Which Skill to Unlearn?

You call it moving out of comfort zone or unlearning or new responsibilities, whatever you call it, do it in action. Moving out of comfort zone remembers me of one of the rituals done in Hindu mythology. The people who seek enlightenment (often elderly people) used to go on pilgrimage to various parts of India. The places and temples various based on customs, culture and so many other factors. But generally people never miss certain places like Kasi, Rameswaram. As a mark of renunciation, the people generally leave something (some food or vegetable) at Kasi in the river Ganges and they should never consume the food in their lifetime thereafter. My grandmother also visited there and left a vegetable which liked the most. All my relatives were asking her why did she leave that because she cannot eat that vegetable in her lifetime. She said, she had enough of it and this is right time to renounce. Those words make sense to me now.

As a human being, we are quite comfortable in doing something. By doing that "comfortable thing" we never get something new. When you do not do something new, you will not get something new. The first thing one got to do is unlearn the skills that we are overly confident and take up something which is knee trembling. If you feel that learning will uplift you, unlearning will super-lift you. It is imperative that we, the human being should master the art of unlearning to realize our potential. Other may call it a risk, but for us it is way of life. The human brain should always be stretched for simple reason to show that you have brain and have been using it constantly :-)

Being Irrelevant - State of Outsourcing

Right from Globalization and the day when outsourcing came to mainstream in the name of software exports, Indian IT industry has been revolving around a single business model. I give you "1000000" hours and you give X dollars. To start with, the business model of this kind may be apt and for a matured industry and some may comment the industry has saturated, it may be unhealthy. I would say the industry has not saturated but the business model has saturated. There are two questions that needs to be answered

1. How will the buyer of the service know that the service provider has in fact worked for X hours? Is there a mechanism? While one may argue that both the buyer and provider will have "mutual trust", but is "trust" alone sufficient? If you are a much capable service provider how are you going to show that you are in fact delivering more in X hours? How is it reflected in your revenue?

2. It is pretty reasonable to ask for warranty when you buy electronic gadget of $20 (or even less). In most of the cases, it comes with one year warranty. This means that when you go to shopping mall and buy something, you expect that it will work well at least for a year without you requiring to pay additional cost. But when you are spending huge dollars in outsourcing, don't you need to push some risk to service provider.

With the current model, the software is never seen as product but software development activities are seen as service. The buyers need to shift their focus from buying service to buying product and this can only happen with a different business model. With the help of new business model, the buyers will be able to push some risk to the providers and at the same time the providers will be able to get increased compensation for their products. This also gives flexibility to buyers as they can focus on multiple products and geographies.

If you look other industry, for example, energy industry, the companies have already started to think about charging customers based on the amount of output that is produced not on amount of input used. This is the right time for us (Indian IT Industry) to get away from old business model and take up something which shows signs of maturity.

Google Chrome - Ambitious Project

Few days back Google announced a new operating system and the announcement did not stir any reactions from Microsoft. Google is trying to push SaaS as next generation de-facto technology and today it is trying to build tools to wrap around which can be later used to push the technology further to its advantage. On the other hand it seems like Microsoft (and most of the other companies) lost their fuel to do something for next generation. I believe Microsoft will never come out of outdating technology. Its strategy will be revolving around its core products MS Windows, Office and other similar products. But Google is trying to change the field by taking a giant leap on how computing and data is stored.

We are already witnessing trends of moving towards cloud and SaaS. I believe Google's intention and strategy is not to outsmart Microsoft but to take computing to next level. Another advantage to Google is that it is going to release Chrome as open source which may eat up Windows marketshare over a period of time as more and more applications made available to work on Google Chrome. Rather than selling applications, Google business model would be selling services. Let us hold the breath until later half of next year to get the feel of Google Chrome.

India and China - Propellant of Global Economy

The dream of India to become global economy propellant may soon come true. India, together with other developing economies in the region especially China, may drive the growth of global economy. As the time passes on, these developing economies are becoming more relevant to propel prosperity. This month's Harvard Business Review comes with a sweet news and alarms the global organizations to watch out for top ten trends - India and China being one among them.

While the consumer spending plummeting all over the world, post recovery, the consumer spending in India and China will be heading higher. US continue to be in the top followed by China at the second position. European countries will occupy the third position and fourth place by Japan. India will be the fifth country. China, India and Japan (Asian countries) put together will have consumers who are ready to buy products. What does it mean to us? It means that Asian countries will have new level of influence and responsibility to propel global economy. All the developed nations will be willing to do business with Asian countries and we will see "protectionism" will be underplayed and we will again step into controlled liberalization. We are going to see more liberal voices and policies soon.

Necessity to "Think" and "Think" long

Amidst global economic recession, there are many areas that undergo transformation. People started to think and the thinking is response to shock due to recession. People are thinking about spending and they are going small - small apartment and small pizza. While the lower in consumer spending may impose a threat, I believe "the small pizza" is going to be healthy over a longer term. As long as the small pizza gives me nutrients and satisfaction, it is always good. The next thing that organizations should work out is how to survive and do business in the changing business environment. The companies should rethink, be attuned to changing environment and customer spending patterns. Being attuned to changing environment is more relevant now as the current change is rapid and huge. I remember reading in one of the articles that with the current environment even "the change is not permanent". The change is changing rapidly fast.

When you think in short term and that too for a low paced change, the strategy will not be sufficient even for few years. So, it is absolutely essential for organizations to have holistic view of uncertain environments such as climate change, government policies, economic growth, globalization with protectionism, rising prices, the roles of developing economies and many more factors. With the whole a lot of uncertainty, we, the human beings, either renounce modern life and go back to jungle or "think" properly and "think" keeping centuries in mind. Think to work with nature and not against it for simple reason that nature creates man and man is part of the nature. Nature knows how to "check and mate" something when it goes beyond a point (learning from the first chapter of GST by Gerald M. Weinberg)

Example of thinking long term. I m currently reading "An Introduction to General System Thinking" by Gerald M. Weinberg. It is so easy to think now about climate change and water depletion. It is impeccable and needs great foresight to think about climate change some 25-30 years back when the book for written. One needs to have great brain and great heart to think like that.

Worldclass Reference Points - Fight with them

Today, my friend Rajkumar and I had to attend another friend's marriage and as usual we talked about something, some mediocre people who always expect that the world should/will revolve around them (sharing our miseries). Neither they speak convincingly nor think thoughtfully. It was utter waste of time and probably be used to chew one's ego. If you make earnest try to drive home a point, I bet you will fail rather miserably. Silence is the language that you should speak.

Next we have talked about two thoughtful people. When Rajkumar talked Gerald M. Weinberg and James Bach, both of us were excited, spoke passionately and striking the thoughts in resonance. When you argue with thinkers either you become a student or become a teacher and there will be solid learning for both (On a contrary, when you have difference of opinion with mediocre people neither you nor the other will have any learning).

Today, my friend Rajkumar taught me an important lesson "Fight with worldclass reference points". Teachers are all around, Worldclass reference points are all around, you got open your eyes to see them. Thank you Raj.

Collaboration is injurious to growth

1. "Whole is more than sum of the parts".
2. Together, we can do great things

and you can find so many decorative statements and words with hidden agenda. Collaboration and Team work have been misunderstood by many people. Let us take the first statement "Whole is more than sum of the parts" with an example. When you have ten people and if all the ten people work as a team, the team is likely to produce better results. Fair statement. When you have ten mediocre people and all of them show mediocrity, won't the result be uber-mediocrity?

Next, we need understand that each one of us are not always foolish and not always intelligent. In every decision, we show enough immaturity before appearing mature and in some cases we never appear mature simply because we never think sufficiently and we hardly go deeper. When someone says that he understood, it really means that he has started to understand.

With a blurred vision and improper thinking, I don't think collaboration will be a useful exercise. Thinking is fundamental. Without thinking, it is like erecting building with foundation. So, collaboration without thinkers and the decisions made by pseudo collaboration are going to be simply waste of time (now you know why politicians make bad decisions :) ). Being able to think, think right with systemic view, understanding the deficiencies in one's thinking are primary ingredients to even think about collaboration. Getting ready to collaborate had to start well before collaboration. "Being able to think" is required condition to get started with collaboration. Collaboration of non-thinkers is injurious. Remember the story of Paramartha Guru and his disciples.

Why companies fail to out-think?

I am running two steps per second and my friend is running at three steps per second. I feel that it should be pretty easier to catch him up in next few seconds and I keep running. I don't focus on the things that I should be doing and I m thinking to beat him. My friend keeps running at his own pace and so do I. After an hour, I find my friend quite a distant apart and no more reachable in two steps. We, the human being, fail to appreciate the importance of daily improvements and we realize the havoc only when the difference is huge. Then, we blame technology, processes, economy, education system, neighbors, society, politicians and everything. When you don't think about future, you cannot have future and in future you will be history.

With this thoughts in mind, I am going to open the book of "Competing for the future" by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad.

How can we give little extra?

While many organizations are working on increasing their employees productivity and ask for little extra, only very few people have the guts to give little extra. They understand the significance of giving - giving little more respect to the teammates, giving little more care that they deserve, giving little more attention to their accomplishments, giving little more thought to their prosperity. All these little extra things when mixed with high volume of authentic willingness, then, leading will be equivalent to parenting and the team will be equivalent to family.

When a leader honestly sign up to work for the elevation of his team, without anyone's knowledge and to everyone's surprise, the team will work for the leader's agenda. But everything starts with little extra things in a specific order - little extra care, little extra attention, little extra feedback, little extra recognition and finally expect the little extra effort. So, you got to give many things to get that little extra effort. But all those little extra things are worth giving.

Before you ask someone, can you work extra, you ask yourself that have you given all those little extra things that you ought to give.

Learned, so what? - Learn to Unlearn

It is almost seven years in Software Industry. When I look back, I made a pretty decent ride learning several new things in my career. Though I feel that I could have done more, it was decent accomplishments. I thought that I was a quick learner but later understood that I learned only what was needed. Anyways, there were no major issues. If there is one lesson, it would be "learning and unlearning".

I feel that the experience is nothing but interrelating ideas and generalizing them, storing them and keeping in memory for easier access, keep expanding this knowledge base and field of application. Once it is stored at a general level, the specifics are no longer needed. You need facts only till you understand or make out ideas/concepts and burning it in your long term memory. Once that is done, you can forget the facts. Only when you understand the facts, the concepts or ideas can be generalized and burnt in the memory. I will go to an extent of saying that this "forgetting" is needed, else, throughout your life you may need to process really a hell a lot of data. This forgetting can be called as "unlearning". So, it is important that you learn and it is much more important that you unlearn it.

Learning and Unlearning makes you a perfect intelligent human being. So, the next time when you are learning, make sure that you unlearn it after sometime :-)

Inspire and Get Inspired

It has been quite a learning after becoming (more aptly made as) a leader and held responsible for someone's work. It is quite easy to get the work done. This was at least what I initially thought. But as the time eroded and when I honestly engaged with my teammates, I started to understand the real meaning of "privilege to lead". While it may be easier to get the work done and for that you don't need to be a leader. Just a manager would do. But the real leader does n't bore people. His agenda is quite simple. Inspire and Get Inspired.

Also, the inspiration has to happen almost without the knowledge. It has to be a daily happening, not seasonal, not occasional. It has to be automatic, natural and spontaneous. When you do that, you will see the whole benchmarks are redefined and the standards keep rising.

Isn't it what you want to do? Won't it be exciting to be in that place? Won't you be willing to create the resonance to multiply the energy? Drawing inspiration and there by inspiring others is a wonderful thing.

I have started to realize "the resonance". :-)