Perfection

Nature is perfect and yet, perfection itself is unnatural.
Kind of strange :-)

Perfection is a tricky subject.
If used as means of motivation to do better, it is priceless. However oftentimes, the stress of trying to achieve perfection can take away the sense of achievement and pleasure in a well done fun activity. In the worst case, a person is can give up because perfection is unachievable and anything else is not good enough.

Agreed that 100% is better than 99% but if all the way is impossible to reach even half way through is better than not attempting.

(Otherwise none of us would have cleared our school and college, we'd be forever stuck in some grade trying to achieve the perfect scores!)

in continuation ..

of my previous post on 'personal mountains to climb'.

Part of a manager's job allocating the right mountain to the right person.
What is right for a person would depend on their capability, maturity, risk-taking, attitude, experience and so many other things that make each person unique.

Too high to climb would be demotivating as would too low. Wrong planning would lead to 'accidents' and free fall.

What is better?

What is better?
Scaling the heights of a small mountain or reaching half way through to the highest peak?
Even when the effort required for the job is same, what is preferred? being mediocre at a tough job or being the best at a relatively easy job?

It guess it depends on personal choice and what matters to a person.

If the person is motivated by success the best way would be starting with a small mountain, conquering it and repeating with a higher peak each time. This ensures both success and satisfaction.

If a person is motivated by the act of climbing itself, the challenge of reaching higher, and not so much by the destination in the form of the peak, it is preferred that the person starts with a high enough mountain to scale and feel exhilarated all through the climb. There is no specific target and the person can scale as high as they can.

So also with work. Whether to join a top-notch company and always on the toes to prove your worth or of join a mediocre company and be a star!

Stereotypes..

There is nothing more inpiring than the crumbling of an archiac stereotype.

Once such 'moment' I encountered a few days back ..

A women in her 50s talking on her cellphone without a headset while driving a stick-shifting Honda-CRV in traffic and seemingly at ease.

Why is it iconoclastic --
- Its not like every other car on the road is a Honda-CRV
- much less a woman driving it
- even less, a woman in her 50s
- while talking on the her cellphone
- without a headset
- and also maneuvering the stick-shift in traffic at the same time
- and most of all, showing no signs of stress, hurry or discomfort..

Yet another analogy ..

There seems to be a perfect analogy between Food and Movies ..

Some like it spicy with lots of 'masala' and yet others like it like it boiled and bland!
And just using the same spices, like not all 'chaatwalas' can tingle the taste buds, also also with movie directors/actors. Even a master chef/director have their good or bad days.

If you have the same fare for a long time, the taste wears off and you have to keep trying new stuff.

There's a pattern to my blog

Most of my blog entries are related to patterns and analogies, so it makes sense to update the title ...

Power and Control

I always maintain that I have no need for power, and I yet I have an inherent need to be in control.

Is there a contradiction? After some thought I have the most convincing reasoning that I have found points to the fine distinction between power and control.

If life is car, control is the steering wheel and power is the gear/accelerator/clutch combo.
I care about where I am going, not necessarily how fast or in which gear.

Cast and Typecast

I forced the doctor to prematurely remove my cast - it felt too much of a constraint, icky and stinky; understandably my walk feel funny and wobbly and worst of all it hurts.

This made me think of the parallels between our mind and bodies.

We put cast/plasters on to specific areas with a specific purpose. They support or restrict our join/muscle motion and prevent injury, stress or pain.

So also with out opinions. They are no more than a 'cast' on our thinking. What purpose do they serve? Maybe to prevent us from stress or thinking too much, maybe as a mode self preservation. And yet, even though they serve our purpose, to someone outside our mind, they stink!

When the cast it cut, normal things like wriggling our toes or the sensation of water on the skin are an exhilarating experience, so also when suddenly we remove the 'typecast' in the mind - it can quite stimulating!

After the 'cast' is removed, normal things like walking can be scary and hurtful. It isn't too different with the tearing down of metal shackles. It feels unfamiliar, is intimidating and it hurts. And just like there is a need to bandage for some more time after the removal of the plaster, one probably need reassurance and support to break down the mental barriers.

We are usually very accommodating of other people's physical cast - we give them all the support they need to tide over the time, get strong and get back on their feet; And yet it is so hard to be accepting of the mental casts and give people the help they need to be strong enough to break out of their mental typecasts.

Why am I writing this?

.. given the fact that I am neither looking for a change nor looking to hire..

After an interview ..

If you check the status of your interview, you are too desperate, if you don't you not interested.

Workplace!

When you think about it - there are similarities between your -
- a workplace and an eatery .. work and food ..

You go to a place for different reasons, either because you like the food, the price or the ambience.



- the food can be fancy or home-made or a unique recipe (start up??)
- ambience can vary from the casual to the formal, friendly to the oppressive
- might go to a place by choice or because there is not alternative. Then again, you might go by habit or because you dislike changes
- some have a buffet style while others put you the hands of the chef


However the food, whatever the place, unless you can trust the chef - its no good.

EQ

IQ : Intelligence Quotient -> indicator of the extent of intelligence
EQ : Emotional Quotient -> indicator of how emotional you are :-)

Bitter pill

Feedback is a means for remediation when things aren't going as expected. When people are brutal in their feedback they need to realize the medicine analogy.

A bitter pill may be more effective but a little sugar alongside will go a long way in getting someone to take the pill in the first place.

Apples and Oranges..

People often quote "You can't compare apples with oranges!"
Every time I hear this I suppress the urge to retort back and ask, "Why not?"

As long as you have identified the context/attribute for the comparison you can very well compare them (or anything else for that matter)

For beginners :
- you can easily compare the Vita A, B, C etc. content in each of them
- you can compare the Sugar, Iron, Sodium, Cal, Mag etc. content in each of them
- you can compare the price and availability in a shop
- you can compare their weight, density, texture
- you can compare which is easier to grow in a particular soil/climate
- you can compare which is more susceptible to a particular disease/rot
- you can compare what make a better diet recommendation based on a person's condition
- you can compare which of these fruit has more juice for the same quantity
- you can compare which stays longer with and without refrigeration

What the heck, you can even compare which taste you like better!

Women's day madness..

Women's day madness is catching up everywhere. Companies are outdoing each other in showing that they care about their 'women' employees and shower them with gifts etc. To me it sounds no different from the hype and madness of 'Valentine's Day'.

I am a woman and even if I had a choice, I'd still chose to be one. I feel, act, live, enjoy as a woman but that make me neither inferior nor superior in any way. I have enjoyed many a wonderful conversations with a friend of mine. And yet, oftentimes I hear him say - 'You sound too much like a guy!'. Its meant as a compliment but it touches a raw nerve.

Am I too much of a feminist? What is a feminism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism)
Going by : "feminism is a belief in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes" - I am an emphatic feminist.

But this does not mean I am the same as a man. Equality is not the same as being identical. Men and Women are different and can celebrate the differences and still be equal.

(All these conferences and workshops are no more than a lot of 'gyan' that I could do without. Don't give me 'gyan' about being a woman and waste my time. Don't tell me of how good and tough I am, my triumphs and the tribulations, I live through them every day. I love it all and would have it no other way. I have my special privileges and I have my unique challenges. Take these lectures to the families of women and maybe it would make a difference, something these conferences certainly will not)

To each his own ..

Each person has a unique way of working. Each one attaches different values to different aspects of their work life :

- What they do
- How they do
- Who asks them to do
- How much for what they do
.. and many many more

What they do : Technology
Some people get hung up on the technology or content aspect of their work and make a strong distinction between 'good work 'and 'bad work' - cool work and crappy work etc. They want to work on the latest technologies because they happen to be the cutting-edge technologies, not because they are better suited for the particular work. Technology becomes the end goal rather than a means to achieve a goal.

How they do : Process
Some people are all gung-ho about the proper way of doing things. All they care about is that the process be defined, followed, created, reproducible, documented and the like. While it is all for the good, they sometimes (oftentimes) lose sight of the fact that these process are created for a purpose and are not the purpose in themselves .

Who asks they to do : Hierarchy
Then there a people who would do/not do a certain task depending on who ask them to do it. It can usually be assumed that something coming from your parents/Sr. management etc is more serious than your friend/colleague etc. saying the same thing. Nothing really wrong in it. The pain comes during the crunch times when the luxury of the message coming 'through-proper-channels' isn't necessarily there.

How much for what they do : Money
I don't care about what you make me work on as long as you pay me and pay me well! All very well except that this becomes the very reason for doing the least wanted job and eventually never grow out and above - even in the monetary sense - the very reason which made you take this job in the first place becomes the reason you get stuck.

Each person needs to find the right balance of all that is important to them and their work in their job spheres.

Theory of Comparative advantage and micromanagement

Comparative advantage was first described in an essay on the corn trade. It was to England's advantage to trade various goods with Poland in return for corn, even though it might be possible to produce that corn more cheaply in England than Poland.

The details available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

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Micro management is more common than is obvious.

So often you'll see team leads doing the role of engineers, managers doing the work of leads (even engineers), and directors micro managing managers and so on. Maybe (note maybe) they do it better than the people they manage but it doesn't necessarily follow that they much do it just because they do it better (or think that they do it better!)

Setting aside the cliched (though sensible) arguments like - let your team learn from the mistakes etc; it makes business sense for people to to do they own job and leave their team's job to the team - even at the perceived penalty of doing it less efficiently, less quality etc.

Given your limited resources of time and scalability, The law of comparative advantage kicks in. The overall advantage of you doing your job is much higher than you doing the role of someone else who is lower in the food chain. This comparative advantage more than offsets the penalty of your team doing what you would do potentially better, faster, cooler, whatever!

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What happens if you can do your staff's role better than they can and if you don't have enough work for yourself? should you?
Unless you are paid very poorly (in which case you should anyway leave your job) you run the risk of not adding enough value to justify your cost and should start looking for a better match between your price and value.

Birth Order

Of all the theories that claim to explain human behavior I have found Transaction Analysis the easiest to understand.

Explaining personalities in terms of relative size of 'parent', 'adult' and 'child' is easy to grasp. A child brings spontaneity, creativity and unadulterated emotions - the felt concept of life. A parent brings a sense of authority, nurturing, criticism - the taught concept of life. An adult is our ability to think and determine actions based on data - it is what brings in the thought concept of life.

Relationships and manifested in interactions between various components in different people. Intimacy, conflict, dependence, games, all are explained as interactions between adult-adult, child-child/parent-parent, child-parent or ulterior transactions.

I have observed for quite some time a pattern and correlation between a person and his/her birth order. Only now it occurs to me that probably the reason why the birth order has an impact on a person is because it determines how dominant are the parent/adult/child in our personalities.

When a couple has their first child, they are still unsure of what to expect. Their behavior is tentative, they strive hard to become the world's best parent. They want everything to be perfect. The child is always in the spotlight, her behavior under a scanner, to be analyzed to the minutest details. Under close supervision which inevitably leads to excessive nurturing and/or criticism, the child develops a big PARENT component.

The opposite happens in case of the youngest child. The parents by now are seasoned pros in child rearing and no longer fret over an upset stomach. They are no longer panic at the child starting late to walk and no longer work hard to make sure the child has mastered the alphabets in their second year itself. They are more able to enjoy the child as a child. Without any pressure on either themselves or the child to prove that they are capable. The child on account of elder sibling and (by now) more mature parents is pampered. As a result of being the baby of the family, child has a big CHILD component in their personalities.

The in-between children are of course more balanced. And not to forget that a lot depends on the parents themselves and the unique circumstances of the child.

Neither a big CHILD nor a big PARENT component is good/bad in themselves. They just bring a different quality to the table.

Pattern Matching .. intuition continued

Whoever said software is all about logic - wasn't too far away from truth!

What is Intuition?
A black-boxed, custom built proprietary pattern matching algorithm used for predicting. It can be fine tuned over time but is near impossible to reverse engineer. It is certainly not collaborative and license is tied to the owner.

What is reasoning and logic?
An open-sourced, collaborative pattern matching algorithm for predicting and coming to conclusions. It is generic and richer but of times too many incompatible versions available simultaneously leading to confusion. No licensing requirements and anyone is free to use.

Sounds familiar??

The tough thing is deciding when to go for the proprietary model and when to use open source :)

Intuition..

The most important gut-feeling that a person needs is to know is when to trust your gut-feeling ..

Working ..

When you think of it, there is a reason why exercising is called working out. There are so many parallels.

First and foremost, different people have different reasons for working out, some do it for the sake of doing it, some enjoy doing it, some do it for the end results and some are advised/initiated by their family/friends/doctors into taking it up.

Some people love working out in a gym while others like to do it within the confines of their home. Each person has its own set of favorite equipment and exercises. Some like to stretch out on a mat while the others sweat it out on the treadmill. There are those who find the gym ball fun while other might like to do the weights. Just like each work is important but different so also the different form of exercising. Who is to say that aerobics is better than yoga or weights training. It depends on your attitude, aptitude , metabolism, body type, unique circumstances and most certainly what you are trying to achieve. Depending on your attitude you might prefer to go solo on a treadmill or join a group for kick boxing.

Some enjoy the process all along while others can wait to finish it and get done. Some do it with music while others are totally focussed on the dials. Some micromanage each micro-gram and calorie while others lose focus of what it was that got them into this and do anything at random.

To some it is a form or relaxation and for others it means a lot of pushing and pumping to feel the rush of the adrenalin. Some love all the action and excitement that it adds to their life while others to calm their frayed nerves.

Some come to run away from others while others join a gym to meet more people. The way you chose where to work(out) depends on various factors, the equipments, cost, timing, culture, availability, distance or simple brand recognition - and there are those who just like to 'belong' to a cool club.

Some are self driven and push themselves to newer limits each time. Others need the goading from the trainers to continue. Just like at work, a good trainer/companion can have a lasting impact and make all the difference between loving it or hating - not to forget success or failure. Doing it wrong or not following the rules can be disastrous.

Different people achieve different amount of success. Then again, different have different goals and define success differently. Take the case of the simple treadmill. Each person chooses a different workout with the exact same equipment - just like at work. They choose a different program, a different timeout, a different gradient, a different speed. Some do it fast but don't last long. There are others who are slow but go far. Some others ramp up fast while others like to go gently. Some put a time limit (9-5??) while some put a limit in the form of calories (Finish this work and go). Some would work hard enough until they get their hearts pumping!

Just like at work, if you are doing all right, you go achieve a higher goal each time. The fitness level just like success at work is a factor of many things, your training, your trainer, your hard work, the right equipment/tools, your perseverance, your metabolism (smartness??) . Just like at work, experience and age play some role but only some.

I could go on and on .. I love analogies, patterns, abstract stuff but I guess its enough for now.