Facilitating Impact

Reading List for Nov-09

2009-11-07T23:07:00.004+05:30

Aha! What a relief. The last 4-6 weeks were extremely hectic. Couple of major releases, ISO certification, Global management team meeting and BoD meetings (both in Bangalore) generated enough amount of work, even on weekends, that I just could not read anything last month. I'm reading the "branding" as a part of my PMBA journey. Here are the books for this month:

The 22 Im mutable laws of Branding
This book by Al Ries and Laura Ries is considered bible for any student of branding. They start out with the importance of marketing and branding and drives home the point that "The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope". The writing is crisp, provocative and utterly delectable.

One Land, One Billion Minds: Insights on Branding in India
I was particularly interested in a book that covers these topics w.r.t the Indian context as India will soon be among the top 5 global economies. Am I glad I found this book by Sridhar Ramanujam. Sridhar is a visiting professor in several IIMs and is the CEO of brand-comm. This book appear to provide key insights on branding in a multi-layered and a multi-faceted land, apart from delving deep into the minds and behaviour of the Indian Consumer. Sridhar's blog Third Umpire on Branding too, makes a very interesting read on the same subject.

Brand You 50: Fifty ways to transform yourself
This is a re-read and happens to be one of my favourite. This book is about personal-branding. This is a manifesto for today's knowledge workers and the title says everything "50 ways to transform yourself from an Employee to a brand that shouts distinction, commitment and passion!". I came to believe, as a resulting of reading this book, I learnt that surviving means not blending-in, but standing-out, and Tom offers 50 strategies for the same. Each chapter has things to do section, that makes it easier to put theory into practice. This book too is written in trademark Tom Peters style - high energy, optimistic, utterly brilliant and in-your-face. He relentlessly lifts your hopes and revives your dreams, big dreams that is.

Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship At a Time
Building long term relationships is one of my "ongoing" goal. This book goes beyond the common "networking" and helps one to actually build true relationships. The premise of the book is that our relationships must be built on generosity, trust and integrity. There are several practical approaches that are discussed in this book that can be of help to anybody. This book offers a fresh look at networking so that we are successful in business and our personal life.

ISO certification

2009-10-25T10:19:00.003+05:30

Closely on the heels of our first anniversary, we had planned for our ISO certification audit. We had this audit last Thu and Fri and the auditors have recommended us for the ISO certification. We didn't had any "areas of concern" or "non-conformance", though we got some very good suggestions also known as "opportunities for improvement". The goal was set in early March. We hired a highly experienced TQM consultant to guide us through the process and as usual had our task force. All these people ensured that no stone was left unturned, which resulted in the recommendation for certification. We are quality conscious and that certification is just the beginning of a never ending journey of excellence.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of certifications - ISO, CMM etc., I would rather spend my time try to influence folks to give the best they can and excel, rather than worry about audits. I have no problem with following processes, but the documentation in specific templates, book keeping, doing something just to keep auditors happy etc., are something that repels me. Before you get me wrong, let me quickly add that I've been an internal auditor for 7yrs and have taken very active role in ISO and CMM certification efforts in a few of my previous companies. Further, I also went thru PMI certification as a certified Project Management Professional. The grouse comes mostly when the people forget the "spirit" part and focus solely on the "letter" part and you get penalized and/or called to explain on things that were done so well, but auditors are not happy that some record is not in the specified template. Good number of folks, miss out on the big picture of "why certification?" and focus on conformity. Not for nothing Ralph Emerson said "Foolish consistency in the hobgoblin of small minds".

Hence, I do have mixed feelings. Glad that we were able to achieve the goal. But, now that we would be certified, just worried that conformity may take precedence over excellence. Worse, it might become an annual affair to "fix" records, just before the audits. However, we would move to metrics based management and hope to get some good metrics on all aspects of the operation.

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

1st anniversary

2009-10-06T22:48:00.003+05:30

Our India subsidiary was formally started this day (6-Oct) one year ago when I along with my long time colleague joined on 6-Oct-2008 and the first task was to find an office space. One year has passed so quickly thanks to the pace at which we are running. We had our fair share of joy and frustration, pride and despair, excitement and anger, that are typical of any start-up. Though there would be always scope for improvement, I'm quite proud of things we as a team have achieved in the last one year and about the fact that we are moving as per the vision we have set for ourselves.

In this one year we now are completely responsible for the entire Software part, PMO, Customer Support, QA and Build & Release. We also have several finance and administrative functions (accounting, IT etc.,) now operating out of Bangalore.

Coming year looks even more exciting as we plan to add ASIC and H/w engg, expand the team and directly serve some of the biggest names in the Consumer Electronics space. Most importantly, the stuff that we have been working on this year would be out in the market - the biggest satisfaction for anyone into product development.

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

There has to be first time for everything

2009-09-25T22:26:00.005+05:30

Today was an interesting day as the following "firsts" happened:

1. Had my first ever meeting and presentation with a Venture Capital firm that plans to invest in our company - This meeting was the culmination of the hectic due diligence efforts we went through in all aspects of our operations.
2. For the first time I signed the "balance sheet" in my capacity as a Director on the board of our company's Indian subsidiary.
3. Gave pocket money for the first time to my 11.5yr old son. He and his friends would go to Coffee Day (atleast thats what is being told).

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

Reading list for Sep-09

2009-09-09T16:03:00.006+05:30

Was down with a bout of viral fever for the early part of the month. They are some holidays this month and hope to catch-up with the following this month:

1. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
I had read this about about 5 years ago. Thought of re-reading it after having read numerous other books which had a similar theme (economists exploring something). I remember the initial read to be enjoyable and quick.

2. Irrational Exuberance
This book is part of my PMBA economics studies. I hope to gain some insights into stock markets, their valuations and other related theories. Perhaps not the best book (in the sense of a "text book") on stock market, but I'm seeing it more as a primer. The book is hugely popular and there would be reasons for it.

3. Makin g it all Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life
I've benefited quite a lot by the simple yet effective process that David Allen has described in his previous best sellers - "Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress Free Productivity" and "Ready for Anything - 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life". The first one, popularly known as GTD has a powerful methodology just to deal with incoming mails and I dare say I've been using it to good effect in the last few years. In this new book, David revisits his basic premise that a complete and current inventory of commitments organized and reviewed in a systematic way can sharpen focus and allow for wiser decision making. Doesn't seem there is something new in this book, but its worth as a refresher course in GTD.

4. De B ono's thinking course
From the last two months, I have undertaken the task of reading some important works of Dr. Bono. This one is second in the series. The book presents practical methods and ideas to improve one's thinking skills. It would be fun doing the exercises.

5. What do you really want from your children
"Before marriage I had six theories on raising kids. Now I have six kids and no theories" - is a quote in the initial pages of this book that resonates well with most parents. Wayne Dyer is one of my favourite authors. While stressing the need for parents to be the role models and that kids learn most from observing their parents, Dr. Dyer covers topics like risk-taking, living in the present, self-reliance, and creativity. Each chapter includes strategies, negative child/parent behaviors, and the payoffs for maintaining desirable behaviors.

Creating Desired Future

2009-08-15T20:03:00.005+05:30

Well, who doesn't want to Create a Desired Future? The answer is always yes, but preceded by another question, "but how?". SoL South Foundation (a not-for-profit society), is an affiliate member of Society for Organizational Learning (SoL - www.solonline.org) started by Dr. Peter Senge and head quartered in Boston, USA. Sol South has been founded (I'm one of the founder member) with a view to bring frontier learning opportunities to India, has just announced a 3-day workshop titled "Creating Desired Future". This workshop draws concepts from Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline, Otto Shramer's Theory U, Eastern meditations and many other behavioral concepts.

The expected outcomes include:

Clarity of one's desired future in many facets of life
Clarity of the meaning one is seeking and personal preferences
Clarity about internal blocks and leverages in relation to the desired future
A short-term prototype of the roadmap towards the desired future.

The workshop is led by Halasyam Sundaram (a sociologist and a OD consultant), Raja Chidambaram (Consultant in the areas of Change and Leadership) and Dr. Vinay Dabholkar (an Innovation consultant).

I recommend the workshop to anyone that wants to create a personal vision for themselves. I want to share my story on how I got benefited from a similar workshop twice (led by Raja Chidamabaram).

It was in early 2003, I had started feeling a little restless. I had completed 10yrs in the very first company in my professional life. Though there was no problem per se with the organization that I was working, I was feeling stuck, my own learning had gone down considerably low, was sitting pretty in a comfort zone, I was plain reacting to events every day as there were no goals to aspire and therefore no growth. Above all there was absolutely no work-life balance. It was under such circumstances my first personal vision workshop was held. The outcome changed my life for ever. First, I came-up with a tag line for myself - Contribute, Learn, Enjoy. These 3 seemingly simple words have had a major influence in my life and continues to inspire me in all facets of life. I set out with a 5-year goal to increase my capacity to contribute (at office, at home and to society). I drew up a financial management plan till 2020 (as I wanted to retire in 2020), set out goals to have vacations at regular intervals (both within India and abroad). My personal and professional lives were integrated and I can proudly say that I've been enjoying a near perfect work-life balance (though one suspects, my wife won't entirely agree).

One great thing about the discipline of setting goals is that lot of such things become a habit and gets routinized and freeing your mind to focus on bigger and better things. For example: I had a goal of taking 3 local vacations every year and having a vacation abroad once every 3 years. Now, we regularly take local vacations during kid's winter, christmas and summer holidays. We have visited Mauritius and Singapore/Malaysia by now. We have finalized a 18-day Europe travel in 2010 and thinking about a self-drive vacation in Newzealand (2013). My investments are categorized for my retirement, towards children's education, contribution to society and for major household expenses. The plan is stable and continues for the sixth year running. These two have become so mechanical - my investment plan for the entire takes about one sunday in an entire year and I have long and growing list of places to visit and just keep ticking them off.

Having stabilized basic facets of life, in 2007, I felt the need to do this exercise again. This time, I was trying to see how I can grow professionally. In this exercise, I came up with "Facilitating Impact through Innovation. Contribute. Learn. Enjoy". I really don't say this is my life purpose, but it is something very close to that. One immediate decision of this exercise was that I left my cushy job at an MNC (as I was not doing much over there) and joined a little known start-up of sorts which I thought would help me to "change the world" in some way. I also decided to advance my goal of "retire from salaried job" by 2016 and become an independent consultant. My career goals are now fairly well articulated and are in line with the theme Facilitating Impact, which incidentally is the name of this blog. When I go for my half yearly retreats, I evaluate myself on the personal vision that I have set for myself and set goals which are inline with my personal vision.

I'm a big believer in the concept of personal vision. It can be so inspiring. It can be so fulfilling. It cuts out all the crap, all the noise around as you know where you are headed. It also makes you own up your mistakes and take responsibility for your own future. All lame excuses on your manager, spouse, dog, city you live-in and other things like "you don't know how my situation is different" goes away. It liberates you from the constraints imposed by the organization and helps you chart your own course, within the boundaries, as you are always focused on what you want. It gives a great amount of clarity and you won't be influenced by the external rewards (or lack of it) as you are driven by a vision. Your own one. Created by you.

I strongly recommend this workshop to everyone wanting to lead fulfilling lives. Even for those who are doing well. I'm promoting it not because its a SoL South event, but because of the impact it has made in my life and because I know all the three trainers personally for over 10years now. I can guarantee that this could be one of the best investment that you could ever make for yourself. Vinay Dabholkar, one of the trainers, shares his experience from one of the earlier workshops here.

The event is planned on 8th, 9th and 10th of October. Its a residential program to enable participants to focus, share ideas with trainers and fellow students, and to have space for quiet reflection. The fees are Rs.15,000, 12,000 and 9,000 for corporate sponsored, self-sponsored and for folks from not-for-profit respectively. 10.3% service charges are extra. The fee covers accommodation on double occupancy basis and include vegetarian food. It would be held at Search Training Center, Koppa Village on Bannerghatta Road.

Feel free to contact me (ramp.ramp@gmail.com, mobile +91 990 190 1717) or the trainer Halasyam (halasyam.sundaram@gmail.com, mobile +91 94433 45130) directly for more details.

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

Jul - 09: Best of Blog Posts

2009-08-02T18:46:00.003+05:30

Can't believe I skipped this section for the last 3 months. Travel to Europe and Japan and high pressure at work has thrown my blogging out of the gear and I'm crawling back to keep the habit intact. Here are some posts that I found remarkable, in the last 3 months.

Tom Peters continues to urge to keep Excellence Always (If not Excellence, what else? If not NOW, when? - he keeps asking). In this post Excellence? Always? Yes!, he remembers the following from Martin Luther King:
"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

Beautiful isn't it? He also thinks the most important job of the boss is to develop his people. Read The ONE Thing ....

Seth Godin reminds us that You Matter. In another interesting post he talks about The Risk/Reward Confusion.

Guy Kawasaki hardly blogs these days and his blog posts are typically some promo stuff on his company alltop.com (not that I have a problem with that) or his review of some cool car that he got a chance to drive for a week or so (I do envy him on this). He does interview (I love this) some cool folks though in OpenForum.com. Here are some interviews you might like:

The Inside Scoop on Design - Interview with Harmut Esslinger (Macintosh Designer)
How to Escape Mundanity - In this interview Pamela Slim explains how to escape the mundanity of corporate cubicle life
In Pursuit of Elegance - Interview with Mathew E May where he offers 12 indispensable tips for embracing Elegance.

Rajesh Setty cautions on chasing wrong milestones. He talks about The Only Milestone that Matters. Review your milestones. NOW. Check how many of them is helping you to increase your capacity to contribute.

Vinay Dabholkar is studying the roles and influence of CTOs these days. He shares Two Excellent Articles on the Role of CTO (first one talks about the roles and responsibilities of the CTO and the second one talks about 5 dominant patterns amongst CTOs in the US).

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

Reading list for Aug'09

2009-08-02T18:06:00.004+05:30

Last month was a complete washout w.r.t my reading, as I had a fairly tough set of books. Just could not get enough time as there were too many things to cope with on both professional and personal front. The priority therefore would be to clear the pending stuff and therefore plan to read only book this month.

The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World
I'm hooked on to Tim Harford's writing (author of The Undercover Economist) as it deals with couple of my favourite subjects - economics and psychology of human behavior. In this new book, Harford provides an entertaining and provocative ("why is your boss paid higher than you", "is divorce overrated?" etc.,) look behind the seemingly irrational. He uses Von Neumann's game theory concepts and applies it to several arenas like racism, work place, Las Vegas gambling and even work place. He shows that individual rational behavior doesn't always lead to socially desired outcomes and concludes by showing how rational behavior shapes cities, politics and the entire history of human civilization.

Upbeat: An Interview with Rajesh Setty

2009-07-27T18:32:00.012+05:30

A few years ago, I accidentally ran into Rajesh Setty’s blog, from the Cool Friends section of TomPeters.com and since then it is in my personal Top 10 blogs that I follow on a regular basis. The big concept that I got benefited from his work is on Personal Branding for Technology Professionals (get your copy of the free ebook here). At about the same time, Rajesh published his beautiful book Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps. I’ve lost count of the number of copies of this book, that I gifted to people around me. Its amazing the way Rajesh produces blog posts that are of high value, week by week and now for several years. If you have still not subscribed to his blog, do it NOW and you’d be happy that you did.

Rajesh has published a new book Upbeat: Cultivating the Right Attitude to Thrive in Tough Times. In this book he offers simple yet profound nuggets to help one thrive during the challenging times that we all are subjected to right now. The book is divided into 5 segments “The Trap”, “The Discipline”, “The Network”, “The Strategy” and “The Action”. What more, it also has a D-I-Y section that makes it easier for the reader to implement the ideas.

For quite some time, I have been thinking about interviewing eminent people that are making an “impact” on the society. I’m glad to start this series with an interview of Rajesh Setty. This interview is a part of the second wave (first wave here) of the blog tour of Rajesh’s new book Upbeat.

Here we go:

Dear Rajesh, first of all, greetings from Bangalore and many thanks for your time. I’m always fascinated by the valuable, thought provoking posts that keeps flowing from you so effortlessly. How do you do this and What is the prime motivation behind this?

RamP, that is very kind of you. Thanks.

You have two questions here:

1. How do I do what I do?

2. What is my motivation to do this?

First I want to say that I am more of a student than a teacher. I have great teachers and mentors and I have had them by my side for over two decades.

On your first question there, the first thought that comes to my mind is that I have LOT of help. By GOD’s grace, I have more help than I can use. If I am slipping behind on something it’s mostly because of me and not because I don’t have the help. With good help, you have more capacity to do fun and interesting things.

The second thought I have on that is that by nature I think “very long term.” I don’t start any project until I am convinced the five years from now, I will still have fun continuing to do that project. Since there is no short-term thinking I have all the time to slowly build on whatever I have started.

On your second question, my motivation is to continue to contribute and build my own capacity to contribute more. The more I give, the more I learn to give more. It is a great joy when I know that I have touched, moved and/or inspired someone somewhere in the world.

Out of several concepts I have learnt from following your posts, the one that has influenced me the most is the concept of “gradually, but suddenly”. Can you please briefly explain this for my readers and are there any methods by which one can start observing that they are falling into this trap?

I wrote an article for TomPeters.com on this topic. Here is an excerpt of the article:

In the book The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway paints a scenario where one of the key characters, Mike Campbell, is asked, "How did you go bankrupt?" His response is "Gradually ... then suddenly." This is so very applicable to a recession scenario. Actually, it is applicable to all our lives—you don't fail suddenly; you fail gradually through a series of small failures everyday. The day you fail is just a culmination of all the small failures you have had.

Yes, you can get away with "no progress during a recession" by blaming the recession, but really, if things are not going well, you should blame yourself for the way you behaved leading up to the recession.

"Gradually ... then suddenly" is the phenomenon that will explain a lot of mess we are in today. We are trying to find instant solutions to problems that we have created over years.

And the link to the article in its entirety:
TomPeters.com: Gradually… then suddenly

You talk about “setting higher standards”. However, this needs a realistic assessment of oneself. I have encountered two sets of people – the first set hype-up their moderate achievements and actually believe that they have set high standards for themselves and the other set would have set impossibly higher goals/standards and driving everyone crazy around them. How do you think one can go about accurately seeing the current reality?

Jeffrey Pfeffer (Stanford University, Author of “Knowing Doing Gap”) says – “You have to be reasonably competent to find out your level of incompetence on a topic.”

I like the statement because it applies to all of us in many different ways almost daily. We don’t know what we don’t know – so we have an “awareness problem” on most topics. We won’t know that we don’t know something until someone brings that into our awareness. So unless you are “open” to learning from MANY sources, chances are that you are blindsided.

So, that’s the first step right there – to be aware of what is really in play.

Once you know that, the next step is to make an honest assessment of market standards. What is an acceptable level of competence, what are considered “high standards” in the marketplace etc.

Next, you can make a determination of “delta” between the currently accepted “high standards” in the marketplace and your own standards on that topic.

Lastly, you set the bar higher than the currently accepted “high standards” and display “proof” to show that you are not just saying but you are actually living it.

One way to check whether you have set “higher standards” is to see what “premium” are you getting for what you are producing. That is not an absolute measure but it can give you reasonable feedback on where you stand.

Moving on to the next topic of “networking” - I have seen examples where people need help, and there are people willing to give help, but one hesitates to seek help. This is clearly not the case of being “extra baggage” or not being “grateful” as you have beautifully explained. Unless you ask, network can’t help, as it won’t even know that someone needs help. Why do you think such a thing happens and how the network can proactively help?

RamP, Networking and Relationship Building are so important to life and business that I am surprised why they are not taught in school. People think they know how to build relationships because they know how to communicate. That is far from the truth.

Relationship building is a life-long process. The best analogy I have is that of planting a tree. You have to nurture it for years before it bears fruits.

When you build strong relationships over time, both parties will know the concerns of each other and both parties want to help take care of each others’ concerns as much as possible. When you have that kind of relationship, asking is easy. But it takes time to build that kind of relationship. So people try to take the shortcut.

You are right – people can’t read other people’s mind so you might have to “ask” explicitly. However, the step before (the act of giving) has to be done before you go around “asking” to make this effective.

You talk about “cultivating the attitude of flexibility, while retaining the focus”. I can understand it at an intellectual level, but have difficulty articulating what it really means. Can you please elaborate?

Of course RamP – here below I have elaborated on the concept.

There are many ways to reach a goal. When you start you may think of one path to reach a goal and get emotionally attached to the path. In that path, there is a series of intermediate goals that you reach before you reach your ultimate goal. Every time you reach an intermediate goal, you feel that you have made progress. However, at some point in time, you might get stuck in the process of reaching the next intermediate goal (or milestone.) Here is where you need to watch out for the breakdown. Your intermediate goal becomes your obsession and you start focusing on it as if that is your ultimate goal rather than trying to find other ways of reaching your ultimate goal.

The “focus” has to be on the ultimate goal while you keep your “flexibility” to rearrange intermediate goals to reach your ultimate.

How do you think that lot of ideas you have offered in the last chapter “The Action” could be applied by people who are in middle management layers in large organizations?

The big thing that middle management people can do is to increase the capacity of the people that they are managing. If their team as a whole is increasing their capacity, their capacity to perform and produce results will go up.

Think about these questions:

1. What specific actions have you taken in the last week to increase the capacity of your team members?

2. What specific actions have you taken in the last quarter to increase the capacity of your team members?

3. What specific actions have you planned next quarter to increase the capacity of your team members?

Most often, we are busy “managing” rather than helping people grow. When people grow, their capacity to produce results goes up and they need less of your “management” to perform.

There are times where one has done everything seemingly right – this person is not in any trap, has a good network, disciplined, has plans and is action oriented. Still things just won’t turn up OK. In such unfortunate cases, its easy to slide in to negative spiral, making it very difficult to be Upbeat. How can such people retain hope and what is your message?

The short answer is – it’s not easy.

Yes, it is difficult to stay upbeat in these situations but it is also not easy to stay and continue suffering either. You really have to get sick and tired of getting sick and tired and start taking some action. The key decision to make here is whether you want to live in the past or you want to live towards the future.

You said it right in your question RamP – “, its easy to slide in to negative spiral, making it very difficult to be Upbeat.” The keyword here is “easy” as you can see. It is easy to feel bad or victimized and blame everyone and our surroundings and NOT do anything. Because of what has happened, one can also get a LOT of sympathy and attention – a form of license for inaction.

The result of continuing to suffer is clear – one would continue to suffer.

Life is too precious to squander this way. I am not saying that “staying Upbeat” will solve their problems – it is a great way to begin the first day of the rest of your life.

The best way to explain this is to watch this short clip from the movie “Rocky Balboa.” The message there is very simple –

“It is not how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward...”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1tXhJniSEc

You always emphasize the need of having good teachers and mentors. Their roles are now even more crucial. Any suggestions for the mentors?

Mentors for me are a gift from God. They not only teach but they also hold me accountable for me to learn and apply those teachings.

I have written extensively about the reasons one should have mentors and I guess your question is more about – “OK, I have bought into that concept – now how do I go about finding good mentors?”

I wish I could say – “that’s easy.” Unfortunately it’s not. Good ones are usually taken and since like all of us, they have limited time, you have to compete and prove to them that you are “worth their time” to get their attention.

Please look around and I am sure you will notice people that can increase your “capacity to contribute” for the rest of your life. Once you find them, you have to go on a quest to recruit them as your mentor – meaning you have to sell yourself to show that you are a “positive possibility” in their lives. Yes, you can pay them money for their time, energy and insights but that alone will rarely attract them. They are lending their brand and they want to know that you are worth it.

Finally a rather selfish question. When is the book being launched in India? Are there plans of speaking gigs similar to the one when you launched Life Beyond Code?

First of all, it is not a selfish question – it is very kind of you to ask that. I am in discussions with several people to make that happen. But I really don’t have any dates finalized. Will keep you posted on this RamP.

Rajesh, thanks again for taking time to patiently answer my questions. Wish "Upbeat" a great success.

Here are some useful links:

1. www.rajeshsetty.com/about/
2. www.lifebeyondcode.com
3. www.twitter.com/UpbeatNow
4. www.thinksulting.com

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

Reading list for Jul'09

2009-07-04T18:40:00.005+05:30

I was able to catch up with last month's books primarily because of the retreat I took during the last week of Jun. Moving on with my Personal MBA studies, the focus for the next half of the year would be on finance and accounting. I've also decided to learn to "think" and therefore have lined up several books by Dr. Edward De Bono.

Finance Sense - Dr. Prasanna Chandra
Dr. Prasanna Chandra (aka PC) was a faculty at IIM-B and very early in my career as a manager, I got a chance to attend to his 3 day workshop on "Finance for non-finance professionals", which broadened my perspective on money matters and I started appreciating the need of strict financial goals even at a project level. I've decided to begin the finance and accounting part of the PMBA, with this book, which is simple and elegant.

Lateral Th inking
This is one of the most famous books of Dr. De Bono. In a nut shell this book is supposed to teach better, different and efficient ways of thinking. The book offers lot of techniques and exercises to drive home the point. Be warned, next time when you meet me, I might be thinking very differently!!

The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents around the world are inspiring greatness, one child at a time
This is a book by Stephen Covey. Dr. Covey talks about how A B Combs Elementary School in North Carolina, is using 7-Habits concepts to teach young children principles-based leadership. Dr. Covey's works, especially the 7-Habits have had a tremondous influence on me. I have always wondered whether there is a way one can teach 7-Habits for can be taught to kids. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this book in Bangalore Airport and bought it immediately, though the unfriendly Lufthansa people had told me that my hand-bag is over weight. Much of the book is on how the school has implemented the principles and there is one chapter on how it could be done at home too. Though Dr. Covey recommends 7-Habits of highly effective families as a better book for practicising 7-Habits at home, I reckon that this book is perhaps not for traditional Indian families.

How Full is Your Bucket: Positive Strategies for Work and Life
In this brief book, the authors, a grandfather-grandson team, explore how using positive psychology in everyday interactions can dramatically change our lives. Clifton (coauthor of Now, Discover Your Strengths) and Rath suggest that we all have a bucket within us that needs to be filled with positive experiences, such as recognition or praise. When we're negative toward others, we use a dipper to remove from their buckets and diminish their positive outlook. When we treat others in a positive manner, we fill not only their buckets but ours as well.

Mid year retreat

2009-06-30T21:43:00.011+05:30

I just returned from a 4 day trip to my village (the pic shows 120+ year old house of my (maternal) ancestors). Every time around this year, I make this trip to slow down, read some thought provoking stuff and review my progress vis-a-vis hierarchy of goals (quarterly, yearly and long-term) that I have set for myself. The process this time too was very similar to the one I had in early Jan this year.

I particularly like this time of the year. The weather is just about perfect - neither hot nor cold, skies filled mostly with small pieces of moving clouds, occasional drizzle, great breeze (the sound of which is particularly soothing) and birds chirping away to glory, dominated though by koyals. This time is also the season for Jack-Fruits and one can also catch up with the last batch of Mangoes. All these factors relaxes me to the fullest and helps me objectively assess my progress in the last 6 months and set ambitious goals for the next period.

I normally sit in the coconut-grove next to the house, in the old-fashioned "easy chair". This time I started by reviewing my strengths as discovered by the tool StrengthsFinder 2.0. Its important that the vision and the goals that are planned to realize the vision are rooted in strengths. BTW, my strengths (top 5 strength themes as they call it) are Discipline, Relator, Learner, Arranger and Responsibility. As I reflected back on the last 6 months, couple of things have gone pretty well, especially the booting-up of our Bangalore center. On the personal front too my reading, especially on the PMBA topics were on track and had a pretty balanced life, though one suspects my family may not agree citing the Europe and Japan trips. Major disappointment include unable to help our customer, one of the biggest global brand, to launch their music player that is powered by our chipset. Its a deja-vu time. 99.9% is done and there is one deeeeep bug that is delaying the launch. I could also not start learning music as was planned.

I concluded the exercise doing a SWOT analysis and making several changes to my calendar to increase effectiveness. The summary of the exercise will make the goals list that needs to be pursued. This time, I have classified the goals under the 4 categories - To live, To love, To learn and To leave a legacy, inspired by the teaching of Stephen Covey, as articulated in his book First Things First. Overall it was a very satisfying 4 days. I returned energized to the normal world. The key to success is to stick to the plan every day, week and month.

I'm intrigued by two recurring themes that keep coming back w.r.t where I want to be 3-4years from now (its different from what I'm doing now). These two themes are kind of opposite in the body of knowledge they embed. Next few days I'd be reviewing these and the goals with my support group and mentors. Next retreat is planned during last week of December. Same place.

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

Inside iPhone 3GS

2009-06-25T11:07:00.016+05:30

Here's the BoM of iPhone 3GS from iSuppli's analys is.

You can get total iPhone news coverage here.

Reading List for Jun'09

2009-06-08T22:16:00.006+05:30

After hectic business trips to Europe and to Japan in the last 6weeks, life is back to normal. Here are the books I plan to read this month. I tried putting out a summary of learning from each book and frankly failed. Reading is the easiest thing, summarizing requires lot more patience and skill. Here is the list for this month:

Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges
A mentor of mine asked me to read this book. This book has been rated very high in management/leadership and organization development circles. In this book, the author Otto Scharmer proposes a new model for learning and understanding and leading profound change. Instead of analyzing the past to learn, the focus is on learning from and bringing into life the best of all future possibilities. The author argues that behind our blind spots lies the possibilities to understand what we may be and what kind of a future we can create -using our Full Potential - a process the author calls Presencing. I badly needed this book for a workshop that I'd be co-facilitating, under the aegis of SoL South Foundation and a cousin of mine was kind enough to bring this fat book from the US. Thank you Sushma.

The Sec ret
Addition of this book for this month's reading is an afterthought. I've been hearing/reading a lot on the "law of attraction" and some variants of the same theme ("ask and it shall be given", "power of deliberate intent", for example). I picked up this book out of sheer curiosity. You are expected to learn the secrets of almost everything in life - money, health, relationships, happiness. Why not learn the secrets?

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

The 10 most common failures of bad leaders

2009-06-05T22:41:00.006+05:30

In HBR Jun 2009, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman presents the ten fatal flaws that derails the leaders, after analysis over 11,000 360-degree appraisals:

Lack energy and enthusiasm
Accept their own mediocre performance
Lack clear vision and direction
Have poor judgement
Don't collaborate
Don't follow the standards they set for others
Resist new ideas
Don't learn from mistakes
Lack interpersonal skills
Fail to develop others

If you are a leader (all of us should be leaders anyways), start counting your flaws (note that the authors warn that the bad leaders were unaware of their flaws) and talk to your mentor(s( for corrective actions.

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

Remembering Murali (YRM)

2009-05-31T06:38:00.005+05:30

Regularly we hear or read stories of extremes (accident, robbery, loss of job, life threatening disease like cancer and even sudden death of a healthy person). As many times as we hear, we tend to ignore in the belief or hope that it won’t happen to us. 31st May 2008 was one cruel day that ensured that the life is never the same again. This day we lost Y R Muralidhara (known as Murali in family circle and YRM in professional circle), suddenly due to brain haemorrhage. He would have been 40 in a month. Its an year today and there is no better thing to do today than paying a small tribute. He never saw this blog as I had kept it under wraps even from him. Just keep wondering all the encouraging words he would have had, if at all he had seen this blog.

No other person than Murali has touched me in multitude of relationships (Distant relative, Classmate (at SJCE, Mysore), Colleague (at Sasken, and reporting to the same boss), Competitor for a while (I ran Sasken’s Multimedia engg and he ran a similar group at another company which was Sasken’s competition in Multimedia), Potential vendor (I was at Freescale and were evaluating possibility of working with a local company and one such company was where Murali was working and he made a presentation to the Freescale team led by me. Before the start of the meeting, we even shook hands and exchanged cards with a smile that only we two could understand) and of course he was my Brother-In-Law (when I married his sister in 1996). Above all these, he was one of my closest friend/philosopher and I miss him the most in this relationship. This is an attempt to describe him from “my” perspective and to recall some happy memories of the 24yr association I was privileged to have with him.

Our first interaction was in 1984 when we got introduced in a family function. I figured out that this distant relative is of my age and also studying in 10th standard. We quickly became friends and I got some bragging rights very quickly as he secured 19th rank in the state level 10th exams that year. We continued meeting in family functions and the seeds of deep friendship were grown when he moved to Mysore in 1986 for engineering.

We both went to SJCE Mysore (Murali by sheer merit having secured 54th rank in the CET and I getting there with some luck, having secured 1000+ ranking in the CET), and were soon meeting daily. Murali was quickly recognized as one of the brainy of the batch and throughout engineering he was the go-to person to crack hard problems. Many people scored more marks than Murali after learning from him, but Murali was above all the petty thoughts of getting above someone by not teaching; his satisfaction was coming more from the thrill of solving a tough problem, than from scoring some marks. For some reason that I do not remember, we both were commuting together for all the exams. For most exams he used to complete only about 80-90% of the stuff and used to complain that he couldn’t get enough time to complete. Nevertheless, he regularly used to score almost 100% on the stuff he attempted. A big shock came to all of us, when he flunked in “Control Systems”, I guess in 5th Semester. Murali was confident that he has done enough to clear the exam and applied for revaluation and started preparing again with vengeance. However, just a few days before the repeat exam the revaluation results declared him as “pass” and he was able to maintain his 100% record. He is the one that taught me programming, FORTRAN to begin with. I was so scared of going to the computer center alone and Murali helped me by drawing screen shots how the screen would look at the end of every command, till I became confident of fiddling around with the machines. Never did I realize at that time that I’d have a career in software engineering and the foundation laid by Murali would earn me a livelihood.

He was so focused on higher education. He refused to attend to campus interviews as he was sure not to join any company till he completed his masters. However, Murali used to hang around the place where the interviews were being held and was helping his friends on the tough questions the interviewers were posing as and when the guys completing the interviews coming back and leaking the questions.

We prepared together for GATE (1991). We made a timetable on the topics to be studied and it used to be a marathon session from about 10AM to about 9PM. Murali was never allowing me small luxuries like playing cricket in the evenings. We used to take a subject and used to solve all the problems in the text book. If one of us is stuck (it was usually me) the other would wait and/or offer hints to go over the hump. Invariably we used to encounter some really tough problems that we both were unable to solve. I was happy to let it go after spending some time, but Murali won’t. It used to be good for me because that would allow me to go out and indulge in something more interesting.

He got 100+ rank or so in GATE and went to IIT-Kanpur and I, having secured 500+ rank went to REC Surathkal. During this phase our interactions were limited to the “inland letter” or snail mail as people call it now. He used to write beautifully, as he had a natural talent in telling stories – be it narrating some incidents in life, explaining a movie, a novel, a place or something from epics like Mahabharatha (BTW, SriKrishna of Mahabharatha was the person that he admired most). He was always looking for intellectually challenging themes and chose “software reliability” as his area for M.Tech thesis. This field was still nascent at that stage and therefore came in the way securing some “good” jobs in Bangalore based companies. He enjoyed his stay at Kanpur. He was very active in the Kannada Sangha activities and made many friends for life over there. For a while, he was little down as someone known to him played some serious pranks over several weeks, but otherwise he was only reporting happy memories, including a trip to the “valley of flowers” in Himalayas.

After M.Tech, he joined CMC Ltd (1993) (now a part of TCS) in Hyderabad. Though he was staying alone and the salary was relatively less compared to the hi-tech MNCs of Bangalore, he enjoyed his work and the people over there. Our communication now had moved to email. After much prodding from everyone, rather reluctantly he moved to Bangalore when he took up an offer from Sasken (SAS as it was called then, 1995).

We were now colleagues. It was little strange initially as we started sitting in the same meetings, training programs, task forces etc., In Apr 1996, I married his younger sister and 12yr friendship moved to a more formal relationship. Till he moved out of Sasken in early 2003, we used to chat for atleast 1.5-2hrs daily in both office and home and were sharing almost everything.

We both had become managers and were dealing with “people”. Murali, being very big on “values” often used to tell me that he is out of sync with the younger generation. He strived, till his last day, to strike a balance between the “needs” of his people and the “requirements” from his management. It is never easy, especially when the personal value system is out of sync with that of company’s.

He oversaw a tough merger of his small company (300+) into a bigger one (12000+ enggs). He had more problems to sort out as he tried his best to ensure integration. He always felt he was doing a thankless job and was neither appreciated by his team nor by his management. We all were urging him to change the job as it was too stressful. Once he wrote “I am in the state where I am following DVG's kagga line "Kallagu kashtagaLamaLeyu suriye"” He continued, “I am finding "this world" fairly negative in energy and I am feeling tired fighting it out. May be I am not the person to improve things OR things would rather improve without me meddling in them”. He had become philosophical “…some strange peace has descended on me. Peace of some one who has accepted the fate, I guess. May be every scary pressure will be followed by this kind of peace”. It still remains a mystery as to why he hung around in his last job that he had stopped enjoying a long time ago. In one of his last emails to me he had written … “I am sick of salary/money/power related issues, but I have not reached a clarity in mind about my own requirement of salary/money/power”. May be he was a few weeks away from getting that clarity, we would never know.

In between all these, he completed his MBA (PGSM) from IIMB (2003). This was one hell of achievement as his responsibilities had significantly grown both at home and at office. From my perspective, it gave yet another avenue to talk. He used shared stuff he learnt at IIMB, his new classmates, professors and everyone else around. It was a proud moment for the family to participate in the convocation and witness his graduation ceremony. He made some good friends and was an active alumni lending his hand for various activities of IIMB long after he had completed his PGSM.

He had a passion for life in general. He bought a Bullet, though he didn’t go on any big expedition on that. He even taught me to ride this big bike. He bought a site and invested lot of his time and energy with one of the best architects in Bangalore to build his dream house. Unfortunately, he was hit by land mafia and had settled for a very good apartment. Reading books was his another favorite activity. He did have quite a few books on wide range of topics.

Music was his yet another interest. We have had a lot of discussions on the classical music, Kannada songs, the artists, the lyrics, concerts and just about anything related to music. Balamuralikrishna was his favorite musician. Without any formal education he was able to recognize lot of ragas and used to bring out symmetries, patterns and other subtleties in the music. He also drew my attention to the importance of “silence” in classical music.

He was well versed in literature too. Quoting Gita and other Hindu philosophy was very easy to him. Yoga was his another interest. I remember offending him by asking him “who is Patanjali?” In short, as I reflect back, he achieved a lot, knew a lot and experienced a lot in a short life span.

We miss him. Lot of us used to consult him on a very regular basis for several things. Be it a good translation of some poem/phrase, any scientific thing, details of a place, advice on life, advice on work or even interpretation of an unusual/recurring dream. You would always be satisfied and feel comforted after Murali had spoken to you. It’s been tough for everyone around.

Lot of people helped the family to cope; with support, love and compassion. However, I wish to thank one friend and ex-colleague of both of Murali and myself, who went out of the way, perhaps making lot of enemies in the organization, just to ensure that the family got everything they were entitled for.

We both used to discuss our life after retirement, when kids are all grown and perhaps gone out of home. We wanted to stay in the same compound so that we are together for the rest of the life and perhaps carry out lot of activities that we missed during our busy work days. We wanted to help each other on day to day things when we were old. It would have been so comforting to have someone like Murali next door any day, but definitely when I’m old. I now have no option but to rue “Murali, why did you leave so early?”.

Reading List for May'09

2009-05-12T16:06:00.005+05:30

I was traveling on business for 3 weeks (last 2 weeks of Apr and 1st week of May). Actually thought I could read a lot and had carried about 6 books. But a combination of adjusting to time zones, not-so-friendly timings of flights, cramped rooms in business hotels and work load only meant that these books became a nuisance and I had use all my negotiation skills with the tough booking agents of European airlines. Haven't been able to complete a couple of books from my list for Apr'09. So, only two books for this month.

Flip: H ow to Turn Everything You Know on Its Head -- and Succeed Beyond Your Wil dest Imaginings
Bought this book purely for the catchy title. Peter Sheahan, consultant and author of Generation Y, talks of the need to have all the three attributes - fast, good and cheap, to be able to succeed in today's world. The book is centered around the following key principles that include: Action leads to clarity, Positively sweat the small stuff, Give up control to gain control and Business is Personal. Sounds like an easy read at the first glance.

Essential W isdom from a Spiritual Master
I read a fair amount of books on spirituality. I very much liked the thoughts of Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev's ideas after I saw his presentation at TiECon 2007. I also over a period of time, have read lot of short essays by him and have been impressed by the clarity of thought, articulation and simple, yet profound messages. This book provide answers to a lot of questions one might have on fear,desire,suffering,commitment,free will,determinism,God,faith,love, morality etc., and is written in a Q & A style.

Mar-09 - Best of Blog Posts

2009-04-06T19:28:00.003+05:30

As usual, my pick of some of the best posts (from the blogs that I read), starts with Tom Peters. Based on several requests that Tom received for some guidance on how to manage/survive these tough times, Tom posted a list titled Dealing with Recessionary Times. Take a look at it. Now.

Staying on the same topic of recession, Seth Godin talks about the Right Size and asks some thought provoking questions. Seth also has a couple of suggestions on utilizing any slack time one might have.

Another interesting post, again by Seth is titled "Looking for yes", where he urges everyone to see reasons to say how something could be done, rather than looking for reasons on how something can not be done.

A complete change of topic/mood. My friend and Innovation Consultant, Vinay Dabholkar has summarized 9 profiles of Technical Fellows at Miscrosoft, that I found very interesting. He reports that out of these 9, 4 are (still!) individual contributors, 2 are in product strategy teams and the remaining are leading large teams.

Thank you very much,

RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

Reading List for Apr'09

2009-04-05T17:28:00.004+05:30

Pour your heart into it: How Starbucks built a company one cup at a time
I've visited Starbucks stores in several countries and have always been amazed by what they have achieved - consistent customer centric approach, the relaxed atmosphere at their stores, the attitude of their employees(and ofcourse their coffee). As a part of my PMBA study, I have made it a point to read about the great companies. This month, I want to understand what all has gone behind the making of Starbucks.

Co-Opetition: A Revolutionary Mindset That Combines Competition and Co-operatio n
This is another book, which is a part of my PMBA study on strategy. I have been fascinated by Game Theory and encountered the problem (as the authors state) of having too much material on Game Theory that is either heavy on the mathematics part or have examples that have no context to the business. My friend Vinay blogged about this book a while ago and I finally found time to go through it. The authors talk about three concepts - 1. Value net (a framework that forces you to think not just about competition and customer, but also on suppliers and complementors) 2. Role-playing (putting yourself in the shoes and heads of all the players in the game) and 3. PARTS (5 ways of looking into the game - Players, Added value, Rules, Tactics and Scope). Promises to be an interesting read.

The Wisdom of Crowds
I first read about this book in Tom Peters blog post titled The Power of Independent Thinking. In this book the author argues that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." A quick glance revealed that there are lot of (hopefully) easy to understand examples (infact the author points out that the celebrated Google Page Rank that almost gives what you are searching in the very first page of a Google result, is one of the biggest example of the wisdom of crowds).

Class i c Dr ucker: From the pages of Harvard Business Review
I like the prescriptive and almost blunt style of Peter Drucker and have been heavily inspired and influenced by his works. This particular book is a collection of some of his remarkables HBR articles. The chapter on self-management itself would get you an immediate RoI.

Leadership lessons from Tom Peters

2009-03-29T21:57:00.002+05:30

Uber Guru Tom Peters, published a fast company article on 50 leadership qualities, in his typical unorthodox and in-your-face style. Now, blogger Ron Hurst has started commenting on each of these 50 items, that offers his view of the quality, followed by a practical challenge for you to understand each rule, that you may find very interesting.

Some leadership qualities that Tom Peters write include:

1. Leaders on snorting steeds (the visionary greats!) are important.
6. The leader is rarely -- possibly never? -- the best performer.
7. Leaders deliver.
10. Leaders understand the ultimate power of relationships.
17. Leaders are natural empowerment freaks.
26. Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.
33. Leaders wear their passion on their sleeve.
38. Leadership is a performance.
40. Leaders give everyone a cause.
42. Leaders think -- make that know -- that they can make a difference.
45. Leaders revel in surrounding themselves with people who are smarter than they are.
47. Leaders make meaning.
50. Leaders know when to leave.

You can get the complete list here.

Thank you very much,

RamP!

Tyranny of Competence

2009-03-23T22:35:00.003+05:30

Seth Godin talks about having atleast one person in any organization who is the only one who knows some intricate technical details, or the only one who can solve a critical problem. And he's a jerk and everyone acknowledges it with a resigned expression "Yeah, but he really know his stuff ...". Sound familiar? Perhaps sounds very familiar.

The above post immediately reminded me about the chapter "The Tyranny of Competence" in the beautiful book "Deep Change: Discovering the leader within", by Robert E Quinn. Quinn talks about the extreme cases where a powerful individual contributor takes control and then begins to undermine the influence others.

I have observed this concept at two levels. The first one at CxO/VP levels where the person has led an entire organization into a strategy that only he believes, often having a catastrophic after effects. The second one more at an individual contributor/technical lead level where the damage is limited to a particular group, atleast to begin with. So how to distinguish such a person. Here are some (you could sure come-up with a lot more):

You hear this person say:
"The team is full of incompetent people. They just can't get it"
"Given a chance, I will fire more than 50% in this group/floor/site"
"The customer doesn't know what they are into. I told them that their strategy is bound to fail"
"This is the only way the problem can be solved. You/Manager/Customer don't know anything"

Others are saying:
"XYZ is the only one who can get us out of this mess"
"Meeting/brainstorming/discussion has to be postponed as XYZ is not in today"

More than the words, such people create an atmosphere of fear around them. No one has courage to question, as such people tend to admonish in public. Timid managers add to the problem by not being able to rein in such people.

The only way out it seems, especially as a manager is try NOT to have indispensable people and thereby not become a victim of tyranny of competence. If you have successfully dealt with such people and led them to be more co-operative and contributing, I'd love to hear the same.

Photos from the Inaguration

2009-03-21T11:09:00.012+05:30

Some pics from from the inaguration ceremony we had.

Everything is ready for the inaguration:

Gene Sheridan, our CEO, cuts the ribbon,

... and then lights the lamp.

Our CTO, Kashef Hooman also lights the lamp

RamP and Hari obliges the photographers

... and the work begins:

Inaguration of the facility

2009-03-19T00:05:00.003+05:30

18-Mar-09 is a new milestone in my professional life. Gene Sheridan, our CEO, formally inagurated our facility in a simple function that had current and prospective employees, our CTO Kashef Hooman, our vendors, friends and some special people that have helped us to set-up the facility. Its also an important day as we made a presentation to the friendly officials at STPI to register ourselves under the STPI scheme.

We at BridgeCo raised an additional $6M VC funding last month and a significant amount of these monies would be invested in our India operarations.

We had a press release earlier in the day and have got good coverage:

Its been a hectic 3-4 months and has been a fantastic experience so far.

Outliers: The Story of Success

2009-03-07T19:19:00.004+05:30

Malcom Gladwell (author of Blink and Tipping Point) has a sharp eye to observe hidden patterns in everyday life. He has a gift of making mundane look exciting and new. So, I started reading his new book Outliers: The Story of Success with a lot of scepticism. Its an easy, brilliant read, very typical of Gladwell. I'm glad I read it, though I didn't find anything that is actionable for practical application. So, do not expect any self-help types in this book. However, I still wanted to share a few central ideas from this book. Here we go:

The central premise of this book is that there is no self-made person and people don't rise from nothing and successful people indeed owe a lot to parentage and patronage. They are also beneficiaries of hidden advantages, extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make it big in a ways that others cannot. He lists the following things (beyond passion, talent and hardwork) that help people achieve extraordinary success:

1. Skewed age distribution at the time of selection, streaming and differentiation: At a very early age a few kids that are born closest to the cut-off date for some selection get a head start over others.
2. The 10,000 hour rule: Achievement is talent plus preparation. Upon the closer look at the succesful and gifted, innate talent seem to play a smaller role than preparation.
3. Intelligence has a threshold: Intellect and Achievement are far from perfectly corelated. A high IQ is not of much use, if you are surrounded by a handful of clever ones, you need other traits too, especially "practical intelligence".
4. Practical Intelligence: Knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it and knowing how to say it for maximum effect. Its practical in nature and helps you read situations correctly and get what you want. Critically, this kind of an intelligence, is different from the analytical ability measured by IQ.
5. Demography: Culture, Generation and family history can give the greatest of opportunities.

In the second part of the book, Gladwell questions whether the traditions and attitudes we inherit from our forebears can be used to analyse why people succeed and how to make people better by taking their cultural legacies seriously.

As a first example he talks about the role of PDI (Power-Distance Index) in analysing some chilling air crashes (This chapter in itself is a great read for anyone trying to improve bottoms-up communication in an organization). PDI is concerned with attitudes toward hierarchy, specifically with how much a particular culture values and respects hierarchy. With numerous examples (some case studies in avionics industry) on the communication between the first-office and pilot/ATC, Gladwell shows how the cultural background of someone having a high PDI affected crucial decisions, that could have averted several crashes.

Other cultural traits that play a major role in success/failure are 1. individual-collectivism scale (how much individuals expect to look after themselves) and 2. uncertainitly avoidance (how well does a culture tolerate ambiguity).

Its fairly clear that each of us comes from a culture with its own distinctive mix of strengths and weaknesses, tendencies and predispositions. Who we are cannot be separated from where we are.

Now comes the interesting fact. Gladwell shows that thoroughout history farmers who grow rice have always worked harder than almost any other kind of farmer. Its no wonder that China whoch grows a lot of rice, also has its people that are very comfortable in math. Gladwell argues that this fact has got nothing to do with intelligence, but because of doggedness that is needed to understand maths and that this trait comes directly because they are used to work harder - afterall they have been growing rice for ages.

In essence, Outliers says that the success follows a predictable course. Success is simply not the sum of decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.

Enjoy!!

Reading List for Mar'09

2009-03-06T21:09:00.005+05:30

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Last month, I read Nassim Taleb's Black Swan: The Impact of Highly Improbable. It was a tough read. Though enjoyable and insightful, it left my head spinning on several occasions. It was natural then, to read Taleb's first book - Fooled by Randomness. In this book, Taleb, a professional trader and mathematics professor, examines what randomness means in business and in life and why human beings are so prone to mistake dumb luck for consummate skill.

Outliers: The Story of Success
Malcom Gladwell (author of Tipping Point and Blink) in this book poses a provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot."

A Briefer History of Time
I had tried reading Stephan Hawking's earlier book A Brief History of Time. I found it a very tough read. When I saw this book, I jumped on it and hope that it would make an interesting and easier read. The book essentially answers the question on the universe: where it's going and how it began, discussed at length are the mysterious dark matter and dark energy-both of which can only be observed by their gravitational effects and are believed to make up 90 percent of the universe. Physics and Mathematics were my favourites while I was studying and I now plan to get back in touch with some Physics again.

Feb-09 - Best of blog posts

2009-03-01T19:36:00.002+05:30

Tom Peters urges to commit to life long learning as a core-value. He also offers 48 pieces of advice for creating a winning strategy that is inherently sustainable.

Quoting Malcom Gladwell's article In the Air: Who says big ideas are rare, Innovation Consultant Vinay Dabholkar argues that the environment is usually pregnant with the idea and metaphorically ideas are floating in the air like clouds. He concludes that for “systematic innovation” we should be focused on creating charged idea clouds and leave “connections with the cloud” to the serendipitous moments.

Seth Godin offers an interesting suggestion to overcome your fear of creativity, brainstorming, intelligent risk taking or navigating a tricky situation. He says the best way in such cases would be to sprint. When we sprint, he says, all the internal dialogue falls away and we just go as fast as we possibly can. I tried this technique recently when I was supposed to prepare a presentation for my boss and CEO. Seth reminds "You can't sprint forever. That's what makes it sprinting. The brevity of the event is a key part of why it works".

Elsewhere, Blogger, Author, Venture Capitalist and Speaker Rajesh Setty gives his perspective on Ideal workplace and Ideal work. Too good that, it kind of resonates with the vision and the kind of people that I want to hire for my new venture.

ChangeThis.com publishes Jugglers's manifesto (pdf), where the author Ian Sanders, attempts to bust a few myths about work and business and argues:

Success today does not need to be confined to a singular talent as a specialist; you can mix up your skills and know-how as a generalist. Generalists have the scope to look across borders, to connect different disciplines, thereby offering more value in the marketplace. They offer employers and clients added value. Also, success does not need to be restricted to a job title—it can be the by-product of who you really are, where the Work You becomes The Real You. And forget Work/Life balance, this is about Work/Play integration where the boundaries between work and play are more blurred than ever. That can be challenging but also offers some great opportunities. Being a Juggler is about carving out a unique work life which wraps up your passions and talents, where you focus on all you are good at free of any imposed limits.