to hold on to the promise of togetherness, even as some of us may agree to have more Leaders and yet some of us may agree to have more Followers! The fine line remains, that Humanity must and should prevail in spite and despite of everything and everyone else!

Ciao for now, will be back with another piece soon, until then stay safe, keep your mind anchored with wise thoughts and remember, humor doesn’t harm!

 

 

Leadership-Calibrated by Incompetence.

~ PA ~ 3 Comments

Whether you are in India and wondering what more worse is in store for you, or whether you are in the USA and have been through the process of social suffering and social mourning, irrespective of what your individual story is, right now, perhaps since World War II for the first time, Humanity is held at Uncertainty, which is nothing more or nothing less then the reflection of Incompetence of Leadership at the highest visible levels within the societal arrangements that we have adhered to as humans over the last 60 years, and perhaps this is the reason why the evolving changes will question and possibly topple existing rituals and arrangements in the months and years ahead- some may help and yet a few may harm! Join me as we try to make sense of the clutter and chaos and understand what the noise is all about within the moments of deafening silence that we get to hear every now and then! so here we go!

The current crisis – so called crisis (if you ask me) is a stark reflection about how something that could have been better managed was allowed to slip away and run free and unleash havoc in no less then 184 countries when the virus was at is peak! I am not going to use this article from the point of view of who did t, why and all of that political rhetoric, the focus here is, “Why did world leaders react the way they did” even as details (no matter how insignificant and ambiguous they would have been) began to emerge about the ferocity and damage potential that this virus was capable of.  A part of the answer lies in the fact that our world is an ecosystem of delicate and fine balances, like an orchestra all the different musicians and creative geniuses come together to play not one tune but their different tunes and just make it audible enough to know us who is out of syn and who is in the fold of the developments, the current episode has been so bad that it has turned a global orchestra into a big mess where every player has ended up not only playing their tune but also has ensured that the other one can’t play and hang on to their own tunes! This, I call “acoustic dissonance”! A space where no one is listening enough for anything specifically and whatever that is getting played is being accepted!

Leader’s decisions are understandably calibrated to the limitations of what they are asked to govern and manage. The problems start when they begin to govern and manage not from the mandate that has been provided to them or the positional power bestowed unto them but from a space to imitate and replicate what is being done elsewhere and when they start to find their answers in the same problems which are being resolved elsewhere; completely forgetting that the contextual setting of a same problem will have a differentiated impact based on the context of the other place and the specificity that it brings along with it! So  to begin with,why does this happen?

Unlike the golden age of emerging nation, new world and economic order that we have witnessed between 1950 until 1990s, the digital age has hastened everything and created blanket formulae for everything and everyone, whether it is a job that you need  or the vocation that you need to pursue, there are templated pathways to success and failures, and of course, when it comes to politics, there are dynasties and legacy handovers- but not all of them necessarily are mature or wise like their earlier generations! What all of this leads to, is a sum total of failing competencies across the social fabric, with citizen pressure low and misplaced with regards to their priorities, aspirational quality of governance, for life; the governing arrangements reciprocate by doing simply what is being just asked and aspired- and completely doing away with any visionary effort to preempt or proactively mitigate any foreseeable challenges- these aspects are then exposed as the next disaster strikes and then each element of this failing incompetent social fabric is rushing to help each other- something which could have been avoided in the first place!What’s worse as soon as the challenge is overcome, the social fabric falls back to the misplaced notion of comfort that all is well, until the next time bomb sets off, which in all probability is hidden in the current challenge and is already ticking off as this one is being managed! So now the question, can we do something about this?

Well the answer is a Yes and a No, the modern day social issues are unfortunately driven by individual greed and disease of wanting more and more with no end in sight, when this amplifies across society, it’s a hopeless situation which keeps repeating over an over again like a never ending spiral death dive unless there is a radical shift in the leadership model which is able to stall this dive and align the whole critical mass of the society for a greater and higher cause and purpose by leading from the front! This is where true leaders emerge and that’s why Leadership experts and Human Behavioral specialists  often say, True Leaders emerge from the Crisis even as Pseudo Leaders create the crisis in the forts place! This alone is the hope and promise which can pull failing societies and individuals from a never ending self defeating death spiral and align them to a higher purpose and direction for the larger good!

Leaving the larger governance issue here, if we see what happens within our work areas, it is no different; every organisation grows to the limits of the Incompetence that is displayed by their leaders and the limiting beliefs that come along with it! This is why you see the churn that you see when individuals decide not to work with Mr. A , B or C or for a Company X, Y , Z- this has largely to do with this simple underlying fact, which gets camouflaged and distorted in the disguise of team meetings, restructuring, formation and disbanding of SBUs so on and so forth! Another quick way to see if you are facing the Incompetence challenge at the work place, just make a note of hoe many meetings you are part of and what real world difference have those done to you as and Individual or your team or the client (who actually pays for your in-office entertainment sessions!). The moment you do this, your next decision will be either to chart a course for your growth within the firm because things are still manageable and repairable or you will get busy planning your exit strategies! Most of the organisations suffer not because the people are ineffective, it is largely because the direction and quality of leadership is severely compromised which simply doesn’t allow people to either contribute enough or has them disarrayed in all  other directions then what they should be focusing upon, thanks to the element of Self-Obsessed- Self-Driven – Megalomaniac style functioning! So how does an individual navigate around this and stay safe from being drawn into this trap of Incompetence?

The simple approach to avoid Incompetence traps comprises of really basic stuff! Firstly you may like to start by saying “No” to that undue promotion, designation, money, incentive which, heart in heart you know is not right and not worth what you are! Well yes, this seems idealistic, but that kind of introspection and being brutally honest with oneself is the foundation to ensure you don’t get entrapped into the world of Incompetence! Importantly to execute this strategy you need to have a design for your life and value system in place which provides you beacons and alarm systems to ensure you stay ion track and calibrate your growth, progress and monetary success by staying away form incompetence traps all along! Next what you can do is remain “Authentic” no matter what the compulsion and temptation, don’t disguise to what and who you are intrinsically not, if you cant tolerate dumb people, ensure you study the collective IQ of the team that you are supposed to work with or lead, rather then ending up with increased anxiety and hypertension, this first step can ensure a lot of unwanted explanation and white noise in your life is taken away in the first instance! Lastly learn to create clear protocols and keep you expectations right! If you want to travel faster then Mach 2 you need to be on a fighter plane and not on a commercial airliner, so be sure you are using the right framework and contextual settings which allow you to get what you expect as long as you continue to provide the inputs that are required to receive your expectations! This list is not exhaustive and there can be more and more nuggets of wisdom and plain speak that can be added and created to suit individual personalities and contextual settings and that is the most important aspect of life, since we are all unique individuals, could be similar in a few ways perhaps but necessarily unique, each of us requires a unique solutions to a seemingly similar problem because the contextual settings are always going to be different and that is the key to steer clear of Incompetence around us!

I will leave you here, allowing you to think and reflect on your share of experiences with incompetence and what you could or did do to either help it or stop it and whether you are zoned out or zoned in within the entrapment of Leadership that is Incompetent!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece, Do keep writing to us on topics that you want to learn and share and do let us know if you or your organisation needs assistance to mitigate your Leadership crisis! 

 

 

 

 

The story of large shadows.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Hey! hope you are fine! Well if you are able to read this now, I presume you have put the worst behind you and are now preparing to make sense of all the chaos and uncertainty that surrounds you and intrudes you through the various intelligent sources that you have- your whatsapp, your google and your network of networked friends and well wishers! Well this piece is to make some sense of the chaos around you and help you to find one way to inspect and make sense of all that is been thrown at you or will be coming your way over the next few weeks, so here we go!

Let me take you back to your childhood, you would have at some point in time, played with candles and studied how they cast shadows and also experimented to scare the daylights out of your friends! As a matter of fact what we are facing today is no different form this seemingly inconsequential episode! You may find this thought to be very simple, certainly it is a simple thought- but simplicity of thoughts does not mean that you discount them or simply brush them off as not been valid! That is the prime fallacy of the conformity bias wherein as a society we have evolved over time where we have started to believe that if ideas and things are not complicated they are not worth it, well actually the fact remains that the converse is more apt and more true! As societies have evolved and as we have evolved through work and education this constant and never ending one upmanship and pursuit to show that “I am better then the other” had laid the foundation to our own detrimental fall in the coming times! This whole pandemic episode is one such example- Well, one may argue that WHO (World Health Organisation) said this and said that, the question is what was your common sense asking you to do?! Possibly many nations wanted at first instance to shut off their borders but didn’t do so, just because they were afraid to not confirm to the global standards and when these global standards turn out to be grave errors of judgement, you get what we have just got served; A pandemic which was purely meaningless and avoidable with unwarranted loss of lives and misery to millions worldwide!

Our approach in the modern day has been about being ever connected in an ever complex society which has laid to an overdrive of dependence- let’s call that over-dependence! This over-dependence on each other works well as long as things are good and pleasant and the tug of war of commerce ebbs and flows as it should- the moment there is additional strain on it and one of the partners feels or thinks that they want to nudge a bit, the whole ecosystem will fail and with it everyone gets hurt! Even before the pandemic, not many may recall, the world economies were struggling to find ways ahead and were attempting to see what best way they would want to have their nations navigated as the next few quarters were starting to look rather more unpredictable! What the pandemic has ended up doing is, it has provided a hard stop to global economies, put them in suspended animation for the initial first few weeks and now, unless there is a measured and calibrated response from all nations in a sequential manner, the results will work in favour of a few and will be counterproductive for few others, which side you will fall into , will largely depend on how self-reliant, robust and intrinsic strength of resources a nation has over the others!

If you were to now extrapolate this aspect to your workplace scenarios you will perhaps understand how these similar dependence value systems would already have played out and will come up as organisations begin to come up with coping strategies and building BCP (Business Continuity Plan) measures which are more robust then the ones that they possibly already have in place! One important thing that businesses would have found through the sudden hard stop would be the plain simple fact – that either they have had misplaced dependence, duplication of processes and unwarranted complexity of chain of command and a fragile span of control! Needless to say, businesses will move swiftly to rectify these aspects even as they commence joining the loose ends and at the same time there will be new design elements evolving with regards to organisation structure and systems which will ensure that, next time such an event unfolds on a global level, and there is a need of another hard stop that will have minimal or negligible impact on their way of work and this will be achieved through only two ways- Investment in the right technological processes and the Right People at the Right Places!

The current events unfolding the world over have exposed, if you may say so the vulnerable aspects of governance, be it at the governmental levels, businesses or even how Individuals manage themselves through a crisis! This vulnerability relates to the long shadows that we talked about as we began  this piece. This vulnerability of the long shadows like in the child’s play comes from ignorance and feeds on fear- fear which is rooted in ignorance and a strong risk averse mindset! The only way to dispel this fear or mitigate it, before it consumes one and all (just as it has during this global pandemic showdown) is to fight the war of ignorance through knowledge and cure the fear of uncertainty by illuminating the hope within each one of us! Unless we are able to lead directed and focused approaches to dispel our ignorance and lack of knowledge and rely to depend on existing confirmations and norms that have worked well in the past for a pleasant tomorrow, we will keep getting surprised from time to time and these surprises at times may not be very pleasant to say the least!

So the point here is, the shadows that play within  your mind, reflect what is lacking and that is the direction where the mind should be lead to in a calibrated and focused manner to seek wisdom and do away with fear of ignorance which allows the shadows to be bigger then the problem or the object by itself! It is this approach alone that can answer many a situations whether that be the routine mundane task at home or the more complex challenge of saving humanity from the grips of a so called pandemic! I call it so called, because as I mentioned earlier, when ignorance is wheeled around the world what we end up getting is not a solution but more fear and ambiguity! When we wheel around the world a focused message of action and hope that’s when there will be enough light to dispel the shadows of ignorance and keep them at bay – behind the light in front of you and that is how it should be always!

Ciao for now! I will leave you with these thoughts for today, will be back soon with another piece and do let know  what next you may want to read here!

 

 

Staying relevant by being future ready.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

It’s a breezy Saturday, and what better time to unwind and start plotting your bounce-back strategy- the world has been closed for a long time and now it has no other option but to open up and be prepared to face the collateral damage for opening up, because closing up will be far more grave and disastrous by many aspects! But wait, what do you think the world is opening up to? On one hand we have reports of lay-offs, job losses and uncertainties across almost every major sector as I type; across the continents so what is it that you want to get ready for? Where are you heading for a all dressed up when no one is throwing a party in the town! Well this piece is about doing a quick take of what our ecosystems will begin to look like as we start to gather ourselves as individuals and societies and workplaces start to revive and more importantly what is that Individuals must do ( at least what I would suggest) to ensure that the next time this kind of shot comes back paying a visit- you have a better and sane strategy to deal with it rather then staying locked in and in all likely hood getting killed by anxiety and uncertainty (by aggravating your other health problems) then the actual pandemic itself! So let’s roll…..

Whether this pandemic was an accident or an intentional act, we will know for sure in the coming few months from now (which will offset another round of chaos irrespective which way the finding goes); what is important to reflect upon is the fact that across the world- most of the large economies were already feeling intense financial pressures for the last 7-9 months- for varying reasons from regional to global socio-economic equations- the point to note here then is that a financial meltdown was imminent, the pandemic played the role of a catalyst to accelerate the downfall and make it more intense and deep through all the countries that it managed to sneak into! As I did mention in one of my previous articles, when the Art of Distraction is at work- everyone of us has been caught up seeing the stocks fall, the prices go down, jobs being lost- but what we fail to notice (thanks to the directed and opinionated media presence all over the world) is while stocks fell, someone picked the sell off, as people got sick, few companies were already in the race to provide medications- as if they knew it was coming! Well, life has one common thread across irrespective who you are and where you are- that thread is- There is always more then what meets the eye- and well I will leave this contextual build for the article right here- because this is the point where the most pressing question now needs to be answered – What next!- What can an Individual expect and what should an Individual do to remain relevant and future safe in an equally uncertain world that we all are heading into for a few years at least! So let’s unravel the simple solutions to this seemingly complex problem!

Let’s explore a few techniques that as an Individual anyone can and should practice to stay relevant and future proof, no this is not The List, these are few which through my engagement with youngsters and observations, I felt were the most defining and important ones to ensure that Individuals are able to keep riding over the turbulent waves that times ahead will keep sending across to them over and over again like it has been happening for the previous generations as well, the only real challenge being, in the connected world you really don’t know who sneezes and who catches cold that fast!

Stay Authentic: Even as the world media and everyone around you always seems to go ga-ga over “THE PEOPLE” to look up to syndrome- well let me tell you what, they are not telling the world what shit they have been through and what rules were bent or broken to become who they are! Allow fascination to be what it should be uplifting at the most and inspirational at the least and leave it at that! We are around 7.5 Billion across the world and if even Twins are different psychologically , there must be a good reason why nature would have wanted to us to evolve the way we did by retaining a strong sense of individuality read authenticity which is  deep rooted to the concept of The INDIVIDUAL SELF! and reflects inwards like a eternal internal reflection! Being Authentic begins with A refined sense of awareness about oneself and everything and everyone around you. It also involves the ability to be assertive about Who You are and wanting to be Who You are irrespective of the social confirmation biases and all the pressures and temptations of the modern world! Easier said then done- sure it is – but this is the first and foundational step to keep yourself relevant always and for all times ahead!

Define your unique skill: This has to be better then I can make cup cakes or I can sing or I can drive, This has to sound like, I am that Ace Pilot that you always wanted to fly with, or that Surgeon you can trust for your open heart surgery or that scientists you can count on to decipher scientific jargon and provide solutions to perplexing problems, that teacher who inspires and motivates that co-worker who creates a legacy of either a process or work or  technical know-how that becomes the gold standard for doing what people do! This is the second step, once you have learnt to be authentic about yourself, this will come naturally to you effortlessly , because once you have known who are, you will make no mistake in deciphering What you can set out for! You may also want to access my other article on this subject here.

Define Success: As trivial as it may seem, but this is the key to ensure that you sustain your journey and efforts and don’t get burned out or blown away because of exhaustion, not knowing when to stop or falling into the never ending trap of human greed which comes in coveralls of almost anything that you can think of- Being the Best, being The biggest, being the largest, being the xyz… well don’t confuse this with being or not being ambitious- I mean once you know who you are and what you are the you ought to know what is that you can achieve hence these statements of “Being xyz in front of the world” simply don’t hold a chance to come back haunting to you and distracting you into another level of complication! Knowing what success implies to you as an individual will only come through once you have completed the first two steps of knowing yourself and what your intrinsic skill is!

Chart your Course: To reach the success that you have defined needless, to say you will have to plan the road trip and chart a course, importantly because this is about “you” You alone will be able to select and select options through trials and error for there will simply not be an template that will fit your requirement as long as your definition of your authenticity, skills and success are unique! We all may be similar in terms of abilities as human beings on the broader subset of things, however when it comes to deploying ingenuity and innovation, that is where the great differentiation happens and this alone is the ever dynamic action point that keeps you either on track to your definitions or steers you away from your pursuits when your thinking mind starts to waver in face of worldly compulsions and confirmation biases! This stage happens to be the real test of time and for someone to walk through this path and keep walking on this path it is a constant battle of choosing and letting go of opportunities that life presents every moment- those which resonate with you and help you stay on course will blend in perfectly and those that don’t help you will (if acquired) start to create dissonance and lead to a drag even as you strive to keep the forward momentum! Knowing when to rest, when to divert, when to halt (for the moment- practice the pause!) and when to race ahead are all the secrets and skills that need to be learnt and applied on the go- how well they blend in or not makes your journey then either smooth or that bit turbulent!

Be a niche: Whatever you may want to choose, finally this is the mantra that you need to know well, you will have to create a niche – an unique place for being who you are by doing what you choose to do, like I said in the beginning, you may want to be that Ace Pilot or that Brave officer- The adjectives used here are intentional for they define the pursuit of the niche that you would have gone for and this makes you simply indispensable and in fact as time progresses this value goes on increasing evermore for the simple reason that this niche that you choose to hold becomes a perfected and mastered art form- which can be possibly copied and replicated but never will anyone else be able to master it to perfection and execute it precisely like you can and these two are the unfailing hallmarks of enduring success no matter what is the niche that you choose to build for yourself!

Well I will leave it here for you to perhaps add a few more foundation attributes to carve your future ready better version, given the limitation of a blog, I will put a stop to my thoughts here for now! No matter what you add to the list and how you decide to follow and carve out your pursuits, the golden success for Life’s pursuits is , “Always keep things simple, the moment you see complexity growing- you know at once this is a trap wherein a lot of people are trying to drive home a point by representing something that is not needed and keeping away what is much needed! Well, keep thinking around this and I will be back soon with another article!

Ciao for now, stay safe and stay connected!

The UV(Unique Value) challenge ahead.

~ PA ~ 3 Comments

As work places the world over begin to come back to life and kick start the much awaited and needed meaningful life cycle for each one of us-few things would have changed already or will rapidly transform in the first 90 days, as operations begin to gather speed, this piece is about exploring on such facet and what to expect and how to manage what is likely to come your way! So let’s roll ahead…

Before we try to ponder on how things may impact us going ahead, it will make a lot good to understand , what really happened as activities were halted globally in a planned/less planned or unplanned way!Since we are dealing with only facet of the human aspect we will try to limit our observations around that one central piece and move ahead.

Humans by and large end up either ending up in the space of being employment generators or employment receivers and then we have the small segment of businesses consultants/ Individuals who are both generators and receivers unto themselves. As activities came to a halt, multiple things would have dawned at all levels! In some cases the real face of human value systems/ belief systems and Individual priorities would have far superseded the collective cause of managing a workforce or a team at a small office or vice-versa. This break in continuity, at one end would have manifested through massive layoffs/ unemployment that has been written all across the world; Ever since this unplanned halt in routine came into the picture! So what has happened here- Well one  may argue that the business viability was cut short and since there were no mechanisms to cushion the offset of losses (which seem to be astronomical) there was no other way but to close the shutters and let go off people– well ok- hold this thought for a minute and we will address that later as we move ahead.

Another scenario that too has played around the world has been the overarching concept of “We are in this Together” (Even as I hate this thought -as much as I can because it simply defies any rationale sense!). In this space, people have not been impacted that bad, governments, agencies, employers and everyone that you can think of, have come ahead and collaborated to ensure that people aren’t left to the elements and are being ensured that they have a wage and a lifestyle that they can still as yet hang out to- albeit by a slender thread and as soon as things are better, the turnaround will be rapid and directed! Well this scenario for obvious reasons seems to be the best way ahead- why not- it talks about higher societal virtues , duty of care and for ensuring everyone has indeed, had a fair chance to fight this time through and move ahead. Now that we have seen both extremes of the spectrum above, let’s amylase what people are actually doing in this time that has been available to them!

People being who they are would have used this time available for themselves either to waste it and let it rot as usually they do while being busy to slog like slave for making someone else rich or they would have put it to some good use or wise use depending upon the cognitive abilities, opportunities and the immediate flexibility of the societies in which they thrive! Broadly speaking we have two sets of people around the world right now in a lock down/isolation whatever you want to call that- The firsts set is working as diligently they normally would have – striving to balance the challenges of working from wherever they are in whatever conditions they are and making a point to see how best they can add value and keep contributing in their way to ensure the business that are working with or for remains afloat as much as possible! The second set has basically turned this whole episode into a endless meaninglessness vacation which doesn’t seem to end (Unlike the hotel property- you don’t have a pre-set check out date) so these folks who believe in the maxim- “Anyways everything is going to get tougher so while we have this time, why not binge and indulge into personal indulgences and give a damn to what tomorrow ushers in!”. Finally we  have a smaller segment of interesting people (irrespective whether they are the employers/employees or consultants/Individual businesses) who have used this time to realign their life priorities/ work definitions/aspirations/belief systems even as they have continued to work and contribute to what they have been doing! Knowing the facts about where the world is rocking around for now, now you may want to know how all of this will get played out as things begin to open up! Well let’s read on and remember the previous line for that has a big secret within it!

As the world comes out of the shadows, thanks to automation (AI) and some good serving of Common-Sense there will be rapid and quick realignment of businesses and individuals- Those who have been toiling through this phase will come up with fast decisions translating into large scale visible actions, whether it is reallocation of staff to other facilities of a large conglomerate, whether it is about training, re-training,  or whether it is about adding anew product and rolling it off within weeks, you think of a scenarios and probably you will see an example playing out- especially where the businessmen and the employees have been working through this tough phase diligently one day at a time and have had a road map for the future irrespective of testing times and uncertainties! These in some cases will also lead to decent amounts of lay-offs but what will be unique to this phase is the fact that Quality of the people getting laid-off will have a story to tell. In all probability this will have many people from the second set who were on that un-ending vacation and didn’t care for the world- well, as the law of reciprocal karma; the world will also care less for them  and that’s what will get played out in the end!

The rare collection of individuals  (whether employers/employees/consultants) who would have spent this time for thorough introspection and realignment of themselves to their cause using the Unique Value that they intrinsically hold; will be the eventual trail blazers and will play a vital role in setting up the next benchmarks of quality and process development across businesses! It will be this small segment which would have analysed and seen how each other member on the team has been functioning/ not functioning where the disconnects have been and where the strengths are and what can be corrected and what must be weeded out immediately to safeguard the business! This may look like a simple task that any manager would have anyways done- but what is different here is that for the first time perhaps in a long long time- there is no space for personal biases for being played out through those intense team meetings and “one on ones” within the confines of office meeting rooms -because whether teams and individuals have worked or not would have been captured through  a documented trail of emails, messages from collaborators and clients alike which are more telling and in-the- face to sum up quite a lot then any findings from over a 100 internal meetings  that one would have participated in! It is also in this segment that one will also see many wise people alter the course of their calling to something different, bigger and better then what they have been currently doing and this mutual separation from the routine will enable to open up new vistas and opportunities from human thinking, innovation and commerce to be built around that space!

So what is that will create that differentiation which will make or break an opportunity for an Individual? Well the answer is UV – The Unique Value that Individuals would have been able to demonstrate as they worked through challenging times and ensured that their tasks and jobs are delivered as they had been promised and the objectives were realized in the face of extraordinary challenges! It will be these UV’s when applied by businesses, teams and Individuals alike that newer avenues with far greater depth, clarity and purpose will begin to emerge from existing businesses to provide an opportunity to build new systems and businesses! 

These UV’s, will enable organisations become healthier by being leaner, directed focused and purpose driven, knowing well now that they do really have a duty of car, hence instead of boasting about an employee strength of 1000, organisations will change the narrative to a family strength of 100 which would imply an employees strength of 250! Likewise Individuals who would have found their zen by being flexible would possibly want it to stay that way so that their creative outcomes remain unique and well appreciated- this then would also work in favor of the businesses!

So, before I sign off, think well for the remaining “ME” time that you have at hand and be honest in knowing what you are doing with that- because your future will depend on the singular pivot of what you have done with this “ME’ time and what you learnt during this period!

I will leave you here for now, grab a drink and think and reflect so that you can face tomorrow all suited up, one you have realized the Unique Value that you have within and what you to offer as a giver and receiver!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece!

Leadership in Crisis OR Crisis in Leadership-what are you living through?

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Over the last two weeks, virtually everyone around seems to have been coming up with the governments, health care workers could be doing better, what did go well, and what was amiss- The only issue I have with this space is irrespective of whether people are praising their authorities of slaying them on the social media for being incompetent, the essence lies in how much does one really know about whats happening behind the scene- I mean how can anyone see a news clip or a media byte for a few minutes and then decide that this is what must be happening and come to a conclusion that we are all fine or we are all but certainly doomed! Well this is exactly what happens when you are experiencing either a situation wherein it is either about “Leadership in Crises” or “Crisis in Leadership”  and that’s making its presence felt through the society that you are a part of and this short piece is just trying to make sense of this! Of course yes, I am not going to be taking names of leaders or nations here, so that I don’t end up placing prejudices in your mind- like it always has been I would want you to decide and take a view of what makes sense to you and in way that goes on to serve you by enhancing your understanding of the developments around you!

When disasters strike they often come with shock and awe, well that’s the case with major sudden natural disasters like flash floods, earthquakes and tornadoes which seem to just appear and disappear on their own terms leaving a path of destruction behind them. It is a similar situation when man-made disasters strike humanity- like mass shootings, terrorist events etc unfold. The  real story begins the moment after the unthinkable happens! It becomes apparent quickly with ample clarity what kind of script is being played out to the world- we will now begin the instance wherein “Crisis in Leadership” begins to unfold. 

Of the many manifestations that are possible, Crisis is Leadership is always earmarked by a deafening silence and inertia in the initial stages. This is the moment wherein the proverbial throat runs dry and the leaders are left to the mercy of their critics for having failed to act/ or rather react in a specific manner to an event- which normally is derived from the majoritarian societal conformity bias! This initial step if not checked in- not only unleashes a chain reaction of ever increasing complications and problems but also creates a powerful distraction in which the real challenge (the event that would have occurred) is all but made secondary and the efficacy and the style of the leadership start to become the talk of the town and thereby begins a never ending bickering game which goes on and one as long as some other powerful stories tend to come up and overshadow these events and narratives!

The next indication of Crisis in Leadership comes when people speak irrelevant, nonsense, mistime the content or begin to contradict each other from the adjacent windows of the same are of operation! You may have by now witnessed examples of politicians like Governors of State and other task force members who have been entrusted with fighting away this virus come up and say things which were completely unwarranted for and make no real contribution towards the progress of attacking the virus and saving  lives- rather, a lot of their rant would have been talking about what they have been doing, trying to do and are hopeful of what they will be able to do rather then just stating the facts like- This is what had happened, this is what we did to fix it and this is what we have planned for tomorrow because this is what we expect! Well needless to say, it is instances like there that even turn disasters into fodder for news channels and media to utilize the moment for their fame to glory for showing how dumb a particular individual was- well as a matter of fact they never wait another second to do a rethink- I mean; wait why would this person behave the way he is doing so- he isn’t that dumb really? had he been done so dumb- he wouldn’t reached where he is now – A position of power and control to dictate terms through a crisis! So whats the missing part?! Well we will get to this bit once we have seen some other examples of how things are really done and what Leadership in Crisis really looks and feel like!

Unlike the above two manifestations (certainly there could be many more- given this is a blog, trying to keep it a bit truncated), when one sees Leadership in action through a Crisis- The whole equation changes dramatically! The very first manifestation of Leadership in control through a crisis is visible by the knowing “who is the face of the leadership”. As long as the face has enough depth in terms of credibility, acceptance, appreciation and connect with the audience in concern, rest assured the masses are at once assured that things are in control and you will find that people are ready to agree, abide and go ahead with the decisions taken by this type of a leader. The second important aspect here, which must be read together with the first point is that the quality, swiftness, clarity and transparency of the decisions and the rationale also are required to go hand in hand along with the face of the leadership. You may have a very pleasing face but if the quality of the following decisions and the content falls through, you will possibly end up finding a new face before you find answers to the pressing challenges at hand!

Effective leadership through crisis is almost and always accompanied by a sustained and ongoing communication dissemination in a measured manner wherein the communication reaches where it should and provides ample clarity about what is expected form the received of that message- like does the person need to take some action, or just be ready for the next instruction or it could be about being provided with details on the progress that has been and what the outcomes seem like over the next few days or weeks!

Leadership in Crisis may be aggressive or may be passive in terms of style harnessed by the leader in question, but unless it is proved to effective through its presence and through its actions; all purpose risks being  eventually lost and can easily slip into the depths of becoming another case of study of Crisis in Leadership!

I will leave you with your thoughts now, see around you depending on where you are on the planet and observe what is that you are witnessing- at the government level, at your office level- what do you see around you- Leaders managing the Crisis or Crisis being complicated further by the Leaders who have been entrusted to steer the ship!

Ciao for now, I will be back soon with another article, until then navigate well, stay safe and if you are locked down, stay in and let your mind wander with thoughts that empower you and help you deciphering some hidden mysteries available in your plain sight! By the way – What type of a Leader are you- what do you think!

 

Dealing with (Mis)Information Warfare.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

Never before has it been more important to check- cross check and re-check everything that gets played on to the television set, the channels that you subscribe to, the search results that come to serve you and not to mention the endless, forwards, messages and what have you! This piece is about trying to make some sense of the information or rather misinformation warfare in which we get drawn day in and day out at times knowingly and other times unknowingly when we tend to forward that last message on whatsapp without bothering to check if the content made any sense to begin with! So let’s try and unravel what really is going on here!

The later part of the last century, was rightly known as the Information Age- If one had the right information at the right time it gave the person/ business or the government of the day phenomenal advantage to lead and race ahead no matter what the subject would have been- whether it was about path breaking research, or best practices adopted over factory floors, or it was about business or governance strategies- You name it and you will find that the last 50 years has always been about “The Best way” of doing things, “getting things done”, “being the best”, individually or collectively by harnessing the power of Information. Till this point it was a linear fight for supremacy – Whoever had the right information at the right time would be the winner, but with technology and the dawn of the digital age- information became available  at amazing speeds simultaneously across the world and there was never a question of any lag or delay and then it started to boil down to who had the first movers advantage, who got ahead first, how fast and what tools and resources were made available for them to make that rapid progress. Well even this was fair, considering you give the whole world community the same information at the same time and then it boils down to whoever has the maximum matter and money to spend and build on an idea! The real drama unfolds now, once people saw that information based challenges are becoming accessible and rapid progress is possible and the concept of  dominance on sectors/ ideas and approaches to lives problems is beginning to get into the shredders, the real game got started – the game of information dominance through spread of misinformation! This is how we have, according to me ushered in the age of misinformation- The age of Information Warfare- A testimony to Human Dominance and never ending Greed for power (all types) and Opulence!

This age of Information warfare thrives on spreading information which makes sense, no sense and cryptic sense- this is done intentionally to divert, distract and keep competitors and people observing you loose their way and get entangled into a information mess in which they remain entangled and by the time they do come out of it- you would have probably achieved your objectives and then it really doesn’t matter whether they have access to the earlier original content or not- because that has become contextually irrelevant!

This new warfare front made possible thanks to the digital breakthroughs that we have collectively been able to make as humanity has proven far dangerous then any nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction! The misinformation business is responsible for almost everything that you see around- on the day to day basis- you would have come across commercials (with the small * of terms and conditions – which is next to invisible) claiming and suggesting things which are out rightly stupid, dangerous and rarely at time fatal- but as they say- the small little invisible * offers protection and the the petitions are always urged to use their collection and individual wisdom-which by itself is a challenge as that is a fast depleting asset! When things do get ugly as usually they do- you will generally have vested interest groups within nations/ communities and across nations who can collectively get into the role of spreading information in a calibrated,weighed manner to do a sinister loop and complete it’s objectives by unleashing public unrest/ strikes/ law and order situations and by the time this is all done the originator and the communication and the real essence behind the malafide act is all but cluttered into an ambiguity of trails, reports and reasons- which often heads no where and then the world is ready for another episode all over again! History is replete with examples when things have become really bad and this ability to spread directed misinformation has at times won wars at the right side of the battle and at times has ended up doing more damage to society at large! So when we know Mis-Information is as deadly as it gets to be- why do we thrive and allow it to propagate- why does it even get a hold?

The answers lie in the fabric of humanity itself- Human societies have long been far away from idealistic settings- there is a rampant inequality within societies, within different segments of a society or even within communities and not to forget the inequalities among nations and blocks of nations! Inequality that transcends all metrics normally considered for determining what should be the definition of Equality!  Inequality manifests in different ways, it could be the inequality between the rich and poor (monetary inequality), inequality of opportunities, inequality of liberty and so on and so fort. The most important trigger comes from the Inequality of opportunity for World Dominance through governance and business. This is by far the most dangerous and the most sinister of all the different malaise of modern societies and has caused more harm then good to each and everyone of us! You may be thinking this has to do with only the intelligence community and the governments- no – this has everything to do with each one of us- as misinformation gets fed into minds which are not that good at checking facts from fiction- the results and consequences often turn deadly and dangerous! So now we know that there is a problem- how do we deal with it! Well read on…

“Practice the Pause” a technique told by many management teachers, the next time you get a piece of information and decide to do anything- absolutely anything with it- think what it is- check from where it is coning- think what is is asking you to do and think about the impact that you may individual end up creating by virtue of who you are- and whether that is needed or not! There will be times when the best thing to do would be nothing! There will be yet another times when you may have to ignore/delete the message and then there will be some other times still when you need to flag the message and the content off to relevant people in time so that disasters are avoided well in time! The challenge though remains to perform any of these actions, first and foremost you must have a thinking mind – irrespective of how intelligent you are or not- doesn’t matter-what does matter is whether you have the ability to sieve through the content and weigh it against common-sense, science and facts of the world! One more golden rule is what doesn’t serve the best and larger good of humanity doesn’t need to be there- If any message that you are to pass on – irrespective of what the source and whatever it is- If it doesn’t help anyone and ends up having more anxiety and anguish to even person then that message is not worth it- might as well bury it as soon as it reaches you!

We live in an age where access to information is a sure ticket to success and hence the converse also hold true- access to misinformation can spell untold misery and chaos at times damaging individuals and at times communities and nations as a whole! The certain way to move around this in-your-face- covert enemy of mis-information is to develop filters through wisdom and knowledge and apply ample common sense to all that you receive- without the screen of prejudice and develop a way to weight the content of information in its totality and then take a call whether it serves or deserves its existence! This kind of mindful approach to content when repeated over and over again will ensure the damages caused by misinformation campaigns world over is as minimal as possible!

I will leave you here with these thought, grab your cup, check your whatsapp messages and think well before you forward the next message! Think- Is it really worth It- Does it add value to the receiver or to you as a sender of the message! If it does go ahead, if it doesn’t delete that crap!

Ciao for now, will catch up soon with another article!