This post is long due. I wanted to write about this soon after our company retreat. A lot of points were discussed during the retreat and one of the major agenda of the retreat was, as far as I understood, to make my division a great place to work. We were into diversed groups and asked to make presentations. Presentations we made, ideas we shared, concerns were raised, expectations were set and hope was revealed. All in all, a whole lot of things were unveiled.
When I look back at it, I wasn't sure what were we harping on. I think each one of us, defined a great place to work in our own way and our presentations were set on that understanding. So there were tangential views, far divergent from the views expressed before. I thought we were not converging on anything. As I feared, the ideas that were shared ended as Ideas without any of them translating into actionable items. The groups were asked to put across an action plan for making their 'idea' happen, and the groups religiously got back and I think that was the end of it.
Since I had not thought about our division in the lens of 'Great places to Work', I started to think on these lines. I was better off than most of my colleagues before I entered the red brick walls of my B-School, I worked in Texas Instruments, which was no. 1 in 2004 and no. 2 in 2005, in the Great places to Work in India survey. I was familiar with the systems and processes which makes a company a great to place to work for. So I started comparing the two. The comparison increased my confusion and I sought some element of clarity. Then I chanced upon this article on Great Places to Work in India.
The article talks about how a company is different from the rest when most of them appear to be similar. How one outperforms the other, how one ensures employee buy-in but the other doesnot, what are the parameters that make a good company great, so on and so forth. It is a captivating article. I suggest one should read this, whether they work in a great company or not, one should read it. It provides different perspectives towards the way a company functions, things which are not noticed will assume prominence, things which were taken for granted come to the lime light, certain things which are obvious are not at all obvious in most of the companies, few of them are small things which have humongous consequences. The author has done a great job in structuring the article and has increased the impact of the parameters by citing live examples from different companies.
I want to list down few interesting aspects of the article. It talks about relationships.
Relationship b/w employee and management : Trust
Relationship b/w employee and job : Pride
Relationship b/w employee and colleagues : Camaraderie
The author does a deep dive into all of the above aspects. To understand and appreciate it, one has to read the article
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Rainy day ....
It is poetry time again. In the last few days I have been absorbing this poem 'The Rainy Day' by H W Longfellow.
It is a beautiful poem starts off as an observation of a rainy day and comparison of a typical rainy day to life. The best is kept at the last, when the poet feels that it is the common fate across all the people and hopes that every one should go through a dark patch once in their life time to appreciate the best parts in their life. The lines are wonderfully crafted - 'Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.'
The poem is good stand alone but what made me appreciate it more was the Harvard commencement address made by J K Rowling on 'The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination'. In her address, Ms. Rowling , talks about the advantages of Failure. what propelled her to become the woman she is now. She hit rock bottom and her greatest fear had been realized, and there was nothing to be afraid of. She also takes a strong stance when she says some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure provided her an inner security, made her much more confident about her abilities, she discovered more about her during these testing times than ever before. She realized the strength of her will and her ability to fight back. Failure teaches a lot of lessons, lessons which we would have overlooked during better times. The Darwinian statement 'Survival of the fittest' assumes a totally different meaning than it was before.
Everything said and done, there are better ways to learn about things than just the hard way but learning it that way makes one internalise the learning and adopt it very easily in their life. The perspectives and the attitude towards life and the rest of the things changes. As H W Longfellow says,' Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary'.
The poem 'The Rainy Day' can be found here and the commencement address of JK Rowling here.
In line with my previous post, the line of HW Longfellow was a status message of a friend on my gtalk and so was the URL for the JK Rowling commencement address. I am sure both of them do not know each other. :) Patterns, Patterns and more patterns !!!
It is a beautiful poem starts off as an observation of a rainy day and comparison of a typical rainy day to life. The best is kept at the last, when the poet feels that it is the common fate across all the people and hopes that every one should go through a dark patch once in their life time to appreciate the best parts in their life. The lines are wonderfully crafted - 'Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.'
The poem is good stand alone but what made me appreciate it more was the Harvard commencement address made by J K Rowling on 'The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination'. In her address, Ms. Rowling , talks about the advantages of Failure. what propelled her to become the woman she is now. She hit rock bottom and her greatest fear had been realized, and there was nothing to be afraid of. She also takes a strong stance when she says some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure provided her an inner security, made her much more confident about her abilities, she discovered more about her during these testing times than ever before. She realized the strength of her will and her ability to fight back. Failure teaches a lot of lessons, lessons which we would have overlooked during better times. The Darwinian statement 'Survival of the fittest' assumes a totally different meaning than it was before.
Everything said and done, there are better ways to learn about things than just the hard way but learning it that way makes one internalise the learning and adopt it very easily in their life. The perspectives and the attitude towards life and the rest of the things changes. As H W Longfellow says,' Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary'.
The poem 'The Rainy Day' can be found here and the commencement address of JK Rowling here.
In line with my previous post, the line of HW Longfellow was a status message of a friend on my gtalk and so was the URL for the JK Rowling commencement address. I am sure both of them do not know each other. :) Patterns, Patterns and more patterns !!!
Friday, June 06, 2008
The patterns in Gtalk
There are lots of patterns in the status message of gtalk. To begin with Gtalk is a chat tool provided by Google. There is an option to provide a customised status message by every user, which will appear below their name on their friend's gtalk friend's list. Few of them leave it blank, few of them put quotes, few of them provide the music track they r listening to, few the hot news headline, few of them put their current state of mind, few of them put their aspiration, few provide links to the article or website they like and few others use it as a marketing tool to promote their website !!!
So all in all a simple status message provides a platform for people to say to the rest of the world what they want to.
When you look at the status message, you can make out the state of mind of the individual, whether he/she is happy, sad, gloomy, depressed, so on. Even the people who feel they r not good at expressing themselves in words, come up with a status message with a punch !! Thats the beauty of the gtalk status message. These status messages have introduced me to interesting songs, thought provoking quotes, wonderful websites, and terrific one-liners. It serves as a key to the Pandora's box.
If you want to get the attention of your friends, put up an interesting/sensitive/controversial status message on your gtalk and behold your friends will be pinging you left, right and centre. The message can be something like 'I am in Love'. Your friends will noy just chat with you but they will be discussing about your status message when you are not online as well and you will get all the attention you want.
If you keep track of an individual's status message for some time, you will know what is happening in other person's life. I am talking about people who do not mind expressing themselves on gtalk. There are varying shades here. Few of them just want to put quotes, few of them restrict themselves to what happens in the work place and very few venture into the personal domain. But things are chaning at a rapid rate here. People are moving from nothing to something, from links to quotes, from quotes to work place experience and slowly the personal side of the individuals is making its way into the gtalk status message.
Now, let me talk about the pattern that led to this post. This is the pattern with a timestamp. To put it simply, at any given instant of time if you scroll through your gtalk list and read the status message of the individuals, there might be few patterns in it. The first I time I noticed that was when most of my friends had a status message which reflected negative feelings. Someone had something on pessimism, someone was cynical, someone hated something, so on. Since then I started making a conscious effort to check the status messages of my friends regularly. Once I did that I was very surprised. There are patterns everyday. I must tell you, I have more than 200 people on my gtalk which includes my colleagues at office, my MBA batchmates, my engineering classmates, my sport mates, so on. They are located across the globe. This is not a pattern that is visible across one set of people in one geography. These are the patterns that was always there, but we never noticed. Interesting similar stuff happen to lots of people at the same time !!!
The simple text based gtalk status message has changed the way I see things. I can lock myself in my room and know what is happening with my friend thousands of miles away without actually talking or chatting with him/her.
I think the time has come to change the old adage 'Face is the index of the mind' to 'gtalk status message is the index of the mind of the invisible netizen'.
So all in all a simple status message provides a platform for people to say to the rest of the world what they want to.
When you look at the status message, you can make out the state of mind of the individual, whether he/she is happy, sad, gloomy, depressed, so on. Even the people who feel they r not good at expressing themselves in words, come up with a status message with a punch !! Thats the beauty of the gtalk status message. These status messages have introduced me to interesting songs, thought provoking quotes, wonderful websites, and terrific one-liners. It serves as a key to the Pandora's box.
If you want to get the attention of your friends, put up an interesting/sensitive/controversial status message on your gtalk and behold your friends will be pinging you left, right and centre. The message can be something like 'I am in Love'. Your friends will noy just chat with you but they will be discussing about your status message when you are not online as well and you will get all the attention you want.
If you keep track of an individual's status message for some time, you will know what is happening in other person's life. I am talking about people who do not mind expressing themselves on gtalk. There are varying shades here. Few of them just want to put quotes, few of them restrict themselves to what happens in the work place and very few venture into the personal domain. But things are chaning at a rapid rate here. People are moving from nothing to something, from links to quotes, from quotes to work place experience and slowly the personal side of the individuals is making its way into the gtalk status message.
Now, let me talk about the pattern that led to this post. This is the pattern with a timestamp. To put it simply, at any given instant of time if you scroll through your gtalk list and read the status message of the individuals, there might be few patterns in it. The first I time I noticed that was when most of my friends had a status message which reflected negative feelings. Someone had something on pessimism, someone was cynical, someone hated something, so on. Since then I started making a conscious effort to check the status messages of my friends regularly. Once I did that I was very surprised. There are patterns everyday. I must tell you, I have more than 200 people on my gtalk which includes my colleagues at office, my MBA batchmates, my engineering classmates, my sport mates, so on. They are located across the globe. This is not a pattern that is visible across one set of people in one geography. These are the patterns that was always there, but we never noticed. Interesting similar stuff happen to lots of people at the same time !!!
The simple text based gtalk status message has changed the way I see things. I can lock myself in my room and know what is happening with my friend thousands of miles away without actually talking or chatting with him/her.
I think the time has come to change the old adage 'Face is the index of the mind' to 'gtalk status message is the index of the mind of the invisible netizen'.
Alice in Wonderland
During the course of the week that just zipped past, I read Lewis Carrol's 'Alice in Wonderland'. The book is kinda nice. After reading few heavy mgmt books, this was a welcome change. What interested me in the book is the imagination of Lewis Carrol. The book is for the kids but there were lots of places where I could relate to Alice and I think others can relate to it. It is kinda funny but good. It is a small book, may take couple of hours to read it.
There were few interesting one-liners I came across in the book. Kept a note of it. Here they are:
o I am older than you, and must know better
o The best way to explain it is to do it
o You don't know much, that's a fact
o Which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where–’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat
o It is love that makes the world go round
o The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours
o Be what you would seem to be
I am smitten by Lewis Carrol, so I am planning to read his 'Through the Looking Glass' as well.
There were few interesting one-liners I came across in the book. Kept a note of it. Here they are:
o I am older than you, and must know better
o The best way to explain it is to do it
o You don't know much, that's a fact
o Which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where–’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat
o It is love that makes the world go round
o The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours
o Be what you would seem to be
I am smitten by Lewis Carrol, so I am planning to read his 'Through the Looking Glass' as well.
Speeches by Al Pacino
Al Pacino.. what a great actor. He features among the top actors of all times. What poise, what delivery! He gets below the skin of the character and delivers the dialogue as it is very natural.
This post is not about Al Pacino or his acting. It is about few dialogues he delivered in few movies I like. You may not agree with me about attributing the success of these dialogues to Al Pacino since it is the person who wrote the screenplay came up with the dialogue. But what stands out is the way in which it was delivered. Be it Inch by Inch inspirational speech in 'Any Given Sunday' or his saving Charlie speech in 'Scent of a Woman', the way these dialogues were delivered, I cant think of anyone who could have done justice to them as done by Al Pacino.
Its been a long time since I saw them and heard them, but even to this day I remember them, The inch by ince one, word by word. The inch by inch one featured on the introduction section of the sports notice board in our college. Thats the power of the dialogue, but to make sense of it one has to see the clip, there is no shorter way to it. You can look at the clip and read it as well here. The piece is an inspirational one , not just to the team playing but to any one. It is more of someone sharing his life's learning than inspiring people to play and give their best in the game. The parallel drawn between the life and the game is truly exceptional. I think it pumps the adrenaline in anyone who reads it.
The scent of a woman stands in a totally different light altogether. It is more of someone holding on to a value and standing by it. Here also the life's experience comes into play, when he talks about the fork in the road. With well crafted examples he clearly defines whts integrity, whts courage. It is a revolt against the way the system is. It is not just about saving someone from a bad judgement or a not so good circumstance but it is about preventing the people from making a mistake, a mistake which is going to cost a great deal, about killing the soul of a young lad, about changing the way people look at things, giving prominence to certain terms which is used frequently but never understood - integrity, leadership, courage, spirit, soul. The speech and the video can be seen here.
Both the speeches shows the power of one. The one individual who had the experience, who learnt few lessons in his lifetime and helping the younger lot learn from his experience than the hard way, or the way he did. It is about conveying the experience in a manner and a circumstance where the people can relate to it easily and are in a position to appreciate and inculcate amongst themselves.
This post is not about Al Pacino or his acting. It is about few dialogues he delivered in few movies I like. You may not agree with me about attributing the success of these dialogues to Al Pacino since it is the person who wrote the screenplay came up with the dialogue. But what stands out is the way in which it was delivered. Be it Inch by Inch inspirational speech in 'Any Given Sunday' or his saving Charlie speech in 'Scent of a Woman', the way these dialogues were delivered, I cant think of anyone who could have done justice to them as done by Al Pacino.
Its been a long time since I saw them and heard them, but even to this day I remember them, The inch by ince one, word by word. The inch by inch one featured on the introduction section of the sports notice board in our college. Thats the power of the dialogue, but to make sense of it one has to see the clip, there is no shorter way to it. You can look at the clip and read it as well here. The piece is an inspirational one , not just to the team playing but to any one. It is more of someone sharing his life's learning than inspiring people to play and give their best in the game. The parallel drawn between the life and the game is truly exceptional. I think it pumps the adrenaline in anyone who reads it.
The scent of a woman stands in a totally different light altogether. It is more of someone holding on to a value and standing by it. Here also the life's experience comes into play, when he talks about the fork in the road. With well crafted examples he clearly defines whts integrity, whts courage. It is a revolt against the way the system is. It is not just about saving someone from a bad judgement or a not so good circumstance but it is about preventing the people from making a mistake, a mistake which is going to cost a great deal, about killing the soul of a young lad, about changing the way people look at things, giving prominence to certain terms which is used frequently but never understood - integrity, leadership, courage, spirit, soul. The speech and the video can be seen here.
Both the speeches shows the power of one. The one individual who had the experience, who learnt few lessons in his lifetime and helping the younger lot learn from his experience than the hard way, or the way he did. It is about conveying the experience in a manner and a circumstance where the people can relate to it easily and are in a position to appreciate and inculcate amongst themselves.
Monday, June 02, 2008
My 101st Post
Till today morning i didn't realise that i have made 100 posts on my blog. The last blog communication 2.0 is my 100th and this post is my 101st.
I started blogging in December 2004, when i came across my a blog written by my senior in college. Since then my blogging has been a bit On and Off. There were periods of intense activity such as my marathon practice, when the "bookworm" bit me, so on. Few of my posts were on what I wanted to post and me getting back to bloggin again just like you meet to discuss when to meet next types. There were several resolutions made to blog consistently and they were broken the next day. I don't know why I didn't blog as I planned to, may be it was the time, may be schedule, may be I didnt have much to share, rather I was not comfortable in penning down things, probably I was afraid that my friends might tease me, may be they might realise that I am stupid, so why risk it. :) . All these were the reasons but not at the same time, but I went through periods for each excuse I have mentioned. Well, over a period of 5 yrs, I think I have been able to overcome some of these and I am still working on some. But new reasons/new excuses have come now, but I will mention them later. ;)
Moving to the content part of it. I started with copying stuffs from the web, sometimes referencing it, sometimes not. Then I slowly moved to writing my thoughts on the article and referencing the article. Then they were poems. I love poems. So I had to share what I liked, so there was this poems fanatic, copying lyrics here and there and putting it in his blog and probably he would have appeared eSmart :) !!!
Then came the personal struggle phase. Where I started penning down my experience in my struggles in the class or on the play field. I think this was the phase I became confident about my writing abilities, and started penning down whatever I felt. I think I wrote few of my interesting blogs during this time. From then on, things became a bit smooth and I started blogging pretty regularly. I didn't want to make any resolution this time around since I had broken quiet a few before. So I decided I will blog only when I felt like doing so. I blogged, when I got an idea or when I learnt a lesson, or when something impressed me a great deal. Then the bookworm bit me, I started writing reviews about the books I read. It helped in recollecting what i read too and helped me in organising and articulating my thoughts too. This way it is kinda nice. I think I am still in that phase and I will be subjecting you to more of these book reviews!
All this while, I have kept my personal life outside this blog and as of now, I have no intention of bringing it on to the blog. Lets see if time changes things.
Thanks to IPL, I have been forced to think on these lines. It took me nearly 5 yrs (4.5 yrs to be exact) to reach my 100th post. I need to see how long will I take to reach the next 100th milestone. I am pretty sure that it will be less than 5 yrs, how short I need to wait and see. Don't worry I will not blog for the heck of blogging.
For all the good times and the not so good times, cheers to blogging !!!
I started blogging in December 2004, when i came across my a blog written by my senior in college. Since then my blogging has been a bit On and Off. There were periods of intense activity such as my marathon practice, when the "bookworm" bit me, so on. Few of my posts were on what I wanted to post and me getting back to bloggin again just like you meet to discuss when to meet next types. There were several resolutions made to blog consistently and they were broken the next day. I don't know why I didn't blog as I planned to, may be it was the time, may be schedule, may be I didnt have much to share, rather I was not comfortable in penning down things, probably I was afraid that my friends might tease me, may be they might realise that I am stupid, so why risk it. :) . All these were the reasons but not at the same time, but I went through periods for each excuse I have mentioned. Well, over a period of 5 yrs, I think I have been able to overcome some of these and I am still working on some. But new reasons/new excuses have come now, but I will mention them later. ;)
Moving to the content part of it. I started with copying stuffs from the web, sometimes referencing it, sometimes not. Then I slowly moved to writing my thoughts on the article and referencing the article. Then they were poems. I love poems. So I had to share what I liked, so there was this poems fanatic, copying lyrics here and there and putting it in his blog and probably he would have appeared eSmart :) !!!
Then came the personal struggle phase. Where I started penning down my experience in my struggles in the class or on the play field. I think this was the phase I became confident about my writing abilities, and started penning down whatever I felt. I think I wrote few of my interesting blogs during this time. From then on, things became a bit smooth and I started blogging pretty regularly. I didn't want to make any resolution this time around since I had broken quiet a few before. So I decided I will blog only when I felt like doing so. I blogged, when I got an idea or when I learnt a lesson, or when something impressed me a great deal. Then the bookworm bit me, I started writing reviews about the books I read. It helped in recollecting what i read too and helped me in organising and articulating my thoughts too. This way it is kinda nice. I think I am still in that phase and I will be subjecting you to more of these book reviews!
All this while, I have kept my personal life outside this blog and as of now, I have no intention of bringing it on to the blog. Lets see if time changes things.
Thanks to IPL, I have been forced to think on these lines. It took me nearly 5 yrs (4.5 yrs to be exact) to reach my 100th post. I need to see how long will I take to reach the next 100th milestone. I am pretty sure that it will be less than 5 yrs, how short I need to wait and see. Don't worry I will not blog for the heck of blogging.
For all the good times and the not so good times, cheers to blogging !!!
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