Bad Science

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. - Hippocrates,Greek physician (460 BC - 377 BC)

Last time I went to my doctor (M.B.B.S, M.D, PhD!), he examined me for a while and gave me 2 plastic bottles with green and blue caps and filled with mini white spheres, tasting like sugar (they were sugar globes indeed!). Homeopathy, he said, and gave a set of instructions along with the pills. I dutifully discarded the pills, the instructions and finally the doctor!

In the recent times many forms of alternate medicine has become popular; the most popular of them is probably Homeopathy, so much so that even some general practitioners, like my own doctor, of the so called Allopathy (interestingly the terms Allopathy/ Allopathic medicine were coined by Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy and considered derogative!) today prescribe homeopathic pills. In most of the cities, every street has a homeopathic practitioner and a long line of patients waiting outside, not the least worried about the practitioner’s credentials.

I have always wondered about the effectiveness of alternate medicine and this wonder led me to Ben Goldacre. Ben Goldacre is a doctor by profession from the Oxford and a celebrated journalist. He has a master's degree in philosophy. He writes a weekly column in the guardian titled ‘Bad Science’ and blogs here http://www.badscience.net/. His recent (Sep 2008) block buster book is titled; you would have guessed it by now – Bad Science. He is just 34.

His columns are very critical of the many pseudo science practices that are popular today. The book is a follow up to the columns and continues the scathing yet witty style of writing, but a style that is very thorough. The book covers a lot of things from detoxification myths to media’s role in the health fads and even large evil pharma companies. Since it covers a lot of ground it is a bit laborious at times and that can surely be excused.

Bad Science has a long chapter dedicated to Homeopathy and followed immediately by a chapter on placebo effect. Ben Goldacre completely debunks the practice of Homeo and writes: “Homeopathy is perhaps the paradigmatic example of an alternative therapy: it claims the authority of a rich historical heritage, but its history is routinely rewritten for PR needs of a contemporary market; it has an elaborate sciency sounding framework for how it works , without scientific evidence to demonstrate its veracity; and its proponents are quite clear that the pills will make you better, when in fact they have been thoroughly researched, with innumerable trails, and have been found to perform no better that Placebo.”

The other book that has received great reviews is the wonderfully titled “Trick or Treatment”; co authored by the other popular British author/journalist (pseudo patriots can take pride in his Indian origins!) Simon Singh. This book is all about alternate medicines and goes all out at Homeopathy and criticizes the two pillars of Homeopathy 1. Like cures like and 2. Dilution increases potency – for more details watch this video where Simon Singh talks about his book and Homeopathy in detail (you have to tolerate his weird hairstyle ;-)).

Both the books argue based on meta studies based on rigorous trials and the outcome of these trails have been fairly conclusive in terming homeopathy as no better than Placebo.

If Homeopathy is no better than Placebo, then why is Homeo so popular today? It is a good question, and the answer lies in the power of Placebo and the desperation of people when mainstream medicine (still) has no answer to many of today’s ills (we have to remember that mainstream medicine has only taken off in the last 70 odd years after the start of proper clinical trials and advancement in science - otherwise it was no different from the pseudo medicine and followed practices like bloodletting for cures for more than 2000 years).

Placebo is usually a non medicinal substance (like sugar pill, saline water, etc); that will have no effect on the illness, but administered to the patient. The patient believes that the substance has medical value and at times his condition improves, purely based on psychological stimulus.

Many trials have proved the effectiveness of placebo; especially when the Doctor is confident and sounds very honest and caring. Tests have proved that the color, shape (capsules are more powerful than tablets), the brand (Crocin seems to be more effective even though there are hundred other Paracetamol tablets available in the market). In all this, the elobrate ritual and props are very important.

The power of Placebo effect can be seen in the many other beliefs like: astrology, spiritual gurus, good luck gems, etc. and of course, the biggest of them all – God.

People Leave Managers Not Companies. Really?

People Leave Managers Not Companies. This is the statement that Marcus B is making in the book; ‘first, break all the rules’. This is also the philosophy that Gallup is pushing around. This statement is being applauded, quoted and communicated by many HR professionals. This is just another management jargon, one that is very convenient for the HR team in any organization. Bring on any ‘employee friendly’ policy, reorg experiments, compensation confusions and layer upon layer of abstractions in the HR processes and when attrition increases can blame (or at least share the blame) the managers. ‘Managers’ is a faceless entity when it is abstracted at the organization level, so you are blaming a faceless, generic group, rather than being specific and taking the bottom-line for the many failed initiatives -rather convenient isn't it?

This statement could possibly (only ever so slightly) be true if the lower requirements as indicated by the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs get fulfilled. This maturity can only come in a developed job market where the national GDP is stable and salary for similar roles are fairly equal across organizations. In a developing country; where the needs at the lower levels of the pyramid are unfulfilled, the National GDP keeps fluctuating, salary levels uneven across organizations for similar roles, the reasons for people to leave an organization would be salary, position and location and in an organization of mostly freshers it could be even higher studies. Moreover the culture across these markets are radically different, people needs are very different.

Yes, it is a tough challenge if you get a really bad manager who is unreasonable, bad mouthed or unconcerned about the team and primarily after his own visibility. It is very frustrating to compete with your own manager. The only option would be to quit and move on. But concluding bad managers as the only or primary reason for people quitting organization is pushing the generalization a bit too far. It is sheer desperation and passing on the buck to faceless group of people or merely a matter of convenience.

Truth is, manager is just another cog in the organization wheel; larger the wheel (organization) smaller the cog (manager) becomes. With many standardized and normalization processes the role of a manager is becoming smaller and smaller; one has to just feed in the list and rest taken care by the xls (or an application if your organization has mature people practices :-)).

PS: Abraham Maslow's book ‘Motivation and Personality’, published in 1954 introduced the Hierarchy of Needs, which states that Human motivation moves up a pyramid as each level gets fulfilled and this is a concept that every MBA student is very much familiar with and used for various subjects, like psychology, HR, marketing, etc.

first, break all the rules

Started this book with great hesitation and without much expectation (This book was first recommended by a trainer from our leadership center, any recommendation from the leadership center or from HR has to be approached with caution :-)), "First, Break All The Rules", is written by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, both seasoned Gallop employees (I guess Marcus is not with Gallup anymore, but that is not important, atleast not for us ;-)) and hence I expected this book to be in some way a marketing material for Gallup – it is that and a bit more.

That 'bit more' is what is interesting (obviously!). The core of the first part is: "we can’t change basic traits of people by a day’s training” this is something I very strongly believe in and hence I started reading with some genuine interest.

Yes we can’t, we can’t change the basic nature of a person so easily. This concept is something we have seen in the previous posts on “Personality”, A person’s trait is 50% genetic and rest 50% is molded thru early life experiences (‘parents have no role’ – I can’t get over this point!) and it is nearly, as they say, cast in stone. It is Fairly impossible to change; unless the individual takes an extraordinary effort to change (after realizing his basic traits -which, by itself, is a big challenge). So, the book begs managers not to waste time focusing on talents that people don’t possess, but accept and nurture the talents that they possess.

The book says:
People don't change that much.
Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out.
Try to draw out what was left in.
That is hard enough.

I have different team leads, one of them is always in the thick of the things, pretty vocal, an extrovert by nature. The other leader is calm, keeps to himself and communicates in a limited but effective manner. Bottom line is, they get things done and their respective teams are happy to work with them. I admire them both. I cannot search of the absent qualities in them and ignore their strengths. Each one is different and this difference is the strength of my team.
Net-net; Conducting half a day 'Assertiveness' session is not going to make a person any more assertive than what he was before the session.

Okay, we saw the point that i agree with the authors whole heartedly; there is also a point in the book that i am really appalled at; more about it in the next post.

Note: Since 1997, Gallup has polled some 3 million individuals across 80 thousand units. Gallup uses 12 questions to measure the engagement of employees. The result of these surveys is extensively used in this book.

Chapter chat - "Innum Pirakadha thalaimuraikaaga"

Interlinking of rivers - few rivers and many crores.

I'll be sharing about the books or interesting topics that I come across in books [ க‌டைசிப்ப‌க்க‌ம் ?! இது ஒண்ணு தான் குறை.].

I had this relation with the rivers at a level of a school kid running to buy 2 India river maps [ we linked them by making too many mistakes in the paper .. [காவிரிக்கு கீழே எங்க‌டா கோதாவ‌ரி ஓடுது..ஸார்.. காதை விடுங்க‌ ஸார்..வ‌லிக்குது] and 'checked' graph sheets for sheets. The inter-linking of rivers comes in the media limelight on and off. What do we actually know about this issue [ any subject in that case :) ] ?

S.Thedore Bhaskaran [ பாதிரியாரா?! ] - I knew this personality as a film historian with his books on cinema [ Chithiram Pesudhadi, Sivaji Ganesan and Em Thamizhar seidha padam ]. Of late, I came to know that he is an ecologist [ ய‌க்கா ?!] too.

Some points to ponder [ taken majorly from the book ]

* Is it easy to join rivers just like that ? Has it been done anywhere else in the globe ? Was it successful or a failure as introducing new alien water creatures in Andaman islands.

* The Indian rivers flow at different heights, in the first place. The power needed to elevate the water level is more than the power expected to be produced by the inter-linking.

* The cost estimated for this project is.. have some ice water..Rs.560000 crores [ to be precise 559999 and the 1 c from Rajini ].

* Have they joined 2 water resources anywhere else in the world ? Have you come across the effect of South and north Aral sea [ lakes ] in Russia ? One lake is completely drained .

* It's wrong to think that the river water is wasted by ending up in the sea. It's the cycle of biodiversity [ ப‌ல்லுயிரிய‌ல்].

* We do have water treaty with Bangladesh and that will be affected if we really get into this project. Also, we know the status of the treaty between TN and KA on the existing water distribution [ without any alteration in the path ].

* We failed in water channelising methods and the native methods of storing waters. Lakes have turned as Lake view apartments and villas.

* The existed polluted rivers will spoil other river by combining them.

* What happened in Alwar district - Rajasthan ? Few effective NGOs constructed Jathos [ mud check dams for rain harvesting ] and it benefited the most dry district of Rajasthan. Remember the forceful condition of rain water harvesting yielded some good results in TN [ rain ille enga harvest panna ? ].

This is just a drop in the ocean from the book written by Theodre Bhaskaran [ இன்னும் பிற‌க்காத‌ த‌லைமுறைக்காக‌- what a beautiful title ?! ]. In fact he is inspiration for drawing [ அப்ப‌டியும் சொல்லிக்க‌லாம் :) ]about the house sparrows in the competition. He clarified that planting enormous number of trees can't compensate or create a forest because a forest is not just a group of trees and cannot be man-made. You can feel the same when you think about the days you spent in any of those hill stations. Can it be recreated ?

I am not favouring him blindly - at least, he shows the other side of the coin. It's better for us to read more about these topics and know the real things instead of following the speech of Rahul Gandhi or Gnani.

So next time, when a politician or a celebrity talks about interlinking rivers, think before spending time in their speech. Media cherishes as long as the public is kept in the dark - better make our people follow the Vijay TV program "Rajini's pilgrimage to Babaji caves". [ It's like Veerappan is to Nakkeeran and Rajini is to Vikatan group ]

I recommend this book - "Innum pirakkaatha thalaimuraikkaaga" by S. Theodre Baskaran from Uyirmmai padippakam [ Rs.120/- ].

:)

Toto.

Anandham... Sangeetham

Every time I listen to this song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCmsZbarARE), I always wonder what would have been the reaction of the musicians in the recording studio. Probably, a moment of silence followed by a thundering applause -such is the majestic rendition of Yesudas. This song is from the Malayalam movie ‘His Highness Abdulla’. In fact, every song is a classic in this movie, "Gopika Vasantham" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRuSz-_K4hs) is such a beautiful love song, you can feel this mood in Chitra’s voice; it is mesmerizing. She has kept pace with the great Yesudas in this song and probably (I could be a bit prejudiced here) outshines her master too.

The movie itself is a masterpiece; a very mainstream story of a hired assassin plotting to kill a Thampuran (powerful leader), he gets into the Bhraminical house and captures everyone’s heart thru his golden voice as he plans for the kill. Does he accomplish his mission is the rest of the story. Pretty mainstream indeed, but Ravindran’s music along with Yesudas’ finest performance, pushes this movie beyond the ordinary. Mohanlal as the assassin is as good as ever and Gauthami does a decent job (Only Mallus and Kamal used her properly – Venkat used to say!)

This song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a7PI6jXD74 watch from 1:10) is the musical highlight of the movie. In this music duel, between Yesudas and Ravindran Master, you have to listen to the crescendo that Yesudas builds from 8.34, beyond words…will move you to tears. Ironically, the National award for best male singer went to Srinivas for the song 'Naadaroopini', also from this movie

The other movie’s songs I listen very often is from Manichitra Thazhu (the original and the better version of chandramukki and Bhool Bhullaiya – see it, to believe it). It’s a Mohanlal, Yesudas and Chitra combination again.

This great song by Chitra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIegcBCnWAw) really reflects the eagerness of someone waiting to see a loved one (that is what the song is about)…you can feel the desperation, the loneliness in her voice – Magic. Yesudas has his share too (of course!); his version (a shorter one) of the above song is equally good, you can hear years of pure carnatic training in this small piece (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXWZJs4uuc - Till 1.06).

This is another soul wrenching (I am running out of superlatives) song by Yesudas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0dVtMZNE1k). This is the song that leads to the climax of the movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZA_90S7q5w); watch Shobhana’s dance performance and you will agree that her national award was well deserved.

Interestingly, over the last 13 years, Manichitrathazu has been screened more than a dozen times in Kerala and every time the TRP keeps increasing! Not sure if this can happen to any other movie in any other language.

I have to say this here; my mother tongue is not Malayalam and I can barely understand Malayalam (at least in the form that is used in these songs), but that does not stop me from enjoying these songs. If you love music, I urge you to hear these songs even if you don’t understand a word of what is being said.

Anandham, Anandanandham, JhagathAnandham Sangeetham – His Highness Abdulla.

In A Hurry

Things are getting shorter by the day… when did you last see a serial story in a magazine? I haven’t seen any for years now. Tamil magazines used to tout many serial stories written by writers, who were nothing short of superstars. Many housewives would remove (tear) those pages and collect them week after week and at the end of the story (which sometimes ran for years together), would bind those pages and add to their library of such collections. Today there is not one such story. The max you will get is a story of one page (oru pakka kathai – one page story, they are called).

Long letters are replaced by shorter emails, which are in turn replaced by the shorter SMSes, which are made shorter still by a vocabulary of its own (C U @ 4). Blogs are losing out to twitters and scraps. Even magazines like India Today have become slimmer (they have become weeklies, to be fair) - have you compared the Reader’s Digest of yesteryears to the recent ones? Marriages, these days, are short lived -I am told. Movies are getting shorter and what used to be a 3+ hr affair are usually around 2hrs today and a few under 2hrs too (which is not such a bad thing). The increasing popularity of Twenty20 cricket and the empty stands of a test match stand testimony to my words. Hair, dress – you name it and you got it – only shorter.

The only thing that seems to be getting longer and longer is my daily office telecon (short for telephone conference!) and yes; the other thing that never seems to end is the serial that my mother watches on TV.

Sometimes it looks like we have developed a societal attention deficiency disorder. We are all in a hurry and everything is in a state of blurr. We are pummeled by so many deviations today that we can hardy focus on one single thing long enough without our thoughts getting deflected by something else – mostly electronic. We are so impatient today that I routinely see people punching the lift close button >< again and again, not wanting to even wait for a few seconds, before the door auto closes. For once, you continue your halt at the traffic signal for a couple of seconds more after the light turns green, and you will know what I mean.

“Slowdown” I want to say; but I have to rush to attend a call and have to keep this blog short :-)

The Human Abstract - William Blake

William Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience' is a collection of contrasting poems. Songs of Innocence is about childhood and the early stages of innocence and Songs of Experience is the counter to the Songs of Innocence and is about the loss of that innocence in the process of growing up with exposure to the adult world.

A wonder is "The Human Extract" from Songs of Experience:

Pity would be no more
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be
If all were as happy as we.

And mutual fear brings peace,
Till the selfish loves increase:
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.

He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the grounds with tears;
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Caterpillar and Fly
Feed on the Mystery.

And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.

The Gods of the earth and sea
Sought thro' Nature to find this Tree;
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain.

The Human Abstract - William Blake
From - Songs of Experience -1794

Personality - Agreeableness

Around 50% of your personality is heredity- this is the genotype influence *. So, who you are and how you react to different situations are predetermined up to 50%, the other 50% is shaped through the many early life experiences – these are the environmental influences. The famed debate of Nature Vs Nurture (heredity Vs grooming), is split right at the middle. The most disturbing or striking outcome of research is: upbringing has no effect on the personality of a person. Parents do not play a role through their parenting skills (or the lack of it!) – their contribution ends with the donation of genes.

Among the 5 personality traits, people who score high on Agreeableness (Daniel Nettle calls them Empathizers) focus on harmonious interpersonal relationships and will spend considerable amount of time caring for others, to my mind this is probably the most important personality trait (esp., in today’s world) and interestingly it is the least acquired trait through genotype (42%). Agreeableness is explained through the Theory of Mind. Theory of Mind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind) is divided into two related capacities; mentalizing (understanding the mental state of others – e.g., understanding that someone is in a state of hunger) and empathizing (relating/caring to others mental state- sympathizing and providing food for someone who is hungry. Only humans are capable of these two mental states. People who score high on agreeableness are highly capable of this mentalizing and empathizing; especially with empathizing.

The Big 5 questionnaire (available here: http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/) will shed some light in rating the 5 personalities based on the responses to some standard questions. The realization of ‘Self’ is critical to the process of growing up (wonder if someone is really aware of this Self, generally we either underestimate or are over confident about ourselves and our abilities). Being aware of the strengths and weakness in our personality and will help us enrich our professional and personal life.

If you take the Big 5 test and happen to score high on Agreeableness, drop me a line.

*Effect of Genes on personality:
-wiki
Openness: 57%
Extraversion: 54%
Conscientiousness: 49%
Neuroticism: 48%
Agreeableness: 42%
/wiki-

Who moved my Blackberry – Lucy Kellaway

Who moved my blackberry is an Epistolary novel (written as a series of letters, diary entries, etc – Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger is one and uses letters). The book has been written by Lucy Kellaway, but the protagonist Martin Lukes is credited as the Author and Lucy’s name appears as co author.
Before this book, Lucy introduced Martin Lukes thru her columns in the Financial Times that and continued for many years (sample: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ca3db5e-989e-11dc-8ca7-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1) . Lucy’s name is never mentioned in the column to maintain authenticity!

Martin Lukes is the Marketing Director of a-b global’s UK Operations (a-b Global is a fortune 100, US company). The story revolves around his struggle to move up the corporate ladder. He manages to climb with very little ability, but a lot of management jargon, super ego, kissing-up to the CEO and finally with some help from a personal life coach. He manages to get to the position of Special Projects Director (heading special projects, is the management’s way of saying that the exit door is nearby).

The book is a wonderful satire of the corporate world and all its Bull (a bit to the extreme at times). It has everything that is wrong it today’s corp world, right from life coach (the jargons used by the life coach (named Pandora Barry) are the best – “strive to thrive, better than your best, etc”), massive egos that are so self obsessed that make people oblivious of the situations they are in, usage of blackberry (or any other e-tool), rebranding, off shoring, downsizing, reorganizing, affairs, you name it. And it all culminates in a scandal (Insider trading).

A great moment in the book is the coining of the word "creovation" by Martin; this is the half creation and half innovation. These two words are the current buzz words in any self-respecting organization. And, Lucy has a good amount of fun by poking around this concept. The second best is the 'Phenomenal Performance - Permanently' by the CEO himself

This books explains how so many people with limited talent/intelligence are way up there – and what hits the nail is that we all know someone who closely resembles Martin Lukes –sometimes, it is a mirror that Lucy Kellaway is holding! And what you see there is frightening!

This is a well written book, considering the constraints of constructing the entire book with a series of blackberry messages. Some of the emails are laugh-out-loud types and many will bring a smile for sure. This is not a serious book, but a wonderful deviation if you are into serious stuff. An enjoyable parody into the world of corporate and its wretched culture. Does it carry a message? Probably.

Personality by Daniel Nettle

Alert: this will probably be a bit dry, but this is a facinating topic for me, hence pls. tolerate and travel with me!

Book Reference: Personality by Daniel Nettle

Each one of us is very different in our own way…is this true? Why are we different? We react to same situations/stimulations differently, why is it?
What drives these differences in our individual personality.

According to Gordon Allport, Personality is, “The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment”. Yes, it is complex; but quite simply put- it is the way we react and interact with the environment around us in a consistent manner.

The various dimensions of this personality is known as the traits. Traits is the pattern in our behavior- it is the way we are wired! Although there are many (some count to 80) identified traits the five major traits that are used popularly to measure personality are:

1. Openness (to experiment new things, curious, imaginative)
2. Conscientiousness (being dutiful, dependable, etc)
3. Extraversion (highly social, etc)
4. Agreeableness (good natured, trusting, etc)
5. Neuroticism (nerves, emotional stability)
Collectively these traits are known as the The Big 5.

According to WIKI; The first public mention of the model was in 1933, by L. L. Thurstone in his presidential address to the American Psychological Association. Eversince there has been a large body of research on this framework and we will be focuing on these traits.

How The Mighty Fall - Jim Collins

In this book, Jim Collins tries to answer the question, why some companies that are doing exceedingly well turn around and fail (and also on why some continue to do well - but the focus is on the failing companies). Jim Collins comes out with the following framework of five stages of failure and discusses the stages with well-researched case studies of 11 organizations that have gone thru them.

Stage 1: Hubris born of success –Assuming that Success is a given no matter what we do.

Stage 2: Undisciplined pursuit of more – Going after quick gains and abandoning the core strengths/values (flywheels) for something new and radically different and deep into stage 1.

Stage 3: Denial of risk and peril – blinded hubris, refusing to see the risk vs. reward symmetry of venturing into a new strategy and abandoning old core strengths.

Stage 4: Grasping for salvation – Looking for a silver bullet (getting a new hotshot CEO, going after (with millions) an all-out drug that is still not proven) that will salvage the organization. Losing out on the culture of the organization.

Stage 5: Capitulation to irrelevance or death - the final stage, where everyone just gives in after the financial power gets eroded by the many false starts. And the organization just melts away.

The organizations that he discusses range from HP (HP took down two of my favorite companies – Digital and Compaq), Bank of America, Ames Dept Stores, Circuit City, Merck, etc. Jim Collins argues that the fall is mostly self-inflicted and not driven by the environment (environment does play a role).

It is really surprising and staggering to read about some of the decisions some leaders take even as they stare at the downfall of their company, it is as if they are blinded by the ego and confidence. It is also amazing to know that many companies that fall are at the peak of their innovation cycle, for example, Motorola and Merck had the highest IP filings during the respective slides. We always think that companies that innovate survive, Jim proves it as otherwise, the message, is probably, innovate at the right time.

Another interesting point is that many companies that are on the downward slope do a lot of restructuring (Scott Papers restructured some 3 times in 4 years during their fall). I can relate to some of the findings to what is going on in my organization (esp. the restructuring), I hope we get it right and prove Jim wrong. The way the book is written is very interesting to read, he has contrasted the company that failed, with a company (in the same market and competitive environment) that has succeeded.

This book is only 123 pages and well structured with chapter-end summaries. The book is easy to read and understand for a layman like me. It is also quite updated (published May 2009) with references to the recent meltdown, but I guess the draft was ready a couple (or at least a year ago), hence not too focused on the recent happenings.

On the downside: like any other solutions book, the conclusions seem to be quite simple and the research findings looks to be twisted to suit the writer’s framework.

Jim Collins is the celebrated author of Good to Great and Built to Last (Trivia: Steve Ballmer considers Built to Last as his single favorite Business Book!). Built to Last, is on the Business Week best-seller list for more than six years, and has been translated into 25 languages. According to Wiki, this book (How The Mighty Fall) has sold more than 2.5 million copies and has been translated into 35 languages.

Outliers - 2

Successful men are shaped by a.) The Eco system that supports them and b.) the individuals, good old, hard work. These two things make them what they are (successful). There is no such thing as a genius making it on his own with limited efforts (probably the only exception is the case of one Swiss patents office clerk named Albert Einstein).

Accumulated Advantage - Gladwell, in the opening chapter talks about the Canadian (ice) hockey team and how most of the players in the national team were born in the first quarter of the year (Jan-Mar). This is because the cutoff date for joining the junior’s team is Jan 1. Boys who turn 10 by Jan 1 are in the same team as boys who turn 10 in the later part of the year; and hence have a greater physical advantage and outplay others. Obviously these guys are then groomed to be national players with superior coaching and opportunities and they just get better and better. I got intrigued by this theory and wanted to check on the current Indian Cricket player’s data, I was surprised to find that 62% of them are born in the last part of the year (Sep-Dec). Some cutoff theory working here too, I guess. The point is, if we recognize this bias, we can groom many top class players (from across the year). Gladwell calls this Bias as “the accumulated advantage”; you have the advantage of being born at the start of the year (or at the end of the year if you are in the Indian cricket team) and because of that get all the other advantages of good coaching and preference. It is not pure meritocracy.

The 10000 hour rule – This which pretty much says that if you want to excel in anything you need to put in at least 10000 hours of hard work on the stuff and hence fine tune your talent. He quotes Beatles and Bill Gates as examples. Beatles put in at least 10000 hrs of music (esp. between 1960 and 1964) and Gates had unlimited access to computers at School (it also helps if your family is already rich and funded many of those computer equipments). In all, it comes to at least 20 hrs of work in a week for 10 years and you will be a master in the chosen area.

Genius – Gladwell profiles Christopher Langan who has a super IQ of 195 (90-109 is normal and anything above 140 is considered to be Genius), but works as a bouncer (security guard at bars) and later settles in as a farmhand to take care of horses. Gladwell goes on to write what went wrong along the way and why Langan could not realize the full potential of his intellect, in spite of being the most intelligent man of America (world). The bottom-line is that the Eco system was not there to support him (he had a poor and difficult childhood) and also could not sustain the university system that is ill equipped to manage someone as exceptionally gifted as Langan.
This story of Langan is contrasted with that of Robert Oppenheimer; Oppenheimer being equally brilliant and equally emotionally unstable (he tries to poison his tutor at Cambridge). The difference is; Oppenheimer gets to be successful (Oppenheimer is known as the father of atom bomb and was heading the Manhattan project to develop an atom bomb during WWII (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project)) and this is not just because he is brilliant, but also has the right upbringing, his parents are wealthier, well connected and also let him grow intellectually by providing a nurturing environment.

The subsequent stories about early Jew immigrants in New York having a difficult life as tailors toiling many hours to make a living, but ensuring that their next generation move ahead and become successful lawyers, again focuses on the hard work and related reward, the culture and the unfolding of events (the boom in filing litigations and hostile takeovers).
Interesting chapter is “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes”; in which Gladwell talks about the connection of culture to the number of plane crashes in a country. It goes like this: in a country which has a culture of respecting and not questioning authority – the number of crashes are high compared to a country that has little or no respect to hierarchy or question authority if required. What is happening in the cockpit is that the co-pilots fail to question or correct the captain’s critical decisions even if he feels that it is incorrect and this leads to crashes. An airline that encourages the culture of questioning authority, encourages a co-pilot to question a captain’s decision and this can avert a disaster. There is a great body of work done by Geert Hofstede

Outliers - 1

In statistics, an outlier is an observation that is numerically distant from the rest of the data. (Wikipedia)

When you get a set of data; there is a possibility that some part of it will have a large deviation from the mean (average), these observations or data is known as Outliers. Like a couple of IIM’s grads getting multi crore offers from Investment Bankers (not anymore, most IIM grads will now apply to SBI and Bank of Baroda, I guess) while the average salary of a fresh IIM grad is around 15 lakhs per annum. I am sure you get the picture now and will be able to identify the outlier in the graph on the left.

Outliers are usually ignored in a stats analysis as it is generally considered to be an error in observation or the knowledge that the mean can get much skewed because of these outliers (sometimes it is preferred; as in the IIM case, the media hypes the mean salary so much, just by including these couple of outliers). Even if it gets ignored for various reasons, an outlier nevertheless gets utmost attention (like the lone spot in the graph grabs our eyeball) and investigation.

Outliers is also the title of new book (Nov 2008) by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell has written 2 blockbusters before – the tipping point (2000) and the blink (2005), both the books sold over 2 million copies (compare that to Tamil writers who sell about 5000, i guess and mostly to libraries, thankfully the trend is getting better). Gladwell also commands more than 40000USD for any appearance (according to The New York Times). Outliers debuted as the number 1 seller on New York Times and has remained there for 18 weeks (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/books/bestseller/besthardnonfiction.html). That is big. Gladwell is the current blue-eyed boy of many corporates and he gives speeches at all the top corporations (like Google, Microsoft, etc). You can catch a sample of Gladwell’s skills at Ted.com - BTW, if you have not added Ted.com to your favorites than you are missing out on something and should add immediately. (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html)

“Outliers” has a simple (intuitive for most of us) message; that success is not an individual’s show and there is no short cut to success (writing a book like this is an exception!).

... To Be Continued

Tiruchy - 94

This was written in 1994, when i was down and out (this is probably reflected in the writing). my dad took to Naaddi Joshiyam (as nothing else was working!) and Oolai suggested visits to some temples and one of them was the Tiruchi Ucchi Pillaiyar temple.

Tiruchy – 94
It was early
Even for the Sun.
As we slowly ascend
We utter his name,
Between many gasps.
Our legs weigh more
And refuse to move at will.
Why should God be so hard to reach?
Is it because the pain should be felt?
Nothing, not even God can be achieved
Without pain...Sadistic? But true.

The Mist lifts,
Nature is stretching lazily
From here,It’s all so hazy
Even the poverty below.
The Sun comes out
Slowly, And we can see,
Cauvery turn into liquid silver.
Dams upstream have changed this mighty river
Into a stream.
Water Management.
They will tell you.

For ordinary mortals,
Slaving for 9-5,or even more
This is a sight to behold.
A “top of the world” – feeling.
A Sense of achievement.
But, The Euphoria that
Height gives – soon evaporates
And God forgotten,
As the labor of going down dawns.
The realities of life
Touch down.

As we descend.
The Sun
So far benign, now turns harsh
And is, beating down on us
Mercilessly.

Leadership: 3. Always With You

Leadership: 3. Always With You
People come first. Not the company (or Organization, or Corporation if your hubris wants to call it that) and not the customer (whatever you have read so far lets you to believe). Your team and the people that constitute the team have to come first.
This can be in contrast to whatever you have learnt in many management books. Of course at a larger context the common good comes first; we are not discussing who is right and who is wrong, all things being equal, the individual should get the benefit of your leadership. For instance, I have heard this about a leading company in India asking its system admin to come to office during an emergency when the man was actually grieving the loss of his daughter (less than 7 days); the GM had apparently said “there is nothing you can do about it (the loss of the kid) why can’t you at least come to resolve this issue” or something to that effect. I have no way to confirm the authenticity, but this was narrated by a former employee and colleague of the sys admin. This is probably a case of extreme – but to illustrate the point to which a leader can be blinded by the organization goal. Leaders should weight the situation and always consider the options that will favor the individual. Simple example of a critical resource asking for leave since his mom is not well and the project is on a critical path. What will be your thought process? The first thing is to see is how you can manage without this person, how you can facilitate the person to move out on leave, or do you think “how can I make him stay”.

You need to create an environment where people are not afraid to try out things for the betterment of the organization and the team. A team that is afraid to try new things will stagnate and mentally rot. As a leader it is your responsibility to provide the safety net, or an environment of comfort that the team is allowed to try new things. A word of caution is that, you are on top of the change and have understood that the change is for the good and betterment of an existing system or process and has been tested out. When someone comes out with an idea I have seen many getting on the defensive and back of their mind thinking about points to counter the idea. This sets a pattern of no change and no creativity at work. There can’t be anything more demoralizing than the lack of creativity at work. You need to provide a nourishing environment for new ideas, however small however improbably the idea may sound. At least, hear them out.

Leadership: 2. I am here to hear

Your team should not feel a barrier between them and you. You should be highly approachable and be able to listen to them, without looking at your watch. If you are busy when someone comes to you, give them a reasonable amount of time (5 to 60 mins; not more) and call them yourself to discuss the issue. Don’t interrupt with your ideas and interpretations of the situation; if you are not clear on something, ask for clarity, but otherwise listen without interruption.
Once you have heard out completely, think it over and arrive at a solution. As you may know there are many ways to arrive at a solution and the best is probably the Socratic Questioning (said to be institutionalized by Socrates) method, basically it means that you ask (a lot of) questions and help the other person arrive at a solution to the initial problem – Also know as the “teaching by asking rather than telling” method.
It is also important to be among the team, you need to get out of the exalted chair and walk among the team, if you are inside the cabin all the time, you will not be able to persuade people to come to talk to you. You must be seem as one among the rest rather than being aloof and trying to keep yourself away from the team (the ages of babudom has gone for good). Again, if I have to derive examples from the past, I don’t think we could ever forget Uma being more of a friend and less of a boss.
You should be able to read the underlying feelings of the team very early; this will not be conveyed in any meeting or thru email (at least not until it blows out of hand). You can only gauge this thru informal interactions.

Thoughts on Leadership...

Don't know if I am really qualified to write on this subject, but Venkat forced me to write it... so any amount of brickbats are to be sent to him... and all bouquets can be sent to me ( this is your first lesson in leadership!).
The way we have gone about is to take the many facets of a leader and discuss about them one by one... taken some examples from our collective past... thanks to all good and bad managers I have come across - this is dedicated to them all.

Leadership:
1. Technical Expert
You need to be a Technical Expert, in whatever field your team is working on. You can be a manager and get the job done without having an iota of technical knowledge (which we will discuss later), but if you really want your team to respect you as a leader, then you should be able to roll your sleeves and get your hands dirty. You should not overdo this so the team member thinks that you are in contention with them for something!
The team should know and feel that you are there to provide directions when required. Intellectually and technically you should be sharp. You need to know how and when to think logically and when to think out of the box. You need to bring in fresh ideas to the routine job and at the same time should be able to bucket new problems into known patterns, by breaking them down into smaller manageable pieces. So typically; you need to think out-of-the-box for routine issues and think logically for non-routine issues.
You need to be up-to-date and be able to ask intelligent questions. I remember Bhujanga used to read everyday on technical issues and sometimes discuss them. It is a different thing that most of his ideas will go over-the-head for most of us. I also remember how Uma used to explain things from the very basic (once he did that to Gururaj and Guru tried his best to confuse Uma). Till this date we respect them for their technical expertise and willingness to share them with us; so the same applies to all of us, right? If the team knows that you are a subject matter expert and if they aspire to be like you; I guess you are a successful leader.

Reading, A Reminiscence

I have to thank my friend Sreekanth for getting me into this reading habit, I still fondly remember our many trips to the second hand book shops across the city for old Reader's Digest and other books. There was this special shop opposite Shanti Theater that specialized in - you know what! Just walking that stretch on Mount Road - from Bata store (Anna Statute) to the Post Office was exhilarating. I can still remember the cold water that used to drip from the ACs of offices above the pavement. There was this book stall opposite Bata which used to sell colorful but mostly useless imported books.
We have shared many books during those tumultuous, acne riddled, voice breaking adolescent years. Kane and Able was one such great book that we enjoyed reading (I still believe that Sreekanth’s business acumen is driven by this book). I also remember reading Ken Follet (again from Sreekanth), and when I was half way thru this book, Indira Gandhi got assassinated, I was moved to know from somewhere that Indira Gandhi’s last read was also a Follet; although a diff title.
I used to thrive on popular fiction before I moved into a dry phase of no reading and then into the recent dry world of non-fiction. Like many, I started my fiction reading with the slightly-above- trash, dime novel fame detective Nick Carter aka Killmaster and the various feasts of James Hadley Chase (made popular by Junior Vikatan through Tamil translation) , with more than a slight hint of 007ish sex and action this was like "ho... my God". The natural progression was to move on to Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffery Archer, Ken Follet, Fedrick Forsith, Aurther Hailey, Alister Maclean, Irwin Wallace, etc. each writer had a style of his own, so normally you start an author read as many books as possible from his stable and move on to the next.
The details that Aurther Hailey could get into was really wonderful, who could forget his works Airport, Money Changers and Hotel? They were extraordinary. Later, he wrote overload, which lead me to think that it was written by Harold Robbins but credit given to AH. HR was great read, my roommates used to take it to the bathroom for some literary inspiration! But, some of his books were really good, like a Stone of Danny Fisher and Memories of Another Day! The Carpetbaggers was a saga in print, notwithstanding the NYT review that stated “It should have been inscribed on the walls of a public lavatory." when the book was published in 1961. Betsy is probably the best trash written by him (or read by me); my roommates had reservations on this book! I recently got hold of this book to go down memory lane...sadly, the old magic was missing, but it was a good trip.
I started reading fiction again (as I am at home these days, which is also the reason why I am writing this piece) but I could not really enjoy the writings of Dan Brown (too absurd and really insults the intelligence of the reader, if you ask me), John Grisham, was fine initially for the first one or two books, but too much of Mississippi and surely too much of the attorneys. Robert Ludlum, again, was too much of WW2 and found it very repetitive, so much so, that I become very familiar with the geography of Moscow and its Bolshoi Theater, Moskva River , Triumphal Arch (what is with Arches and military victories?) and many other landmarks!

Sagging Pants and Funny Laws

A country town in the US bans wearing low hanging, sagging pants - high time some would say. The new indecent exposure ordinance in Delcambre Town , Louisiana of about 2,000 carries penalties of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for being caught in pants that show undergarments. While they are at it, we could suggest similar bans on some aspects of today's popular culture, like Rap Music, it is not music for heaven's sake, it is just talking fast. Wearing caps the wrong side, what purpose does it serve to wear the cap the other way, I don't know, probably I am getting old. Also, wonder if there could be a law to ban TR from acting and ban Cheran's hairstylist.
There are many stupid laws across the world and of course US would lead the way. I have given below some that I found interesting (you know that I am at home these days).
"No vehicle without a driver may exceed 60 miles per hour". In their defense, very futuristic I say. "Sunshine is guaranteed to the masses". By the law, you understand. Of course this is at Calif , but still!
"Detonating a nuclear device within the city limits results in a $500 fine".
Wonder who will be left behind to collect the fine!
In the city of Eureka : "A man with a moustache may not kiss a woman". That is some place I am not going to visit, ever.
"You cannot bathe two babies in the same tub at the same time". No comments, enough to say that this is at LA.
"It is illegal for hens to lay eggs before 8 AM and after 4 PM". How the hell will they enforce this? Who is going to monitor? And above all, what is the point?
This is something that I would have voted in favor, "A man can't go outside while wearing a jacket and pants that do not match".

Watched Mozhi. Don't remember a tamil movie that I enjoyed so much in the last few years (with family, esp., with my 7 year old).
Kudos to Prakash Raj and director Radha Mohan for making such a clean and light hearted movie, esp., when the tamil film industry is reeling under the aruva sentement and loud "Aieeeys" with blood shot eyes and nerve throbing shots.
All actors have given a calm and near natural performance, each character is well built and nicely played out. For a music theme (or the lack of music in the case of Jyothika's cha) based movie, the back ground score could have been better. Raja would have done wonders here. Although Vidyasshar has done his best through meaningful silences. Also could have reduced two songs!
Hopefully success of this movie will go a long way in encouraging more cleaner entertainers from kollywood (hate this word!). It is good to see that Tamil industry is going thru a lot of experimentation with movies like Veyil, Paruthiveeran, Mozhi, 23 Pulikezhi, etc.