Back To The Future

I was watching the animation movie, Wall-E few days back and it seriously made me think about the life mankind would have in the future in case the current abuse of nature and earth goes on. For people who think that such a situation for earth and mankind is remote, think again. The recent floods in Chennai and Tamil Nadu should be a wake-up call for each of us to tread a new path and shun our existing ways of destroying nature.

The title that came to my mind when I thought about this topic is the time-old classic movie – Back to the Future that fascinated us with the concept of time travel. I realized that time travel is the need of the hour in case we need to save the earth from further destruction but a different version of traveling back in time, called Precycling. With the public voice getting louder in support of the 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle for saving nature, the one that could be more effective compared to 3 R’s is Precycle.

So what is Precycling? According to Wikipedia, “Precycling is the practice of reducing waste by attempting to avoid bringing items which will generate waste into home or business”. To better understand the concept of Precycling, I would like to take you back (20 years before) in time. I still remember taking a wired basket containing empty bottle, empty egg tray while going to a grocery shop and the shop keeper would fill in the empty bottle with oil, egg tray with eggs and pack pulses/cereals/masala items in a paper. I would also carry a separate bowl and gunny bag to get milk from my milk vendor and rice from ration shops. Except paper (which is bio-degradable), nothing else is wasted as I could reuse it again until they get damaged. Today, when I go to a supermarket, I get everything in a packed form that I end up bringing a lot of waste in the form of plastic bags, bottles, covers, and pouches. Even though I sell it to a recycler and the materials are recycled, still a portion of non-recyclables end in the dust bins, finally making its way to the landfills. So precycling eliminates the need for a particular product (like plastic covers/ bottles in the above example) so that you don’t need the 3 R’s – reduced usage/ reuse/ recycle of the product.

After some serious thinking, I decided to bring back this old habit to mine to life. During my recent visit to the supermarket, I found that there were options to buy pulses/cereals/rice in unpackaged form (colloquially known as loose) and so carried my own bags to buy these separately. I know this is not possible with all the products that you buy from the shops, but a simple change with the easier products could help us to find a solution for the difficult ones in the future.

As I was thinking about Precycling, I came across a website which promotes a similar concept known as Refilling. Again traveling back in time, the word refill brought back memories of drinking Goli soda in refillable glass bottles. I know that we still get soft drinks and soda in refill bottles, but their usage is coming down, thanks to the popularity of PET bottles. Even though the concept of refilling raises questions about hygiene and cleanliness, a lot of startups and big corporations in India have taken a liking to solve this problem. While traveling to my office, I noticed coke refill machines installed in front of various places such as supermarkets and petrol bunks, but the sad part is that not many seem to use it. I got to know about a company called Amruth Dhara, based in Pondicherry, which is working on installing water refill machines in public places to tackle the problem of bottled water pollution. It is important that the public support such initiatives so that this concept soon catches on.

Another product that I found interesting and innovative is the Mitti cool fridge which is made of clay and used to store fruits, vegetables, and water. Do you remember that before electric fridges became popular, people used to store water and edible items in earthen pots to keep them fresh and chill? Well, the Mitti cool fridge works on the same principle and has found many takers for it. I still see people in villages and few in cities use earthen pots for storage and cooking purposes, but their growth seems to be on a downward trend. I haven’t seen/ used the Mitti cool fridge yet but would like to try it in the near future.

I know a change like this (going back to our old ways of living) might not be easy but the best thing is to experience it firsthand and later share your experience with your friends and family so that such concepts like Precycle, Refill catches up with people and gets imbibed into their everyday life. In case you are wondering whether a change like this could help in combating climate change, think again, because I have read somewhere that “small things make a BIG difference”. Pray to god this happens.

The Nobel Prize Decoded

"Nobel medal" by Design of the medal: The Nobel Foundation. Sculptor and engraver: Erik Lindberg (1902).

Source of this work Photographer: David Monniaux (2005, 2006, 2007)Edited by: hidro 21:17, 28 July 2008 (UTC)Design of the medal: The Nobel Foundation. Sculptor and engraver: Erik Lindberg (1902).

Licensed under PD-US via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nobel_medal.png#/media/File:Nobel_medal.png

I am a big fan of the Pawn Stars show aired on History TV channel and happened to witness an interesting (or rather shocking) question that was asked during one of their shows – Pawnography. The question under scanner is - Who amongst these famous personalities were NOT nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize:
1. Oskar Schindler
2. Benito Mussolini
3. Adolf Hitler
4. Yassar Arafat

In case you are a history buff who knows about these 4 personalities, then chances are that you will end up making a wrong guess to the above question. Barring Oskar Schindler (well-known industrialist during World War II who is credited with saving 1200 Jews from the Nazi Holocaust), the other personalities' history don't stand in good taste to be considered for a Nobel prize. While Hitler and Mussolini are well known for causing huge damage to human life during World War II, Arafat is considered a hero by the Palestinians but a terrorist by the Israelis. Ironically, the answer to the question is Oskar Schindler (I could understand your disbelief). But hold on, the surprise doesn’t end with this.

The biggest surprise is that the most likely deserving person for the Nobel Prize – Mahatma Gandhi never received the prize. Even though he was nominated five times for the award, he failed to bag the award even once. This strong advocator of Non-violence came close to winning the award in 1948 but was assassinated just two days before the nomination due date. Since the prize could be awarded only to a living person, the Mahatma’s nomination couldn’t be accepted. The Nobel committee even decided to go against the rules and confer the award to Gandhi but later decided to withhold the award and instead declared that there was no deserving living candidate for the award during that year. Joining the Mahatma on this list of Non-Nobel Laureates are some of the well-known figures on the planet such as Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Mark Twain, Neville Chamberlain, Clement Attlee, Ramsay MacDonald, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Charles Hughes, Jawaharlal Nehru, Henrik Ibsen and Thomas Edison.

The story behind the nomination of the least likely candidate for the award - Hitler is an interesting one indeed. A member of the Swedish parliament, E.G.C. Brandt nominated Adolf Hitler in 1939 with satirical intentions (to mock Hitler’s discrimination towards Jews) but had to withdraw the nomination after protests from other parliament members in Sweden. As I began scouring over the internet to find more information on the most valuable award on Earth, I stumbled upon these interesting historical facts: 

• An interesting statute about the award is that a candidate who dies after the nomination closing date still gets to receive the award. This has happened only thrice in Nobel Prize’s history, the latest being Ralph Steinman, who was awarded the prize three days before his death in 2012. 
• The wife of Robert Lucas, winner of 1995 Nobel Prize in Economics, had the forecasting brain of Nostradamus that she had introduced a clause in their divorce settlement 7 years ago by which she was entitled to receive 50 percent of her husband’s Nobel Prize. So the economist had to share his $1 million prize with his wife as per the settlement. Interestingly, the divorce clause expired on October 31, 1995 and so if he had won the award a year later, his wife would have received nothing. Well, someone rightly said - “wherever women are concerned, the unexpected always happens”. Seems to be right in this case.
• One of the terms of the award is that it cannot be given to more than 3 persons for a single field, irrespective of what the situation may be. The Nobel Prize has been given to 2 or 3 persons in a single field several times, whenever the selection committee found that the nominated works were equally meritorious.
• All the Nobel prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, except the Peace prize which is awarded on the same date and time in Norway. Until now, it remains a mystery as to why Alfred Nobel chose Norway to award the Peace prize.
• There were few instances wherein inventions that were awarded the Nobel Prize were later found to be wrong/ untrue. Johannes Fibiger in 1926 was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine for his hypothesis about parasites causing cancer which was found later to be incorrect. A year later, Julius Wagner Von Jauregg won the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on the discovery of a cure for Syphilis by injecting fever causing malaria. Antonio Moniz was awarded the Nobel prize in 1949 for Medicine for developing prefrontal lobotomy as a treatment for schizophrenia which was discontinued in the 1960s.
• Every year, Thomson Reuters, the largest information service provider company, publishes a list of candidates who are likely to win the Nobel Prize in their respective field based on the citation impact of their published research. Until now, the company has correctly predicted 37 Nobel prize winners since 2002.
• The well-known Yoga guru, Baba Ramdev recently claimed that he should have been awarded the Nobel prize for his work on Yoga but was denied because he is black. As expected, the controversial yogi received lot of flak for his controversial comments. 

Being a big fan of the Freakonomics book, I found this interesting podcast on “How to win a Nobel Prize: A New Freakonomics Radio Episode” in their blog. Do listen to this in case you would like to lay your hands on this coveted prize.

Even though this prestigious award’s history has been marred in controversy over the selection process and the past winners, we should accept the fact that the award has contributed enormously in improving the standard of research and development on the planet. As like the inscription found on the medal – Inventas Vitam juvat excoluisse per artes (translates as “And they who bettered life on earth by new found mastery”) and Pro pace et fraternitate gentium (translates as "for the peace and brotherhood of men"), this award has acknowledged some of the greatest inventions/ inventors which/who have made our life easy on Earth.

What a shame - "Paddy Fields" as a landmark on Google Map

While doing a Google search for a location in Porur (Outskirts of Chennai city), I came across a landmark named “paddy fields” near to my destination. This took me by surprise as I asked myself the question – “how could something which is commonly found be considered a landmark”? As I came to my senses, I realized the deteriorating state of farmlands in India, especially in the cities. Since a lot has been written and talked about in the media on farmer suicides, decreasing farm acreage due to real estate boom, fair price for farmers’ produce etc., I felt that I would write something different - my childhood memories working on the paddy fields.

Whenever I tell people that I come from a village, they generally express their liking for the villages owing to its lush green fields amidst coconut and mango trees, water filled lakes, a huge temple on picturesque hill etc., (can’t help, it’s the filmy effect). I tell them that the way the villages are portrayed in films is not 100% real and a lot of credit should go to the filmmakers’ creativity for adding that extra beauty to the villages. Rewind to my childhood, I remember starting early in the morning (4 or 5 o’clock village time, I suppose it’s still bedtime in cities) towards the fields, situated at about 3-4 Kms away from my home. The fellow villagers who had already signed up to work in our fields joined us along the way and in case it’s your lucky day, you could get a ride on a bullock cart passing by to the fields (for free). They usually seemed like a cheerful, enthusiastic, happy and fun-filled group and chit chatted loudly about the day-to-day happenings in the village/ outside world amidst the silent early hours of the morning. This is in stark contrast to the tired and sober faces that I had witnessed on the city roads on Monday mornings.

On reaching the fields and after offering their prayers to god, each one takes a particular patch of field and start with their work (and guess what? nobody tells them what to do). They happily sing songs/ talk and they don’t mind about the hot sun or heavy rains while they go about their work. They make sure that the work that was planned for the day is completed either on the same day or the next day in case there is a stoppage in between due to inclement weather. Surprisingly, I have witnessed neighbours who had quarrelled the previous day in the village, forgetting their differences and working together on the fields to complete the work. Buttermilk is served in between during the break and for breakfast, it is generally Idli-Sambar/ Kambu Koozh (a traditional Tamil drink) followed by the spicy combination of rice/ Karuvattu kuzhambhu (dry fish) for lunch. People, sometimes manage to get mangoes from nearby fields and have it coated with green chilli paste as a side dish for the Kambu Koozh drink. Rat killing was a popular hobby amongst village men during the breaks while women did it in their own style - spending time in gossips or playing Pallanghuzi (a traditional game). Inspite of a hard gruelling day at work, the villagers had the same happy, cheerful faces I saw in the morning and I find it difficult to even fake something like this at the end of my day at office.

Even though, it seems like a heaven working on the fields (as per my description), I always hated going to the fields as it involved working under the hot sun, getting your hands dirty in the mud, carrying heavy loads, no TV/ playing games etc., Farming is definitely not for the weak-hearted and I have always admired the farmers for doing this 24*7*365 without much fuss. There is an age-old adage – “True happiness comes after real pain” and I experienced the same when I got to take a bath in the well after a day’s hard work. Bathing would feel like heaven (just like shown in the modern bath accessories advertisements today), Jumping in different postures into the wells was the best adventure sport you could experience as a child and the water gushing from the pipes offered the best massage for the aching body.

At times, I have felt that I should quit my job and take up farming but the enthusiasm just fades away with the passage of time. This Google map incident has reignited my passion towards farming and has created the urge in me to do something to stop this extinction of farm lands. May be one day I would get back to farming and share my experience in a separate blog post (pray to god this happens).

Who Am I ????? A Manager's Dilemma

Recently, one of my friends who is working with a top IT organization shared the predicament faced by him and some of his colleagues, who got recently promoted as front line managers (FLMs). He used the phrase "caught between the devil and the deep blue sea" to describe his confused state as a manager, trying to satisfy two diverse species - the top management and the first level employees. He asked me the best approach to gain the trust of the employees. I shared with him the synopsis of the regional Tamil movie – “Jigarthanda” and left for him to decide as to which is the best way to get things done from his employees.

Jigarthanda Movie - StoryLine: A budding film maker gets associated with a famous Don to make a gangster movie based on the don’s real life incidents. When he decides to make the movie after finalizing the story, the don drops a bomb shell that he wants to reprise the Don’s role in the movie. Having known about his notoriety for murdering people who go against him, the film maker accepts his proposal out of fear. After repeated training, the Don couldn't portray his real fearful image on the screen and so the film maker, without the Don’s knowledge, shoots the movie as a comedy. The Don, high on expectations, goes to watch the movie but finds that the director has betrayed him by portraying him in a wrong light. He then sets out to kill the director but finds that the general public who used to fear and resent him as a gangster have now started to respect and love him as a comical gangster (on screen). He realizes his mistake and chooses the path of respect to gain people’s trust.

I have heard time and again that the FLMs are the critical link in an organizational hierarchical set up and there are plenty of reports/ studies on the internet which points to a single conclusion that the company which had efficient FLMs showed increased performance and sales. If you wonder why it is so, it is quite obvious that these people directly interact with the most critical asset of any organization- the employees who really make things happen on the ground and typically define the growth/success of an organization. According to a new study conducted in May 2014 by the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services (based on a survey of more than 600 global executives), there seems to be a huge gap in the front line manager performance as against the expectations of the top management and this has negatively impacted the organizational growth. The report also mentions that the major reason for this failure is the lack of leadership development training and tools to support these managers. Adding to the report findings, these managers have been found to have limited flexibility in decision making and are downgraded to perform just a supervisory role. In most of the companies, the FLMs role is to oversee a span of direct reports and communicate the top management's decision to the employees and vice-versa. They mainly keep an eye on people & projects, prepare reports, implement plans and policies, and escalate issues. To put in a nut shell, a FLM is meant to communicate decisions, not to make them; to ensure compliance of policies, not to use judgment (and certainly not to develop policies); and to monitor the execution of improvements, not to prepare plans or carry out improvements (workers do that).

The recent incident that involved the sacking of thousands of employees, mostly in the managerial role, working in top Indian IT companies is a testimony of the gross mismanagement of the managers in an organization. This is a clear wake-up call for managers who merely act like humanoids/human robots, taking directions from the top management and getting work done through control & fear.

Just like Jackie Chan tries to find his true identity in the movie - "Who Am I", managers need to do a thorough introspection and put their thinking caps on to make decisions on their own so as to gain the employee and the management’s respect. This might be really hard as it would involve shedding the fearful image (just like the Don mentioned above) and might be even perceived as a lighthearted person. If you still feel this as a risky option, just listen to what the great poet Robert Frost has to say, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference”.

"Who Let the Dogs Out?"

                                                 I was recently enquiring one of my friends about his dog and he shared with me an interesting attitude of the dog - it always barked louder than usual whenever it wanted to get my friend’s attention. Even though it was genuine in its anger but sometimes, it would fake it to get what it wanted. Initially, even though he knew that the dog was faking it, he gave what it wanted to stop the barking. But at one point of time, he got really fed up with the dog’s attitude that he started ignoring it’s barking even when it was genuine. We witness this doggy attitude quite frequently within us and people around us, be it in office, family, friends and even on television shows.

A year back, a voluntary organization put stalls in our office premises to enroll volunteers for their organization. But when they failed to get enough volunteers, contrary to their objective, they started getting aggressive and forced employees into joining the organization. My relative had a similar experience when a sales guy came to their house for selling a water purifier and when she said “No” after listening to the guy’s lengthy presentation, he started threatening her and forced her into buying the product. I have seen from my own professional experience where employees use aggressive tactics in the workplace to get a promotion, hikes or better opportunities. So does anger and aggression really work in the workplace??? If you ask me, I would say the answer is “Yes” and partially “No”.

In the real world, people would generally use the quote - “Barking dogs seldom bite” to support the ineffectiveness of anger. This is not completely true because if it doesn't work, people would not have cared to use it for so long. Sometimes anger is required to get people’s attention and to achieve short term goals. The anger’s effectiveness is mainly reduced when people use it frequently and for a longer period of time. OK, so if aggression doesn't work, does it mean that not being aggressive at all would work? The answer is, unfortunately, a big “No”. Just like the continued aggressive behavior, this ever happy attitude is also a warning sign that the employee is either happy doing jobs which fall in his/ her comfort zone or merely faking his/ her happiness to hide the inner discomfort. So one shouldn't worry about the doggy attitude being out in the open but should concentrate on how to channelize this aggression or use it intelligently to get their needs fulfilled so that it doesn't show its ugly face to the outside world quite often.
There is one technique which I regularly use to manage my anger whenever I encounter bad managers/ colleagues. The best way to vent your anger when you have to work with such bad influences is to close your eyes and imagine them as clowns - dressed in joker’s clothes with the ugliest possible makeup (be as creative as possible) and try showering their faces with foam (the trick is to get yourself completely involved and wholly enjoy the process). There are plenty of resources on the internet on Anger Management @ work place which is absolutely free and easily available for everyone to check it out. As like individuals, the organizations also have a greater responsibility in managing the aggression in the workplace, i.e., right from establishing systems to identify aggressive behavior, finding the root causes & solutions to pacify the aggression and having programs to educate managers & employees on anger management. The movie – “Rush” which released a couple of years ago, exactly reiterates the importance of controlling one’s anger and the consequences of not doing so.

To put it in a nutshell, anger could be a powerful weapon when used wisely, otherwise, could destroy one’s career and popularity.

Fun @ Work - Dead or alive???

                                       Management, Performance, Policies, Appraisal, Goals, Quality... Do these words ring a bell??? It should, as we hear them regularly in our workplace day in and day out. These are all words you would generally associate with a business workplace but the word - FUN would generally stand out as an odd man out in the workplace. Anyone who say that they come to work to have fun or consider work as fun would be looked at with disdain or may be even considered a lunatic. So what is wrong with having fun @ work??? Why should fun be considered a bane in the workplace??? Most organizations don't realize that the age old adage "All work and no play makes jack a dull boy" is not something that could be associated only with college/school but would also equally apply to the workplace. As someone who has very strong feelings and emotional attachment for the fun @ work principle, I decided that I should write about this in my first blog. So here I am, ready to share (and not teach/ advise) my experience about fun@work.

In-spite of repeated testimonies and endorsements from some of the successful and popular business personalities about the positive impact of work place fun, very few companies have taken it seriously and mention them as part of their mission statement. Most companies feel that fun is a double edged sword and could prove to be dangerous in office. But with the business landscape getting competitive every passing day, employees are working harder and for longer hours with increasing stress levels than ever before, thereby leading to an unbalanced personal and professional life. This creates the need for work place fun as it's benefits (for both the employee and the organization) definitely outweighs its risk. According to a Forbes article, "In a meta-analysis of 225 academic studies, happy employees were found to have 31% higher productivity and 37% higher sales, while business teams solved problems more quickly, were deemed better by bosses and got higher customer satisfaction ratings." This point has been strongly reiterated in a book titled - "Moonwalking with Einstein, The art, and science of remembering everything" by Joshua Foer, that I had read few weeks back. In one of the chapters in his book, the author discusses memory in terms of time. He feels that monotony collapses time and novelty unfolds it, i.e., a person who does the same work everyday sitting in the office cubicle will experience the day getting blended unmemorably to the next day and finally disappear, thereby making him/ her feel like living a shorter life filled with nothing memorable whereas a person with different routines will have his/her memory filled with lots of new experiences which stretches out psychological time and lengthens his/her perception of time.

The biggest realization from my own work experience is that workplace fun could be a great tool, similar to the professional development/ training programs, to build great teams with better understanding and communication, nurture potential leaders with greater courage and creativity, improve employee morale and engagement, thereby leading to greater productivity and better business results. I have seen employees, who were shy and pessimistic, getting transformed through such fun initiatives into bold and optimistic personalities, with some of them even getting promoted to the higher corridors of power as team leads and managers. This is all possible as fun activities give a platform for these shy yet highly potential souls to come out of their shell and showcase their inner potential without much fear. The biggest flip side seems to be that the companies that invest in workplace fun programs want to realize its benefits immediately without even giving a chance for the program to complete its metamorphosis. The other gloomy aspect seems to be that fun programs are run as a separate entity using professional business jargon similar to a professional development/training program. This needs to change and companies have to create fun as a culture that could be even integrated into day-to-day work, meetings, presentation, training etc.,

Creating a culture of fun @ workplace, even though sounds easy, could be a herculean task in itself, as it would require a long-term plan and a strong commitment from the top management, employees and importantly, the frontline/middle-level managers. As like any change, we cannot expect this to be embraced or accepted with open arms (even though it's fun and entertaining) right from the start and that's why there is a need for the long term plan and strong commitment. The excitement and participation towards such initiatives will definitely pick up and would become a critical part of the organizational success/ growth at some point of time. How quickly would this change be obvious depends on the implementation and the excitement shown by the top management towards such initiatives. During the implementation of such fun programs, organizations should make sure that the programs are designed in such a way that they are done without creating any negative impact on the productivity hours and in a minimal budget, as anything contrary to this could be met with stiff resistance at the start by the naysayers (against fun) within the top management. For example, conducting simple fun activities like asking people to participate in a 2 to 5 minutes of laughter therapy or physical exercise sessions, simple treasure hunt or some other games within the workplace. It could be done during the time period when the productivity levels would be the least (example, immediately after lunch break). This would not result in a greater loss of productivity hours as well as the budget requirement will be very minimal (almost nothing). Another example would be to present greeting cards customized with wishes (make it creative/funny/memorable and not too professional) from the top management or the team members on special occasions like the first day at work, birthdays, team anniversaries etc., instead of costly gifts (could be fine if it fits within your budget) or prizes. Being creative could help in minimizing the cost as well boosting the employee's enthusiasm towards such programs. This doesn't mean that organizations have to restrict such fun related activities only to the employees workplace. The other popular ones like the team outings, lunch/dinner, special gifts/coupons, festival/annual day celebrations should still be continued. Organizations have to wear their creativity hats to make these outdoor events more memorable by making people whole-heartedly participate in such events and not just create it as an opportunity for people to be away from work.

Another critical aspect that needs to be monitored during the program is to make sure that the employees don't cross their limits while having fun. This means drawing the line, with the managers acting as the gatekeepers of the drawn line and making sure that the employees understand the importance of not crossing the line and playing by the rules of the game. Also, organizations have to realize that too many restrictions could spoil the essence of fun @ work. For example, asking employees to compensate for the productivity hours lost (could be done occasionally if there is a business criticality) for the fun activities, by working over time could again result in decreased engagement and ultimately could lead to the program's failure. So there is a bigger responsibility for organizations to plan each fun activity in a balanced manner taking the above points into consideration.

There are plenty of resources available on the internet for people who would like to conduct fun activities in their office. Many of us don't even know that every year April 1st, widely celebrated as the April fool's day, is also being celebrated as the International fun @ work day (am not trying to fool you, its real). Also known as the National Fun @ workday, this day is being celebrated in various offices across the globe since 1986. Another interesting fact about the day is that the company - Playfair, which introduced this day, initially thought that it might be foolish to name April fool's day as International fun @ work day but later realized that it would be the perfect day to spread the message that fun @ work doesn't have to be considered foolish.

It's very important for organizations to realize that fun @ work is not something that has to be killed, buried and allowed to rest in peace and instead should be embraced, nurtured and allowed to thrive until the concept of office workplace exists in this world. Also with the support for work from home concept gaining louder, fun @ work could be the harbinger of hope that could save the work place concept from extinction.

Let's pray and work towards keeping the fun alive @ our workplace.

Long live FUN...