No Country for Pedestrians

If you have walked on a footpath or walkway of any part of any city in India, even for a short duration, you may have noticed something strange that we all have got used to: the path is no longer fit for walking! Between unfinished walkways and stacks of interlocks and sand lying around, between squatters and worn out zebra crossings that suffer from huge neglect, between paan shops and chaat stalls spread all over the path and screeching vehicles constantly blurring the lines between roadway and walkway; somewhere in there is a wobbly, narrow and dangerous way we are supposed to walk on.

As the cities burst at their seams with people, having more vehicles for transportation is not going to be a viable option anymore. The need of the hour is to rely more on public transport, to share resources like roads through car pooling and most importantly to use walking as a complimentary means of transport.

Mumbai may be the city of dreams but it certainly turns nightmarish when it comes to walkways for the pedestrians. A huge percentage of the daily commute use public transportation and that results in many of them walking that last mile between their stop or station and their place of work or their home. And yet time and time again, the infrastructure fails us its bi-ped citizens. While some of the blame can be accosted to the BMC, the real challenge is the intrinsic worth considered for someone who walks as a means of commute and the way we look treat public spaces in general.

Roads seem to have always belonged to vehicles, but this isn't the case. In earlier times, when vehicles were animal powered and moved a lot slower, pedestrians and vehicles coexisted in harmony. You may have had an odd moment when a galavanting person screamed past unsuspecting people walking on the road with his young stallion but by and large things moved at a steady pace. About a 120 years ago that changed with the advent of fuel powered vehicles. They still moved at snail's pace compared to today but by those days standards, they were pretty much neck and neck with the animals of those times. And they were a lot more efficient, guzzling much less fuel than their equine competitors! But more than a century later, cars have gotten a lot more efficient, powerful and dense in today's metropolis. And the pedestrian who moved pretty much at the same pace as the horses and bullocks of the era gone by became a menace, on a road that got a lot faster.  Vehicles also got associated with status and monetary power which didn't help the cause of the humble pedestrian. Before you know it, not having a car on the road was the price a pedestrian paid for his failure at not having enough money rather than a convenience in ever congested city. Who would want to be the lowly pedestrian in this narrative?

This of course doesn't completely explain the squeeze we pedestrians face on the footpath. India and many other countries like it face another defiency: the ability of being able to distinguish private and public spaces. The problem is more pronounced in cities where there isn't any reasonable private space one can own and one has no choice but to spill over into the public area. You see this happen in parks, in public buildings but nowhere is this problem as acute as the roads. Try walking in a 1 square kilometre area of any local rail station in Mumbai, venture on any busy street with shops and commerce. You will find vendors selling vegetables and fashion accessories, snacks and drinks all on a way that was built for us the pedestrian. And roads that aren't blocked this way, the quieter and darker parts of town, have buses and trucks parked alongside the walkway, allowing miscreants to use this natural wall between the road and the footpath and making it a shade shadier than it already is!

The crux of this problem is this single question: as a citizen, do I own public space or does it just belong to me? Now I know these two terms own and belong mean nearly the same thing, but there is difference. When you own something you are the centre of the transaction and therefore your choices are of value. When something belongs to you, the object (or in this case the space) is at the centre of the transaction and so its needs and function is of value. It also means we to whom the object belongs, each one of us, is responsible for its upkeep and correct use. We never exercise ownership on our relationships, we influence a sense of belonging. As is with relations, so it is with public spaces and our footpaths. It belongs to all of us and hence it is our duty to protect it for the purpose it was built, for pedestrians to walk on.

I dream of a city where the humble pedestrian can once again walk on walkways with one's head held high, without drooping one's head in fear of what one might stumble into. I dream of a day when more citizens choose to take to the streets walking than in their cars. I dream of a footpath that is no longer owned by its citizens but one that belongs to its citizens and that we again become a country of pedestrians!

When words don't come easy

I walked on familiar roads

On known paths with unknown people

And found myself where I once was

Struggling; yet happy.

Cause in all that chaos and rush

Within that big red bus

Came to my mind like chimes

Words flowing in child-like rhymes

On love, on life and everything in between

That my boyish eyes had seen.

On those roads and in those strangers

I searched for a wonderland.

I looked for a faithful band.

And on whoever each word, each rhyme I penned

Their story found a fitting end.

But all that the places and people ever actually did

Was remind me of how all my dreams were a fib.

In the eyes of those strangers there were tears of sorrow

And dreams so naive, like mine, of a tomorrow

When everything would be better.

And it seemed so hopeless: that hope in their eyes,

Which held the pain of today in disguise.

And I asked myself, "What wrong have we done

To deserve a today which has no tomorrow?"

And snap! went away my dreams and my rhymes

And all my hope of the better times

Never to return: at least that's what I thought

Until fate as you have it, back me it brought

To those familiar roads and unfamiliar audience

And I found the fruit of words in my silence

The fruit of joy in my sorrow

And in today the purpose of my tomorrow.

From I to You: A change of View

Have you ever watched an obscure movie or heard a song you've never heard before or read a book by an author you knew nothing of till you got the book?

Ever so often life throws in these little surprises at you that you relish and cherish and thank the good Lord for! And these unexpected experiences are the ones that can leave a profound mark on you and makes you look at your life or its handiwork in a totally different light. And if and when it does that, try and revisit some of your memories from the recesses of your mind and look at them through these new lenses. As Goethe puts it, 

"There is nothing insignificant in the world, it all depends on the point of view."

And the points of view we have on something can only become manifold when we experience our own experiences through another's experience of their similar yet unique experience! So begin scouring your life and seek experiences, artefacts and rituals that make you look at your life in a whole new light.

A Mind that litters. A Mind that cleans.

Right from a young age, we've been taught this well known adage, 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness. And we've beaten the hell out of it with speeches and essays, paintings and collages. It is one of those things every Indian of my generation has definitely heard if not spoken, written or drawn about it.

Many years later, as a grown up, my travels take me to different places within and outside India. And it is here that you get to experience the presence or absence of this 'Godliness' we expressed so much in our childhood. While squalor is a common sight in some places in India, we have today reached a stage where some places are able to maintain a spic and span image... well, at least most of the time because despite having an army of cleaning staff deployed, you manage to sight an eyesore of garbage strewn around in these places as well.

It made me wonder what prompts people to dirty such a beautiful places: malls, heritage sites, airports, toilets. Our immediate reaction of course is that Indians just don't know how to keep things clean. However, I consider that derogatory to my own sentiments on cleanliness. On the contrary I think it is extremely "anti-Indian" of anyone to dirty public places, vandalize public property and not maintain the level of cleanliness they would expect from the place.

When you think about it all begins in the mind and the mind will not aspire to be clean if being clean doesn't earn them affiliation or not being clean doesn't result in ostracism. Being a citizen is a more recent mindset for us compared to the long history of abdicating that role to kings and law enforcers. Hence driving the thinking that of 'Being Clean' rather than merely speaking of cleanliness brings the responsibility on all of us. That's when we clean the toilet seats and search for garbage bins to throw rubbish and generally take it personally if someone does something to dirty the public place.

If you subscribe to my sentiments, I would urge you to wear your 'Cleanliness badge' with pride and tell off people as anti-Indian if they are damaging or dirtying  public property. Maybe then we will begin to witness the godliness of cleanliness around us.

Open Field of Learning

While thinking of an imagery for learning environment my mind surprisingly went to the sports field. That is an odd choice for someone like me who is athletically challenged but nevertheless I find it a powerful analogy to the learning environments of tomorrow!

If you notice some public fields have a special feature: they have a section open for everyone to play on; young and old, skilled and unskilled all can come and enjoy and gain from the experience of playing the sport and alongside it is a section cordoned off with nets or posts and therein a coach trains a smaller set of athletes.

While the cordoned off field is structured with limited athletes playing and practising there, the open field tends to be chaotic with more players than the field can handle at time. And yet there is an energy and buzz on this side unmatched by the netted area.

In our organizations, management in all these years have stood for order and structure through the use of control. However, we have recently begun acknowledging the emergent and chaotic nature of management as well and the role it plays in shaping the organisation's culture. In that context, it seems natural to move away from the existing nomination based program-style training events and move towards a self explored, easily accessible intervention-styled learning journeys.

A learning environment where employees are given the full freedom to explore the content of their interest and need, where all are encouraged to reflect on the nuances of their skill gaps and where managers play a the role of talent architects for their team rather than leaders presiding on nomination choices.

Not only does that empower employees to take charge of their learning it also moves the Learning and Leadership teams to focus more on facilitation of groups towards right skills development, constructing unique learning journeys and engaging learners to apply their learning at work rather than worrying about program nominations, logistical arrangements and following up with  participants, managers and leaders.

So go ahead, open up your learning space to everyone and encourage people to manage their own learning journeys!

The Novelty of a Relationship

In every relationship we tend to recall the more memorable/traumatic moments of its timeline. The day your child was born, the day you got married, the day you first met the love of your life, the day you had a major fallout with a loved one, a day of accident or misfortune both of you suffered.

But just because the incident sticks in our memory doesn't make it the most important moments to frame the relationship. The day you profess your love to a loved one is just an outcome of the many days of conversations, going out, being in each others' company, finding ways to make each other happy. Or the day the manager reviews the individual is just an outcome of the many conversations before (or the lack of those conversations!) that big review day meeting.

And we tend to value them lesser because it isn't memorable or novel. And we could tend to dismiss them as unimportant. But is these little moments in high volume that cause the biggest impact on our relationships.

Conversely if you wish to foster a deep and meaningful relationship with someone, don't aim for the 'Grand Gestures' that are few and far between. Instead look to make those minute but multiple 'nudges' of kindness, compassion and love towards the other person/s to turn things around with them.

Only Mother Teresa could've put it so eloquently.
"Not all of us can do great things. But we can all do small things with great love."

The BIGGEST little Step

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" This quote always reminded me that something great begins with something small. But what it doesn't tell you that the first step is the hardest. And, well, how can it? It is a quote; that too by an ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. Quotes are meant to inspire action, not instruct you towards it.

So how does one take that first step? We have all had our struggles with great endeavours we wanted to complete, good habits we wanted to inculcate, virtuous qualities we wanted to imbibe. I have had my own share of 'trying to gain weight' and then 'trying to shed it', of 'practising to play the piano' and then 'wean myself off the music obsession', of 'starting a blog' and, well, 'sticking on with it'!

There is however no bigger challenge than when you cannot even make a start: a start that has truly switched you from one state to the next. Not just of exercising but of going from being dormant to active; not just of practising the piano for 60 minutes each day but of going from being indifferent to passionate; and not just of writing a blog 3 times a week (contracted the number for myself using the Habit app) but from being stagnant to flowing in thoughts.

I am trying to get myself to care enough to lift that foot to take the first step. And if the cramps of apathy can be relieved from my mental leg, hopefully I can care enough to make a beginning each day and take that illusive last step of the thousand mile journey with the same zeal that I took the first one!

To All The Girls

This one is for all the girls, for all the women I have known in my life.

The highest honour, glory, praise and thanks to the one who gave me birth, who nurtured me at her bosom with sweat, tears, blood and love: my mother.

My blessings and love to the girl who was and is my greatest friend and enemy at the same time, playmate, sounding board, advocate and support: my sister.

My warmest hugs to the 2 women who pampered me silly each time I was in their company, who made feel special and shared their stories and vast experience: my grandmas.

My thoughts and prayers for the woman who looked after me when my mother needed to work, taught me to write, to read and to pray at that tender age: my nanny.

My utmost respect to the group of women who gave me the most priceless gift of all, education and for giving me something far beyond that, the values and lessons of life which made me the person I am today: my teachers.

My greatest thanks to the women who I met at different points of time in life: in school, in college, at work and at play; who shared their unique perspective, surprised me, consoled me, encouraged me, laughed and joked with me in all these years and continue to be an integral part of my life: my friends.

My deepest love to the woman who brought meaning to my existence, significance to my actions and founded my new family with me, she makes each day special and each day is a celebration with her by my side, she stands by me in my joys and closer in my sorrows and gives me a reason to be romantic each day: my wife.

And finally to the girl who made my life complete by her coming into this world, who each day reminds me of the best I can be for the world and who brings a smile on my lips and joy in my heart each time I think of her: my daughter.

The News As We Are

It is great when you can have a slice of life experience in your everyday commute to office and back. Comparisons of the present day to the earlier days (I refrain from the the clichéd term "good ol' days" because it is a loaded term playing into the nostalgia effect we experience) showed a stark difference in one area: mobile was the new newspaper. Almost every person I saw, everywhere I turned I could see people: young and old alike peering into their contraptions of metal, glass and plastic. You may say that's no big surprise; the smartphone has been the single biggest revolution we may have seen in the last decade. But what is really interesting in this is that while nearly ALL of them were consuming information or news of some sort, NONE of them were reading a known news site or e-paper.

The recent US elections also threw up an interesting statistic: Supporters of one party were more inclined to believeing fabricated news of the other party and less inclined to accepting the unflattering facts of the party they support.

And so we are poked and prodded each day with news that bears resemblance to what we feel is true rather than what we know to be true. An election in the free world starts becoming a rabble-rouse, a critique on a policy implementation becomes questioning one's nation and an unpatriotic act and disagreement has to result in defilement. This however is not a recent phenomenon. We have had such form of mud slinging and name calling going on for centuries. It has had many names: rumours, gossip, witchunt, propaganda; the list is endless. However, with each passing century the structures of the press and media got created and they operated with great integrity and commitment to this thing we called 'the pursuit of the truth'.

So what has changed now? Well, everything with respect to the press and media. Press cannot be independent if no one is willing to pay for it. And in that desperation, the agencies have given birth to a medium they don't fully have control over: sponsored news. This medium is all about the clicks and shock value of news. And it takes little help to push news from the realms of fact into the dark allies of fiction. Of those people I saw consuming news, most were from sites like Facebook  and Twitter which manages to put every biased article and subjective view that the user has seen before into his or her path. And just like a tuning fork vibrating at its resonant frequency, they too start receiving news articles that are more a reflection of their psyche than reality.

How do we resolve this breaking news piece? Sadly, this is just the beginning of the things to come. In the tug of war between freedom of press and regulation and discretion of news, freedom always wins. But it will do us well to remember that not all free societies have had a happy endings; not because of the freedoms they enjoyed but because of the lack of discipline in how they enjoyed it.

It would do us well to invest in a news source that values you more than clicks, that values independent and objective journalism over breaking sensationalist news and that stands for news as it is rather than as we are. And this investment is not just monetary, it will be of our time and energy to verify and fact check what we share and read and respect different perspectives before we form an opinion. That is when truth really triumphs!

The Nightmares

Off late I have been getting this recurring nightmare, that I am back in engineering class and I have forgotten to practice my maths all semester and exams are now very near and I don't know how I am to clear. Funnily, I can somehow sense in the dream that I am no longer 20-22 years old but that I am 10 years older and that I have no recollection of what I have learnt.

I wonder what this means. Is it my subconscious mind trying to reconcile the regret of having forgotten all that I have learnt with so much effort? Or is it that I have not used what I have learnt and allowed it to rot away in my memory? Or perhaps is it not about maths at all but about things that are yet to come and that I feel ill equipped of handling then.

Whatever it means, I definitely feel a sense of sadness and want to start going back to learning things I learnt long ago: things like sin²A + cos²A = 1. I actually solved it's proof in my head and realised the elegance of it. Ah, perhaps that's what it is! Maybe it is my subconscious asking me to appreciate the beauty of little things that I have forgotten and put behind me. I remember this feeling. It was the same when I rediscovered music after having left studying it for almost 5 years then. I had a new found sense of appreciation for what I had learnt without much thought. Hmmm maybe that's what it is. 

Have You Had Goosebumps Lately?

Nessun Dorma, the silence in nature, the concluding scene of The Dark Knight, What a Wonderful World... These are some of the things I club together in my little compilation called My Tools for Goosebumps!

I am sure you have yours too: it may be a song or a movie or a place like me or a moment in time, or a person or an item of food; but something which has a physical quality which one or more of your senses can savour and revel in. We also call some of them nostalgic things but not necessary all of them are.

What sets your TfG (Tools for Goosebumps) apart from another's TfG is how you experience it. Some others may share the artefact but they can never share the way and the degree to which they cherish and savour the experience. And in that lies a great fuel for your life journey. How much time do you spend with these TfGs? Do you enjoy the experience completely? Do you go on a hunt for or keep your mind open to discovering new TfGs?

Life has two shades blended in it: the monotonous and the vibrant. Any one by itself can ruin the picture. It is in the balance of the monotony and moments of inspiration that we paint the most sublime pictures of our life. And these TfGs are your paint brushes dipped in the deepest shades of the monotonous and vibrant tones of your life that you can draw from when feel you are running out of inspiration or purpose or comfort.

So explore, reminisce and immerse yourself in these Tools for Goosebumps once in a while!

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Treating the Virus of Negativity

Negativity spreads like a virus and just like any virus one must know the treatment for cases where negativity has spread and how to prevent future spread of it. It is particularly critical because many of these negative perceptions become the norm and the way the organization works.

CAUSES
Negativity mainly spreads through people; through the misconstrued or misunderstood or cynical perceptions of people. In a situation where most people may have a bright or hopeful outlook some individuals may build a negative perception and that's the origin point of the outbreak: as virologists would call Patient Zero.

OUTBREAK
Post the Patient Zero emerging it spreads to other individuals through interactions: 1 on 1 conversations, meetings, chats over lunch, water cooler gossip, trainings, emails, etc. And after this, it is very difficult to curtail the spread of it. Most cases there will be more than one Patient Zero so there will be multiple outbreak points.

TREATMENT
Conversations, Evidence, Data sharing to disprove the negative perception. A lot of reassurance is needed from managers and leaders thereafter on the issue. In some cases, strong emails dismissing negativity also helps. But most treatments aren't as effective and the outbreak causes widespread damage.

PRECAUTION
This is a more effective way of dealing with it. Major communication at the team, business or org level must be reviewed by managers and leaders to ascertain the possible negative perceptions that could emerge around it. Use of the Six Hat Thinking Technique is beneficial in this case: specifically the use of the Black Hat. It helps ascertain the possible roadblocks and problems and one can work out ways in which to address the situation.

FAQs, Service Desks, Feedback Forms, Townhalls, Discussions in Meetings, One on One chats different ways on the scale of increasing engagement that can be used to talk about the challenges and/or apprehensions.

PREVENTION
This is certainly great success rate in looking to prevent negativity from building and it comes from good practices one can follow at the workplace:
* Sharing positive stories on the matter and how it has worked in the past.
* Addressing common apprehensions and calming people even before they may get agitated.
* One on One conversations to get feedback on how it is affecting them.
* Identifying employee champions on the matter who can spread communication: oral or written form about the topic.
* Tracing as HR if there are certain constant negative elements in the organization and addressing their concerns through a structured intervention by senior managers and leaders.
* Creating an environment that is secure and open for people to share their apprehensions and treating them not as 'negative people' but as perceptive individuals and thereafter co-opting them to participate in alleviating the ill effects of the issue at hand.

With effective practices and proactive managers and leaders the virus of negativity can be kept at bay.

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Malaysian Diaries

Landed in Kuala Lumpur (KL) an hour back and I am simply blown by the way the city is designed. Met a lovely Malaysian sexagenarian of Sri Lankan origin on flight who said that "KL is the most friendly city for tourists." So what makes it friendly?

The cleanliness? Er, maybe. Spotted a cockroach this morning at the airport (not reading too much into it, they are the toughest insects known to man!)

The grandeur? Possibly, the airport and station was huge but I personally thought T2 in Mumbai was more spectacular.

I think we miss the thing that makes KL (or for that matter any world city) tourist friendly and a smart city is the fact that it is well designed and well mannered.

The hallmark of its design is evident in the fact that not once so far have I felt lost. And the hallmark of its people's manners is from how they spoke and helped us when we reached KL or looked for help. The simplicity and seamlessness of the design makes it so bloody good!

I go back to the Sri Lankan sexagenarian who I met on the flight and what she had to say about Mumbai: Poor signage with most signs at crucial junctures only in hindi and not in English, ill mannered people with her family being manhandled at the temples where she went for prayers and to pay homage to the Gods. I convinced her to come back to India and visit some of the other smaller towns and hamlets where the people are still warm and where tourists are treated well. But if we indeed want to have smart cities India we are going to need better design and better manners in treating people.

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Standard Diversity

As I returned from Delhi to Mumbai last night a little observation caught my amazement. The airports had a very similar look and feel in both cities. In fact when I started recalling the airports at Bangalore, Mangalore, Ranchi and Delhi they are all similar looking to each other.

But you would almost always be able to make out which of those cities you are in if you were left on the roads of this cities. The buildings, the roads, the signage, the colour and life on those streets are unique to each city.

Compare that to the structure and life of the organization and you will find an uncanny resemblance. With benchmarks being defined the world over most systems and practices organizations follow, adopt and adapt are fairly standard. And in our enthusiasm, we may push for employees to "comply or perish" which may not always be the ideal thing you do. The life of an organization is in its people and in the diversity they possess. And through this comes forth its polity, its history, its culture and even its values (not stated but practised).

While we drive for Compliance of structures and systems we must not fail to Celebrate the diversity and differences of the people and the views they bring to the table. Eventually it is they that breathe life into the bricks and mortar, wires and nodes, laptops and desktops of an office!

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Rise of Organizational Complexity

Over the last few weeks, I have been watching a unique show called CrashCourse on YouTube. It covers a lot of academic topics such as history and economics and psychology from school and college level courses in an interesting and fun way. There is a new course they have begun called Big History which is particularly interesting. It covers the entire 13.8 billion year history of the universe and the 4 billion year history of our planet. (You can find more information about it on www.bighistoryproject.com)

One theme that it constantly speaks of is the rising complexity. And somehow I see that transcending across galaxies of organizations and people just as easily as the galaxies of stars and its planets. The theory simply states that 'Systems tends towards exponentially rising complexity over a linear time scale. We see that evidently through the evolution of life on this earth where of the 40 thousand odd years of humanity's existence we have effectively had civilizations only for the last 1/4th of that time period. An extension of this theory is that rising complexity results in rising challenges: a never ending series of effects and side effects!

Pull the same concept to organizations and they too start with single member ventures or with a handful of founders with a startup. But as the complexity in companies begin to rise, as the organizations start getting bigger, wider, more complex and more diverse so do their challenges, worries and constraints!

As the challenges are so also will their solutions will be: big, wide, complex and diverse. But I see this more as an eventual state. Because there is another set of rules that govern this universe: that of emergence and evolution.

Every state of rising complexity is matched with a state of evolution and its building blocks being formed through a state of emergence. And while some organizations adapt and let change course through their veins, others resist and eventually implode like a death star.

Organizations have a life of its own in the sense that the noblest desires of its leaders to survive would not help if its DNA is built with resistance to adapt and become something else. So what really does remain permanent?
Targets? They change every year.
Goals? They change every 2 to 3 years.
Strategies? They progress every 5 years or so.
Business Models? Transform every 10 years (maybe sooner!)
Mission and Vision? They too will see an evolution sometime in the organization's lifetime.
The only permanent element is the element of change. And the change is gradual and continuous.

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You're Turning More Into Yourself

Every year, every day, every hour
You're turning more and more into yourself.

You realize each moment your deepest fears,
And may hold on to them for days or even years.
But make peace with it some time in the future,
And let the fear become a small part of your nature.


And each time you unearthed your darkest desires,
You may have succumbed to its roaring fires.
But one day you stand up to the temptation's test
And put those flames at last to rest.

But there are also an instance or two
Those dreams you really look up to,
And the sweetest truth is when you discover
That the dream was real and yours to uncover.

And so each time when you realize
About yourself something deep or a great surprise,
Your nature transforms into something so real and true.
That each moment you turn more and more into you!



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How Do You See Me?

I got a call from one of my colleagues one day, telling me they wanted to speak to me about something urgent. From the sound of it, it felt like something had gone horribly wrong and I thought it best to speak with the person right away. In a matter of minutes this person was down at my desk and we decided over a cup of coffee on what was trouble brewing. Immediately the person spoke about resignation. Actually the words were more like, "I guess you have already heard... I have put in my papers last week..."

While the conversation did continue on about matters related to resignation like work handover, last working day and dues settlement, I don't want to talk about those process matters here. What I do want to highlight here are a couple of other things the person said. The person mentioned that one was bored with the drudgery of daily work and that one was feeling this way for 6 months prior to this conversation. What amazed me was that I thought in my little head that I was a pretty good work friend of this person and that the person would share with me one's problems!

It is a known fact that many organizations do not have HR professionals and a majority of those who do are involved in operational and process-centric tasks. It is ironic but true that HR managers across organizations receive among the poorest client engagement scores from their clients (employees) as compared to business teams from the same organizations. While this may just be the nature of our never-ending journey in the function: that increased HR engagement scores result in increased Client engagement scores; it is also a reflection of the nature of our relationship with the business.

How do they see us? I remember while I was part of the business we viewed HR as this disdained entity that would not do anything more than peddle organizational processes and push organizational mandates while engaging only senior leadership in the unit to better business performance. We engineers on the other hand looked for a coach, a guide, a facilitator who could converse with us on our issues and work towards creative solutions for our talent challenges.

Sounds like a lot but if we think about it from Ulrich's model of HR professionals we play the roles of Admin Partner, Change Agent, Strategic Partner and Employee Champion if we aren't doing this what are we really doing as HR. And all of this is based on the foundations of any strong relationship: trust, communication and camaraderie.

It didn't take a lot for us to stop relying on HR for the support we needed and look internally for that support. Ironically, Human Resource Managers fell short of being decent People Managers while business managers filled that gap to their best capacities.

My own tryst with my colleague as an HR manager served as a wake-up call to be a more people's HR manager and not just a process HR practitioner.

My Inheritance

The excitement one gets with the news of receiving an inheritance is quite unlike any other news. The possibility of a large sum of riches (or even a small one for that matter) is a gift for which all one has to do is be known to the person who bequeaths those riches.

So now I tell you that you have to bequeath your riches to your future generations, what do you have to give them? How much is your money going to last? How many generations have you thought of providing for? 3 generations maybe 4? That's about 200 years if your 4th generation lives to be 90 yrs old! And what value would your money hold? 200 years ago a paisa was a lot of money; today it doesn't even exist (except in your bank account as interest accrued!).

So I ask you again, what can you bequeath you future generations that has just as much value or even more value than today? Your stories which tells them of their legacies? Your values which tells them of their beliefs? Their life which is passed on generation to generation through you genes?

What will you bequeath to your future generations?

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Cost of Misinformation

As I sat this morning to write this blog I was interrupted by a whatsapp message. Of course these days Whatsapp is the way to share your thoughts or forwarded ones with the world. Back when we SMSed, which seems like eons ago but really it's only 20 years old, we had only 145 characters for self expression and used it with great frugality. Messages used to border on being cryptic and sent regularly by those who had one of those unlimited SMS packs!

But there was something back then as well as is today that most people commit in their effort to share messages: sharing misinformation. The cost of a message is only realized in real terms. That means the real cost of sending an SMS is approx Re 1 and the internet pack for a Whatsapp dramatically brings down the cost of each message to nearly 0.12 paise for a whatsapp message of 20KB which is actually quite a large message. What we never account is the notional cost the reader bears of the misinformation. In case he does not verify the information and does go ahead and believe and god forbid promotes it further, the loss of credibility due to the incorrect information maybe damaging to his repute. Like this informational nugget doing the rounds that India is called India because the British shortened the term Independent Nation Declared In August. Now you don't even need a snopes.com or truthorfiction.com to verify this one. Would the British have decided years before our independence when they called the land India that if we ever free this nation we will do so in August?!?

The other grave danger is in actually following the advice given on these messages. Like the childline number 1098. It has been called so many times by people for picking up leftover party food from their homes that they put a message up on the website saying that they do not feed young children and that they are only here to protect the children from abuse and provide counselling to them.

Information truly is power and with every ounce of power comes an ounce of responsibility of using it well. The 3 question test by Aristotle is excellent for this:

Q1. Is the information verified by you to be true?

Q2. Is the information something positive and good for you recipients?

Q3. Is the information useful to to you recipients?

The next generations will remember us not for how we dressed or spoke but for how judicious we were in ensuring we propagated verified, good, useful and true information!

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When You Connect

When was the last time you spoke to someone? You might be wondering what kind of a question is this but I am serious about the question. Speaking is about having a conversation that is two-way and engaging, that is meaningful and heartfelt, that is reflective and forward looking. How often do we have a conversation of such a kind? A conversation that moves you to the core of your being as it inspires the other to act on it. A conversation that opens new doors while getting you closure on the ghosts you face. Really, how often o we have conversations of such a kind?

I said speak because most of us usually talk and talk without listening. We have so much to say that we hardly have time to listen to others. That fuels their reluctance to share any further and we reach a state where we speak without listening.

But one day, a day when you least expect, someone will come along, asking you to listen, waiting to be heard. Someone will move you to empathize without forcing you, inspire you to reach out and help without pushing you to work. And when that day comes, I urge you to just be present, listen in and speak from your heart and you will find a special connection. Then you will find the strength and the grace to speak!

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