Author Archives: Rajan Parulekar

About Rajan Parulekar

I write on different topics like management, book reviews, human behaviour etc. The main objective is to provide a different viewpoint on the conventional topics.

What makes A Maverick stand apart?

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“Shantaram, it’s high time you retire from the film industry” said Shankar Bhat, the owner of Prakash Pictures casually during a meeting of the Film Producers Guild. V Shantaram, the renowned director and the owner of Rajkamal Studios was taken aback. When asked for the reason he said, “Your last film, Zanak Zanak Payal Baje has been a blockbuster through which not only have you reached a pinnacle of success but the film is also considered as an epitome of creativity. You will never be able to repeat such a feat. Any subsequent film you make will be compared to this blockbuster.”

A few days later. G. D Madgulkar, a noted Marathi poet and writer narrated an experiment of an open prison and the rehabilitation of prisoners carried out by Maurice Frydman to Shantaram.

Maurice Frydman, a Polish Jew who came to India and was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and guided the King of Aundh (Near Pune) draft the declaration for transfer of power from the king to the people of Aundh. It was during this process of giving self-governance to the citizens of Aundh, that a question came up about the prisoners. Frydman then took on the responsibility of taking care of the convicts in an open prison. An open prison is any jail in which the prisoners are trusted to complete sentences with minimal supervision and perimeter security and are often not locked up in their prison cells. Prisoners may be permitted to take up employment while serving their sentence. This provides an opportunity for criminals to reintegrate into society and withdrawal from their criminal behaviour. Without the constraints and stresses of typical incarcerations, criminals can discover more positive lifestyles through support and light supervision from the criminal justice system.

“It‘s a great plot, why don’t you make a preliminary draft on rehabilitation thro’ an open prison?” Shantaram said to Madgulkar. After a few days while reading the draft, Madgulkar himself got bored and said “The story does not have enough material to convert into a full-fledged film. The subject is too drab and boring.”

Shantaram said,” But I see a great potential to make a classic film out of this narrative. No doubt we need to hone the script more.” Looking at Shantaram’s enthusiasm, Madgulkar had no choice but to accede to his demand.

The film Do Ankhein Barah Haath slowly started taking shape. The title connotes the eyes of the jailor and the hands of convicts. The storyline revolved around six hard-core criminals who have been jailed for heinous crimes like murder, arson, looting and rape. The conventional perception of the legal and the prison setup was to brand a convict as a life-long criminal without any scope for reform. The convicts were thus jailed in inhuman conditions typical of any jail. The protagonist of the film Adinath (played by V. Shantaram himself) feels that people irrespective whether they are criminals or not, are human beings first. There is a possibility of reform by putting them in normal environment like an open prison.

Adinath takes the permission from his senior, the Superintendent of Police (SP) to take these six convicts to a place with minimal monitoring. There are some challenging moments Adinath faces in this novel experiment. Once the inmates make a request to go to the nearest town. Adinath permits them with a caveat that they should return by the sunset. He goes through some anxious moments as the day comes to a close and gets relieved to see them back though a bit late.

The inmates are engaged in a daily routine of clearing the shrubs, digging well and plant vegetable. Within a few months the barren land is converted to a green area with fresh vegetables. Adinath asks them to sell the produce at the village with nominal profit. The local traders charging high rates till then get upset with the new competition.

The inmates do not return home in time. Adinath is perplexed about his decision on granting freedom. The inmates return late fully drunk. Adinath not only gets furious but also anxious about the outcome of his experiment. The next day he gets to know that the local trader has coaxed them in getting drunk and go berserk.Not able to digest the success of the farm, the local trader sends his goons and the bulls to destroy the crop. While making a valiant fight with the bull, Adinath breathes his last.

The SP who was initially a sceptic of this experiment, is now fully convinced of the transformation Adinath had brought about in the convicts. “You have served your sentence and are free to go back home.” Says the SP. The inmates decline the offer and decide to continue the work as inspired by their mentor, Adinath.

What made V. Shantaram take on such a challenging film? The seven types of motivators which define a creative personality are Pioneering Motivation, Self-Actualization, Altruism, Career Success, Hedonism. Security Motivation and Affiliation. (1)

Out of the above, the Pioneering Motivation, Self-actualization and Altruism need to be very high; Hedonism and Career Success need to be moderate and the security and the affiliation motivation need to be low for a creative personality.

Pioneering Motivation: Do Ankhein Barah Hath was an off-beat, black and white movie sans glamour with no tricks of the trade like love triangle, expensive sets, or iconic stars.

Self-Actualization: When Shankar Bhatt asked him to retire after the phenomenal success of Zanak Zanak Payal Baje, Shantaram questioned himself and his own identity and the purpose of life. He decided not to rest on the past laurels.

Altruism: The protagonist Adinath believed in the inherent goodness of people He sacrifices his life to help the prisoners let go of the past.

Security Motivation: His scriptwriter told him that the plot was too mundane and there is not much drama to make into a full-fledged film. Shantaram thought otherwise. He looked at the worst case scenario. His earlier film Zanak Zanak Payal Baje was a runaway hit. Shantaram was willing to write off even if this film were to flop at the box office. .

Career Success: Intuitively Shantaram knew that the film will come out well and will be appreciated by the audiences. He did not get into the success trap of comparison with the success of his preceding films. In a way he did not become a prisoner of his past success!

Affiliation: This motivation is to tread the beaten path and need to be very low for a creative person. Madgulkar who was asked to write the screenplay got bored while narrating the first draft. Shantaram did not give up.

The film was premiered at Opera House in Mumbai on 27^th September 1957. It was attended by the staff of Rajkamal Studios, friends, relatives and acquaintances of V Shantaram along with celebrities from the Bombay Film industry (now Bollywood). Even if the film were to be a disaster, audiences would make kind remarks about the film’s success out of courtesy. But the scene was quite different. Forget an applause, there was a total silence. Vijay Bhatt, a film a producer said, “You have said something different in this film.” Save this remark, there were hardly any comments. One could hear people whispering: had it not been for V. Shantaram, the film would hardly run for 5-6 weeks. The film reviews in the media were more towards criticism rather than praise. (2)

Do Ankhein Barah Haath ran for 65 weeks in Opera House and proved the naysayers wrong. The then Mumbai Police Commissioner had issued an unofficial dictum making the film mandatory for every policeman.

‘Ae Malik tere Bande Hum’, the prayer song was played in many schools and jails across the country and also in Pakistan. The film won the Best Film and the Best Direction award from the Govt of India. It was honoured with the best Foreign Film Award in the Berlin Film festival.

V. Shantaram wanted to acknowledge the contribution made by Maurice Frydman by including him in the film credits. Maurice flatly refused.

The black-and-white film had no glamour, a drab subject and an idealistic protagonist. Madgulkar the scriptwriter, the Staff at Rajkamal Studios, the celebrities of the film industry, or the media; none of them predicted a decent run for the film, leave aside the commercial success or the critical acclaim. Shantaram swam against the tide and showed what it means to be a maverick.

As someone has said, “if you can visualize the invisible, you can accomplish the impossible!”

References:

The Fourth Eye – Pradip Khandwala, the seven indicators of creativity are discussed in detail. The different levels of motivation be it high, medium or low can be understood through the questionnaire. Blockages to creativity and the ways to enhance are also discussed.
Ten Classics – Anita Padhye

Good and Great Communication

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“This is our drawing room; this is the balcony and these are the wall-to -wall wardrobes.” Shantanu, a software engineer in his early 30s was explaining to his guests as I was ushered into his new 3-Bed room apartment. The Rs. 2 Cr+ plus apartment in an upmarket gated community was fitted with Italian marble, top end interiors and Alexa activated controls. As the show-around during the house-warming ceremony was taking place, I got lost in my thoughts recollecting of a person who lived a simple life in a single toom laden with books in National College, Bengaluru. H Narasimhaiah, affectionately called as HN, was a physicist, educator, writer, freedom fighter and a rationalist from Bengaluru.

Circa 2010, I was attending a training program on Effective Presentation Skills in Indian Institute of Science (IISc), in Bengaluru. There were eminent speakers and motivators which included Toastmasters who demonstrated the various facets of presentations and the techniques in using PowerPoint. There were around eleven speakers. By the time the last speaker’s name was announced; the auditorium was almost empty. It was around 5:15 PM and the last speaker was Ashis Dutta, the CEO of CCE Software Private Limited who was to speak on Developing Business in Europe. CCE Software had a good presence in Germany then. Ashish was talking in a simple conversational manner without any histrionics, voice modulation or an attempt of playing to the gallery. (There were a few listeners even otherwise in the auditorium.) and I still recollect the last slide which said, There is no Europe. The presentation though simple to the core, conveyed a powerful message that Europe should not be taken as an entity without factoring the differences among its member countries. For exploring business opportunities, a one-size-fits-all approach may not be appropriate. Even after a decade, I still remember that presentation which was given at the fag end of the day without any fancy bells-and-whistles of PowerPoint. I do not recollect the previous speakers who were flamboyant and more eloquent vis-à-vis Ashis.

Subsequently Ashis and I became good friends. On 5^th September, Ashis sent me a message about the speech which made a lasting impact on him. Thirty years back when he came to Bangalore, he heard H Narasimhaiah (HN) at the Rotary club. It was a speech straight from the heart delivered in a soft tone without any rhetoric or flamboyance. What touched him the most was HN’s simplicity, ethics and the values he lived by.

HN, when he was 15 and being from a poor family, had to walk around 85 kms for two days from Gauribidnur to Bengaluru to take admission to National School in 1935. The next year, Mahatma Gandhi was to deliver a talk in Bangalore. The school principal selected HN to serve as an interpreter for Mahatma Gandhi to translate his talk from Hindi to Kannada. That one speech served as an inspiration for HN to adopt the Gandhian way of life.

After doing his MSc in Physics, he went to the USA and earned his Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics, came back to India and was the principal of National college from 1961 to 1972. Later on, he was the Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University. He was also known for starting the Bangalore Science Forum in 1962. He was a rationalist to the core and with Abraham Kovoor, challenged the godmen like Sathya Sai Baba, Sai Krishna and exposed their ‘miracles’. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1984.

What is the difference between good communication and great communication? Normally good communication includes techniques like defining a proper structure with powerful opening, meaningful content and a memorable end to factor for the primacy and the recency effect of the human mind. The speaker also needs to have energetic voice with clear articulation, modulation, speaking rate and the right pause in emphasising a point. The body language also plays a critical role. Power Point presentation with the right font size, key points without cluttering with good contrast, animations etc are also relevant. The purpose of good communication in short is to impress the target audience and achieve the desired results; be it the closing of an order or attract funding for your business venture. A great communication on the other hand does not have any such rules; its purpose is to express your being. Good communication is goal-based. Great communication is beyond goals and may help you find a purpose.

Good communicator knows that people forget 50% of the contents after a day and 80% after a week and thus need to use mnemonics like AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action) PPF (Past, present, Future) etc. On the other hand, Mahatma Gandhi after addressing a rally in Bengal was asked about his message. He said, “my life is my message.”

Circa 1985, after watching Attenborough’s Gandhi four Australians, quit their jobs and decided to work in the Chennai slums.

Post the training program, my participants may not remember what I said a day before. But I remember what Ashis said a decade back; he recollects what HN conveyed three decades and for HN, his one meeting with Mahatma Gandhi made all the difference for his life!

HN said, “a mediocre teacher confuses, an average teacher explains; a good teacher teaches and a great teacher inspires. “

Image Source: https://www.neskarnataka.edu.in/narasimhaiah/

Do we mean what we say?

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“The Galaxy Z flip 5 is ONLY Rs 99,999/ said the salesman at the mobile counter. Being a latest product from Samsung, we can work out a special price for you with an exchange of the old mobile additional upgrade bonus and extra bank cashback…”

While the salesman was rattling off the technical specifications in his sales pitch; I got stuck at the word ONLY. What happens when people use the word ONLY, is it something to convey or to hide?

Jacob and Isaac were two religious Jews living in an apartment complex with their balconies facing each other. They had not fasted on the Yom Kippur day, the day of atonement. They went to the Rabbi to ask for forgiveness. The Rabbi replied that it is possible only through observing a penance. He asked both about what they liked the most. Jacob said, “sharing the marital bed with my wife.” Rabbi said, “Jacob, for the next three weeks, you shall be sleeping in a separate bedroom.” To the same question, Isaac replied, “smoking a cigar.” Rabbi said , “likewise you are not going to smoke a cigar for the next three weeks.”

One night, Jacob’s wife knocked on his bedroom door. Jacob said, “Darling, it is ONLY the third day. We are not supposed to be together for the next three weeks.” His wife said, “ I ONLY wanted to tell you that Isaac is smoking a cigar.”

There are many undesirable thoughts and images which are in our subconscious mind which try to escape into the conscious mind. The way the word ONLY is used is to push back the undesirable thought coming into the consciousness. You may see that from the bottom of their hearts; both Jacob and his wife wanted to be with each other; but by using the word ONLY; were trying to repress the desire. Rationalization is a process by which a person justifies his action by hiding the real intention. As Voltaire said, ‘men use thought only to justify their wrongdoing and speech only to conceal their thoughts.’

Another example to illustrate the point: While having dinner with my mother-in-law; she said, “Rajan, is the curry over?” I replied, “No, the dal fry is still there. Do you want me to serve you?” She said, “ I ONLY wanted to see whether the fish curry is over or not.” My mother-in-law being a strict vegetarian; finds it difficult to hide her consternation of someone partaking of a non-veg dish while having her meals. You may observe the word only conveys, ‘for heaven’s sake, when will the curry get over?’

When a salesman is telling you that a product costs ONLY Rs 99,999/- what he wants to tell you is that the mobile is economical and value-for-money (as conveyed by the management).What he wants to hide is his personal opinion of the product being expensive. If you are a seller, use ONLY during order closing; but if you are a customer; beware of the trap laid down by the seller.

“Sir, would you like to go for this model?” the salesman interjected. I was taken aback from my reverie of hidden meanings behind the words. “By the way, you shall also get a rebate of around Rs 30,000 on your old mobile; though for specific models.” He added a caveat. When he saw that I was using a Samsung Galaxy A12, an economy model costing only Rs. 12,000, the salesman was in a rude shock. I could see a tapestry of anger, frustration, pity writ largely on his face. “Sir I ONLY need to take this urgent call and shall be back within a minute.” I knew he would not turn back so soon.

So next time when you hear the word ONLY be careful: is your colleague trying to hide more than what he wishes to convey? As someone said, “statistics is like a bikini, it conceals more than it reveals.”

Alienation and Overdependence on Technology

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Last week I had a pre-training meeting with a manager from a MNC having its office in a premium co-working space in Bengaluru. The reception was automated wherein visitors had to key in the details through a tab. I was told by the receptionist that the concerned manager has neither put a request for a visitor nor his name is in the approved client list. As a result, the access gate could not be opened. I spoke with the manager over phone who later came down and escorted me to his first-floor office.

Two days later he sent me a calendar invite for the training program which was scheduled at 9.00 AM in the boardroom at the ground floor. I reached the venue at 8.30 AM. This time I could overcome the first hurdle and get past through the access point. However, the boardroom door could not open. I was told by the security officer that manager of the co-working space Geeta was yet to come. At 8.50 AM Geeta turned up and said, “This is a fully automated and a state-of-the-art co-working space and the lights with LCD projector in the board room shall get activated only at 9.30 AM for which OTP from the registered mobile needs to be shared.” “What do I do till then?” Geeta replied, “as a special case, I shall arrange to get the board room open, without lights though; you can be comfortable there or else you can occupy any of the workstations outside.”

My purpose of reaching before time was to check the connectivity issues with TV, LCD projector etc. For 45 minutes, I literally did nothing. A few participants tried to figure out chairs in the dark room. In fact, one of them had the audacity to ask, “by the way, is it a Value-Selling program or one on meditation?” Others loitered around for a while. With the OTP and the fully automated housekeeping program meeting their desired objectives, the boardroom came to life at 9.30 AM.

At 1.15 PM as the training program was in full swing, there was a power outage for a minute. Geeta was kind enough to say, “this is as per our protocol and you may face a similar outage at 4.30 PM just for a minute; but no need to worry.”

In his book Sane Society published in 1995, Erick Fromm has said that with the increasing use of technology, human beings are prone to suffer from alienation. A feeling of helplessness may creep into people without any scope of a free will. Alienation happens due to Commodification and Abstractification. The former is a feeling of being used as a commodity and the latter is about equating life with numbers.

There are numbers which are put around every activity to determine whether you are efficient or not. If you are meeting your KRAs/KPIs you are in the system; else you are not. Even if you come by 8.30AM, the system does not care till it gets its OTP at a designated time of 9.30 AM.

All these years; preparing for a training program at a conference hall was a simple task. The door could be opened without access control; the lights could be switched on manually and the banquet manager deputed the housekeeping people for AC and other amenities.

Erich Fromm examines man’s escape into overconformity and the danger of robotism in a contemporary industrial society. Modern humanity has been alienated from the world of their own creation. Sane Society was published in 1995 and his predictions were prophetic.

All these years my main concern prior to any training program was about an alignment between the trainer’s preparation and the participants’ expectations. Now I am more worried whether I would be able to get into the conference hall before time and what happens if I were to forget my mobile or the battery gets discharged and unable to receive and share the OTP?

Adlai Stevenson (the former US Ambassador to the UN from 1961-65) has succinctly put it, ‘We are not in the danger of becoming slaves any more, but of becoming robots.’ (Sane Society-1955). With iOT, AI, and ChatGPT bundled into a smartphone, I am wondering who is the REAL robot after all!!

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience- I

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While conducting a stress management program for Scope International, a BPO of Standard Chartered Bank, I asked the participants what their ideas of happiness were. The participants in the age group of 21-30 years shared that the ideas included chill-out in pubs/malls, watching a live cricket match or a movie at a multiplex or on TV. When asked how long one can watch TV on a long weekend or how would they feel after pub-hopping on a late Friday evening? The surprise for them was the subsequent days may be boring.

What is Flow:

Has it ever happened that you were drafting an article, playing an instrument, making a recipe or even completing an official assignment and you got so engrossed in your task that you were oblivious of how time flew and the few hours you spent felt like few minutes?

This phenomenon was termed as Flow by Prof. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who did pioneering work on the above subject for more than 25 years at the University of Chicago.

Viktor Frankl says in Man’s Search for Meaning: happiness like success cannot be chased; the more you pursue, the more it eludes. To be happy, one should be engaged in an activity which is conducted to the best of one’s abilities and which stretches your physical and/or mental capabilities.

If the task is routine, and below your skills level, then you may find it boring; if it is too complex, it will be frustrating. Only when the task complexity is marginally higher than one’s abilities then the likelihood of flow is possible. (Refer the Figure)

Pleasure and Fulfillment

It will be pertinent to note two concepts Pleasure and Fulfillment.

Pleasure: is the experience one gets when one’s goals are achieved which are either set by biological needs like sex, hunger, thirst etc. or social conditioning like money, fame, power or acquiring premium objects of luxury.

Fulfillment: is an experience you get when you stretch your physical and mental limits in achieving a task and while doing so you may achieve something unexpected with a sense of novelty. The activity may not be pleasurable when you were performing it but may look satisfying in retrospect.

When asked to recollect the moments of happiness (in the Standard Chartered example indicated above) one person recollected the arduous struggle he had to undergo for three years with financial difficulties to complete his CA studies. The other person who was an IT administrator said the server in his company was down and he worked for sixteen hours at a stretch and was able to rectify the problem after having worked throughout the night. The moment the server and the entire IT network started working, he not only was relieved but also felt a sense of accomplishment. When the Sr. Management from US appreciated the wonderful job, he was indeed on cloud nine! That is fulfillment. Both these people were able to recollect these incidences vividly even after a gap of three years. On the contrary, they could not recollect the mall or the pub they had visited three weeks back.

People often misrepresent happiness for pleasure which is achieved by goals set by biological programming like homeostasis, a feeling of satiation after having a sumptuous lunch or alcohol. Social conditioning also leads to pleasure includes getting a job with a higher CTC, a senior designation, or a bigger car.

Achieving happiness by controlling Consciousness

Individual consciousness is the representation of the outside and the inner world as experienced by a person and the way she interprets the same, evaluates and takes an action. It is not the external reality per se; but the representation of the same in one’s mind.

The normal state of consciousness is chaos which is evident by the rapid and the random thoughts we have on a day-to-day basis. The normal state affects our attention and leads to distraction e.g., the tendency to look at WhatsApp every few minutes. In case of a flow experience the chaotic contents of the consciousness are rearranged in a systematic way. For example, if you are writing an important document, but every few minutes you are distracted by the notifications, WA messages, mobile calls, your mind is in a chaotic state. However, if you keep your mobile in a silent mode and keep it at a distance and concentrate fully on that document with full attention; you may get into a flow state wherein your mind may be able to appreciate the finer nuances and the complexities of the project.

Bringing Order to Chaos

Flow can be considered as bringing order to consciousness. It is relatively easy to experience flow when the external circumstances are favourable. However there are rare situations where people like Veer Savarkar or Albert Schweitzer were able to get into flow in spite of hostile circumstances.

Veer Savarkar was incarcerated in cellular Jail in Andaman Islands from 1911 to 1920. He was subjected to extreme hardship involving leg iron chains, crossbar fetters, flogging, extracting oil from coconuts, and neck-ring shackles. The tiny solitary cell of 10’x10’ was aimed at making a nervous wreck out of him. Despite such trying circumstances, with no access to paper and pen/pencil, Veer Savarkar was able to produce an exceptional quality of Marathi poetry and prose on his room walls by writing using nails and safety pins.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer was an Alsatian polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher and a physician. He was known for setting up his medical hospitals in Lambarene, Africa. He was born in Alsace which was on the border of Germany and France. Due to some technical issue on his citizenship, he was incarcerated in a German jail. He also had a passion for Western Classical music and later obtained his Ph.D. for interpretation of Bach. To continue his music practice in jail, he used a wooden plank, in the absence of a conventional church organ.

Limits of Consciousness

It is said that at any moment, the human mind can process 7 bits of information. The shortest time to record the data in mind is 1/18^th of a second. That means each second the mind can process 18 X 7 bits of information, which is 126 bits per second. It translates to 7560 bits per minute, 0.5 million bits per hour and around 185 billion bits of information can be stored in the mind for an average of 70 years. To understand a person, it requires around 40 bits/second. Now the 185 billion bits of information is stored in terms of thoughts, feelings, words and action.(1)

How do we use this information? Do we use it wisely or otherwise? 15% of our waking time is spent on daily chores, washing, eating, ablutions etc. The free time that we get we spend watching TV, reading WA, newspapers, gossip etc. Such activities do not stretch the mind. It does not allow the mind to process added information by making efforts or make the consciousness complex. (2) Can we perform the day-to-day activities with awareness? Can you focus your attention and delete the unwanted information that hits you every now and then? If you can do that by bringing order into your consciousness you are getting into flow.

When flow happens

Flow happens when there is a balance between the skills the person possesses and the challenges he faces through the external environment. If the challenges are much higher than the available skills then anxiety sets in. Whereas if the task is too simple then boredom happens. Thus, flow is a golden mean between anxiety and boredom.

The body is an excellent medium to achieve flow. Jogging, Yoga, martial arts, sports, tai-chi, meditation can help the body to achieve flow. Involving different sense organs for appreciating music, photography, painting, relishing food can help achieve flow.

It can be achieved by using intellect and includes writing or appreciation of poetry, philosophy, mathematics, physics, literature etc. An attitude of life-long learning is extremely important.

Flow can also happen by cultivating hobbies. However, a person has the maximum scope of getting flow experiences at his workplace. Most of us work to pay our bills, earn a living and the provision of security. We feel that we enjoy life more during our free time. Given a choice we prefer to have more leisure and less work. But the converse is true. People can get more flow experiences at the workplace ( provided they enjoy their work) than at leisure and as Thomas Carlyle said, ‘blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.’

What you do during your work hours will determine what you have. What you do during your leisure will decide who you are. – George Eastman

Reference:

Limits of Consciousness: Miller (1956), Orme ( 1959) on the basis of Uexkull’s ( 1957) calculations on 1/18^th Second as the threshold of discrimination.
Free Time: ESM Studies by Csikszentmihalyi , Larson and Prescott (1977)

Image source: assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1550649362i/27091258._SX540_.png

Adversity and Personal Growth

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In one of the LinkedIn posts, a lady CEO had shared that her son who is in 9^th standard could not trace his Physics book, just prior to the exams. His mother was in office whom the son was desperately trying to get in touch with. The lady who was busy in some urgent meeting did not notice his call due to some urgent preoccupation. The mother was quite worried about the pain her son went through for the three hours and had a great sense of guilt for not supporting her son during such trying circumstances.

What’s better for a child? Providing everything on the platter by eliminating all the uncertainties or learning by trial-and-error and figuring it out in life? The former may be good in the short-term but is it so in the long-term too?

Seema, a lady in her late 30s, once called me over phone (at her father’s behest) for career guidance. She has done her B.Com, MBA in HR as well as a few courses in computer programming. She has worked in top-notch software companies as a programmer and then in HR. She wanted advice about a career in corporate training. The only child of her parents, and from a well-to-do family background, having travelled widely across the globe, she was exploring options for her professional career growth.

Her father, BK is an eminent Marathi author of around 20 books and is an editor of a prestigious Marathi magazine which he ran for 25 odd years. He spent his childhood in a 450 sq feet house, with six family members and from a lower middle class background in Mumbai.

BK’s father was a dedicated worker for the Communist Party in 1950-70s with no regular fixed income. BK’s mother, a teacher in a municipal school, managed the household with her meagre salary. Once BK shared with me that his father hardly knew which class the children studied while the mother rarely interfered in the children’s studies.

BK went through challenging circumstances in his childhood as well as in his professional life. At 40, after achieving relative financial stability, he decided that he would not work henceforth only to earn a livelihood. Having detected a sense of purpose, BK decided that he would devote his life for the propagation of quality Marathi Literature. Some of his books include biographies of unknown but highly accomplished personalities. Seema having lived a comfortable childhood and adult life vis-à-vis her father, still is not able to detect a purpose of life at a corresponding age.

BK was once saying, “Quite often, I come across youngsters from well-to-do families who insist that they need to have their personal space and a me-time. What do they really want? I never had such issues in my younger days; even at our 450 sq ft tenement, six people living together.”

As poet Dylan Thomas once said, ‘There is one thing that is worse than having an unhappy childhood and that is having too-happy a childhood.’

Does it mean that children from well-educated and cultured background do not succeed? Of course, they do, in terms of good qualifications, a decent job, high CTC etc. In short they ‘settle down in life’ as per the conventional standards of society.

Some of the factors for success or achievement depends on genetics/heredity, stable family background and also getting the right opportunity, aka luck.

Such children may join the best of the schools, the premium upmarket classes to get into the premium professional colleges. Does the best of the schooling make someone a genius? Lewis Terman from Stanford University and Leta Hollingworth from Columbia university refined the Binet scale to develop the IQ scale. They began identifying children who scored exceptionally well on this IQ tests and those who scored above 130 were identified as genius. Around 1500 students were mapped for their career growth. Most of them were from privileged backgrounds and achieved career and financial success. Dean Keith Simonton in his book Creative Genius terms such students as ‘gifted children.’

Out of these 1500 children there was one person in the group who did not qualify the high IQ types whose talent was overlooked who was William Shockley, the cocreator of transistor and the winner of Nobel in physics. (1)

Francis Galton in his 1869 classic Hereditary Genius defines genius in terms of ‘enduring reputation’. By this Galton meant the opinion of contemporaries revised by posterity. People who have changed the existing paradigms of knowledge, new concepts of social order or credited with pathbreaking inventions like Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Galileo, Marx, Freud, Mahatma Gandhi can be termed as genius by the above criterion. Incidentally none of them were exceptionally brilliant applying Terman’s yardstick.

Gifted children’s parents are well educated with at least one of them being professional like a doctor, lawyer, engineer, CA etc. They have intellectually stimulating environments like book collection, visiting museums, attending music concerts etc.

Social scientists have, however, found that very few gifted children could become geniuses. There are a number of factors beyond stable home, infrastructure and genetics which distinguish a creative genius from a conventionally brilliant person. One such factor is whether the person has faced any adversity.

Handicaps like physical or sensory disabilities helped them to reinvent themselves. Somerset Maugham, a renowned British writer used to stammer; Edison became almost deaf by 12. Aldous Huxley, the eminent writer of Brave New World, suffered from an eye infection which made him nearly blind. (2)

In case of adversities, the correlation of creativity with parents’ bereavement has attracted considerable attention of social scientists. In an ambitious study of 699 eminent persons, it was found that 45% of lost either or both the parents before 21 which include Boyle, Newton, Pascal, Priestly, Descartes, Russel, Sartre etc. (3) For creative writers, 55% of them had lost their parent before 15 and for the British Prime Ministers it was 63% (4)

Social scientists have postulated three hypothesis why adversities maketh a man:

Bereavement Hypothesis: states the child gets into an act of achievement to overcome emotional trauma.
Development of Robust Personality: states the child develops an inner strength to overcome obstacles. Satish Gujral was an eminent painter, sculptor, muralist and writer who was honoured with Padmavibhushan. As a child, while crossing a rickety bridge he slipped and fell into the rapids which resulted in impaired hearing for a major portion of his life. Once an interviewer asked him about the fountain of his creativity, he said, “ maybe that I need to prove my existence on a daily basis.”
Divergence Development Hypothesis: Is the tendency to give up the well-trodden path and opt for the road less travelled. A person with a settled and a comfortable background has parents, close relative or a teacher for guidance. A person going through adversity or not-so-stable a home has to create a wider circle of influence which may include meeting strangers in trains/buses, a newspaper article, gatecrashing in a company looking out for a job etc. The urge to make new friends and acquaintances in an unknown city also rises with adversity. Apart from making one street-smart, it also helps in enhancing conventional and tacit knowledge.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi when he was 10, left his home in search of a guru from his native place Gadag to different places. With monetary help from co-passengers in train, first he moved to Pune and for the next three years moved around in Gwalior, Lucknow, Delhi, Calcutta. After three years of struggle, Sawai Gandharwa took him as disciple in Dharwad. Similar stories are true for Naushad, Sudhir Phadke etc.

By providing a sanitized environment to our children not only in the physical sense but also on emotional and spiritual perspective; are we enabling for their growth or otherwise?

As Seneca said, ‘I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without any opponent. No one can ever know what you were capable of, not even you.’

References:

1. Eyesenck H.J. (1995), The Natural History of Creativity

2. Goertzel M.G. et al (1978), Three Hundred Eminent Personalities

3. Dean Keith Simonton, Origins of Genius, Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity, p116 ( includes around 115 examples)

4. Berrington H, ( 1974) The fiery Chariot, Prime Ministers and the Search for Love, British Journal of Political Science 4, 345-69

5. Wikipedia

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Enhancing Training Effectiveness thro’ the Law of Diffusion of Innovation

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Any form of training is ultimately a change management program where the organization expects its executives to approach a problem with a different behaviour, attitude, or a skill. In a highly competitive market where customers are spoilt for choice, the main challenge for salespeople is to effectively demonstrate the value of their products and services to handle the discount issue. There are two approaches in scheduling a training program: a conventional Giving-on-a-Platter (platter) approach and a rarely practised Earning-One’s-Stripes ( Stripes) approach. The following example will compare and contrast both the approaches.

Aristo India is a leading manufacturer of sliding wardrobes and kitchen cabinets with HO at Bangalore. Mr. Kuruvilla Kurian, the Sales Director had a different approach to having a Value-Selling training for his pan-India team which include:

Voluntary Participation: Only those salespeople who are interested can apply for the program. In a Conventional Platter approach, attendance is compulsory as decided by the senior management and HR.
Efforts prior to Participation: Application for a training program does not guarantee enrolment. Each applicant needs to write a 500-words essay to articulate one’s raison d’ etre. The essay was carefully evaluated by Ms. Sudipta Shetty, Head-CRM to understand the applicant’s sincerity and the originality of thought. – In a platter approach, there are no efforts. Participants either click on a link to register or fill up a form for enrolment.
Post-Training Implementation: Based on their essays, a 2-day program titled Value-Selling of Premium Wardrobe Solutions was designed. During the program commencement, the participants stated the challenges which were predominantly external factors like customers do not listen, they are price sensitive, they are interested only in discounts etc. During the training program, the participants underwent role plays simulating the real-life situations. By the program conclusion it was shown that some of the problems had an internal locus of control for the sales team like inappropriate body language of the seller, miscommunication, lack of probing, listening etc. The videographed role plays were replayed with exhaustive debriefing.

Post training, Kuru and Sudipta decided that conducting similar role plays for each region internally could be a better way of enhancing the learning effectiveness. Sudipta took the initiative in arranging the same. A review session with the trainer on a virtual platform was subsequently arranged for implementation of the action plan.

In the platter approach, normally the program gets concluded with a standard feedback form.

THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION theory describes the pattern and speed at which innovative ideas, practices, or products spread through a population which can be correlated in the present article to bringing a cultural change (in beliefs, attitude, values etc.) through training. The main players in a group are classified as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The new ideas are adopted sequentially first by the innovators and lastly by the laggards.

Innovators ( 2.5%) : They are willing to risk and accept any new ideas.
Early Adopters( 13.5%) : Are already aware of the need to change and are comfortable adopting new ideas.
Early Majority (34%) : They need the evidence that the innovation works before willing to adopt it.
Late Majority ( 34%): They are sceptical of change and will only adopt if it has been tried by the early majority.
Laggards ( 16%): Are bound by tradition and are conservative.

The characteristics of the Platter approach are:

It targets the entire population irrespective of their intent and the degree of willingness to change.
Being mandatory it may degenerate into an ‘event’ in terms of food, ambience, entertainment thro fun/videos and freebies for the majority (early and late) and the laggards.
A CHRO from a renowned construction company shared that their managers are interested only in branded programs from IIMs where the main motive is certification.
Quite often the line managers are reluctant to nominate their reportees for the program complaining that it affects the completion of their immediate tasks. I am not sure whether they too belong to the majority and the laggards.

How does the stripes approach differ from the platter approach? The former targets only the early adopters rather than the entire group. It also does not link training program to certification, promotion, or increments but only to the interest and the initiative of the participant. The diffusion of training to other segments like majority and laggards is ultimately decided by the program quality and the way the early adopters spread the message.

The platter approach makes training mandatory treating all the subgroups like early adopters, late majority, laggards in the same bracket whereas the stripes approach creates a demand for training. The first batch of Value Selling program for Aristo India was targetted for the early adopters. This in turn has created so much buzz that others are willing to enrol for the second batch but only after going through the rigour of an essay and a selection process. Remember, anything that is given on a platter is never valued. The difference between the two approaches is summarized in the table below.

PLATTER VS STRIPES APPROACH


	Platter	Stripes
Management Paradigm	Training is mandatory	Training is optional
Target Segment	Random, no specific target	Early Adopters
Enrolment	By Default	Selection thro’ an Essay
Participant Mindset	Reactive	Proactive
Locus of Control	External like certification	Internal – Job Enrichment
Efforts by HR	Normal	Extensive
Buy-in from the non-attendees	Not Applicable	Creates demand depending on the program quality and the buzz.

The Ikea Effect – Customer as a Co-Creator of Value

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Recently the Swedish Furniture giant IKEA opened its Bangalore store spread over 12 acres at Nagasandra in Bangalore. There was such an overwhelming response that people had to wait for three hours to get an entry. IKEA, a Swedish MNC is a $47Bn company with 458 stores in 50 countries with 225,000 staff.

The business model of IKEA is to make affordable and contemporary furniture on a global scale. The pain points in the existing furniture market were:

Traditionally packed furniture was prone to damage during transit.
The cost of transportation was high.

IKEA developed a flat packaging mechanism. The flat boxes reduced storage space and thus the transport cost. Its target segment were the price sensitive customers.

With DIY ( do-it-yourself) kits, IKEA helped the customers to assemble their own furniture, eliminated the intermediaries like wholesalers, retailer and thus involved the end customer directly in the value chain. It also decided to manufacture standardized products keeping in the cultural context.

The company takes care in understanding the customer needs. E.g. ‘Kurs’ was a small bedside table with a drawer. The product did not succeed in the US even though it had a major success in the European market. The market intelligence revealed that shallow drawers with plastic slides was one of the major deterrents. IKEA reworked the design with deep drawers and non-plastic slides. After 4 years it was a top selling product in the US.

Along with the furniture kits, the customers are provided with tape measures, shopping list, pencil and a writing pad. Pick up vans and mini trucks are also arranged for the last mile connectivity.

What does Ikea do to attract customers?

The company has built large stores where you can leave your kids for play activities.
The stores are lit through electricity 24/7 without access to sunlight, a trick borrowed from Casinos; the clocks are either fake or do not tell the right time. – you lose your sense of time and unknowingly buy more.
The stores are designed in such a way that you only follow one direction you walk from one end to the other.
It puts arrows on the floor to complement the maze layout of the stores. – you need not think where to go next – just follow the arrows.
Impulse Buying: Placing bedsheets next to the beds, pillows next to the sofa persuades the customer in impulse buying. The customer says, “let me buy it now else I have to come once again. “
30% shoppers go there to eat. In 2017 IKEA made $2.24 Bn on selling food.
Most of the stores are located outside the city limits. Apart from getting large parcels of land at economical prices for constructing large stores, the customers also tend to think that they need to make their trip worth it. The commitment to buy make them justify the time and petrol spent. This is a cognitive bias called as sunk cost fallacy.
After waiting in a long queue, a customer buys a table, goes home, assembles it; puts it on facebook showing the efforts he has taken thus giving free publicity to Ikea. Incidentally Michael Norton of Harvard Business School, Daniel Mochon of Yale and Dan Ariely of Duke University have identified a cognitive bias called as Ikea effect where consumers place a disproportionately high value on the product they have partially created. In an experiment conducted in 2011, a group of participants were asked to assemble the Ikea furniture whereas others were shown the pre-built version of the same furniture. The subjects from group 1 ( assembled by self) rated the price 63% higher than the group2 ( readymade)

Some of the reasons people who do self-assembly are:

They feel competent
Display the evidence that they are competent.
A perception of saving money and thus being a smart shopper.

As a seller, you can learn how Ikea has changed the paradigm of customers from recipients of value to co-creators of value. As a buyer, beware of the traps!

Blindspot and Bias

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The opening slides in my Value-Selling program read as follows:
The main objective of the program is to help you improve the Top-Line and Bottom-Line performance. When the training program commenced the conversation between the trainer and the participants used to be on the following lines:
T: Is the objective clear?
P: Yes.
T: Do you need any clarification?
P: No.
T: Can I go to the next slide?
P: Yes please.
As I was getting similar responses from different batches, a few programs later, I decided to check my assumptions and asked the group:
“By the way, what do the two terms mean to you?” and most of the responses ( barring a few correct ones) were as follows:
Top-Line : meeting the top boss, closing the order, profits etc.
Bottom-Line: making a cold call, meeting a purchase executive, handling objections, achieving the targets etc.
With a simple profit-and-loss statement, the discrepancy between their response and the right answer was shown. When asked about the learning from the exercise, the response was that the top-line and bottom-line correspond to revenue and profitability respectively.

Welcome to the world of human biases, which are distinctive patterns of errors people make which are systematic in nature, wherein people may be confident even when they are wrong. The above example shows that people were not only blind to a specific concept ( top/bottom line) but were blind to their blindness too. (None of them said, I do not know)

A Chennai based petrochemicals company had set an objective to achieve a top-line of Rs. 500 crores within the next five years from the existing revenue of Rs. 62 crores in 2008.
When asked, the promoters replied that they have a basket of great products, competitive pricing, good location and a rising demand. What they did not factor were poor leadership quality (lack of trust and transparency, frequent squabbles between the CEO and MD,) high attrition rate, lack of proper systems and processes etc. External factors like the market dynamics, petroleum pricing, competition strategy etc were assumed to remain constant or were not considered while setting such a target. The company which had clocked Rs. 62 crores in 2008 managed to reach around Rs 115 crores by 2015 . As Nassim Nicholas Taleb says in Black Swan, ‘what you do not know is more significant than what you know.’

Till the 70s, it was assumed that human beings are rational animals who become irrational only under the influence of emotions like anger, fear. The subsequent research in neuroscience and psychology has proved otherwise. Irrationality is an integral part of human nature and is due to the inherent design of the human cognitive processes.

Another bias which affects decision making is the Illusion of Understanding; a variation of which is Illusion of Explanatory Depth–IOED which was coined by Leonid Rosenblatt and Frank Keil.
The illusion of explanatory depth (IOED) is the belief that we know more about the world than we do. When we are asked to explain the concept, then we become aware of our limited understanding.
Fact or process knowledge has a discrete end and can thus be described. Explanatory knowledge which is about opinions and beliefs does not have a discrete end and is difficult to explain. The interesting part is even if your explanation is not sound or comprehensive you feel you understand. You convert a target question ( difficult) to a heuristic ( easy ) question.
During one of our training programs, Pradip, a die-hard Modi Bhakt made a statement: Modi is a great leader. When asked to explain the concept he said, “ because he has many followers.”
T: Are you aware of the numbers?
P: It must be at least in crores; it is difficult to state.
T: A celebrity like a cricketer or a Bollywood hero also has followers in crores. Does it make them great leaders?
P:Forget that. He has performed well in short term and long -term.
T: What is your definition of short-term and term?
P: It can be one year and five years.
T: Did Modi get that time?
P: Yes
T: What are the indicators of performance, and do they indicate a good growth of economy?
P: Frankly speaking, I do not know.
The above is not only relevant for die-hard followers but also for bashers. Taking the converse of a statement, Modi is not a good leader, the basher may also be short of arguments after similar probing. The hatred and the polarization that is happening in the society can be reduced if we can get stumped by the level of our ignorance.

Generally, it is felt that passionate people are more knowledgeable, but the converse may be also true. Passionate people who take a vehement stand on issues like CAA/NRC, Rights of Minorities, LGBTQ, Religious Freedom, abortion etc. tend to focus on only one side of the coin which is essentially to prove a point rather than explore the truth. IOED states that knowledge of a subject might be inversely proportional to your passion and the stand you take. It is easy to state a fact or a process than explaining something in depth.

There is a thin line of demarcation between confidence and hubris. In the world of VUCA ( Volatility, Uncertainty, Ambiguity and Complexity) humility is more important than hubris.
I recollect my interaction with Narayanan, an eminent trainer from Chennai. I enquired about one of his public programs. “By the way, how did it go?” He said, “the program had to be cancelled due to poor response.” What might be the reason? He said, “frankly speaking I do not know. If someone were to ask me a question for a similar situation 20 years back; I would have confidently said the problem has to do with the timing, location, pricing etc. But today being in this field for so long; I do not know why some events succeed and some do not. However, such setbacks do not deter me, it is all a question of randomness which one must factor in life.”

Socrates made a clear distinction between knowledge and wisdom. A knowledgeable person maybe knowing things; however, he may act foolish as he may be too confident in what he knows. A wise person, on the contrary, cannot act foolish as he knows his limitations. He knows what he does not know.
Socrates said, “the one thing I know is that I know nothing.” This was not out of humility, but it was an expression of reality.

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

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Abraham Lincoln had no choice but to sack one of his army generals for losing a battle during the Civil war for his sheer stupidity when victory seemed almost certain. In his witty style Lincoln said, “He has managed to wring a spectacular defeat from the jaws of victory.”

Congress was the ruling party in Punjab with 77 out of 117 seats under the CM Amarinder Singh. The alliance of BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) had 21 seats.

The alliance partner SAD parted ways with the BJP for the latter’s high-handed approach in dealing with its allies. Moreover, discontent was brewing for long in Punjab due to the farmers’ protests, the bulldozing of the farm-laws in the parliament by the government, the sudden lockdown during the pandemic which forced untold miseries on the migrant workers.

Considering the weak opposition, victory was on the platter for the congress. No doubt, Captain Singh had his follies, he was not accessible there was discontent brewing in the party. But it could have been resolved amicably. But Rahul Gandhi thought otherwise. Navjot Singh Sidhu was thrust upon the state leadership. Captain Singh was replaced by a Charan Singh Channi who did not have much following in the state politics. And AAP created history taking its tally from 18 seats to a record of 92 seats. Is this an isolated instance of stupidity on part of Rahul Gandhi? (1)

In 2004, Manmohan Singh took over as the PM leading the UPA-1.Having completed his first term as the PM, the nation was ready for the Lok Sabha elections in 2009. What were his achievements?

From 2004-2009 the economy logged a growth of 9%, the highest rate for any plan period since independence. He stood up to the manipulations of the Left and the opposition in signing the Nuclear Deal between India and the US.

Despite these splendid achievements, the party high command had doubts of winning the election. Manmohan Singh’s photo was printed on the Election manifesto as well as on the election posters. If the party were to lose, it was the PM’s defeat. Incidentally, a Senior political journalist while speaking to Ahmed Patel confided that Rahul Gandhi was ready to be the leader of the opposition and be the agent of Change and differentiate from Dr. Manmohan Singh (2)

Lo Behold! After 1962, Dr. Manmohan Singh had become the first PM to have been re-elected with an improved margin. Congress improved the tally of LS seats from 145 to 206. ( 9 more than what Rajiv Gandhi had achieved in 1989)

But then how was this Star Performer treated by the ‘family’? Was he given a free hand to choose his team members? For example, for the finance portfolio, Dr. Singh wanted to induct C. Rangarajan, the former RBI governor with whom he had battled the BoP ( Balance of Payment) Crisis during the Narasimha Rao regime. Sonia Gandhi offered the portfolio to Pranab Mukherjee without consulting him. Incidentally, Pranab Mukherjee was the ‘architect’ of the retrospective tax regime ( the Vodafone case of Rs. 22,100 crores on Capital Gains and Withholding Tax which the GOI lost in the International Court at the Hague) which was one of the factors of slowing down of India’s economy growth rate. It also impacted India’s credibility in the international business (3)

By the time the Lok Sabha elections for 1996 were announced, the P.V. Narasimha Rao-led Government formed by Congress had delivered one of the most spectacular performances in a 5-year period then. India was able to overcome the BoP ( Balance of Payments) crises. ( The foreign exchange reserves rose 12 times from 1991 to 1996) License Raj was abolished, the New Industrial Policy was launched, the insurance and the banking sector was opened to the private sector and the new telecom policy was to usher in the mobile revolution. In fact,1991 is termed as a watershed year, also called as India’s 2^nd Independence.

But did the Star Performer who was responsible for delivering such an outstanding performance suitably rewarded? Forget being rewarded or being acknowledged, P.V. Narasimha Rao was humiliated not only when he was alive but even after his death. But did the Congress party or Rahul Gandhi win? Congress lost power despite the best performance delivered by the Rao Government. ( A forgotten Hero or a Ungrateful Nation?)

The three incidents discussed above prove the adage that insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results!

There are different approaches in helping the non-performing executives in improve their deliverables which include coaching, mentoring, reprimanding or if nothing works, the dismissal. But then how do you deal with star performers who are already doing well and need no interference? The cost involved when such a Star is demotivated increases exponentially when one is heading a department, an organization, or the nation. In the last instance, the damage is humongous. The article is not about Rahul Gandhi and his personality per se. but more about the orientation of a toxic leader. I come across a common refrain in my mentoring sessions that people do not change the organization but their bosses.

Do toxic leaders like star performers? The question is not about liking and needs reframing. Can toxic leaders manage the star performers? I doubt as they are afraid of being surpassed by their subordinates which might be due to a deep insecurity and a trust deficit which increases in direct proportion to the subordinate’s achievement.

A concept called Wu-Wei can be helpful for effective leaders particularly in managing the star performers. Wu-Wei is loosely translated as ‘letting-go’ as followed in Tao-Te-Ching which denotes :

An attitude of genuine NON-ACTION motivated by a lack of desire to participate in human affairs.
A technique by which the practitioner may get a subtle control in pushing the envelope.

Some of you might have collaborated with good bosses who practised wu-wei can consider yourself to be lucky. And those, the less fortunate (?) in getting the toxic bosses- were you able to realize your potential by moving elsewhere or venturing on your own?

References:

The art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory – Capt. G.R. Gopinath ( Retd.) , Deccan Herald, 16^th March 2022
The Accidental Prime Minister- Sanjay Baru
The Lost Decade ( 2008-2018), How India’s Growth Story devolved into Growth without a Story – Pooja Mehra