A new beginning...

The forest fire ripped through thousands of hectares and destroyed everything that came in its way. As fire fighters fought gallantly, the fire raged on for weeks. As I watched the stories of various people who had escaped the fire, I also could not help notice the thousands of creatures that could not escape the fire. Then, someone said something that stuck to my head, "After every such disaster that looks like everything is lost, comes a new beginning."  The fires had created so much heat that it started raining.  The rains had resulted in a small sprout coming out of these burnt forests. Was this the new beginning for this forest?

The pride of lions (or should I say lioness) hunted down a zebra. While few other zebras initially tried to save the one that was killed, they quickly moved on. There was no time to save a life...they had to run for theirs...it was either to be hunted down or escape. They chose to live...they had to start a new journey in their lives without their friend...and their lives moved on.  The narrator in a famous TV Channel said, "And the cycle of life continues..after every such incident there is always a hope of new life. Nature has its own way of destroying and creating." This is what Indians call Shiva (the destroyer) and Brahma (the creator).

This is so true in our lives too....beyond every "end" as we experience it, there is always a new beginning. Those who have experienced death in their families, will definitely understand this.  As in many things in life, the learning is very much experiential.  When a tragedy occurs, we just get pulled in to it and it takes a lot of time to come out of it...in my life when I experienced death in the family, I was shattered...but, as I told myself, "Life has to go on". I had to take charge of few things in life. While the death caused havoc for me emotionally, there was a new beginning in my life as one chapter ended and a new one was beginning. I had to recognize this new chapter and start working on it and, in fact, scripting the chapter.

As we look back on 2011, there are many things that have happened to us.  Some, that we are happy about and some not so happy.  But, this is what life is all about...a mix of both what is good and what is not so good. What we call the sweet and the bitter. If you see most traditional societies, elders typically give us something to eat as the new year begins. The items given to eat would include something sweet and something bitter. They would tell us to take both in our stride.  Only if we experience the bitter will we really appreciate the sweet. Only when we experience an end is there a new beginning.   

So, while we talk of a glass being "half full" or "half empty", I would say that it is necessary to experience the drink in the glass and ask for the re-fill. 

As 2011 ends, a new year called 2012 has begun.  There is always a new beginning after every end.

Reflective Listening & Collaborating...

How many times have you heard yourself and people say, "Please listen to me" or just "Listen to me" or "Please, let me complete"?  Today, in our daily lives, we have very little time for many things. In a conversation, typically, few people tend to hog the limelight and either continue to speak or just don't let the other person/s to speak.

I have been down with a very bad throat for the last few days and have almost lost my voice. So, in all the meetings, I had to sit in and listen more than speak...it was such a relief and I learnt a lot.  I also believe it was a boon to all those who had a meeting with me these last few days as they could get to say what they had to without me interrupting them.

A leader needs listening skills and this is probably one of the virtues that is least understood in today's world. The world we live in rewards those who are able to speak up and chime in every now and then rather than those who tend to be deep thinkers and speak less.  I believe that there must be a balance. Neither should we keep on talking nor should we be someone who is reticent to voice an opinion.  A good balance is needed between listening and expressing your views.

A skill that is really useful is both listening and reflective listening.  Once we move to reflective listening, then, we move in to the realm of collaboration.  I read an excellent definition of Collaboration that I would like to share with all of you...comes from the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg - Collaboration is "The act of working together through reflective listening and genuine articulation of ideas, in a partnership of mutual respect and diversity."

In my experience, those who are willing to listen carefully during conversations usually make for very good collaborators.  They are genuinely interested in the views of others and anyone speaking to them feel that genuine interest coming through. This encourages people to actively seek out listeners and work with them.

The Global Organization of today needs not just good doers but people who are able to seek out others in the organization and work with them across boundaries to make things happen.  This is the measure of leading with a global mindset.  So, more and more organizations today are willing to pay a premium for collaborative skill sets.

While individual brilliance and hard work definitely matter, collaborative work styles actually get you farther and that is why a premium is placed on this.  It is very difficult to assess this skill in individuals while interviewing and that is why we struggle when we choose people who are either great thinkers or doers but really not good listeners or collaborators.

Apart from reflective listening, I have seen some of the best collaborators actually reach out to others to actively seek out best practice and learning from experiences.  I have seen that they are typically inquisitive and ask a lot of questions. They are willing to discuss issues without being dogmatic.  They are practical people and focus on action oriented, experiential learning. They typically avoid office politics.

So, the next time someone is telling you, "LISTEN TO ME" and in capitals, it is worth the while pausing and carefully listening to what others have to say and reflecting on what they have said....it helps build the much needed emotional intelligence in us.

Taking Accountability

I was reading an email which was on a presentation that was made to me when I worked in an earlier organization.  This was a longish presentation and I had told the person that he needs to keep presentations short and not come with 40+ slides.  When his manager heard that I had made this comment, the immediate reaction on email to me was, "Ravi, did you want shorter presentations? Apologies, xx (name removed by me) has this habit of putting in x number of slides typically. Looks like I have to go through his presentations before it comes to you." 

With this mail, the manager just fell in my eyes.  This was a person who was willing to give up his team member in front of me. One of the most complex parts of leadership is taking accountability.  If you are to be a successful and respected leader, one of the most important aspects that your team will look up on you for is to lead from the front.  You will have to take accountability for the actions of your team.

So, you will wonder, "Gosh, if I have a team of 1500 people, am I accountable for the actions of each of them? Maybe, I do not even know their names". The answer is, "YES..you are accountable for the action of every person in your team, even if you don't know his/her name and have not even seen the person."

This accountability brings in complexities because you now need to be able to influence every one in your team to do things that you have set as goals or objectives and each one should have understood what you have committed upwards to the management team of the company.  How do you do this?

This is where communication comes in.  If you are wondering why people think that communicating clearly, promptly and across the different levels of the organization is important, it is because of this.  Communication is always how a person receives it and not just how you communicate it.  Each person receives your communication in a different way and unless you make yourself crystal clear, it becomes difficult to understand.  This is why face to face communication is always considered the best form so that the audience can actually ask as many questions and get clarifications.  Even after this, there will be people who will understand what was communicated differently.  If you decide to only send out your communication by email, it would be very difficult to get a common understanding within your organization.

Another aspect of accountability is personal courage.  Do you have the courage to accept the issues in your organization, work through those issues and fix them? Or are you a person who would like to point fingers on to others?  True leaders do not have time and respect for those who do not take accountability.  Each one of us needs to own our actions.  I am reminded of an incident where an email from me was sent by my communications team from their mailbox and there was an inadvertent error in that.  I had asked for an apology to be sent to the entire team and said that the apology email will be signed off by me.  The communications team manager walked up to me to say that she did not agree with me signing off the email because she felt that as her team had made the mistake, she should apologize.  While I respected her courage to take accountability for the error, I told her that in the eyes of those who received the mail, the buck actually stopped with me. So, the apology mail will go out but will be signed off by me and it went that way.

In every role that we play in our lives, there will be difficult situations...as a leader in your company, as a husband, as a dad, as a son, as a brother, as a friend...which ever hat you wear, you will be faced with tricky and difficult situations when you have committed errors. It is best to accept the error, apologize, endeavour not to repeat the mistake and move on in life.  The person who is capable of getting up each time he/she falls, dusts himself/herself and continues on the journey, typically wins.  The person who freezes each time he/she falls and is unable to get up and run again, finds it very difficult to get on with life.  Just watch a baby trying to walk.  Each time the baby falls, he/she will just get up again and try...that is the essence of life.  We will never get it right always. If we recognize that we will have to keep trying, then taking accountability for our actions will come automatically.

Sustainable Growth and Quarterly Behaviours

As companies draw to a Quarter Close, there is palapable pressure and tension.  Many corporate leaders stop smiling.  You will notice many of them come out to various business TV channels and speak on what is happening in their companies.  The results may be good but they are still very tense.  There is lot of behind-the-scene activities to ensure that what was committed to the Street is delivered.  The whole world may be falling apart around us, the Industry in which our companies operate may be having a poor business cycle, our customers may not be buying in the market from any company but the Street expects us to perform.  If this is what the Street calls growth, we are barking up the wrong pole.


I heard the Managing Director of one of the top Indian Groups talk on what he understood of sustainable growth. He talked of his conversations with few unlisted, family managed companies that had survived for the last 120+ years.  He said that they managed their businesses based on 4 key principles:

1. Never look at "Maximizing Profits" but rather work towards "Fair Profits";
2. Recognize that your company cannot grow every quarter when the economy it is operating in is going through a down turn - so, do not expect to grow every quarter;
3. Never exploit resources - use only what is needed - the example I could think of was why should companies trawl for fish instead of just fishing to the extent that they can sell. That way, fish can survive and we can get more fish in the long run - we end up killing the Golden Goose in the name of Productivity;
4. Never manipulate the system - i.e. do not bribe the government or do anything that will make money but corrupt the society.

There is so much truth to these 4 timeless principles.  If only we can get companies and the Streets around the world to get out of this short term approach to business, we would have a different world.  Why do we want our companies to share profits better with us (read as higher bonus and more salary) when we are their employees but want them to keep on growing and giving us maximum profits when we are their shareholders?  I can think of greed as an answer...I have written on greed many times but the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that this one attribute of mankind will take it towards destruction.  Budhha mentioned this over 3000 years ago and we are struggling to find a solution to this. We live off this earth and we exploit her. We live at the cost of all other living beings on this earth.  We need to find a solution. Every leader owes it to this planet. Can we start by treating Corporate Social Responsibility not as an activity? We could push our companies to start looking at themselves as part of the society in which they  do business and, therefore, work towards the collective good of the society.

Killing your mother...

I was watching the movie 'Avatar' and in that the hero is talking to the God of his newly found clan.  It is a large Tree and he is linking himself to the tree.  As he talks, he says, "These human beings are invading this planet. They are terrible people. They killed their own mother and now are trying to kill this planet.  I need some help here."  His partner comes to him and tells him, "God will not take sides. He will maintain the balance of nature."

An American Environmentalist visiting India to talk to the Indian Government on how to preserve the Envrionment wrote that she was pleasantly surprised with what she witnessed in the Government Bungalow that she stayed in...she saw sweepers with broomsticks sweeping the garden and she compared that with someone in the US walking around with a petrol powered blower that makes noise and pollutes the air and all that it does is to blow the dead leaves back in to the garden.  When she walked in for breakfast, she was served in a stainless steel plate and tea came in a ceramic cup. She compared that to the paper plates and paper cups used in many countries.  The more she saw the more she was convinced that India has some very traditional practices that actually preserve the nature. She ended up asking the Indians not to adopt practices from other parts of the world but to go back to their old ways which were completely environment friendly.

Reading this account from the American Environmentalist took me back in time...when I was 5 years old. I used to visit my great grand-dad's house every year.  The house was large, very well ventilated and would let the sunlight in from the top.  The place where one took a bath had an opening in the wall and the water would flow through the opening in to the garden. It watered the plants.  We never used a soap those days. It was a lentil that was ground coarse. This coarse powder was mixed with another powder made of a vegetable that smelled nice. We could apply this mixture of powder to the skin.  I can now relate to that...it was friendly to the garden because the water flowed back to the garden from the bathroom and since it did not contain any chemicals, it did not pollute the soil.  It was also a nice way of conserving water.  The lentil powder that we applied to our body was like a face scrub that is now available in the markets. It helped clean the skin pores but did not remove all the oil content/moisture in the skin. So, the skin felt soft even after the scrub. 

We did not use paper plates for eating...instead, it was banana leaves. These leaves were then given to the cows that were in the house.  Disposal of waste was not a concern!!!

We have progressed but this progress has come at a tremendous cost.  It is time we woke up and started using some of our old practices in our homes. We can change the world we live in by each of us contributing in a small way.  I am sure that if each of us goes back to our past, to our childhood, we will find a practice that is more environment friendly than what we have now.  If we can adopt that practice, we will go a long way in leaving behind a better earth for our children.

Our ancestors really cared for the environment.  They treated this earth as they would their mother - with utmost respect and love.  The mother willingly gave back in abundance.  Today, if we really want to get the best out of our "mother", we really need to respect her.  Instead we are going down a path where we will ultimately kill her. Our children and the generations to come will look at this generation of ours as the start point for the destruction of this wonderful ecosystem that can give us all that we want. 

The relentless drilling, the cutting down of trees, the insatiable need for fossil fuels, the encroachment of lakes, river beds and the seas to create more land space, the relentless pollution of every aspect of the world around us are all coming back to haunt us.  The changing weather patterns, the storms, the tsunamis, the flooding of large parts of countries, the landslides, the new urban diseases...all these are the ways that the mother is hitting back at us. Instead of spending millions of dollars to protect ourselves, it would be best to treat our mother earth with respect and love and she will give back to us, in abundance, all that we actually really need - clean water, clean air and clean food. 

Sabarimalai and Lessons of Life

The pilgrimage to Sabarimalai continues to fascinate me. For those of you who may not know what Sabarimalai is...it is a pilgrimage that thousands of people take every year. They reach a river front in the South Indian State of Kerala called Pampa and then start a trek up a mountain - around 5 to 6 kilometers.  At the top of the mountain is the temple of the Lord Aiyappa.  Typically, people fast for 45 days before the journey, walk around bare footed and wear only black clothing.  They do not shave during these 45 days and wake up early in the morning, take a cold water bath and start their day.  All these practices get them prepared for the difficult climb which, in earlier days, was through thick jungle.  Now, the government has cut through the mountain and created a path. The path is rocky in parts and has steps in some parts.  Overall, it is an amazing experience of bringing you back to basics of living.  Many do not go through the 45 days of fasting.

As I reflected on the Sabarimalai pilgrimage that I completed the previous weekend, many thoughts filled me and I thought the lessons that one learns in life are just amazing.  The climb can be equated to the journey of your life. I summarized the learnings as:

• The rigour that you put in by waking up early and taking a cold water bath (someone told me that when we take a cold water bath, the body releases a steroid that helps keep the skin moist and helps cure us from dry skin problems) can become a healthy life long habit. It teaches us that there is no substitute for discipline and hard work;
• The dip in the river Pampa is like washing away the sins of the past and starting off all over again;
• The climb is amazing - it strains you physically, you sweat and even a sour pineapple tastes very sweet as it is the source of sugar (energy) during your climb.  You carry only one pair of change clothes because the more you carry the more difficult it is to climb.  Likewise, in our lives, the more baggage you carry in your head, the more problems you face.  I also noticed many elderly people climbing, people without legs climbing....it showed me that, as in this climb, most battles in life are won or lost in the head.  Those who think and decide to win, will win;
• One of the best learnings was the idea of setting short term goals without sacrificing the long term objective.  There is a part called the Apachemedu.  This has an incline of 70-75 degrees and is very tiring.  As you look up, the slope is so steep that it can dishearten you.  Once you reach the top, you are happy...for few seconds only.  The path actually curves to the left and you suddenly see another slope but this time it is steeper than the one that you just climbed!!!
• The climb down was as strenuous as the climb up.  The incline is so steep that you need to take each step carefully and cannot run. Teaches you to take the ups and the downs in life with the same equanimity.  All of us will have our ups and downs in life. We need to manage these gracefully putting full trust in the superpower that we call "God" to balance out the different aspects of nature for us.

The faith that people put in this superpower is great to experience. As the climb happens, people keep chanting, "Swaamiye Sharanam Aiyappo" or "Swamy Sharanam, Aiyappa Sharanam"....this somehow gives energy and keeps the focus away from the tiring legs and hurting feet.

As we got in to the train to head back to Bangalore, another surprise was waiting for us.  Few with confirmed tickets were already occupying our seats.  We were surprised but decided to wait for the ticket checker to tell us what had happened. The ticket checker said that our tickets could have been cancelled but he would have to check.  All our minds raced off to figure out what to do next. We all thought of different options.  The problem suddenly got resolved when the ticket checker came and told us that we had been allotted different seats and the system did not reflect that.  One of us said, "Swaamiye Sharanam Aiyappo" and as we sat, he said, "We all thought of different ways of getting out of the situation that we had faced few minutes ago.  But, none of us put trust in Lord Aiyappa and thought that He would take care of us.  Is this the faith we have in God?" 

This was a great question to ponder on....But, personally, I was happy that each of us had not left it to God to resolve our issues but had taken the trouble to think through what to do next...those who win are those who think that they will win - someone taught me that God helps those who help themselves!!!

All for a cause that has emotion attached...

As we drove through the streets of Bucharest, the young guide kept telling us of the history of Bucharest and some famous spots of Romania, including Transylvania, the home for Count Dracula.   I asked him as to  why he became a guide and he told me something that will remain with me for the rest of my life. He said, "I am a guide for over the last 2 years and I am a guide because I love my country Romania."

I have talked to people who have passion for their teams, their jobs, their companies, etc. There are not many who have love for what they are marketing.  I was stunned how the love for what he was marketing came through in his words, his tone, his body language and everything that he did.

Emotion ran high in this young man and no money could buy it.  I was reminded of the song that the Beatles had sung many years ago "Can't buy me love...".  I was also reminded of the cry for Independence (Vande Mataram) in India in the 1900s when Mahatma Gandhi took centre stage.  Thousands of people went to jail for the independence of the country.  Thousands were moved by Gandhi's call for a peaceful way towards independence.  Thousands believed in one objective.  It galvanized the whole of India.

A cause and an emotion attached to it can galvanize a team.  I have seen this in the past.  The cause becomes an objective for the team. The reason for the team to exist.  And an emotion attached to it will bring out the passion at work and the reason for coming in to office daily.  I was setting up a new division within an organization that I worked with.  We were to offer back office services to customers who were reputed global companies.  The pressure was on.  No one wanted to join our division as it was new and the risks seemed high.  I managed to get one manager and a a team under him.  The strategy was to bring pride in to the workplace through out-performance.  We created a workplace and branded it and showed that there was no room for politics in the division.  Only meritocracy prevailed. We rewarded and recognized.  We never forgot to say "Please" and "Thank You".  We said that this division should be the best place to work in.  The branding and the fact that leaders walked the talk worked very well.  The people saw the cause - we needed to be the best.  It became the best. The division got talked about globally and was showcased as one of the best delivery teams.

What has worked for me has been to set clear objectives, bringing in clarity around these objectives, setting expectations and then motivating the team to achieve the objectives by giving them ample freedom to make choices.  If the objectives are centred around a cause that has an emotion attached, nothing like it - it is sheer magic!!!