Would have not happened, if it was “once a week” or “5 days a week” etc.

Posted: March 16, 2011 in Uncategorized
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There are a couple of specific initiatives I have embarked upon in recent days.

One has been my well publicized daily walks and exercises. Yeah, I am now close to a month into it, without a single day’s break. The original target was to do a minimum 21 days at a stretch, the idea being that, 21 consecutive days or doing a thing, are necessary, to form a success habit.

The other thing I am doing these days, is to have a blog post, daily. Noticing the badge of “WordPress post a day 2011” on my friend, Makrand’s blog, I investigated into the concept, at WordPress. And I liked what I saw. That it was a commitment to do a blog post each day. There was also the other option of a post a week, in 2011. But I opted for the post a day. And here I am, posting daily, since that point in time!

So this time, both of these resolves are going fine. So far. And I hope that these will continue.

What is one of the differences that I have made, this time?

Most of my previous attempts at resolves of this kind, had a ‘loophole in the system’ for me! It would perhaps be a resolve of walking at least 4-5 times a week. Or it would be doing 5 days a week, but no weekends. Or writing a blog post at least once a week. Or something of that kind.

Those did not work.

When it is “once a week”, it could be any one day a week. And ‘any day’ is often ‘no day’. And that’s what would end up happening.

Likewise, if its 4-5 days a week, you might end up missing the first 1 or 2 or 3 days of the week, putting pressure on the rest of the week, and often not happening, again.

So what I found working this time was the precise and unambiguous (read “one that did not give loopholes”) target. Go for a walk DAILY. Period.

There are no clauses in addition, like “at least 4-5 times a week” or “all days, except weekends”. Or things of those kind.

A definition that is anything less than absolutely clear, leaves room for escape. We should not give ourselves that kind of room. Especially if we WANT to make something happen.

No sleepy Sundays or manic Mondays. If we have to do it, we have to do it. All days of the week, every week.

At the most, if we wanted to reduce the frequency, and say, do something on a weekly basis, STILL it is important to plan for the one day of the week, e.g. Tuesday or Thursday etc. That way, ON THAT DAY, there would be no room to escape.

This post is happening just a little before midnight, just so that it makes it to today’s post. Which is the commitment.

Yes, I am quite sure that its working for me, only because I kept it to a simple daily routine, without ambiguity.

It would have not worked any other way..

What do you think??

Partners in Business: Better Alike or Different??

Posted: March 15, 2011 in Uncategorized
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I spent a few hours at the recent Enterprising India Summit, organized by the Mumbai Chapter of TiE.

In the short time that I was there, I happened to catch a talk by Sachin Bansal, founder of Flipkart. As a part of his presentation, he talked about himself and his co-founder, and about how they were so alike that they could virtually replace each other. Well, at least on the work front. And of course, he was making it look like a great advantage that he had, in having two founders, with very similar backgrounds and skills.

I have wondered about this, though. Of course, not for Flipkart in particular, but for any entrepreneurial venture, in general.

It is an easier route often, for two (or more) classmates or good friends (with similar mindsets) to think about getting together, and starting an entrepreneurial venture. And quite likely, they may have the same background, skills, aptitude, approach etc.  And maybe due to this factor, there is a fundamental comfort, as they may end up agreeing more than disagreeing. This may also make for good chemistry.

But is this good for the venture?

Think about it from these perspectives:

1. A startup is usually a lean organization. Each person of the startup team is contributing in his / her own way, so as to make the whole. There is usually no room for buffer and no room for redundancy. Then, having two (or more) very crucial members of the team, viz. the co-founders, to have similar backgrounds, is it not an expensive redundancy for the startup?

2. We have also read stories of the so-well-constructed founding team of Mindtree where they were absolutely clear of the kind of skills that were necessary to build Mindtree as a company, and how they looked for, and found and lured people in, to be a part of that founding team. Recent events have put a question mark on the company, but that apart, the effort at the time of founding, and the process, was exemplary. Is that a better way to go about it? Identify key skills that will be necessary for your mission, and then look for partners who can be co-founders in your venture??

3. When things are going fine, it is good to have people who ‘get along well’ and have a similar mindset. However at the first signs of challenge, what if the co-founders all, only think in one common way? What if there is no counter point of view? There is no challenge to the proposal? While different mindsets can sometimes cause potentially, the ship to go in different directions (however, that happens when there is a lack of maturity in the team), on the positive side, different mindsets or approaches give you multiple perspectives on the same issue. And at different times, there may be value and relevance of a different approach. In that respect, non-uniformity of thought, a certain diversity in fact, is a great asset to have, at the founding team level.

So I do wonder on the best approach here? I think startups need a mix, at the founding team level. Success of Flipkart may not be because the founders are so-alike, but in spite of it! Sometimes, we look at success and try to draw all inspiration from it. Try to ape the entire model. Flipkart may not have succeeded because the partners are so alike, but because of managing to do many other things right.

Also it may be appreciated that two or more people, going to the same college or the same program, do not necessarily make for identical people. Yes, their educational background would be same (and if technical skills are crucial, then this may again be a challenge – that all founders know only the one same thing!), but in terms of aptitude or creativity or other characteristics, they could easily be chalk and cheese.

So that is the crucial element. Have the chemistry to work together well, the maturity to respect each other’s points of view and take decisions only and only, in the interest of the venture, but yet be different enough, to bring variety of skills and approaches to the table, for the venture to get the best value!

What is your opinion on this? Are you a part of a co-founders team? What kind of mix you have in your founding team? Would love to know about his.

** This post is also cross posted in my startup review blog, The Gray Hair Speaketh. **

The Age of Innocence

Posted: March 13, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Adenwala Road, Matunga was where I was born and brought up.

I spent the first 25 years of my life, on that beautiful road, lined with huge trees, on both sides, quiet, close to the 5-gardens on one end, and the King’s Circle on the other. All those 25 years when I was there, I lived in the same flat, same building, same road. That one place..

Since then, I have moved to Chembur, and have already been at three different places in Chembur, in this period!

However, that is not the focus of this post.

The post is triggered by a visit to Adenwala Road today, after many years. Okay, I have passed that place, many times, in between, but today after many years, I went to the road, specifically, once again.

There are a lot of great memories associated with childhood. Part of those are clearly around the place where one grew up.

For me, I have memories of Adenwala Road. One of the smoothest roads of that time. Which allowed for us to learn and then ride the bicycle there. And also learn skating on those Bharat Bandh days, and play cricket as well, on the road.

I have memories of the buildings and the people, the walk on that road, to go to 5-gardens, or the other side, to run errands and pick up stuff from King’s Circle.

Ahh.. those were the days. The days of innocence.

A lot of years have passed. And I don’t want to count them, and feel old!!

But when I went today, although the road was the same, the trees were there, and so were the 5-gardens, it all seemed a little different.

Most of the building had changed. In place of the quiet old, small buildings with nice balconies, and the old elegance, I now saw the many multi-storeyed, modern structures. With fancy styles, colors, the multi level parking lots, and what not.

I also sensed a lot of traffic now. Obviously the kids there today, may not find it easy to learn skating on the busy roads. Of course, we also do not have the Bharat Bandhs now, to catalyze that movement. Then again, I am not sure, if kids of today, WANT to learn skating at all. They should have the time between their XBoxes and Wiis and Facebooks and Blackberrys, right?!

The 5-gardens were not the same either.

The gardens used to be very quiet and absolutely beautiful. One garden was where some cricket would get played, one had some stuff for younger kids, there was yet another more suited for senior citizens, and then one, was frequented by lovers. The central garden was more decorative in nature, smaller, and just made up the circle at that cross street.

Walking on a Sunday evening today, we had to keep dodging scores of other people. In spite of a World Cup cricket match going on. There were all kinds of people everywhere. There was no automatic segregation, like it used to happen earlier. There were also the slightly rougher crowd, that would make young girls a little hesitant to walk alone. This was surely not the case, in my childhood. A lot of traffic and a lot of crowd.

Even around the 5-gardens, there were monstrous buildings that had come up, I am sure, commanding astronomical prices.

We took just the one round. We were little uncomfortable.

I had never felt like this in all these years. Maybe it was just the passage of time.

Or maybe I still associated the place with that Age of Innocence, which had long gone past..

Where were you when…?

Posted: March 13, 2011 in Uncategorized
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.. the World Trade Centers were felled down, on 9/11?

I was at my Homeindia office, in Vasan Udyog Bhavan, in Lower Parel. Got a call from home, and I had to ask a couple of times disbelievingly, before realizing what was happening!

————–

..Indira Gandhi was assassinated?

I was studying in the reading room, at VJTI. It was study leave days, before our semester exams. Someone came in and broke the news. And shocked as we were, me, and couple of my friends (Hareesh and Shabbar) rushed to my home (walking distance from VJTI) and watched the details, in shock.

—————

..the news of my maternal grandmother’s passing away was given to me?

The first ‘death’ that I dealt with in life. I was playing cricket with friends in 5-gardens. The place is about 10 min walking distance to my home. Ansuya masi (neighbour plus almost family) walked all the way up, and into the garden. I was shocked to see her there on the ground. She broke the news as mildly as she could, to me. I was very young, in school. Had no idea how to react. The other friends did not know what news had been conveyed to me. I walked up to the stumps, removed the stumps, and started walking away. They were wondering what suddenly came about. And asked me. I don’t think I replied. Aunty perhaps, told them, and then they quietened down. Even they were young like me, and did not know how to react or show their support. I walked up home, and up the 3 storeys, to my flat. No one else was at home. I slept on the bed, thinking that I should cry. Tears did not come. I just lay there.

——————

..the news of my paternal grandfather’s passing away was conveyed to me?

I was at a motel in Los Angeles. My brother, cousins and my parents had come to visit, in the summer after I had completed my MS. Due to the call that my grandpa was not well, my parents had rushed back to India. My brother and the other cousins (all more than 10 years younger to me) were all in the US still, but they were out somewhere, with my aunt and uncle, from the US. I was in the motel, alone. Waiting for them to come back. And the call came from my Dad, from India. I went to the reception (prior to phone in room days, and certainly prior to cell phone days) and spoke to him. Again, he tried to break the news as best as he could. But there was no easy way to say that he was no more. I asked some questions about what happened, how it happened, etc. I made proper conversation, and then put the phone down.

I was all alone there, near the phone. As soon as the phone was kept down though, the tears started flowing out of my eyes. I cried uncontrollably, and walked to my room (a small distance), crying profusely. In a few minutes, my friend and roommate from USC was anyway due to visit me, and he reached there. And found me in that state. And he gave me support. Asked me to cry away as much as I wanted to. Which I did. And then I calmed down.

—————

I can’t remember exactly, where I was when my maternal grandfather passed away.

I can’t remember exactly, where I was and what was I doing, when I got the news of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.

I can’t remember the time when the Babri Masjid was felled or when exactly I heard of the Indian Ocean Tsunami.

I do remember, a lot of what happened after that, for all of these incidents too, including what I was doing later on.

Like going and picking up my parents from the airport, as they returned from Mauritius, just a few days after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Or the last rites of my maternal grandfather, etc.

I just do not remember the exact instance when I got the news.

I presume, for whatever reason, there are some incidents that leave impact. And get hard coded into our heads. Stay alive in memory, and are fresh, even many years later.

People in the US remember what they were doing when JFK died! That has been one of the most impactful incidents that Americans experienced during those years.

For Indians, it may have been Indira Gandhi.

Can you jog your memory and see if there are incidents of many years back, but you remember the exact detail? Especially incidents involving some shock or some personal tragedy or even something positive?

Voyeurism’s here to stay: We live in the age of Reality Shows!

Posted: March 12, 2011 in Uncategorized
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No, I am not talking of the Big Boss, or Big Brother, or Indian Idol, or Masterchef..

I am aware all of these have their humungous following, but most times, I am not a part of it.

But I am a film buff, if anything. And I like a lot of different genres of films. Including political drama, thrillers, adventure, etc.

So I would get my fill on these different kinds of films, by viewing interesting different films in the respective genres.

All the President’s Men for political drama.

Satya for a mafia thriller.

Poseidon Adventure for adventure.

And such.. scores of them, in fact.

And then suddenly, there were cameras everywhere in real life.

And there was connectivity.

And there was competition in news channels. And CNN and the Gulf War happened.

And things were never the same again.

We do not today, necessarily, need a fictional story narrated to us, in theatre, to give us the thrills.

We now have reality shows. Which we are so eager to lap up.

The live drama of terrorism and the forces battling it out, on 26/11.

The terrorist attacks, and the crumbling down in front of our eyes, of the iconic World Trade Center buildings on 9/11.

The audio tapes of RadiaGate, making us feel like a fly in the wall, in corporate political lobbying.

And the tsunami and earthquake in Japan, now.

Millions of us, all around the world, glueing on to our television sets, watching all this drama unfold in front of our eyes.

Much like a Slumdog Millionaire or a Titanic, which gets the world to go and watch. Except all these are not fiction. They are reality. And all these are live and evolving as we see. Where no director has already penned out the end of the story. The story is unfolding in front of our eyes, and nobody knows what the end will be. And there is no ‘match fixing’ either. It is indeed a suspense drama.

And while we see the action pieces, we also see the people. The scampering and escaping rescued folks from the Taj on 26/11.

Those that got saved at the World Trade Center, and the bodies of those who didn’t. And the mourners of the latter.

People caught in the tsunami in Japan, perhaps praying for their lives, desperately hanging on.

As if it was theatre, we the voyeurs of the world, keep watching, marveling, commenting, tweeting, updating Facebook. As we “enjoy” the screenplay. Sorry for the choice of the word – enjoy. But beyond a point, for all those who are at a distance from the happening, it is not much different from going into the theatre, and watching a film.

When that participant on Big Boss cries, we KNOW it is drama.

When the small child rescued in an earthquake has panic, fear and tears, do we see her different from the reality show on TV??

I don’t have answers. I am just posing questions. And sharing my views on the new realities of life..

What have you to say on this? Love to read other opinions..

Technology: How It Hurt Me and then How It Rescued Me..

Posted: March 12, 2011 in Uncategorized
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The other day, I was out on the road, in client meetings.

I had a late night GoToMeeting set up with a US company, where I was to interact with a few of their team members together. This had been planned long back, and I had diligently recorded the same in my phone calendar, with a proper reminder set up as well, to alert me sometime prior to the meeting time.

Here’s what happened.

The call was to happen at 10 pm. The call had been planned several days back, and it was not fresh in my mind through the day, except that I was secure in having put it on my calendar, and which would provide me with the reminder, when I needed it.

At around 8 pm, I was heading to a coffee shop, for one last meeting, in Mumbai, before I headed back home. Around that time, after the day long toll on it, the cell phone battery decided to die. Zilch.

I have a car charger, so I plugged that in, even as I sat on the back seat, while my driver drove me to the coffee shop.

When I reached the coffee shop, and removed my phone from the charger in the front of the car, I saw that the phone had not got charged at all. Damn. For some reason, maybe the connection was a little loose or something. So still no phone.

I had a regular charger, and I carried that with me, inside the coffee shop. Before I started my meeting, I plugged the charger and the phone into the wall socket. And relaxed to have a good meeting.

As bad luck would have it, by the time the meeting ended, and I picked the phone up, I realized that AGAIN, the phone had NOT got charged at all. I had no clue why that happened. With the car charger, I have had the experience of the cigarette lighter socket in the car, not being the perfect one, and causing such hiccups in the past too. So I had not thought much about the phone not having got charged in the car.

In the coffee shop however, I had taken for granted that the phone is charging. So it came as a shock that the phone still did not charge at all, by the time the meeting got over.

And due to the phone being off, the calendar was off too. And I got no reminder for my call at night!!

And it was already almost 10 pm, when the meeting ended. Not having any warning on the next agenda, I had let the meeting continue, without much stress to wind it up.

As I got into the car though, I switched my laptop on, and I did have the Photon Wi-fi unit, and that battery was doing fine! As soon as I went live on the laptop, there was a message right there, from the folks in the US, who were waiting for me. It was already 5 min into the con-call time. And then I remembered the call that was scheduled! It was a shock, as I had otherwise, completely missed it.

Thankfully, it was only 5 min into the call time, and I decided to quickly get on to it. It was a GoToMeeting, and often, I have known these to enable audio, via the PC mic and speakers. Usually there is an option to use the PC audio set up, or to dial in for audio. I had not noticed, when the GoToMeeting invitation had come, that this was a dial-in only audio meeting. There was NO option to use the PC audio.

And remember, my phone was discharged! Heck.. now what?!

Having joined the meeting late, with 5 others already waiting there, and wanting to talk to me, and now I needed to tell them, that I could not speak to them, as I did not have  a way to call them?! This was turning out to be really bad..

When I conveyed that I seemed to have an audio issue for dialing in, they offered if they could dial out to a number and get me into the call. It was a great thought. BUT MY PHONE WAS DOWN, and I was in a car!

What do I do?

Luckily, I remembered that the driver had a phone too. Of course, not with ISD calling features. But since the opposite party had offered to call in, I asked for my driver’s cell, and got them to call me on that number. And the call happened.

All of this anxiety and solution took about 10 minutes, but not more, and we were into the call, about 15 minutes too late. But the call did happen.

Its another thing that the call lasted long. And it continued even as I reached my home. So I continued sitting inside the car, in my building, for a good 30 minutes, after reaching home, and continued to do the call.

There were the night walking neighbors of the building who walked by my car few times, and they might have wondered, why did I not come out of the car, and why did I have the laptop open and was working inside the car?! 🙂

Ahh.. we are slaves to technology and yet, it is technology that enables. How else would I have managed to talk to these 5 persons, together, for an hour or so, if not for this tech!!

Providing Service: Fundamental attitude challenge in India??

Posted: March 10, 2011 in Uncategorized
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How rare is it in India, to hear of some really good service received? I have to really scan my memory hard to remember any kind of service that really impressed me. And yes, then, I CAN mention 1 or 2 striking examples.

I was particularly impressed by the service at Olde Bangalore, in Bangalore.

At the Orange County Resort at Coorg.

If I rack my brain some more, I should come up with few other names.

But it’s hard.

Many other service providers where I don’t have a problem, are at best adequate. I would put my Citibank credit card (nowadays), HDFC Bank, Vodafone, Indigo Air, etc. all in that league. Adequate. Nothing outstanding about it. Adequately efficient. Nothing more. Sometimes a little less.

And then there are MANY that actually cause grief. Service providers that “just don’t get it”. Besides the usual suspects of government services, there are just far too many restaurants, stores and showrooms, health clubs, hotels, etc. that all fall into this league.

Let me give a specific example.

I was in the market sometime late last year, for a new vehicle. I was impressed by the VW Vento. Went to the showroom. Was given the initial information with a lot of enthusiasm.

Till the point at which I actually booked the vehicle, and made the initial payment (there was a 4-month wait for the vehicle, so balance was payable when the vehicle got ready). things were fine.

From the point of time that I actually made that booking amount to the VW Mumbai East dealer (at Bezzola Complex in Chembur), from a service point of view, it was all downhill.

Every single interaction has been painful, simply because they are not equipped to provide better service. And their attitude is one that “couldn’t care less”. This extended to their service station also. Within a week of purchase, there was a minor hiccup. The car was sent to the service garage. They took a whole day to attend to the small thing. And after paying upwards of Rs. 8 lakhs, a week back, for the car, they demanded Rs. 300 odd for some parts. When I protested that it did not make sense, they brought it down, but insisted on getting paid Rs. 48/- or so. That’s a dollar! After having paid upwards of USD 20,000 a week back.

No one at that garage had the authority to take a call, to let that dollar go. When I have paid so much, it is certainly not about that dollar. It is just that they made an issue about it.

For an otherwise great product, VW has obviously not been able to get service standards and policies in place, that can address such issues.

So is India a society that can possibly produce good products, but just does not have an approach to good service?

Since we have a lot of people, we have lot of service providers! On a typical small hop flight also, we may have 5-6 air hostesses or stewards on board. At a wedding party, we may have a whole host of waiters hovering around us. There will be enough help at a hotel. BUT there will not be a true service attitude. We try to compensate for quality, by quantity.

That does not work.

However what that has done is to bring down our fundamental expectations of service. When we get adequate service, we are happy. Because “at least it was not bad”. Both the recipient and the provider of the services, are settling down to “adequacy” and not more!

People will be willing to pay a price and get excellent service. A great product can get supremely enhanced, at nominal additional cost, by great service. If a VW showroom and garage can also exemplify the same attitude that the vehicle is trying to showcase (via its advertising), would it not be wonderful?

When at the Apple store in California, you don’t see a cash counter, but the store help pulls out the machine from his pocket and swipes your card, and you don’t need to wait in a queue, it is telling something more about the cool brand that Apple is. It’s that extra bit.

When you drive into a Hertz store at the airport to give the car back, before catching your flight, and all paperwork, payments etc. can be done in 3 mins, so you can comfortably catch your flight, even if you got late, that’s more loyalty for the brand.

When the Southwest Airlines human operator picks my call within 2-3 rings at most, and the one person can help me confidently with any and all kinds of queries that I may have, then I ask for Southwest by name, and don’t look for just ‘any airline’.

There are amazing examples of this kind, in the west (well, there are duds too – don’t get me started on American Airlines!!). We’d so love to have some emerge in India too. At this time, they’ll stand out as unique.

Like Orange County Resorts does. And where at time of checkout, I put a rating on their response card, of a 11/10. Yes, those are the rare gems in India.

Can others stand up to get counted now??

Where does our time go? Challenges of modern day life!

Posted: March 9, 2011 in Uncategorized
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There was an interesting discussion on our college alumni yahoo group that started by a comment that the long drawn out cricket world cup is causing the loss of so many productive hours.

But more opinions were added, which stated that similar or more time is also lost in following American sports, perhaps all year round, and in many other distractions that life offers to anyone, these days.

I feel this is a part of modern day living, and the challenges on account of the many options we have in life.

I still remember a life where the man would get up around 7-30 am, go for a walk or a game of tennis, come back, get ready, take a good breakfast, go to the temple and offer nice, long prayers, then head to work around 10-11 am, wind up office by 5-6 pm, reach home, have a cup of tea, read the evening paper, shower, do dinner, spend time with family, and go off to bed around 10 pm or so. Maybe even go for an evening walk prior to that!

Seems almost idyllic. Seems like its coming from a different world altogether. And yet, it is not THAT old too. I have seen it (which tells something about my age 🙂 , but which also means its not that old), and I don’t know if in some households or some parts of our country, or with some people by choice, this kind of a lifestyle may still be a reality today.

To me, this seems unimaginable at this time.

Here are my challenges, or what I grapple with on my time:

– personal finances and investments

– keeping up with great blog posts, tweets from interesting people, facebook updates

– listening to and viewing podcasts

– reading interesting non-fiction books – finding time for fiction is like a dream (make up on that, with films!)

– news, from various parts of world, on various subjects, from variety of media

– wanting to write – tweets, facebook updates, blogs, notes, film reviews… hey, even a couple of books, not to forget my old and still cherished desire to write a film script

– oops, before I forget – family time – kids, wife, parents, brother, uncles, aunts, cousins

– friends, Rotary Club, TiE, Mentoring assignments, speaking at seminars and events

– travel – for pleasure and for work

– music – love to listen to it

– interesting apps on my iPad

– Scrabble on Facebook

– extremely heavy load of emails, very busy work life, spending time with team at office too

– business partners, investors, our mentors, strategic planning, new business opportunities

– cricket, movies, theatre, eating out

– oh.. and then there’s TV, and the 100s of channels there – and this is without DVR just yet

– Exercise, taking care of the physical self; perhaps also the mental one.. relaxation, meditation, etc.

And guess what just came to take up some more time now..

The phone just went 3G. So I can now see live TV and do a bunch of other things, while I am on the move.

Does that mean, those 3 minute short drives I used to have, where I resisted the temptation to switch on my laptop, and just looked out of the window – will those be taken away from me too, now? So I switch the TV on, on the phone, during this time, then??

It is clear that the clutter in life has to be reduced. There is an increasing need to simplify life. Cut out the junk, let some things go..

I started with TV (though due to some other compulsions), and I have not missed it a lot.

Can I do the same with few other things in life?

There is as much physical clutter around us, as is this mental clutter. And perhaps somewhere the reasons are the same.
Why don’t we throw away physical stuff? We reckon we may need it some day, so we hang on to it.

Likewise, we hang on to things in life, somehow stretching ourselves, slicing ourselves down to smaller and smaller pieces. Just holding on to everything.

Here’s where I remember one of my old favorite phrases, and which I need to seriously question at this time, “All I want is everything”. Yeah, that is how life is today.

But can we really handle it?

How about this other old favorite phrase of mine, “Success is living the life you want to live”.

Can we visualize, out of all the things that take up our time now, which are those we really want in our lives? And which aren’t. And then, work towards holding on to the ones that we want, and let the rest go. And simplify life?

What do you think? Tough questions here? Challenging and questioning our today? Harsh realities? Or not..?
Let me know what you think about these..

The relativity factor: all about perception again..

Posted: March 9, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Yesterday afternoon, a client call came, and I needed to visit Pune for a meeting today.

I started thinking, what all commitments I needed to adjust, if I had to make it happen. Finally got things together, and planned to visit.

Called the driver early, the wife packed me a good bottle of water, etc. And I started out to Pune, a place outside of Mumbai.

I never think twice like this, when I travel within the city, nor do I carry water or anything in particular, while traveling within the city. No matter how far I am going, or how much time it will take.

In this case, we reached my destination in Pune, in exactly 2.25 hours, probably around the same time that I’d take, if I were to travel to say, Malad West, during rush hour.

But Malad West is “within Mumbai” and Pune is outside.

I was asked by few people who knew that I went to Pune yesterday, as to “how was the Pune trip”. They never ask me, how my trip to Colaba or Bandra was.

Distance like time, is then, a matter or perception. Even in this world that is shrinking – in distance and in time!

What’s your take?

“Walking slow is fine”: Confirmation Bias issue??

Posted: March 7, 2011 in Uncategorized
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As me and my couple of friends started our morning walk today (my 15th consecutive day at it, by the way!), one of them mentioned that he has read a report that says that “it is not important to walk briskly, but just to walk is good enough”. This was quite contrary to what I had read and heard earlier, that it was important to build up the aerobic exercise to a certain pace, for it to be really effective.

But these words sounded nice to me. Brisk walking is more painful. Not that I amble on a morning walk, but I am not doing a real “fast and brisk walk”. Not just yet, anyway.

Walking pace not being so critical, then, sounded like music to my ears.

Except that, I had just heard an interesting podcast, the same morning, prior to going for the walk. And this was on the subject of “confirmation bias”.

What is confirmation bias?

Here’s the Wikipedia definition of it:

“Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.”

Did I want to believe that the pace of the walk was not critical, because it served my purpose (of not needing to walk that fast) well?  Or was it a confirmation bias?!

How often do we fall in the confirmation bias trap?

How closely is this concept connected to having an open mind, allowing new thoughts, even thoughts that are contradictory to one’s own beliefs or convictions?

In fact, I have noticed that the more successful a person becomes, the more convinced he gets, about his own convictions. Which is sad, in a way. For the world is so dynamic today, that without keeping an open mind, one stands a huge risk to get outdated!

I have been to many meeting with senior folks, where the concerned CXO (typically) is ‘listening’ to you, but ‘not really listening’. His mind is already made up, and he wants to ‘do it his way’. And it may not even be an action oriented meeting. I have had discussions at parties and at clubs, on a variety of subjects, and you can clearly see how for many people (and this is especially true for senior folks and folks who have met with prior success), the mind is virtually closed. And they live in a world of denial, and stand a serious risk of becoming dinosaurs in this new era.

I want to challenge my own convictions every now and then. Especially when alternate thoughts or ideas come in. I want to be sure that I have an open mind, I am receptive to new ideas, and open to experiment as well.

I don’t want to carry too much of a ‘confirmation bias’. I want to try and speed up my walking too, no matter the pain involved 🙂

What about you? If you examine yourself closely and honestly, do you see yourself succumbing to the confirmation bias? Sometimes, often, rarely, never…? Do share your views.

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