Mixed feelings..

Recently my company took all the 'ladies' to a one day conference
organized to (presumably) help them live their lives better, balance
work-life and the like.

A good initiative no doubt, it was done with the right intentions, spending a lot of time, effort and money in organizing the whole stuff in such a big way; but for various reasons I seem to have mixed feeling about it.

- I have never felt discriminated against at work, NEVER. I feel giving the women a day off, taking them to a 5 star hotel etc etc is in fact a reverse form of discrimination.

- All discrimination usually happen outside of the workplace - at home, in the family, on the streets, most certainly the movies, fix these if you can.

- It would be so appropriate to hold these sessions for the 'family', parents, in-laws and sensitize them to the fact that the women put as much (if not more) effort in their workplaces, as much as their sons so why not spare them some of the chores or encourage their sons to contribute some more.

- Another good way to change the whole setup would be to take all the 'managers' and sensitize/evaluate them so that they do not create a culture of discrimination - everything at the workplace flows from there. All the policies and good intentions come to a naught with a 'poor' manager.

- Maybe there is some merit in helping the women live better in the current situation; till the time bigger, broader, more permanent changes can happen.. somehow I didn't feel I wanted to be a part of it.

The good part of the whole exercise, I was (very appropriately) missed in the 'ladies' emailing list and got a good excuse to escape ... I have always felt that a 'lady' is an euphemism and glorification for renunciation of all the fun things in life. You are expected to conform to a particular way of speaking, walking, eating, dressing, living and need give up on most of the fun things ...

Familiarity vs Distance

Often people quote :
- "Familiarity breeds contempt"
- "Distance make the heart grow fonder"

What I have noticed in practice is that, initially you do miss a person, but with time, you learn to live on your own and there comes a time when you actually prefer it!

Once the person is back, you resent not being able to 'do your thing'

On the other end, the more you get to know a person, the more you are able to appreciate them, quite the opposite of contempt!

Does your car conform to the standard?

Check out the degree to which your car conforms to or deviates from the typical Indian car -

Q1. Does it have something hanging from the rear-view mirror?
If you running out of ideas, popular candidates are, teddies, bunnies, CDs, toys, beads/garlands, air freshner - particularly the leaf pattern, Chinese Feng Shui stuff, flowers - both fresh and artificial, piece of cloth (especially the holy ones), crystal...

Q2. Does it have a box of tissues?
Ideally an ornamental box sitting in the back.

Q3. Does it have God or some other 'holy stuff' sitting in the middle of the front deck/dashboard?
Plently of choices here too, could be an idol, a cross, you get the picture I am sure. If you want to go beyond the ordinary, you could offer flowers, agarbattis and what not.

Q4. Does it have an air freshner bottle on the front left?
Minor deviations are possible on the position and type.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

No I am not talking about the movie. I am talking about managers.

I had noticed some absolutely wonderful managers having totally terrible managers report to them. I often wondered why do these seemingly perfect managers hire/tolerate these horrible managers, can't they train them to be better? be more sensitive? can't they get rid of them in the very least before they lose the whole team?

It suddenly occurs to me that maybe there is a purpose to it?
Is it possible that the reason is as simple as - 'Good managers don't want to (either consciously or otherwise) get rid of the 'Bad managers. Could it be that they are - knowingly or unknowingly playing Good cop, Bad cop with the team. One relentlessly pushes the team and makes them work by coercion and the other being the popular one make them work due to a personal rapport. Is it possible that the 'Good' manager is actually keeping the 'Bad' manager to do his dirty job.

Strangers : Therapy - II

Striking a conversation with strangers is never easy. It feels kind of odd, you never know how the other person is taking it, then of course there is the issue of invading someone Else's space, privacy, zone. Any attempts to conversation run the risk of being blown off in no time.

And yet, once is a while comes a stranger who you can talk to you. The complex shortlisting of "The Stranger" is an unexplained phenomena, an obscure inexact science (or is it an art?). Part I guess is the instincts figuring out in the sub conscious that a person is 'your type'. the other of course is the body language, the moods, state of mind, circumstances, life situation, etc. Once you talk, you get a glimpse into the other person which at times compels you to dig deeper.

A stranger, bright enough to understand, a good conversationalist, attentive and appreciative of what you say - and most critically if you can trust the person - A deep long conversation with such a person can be an healing experience - an amazing form of Therapy. With such a rare person, you can talk and be your true self - without the fear of being judged, better still, figure out what is your true self, that which has been tarnished by the constant grease paint and role play in life, roles and relationships.

Its not that we can't talk to people who we love, admire and are close to, our friends, family, role models. Of course we do talk to them, have deep meaningful conversations with them, learn, relax and grow in the process. However with all relationships, there is an inherent sense of expectation, not so much as to do something or live up to something - but more like a mental map of yourself in the other person's mind and usually you end you reinforcing that image and etching it deeper. The image is not bad per say but can be stifling when you want to explore other facets of self. You don't how the other person will react if they see something that they are not accustomed to, hear something that they don't associate with you, experience something about you which was never a part of the possibilities in their opinion. The reaction can range from a wow!, to a disappointment or a sense of let down! You can't always risk it.

Enter the stranger - there is no prior association. There are no expectations to fulfill, no roles to play, no images to sustain, no fear of disapproval, no sense of duty. You can simply bounce ideas without the fear of sticking it in. You end up vocalizing some of your innermost thoughts and feelings, frequently surprising your yourself in the process. Oftentimes, the surprise is due to the fact that the thoughts had been hidden even from your own self and you never realized they existed!

Over a period of time, as you interact, the stranger fades away away and you gain a friend and ...

Gossip : Therapy - I

As a part of a recent training, the instructor was pointing about the importance of being loyal - specially to a person when he/she is not around. This essentially boils down to 'Not Gossiping'. During the course of the ensuing discussion, a very bright person mentioned that 'Gossiping was Therapeutic' - felt that it is relaxing to talk about what's going on (or not going on) between Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai .. so on and so forth.

The statement stuck me a blasphemous to begin with, I was shocked, after all how can you make a statement like that! Yet, is there some merit in this? Is gossip really a therapy? If not, why is so widespread? Most of the popular printed matter would fall in this category, TV? why yes.

Gossip can be very damaging to a relationship, it is unhealthy, its sick, there are no arguments there - we all know it, but why it is so rampant?

- To begin with, most people gossip about someone unconnected like the 'stars'. Its a low risk topic to bond/talk with friends/acquaintances/colleagues/strangers - low risk in the sense that its a third person we are talking about, neither you nor me! Especially so if the third person is so remote or unconnected to our daily lives like the movie stars.

- If I 'gossip' I don't have to 'expose' my real self. I can continue with this artificial talk and yet have no (real) conversation at the end of it.

- To talk about the short-comings of others gives a (short-lived and false) sense of high by comparison. Oh the virtuous me! - I would never do such a things ... kind of feeling.

- Can't be held accountable for what is said - after all its gossip! Someone told me .. I read somewhere .. I found out .. inevitably it is something you can not trace.

- Makes the person with the gossip feel better cooler ... I know something that you don't.

- Living a life by proxy, a vicarious experience of the forbidden or all that is aspirational. What we can't do, want to do, we talk about through others who have done it or can do it.

- Above all, gossip is a 'Total Time-Pass'. You can sit and idle our the time without too much effort on your grey cells

Mooving with the times

Is it a coincidence? Is is by choice? Is it by expectations? Is it by nurturing? Is it how it is?

... that in the Moov ad,

When the husband is shown to be having a back pain, the wife is depicted giving him a nice rub.

When the wife is tossing and turning with a back pain, the husband is sleeping peacefully. The wife gets up, puts on Moov and goes back to sleep. It occurs neither to the wife to wake up the husband nor to the husband to help the wife!

Isn't it time that we move ahead. It is true that at times we depict the way things are, but it is also true what we depicts goes into feeding the way it should be.

Time to move on ...

Words and Characters

Words reveal a lot about a person, the written words even more so.
In this age of the email communications, I guess its got more to do with characters than words. So very literally each character you use (or skip), ends up reflecting your own character :)

What I have observed that people who tend to use acronyms (FYI, BTW, TC, CU, v.good, :) etc. )extensively are more likely to be of the 'Minimalistic' types as opposed to the 'Elaborate' kinds who tend to write full bodied mails.

Relationships..

In a relationship :

You have authority when you can demand someone do something for you. Authority could be due to your position, control, circumstances, anything.

Trust is when you can ask and you know that the person would most certainly comply as long as it is possible and reasonable

Request is when things are tentative; trust is building up but not at the stage where you inherently know that the persons would probably do your bidding, but then could as likely be proven wrong, or the manner in which the stuff is done would ensure that you don’t ask again.


The relationship could be at different stages for different stuff between the same two people -
(Most) wives can -
- demand that the husbands do all the driving,
- trust the husbands to take care of them
- request that husbands cook at times

1986

The year was 1986; I was in my 10th grade and we had a chapter in history about Max Muller, Aryans and the origin or languages. It impressed me greatly to think that all the languages might probably have a single origin and someone had painstakingly researched it. Was is a coincidence that most languages have a similar sounding word for 'Mother', Mata, Mather ...? It fascinated me for all these years as how different people, far of places are all tied by some ancient history of the spoken words. I would consciously or otherwise try to find similarity in words of different languages and feel ecstatic each time I was successful.

Today after 20+ years of letting the thought languor in the backyards of my mind, I decided to study it further. As always, I googled - 'Max Muller origin of languages'

I wasn't prepared for what I got. From the little I read and researched, I can't seem to hold Max Muller in very high regards anymore.

I finally figured it out ..

Figured out the difference.

I have come to believe that predominantly there are two types of people and by extension work places. The first kind are those that are organized, hard working, disciplined, planned and taking work and everything seriously. In the MBTI lingo they might be frames as the 'J' Types. The other are the starkly differently 'P' types, the seemingly chaotic, disorganized, go-with-the-flow types, working at odd-times, having no predictable schedule or delivery and yet, they are often the very brightest and driven by passion for what they are doing.

I guess it is no coincidences that creative companies have more of the latter types. Companies (like my ex-company) that favor the 'P' type are more likely to come up with the next-big-idea - something so totally cool. And yet terrible though it may sound, it is the 'J' type companies that seem to have the discipline to be able to monetize an idea, irrespective of whether the idea what theirs or not in the first place. They are planned and disciplined enough to take the idea to fruitation, predictable enough for the customers to be able to trust them.

The 'P' types are more likely to discover and start to the new place, however, on the way, they are distracted by tons of stuff and often the 'J' types overtake them and beat them to it.

This is the single biggest difference I have seen in my last two companies, one is inherently 'cooler' and the other more 'profitable'

A taste for the wierd

After a period of hibernation and fasting, my thoughts buds are again in action, confirming my doubt about their taste for the wierd.

Why is an easy, fun task called a 'Cake Walk'?
Walking on a mushy, slippery, gooey, spongy, soft, creamy, sticky, icky, sweet cake can neither be easy, nor fun and most certainly a waste of both the cake and the effort of walking; not to forget the mess that is left behind to clean!

Virtualization : God and Humans - part II

My last entry was an analogy on God and Human with Computers
http://jainshruti.blogspot.com/2006/09/god-and-humans.html

I thought, I blogged and I thought I was done. But as usual I was wrong.
A friend of mine send me a comment and had me - what else, but Thinking!

This is what he said :
" Now what happens when we introduce concept of virtualization. now we have many virtual gods that confuses the hell out of humans :-) "


So what about Virtualization? How does it change things? Does it really change things?

Virtualization does not change the intrinsic capability of the machine, it has still the same type and number of CPUs, the same the same horse power, so in a way nothing changes.

What changes however is that the user has the ability to choose the the OS, and not just that, the user can choose how many OS there are at any point of time. He can choose to have guest OSes, use one OS for one particular feature and put another to a completely different use. He can play around as per his wish, needs, habit, training, upbringing, convenience, whims, fancy, belief, bias, circumstances, ease-of-use whatever we call it.

It isn't too much different when it comes to the God/Human analogy? Why do we have so many Gods, so many Saints, God Men, Angels, and the like. Just like we have strong opinions about different OSes, each of the Gods has a particular aspect that appeals to us and we worship that, oftentimes we have more than one God/Saint that we believe in. We pray/call either or many, knowing in our heart that God is one.

At times, our belief in 'Our God' is so strong that we argue till no end about which God/OS is more appropriate, totally forgetting that it is all 'virtual'

As a parting thought? What about the Atheists?
I suppose they are the no frills people who prefer to work without an OS, let alone Virtualization!

God and Humans

Another of those really weird thoughts that occasionally hit my mind -

All religions and the like insist that God is within us all and eventually we are one with ‘Him’. The greeting ‘Namaskar’ itself means that I salute the God with you, a reiteration of the thought that God resides deep inside us.

Well, the analogy the this conjures is that of a computer.
- God is the Super User, operating in the Kernel Mode
- Man a mere user, operating in the User Mode

The mode in which God operates gives ‘Him’ the Infinite privileges to do anything, anytime
The User modes gives us only finite privileges and we need to share the resources with multitude of other similar users like us. We can be preempted, de-scheduled or logged out at any point of time. We have access to only a slice of the time-share, all the other time we are in a state of perpetual wait-event.

Just like God and Us are one and yet so different, so also the Super User/Normal User a part of the same Operating environment, using the same CPU to power themselves, composed of the same sets of machine instructions and yet so different in what they can do.

A parting thought..
Why restrict the analogy to God and Humans, couldn't the other life forms be represented by scripts, applications, cron jobs, daemons and shells in the analogy?

So many thoughts

So much to write about, thoughts are flitting in my head and making me dizzy. I would love to write, think, analyze and compartmentalize (not necessarily in that order) and it frustrates me to not be able to do that with the limitations of time.

Just jotting them down so that I can revisit them when I have time and if they are still have a hold on my head.

Here goes,

- Why this cyncism on my part about 'Self Help' courses and books? partly because they attempt to provide quick fixes or ideal recipes for how to live and lead your life - and that too with so scope for variations and disagreements

- Also because I am inherently sceptical about stuff that is too popular and sold very well - and that's what '7 Habits of Highly Effective People' is.
And when you think of it, there is inherently nothing in this course that you dont already know, even though I have to agree that a couple of analogies are good. This is a good case study for packaging (old wine in new bottle) and marketing

- How is emotional bank account analogy (courtesy 7 Habits of Steven Covey) different or similar to the strokes or Transactional Analysis

- Emotional account analogy and the concept of why a deposit is not really so until the other party agrees it is so

- MBTI vs 7 Habits, is there an implication that some types are more 'effective' than others? I see myself clenching my teeth and feel strongly against this kind of generalization.

.. more to come

Work, Life ... Balance!

At one point of time I had given thought to the idea of work-life balance and how much all the companies and HR talk about it.

It sounded absurd to me. How can the company provide or help provide a work-life balance to a person because it is ONLY THAT EXACT PERSON who knows the EXACT POINT at that particular point in time where things balance!

Just like a scale on a pivot where -
- different weights against an object balance at different points on the scale
and,
- different things at the same place need different weights to balance

so also people.

Where does my balance in life lie depends on my capabilities, my aspirations, my ambitions, my life position, my support system and a million other things.

Thankfully its not hard to achieve even though its sounds hard.

Now coming to the point of why I believe HR has no role to play in it.
Why because I get rewarded accordingly to the amount of effort that I put and the extent of output that I produce for my work. The more I work, the more I get rewarded. The more I give of myself to my work, the less I have of myself for everything else. I need to myself figure out what works for me. How does HR (or anybody else for that matter) decide which is the right amount of myself give where?

Last but not the least, the more give of myself to work, the less I have of myself for everything less but not necessarily less of life. If work is important to me, and work is my life, the more I put myself into my work, the more I have of life and that is perfect balance too!

A bolt from the blue!

Sometimes simple concepts strike you with a violent force of realization and leave you stunned. It so happened today that I was interacting with a friend of mine and we discussed how men like planning things, being in control and having an action/activity packed holidays where women in general would prefer a lazy, unplanned, go-with-the-flow kind of time. There are exceptions ofcourse but .. well, maybe I should replace 'men' and 'women' with a neutral some people to save getting distracted into men vs women theories.

Well the core of the issue is that it made me think of how I am an extreme 'P' type person rather than a 'J' type person and that is when it sudden bound on me that :
The MBTI types are just as valid for companies as they are for people!

Lets me first expand the MBTI Type dichotomies for a quick refresh (copied from Wikipedia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

The preferences

Dichotomies
Extroversion - Introversion
Sensing - iNtuition
Thinking - Feeling
Judging - Perceiving

The terms Introvert and Extrovert are referred to as attitudes and show how a person orients and receives their energy. In the extroverted attitude the energy flow is outward, and the preferred focus is on other people and things, whereas in the introverted attitude the energy flow is inward, and the preferred focus is on one's own thoughts and ideas.

Sensing and Intuition are the perceiving functions. They indicate how a person prefers to receive data. These are the nonrational functions, as a person does not necessarily have control over receiving data, but only how to process it once they have it. Sensing prefers to receive data primarily from the five senses, and intuition prefers to receive data from the subconscious, or seeing relationships via insights.

Thinking and Feeling are the judging functions. They both strive to make rational judgments and decisions using the data received from their perceiving functions, above. Thinking uses logical "true or false, if-then" connections. Feeling uses "more or less, better-worse" evaluations. When Thinking or Feeling is extroverted, judgments tend to rely on external sources and the generally accepted rules and procedures. When introverted, Thinking and Feeling judgments tend to be subjective, relying on internally generated ideas for logical organization and evaluation.

Judging and Perceiving reveals the specific attitudes of the functions. In J-types, the preferred judging function (T or F) is extroverted (displayed in the outer world). J-types tend to prefer a step-by-step (left brain: parts to whole) approach to life, relying on external rules and procedures, and preferring quick closure. The preferred perceiving function (S or N) is introverted. On the other hand, in P-types the preferred perceiving function is extroverted, and the preferred judging function is introverted. This can result in a "bouncing around" approach to life (right brain: whole to parts), relying on subjective judgments, and a desire to leave all options open. (The terminology may be misleading for some—the term "Judging" does not imply "judgmental," and "Perceiving" does not imply "perceptive.)

So what's so cool about extending the personality types to companies? Nothing, except that I hadn't thought about it before and the simplicity and the aptness of the concept left me dazed. It might be the most normal of 'theories' but with my limited experience in thinking hadn't taken me to this place just yet and when I did reach here, unplanned, I was amazed at the simplicity and beauty of the whole thing. Just like we apply all these 'psychological' theories in finding out compatibility issues, working styles etc for people, why not companies and people, or companies and companies. They would be so useful in finding constraints of a newly hired employee or sorting out the rough edges during merger of two differently cultured companies. Wow! The potential is mind boggling!

Will continue this theory in my next post..

Kinds of blogs

I have been taking a peek at (quite a) few blogs and like most other things in life, It am trying to compartmentalize and label them with the objective of trying to figure out where I stand.

The labels so far :

- The techy's talk
The blogs which explain some of the finer details of a some particularly obtuse and cool technology making it in the process, cooler but hopefully much less obtuse.

- Autobiographies in the making
Broadcast about the noteworthy (and at times totally forget-worthy) happenings in the life of writer.

- New Channels
Regular updates in all that is happening (or not happening) in the environment. A personal news reporting and commentary channel.

- Writer's Blog (often block)
Rusty and wannabe writer needing and getting practice at the cost of willing audience. Oftimes amidst the thorns springs a lively rose.

- Raving Rants
Space and avenue for all the vent up and pent up frustations in the life of the writer - a web punching bag. The web gladly provides willing ears for chronic cribbers and thankfully saving the real live people.

- Food for thought
Musings that provoke thinking, catalyze ideas, provoke passions and crystallize thoughts. Oftentimes the thoughts are stale, the idea stink and passions inspid.

- Sticky notes for random ideas
Place to capture some passing brain dumps and seemingly cools ideas to be analyzed and often trashed in future

Where do I fall? Mostly the last I should guess though once in a while it spills over to a few others.

Neutral view point!

Its silly how sometimes a small thought or statement can take control of your mind. Its so happened that a two days back someone talked about someone having a 'neutral view point' - and ever since, I have this deamon (- maybe I should call it a demon)process running at the back of my mind, not taking too much of processing but now and then, it interferes with my other thoughts.

So here it goes,

Is there anything like a 'neutral point of view'. I understand there can be two potentially extreme views on a subject and something mid-way between these can warrant being call the neutral view point. But then, as soon as you hold a view, just any view, on an extreme or midway, there is bound to be an antithesis - an exact opposite of that view - which immediately means the view is not neutral anymore. Neutral, midway, extreme, they are just relative to where you are, what is neutral to you might not be so for someone else, and what is seemingly an extreme, is actually a baseline for another.

All about Authority!

A question of command and authority

Often I have reflected about authority, respect, influence and the way we mould events in and around our lives. There is a very thin faded line to distinguish between them; often one is mistaken for the other. Its hard to say what we influence, what we command and the way others look up (or down) on us.

This how the online free dictionary defines "authority"

1.
a. The power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge.
b. One that is invested with this power, especially a government or body of government officials.
2. Power assigned to another; authorization:
3. A public agency or corporation with administrative powers in a specified field:
4.
a. An accepted source of expert information or advice:
b. A quotation or citation from such a source:
5. Justification; grounds:
6. A conclusive statement or decision that may be taken as a guide or precedent.
7. Power to influence or persuade resulting from knowledge or experience:
8. Confidence derived from experience or practice; firm self-assurance:

All this eventually boils down to POWER. The power to make decisions, the power to change events, the power to enforce, the power to control, the power to influence, the power...

What exactly is power? It manifest itself in many ways -

Physical Force
It takes form of brute power of a beast to the more subtle control of the beauty to the torture of a bully and everything in between.

The Weight of Titles, Name, Place, Position, Possession
What you are, Who you are, What you do, all the responsibility that we take on our way brings alongside its companion authority and command.

The Power of Knowledge
An expert has a strong influence, and needless to say, also the last word!
Its raw power to know more than others, to know what you are not suppoknowinge knowning.

Spiritual/Mental Control
It could be the control someone has to either imprison or release us from us, our thoughts or what are thoughts make us to be.

Emotional Leverage
The power some people have in the way they treat us and make us feel, from the lowest dumps of being unwanted and trashed to making us the epicenter of their universe.

Moral Authority
This is the hardest to explain and probably the subtlest and strongest of all controls and influences. Some people influence you for what they are, for what they embody. They hold control because you want to emulate them, you want to please them and end us being willing puppets in their hands.

Each is independent in a sense - neither a pre-requisite to another, none a logical consequence of anything else. And yet, it doesnÂ’t take too much of thinking to see that these demarcated factors frequently overlap, influence, in-fight and stay in a constant state of chaotic coexistence.

What kind of power we need to succeed in various rolesthat we play,

- We all need some measure of 'physical' control to survive
- As a team member we are valued for our 'knowhow'
- As family member we need to emotional currency
- Society requires of us a certain name and position and ofcourse contribution to the spiritual well being of all
- To be good leaders we need a mix of all - but most critically the 'Moral Authority"
Not the self acquired variety, but one that is thrust upon us and it is in us to shoulder
-