Working at the speed of trust

Some time back I had this training from my organization. This was not necessarily the training I like to attend. But this was kind of a different training in a crazy way. It was really a lotus eaters delight. And as I am one such nut case, I really liked it.

Here are some thoughts on it

I definitely agree to the maxim that speed travels faster than light. If there is any thing that is going to cause a huge jump in productivity, it is basically trust that gets us to jump multiple levels in productivity. In software business, it is the next thing to the smart design and work allocation and tracking.

The training was by Franklin Covey institute and they have a book also along with it. I do not want to break their copyright by giving excerpts of their work here. So there are just some random musings inspired by the book and training. I am not even saying that you should go for that training or should buy that book. None of these two things have ever worked for me. Even if I am a self confessed self-help book junkie, the books that affect me most are the ones which are not written for doing so. So here is the divorce from the training and the book.

I think there is an interesting perspective of looking at trust, trust can be both directions, outward and inward. trust in others and trust in yourselves to achieve the desired goals. First thing that needs to be done when you want to trust some one is that you should build up that trust in others. It is a strange thing that comes back as much as you give it out.

The training really brings up this fact completely. Building trust is a very lengthy process. Losing it may not be. There are scientific steps which can be taken to build up trust. It needs the relationship to go through a set of levels before trust is built. It needs both the parties to be mature and winning. There is a high chance that trust can be broken and then it takes you down a very bad slippery slope. Inherently trust means that you would not have spent time building alternate solutions. If that happens, then once your trust-party fails you, you can never recover.

If this has to be a “fail-safe scenario” , this means that there is another angle to trust. It is of interdependence. There is another angle of making your dependencies soft. If your dependencies are soft, this means that you can still survive when everything else fails. And if every thing succeeds, you are at the pinnacle of success.

Trusting some one also means that the person you are dealing with should not have any exterior motives about your failure. If some one is fully inclined to make you a failure, it is very difficult to trust him. That's why trusting people is an issue in case of an environment where you are competing for survival. In an environment where you are losing ten percent of people annually you will be most probably collaborating with, it is really difficult not to think about stabbing people in the back when the opportunity provides. Some one trying to build trust is exactly giving the same opportunity to your competitors.

But in the long run, trust is the best way to achieve some semblance of justice in all this process is to be yourselves and ensure that people are always supported and helped. Working towards a greater goal and benefits of the collective may look like a day dream. but people have been achieving this even in case of worse situations than this. There are proofs of such behavior in extreme situations like the concentration camps. Then it should not so difficult to put it to use in normal office scenarios. You need not be a saint to reach there. As man is a social animal, soft power has been built by normal people and more competitive scenarios tackled effectively.

So we are just being our natural self when we behave in a collaborative manner. Only people with a deep sense of lack of confidence in their own abilities can rule this out. What is done is always more important than what is seen. If you do really stellar work, it can not be kept in cage because of just incompetence.

As a leader, the lead should ensure that the same thing happens in the team as well. Being the lead of my team, I am the owner of the direction, culture and success of it. My success should be measured with the ease with which I setup the culture of initiative, ownership, belonging and achievement in my team. In that sense, every team member should be like one to me. This is again some thing that is contradictory. How can I behave exactly same with all the reportees if I am the one who is going to differentiate between these two times a year. Or as the thing goes, I may be asking some of these to leave. but that is completely different track and I should be able to behave independently in both these situations. I think I need to do a bunch of stuff to track these things.

 

The TED talk that introduced me to myself

 

This is based on the TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

This really rang a bell some where. It made some thing in my life clear to me. It rarely happens at my age and at my stage. that's why I am thankful that it has happened and I would like other people to know about this.

750words.com, the site I use for writing my diary, rates this writing as self important. I am sure, it feels like that so take the things below with a pinch of salt. But I think these thoughts are important for some people I want to reach. Especially some of the dear friends who have been with me and really know me. I want to get them thinking in the same direction. I am just hoping they will find this at some point in time in some dusty unvisited corners of the web and then they will understand and learn. So I am daring to publish this .

Expressing myself has always been a passion to me. This was from a young age. I found myself to be an excellent performer when I found that the subject mattered to me. At this point, I would be so involved with the subject, that it will be one for me to think about myself OR think about the subject.
One such thing happened today which took me back in to the early days of stand up mimicry in my school. I just built on day to day stories I was exposed to. I used material which I found on my way to school or day to day materials in use in school or at home. I took the Belan, I took car lining and built wonderful stories out of these. Most of the stories were impromptu. In fact I failed when I tried to practice before. Those were the days I was blessed by the stage goddess. The audience danced at my fingertips. If I remember it correctly, I continued doing this for around three years. It could have been a speech competition, it could have been an one act play or any thing else to do with standing in front of people and doing my stuff.
One thing I know now that I was always considering the forth wall to be opaque. That means that I would never consider and work for the forth wall, which in performing arts jargon is the spectators. I would be in the bubble of my own in front of a crowd of multitudes. And that was my key to success.
Several important things happened in life. These included matriculation, cut throat competition in college, movement from a small town atmosphere to a fully cosmopolitan environment like my engineering college.
The fun of performing and the ability to succeed has been visiting me on and off. On my best day, I would be the best programmer, I would be the best thinker, I would be the best designer and the best student. Thankfully for me some times it happened at the right times. I was at my puzzle solving and thinking best when these two opportunities arose, in terms of my first job and in terms of my most important jobs till now, that is MS. I did so well in the projects I liked. I sucked royally in the project which did not please me. Apart from far basic, physical limitations: for example, my pronunciation in case of English theater and enunciation and lack of thoroughness in understanding the interplay of emotions and convey them properly in my body language in case of Marathi theater; it was always my intentions and involvement that decided the extent of success or failure.
So I notice that my pleasure and my expectations have a great part to play in my success. Any thing, however easy it may be, can fail if it is not pleasing to me OR I am not interested in doing these.
But the most important thing I notice is that  I always failed when I did things to impress or please some one. Even theater gave me less pleasure when it was done to impress some one. Only when I did it for myself I liked it a lot. It is something like the TED talk I am referring to. Some higher entity would stay in the abode of my body and soul for these moments.In all these cases, I now notice that I never played to the gallery. The best / the ideal came to inhabit me for some fleeting seconds when I was the most dissolved in satisfying myself with the pursuit.
Now that this thought is complete, I am relieved. I am not a software engineer who draws a huge salary. I am not even the best coder and designer. I am not the best actor that ever was there. I am not the best stand up comic.
This is what I am. I am just a conduit to all these higher forms. My day to day life is blessed with comfort because I allow all these entity to reside in me from time to time. I keep my body and my thoughts clean for these higher life forms, which may be mine, but are short lived. I should do every thing in my capabilities to ensure that my body,mind and thoughts are clean to receive these. I should always ensure that my body is flexible,supple and strong enough to achieve greatness when the greatness comes to it.
Otherwise I am just a middle class small town boy. That is the reality and I should live this reality as profoundly and clearly as possible. Any deviation from this reality will not achieve anything else but just drive the djinns away who perform through me.

movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

 

This is the third Narnia movie I am watching and I think the interest level is going down by each version. This is not a very interesting situation to be in. The best face saving this has always been the lion. Aslan is very much real to the fiction.

It suits really well to the lofty designs that C L Lewis may have.
But apart from that the movie has been a disappointment. This disappointment was completely overshadowed by many firsts and achievements. The best thing about it is that two of the three kids managed to keep the three dimensional glasses on (the third one was sleeping) and watched a fair bit of movie quietly (around half an hour) before being lulled in to sleep. This is an achievement because generally they convert the movie hall in to their play ground and do quiet a bit of shouting and distracting other people. But this movie some how changed that.

The second achievement is that they really liked the part that they saw. This was the sword fight by  the rat and the lion talking to the kids. They really like the majestic lion. This means that the film maker has done some thing winning here. Apart from the lion and the funny bits about the cousin turning in to a dragon, the movie was a bore. Either it does not have any thing to put OR it tried to fit too much in to a single movie.
A bit about the story line, in my opinion seven conquests is in fact a dangerous number of conquests to have in a two hour movie. It becomes one too many. So it looked like most of the swords are won without much efforts. They were just to be taken without any specific challenges. Even the last sword was actually captured and then the dilemmas started. By the way, it bodes not well on the imagination of a bunch of crew if the only thing that is most fearful to them is the huge slithery worm.
The other visuals and dilemmas also came in and went away without any context. I think the story did not do justice to the hard work put through by the graphics crew etc. The good point there was that the target audience, the kids and preschoolers could not have cared less about the story. They got what they wanted from the movie and thus it was successful.
But as I am reading the novel currently, it does not do any justice to the novel as such. I went to the movie with my parents, wife and kids plus nephew. all of them really liked it. Along with my wife who also watched her first 3-D movie with glasses on.
I tried to get her to watch the earlier three D block buster, Avatar but I had to hear about my weird choices of the movies for quiet some time since that time on. But this time it was a good family fare, not too jerky, the good won over the evil easily, which in turn was just a itsy bitsy evil at all. Put this together with good swords fights, a bit of comedy, a touch of brouhaha about human fallibility etc and we have a family entertainer right there.
I have not yet reached this part in the novel so I am not sure whether they have been very truthful to the novel. But the seven adventures looks a bit curtailed to me. I think the best way to look at these would be at least two full length feature films where the back ground is set in one movie an with first three challenges. The second movie could have contained the next four challenges and then the victory celebrations.
But for all said and done, it looked like the directors also wanted to get over this tedium of movies and go ahead to more meatier part of the stories.
I do not buy in to the talks of this being the last movie in the Narnia stories. In fact this is the part from which the lion does not figure in the stories. But the franchise is still on and I think has done enough to prepare for one more movie.
I think the next movie will definitely decide whether there is any life in the franchise at all. I think the story line and presentation will matter the most.
Thankfully my kids did not need to think about this. They were very happy playing the lion, the dragon and the rat alternately. And if the next movie also gets them to do the same, you have a winner at hands.

To dearest of them all, with love

Five years is such a long time and still I remember the first time I saw you. I was late to your home (my first visit). I do not know how I actually walked the steps and reached your drawing room. Maybe my parent told me. You were reclining on the sofa, sufficiently made up and resting there. As soon as you saw me you ran into the house. you were taller than my expectation. You were and have always been thin, bordering on frail. That is when I decided that it will be a very good idea to spend rest of my with you. The informality and the grace of your movements and attitude really struck me. That was the first quality that killed me then. It was one of my many impulsive actions that I decided that this is that and I told you so as well when we went to my college. Your have always been what cynics call a "low maintainance wife". But actually that was the only thing I watched. You were very comfortable eating at a nondescript place, going to the place where I spent my most importnat four years of my life till then. The place which changed me completely. This really meant that you were different, which was not as important as the fact that you actually matched me at some plane of existence. Though at other multiple planes we are as different from each other as possible. And thankfully that was one of my decisions that I never (mostly :) ) regretted. There were troubling time, there were discords and slightly different expectations and aspirations. I tried to take care of aspirations which I thought should be long term and viable. We had terrible fights for those which we thought should be trivial things or some thing wrong. I have been moving from my roots and in a completely different environment every ten years now. I moved from my small town Udgir to the district place, Latur. I moved from LAtur to my hostel. From my hostel I moved to Wipro. From Wipro I moved to Subex. Each of the move changed my life completely. So I know that it is very difficult to change things completely and start over. For you it was even more difficult. This was because you were in the same town and same place all the time. Things never changed for you. They changed drastically with a new family to stay with in a new town. You really did splendid to cope up with all that and do more :).
And while all this was happening we have our first born almost immediately. I think one of the most important and interesting things that happened to us together. Ojas ensured that our debates and fights that occur seldom do not tear us apart the way it is doing others at this moment. But that was just the side effect. Our life has been converted from the usual and run of the mill to the extra ordinary because our son is there in it. If in last five years giving birth to him is the only thing we did, we would still come out successful for first five years. But we did many more things. Apart form the really apparent physical prosperity (if you notice our income is almost double of what it was when we got married, we own a small flat of our own and a four wheeler), I think the most important thing we have is that we can still enjoy life and be happy without all these. Being detached from all the gains actually makes us worthy to go for more. And this is where I appreciate your contributions. This makes you very unique in my eyes. If there was any body who would have matched my way of thinking by actions, it is you. That is why I love you more than a husband loves a wife OR a father loves the mother of his loved children. Without you, I would not be living the life I wanted. Without you, I would not be so balanced and so free to do the stuff I like. Without me life would not hold me and give new meanings to every day. Without you I would not have the shine of my eyes, Oju and Aaroh. Without you life will be very less interesting and boring. I am lucky to have you as my wife for last five years and for the rest of my life. Thank you for everything and I love you for so many years.

Theory of everything

As the people who know me more intimately know, I have my own foolish theory of everything.
It goes something like this:All biology is chemistry.All chemistry is physics.All physics is mathematics.*

This is very crude attempt at generalization on my part.Here is one great physicist putting it correctly. And of course driving the final nails in the coffin of my theism in that process:

http://www.ted.com/talks/murray_gell_mann_on_beauty_and_truth_in_physics.html

Near the end of the talk he says:
"... They follow from the fundamental theory. They are what we call emergent properties. You do not need something more to get something more.That's what emergence means. Life can emerge from Physics and Chemistry plus a lot of accidents. The human mind can arise from neurobiology and a lot of accidents, the way a chemical bond arises out of physics and certain accidents. Doesn't diminish the importance of the subjects to know that they follow from more fundamental things plus accidents. That's the general rule, and it's critically important to realize that.You don't need something more to get something more. People keep asking me "Isn't there something more beyond what you have there?" Presumably they mean something supernatural.

Anyway there isn't.(laughter).You don't need something more to explain something more."

* This theory exist despite any particular expertise or excellence in any of these subjects on my part. We all have our theories, don't we?

Watching alone isn't always fun (and some wistful thinking)

Read this article in cricinfo and it invoked many a sentiments:

http://blogs.cricinfo.com/diffstrokes/archives/2009/08/solitary_watching_isnt_always.php#more

There have been multiple phases I have been following cricket in.

Apart from the recent past, I observed that I had never watched cricket alone. Along with the advent of 20-20, this has been one of the major reasons cricket viewing has changed drastically for me.The advantage is definitely any match that happens in England. I immensely enjoy the deep discussions as well as bantering. Cricket as well as commentary definitely takes a very different form in the place where cricket was born.

But otherwise watching cricket alone is a dredge. Here are different phases in my cricket watching career:

Early childhood, I remember my Dad regularly stuck to the radio. I still remember that cold winter Divali morning when he woke me from my slumber and told me that India had won the world cup. I had started liking the game before I actually saw it being played. The whole Divali days my dad just talked about cricket and nothing else. He was always a very big and secrete fan of Viv Richards. There is a small anecdote about his cricketing abilities. Actually I never saw him play except once.This was years after the world cup win. There was a match between students and teachers in his school. The teachers were about to lose. Just like almost everybody, my dad also had made several silly mistakes. He did not run fast enough, fielded miserably and definitely a stark different between the quality of the two. He went in to bat 6 down.He started biffing the ball all around the park. When he eventually got out (and most prob lost the match), somebody compared him to Viv Richards. I have rarely seen him happier. He kept on the cricket hat till we reached home and carried around that Richards swagger for many days :)I do not recall much about 85 champions trophy-87 world cup. I sometimes sneaked in some television when I visited my rich friends. I faintly remember watching some moments of West Indian trip to India. But both, (the moments and rich friends)were few and far between. Though I remember Gavaskar scoring his only century in one dayers in his last one day match, and we losing it to England in the semis (most probably).

This era changed to very serious and dedicated cricket viewing when my uncle, who stayed just next doors, got a color television. We all, nephews and uncles got big kick out of watching channel 9 coverage of Aussie cricket. My uncle loved cricket but loved his sleep almost equally. We used to wake him up early morning(sometimes even 2.30-3.00 A.M.). He usually used to be torn between cricket and his sleep. We used try to tilt him toward cricket. I do remember watching Sachin's debut. This was India's tour to Pakistan. Srikanth was the captain and definitely at his nadir. Akram just killed him. Most probably this was the first time I saw a human being completely dismantled on the cricket field. It was a shame that a free spirited cricketer of Chika's caliber should face such a fate.And of course everybody remembers

The quality of cricket peaked at 92 world cup and maintained through till the 96 world cup. Most probably start of the golden era of cricket viewing (my as well as for the public in general, in my opinion). 92 world cup was played during my S.S.C. examinations. I couldn't view a lot of matches completely. But South African athleticism along with breathtaking telecast took this experience to a different plain. New Zealand tactics(Martin Crow-Mark Greatbatch's attacking cricket, Srikanth and almost every team failing to play Patel's spin in first 15 overs)and it going horribly wrong, Pakistan flair helped by generous dollops of luck.Jonty Rhode's athleticism(Inzy's run out especially)are some of the things I will never forget. This left a number of unforgettable images etched on my mind. But the most I remember are not happy ones. This can be called the theme of cricket. Its tragedies are lovelier than its triumphs. Somethings I do remember most vividly. Srinath's last ball heroics which triggered a comedy of errors where Venkatpathy Raju foolishly lost us a place in the semis is one of them. The South African tragedy of 1 run of 22 balls is the biggest. But the most interesting tragedy is the personal one. I had my last exam on the same day as the finals. It was geography, I think a smaller paper. I ran out half an hour earlier, as soon as finished writing the paper.I had calculated that I will still be able to catch half and hour of cricket where England will defeat Pakistan. But it was never to be. Half way to-wards home, I saw one of the regular cricket viewers walking slowly away dejectedly. I tried to stop him, but he just motioned me away. Pakistan was winning !! I stepped inside my uncle's house just to see final few moments where Neil Feirbrother was scratching around, delaying the inevitable. England had collapsed under the pressures of last innings dramatically. A recurrent tragedy in world cups was played again.Where England reaches finals just to lose it to somebody.

The next two years were pretty quiet, spent studying for HSC, make of break exam for the life. Cricket was even a lesser footnote during those times.

96 world cup came at the right time, just after I had settled down in PICT,first time in a hostel,first time away from home. We had only one television in the canteen. We used to gatecrash into the canteen every night. Everybody used to watch the matches very quietly in the beginning. But Once Sachin (and India) started to do exceedingly better, we lost control. Our strict administrator somehow overlooked the noise we made. It was as near as it can reach to viewing the match in the stadium. We used the tin covers of utensils as musical instruments, banging them together as loudly as possible. Quarterfinals with Pakistan was the match to remember. First half belonged to the final burst from Jadeja's blade. Second half was the Sohail-Prasad incidence. From the beginning something was amiss for the semifinals. We were restless and fought with each other. Despite the first over wickets, India allowed the Lankans to build back the innings. The disintegrating Eden Garden's track destroyed India's dreams in the second innings. Most notable picture for this edition? Indulger on song, Kambli in tears, Disilva masterfully guiding the run chase. This was the first time a team won the world cup chasing.

Then I moved to Bangalore and hit the golden age of cricket viewing. Abhya-Amya-nikhya-Ravi-mugz(reluctant)-Pad-Dina-gortyaa gang were the best companions anybody could have while watching a match. Many-a-times we watched it live at Chinnaswami. I saw Sehwag's debut, Kumble's 400 th wicket and a lot many events live.On the eve of 1999 world cup we went out and bought a television. (and a refrigerator). The cricket was sometimes exhilarating but the company was always !! Lara-Tendulkar discussions were as serious as Gandhi-Nathuram discussions. Match fixing was as big a black mark as was coffin corruption.

Slowly guys moved out, getting married one by one, jumping companies, making sense of their lives and those moments kept slipping though the fingers.

Now-a-days, cricket watching life has come a full circle. We, me and my Dad are the only ones following it together. We just have switched places, he do not *get* the 20-20 and I vainly try to explain it to him. He knows very little English, but sometimes delightfully understands the strategies discussed by the commentators as if by magic. Cricket has grown more aggressive and my viewing passion has actually mellowed a lot.

The cherry on the top will be if this full circle completes. My son will be almost of the same age in 2011 as I was in 1983.I will be almost of the same age as my Dad was then. If I could just say the same words that my dad said to me that morning "Bharataane worldcup jinkalaay", and initiate him in the family tradition of cricket watching, that will be a deservedly remarkable peculiar thing for this remarkable peculiar game.

Volare ... Kandhare

When Bauji-Bauji first suggested this song as my family song, my investigative juices boiled over.

What can be common between Gypsy's of Italian origin and a true blue Udgir based family?

Other than the high rates of procreation, there is very little to find.

If if bauji-bauji has been reusing sodawater bottle bottoms for glasses from ages, he has definitely not gone complete blind, so he will never suggest that I am as handsome as an Italian gypsy. I would strongly refute the similar claim about the fairer halves of our family, if I am doing it from the confines of a nuclear bunker. But you get the picture.

And then what would drive bauji-bauji to filter through archives of some alien language songs sung in last centuries to find a moniker for my family?
Though anybody who has lived with Bhaau for some time will vouch for a quaint underground stream of kindness under his rough TamBram exterior, I never expected it to erupt out so forcefully at this juncture.

Then I listened to the song and then it all was clear like an autumn night!! This was just old MPalya habit exibiting itself. Most of the Jyokes were just plays with words and yours truely was blamed for many of them, so this song was pretty apt.

Thank u Bhau :)