Mid year retreat

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

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



You can get total iPhone news coverage here.

Reading List for Jun'09

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 Secret
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

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:

1. Lack energy and enthusiasm
2. Accept their own mediocre performance
3. Lack clear vision and direction
4. Have poor judgement
5. Don't collaborate
6. Don't follow the standards they set for others
7. Resist new ideas
8. Don't learn from mistakes
9. Lack interpersonal skills
10. 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