By Hiren Shah-2292 words

<a href="http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/personal-growth/personal-growth/lateral.asp">THINKING OUT OF THE BOX</a>- 2292 words

Edward de Bono's gift to the world, lateral or nonlinear thinking can help you conjure creative solutions to emerge a winner in an increasingly complex world

There is a story of a salesman in America who became a multimillionaire selling life insurance. On being asked about the secret of his success, he answered that he told his clients he was there to buy life insurance for them rather than sell it. He did this to pre-empt the instinctual American skepticism and abhorrence of salesmen. In Canada, Ron Barbaro, chief executive of the Prudential Insurance Company, made one of the most innovative changes in life insurance. He introduced a system where a person diagnosed with a terminal disease could be paid off during his lifetime to enable him to afford his treatment. This was the most revolutionary and successful idea in life insurance in 120 years. Barbaro used the methods of Edward de Bono, whose name has become synonymous with lateral thinking.

A Ph.D. in psychology, de Bono has held high academic positions at Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard universities. He has written over 40 books translated into 25 languages and has also made two television series aired around the world. He is the author of the famous "coRT" thinking program used internationally to directly teach thinking in schools. Examples of applications of lateral or nonlinear thinking abound in several fields. In cricket, Kerry Packer introduced day/night matches and colorful balls and clothing, a departure from tradition that became so successful, the whole world of cricket adopted it. Australia recently experimented with two different captains for the Test and one-day matches.

Lateral thinking is a step-by-step method of creative thinking with prescribed techniques that can be used consciously. According to de Bono, intelligence is a potential and thinking is a skill to use that potential. He adds that thinking is no substitute for information but information may be a substitute for thinking. While information is swamping us, the need is for appropriate thinking techniques to avoid being weighed down by excessive information. Just as the skill of the driver determines how a car is used, thinking determines how intelligence is used. One may be a good thinker without being an intellectual and vice-versa. There is a spiritual dimension to lateral thinking that has more to do with perception than logic. Good conduct that arises from right thoughts and perceptions is as important as meditation and spiritual practices. De Bono compares cleverness to a sharp focus camera and wisdom to a wide-angled lens and wisdom depends heavily upon perception. Nearly all systems of meditation aim at purity of heart and mind to refine perceptions for sound judgment. Philosophy, literally 'love for wisdom', is also a means of spirituality. Wisdom

to a large extent involves correction of perception by experience when one considers the dictum, "knowledge comes but wisdom lingers". Focusing directly on 'thinking' sharpens perceptions and lateral thinking is one of the best means to achieve that objective. In the introduction to his book Serious Creativity Using the Powers of Lateral Thinking, de Bono states that human perception works as a self-organizing information system.

A SKILL THAT CAN BE LEARNTThere is a misleading belief that creativity belongs to the world of art and is a matter of talent and chance and nothing can be consciously done about it. Lateral thinking is specifically concerned with changing preconceived notions to bring out new ideas and can be acquired and practiced as a skill. It is a special information handling process like mathematics, logical analysis or computer simulation. Thinking techniques, once mastered, can be used both individually and in a group, dispensing with brainstorming. In all the examples of lateral thinking given in this article, unconventionality clearly comes to the fore. According to de Bono, one should be free of constraints, tradition and history in order to be creative. But that freedom is more effectively obtained by using certain deliberate techniques rather than by hoping to be free. There is a prevailing belief that structures are restrictive for creative thinking but this is not entirely true. A cup does not limit one's choice of drink, so one can consciously avoid being limited by structures and apply them to one's field.

De Bono has developed several techniques of lateral thinking under the three broad categories: Challenge, Alternatives and Provocation. The creative challenge is a challenge to exclusivity, which does not accept status quo and is particularly relevant in those areas where ideas have become obsolete with time. Circumstances and situations often restrict the choice of alternatives and, therefore, it is better to assume a dynamic state of affairs. Limits and components are changed to enable new ways of doing things to emerge successful. Provocation is more in the nature of hypothesis where a situation is first conceived or imagined and then one proceeds to arrive at unique plausible conclusions. According to De Bono, the words hy(po)thesis, sup(PO)se, (PO)ssible and (PO)etry all indicate the forward or proactive use of a statement, which implies that we make a statement first and see where it takes us. This is against prose and description, in which we seek to show something as it is, currently.

DE BONO'S 6 THINKING HATSThe most popular technique presented by de Bono is the six thinking hats. Acting on the presumption that doing different things at the same time is difficult and confusing, we normally make use of one type of thinking at a given time. The hats denote the following: l. White Hat: facts & figures, (what information do we have and need to get?) 2. Red Hat: emotions, intuition, feelings (how do we feel about the situation?) 3. Black Hat: judgment (does this fit the facts?)4. Yellow Hat: advantages, benefits (how is it a good thing to do?) 5. Green Hat: explorations, alternatives, etc. (are there different ways?) 6. Blue Hat: thinking about thinking (control of the thinking process) Hats are often used to denote the role one is playing such as a baseball cap, soldier's helmet, and can be easily taken off and worn again. When a person puts on a hat he or

she plays the role that belongs to that hat. This makes it a game where individuals are encouraged to contribute all kinds of ideas under diverse hats. The role-playing detaches the ego from thinking, which leads to objectivity, one of the most difficult things to achieve in a group discussion. The western tradition of argument results in taking positions whereby discussions are reduced to verbal wars of attrition with a clash of personalities rather than of issues. With the six hats, instead of confrontation there is supportive scrutiny of an issue, which is useful where there are fierce arguments, bickering or obstinacy. It is easy to switch thinking without causing offense. The six-hats method works as well everywhere and can also be used in family situations. Its most fruitful advantage is that it forces you to think more broadly.

De Bono further states that generating creative ideas using his various techniques is not enough. Ideas, by nature, are risky. Because the idea is new, one is not sure that it will work or be practicable at the operational level. There may be a need to invest time, money and energy before an idea bears fruit. Most people are reluctant to make this effort so necessary as complexities multiply at the turn of the 21st century. One person who did and became a stupendous success is Dhirubhai Ambani.

Lateral thinking can save your life, as illustrated in this story. Two men were on a jungle safari in Africa. Suddenly, they came across a tiger that started roaring. Both men were frightened and one of them started wearing his shoes. The other one said: "How is this going to help? We can't outrun the tiger." The first man replied: "I don't have to outrun the tiger, I only have to outrun you." RELIANCE: STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS

Dhirubhai Ambani evokes strong reactions from people but nobody can be indifferent to his achievements. To the many happy shareholders of Reliance, he is good enough to deserve the Bharat Ratna and at the other extreme he is vehemently reviled for his business methods. On being criticized on his modus operandi of openly using political influence for corporate gain, Dhirubhai has repeatedly asserted: ''That is only a minor element of our work. Why not focus on the major portion related to implementation, where so many organizations goof up?'' He adds: ''I give least importance to number one. I was nothing but a small merchant but I reached this level here. I consider myself fortunate to be in this position, but I have no pride. I am as I was.'' Reliance is globally admired for its rapid and time-bound implementation methods and those are where lateral thinking is employed to the maximum.

Reliance executives are constantly encouraged to think out-of-the-box, rather than traditionally or sequentially. The top bosses themselves have this tremendous ability to think laterally and look at business as a series of processes as illustrated by their quotes: ''The leadership of Reliance Industries has always shunned incremental thinking,'' says Anil Ambani, MD of the Reliance group. Older brother Mukesh Ambani says: ''We work in concentric circles, rather than in straight ranks, but there's always a center of accountability. We don't believe in core competence. We believe in building competence around processes and people to create value.''

Dhirubhai adds: ''The world is a series of orbits hierarchically stacked up with peons and clerks at the bottom and leading industrialists and politicians at the top. To be successful, you must break out of your orbit and enter the one above. After a spin in that orbit, you must break into the next one and so on till you reach the top.''

To keep moving in an upward spiral, Dhirubhai has liberally used lateral thinking, far more than any other industrialist, as revealed in Gita Piramal's book, Business Maharajas, among other sources.

RELIANCE FIRSTS Dhirubhai was the first Indian industrialist to cater to the needs of the small investor. This was more by default rather than design because of his inability to fund his operations initially, yet it was a major deviation from the established practice of raising money from financial institutions. He introduced the equity cult in small towns in India. He is also recognized as having single-handedly revitalized the Indian capital market, by focusing on capital appreciation instead of dividend, which was the norm. Apart from his macro strategy, his tactics also reveal lateral disposition. When the bear syndicate connived to hammer down his share prices, Reliance bought all of its own shares and demanded delivery by creating a 'friends of Reliance' association to buy those shares that the management technically could not. The consequent furor and shutdown of the stock market brought him in the national limelight. He also pioneered the conversion of convertible debenture into shares. This was so successful that it was oversubscribed six times once and prompted him to use the idea to convert non-convertible debentures.

Dhirubhai was the first industrialist in India to build factories comparable to the best in the world. Then, in a prime example of turning the situation on its head, he created capacity ahead of actual demand. Working on the premise that supply creates its own demand, he would sometimes plan a plant with a capacity of almost five times the actual or projected demand running into thousands of tons. Reliance is known to have accepted tenders that were 250 per cent higher than the lowest bid because the contractor delivered on time or flew somebody abroad to buy a critical component.

Against conventional wisdom, Reliance started manufacturing synthetic fabrics on a huge scale, realizing that the poor got more value for money as polyesters implied an image boost. Facing opposition from traditional cloth merchants whose loyalty lay with the older mills, he ignored the established wholesale trade, created his own exclusive showrooms, explored markets and selected agents from non-textile backgrounds. Finally, Reliance achieved the impossible by building a cryogenic terminal to transport ethylene in deep seas when conventional methods failed, the first time this was tried in India.

INNOVATIONS GALOREAt a time when India's equity market was in the bear phase, Reliance was the first group to tap the overseas debt market with long-term debt, including the 100-year Yankee bond. It was also the first Indian corporation to make a GDR issue and the first to get Moody's and S&P ratings. Reliance was a zero tax company for several years because its

continuous tax credits helped it to offset its profits. When the finance minister imposed a compulsory corporate tax of 30 per cent, Reliance capitalized their total debt for the entire contracted term of debt. They argued that interest accrues from the date of availing a loan until its repayment, and that all loans would be repaid on their due dates. This enabled them to retain their zero tax status.

The Reliance website is replete with examples of lateral thinking even in micro management. The company uses unconventional methods to get a job done especially when customer satisfaction is involved. Employees have disguised themselves to directly deliver an important consignment to a customer. Reliance has reached out to their client's customers to create broader loyalty bases. Anil and Mukesh Ambani directly approach their lower level staff without going through the departmental heads. They have tied up with a management institute to teach trainees in six months what they learn in MBA courses in two years. The Ambanis look at initiative and individual potential rather than paper qualifications.

Now you know the secret behind the biggest success story, post-Independence, in India's corporate world.

SPIRITUAL TRADING – 1680 WORDS

There is a direct correlation between spirituality and the stock market. In trading which involves continous buying and selling of share, you can do well only if you are able to balance your fear and greed. That is what spirituality is all about.-equanimity. In fact, after one has mastered trading skills and money management sufficiently, the best way to see what a person’s sq (spiritual quotient) is to see how he operates in the stock market or whether he is able to balance his fear and greed. Trading literature is replete with how psychology(fear and greed) and money management are more important than trading strategies.

Osho had said that life itself is constant insecurity. Share market gives us this lesson at least in the short run where it is highly unpredictable and profits uncertain. Even in the long run, one can never be sure of the markets.

Another thing that the stockmarket teaches is that one should not have an Ego and get out of the market when one is wrong. Spirituality talks about transcending the eqo which is a notch higher. One has to surrender to the market and get out when one’s decisions are proved wrong which is a good practice for spirituality. Failures are those who have been obstinate about their decisions. One has to bow to the market immediately when decisions prove incorrect.

There is another interesting analogy. In the stock market, there can never be a supreme guru who can be right all the time. Stock market history is littered with people who were superstars and then fell from grace when their strategy could not change with changing

times. When there cannot be a supreme guru for the stock market, can there be one for life? To try and become a guru is somewhat unspiritual because “knowledge is food for the ego” and in spirituality there cannot be any ego. One has to explore issues through discussions(according to J.Krishnamurthy) rather than searching for larger than life heroes.

One similarity here is that the stock market too is full of quacks. Like in other walks of life, there are spiritual professionals who distort their profession for money. Application of knowledge is important. If application had been half as good as theory, we would not have more problems that plague our country. In the stockmarket, application is tough because of information overflow. There are analysts too who try to influence decisions with wrong information and wrong analysis. In this regard, there are people in the stockmarket who try to manipulate information.

The so called operator in the stock market is actually god. The only thing close to him are filmstars who too can dictate. It must feel great to control even a few shares even for a day instead of responding to them. Just imagine the destiny of a few stocks in your hand- you can make them or break them without any past karma to worry about. In Hinduism, there is a trinity of gods with specific functions but these guys are all in one- they can create, preserve and destroy any scrip. Wonder what the real god thinks about them.

Cash apart, you need to be spirited if not spiritual to run the market. Not for the faint hearted. Reminds us of another spiritual great, Swami Vivekanand who said that it is better to play football than to read the Bhagvad Gita because a weak person cannot be spiritual. Similarly, manipulating the market is not for the faint hearted.

“We must learn to accept the present moment, wether it is a state of utmost happiness or that of greatest sorrow. It is our expectations which reduces our state of joy whereby we fail to enjoy the greatest thrill of day to day happier instances.”. This is very well said. Following the principle of “perception of reality is more important than reality”, the stock market too runs on expectations and the one who is able to monitor others and alter one’s expectations is the winner. Suffice to say that in the western world, desire is the driving force behind everything but in the eastern world, desire is the bane of everything. The truth of course lies somewhere in between.

There is nothing better than day trading since they don’t carry any positions forward and strictly believe in “live for today”. When you day trade, you need maximum concentration. You almost have to be on meditation with the screen. Most people have one share at a time for better focus. If you don’t live in the moment, you cannot trade effectively. You also have to forget losses and carry on with the trading.

In one of the best trading softwares, Metastock, there is a process of optimization by which one can choose what moving average and other technical tools apply better on which share/scrip. Several of these spiritual/motivation gurus make sweeping statements of what they teach without knowing how the concepts apply on each individual or his field of expertise and the audience also laps it up without discrimination or viveka as our

shastras propound. Only someone like Lord Krishna who is a trikaldarshi and knows how and when to apply what can be revered as a guru. But even gods have to be practical. Wonder how the gods would have dealt with something like the stock market.

All said and done, optimization is one of the best spiritual lessons of the stockmarket. In fact, both Viveka (discrimantion) and Vairagya(distanceing) are required if one goes by trading psychology. Opinions may have been formed because of our past prejudices and conditioning and the person/issue may have changed by then and there is a divergence. Spirituality constantly tells us to be non-judgmental because when you go the deeper roots, you get a completely different picture as in the case of some companies who try to window dress their balance sheet-management accounting v/s financial accounting.

One must be nimble to adjust to the market if one wants to succeed. Tehcnical analysis(which uses graphs to assess the mkt) is more of a market adjusting rather than market forecasting or decision making tool. Interpersonal conflicts are also caused because of opinions formed on prejudices because of different conditionings. For example, if you have not formed a new opinion recently or revised an old one, you have not lived.

Doesn’t it apply to our dear stockmarket more than anywhere? The so called intellectual truth may still be found but then stock market truth will always prove elusive because no trading system can work forever- applies to life actually. Mother Teresa who ran one of the largest charity organizations in the world expressed her reservations about verbal conversations. She said that they sometimes create more problems than they solve. Similarly mechanical trading system takes the emotion out of trading. A trading system similarly makes the decisions unbiased and objective. A truly spiritual person is always objective. This is an example from a share trading system

“ System 1 makes 1000 points a year and system 20 makes 2000 points a year. However if we allow five points per trade for commission and slippage than system 1 costs 20 points a year whereas system 2 costs 1000 points per year.

From an investment perspective, diversity may reduce adversity but from a trading perspective, it is better to focus on a few. What is given above for system 1 represents Pareto’s law “ Twenty percent of the causes lead to eighty percent of the results.

System 1 makes an average of 250 pointer per trade but only trades four times a year

System 2 makes an average of 10 points per trade but trades 200 times a year.

Principles of Yoga says that unless you know how to conduct yourself in the real world, doing Yoga and Meditation can only give marginal results. One of the commonest statements that one comes across in Trading psychology is “Know Thyself”. If you gave the same trading system to two people, one may become a multi millionaire with it and the other may become a begger. This would bely those people who keep repeating that

one can do anything with the “can do” attitude. In the market, it can take ages to know what your niche in the market is and where you can excel.

Life’s complexity demands some sanity, some predictability and some dependability. Increased volatility, velocity, uncertainties and complexities make us drift like straw in a storm. Doesn’t the second sentence remind us of the good old market? However when one considers that the market is trending only one third of the time and one would like to believe that there is more movement and more volatility in a trending market, overall the market is spiritual(Calm for two-thirds of the time).

In real life, one progresses more when one moves sideways and thinks out of the box. Take the Bhagvad gita itself. One of the foremost lessons of the Bhavad Gita is “ Do your Karma and don’t worry about the result” Considering the fact that markets are unprecitible, trading is a good practice for applying the lessons of the Bhagad gita. This is particularly true when one considers the fact that the market can go against you anytime. As for investing, even if one considers a two year time frame, it automatically entails distancing oneself from the fruits. Nishkam Karma applies well here because in other fields the probability fruits after the effort is much more than the market.

Alexander Elder, a famous trader said “ Trading is the most dangerous human endavour, short of war” Suitability of strategies and tacticts to situation: This is what Lord Krishna stood for from his own conduct by the manner in which he got Yudhistir to lie, the way Karna died. The fact is that there is no holy grail. Yet one comes across with sweeping statements. So we learn from one another while exploring issues as Krishnamurthy would say. Just as the market is the biggest guru, life and experiences themselves are biggest gurus more than any other individual.

DON'T SETTLE FOR LESS THAN A CALLING BACK TO HOME -1830words

By Hiren Shah

Most of us go through life engaged in jobs that give us no satisfaction. Many of us spend a lifetime imprisoned in work that we hate. Finding your calling early in life is crucial. But whose job is it to find it?

Most of us go through life engaged in jobs that give us no satisfaction. Many of us spend a lifetime imprisoned in work that we hate. Finding your calling early in life is crucial. But whose job is it to find it?

Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan, on being asked the secret of his success once remarked: "I consider myself lucky that I could decide early in life that I wanted to be an actor. I have come across many people who do not know what to do with themselves."

It is important to identify your real interests correctly early in life. Indian tennis ace Vijay Amritraj says in his autobiography: "I have been incredibly lucky because I have earned money doing what I like best. My one nightmare is doing something I hate just to earn enough to keep my family secure. I hope it never comes to that." Thomas Edison, in spite of working 18 hours a day, once said: "I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun."

Amritraj and Edison are well on their way to self-actualization. Psychologist Abraham Maslow describes self-actualization as a person's need to be and do that which the person was born to do, his calling. "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write," he said. Self-actualization is at the apex of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If a person's self-actualization needs are not met, he feels restless, edgy, lacking something.

But isn't it the job of education to discover talent, determine potential and help in identifying an occupation closer to a calling?

EDUCATION AND OCCUPATIONThe word 'education' is derived from two Latin terms ek and ducere. Ek means 'out' and ducere means 'to draw'. Therefore, education means to draw out from with n. This is contrary to the established practice of 'stuffing in' knowledge. Does imbibing more knowledge (read information) make us more intelligent? The present-day obsession with qualifications and knowledge leads many people to live miserable lives. As somebody pointed out sarcastically: "The world is full of educated derelicts."

And what does occupation mean? Literally, it implies something that occupies you. Quite obviously, everybody cannot be occupied by everything. Psychiatrists employ 'occupational therapy' to treat people with certain physical or mental illnesses by giving them creative or productive work. But finding that creative or productive work to suit the person's temperament cannot be easy. Even yoga and meditation would not really help if followed by eight to ten hours of misery at the workplace.

When it comes to occupation, "one man's meat is another man's poison". The importance of pinpointing the work cut out for each person can only be gauged when you see the agony of extreme job misfits or "square pegs in round holes". Only an Albert Einstein can have the wisdom to reject an offer to become President of Israel because he argued that he did not have enough experience of working with human beings. Only an Alyque Padamsee can have the wherewithal to pursue two careers throughout his life to enable one to fund the other. Although theater was his real passion, it paid a pittance and he had to take up advertising as a full-time profession.

DETERMINING POTENTIALAt what stage should the aptitude of a person be determined and how? Should it be on the basis of activity or knowledge, or should it be left to the individual to make a choice? Should it be determined proactively after looking at market realities by a vocational psychologist? Or is it the responsibility of educational institutions to determine who has talent for what so that time and effort is not wasted?

In his book Success at the Speed of Thought, Bill Gates points out that with the coming of computers and the internet, for the first time in the history of mankind it was possible to give customized education, that is, alter the teaching style to the mode that suits the child most.

A Reader's Digest article titled 'Should you see a career doctor?' implied that leaving a career choice to the individual would be almost as absurd as leaving the choice of treatment to the patient. The article went on to say that the counselor sometimes gives advice that is drastically different from what the parents say because the counselor is able to make a more objective appraisal.

Former Pakistani cricket star Imran Khan used to say that talented cricketers emerged not because of, but in spite of, the cricket system in his country. Our educational institutions are replete with examples where students make right career choices by default rather than by design. Not trying to explore an individual's potential before he enters professional life seems fatalistic. Albert Einstein said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." So is it the teacher's job to impart knowledge or to detect imagination and potential and direct the student accordingly?

In the age of the Internet, the role of a teacher is reduced to that of a librarian, unless he happens to be good at content development. Rather than being a sage on the stage, he has become a guide on the side. Perhaps then he should be involved in synchronizing the needs of the outside world with the potential of the students and shaping them accordingly. Only then can you avoid the spectacle of a Shekhar Kapoor wasting years in chartered accountancy while he was more suited for movie-making. Or an Amitabh Bachchan who came to know that he wants to be an actor at the age of 26 (he calls it early!) rather than in school or college.

KNOWING VERSUS BEINGSociety gives more attention to the 'knower' as borne out by the following perceptions of a leading HRD consultant firm: "At least in India, no one is surprised at children aspiring to become engineers, doctors, CAs or MBAs. Almost 60 per cent think in terms of engineering or medicine and nearly 15 per cent fancy their skills as CAs but in reality, only 10 per cent become what they dream of becoming. Have you ever wondered why children do not want to be artists, dancers, singers, painters or carpenters and plumbers? The reason is not far to seek. These professions have neither 'class' nor prestige associated with them. When they actually start working, they realize that they don't have the mental make-up for a particular type of job in spite of being suitably qualified."

A person must be first respected for what he is if he has to be encouraged to reach his full potential. If society has false notions about different vocations, how can it view people with the right perspective? Philosopher J. Krishnamurti said that society measures the child in accordance with what it wants him to do for society. "If you dictate the work he should do and mold him for that then you are using and exploiting him. But if you respect him for what he is and help him find his right vocation, you are his friend."

Osho said: "Somebody who could have been a painter is a doctor. Somebody who could have been a good doctor is a businessman. Everybody is displaced. Everybody is doing something he never wanted to do. Hence unhappiness. Happiness happens when you fit with your life. When you fit so harmoniously that whatever you are doing is your joy." In other words, one should choose the work according to what one is and not what one knows.

THE RIGHT SUB-VOCATIONThat one cannot always afford to be in the right sub-vocation either can be illustrated by several examples. Among writers, Charles Dickens found no success as a playwright despite great effort. Author of innumerable children's books, Enid Blyton admitted that if she had to write an article she would find it difficult. It is common sense that a potential writer would not succeed at all kinds of writing. It is just like tennis players, some are excellent grass court players but lousy on clay courts. Pete Sampras holds the record for the maximum number of grand slam victories (13) but failed repeatedly at the French Open. Indian cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly do not open in Test matches despite being recognized as a world class opening pair in one-day international cricket. If you see well-established professionals who cannot perform well in the wrong sub-vocation, the problems faced by a layman in choosing his correct vocation become easier to understand.

Management writers Tom Peters and Peter Drucker have indicated that corporate life is like a relay race and the founder of a company is not always the best person to carry it forward. Daniel Goleman goes further to state that even a person who turns around a sick company is not the best person to carry it forward after it recovers because a new situation calls for a change in leadership. Instead of the popular MBA, we may be better off with a degree called Master of Business Operations (MBO). This will also help determine who has potential for what kind of business since the needs of each industry are different.

APTITUDE VERSUS ATTITUDEThere are many books written on how most situations can be overcome by cultivating the right attitude. Motivational teachers harp too much on attitude, which is quite out of proportion to the importance it deserves. It seems to suit people to be told that capability is not the prime determinant and most things, if not everything, can be achieved by simply thinking positively. The importance of aptitude is best summed up by the remark: "Attitude and aptitude both determine altitude." Or as Edward de Bono puts it: "Intelligence may be an in-born thing, effectiveness is not."

Both Henry Ford and Akio Morita (founder of Sony Electronics) left well-established family businesses to chart their own course and became world famous. It is doubtful that

they would have achieved the same level of success in any other profession by just having the right attitude. When aptitude is right, positive attitude comes spontaneously.

In determining one's vocation or career, one should focus on innate potential and common sense rather than on accumulating knowledge. It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense. In this era of the Internet and information technology, it would be fitting if the right knowledge came to the right individual with the active participation of the teacher at an early stage. The situation calls for a process-oriented education instead of an input-oriented one. Blindly stuffing in knowledge is as bad as filling diesel in a petrol tank.

Fits and Misfits-1060 words

At the end of the ten day Vipasana Meditation course where one is supposed to maintain silence, a poor man walked up and said,” The course has made me blissful and peaceful but how is this going to help? I don’t have a job. Solving problems in real life is more important and as much a part of spirituality as talking of meditation, self-realization and the divine. Even is Ashtang Yoga, there is a step called Niyam which states that the conduct in the real world is as important if not more as doing Yoga exercises and meditation.

Since a majority of waking hours are spent at work(bracket 8-10 hours a day for six days in many cases), if one is peaceful and happy for most of the time during work hours, one is spiritual. President APJ Abdul Kalam has thrown some light on this problem in his autobiography “Wings of Fire”-“If you are a writer who would secretly prefer to be a lawyer or a doctor, your written words will feed but half the hunger of your readers; if you are a teacher who would rather be a businessman, your instructions will meet but half the need for knowledge of your students; if you are a scientist who hates science, your performance will satisfy but half the needs of your mission. The personal happiness and failure to achieve results that come from being a square peg in a round hole is not by any means new. In another part of the book, he states , “ I myself would tell naviete engineering students that when they choose their specialization, the essential point to consider is whether the choice articulates their inner feelings and aspirations.

The word education is derived from two latin terms “Ek” and “ducere” . Ek means out and ducere means to draw. Therefore, education means to draw out from within. This is contrary to the established practice of stuffing in knowledge. Despite the word “Swadharma” in our shastras which means one’s occupation, Osho, Krishnamurthy, Swami Vivekanand and Shri Aurobindo have spoken on the subject but how much this happens in real life is a matter of debate. What Osho said was the most relevant “ Somebody who could have been a painter is a doctor, somebody who could have been a good doctor is a businessman. Everybody is displaced. Everybody is doing something he never wanted to do. Hence, unhappiness. Happiness happens when you fit with your life. When you fit so harmoniously that whatever you are doing is your joy. When you are happy, you are automatically meditative and not the other way around.

The United states seems to have far better Vocational psychologists, Employment psychologists, Career psychologists, life coaches etc than India does.

HRD consultants in 28 countries, “Morgan and Banks” also sum it up best when they say “ Very few things are crucial to your long term happiness as your career”. The spiritual dimension is covered best by Nanette Hucknall ,” To know the self is to know your own spirit. The work one selects is most important as it always helps the soul to go to another level of maturity. It is necessary to look into your inner self to discover your true life work. Emotional blocks may exist with roots in this life or past life or both. These blocks can prevent people from discovering their true your vocation. For the growth of each soul, it is important to experience all the areas of knowledge with a sense of achievement. Our souls must feel that we have done the best work possible wether as mail clerks or Senators.

There is a special type of meditation called career meditation which is supposed to help in finding your vocation in life. Osho had once described the state of a musician who had gone into the medical profession by mistake- that man spent the last fifteen years of his life as a musician. The great Indian actor, Balraj Sahni who was a businessman’s son was a career dabbler - his father’s business, a printing press, Sevagram with Gandhiji , Shantiniketan with Rabindranath Tagore, London as a Radio Broadcaster, Actor in the Indian film Industry and when still unfulfilled, he went to his native Punjab to write in Punjabi.

To solve this problem, many of these experts say ,” Think of what you did or enjoyed as a child” . Osho also said more or less the same thing that being stuffed with knowledge takes us away from our core and causes a deceptive conditioning. It’s a vicious circle- being stuffed with knowledge in young age and then, being deconditioned as an adult.

Former India cricketer Madan lal says , “ Most parents are after me to make their sons cricketers. However, in my view, cricket is a god given gift and I take interest only if I see potential in the child”.

Incidentally, Amitabh Bachchan left corporate life because by his own admission, he was not much of an executive. And actor Dev Anand who is fully energetic and active in his old age never tires of saying “Nothing can give you a high as your own work”.

In his book, successful intelligence , Robert Sternberg pointing out the difference between creative, analytical and practical intelligence says that being good at analysis of case studies in an MBA is no guarantee that you shall get creative ideas in the real situation.

Alyque Padmsee says that he used one career (advertisement) to fund his real passion(theatre).There are many people who have to live life like that. Can they really afford to find their vocation late in life? Even if you are talented for a particular field, there are certain things that only practical experience can teach. Can you really afford to find your vocation late in life? Many people think that job prisoners make excuses. In

some cases, it maybe so but being in the wrong occupation can be so taxing emotionally and financially that it really takes a lot of courage to actually switch careers as Morgan and Banks have pointed. There are people like Bill Gates, Dhirubhai Ambani and one of the best corporate leaders in recent times, Jack Welch who have disregared paper qualifications and given such people a chance. Only the attitude of such people can rescue job prisoners.

Double life-1998 words

A Double Life-Heart or Mind- Passion or Money in choosing one’s career- Which one would you choose? Heart or brain? Money or passion? It is worth making your passion your profession than to live a double life, says HIREN SHAH

It is not uncommon in today’s stress-prone world to come across questions like “how to be successful in one’s profession, spiritually?” The word spirituality implies peace, happiness, balance, and equanimity, probability of achieving which becomes much greater when you are in the profession of your choice.

Swami Vivekanand said , “materialism and spirituality are two wings of the same bird.” In this context, the debate on money vs passion is best explained by seven-time world billiards champion Geet Sethi in his book Success vs Joy. Sethi always followed his heart focused on billiards and became a champion besides completing his MBA from the University school of Management, Ahmedabad..

Though Sethi focused on billiards, his friend Sunil Aggarwal did the opposite. Though he shared his passion on billiards, he focused on his IIM and IIT and achieved the exalted social status as the managing director of a company, “a feeling of inadequacy and failure dogged me continuously, which was primary because of lack of achievement in what he considered to be his true passion- the billiards table.”

After exposure to the game for only a few months at the age of 13, Sethi got addicted to billiards. “To experience joy, you have to be yourself. I realised that joy for me can only come from what I do with passion. It has to involve me physically, emotionally, and spiritually,” says Sethi. “I have spent countless hours in complete solitude trying to align myself with my natural being. The ultimate experience is the joy of making a full effort in reaching out to the core within. It is the act of staying in the moment that gives immense, immeasurable joy. That joy is not a state of nirvana; it is the result of a moment of absolute concentration. I played for the sheer joy of the moment,” writes Sethi in his book.

The natural state of oneness with being can only be possible when one is present in the moment, according to the wonderful book The Power of Now. Besides conscious efforts, this happens naturally when one loses awareness of space and time in doing what one enjoys doing the most. It is also said that the luckiest man is the person whose hobby and profession are the same, but how many such examples do we come across?

Follow your passionTeam Tennis is an Indian tennis academy started by Aditya Sachdeva, Jaideep Bhatia, and Sanjay Minotra———–all tennis enthusiasts. Aditya graduated in commerce but was not interested in the family business of distribution of FMCG products. Bhatia completed his MBA in international business from the University of Bridgeport in USA and also worked for Price Cooper before following his heart. While Sanjay Minotra, also an MBA, was already a director in his father’s tennis court installation company,. the other two were dissatisfied with their professions as their heart lay somewhere else..

Their attitude is summed up by Bhatia “Tennis had always been a part of our lives and it is more about our own happiness,” Aditya, Jaideep, and Sanjay share a common passion with India tennis ace Vijay Amritraj, who revealed in his autobiography that his worst nightmare would be to be forced in a business not of his liking just to support his family. All this only goes to show that a hobby is more a measure of a man than his profession is.

Make a life, not a living“Make a life, not a living”——-goes a common saying, which is true for Ajay Maira. Maira, Director, Outdoor Adventures India, is the pioneer of whitewater rafting in India and is now a veteran outdoorsman. He completed his schooling from the Lawrence, Sanawar, apart from being brought up in the natural ambience of an agricultural farm in Panipat. Around the time he graduated, his family shifted to Delhi. Having been so close to nature, he found city life too stifling and could not resist his true calling———-adventure sports. Having bumped into and begun with some Canadian rafters ,in December 1985 while still in college, he managed to covert his passion to his full-time profession over a period of two decades. He now organizes river rafting, trekking, student adventure camps, corporate wilderness workshops, etc. His partner Pavane Mann, completed her masters in Spanish and history, but joined Ajay as her passion also lies in nature.

Sayings like “don’t work for a living”, “find a hobby that pays”, are many but how many of us actually achieve it. Mr S P Shah is a chartered accountant who was working with the Anand group of companies in 1978, when the chairman asked him to look into the possibility of turning around a small sick company of his brother-in-law. While working in that small company part time for six months, Shah took out time for his real passion———–the share market. He realized he would get an opportunity for all round exposure and personal growth in the smaller setup than a specialized job in a bigger company. He managed to turn the company around in four years and got a partnership on the strength of his management skills. Against everybody including his chairman, he consciously took a decision to “be a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond.” Over the next two decades, Shah progressed in all spheres as he could dabble freely in the stock market.

Take decisions consciouslyHowever, the saying “choose your career not on the basis of what you know but who you are”, does not go true for all. Niki Kantawala, a 41-year-old lawyer, plays hockey over

the weekends without fail and declares candidly, “I don’t mind playing hockey all seven days, but unfortunately that’s not possible.” He adds realistically, “even if I had succeeded in playing for India, I would have thought twice before choosing to opt for a career in hockey for the simple reason that it does not pay well. So I satisfy my passion by playing it even today.”

In my own case, though I have good writing skills and feel passionately for it, I always took it as a hobby and never pursued it as a full time profession. Today, after putting in years in the corporate world, I realized that my satisfaction and happiness lies in writing. Concentration while writing comes spontaneously, while for business tasks I have to concentrate consciously.

Unfortunately, except for some career consultants in the United States, nobody focuses on the two major ingredients for making the right career decision——-functional talent and passion. Most career consultants are unanimous that career transition is a long, arduous, and time-consuming process. It is ironical that one can reach outer space within a few hours but something like one’s own vocation, which is so fundamental to individual happiness and society’s productivity takes years.

On the right side of age…From my experience, I strongly feel that the decision to switch jobs gets progressively difficult with age. The chances of both success and joy improve considerably if one is able to pinpoint one’s real interest at an early age. “Catch them young” or “the early bird catches the worm”, applies here more than anything else.

It must be pointed out here that everybody who chooses to follow his/her heart does not necessarily succeed commercially. An American entrepreneur, when complimented on being able to leave his six figure salary to pursue his passion of opening a chain of food stores, said, “such decisions can only be made if the personal profile, the business profile, and the market profile match.” Former Lintas Chairmnan Alyque Padamsee in his autobiography A Double Life reveals about the sacrifices he had to make while straddling with two careers. Eminent novelist and India’s representative at the United Nations Shashi Tharoor talks of the same experience when he says, “the full-time writer is a rare breed anywhere”.

There’s nothing wrong in traversing two paths——–if plan A fails, plan B has to be ready according to management experts. But the question is which should be Plan A and which should be B? Is the heart given its due importance while deciding?

Walk the pathGeet Sethi elaborates, “there is a difference in knowing the path and walking the path.” He admits, “I was fortunate to discover so early in life what I wanted to do.”Best selling author Dale Carnegie said 50 years ago, “it is a pity that so many bright, young people coming out of educational institutions do not know exactly what they want to do.” The word education itself is based on the Latin word Educere, meaning to bring out what is already in instead of stuffing facts. Many Indian intellectuals like Shri

Aurobindo and Swami Vivekanand and spiritual stalwarts like Osho have said this all throughtout their lives. But does that really happen?

People tend to be more money-centric when young, but by the time they reach midlife, many of them may feel suffocated and frustrated. Nanette Hucknall in her book Karma, Destiny and Career, writes, “no matter how important or well paying your job is, if it is not your life’s work, you will always find something wrong with it. The experience of wholeness or inner peace comes only when one is fulfilling one’s full potential.” That this is the true spiritual experience is conveyed by the fact that in the United States one can come across examples like a child psychologist becoming a taxi driver, an established accountant wanting to be a carpenter, men wanting to be nurses, etc. One can be moneyed and yet unhappy. Fortunately, sites like careerspice.com have taken the lead by stating passions, strengths and skills specifically, and in that order to enable people to decide and pinpoint what they want to do.

There are several prominent Indian examplesof people who made significant career changes. Amitabh Bachchan made a switch from corporate life to films; chartered accountants Shekhar Kapur and Abhijeet became director and singer, respectively. Music composers A R Rehman and Shanker shifted from civil and software engineering, respectively.

Commitment with passionCricketer of the century Kapil Dev always stressed the need to enjoy the game. Chairman of cricket selectors and former cricketing great, Dilip Vengsarkar, when asked which job he found toughest——-playing, officiating, or selecting, replied “there is no such thing as tough when you are passionate about cricket. All roles are satisfying, having the commitment to stay in them is important”. Is that kind of commitment possible without passion?

Geet Sethi had to often put in 14 hours of practice and also stresses the importance of the role played and the sacrifices made by his family. Says he, “my wife in fact calls me a very boring person because I am obsessed with billiards. I now try to find a balance,” he grins. “But she understands that the joy I derive overrides everything else. Imagine the plight of a person who finds his passion late in life——-since that is also a genuine need that has to be satisfied, both for making up for the past and for professional success, one would have to work much harder.

Last but not the least, one life worth mentioning is of the great inventor Thomas Edison, who said, “success is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.” The same man also said, “I never worked all my life. It was all fun.” He is the man who used to put in 18-hour workdays and often slept in his laboratory. Most great industrialists have put in long hours while establishing themselves. One wonders whether that kind of perspiration is possible without sufficient inspiration or joy in one’s work.

The writer specialises in writing articles on career misfits.

Excitement begets excitement- 1481 words

Productivity is possible only if the leader is passionate about his work

Leadership has always been an evergreen hot topic. Every year, new books appear on the subject by the stars of the corporate world. There are endless debates on the diverse styles of leadership and various other facets of leadership. There are articles and seminars on how good leadership is critical to the development of a nation. People go on and on discussing leadership attributes such as skills, beliefs, values, knowledge etc, the importance of communicating vision and having a mission statement, significance of motivation, direction and implementation in leadership etc.

In all this verbal gymnastics, one forgets that the most important thing that determines leadership is functional talent, as most of the times people expect to be led by example. Now functional talent is something that can be determined only when a person attempts a particular activity. It is quite possible that somebody maybe qualified for something and may have a functional talent or operative skill of something completely different. Being good at something is more a matter of the mind but since a person has to spend a majority of his waking hours at work and has to work for most of his life, it is better if he is also passionate about the work, which has more to do with the heart, especially if he is expected to lead others. Taking the mind alone is a parochial view in the context of leadership. As they say, “A boss tells others what to do...a leader shows that it can be done.” If the mind alone is considered, one may be good at something but is not likely to “show” to his subordinates. In sports like Tennis and Cricket, it is said that a great player is one who is able to play well in all conditions.

A manager may also have to face adverse situations in other spheres of his own life and to be able to exercise true leadership in all conditions and circumstances. Thus it is imperative that he likes his work because then, adversity will not prove too cumbersome for him.

“As a cure for worrying work is better than whisky”— Thomas A Edison

It was Edison who said, “Success is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” A leader is hardly going to work that hard (perspiration) unless he enjoys his work, which again is explained by Edison the scientist-entrepreneur-innovator thus: “I never worked in my life. It was all fun”. That apart, when one is pursuing what one truly likes, one is driven by a sense of broader purpose. l Managers have a short-term perspective, leaders have a longer-term perspectivel Managers have an eye on the bottom line, leaders have an eye on the horizon l Managers administer, leaders innovate l Managers imitate, leaders originate

l Managers emulate the classic good soldier, leaders are their own person l Managers ask how and when, leaders ask what and why l Managers do things right, leaders do the right things l Managers accept the status-quo, leaders challenge the status-quo From the above, one can deduce that a majority of these things can be done only if the leader is inspired about his work. He is hardly likely to be original or innovative (asking what and why, challenging the status quo, doing the right things etc) unless he loves his work. Leaders cannot be their own person if they are unsure of their own working identity, which depends on how well one suits a particular role. l Managers focus on systems, leaders focus on peoplel Managers maintain, leaders develop l Managers rely on control, leaders inspire trust As for the ability to inspire trust, the focus on people or the long term perspective, these are all matters of emotional intelligence, which are tested at higher levels of management because management at the bottom level is a science but at the top level is an art, which is why real leadership is tested at higher levels. If a person does not like his occupation even if he has the mental aptitude for it, he may not always carry people with him and therefore win their trust or display the emotional intelligence, so crucial at higher levels of management. The book Passion to win is based on a research study by All India Management Association. The book, citing examples of companies like Hero Honda, Reliance, Ranbaxy, L&T, HLL, Dr Reddy’s laboratories Titan, Sudarshan Fasteners, Wipro, Infosys and Satyam, states how they are driven by passion, they had a long term institution-development orientation, they attracted and nurtured talent and leadership across the organisation, they created and valued an ambience for innovation, initiative, entrepreneurship and constant improvement in every aspect, and in the process sustained outstanding performance and their competitive edge.

The chief executive officer of Dr Reddy’s labs says it all: “I think only companies and leaders who are passionate about what they are doing will be able to create great organisations. Without passion, you cannot create great organisations. You have to be excited about what you are doing”. How true. Just as money begets money and ideas beget ideas, excitement begets excitement and a person who is not excited himself can hardly excite others in different situations.

The heart element is not always given its due importance in leadership literature. This is what the Harvard Business Review on ‘The mind of the leader’ has to say about it: “If you are looking for leaders, how can you identify people who are motivated by the drive to achieve rather than by external rewards? The first sign is a passion for the work itself — such people seek out creative challenges, love to learn and take grade pride in a job well done. They also display an unflagging energy to do things better and are forever raising the performance bar.” Since everybody obviously cannot be a leader on every issue, it is passion for a particular work more than intelligence that paves the way of identifying great leadership.

The book Success v/s Joy describes the lives of two friends, former billiards champion Geet Sethi and his friend Sunil Aggarwal who shared a common passion, billiards. While Geet Sethi followed his passion and became a champion, Aggarwal, despite being an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad and IIT-Delhi and becoming a managing director of a media company, complained of feelings of inadequacy and failure. He even went on to say that it is a lousy idea to do MBA if you are not suited for business.

There are many people who may be good at a particular thing but in their own words “do not have their heart in it”. For instance, Nagesh Kukunur, director of famous movies such as Hyderabad Blues, Dor and Iqbal, is a chemical engineer by qualification but had no liking for that and gravitated towards films where he has carved a niche for himself.

Some of the people who fail to make such decisions or discover their passions end up writing books like Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design. Such people can hardly excel in any leadership role. One of India’s best known corporate leaders and one of the world’s richest Indians, Azim Premji used the word “meaningful work” which could imply different things to different people and stated that profits in his company are a byproduct of allocating the right meaningful work to different people.

President Abdul Kalam who has headed organisations related to space, atomic energy and defence has this to say on the subject in his autobiography Wings of Fire — “If you are a writer who would secretly prefer to be a lawyer or a doctor, your written words will feed but half the hunger of your readers; if you are a teacher who would rather be a businessman, your instructions will meet but half the need for knowledge of your students; if you are a scientist who hates science, your performance will satisfy but half the needs of your mission.” The personal happiness and failure to achieve results that come from being a square peg in a round hole is not by any means new. In another part of the book, he states, “I myself would tell naiveté engineering students that when they choose their specialisation, the essential point to consider is whether the choice articulates their inner feelings and aspirations.”

As pointed out by the President, due significance should be given to the “feelings and aspirations” but many times it happens that young people choose the wrong profession on account of the glamour of money and qualification and then feel trapped. How can anybody who feels like this excel in varied management situations and be expected to lead others? This is a critical issue both from the point of individual happiness and society’s productivity.

Soul of a profession- 1500 words

Forget material considerations while choosing a career; Follow your heart to be happy in a job

Having worked in the corporate world for several years, I found management work quite mundane. I was more inclined to study management and write about management than actually operate as a management executive.

Since changing careers is never an easy option, I tried to ignore the ‘football player in a hockey field’ or ‘square peg in a round hole’ feeling to the best of my ability, but it was never easy to ignore the constant stifling feeling that one gets when one is in the wrong profession. Over the years, I got to read about the heart element in deciding one’s career and how important it was to be passionate about what one was doing. I read about how some artists endured a lifetime of poverty for the love of their profession, how some animal lovers lived under appalling conditions, how actors took rejection after rejection but continued to do the work that they loved. The word “passion” is more tilted towards the heart and it goes without saying that one shall be able to like one’s work in all circumstances throughout lifetime. And that is possible only if one is genuinely interested in one’s work. In the artist’s context, the word ‘soul’ is used because the word art generally implies an expression of one’s soul and artists are generally completely absorbed in their work, which really is the expression of their soul.

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. — Henry Ward Beecher (1813 - 1887),

The role of the artist I now understood as that of revealing through the world-surfaces the implicit forms of the soul, and the great agent to assist the artist was the myth. — Joseph Campbell

The chairman of ICICI, KV Kamath once said that if you want artistic satisfaction in the business world, you have to innovate continuously. Being a poet myself, all I can say is that nothing can match the intense delight-cum-satisfaction that comes from writing anything well even if it does not attain commercial success.

Nothing explains ‘artistic satisfaction’ or satisfaction in terms of heart and soul more than the life of the great Indian actor Balraj Sahni. I empathise totally with him since I have led a somewhat similar life.

In his book My Brother, Balraj, Bhishm Sahni has narrated how his brother was a career dabbler all his life — handling his father’s business, a printing press; Sevagram with Gandhiji; Shantiniketan with Rabindranath Tagore; off to London as a radio broadcaster; actor in the Indian film Industry; and when still unfulfilled, going back to his native Punjab to write in Punjabi.. Balraj Sahni had a literary bent of mind and his brother describes his dissatisfaction in their father’s commission agent business vividly:

“He was not content with the mode of life he had adopted and his impatience with it was increasing with each passing day. That also explains the varied shifts that took place in

his interests during the next few months. Dissatisfied with the vocation he had adopted, he was now groping for a better outlet for his talents and energies.”

Balraj Sahni used to participate in English plays and writing activities. This paragraph describes his plight even more vividly: “All these varied activities, more or less at the same time, only reflected Balraj’s inner restlessness and his increasing dissatisfaction. Such cultural ventures were perhaps a desperate attempt on the part of Balraj to convince himself that even while he was pursuing a business career, he could somehow reconcile business with his inner urges. He had stuck on to business for nearly three years, out of deference for Father’s wishes, but his heart was not in it, and his dissatisfaction had begun to increase.”

It would not be out of place to mention here several people who moved from corporate/management to film life on account of dissatisfaction. Amitabh Bachchan was a corporate executive before he shifted to films; director Shekhar Kapur and singer Abhijeet were chartered accountants. Music composers AR Rahman and Shanker shifted from civil and software engineering respectively.

It is generally artists and sportspersons who insist on “enjoying your work”. Cricketer of the century Kapil Dev always stressed on the need to enjoy the game. Chairman of cricket selectors and former cricket great Dilip Vengsarkar, when asked which job he found toughest, playing, officiating or selecting, replied, “there is no such thing as tough when you are passionate about cricket. All roles are satisfying. Having the commitment to stay in them is important.” Is that kind of commitment possible without a passion for the game? Kapil Dev as a director of National Cricket Academy answers that when he says that he tells recruits that if they found that cricket was a punishment, they should leave their sport.

Lately, a lot of American writers have started expressing the same theme in terms of the soul. Nanette Hucknall explains in her book Karma, Destiny and Career, the practical dimension of life’s work with one’s soul. She says that one may achieve a high status in a particular job and do very well at it and still not be doing his vocation. The feeling of doing well may give a sense of self but if it is not one’s life’s work, one may always feel something wrong with it. She says, “If an individual relinquishes his or her vocation for material considerations, he or she will be unhappy at a later time in life. Never will the worldly goods replace the feeling of accomplishing the chosen vocation and never will the vocation be relinquished without deep feeling of regret.”

According to American consultant Lance Secretan, “Finding joy in our work depends on the relationship between our soul and our work and on the degree to which our work engages and nourishes our soul. Whether or not you have found your calling determines the level of soulfulness in your work. We all experience soulful moments in our lives — when we are at the symphony, when we watch a sunset, when we gaze into the eyes of a baby, when we play with a puppy, when we are deeply appreciated or practicing our highest mastery or when we are connected to the divine. We all want to feel the same way at work throughout our lives. There is no reason why this should not be so.”

Nick Weiler and co-author, Dr Stephen Schoonover have written a book Your Soul at Work on over 20 years of research with many well-known organisations worldwide. Their tools and techniques are used by numerous Fortune 500 companies (GE, IBM, AT&T, Lockheed Martin, Sun Microsystems EDS, Citibank etc.), in addition to small startups, and not-for-profit organisations. If the following questions hit home, then their book is written for you: • Would you like to fulfil more of your personal and spiritual values on the job? • Do you love your work? • …Or like most people do you wish it were a little more satisfying? Maybe you’ve been the victim of downsizing and are trying to make the best of the situation. • Could you use some very practical techniques for finding and pursuing a career path that better satisfies your values? • Would you like to learn specific, research-proven non-technical skills that are key to success and advancement in just about any career specialty? • Are you frustrated with career planning books that neglect your more spiritual concerns? • Are you frustrated when you try to practise on the job what you’ve learned in spiritually oriented self-help books? • Is this all there is?

Often it’s the people who are very successful financially who find themselves asking, “Is this all there is?” But it’s more than time and it’s more than money. In a recent cover story of Fortune magazine, one executive was quoted as saying, “You get to the top of the ladder and find that maybe it’s leaning against the wrong building.”

Mahatma Gandhi expresses the same sentiment in his autobiography, “My aptitude for nursing gradually developed into a passion, so much so that it often led me to neglect my work and on occasions, I engaged not only my wife but the whole household in such service. Such service has no meaning unless one takes pleasure in it. When it is done for show or fear of public opinion, it turns the man and crushes his spirit. Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant not the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.”

The emphasis on the words “spirit” and “service” clearly indicates the spiritual dimension of being in the right occupation. In any case, the word “spiritual” implies peace, balance and equanimity and the more chances you are in the right occupation, the better chance you have of being practically spiritual.

Talent tapping, an art- 2502 words

Notwithstanding many self-help books, you can’t change your talent set. You can only help yourself by fitting into the right role

I joined the Kedia group of companies sometime in September 1992 as assistant manager (MIS) and was pleasantly surprised when my childhood school friend, AK joined as assistant manager (exports) fifteen days later. From the very beginning, his razor sharp alertness, street smartness in dealing with people and superb communication were so evident that within three weeks of joining, I told him, “You have the talent to be among the best in the corporate world”. I could not have been more right because AK also turned out to be a superb organiser and administrator, a very good strategist and team builder and because of these and other qualities, a good leader. Since he was very versatile and good in all major functions (finance, marketing, operations), he got several double promotions and in just about an year’s time, the chairman made him chief executive of the international division. Considering that they had a turnover of Rs 150 crores at that time, the chairman had many people to choose from and this was no small achievement. Later he left and set up a big project consultancy business within a span of few years and further diversified into hotels and BPOs.Around August 1995 when we went our separate ways, when I wrote a couple of poems on him and the company’s expansion and diversification, he told me, “You are better suited for this than the corporate world,” which subsequently proved absolutely right. He also added “You should do what you can do spontaneously and effortlessly”. This, to my mind is the most obvious definition of talent. When we joined neither of us knew of our own latent abilities but after the interaction, we were able to guess each other’s potential with pinpoint accuracy. When we came together, I was both well- read in management and much more experienced but I and some of the others stood absolutely no chance against his prodigious talent. Three other people joined from the same institute as AK but he was far better in practical application. Even today, he is head and shoulders above his equally and better qualified partners.

Current situation

Talent management is in vogue these days. Though the term is usually used in the context of celebrities in field of creative arts, when one considers a broader spectrum, the problem is that companies from a cross-section of industries — ICICI Bank, Pantaloon, Ernst and Young, TCS, Infosys etc — find conventional management education grossly inadequate and are tying up with academicians to provide customised solutions for their respective companies. One article even stated that only 20 per cent of the talent pool was suitable for corporate India and people had to be groomed for becoming industry-ready. This is critical as success in the future would depend on a company’s ability to find and retain talented people

In a country whose scriptures boast of terms like svadharma (one’s calling in life) and claim that the Sukshma (subjective-person) is more important than the sthula (objective-knowledge), how could conventional education fare so poorly? One reason obviously is that functional talent is evident only after the person tries a particular occupation. Nobody can really determine a talent in advance till he/she tries a particular job. In today’s competitive environment, companies need to be nimble and flexible. The manager needs to probe each employee, look for differences in approach, needs and drive

of each individual and then try to change his unique talents into performance in the context of the company’s goals. The manager should set realistic expectations and motivate and develop a person accordingly.

Talent definedThe most important thing is to understand what exactly the word “Talent” implies. Concluded from a survey interviewing the world’s top managers, the book First, Break All the Rules defines talent as “a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behaviour that can be productively applied to a particular situation or role”. After every child is born, the child’s mind tries to reach out aggressively and by the third birthday, makes fifteen thousand synaptic connections (between the cells) for each of its one hundred billion neurons. These mental pathways are the filter which produce unique patterns of behaviour, which create her enthusiasms and indifferences and basically define where she will excel and where she will struggle. These pathways are indications to the child’s character and according to neuroscience, beyond a point, there is a limit to how much of her character she can recarve.

The book disproves the conventional wisdom that “Human beings have unlimited potential”. Every now and then, self-help books appear on how one can win in life on the basis of having the “right attitude” alone. Some of these so-called consultants even say that it is attitude more than talent that matters in performance. It may be true sometimes but on close examination, one can find that no two individuals do even the minutest of jobs exactly alike and in the long run. It is talent which is likely to have a greater weightage on how a person performs in all circumstances.

Types of TalentThe book further says that talents are of three types — striving, thinking and relating talents. Striving talents explain the ‘whys’ of a person — is he altruistic or competitive or both, is he task-oriented or result-oriented or both? Thinking talents define the ‘hows’ of a person — is he a linear or a lateral thinker, is he disciplined or carefree etc. Relating talents define whom he relates with, confronts or ignores. The core activities of a manager and a leader are different. It is entirely possible for a person to be a brilliant manager but a terrible leader or vice-versa. But a few exceptional people excel at both. Mike Brearly is perhaps the only cricket captain in history who continued in the English cricket team on the strength of his captaincy alone as he was not much of a player. In the Indian context, Sourav Ganguly may pale in comparison to Tendulkar as a batsman but made a much better captain, which is something that nobody could have predicted. Tendulkar, being a great batsman, could have easily led by example but it was the lesser gifted batman Ganguly, who really excelled as a leader which is doubly creditable. This difference between “performers” and “leaders” is very well brought out by the book. Distinguishing between talent and non-talents, it gives examples of waiters, bartenders, housekeepers, nurses, data entry operators etc as to how the best were different from the rest even in minor jobs and were compensated highly without necessarily being promoted, if they did not have the talent for man management. The best bartender was

someone who remembered names of 3,000 guests and their drinks and the champion data entry operator was four times faster than the rest. I once had a ringside view of a continuous clash between the best salesman and the sales manager he reported to. The outstanding salesman could not be promoted because of certain personal limitations and since he was a star, the “nobody is indispensable” rule could not really be applied to him. The sales manager was not so good at sales but was a good man manager whom others reported to. The salesman always tried to indulge in a “one-upmanship” with the sales manager all the time who was compelled to reciprocate at times. The management did not know how to manage the conflict and lost the star salesman. The real solution is broadbanding, which defines different ranges of salaries for different posts for both performers and man managers. Following this, it is possible for a superb police officer to be paid more than a less efficient sergeant without being promoted, a brilliant teacher can similarly earn more than a novice principle, an excellent flight attendant more valuable than an average pilot etc. This is talent management at its best as the concerned people remain motivated despite not being promoted for roles, that do not suit them.The book also gives due respect to humble talents. A well-known management consultant stated in his book, “An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because it is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will neither have good plumbing not good philosophy. Neither its pipes not its theories will hold water.” Excellence need not be confined to what are considered “intelligent” or white collared roles. It is possible to have a role excellence in every role and talent in every individual who performs that role well. In the minds of great managers, every role performed with excellence deserves respect. For instance, a chore like housekeeping was studied and the precise behaviour traits that made the best housekeepers were defined which constituted “housekeeping talent”. Then, every effort was made to make housekeeping publicly revered and a genuine career choice. It would not be out of place to mention here what lateral thinking expert Edward de Bono had said once that just because you have solved a complicated problem is no guarantee that you shall be able to solve a simple problem. Albert Einstein is a case in point when he admitted frankly, “The hardest thing to understand is income-tax.” He even refused the presidency of Israel because of lack of experience in working with human beings. This clearly shows that nothing should be taken for granted just because a person proves exceptional in one field no matter what it is. What Bono actually implies is that one type of talent is no guarantee that a person shall do equally well elsewhere whether as a subordinate, a boss or in a peer function or whether it is an exalted talent or a humble talent.The father of management, Peter Drucker had said once that life is a relay race and the person who has the talent to start a company is not always the best to carry it forward. Since mental and emotional talents are not always so tangible or transparent compared to sports talent, expressions like “attitude problem”, “excuse”, “you can do it”, “reinvent yourself “etc are readily used without verifying whether the person has the requisite aptitude. Amitabh Bachchan has been able to reinvent himself even in old age but none of his contemporaries have achieved even moderate success. Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil

Gavaskar have 35 and 34 centuries respectively in 135 and 125 tests but in one day cricket, the ratio is 40:1 in 378 and 108 matches respectively. It clearly reveals the more talented batsmen overall and the fact that Gavaskar was not such a great one day player. All this clearly shows that domain expertise is not enough and one needs to know his particular sub- domain or his niche strength specifically. Chairman of selectors Dilip Vengsarkar aptly called cricketer VVS Laxman a “one dimensional talent”, which is probably the reason that despite being respected by the Australian bowlers, he could not make it to the world cups in 2003 and 2007.In the context of a company, the nature and ambience of a company determines individual talent. A broker with a lot of desire and focus would be better in an entrepreneurial company and a broker blessed with achievement and discipline would be better in a more structured company. Lacking this knowledge, if both companies hire each other’s brokers, it may prove disastrous. The main thrust is to make a person feel that he is in a role that uses his talents while simultaneously challenging him to grow. The book further reveals that great managers know that there is a limit to how much remolding they can do to someone. They try to help each person become more and more of what he already is by focusing on his strengths and finding him a role that is aligned to his strengths rather than try to fix his weakness to be able to do the current job better. There is an example of a boss telling his subordinate “I love you and therefore I have to fire you” and then taking pains to find a job for that person to suit his talents rather than forcing him in the current role which did not suit him. This is the best example of tough love that a person can expect to find and is at variance with giving too much importance to attitude. If everybody were to practice this brand of socialism, the world would be a much better place to live in.

Talent, Skills & CompetenciesFirst, Break All the Rules says that talent primarily depends on certain behaviour traits that are not easy to change. Many companies send their employees to training classes to learn new behaviours — empathy, assertiveness, relationship building etc. However, great managers believe that people don’t change much. The less articulate fellow shall never excel at debate and the intense competitor will never learn to be less assertive. Competencies are part skill, part talent and part knowledge. When one refers to them, one should be clear in one’s mind which are skills and knowledge and can be taught and which are talents and cannot be taught. “Implementing business or management control systems” is a skill but “calm under pressure” is a talent that cannot be taught. It can be disastrous to suggest that the only way to become more effective is to change your nature. For example, if a person is persistently pessimistic, rather than telling him continuously to be positive, it is better to fit him in a role where skepticism is a key to success.

Talent and formal educationSuperstar Amitabh Bachchan recently said in an interview about his son Abhishek’s movie career,” Family background does help but ultimately it is individual talent that

matters.” One wonders how much education is required for the really talented considering the famous maxim “To do easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius”. In the movie Krrish, Naseerudin Shah is seen telling a prodigious Hritik Roshan, “Others are trained but you are gifted”. Natural talent manifests itself quite well without formal education — neither Amitabh Bachchan nor Dhirubhai Ambani received any real formal education but both were outstanding and enduring successes in their chosen fields. The book Ancient Wisdom for Management puts it very bluntly, “Academic degree is just an entry pass nothing else in any job.” Ambani himself admitted that for management tasks, he gives more attention to who takes more initiative and gets the job done rather than “paper qualifications.” While skills and knowledge can be taught, talent cannot. Skills are ‘how to’ of a role that are transferable from person to person and can be improvised with practice. They are often situation-specific and faced with an unanticipated scenario, they lose much of their power unlike talent which is transferable from situation to situation.

MC

Wrong cast – 1459 Words

Philosophers since ancient times have doubled as counselors, advising on the need to get into right role

By Hiren Shah

The rise of Mayawati to the chief ministership of Uttar Pradesh is attributed to caste more than anything else. Although a Dalit leader, she openly talked of being able to woo the Brahmins in her fold as one of the reasons of her success. Since one of the main purposes of education is to enable one to manage situations, one cannot help but wonder “How does one define talent for politics?” Sons of filmstars and cricket stars have to prove themselves but in politics, since there is no entry barrier and no direct accountability after being elected for a period of five years, family members of politicians can join anytime. One gets to hear ridiculous things like a girl who had become temporarily popular for refusing dowry being considered for a political career or actor Shilpa Shetty being considered likewise because of getting popular in a UK television show. Is governance such a simple matter and should not merit be extended to all careers?

Lack of meritocracy has caused spiralling problems. The reservations in educational institutions for scheduled castes and tribes stirred a hornet’s nest where students were up in arms because of their career prospects being adversely affected. Even in the recent agitation in Rajasthan, the Gujjar community was demanding a scheduled caste status because of the privileges involved. It is strange that somebody should want to be a scheduled tribe. Even internationally, President George Bush’s Presidential credentials have been questioned by several prominent Americans after the Iraq war fiasco. There are many books written on how miscasting of people causes agony to both individuals and

the company in the corporate world. Whether it is a company or a country, people in the wrong occupation are a cause of serious concern both for themselves and society.

All this makes one wonder about the system of merit and management in ancient times. The classes of society given in the Hindu scriptures were: Brahmana (scholarly community — teachers, scholars and doctors), Kshatriya (warriors and rulers or politicians community), Vaishya (mercantile and artisan community) and Shudra (service providing community). The original caste system was envisaged on talent and temperament, as the following passage from the Bhagvad Gita suggests: “The duties of a brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra are prescribed according to their particular modes of nature. One should not imitate another’s duty. A man who is by nature attracted to the kind of work done by shudras should not artificially claim to be a brahmana, although he may have been born into a brahmana family. The occupational duty of a brahmana is certainly in the mode of goodness, but if a person is not by nature in the mode of goodness, he should not imitate the occupational duty of a brahmana. For a kshatriya, or administrator, there are so many abominable things; a kshatriya has to be violent to kill his enemies, and sometimes a kshatriya has to tell lies for the sake of diplomacy. Such violence and duplicity accompany political affairs, but a kshatriya is not supposed to give up his occupational duty and try to perform the duties of a brahmana. That is not recommended. Whether one is a kshatriya, a vaishya, or a shudra doesn’t matter, if he serves, by his work, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”

In the Hindu Shastras, the word “Svadharma” is used to define one’s vocation or calling. The word literally means ‘what is right for an individual’ or ‘One’s own way’ which should determine his caste or occupation. The word “Paradharma” is used for other’s work. The Bhagvad Gita also describes Yoga as excellence in one’s work, which is not possible without being in the right occupation which was also dependent on whether one represents Sattva (Purity), Rajas (activity) or Tamsic (inertness). Many people believe that the original caste system was distorted by vested interests to suit their own objectives.

There are other ancient civilisations too which speak of meritocracy and individual interest. According to a study done by American psychologists Frank Dumon and Andrew Carlson, meritocracy existed in ancient Greece for each individual to distinguish himself. The Greek, and particularly the Athenian, approach to vocation emphasised the individual. The great philosopher Plato stressed that the development of vocation starts in childhood. This corroborates the modern world, where as a solution to work misfits, the vocational psychologist often asks this question “What was your interest as a child?” Plato also insisted that each person do his own work the way the Bhagvad Gita had suggested. Plato had suggested that determining one’s calling was by no means an easy task and two thousand years later, still remains a difficult task The study discusses vocational psychology in Ancient China and throws light on two ancient philosophies — Taoism and Confucianism. According to Taoism, “There are great risks in trying to impose a rigid, systematic method of vocational decision making on oneself or others. It states that each living creature and each thing, even if apparently inanimate, derives its own power of specificity from the Tao or the way and so the good

life is the life that is lived according to one’s true nature. Confucianism also stresses on aptitudes and abilities and not the ephemeral concept of Tao. In both approaches, the best vocational choice is one which contributes most to the social good through wise assignment of variously talented individuals to the structure of needs within a rationally planned state.

Another study done by professor Andrew Carlson and professor Altai reflects on vocational psychology. Some of the best literature on vocational psychology in ancient Islam can be traced to Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa wa-Khulln al-Wafa (Ikhwan al-Safa or Treaties of the Brothers of Purity better known as TBP.) The TBP classifies occupations in seven categories — artisans and craftsmen, businessmen and traders, construction engineers and workers, kings and politicians, employees and daily workers, disabled and unemployed and men of religion and scholars.

According to TBT, some people take naturally to a job, some may learn from the others and some may not learn at all. It is all dependent on individual capacities and vocational interests and some desires. It states “Some people have deep desires to learn crafts and occupations, and they feel satisfaction with their field. Some people desire to work with grammar, poetry, to speak and to talk, and are satisfied with fields that permit this”.

The words “deep desire” mentioned find their echo today in Harvard Business School researchers Dr Timothy Butler, director of MBA career development programs, and Dr James Waldroop, who use the word “Deeply embedded life interest”. Former international HRD consultants Morgan and Banks used the word “Deep interest”. All the ancient systems stress on both individual and social good. In recent history, well known author Dale Carnegie said in his book — How to Stop Worrying and Start Living —fifty years ago that people in the wrong jobs are the biggest wastages of industrial society. From individual perspective, Carnegie stated “Nobody is to be pitied as the man who gets nothing out of his work but his pay” and “Every man is a gambler when he chooses his vocation”.

Carnegie apart, Abraham Maslow, whose hierarchy of needs is taught in business schools all over the world, has this to say about self-actualisation: “Peak experiences are profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, when a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient and yet a part of the world, more aware of truth, justice, harmony, goodness, and so on. Self-actualising people have many such peak experiences. Not only are these his happiest and most thrilling moments, but they are also moments of greatest maturity, individuation, fulfilment — in a word, his healthiest moments. He becomes in these episodes more truly himself, more perfectly actualising his potentialities, closer to the core of his Being, more fully human. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write. If these needs are not met, the person feels restlessness, on edge, tense, and lacking something.”

However as pointed out above, even 2000 years after Plato, the solution to this problem eludes mankind, as can be gauged by the titles of some of the books below:

Passion at Work: How to Find Work You Love and Live the Time of Your Life by Lawler Kang

Do What You Love: The Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood by Marsha Sinetar

Mankind has made great strides in the external world and outer space. One can only hope that man is equally successful in traversing the inner space someday both for individual and collective good. The spirit of some of the ancient times should be adapted to current requirements. Certain basic needs are relevant for all irrespective of cultures and times and are worth striving for.

Educare

Livelihood, a lively way- 1664 words

Don’t fall for stereotypes when it comes to education and career. Discover your own self for a long-term innings

By Hiren Shah

It is not uncommon to come across parents who are harassed over the admissions of their children in colleges. Even those who score very high percentages cannot always be assured of admission in the college of their choice and most behave as if their career and life depend upon it. Many students try to get admission through the sports and miscellaneous activities quota but they face problems of a different kind. One parent whose daughter was good at dance complained as to how could one person possibly be the judge of four different kinds of dances. Some people who get admission through sports are not willing to pursue a sports career all the way but the college expects them to attend all the sports tournaments because that is the basis on which they got the admission in first place. Many parents go overboard in getting their children to attend all kinds of classes not only for admission but also for knowing their potential.In a chance conversation with former test cricketer Madan Lal, this is what he had to say, “Parents are after my life to make their children cricketers. In my view cricket is a God-given gift. If I see that the child potential, I shall definitely take interest. Otherwise, they should take the child to where his real potential lies.” The problem is how does one go about determining “real potential” because there are dozens of activities and how many can one pursue by trial and error? In Po Bronsons’s book What should I do with my life, there is an example of some person who in secondary school used to do summer jobs to discover himself . One wonders how practical that is in a country like India. How can functional talent be determined in advance?As a student, one confuses knowledge for intelligence. Intelligence implies what you do with knowledge, and not knowledge per se. The other definition is “What is it that you can do uniquely well or what is uniquely you?” From a practical perspective, one has to

get a degree but side by side one must devote time to discover oneself because degrees alone can flatter to deceive. I was told early in my working life that a qualification is like an entry pass but once you get in, it’s every man for himself. It took me some time to understand what “working identity” actually meant — budding actor Subhash Ghai becoming a director, budding actor Salim Khan becoming a writer, budding bowler Ravi Shastri becoming a batsman. “In work, we have the possibility of discovering ourselves”. The above gentlemen are lucky; if your talent lies beyond the immediate domain, it can turn into a lifelong search, which can be very taxing. In his wonderful book The five great myths of Career building, management consultant Sanjiv R Bhamre states, “By the time people find meaning in their lives at the age of 40, other responsibilities in life may make it too difficult to alter anything. Those who can, retire at the age of forty five or engage in social projects to find meaning, while others continue to live the same grind unable to gather energy to change anything.” Daniel Goleman has mentioned the same thing in his book Emotional Intelligence. Elsewhere in the book, Bhamre says how being money-centric at a young age proves to be a short-term gain, long-term pain because not devoting enough time to discover their true talents in the early years forces some people to be stuck in the wrong occupations for ever.There is nothing wrong in earning money but one should try to put that in proper perspective. Cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar used to earn 80 times more in advertisements than his hockey counterpart Dhanraj Pillay when both were at their peak. However, that does not make Pillay any less a champion. He is just unlucky that hockey does not have that kind of mass following. One of the best examples is given in the book Ancient Indian wisdom on Management. It says that there is a difference between a better job and a better-paid job. He says that even a simple vendor may sometimes earn more than a profession but does that elevate him above the professor? To blindly run after money at the cost of satisfaction can be seriously counterproductive. It is perturbing to read newspaper reports about young and restless minds taking to stealing, bullying their parents and in extreme cases even killing themselves for satisfying their needs.Giving over-importance to degrees can also prove counterproductive. I worked in a company where a mere BCom from a correspondence course had a much better technical grasp of a product and also proved to be a much better marketing person and better talented overall than a chartered accountant who had turned around that company but proved to be only good in certain aspects of finance. In another company, a person with arts background was reading engineering drawings with dexterity and was the technical director. It reminds one of what John Adair, in his book Effective Innovation says. While giving the example of a trained artist who excelled as an inventor, he concluded, “Engineering is just a state of mind. You do not need a vast amount of knowledge.” So one has to discover one’s state of mind. In my experience in stock trading, a 29-year-old young person traded much better in certain respects without graphs than three others who were much older and far more experienced and qualified. Two of them were TV commentators. In the subject trading psychology, the emphasis is to first discover your temperament and discover your niche to pursue your particular type and style of trading Even in real life, just as mass market is a market of mass niches, talent also lies in niches which are very tough to pinpoint. One should constantly ask the question which HRD consultants Morgan and Banks used to emphasise once upon a time, “Do you want to spend a lot of time with people, data, words or things?” Then try to pinpoint your sub-

domain — Charles Dickens and Enid Blyton admitted that if asked to write an article, they would find it as tough as a normal person. This is similar to every one-day cricketer not being a test cricketer and vice-versa. Of and on, one gets to read about ‘monster maths’ and suicides because of not being able to cope with maths — this could be the solution; maybe the person has an exceptional verbal ability.All this clearly shows that process (imagination and thinking) is more important than input (knowledge) and one should try to find what one can to be uniquely different just as in Mahabharata, each of the Pandavas had his own unique potential.How does one go about it? How does one detect functional talent for students?Gallup organisation, which has studied human nature and behaviour for more than 70 years and has made a significant contribution in the corporate world to increase productivity on the basis of capitalising on strength instead of fixing weaknesses, has special modules for students:-http://education.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=22150https://www.strengthsexplorer.com/Functional talent is never easy to spot unless one actually performs that function and Gallup’s efforts in this area are worth looking into. Junior achievement is another site that merits attention. They claim to bring the real world to the students, opening their minds to their potential. This is their India Url:-http://www.ja.org/near/nations/india.shtml.For a student to understand the deeper meaning of the word “meaningful work”, “one’s calling or vocation in life” can be a little problematic because they don’t have any practical experience and they tend to be money centric when starting their careers.The best way to understand is to read several practical examples of career switches from Po Bronson’s What should I do with my life and Morgan and Banks Achieving a Dream Career:Morgan and Banksl From actor to recruitment specialist l From wool classer to recruitment specialistl From doctor to sportswriter l From middle management to psychologist l From, foreign currency trader to turf supplier l From teacher to sports administrator l From secretary to business owner l From lawyer to executive recruiter l From financial institution to sales and marketing l From lawyer to celebrity manager and promoter l From journalist to public relations consultant l From typesetter to sales representative l From marine biology to advertising

Po Bronsonl From accountant to fashion designer l From lawyer to entrepreneurial business owner

l From intellectual property lawyer to medicine policy l From public relations to gardening l From medicine to surgical robotics l From drifter to career counsellor l From marketing and promotion to golfer l From lawyer to law teacher l From bank manager to social worker l From electrician-professor to businessman. l From blue collar worker to politics. l From geologist to inspector l From investment banker to catfish farmer. l From salesmen to writer. l From diplomat to teacher l From films to car engineer l From securities to investment specialist l From businessman to social worker l From lawyer to minister l From marine biologist to dentist. l From real estate broker to factory owner l From installation manager to business owner. l From business/law to teaching l From businessman to politician. l From CPA to website programmer l From corporate lawyer to truck driver. l From poet to chef l From chemistry professor-lawyer l From politics to business l From high profile business owner-policeman l From stock market to doctorSome of these have switched to careers which are drastically different from what they were doing initially and some have even chosen relatively low profile occupations compared to what they were doing earlier, which shows how important it is to do something in which you find meaning and satisfaction. Some of them are cases where they were earning a lot of money but were miserable because that was not their “meaningful work”

Teacher, educate thyself- 1362 words

Will a gardener ever insult the plants he is nurturing? Then why do educators do so?

Recently, a story made front page news in the national newspapers about how school children should not be admonished with condescending words like ‘idiot’, ‘fool’ etc and

such acts too should come under what is called ‘corporal punishment’. One newspapers reported, “Making a student kneel down or stand for hours and pinching or slapping him or her could land teachers in trouble as all acts involving insult or humiliation to the child could soon be banned in schools. Taking a serious view of increasing incidences of violence on children in schools, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has expanded the definition of corporal punishment to include even small acts. NCPCR chairperson Shantha Sinha has written to all chief secretaries recommending that there should be no gradations while judging corporal punishment and noted that ‘small acts’ should not be condoned as they actually lead to gross violations.”

In a similar article, somebody had even suggested that an FIR should be lodged against the teachers for behaving like that. A week later, teachers and principals from various schools replied that while children cannot be addressed like that, penalizing the teachers in the manner suggested was taking things too far. A teacher even asked that if the child is disrespectful to the teachers as some students are likely to be, would that child be similarly punished?

The story above was preceded by a couple of stories on how children had grievously suffered physical punishment at the hands of their teachers. There cannot be two opinions about the fact that children cannot be punished physically or humiliated. “Words harm more than the sword” is a saying that is applicable to adults and is even more so to sensitive children. Children tend to be sensitive and their self-esteem should not be hurt at all. The NCPCR person is right about the expression ‘small act’. It is said that a small leak can sink a big ship and a small spark can cause a big fire. Who knows how the child takes it and how it multiplies in his or her mind? It could create a permanent grouse against the school and studies in the child’s mind, which may be very tough for both the students and parents to handle. I know a couple of cases where the so-called “dumb” children did much better when shifted to another school. How is one then to decide whether it is the school, which is at fault or the child.? Even well-experienced vocational psychologists are not always able to pinpoint a grown up person’s potential. Who then is the teacher to decide the child’s potential?

Ironically, the teacher’s role as educator is diametrically opposite of what has been reported in the papers. In this context, Wipro’s chairman Azim Premji had once said in an article as a parent a couple of years ago in The Times of India.

“The primary purpose of a school is to guide the child’s discovery of herself and her world and to identify and mature the child’s talents. Just as each seed contains the future tree, each child is born with infinite potential. In the article, he suggested that many teachers and parents try to be potters instead of gardeners in moulding their children’s future. Imagine a school which sees children as seeds to be nurtured — here the teacher is a gardener who tries to bring out the potential already present in the child. This is very different from the current view, which sees the child as clay to be moulded where the teachers and parents are potters deciding what shape the clay should take. There is an old Chinese saying, ‘Give a seed to a potter and you shall have a bonsai.’ In a nutshell, as a teacher and parent, be a gardener, not a potter. Has anybody seen a gardener insult a

plant? He nurtures it like his own child. The fact is that some genuine practical compulsions apart, teachers are simply not aware of their real role- Education is helping the child realise his potentialities.

What happens when teachers do not behave as educators — they end up in the wrong professions.

Maybe the teachers are idiots because they did not behave like educators. This is because some vocational psychologists try to know the victim’s interest as a child which, ideally, is something that a teacher should probe proactively as according to the great philosopher Socrates, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel”. Teachers, when they behave like instructors end up mistreating children.

I once had the opportunity of visiting a school of ADHD children where I saw a big photograph of Albert Einstein at the reception. When I asked the reason this is what they had to say, “Mr Einstein suffered from dyslexia. His photograph is installed here as an inspiration to parents whose children suffer from learning disabilities”. Many so called intelligent people need inspiration when they face problems that are beyond their control. From that perspective, in school, the so called dumb child is facing problems that are beyond his capacities vis-à-vis the so called intelligent child. Even grown-up adults need a high degree of emotional intelligence to cope with such problems; then, how can the child be called an idiot? Coping with conventional dumbness requires a lot of intelligence. People who are good at conventional education and go on to become doctors, engineers, CAs etc and live with a high degree of self esteem in contrast to some of the fields in the arts sphere where it can take a long time to determine even the basic occupation. (In many examples of career switches, people opt for arts later in life). The emotional and financial implications are not easy to face as creative people, because of mood swings, tend to suffer more in the wrong occupation. In a larger perspective, they are facing tougher problems. How can they be called idiots?

The school authorities handling children with learning disabilities feel that they should be handled carefully as they are often deemed ‘careless’, ‘stupid’, ‘lazy’ etc and if not carefully handled, they may end up as juvenile offenders or have substance abuse problems. Often their problem is not of comprehension but lack of reading, writing and arithmetic skills, but deficiency in one field often mean efficiency in some other field. Some of the world’s most famous dyslexics apart from Einstein are Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Alva Edison, Mark Twain, Winston Chuchill, Woodrow Wilson, Tom Cruise etc. This clearly shows that circumspection of a high order is required before judging someone harshly and prematurely.

The basic issue is to enhance the self esteem of the child. There are some schools which have abolished the grading system so that some children should not feel inferior and like in boxing, only children of like abilities are pitted against one another. (heavy weight with heavy weight etc). There are several examples which state that the functional talent is something that can be revealed only in real life situations — dumb students reveal better practical intelligence and vice-versa. Some Nobel Prize winners have conceded

that not being conventionally well qualified worked to their advantage as they could get creative ideas, which may not have been possible otherwise. Some companies prefer to take candidates from less prestigious institutions because the students from the topmost institutes are egoistic. So the so-called dumbness can actually be an advantage in real life. Calling any child an idiot is not only premature but is something beneath basic human dignity and diametrically against what the teacher as educator is really expected to do- develop potential and enhance self esteem.

The problem is, who educates the educators. Teachers enhancing the self esteem of their students can be explained by one of the all time great songs of Hindi Cinema, Amar Prem which explores what can happen when people do not play their real roles or do the reverse of what they are supposed to do.

Chingari koi bhadke to saavan use bujhaaye, Saavan jo agan lagayee, use kaun bujhaye

The cost of conflict- 1533 words

How daily tussles in office can be avoided and resolved

In management, it is said that it is better to get willing co-operation rather than grudging submission. One of the major distinctions between a boss and a leader is that a leader is able to inspire better teamwork and group dynamics towards the objectives of the company. Even from an individual perspective, since a majority of hours are spent at work, work relationships automatically assume critical importance. Just as intangible assets like brands, business processes, goodwill etc have tremendous value which cannot be numerically determined unlike tangible assets like plant and machinery or land and building, one wonders what value can one impute to a harmonious work ambience? This is particularly more relevant in the 21st century, which is expected to be extremely stress-prone. Putting it differently, what is the cost of inter-personal conflicts?

Need for dexterityI started working with my father in 1987 in a lighting company which he had turned around. He had been trained in the management of the Sixties where “the boss is always right” was perhaps blindly and strictly followed. The personal computer was becoming increasingly popular in those days and we bought one. Without knowing even the basic inputs, he tried to dominate on how the computer was going to be implemented. He wanted to get me involved in other areas of business as well but since nobody knew anything about computers in our company at that time, it was my primary responsibility and I wanted to devote full time to it. There was a furious argument during which I took a firm stand about devoting full time, which proved right later on in addition to other computer-related issues. Finally, when I was done with the financial accounts, the software people said that except for one non-standard report, I had done everything right. Since I was proving right all along, I insisted on doing that right as well but as the provision for changing the coding was not there at that time, I had to start from scratch

again as according to the views of the software person “I was 10 per cent away from perfection”. My father, not being a persuasive communicator, tried to prevail upon me that it was futile to do the whole thing again just for one report. I was adamant because of all my previous successes. This time unfortunately my father proved to be right because of his management experience — he was trying to convey that “The good is the enemy of the best” or “One has to strive for excellence, not perfection” but could not do so. Doing the whole thing again cost us dear as it snowballed into endless delays for other group companies as well and what could easily have been achieved in six months took two-and- a-half years and we could not venture into other areas of computerisation which ideally, should have happened as fast as possible. This is what can happen when simple conflicts are not dealt with dexterity.It would not be out of place to mention here what Pakistani captain Imran Khan said some time back on television, “As captain, I could only advise fast bowlers because of being a fast bowler myself. I never really knew what to say to batsmen, wicketkeepers or spin bowlers. I told Richie Benaud (Famous Australian spinner) to speak to Abdul Qadir (Pakistani leg spinner in Imran Khan’s team).” This coming not only from Pakistan’s greatest cricketer and captain but perhaps one of greatest captains and all-rounders of all time. One wonders why like Imran Khan, people cannot abstain from intruding in areas which are beyond their domain expertise and if they have to, they should have the basic inputs at least.

HeartburnCost of conflict can also be put in a somewhat tangible manner in a different way and that is likely to be common to all companies. The well known author Dale Carnegie, in his book How to stop worrying and start living, has said, “If you took blood from the veins of a day labourer while he was working, you would find it full of ‘fatigue toxins’ and fatigue products. But if you took a drop of blood from the brain of an Albert Einstein, it would show no fatigue toxins whatever at the end of the day.” Carnegie says fatigue has more to do with negative emotions such as fear, anger jealousy etc than work per se. Research shows that in the long run, continuous negative emotions have a strong bearing on aging. Recently, some well-established software professionals made front-page news for taking up organic farming as they could not cope with office politics. Such tendencies can be minimised by the top management by being tough but fair and promoting as much transparency as possible. I used to be the executive assistant to managing director in a washing machine company. There was a phase when a few presentations prepared by the junior staff were hijacked on the way by middle management, as a result of which there was a lot of heartburn and justified anger. I had to firmly convey the grievances of the junior staff to the commercial director and fortunately, the situation did not go out of control. The principle of unity of command, which states that each person should have only one boss sometimes proves disadvantageous in some situations because that one boss can do a lot of mischief he wants to. It is better to have an ideas meeting where all can contribute freely and the principle can be followed for execution.At Microsoft, Bill Gates encourages people to write to him directly. Then he either directs them himself or redirects them to people who may be able to help them. This can reduce a lot of conflict because the person with bright ideas or execution must be transparent to the top management. It is better both ways — the management knows

where the real talent lies and the person concerned does not have to worry about his contribution not getting due recognition. Management books are replete with examples of people who are angry at not getting due credit because of lack of transparency.

Dealing with argumentsIncidentally, Dale Carnegie’s other book How to win friends and influence people is regarded as one of the best books to reduce friction and conflict. One of Carnegie’s favourite line is ‘You can’t win an argument’. That maybe true but in many management situations, one has to take a strong stand at times. At times conveying one’s position in writing with the facts and logic is a good strategy. At other times, smart repartee may put the argument in one’s favour. In one of my previous companies, my boss, who was doing very well and got several promotions, was not given commensurate enough compensation, with arguments like ‘You are living with your parents and so well off... What is the need…?’ My Boss’s reply to that was, “If I had been a beggar and staying alone, would you have paid me double the amount due to me?” The chairman’s son smiled and was bowled over by the smart retort even though it was against his interest. This actually represents an argument of vested interest which are very difficult to argue rationally. I once faced one gentleman in a train who refused to budge from my seat despite my showing him a confirmed ticket. He presented a totally absurd argument, “I have an RAC ticket. What’s the difference?” For a while I was nonplussed at his ridiculous stand and did not know what to say. Then I got a bolt from the blue. Mr Manmohan singh had been appointed Prime Minister the previous evening and so I told him “The difference is the difference between Sonia Gandhi and Mr Manmohan Singh. Mr Singh is a thoroughbred Indian and has therefore become PM. I have a confirmed ticket and so the seat is mine. Please get up”. Argument and conflict were averted. Everybody around started laughing and a couple even clapped. The gentlemen had no alternative but to leave. However, vested interest arguments can be quite dicey in other situations — ask people who have to deal with bribe taking government servants who do not budge once they have made up their minds.

What is an argument? Two or more people express their opinions and those opinions differ. Each person is so identified with the thoughts that make up their opinion that those thoughts harden into mental positions. Many of these positions can either be formed out of our own myopic view of issues because of limited exposure or because of other prejudices. At least for some arguments, it would be well to remember that most truths are paradoxical- A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.— Thomas Mann

All maxims have their opposites, and proverbs should be sold in pairs a single one being half the truth.— SENECA

That is why in Zen meditation they say, “Don’t seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinion” This would depend upon the issue and the type of argument but is worth keeping in mind.To be continued…

Head, heart and heat-1636 words

Are you missing the wood for the trees by picking up pointless arguments? Read about the Cost of Conflict — the concluding part

By Hiren Shah

Conflict in the corporate world often arises because of not being clear about one’s goals. In cricket, Rahul Dravid being able to hold one end with his singles and twos enables the Tendulkars at the other end to get on with the fours and sixes. Similarly it is better to separate change and routine management as far as possible. Perhaps that is why Bill Gates handed over the CEO’s job at Microsoft to Steve Ballmer and took on the title of ‘Chief software architect’ in addition to remaining chairman. Such bifurcation of roles should happen at lower levels as well. Practical management, where a lot has to be achieved in very less time, is a lot like one-day cricket, but there are test match situations in between, which require concentrated effort without interruption. If they are also faced with one-day strategy, the result is bound to be dismal and conflict prone. Apart from the complimentary synergy explained above, which relates to the type of problems, there are others where people’s strengths and weaknesses balance each other out. Based on a 40-year research, Gallup organisation has developed 34 themes or talents or strengths and they strive to bring two people of diverse talents work together so that one person’s strength can balance the other person’s weakness. Among the strengths that are directly related to reducing conflict are adaptability, communication, connectedness, empathy, harmony, relator etc. However good relations are not considered an end in themselves and they are encouraged to team up with people of opposite talents — achiever, activator, command, competition, focus. This way both inter-person and intra-person conflict can be reduced and one can practically achieve the balance between being task- and relationship-oriented, which is taught in MBA schools.

Right Perspective

As the saying goes, ‘The deeper the water, the calmer the surface’, or ‘Still waters run deep’. The depth has also to be gauged correctly. The former managing director of Procter and Gamble, Gurcharan Das once said that a good CEO is one who knows all the details of his company without losing sight of the big picture. The details may be significant in the sense that a small spark can cause a big fire or a small leak can sink a big ship and therefore it is better if the CEO checks all the management control systems thoroughly. However, if too much analysis causes paralysis, he loses sight of the main objectives. That can be like missing the wood for the trees. Normally what happens is that short-term goals often clash with the long term objectives. I read about a new procurement manager who, in order to impress the top management, tried to be rough

with the existing suppliers and squeezed very impressive terms. For a while his cost-cutting seemed impressive but he could not last for more than a year and it took the management years to mend relations with suppliers. Similarly, many production managers go overboard in using plant and machinery to show impressive production figures but this is counterproductive in the long run. An organisation should follow the principle of the funds flow statement to avoid this kind of conflict — it uses short-term funds for short-term purposes and long-term funds for long-term purposes. Separate the short-term goals from the long-term goals. This is unfortunately more an exception than the rule in most companies.

Communication in conflict

Though communication is supposed to improve relationships, it often does not end up that way. Many a time the conflict increases directly in proportion to the verbal exchanges. George Bernard Shaw once said that “The problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” Osho had put it very aptly, “When the husband communicates, the wife misunderstands, when the wife communicates, the husband misunderstands, when both of them speak, they end up arguing and when both are silent, even that is misinterpreted.” If this can happen in a marriage, it can happen in any relationship. A psychiatrist had once said that he does nothing except make the members of a family sit together and listen to each other without interruption and very often, the problem solves itself. This is the significance of being “a good listener”. In management it is said that people should not react but respond and being trained to be a good listener automatically takes care of that.

The discussion forums on the internet are very convenient for exhaustive discussions as the other person is forced to read one’s complete view before answering. Even if he wants to, he cannot react. He has to respond. Some people would still be aggressive but it reduces friction considerably. Maybe brainstorming can be done there to the extent possible and the execution is taken up during actual meetings.

Even responding cannot help at times when some of the basics of thinking are not clear. Some people have a habit of jumping to conclusions and making sweeping statements, despite the fact India is be a country with a great spiritual legacy and the very essence of spirituality is that one should not be judgmental as it can spawn conflicts. Sometimes, even trained psychologists and psychoanalysts fail to read a person correctly.

The manner in which something is communicated also goes a long way in reducing conflict. There’s a narrative of a father, who tried to get his son to wash his hands before eating, without much success. He took his son to his doctor friend, who educated him on what germs were, showed them under a microscope and further showed a video film on what could happen to the body if it got infected with those germs. After being oriented like this, the child started washing his hands on his own. Though it is said that wise men learn from the mistakes of others and fools from their own, very often man ends up being a fool because learning is not imparted that way. Whether in personal or professional life,

if experiential learning is imparted like this, the chances of reducing conflict are much greater.

Role of trust in conflict

In corporate life and self-help books one is encouraged to trust people, which is supposed to go a long way in reducing conflict. One of the reasons behind Dhirubhai Ambani’s success was his ability and willingness to trust people. A book on leadership by Harvard University emphasised that one should “Trust but verify”. People are different in a variety of ways and it is highly unlikely that they would respond equally to the same level of trust. People are also changing all the time and it is not necessary that the person who was trustworthy yesterday would be equally trustworthy today. The future is not always an extension of the present.

Autocratic bosses

There are also cases of people being fed up of their immediate autocratic bosses. That is why it is said that people do not leave a company but a particular boss or an individual. turning a blind eye to autocracy tends to prove counterproductive in the long run and if the top management is not in a position to stop it, there is no other alternative to bid one’s time before leaving the company.

One of the best ways of reprimanding is to follow the philosophy of the great Chinese Philosopher Confucius, who said that just as lighting precedes rainfall, anybody who has to reprimand a subordinate should also be able to give counselling thereafter. This is similar to a concept called ‘maintaining hundred percent closeness and hundred percent distance’, which I learnt in a workshop conducted by stress expert, Dr Rakesh Chopra. The phrase itself removes any doubt about what exactly one is required to do. Playing both roles may not always be possible for all the people as it requires both an aggressive temperament and communicating ability. There is nothing wrong even if two different people perform the two roles as long as it makes the employee more effective.

Commonsense in conflict

Last but not the least, the most important thing in management, commonsense, can also go a long way in reducing if not eliminating conflict. It is easy to say “Don’t let the trifles get you”, but in strenuous situations, a small incident is enough to spark a big row. We will come back to the personal example from which we started off (Management Compass, September 2007). Like many other young people in the mid eighties, I had fallen in love with the personal computer at the cost of everything else. My father tried to put it in perspective once: “Your computer may produce reports faster, accurately and neatly and losses may look very nice in your printouts, but in reality, losses are never lovely and one has to be proactive to avoid them, whereas your reports are more of a postmortem.” That argument had sound logic.

At another time, when I would insist on leaving early to be near my beloved computer, he would tell me about how hard he had struggled in his early days in Bombay where he had to change a train and two buses after getting up at 5.30 in the morning and therefore wanted to leave at his own time. Everything cannot be argued with cold logic, however true it may be, as punctuality in this case. Fortunately, I had the good sense not to argue over those issues. One always has to remember that a human being is more a creature of emotion than logic and depending upon the type of argument, one has to know when to use the heart, when to use the head and when to use both and also, when the heart stops and head begins and vice-versa. It is said that common sense is most uncommon and in the context of conflict, it can certainly be true.

PRACTICAL MONEY MANAGEMENT-1747 words

Money mantra

Learn the basics of money management now

By Hiren Shah

I once came across an engineer who told me how lucky I was to be a chartered accountant’s son and receive training on practical money management and how badly he had been fleeced because of his lack of knowledge of accounts and finance. I read about a case in management consultant Pramod Batra’s book on how a motorcycle dealer from Escorts was fleeced by his own accountant and got a heart attack at the Escorts office when the Escorts accounts staff apprised him of major embezzlement. The third interesting case that I remember from my experience is my immediate engineer boss, who was to get several double promotions in one year and later go on to build a big business of his own. Here is what he had to say about accounts “I used to ask our professor in the MBA about the logic behind accounts preparation of balance sheets but he could never answer properly”. What he could not learn in two years in the MBA, he managed to learn within a few weeks by sitting with the accountant. When I was a commerce student in the accounts class, my father told me, “Don’t ask questions on accounting rules. Just follow them and make the balance sheet. You will understand automatically.” Since everybody has to manage money, a knowledge of accounts is always an added bonus.

Before the personal computer came into being, accounting was a cumbersome and a complicated problem. It entailed knowing the entire financial accounting system — the preparation of vouchers, ledger posting, trial balance, profit and loss account and the balance sheet. However, on the computer, one only has to feed the voucher in an accounting software and the computer does the rest. This makes it considerably easier for a layman to learn if he wants to. One should know how to make one’s personal balance sheet, where all one’s personal investments, assets and bank transactions are given. This is not difficult at all because all it entails is bank and cash entries. Once the grouping is done on any accounting package with someone who knows accounts, this is child’s play as the accounting reports also get updated simultaneously. If one really applies oneself

diligently, one can learn the deeper logic in a few weeks and can then operate even if something happens to the computer. Those insights can then be utilised to study balance sheets of companies.

In MBA programmes, the focus is more on finance or understanding balance sheets rather than accounts, which has more to do with preparation. In my view, since money management has to be done by everyone throughout life, it is better if he has a good understanding of both. Some of the best things I learnt from my father are very well explained in the books Rich Dad, Poor Dad and the book The Millionaire Next Door, which is a study of American millionaires by two PhDs.

Most young people want to be wealthy but do not know what being rich really means. According to both the books, though normally the word “rich” may imply a high consumption lifestyle with the best brands of both necessities and luxuries, in reality, that is far from the truth. According to the authors, being rich basically implies being financially independent, which implies that one’s regular income from investment is such that one can survive from that alone and can choose not to work if one wants to. Looking at my father who is a good saver, investor and tax planner, I would say that that is quite a formidable combination. It is not difficult to achieve it, if practical money management is taught in schools to everybody and not just commerce students alone. Both the books bring about the practical aspects in their own unique manner.

The book Rich Dad, Poor Dad is about a boy whose friend’s father is rich. When the two boys are refused entry in a high-profile party, it instills in them a fervent desire to be rich. For this purpose, they are given practical training by the rich father right from the age of 9.

The objective of this article is to highlight the importance and basics of financial education. In the book, the author says that practical financial intelligence is a synergy of accounting, investing, marketing and law. He also says that children spend years in an antiquated educational system, studying subjects they will never use, preparing for a world that no longer exists. Each child needs to know the rules — a different set of rules. Money is one form of power but what is more powerful is financial education. What is more interesting is what the book reveals about high consumption lifestyle. This is what it has to say about perpetual spenders. It says, “They get a few bucks in their hands, again the emotion of joy, desire and greed take over. But the joy that it brings is often short-lived, and they soon need more money for more joy, more pleasure, more comfort, more security. They don’t want to lose the big houses, the cars, the high life that money has brought them. They worry about what their friends would say if they lost all their money. Many are emotionally desperate and neurotic, although they look and have more money”. My father encouraged thrift from the time we were in secondary school. He would do things like not refusing any of our bigger wants but picking on our smaller wastages or expenses, to inculcate the principle “A penny saved is a penny earned”. As soon as we passed the Class X, both me and my brother (an engineer) were prevailed upon to learn practical accounts.

What is written about young people running after money reminds me of my trading experiences in the stock market where I came across many young people who had burnt their fingers very badly. As against investments in shares, which has a horizon of two years minimum, trading is more like a business where one buys and sells shares within a day (day trading), a week or two (swing trading) or position trading(three months). This is based on a study of graphs through a subject called technical analysis, which traces the movements of share prices rather than fundamental analysis, which focuses more on the performance of the company. Technical analysis has three aspects — trading psychology, money management and trading strategy. Each person has to have his own unique system depending upon his psychology — his fear, greed and balance of both. What one should remember is one man’s meat is another man’s poison - one trading system may make somebody a multimillionaire and another a pauper and trading system that suits oneself is something one learns from trial and error.

The most intelligent man I met in the stock market was a broker who had a background in merchant navy (most individual brokers are commerce graduates). He told me that he had a position trading system which he had been perfecting over a period of ten years and was still coached by a mutual fund advisor. He also showed me some literature in the most advanced books on trading (one of them was by the originator by a TA indicator himself) which was totally against what was written in the ordinary books available in the market He was much more intelligent than a couple of other people I worked with who spoke on Television. When I asked him why he chose to be anonymous, he replied “Genuine traders make much more money by trading than by talking or consulting”. His views corroborated with a book by an American author on Random investing, which stated, “If one is really talented in trading, one can become a millionaire in no time with a reasonable amount of capital”. One of the assistants who came to install my TA software also told me about his boss and owner who was also a trader and a speaker at CNBC. “If he is such a great trader, why should he be doing this business (TA software). He can make much more money in trading.” The whole industry works on the principle of “Why should you kiss the maid (trade in the stock market which is tough) when you can kiss the mistress (be a consultant and fool rookies and other people), which is relatively easier.

The fact is that trading has a 95 percent failure rate in the United states as well and some of the worst casualties are highly intelligent people whose egos were so high that they could not adjust to the reverses in the stock market and made heavy losses. There would of course be exceptions to the rule. I know another 29 year old young man who trades much better without graphs than any of his more illustrious colleagues that I came across, but such people are more an exception than the rule. It is better to use TA for studying long term graphs on when to enter and exit for long term investments rather than trading which is like sophisticated gambling. Actually, technical analysis is such an interesting subject than anybody can be fooled by it but in the highly manipulated Indian market and even otherwise, no system is good enough to capture the vagaries of the market in the short term. People who are still interested should still be aware of all the pitfalls. Two of the best books that I have come across:-

• Financial Trading: How to Trade Successfully for a Living, by Alexander Elder

• Trade your Way to Financial Freedom, by Van Tharp

I would recommend The Millionaire Next Door, which gives a thorough practical financial orientation and how to be rich realistically in the long run rather than do short term somersaults. This book gives practical examples of two brothers or friends or colleagues, both of whom may have started their careers. One may be a good earner but a high earner. The other may be a poor earner but good saver and investor. After some years the poor earner has a much higher net worth than the good earner. The book is full of such interesting practical examples and gives a very good insight of what practical financial concepts and management are all about. It may not make you a millionaire but can definitely prevent you from becoming a pauper

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PAHLE AANDHI PHIR GANDHI-1653 words

A billion nonfollowers

The rot in Indian institutions calls for another Gandhi

By Hiren Shah

Recently in The Times of India, Shashi Tharoor stated that Gandhiji was the father of a nation of one billion people but no followers. This corroborates the view expressed in the critically acclaimed movie Maine Gandhi ko Nahin Maara, in which it is shown how Indians remember Gandhiji only as a matter of formality on his birth and death anniversaries. We also have movies like Lage Raho Munnabhai, which may popularise what is called Gandhigiri for a while, only to be followed by newspaper headlines like Gandhigiri gives way to goondagiri How relevant is Gandhi really today? Was his contribution limited to gaining independence?

One of the most endearing things about him was that he was a very sincere and honest man. He was not averse to debating on professional ethics with his friends. In his own words “I had always heard the merchants say that truth was not possible in business. Business, they say, is a practical affair and truth a matter of religion and they argue that practical affairs are one thing and truth is another. Pure truth, they said, was out of question in business. I strongly contested the position and further stated that the conduct of the merchants in a foreign land was a measure of millions of their fellow countrymen” He was the apostle of non-violence too. One wonders how much compromise applies to non-violence. In practical life, no one’s strategy works with all individuals or at all times. If you need a Gandhi against a Churchill, you need a Churchill against a Hitler.

Talking of truth brings to mind the role of politicians and bureaucrats. Columnist Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyer reveals, “In 1947, we were proud of our political leaders. We cheered them as noble souls who had sacrificed much in the long struggle for independence. Today we regard politicians as knaves and scoundrels. In 1996, the

election commissioner estimated that there were 40 criminals in the Lok Sabha and another 700 in the state assemblies.” This is too steep a fall from grace from the Mahatama’s standards.Much of the political corruption has to do with election expenses. Gandhiji’s views on public money were, “People never cared to have receipts for the amounts they paid but we always insisted on the receipts being given. Carefully kept accounts are a sine qua non for any organisation. Without them it falls into disrepute. Without properly kept accounts, it is impossible to maintain truth in its pristine purity. The public subscriptions that an institution annually receives are a test of its popularity and the honesty of its management, and I am of the opinion that every institution should submit to that test.”Gandhiji’s personal habits are also worth a look “I kept account of every farthing I spent, and my expenses were carefully calculated. Every little item of expense would be entered and the balance struck every evening before going to bed.” It is the motive and not method that matters and with dubious motives, the computer can prove to be a dangerous tool.

When one reads things like these, one wonders that would it ever have been possible to make the Mahatma’s standards all pervasive even if he had been alive. It is said that “Attitudes are taught, not caught”. From that perspective, when the top man is honest, it definitely makes a difference even if it may not percolate down the line to the same degree. One of the causes attributed to Sachin Tendulkar’s not doing so well as a captain was that he expected his own high standards from his team mates. Had Gandhiji been alive today, wonder how he would have fared with the current politicians. The founding fathers of the constitution had also coined the term “Satyameva Jayate” which means truth prevails. Considering the way politicians are perceived in India and the fact that Transparency International named India as one of the most corrupt nations, the leaders of independence must be turning in their graves.

The fall in standards has been all pervasive — it is there in all spheres of Indian life. These are Gandhiji’s views on Journalism, “I realised that the soul aim of journalism should be service. It made me thoroughly understand the duties of a journalist. The newspaper press is a great power but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy.” With the advent of TV journalism, media has really become a potent force but some elements in the media have made sensationalising their modus operandi. No profession is without its black sheep. Though the media acquitted itself very well in the Jesicca Lall case, it could not answer why it did not hear the pleas of the poor people of Nithari whose children had disappeared when they were covering the case of kidnapping of a multinational CEO at Noida. The sting operation implicating Uma Khurana, who was accused of abating a prostitution racket has turned out to be false, was a black chapter for Indian Journalism.

When Gandhiji was returning from South Africa to India, he was held in such high esteem by the people there that they would not let him leave. In response, Gandhiji said, “The voice of the people is the voice of God., and here the voice of friends was too real to be rejected”. He was allowed to go only when he accepted the condition that he would

return to South Africa, if required. In this context in recent times, the most obvious example that comes to mind is former President Abdul Kalam. By all accounts he was the people’s President and had there been a direct contest with the people deciding whether he should continue for a second term, he would have won hands down. He, along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also formed a handsome Technocrat President-Prime Minister team. However, the “voice of the people” was ignored completely by the powers that be and according to some newspaper reports, they wanted their own person at the top because of the impending elections in 2009. Sometimes one wonders that even with all the communication revolution, whether we are better off than our ancestors where the people’s voice being implemented is concerned. The movie Gandhi, My Father showed how absolutely impartial Gandhiji was towards his son. He did not allow him to take any advantage of his position. Contrast that with today’s scenario where the sons of sports and filmstars have to prove themselves but the politicians progeny gets a free entry. No harm with that if they have the talent, but how is that to be judged? Some people are against career politicians and believe that politics should be a natural progression from what one is doing. That need not necessarily be so because there could be genuinely good people only good at politics as well.

Among all the things discussed, perhaps the most dangerous is the dwindling credibility of the politicians. Opinion polls show that people want honesty above everything else. From common sense, an honest but incompetent person is equally undesirable Like most problems, this can be attacked in two ways- method and motive. Just as one needs an airplane to fly, there has to be some mechanism to monitor honesty and performance. Sometimes during philosophical discussions, one comes across statements like “If the law of Karma were transparent and it was possible to see past misdeeds whether in previous or current lives for current problems, half the crimes and wrongdoings would disappear”. Most of the problems in politics are also because of lack of transparency. If each locality had a website where the local representative reported what his goals and accomplishments are and also made to answer questions of people in discussion forums, one can get a lot done without having any administrative inconvenience of going to his office and having to face his staff. Since lots of people are likely to participate, no govt official can thwart individuals. It is easier to monitor performance and similar ways can be thought to monitor his assets as well. Without any such mechanism, all talk of honesty and removing corruption is a drawing room debate.

Where motive is concerned, Gandhiji’s words are worth noting “No reform is possible unless some of the educated and the rich voluntarily accept the status of the poor, travel third, refuse to enjoy the amenities denied to the poor and instead of taking avoidable hardships, discourtesies and injustice as a matter of course, fight for their removal.” From the Darshan Shatras to management books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” , it is given how extreme disparity of In come and wealth can cause chaos in society. This what the Pulitzer prize winning book The world is Flat has to say in the context of India’s current economic upsurge: “India can have the smartest high-tech vanguard in the world, but if it does not find a way to bring along more of those who are unable, disabled, undereducated and underserved, it will be like a rocket that takes off but quickly falls back to earth for lack of sustained effort.”

It is said that “Without danger, we cannot go beyond danger” It proved so in economics because liberalization was introduced in 1992 only when the foreign exchange reserves were negligible. We can similarly wait for a similar adversity in politics and hope that once again, following the principle of “cometh the hour, cometh the man” another Gandhi will rise from the teeming millions of India. He will have a tougher act to follow because in the British, we had a common alien enemy but now, we may have become our own worst enemy. Despite all the progress, only severe adversity can bring radical reform. Pahle Andhi, Phir Gandhi. n

Narayan Murthy

Lawyer

Computer tool

Mission impossible? (Movie Apna Aasmaan)- 2229 wordsOctober 29, 2007 by Hiren This article is published in the November issue of the Education magazine “Educare” under the title “Mission impossible”. The portions in bold are dialogues from the wonderful film “Apna Aasmaan” which furthurs the casue of real education and human resources management.

With parents not letting the child discover his calling in life, a majority of people are stuck up in wrong roles. This is the theme of movie Apna Aasmaan

Though largely a work of fiction, the movie Apna Aasmaan is based on the real life story of Onko (character Budhdhi in the movie), 16, who was mildly autistic and suffered from minimal brain dysfunction due to his problem of epilepsy. He was not able to attend school and until the age of 11 had severe motor control — he was not able to hold a pencil to write a sentence. Later, Onko displayed a talent for drawing pictures. He had a successful exhibition at the Nehru art Gallery in Bombay, which can serve as an inspiration to people with similar problems. It reflects the real meaning of the term “education”, which, based on the word ‘educare’, implies to draw out what is already in. Or in the words of Erichch Fromm, “Education is helping the child realize his potentialities.”

The movie is actually insightful for those people who have faced such problems. According to its website, www.apnaaasmaan.com, the basic theme of the movie is, ‘How far would you go to make your child a genius?’ In the movie, they show an autistic child, who cannot do anything except draw. He is given some kind of magic injection to convert him into a mathematics genius. He does become a maths genius but as a side effect, he also suffers from amnesia, forgets to draw and in contrast to his original, lovable, jovial self, becomes obnoxiously rude and monstrous. His parents realise their folly and want their original child back, which they manage to do with an antidote. The fictional magic

injection and the antidote may seem somewhat far-fetched, but the movie succeeds in conveying a strong disapproval of the obsession of Indian parents to mould their children according to their whims and fancies rather than let them do their own thing, which the word ‘Apna Aasmaan’ implies.

Some insightful dialogues from the film, before the autistic child becomes a monster:

Doctor: “Look, How Budhdhi’s sketching has improved. Very nice.”

Budhdhi’s mother: “Sketching karke kya banega? Main logo ko kyan mooh dikhaungi (What will he earn from sketching. How shall I face society?”)

The doctor: “His IQ is 70. He is a slow learner with few Autistic traits. Sketching ko encourage karne aur shortcomings ko accept karne main hi tumhari jeet hai”(It would be better for you to encourage his sketching and accept his shortcomings).

This conversation reminds me of a write-up by an Indian vocational psychologist a few years ago: “At least in India no one is surprised at children aspiring to become engineers, doctors, CAs or MBAs. Almost 60 percent think in terms of engineering or medicine and nearly 15 percent fancy their skills as CAs, but in reality only 10 percent become what they dream of becoming. Have you ever wondered why children do not want to be artists, dancers, singers, painters or carpenters and plumbers? The reason is not far to seek. These professions do not have the ‘class’ or prestige associated with it. When they actually start working, they realise that they don’t have the mental makeup for a particular type of job, despite being suitably qualified.”

The great mystic Osho’s views on people hesitating to take up humble occupations are equally profound: “Somebody is a great carpenter, somebody is a great shoemaker, somebody is a great scientist, somebody is a great money-maker — they are all contributing whatever their potential allows them to life, with totality, not holding anything back. Naturally they should have equal opportunity to grow, and they should have equal respect.”

In the film the doctor further explains:

“Har bachcha toh doctor ya engineer nahin ban sakta na (every child cannot become a doctor or an engineer). That’s why so many students are committing suicide. Why? Because their parents keep pushing them. Pata nahin parents ki kab samajh mein aayeega ki unki Lakshman Rekha kya hai. (God knows when parents shall understand what their Lakshman Rekha is).”

Though the doctor talks sense, the couple still persists in making him a genius but when he becomes a monster after the injection, his father remembers his original son. When the child had made a drawing in the pre- injection phase, this is what had been the conversation between the two:

Budhdhi: “Baba, I have drawn a monkey for you.”The father: “Table yaad kyon nahin kiya (Why didn’t you remember the maths table?)”

The father then breaks down on recollecting how wrong and cruel he had been.

What the doctor fails to say is that even if the child succeeds in the wrong occupation forcefully, later on in life he may yearn for what his essence is, which can be gauged from the following examples of career switches reported in The Times of India on August 5, 2007 where most have shifted from their earlier exalted occupations to arts and sports:-

Srinjoy Banerjee - tyre technologist to classical singerDr Mahesh Chitnis- doctor to actor and film producer.Jayesh Morvankar- advertising to adventure sportsVarun Khera and Manas Wadhva - Jet airways stewards to restaurant ownersArun Pai- financial consultant to tour operatorMrinalini Batra- engineer to marketing educationSanjeev Chopra- engineer to theatre personSachin Patil - IT professional to winemakerSidhu- doctor to rock star

Osho had once advised a very successful surgeon to spend the last fifteen years of his life as a musician for personal fulfillment. This is what he had to say on the subject:

“Happiness happens when you fit with your life. When you fit so harmoniously that whatever you are doing is your joy. Then suddenly you come to know that meditation follows you. If you love the work that you are doing, if you love the way you are living, then you are meditative. Then nothing distracts you. When things distract you, it shows that you are not really interested in those things. It is deemed that happiness comes when one is meditative; it was just the other way around — meditation comes when you are happy.” This implies that one loses awareness of space and time in an occupation of one’s liking.

A couple of dialogues from the film are worth stating here:

When the child becomes famous in maths, he is asked, “What is superior, numbers or words”

Budhdhi’s reply: “Numbers woh signals hain jisse do intelligent brains baat karte hain. Words aadi maanav ki bhasha hai jinko poets ne romanticise karke human progress ko barbaad kar diya hai” (Numbers are those precise signals through which two intelligent brains communicate. Words is the language of the underdeveloped man, which have been romanticised by poets to the detriment of human progress)

It reminds me of what international HRD consultants Morgan and Banks used to say, “Are you comfortable with words, numbers (data), things or people?”

At this point let me tell you my own story. When I started studying seriously in high school (late Seventies/ early Eighties), I had a strange attention problem, which I could not properly understand or explain and this was more so with subjects such as science and maths, which I didn’t like. After 20 years of struggle and half a dozen psychiatrists I discovered what Osho had said, “When things distract you, it shows that you are not really interested in those things” Once my boss said, “There is nothing wrong with you. The day you find the work that you can do spontaneously and effortlessly, this attention problem will go away for ever”. He diagnosed correctly what half-a-dozen psychiatrists could not do or tried to hide from me. I came to know through a magazine of a particular type of depression, which affects writers and poets. Since all the symptoms were tallying exactly, I tried to confirm with another psychiatrist in 1998, who replied, “You are not a poet. You just rhyme”. Subsequently, during the same time, a publisher liked one of my poems on nuclear weapons and said that if I could write 25 more like that, they would publish all of them. This left the doctor stupefied and after 20 years of suffering and half a dozen doctors, that was the first correct diagnosis. A couple of my other poems also got recognition. Though not being formally trained in writing or being in a related occupation, I now have more than 15 articles under my belt, which is not bad for an untrained writer.

The issue is not of being superior or inferior but what you feel comfortable with. I have never been comfortable with numbers and I love the personal computer and Microsoft excel because it facilitates any task with issues like accounts and costing, which I cannot do manually. I hate doing anything manually with numbers. This reminds me of the maths suicides that one hears about from time to time, especially in the context of the board exams. I had a lot of difficulty in coping with maths and I had a full time tutor for that. He would tell me abruptly, “Haath chalna chaahiye; haath chalna chaahiye”. When I am in the mood for it, I can fill up a number of pages with poetry, which he may not be able to do. Should I also tell him, “Haath chalna chaahiye, sir, haath chalna chaahiye.” It is a great pity that teachers are not trained as vocational psychologists or talent scouts, or they could be real educationists. In the year of the board exam itself, I once wrote a very good essay, which my English teacher made me read out in front of the whole class. How was a child to know that this was a signal of his true vocation in life? Similarly, whenever I wrote to anyone, I was appreciated for my writing, but it took me a very long time to understand that that was my vocation in life. I considered writing to be a sidey thing and corporate management the real thing.

As for some occupations like writing not paying off well, poet laureate Amit Dahiyabadshah, who has started poetry readings in different parts of Delhi to enable poets to show their work, comes to mind. On being asked what he meant by the statement that he was a working poet, Dahiyabadshah replied that the term implied making a full-time living out of poetry, which is a rare exception. On googling for working poet, I found several who had written poems on how miserable they were in the wrong occupations. Another transparent platform is television, which through programmes like Boogie-Woogie and Indian Idol is revealing singing and dancing talent to enable artists to express themselves and have emotional and financial fulfillment.

When children are assured of their talents and proactive attempts are made to improve the commercial profile of their occupations like poetry above, the root cause of their problem is removed. Dealing with symptoms may work in the short run, but is not likely to last or work with most, if not all people. Some people should pursue two paths with equal seriousness till one of them bears fruit.

The crux of the movie is in this wonderful comment:-

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life longing for itself. You may house their bodies but not their souls. Their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow which you cannot visit.”

In another great movie in recent times Iqbal, this is what Mohit sir (Naseerudin Shah) tells the child’s father to convince him to let the child play cricket:-

“Mera yakin hai ke ham sab is duniya mein ek khaas kaam ke liye bheje gaye hain. Zyaadatar log zindagi bhar bhatakte rahte hain, yeh jaane bagair ke unkizindagi ka maksad kya hai. Kuchh hi khushkismat hain jo is khazaane ko paa jaate hain. Aapka ladka cricket khelne ke liye paidahua hai. Cricket sirf khel nahin hai uske liye . Uski zindagi ka maksad hai. Cricketkhel ke usko zindagi ka salika milta hai.Saas lene ki koomat aati hai. Yeh sab aap chheen lenge usse.”

Translated:-

“I am certain that we all have come into this world for a special purpose. Most of the people struggle throughout their lives without knowing what their purpose in life is? Only a few fortunate ones are able to tap this treasure. Your son has been born to play cricket. It is not just a sport for him. It is his life’s purpose. His zest for life is supplemented through cricket. Would you like to steal all that from him?”

Would you like to steal his very life away from him? When you actually study the lives of those people, you realize the magnitude of that statement.

Thomas Carlyle says, “The person who has found his vocation in life is a blessed human being. Let him ask for no other blessedness.”

Benjamin Franklin says, “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond and to know oneself.”

It is as much Apni Zindagi as Apna Aasmaan..

Guidance to Management students.- 1350 wordsNovember 1, 2007 by Hiren

I had done my one year post graduate full time course at the International Management Institute(IMI) in 1990-91. After going through various published articles that I had written in the Times of India and four other magazines, I was invited by IMI to write something in their newsletter of the third quarter of 2007(July-September’2007) Accordingly, I prepared a special write-up

Career Choices

Hiren Shah is an IMI alumnus (PGPIM-1991) who has adopted the mission of advising students about the adverse implications of choosing a wrong career. In this article for Interface he answers questions about finding fulfillment in work.How serious is the problem of students making wrong career choices?

It is vital that students realize the importance of choosing an appropriate profession and career which enables them realize their potential. Wrong choices result in misery and frustration. Dale Carnegie said “Nobody is to be pitied more than the man who gets nothing out of his work but his pay”. The Gallup Corporation in a survey of US employees in 2005 found that 31% were “engaged” in work, 52% percent were “not engaged” and 17% were “disengaged”.

The magnitude of the problem can be gauged from the extreme expressions used by sufferers such as “lifetime imprisonment” ,”spiritual suicide”, “living death” and from the titles of books on this subject:-

I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want. Barbara SherI Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This. Julie JansenTrue Work: Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do. Michael TomsHow to Find the Work You Love. Laurence G. BoldtPassion at Work: How to Find Work You Love and Live the Time of Your Life. Lawler KangTo Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: Marsha SinatraDiscover Your Passion : An Intuitive Search to Find Your Purpose in Life. Gail A. Cassidy Success v/s Joy. Geet SethiWhat should I do with my life. Po Bronson.

The titles indicate that this is a major problem in the US. I suspect it is also fairly serious here, but many Indians accept it unquestioningly. An Indian career consultant told me,”Americans can afford to think of all this because they have money but in India we have to work”. This may be a practical perspective now but it will soon be outdated. In The Greatest Secret of Success; Your Passion Quotient Virendra Kapoor points out that Indians can now afford to look beyond just Roti, Kapada aur Makaan.

Many students may get stuck in wrong jobs and mess up their working (and personal) lives. When such students start working, they discover that they have neither aptitude nor

interest in their work. Their excellence lies elsewhere and the earlier they can do something about it, the better the chances of living a fulfilled life.

What should educational institutions do to help students make right career choices?

Unfortunately educational institutions do not currently provide sufficient help to students to identify the vocation which would enable them fulfill their potential. For example, though many B-schools have efficient placement services which help students get well paid jobs; they do not ensure that students get jobs which will suit their mental and emotional profile.

Educational institutions need to be proactive in creating awareness about the problem of wrong career choices and arrange professional counseling for students to enable them analyze their strengths and weaknesses, scan the environment and choose appropriate jobs and careers. This is routinely done in many societies which thus ensure that their human resources are productively, efficiently and happily employed. In India the lack of proper counseling for career choices can result in huge economic costs to our society because of suboptimal utilization of human resources. Also Business schools could arrange short term courses for people who wish to completely change their career line.I have written about these matters to several HR consultancy companies but they seem to have adopted the perspectives of placement consultants. Even those who claim to help in changing careers do not do much about it. Incidentally, even the Gallup Corp referred to above, which is doing excellent work, has more to offer to companies than to individuals.Are there tools available to help students make right career decisions?

Internationally acclaimed HR consultants Geoff Morgan and Andrew Banks used to ask “Are you comfortable with data, people, things, words or numbers? ” Such questions have profound implications. The answers provide indications of the type of job which will match one’s talents. There are now many such profiling tools available which gauge a student’s make-up and can suggest suitable work. The Gallup study referred to in an earlier answer, identified 34 themes to enable people discover, or rather uncover, their potential so that they know where they belong and how their weakness can be complimented by another person’s strengths. Examples of themes are ‘harmony’, ‘empathy’, ‘command’, ‘activator’, etc. Some, like ‘harmony’ and ‘empathy’, are relationship oriented which help in connecting and teambuilding while others like ‘command’ and ‘activator’ are task oriented which help in getting things done.

The Gallup study also recommends specific career choices for strengths in certain themes. For example there is a theme called ‘restorative’ which has to do with identifying, analyzing and solving problems. People in whom such themes are dominant do well in medicine, consulting, computer programming or customer services. ‘Individualization’ is another theme which has to do with observing styles, motivation, how people think and build relationships - career choices for such people could be counseling, supervising, teaching or selling. Since too many themes can dilute focus, the five best “signature” themes are identified for each student. They help in knowing “who you are and who you are in relationship with”. This enables better relations with teachers,

fellow students, spouse, friends, relatives and strangers as well as choosing the correct profession, which is the primary purpose. There is also a book “Strength Quest” which explains the themes in detail and advises students about how to identify their talents. Gallup has a site www.strengthsquest.com where one can take a test to identify strengths and weaknesses. The book and the site are specifically for students.

How does one deal with a wrong career choice?

The Times of India (5/8/2007) devoted a page to nine examples of drastic career switches by persons discovering that they should be doing something else. Most transitions mentioned in the article were from professions like engineering and medicine to arts and sports:-

Tyre technologist to classical singer. Doctor to actor and film producer.Advertising to adventure sports. Airline steward to restaurateurFinancial consultant to tour operator. Engineer to marketing educationist.Engineer to theatre person.IT professional to winemaker.

One may earn money and gain recognition but still feel unfulfilled. An interesting example is Sunil Aggarwal, who despite being from IIM (Ahmedabad), IIT (Delhi) and rising to become a Managing Director in a media company complained of feelings of “failure and inadequacy”. After all the ultimate goal is happiness which to a great extent depends on fulfilling one’s natural potential. In my experience the basic question about wrong career choice is that you may be able to ignore your inner or spontaneous urge in the beginning of your career but could you ignore it for a lifetime?People with an artistic bent of mind need to be particularly careful as discovering the artist in oneself can be a long drawn out process and artists in the wrong profession can have a very bad time. The chairman of ICICI, KV Kamath said that if you want artistic satisfaction in the business world you have to innovate continuously.

For students interested in this subject I recommend the following books:-

Achieving your Dream Career. Geoff Morgan and Andrew BanksPassion to Win. Abadmed and DO ChopraThe Greatest Secret of Success: Your Passion Quotient.Virendra KapoorThe five great Myths of Career Building. Sanjiv Bhamre

Those interested in knowing more about consequences of wrong career choices could visit my blog, “Make your passion your profession” at http://mypyp.wordpress.com/.

PEACE AND SANITY WITH OR WITHOUT DESTINY-1590 words

Publihsed in Management compass- December’2007

Right place, right time

But is that the only reason why some people succeed?

In 1923, nine of the world’s richest men met to discuss the economy. They were:-Charles Schwab — president of the largest Steel companySameul Insull — president of the largest electric utility companyHoward Hopson — president, largest gas companyArthur Cutten — greatest wheat speculatorRichard whitney — president, New York stock exchangeAlbert Fall — secretary of interior in President Harding’s cabinet.Jesse Livermore — the greatest ‘bear’ on the Wall StreetIvan Krueger — head of the world’s greatest monopolyLeon Fraser — president of the Bank of international settlements

After 25 years in 1948, the situation was as follows: Charles Schwab was bankrupt and lived the last few years on borrowed money.Samuel Insull died abroad as a penniless fugitive.Howard Hopson was insane.Arthur Cutten became insolvent and died abroad.Richard Whitney had been imprisoned.Albert Fall was pardoned from prison and died broke and penniless.Jesse Livermore had committed suicide.Ivar Krueger killed himself Leon Fraser committed suicide.

One wonders how the lives of so many prominent men ended the way it did. Was it because of their own mistakes or forces of destiny/providence or circumstances beyond their control?

Recently, I read in the news about Superstar Amitabh Bachchan and his one time co-actor Naveen Nishchal. They had starred in a movie called Parwana in the early Seventies, in which Nishchal was the hero and Bachchan, the villain. Those were days when nobody saw much promise in Bachchan; he was called a tall idiot, heroines refused to work with him, and a prominent director even told him to shorten his legs. Today, the situation could not be more different — Bachchan is a monumental superstar with a fleet of cars and Nischal moves around in an auto-rickshaw. Other successful contemporaries of Bachchan have also faded into oblivion.Purely by chance, I met actor Vijay Arora five years ago, who looked almost completely in contrast to the smart and handsome young man who romanced the gorgeous Zeenat Aman in the movie Yaadon ki Baaraat. He consciously avoided all my references to the movie because that was “a long time ago”. He died this year.There can be various reasons as to why successful people end up like this but there are definitely forces of destiny, which are beyond one’s control. For instance, Ravi Shastri

would not have been a part of the Indian team had he appeared a few years ago because of the presence of the Indian spin quartet-Prasanna, Bedi Chandraskekhar and Venkataraghvan. There was actually a bowler, Padmakar Shivalkar in the Bombay Ranji Trophy team, who was good enough for International cricket but who never got a chance because of four distinguished spin bowlers already playing at that time. As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Even Mahatma Gandhi has a chapter Man Proposes, God Disposes in his autobiography. So there are factors critical to success and happiness that are beyond one’s control. The management example corresponding to the above is an interview that one of the most prominent Indian CEOs gave in which he stated that he knew batchmates who were more intelligent and worked much harder than him but his net worth was much more than their simply because he happened to be the right person at the right place at the right time.

Sometimes, decisions can be a function of one’s conditioning, which in turn depends on the sequence of experiences. Some people who change jobs and marriages, realise later that the problem was not with the job but with themselves. I once read a case about an honest and efficient accountant. When he made a mistake, the owner was very angry. At this the accountant was very upset and left the job. Subsequently, a few other accountants joined in quick succession but were either incompetent or insincere or dishonest. The owner wished he had come across the bad accountants first to enable him to appreciate the good one. It is a matter of which experience you first have, and such decisions can sometimes mean a difference between success and failure.

In the book Ancient Indian Wisdom on Management, it is clearly mentioned that commercial success happens when talent meets the needs of society, which are not always easy to forecast or monitor. There have been many successful people who have said that their success has been because of being in the right place at the right time. Among the reasons for Amitabh Bachchan’s success are:-

1) Corruption was rising at that time and in the ‘Angry young man’ image projected by him, the middle class saw a hero through which they could fight back. This is corroborated in Anupama Chopra’s book The making of Sholay.

2) The sound effects had improved by the time he had come to enable action movies to succeed.

3) Video was introduced around the time, as a result of which he continued to live in the drawing rooms of the next generations, which enabled a continuity, an advantage that the previous superstars did not have.

4) The public had perhaps had their fill of romance, which immediately preceded his action films and desired a change, which is why his action films succeeded. What happens to those who are not successful or fall from grace? One may admire Mr Bachchan as an actor but sometimes one cannot but admire Mr Nishchal to be just alive and kicking. The current generation may admire Hrithik Roshan for his James Bond looks and stunts on the screen but in reality, it is his father, Rakesh Roshan who pulled

off a great stunt by resurrecting himself from the verge of oblivion as an actor (by his own admission, he was never much of a success) in mid life to an extremely successful producer director. The story how he had to mortgage everything to launch himself as a producer and how it would have ruined him had he not succeeded makes a compelling reading. To cope with failure and resurrect oneself from one is as much real life heroics as being successful, if not more.

If there are forces beyond our control, how does one cope with failure? Spirituality lays emphasis on ‘being’ or ‘the present’. Hrithik Roshan commented in Koffee with Karan that “Life is about living in the moment”. It is not so easy in times of adversity. One of the best books that has brought this out is The Power of Now. The author Eckhart Tolle says, “ Whether it is a car alarm, a rude person, a flood, an earthquake or the loss of all your possessions, the resistance mechanism which is the quality of consciousness in the present moment is the same.” He says, “ Being (present) takes you beyond the polar opposites of the mind and frees you from dependency on form. Even if everything were to collapse and crumble around you, you will feel a deep inner core of peace. You may not be happy, you will be at peace.”

There is a saying, “If providence wants to act against you, it has got several cards up its sleeve”. The ability of being in the present moment or being rather than the fantasies of being related to the past or the future is at the heart of being able to cope with adversity. This may not be easy for everybody in severe adversity but is best brought out by Zen meditation. Normally, Yoga teachers talk of meditation in the lotus pose where one has to sit with folded legs but according to Zen, meditation is possible all the time depending upon how well rooted you are in the present.

A write up I came across (http://www.intrex.net/chzg/talklist.htm) goes like this:-The body is God’s pattern. The practice of awareness, the practice of breathing, walking, standing, lying down, giving loving kindness to the body, in the many, many ways, there’s much we can say about that. That’s all day long. To a great extent in Zen, we practice with our mind indirectly through our body. Zen meditation isn’t something we do only with the mind. In Zen, we engage our body as an ally to enable us to practice with the totality of our being. Normally, we walk around in our bodies, rarely noticing how they feel unless there is pain. Seldom do we consciously think of the body as feeling good. Feeling good shouldn’t be an absence of pain. It should be an invigorated, energetic state where you are comfortable and happy in your body.

There is a reason behind this. We learn to think with the body, not just the brain. “ Only concentrate... Just let the thinking brain, the cerebral cortex, cool down naturally. The central brain, the body brain (hypothalamus, thalamus) becomes stronger, more active.” Consciousness in the present automatically improves concentration. According to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Concentration is the secret of success in politics, in war, in all management of human affairs.” That may be selectively true as success depends on a lot many external factors as explained above, but being in the present is a lot more critical to managing oneself in adversity. Following the “Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst”

philosophy, if while tying to pursue success and happiness, one can at least mitigate the negatives if not able to generate the positives, or in management parlance, cut costs if not being able to generate revenue. n

PRACTICAL MAN MANAGEMENT

This article was published in the December’2007 issue of the education magazine “Educare”

One man’s meat is another man’s problem, so understanding of people and dealing with them is the biggest test of life

In my previous article on practical money management in October, 2007, I had suggested that as everybody had to manage money, practical money management should be taught as a general course and not restricted to students of commerce, accounts, management or finance. Since everybody has to manage people as well, practical psychology should be taught to everyone and not be restricted to students of psychology alone. Practical psychology would imply imparting knowledge in a way that common man would understand. For instance, it is often said that God has given two ears and one mouth to speak less and listen more. Being a good listener queers the pitch for both good communication and man management. Other psychological factors can be expressed similarly.

The director of the movie Paheli, Amol Palekar, while talking in the context of his movie, stated that people tend to respond with alacrity in the case of physical problems even if there is a minor scratch, but mental and emotional problems draw a lukewarm response no matter how severe they may be. One reason for this is that such problems are invisible. That apart, since mind and body are connected, all mental and emotional problems are psychosomatic — the result of such problems may come out in the body in the form of serious physical ailments in due course of time. Thus emotional scars need a first-aid as urgently as minor outer cuts.

One of the most important things in life is to be able to read people correctly. The practical tools that are taught in management schools are transaction analysis, MBTI test, gallup strength finder etc. One can google for all that and orient oneself on that. They are more a domain of professionals. The purpose of this article is to try and apply practical psychology in day-to-day life. People are as different as chalk and cheese; what is important to one may draw a completely different approach from another. It is said that “One man’s meat is another man’s poison” but to detect that and follow it in practical life is not always easy.

One of the most fascinating stories that I had read is the story of a lady who left a high profile job of a software engineer to opt for becoming a coffee shop owner for the cause of a smile. Imagine switching from being a software engineer to being a coffee shop owner for a smile:-

“When former software engineer Bonnie Vining was told by her boss to stop smiling so much at work because it was a sign of weakness, she decided that it was definitely time to leave her job and follow her dream. Bonnie wanted to own her own coffee shop, where folks could gather and enjoy each other’s company and, without being self-conscious, smile as much as they liked. Like Murray and Heather’s family and friends, Bonnie’s co-workers thought Bonnie was being too much of a dreamer. But she didn’t let the naysayers stop her. Today people can visit Bonnie in Tucson, Arizona, serving up a cup of Joe at her own place, Javalina’s Coffee and Friends.”There was once a salesman who because of his predisposition to be authoritative hated his job, as he had to be continually subservient to customers, and this went against his primary nature. After he opted for a career switch and became a policeman, all his complaints vanished because in the new occupation, he was calling the shots.Perhaps this is why it is said that to know a person well, one has to see how he reacts in crises situations, rather than what he says or thinks or believes or has learnt in life. There is an Akbar Birbal story that highlights this fact. It is a story of one person who knew several languages and challenged anybody to reveal his mother’s tongue. When nobody responded, Akbar turned to Birbal, who stated that he shall give the answer the following day. At night, when that person was asleep, Birbal pricked his ear repeatedly till he said something irritably. The next day, when Birbal gave the correct answer, Akbar asked him how he had found out. Birbal stated that whenever a person experienced extreme emotions, he was bound to express his feelings in his mother tongue and told him all about what he had done the previous night. In a similar way, crisis situation beyond one’s capacity tends to bring out one’s innate nature, which may not be apparent in times of normalcy.

Talking of crisis situations, one must remember that crisis is helpful in managing people because people tend to listen more during adversity than they listen in normal times. It is quite possible that had Lord Krishna narrated the Bhagvad Gita in normal times, Arjun would not have been so receptive as he was when he happened to be scared and confused in the battlefield. So such situations should be seen as opportunities to give the right direction to people. It is not for nothing that it is said, “Circumstances are the instruments of the wise”. One can keep the correct and relevant information and counsel when the moment is right in the context of “strike while the iron is hot”. Perhaps that is why the word crisis is variously defined as the turning point, the decisive or critical moment or a mixture danger and opportunity.

Ancient Hindu texts divide people into satvik, rajsik and tamsik. Looked from a management perspective, satvik means pure and illumined, rajsik implies dynamic or passionate and tamsik is inert or lazy. According to the book “Ancient Indian wisdom for management”.:-

Satvik — Measured and compassionate and completes the work in all respects and accepts individual responsibility; needs little supervision.Rajsik — Forceful and excessive. He works independently and is obsessed with personal achievement; requires key point supervision.

Tamsik — Supported by others and does the work as far as he is pushed; demands constant supervision.

There is no air tight compartment in which mature is exclusively tamsik or rajsik or satvik. One has to find out which one is predominating in someone’s nature and acts depending on the issue at hand. For instance, a tamsik person can be criticised directly but a Rajsik person must be challenged and made interested in personal achievement. Direct reward is better for a tamsik person but if he is more rajsik, he has to be given more power. One has to try and move all individuals towards being satvik to the extent possible.

One of the best managers of men has been the great American businessman Andrew Carnegie. As a young Scots boy, Andrew Carnegie came to America and started doing odd jobs. He ended up as one of the largest steel manufacturers in the United States.At one time he had 43 millionaires working for him. Several decades ago, a million dollars used to be a lot of money; even today it is a lot of money. Someone asked Mr Carnegie how he dealt with people? Andrew Carnegie replied, “Dealing with people is like digging gold: When you go digging for an ounce of gold, you have to move tons of dirt to get an ounce of gold. But when you go digging, you don’t go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold.” What Carnegie probably meant was what Emerson said: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.” One has to look for that uniqueness in human beings to be able to genuinely respect them and treat them with dignity.

This not only builds good relationships but also leads to better competence because one person’s strength compliments the other person’s weakness leading to complimentary synergy. According to the book The google, after working together for a while the founders of google, Larry Page and Sergy Binn, along with their chief executive, Eric Schimdt discovered their real working identities. The book says, “As it turned out, Sergey was a gifted deal maker, Larry was the deepest technologist of the three, and Eric focused on the details of running a business.” All great businesses are run that way and the sooner one gets into the habit of looking at one’s own and other people’s uniqueness, the more likely he is to succeed in life.

Since Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people was first published in 1936, it has sold more than 15 million copies. It was a New York Times best seller for 10 years. It is still concerned one of the best all time books for managing people for the layman and some of the chapters are self explanatory:-

l The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.l Never say, “you’re wrong.”l Get the other person saying, “yes, yes” immediately.l Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.l Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.l Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.l Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.

l Talk about your own mistakes before criticising the other person.l Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.l Let the other person save face.

l The one about the arguments needs elaboration. Consider these contradictory proverbs:-

l Where there is a will, there is a way. l Will is no skill. l Too many cooks spoil the broth. l Many hands make light work. l Fortune favors the brave. l It is better to lose opportunity than to lose capital l Nothing succeeds like success. l All covet, all lose. l A drop of honey catches more flies than a bottle of vinegar. l Softness evokes no compliance.

These proverbs clearly show that there cannot be any absolute truths and one should see all situations with discretion and discrimination and see how the sayings apply in one particular case. The quality of our relationships is one of the factors on which the quality our life depends but forming absolute opinions negates all that. This is one of the most wonderful teachings of Jainism and is called Syat Vaada. Practising syaat means “up to a point.” One can add phrases like “As far as I know” or “Maybe” while giving negative opinions on other people. This neither makes the facts absolute nor detracts from what one wants to express. Since our perception is influenced by several factors, any opinions about others can only be subjective and relative. Arguments happen more often when we stick to our position too strongly though it may not be the absolute truth which is why making sweeping statements or generalisations is deemed a sign of bad thinking. “One should remember that A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth” — Thomas Mann.

It only follows from that that what is written above should also be seen with discretion and discrimination, which means there are some absolute sweeping truths. One of them happens to be perhaps one of the greatest ever quotes in the context of man management: “Do unto others as you would want others to do unto you.” n

Willie was sent to lessons in spelling and grammar, but he never learned to spell. To the end of his life he produced highly idiosyncratic versions of words. George Patton - When he was twelve years old, he could not read yet and he remained deficient in reading all his life. However, he could memorize entire lectures, which was how he got through school. Woodrow Wilson - He had great difficulty in reading: in fact, throughout his life, he was unable to read well. Despite this, he was extremely successful in politics. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was . . . an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day." - Agatha Christie. I never send things out without having them checked by an assistant." - Lynda

La Plante, TV Series writer "Prime Suspect", "Widows", "She's Out", "The Governor""At the age of 12, I was considered uneducable mentally retarded. At the age of 38 I could score 169 on the IQ test but I couldn't read a menu in a restaurant. What the average person could read in 5 minutes would take me an hour." - Ronald Davis, author

For example, John Irving, he won an Academy Award for the Cider House Rules, is dyslexic. Stephen J. Cannell, who wrote the television series the A-Team and the Rockford Files, is also dyslexic. He always likes to make people understand that dyslexia affects your ability to read and to spell, but not to have an imagination and be creativeHe was unable to spell throughout his life and his grammar usage was verypoor. His brother suggested that perhaps surveying in the backwoods mightbe an appropriate career for young George.

SIGNIFICANCE OF CONTEXTUAL THINKING

Unbridled optimism- 1722 words

Don’t confuse blind confidence with glass-is-half-full approach

One of the world’s top 50 management thinkers and an international authority on lateral thinking, Edward De Bono, while commenting on the difference between Intelligence and thinking, commented, “The power of the car is the potential of the car just as intelligence is the potential of the mind. The skill of the driver determines how the power of the car is used. The skill of the thinker determines how intelligence is used.”

He further specifies, “Many highly intelligent people take up a point of view on a subject and defend their point of view. Since they can defend the view very well, they never see the need to explore the subject or listen to alternative views. This is poor thinking and is a part of intelligence trap. One thinker may see a situation and instantly judge it. Another person sees a situation, explores the situation on other alternatives and only then proceeds to judge it. The highly intelligent person may carry out the seeing and judging very well indeed but if the exploring is absent, that is bad thinking.”

Much before and after I read this, I had some strange experiences with some “highly intelligent people” who conduct workshops to coach people in the corporate world. They may be deemed highly intelligent since only then can they be genuinely deemed competent to coach other people. The first experience I had in the mid-Nineties was during a stress management workshop with a gentleman. The speaker had some novel concepts in stress management, which I was quick to appreciate.

While discussing communication and presentation skills, somebody in the audience with a marketing background commented, “A salesman is one who is able to sell a comb to a bald man.” I was surprised when the conductor of the workshop stated that this was a wrong and unethical statement. I said that the gentleman concerned was only saying that

in the context of presentation and not ethics. He defended his earlier stance that this was morally wrong. I had to clarify that one of the greatest Bollywood directors had said once, “You have to be a show off to be a show on.” That does not imply that the director is advocating that one should show off but only trying to convey strongly, the importance of presenting oneself well. However, that man gave a bland response, “We should not say things which are undesirable” which I found strange considering that all kinds of metaphors and analogies are used to convey a point of view.

While discussing goals and purpose in life, he started to tell how the purpose was the bigger picture and goals, like monetary rewards were just a means towards the ends and were bi-products. Then he said, “If you focus on the purpose, the goal is automatically achieved,” which was something on the lines of a book entitled Follow your heart and money shall follow. I found that a fundamentally incorrect statement. It was as if he was trying to tell us what we wanted to hear. I raised the example of actor Shashi Kapoor, who, in the late Seventies and early Eighties, tried to produce films which, according to him were meaningful cinema but which did not do well at the box office. According to press reports, he finally had do make a commercial film called Ajooba to recover his losses. I also pointed out the examples of Munshi Premchand, Shakespeare and painter Vincent van Gogh, who were all posthumous successes and lived a life of penury despite focusing on their respective purposes or occupations. He responded that I should not give negative examples. I replied that the focus indeed should be on the positive examples but that does not imply that one should not be aware of the negative factors. In MBA, one learns of SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), which is obviously a balanced analysis since it also takes cognizance of weaknesses and threats.

Does positive thinking imply blind optimism? I met one person in Ahmedabad during the Harshad Mehta scam, who said that he was an “incurable optimist” and told how he was going to invest all his money in the stock market as it was likely to go further up. I told him that the market was going up artificially and was bound to come down sooner or later. He again repeated his statement of being an incurable optimist. I replied that in reality, his optimism needed to be cured but did not carry the discussion further. I heard later that he had suffered heavy losses when the market fell. Years later, while dabbling in professional trading when I told an acquaintance that professional trading had a 95 per cent failure rate even in the United states, pop came the reply, “So what? If one tries hard, he maybe among the 5 per cent to succeed.” He completely overlooked the fact that one had to be extremely talented as well. The failure rate would never be so high if it was not talent intensive.

Isn’t genuine pessimism when the situation calls for it better than false optimism? Some 20 years back, I had read in one of India’s most reputed magazines about how genuine business talent and leadership was more an exception than the rule. I read in a book on venture capitalists as to how they fund only two out of ten ideas because though many people came up with bright ideas, very few have execution and implementation skills which incidentally happens to be a major reason for Reliance’s phenomenal progress. They had a clear policy of funding teams and not just ideas. As they say, “There is a fine line between appropriate confidence and over-the-top arrogance, and the best breakout

leaders understand that they can’t cross that line.” This is not to say that one should not have a positive bent of mind and not look at situations with the spirit of looking at the half-full-glass as half-full and not half-empty. It is to maintain what is called a “sense of proportion” in optimism. One has to choose one’s battles in life.

In the Indian context, the example that comes to mind is Ramesh Chauhan, who sold some of his brands when Pepsi and Coke reentered India. Optimism also brings to mind some of the self-help books that are available in the market which advocate the virtues of having the right attitude without specifying the other variables or the context in which attitude alone is predominant. I have even seen posts in HR discussion forums with titles like ‘attitude alone wins’ and ‘attitude alone matters’, which is a fundamentally incorrect statement, as other variables are also involved. It depends upon the type of businessman — whether he is a Kamaal (unique) businessman or the maal (happy go lucky) businessman. The kamaal businessman is more on the lines of Henri Ford or Thomas Edison, who want to achieve excellence in a particular or specific branch of knowledge or technology and see it as some kind of mission or their purpose in life. A recent example is google, which says it all in its mission statement “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” It clearly indicates that google’s focus is on search technology. The maal businessmen is like a “paisa kamana hai” kind of trader, whose focus is more on the monetary gains. One does come across examples of people getting fed up in the rat race and trying to focus on a higher purpose; their focus switches from maal to kamaal in mid life or midway through life.

Talking of switches reminds me of another incident that happened at an institute which has the word education suffixed to its main name. This institute conducts weekend workshops where participants are supposed to attend all day and are cross-questioned on different spheres of life, career, relationships, family etc. On attending a trial workshop, I was asked what my problem area was. When I said career mismatch, he told me to be creative wherever I was. I replied that what he was saying was possible in some cases but in the stock market, trying to be creative in the short run could be like playing with fire. I also gave several examples of people who were much more creative when they shifted elsewhere and said that one cannot make a blind assumption of forced creativity. He did not know what to reply. Later, when I took this up with one of his topmost bosses, I was shocked by what he said “Oh ! Career just happens if you have the right attitude. You are making a mountain out of molehill.” Later I was to come examples of a child psychologist becoming a taxi-driver, a well established accountant wanting to be a carpenter, a very well qualified doctor becoming a nursery teacher, a dentist switching to wild life photography etc.

This is not to undermine attitude but to give everything its due significance. Just as in a diet, one has to have due proportion of fats though proteins and carbohydrates maybe more important, in a person, what is more important would depend upon his profile, his occupation, values and current life situation. Attitude books should be balanced by realistic HR books. This is what Sanjiv Bhamre, author of Five Great myths of Career Building, has to say about self-help books “Often, authors of self-help books avoid

specifying the context in which the trait of rule is not applicable. Contextual intelligence — understanding the power of using one trait in a situation — is necessary to appreciate the exact impact of a trait in one’s life. Successful people find and work in systems where their good and bad traits become strengths, whereas unsuccessful people work in systems where their good and bad traits become weaknesses. Successful people spend time and effort in finding the context and use it. By appropriate contextualising, they avoid disappointment and consequent loss of motivation when things do not work.” The root lies in finding the right aptitude, which is far tougher than talking of attitude which is more relevant to stick in the mud jobs. Forced attitude can never match natural, spontaneous interest and consequent attitude which is also likely to last longer.

Aamir Khan’s latest film raises very crucial questions-2095 words

The film Taare Zameen par is a sensitive portrayal of the ordeal of a dyslexic child, Ishaan Awasthi, whose abnormal behaviour is misunderstood and mistaken to be something else both by his teachers and parents. Unaware of dyslexia, they think that he is lazy, stupid, naughty and even arrogant on occasions. Dyslexia is a neurological language processing disorder that affects a student’s ability to process written and spoken information. Students with dyslexia have difficulty pronouncing words, repeating phrases that are spoken to them, understanding the meaning from spoken phrases, and following detailed instructions. They particularly have difficulty in distinguishing similar sounding words and letters.

Ishaan’s agony and ordeal is reduced and gradually overcome when, in the form of Aamir Khan (Ram Shankar Nikumbh in the movie), he meets a teacher who has himself suffered from the problem as a child and is therefore, able to guide him correctly. He is able to draw the attention of both the parents and other teachers on the right focus - on what Ishaan can do or his strengths, rather than his weaknesses. After building his self- confidence by drawing out the painter in him, he gradually manages to reduce the child’s weaknesses through other unique teaching techniques.

Aamir Khan’s first directorial venture does a very good job of highlighting the real and ideal direction of education - drawing out innate potential rather than blindly stuffing facts. Since the film brings that out very well, Azim Premji’s words in my earlier article “Teacher, educate thyself” are worth repeating:-

“The primary purpose of a school is to guide the child’s discovery of herself and her world and to identify and mature the child’s talents. Just as each seed contains the future tree, each child is born with infinite potential.” In the article, he suggested that many teachers and parents try to be potters instead of gardeners in moulding their children’s future. Imagine a school which sees children as seeds to be nurtured - here the teacher is a gardener who tries to bring out the potential already present in the child. In that article, I had mentioned some famous dyslexics in passing reference, which are mentioned as examples in the movie. Their details are engrossing:

Loenardo Da Vinci: a great painter, designer, scientist, futurist and thinker. Most of the time, he wrote his notes backwards, which is exhibited with a mirror in the movie by Aamir. Although unusual, this is a trait shared by many left-handed dyslexic people. Leonardo’s spelling was also considered erratic and quite strange. He also started many more projects then he ever finished - a characteristic now often considered to be ‘ADD’ or attention deficit disorder. However, when it came to drawing illustrations, Leonardo’s work is detailed and precise. Loenardo’s words are revealing: “You should prefer a good scientist without literary abilities than a literate one without scientific skills.”

Thomas Edison, the famous inventor: he was noted to be terrible at mathematics, unable to focus, and had difficulty with words and speech. He was unable to read until he was 12 and his writing skills were poor throughout his life. His teacher thought him to be mentally ill. His mother withdrew the child from school and taught him herself. In his own words “My teachers say I’m addled . . . my father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided I must be a dunce.”

Albert Einstein, history’s most prominent scientist: he could not talk until the age of four. He did not learn to read until he was nine. His teachers considered him slow, unsociable and a dreamer. He failed the entrance examinations to college but finally passed after an additional year of preparation. He lost three teaching positions and then became a paten clerk. In his own words “Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater.” He also said, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”

Pablo Picasso the famous painter: his dyslexia made school difficult, and Pablo never really benefited from school or learning. Dyslexia troubled Picasso for the rest of his long life. Pablo’s father taught art, this got him interested in painting. Picasso also painted because he was born with an ability to see people the way they wanted to be seen, the way they were seen, and the special way Picasso saw them. In his own words, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” That is possible only if children realise their innate potential or essence as very few have multi-dimensional talent.

Picasso’s story is closest to what is shown in the movie. Ishaan is shown to be a very good painter despite being a severe dyslexic, a fact that is highlighted when Aamir joins the school as a temporary arts teacher. The manner in which Ishaan is shown staring out of the window on occasions reminds one of an extract of Osho’s discourse:

“The teacher goes on telling to the small children, ‘Give attention to me. Be attentive.’ They are attentive. But they are attentive somewhere else. A cuckoo is crying his heart outside the school building and the child is attentive. Nobody can say that he is not attentive. Nobody can say that he is not meditative. Nobody can say that he is in deep concentration. He is. In fact, he has completely forgotten the teacher and the arithmetic that he is doing on the board. He is completely oblivious. He is completely possessed by the cuckoo. The child is attentive. It is happening naturally. Listening to the cuckoo he is happy. The teacher is distracting and the teacher says that you are not attentive. He is

simply stating a lie. The child was attentive. The cuckoo was more attractive to him. The teacher was not so attractive. The arithmetic has no such appeal. But we are not all born to be mathematicians. There are few children who will not be interested in the cuckoo.”

Since every weak child is hardly likely to become an Edison or an Einstein, there should be special education on how they fit in. Since many of these great people struggled in humble skills, humble talents should not be taken for granted. The Gallup corporation in its book “First, break all the rules” highlights examples of waiters, bartenders, housekeepers, nurses, data entry operators etc as to how the best were different from the rest even in minor jobs and were compensated highly without necessarily being promoted, if they did not have the talent for man management. The best bartender was someone who remembered names of 3,000 guests and their drinks and the champion data entry operator was four times faster than the rest. Even something like housekeeping is studied in great detail so that the rest (poor housekeepers) learn from the best.

Though the movie shows the child making some headway in overcoming his weaknesses, real life does not always turn out to be like that. Apart from Picasso, there are several famous dyslexics, who have had similar problems throughout their lives - General George Patton, President Woodrow Wilson, President George Washington, writer Agatha Christie etc. Another famous dyslexic, Tom Cruise, despite being a success in his chosen field, can learn lines only by listening to a tape. If one googles for dyslexia, one comes across sites with a message like “famous people with the gift of dyslexia” Lesser-known celebrities also have severe reading difficulties but are yet successful in their respective fields. An extreme case is that of Ronald Davis, author. “At the age of 38 I could score 169 on the IQ test but I couldn’t read a menu in a restaurant. What the average person could read in 5 minutes would take me an hour,” the author once said about himself.

The lives of two famous dyslexics not mentioned in the movie - Henri Ford and Winston Churchill. Henri Ford: His father, a farmer, had only that career in mind for his son and tried to equip him with all the relevant skills - tending plants, eliminating pests and weeds, ploughing etc. Henry occasionally went with his father to the farm, but, his mind hovered around the hoe and the mechanical plough, the tools of his trade. His father, often exasperated, pleaded, cajoled, shouted and screamed. These had only a temporary impact. Henri’s heart was not in farming. In the movie Aamir Khan says, “Bachche ka hunar kya hai?”. His “hunar” or functional talent may not be necessarily reflected in his qualifications, which is why it is said, “Choose your career not on the basis of what you know but who you are”. It is very hard to believe that a mentally disabled child can do well in a field not of his liking. If that were so, they would not have so many problems with conventional education. Can one imagine Henri Ford achieving the same success in farming or any other field?

Churchill failed grade VIII, did terrible in math and generally hated school. In his own words, “I was, on the whole, considerably discouraged by my school days. It was not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the beginning of the race.” Being in the right occupation is probably how the problems of some of the dyslexics got neutralised and how they were able to sustain their success despite suffering

for a lifetime. On the other hand, being in the wrong occupation can entail a lifetime of suffering despite having no mental disability.

Since some psychologists try to identify childhood interests to solve this problem, the views of the other great mystic/intellectual J Krishnamurthy are worth noting: “In building enormous educational institutions and employing teachers who depend on a system instead of being alert and observant in their relationship with the individual student, we merely encourage the accumulation of facts, the development of capacity and the habit of thinking mechanically, according to a pattern; but certainly none of this helps the student to grow into an integrated human being. A large and flourishing educational institution can turn out bank clerks and super salesmen, industrialists or commissars, superficial people who are technically efficient but there is hope only in the integrated individual which the small school can bring about. If the classes are small and the teacher is able to give his full attention to each child, observing him and helping him, then compulsion or domination in any form is obviously unnecessary. It is intelligence that brings order, not discipline.” This can be witnessed in the movie when Aamir starts giving individual attention to the Ishaan and is able to help overcome his difficulty. Both Osho and Krishnamurthy have stressed the importance of helping the child find his right vocation in their discourses.

Since Aamir’s role fits into Krishnamurthy’s description of an ideal educator, his comments on the teacher’s role are worth mentioning “ If the teachers are not sure of their own vocation and interest, there are bound to be superficial bickerings, jealousies, misunderstandings etc, which can be passed over only if there is a burning interest in bringing about the right kind of education. To observe each child’s tendencies, his aptitudes, his temperament, his attitudes, to understand his difficulties taking his heredity and parental influence into account requires patience, alertness, intelligence, skill, interest and above all a sense of affection. To produce educators endowed with these qualities is one of our major problems today.”

Aamir has shown basically what talent management is all about. There are people like Dhirubhai Ambani, Bill Gates and Jack Welch, who have been able to see the latent talent and been able to draw that out, despite different degrees and qualifications. The focus always has to be more on uniqueness of the individual - what the individual does with the knowledge rather than knowledge per se, or what he can do uniquely. All life is talent management. If that were not so, books like Working identity would never be written. Since it explains how tough career transition can be, special efforts should be made to help people who may have made the wrong choice. In a recent article in Readers Digest, the great mathematician Hardy says that he may have mentored maths genius Ramanujan but he learnt much more from Ramanujan then the other way around. This is what happen when teachers see their role as educators- just as Aamir has directed the film so well, they have to provide the direction in real life.

DIGNIFIED DEFEAT

Bow out gracefully, and register a lasting positive impression in people’s mind

In the final of the Television dance programme Nach Baliye III, after Rakhi Sawant and her partner Abhishek lost, they faded away in the background and didn’t return to show up as runners-up. They neither congratulated the winners nor thought it necessary to be courteous to judges, who had encouraged them all along. Cinestar Salman Khan also had to comment that winning and losing is a part of life and they should show some sportsman spirit. In the other dance programme, Jhalak dikhla jaa, all the three judges spoke very highly of Sandhya Mridul throughout the programme but she still lost to Prachi Desai. Last year, it was more or less the same scenario, where, despite the judges speaking very highly of Shweta Salve, she still lost to Mona Singh. Both Shweta and Sandhya were more dignified in defeat. Why is one person able to take defeat so graciously and not everybody?

Talking of sportsman spirit brings to mind one of the finest sportsmen India produced, Tennis ace Vijay Amritraj. Though he was extremely talented and gave some of the most established players a run for their money in his time, he never ever won a single grand slam. Whenever he is asked whether or not he regretted it, his reply is, “That would be looking at the glass half empty. I try to look at it as glass half full. The atmosphere and the ambience at Wimbledon makes participation itself a great achievement.” In this context, one can also mention former cricket captain Sourav Ganguly. After being dropped from the Indian cricket team for poor batting form, it took him almost a year and a half to make a comeback. Considering that he had been playing for almost a decade and in the last five years as captain, being dropped must have been a huge disappointment. It is like a managing director of a company being removed and asked to try to rejoin along with other trainees in full public glare. Though in some quarters, he is deemed the greatest cricket captain ever, in metal strength and resilience, his stock he is even higher. If this is dadagiri (Ganguly is often referred to as dada), I am all for it.

Sawant hardly has such a reputation to speak of. Maybe, she could learn a thing or two from Amritraj. In the good old days when only Doordarshan was there or before that, a talented dancer could not even dream of such platforms to showcase her talent. That apart, despite the proliferation of reality shows on television, when one considers India’s total population, the percentage of people who actually get to display their talent is still abysmally small. One should consider oneself fortunate if one is able to participate and even if defeated, be thankful for the experience which is what Shweta Salve did when she said the despite the fact that she lost, this was her first big exposure despite trying for several years. One should also keep in mind that this is a reality show and though they are indicative of popularity, they may not reflect real merit. Lots of bad commercial films are hits and good art films struggle at the box office. In the practical world, a good actor like Govinda may do better commercially than a brilliant actor like Naseeruddin Shah but that cannot obviously be the sole criteria for judgment of success. Everything that is good is not necessarily successful and vice- versa. Though god alone how much of that applies to Ms Sawant, she could have also taken solace from that fact.

Apart from artists, scientists and inventors too are known for their patience and persistence. When a young reporter asked how it felt to fail 2000 times before he got the light bulb to work, Thomas Edison replied “ I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000 step process”. This was rephrasing the experience in a way which reveals a positive attitude that enables such persistence. The Wright brothers had to try 805 times before they could achieve sustained flight. When he was constructing a rocket that the Germans hoped would destroy London and end World war II, Wemher von Braun was asked how many changes he had sent to the factories, the ridiculous figure was 65,121. Van braun acknowledged so many mistakes and estimated that it would take 5000 more before the rocket was ready. It takes real passion to go through all this and one wonders whether his bosses would have had second thoughts had they known it would take so many trials. All these people really live up to the famous saying “Failure is the stepping stone to success”

In this context, the most famous management example that comes to mind is that of Lee Iacocca, who was President of the Ford Motor Company before being humiliated and fired by Henri Ford II. The change in circumstances would have broken a lesser man. His new office at the Chrysler corporation was in a small cubicle in a warehouse with cracked linoleum floor and two plastics cups on his table. In contrast, at Ford, he was served by white collar workers at his huge, spacious office. This particular chapter of his autobiography makes the most compelling reading on how he motivated himself and bit by bit, step by step was able to gradually turn around Chrysler and become a national hero. He was even considered an ideal candidate for the Presidency of the United states for quite some time. None of this would have been possible had he not been able to keep his chin up when he was down in the dumps.

It would be a gross injustice if one were not to take an example from politics. The obvious example that comes to mind is the most revered President of United States, Abraham Lincoln. He failed in business at the age of 21 ; was defeated in a legislative race at age 22; failed again in business at age 24; overcame the death of his sweetheart at age 26; had a nervous breakdown at age 27; lost a congressional race at age 34; lost a senatorial race at age 45; failed in an effort to become vice-president at age 47; lost a senatorial race at age 49; and was elected president of the United States at age 52.. To face serious health, relationship repeated occupation failures and yet rise to the highest office in the land over a stretch of 32 years is a fantastic achievement. Another of their greatest Presidents Franklin. D, Roosevelt who is remembered for his leadership during both the great depression and World War II. He was stricken with Polio when he was 39. Yet he remained active in politics and was elected thrice the President of United States of America, the only President to be elected three times.

Talking of the handicapped President brings to mind Helen Adams Keller , the first deaf-blind person to graduate from college who went on to become an author, activist and lecturer. Her sight and hearing were destroyed by brain fever before she was two.. She was living as a deaf-mute apart from being blind. After her teacher Annie Sullivan was able to make contact with her mind through the sense of touch, she could read and write in Braille within three years. Though she could talk only in sign language upto the age of

ten, her determination to speak enabled her to enter preparatory school by the time she was sixteen. She lectured on behalf of the blind and the deaf in more than twenty five countries and her books are best sellers and translated in more than fifty languages. On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Helen Keller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States’ highest two civilian honors and in 1965 ,she was elected to the Women’s Hall of Fame at the New York World’s Fair.

The movie “Black” was inspired by her life . Nobody can guarantee long term commercial success as it depends upon the forces of demand and supply which is probably why the Bhagvad Gita advises to act but not be obsessed with the fruits of the action. However, being able to take setbacks in one’s stride improves one’s chances with factors that are in one’s control. Transitory periods of set backs in between may seem like eternity but they maybe life’s way of molding us for a higher purpose for the next phase of our lives. Just as a lower bottom in the stock market can result in a higher top in the long run if taken positively, unless short term failures are taken in the right spirit and attempts are made to learn from them, one’s long term future can be precisely like the movie- Black.

Testing times(Student suicides)

Unrealistic expectations drive students to drastic steps, including suicide

March 2006 reported four suicides related to the board exams in New Delhi in a very short time span. In March 2005, six students took their lives a fortnight before the board exams, 300 others reportedly attempted to commit suicide and 70 per cent of the students were reported to be suffering from stress and anxiety. In Surat, two out of three girls who attempted suicide died. In March 2004, two Calcutta based students committed suicide within a span of a week because of being unable to bear the stress of exams.Year after year, one gets to read news like this in the month of March. One wonders whether the battle against the board exams has been able to march forward or not. NCERT has recommended steps like provision for retaking the exam in a short span, using words other than “fail” to reduce stigma and avoid complete demoralisation, reform the examination system and remodel the question paper to test creativity and application of mind, have flexible time during the exams, use grading system instead of marks, have counsellors interact with students, teachers and parents, provide for one teacher from each school to be given short term training for stress related problems etc.

While all these steps are very welcome, one wonders if they strike at the root of the problem. The fear of the boards is largely a fear of not doing well in life because in the ultimate analysis, the exam is a means to an end. Just as cricketers require match practice to simulate real match situations in addition to net practice for the real matches, education of practical life situations is a must as the exams come more in the category of net practice. One article on board exam suicides spoke of the need for emotional intelligence, but in my view, there should be more education on how practical life functions because that is the real thing. It may sound fancy to say that there is more to life than exams but

what it means in reality is that some foolish perceptions related to the exams and practical life should also be reviewed by the students, parents, teachers and society at large.

From the life success perspective, the perception that the whole future of the student hinges on one exam is like saying that the entire batting hinges on the opening batsmen in cricket. In an article in India Today some years back, this is what the then vice chancellor, Delhi University, Deepak Nayyar had to say, “It’s like the Last Chance Saloon, there is no second choice. Class XII is looked upon as the end of the world. Some of the greatest innovative successes in the world have happened because people followed their heart, pursued their passion and brought about something new the formal education of which was obviously non-existent at that time. I gave the example of Henri Ford in my previous writeup. In the modern world, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, the google founders all come in that category. All three left formal education to pursue their dream. This should also serve as a lesson for those parents who try to impose their dreams on their child. Everybody cannot follow their heart like the above gentlemen but giving over importance to formal education is also not correct. You may prove to be good at the real thing. I also read about a couple of Nobel prize winners explaining how formal education would have been a liability instead of an asset in their case because lack of structured thinking facilitated creative ideas. This maybe an exception rather than the rule but puts things in perspective because ultimately, creative ideas in any field lead to grand success. Nayyar further added, “It would be terrible in the world if everyone stood first or everyone was outstanding.” I met one such super achiever in management whom I consider my best boss. After getting three double promotions and rising to become CEO from assistant manager in just one year, he outclassed the chairman and went on to set up a big project consultancy business within a span of few years and further diversified into hotels and BPOs. Since there were four others from the same institute, it would have created a lot of office politics and friction had he not been obviously outstanding and his leadership straightaway accepted by the others. It is a good thing that providence does not make people equally talented as otherwise, if people continuously try to outdo one another, nothing concrete could be achieved.

That apart, there are some practical constraints to be kept in mind even if one’s child becomes a super achiever. The same boss mentioned above, who had the all round excellence gave equal partnerships to all partners when he started his business though he could have easily got the lion’s share. In his own words this was because “he could not be at all places at all times”. He achieved more in three years than people do in ten because of this wisdom in addition to business smartness. Everybody may not be able to follow this example but certain realities of practical life have to be taken into account before setting individual goals. I met one gentleman on the Tennis court who claimed to be a super achiever in sports; he said that he was good at all racquet games and was selected for his school in all three- Table Tennis, Badminton and Lawn Tennis but he had to drop Table Tennis as its tournaments were clashing with the other two. In his autobiography A double life, former Lintas chairman Alyque Padamsee explains the practical problems on perusing two careers throughout life. Even within the right career, it is better if one is in the right sub-vocation. Charles Dickens found no success as a playwright despite great effort. Author of innumerable children’s books, Enid Blyton admitted that if she had to

write an article she would find it difficult. Our own VVS Laxman enjoys an awesome reputation against the best cricket team in the world, Australia but is overlooked for one- day cricket and has not played a single world cup.

This reminds me of some parents’ obsession of making “all rounders” of their children. A six year child’s schedule was mentioned in an article on raising superkids: 9-2 school, 3.30-4.30 tuition, 5-6 Lawn Tennis classes, 6-7 Guitar class, homework upto 9, after which thankfully he retires to bed. He also attends special three-hour maths classes during weekends. This hardly leaves any scope for childhood experiences or knowing the child’s innate potential. Practical life looks more for well-rounded teams and well-rounded individuals with specified niches, instead of super all rounders. In cricket, genuinely good all rounders as a percentage of total cricketers is very low. Only Imran Khan has the unique record of being very good all rounder and a great captain. Some years ago, Rahul Dravid mentioned in an interview how young people try to start as all rounders but when they come across a tough wicket, they realise that bowling is not their cup of tea. When one thinks of India’s great all rounders, only Kapil Dev and Vinoo Mankad come to mind. Recently, even after getting a test hundred, Irfaan Pathan said that he had the makings of a consistent good all rounder only in the long run. It is better to be a well-rounded person knowing your niche rather than an all marauding super all rounder. Jack of all, master of none does not mean anything in today’s world. Instead of striving for all round excellence, it is better make an inventory of one’s talents and interests and focus on that. In my August 2007 article Livelihood, a lively way, I have given several examples how very well qualified people also choose a completely different career because that is where their passion lies. Sometimes, the new careers lack both status and money compared to the previous ones. There are 11 similar articles on my blog- http://mypyp.wordpress.com/.Since a majority of examples are American, the views of an Indian, Virendra Kapoor, who is on the HR committee of CII, are worth noting. This is what he has written in his wonderful book, Passion Quotient: The Greatest Secret of Success. “I met one fellow who had done his electrical engineering and today he is a top criminal lawyer. I asked him how did this happen. In very simple words he said that after graduating from IIT, he worked for a good MNC for three years, was earning a good pay packed but was not really enjoying his job. So he did his LLB and then LLM and has been practicing law for more than fifteen years. You therefore see chartered accountants as successful film directors, mathematics professors turning into great actors or doctors becoming top cops.”

One has to know correctly where one’s talents and interest lie and follow that wholeheartedly, instead of being obsessed with degrees. This is what Gita Piramal has to say on one super achiever in real life, the late Dhirubhai Ambani in her book Business Maharahas. “Ambani’s single mindedness is legendary and he is proud of it. In his own words, ‘I am not a director in other companies. I am not actively participating in any associations or anything else. My whole thinking, one hundred percent of my time, from morning till evening, is about how to do better and better at Reliance. No art previews, no theatre, no films and he rarely used to switch his CD player.” Contrary to this, my father, a CA who turned around a sick company, had this to say of his would-be partner

constantly attending mourning functions because of his vast social network, “How can one function if one attends so many functions. If he continues like this, he may have to mourn for his own company one day.”

Apart from the perception of super achievement, a lot many exam related fears are there because of fear of degrees and qualifications. One reads about students killing themselves for not getting a degree of a top institute of their choice. Dhirubhai’s views on that are worth noting. Though they got the best people for technical jobs, on the management side Piramal writes, “The Ambanis don’t rely on paper qualifications. On the contrary, whoever shows initiative gets the job. Reliance’s first marketing manger used to sell petroleum products. Its knitting manager used to be an auto parts salesman.” The objective of this article is not to undermine formal education but to convey that practical life can be a great leveller and therefore, blind fear or obsession of qualifications does not help in the long run. In the same India Today article it is stated that the problem is that Indian schools teach to produce outstanding students and the uniformity doesn’t accept the average students but puts them through the same obstacles as the high performers do. This can be a problem because the same teaching process need not suit everyone. I heard the great Jimmy Connors say in a video cassette on Tennis, “There is no right or wrong way to play Tennis. It is a matter of what suits you.” Even in cricket Virendra Sehwag and MS Dhoni have succeeded despite having totally unconventional techniques. Dhirubhai Ambani’s success was also more because of unconventional, out of the box thinking than anything else.

Many people who do not do so well academically display pretty practical intelligence in real life. The analyst in a theoretical course need not excel in real life. Prasanna Raman, a software engineer in Bangalore invented a video analysis system for the Indian cricket team and gradually became the technical head of the National cricket academy and computer analyst for the under 19 time. The cricketer or manager, on the other hand need not be a good analyst. Some, like our current captain Anil Kumble maybe good at both-as player and student of the game. Some may decide that their real talent and passion lies somewhere else. Here too, practical life maybe a great leveller. Society should also stop judging people in terms of degrees alone and look for the individual beyond the qualification. What he can actually do well in a sustained manner in practical life is more important that what his degree reveals.

The current education system caters more to the auditory and visual learner (learning through seeing and listening respectively) than the kinesthetic or tactile learners who learn better with a more hands-on approach. Training institutions are proliferating currently who can perhaps provide practical training through workshops to those who may want to learn through a more hands on approach alongside their jobs rather than a purely theoretical course. Practical life is quite different from student life and runs more on this principle by the great Chinese philosopher, Confucius “Tell me and I will Forget, show me and I will remember, involve me and I will understand.”

LEAD INDIA;DON’T BLEED INDIA

This article is published in the March’2008 issue of the magazine Management compass

What is an idea without execution?

RK Mishra’s readiness to get hands dirty made him Lead India winner

The lead India campaign launched by The Times of India to provide an alternative platform for those desirous of joining politics culminated on February 9, 2007 when RK Mishra from Bangalore was declared winner and Dewang Nanavati was declared the runner up. The manner in which the entire campaign was conducted and the kind of response it drew made it seem that the process itself was the biggest winner. No wonder former President Abdul Kalam declared, “Lead India is the best movement I have come across in the recent past.”

Victory apart, Mr Mishra has an interesting profile and is quite a role model for young people. Born in 1965, he is an ME graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Having been a successful entrepreneur, he left the lucrative corporate world in 2005 to bring about large-scale social change. Mishra specialises in policy planning and investments and works with the governments of Karnataka and Rajasthan among others. He is obsessed with making a difference in infrastructure and rural education, as reflected in his blog http://rajendramisra.blogspot.com.

What clinched the victory was a plan that he outlined to set up a co-operative dairy farm to transform the life in the village where he was born. He presented a well thought- out plan with time-bound targets and actionable goals, which impressed both the audience and the jury. The Times of India further reports, “The combination of Mishra’s story — rags to riches to social service — and his successful track record both as serial entrepreneur and activist proved to be unbeatable. His ability to think big, coupled with his willingness to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty, made a big impact in the one sided 6-1 verdict.”

He reminds you of Shah Rukh Khan’s role in Swades, where he plays an NRI who becomes determined to help bring prosperity to his village. Around the time the movie was released, India Today, in one of its issues, highlighted how some other NRIs in reality were actually doing the same thing. It is not everyday that real life follows reel life in such matters and it should form a complete virtuous circle when they are again highlighted on reel — on television. Shah Rukh had said in one of his interviews, “It takes a show off to be a show on.” Who would have known about Mishra if Lead India and TV had not highlighted him. Such committed people can do a world of good to politics.

Both the winner and the runner-up complimented each other’s strengths. Nanavati conceded that “RK is a doer, not a talker” which probably gave him the edge. Mishra acknowledged Nanavati’s skills “Dewang argues his case well. I must learn from him.”

Their comments reminds one of the Japanese proverb “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” Articulating one’s vision effectively and implementing the same are equally important. Even venture capitalists say that they fund teams and execution, not ideas. Our entrepreneurs are now being respected in boardrooms and markets all over the world for their ability to combine vision and ambition with execution. There is no reason why it should be different in politics; the hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh made an interesting remark “Lead India is a very good concept. But it deals with the classes. Only when these finalists have their share of blending with the masses, will a real leader emerge.” Being proved competent is one thing but that need not always translate into votes. Former Pakistani captain Imran Khan is a case in point. Being a national icon because of being a very good all rounder and a great cricket captain, who won them the world cup in 1992, he also took the initiative of having a cancer hospital constructed, which also won him a lot of appreciation. But when he joined active politics, he could not translate his achievements into votes. Even accounting for the fact that Pakistan is not really a successful democracy, one cannot take the voters or a mass base for granted.

Talking of Pakistan in this context brings to mind Fatima Bhutto, the daughter of Murtaza and grand daughter of former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. An established newspaper columnist in her own right, this is what Fatima had to say about dynastic politics after the recent death of her aunt, Benazir, “The idea that it has to be a Bhutto, I think, is a dangerous one. It doesn’t benefit Pakistan. It doesn’t benefit a party that’s supposed to be run on democratic lines and it doesn’t benefit us as citizens if we think only about personalities and not about platforms.” She also rejected her own claim to the Bhutto legacy. The Times initiative has created a kind of alternative platform of sorts in India at least and it is only a matter of time before other personalities emerge.

In India’s context, a prominent former US secretary of state had once said, “The most powerful job in the world is that of the president of the United states but the most difficult job in the world is that of the prime minister of India.” He probably said that because of the different kinds of diversities that we have in India which can make a politician’s job tougher and implies the need for really talented people. Whether somebody should come from a political family or not, he should be and seen to be competent. Ability should be supported by visibility and the Lead India has shown how TV can be used effectively for this to fructify.

One of the best performing politicians in recent times has been Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. Being a Delhi based Gujarati, one cannot know the ground reality in Gujarat but whenever I go to Ahmedabad, I am amazed at the kind of popular support he enjoys. The people there not only keep reiterating that he knows how to run the government but also speak about his clean image. Having won the election for the third time in succession, he has proved that the anti-incumbency syndrome can be an exception, not the rule. The February 18 latest issue of India Today has reported that voters across the country voted him as the best chief minister. Though 77 per cent of the

voters in Gujarat rated him the best chief minister ever, he got a nationwide approval rating of 19 per cent and polled double the number of votes than his nearest rival, UP chief minister Mayawati. This shows that for people, development and not emotive issues is the prime agenda. Maybe television could also be used to highlight the good points of Modi’s governance for everybody’s benefit, just as young MBAs used to go to Karasanbhai Patel’s Nirma once upon a time to learn about how it took on Hindustan lever.

Unfortunately, unlike the two major forces that unite India, Bollywood and cricket, politics is not transparent enough for the wrong kind of people to be weeded out. Unlike the corporate world, where in addition to short and long term goals, job description, competencies and role analysis are identified and followed up by performance management, nothing like that takes place in politics, which is strange because the scale of operations and implications are far greater in a country than a company. One gets to read several newspaper reports that the public in the US is not only disenchanted with President Bush but also dissatisfied with the kind of leadership options that they have in the current Presidential elections. When people like Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj singh can be criticised strongly for non-performance, there should be no scope for poor performance in politics even in the short term and there should be a mechanism for removing non performers instead of waiting for five years. Such mechanisms should also prevent them from taking grossly unpopular moves like the Iraq war for instance.

At the same time, one should have realistic expectations from politicians. The book Mind of a Manager, Soul of a Leader says that charismatic leaders get organisations started and then pass on the baton to the bureaucrats, professionals or scientific managers who can run them. In the BJP, while Vajpayee is credited with brilliant oratory and charisma, it is Advani who is perceived as the capable organisation man. Thought leadership and executive leadership does not necessarily have to emanate from the same person. There should be a proper follow —through to ensure that they are performing to their potential.

Modi had said in one of his interviews that development without security does not have much meaning. In a similar vein, talent without transparency does not have much meaning. In the past 15 years, business has increasingly discovered the virtues of good governance, not necessarily because of a sudden stab of conscience, but because of the premium that foreign investors place on transparency Why should voters not do the same? In the age of mass communication, if the media does not make latent political talent transparent, who will? Lead India is an effective rebuttal to those who say that the media only focuses on negative events. The rest of the media should follow the lead of The Times of India, which in turn should also try to highlight non —performers — Lead India; don’t Bleed India.

Ability and Visibility- Education and Training

This article is published in the March’2008 of the Education magazine’ Educare.

Style and substance

Skills that you need to work upon to succeed in life

In my previous article, I had tried to bring to light certain wrong perceptions connected to practical life that may aggravate the already over-stressed students. It was more focused on negatives -what to avoid doing. This article is about positives — what to do to be abreast of the realities of practical life in the current world.

When I did my postgraduate management course in 1991 from the International Management Institute, one of the first golden thumb rules that we were taught in the corporate context was “Produce that which can be sold and not sell what you have produced”. It seems that management institutes are violating this principle because a lot of institutes are coming up to promote employability training or employability enhancing to supplement the efforts of conventional education, which is proving to be grossly inadequate.

The situation is best explained by one such company, Hero Mindmine’s employability enhancement module on their website www.heromindime.com :-

Hero Mindmine’s finishing school initiative got born out of one of India’s most recalcitrant problems - the dearth of employable talent, despite huge numbers of engineers and MBAs graduating from thousands of institutions. This problem has assumed dangerous proportions now and threatens to jeopardise the very growth of the Indian industry and economy.

Researches carried out by several independent agencies, including NASSCOM and CapitalH, have all converged to the conclusion that the professionally-educated Indian fresh talents (engineers, MBAs etc.) display severe competence handicap in areas that are most critical for entry level positions in jobs.

Apart from gaps in technical, subject related skills and knowledge, there are glaring soft-skills and personality-linked inadequacies in the young professionals, which hinders their ability to comprehend their roles in the correct perspective and therefore impacts their professional performance in their first job.

Hero Mindmine and CapitalH together have created and tested a slew of highly-focused and effective employability enhancement programmes for graduating engineers and MBAs. These programmes run parallel to the academic activities of a student and clinically focus on developing her exactly in the areas that a typical entry-level job in a large organisation demands.

Using specially-developed training and skill-building techniques and methodologies, Hero Mindmine trainers carefully guide students away from theory and into the application environment. Numerous top recruiters have responded extremely favourably to this initiative and Hero Mindmine plans to launch the finishing school concept in selected engineering and business management institutions.

Another module explains how the IT Employment Suitability Test (ITEST), based on assessments in nine critical employability dimensions, aims at testing the employability of fresh engineers in the IT Industry. Similarly, the BizTest assesses fresh MBAs on five general parameters and five function-specific parameters to spot the best available talent among students.

It almost seems that they are running some kind of parallel education, which is more skill and talent than knowledge-oriented or in the exact words used above, the aim is “to guide students away from theory and into the application environment.”

In addition to saying the same thing about the inadequacy in the above mentioned skills in students for entry level jobs, another company, www.astrumonline.com goes a step further in its section on youth training:

Astrum’s experience in working with corporates provides it the unique advantage of understanding the industry expectations from the new joinees and training them even before they are employed through mid-to-long-term phased interventions across India. We are also designing and delivering faculty development programmes at various educational institutes. This is something like the cart pulling the horse; they are trying to influence conventional education.

I had the privilege of spending a couple of days with Astrum in an engineering institute on the outskirts of Faridabad. They had modules on communication skills, which involved ex-tempore public speaking, creative writing, mock interviews, group discussions etc, and last but not the least, problem solving in maths. When I expressed surprise that third and fourth year engineering students were doing problems which I do with my 12-year-old son who is in class VII, one student told me that it is not that they don’t know these things but they are expected to be direct and fast in solving problems. The emphasis was on speed along with accuracy and another issue was that they were a little out of touch as they had not done such problems since high school. The speed and accuracy reminded me of my practical management course where they tried to cover the entire MBA curriculum in nine months. The idea, they said, was to simulate real life situations where one has to think on one’s feet with little time and sometimes limited information. That turned out to be true because practical management life is a lot like one-day cricket.

That apart, I have seen engineers in my working life who don’t have what is called commercial sense or financial savvy, which dents their career prospects considerably. In previous articles, I have referred to my super efficient boss, an engineer-MBA who got several double promotions and then went on to establish a business of his own; in my last

meeting he told me how he had joined a software company run by four engineers as they still felt uncomfortable with balance sheets despite practical experience of years of operation.

Where English in general and as one of the favorable legacies of the British rule is concerned, it is perhaps the shortsightedness of the education system that even so many years after independence, even though we have English as one of the main mediums of imparting education, students passing out of colleges are not confident of communicating fluently. This is because colloquial English is quite different from English as an education imparting tool and can be learnt only by practising conversational speaking and writing in English, which in many semi-urban and rural parts of India is more an exception than a rule.

The English barrier can be quite a formidable. My father, a chartered accountant who passed out in 1963, told me once how even after years of apprenticeship in CA, in his first job, he did not initially have the confidence to dictate letters and would write the whole letter himself before reading it out, which wasted a lot of time. One of his assistants, who is a brilliant accountant, is still not able to write simple inter-office memos properly or able to lead English speaking people under her, which affects her career prospects adversely, apart from causing inter-personal problems. When my father got transferred in 1972, as a seven-year-old, I was catapulted to upper middle class Delhi from lower middle class Bombay and it took me 11 years to break the English barrier despite studying in one of the best schools and staying in a posh locality. My mother-in-law, even at 70, laments not being able to communicate in English when both her English speaking daughters concede that she is far more versatile than them. An extremely active social worker, it is as if not knowing English nullifies her achievements. My son studies in Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, where Hindi is the medium of education till secondary school, after which English takes over for both the local and global effect.

The problem these days is that with business process outsourcing proving to be India’s core-competence and with all the multinationals coming to India because of the economic boom, English has become an absolute necessity. In China, English has been made compulsory from kindergarten. That itself shows how the stock of English as an International link language has grown considerably over the past few years. The problem is not just communication skills. One of the faculties at Astrum pointed out to me that some of the engineers in the rural and semi-urban areas were good technically but would not even read the newspaper regularly, with the result that they had very little to contribute in a group discussion of substance, which could make them feel alienated and out of place in the current work ambience. That makes it more of a culture problem as well. Both form and content or style and substance have to improve and they have to be encouraged to be well read as well.

Some institutes believe in tackling the problem from a young age. Dinesh Victor, the managing director of Chennai-based SIP academy, says, “The latest findings in the growing body of medical research on early brain development reveal that social sensory experiences during the early years have a direct effect on children’s capacity to learn in

the future. The findings confirm that early interactions and experiences play a vital role in brain development. Our programmes help in brain development in children, who are just beginning to learn and discover. This is only possible by making both sides of the brain to work, so that any major puzzle can be solved in seconds.” According to their website, their SIP Abacus and Brain Gym programme, is currently available in eight countries, in which more than 2,50,000 children have benefited across 1,000 learning centres. In India since 2002 more than 50,000 children were trained in 20 states by October 2007 and they plan to penetrate the smaller towns to help children improve life skills.

Their Global art programme aims at developing the artistic and creative potential of children. The SIPAmal programme (accelerated mental learning) recognises that each of us has a preferred way of learning that suits us best. When you learn the techniques that exactly match your personal learning style, you will be learning in the way that is most natural for you. Bill Gates has mentioned this in one of his books. Because it is natural, it is easier; because it is easier, it is faster. Accelerated Mental Learning uses the five senses of the children to develop and balance their mental, physical, social interaction, emotional, personality and self-confidence. It also helps children to overcome ‘numeric phobia’ and enhance their confidence towards their academic excellence. Their mikids and orator programmes are geared towards developing language skills. In Delhi, a programme with the same objectives is conducted by http://www.creativeeducationalaids.com/.

The world famous authority on thinking, Edward de Bono has explained in his wonderful book Teach your Child How to Think, how thinking is a skill which needs to be imparted instead of blindly stuffing facts and information. A good intellectual is not necessarily a good thinker and it is one’s thought process that can differentiate in the internet era where knowledge is easily available. Analysing uniquely well or having a good synergistic understanding of one’s subject with other factors is what is needed than mere knowledge of facts. It seems that this parallel system of education is more geared to achieve all this. Some of their techniques also enhance memory, concentration and application skills, which actually give an insight into the child’s innate potential which is the main purpose of education.

Where communication is concerned, it is up to the students to decide where they want to end up. Some of the Pakistani cricket captains, though equally great in terms of ability vis-à-vis their Indian counterparts, have cut a sorry figure in the post-match presentations because of their inability to communicate effectively. One excellent example from the cricketing world is our current one-day captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Considering the fact that he comes from a lower middle class background from a small town, he speaks very well and can be a role model in this context for similar people with rural and semi urban backgrounds.

Though having communicating ability without the requisite intelligence is actually missing the wood for the trees, in practical life, vice-versa can be equally dangerous. One has to know how to project and sell oneself, as ability without visibility has no meaning.

One can flatter to deceive badly and fatally — that first impression can turn out to be the last impression.

This article was published in the April’2008 of the Education magazine EducareChild- A seed or a weedRight education

Enforcing a standard system of education on children to whom it does not apply can be disastrous

On March 17, 2008, The Times of India reported that a total of 5,857 students committed suicide in the year 2006. According to national crime bureau statistics, of this 5,628 students were below the age of 30. In my previous article on the subject in March 2008, I was not aware of the statistics and one really wonders what the overall trend over the years has been. In the previous article, I had mentioned some small practical steps that the government has been taking to ease the exam tension. That apart, since a lot of competition is for admission in educational institutions, the government should seriously contemplate inviting foreign universities or whatever it takes to increase the number of educational institutions. In the same NCRB statistics, it is given that farming related suicides in 2006 were 17,060. If the government can waive Rs 60,000 Cr for farmers in the recent union budget even if it represented vote bank politics, they can surely do something for the students.

The previous article ended with how the education system does not cater to the kinesthetic learner or people who prefer to learn through a more hands on approach. An article on boosting brain power in the Readers Digest divided learners into several IQ groups — the bottom five per cent with a risk of not functioning in society, the next 20 per cent ‘slow learners’; the middle 50 per cent hands-on types who learn better on the job than in the classroom; the next 20 per cent potential leaders. The last category was of the successful five per cent that were the best brains or thinkers. It seems that in spotting the last two categories or the cream, the education system converts the dream of the rest into a nightmare.

As stated above, many people prefer learning by doing or application and to have a standard education system for different kinds of learning or assessing styles is fundamentally wrong. That apart, in practical life, it is application alone that matters and the education system should be more application oriented instead of testing knowledge and memory, which, in any case is a little out of place in the internet era. In an India Today article a few years ago, professor Yash Pal, eminent scientist and chairman of the Steering Committee for Curricular Reform, said, “Technology has provided the means of recording and retrieving information at will. It is stupid for us to want students to do that. We must make exams in such a way that it does not bank on memory but emphasises thinking capability and understanding.” That depends a lot on the individual learning style of the student apart from aptitude.

Bill Gates puts it very profoundly in his book, Business at the speed of thought: “Technology makes it easier to scale classes to age and ability and individualise learning. About fifty major theories attempt to characterise individual learning styles. All people have different levels of aptitude and different personalities and life experiences that may motivate or demotivate them to learn. PCs can help change the learning experience from the traditional approach, a teacher instructing in front of the class room to a more hands-on approach that takes advantage of the natural curiosity of all ages.” Though Gates is talking more in the context of how the PC and the internet can be used to enhance learning , his emphasis on a more hands on approach or an approach that makes learning easier and interesting for different types of children is clearly evident.

Our education system seems to stick to traditional methods of teaching and assessing, which is perhaps in their own interest. George Bernard Shaw said: “Those who can, teach, else they do”. Steve Nordby improved upon that quote by saying: “Those who can do. Those who can’t teach. Those who can’t teach train teachers. Those who can’t train teachers write teacher training textbooks.” In some ways, it seems that teaching is more geared to fulfil the needs of the teacher to teach rather than customising what is taught to the learning style of the students.

Here, the role of kith and kin of the students also have a role to play. I had on one occasion discussed student suicides with one of Delhi’s top nuero-psychiatrists who had pamphlets in his reception on how to spot a potential suicide from a variety of reasons. Where students are concerned, he said, “The problem in India is that everybody considers themselves an expert on all sorts of issues. When the person concerned himself has a lot of problem determining his own potential, where is the need for everyone to give an opinion?” People have tendencies to make comparisons with others and offer judgments like ‘excuses’ or ‘attitude problem’, which maybe far from the truth, which may have more to do with the individuality of the person concerned.

Recently, I completed a one week ‘Training the Trainer’ programme from the Indian society for training and development. While I was contemplating joining the programme, I asked the programme director, Major General Dhir, the difference between the one-week programme and an eighteen-month diploma on the same subject. He promptly replied, “In the diploma, the focus is more on the subject and the knowledge. In the one week course, the focus is more on the individual and skills.” In other words, the workshop was more application oriented. I could not help wondering whether or not what Major General Dhir said was the bane of the education system. We are required to answer a questionnaire referring to notes and outside books, write a dissertation followed by a video recording of six hours of training. This may not suit all subjects but is a far more practical method of assessment. Testing memory puts unnecessary stress on the students and does not really test their potential. Therefore, it is a loss both ways. Training is clearly a more hands-on approach than teaching and probably suits a lot of students.

I have myself come across several people, who, though not qualified MBAs have better functional talent. Here is an example of one such hands-on learner, Suvir Behl, a shares

trader and investor who did very well in practical life despite not doing that well academically. In his own words: “After completing my graduation in 1998, I completed a course at National Institute of Fashion Technology in New Delhi in the year 2000, after which I tried for a couple of jobs in the garments sector, but they did not appeal to me. Since my maternal grandfather had been a very good and successful investor, the stock markets had always been a fascination. I started in the stock markets in a small way in 2001, by investing small sums of money both for me and my immediate family. Initially, there were times when I lost money but they were more in the nature of teething troubles and learning experiences. In my view, the failures are as instrumental for consistent long term success as knowledge or intelligence. I started reading extensively about the markets and the various companies I invested in. I learnt a lot and consider myself reasonably successful today. From the seed capital with which I started , my portfolio has multiplied several times, and my clientele is improving quantitatively and qualitatively every year.”

He added: “Though never short of confidence, I was an average student throughout school and college. I feel that to be successful in life, deep interest and knowledge about one’s profession which comes by experience and basic practical in intelligence is more important than degrees. In my own case, though I never attended any formal course in the stock market, the broad reading fuelled by my natural interest queered the pitch for success.”

I must add here that following Suvir’s footsteps is not recommended. The stockmarket has also proved to be extremely dangerous for certain other youngsters. The broker confirmed that Suvir was a good investor and a success as a trader which is more an exception than the rule.. Trading psychology itself advocates that one should discover one’s niche and style instead of blindly acquiring knowledge. I found Suvir equally if not more resourceful than some of other well known and more qualified traders.

In my previous article, I mentioned about my friend AK, who got several double promotions and went on to establish businesses of his own. In my last meeting with him, he mentioned that in his engineering college, one of his friends, RG was the topper but in real life he invited AK to join his company as finance was not his cup of tea and AK had better all round practical intelligence. AK also mentioned that a few months back a relatively less qualified but street smart businessman could prove to be a tough competitor but qualifications can make a very good first impression. However, if degrees are not backed by performance, they can flatter to deceive. There is another friend of ours who is a chartered accountant by qualification but does not seem to be doing well either in that profession or the businesses that he has tried so far.

In recent times, two men who have done really well in real life without commensurate educational achievements are Sunil Mittal, the chairman of Bharti Telecom and Naresh Goyal, chairman of Jet Airways. Amitabh Bachchan and Kishore Kumar had no real formal training in their respective fields but both were outstanding successes in their chosen professions. In a recent book Dhirubhaiism, the author, AG Krishnamurthy states: “Dhirubhai could see skills in us we never knew we had.” The author further states that

in following Dhirubhai’s philosophy, as chairman of Mudra advertising , he went to talented newcomers instead of tried and tested superstars and reaped rich dividends. It is ultimately functional and practical talent that matters more in the real world than anything else.

In a recent book Be Inspired, the author, a Sydney-based Indian, Amber Ahuja has given each of the above in detail in the form of worksheet skills and abilities assessment directions. Giving Indian examples, the same book also states at four give different places how critical it is to identify one’s career correctly early in life for long term success. That need not be necessarily reflected in one’s qualifications. Morgan and Banks have also stated that niche individuals or those who are good at few things should even be more particular about choosing the right career. What happens to those who are not able to do so?

I had written my first article on career misfits in life. Though I had titled it ‘The essence of true education’, the editor after finding the content too strong, changed it to “Don’t settle for less than a calling”. Thereafter, I have regularly come across 2-3 US-based websites every year, which talk of frustration in the wrong career even, if, in some cases it pays off well. One website I came across last week is UK centric and is called www.careerswitehcers.org. Some of the terms used in this website like switch doctors, switch surgeries apart from giving ‘inspiring real life stories’ also reflect the magnitude of the problem. Several career coaches or switch doctors have written several articles on the subject. Some of them are drastic career switches from what they were earlier doing or qualified. One of the links from this site leads to http://www.escape-club.org/ the objective of which reads something like this: “Are you a successful professional, but bored or unhappy with your work? Do you want to be more fulfilled and feel that your work actually has an impact? We believe that you can ‘escape’ to work that is meaningful, and want to help you a identify what is the work that would bring you more fulfilment and overall happiness, create an action plan to help you get the work.” It really reminds me of the movie The great escape. In one cover story of Fortune magazine, one executive was quoted as saying, “You get to the top of the ladder and find that maybe it’s leaning against the wrong building.”. This clearly shows that just being well qualified and reaching the top does not lead to the kind of personal fulfilment that should normally be the end result of by product of success. There is plenty of evidence to show that in the long run, people look more for meaningful work than mere monetary reward. Reminds one of the interesting saying “Work is what you do to make the money to do what you really want to do.”One has to be able to identify one’s true calling as early as possible. IIM Lucknow professor, Debashish Chatterjee in his book Break free states that to identify one’s true talent, one has to go back to one’s school days and determine what activity they enjoyed the most during leisure, to find out whether one could carry out this activity for a long period of time and determine whether or not this activity made you truly happy. Professor Chatterjee's views are in congruence with what many American psychologists have to say on the subject. The teacher's role should be geared more towards this when a child is more in the seed form rather than blindly stuffing knowledge.

One wonders if the biblical parable of the sower and the seed can be applied to different kinds of individuals in terms of their learning styles and how a standard education system can be redundant. In the parable it is said that some seeds scattered by the farmer fell on the wayside and were devoured by the birds; some fell on stony places where they could not build sufficient root and withered when the sun shone; some fell among thorns, which grew up and choked them but some fell on good ground where they grew and bore fruit. A child is like a seed and this is what can happen to the seed if it falls in the wrong place in terms of a wrong career and of the wrong learning style that has been vividly described above. Once again, the words of Wipro chairman Azim Premji come to mind. Imagine a school, which sees children as seeds to be nurtured — here the teacher is a gardener who tries to bring out the potential already present in the child. This is very different from the current view, which sees the child as clay to be moulded where the teachers and parents are potters deciding what shape the clay should take.” Enforcing a standard education system on children to whom it does not apply is bound to have disastrous results. There is an old Chinese saying, “Give a seed to a potter and you shall have a bonsai.”

From the suicide statistics, it almost seems that instead of a seed, a child is treated like a weed in our society. About 2,500 years ago, Socrates said that education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. According to Prof Chatterjee, the difference between a candle and a flame is the difference between a resource and a source. A resource reduces when shared and a source gets augmented when shared. A candle is a good source but is burnt out. On the other hand , a flame can alight a million other flames, which is what can happen in the long run when a seed is given the right kind of environment.

Money makes the world go around

This article is published in the April’2008 issue of the magazine “Management compass”

Nothing but bucksHow money makes the world go round

In his movie presentation on global warming, former US vice-president Al Gore made this statement somewhat humorously, “It is difficult to convince a man about something if his salary depends upon not following it.” Contrary to what Mr Gore had to say in his presentation, reputed Times of India columnist and former editor of Economic Times, Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyer had this to say in his article Global warming or global cooling that scientific truth (of global warming) is rarely mentioned. Why? Because the global warming movement has now become a multi-billion dollar enterprise, with thousands of jobs and millions in funding for NGOs and think-tanks, top jobs and prizes for scientists, and huge media coverage for predictions of disaster. The vested interests in the global warming theory are now as strong, rich and politically influential as the biggest multinationals. It is no co-incidence, says Crichton, that so many scientists skeptical of

global warming are retired professors: they have no need to chase research grants and chairs.

This reminds one of the Luddite movement that was launched against the industrial revolution which began in the later part of the eighteenth century. The manual labour-based economy of Great Britain began to be replaced by manufacturing machinery and industry. Their main objection was that the introduction of new wide-framed looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour could result in the loss of jobs for many textile workers and cause widespread unemployment. For a short time the movement was so strong that it clashed in battles with the British Army. Measures taken by the government included a mass trial at York in 1812 that resulted in many executions and transportations (removal to a penal colony).

Since one has to keep the kitchen fires burning, people are bound to be desperate when their very survival is at stake; how does one decide the Laxman Rekha in such matters? Over the years, one gets to read or hear of several examples such as these from different professions. Some software people are of the opinion that the people who make vaccines for computer viruses introduce the viruses in the first place. Some years ago, it came in the papers that the head of an aids related organisation in Bombay stated how some US multinationals were trying to advocate that HIV and Aids were linked, in order to promote their drugs, although there was enough evidence to the contrary. There were a couple of programmes on a prime Indian televsion channel, which revealed how teachers used to threaten children refusing tuitions with negative marking in exams and how doctors were in tandem with laboratories to recommend all kinds of tests which the patients did not need.

This reminds me of some of my experiences in this connection. My father, while taking his mother to the hospital, was advised rest and a checkup was forced on him because he looked emaciated. His blood pressure did appear less than normal but he was advised to stay in the hospital for the night and a temporary packemaker was inserted in his body. Later, a permanent pacemaker was put in its place next morning. This entailed a lot of cost and till today, he is not sure whether or not this was actually required.I myself suffered from slip disc seven years back. I was advised surgery but since spine surgery is dicey, we thought better to take more than one opinion. All the three doctors advised surgery and two of them proactively asked me whether or not I had a medical insurance. The manner in which the question was mooted reeked of something amiss and what hurt more was that one of the doctors was known to me. I once also heard about a commercial pediatrician, of all things. Even children have started being treated like commodities. The recent case of kidney thief Dr Amit Kumar, aka Dr Santosh Raut who had stolen more than 600 people’s organs in the past seven years is an extreme manifestation of this trend.

There are examples from different strata of society. The Times of India (Nov 25, 2007) talks of Maoist insurgencies violently disturbing the peace in 165 of India’s 602 districts and these are largely made up of unemployed young men, which implies that had they been employed, the turmoil, if any, would be of a lesser degree. This has been true for some of the other terrorists as well. The October 29, 2007 issue of India Today reported

how in the last six years, 17 officers of the rank of Brigadier and above have been indicted in corruption and misappropriation of funds, which includes the sale of military rations like meat, pulses, liquor and fuel in the open market. The situation was aptly summed up by a retired major general, “Among politicians and bureaucrats, it is an exception to be honest, in the Army, it is an exception to be corrupt. “There are many people of the view that the Kashmir issue had to be kept alive to sustain the Pakistani Army’s dominance and importance in that country.”

We have cases like prohibition not being implemented because of fear of losing excise revenue of liquor industry and ditto for tobacco. The Times of India reported that health minister, Ramadoss stipulating gory picture advertisements after December 1, 2007, as a measure to prevent smoking , said: “Four chief ministers and 150 MPs have met me to tell me that they don’t want anti-smoking advertisements and labeling of products. Seven chief ministers wrote to me pleading for the beedi workers and one chief minister met me three times regarding this. Are the lives of 1.1 billion people not more valuable than the livelihood of 30 lakh beedi workers from this kind of work?”. He further added that it was unfortunate that the fight against the tobacco lobby had run into opposition from his own colleagues.

In the corporate world, Arthur Anderson and Enron are examples of fraud by the company’s auditors, as their audit and other consultation compensation depended upon the powers in the corporate world. The chairman of Infosys, Mr Narayan Murthy, a man known as much for his integrity as for his numerous achievements in the software industry admits in the book Business Gurus speak, “Since all our operations were outside, we had very few operations here(India) and had no need to bribe anyone. Maybe we would have done it, if forced to by circumstances. Every corporation can take only a limited amount of nuisance; beyond that it becomes very difficult”. One has to admire Mr Murthy’s forthrightness in admitting this. In motivation speaker Arindham Chaudhary’s book Count the chickens before they hatch, it was mentioned that a popular teleserial espousing simplicity was discontinued for fear of losing ad revenues.

Speaking from my own experience, the best boss(an outstanding CEO and later very successful businessman) that I worked under told me once that “ I draft a legal agreement with the assumption that the entire world is a cheat.”. When I started my career, my father who turned around a sick company warned me: “All your inter-departmental communication and not just communication with outside parties should also be in written form. People flatly deny what they may have committed or said” . One of the factors attributed to Dhirubhai Ambani’s success is trust but it is better to tread the middle ground as advocated by a book on leadership by Harvard University which cautions “Trust but Verify”. How is one to know that the person being trusted remains trustworthy throughout his life.

Since most cases are reported in the media, they also have their share of the black sheep. On July 5 2007, The Times of India reported that a Rajkot woman stages semi-nude protest against dowry demand when alleged mental and physical abuse by her husband’s family drove a 22-year-old woman,Pooja Chuahan to strip to her underwear and walk

through the city in protest. I happened to be in Rajkot in August on some personal work and could not help asking a well known personality about this incident. She said that while there was some truth in the matter, she had learnt from reliable sources that Pooja had been encouraged to do this by a local Journalist for a news story. Then she narrated her own experience on how she had given an advertisement in a newspaper once and was called by a rival newspaper to give a similar ad to prevent being projected in a bad light in that paper. When I narrated this story to a gentleman from pharmaceuticals industry on my train back to Delhi, he narrated a similar story of his own. The autobiographies of cricketing superstars, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev reflect very poorly on some elements in the media . A former filmstar who used to be asked about his reported rumors reported in the film press would dismiss such talk with a brusque remark “They have to sell their magazines”. It sounded like they could write anything to sell their magazines. Many spiritual books denounce the ad world for projecting wants as needs or necessities.

The examples of lower strata of society are somewhat amusing. When a panwallah was interviewed during the Babri mandir demolition in Ayodhya about his views on the Mandir- masjid issue, prompt came the reply, “Chaahe kuch bhi bane, humare pet pe laat nahin lagni chaahiye”. (Whatever happens, our livelihood should not be affected) This was followed by a Rickshawalla’s comment in Delhi, “ Mandir bhi banao, masjid bhi banao par sabse pahle Rickshaw stand banao. (Construct both Mandir and Masjid but first construct a Riksha stand). The most humorous remark that I have heard in the context of someone trying to defend his professional interest is “It is like asking a barber whether you need a haircut or not”.

One comes across articles not only on politicians but people from other professions on how they go to any lengths to make money in total disregard of all professional ethics. “Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship god and over these ideals they dispute but everybody worships money” — Mark Twain . It reminds of an old song: “na biwi na bachha na baap bada na bhaiyan the whole thing is that ke bhaiya sabse bada rupaiya.”

This article was published in the May’2008 issue of the magazine Management compass

Vagaries of mind

It’s concentration that helps you achieve your goal

I had written seven articles in The Times of India in the year 2006, out of which two made it to the Times Wellness Book. Out of the two, one is on concentration:-“Indian children are exposed to how Arjuna was asked to focus on the eye as a target for his arrow, as an exercise in concentration. Ralph Waldo Emerson has said ‘Concentration is the secret of success in politics, in war, in all management of human affairs.’ One way of determining what your purpose in life is to try and engage in an activity in which you completely lose awareness of time and space because you are fully concentrated on it. That would be the activity in which you are in your element. Though

it can be described as an intense concentration, Osho has elevated it to the level of meditation. He even goes to say that when you are happy doing whatever you are doing, you are automatically meditative. Meditation is a function of happiness and not the other way around. In the children’s context, if their concentration is monitored proactively, it could give an indication of their life’s purpose...

Emerson’s statement has a different connotation as well. It is a well- known fact in Yoga that the power of concentration is the power of the human mind. People are able to perform miraculous feats with the power of concentration. In this context, if you are caught in the wrong profession, a good power of concentration can go a long way in mitigating the misery. One can pass by with a reasonable degree of efficiency if the general level of concentration is high...

So either one is in the right profession (spontaneous concentration) or the general level of concentration is high. At least one of the two should be strong for you to be adept at what you are doing. Therefore we realise the need and importance of developing concentration not only for children, but for our ownselves too.”

The above article was based on a passage that I had come across in an article on meditation: “Many people cannot concentrate on their work because their minds keep straying. Others keep worrying about their pet obsessions. These are the vagaries of the mind which prevent you from doing a good job at any given time. At the other end of the spectrum, you find people daydreaming a chain of colourful thoughts. So deeply engrossed are they that they lose awareness of what is going around them.” I had this problem and I was looking at it from only one perspective of what I could not do. Later, when the “colourful thoughts” made me a writer and a poet, I realised that my mind was concentrated on them which is why I could not concentrate on the jobs. That is perhaps the reason why creative people do not like nine to five jobs; they are simply not cut out for them.

The most well-known enlightened man in the history of mankind, Buddha had this to say in this context “Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” Some of the great artists of this world have described absorption in their work as a kind of orgasmic pleasure. Pablo Picasso said, “It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction”. Whatever be the form of creativity, nothing can replace the artistic satisfaction that one experiences on being able to complete a creative task when one gets completely absorbed in it and achieves a state of total concentration by transcending thought. Some years ago, in an interview, filmstar Shah Rukh Khan had said, “When I stand in front of the camera, I feel as if I am making love to my audience.”

Creative people are known for being emotional, sensitive and mood swings. Einstein had once said, “All great discoveries come from people whose feelings run ahead of their thinking”. From a writer’s/ poets perspective, some of the best creative ideas come when the mind is given a free run. The mind can be explained in terms of centrifugal (stronger at periphery than centre) and centripetal ( logical and centred — stronger at centre) forces and the mind with a centrifugal predisposition has creative

tendencies.

Ayurveda talks of Vata, Pitta and Kapha people. A Vata (air) predominating person will have emotional tendencies towards fear and anxiety. They are very creative and imaginative, make good artists, poets, inventors and writers or have divergent attention concentrated in ideas. They are indecisive, changeable, excitable, moody and solitary people. Kapha minds are the exact opposite — grounded and centred and have convergent attention focused in implementation.

One definition of creativity is to reveal a new synergy between two seemingly disparate ideas or a rearrangement of the old. One is supposed to drench oneself and the subconscious with all the facts one can muster with full concentration and when the mind is calm and relaxed, ideas incubate from the subconscious to correlate, combine, associate and categorise in different kinds of synthesis. No wonder some of the most important discoveries from science have come in a relaxed state of mind when the concerned individuals have been bathing, walking or even shaving.

Apart from getting creative ideas in a relaxed, concentration is facilitated when the mind is in a creative state and vice-versa. The Bhagvad Gita says, “For he who has no tranquility there is no concentration.” The other extreme is also equally true. Psychiatrists use occupational therapy as one of the means to treat people who have been through severe trauma by making them do interesting activities in which their mind becomes so engrossed that they completely forget their painful experiences. In this way concentration can be used to induce tranquility which can further enhance concentration in a virtuous circle.

In one of his discourses, Osho said that people with a thinking disposition and philosophers often complain that mundane things bore them. He divided people into two broad categories — the ‘buffaloes’ and the ‘Buddhas’. He said that the buffaloes were the hedonistic types — they had no grand purpose in life but were content with their daily existence and never thought too much about the monotony of daily existence. The Buddhas on the other hand were the intellectual types, trying to seek a deeper purpose and meaning in life and their existence and would easily tire of routine. Osho said, “Either be a buffalo or a Buddha”. He meant that either ignore the routine activities completely or observe routine so minutely that the novelty of life becomes apparent in this micro-observation. This is the way to transform the mundane into the sacred. This requires tremendous alertness and concentration, which in this context can actually be called awareness, presence, consciousness, mindfulness etc. Incidentally Buddha also said, “The stages of the Noble Path are: Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Behaviour, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.” Right concentration is mentioned last but is certainly not the least — trains in Japan and Germany move at 500 miles an hour because of the concentrated force of superconductivity or electrons moving in one direction without any resistance.

Another statement of Buddha sums it up: “Wakefulness is the way of life.” J krishnamuthy talked of constantly witnessing all thoughts, feelings and actions as they

arise. Osho says that being totally aware and in the present is the key to transcend negative emotions and overcome all kinds of suffering. He says, “If you are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen... In fact, there is only one sin and that is unawareness. When you become aware, your body becomes more relaxed, your body becomes more attuned, a deep peace starts prevailing even in your body; a subtle music pulsates in your body”

From the above, it seems that constant watchfulness has the kind of effect on your body and mind that sports do. Talking of sportspeople, the best cricket Team in the world, Australia indulges in sledging primarily to disturb the opponent’s concentration. Sachin Tendulkar actually said once, “If concentration wavers, the brain does not pass signals at the pace that the ball comes.” When asked on a tour to Bangladesh on how easy it must be for someone like him to face Bangladeshi bowlers, Sachin replied, “I only think of the ball and its merit and not the bowler.” This is to induce what sportsmen call a state of “flow” in which they forget all else and are totally focused on their sport as a means to excel. Pete Sampras, who won the maximum number of grand slams, attributes his success to being able to achieve flow as one of the main reasons. Martina Navratilova puts it even more precisely and concisely: “I try to concentrate on concentrating.” Can you afford to do otherwise?

This article was published in the May’2007 issue of the magazine Educare.

Nurturing good habits

Old habits die hard; good or bad, habits are incurable, so cultivate good habits

In 1991, I had heard a speech from one of India’s topmost management consultants on how the concept of KASH (Knowledge-Application-Skills-Habits) is applicable in management. In management and seminars, the emphasis generally is on application of knowledge and skills but since habits represent ingrained behaviour, in the context of KASH, one should use the expression, last but not the least ‘habits’. Any pattern of thought or action repeated many times results in a habit because of the formation of a brain groove. The brain comprises of around 100 billion cells called neurons. A brain groove is a series of interconnected neurons that carry the thought patterns of a particular habit. When we give our attention to a habit, we activate the brain groove, releasing the thoughts, desires, and actions related to that habit. If we repeat a thought and action enough times, a new habit is formed. Continued repetition strengthens the habit. Inattention and lack of repetition weakens it. Cultivating good habits can be difficult, but it is more cumbersome to maintain or get rid of bad habits.

Some management authors have stated that it takes around 21 days to form a new habit or break an old one but that would depend upon the nature and type of habit. Recently, my yoga teacher while demonstrating how different people hold their tea cups/ glasses, said that if despite repeated action, they are not able to change , the problem is deep rooted. It

reminded me of an experience while attending vipasana meditation. It is a ten day full time course where they teach Buddha’s meditation technique. They claim that it is a deep surgical operation of the mind. One of their discourses talks of deep rooted behavioral habits which they say depends on one’s samskars or inherent tendencies. They claim that samskars are of three types — the shortest duration is like a line drawn in water which can vanish instantly. The second is like a line drawn on sand which takes time to disappear and the third is like a line engraved on a rock, which is the deepest and most difficult to remove. They could have even passed on from your previous life. This would explain why despite all attempts, some people are not able to curb their temper or change other such habits. These statements reflect their perennial nature:

Men do more things through habit than through reason.Habits make or mar one’s fortune. Habit is second nature.Man is a slave of habits.A habit cannot be forced out of the window; it can be coaxed out one step at a

time.Habit knows no cure.Custom in infancy becomes nature in old age.

Some people even go for past life regression as a part of past life therapy to get to the root of these unconscious tendencies. Though it is not easy to break bad habits, one only has go google for “How to break bad habits” to find various articles on the topic. Many famous sayings are a reflection of the importance of habits. For instance the saying “Early to bed and early to rise makes one healthy, wealthy and wise” is to emphasise on the importance of getting up early. The problem is that these statements arise out of the experiences of other people. Unlike the Panchtantra stories where the experience is first narrated and the moral is given at the end, here we have the moral in the form of a sentence but no in- depth understanding of it. With advancing age and increasing problems, one begins to appreciate in greater depth the wisdom of those sayings and feel more inclined to follow them. More often than not, learning comes from negative experiences, which is not always easy to pass on to the coming generation experientially or even in words.

In one of my previous write ups on inter personal conflict, I had given a father son example, which is actually more relevant in the context of habits. There’s a narrative of a father, who tried to get his son to wash his hands before eating, without much success. He took his son to his doctor friend, who educated him on what germs were, showed them under a microscope and further showed a video film on what could happen to the body if it got infected with those germs. After being oriented like this, the child started washing his hands on his own without any further conflict with his father on the issue. During my childhood, my father often used to ask me to take precaution against the chill in the mornings and evenings during change of season in October. I did not pay heed to the warning too seriously till at the age of 26 in September when I got a very severe cold which lasted for three and a half weeks. Thereafter, covering myself while going out in the evenings or early mornings in October became a habit. Good habits may not make

such problems disappear but their frequency can be reduced. On getting a severe cold recently, when I checked up on the net, I was surprised to find that it had nothing to do directly with cold weather and was spread more in the cold weather by hand to hand contact as people preferred to stay indoors. Strange thing to know at the age of 42 for forming such new habits. Some health habits like not smoking are best formed early. Recently, the health minister, Anbumani Ramdoss took on the powerful tobacco industry lobby for gory picture advertisements on cigarette packets that reflected the dangers of smoking. Those pictures were given to prevent the formation of bad habits.

Sometimes a simple good habit may help profusely throughout life. In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi says, “I kept account of every farthing I spent , and my expenses were carefully calculated. Every little item of expense would be entered and the balance struck every evening before going to bed. That habit has stayed ever since and I know as a result, though I have had to handle public funds amounting to lakhs,, I have succeeded in exercising strict economy in their disbursement, and instead of outstanding debts have a surplus balance in respect of all movements I have led.”

Professor Debashish Chatterjee , in his book, Break free explains how excellence comes from nurturing good habits; especially from thinking and execution of habits. He explains that a habit is muscle plus mind. Giving the simple example of how if one changes one grip of the pen to write anything, one can experience discomfort, he explains that this is going against the conditioning of your muscle and mind. He says that thinking has to be pruned of stray thoughts to make it effective and calls it lean thinking. The same thing has been explained differently in the wonderful book The power of Now. The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Disease happens when things go out of control. Thinking becomes a disease when you believe that you are your mind instead of being a witness of the thought process. This results in compulsive, involuntary, unconscious, repetitive thinking. Instead of you using your mind, the mind uses you. The author says inhabit the body. This takes your attention away from thought. Sensing the body becomes an anchor for staying present in the now. As soon as your habitual state changes from being out of the body and trapped in your mind to being in the body and present in the now, your physical body will feel lighter, clearer, more alive. In short, being a witness of the mind instead of being closely identified with it is good for both the mind and the body and helps in a variety of ways. This is put succinctly by the most well known enlightened man in history, Gautam Buddha, who says:

The thought manifests as word; The word manifests as deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, And let it spring from love Born out of concern for all beings.

The issue is to be able to pass on the importance of habits to the next generation at a young age. Catch them young is more relevant than anything else as habits, whether good or bad get ingrained by repetition. Giving a lecture to children hardly helps for which one has to be vigilant for the right opportunity. When my twelve year old son learnt about taxation in social studies class, I gave him a rough idea of what income tax was and how various bills had to be kept in their places as proof or otherwise, one may end up paying more taxes to the Income tax department. That was to inculcate the habit of putting the right thing at the right place. Once Rahul Dravid gave an interview on how grateful he was to their support staff: the cricket manager, cricket analyst, media manager, cricket coach, physiotherapist, physical trainer etc who did the support work so well that the players could focus entirely on their game. I read it out to my son to explain the importance of being focused and organised. Only if he made a habit of being well organised like putting things in proper places, he would be able to focus well on the main function whether in studies or in sports. At least, children listen to such examples better than a lecture but that also depends on the issue. I tried to stress the importance of yoga after Sachin Tendulkar started doing it seriously but that drew a lukewarm response.

Since habits get formed by repetition, the competency cycle is worth a mention. When one tries to learn something new or doing the same thing in a better way, one has to go through four stages:

Unconscious incompetence — you maybe unconscious of what you are doing wrong.

Conscious incompetence — you are aware of what you are doing wrong and have started unlearning unlearn established, unconscious patterns/habits.

Conscious competence — acquiring new habits in the process of doing things in a better way.

Unconscious competence — new habits become a normal occurrence and one does not have to think or make a conscious attempt for doing.

Though all this maybe relevant from the point of view of learning a new skill or enhancing an old skill, from another perspective, after one has formed a habit and is able to do it unconsciously, one should still do it consciously to live intensely. Spiritual masters stress on the art of living consciously to be fully in the present which according to some psychologists is an “occupational therapy” and very good for stress management. This implies that even if you are able to do something mechanically after it having become an unconscious habit, one should still try to do it with full consciousness. It could be something mundane like driving to learning a specialised sport or vocation. Therefore, in this context, even not making a habit a habit is a habit.

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