Changing the usual conversation ” So, who is your favourite – Federer or Nadal?”, asked a student at the end of my session as visiting faculty. I use multiple examples from all fields in order to facilitate learning. So, no question is unexpected. ” Why haven’t you included Djokovic?”, I asked. “Oh, everybody hates him!”, pat came the reply; with a look that said, ” Don’t tell me you…” I did not want my response to get lost in the filter of personal likes & dislikes. ” Anyway you look at it, Roger Federer & Rafael Nadal were acknowledged very early on as icons who will inevitably be called the greatest players to ever play the game. What an impact they had! They already had a fantastic, ongoing rivalry. And they were regularly beating Djokovic in their most important match-ups. There was nothing to suggest, results-wise, that Djokovic was in the same league. Can you imagine the self-belief he would have had to change all of that & gatecrash himself into the conversation?!” The student thought it over and agreed!…
The wisdom in serving self-organising systems
On 1st April, 1973, the Government of India launched ‘Project Tiger’ for the protection and conservation of the rapidly dwindling tiger population. Kailash Sankhala, the first Director, set forth on the guiding principle for Project Tiger. Do nothing (to the forest) and allow little to be done. On visiting TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) as part of a combined faculty group conducting a career guidance workshop, I remember reading a commemorative plaque there. The words that stayed with me were.. The end of social service is to end social service Dr. William Osler, the father of modern medicine, and a pioneer medical educator, was being counter-intuitive when he said.. One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine. The fields differ, but the approach underlying the words, the awareness they all show is that of intervening in a self-organising system. In order to save tigers, the action-oriented saviour may have adopted a gung-ho approach. A slew of measures and directives. Sankhala knew that intervention was the problem in the first place.…
2020 – A few insights to carry forward into 2021
The very idea of a New Year is a figment of human imagination. Having said that, 2020 has given the idea a new shine. The world so urgently wants the new year to make life better! Perhaps, that is what all ideas ultimately are – containers and transmitters of human energies.. We are all invested in the idea and our collective belief is a powerful force in making things happen! So, are we going to leave all behind in 2020? What if, there is something to remember and carry forward into the new year? On asking this question, here are a few things that emerged from the shadows of this year. The real world and what it takes to stay alive We now know the real world. A mortal threat made us aware of it. The real world is where life persists. The real world is where decisions and actions that help us stay alive and well are made. The last year gifted us the context within which we recognized this real world. Without this context, we were leading self-absorbed…
The Elphinstone Stampede – Getting back on our feet
On 29th September 2017, an overcrowded foot over bridge at Elphinstone railway station, Mumbai witnessed a horrific stampede. 23 people died. What can we, as a society of organizations, do in the aftermath of the Elphinstone stampede? Let us explore the way forward using systems thinking. It might be a good idea to start with a description of the mental model we carry in our collective consciousness. Mental models are the very foundation, the source of how we create our own social reality. Mental Models Here is an articulation of the current mental models as I perceive them. ” Mumbai is the city of dreams. The financial capital. The corporate hub. Everything worth striving for is in Mumbai. We must go to work where the offices and establishments are. The best way to travel? The Mumbai locals – hands down. Cheaper & faster than anything else. Sure, it’s risky. Rush-hour.Packed trains, people falling off, getting run over. Part of the deal. We have made peace with it. Brave everything you encounter because there is a job to be done and food to…
Leadership This Month : Missed Opportunities
Institutional Leaders with a historical legacy are faltering in the present. The International Olympic Association (IOC) & the Republican party establishment in the United States, in particular. The International Olympic Association (IOC) Russia, a sporting superpower was recently indicted in an independent anti-doping enquiry for establishment-backed doping by Russian athletes in the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi, Russia. Imagine hosting the Oympics and playing dirty on the side to help your country athletes win. This goes against the very spirit of everything that the Olympics stands for. With the Rio Olympics so near, the IOC had to respond and act fast. What did it do? The bare minimum was to bar Russian track and field athletes from Rio 2016. And that it did, though even here, there is a provision to get them in. But the IOC did not impose a blanket ban on all Russian participation in Rio. A blanket ban would have sent a very strong, but much needed message to all member nations and their sports-establishments that the IOC is uncompromisingly committed in its fight against doping and any other…
What Disruption means for HR : Summary of a learning Session for marketing professionals
The Young & their interests We put ‘The Young’ as a customer category and spelled out what interests them. When time came to identify the industry/sector, we found that we had to scratch our heads a bit. This is significant. KEY POINT – The boundaries between industries and sectors are disappearing or getting blurred. Certain industries or product/service categories are fighting for survival itself examples – music industry, mobile service providers, movie halls, publishing industry, retail shops. This is because of disruption caused by technology. Disruption – Examples Netflix/ rentals ; Internet movies/ theatre screenings ; Uber/ rental cars & ownership itself ; Amazon/book stores ; itunes/Spotify / Rhythm house ; Kindle/ Printed books; Mobile apps/ television viewing ; Online booking/ travel agencies ; Paytm/ card-swiping. Bottomline is that a company can move into an entirely different product line or service category. is the most famous example. If watching television via app catches on, ‘television’ as a product category gets wiped out. Hotels will struggle big time if one house in every street decides to become an Air B&B partner. E-commerce…
When warring sides played football on the battle field: The remarkable Christmas truce of World War I
In the days leading up to Christmas in 1914, soldiers from all sides began to realize that the war was going to drag on. It was not going to be all quiet on the western front for some time to come. Soldiers had dug into trenches, six to eight feet deep; and fired when the enemy sought to move forward from their own trenches. This trench-warfare of World-War I created a situation of perpetual physical proximity for enemy combatants. The Christmas season triggered off unusual acts of reaching out to the enemy. Soldiers started shouting out tentative intents of venturing out of the trenches. The first ones to believe and keep the faith survived and soon got talking with each other. The initial confidence-building hurdle out of the way, there were spontaneous outbreaks of unofficial ceasefire all along the trenches! The Germans & the British started exchanging Christmas gifts & souvenirs. They recovered & buried dead comrades, lit candles, decorated their trenches, sang carols, and started chatting & bantering. They showed each other photos of dear ones, offered cigarettes, food,…
Three Work-Realities Impacting Your Career That You Need To Prepare For
Ask any corporate professional if the world of work is changing, and the answer is a resounding yes! Ask how they are responding & the answers are general. Never take your job for granted. Always be learning. Network for career growth. These generalities are useful only if you persevere to understand what in the world of work is changing, how organizations are adapting to such changes. When you relate these changes to your specific circumstances, you will know what to do. Here are the three work-realities to connect your specific circumstances to. 1) Organizations are proactive in changing before they are forced to In the recent past, organizations reacted to growth demand by swelling its ranks. The recession made them shrink. In absorbing this painful body-blow, thinking organizations are determined to do it differently next time. They are not mindlessly expanding at the first signs of revived demand. By taking recourse to outsourcing & technology, they are catering to new business without bloating in size. They are open to internal restructuring as a proactive business strategy. Inspite of the absence…
When a Man Becomes a Woman: A journey into personal change
He was in the ladies compartment of a Mumbai suburban train. Neither an alarm nor an eyebrow was raised by the women around him. For all the ladies out there, with one notable exception, he was a lady. They barely noticed. He was not looking at anyone either. His heart was dying out on him. What am I doing out here?! My friend had joined a professional development course. As course-work, each participant had to commit to one action, just one deed of change. This action should be do-able. And the only barrier should be their own self-perception; what they think they can or cannot do. My friend had picked up this one: Pick up filthy garbage in front of his office with his own hands & deposit it into a garbage dump in full view of others. The course does telephone follow-up of course-work status before every meeting. When my friend was called, he had not done it. The course was giving him a lot to think over and do. Somehow, he couldn’t get himself to do. Up until…