Discipline - will thou Resurrect?

Discipline has many manifestations prevalent in our life ranging from our personal traits to our societal, family and professional Eco systems.  We may not feel it's existence but the lack of it always makes itself visible when when the generally accepted norms in the Eco system are not complied with. Yes, these norms may related to culture, race, religion geography but the lack of compliance for sure causes angst and discontent in the respective societies.

Coming to our own country with so many instances of lack of discipline rearing it ugly head ; be it the brutal rape of Nirbhaya or the impunity with which people violate traffic or rich politicians heirs running amuck or managers only taking a flexi time and "working from home" with consistency. The people while grumbling take all this in their stride and move ahead

What can be done to resurrect the conformance to discipline? There are three dimensions through which this can be accomplished in my view - Fear, Embarrassment and hitting where it matters most Monetary Penalties. 

 Here are a few situations which were actual instances or hypothetical wishes which can enable this resurrection if broad based.

To start with instances from the place I live. During limited water supply due to water scarcity, people were keeping taps open while leaving their homes despite requests. When the association imposed penalties and displaying their names on the notice boards, it stopped. Similar instance where all unwanted stuff was flushed into drainage. The action was penalties, displaying on notice boards and insisting that everyone from the respective block have to be present she the clogging drains were cleared. The actions worked - A combination of Fear, Embarrassment and Monetary Penalties did it. 

Is the professional world any different? Let us look at a change being introduced - be it on a process or standardization through an innovative solution. The progress in many cases is slow despite lot of education and propaganda on the benefits. A fair sized group still resist since it will reduce their criticality. The moment it is mandated through their objectives, everyone goes head over heels to comply. The reason??- fear of getting a bad appraisal, Embarrassment due to peers progressing ahead of them and monetary penalties due to no pay hikes.

Coming on to the society; - did any more bank robberies happen in Chennai after the commendable and swift action by Chennai police? Will the disqualification of convicted politicians reduce criminals in politics? The other day day in Pune, I read that there is a directive to penalize erring drivers who jump signals and possible revocation of licenses for rash driving? Would drug smuggling and brutal rapes of women and even kids like what routinely happens in Delhi stop if the punishment is swift and severe as given in the middle eastern countries. Let the human rights activists cry hoarse - but my belief is that this will be effective. But will it happen???

 To conclude; this is not a prescription. But looking at the instances, some of which I have stated, then this define lay appears to be a way forward - As the say in Sanskrit - SAMA, DHANA, BEDHA and DHANDAM. The last approach of these is the one that our country needs now.

. 

Of Strategy and Adjectives

Strategy is defined as "A plan of action or policy to achieve a major or overall aim".  To define a strategy, making it operational would require lot of introspection, discussions and In our experience as professionals many of us would have participated in the exercise of annual strategic plans and also crafting out strategic solutions in different business proposals that we would have worked. 

But is this exercise taken seriously and does the individual or group apply themselves on it? In majority of cases, it seems to be a "No".  Some common situation in strategising which all of us would have observed.

" our strategy should be a powerful differentiator that is articulated well enough to capture the customer mindshare and positions ourselves as a partner rather than a vendor"

" why are we in this space? Let us make competition irrelevant. Apply the Blue ocean strategy"

"Solution articulation makes our strategy very powerful"

In this whole scheme of playing with words what gets lost is the "how" part. The strategy is filled with what all things we envision to do, but it fails to address, how we will do it. 

Why does this happen? Invariably in many situations, people end up in situations where they prepare their annual strategies overnight. They end up with filling up their presentations or templates with whatever they dreamt the previous night. 

I don't mean to be satirical.  But dreams are good for a long term vision where the horizon we look for seeing results is a couple of years at least. But in a annual strategy kind of a situation, where tangible results bound by numbers are the order of the day, strategic planning should be a continuous exercise. In addition any strategic initiative proposed, should be backed by a thorough approach for implementation that should have been thought about.

On introspection does making adjectives a taboo in strategic planning make it a relatively more successful exercise? Probably yes, since it would help us atleast the contributors while identifying the "gassers".

Memories CREC - Getting Drunk

It was a weekend and i think, both me and Harish were discussing (What else to discuss yaar either booze or girls ). Then we suddenly come up with this great thought - "maachan let us get drunk". So the planning starts. We salvage cash out of our meagre monthly allowance and then take the bus to Calicut city and land up in KSRTC bustand. The shop i think was opposite to Kairali/Sree theatre.

We go to the shop and our Talli starts off in malayalam enquiring about stuff available. The "Mash" there gives variety of options and the rates. We make a quick calculation and then decide, a full will be too much so let us settle for a half. We buy half a bottle and with lot of excitement and euphoria, come back to the hostel and go over to Harish's room.

Now we take the bottle out keep it and so much of excitement in our eyes (arre yaar first time we are doing something right??). Now comes the dilemma :( . What to mix? We need to have something to mix since drinking raw might be too much for first time drinkers. After some deliberations, we decide on water.  The drinking starts and Harish is the professional mixer. We have a couple of rounds.

Now suddenly i pop the question "Macchan Yeeruda" (Are you getting a kick?). Harish replies in the negative and me too. We are disappointed. Almost half bottle is over and we are not feeling anything. Have we become such heavy drunkards? So what to do now? the main expectation of "kick" is not happening.

We are engineers and we think hard and wow!!! a brilliant idea comes (Always ideas come from Harish and those crazy ideas..he blames poor me for implementing..). So this is what we decide --- Let us close our eyes and rotate our head fast..hopefully "sar to ghoomega" and that will act a a catalyst and give us a kick. We close our eyes and do that faithfully for one minute and then ask each other the same question "any kick maachan". Nothing we are disappointed (or) rather proud that we are now professional drunkards and half bottle is nothing for us.

We'll till now you guys must be wondering what is that stuff we had right?? Half a bottle and we were rock steady ??:) Good performance on debut??




















It was a half a bottle of wine :) . And we will be the first and last ever guys in this world who mixed wine with water and drunk it. And for the Rs. 80 we paid for it...am still wondering whether that was indeed wine or a bottle of three day old packaged grape juice :)

Music i Loved

I contemplated a lot before deciding to write this blog. Since it was a commentary on music, my apprehension stemmed from the fact that, being part of a family where everyone is learning music and sing too, I was just a listener without any knowledge if music or the ability to sing.  

Buth then I thought - music is something which touches a person's heart and I can very well write about it, because this is about a recent music album I listened to, which touched me so much with its lyrics, music and singing.

"Suchi - Music I like " - a collection of Mahakavi Subramania Bharathi's songs by Suchi.  

Hmmmmm...if there a few raised eye brows from people who say " Suchi??? Bharathiar Songs???Isn't she more of a singer who sings peppy numbers???".  Folks! You don't know this version of Suchi yet! 

Coming to the album, four things stand out clearly - the theme, the lyrics (it goes without saying!!), the singing and the score. 

The Theme is "Love", which says that love should manifest itself as - love for you spouse, love for you country and devotion for God expressed as love.

Mahakavi's lyrics are very simple and powerful.  A great job in choosing the right gems to fit the theme.

"Veenayadi née enakku" a touching expression of how Bharathi lived his wife, "Vande Maaararam", "Nallador veenai seidhu" and "endhayum thaayum" which stirs our soul with patriotism and "Kakkai Chiraginile" and " Aasai Maugham marandhu poche" reflects love and devotion to God. 

Suchi, i feel has not just rendered but had lived through each song and experienced the lyrics. This is reflected in her singing. Very clear narration and pretty expressive. My favorite is the way she says " Aaridam solve aid thozhi" in the song "Aasai mugham marandhu poche". 

Sai Madhukar had done a great composition.  Right fusion of western and traditional instruments. The score fuses with the singing while ensuring that the power of the lyrics is not lost and giving the classical  touch at the right places - like use of "Varaali" and "Sindhu Bhairavi" in "Vande Maataram" or sticking to "Johnpuri" the raaga which immortalized the song "Aasai mugham marandhu poche" - pardon errata in raagas if any since I am just a novice.

Bharathiar songs have traditionally been part of Carnatic music albums sung by different singers and the reach was restricted to "Rasikaas" primarily. Suchi with here image and reach to the "gen Y" seems to have taken Bharathiar to them with this album. Probably the next inline for this versatile, multi faceted  singer might be "Thirupaavai" :)