There is a dominant mainstream in any field and when its pioneers and trailblazers succeed, they are not a part of it! This astonishing fact should really upend all our thinking about what it takes to succeed. Instead, it is conveniently ignored! Why? The dominant mainstream enjoys an unparalleled hegemony over the hearts and minds of the numerous faithful. They have invested a lot into creating a collective faith about the field and its tenets for success. Breaking off from it is painful and entails a lot of hard work, struggle and resistance. What does this dominant mainstream do? It specifies the dos and don’t s of the field, the paradigm to use, the approach to take; all of which taken together, becomes an orthodoxy. This orthodoxy prescribes how everything ought to happen. Its word is the last law and field-work follows it like a sacred ritual. When Jane Goodall,the primatologist and anthropologist, began her field work in studying chimpanzees, she had no scientific training! She had studied biology in school, that’s all. She was not aware of what the…
Jose Mourinho’s take on Coaching
In ‘The Playbook – A Coach’s Rules for Life’, Jose Mourinho straightaway flags down the warm-up questions. Asked about his formative influences, he says he doesn’t want to go there ( talk about it). Don’t want to talk about other people, he adds. You think the guy is so egotistical but soon he shows that if it were so, it has not stopped him from realising and accepting perhaps the biggest truth about himself in relation to the game he is passionate about – He wasn’t good enough as a football player! What is best for the team, do that! For Jose, the team is one living, breathing creature. Team above self. The best decision is in the interest of the team. In Jose’s team, he once found two players telling each other – You are a better captain than me. You should captain the team. Mourinho heard this and knew this team is right on track. Rev yourself up for the biggest challenge As a coach for FC Porto, Mourinho and his team are watching the live telecast for…
Embrace Mediocrity for Work-Life Balance & more advice from Gail Golden
The byline in Gail Golden’s book, ‘Curating your Life’ speaks about ending the struggle for work-life balance. In the Modern Wisdom podcast, Gail shares numerous ideas and insights to end that struggle. To me, the one that stood out was – embracing mediocrity. Our quest for excellence makes us indiscriminate in a way. We want to be fantastic in everything we do, put in a lot of effort. In our mind, it is a reflection of our commitment and sincerity. Gail invites us to accept a liberating truth : Most of what we do in our life is mediocre. We slog it out in the quest for perfection. Not content with good. In fact, we don’t even need to be good. Just well-enough is acceptable. Once you realize that you can be passable in multiple areas that are not core in your life, so much is unlocked for you! Free of the mediocre things by not doing it at all or doing just well-enough; you can now pour out your time and effort doing the few things you are truly…
Maria Konnikova – Mixing Poker and Psychology
Ever heard of John H Watson? Dr. Watson?..Yes, of course! The world knows him as the person closest at hand to marvel at the brilliance of Sherlock Holmes. Maria Konnikova looks at Dr.Watson in a different way. She has written a book on Sherlock Holmes called Mastermind – How to think like Sherlock Holmes. And that makes her realise that between the two – Holmes and Watson – it is Watson who plays the role of the coach by continually asking questions. Watson’s relentless questioning improves Sherlock’s thinking by forcing him to verbalise his thought-process. Isn’t that a brilliant appreciation of Watson and his role in creating the legend of Sherlock Holmes?! Maria’s conversation with Shane Parrish ( The Knowledge Project) has multiple subjects all interlinked to each other. Thought-process, decision-making, the role of luck and chance and emotions. All of them interesting, made even more so by Maria’s own story. A PhD in Psychology, Maria experienced an inexplicable bout of illness. She recovered from it, but this incident and a few personal adversities made her reflect on the role…
Non-Being in the Pandemic
Individuals and organisations are hunkering down to brave this pandemic. Those on the margins of a secure life are clinging on for sheer survival. This is not an easy time to live in. Are we making it more difficult for ourselves? Why is it that we are sheltering in our homes, but feel locked out of Life – its vitality and energy? A sliver of wisdom from Tao te Ching entered my awareness to engage with these questions. We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use. The pandemic has forced the world into an arrested state of being. The outwardly movement of joining spokes (connecting), of shaping clay ( storing), of hammering wood ( building) is no longer completely available for us. And because we work with…
Organisations – Resisting the pull of going back to Normal
Business Organisations love predictability and control. The COVID-19 pandemic has left them without both. After gaining a modicum of breathing space, they are mulling over their options. What do we do next? After a disruptive & disorienting shock, a natural comfort move is for organisations to fall back into familiar routine and feel in control. If resilience is defined as the ability to bounce back to the normal state, the going back to routine does seem like going back to normal. However, being insistent on routines may be a less than optimal response. When we have no faith in the future we incline to arrange our lives so that we can predict the future. We either make of our existence a rigid routine or pile up all manner of defences to make it secure. The craving for security stems from a need for predicatibility, and its intensity is in inverse proportion to our faith in the future. -Eric Hoffer The strategies and plans these organisations had made before COVID-19 and the systems and processes that have been instituted for execution,…
Working from Home – Few thoughts
Work from Home is easier said than done. Here are a few ways of perceiving and a few thoughts. a) This is just a change of scene. We are used to different ways of being as well. We are not the same at work and home. We appear to be more purposeful and focused at work. We experience ourselves as free beings at home. When you settle down for work at home, the being has to be chosen for the doing. To be a free being for work is a reservoir of possibility. What we put in by way of free will and pure intention can create new realities. b) I will be as productive as before. The context and circumstances that necessitated work from home continue to have a powerful impact on everything, society and work included. Acknowledging the power of context is important. When you know that a pandemic is out of control and lives are being lost, the anxiety and the uncertainty get to you. You will be less productive, but more reflective. The meaning of work, its…
Corona Outbreak – The Call to Action for all Social Organizations is Now
A healthy business cannot exist in a sick society. – Peter Drucker Organisations that see the writing on the wall are not waiting for the WHO to declare a pandemic. They are taking matters into their own hands because they know that it is better to be safe than sorry. They range from start-ups to giant corporations. They are willing to take a hit as they know the calamity that they want to pre-empt. The single biggest reason for the spreading of the virus is that infected people are in circulation around the world.And whatever the world can do to limit the circulation of people and make it absolutely controlled is bound to help us all. Whatever arguments that are being dished out to deny the need for an absolute clampdown on people movement are arguments of convenience made out of an inability to visualise how quickly things spiral out of control when they cross a tipping point. The governments that have succeeded in containing it have absolutely been prepared for a complete lock-down. Their fast planning and furious action…
Can Leaders be made to feel the pinch?
When business leaders prepare the world for tough decisions, their language says a lot. The choice of words, the metaphors they use, the imagery they put forth – everything seems carefully deliberated upon. So, you get a sense of the general consequence. It is left to each individual to infer what specifically the words of the leader could mean for her or him. Todays ET carries toughspeak by Cognizant CEO, Brian Humpries. Before I proceed, let me emphasise I am using the Cognizant CEO’s remarks as a reference point for my argument with neither indictment nor appreciation for Cognizant flowing out of my reflection. I fully respect that businesses have to remain viable to ensure livelihoods. Referring to the possibility of job cuts at Cognizant in the near future, Brian Humpries said, “I do not believe in death by a thousand cuts, I would rather pull the Band-Aid off and get it behind us and set the context as to why this is critical and fast-forward to the future.” Humpries painted a rich metapor on the organizational inflection point. His…
The Peter Drucker Diary – Entry 5
The work of a genius or giant often presents an anomaly. Reverential regard obscures the real work. People know the name, but haven’t engaged with the work. In this series, we take one Peter Drucker quote or excerpt and seek to understand it. Entry 5 “Expect the job to provide stimulus only if you work on your own self-renewal, only if you create the excitement, the challenge, the transformation that makes an old job enriching over and over again” A job, especially in the context of an organisation, is in place for producing consistent results as demanded by the nature of the task or the wish of the customer. This creates routine. Any routine becomes mindless after some point of time. People go through the motions and deliver the minimum acceptable results that bear the stamp of consistency. For the organisation, most such results are low-stakes and deemed acceptable; and so, everybody plays their part in the drift downwards towards mediocrity. Peter Drucker puts the onus for a positive handling of the situation on the job-holder. Do not expect the…