Will Mr. Subroto Bagchi Nurture My Thinking?

Yes, I think so. He has already started to transform me. He already answered my purpose.

Thank you Mr. Subroto Bagchi. My reading was always at surface level. Now, you have started to penetrate deep into my mind with your fantastic writing of "Go Kiss The World" and "The Professional".

All I can say now is

Second Opportunity - It's a Sunshine

As you get more experience, it is highly likely that you lead a team. How many of us give this second opportunity to others? Why are we jumping into conclusion and be judgmental when things happen for the first time? Why we judge others based on what they deliver though they are trying things for the first time?
Giving an opportunity for someone who desperately needs an entry is big thing. But giving second opportunity to someone who failed is a biggest thing. When you give that second opportunity, he will remember you forever and will have a huge respect for you. It happened to me sometime back.

I don't need to tell you about the job market during the recent recession and how IT companies suffered. I was given a job of staffing up two teams at work and the job involved interviewing internal candidates who were ready for deployment. I happened to meet a young chap whom I heard of due to his social service activities. Seems like that was not his day. After the discussion, I told him that I was not satisfied with his performance in the discussion. I asked him whether he was willing to take another shot on the day that was convenient to him but after some preparation. He said, "yes". I was expecting that he would call me back but that didn't happen. It is good that he didn't call me.

Recently, I was visiting US for a short business trip and I saw a scrap in my orkut from the very same chap. He said, "thank you for giving me second opportunity . I didn't get a chance to meet you again. After our discussion, I went back and read a lot. Today, I m in US for an onsite assignment". He connected with me in Orkut and LinkedIn. He spoke with a lot of passion and lot of confidence. It seemed that he came to US on his own mileage - his performance. Shortly, he wrote an email to me about his journey that happened after our discussion. I believe, today, he is working for one our elite customers.

If I reflect back, there are many instances in which I was in receiving end. Many people have given me second opportunities to prove myself. Being in the giving end is a great feeling as you enable a person towards self-realization. Also, I m sure that about 99.99999% of people are products of many second chances. If your team completes everything in first chance, you have no role to play. Team needs you only when you give second chance and support them when they fail for first time. Leadership is all about giving second chance with no strings attached.

Have a Great Day and Wonderful week ahead.

Human Rights - Where is It?

Yesterday, I was little late to home. Around 9am (or close to that), as usual I was driving at 45 kmph. My ride went on fine without much problems. As usual there were few buses that occupy the mid of the road and suddenly came off the road for no reasons. There were few boys (seems like they never got opportunity to grow up) zipping through all the lanes. Living in Chennai gave me lot of patience particularly when I am on wheels.

Near Hotel Trident (I use the left to reach my home at Nanganallur), there was a small traffic jam (don't ask me where is the bread). I (and anyone who uses that road) know that the road will have potholes, but these days I search for road to safely take the front wheel of my motorcycle. For the past two years, I never bother about back wheel and I always assume that it is intact. Till now, my assumption is proven right.

After seeing the traffic jam, I thought, I would have a break from driving for few seconds to few minutes. Since I like taking breaks during my drive (you know, my approach towards life is optimistic), I was eagerly expecting that this break would soothe me though my home is just 2 km away. Unlike the usual breaks that I used to take, this one was shocking and I was speechless to see the arrogance of a policeman.

There were two vehicles that were parked conveniently - a lorry occupying little space from end of the road to mid of the road and a auto occupying the corner. There stood the auto driver and behind him a policeman. I thought that they were having a friendly chat or I could possibly think that the policeman was doing his usual ritual (don't ask me what is the usual ritual). But within few seconds, he took his stick and started to beat the auto driver quite arrogantly. The driver was crying to stop the beating. Before the policeman could hear, the driver had received probably 10 heavy beatings barring 10 more beatings that fell on the auto off the target.

While I dont know what caused the policeman to show huge displeasure and arrogance towards the auto driver but I certainly feel that that was not a way to treat a human being. That was totally inhumane.

Go Kiss The World - Still Lingers

Last night, I happen to complete another book in my lifetime (ok, this is just to tell you that I m a poor reader with irregular reading habits). Oh, this is the second book that I read cover to cover and still feel that I should reread it. It is "Go Kiss The World" by Subroto Bagchi. The first was "Freedom" by Osho. Go Kiss The World is about a commoner who went about achieving great things in life and how a commoner turns himself, a little extraordinary everyday and at finally one day he turns out to be a bit hit. The book talks about simple things in life, the common deeds or mistakes we do. Mr. Bagchi is very transparent in his writing and brings out his true colors. Of course, he is a rainbow and sunshine. Coming up in life is not rocket science but it needs constant inward looking.

I like the book not only because it gives me motivation and confidence but also it gives me enough courage to be trustworthy and transparent. I must (and am) relate to Mr. Bagchi when he says, "do not suck up your bosses but praise your subordinates". Because the bosses expect that we will dance for their tune whereas the subordinates keep remembering the praise throughout his lifetime. I strongly believe in being a lifelong student and my happiness was boundless when I read about learning.

One important aspect I liked in the book that each of us should learn is to give credits to people who changed your life. In that front, Mr Bagchi is outstanding and it shows the human values, love and affection he has towards his fellow beings.

Overall, it was a nice adventure and tutelage to read the book and I would give six stars out of five.

Be Nude to Open Your Mind

The other day my three year old nephew came out of the bathroom and was jumping up and down. Yeah, he was making me happy, he was dancing, singing, playing (and of course teaching). When it comes to performance (giving a damn hard try), my nephew never minds whether he wears his trousers or not. He just gives a try (sometimes with dress, sometimes half nude and sometimes full nude). His sheer passion to try and get involved is simply amazing. It is when I saw him in a different perspective, I saw a teacher in him (I will tell this story sometime later). He was showing me a way to be a top performer (not in someone's perspective but from the perspective of oneself).

We wear dress in the form of conditioning. This conditioning helps us (is it really help?) to form perception and the perception takes us towards the judgment and then action. So, based on your conditioning and how close you are conditioned to the accepted level of conditioning of the society (or people around you), you become a super star in the eyes of others. So, you will be given award or outstanding award simply because you are obedient.

Being obedient is a nasty thing and that shows that you are not learning (by obedience, I mean asking questions about the accepted norms of the society. By obedience, I don't mean politeness). This is exactly going against the nature and is a non-performance. You are inactive by simply accepting what others say. The performance is born when you become nude that is when you drop your conditioning and establish your own view about things like a child.

On a lighter note (but real incident),

Employee: No one hears my views.
HR: We have open door policy. We always encourage people to ask questions.
Employee: Doors are open but minds are closed.
HR: ????? :-(

Open Up, DON'T Cover Up

Today, I happen to hear one of my customers talking about my product that I work on. There was whole bunch of developers and testers (of the product) hearing the speech. He was sharing his pain points with the product and various releases. Since he works on the field, he also brought out the advantages and points to improve. Since there are so many pain points (which is obvious since he wanted to know the solution), the people who engineer it were giving more information about the technology, product and features in various releases.

During the course of the presentation, we just heard his pain points (of course it was moderated very well). I learned a priceless lesson today. When you are talking to the customer don't cover up. Give the fact and educate him. He understands and appreciates a lot because his focus is on solving the problem.

With your customer, "Don't cover up but Open Up".

I Must Fail

Today, it was a great experience to see someone failing and everyone around her was holding her up. On seeing that I wanted to fail because such a failure was not really a failure. Tonight there was a singing competition in Vijay TV for kids. I think, one kid (a singer) was eliminated. The views of the judges were impressive. The playback singer Mano and Malkudi Subha were the judges. I was quite impressed with the way they handled the situation. Being in the position of judging talent is very tough.

The judges said, looking at the girl who was eliminated, "you came as seed and you are going as a flower, you blossomed here". WoW, what a word? You must see the kid's eyes go bright, her mom's eyes go bright, audiences were smiling like sunshine and the entire arena was awestruck. What a way to give a feedback (on the other side, and in the corporate world, the monkeys that are paid to give feedback deliver it in a pathetic and insensitive way). Both of them rightly pointed out that the girl has transformed in the competition and the girl was trying something extraordinary. I learned two important lessons in my life.

Never shy away from trying extraordinary things.
Never hurt someone who is trying to be extraordinary. Praise her and take her as role model.

In a nutshell, I feel that I must fail because it is fine to be a failure rather than a mediocre success. It is another good night sleep and tonight I feel so much happy on learning important lesson about failure.

Indian IT Industry is Dying

It was the time when India had huge English speaking population who speak better English than the other developing nations in the region like China. Today, China is no more a China that was 10 years back. Not only China, the entire region is likely to take position in providing services not only in back offices but also in high end technology like research. The growth of other countries in the region is first threat to IT (that we cannot do much).

Looking at the education in India, it seems like we are heading back. We focus on quantity and but back in quality. We are not able to scale well without compromising the quality. Today, the average cost of an engineering degree in a self financing college sums up to 0.3 million rupees. However, the return of investment for the students is very little. The students are not able to get jobs. The industry picks few of them and trains them to do low end back office jobs. The companies select them because of "low cost" strategy.

With the current state, even within India, there are small companies that are willing and ready to do outsourced work at the half the price of bigger companies. Within no time, there will be someone who is ready to offer services at much reduced price. With this trend, in couple of years, many of the big companies are ready to hit a huge margin pressure and which will be downfall of Indian IT industry. Few companies that are trying to act know by thinking on creating IP. It is too late now. But better late than never.

This is the right time that we stop scratching the itch of making big money by providing low end back office work. We need to move up in research/development and the investments need to come from the organizations. If you are in IT industry and if you read this, go and ask your management what are the plans to invest in research. Investing in research/innovation makes sense than giving you double digit hike.

So, it is highly critical that we, as a community, rethink about outsourcing. This is time to move up (or at least try to move up) providing high end technology services. Else, Indian IT industry will be a history.

Software Design - Puzzle #1

You are sitting in a boardroom of a famous gaming giant. They have invited you to discuss about the design of their next product - a strategy game. The game is "Konquer" in which a king tries to rule the entire world and takes the world towards prosperity. The gaming giant is planning to give the responsibility of modeling classes. Here is the requirement one

Since the area is very large, the king is trying to split his kingdom into more manageable parts. He needs idea on making his entire region into more manageable regions. The requirement is that you have to come up with list of regions and model them into set of classes. After this, the king goes for the hunting asking you to meet him after two days to discuss your ideas.

With this example, we will learn few object oriented principles that leads to better software design.

Core Values - Looking Inside Vs Looking Outside

When someone say about "Core Values" or "Human Values", what do you think? Is it a thing to look inside or do you look outside? Let us take a recent example. By now, you would have known about a spiritual guru who is in very serious allegations. You would have also heard media, disciples and general public abusing him. Many people think that his acts were shameful. We react sharply when others slip. But when we slip, it is just a slip and we know how to make up.

This shows that we have a serious integrity problem. We look for core values from others when we do not have the ability to display strong core values. We complain about commercialization of political system, spirituality, education system and yet use those without any regrets. You cannot expect "core values" from others unless you display it by yourself. The "Core value' is not a commodity that is available in market. If you have it, be proud that you have it, follow it and live with it. Don't expect back. The "core values" is individual phenomenon and it has to be looked inside first.

I m Writing for Tomorrow

For a simple fact, I know that I m very poor in thinking and writing. Few years back, I was poorer and few more years back probably I was useless. I have grown from useless to poor which is great achievement. I write for tomorrow. When I say I m writing for tomorrow, I mean that I m practicing to be near perfect and I m practicing the art of taking failures and obviously in right sense. I know that I will succeed - one day. Because, I strongly believe that every dog has its day.

When I fall, I never watch others. I used to think that others will laugh at me when I fall and that may probably be true. Those people never looked forward. And the people who look forward they dont laugh but smile with lot of hope simply because they know that I m at a striking distance. Their smile is sunshine.

Yes, I m writing my future with lot of failures. I know, failures are successes.

Have a Great Day

Solar Power from Sahara

Yesterday, I read in newspaper that a German based company is planning to generate solar power based out of Sahara desert by 2050. Also, the project claims that it can cater 15% of power requirement of Europe. This quite inspiring and shows the commitment towards saving earth. But the beauty that these consortium believes that it can generate power by 2015. Let wish the project a great success and let us follow in our homes/offices.

This is what we call big thinking.

But, why are we not thinking to generate solar power at homes/offices. In my aunt's home, they have solar power that runs two florescent bulbs and a fan. Is it a futuristic thinking? My uncle is a big thinker.

"Under the leadership" Disease - Grow up Guys

Leadership is again one of the most misused words. When someone brings results (even because of luck), we often say "under the leadership" we blah, blah, and more blah. Without understanding the meaning of "leadership", it is very pathetic and painful to see people (or so called leaders) assuming things on their own. I have seen and probably you would have seen many people around you who are just egocentric. The more they say "we", they more you find "I" in their words. Their "we" sound like "I". For them, the word "leadership" is pure material that buys them happiness, money, and promotion. What not.

When I see such people I seriously think that they will change next time. But the next time, they blabber much more (and in fact show excellent improvement in blabbering) about "under the leadership" formula. They fail to understand about leadership. Leadership is about passion, leadership does not know title, leadership does not see who sits in front of you, leadership is about making your people as heroes, leadership is about following when your followers are capable to lead, leadership is about integrity, leadership is about keeping up the words, leadership is about keeping up the time, leadership is about remembering your people when you are about to sleep (every day or forever), leadership is about empowerment, leadership is about listening, leadership is about being charismatic, leadership is about delivering, leadership is about working hard, leadership is about being accountable, leadership is about courage, leadership is about empathy, leadership is about coaching, leadership is about accepting others as they are, leadership is about silence, leadership is about big picture, leadership is minute detail. But surely leadership is not the commodity that you can sell.

Come on guys, grow up. Dont sell leadership for your personal mileage. The world is moving fast towards leadership innovation.

Weak Statement and Action - An Example

Today, it came in news that our Defence Minister Mr. AK Antony raised concerns on the threat of weapon's supply by US to Pakistan. He also requests US to make sure that Pakistan does not use these weapons on India but on terrorist. I am not a political observer (but I m shameful to say this). Being an Indian citizen, this causes so much concern to me.

Why USA must (or should) make sure that Pakistan does not use these weapons on India? If we are not able to make sure that Pakistan does not use those on us (read it "us - India" and not United States), how do we expect that USA will be able to do that. Is it something like a kid's play? I remember my friend's mom telling my mom to take care of my own business when I used to beat my friend. On a serious note, Mr. Minister is hoping that US will take action. He is so optimistic.

But, the general public would like to know is Mr. Minister serious about his statement.