Day 334 - My Influences

Earlier last week, I attended a training program on 'Influencing Skills', along with a few of my colleagues!  Coming just after two days of campus hiring at Indore (and the resultant nostalgia around being in a campus environment all over again), this two day training program really made me feel like a student again.  The first day was a complete wash-out as the trainer could not hold our collective attentions together.  The second day was much better as the trainer learnt from the mistakes of the first day.

The reason that I mention this in this post is that at the start of the training program we were all asked the question : 'Who has been a big influence on you and why?' and that got me thinking about all the people who have been able to influence my thought processes, behaviours and even values and ethics, over the years.

First and foremost have been my parents, who ensured that the right values and ethics are ingrained from very early on.  I have written about this in a previous post and hence will not repeat myself.

During my school days, Samir Raiyani was a big influence.  Purely because his was a multifaceted personality. And he was good at whatever he got himself involved in.

A couple of others, namely Wali Azam Chaudhary and Ganesh Iyer, whom I have worked for in the past have also been very strong influences.  Both these gentlemen are very dynamic and are gifted with the ability to think out of the box.  Their sense of righteousness was also very inspiring.

Then there are a couple of others whom I worked with and have been quite impressed.  Vijay Lavate and Venu Madhav Indurthi figure in this category.  Especially with Vijay, I have had a very long association.  He is an ideal example of how one can reach for greater and better things while still being grounded to humble beginnings and core values.  Venu had this great ability to always speak his mind come what may, almost bordering on arrogance!

Inevitably, a lot of public personalities have also been great inspirations.  Mahatma Gandhi for his innovation, Amitabh Bachchan for the ability and the will to stand up and fight back every time he is down and out and Sachin Tendulkar for the consistency and sheer passion for his trade!

Hence, there is inspiration in people all around us.  One can learn a lot by just watching them.  Provided, of course, that we keep our eyes, ears and minds open to the key qualities that these people possess.

By the way, the training program was all about conceptual models of influencing skills to be aware of in work situations, which this post is not.

Take care.

Day 333 - The 'High Maintenance' Workplace

This week I was speaking to Navin Kumar, who now works in London.  During the conversation, one of the things that he mentioned, was the stark contrast in the way people work in teams in India compared to those in London.  Navin now is part of and leads a team of three people.  He was telling me how very professional the staff in his team were, which required the least amount of supervision.  Though we did not speak about this, but I am assuming that they have a clear distinction between their personal and professional lives, and hence the amount of distractions at work are less.

After this conversation, in my mind, I was trying to juxtapose the same to an Indian work environment, which is very different.  The workplace in India is, what I would like to call, a 'high maintenance' workplace.  There are far more people issues to resolve than real business issues.  As a manager, the people management component of your job seems to take up a considerable amount of time.  Loads of inter-personal issues to resolve; a complex and irrational web of cold wars to contend with.  Why is this the case? 

I think there are many reasons for it.  The first, but not a convincing, reason for this is the average age of the workforce in India.  With the demographic advantage of having such a large population of young working people, comes the disadvantage of majority of this population being immature.  Some are literally out of college / graduate school and the workplace to them, is probably just another place to hang out with friends.  One tends to think and behave in extremes at a younger age, which is never good for human relationships.  The maturity to understand relationships from a win-win perspective is largely absent. 

This bring us to the second reason, which is competition.  A large part of such immature behaviour is driven by competition.  The sheer amount of population that India has and the density of it in urban centres is driving people hard to compete; compete at any cost, like there is no tomorrow.  There are no age limits for competing, but it is very obvious that the younger age of the workforce makes it even more difficult as when one is young one tends to compete very hard, just to be able to make a mark as soon as possible.

The third and probably the weirdest reason is fear!  The fear of a perceived threat from peers and others around us.  We are finding it hard to trust each other.  However, if we dig deeper, we find that most of our fears are simply irrational. Finding a couple of spare minutes to be with yourself and reflecting on your own personal fears might show you just that – that they are grounded not in reality, but in some perceived threat that really doesn’t exist.

The fourth and the last one might be the strange belief in everyone that they are the centre of the universe, around which everything rotates!  The human ego!  Having an ego is well and good, but the problem is,that everyone believes the same and has an ego. 

So, what can be done to about this?  How can we direct such large amounts of raw energy in the right direction without any distractions?  One of the solutions could be to break the hierarchy of the organisation and make everyone an individual contributor!  Make them work alone.  However, this will not work as humans are social animals and prefer to argue and fight with people than bear the loneliness that comes along with living and working alone.  I believe what can help is talking to each other, including open conversations about issues.  This is the only way you can dissipate the emotional constipation that work relationships sometimes tend to create.  The ability and intent to empathise with others will also help.  It is very important to cultivate this quality in one and all.

Finally, it is important to accept the fact that any group of people working with each other will have it's own varieties of misunderstandings, misconceptions, perceptions and the resultant bickering and fights.  It is however necessary to ensure that they do not impact the common goal of the group and the personal doesn't get mixed up with the professional, more so for us Indians, because we are by nature very expressive about their emotions.

Take care.

Day 328 - 10 Saal Baad

Dave Ka Divya (Garam) Masala. 

Or, try another one.  Jai Maa Bhavani Jhatka Mutton Shop.

If you are wondering if I have finally lost it, I am not yet there.  These are just two of the many interesting names of shops that I saw recently in Indore.  As I said in my last post,  I was at Indore last week for campus recruitment.  This post is about that trip.  Will leave the mundane (and the official) stuff out of this for obvious reasons.  However, the other bits of those two days in the capital of the Holkars, were very interesting, to say the least.  You might have to pardon me if you find that my sense of wonderment in discovering or knowing about small and interesting things is in working overtime, but I would rather prefer it that way.

So, coming back to the city of Indore.  Literally, after close to 10 years!  The first thing that you notice about the place is that there has been a lot of changes (read construction) in the last 10 years.  Clearly, Indore has been part of the 'India Rising' story.  Also, a lot of this seems a bit rough at the edges; still work in progress, maybe.  However, I distinctly remember the airport and the approach roads to it, which have not changed much.  Same can be said for most of the arterial roads in the interiors of the city.  But it is definitely a city which is expanding its limits.  Large tracts of barren land which were previously on the outskirts of the city are now teeming with commercial complexes and malls.  Hence, in a weird way, it looks like a city which has changed a lot, but still maintains an old world charm about it!  Hence a 'Dave Ka Divya (Garam) Masala' does not necessarily look out of place at all.  It is just very amusing for individuals like me who have lived most of their lives over the last 10 years in the concrete jungles, that our metro cities have become.



Indore Airport

I am no sociologist but I sense that with the steady growth of the city and its infrastructure, the ambition and aspirations of the people.  Most of the young people that I met on the campuses during the two days, appeared bullish, had the ability to dream; and dream big, and given the opportunities, I would not be surprised if they actually go on to realise those dreams as well in the future!  A lot of them were very well-informed and aware of what is happening around them.  For some, there were,  of course, still challenges around issues like strong mother tongue accents and a very localized view of the world.



Treasure Island Mall




Rajwada

It is a pity thought that we couldn't visit more places of interest and explore the city in the two days that we were there.  We drove by the Rajwada, a seven storey palace built by the Holkars.  We also drove past the Treasure Island mall, which I understand was the first of its kind in the whole of Madhya Pradesh, in spite of Bhopal being the capital of the state.  The place of interest where we did spent some time though was '56 Dukaan', known so because of the 56 shops / eateries offering various kinds of chaat items.  Everything was very tasty, just as we were told they would be!  I started out with a Hot Dog (not the American one; this is the vegetarian Indore version), moved onto Masala Puri, tucked into an Aloo Bonda and a Samosa to keep it company and topped it all off with a Mango Kulfi!  Phew!  I felt like I had already had the next day's breakfast!  I was reminded of 'Khaana Peeni Gali' in my own hometown, Ahmedabad!  But thank heavens, I did not even dare try the below:

A Faloooda-Rabdi-Icecream-Kulfi Delight

That is Sanjeev Wason celebrating Indore and our rich haul from the city with a sinful dessert!

On a more personal note, I met up with Khandu after about 7 years, which was good.  Could have been a mini alumni meet if I had known that another batch mate of ours was staying at the same hotel that I was in!

Destiny.  Take care.

Day 326 - The Whirlwind

Writing blogs is a time-intensive hobby.  I have not been able to post anything for the last couple of weeks.  This is partly due to me being extremely busy and partly, because the infrastructure required to do so has not been available!  Hence, this post is going to be all about what I have been up to for the last twenty days.

I have been busy with a constant stream of visitors at work, ensuring that the family celebrates a decent Diwali, making arrangements for the housewarming ceremony, ferrying near and dear ones from home to airport and vice versa, shifting my house and travelling to Indore for campus recruitment.

Diwali was enjoyable and fun; we had a good time celebrating the day with Amiya and Farheen.  The kids were all excited about their new clothes and bursting crackers.  Sweets and savouries made by Priya added some more pounds on to my circumference.  Just after Diwali, Obama-mania hit the country.  The joke was that he had come to India after watching 'Enthiran' and was to make an offer to the PM to swap all of USA's military might and cutting edge technology for Rajanikant!  However, seriously speaking, there was indeed a lot of hype around the visit; half of South Mumbai was washed and (tooth)combed for this visit.  Interestingly, he began his visit in Mumbai, making it very clear as to what his priorities were.  Coming to India, just after a defeat in the mid-term senate polls in the US, this was not surprising.  And guess what, one of the first things that he did was announce business deals worth $10 billion which would create jobs for Americans!  Pamela Anderson was the first recruit.

Just after Diwali was the housewarming ceremony on November 8th.  With a start time of 3 AM this was one long day, by the end of which I was so tired that I decided not to go to work the next day; one of those rare occasions when I have had to take an unplanned casual leave!

Housewarming done; next up was the stressful job of shifting the house.  The job was completed in a single day last Sunday.  It was very stressful, especially for Priya, but with my mother-in-law and aunt's help we got through it.  We are still in the process of arranging (and rearranging) everything in the house, but it is much better than last Sunday, when the house resembled a minefield!

The visit to Indore yesterday and the day before for campus recruitment was just after the shifting; with me leaving everything in the house to be managed by Priya!  Business as usual; no surprises!  'As expected', said Priya!

Indore was pleasant.  And a completely different place from when I had seen it about 10 years back.  The city has literally expanded.  It was such a refreshing change to listen to the views of the bunch of students that I was interviewing.  Filled me with nostalgia.  About 12 years ago, I was sitting on the other side of the table.  Indore was enjoyable also because I got to catch up with Khandu after 7 years.  He is still the same, but looks like the world around him has changed.  The trip also started to resemble a reunion, as I met up with Kaushal at the airport.  He was on the same flight back to Mumbai.  Interestingly, he was staying at the same hotel as I was for the exact two days that I was there.  And yet, we never bumped into each other.  Now, now; this is sounding like a Manmohan Desai movie plot!  The visit to 56 Dukaan before boarding the flight yesterday was good.  Hotdog, masala puri, aaloo bonda, samosa and malai kulfi; add a few more pounds now.  But the food was worth every pound.

Have decided to take it easy this weekend as the next herculean task of changing my address everywhere is looming large.  Last time it took about three months to do so; I am hoping to do it quicker than that this time!

Take care!