All ... are equal

And there you go, Drucker has confirmed my strong belief that all men (and women of course!) are created equal! Everybody is just fine the way they are, there is no real need to change everything upside down. It is all about the image you carry in your head.

Let me make my point without further ado...

"Among the effective people I have known and worked with, there are extroverts and aloof, retiring men, some even morbidly shy. Some are eccentrics, others painfully correct conformists. Some are fat and some are lean. Some are worriers; some are relaxed. Some drink quite heavily; others are total abstainers. Some are men of great charm and warmth; some have no more personality than a frozen mackerel. There are a few men among them who would answer to the popular conception of a “leader.”

But equally there are colorless men who would attract no attention in a crowd. Some are scholars and serious students, others almost unlettered. Some have broad interests; others know nothing except their own narrow area and care for little else. Some of the men are self-centered, if not indeed selfish. But there are also some who are generous of heart and mind. There are men who live only for their work and others whose main interests lie outside—in community work, in their church, in the study of Chinese poetry, or in modern music. Among the effective people I have met, there are people who use logic and analysis and others who rely mainly on perception and intuition. There are men who make decisions easily and men who suffer agonies every time they have to move."

- The effective Drucker

So what motivates people?

Really, there is no one answer! Drucker says it is a futile exercise to find one right thing that suits all. I obviously have had my share or should I say my attempts at motivating people. It is more on the lines of mindful influencing by tapping into the realms of motivation.

Anyway, I found a very interesting one today. It is... Beliefs about what makes us effective that decides our motivation. If we pick a task and we think it will not make us "effective" - in terms of money, position, power etc whichever is important to that person, then he/she will not be motivated to do that task. I think this  is called the utility value of task or something on those lines.

Eons ago I had read something about Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. I did not realize how important and how meaningful it was back then. Maslow himself did not believe that the theory was complete enough to be adopted. I like it though and it is something I sometimes rely upon as well. You can read more here...
http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm

-Sandeep kowshik

P.S - Now, try asking developers to do some testing!

Knowledge workers

So, who is a knowledge worker? And why is he is so important in today's world?

Knowledge workers are generally professionals such as teachers, lawyers, architects, physicians, nurses, engineers, and scientists. Peter Drucker, my favorite management guru first coined the word.

Knowledge workers are not subordinates; they are ‘associates.’ Beyond the apprentice stage, knowledge workers must know more about their job than their boss does—or else they are no good at all.
In fact, that they know more about their job than anybody else in the organization is part of the definition of knowledge workers.

Management though he argues should: make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond
to change.

Authentic leadership

I have been reading a lot of authentic leadership and authentic living in general. I've picked up a lot from Kevin Cashman - Leadership from the inside out. It is a fantastic read, a book for life and is something that I will keep going back to again and again.

Will write lot more about this and my struggles and fight with authenticity. But for now, here is something that keeps me going...

“Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.” - Winsten Churchill

Gratitude and Indebtedness

Does too much gratitude lead to indebtedness? Of course, both arise after you receive something from someone. Gratitude is less stronger an emotion than indebtedness. The reason I give importance to this topic is that I have fallen trap to this in the past and I am very conscious about not letting too much gratitude evolve into indebtedness.

My experiments with this topic started eons ago when I declined a gift from a friend. Probably a bad idea, but hey that's why I've called it an experiment!

Gratitude also has finite life time and decreases over time. People receiving the benefit apparently make some (ir)rational arguments in their minds and forget to acknowledge the transaction. Hence the receiver and giver are in different states after such a transaction. It is best to acknowledge it and get on as soon as possible. Question though is: Would that nullify things and bring the receiver and the giver back to the same state?

Answer: ... It depends :)

Keirsey type

I took the keirsey test today and my type is ENFP. This is different from my MBTI results which said I was an ESFP. Atleast the EF & P is common between the two!

Apparently, keirsey test takes a long term view of your personality while MBTI is biased towards how you would like to be perceived.

Anyway, I'm a little busy now trying to de-crypt my keirsey type by reading... "Please understand me"!

Self drawn boundaries

Read a great story about boundaries that we draw for ourselves and continue to live in it just because we are accustomed to living inside. It isn't something new, but the story resonated with me because I believe today I cracked one such boundary in my life. A boundary that when extended gives me enough space to express my values and beliefs. I should have re-drawn this eons ago, but I guess my focus was else where. Better late than never they say, but I am so glad I did!

I hope I've made it clear and vague enough at the same time. That was intentional! Anyway, here is the story...

Once upon a time, a fierce forest tiger caused a village to live in terror. It ate livestock at will, and even killed several children and adults. The villagers hired a hunter, and trapped the tiger. Respecting life, they built a stout bamboo cage for him in the center of the village. 

      For many years, the tiger slept, and paced endlessly around the cage. The grandchildren of the original villagers finally said - our tiger is old and toothless. We should let him return to his forest to die in peace. They dismantled the cage, and all gathered to see their old friend set free.

      The tiger was bewildered. He looked around at the strange bar-less scene, and at the nearby forest. Then he resumed pacing his measured square, walking the boundaries of the cage that was no longer there. 

Tweet tweet

First things first, I missed you my dear blog. Wish I had kept in constant touch! Never mind, lets restart, it is never too late to reconnect is it?

I wrote emails to about 4-5 people today. I'm definitely not the kind of person who is people-averse or friends-averse. But some how, I don't seem to write emails often and don't seem to connect often. Today, I decided it was high time I addressed it and wrote to people I think about pretty often. Good job, I like it!

Moving on, I'm not very active on FB these days. Bored of commenting, liking and following status updates of people. I do login once in a while, but don't use it much to keep in touch. I created an account on twitter, re-activated it rather after about 5-6 years.Wondering if I should be more active on twitter instead. 140 words to express my thoughts and keep contact with the outer world? Not sure, don't want it to become another site where contact is more obligation than genuine talk. So, question of the day... to tweet or not to tweet?

Answer: No, for now, just go get some sleep :)

TQM story...

Read a funny story related to TQM today. I don't about you, but I burst out laughing when I read such things. Don't know if it's a fact or a myth, it's a good one either way.

A company once ordered a batch of components from a Japanese manufacturer and specified that the batch should have an acceptable quality level of three defective parts per thousand. The parts were dispatched by the Japanese company along with a letter. The letter said something like this...

We found it extremely hard to believe that the customer would request for defective parts as well as good ones, but indeed we have managed to produce them all. These three defective parts have been manufactured and packaged separately for the convenience of the customer!

Gratitude...

 I'll start with a small story. I met an old friend from London recently. He had just completed his first full time corporate job and he was telling me all about the great experiences in his job.  He spoke in length about the good relationship he shared with his colleagues and his managers. The conversations and the work stories he shared sounded too pleasant to be true and the cynic in me dismissed it as that’s how you feel in your first job!

I probed him further and he told me about a ritual he followed every day. On his way to work, Rohit would always think about his firm. He would thank the firm for giving him this wonderful opportunity; thank his managers for sharing their knowledge and for patiently dealing with the novice in Rohit. I was impressed!

Coincidentally, my character strengths profile (From viame.org) highlighted that gratitude was one of my lower strengths. I found that it is often easy to be critical and look for things that are wrong and form opinions about what needs to be fixed (Rather who needs to be fixed!). Further analysis led me to understand that I find it harder to acknowledge people for giving me their time and patience and pass it off as something obvious that doesn't have to be stated.

Cons:

I was concerned that too much focus on a lower strength can negatively impact some of my signature strengths. I firmly believe that each behavior has a pro and con, so I explored the cons of too much gratitude. Studies have shown that too much gratitude goes towards indebtedness, which is an unpleasant feeling of obligation. Looking back at some experiences in my life, I've realized that indebtedness has had significant impact on some of my relationships. These bad experiences meant that gratitude slowly deserted me and I treated every interaction as a transaction – I give you something and you give me something back in return.

What next?

State it: I’d like to start with addressing my hesitation to show gratefulness. I would like to challenge myself and thank people for being nice and helpful. Of course, I would want to be mindful so that I should be authentic and only say things that I mean, and not say it when I don’t mean it. At the same time, I would also want to make sure that gratitude does not grow into indebtedness.

Further, I've decided to write at least two things each day about things I am grateful for and people/experiences that have made me feel good. I intend to do this for the next two weeks and see if it makes me feel any better and help me improve one of my lower strengths.

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P.S – Meanwhile, thank you all for reading the blog :P

The Ashes....

Have been following the Ashes - Eng & Aus fight it out in England this time.Two hilarious things from the Ashes I heard from the last couple of days...

1> Ashton Agar was given out caught behind by the third umpire. Michael holding couldn't believe that the decision, it was very poor considering the video evidence did not suggest a nick. Note that the ball was miles away from the pad!. So Michael holding goes...

"How is this given out? How is he out... LBW?"

2> This was piece written in an Australian news paper after the first innings Ashes defeat...

"Cricket Australia has been experimenting with Shane Watson for a while. They are trying to make him into a test batsmen, and the experiment is in it's 43rd attempt!!!"

Visualization

I recently came across something called Plato's Allegory of the cave - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave. I read quite a bit around the allegory and have tried to relate it to me and my thoughts. Read below...

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I realized that my understanding of the world, my interaction with people and my behavior with people is all determined by the story I create in my own mind. I started probing the mental image I have created of myself and of the people around me. I found it weird that some images of people are my own creations, an exaggerated static painting of my feelings towards the person. Try it, give it a minute, just think of a person you know and think about the image of the person that flashes in your mind.

But what we don't realize is that the person you knew yesterday is not the same person today. So, does that not make the mental image invalid? I heard a great adage which goes on the lines that the person who starts a sentence is not the same person when he gets to the end of the sentence. The person you were angry with yesterday is not the same person today. This analogy and adage to an extent opened my mind up about my behavior and attitude towards people. I realized that the image I leave in my mind can be detrimental to my personal and professional relationships.

And what about my own image of myself. Well, I realized that I sometimes (or most of the times) allow the image to be distorted by people around me. Rather, the perceived feelings of people around me, people I care about controls the image I carry. Doesn't sound like the right thing to do, does it? Probably not.

Co-incidentally, at the same time, I stumbled upon techniques used by sports people to train their mind and focus on the game (Cricketers to be more specific, Sachin to be even more specific!). I read that they use visualization techniques to visualize the game and to feel the environment before going into the game.

So, can I use visualization to mould images stored in my mind. Probably worth giving it a try I reckon, will let you know how I get on with it.

Observation...

Been a while since I was here! Work, study, travel, family and what not has taken a toll on my online life. Promise to get back into the zone. Not that the demand on my time has reduced, just that I have organized myself better by getting a weekly planner in place today! Obviously my daily planner has failed to deliver, hope the weekly one works for me!

Read an awesome quote on Espncricinfo from Sanjay Manjrekar during the first Ashes test match 2013.
"Indian TV Commentary is a lot about opinions, English TV Commentary is a lot about observations". What an observation Sanjay! Loved it.

All the more because for the last 8-10 months all I have heard about is reflection, reflection and more reflection. I remember Andy Murray talking about reflection in one of his interviews. My mindful manager course is all about self-reflection and learning from it. I went to an awesome talk last week and the speaker - spoke mostly about his experience and his learning's from his experience.

So what?

I have added "Reflection" as a task in my weekly calender. I rest my case :)

Hype cycle for Agile

I found a paper that talks about the Hype cycle for Agile methodology. It scares me that Agile is close to the "Trough of disillusionment". All the more because my Software project management role is all about implementing the Agile processes and integrating it with the heavy weight project management processes!

A new idea or technology hits the trough when the early adopters realize that the idea after all is not as good as it the initial expectations. It's like the bubble bursting on Agile! You can find some more details about Hype Cycle here http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1047223059457664714#editor/target=post;postID=638745433126602063;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=16;src=postname

If you are truly interested, you can read this well written paper here http://darkagilemanifesto.org/dark-side-of-agile-janes-succi-splash-2012.pdf

-Sandeep Kowshik

Cognitive dissonance...

Wow!! Just read the following examples:

1> Anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or like, as when one likes a person but disapproves of one of his or her habits.

2> You go to the store at lunch time when you're already hungry and a little cross. You snap at the sales person, perhaps calling her a really unkind name and use hurtful adjectives. Your belief about yourself, however, is that you're a good person, and good people don't hurt or belittle the sales help. You and many people--in fact most--solve the uncomfortable situation by demonizing the sales clerk. "She was stupid and not doing her job at all. She deserved it because she's a bad person. I'm still a good person, but she was awful and deserved my ire." You have self justified and made her the bad guy. Mistakes were made, but not by you.

There is a term to describe this feeling, and it's called Cognitive Dissonance. This is exactly what I've been looking for for a long long time. This just explains so many things going on in my personal and professional life! 

CD for me is a close cousin of Confirmation Bias. CB is when you read or like to hear things that confirm your beliefs. Believe it or not, CD and CB go beyond this, it's also used by marketing professionals to explain consumer behavior! More to follow soon.

What if money was no object

Found a fantastic video on youtube called "What if money was no object". This one has got me thinking deeply, and here is what I would do if money and more importantly holidays wasn't a problem...

1> Sit on a beach and read books

2> Spend some time in the jungles of India

3> Live an outdoor life, Scuba dive, Learn to fly

4> Travel & see the world

P.S - Trust me , after a couple of months I'd get bored and come back to my lovely corporate life :P

Speculation... Lol

"There is a joke that says that one black marketer sold a sardine can to another for one dollar. This black marketer sold it to another for two dollars and the third black marketer sold it to another for three dollars. The can continued to change hands and increase in price until a black marketer bought it for 25 dollars (an enormous sum at that time) and decided to open it. To his enormous surprise, he saw that the can was empty. He ran back to the black marketer who had sold it to him to get his 25 dollars back. However, this black marketer simply told him, “How could you be so stupid as to open the can? This can is for selling, not for eating”.

This joke also illustrates perfectly the distinction (with no basis) that some people make
between shares for investing in (to hold them for a long time, so they say) and shares to speculate in (to
sell quickly, so they say).

Source: Pablo Fernandez, Internet valuations: The case of Terra-Lycos

Watching the mind...

Found a cool ted talk that talks about watching your mind and observing thoughts that surround you every day. Reminds me of the book I read eons ago called the Monk who sold his ferrari by Robin Sharma. A really good read and I would love to read it again. It's on the top of my list of books to buy when I travel to India in April.

Back to the video, I followed up on this video by registering with getsomeheadspace.com and I thought it was really useful. It's not like the traditional meditation techniques of just freeing your mind, it's all about watching your thoughts, making mental notes and being self aware. I really enjoyed it. The challenge ofcourse is to find the time to relax!

What-How-Why

This has to be one of the most persuasive ted talks I've ever watched. Brilliant stuff!

Toyota production system - TPS

I am a  big fan of TPS, Heijunka, Kaizen, Muda etc are some really good concepts and I think it's a great way of running a business. I love the concept of production line and its adoption in software. I remember when I first started my career people telling me that Lean is only for the manufacturing and it means nothing for software. Wonder if those people still think so. I would love to go back and convince them that TPS is worth every penny and every minute you spend on it.

Anyway, about a year ago, I listened to the audio version of the book "The Toyota way". If you haven't already read it, I strongly suggest you pick it up. It's a really good read and a there is a lot you can take away from it.

Here is a small write up I found this morning and it does a decent job of summarizing TPS.

http://iso-qms.blogspot.in/2013/01/executive-summary-of-14-toyota-way.html?goback=%2Egde_37987_member_209799933

-Sandeep Kowshik

Leadership & Cultures

I got a chance to read a paper about Guanxi and leadership in China. The chinese society they say is driven by the principles of "Guanxi". I was totally impressed and could relate to everything written in the paper because it's pretty close to the culture I grew up in. 

I had a brief discussion with my friend from Britain and it was pretty evident that "Guanxi" is a pretty difficult concept to comprehend in the west. Anyway, here is a brief brain dump of my thoughts after reading the paper.

================================================

What?

I have been living and working in Britain for the last three years whilst most of my upbringing has been in the collectivistic culture. In the recent past, I have some times found it difficult to understand actions and behaviors of people at my work place and have had some trouble trying to bring out my true character at work.

So what?

Prof. Ellen Langer says that "Behavior makes sense from the actor’s perspective". But what makes sense to one may sound completely unfair and unacceptable to another. Understanding motivations

and cultural background is very important to make sense of a person’s actions and behaviors  To share one example, a leader or a manager in one cultural context may be seen as a figure who would tend to the needs and feelings of a follower and expecting this behavior in a different culture can lead to misunderstanding and lack of trust. Increasing interaction with global teams spread across different cultures has increased the chances of conflict within teams and team members. Conflict of interest, conflict of goals is a common theme especially in matrix organizations.

Now what?

Examining some of my core beliefs about individual goals, team goals and working in teams has revealed a deeper influence from my cultural background. While cross-cultural interactions are difficult to manage, I realize that I have to consider my internal biases before evaluating people and situations. Henceforth, I intend to consider cultural background to understand expectations of different people in the team and harness the potential of the team to achieve organizational goals.

Mindful negativity

There is a concept called "Confirmation Bias", which means "a tendency of people to favour information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses" (Source: Wikipedia). Building strong preconceptions may somehow be related to this constant urge to judge people at every instance and build strong beliefs within us. The confirmation bias deep within probably takes over for every positive and negative vibe we get from people. Positive is probably still ok, but for every negative thought, I think there should be a pause, a consideration and then considered internalization. I''d love to give it a new name, I'll call it "Mindful Negativity" :P

Mindfullness

Here is something I had written a while ago about Mindfullness. Very interesting topic this, would love to spend more time learning and understanding, but unfortunately it will have to wait for a wee while

==================

"Most of our suffering-physiological and physical, national and international is the direct or indirect

effect of of mindlessness" says Prof. Ellen Langer in her talk about Mindfulness. I have to admit that

this sounded like a sweeping statement to me at first and I was skeptical about adopting it. But my

first attempt at practicing the mindfulness exercise revealed the deeper sense of mindfulness and

helped me resolve an issue at work.

I met a colleague in the cafeteria and for a brief moment I noticed a change in my behavior. I

stopped and asked my self what I was doing and why I was doing it. I knew at that moment that just

one irrelevant socially uncomfortable situation with that person in the past had led my subconscious

mind to build an unfriendly image of the person. The feeling of being at unease when that person

was around had occupied my mind and dictated my interaction with the person.

I started a normal conversation and talked myself out of the awkard situation. I believe that being

mindful, reflecting on the situation and being in the moment, took away the burden of behaving

differently and freed me from an uneasy feeling.

I always considered reflection as a separate activity, an activity that required me to set time aside.

But now I realize that constant reflection and being in the moment is the best way of reflection.

However, I find it hard to be mindful all the time and have had to remind myself to be mindful. I

some times feel I have to put in extra effort to be mindful, so it depends on my energy levels for the

day. I occasionally find it useful to do some mundane tasks mindfully, it helps me free my mind

briefly and focus on one thing.

References:

LANGER, E. 2011. ADC Future Summit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YVAhbcWk1KA (Accessed on 9th

October 2012)

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Visuals

I'm "extremely" busy today, but couldney stop myself from posting this video here. Impressed by this video, please, watch till the end.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNLYi9dBVlk


P.S - For the uninitiated, the original song is here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb48crSw-1U


By the way, I'm posting it here so that one fine day, I mean really one fine day when I look back at my blogs, I'd want to be reminded that visual comm is a field I'd want to explore and spend time learning!

Release early, Release often

"Release Early, Release often and Listen to your customers" is a software product release philosophy that emphasizes that you release your product frequently and use the feedback from customers to enhance your product. This phrase was used in a paper by Eric Raymond in the paper "Cathedral and the Bazaar" in which he studies the evolution of Linux. Not sure if it was he who coined the term or if it always existed.


It's also called the train model or some thing of that sort. If a customer wanted a version of a product and could not take it, he could always take the next one without having to wait too long. There is a phrase to describe it, don't quite know what that is right now.

I have seen this philosophy being adopted very closely and the subsequent changes in the evolution of a product. Don't quite know who initiated it, but thumbs up to the guys. It's worked quite well I'd say, but of course it has it has it's cons.

My first assignment on strategy focused on this philosophy. In my paper, I've explored the advantages and disadvantages of moving to a frequent time paced cycle. Here is a quick summary of some of the concepts I explored in the essay.

1> Time pacing - Release as per the calender. Stick to fixed dates or months. For example: Release every quarter or release every year.

2> Release early = Increasing speed or increasing time to market

3> Cash flows - Release often to improve sales and hence improve your cash flows.

4> Pioneer-Follower -  Follow a competitor in a market but focus on introducing new features to lead the market. Build a quick prototype to follow a customer in the market. As a pioneer, introduce a new feature, get quick feedback and enhance to lead the market.

5>  Cost - Does speed increase or decrease cost of your product?

6> Economies of scale - The impact of speed on scale economies. For ex: Splitting a piece of work in to two releases to suit your release cycle may not make any sense!

7> Economies of scope - Lets say you manufactured paper and pen. Can you re-use Marketing/HR/Supply chain if you released both together at the same time??

8> Industry clock speed - What's the speed of product releases for that market. For example micro processors industry has a different clock speed compared to a web page.

9> Listen to your customer - Is your customer ok to upgrade if you have a slightly better version in 3 months? I don't know, but I'd be inclined to say no. Who would want the hassle of upgrading for some small changes and re-learn the product and discover more bugs!! Might as well wait for something substantial.

The last point was my conclusion and recommendation to the business as well. Listen to the customer and decrease speed. I promise to expand and write a little more on my understanding of these concepts in future blog posts.

The mass market

What you see in the image above is the graph of the theory of diffusion of innovation. Each one us would fall into each of those categories at various points. For now, I'll restrict it to some thing we all now... the smart phones for example.

I was probably in the early majority (34%) when I bought the Samsung galaxy S3 and went back again to the early majority when I realized that I really needed an Iphone!! Anyway, this graph is more or less relevant to all businesses. The tipping point is the point when a technology, a product or an idea moves from a small market to a mass market (34%+34% market share).

Smart apps is one market where I've seen this mass market adoption battle lately. I have been downloading new apps for my phone and there are tons of them in the market. There is at least one free app for everything that I need. I have so many apps on my phone now that I need an app to manage all my apps and remind me to use those apps!!

Anyway, I some how don't feel very good about the smart apps market. The competition is very high and I some times wonder if the return on investment is any good at all. I read a comment some where from a developer who was comparing app prices with coffee prices. People are not willing to even pay the price of a take away coffee for an app!! Phew, tough market. Probably worth it if you want an additional small source of income, but I don't think it's worth the effort.