Discipline at an early age

We all know how disciplined the Japanese are.  I read a story of how the Japanese fans behaved at a World Cup Match at Brazil. The fans were seated in one side of the stadium. Japan lost the match. After the fans left the stadium, the authorities went to their side of the stadium to clean up. They saw the place absolutely clean. A team from within the fans had brought in garbage bags and cleaned up the part of the stadium. They had also cleaned the toilets as they left.  I just could not believe what I read. Typically, we hear of hooliganism from fans when their country loses a match. Here was a totally different story.  I wanted to find out what the Japanese do to inculcate this culture.  Any attitude or behaviour takes years to sink in. Typically, we need to inculcate these behaviours during childhood days. Else, such behaviours come in only when there are incentives or deterrents.

We were at a self-service restaurant in Bangalore, India. I noticed youngsters walk in, have dinner and then just leave the table uncleaned when they walked away. Some of them took their trays with them but did not bother to take a tissue and wipe the table clean before leaving.  Why does this happen? This is because we have servant maids at home and we believe that it is below our dignity to clean up the table. If it was not a habit, we could try and push for it. However, if it is seen as something that needs to be done by someone else, it is not the best situation to be in.

I was talking to a close friend of mine who lives in Japan and asked him this question. He said that children in Japan have to clean their class room and the toilets before they leave from school. This is from when they are 2 years 6 months old.  They each carry a small towel from home and use that when they eat.  Once they have finished eating, each one cleans her/his place, put the lunch/snacks box away. Each time they use the toilet, they are used to cleaning it up before they leave the toilet.  I was amazed that the Japanese inculcate these lovely habits at such an early age.  It is little wonder then as to why the football fans from Japan did what they did. Cleanliness is ingrained in them.

They say, "Cleanliness is next to godliness". In many countries, it is only a saying...no one seems to practice this. As parents, we tend to focus on personal hygiene and just don't bother about the cleanliness of our surroundings.  This is what the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, is focused on. He wants that every citizen of India focuses on not just personal hygiene but hygiene at the society level.

I believe that it is time that we start focusing on cleanliness by inculcating this as a habit for our young ones. It would be great if we, as parents, could do few easy things for our children - clean the table after eating (whether at home or otherwise), rinse the plate before putting it in to the sink, clean the toilet before leaving, polish their shoes, wash their socks, put things back in the place from where they took it and also make their beds after waking up.  

All these will go a long way in making a huge difference to the behaviours as the next generation grows up.

Making a difference

I have written on this before but thought it would serve as a good topic to re-visit - the importance of making a difference to the societies in which we live and work. It is absolutely essential that many of us we see how lucky we are to be living lives the way we do. Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty, that's less than $1.25 a day. 80% of the world population lives on less than $10 a day.

The unequal distribution of global wealth is even more alarming. 20% of the world's population own 83% of the world's wealth and the balance 80% have only 17%. What is worse is that the bottom 60% own only 6.6% of the world's wealth.  With this kind of disparity in income and wealth distribution, we will not get anything other than unhappiness. This results in theft, unrest, civil strife, terrorism, cheating, etc.

So, why do we have the problem of people not wanting to share a small part of their wealth so that others can benefit and pick up their lives to an extent where they become self-reliant? There seems to be few trusted mechanisms that can do that. There are few mechanisms that help get people educated and then get a job. There is an urgent need to re-skill people and get them jobs that are relevant in this fast changing world. Unless this happens, we will not see equitable growth.

Given changes in the economy, many skills just keep dropping off the radar or are not compensated well. This results in people not being able to earn a decent wage for the work that they do. The option would be to keep track of changes in skill requirements and work with the Governments of the day to ensure that they allocate budgets to get people trained on these skill sets. 

The other issue is an ageing population that is unable to support itself. With better health standards in most countries where the population is ageing, it would be worth the while to look at increasing the age of retirement so that people can work for a longer time. However, this could cause problems for organizations to employ youngsters who are coming in to the job market. One option that has worked is where children care for their parents and support them financially.

It is not an easy problem to solve...else, we would have solved this by now. Societies should stop thinking of jobs as an entitlement. This is something that I see in many countries and this has to stop. The Governments of the day must think through changing skill needs of the world and ensure that people can get that additional training to morph their skill sets to meet the new world requirements. I have heard of a community in Germany that faced a situation where everyone in the small town was laid-off. They had superior engineering skills. Today, they are one of the world's best producers of ocean based wind turbines that requires complicated engineering skills. They morphed their skill sets and this skill has now become relevant in the new world that they face. When jobs are thought of as entitlement, then organizations take them to countries that will give them a better cost structure. Economics becomes a leveller.

It is, therefore, the job of every person to start looking to see how each of us can make a difference to the society we live in.  Given the significant level of disparity of incomes and wealth, if every one of us who lives well above the poverty line makes it a point to educate 4 people and help 4 people to find a job that helps break the vicious poverty cycle in which they are stuck, we can change this world significantly. The price we pay for terrorism, theft, unrest, civil strife, etc. is huge and somehow we seem to have accepted it as a way of life. We need not. Let us think for a better tomorrow and help change the societies in which we live.

God, Faith and Tolerance

I was reading an article which stated how few temples in the North and West of India have not agreed on the installation of a Sai Baba Statue in the temple complex. The reason given is that Sai is a human being and not a God. At the same time, these temples have requested the Sai devotees to take the idol and set up a separate temple. The devotees of the temples in which this permission has not been given have been told that they should not desecrate the Sai idols. They quote scripture to say that this is that these scriptures say. But the act of not desecrating the idol clearly shows tolerance to other faiths or beliefs.

When you pray for patience, God does not grant the wish. S/He puts you in a situation where your patience is tested and then you learn the concept of patience. In the situation it could be a human being who is actually testing your patience. Such people are actually representing God.  Similarly, Sai Baba came to millions of people as Hope. Just like Krishna, Christ or Mohammed did. They were all human beings but God sent a message of Hope through them to all those who had lost hope. So, they do represent God in some form. They gave and still give hope to millions of people all over the world. Millions believe them to be God is some form or the other. It is born out of faith and belief. 

Similarly, the devotees in these temples in the North and West of India have a belief that the ancient Gods that we call Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, etc. are the only Gods and all others are humans. That is their faith and belief.

Instead of criticizing either, it would be good to tell them not to quote scriptures as an excuse for this act but to say that this is what they believe in. There is no harm in any faith or belief so long as you do not step in to anyone else's faith or belief or hurt their sentiments or cause any harm bodily or otherwise to anyone. No scripture or book of knowledge typically talks ill of other faiths or beliefs. It is our interpretation that goes wrong at times.  So, instead of quoting such scriptures out of turn, it would be best to tolerate all beliefs and just get on with life.

Leadership - Taking Accountability

I was watching a video on the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and what the Japanese Government is probably not telling the rest of the world. The person taking the video was talking to a farmer who lives 49 miles outside of Fukushima and did not know for few weeks that they were selling contaminated food to their customers. Once his father realized this, he was in an absolute state of shock and the sense of guilt was so high that he took the extreme step of committing suicide. When I saw this video I could not help but admire the Leadership of the farmer and his son though I do not agree with suicide.

Leadership is not just about what you do when people are watching but about being who you are when no one is watching. This farmer showed the highest level of accountability that I have ever experienced in my life and I thought, I would write this blog as a mark of respect to that departed soul and examine Accountability in the light of this incident.

Many a time, we wonder as to what Accountability is. It is such an oft repeated term in Leadership circles that it can mean different things to different people. What has worked for me is to look at Accountability as the Leader taking responsibility for the actions and outcomes of his/her team. The buck stops with him/her.

We have heard of the term "running to the fire"...a Leader who takes accountability for outcomes, runs to the fire. Not away from it. Organizations need such leaders. Leaders who put their likes/dislikes aside and think through for the organization. I am not stating that the leader should fall in love with the organization or be bound to it for the rest of his/her life. All I am stating is that as long as the leader works for the organization s/he should be fully committed and subordinate his/her likes/dislikes to those of the organization. We need leaders who will stand by what his/her team has done and face the consequences and during those tough moments, not pointing fingers. Finger pointing only works to cross purposes.

This farmer could have kept quiet or stated that he did not know of the nuclear contamination - which was the truth. Instead he chose to run to the fire and for that, he needs to be applauded. What I disagree with is that he jumped in to the fire. He left behind his son to face the consequence of his actions even though the society around knew that he had taken such an extreme step.  I saw that son in the video. He was calm and went through the conversation in a detached manner though I could see the pain when he came to the place where his father had given up his life. I saw the same Leadership in the son - he was facing the consequence and living with them. He could have also chosen to keep quiet on why his father died. But, he chose to speak about it. He wanted everyone to know that his father's death will not be in vain. He was living up to the highest of standards of accountability that his father had set.

I am amazed at this act given how commercial our world has become and the fact that money matters to us more than human beings. My prayers are with that Japanese family and I am sure that the death of that brave soul will only help more leaders crop up across the world. Leaders who want to make a difference to this world in a positive way. Leaders who put people above everything else.

Control

Just think about it...we all want our lives in control and like to use various tools and methods to get ourselves organized - calendars, watches, reminder systems, diaries, etc. We wake up, exercise, have food, watch TV, attend conference calls, go to office, return from office, pick and drop children, etc. all to fixed schedules. What happens if we miss the schedule - all hell breaks loose and our day comes to a standstill. But, just think about it - what really happens if we miss something...nothing...we just re-organize and get on with life. 

I am sure many of you have fallen ill sometimes and just could not get out of bed. So, what happened on those days - nothing really...you didn't have an inkling the previous evening that you would not be able to get out of bed the next day. But then, it happened and things just moved on. Someone else got things that you would normally do at work done and life moved on. The organization that you worked in did not shut down.

What happens if we die? For sometime there is chaos in the lives of our family members and then life moves on. Do we control time of death? We don't. So, if we don't know what is going to actually happen the next moment, what do we really control? Absolutely nothing!!!

So, why bother and freak yourself out on something that did not work to your plan? Most plans are just that - plans - and things will, more likely than not, never go to plan.  I learnt this lesson from my lovely wife. She plans but lives by the day. So, if there are changes, her first reaction would be, "Okay, things have changed. What do I do next?" There is no fuss or drama "why the heck did this have to happen" or "God, great way to start the day!!", etc. Typically, I would go haywire screaming profanities. Now, I have kind of mellowed down and started thinking "what next?" This has helped me in being lesser of a control freak and more of someone who is willing to take change in my stride.

It is cliche to say "death is the only certainty and that we can die anytime" and "change is the only constant"...but we go on in life on the assumption that is exactly the opposite. And if any of these happen, we tend to believe or think that all is lost.

So, how do we factor these in to our daily lives? Easier said than done. Changes to schedules, etc. are easier to handle than falling seriously ill or death. Both death and major illness have significant impact on lives of others around us. My dad's death was sudden and completely unexpected. It happened in less than 2 minutes and in the middle of the night. Everything was over in seconds. Life changed completely and every plan that we had laid out carefully went straight out of the window. I still remember - I felt lost for the first 24 hours and then knew that I had to take charge of the situation. I did just that and over the last 13 years after his death, have learnt to live without having him around. It was a huge change for my mom and everyone else in the family. At the end of the day, life had to go on and we did just that. My dad had some plans and had discussed that with me few months before he passed away. All those changed. 

So, coming back to what I said before, "What do we really control?" or can we ask the question as, "Do we control anything of significance or do we just believe that these are significant?" Actually, most things that are really significant to us is really not under our control.

I am reminded of a Tamil song which says (my translation is not the best) "you are not able to choose your time and date of your birth or death, your parents, your face at the time of birth...think about it..you can, however, choose how to live as long as you live. So, take charge of your life and be a winner. If we choose to live a life that has smiles, honesty, good habits of living and reduced greed, we tend to make the best of what we have instead of always craving for what we believe is the best in this world...that "best" is always elusive and our greed always pushes us towards another "best". 

I have seen how we try and control our level of happiness. In our struggle to make ends meet and live our daily lives, we miss the woods for the trees. We struggle on work-life balance and, typically, our balance tilts in favour of work. I have seen many families struggle with this and try and live a happy life despite all this. I remember a dialogue in the movie Bruce Almighty where God tells Bruce, "The happiest of men come home stinking to high heavens. They hang their problems in the doorstep and then walk in."

What I have seen work has always been few simple concepts - reduced greed levels, leaving behind worries of work at the Office and developing a habit of laughing with our families. Many of us have even forgotten how to smile. And guess what, we control our smile!!!

Personal Courage in Leadership

"Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage." Maya Angelou. I have pondered as to what makes a courageous leaders and I believe there are various pieces to this puzzle. 

Leaders need to face and manage situations head-on. Most people prefer not to confront. However, if we do confront reality, it becomes easy to assess the situation and take decisions. It is also necessary to be open and honest in communication and this communication should be both ways. Once honest channels are opened up, it is easier to manage expectations. It is also necessary to hold people and yourself accountable. Great leaders focus on accountability and leave the rest to their team.

One of my biggest learning has been leading through change. It is during such times that things go wrong and sometimes horribly wrong. As leaders, we need stand up to manage the situation, back our teams and ensure that customers are cared for. It is during such change situations that leaders are tested the most. As leaders, we are tempted to pass the buck on to someone down the line. This happens in various forms...from the "he did a lousy job" to "we could have handled this better if he was more attentive". 

A story of facing the heat during change goes back over 10 years. I was leading the Finance & Accounting back office and we had a situation where the unreconciled items went beyond tolerance limits significantly. The worst part is that we had not figured out why. While over 95% of the Operations was humming, it was this one part that hit us really hard. I got a global team engaged but it took us a month to understand the problem and actually take corrective action. During this time, we had a review of the Operations by the Corporate Controller. When it came to my turn, I showed him what had gone well and that we had messed this part up. I took accountability. I told him that we had not identified all the reasons for this issue but that we would by the end of the month and took 2 months time to fix the issue completely. The figure was a staggering $20 billion and there was a genuine worry that it would get picked up by auditors. My manager and his manager let me down in front of the Controller and, in fact, asked me questions in that review meeting. It looked like they were getting to know of this the first time, which was not the case. It was at this time that the name of one of my team members came up. Her absence and the fact that she could not spend time on picking up this issue came up for discussion. I quickly cut the discussion out and said that if there was anyone who needed to take flak, it was me. The Operations came under me. Something, fantastic happened at that time. The Corporate Controller stood up and clapped for me. He said and I quote, "In many years, this is one of those rare moments where I am seeing someone standing up under pressure to hold himself accountable." I walked out of the meeting feeling elated and also breathing a sigh of relief that I had not got the sack.

There are many such moments that each of us as leaders will be able to share. It is important to share these moments so that taking accountability comes naturally to others. It was also the personal courage of the Corporate Controller in my story above that stood out for me. He had to go back to the CFO and explain the situation, which he did. And, took the flak there for me. It is such leaders that make a difference to our lives. It is such leaders that we respect and are willing to support during difficult times.

Another aspect of courageous leadership is to have a team in which atleast 2 people can replace you at any time. It is essential to plan succession. However, it is absolutely essential to have atleast 2 people who are "ready now" successors. This means, you are hiring people who are capable of doing your job. This also means, these will be people who will challenge you, push back and you must have the courage as a leader to handle this.

Many a time we believe that courage is absence of fear. Courage is about overcoming fear. All of us have different fears. Courage is taking these fears head on and overcoming them.

“The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.” Robert Green Ingersoll. This is particularly important. It is not the number of times that you fall that matters. What matters is how fast you get up, dust yourself and move on in life. Personally, I have failed many times but that has never set me back. It has shown I am human and all that is needed is the ability to bounce back.

Life in shades of grey

When the end justifies the means, rot seems to set in. The Indian word "dharma" is out of the window. As they say, all is fair in love and war. And life seems to fall in between black and white...in millions of shades of grey.  Laura Schlessinger said, "When you are the victim of behaviour, its black and white; when you are the perpetrator, there are a million shades of grey." Even law, which is supposed to be black and white recognizes grey and has what is called the "golden rule of interpretation".

As for me, life is colourful. It has black, white, millions of grey and all the colours that you can think of. But, if I stick to grey for the moment, many of us struggle to live in grey and prefer black or white. I was thinking of the many things that have happened to me that are only in the shades of grey. Guess what, I seem to have enjoyed these moments. The more we think we are in total control, the more we realize that we actually do not have any control at all. The world around us is a bit of an "organized" chaos.

I had a situation where a colleague of mine who worked for me was going through a very difficult pregnancy. The doctor had asked her not to commute. Our back office operations needed her presence to ensure it goes on smoothly as there was just too much going on. I discussed the situation with my Manager who said that he wanted her in the Office or she needed to leave. I thought through and decided that I will let her work from home and then cover up for her at office by putting in extra effort. Due to tremendous work pressure, I let that fall through the cracks and ended up in a situation where the Operations got adversely impacted. I still remember the tough times that I had to go through as a result of this one decision. The decision was should I go with the organization that I work for or with the human being that worked for me or try and find a balance. I chose to find a balance with the primary focus being on the human being who worked for me. It went wrong, though for different reasons. But, if you ask me now as to what I would do, my answer will be the same. I will give her the leeway to work from home but will also have someone sitting at office, help her fill the gaps.  Like this, we take so many decisions daily that are not black or white but in various shades of grey.

Another story I can remember is a hurricane hit US and one part of the country got battered. Most parts of various cities in that State were in water and there was no power for almost a week. I had a staff member working there and it took us few days to get in touch with her as all telephone networks were also down. Finally she came on line and said that she had to shift to a hotel and was lucky that she could get a room. She had logged in and contacted us after getting in to the hotel. The policy of our company was that we will help in all ways possible but we would not be able to take the cost. In this case, I decided to go pick up the tab and told her to work from the hotel which she did and we managed to get some important ground covered for us at Office while she got the bills paid for. Yes, the policy did not allow it but that is why organizations have leaders/managers. We are there to interpret these for the good of the organization and the individual concerned and ensure that we do what is best under the circumstances. Here is where common sense and life experiences matter.

I remember another story at the Bank that I worked with. We had issued a credit card to a customer (this was way back in the 1990s before mobiles came in). As the customer was checking out of a 5 Star hotel (in which he was staying for the first time), they swiped the card and for some reason it kept coming back with an error message. The customer called our branch and it was well in to the evening and I happened to be at the branch. I picked the phone and heard him out. I then spoke to the Hotel Front Desk Manager and tried to convince him that we will honour the payment. It did not work. I had to then help the customer by taking out money. I could not draw that much amount through the ATM those days. So, I drew out whatever amount I could, took the permission of the Branch Manager and actually took money from the Bank's Account and went to the hotel to pay off their bills. Even after 20+ years, this customer calls me to check out how things are going with me. He says that he cannot forget that day and he is still the customer of the Bank. I should actually thank the Branch Manager for taking a pragmatic decision in favour of the customer and doing that after getting a good understanding of the risks involved. 

When you go out of the way, grey zones start applying. They put you at risk of losing a job or a relationship or some such thing. They also work like a charm and create ever lasting relationships both personally and at work. Again here, it has a lot to do with applying common sense.

It is living in these grey zones that make our lives interesting. Else, our lives can be replaced by robots because they would do a better job in ensuring adherence to policies or set processes/procedures. As I said earlier, it is because of situations that need use of discretion, common sense and interpretation of policy that organizations have managers/leaders. And, as Leaders/Managers, if we don't use that discretion or common sense or both, we end up losing our value both to the organization and the employee.

Life comes in beautiful colours. We somehow don't seem to notice these colours and would like to live in black or white. More often than not, we need to live in the grey zones for most part of our lives. If we do not recognize grey, we will find it difficult to live. As I always say, the more the straight lines and boxes we have in the way we live our lives, the more the curve balls that life will throw at us.