The CHild

On a busy bridge,
A child lying stiff and motionless,
A thin veil of cloth
Substituting as a dress

Hardly a limb flutters in broad daylight
So many who pass by,
Most of whom ignore the sight.

A women besides, begging for alms
Using the child as bait
Expecting pity from all passers by
Not realising there also could be hate (towards the woman)

Trampling upon his childhood by controlling when he sleeps
Denying him his mischief , for in business hours
Who wants to manage if he weeps

If only one can stand a moment longer
And not run away from the feelings that arise
IF only one could take a look at the innocent face
And not act as if doesn’t matter
If he was dead or alive

Homecoming A Novel

There are authors that wish to impress the audience with the verbosity and there are authors who make the reader connect intimately with the characters they portray in their novels in a lucid manner. Shashi Warrier definitely belongs to the second category in the likes of R K Narayan. Homecoming by warrier is wonderful treat to read. TO state briefly, the main protagonist Javed Sharif who visits his home every year in Kashmir gives a surprise visit on his fathers 84th birthday (setting is in the year 2002) The novel captures the moods prevalent in Kashmir and Javed feels like a second class citizen in his own city due to the rights to question anybody with Police and armed forces. Things turn for the worst when his son is arrested as a suspected terrorist on the day of the B’day. The book explores Javed relationship with his parents, two sons, daughter and his politician brother apart from his relationship with a woman in Bangalore.

As the story progresses, Javeds relationship with every other character changes while he is running around to get his son freed from prison. The author beautifully expresses the emotions that the protagonist goes through as these relationships change - The woman who will not marry unless javed converts his religion, the brother who is no separate from his role, the son in Bangalore who feels he should get more share of business than he gets etc leave Javed utterly isolated at a time when men retire from active life. The strength of a relationship definitely gets tested when times are tough and by the end you wonder whether he feels more of a second class citizen in his state or in his family. Perhaps it’s difficult to make other see a viewpoint when the mind is already made.


 

Movement with imperfections

Been a while since I have posted a blog. Somehow, the more I postpone, the more difficult it becomes for me to get back to it, as if length of absence from a task is directly proportional to the difficulty levels of getting back. There have been occasion when I have started writing the blog but not finished and have given it up halfway. This not only applies to my Blog post but inevitably any task that I postpone towards completion beyond a reasonable time frame, be it my personal finances or my learning needs.


This to me is a universal rule of nature. How does this play out in organisations. Somewhere the challenge that I see in the choice between a perfect system/decision and a movement albeit with some imperfections.


I am a great believer in the second choice since movement with imperfections keeps the ball rolling and avoids the trap of nature. The skill is to know that whether these imperfections can be lived/managed with without the system going helter- skelter.

Hanlon's Razor- Version1.1

Hanlon's Razor is a good way to look a events and people

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

A week back it struck me that this razor could be modified to make it more comprehensive to look at events and people and more specifically that the razor cuts through human tendency to malign impulsively rather than to understand. So here goes version 1.1

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by Ignorance.. >

and version1.2

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by immaturity..

SALES Vs OPERATION

More often than not, Sales and operations are in conflict leveling allegations at each other. Sales alleging that operations do not understand client level issues and urgencies, and operations alleging Sales does not follow the processes laid.

At the heart of the conflict, lies inadequate understanding of each others Role.

Operations is a shared resource. They operate from a underlying approach of

a)serving maximum number of customers in minimum possible time across sales geographies/divisions/regions etc. (within the current capacities).

b) And acting as gatekeepers, guardians of Regulations, Risk etc objectives as laid by business.

Local Sales team (teams/regions/Divisons etc) on the other hand operates in servicing its minimum number of customers (to the company as a whole) in minimum time

To overcome the potential conflicts, SLAs are signed between heads of these department.

But market realities and business objectives dictate that some customers are treated more important than others, hence these SLAs have to be bent.

So Local Sales starts pressurizing ops to bend the rules. What is one exception to local sales team , turn by turn adds to several exceptions to Ops team. For them exceptions become normal routine. Secondly Local sales have their own fires to douse. Hence for them the urgency is paramount although from overall business objectives they may not be of the same importance. Hence pressurize Ops

So Ops find it difficult to judge the genuine from the Non – Genuine exception, hence they react back. Along the way the genuine cases are put with roadblocks.

This leads to Local sales stating that Ops do not understand client issues. Ops in turn states that processes are no longer followed.

The spiral is complete. Is there a way out. Defining Exceptions as laid by Senior Mangement helps. But at the end of the day, a friendly talk with Ops helps understand each other better than any rules laid.

Drucker: Relevant Then , Relevant now

Recently I purchased a book by Peter Drucker “The practice of Management”. Having only read him as a student earlier, and now after professional experience of few years, I have come to respect and realize the simplicity and insight of management that only a genius can provide.

Peter drucker comes across more as a management philosopher rather than an expert. Anyone dealing with the dilemmas of management should visit his ideas, and I am sure they would come up with a clarity that they did not possess before reading.

I particularly liked the chapter on structure where every management should look at three aspects - Activity analysis, Decision analysis and relation analysis.

Surely Drucker is as relevant in 2010 as he was in the 1950s.

HEART OF THE ENTERPRISE : Stafford Beer - Book Review

To my mind, I have classified Organisational Development in 2 broad categories

1. OD dealing with structures systems and processes
2. OD dealing with behaviours and mindsets, anxieties, feelings etc.

Heart of the enterprise belongs to the first genre of OD. The question to my mind while reading the book is can genre 1 intervention be effective without the genre 2 interventions and even if we establish that both are required, the question like the chicken and egg riddle is what comes first.

Nevertheless, a genius can be ignored only at ones own expense and Stafford beer is truly genius par excellence, for what he sets out in the book is a model of viable system. Stafford Beer likes to call himself a cybernertician – a word first coined by Norbert wiener. He defines cybernetics as the art and science of effective management. Cybernetics also means “steersman ship” and since managers themselves have to steer the company through turbulent environment, the definition aptly reflects the role of Managers.

Part 1 of the book sets the tone by discussing the nature of systems and boundaries. The questions raised by the author are equally in the realm of management as in the realm of philosophy, psychology or cognition. Since a large part of systems and boundaries are a subjective phenomenon, the question again to my mind is the process of establishing an agreement on what those boundaries etc. are amongst the senior managers. On one hand a common language amongst managers helps in reaching agreements on common maps, but on the other hand the internal mindsets with its own sets of defensive routines seriously risks the ability to work through them.

The author goes on to state aphorisms axioms and principles, which do certainly enlighten the task of manager and by the end of Part 1 he establishes the role of Management Unit in the scheme of viable model. Looking at Managerial Task as variety handling through its operational element and environment by effectively designing suitable amplifiers and attenuators does provide looking at new ways of handling old problems. Being based in Mumbai, at one level of recursion, Railways could definitely look at handling local train traffic in this perspective.


Part 2 continues in the tradition of Part 1 where question such as what is freedom (computable function of systemic purpose as perceived) and what it is constraints are propounded. But more importantly this part unravels the levels of viable system. The author uses the aid of diagrams to explain these levels without which it is next to impossible to understand viable systems. Here I would want to mention the aspect of Level 5 which deals with closure. At an individual level, closure is provided by conscience, but at an organisational level, the collective conscience of the organization has to be agreed upon which helps the organization to be survival worthy. This is where Management meets philosophy, art meets science.

The effective functioning of viable system within the realms of organization is tackled in Part 3. Question of Measurements, Plans, Recursion and Identity are addressed. In Chapter 11 one of the most comprehensive definitions of Manager I have come across is stated. Having earlier read about Stafford Beers work, I myself have applied his concepts of measurement in my organisational context. The same is mentioned in my blog “

http://sellingretailsales.blogspot.com/2008/07/performance-measurement-application.html

The concept of recursion is also elaborated in this section where only through practice, one can effectively understand at what level of recursion one is operating. The recursion theory is definitely an aid in OD but to count on the book as a prescriptive tool will not help since it is possible that several recursions can be confused and only a larger reading of Stafford beer combined with practice and debate can enlighten the individual reader on recursion.

Section 3 ends with an elaborate exercise on identiy:a dilemma where sharing of mental maps are discussed. This is where the book for a brief interval looks at Genre 2 OD interventions and acknowledges that Managerial suitable style combined with suitable response are a prerequisite for effective Management interventions

I am glad that in Section 4, the author uses the example of a service industry(insurance) in using the viable model for diagnosis since throughout the book manufacturing examples were abundant but not service sectors.
The section deals with the implementation of viability in organisational context. Having myself worked in an insurance industry, I was able to relate with different functions at a more intimate level. At one level the example helps in clarifying all that is mentioned in the previous section, but at another level, more importantly it stimulates the reader to effectively design the viability for his own firm. The book would achieve its purpose if every reader could look at his own organisation from the model described.


Overall, the book is a challenging read for all those who venture, but is also enlightening to all those who have patience and want to work through complexity. Every chapter end with a fictional story “Later in the Bar” which is further aid to understand what has been read.

The question still that remains unanswered is “Can structures induce changes in behaviour that is lasting”. Well the genre 2 OD definitely would definitely answer no.

Nevertheless all models are only an aid to unravelling complexity and the closer the model is to the current realities the better it is. On that count Stafford beer’s Heart of the enterprise is truly an astounding work of art and science for no author has ever so beautifully combined various disciplines to provide its readers with a comprehensive understanding of Management. What also lends credence is that his understanding is backed by serious experiences which he has had in designing organizations.


I would want to end this review with a quote that ended the book and so this review
“Life is a process and not a justification”.