What should be the vision of a leader?

It has been a while after starting my journey towards leadership. There has been a lot of turbulence and inner chattering happen inside me. A lot of questions been raised, some of them are answered and some of them are left unanswered, some of them are thoughtful and some of them are thoughtless. One such question that came to my mind was “What should be the vision of a leader?” While businesses and organizations can set vision against revenue targets, customer satisfaction, growth and many fancy B-School jargons, the leadership is never thought in school. The leadership has to be an experiential learning. Either you need to have a real environment or simulated environment where you are able to create and nurture your leadership skills. Like human evolution, the leadership qualities have to evolve within you. I would like to present you one such experience and a thought that struck me during my travel. Here it goes.

Leadership is not a position, not a power, not even a feeling. Leadership is being. Why we say that Mahatma Gandhi as a leader, why we say that Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela as a leader. Did they do all the possible best things to their men? Did they ever been given any power or position when they had been called as leader? No. But, why they have been called as leaders.

If they were slave, they never wanted to die as slaves and more importantly, they never wanted their men to be slaves and they never imagined that their future generations in slavery. They did not know how to achieve it but yet they wanted the freedom to get their share of air and their share of prosperity. When we look at the great leaders, they never fixed their eyes on the leadership pedestal but on their people, how to elevate them. They truly want to elevate them. They wanted to take their people to a place where they have been never before. Once they attained it, they never said that they were responsible for the freedom. They understood that sum of the parts is lesser than whole. And that is leadership. When you apply this to business or organization, the managers or leaders should think like this – “I want to create an organization where the people, everyday move to a new place where they have been never before.” If the leaders are able to think in such simplistic way, the answers for all the problems will be answered by the system/organization that the leader has created.

Another fulfilling moment in my life

During last September, I happen to visit Paavai Engineering College at Salem, Tamilnadu for a guest lecture on Linux. It is quite a while after that and couple of weeks before, I got an invitation through my colleague Vinoth to speak students of IT department at Sona College of Technology, Selam, Tamilnadu on Open Source and how they can learn with the help of Open Source. My friend and colleague, Sundar also been invited to speak about "How to handle change", the change from college to company.

We (Sundar, Vinoth and myself) started from Chennai on Friday night and reached Salem Saturday early morning. Vinoth's family (Parents and his brother) gave a very warm welcome. After relaxing a bit after the journey, we reached the college around 8.30 am and met HoD of IT department. We discussed and understood his expectation from us and he insisted to have an informal and interactive session. It didn't surprise us as we prepared our lectures that way and I was more than happy because I do not know to speak formally.

At 9.30am, we started the proceedings with a warm welcome by the students and staff of IT department. I started to speak about Open Source. I planned my session for about 2 hours but wrapped by session within 30-45 minutes as I sensed that the students needed much awareness on taking some areas interest and specialize in a particular area rather than focus too much on Open Source. I feel that Open Source is of much use to the students only when they specialize in a particular area. For example, one needs to know the basics of Networking and Network Security before downloading or using SNORT intrusion detection system. While anyone can download it and do ".configure; make; make install", a lot of theoretical and systematic learning is required to make their learning meaningful. With this in mind, I thought that I would give the floor to Sundar who needed to speak on "change and how to respond to it". It would give me sometime to think about what we should do. Apart from that, I thought Sundar's talk would give students enough courage to speak up and participate. It happened exactly the same way.

Around 10.15am, Sundar talked about change and it was well received and I believe he spoke for more than an hour. Then we left for a break for 15 minutes. The students were impressive on keeping up the punctuality and they were back to their seats exactly after 15 minutes. I was inspired by it. Next, we asked the students to pick an area (Networking, Network Security, Operating System, Database, Embedded) and form groups. Asked them to write down what they already knew and what they would like to know and how they would achieve it.

The view about gaining technical knowledge is not through lectures and trainings. The lectures and trainings will give only awareness. During my session, i thought I should give that awareness and motivate the students to work consistently and specialize in their area of interests. I insisted upon having good theoretical knowledge and expand the gained theoretical knowledge with the help of Open Source Software. A long term goal would be contributing to some Open Source Products and at the same time achieving the purpose of joining an Engineering/Technology course.

We had this session for about 90 minutes and then 15 minutes Q/A session. Few students were around there for another 15-20 minutes to get their questions clarified. We could see some sparks in student's mind. Overall, I had another fulfilling day at Sona College of Technology. It was also quite a learning experience for me and yet again the students showed me so many good qualities that are needed for human beings such as mutual respect and trust. Also, I would like to emphasize and inspired by the humbleness, modesty and professionalism of HoD of Department of IT and hospitality of Mr. Iyyanar, NSS Co-ordinator of the college.

Real Hero - Inspirational Story

The leadership starts with self. The leadership is belief. You cannot preach something which you do not believe and if you believe something, you have to be what you preach. While this applies to anything under the sun, these days the authentic leadership is a rare. While many people talk about ethics, integrity and professionalism, their ideologies get diluted as and when they see "some" benefits. The benefits might be money, market share or customer satisfaction. But, only very few have a strong belief in their core values and take this planet to next level. Those are people who set vision, strive hard and work relentlessly without getting fatigue and finally achieve it are true leaders. They do it not because they find it challenging but because they have belief in their thoughts and core values. Here is one such story

This morning I happen to see one such incident. It is very unusual for me to see some news TV channels in the morning but today I happen to see a small news item about an young man (around 65 to 70 years young) who has silently taken the farmers of Sourastra to next level. Sourastra is a region in Gujarat, India where the land is very dry. The region receives insufficient rainfall. Everyt ime, the farmers struggle to cultivate their lands due to water scarcity.

But this young man, started an initiative individually and made a champign aroung the region. He issued notices and took classes to the farmers to dig wells. You might be wondering what is the great the deal in digging the wells. He asked the farmers to dig wells to store water. The idea is to store rain water and use it when there is no rain. He made pipelines and directed all the rain water to any of these wells. The water that is stored in the well is used later when there is no rain. This gave a remarkable results to the farmers of Sourastra and their water problem is solved to some extent.

The leadership is a skill, core value, knowledge, belief and above all, it is the ability to bring in the transformation and lighten happiness and prosperity in the lives of your people. That is what Mahatma did, that is what Martin Luther King did, that is what Buddha did, that is what Krishna did. The leadership is not a blame game or power game. It is serving to the people and equipping them to realize their dreams. The leadership is not a position to achieve your dream and your prosperity. The leadership is taking mankind or trying to take mankind to next level of human evolution.

Interesting Lesson that I learned Playing Chess

I felt that I was not thinking properly and many of my thoughts has maximum of a year's horizon. I analyzed a bit and found out that many of my short term goals are bit successful but I noticed that I failed to interconnect short term achievements. This is mostly due to my reactive nature and I quite naturally fall in love with any technical/interesting thing I learn. The more I try to avoid or overtake that the more it overtakes me. I had no other option other than surrendering to my curiosity. With some of my relatives, I have a bad reputation on quite often switching between many things. I have so many things and so many things as highest priorities. I tend to react to developments and since the developments are very frequent, all my time goes away in context switching rather than doing actual things. It was the time, when I thought "Anyways, that is my nature and I cannot help it." But an interesting turnaround happened and here it goes.

Yesterday, being Sunday, I browsed Internet and my Linux (Ubuntu). While browsing through Ubuntu, fortunately I happen to click "GNU Chess". When I saw the chessboard, I remembered the days (probably, I should be studying 5th class or much younger) when I used to play chess with Kittu anna (Kittu anna is more like my brother and less like my neighbor). He used to win almost all the games (9 out of 10 games). But let me tell you one thing, when Kittu anna played chess with me, he never used to think that I was much younger (may be 20 yrs younger). It was the war between his brain and my brain. He never wanted to fail. While I take around few seconds to make next move, he would take few minutes. But all his moves would be clearly thought out. I had an great opportunity in my life (much early) to know and understand how important was thinking. Somehow, I missed to etch in my brain during my childhood. It is good that I learned it now. :-)

Having these thoughts in my mind and with warm heart about my childhood, I started a new game. Believe me, the game was finished in 2 minutes. Within that 2 minutes, both the computer and myself had made close to 50 moves. I forgot the fact that I was playing with computer. Without much practice and skill, I thought I was on par with the computer. While I did not think it exactly, but my moves were like that. I forgot the fact that one needed to play chess by thinking. I was thinking about my next move without thinking how my next move would affect my tenth move.

After playing more than 20 times and losing all the games, I felt that there is a basic problem in me that I should fix. The fix is simple to say, powerful to have and hard to achieve. The fix is "thinking" or "applying common sense". I am happy to discover that I do not practice "common sense". So, the last weekend, I had an important learning in my life. Let me update you how I progress in resolving my weakness.

It is absolute coincidence that tomorrow Jerald Weinberg will be coming to my home. Hold on. I have ordered the book titled "An Introduction to General System Thinking" by Jerry and it is on the way. I am hoping that it will improve my thinking capability and you can expect a lot of post of written about each page of that book.

Why I tagged under "Business and Leadership"? Because, the thinking has great deal to play in Business and Leadership which is the place I aspire to be in.

Productivity Loss - Keep a Watch

I am not quite happy with the way I read in my college. I managed to get first class with distinction without much of studying. When I reflect back today, I feel that I wasted a lot of time during my college. I was an average student until class ten and suddenly become above average in my higher secondary education. I spent lot of time in mathematics and spent many sleepless nights in working out the problems. Even in Chemistry and Physics, I preferred solving problems than theory. The two years in higher secondary passed like anything and I literally felt that those days vanished just like that. Yes, I was in the peak on my productivity. I never read something for the sake of exam and interestingly I never thought that I would get into Engineering colleges because of so many reasons.

I am grateful to my mathematics teacher Mr T. Velmurugan who inspired me. He is a person of hard work and he never delivered anything less than the best to me. Unlike other teachers, he used to solve unsolved problems (not the ones that is already solved in model sections). He had a sound voice and reaches till the last bench. I should say that my interest towards mathematics doubled after interacting with him. This is cornerstone to my career because it is this interest made to the person who I am today. If at all if I have some problem solving skills, the most of it should go to TV Master (that how we call him). He is the man of productivity.

But when I joined the college, I should say that it was a different environment and I never found anyone as engaging as my mathematics master or at least some one who creates interest. With some josh, I tried to secure college third in first semester but my performance and productivity was vanishing. Since I was away from home, I always found an easy reason not to work hard as there was no one to point out that I am doing something wrong. But again, due to my interest in mathematics, I engaged myself in doing some C, data structure programs, assembly programming and finally wrote DOS device driver too. That helped me to secure a place in HCL selection list during my campus interview. Now, I have 6.5 yrs of experience and again I have fixed feelings. I feel that I could have done more.

This is a general feeling that everyone gets as everyone's career is mix of ups and downs. If I look at my career right from my school days, I felt happy and satisfied when I was performing at peak without wasting time. Not only I felt happy but also felt that I was progressing in life. Along with performing at peak, when you make that daily improvement and spend a productive day, the feeling that blossoms is truly different and it propels us towards excellence. So, my learning about productivity and reflecting back helped me to see productivity not as short term factor but also as a long term elixir.

So, it is highly important that we make every second count by constantly watching where and how we are spending most important "TIME" factor. Ultimately, when we fail, we say "it is time". That is true, it is how we spent the "TIME".

Does Outsourcing Look Gloomy?

A couple of days back, the United States President Mr. Obama delivered his speech at US congress. During his election campaign, he argued about stopping outsourcing to other countries. This has started to create slight turbulence in Indian IT industry. With the back drop of the current economic slowdown, another blow like this will certainly create a scenario of deeper and much stronger impact and longer recovery of Indian IT industry. If it happens, many "low risk taking" Indian IT compaines will take a heavy beating. These are facts and no exaggeration.

The mess does not stop here. While, many people may be thinking that he is standing by his election manifesto, the hard fact is that the outsourcing brings a net wealth of 1.14 dollar for every dollar that is spent on outsourcing to United States. The president may be thinking of bringing back the job market in US to normalcy by stopping outsourcing. While this may sound good considering the current climate, in a long term this is going to hurt the companies that gain by outsourcing. Also, stopping outsourcing, the developing countries will certainly review their trade policies as it leads to Win-Lose proposition. The entire world will go backwards by hundreds of years.

Let us hope that this is a temporary workaround until job market recovery. I feel, it is. Also, the companies that are outsourcing may use this opportunity to bargain on price which Indian IT industry is already started to review and reduce the price (happily).

Building knowledge based society – A minute a day

The gap between rich and poor people is increasing widely in India. The rich is getting richer and poor is getting poorer (last year is an exception where rich people become poor due to financial meltdown). It is the poor people who are struggling to get access to basic life needs – food, clothing and shelter. Irrespective of the inflation (14.4% or 3.3%) or crude price ($140 or $45/barrel), it is the farmers who take the loss and price beating. The people in developed countries are eating as much as five times more than any developing nation. We can see people living in poverty line as a micro issue confining to individuals and families. But these individuals make states and India. These people have the ability to turnaround India and take India to next level – Super Power in the region, if not THE SUPER POWER. Yes, the poor people have that capability. It depends on how, we, the people of this country take efforts to erase the poverty line.

When we were kids we should have heard a story of this sort. There were number of doves flew to specific part of the country for food. The owner of the farm wanted to catch all the doves and so hired a hunter. The hunter put a net in the field to catch the doves. Somehow, the doves came to know about this and strategize to escape from this. So, they masterminded to fly taking off the ground simultaneously and in coordinated fashion. We need something of this sort right now.

One of the asset and trump card for India’s growth is our human resources. However, many economist and researchers have pin pointed that though we have abundance of human resources, the amount of skilled worker is very less. While theoretically it may be possible to put forth some policies and allocate funds, the implementation is going to be a very biggest challenge. Also, if we are going to dependent completely on government, the vision will be very far from achievable.

It may be sound simple and even foolish to some people. If you can spend five minutes per day for the sake of this country, for the prosperity of the future generations, for achieving the visions of visionaries, to fulfill the dreams of many freedom fighters, we can create a knowledge based society. We need second freedom fight. On 15th August, 1947, we got freedom from slavery. But we are yet to get a freedom for creating equal society providing equal opportunities for both rich and poor. It is 5 minutes a day and if we sum up, it comes around 30 days per year. Go to a school or college where people are in need of your knowledge. Share with them, discuss with them, and try honestly to make the gap between the knowledge level rich and poor narrow.

When we do this, we need to keep in mind that we are creating a knowledge based society and suddenly on one fine day, the poor people may be poor in terms of wealth, but they will be wealthy in terms of knowledge. When the have that knowledge, they acquire the skills on their own or with the help of others. How about this? All the students who are graduating from colleges get a job or become entrepreneurs. When we reach such state, the consumption of India alone drives our growth as everyone will have buying potential. So, the knowledge based society is such a powerful idea (coined by many visionaries including Dr. Kalam).

When we have that, the gap between rich and poor will be narrowing and after sometime the gap becomes meaningless. It is easier said than done. We have two options now. The first option is blame the politicians, blame the government and not doing anything. The second option is to do things slowly but gradually. The incremental change can be a transformation.

Distributive Leadership – Leadership rediscovered

Many of the modern day management concepts, tools and techniques have been discovered more than a decade before. The concepts primarily revolve around increasing the shareholders’ value, increasing the productivity of the employees and more or less everything drill down to revenues, net margin and profits. All the companies have strategies to reach their goals and achieve it quite fairly. Though, the ultimate reason for doing is business is to get material prosperity, however, it may not be worthwhile to think everything in terms of business/materials.

If your organizations or business unit is quite big, due to its size, the number of decisions made on an each given is enormous. If your organization is ultra big, obviously the number of decisions made in a year may not be infinity but may be close to that. The quality or quantity of business you do depends much on your strategy that you set for your people and decisions your people take on day-to-day basis. When your organization takes those decisions in huge numbers and the outcomes certainly shape the future of your company.

Few of the leaders and management teams have understood this and are trying to improve the decision making capabilities of their people. Few more companies are merely copying the good ones, doing something without knowing what they are doing. Is it enough if you give people the mantra of decision making? Is that sufficient to “make your company a truly world class”.

From my perspective, any organization is world class if it satisfies only one condition. If the organization has the ability to connect with its people by putting forth a vision and if the employees connect with the company through its vision, and if the vision connects the employee and its customer, it is truly world class. When the employee connects with the vision, whatever decisions they take automatically boosts the bottom line. When so many employees get excited by a mantra, there will be an absolute resonance and believe me, you will not have any competition and your people will make you truly a “blue ocean” company.

In my definition, the distributive leadership is the ability to bring a resonance in your company’s decision making process and it appears to others that the decisions are taken by its CEO.

Pushing the performance – Is it easy?

Pushing the performance of others is difficult and it is even more difficult to push one’s own performance. Many of the managers/leaders (mid-level, so far I have seen) have a blurred vision on pushing the performance. I could see that in many informal chats across organizations. First, they are poor are in setting objectives and poorer in tracking those objectives and poorest in measuring the results. When people are so poor in many important aspects, it is quite natural that the end results are devastating and shocking. How come a guy who passed degree in distinction underperforms not in comparison with people across board but rather to his abilities? Also, people are so unmerciful to say “he/she is having attitude problem”. Here are my thoughts on creating a high performance team.

I don’t really see that this is a generation gap between “Gen-X” and “Gen-y”. It is more a sort of inability in leading a team. The guys who are managing team should understand that team building, pushing the performance and creating a high performance team is a long-term process. High performance teams cannot be created in silos. High performance team is an outcome of trust, understanding and constant urge or thirst to excel.

Trust is a core term that brings understanding among teammates and the understanding leads to collaboration, then creates a thirst to excel. Finally the thirst reaches “The Tipping Point” and from then on it is contagious. It is easier said than done. Because, it takes a lot to reach a tipping point. That is why, the trust, the understanding and the thirst are important.

People need not be given promotions, people need not be given salary hikes, people need not be given incentives and bonuses, and people need not be recognized, if you can make people to realize their potential and it would be great if you can constantly do that. When you do something that you never done before, it excites you. When you can create an excitement everyday, believe me, your folks are going to have festivals and they will enjoy the work. But many organizations are not doing this and that is why employees feel that they are in uninspiring organization. Once you make people to realize their potential, it creates a bond between you and your team. This bond, over a period of time matures into a “trust”.

Still the trust is mutual between two entities. But for the external world it may manifest or may not. Also, though trust is good, sometimes it is very rough. Though trust is superior, it is blunt sometimes. So, the next level “understanding” blossoms once the trust is built. Once you have the trust and understanding, the team becomes a positive battlefield, a healthy competition comes out of each teammates. This is the tipping point. Once the tipping point is reached, it is sure that many of your teammates will accept other’s and whole heartedly work towards the team’s agenda. They put team before their personal likings. Then the team becomes a “super conductor”. It is quite challenging but it is worth doing – for the sake of mankind, your organization, your team and you.

If you are focused on building a high performance team it is easy to create not just one but numerous provided you understand what it takes to create a high performance team and it is takes time.

Getting back on track

It has been 4 years, I appeared or rather prepared for a certification. Four years back, I prepared SCJP (Sun Certified Java Programmer) and it helped me a lot to learn intricacies of Core Java. I remember that all the three certificates I earned was because of hard work. That is why, I felt that these certifications a lot of opportunities to learn and at the same time those were thrilling experience. After completion of these certifications, I always felt that I accomplished something and so was my leads/managers. But these days, the views on certifications has changed a lot and I can see people who cram exams, just by rushing through the book and probably read "Test King" or something like that. What is the level of knowledge they will have after the certification?

After four years, I feel that this is right time for me to do PMP. I am planning to have a systematic study and want to have deep insights on basics project management. After learning the basics, I want to venture deep into project management. Hence, I feel, getting a PMP will be helpful. I don't see PMP as certification but rather a long term course on project management - like a university exam. In order to get my focus and help other folks who are preparing PMP, I am planning to log my thoughts, views on project management topics and study methodologies.

Supporting Ego :-( Vs Respecting Opinions :-)

Being an egoistic and sensitive person (and the fact that I am trying to change myself), for the past few months, I have been learning on "Leadership". Much of the credits should obviously go to my team. In my case, I somehow have a feeling that my team is making me a good leader. I also have feeling and doubting my teammates whether they are leadership coach (Tip: Leadership coach is a very costly affair. They charge around 200-3000 dollars. And the news is that it is for one hour). I feel that my teammates are adding "so much" value to me than the value I add to them. I have been waiting so long time to register by understanding on leadership. After leading a team for almost a year, I want to write something based on my experience to share my views and at the same time get it validated. This is the first one. Here it goes.

Each human being will have opinions that are biased based on their moods, emotions, experience and knowledge. It is quite reasonable to say, there are at least "N" opinions for a problem. Sometimes problems overwhelm us and sometimes solutions overwhelms us. Whether it is good or not-so-good solution, the team needs to respect the opinions of the others. It is easier said than done. If you find a team where the people are mutually respecting each other, please remember that the team has worked really hard. A leader has a great deal to play in building the environment which foster mutual respect. Based on the personal traits, if a leader tends to support the ego, it backfires sometimes immediately and sometimes after two months with great intensity.

In many instances, when something was discussed in our meeting, the team was open to share their opinions. The team never supported or objected other's ego. When an idea or solution was put on the table, based on their expertise, the team would share the opinions. The person, whose ideas/solutions get reviewed, gets a feeling that he is in fact getting honest opinions. If the idea involves a team work, he is also confident that he will get team's support. The team not only gives respect in words but also on emotional level.

If you do not give deserved treatment (of course with respect) and simply support the views to support the ego, over a period of time, the team will certainly know that you are playing and the results will be devastating. The team will no longer have high regards for your praise neither for your reprimand. Irrespective of the experience, when you respect the team, it percolates to each team member and on one fine day, you will see a team who has a lot of fun, who takes the challenges positively and there will be perfect synergy.

So, supporting ego may yield some results in short term and often works in suck-up environment (Suck-up environment is an environment when sub-ordinates suck-up so nicely and the supervisor supports the ego. Generally, they do not see the merits of the opinions). But in longer term mutual respect wins. It makes sense to create an environment for mutual respect not because it works well in longer term but because each human being deserve equal respect in this society. Mutual respect and professionalism is such a wonderful thing. Once you do that, the rest will be history.

Catch you in later