Leadership 101 - Look Inwards

This is post can be tagged by many words - experience, confession, realization and outcome of pure hard work. Of late and after reading many books and discussing with many of my friends who are trying to make a difference and add meaning to themselves and this world. My professional experience of first six and half years is simple to summarize "I looked outwards and I failed". I was literally looking things that are materialistic and often liked by others. I was driven by lust towards accomplishment. This last half year is full of learning and learning beyond horizon. I started to look inwards and things that interests me. There are lot of questions pop out of my mind - most of them are discarded immediately, few of them are discarded after a while and I retain few things. For example, in past few months you would have found few discontinuous posts. I would have promised you that I will post something continuously but failed. These are things that I felt interesting and later realized that are not so interesting and dropped those.

But this experience has given me the required guts to take up things that I like and in the process I started to look inwards. Looking inwards (to one's self) will do a miracle and it is when one understands one's own potential. On a contrary to looking outwards which is supposed to exciting, looking inwards will be thought agnostic and thought provoking. As one of my friends said that looking inwards will generally be a slow start and then suddenly at one point of time it will lead to an avalanche effect. Look Inwards is one of the priceless lessons I learned from my friends.

Reverse Engineering Java Apps

Professionally, I am a Java developer and had worked sparingly in C++ and other scripting languages. I always felt that Java is easier and with the modern day IDEs like Eclipse and Netbeans, you don't even need to know what is compilation and building and similarly you dont even need to know OOPS. As an interviewer, I always face candidates, at least handful, who do not know how to set the classpath and compile using "javac".

Java by its inherent nature is very easier than C/C++ and these IDEs make it much easier. If forward is easier then in most of the cases the reversing should also be easier (but there are exceptions like security algorithms). Unfortunately, reversing Java applications is much easier and I would say it is much easier than developing it. In the next couple of weeks, I ll be writing few posts on my experiences with reversing Java applications and my inputs on how to carry out effective penetration testing for Java applications.

Most Fruitful Day

Today was a fruitful day. As I told yesterday, I needed to give a technical talk to Bank of America office at Chennai (this is Merrill Lynch office to be precise) on Security. It was raining later in the afternoon, but I had a little window when the rain stopped and started from my office around 3.15 pm. The journey to Merill Lynch took almost an hour. After going through security check (like the one in airports), I met my friend who invited me for the talk. Within few minutes we were ready for the talk.

The talk itself was very interesting to me and the audience asked me questions from basics to advanced. The management made the event lively by giving away some gifts to participants who answer questions. I felt like this was most interactive session I ever presented. I talked about Security, why it fails, myths and attack spectrum of a banking application. Due to lack of time, I cut shot the presentation by 15 minutes but overall I felt that I learned a great deal by giving this talk. I received a feedback of 3.5/5 and shows that I got to improve. During this talk, I met new friends.

On the way back to my home, I had an appointment with my college friend (who is research scholar in IIT Chennai). He was explaining me about his new venture and his business plans. We discussed about his consulting experiences, stock market, education system, social responsibility. We planned to collaborate in few initiatives that greats impact in society. I spent around four hours with him and it was quite a learning for me. We also discussed about algorithms, mathematical modeling, fiber optics, network security, open source and philosophy.

Overall, today (particularly the afternoon), went like a super fast express.

Security For Thinkers - Tech Talk

Tomorrow (26-Aug-09), I will be giving a technical talk in one of the famous US banks IT department at Chennai. After reading few pages of Beyond Fear and few pages in System Thinking, I tried to put together a presentation that primarily focused on security from system thinking point of view. So many things fail or produce adverse effects due to poor understanding and security is one. The attacks that are published are only very few percentage of the attacks and many do not like to report it. We never think about how to have our software/hardware secured. It is quite a irony that an attacker who knows about our application hardly anything cracks the software in no time or in few hours.

This shows the incapability in thinking and still we are playing a catching up game. In this presentation, I am planning to give system thinking view about security, the proactive security and sensible security. Unlike other security talks, I will not be presenting or discussing about Top 10 attacks as we never know which will be in Top 10 and we cannot predict when 100th attack will move to Top 10. We need a view that protects us always. Here is what I m planning to cover.

Credits should go to my friend M.S. Rajkumar Pandian for recommending me to BoA friend. Thank you Raj. I would have been much happier if we present this talk together.

Why Security Fails? - One Reason

All organizations pay huge price for security, something like running a separate department and spending millions of bucks to just secure from outdated attacks. Most of the software or devices just secure the assets from a worm that pampered few years back. We think that the attackers are naive (again and again they prove that they aren't). Why do we think that they are naive? It is simply because we never want to think differently, we never want to squeeze our brain and we don't know how to use our brain.

We focus on luxury part of life and so most of us discount ideas which needs hard work (like thinking). Thinking and productive thinking is stressful exercise and now you know why attackers keep winning. Attackers have great mindset (but obviously bad motive). But we say that our motive is good but we lack the attitude of hard work. We still think that someone's devices/products/software alone secure our assets and we fail to appreciate "thinking" is necessary to secure the assets.

This blurred view leads to "panic and patch", "let it happen, we have products to secure" situation. The situation becomes pathetic where the people are ready to offer sympathy and ouch. If you want to secure your asset, you need to be hard working thinker and build the ability to see through the system and emerge with good understanding of the systems. It is our understanding about system will secure not the devices.

So, the security fails due to poor thinking. This is going to be my topic for my upcoming talk in Chennai.

Leadership 101 - Write Test Everyday

One of the priceless lessons I learned from my father is "write test everyday". My father is a teacher. He retried from his paid work but continues his work for free to local students here in Chennai. He was a Sanskrit Pandit at Villupuram. I don't remember the year exactly but it was the time when I was in school and I was complaining about school exams. I said to my father that these teachers were killing me with exams and progress cards.

Being a teacher himself, he said that the students' life is relatively stress free because they write once in a quarter or once in a month. But a teacher writes exams everyday when he stands before his students to impart the lessons in text books and the lessons of life. But generally, the teachers never feel the pressure because they do it out of passion. But eventually they write test everyday. The teacher does the home work and remains open when he delivers his lecture. When you have the attitude of "writing test everyday", you will never take a job without understanding and planning. Once you do that, you job is almost over.

Expect Job Market in Another Six Months

The world has seen enough of this - "the effects and after effects of economic recession". You have the reason to cheer because of the words "after effects" meaning that the recession is ended as far as my understanding is concerned. You cannot shed more jobs as you have already fired many and this is the time that everyone is going to be buckle up for job market. First you will see a move of highly qualified and intelligent workforce move from one company to another company. It is happening in Wipro, CTS, Infosys in India and many product companies. Breathe.

The job market is going to heat up in another three to six months and within the next nine to twelve months, each company will have record high attrition rate, may even be close to 20% (many are saying that it may even go to an extent of 30-40%). Even if you pay more, the people will not be willing to stay as they will use this opportunity to move out for many reasons. If you are intelligent company, you should selectively remove recruitment freeze, bring in talented workforce now. Because, when the job market recovers, you need to pay them more as there will many people who give them good offer (Demand-Supply baba). So, if you do not see further pressure to your business, lift the recruitment freeze. If you are highly conservative, wait till next recession so that you can be right at least in the next business cycle.

Leadership 101 - Don't Negotiate with your Team

Many of us use negotiation at wrong places and one such place is negotiation in teams. Don't negotiate anything with anyone in your team to build trust. "If you give this, I will give that" will not work in team building. Negotiation is sick when it comes to team. Never try to build trust by negotiation. It is the language that will not work in a long term. While it may give momentary successes which are often fake, it does not have steam to give long term and sustained successes.

The successes and team can be built due to trust and never decreasing and ever increasing trust between the team members. If you negotiate with the team, it breaks the bond of trust. Once you have done it few times, it is very difficult to come out of the negotiation mode to mutual trust mode because you then need to build the trust again from the scratch (this negotiation also changes your subconscious mind to be cunning and tactical). If "negotiation" is your mode of communication, stop it and look for authentic "trust model" to communicate with your team. Then you will realize the "soul" in the team.

Leadership 101 - Potential is Great but Kinetic is Greatest

If you heard about S.V. Shekar (multi-facet person, hero, comedian, politician with dignity), you should probably heard this one.

Character 1: What was your ambition when you were young?
Character 2: Like my father, I too wanted to become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer and a teacher.
Character 1: Oh great. Is your father a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer and a teacher.
Character 2: No, he too wanted to become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer and a teacher
Character 1: Thinking of committing suicide :-(

If you see, in real world, there is no difference between "character 1" and us. We think that we have great potential but the world measures us with the action we do, the results we produce and the impact we make. There is a big dam with full of water. You cannot harvest the crops without letting the water flow into your field. You need to open it and allow water it move. Dam has a potential to give irrigation to thousands and thousands of acres of land. But it is of no use, if you don't open it.

I agree that unless you have water you cannot irrigate the land. The potential is an entry criteria to make an impact. In order to be useful, you need to convert your thoughts to action. So, potential is great but kinetic is greatest.

Leadership 101 - Be Level Headed

Sometimes when I do extreme things or things that are extreme to my capabilities (like jogging for 10 kilometers continuously), I feel superior and bump people like a maniac. When I m faced with an athlete who knocks off 40 kilometers consistently, I fall down and I consider inferior to them. Factually, it is a absolute truth but generally we are more psychological than factual. We need a fact to either boost or ditch things. We never treat and behave based on the facts.

I have also written couple of posts on Emotional Intelligence and this is a overlap between this post and those. It is quite essential for leaders to stand on their legs. Because of the position they decorate and the number of decisions they take everyday, it is reasonable to say that the decisions they make create an impact (positive or negative) on every stakeholders. If you are a born jerk, it is quite true that all the decisions you are going to make will be bad decisions.

It is quite essential that one should start living a level headed life - not get carried away with successes and failures emotionally. Take them as a fact to add up your experience and move on.

Create an Image of Yourself

In this fast paced world, we tend to anything and everything that gives as pleasure. Most of the things that give us pleasure don't generally give us peace after sometime. We get addicted to those habits only to spoil ourselves. For example, eating fast foods, smoking, drinking, sleeping, procrastination and the list goes. We do all things that put us in pressure and finally after doing it we feel that we need to relax. We either go to spa for a massage or party out in a pub only to get pressurized more. The cycle of pressure and relax goes on and on. We never know how to break the cycle and during each iteration the pressure and the need for relaxation grow more.

But the real growth starts with a purpose like "absolute willingness to be a good human being", "helpful to self and possibly to others", "spread the goodness to the universe". This may sound altruistic. But that is what the life is all about. I never believed in the words of others (how great they are) but now I have started to feel that those words make sense. I am thinking how Swami Vivkenanda would have lived his life and wanted to have similar impact in my life. Sometimes my mind travels into 1800 to these days West Bengal to sneak peak what Swami Vivekananda is doing. I look at Gandhi's passion towards truth and want to resemble him in truthfulness. All these great qualities did not come to them but they acquired those qualities by constantly working on those qualities - sometimes alone and sometimes with their Guru.

These great people make us so tiny and yet give us hope that we can also experience their excellence in our lifetime. I believe, in order to do that, we need a mental model of ourselves, need to be sure about the ways of reaching them and inner, never ceasing passion to be self. The only thing that is required is to be self and constantly working on improving our inner self. The other things like discipline, character, wealth, health, peace and all goodness comes to us automatically. It all lies in our hands - creating an image.