Be your own case study

Reading books gives knowledge. But mere knowledge does not guarantee behaviors. All behaviors do not yield experience. All experiences do not give wisdom.

But it all starts with being theoretical (reading books). Read books and "do" something with the learning. Be your own case study - conduct experiments and create positive feedback.

After definite amount of work, there comes a masterpiece - hidden gem inside you that gets polished with every effort you make.

My "rational" tells to my "emotional" self when i am not yet there.

Positive Illusion Bias - Why we are not what we think of?

Answer the following questions. Answers sound familiar?

1. Have you seen anyone boasting about themselves? (yep, they are all around us)
2. Have you ever boasted about yourself to someone and later felt that you actually overrated yourself? (sometimes, not mostly i am grounded)

If you answer "yes" to one of the questions, read further.

We overrate ourselves, often. On the positive things we rate ourselves above average and on the negative things we rate ourselves below average. Yes, we perceive ourselves to be better than most others around us.

If you are a manager, you had to do handle it quite often and more certainly once the yearly performance rating are over. People rate themselves above most of the people in the team on work/impact they created and how much less overhead these caused. While that may not be intentional, we need to understand what are the implications of doing that - Positive Illusion Bias. It does not stop at performance reviews and extends in all facets of life. It is how we are wired.

Positive Illusion has both positive and negative side effects. In a shorter terms, it seems to help relieve stress and be more self-confident. But over longer term, it has negative side effects when we overdo it (it could be sudden fall). Thinking that i will stand out from the pack often leads to less preparation which leads to wreckage as it gives false sense (Ex: My health is better than my friends, i can cram the exam since i m better grasping, i am more honest than most in the society, trying to predict the stock market thinking that i am an ace trader etc).

To Sum Up: Whether or not it is good - it is not the reality. It is one more reason to remain grounded and modest.

Followership

What a real leader would do in a firefighting?

There is a fire. The firemen are trying to put off the fire. What are they likely to do? Each one would do their job (which they are good at). Sometimes they give commands and most of the times they follow. They follow someone who is closer to the fire. They take directions. They ultimate goal is to put off fire.

If we are recovering from a disaster and working hard for a turnaround, "followership" is more important than "leading" (prescription). 

Followership gives us focus, disciple and confidence.

A leader is born when she follows. Followership is another form of Leadership

Help and Giving

Tamil Nadu floods - see it good and bad sides

Bad sides - Lives are lost, Losing basic amenities of life, Pushing people to migrate to different part of city, Psychological issues, Material losses.....

Good Side - You got to know you are not alone. People are with you. People helped people. People donated to People. Some gave part of their salary. Some gave everything they had. Some might borrowed from someone to give people.

For a common man. "Giving" is big thing. Giving without advertisement for vested interest is another big thing. It shows your deep care for others. "How much" you give is not important. There is no price tag for the help done in needy time.

This picture summarizes everything.

Think, Learn, Unlearn

Think - How to think properly and how to improve thinking.

Learn - Learn right things and learn to learn thing faster

Unlearn - Unlearn things and move on

It is a cycle, that's how i can be a life long student.

Think - Learn - Unlearn - Think - Learn - Unlearn....................you die

Reading, Doing and Habit

Reading gives us knowledge. Doing gives us experience. It is not something that you do not know.

Why we say so?

Reading - I read a book and understand the contents. For people like me it would take 5-6 reads to understand. But i will never be able to understand it completely (read a book that tells benefits of waking up at 5am).

Doing - When i do it, i understand it more. When i understand it more, i am closer to perfection than mere reading (do it few times here and there, see the benefits yourself).

Habit - Do it consistently takes me a lot closer to perfection and the returns are huge (make it a habit and reap the fruits). 

Success lies in reading something, doing it to understand it and making it as an habit.

Following Framework and Intutition

Intuition and gut feeling helps us to attack a problem in our own way. The disadvantage of intuition is that it is not scientifically proven and it depends on one's experience. Most of the times, it might work and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't work, it becomes our learning.

Following a framework - the advantage is you can rely on it. Within the given boundary, it is supposed to produce predictable results. How the things are done is fairly fixed (it is supposed to produce almost same results irrespective of who is doing it). But the issues crop up when we do not understand the boundary (or rather underestimate the boundary). There is scope for learning by trying to improvise the framework.

Growth lies in using our intuition (solving new problems) and defining a framework to solve it when it is recurrent.

Problem with a Girl Kid

The problem with having a daughter is that you think that she is your kid (and try to protect her) but she thinks you are her kid (and protects you). Beyond the command, the cajole, the cry and so many other things she does, she showers the love of a mom.

Numbers don't define quality

How many people would read my posts and how many eye balls i catch? Should i write better?

How many people would buy my product? Should i have these features?

How many this and how many that? Doesn't it make sense to do only this since the number is low?

The problem with number is that it is quantitative. It is not qualitative.

Numbers don't define quality.

Quality precedes quantity

Trust

Trust.

Trust has become a commodity and found a place in vocabulary (more in workplace and little lesser in personal lives). Particularly the workplace has become more talkative about this "trust" and sometimes they appear as mere ploy. Many times and many of us speak about trust and say we are trustworthy (or try to prove by words to someone that we are trustworthy). 

Trust isn't a commodity. Trust is understood best when we don't talk about it or even think about it. Trust comes as a natural output of a fruitful, selfless and longer relationship.

Look at the picture, the kid never said that he trusted his father and father never asked his kid to trust him. The trust like this is an outcome of a fruitful relationship. If you don't have one, don't expect the trust.

Can't Find a Better Leader, Be one

Often we complain that we are not able to find a perfect leader. The word perfect is the word that denotes excellence and such a leader cannot be found. Even found, the perfect leader never accepts that she is perfect as the excellence is not a destination. Let us come to the complain part. We generally tend to have a lower expectations and want the benchmarks to be lowered, tweaked until we get in. Once we get on board, we generally argue in favor of excellence and raise the bars. We clearly eliminate our roadblocks in the name of eliminating inefficiencies [that creates double standards]. Pretty weak way of looking either life or work.

How many times we thought that we have to be a better leader? We stop our thinking just with wanting to have a perfect leader. If you can't find a perfect leader, it doesn't mean that it can't be made, it just means that nobody has guts or conviction to be a perfect leader. Because, trying to be a perfect leaders hurts a lot and pains a lot as we need to work a lot and sacrifice a lot. The building cannot be raised without foundations and the leadership cannot be built without sacrifices. Sacrifice and see what happens. That is why people say, "the leadership starts with self".

If you haven't found any perfect leader in front you, go ahead and try to make yourself a perfect leader. The leadership is nothing to do with power/positions/designations and it is more to do with your virtue of thinking & action.

If Mahatma Gandhiji said, "Be the change you want to see", there has to be some reasons. :-)

Entrepreneurship - Good Trend in India

There is an interesting trend in India that is catching up and it is here for good reasons. More people want to work in garage. These days, more importance is given to "entrepreneurship" and after having discussion with few people, it appears to me that many has entrepreneurship or what they call "doing on their own" on the cards. What is even more interesting is that they want to do it sooner than later.

For example, one of the young professional whom i met sometime back told me that he wanted to startup in another three to four years. Another one told that he wants to take break to build a business that will generate. Also, if we look around, there are many success stories in India and even we have mentors who are serial entrepreneurs to guide through the process. There are people who give you infrastructure for your startup, mentor you throughout and even there are folks to give you the idea.

It appears to me that we are at the very last days of being "low end service providers" and entrance of "innovative power" - a paradigm shift. I see innovation is something that adds value to both who innovate and those who consume the innovation and in my view entrepreneurship is right step towards innovation. We see  right signs from bodies like Nasscom organizing events which gains a lot of attention these days and we are also witnessing a lot of meetups among like minded people in different cities. If you passionate about starting up "startup" at some point of time, you got to watch out now. Sow the seed now and let it germinate.

Where Am I? Where I want to Be?

After some eight years of experience, i tend to ask the following questions to myself (and may be i can help you too). By comfort zone, i dont really mean working in the same company and i really mean comfort zone - doing something you never did :-) or keep doing something different that you love to do - programming, testing, writing articles, writing books etc.

What does the experience teach? Does it teach about the concept of incremental pay hike? Or does my experience is all about eight one year of experience? Am i able to understand the classical things about computing now? At a bare minimum, does my experience help me to choose a programming language to do a specific job? Am i directed towards something and if so am i going in right direction? Am i become bankrupt of steam of learning? Am i forgetting the fact that learning is lifelong process?

Well, i reflected a lot about my state and i m quite pissed off with my actions for past one year. There weren't intellectual learning at the level i expected and i certainly feel like i m doing mundane thing. I used to write articles, i used to speak in conferences, i used to speak technically, i used to write code, i used to design and i used to share at reasonable level with others. When say "i used to", you got to understand that "i m not doing it right now".

After a long reflection, my heart says, i got to invest on two things - time and money. Of the two things, i feel like time is more important entity and it is quite difficult to buy. I want to learn new programming language such as Scala, Scheme, or Haskell. The second thing is that i would like to set up a small lab. When i say, a small lab, it is really small. Probably, x86/Linux based desktop. I want to relearn some of things that i have forgotten but this time around i want to give a strong focus on fundamentals. It is not going to be time-bound but it doesn't mean that i won't be time conscious. This time the focus is more on going deeper than wider. I want to especially do something in cloud computing space as well.

I think, this is going to be an exciting journey and for sure i ll share some of my learnings here as i go when i get something concrete.

I know what you are murmuring. Yeah, i really sounds like a freshman but it is the true state. I got to accept it and move on.

What is Time & Its Properties - A Question

This post doesn't have an answer. It is just a question :-)

Recently and quite by accident, i happen to watch one of the documentaries on theory of relativity. While i never completely understood the theory of relativity either at school or now, the concept of "speed" and its effects on "time" was slightly making sense. I would like to share a couple of interesting information i gathered in internet and finally my question.

There are many arguments that the time is a recent concept which exists only for past fifteen billion years - the time from which this universe is existing. The existence of universe and the existence of time is key. The time doesn't make sense when there is no universe because universe is made of particles and if there is no universe there won't be particles and hence there won't be "the time".

Here goes another concept. We are in milky galaxy. A galaxy consists of many stars and each star can possibly have many solar systems. In our galaxy itself there could be more solar systems. There are lot of galaxies. All the galaxies form this universe which we are in. There is a theory that says there could be more such universe closer to us that are separated by a different dimension. (not necessarily by unit of space, to put it simply and for the sake of understanding, a dimension can be distance. the universes can be separated by an inch. but it may be possibility that we don't yet invented that dimension).

We have to be clear that time is not years, months, days, hours, minutes or seconds. Time is not related to number of times earth or planet revolves around the sun. They are unit of time that we use to express time.

So, even if we assume that we reasonably understood the concept of time in this universe, how can we define or comprehend time in other universes if there exist any.

Probably, that is why Albert Einstein said - "Imagination is more important than knowledge".

Now, i feel that physics, astro-physics and cosmology together with mathematics is parent of other inventions. Quite intriguing. Finally i would like to end this article with a piece of quote by Albert Einstein.

Receiving Feedback - Listening More and Taking Up Fierce One

If we carefully assess ourselves, we will find a reality. Most of us (including the ones who we call bravo) have a common feature in receiving feedback. We fail pathetically in receiving which is much directed and fierce even if they are constructive feedback. We always want sugar or sugar coated tablets. Not the real, hard to chew and bitter tablets. We would like to have a big session on giving and receiving feedback - a juicy presentation, quite cinematic role plays. It is so nice to call it as an art. But we aren't artist. 

We react and keep reacting until the point where the guy who is giving feedback retracts and becomes no longer interested in you. If we are attentive a bit and involved a little, there will be excellent opportunity for a great learning. Rather than listening, many of us naturally tend to react and some of us over react. Because we never wanted to appear insane even though the reality is exact opposite.

Recently, I had some excellent learning when i was meeting fresher who were so down-to-earth to listen to the feedback. They are smart enough to make on the course correction and it shows me that the world is changing a lot. But the point is - are we part of the change? The species that get along with the change and help the change will survive and the egoistic ducks will sit there and quack. Are we ready to be a one-among-stiff ducks?

How do we reach there? Why are we so insensitive to honest feedback? Why do we market ourselves differently, appear differently while we are totally different in reality - it is complete package of insanity. Why aren't we attuned to people who are honestly sitting in front of us with only one thing in mind - "you got to be a hero as you have huge potential?" We always want role plays. Some X talking to Y and we are quite quick with our observations. We want to sit in fence to watch and forget the fact that we ought to be players. No more role plays, let us not be jury of reality shows. Let us participate and go humane :-)

In the quite rapidly changing world, the way we compose ourselves, the way we "add value" through honesty and integrity is going to make a BIGGER sense than technological edge. Receiving feedback is a pinch in it that reveals a lot.

So, our true patronage manifests with the way we take fierce feedback by listening more & with honestly. It doesn't matter it is from up or down the hierarchy.

What do you think?

At the end, my Diwali wishes on behalf of Unstuck. Let us lit up the light and let the sunshine be on you

"Wish You a Very Happy Diwali"

Decision Making - Show Stoppers

Here is the list of show stoppers that hinders decision making.

1. Fear - Fear of Uncertainty, Fear of Left Behind, Fear of Depletion
2. Greed - Greediness of wanting more than what we deserve for
3. Lack of Information - Not doing proper research
4. Blind of subtleness - Making decisions based on obvious things but later paying price due to magnification of subtle things which were never considered.
5. Lack of Empathy - Lack of empathy and sympathy towards the information and people.
6. Closed Mindedness and Opinionated - Deeply ingrained in one's own perspective. Perspectives help us to make better decisions, the better we see the better we have clear "vision" followed by a good reasoning.
7. Poor Listening - It is by observation we learn a lot. Listening is a great aid to make good observation. 
8. Trying to Exhibit Force - Forcing things to happen rather than making the environment conducive for decision making
9. Treating others' ideas based on their title (but not by the merit of information). Sometimes (or most of the times), ideas/perspectives come from unexpected ones.
10. Lack of Curiosity - How does a child listen to a story teller? Absolutely curious. We were there as a child, we know how we felt.
11. Not Showing Genuine Interest - Not showing genuine interest blocks effective communication. When a collective decision has to be made, showing interest in others makes a big impact.

Workplace without Managers to Manage People

Have you thought about this - the machines do not have managers. Let us take a mechanical machine with moving parts. When there is a friction between moving parts, they just make a noise. The mechanic applies some grease between the moving parts and the noise goes away. The parts of the machine manage themselves and they make sound due to "wear and tear". (in this analogy, let us not treat this friction as conflict. think that the noise due wear and tear as natural phenomenon). Are we moving towards such a style of management - the management of working without supervision.

The world is moving towards self managed people. We have seen people especially seniors making hell a lot of noise about young generation (or Gen Y) in a hi-fi and not-so-easy-to-understand English. Well, the YOUNGistan is moving towards the realm of "self managed" and "self correcting" management. It is not only because they are highly intelligent than the previous generation and abundance of information being available to them but also due to the fact that they are brought up in a time frame of rapid changes. They adopt to the changes reasonably well (than the previous generation) and embrace it quite well.

Let me share couple of my experiences. I have been offering some guidance to an aspiring candidate and i would have spent not more than 30 minutes totally. The candidate now is a young IT professional. The most striking thing about her is that she is managing herself in every move and learning every bit through her exposure, a typical Gen Y. 

I have seen quite a few people right out of college, i would say, they are sparks and sharks. I heard a senior person having "30 years" of experience saying that this generation is a spark. That makes me to think that these people have ability to manage themselves quite well without having someone to manage them. In previous generations when there was no technological aid, the managers were teaching. Now, there is technology to do the teaching and these managers have to move up (the value chain). Gen Ys have enough skill to manage themselves and make their manager to be jobless (this will make managers to focus on some core business than mere people management).

Soon the guys are going to say - "rather than meeting over a conflict, let us meet over technology or business that makes sense to everyone". This generation and generations to come is going to put us in the orbit of "self managed" and "self correcting" style of management.

Isn't this what we want? Shouldn't we incubate such thing at workplace? 

My heart says "yes"

What do you think? yes or no or can't say :-)

Overvalued & Undervalued and Exploitation

How many times are we tempted towards undervalued things in life? We can call it greed or feeling attracted towards undervalued thing. In today's world, the marketeers who come in many flavors like marketeers who is trying sell a product, boss coming to you to extract work from you and a butcher feeding his cattle which is going to be slaughtered. All of them have a vested interest with you buying their idea. 

They bring hot actress for selling their products and the boss gives you an illusion that he will give you better rating next time. People exploit you when you don't know how to make decisions or stumble in making decisions. They want people to stumble because only when you stumble you make worst decisions. They sell their products (which is highly priced) when you stumble. How the stumble help them? You end up feeling that "that is my mistake" and they can fly (easily?) away from the mess. Have you ever felt that you bought a TV or a thing and later realized that you shouldn't have purchased it? They have whole department targeting an individual. Mostly, the individual traps in. Either you stumble because of your ego or you being misinformed, it doesn't matter. They want you to yawn and finally give their products to you when you yawn.

That's why i say, the marketeers are here to condition you and to arrest the mobility of your thoughts. They sell their heavily priced and overvalued things to you by offering you low priced and undervalued things for free of cost. At the end, you end up paying more (you realize it in half way but your ego stops you from making corrective actions, yet again they win and you continue to lose :-)) which is an EXPLOITATION.

you are being exploited

The Way of Taking Success & Failure

A leader, a doer, a passionate and simply guy who is obsessive about thing he really likes differs from common man in taking successes and failures.

• A doer takes successes to her "heart" and failures to her "head".
• A pathetic guy takes failures to his "heart" and successes to his "head".

What is the outcome? 

• When you take success to the heart, you become more human and level-headed but when you take it to your head, you become less human, irritating and beheaded (people say success breads complacency).
• When you take failure to the heart, you become less confident but when you take it to the head, you analyze & puncture the failure next time (this is how failures are stepping stones of SOMETHING).

And another real thing is, you know where you are. You can and only you can make those corrections.

Beat The Best

This is just a wild imagination. If this resembles anyone or anything in the real world, i can't be held responsible. See, all the thoughts originate from you and you are responsible. :-)

How to beat the best? Best in what? how do you decide what you do is a thing that you feel great when you are best at it? Is it only thing to be best at or Are there many things that are so interesting? If there are so many things why did you choose the thing you are doing and trying to be best in it? Is it choice you made or did you take it because there is no one else willing to do that or you have options? If no one else is willing, then being the best is so easy because you are the only one who is doing that. In some way, it is always easier to beat the best. Being the best in the industry for quality, being the best in the industry in X, being the best in the industry in Y and the best list goes on. These days, you ll get enough media support for creating a sensation (out of nothing).

Rather than that, be best of yourself and beat your best everyday. Evolution is nature.