Threads of Excellence

Success Principles – based on Tantrokta Devisuktam

2012-01-25T07:00:00.001-08:00

The scriptures are rich with lessons for our life. I am always fascinated by the depth of information that has been provided in our scriptures. One such is Devi Mahatyam (Sanskrit: devīmāhātmyam, देवीमाहात्म्यम्). As part of the Markandeya Purana, it is one of the Puranas or secondary Hindu scriptures, and was composed in Sanskrit around c. 400-500 CE, with authorship attributed to the sage (Rishi) Markandeya. This describes the victory of Durga over Mahisashura and other demons.

One of the sections of this scripture is Tantotra Devisuktam. This is a section that praises goddess Durga in different ways. The goddess is extolled in different form. The important aspect of the terms used is the sequence in which they have been given. I am beginning from the 17^th shloka of the 4^th chapter of the book. Each of the point given below is the way goddess is addressed in the text. They are listed in the same order as given in the text.

Durga is the form of goddess that is formed from the energies of all the gods. Durga represents power of synergy. What each god could not achieve was achieved by Goddess Durga. Each of these forms as expressed needs to be looked at as a form of power.

1. Chetna – (consciousness)

This refers to the cognitive power that we human has. Without this cognitive power, we human would be no different from an animal. Most successful people have excellent cognitive power. Their ability to learn from what they observe and use for success is noteworthy. Learning process is dependent on the cognitive power of an individual.

2. Budhi – (knowledge)

Cognitive power plays a critical role in building our knowledge. Improving cognitive power helps in improving knowledge. Knowledge refers to one’s ability to understand WHY and WHAT of anything that one deals with. Knowledge as power has played many important historical changes in society. Chanakya and many others are examples from our real life.

3. Nidraa -- (Sleep, Slumber, Sloth)

Sleep is an important activity in maintaining our Circadian rhythm. Whether sleep can save energy or not, sleeplessness definitely drains energy.

The Sanskrit Nidraa also refers to blindness due to sleep. Many individual with higher knowledge tend to behave as nothing more is left to learn. This actually creates a layer of ignorance around them that prevents them building competency for tomorrow. They tend to ignore the obvious signals of bad times. One has to constantly be aware of this part of individual mind and keep it under control. This requires constant calibration of one’s level of knowledge as compared to what is required.

In other word, you should know what you do not know; you should also know what you know.

4. Kshuda – (Hunger/ Appetite)

In place of sleeping over with a feeling of having all the knowledge, one must sustain the hunger for knowledge. This is the only way to remain competent to succeed in this competitive world. Hunger has the power to drive individual to higher levels of performance. The hunger is represented as Ambitions. There is no success without ambition.

5. Kshaya –(Shape, Shadow)

Kshaya has different meaning. It can imply Shape and it can also refer to a shadow. In any case shadow also has a shape. It represents form and substance of ourselves and also the environment that we create around us. This shape should be based on our “Knowledge” and must allow space for changes depending upon our hunger/ appetite.

Managers and leaders in an organisation must have the ability to learn. Prof Prahalad has spoken about the need to continuous “Unlearning” and “Learning” . Hence “Ability to Learn” is a critical skill. One has to keep up with the knowledge. Competency is a combination of Knowledge, Skill and Process Abilities.

Competencies of yesterday are of no use today;

competencies available today are not required tomorrow and

what is required for tomorrow we are not learning.

The competency building is affected by following factors:

Knowing what to build
Hunger or appetite to learn
Form and content of the artefact that is being absorbed

I recollect a famous quote on knowledge

I do not know what I do not know

I know what I do not know

I know what I know

I do not know what I know

6. Shakti – (Power, Force, Might)

Power, Force or Might is an outcome of knowledge and the shape (form and substance). The strength of the power is dependent on the level of knowledge (as applied and demonstrated) and also what has been created by us (forms and substance).

7. Trishna – (Thirst)

Thirst is similar to Hunger in many ways. The difference is while hunger represents “ambitions” , the thirst often represents “desire for more power”. The thirst to acquire more power is common. One is expected to build the power through people (team). Attempting to do all alone may convert the “thirst” into “greed”. One must recognise the positive power of thirst and safeguard against the potential to get overpower by greed.

8. Kshanti – (Patience/ Forbearance)

The thirst for more power makes us lose patience. The scripture has identified goddess with Patience/ forgiveness and forbearance appropriately. Since the “thirst” quenching would require people around you to rally with you. This would also mean that everyone may not have same passion and hence the pace may not match. There would be many around you who would also commit errors. Not that we do not make errors, but the impatience makes us angry for errors by others. Tolerance for errors is key to manage variations in the outcome provided by others.

Patience was used as power by Gandhi during Freedom Struggle. Patience as virtue is now becoming extinct, as patience is often referred as lack of capability.

9. Jaati –(genus)

In Indian philosophy jati (genus) describes any group of things that have generic characteristics in common. Sociologically, jati has come to be used universally to indicate a caste group among Hindus. The caste as a concept is much later in Hindu system. I do not want to deviate into the genesis of caste system in Hinduism.

When we start working with groups of people to attain larger successes, we would need to recognise the groups and subgroups with different levels of competencies and aspirations. One need not become part of any of the group, but one is expected to be like Lotus that can standout within dirty pond with getting affected by the dirty pond. Recognising these groups and subgroups would enable one to manage the group’s outcome in more effective and efficient way.

10. Lajja –( shame, modesty)

We all know the meaning of Lajja as Shame, but in Sanskrit Lajja also means modesty. Both are relevant from management of success point of view. We must be ashamed if we are not able to understand and manage the groups and subgroups in an effective way.

One need to be part of all groups / subgroups from the member point of view, but at the same time one should become a member of a group. Ones modesty in the approach can help in doing this without much of a problem.

11. Shanti – (Peace)

Life can become easier and peaceful if one has learnt to manage the team (groups/ subgroups) with modesty. Such approach converts existing team into high performing teams. The leaders of such team can actually be in peace and focus of future growth.

12. Shraddha – (Respect)

The leader is respected on attaining the stages as mentioned above. At the same time, respecting each other and each other’s views is essential to sustain the peace. The respect may arise due to several factors, but the ones that come because of Knowledge and Wisdom is more permanent.

The actions and inactions of the Managers and Leaders contribute to their success. It is important to know when to act and when not to act. May be sometime not to act itself. A friend of mine use to talk about a TWS as a problem solving tool. Unknowingly many follow this method. TWS stands for “Time Will Solve”

Chānakya (Sanskrit: चाणक्य Cāṇakya) (c. 350–283 BCE) was an adviser (Management Consultant in today’s jargon) to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta (c. 340–293 BCE). He believed in four ways—Sama, Dama, Danda, Bheda (treating with Equality, Enticement, Punishment or War and Sowing Dissension.) Each of these methods have an application and utility in managing team performance. However, the critical aspect is to use each method at an appropriate time to get the best out of it. This method has power to give result. This energy can be productive if used constructively.

13. Kanti – (loveliness , beauty , splendour)

The power of beauty, loveliness is known. In corporate world the brilliance of the leader attracts all necessary resources required for the business. This enables the first impression. The scripture has brought this later because the brilliance attained artificially do not last. The characters and powers mentioned before this (e,g, Respect, Peace, Modesty etc.) gives a brilliance that would be visible and would create positive aura around one’s personality.

14. Lakshmi – (Money)

Lakshmi represents money. Money as power needs no explanation. However, if one gets money after the previously listed virtues it will not become lead to greed. Money is possibly one of the key outcomes of all our efforts, but this scripture has affirmed that money is important but not everything.

15. Vritti – (Waves of thoughts)

Vritti is the state of mind (waves of thoughts) to express a variety of feelings and emotions. Vritties are result of past actions and experiences that have left an imprint on the mind. This is closer to the reflections that one must do on whatever one has achieved from time to time. This makes one stronger and enables learning from past successes and failures. In way it is an assessment of THINGS WENT RIGHT AND THINGS WENT WRONG.

16. Smriti – (Memory)

Memories can help one to move ahead. Good memories would motivate us. Bad memories have the power to haunt us and quiet often shake our confidence.

17. Daya – (Forgiveness)

All our experiences relates to events in past. All events have characters. The ability to forgive the individuals who might have contributed to some of our unpleasant experiences is a powerful management tool. Forgiving actually requires more strength than to fight. AHIMSA principle is based on this fundamental.

18. TUSHTI – (Satisfaction)

Being satisfied with what has been achieved is important. This does not mean one should not ambitious. The satisfaction at the current level is necessary to push the bar up. Satisfaction is possible only when we have retained sweat memories and erased bad recollections. Forgiving the individual who have contributed to poor experiences can also give immense satisfaction.

19. Matri – (Mother)

Mother is creator, developer and caretaker of all entity. The manager must behave like a “mother “ to all his/her subordinates

20. Bhranti –( Mirage)

The success is always temporary. While it is important to rejoice and celebrate but one must also remember that the Mantra for success constantly changes. One will have to keep renewing the organisation. It is important to quickly come out of celebration and start working for next level of performance/ maturity.

The organisational performance and results need to be absorbed in a positive manner. Learning from successes and failures is key to have success in succession.

The shloka from where this was written is reproduced below:

Reunion - Class of 86

2012-01-17T09:05:00.001-08:00

My imaginary journey for reunion began the day Thakur, Shukla and the gang made me to take charge of reunion. My experience has to begin from then. Initially I had no clue how to start. I started talking to people whom I knew or could reach out. Got ideas and thoughts -- a kind of unstructured brainstorming.

Pre-Reunion

Internet and Facebook were my initial support system (they incidentally remained biggest support system). They deserve a BIG THANK for the great Reunion we had. The first thing that I fixed was Hotel. I know from my past experience, that as the date becomes nearer, the cost of the hotels go up significantly. After speaking to several hotels, I found Clarke good from several angle?

1. It was place we had lot of memories attached. (They put a ban on unlimited deserts after a competitive evening for ice creams by Kamakkal group)

2. The hotel was giving a package that was comprehensive. Others were only willing to do some bits of it.

3. They were the most economical in the category.

4. They were the only one who had access to the Palace. (The dinner at palace was a memorable experience. A royal one)

The next challenge was to also get the dates. This also went through several cycles of discussion. We all were clear that it has to happen in 2011 only. A date agreed by most was around 25th December. But the Reunion Cell in charge Prof Mukherjee said it would not be good choice for following reason:

1. The dates coincided with BHU's general reunion, which was a VVIP game. I was also told that availability of Director and HODs would be questionable.

2. The institutes would have reopened only after reunion (as early dates)

3. Messes would not be available.

Finally dates were fixed. That was necessary for me to plan other things. The biggest challenge was what to do during the three days. There was a need to optimize following expectation.

1. Meeting all folks after a long time.

2. Going to places where we all went during our golden years. (Not all places was possible with families around, but as much as possible)

3. Since a good number of wives and children were expected, it was necessary to package something that would interest them as well.

4. Use the package from hotel as much as possible. This was necessary to keep the cost low.

Thus came the program that all of us enjoyed. Those who could not make it have certainly missed something significant. Some of our folks who met/ spoke to me after the event were feeling missed once they knew how it went.

The next challenge was the budget and collection. We had a debate on whether the money should be collected per student or per member. Finally we believed that the reunion is ours and families are guest to see our old ".....MATES", Profs, Messes, Hostels etc. We initially estimated a budget based on 80 batch mates and 125 in total.

Then started follow up for confirmation on attendance and collection. I thank to advice by our Income Tax Commissioner (Parbat Bhai) for opening a separate account. The new account actually made it little easy for me manage as my all other accounts are not in my control. I am happy with that arrangement as my requirements of money are met.

Then the discussion what can be done to Profs and institute. It was decided to provide mementos customized for the occasion to the Profs. I proposed the idea of scholarship to needy students. I was too glad to see an acceptance to the proposal. Scholarship to needy student is too close to my heart. I would not have were I am without the help of generous people and interestingly a most of them my friends. My friends helped me without expecting anything in return throughout my life.

There are few people like Shukla, Deepak, Anshuman, Prema and few others played a key role in increasing the number of attendees. The entire journey of preparation was an experience. The management of contradictions and conflicting interests had to be tackled. Thakur and Shukla was my bouncing board on many occasion.

Suddenly an idea of t-shirts emerged. The t-shirts were made the colour was chosen based on most popular choice.

Over all it was learning experience for me. It was also enjoyable experience as I was suddenly speaking to and meeting several of my batch mates. That was the real excitement.

Reunion

Day 1

My reunion started on 28th morning, when I picked up Subramanian (Suby) of mech on the way to airport. I met him first time though we have been speaking over phone for more than 2-3 years. Mohan Gupta joined at airport. We all were traveling to Varanasi by same flight. We had a good cup of coffee. After a changeover (of flight) at Kolkata, we landed at Varanasi airport. I had been to Varanasi airport on couple of occasions around 9-10 years back. I thought our flight has landed in a wrong airport. The airport was a new one and probably the only positive change that we could notice.

The car was there to pick us up. We decided to eat something before reaching hostel. The driver was keen to take us to a hotel which was multi-cuisine. But we decided to give it a miss. We came to a small fast food joint. That happened to be a good decision. I had Roti stuffed with Sattu. It is such a great thing to have. I was having it after a long time. I almost over ate. We reached guest house near Limbdi Hostel. The students of Reunion Cell were there to receive us. They did a good job of arranging various things for us. Particularly Karan did a good job.

The guest house was good. We got a feel of staying in hostel. Rooms were spacious. The bath was decent and the rooms had hot water facility.

I moved to hotel as I had few things to organize. We made an identity tags for all and that became a big hit. Everyone wanted it. It also helps us in connecting name to face.

It was great to see the cheers and joy of meeting folks after such a long gap. The kick of meeting was more than what the best of whiskey or Tharra can give. While all of us busy with individual talking, RK took the centre stage in his typical style. He made the evening by making each one of us introduce and have fun with current and past. The dance floor arranged actually was not used as the “musti” generated by RK was far superior to anything else. I had Rabri for the dinner. One cannot beat the Rabri of Varanasi. I have not tasted a substitute for this so far.

We had to return to guest house. But we continued our party at Guest House till about 12.30 AM. The photos of day 1 can be found here

Day 2

Day began with a visit to the Chemical Engineering Department. Met Prof A K Verma, who is currently HOD. We met several others. We also faced an ugly situation of protest by some professors. I felt bad that senior professors (who are expected to be matured) were using our visit as occasion to raise their voice in protest to the HOD. There was some issue relating to some disciplinary action taken by HOD and the Institute. I did not want to get into merits and demerits of the case, but I knew that some of the professors who should have attended our formal reunion function would not attend.

The labs have not changed. They actually looked older. I did not get impression of any new addition. Many of the laboratories have been expanded to accommodate larger batch sizes. The library size has also increased. The maintenance of the lobby and the surrounding has definitely deteriorated.

After the visit to Department, I went to Rajputana where I spent 2 years. I was surprised to see that there were 3 in a room. The entire hostel is full of 1^st year students only. There are 110-125 students in each branch. The good part was that hostel lawn and open space was well maintained. I could also see the internet cables all over. The rooms had fans and internet access. The mess has gone through positive change. The eating space is bigger, the kitchen has become better. The cutleries are now better.

Now when I wanted to have a break, I decided to go to our popular joint Rajputana Corner. These corners have changed a lot. Now there are no benches. There are juice stalls. I had a samosa and cup of tea at Rajputana corner tea shop. Pape (Sumit) joined for the tea. He just arrived. I went to Vishveshwarayya along with him. In our time we had Momo (Mohan Gupta) who had a moped. Now many of the students have motor-bikes. We saw some of them having car as well (They are today’s Momo). The hostel now has a third floor. There are 2 students in one room in all the years. The mess has not changed much here.

It was now time for visiting Morvi. This was my first year hostel. The students had arranged a ROBOTICS show exclusively for us. The lunch was arranged at Morvi. The lunch was prepared by Maharajs of mess. Since we had this large lunch over there, we had invited all the students of Morvi hostel for the lunch. It was time for me to move to G-11 for the formal function.

It was a good exercise of getting through the red tape at BHU for getting an audio system for G-11 program. I was shocked to see the status of the room. The chairs were dirty; the stage was in huge mess. It took some time and few hundred rupees to get the entire thing cleaned.

Finally the hall started getting filled. A good number of professors also came in. A lot of us were going to several photo sessions with their teachers. The formal function started with playing Kulgeet. Most of us sang the Kulgeet along with the lead from the recorded file. We paid respect to 2 our batch mates who passed away. Then it was time to pay respect to our teachers. I requested the kids to handover flowers to the teachers. One representative from each department came forward to share their experience. I requested to the better halves to give away mementoes to the teachers. While receiving mementoes, each of the teachers said a few words. The most satisfactory part of the event for me was presence of Shri R N Pandey. I cannot forget him and he is my model. I always use him as example in some of many training and mentoring session. Mementos were also given to the students who had played a key role in organizing the event.

On behalf of the Class of ’86, I also announced the Scholarship Scheme for needy students.

The focus shifted to the evening dinner. The professors were invited with family for the dinner. The student coordinators were also invited for the dinner. A classical dance performance was arranged for the evening. The troupe was led by Sri P.C. Hombal, who is Head of Department at BHU’s School of Performing Arts. He was supported by 2 dancers (one being his wife and the other was their student). It was a great performance. We had a few other interesting events.

Sanjay Singh has made an Audio CD of his songs. The CD was released by the Director – Institute of Technology. He also sang a few lines from the CD.
Fund was collected to support TECHNEX 2012.
Kids performed on stage

The dinner on this day for me was primarily Litti Choka and Lavanglata. The Varanasi special.

RK has arranged a Bonfire with a music band from institute in the night at Guest House. The fun continued till late night about 1.00 AM. Many of our singer batch mates were in full form. It was very close to the experience at KP.

Photos of day 2 are categorised as below:

Day 3

Day began with a trip to Sarnath. There were few confusions and delay in the bus, but it did not made any impact on the spirit of fun and joy. Breakfast was arranged in the lawns of main temple at Sarnath. The location was between Stupa and the Deer park. The breakfast had Varanasi touch (Puri, sabji and Jalebi). I wanted to a lot in the gap but was too tired to do anything further. Came to guesthouse and rested for some time before the evening program.

In the evening, I landed up at Assi Ghat (the starting point of our Boat ride). Six (6) boats left Assi Ghat with folks and their family members. Boats were anchored close to Dashashwamedh Ghat – the venue for the Evening Aarthy.

Seeing the aarthy was a joy of life. It is a blissful experience to see the way it is performed. We all left the place to reach Raja Ghat. The name of this ghat created enough confusion. Many drivers confused Raja Ghat with Raj Ghat. For those who might have forgotten, Raj Ghat is the last ghat in Varanasi. Raja Ghat had a Peshwa palace. We were welcome with a special aarthy. Ladies and children floated lamps in Ganges. Rajesh darak performed a ballet with a Bottle on his head on the ghat.

We went into the Palace. The welcome drink was a tea in Kulhar (the earthen cup) and a Flavoured Thandai. Gazhal program was arranged for the evening. A local singer with a good voice has rendered several popular numbers. The ghazal was followed with dinner. A royal treat was ensured.

On way to Guest House, I landed up consuming Rabri and Milk at Pahalwan. How can the trip to BHU be over without having something at Pahalwan? At guest house our party continued till about 1.00 AM. We had fun with combinations of DIL and JAAN in hindi songs.

I had to close this party as I had to go to Vishwanath Temple at about 2.00 AM.

Day 3 photographs are at

Day 4

I could not make any trips to temple till this day. I went to Vishwanath Temple at 2.00 AM along with Bhupesh Dinger and Family. We landed up at temple at about 2.30 AM. Security at temple was tight. Even pencils are not permitted inside the temple. We went inside temple at 3.00 AM. We were practically locked inside. The morning prayers and abhiskekam was being performed amidst chanting of Vedic mantras. I chanted as much as I could along with the Pundits in the temple. Many of those mantras were known to me by practice. What a divine sight and such peaceful darhsan of Bhole Baba. Of course there were active monkeys inside. One of them took something from Bhupesh’s tokdi of Prasad. We were let out at 4.00 AM. We went to Annapurni Temple opposite Vishwanath temple. From there we wanted to visit Durga Temple at Durga Kund and Sankat Mochan. It appeared we were too early there. So we went to Lanka and had a cup of tea and some bun jam for Bhupesh Dinger’s kids. We landed up at Sankat Mochan at about 5.00 AM. It was a great darshan as being Saturday there was special aarthy at the temple. From there we went to Durga temple at Durga Kund. After all these darshan, I got down at Vishwanath Temple in BHU campus. I spent some time inside temple. It was a longtime after which I had such a peaceful time.

After this I had enough time to wind up the stay and plan to return. While Bhupesh and Sumit (with their families) were there with me till Kolkata, but I always had feeling of being surrounded by scores of batch mates and their family till I reached Chennai.

The memories of reunion will linger for long. I have now got into formalizing society/ trust. This would definitely keep the reunion memories alive as long as the scholarship continues. I just wanted to put down my recollections of the reunion. I missed my room partner Dinesh (Civil). He was scheduled but he fell ill just in time. While it was a tough task for me balance between the attention that my business requires and managing reunion, but the love and affection of the bathmats and their family members made the task energetic.

Management Sutra - Part 3

2011-06-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Management Sutras – Part 3

The scripture is divided in to several parts. They are

Samadhi Pada
Sadhana Pada
Vibhuti Pada
Kaivalya Pada

Meaning of few Sanskrit words used :

Sutraa means an aphorism (literally "distinction" or "definition", from the Greek: aphorismós, apo + horizein, "from/to bound") is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form

Pada means foot. A derived meaning of this is also part of a book which has 4 parts (probably derived from 4 feet of a quadruped).

Samadhi means “one-pointedness, absorption”. Samadhi (समाधि samādhi, is the state of consciousness induced by complete meditation. The term's etymology involves "sam" (together or integrated), "ā" (towards), and "dhā" (to get, to hold). Thus the result might be seen to be "to acquire integration or wholeness, or truth". Another possible etymological breakdown of "samādhi" is "samā" (even) and "dhi" (intellect), a state of total equilibrium ("samā") of a detached intellect ("dhi").

Sadhana means spiritual exertion towards an intended goal. A person undertaking such a practice is known as a sadhu or a sadhaka. The goal of sādhanā is to attain some level of spiritual realization, which can be either enlightenment, pure love of God (prema), liberation (moksha) from the cycle of birth and death (Samsara), or a particular goal such as the blessings of a deity as in the Bhakti traditions.

Vibhuti means "power" or "manifestation". This is often representation of “Knowledge”

Kaivalya means “alone” or “liberation”. The goal of all philosophical journey is to get into the stage of liberation where you are alone.

Each part has several sutras.

Samadhi Pada à 51 Sutras

Sadhana Pada à 55 Sutras

Vibhuti Pada à 56 Sutras

Kaivalya Pada à 34 Sutras

Samadhi pada explore following points. These are

1. What is Yoga?

2. Un-colouring your thoughts

3. Practice and non-attachement

4. Types of concentration

5. Efforts and commitments

6. Direct route through AUM

7. Obstacles and Solutions

8. Stabilizing and Cleansing the mind

9. After stabilizing the mind

Management is the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives (philosophically it is liberation) using available resources efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. A manager spends a significant time in “planning to control” and “controlling”. These expressions of management is only a part of Yoga as described in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

Yoga Sutras from 1.1 to 1.4 defines Yoga.

atha yoga anushasanam

yogash chitta vritti nirodhah

tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam

vritti sarupyam itaratra

Translation of aforementioned Sutras

“Now, after having done prior preparation through life and other practices, the study and practice of Yoga begins. Yoga is the control (nirodhah, regulation, channeling, mastery, integration,

coordination, stilling, quieting, setting aside) of the modifications (gross and subtle thought patterns) of the mind field. Then the Seer abides in Itself, resting in its own True Nature, which is called Self-realization. At other times, when one is not in Self-realization, the Seer appears to take on the form of the modifications of the mind field, taking on the identity of those thought patterns.

Any management professional would need to realise the Management in wholesome form. The practitioner would need to modify his/her thinking space and appropriately take charge. A successful professional is one who can

Regulate one's thoughts process
The decision making process
Channelize the resources and thoughts around resources
Build mastery over the core areas of business
Integrate divergent views and aspirations (internal as well as external)
Set aside trivial
Introspect through still and quiet thinking

The essence of practitioners of Yoga and / or management is “discipline”. Disciplining one’s Mind, Words and Actions is critical to success. These three must come in an unified manner. One gets distracted due to weak mind (chitta). Weak managers have traits of being wavering in whatever they do. They would often not consistent in the thoughts and action. On the contrary successful managers realise what is important and they are able to see through the “organisational challenges” through their strength.

In next issue we would discuss other Sutras in Samadhi Pada.

References:

1. Yoga – Aphorism by Subramanian K N

2. Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Interpretive Translation by Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati

Management Sutra - 2

2011-05-22T18:27:00.001-07:00

विज्ञानमयकोश Vigyanamaya Kosh (Intellect Layer/ Budhhi - Knowledge/ Ahankara- EGO)

A common man and a common organisation have everything that can be related to अन्नमयकोश Annamaya Kosh (Physical Layer / Physical Body) and प्राणमयकोश Pranamaya Kosh (Vitality Layer/ Pranic Body/ Life). A better person and a good organisation have elements explained within scope of मनोमयकोश Manomaya Kosh (Consciousness Layer/ Senses).

True success comes through the competencies built and developed by individuals. The knowledge often leads to EGO. Sigmund Freud has defined a structural model of the individual psyche. They consist of Id, ego and super-ego in terms of activity and interaction of mental life. According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego is the organised, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralising role. EGO perse may not be negative, unless the ego is used to undermine other's knowledge and/ or capability.
An organisation needs to build a set of competencies to succeed. This creates centres of excellence in the respective area of business. 3M, GE, Google are institution that has built competency and innovation management. Such organisations thrive on creating and exploiting their core competency for the benefits of Mankind, society and finally to the organisation. Ability to establish as Knowledge Leaders ( also known as Domain or Technology leaders) is key for success of organisations that have lasted long and spread themselves beyond their initial geography.
Competency is combination of Knowledge, Skill and Process Abilities (KSA). Often we also include attributes or behavioural aspects. However KSA is demonstrated through the behaviour of an individual. For example, an individual may have strong knowledge of Problem Solving techniques and also possesses skill and Abilities to do so. However, such KSA is useful only when they get demonstrated. In fact competency is regard as demonstrated behavioural performance in an area of interest.
The competency levels can be described in simplest form as Novice, Proficient, Expert and Master. If loosely compared with Freud's Model, it may look as below:

Sigmund Freud's Model	Competency Level
Id	Proficient
Ego	Expert
Super Ego	Master

EGO of an organisation can be dangerous if they fail to appreciate and understand the competitors strength. What we call as EGO TRIP is common among organisation who tend to ignore competitor's strength. This behaviour can be explained as Ostrich Management. Like Ostrich organisation is so deep inot its strength that it ignores the threat from competencies growth in competitors organisation (potential threat).

आनंदमयकोश Anandmaya Kosh (Blissful Layer / Ultimate Joy)

This is the final outcome that we all strive for. Be it philosophical need or materialistic need, the ultimate goal is same. This is common to both individuals as well as organisation. The life span of this stage is often short. Sustenance of this stage is rare and calls for excellence in every aspect of business organisation or individuals.

Yoga is all about planning, controlling and improving our body system at all stages.

About Maharishi Pathanjali

Before moving into the Patanjalis' Yogasutra and its interpretation for Management Science, a few words about Maharishi Patanjali himself.

A traditional prayer often chanted to remember Patanjali is

Yogena cittasya padena vacam
Malam sarirasya ca vaidyakena
Yo pakarottam pravaram muninam
Patanjalim pranjaliranato smi

I am a deep bow with hands folded to Patanjali,
The most excellent of sages, who removed
Impurity of consciousness through yoga
Impurity of speech through word (grammar) and
Impurity of the body through medicine (Ayurveda).

Maharishi Patanjali, believed to have lived sometime between 500 and 200 B.C. The life of Maharishi Patanjali is an enigma to modern historians. It is only with the help of legends that one can draw inferences about him. Maharishi Patanjali, universally accepted as "father of yoga," codified his thoughts and knowledge of yoga in "The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali." This compilation of 195 sutras is considered to be a blueprint for living an ideal life and also incorporating the science of yoga into one's life.
He is also the author of the Mahabhasya, a major commentary on Panini's Ashtadhyayi.
According to one legend, Maharishi Patanjali was the avatar of Adi Shesha the Cosmic Serpent upon whom Lord Vishnu rests. While watching a dance by Lord Shiva, Adi Shesha found it unbearable to support the weight of Lord Vishnu. Amazed at this, he asked Lord Vishnu the reason for the same. Lord Vishnu said that this was because of his harmony with Lord Shiva's energy state, owing to the practice of Yoga. Realizing the value and benefits of Yoga, Adi Shesha wished to be born amongst humans, to teach them the great art.

In another popular legend, Patañjali was born to Atri (First of the Saptha Rishis) and his wife Anasuya (this would make him go back to the time of the creation by Brahma). According to this tradition, Anasuya had to go through a stern test of her chastity when the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) themselves came as Bhikshuks and asked her for Bhiksha. She passed their test by accepting them as her children and fed them. She got the boon where all the three Murtis will be born to them. They were SomaSkandan or Patañjali, Dattatreya, and Durvasa.

According to another legend, he fell (pata) into the hands of a woman, as an offering (anjali), thus giving him the name Patanjali. Maharishi Patanjali's Jeeva Samadhi is within the precincts of Sri Brahmapureeswarar Temple, near Trichy in Tamilnadu, India. (visit http://www.brahmatemple.org/brahma_YogiPatanjali.htm)

A stamp on him was released by Government of India is 2009

We will explore the Sutras from next issue onward.

Management Sutra - Part 1

2011-05-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

अन्नमयकोश Annamaya Kosh (Physical Layer / Physical Body) is related to the basic and physical entities of any Business Organisation. The physical aspects of organisation (namely Men, Machine and Material) by itself cannot create products and services as required by the customers. It is difficult to imagine our body as a shape, which is made up of material alone.

प्राणमयकोश Pranamaya Kosh (Vitality Layer/ Pranic Body/ Life)

The प्राणमयकोश Pranamaya Kosh (Vitality Layer/ Pranic Body/ Life) takes the physical system to a functional system.

The body requires certain vital system to be called as living organism. Existence and continuity of life depends upon Respiratory System and Blood Circulation System. While there are several other systems that support our body, these two are vital. For example, failure to digestive takes longer time for the life to come to an end; Reproductive system’s absence has no impact in ones’ life.

We know from our current day’s knowledge of science that you can keep the hope of a patient recovering as long as you can ensure blood is circulated and respiratory functions are on. One of basic understanding of these two system tells us that they are together responsible

To provide positive energy which is vital for all organs to carry out their task/ function.
To remove negative energy which can choke the functions of organs.

The ABC concept in First Aid guides to check and focus on Airway, Breathing and Circulation aspects in any victim. If these are taken care during golden hour of medical emergency, the life can always be saved.

In any organisation, these vital parts can be equated to “Process or FLOW” that enables use of the physical resources. The processes within the system are necessary. Non adherence to process flow leads to scenarios of Medical Emergency in the organisation. While organisations may have generic or unique processes, they cannot survive in absence of a process (formal or informal).

“Process Flow in Organisation is what ABC is in First Aid”

मनोमयकोश Manomaya Kosh (Consciousness Layer/ Senses)

Medical science has established over a period of time that the Central Nervous System (CNS) is possibly most important to make our life meaningful. Even though the functioning of the CNS requires the same ABC, the direction to the organs and its function is controlled by the Nervous System. The key components of CNS are Brain and Spinal Chord. Through which the entire body system and organ is managed and controlled. It is CNS that enables us to use our senses.

The brain has three levels of consciousness.

Conscious
Unconscious
Subconscious

Business Organisation requires similar system to enable the Processes and Resource to give desired outputs. The Policy and Goals drive the organisations resources to do what the Think Tank within organisation wants the organisation to achieve.

The think tank (brain equivalent of organisation) decides what need to achieved. Policies and Goal are defined and drilled through a chain of systems and processes to each part (organs) of the organisation. The alignment of the goals of each part with the larger picture is critical to success. Absence of that leads to organisational problems similar to Psycho-Motor disorders in Human System.

Like our Brain the Think Tank of Organisation is available at different levels. Think tank works on to create

Vision/ Mission
Strategy
Values System

Excellent organisation need to provide support and maintain प्राणमयकोश Pranamaya Kosh (Vitality Layer/ Pranic Body/ Life) and मनोमयकोश Manomaya Kosh (Consciousness Layer/ Senses) in good shape all the time.

I will continue with other Koshas in next issue.

Management Sutra - Preamble

2011-05-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

Human race has always led a life that required efforts in Managing the environment in which he lived. Though all other living system has its own mechanism to manage its environment, mankind was unique in many ways. The word environment is used here in much larger context. Human was probably the most expressive and thoughtful product of nature. The method of expression and language used may have changed over a period of time. The essence have remain by and large same.

I am personally a curious reader of this such literatures as close to its original form as possible. I attempt to seek relevance of the Practices explained in the books of History and Religion including Mythology in current context. While many may ridicule the mythology or may look at them only a passion of "devouts", I see them as a way of communicating "Best Practices".

I intend to share some insights, through these books of past, on current days Management Practices and Concepts. Some may even label it as Old Wine in New Bottle. I cannot disagree with them. That is why the Old Wine are precious and we should not loose them in oblivion of disbelief or modernism.

I intend to share some insights from the books of past on current days Management Practices and Concepts. Some may even label it as Old Wine in New Bottle. I cannot disagree with them. That is why the Old Wine are precious and we should not loose them in oblivion of disbelief or modernism.

In the current series I have chosen Maharishi Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. This is a Hindu Scripture and foundation of Yoga. It forms part of Sutra literature dating to India's Mauryan period. This period also gave us famous Kautilya Shastra which is even today a reference book on Management and Economy.

Yoga is defined (as sourced from web)

1. A Hindu spiritual and ascetic discipline, a part of which, including breath control, simple meditation, and the adoption of specific bodily postures, is widely practiced for health and relaxation

2. Hindu discipline aimed at training the consciousness for a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquillity that is achieved through the three paths of actions and knowledge and devotion

3. A system of exercises practiced as part of the Hindu discipline to promote control of the body and mind

4. Yoga (Sanskrit, Pāli) refers to traditional physical and mental disciplines originating in India. The word is associated with meditative practices in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

Wikipedia link on Yoga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga) describes it further as below:

Major branches of yoga in Hindu philosophy include Rāja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Hatha Yoga. Yoga based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, comprises one of the six main Hindu schools of philosophy (darshanas), together with Kapila's Samkhya, Gautama's Nyaya, Kanada's Vaisheshika, Jaimini's Purva Mimamsa, and Badarayana's Uttara Mimamsa or Vedanta. Many other Hindu texts discuss aspects of yoga, including the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Shiva Samhita and various Tantras.

The Sanskrit word yoga has many meanings and is derived from the Sanskrit root "yuj," meaning "to control," "to yoke" or "to unite." Translations include "joining," "uniting," "union," "conjunction," and "means."

The word yoga may also derive from the root "yujir samadhau," which means "contemplation" or "absorption".

The attempt to define the term Yoga is more to do with the market of Yoga as mean to gain control over mind and body. In the process, the strength of Yoga in wholesome is lost. Yoga has become a Packaged Product like any other Premium FMCG product in the market. Like any other product and services, it attempts to capture the attention through something that is Sulabha (easy). The wholistic approach of Yoga is explained in Patanjali Yoga Sutras and several other texts.

Our body system is made up of a system called panchakosha पंचकोश, which literally means - five layers of existence; Kosh means layers of existence.

The existence of human beings has been described having five layers (Tattiriyopanishad). This is the primary Upanishad for Krishna Yajurveda. The five koshas are -

अन्नमयकोश Annamaya Kosh (Physical Layer / Physical Body)
प्राणमयकोश Pranamaya Kosh (Vitality Layer/ Pranic Body/ Life)
मनोमयकोश Manomaya Kosh (Consciousness Layer/ Senses)
विज्ञानमयकोश Vigyanamaya Kosh (Intellect Layer/ Budhhi - Knowledge/ Ahankara- EGO)
आनंदमयकोश Anandmaya Kosh (Blissful Layer / Ultimate Joy)

The existence of a business organisation can be depicted as below:

The outer layer represents the अन्नमयकोश Annamaya Kosh. They are physical in nature. They decay. They change. They get revived, renewed, lost, discovered etc. Most organisations that have lived long enough would realise that their products & services have gone through changes in form and content through the period. Some of these changes may be driven by external or internal needs. The new Body makes way for new Body. Windows and Apple made DOS based system redundant. The market segment undergoes change. Rural Market that was once considered “Not”worth has become “Note”worthy for most marketing professionals.

अन्नमयकोश Annamaya Kosh from organisation perspective can be shown physically in form of Men, Machineries, Materials in various forms, Infrastructures. Each of these undergoes change over period of time. Let us look at the change that has happened to each of them. These changes made the science and art of management challenging.

Men

Men (here indicated workforce without any bias to a specific gender) has undergone significant change in its intellect (Knowledge), ability to perform (Skill) and behaviour (Attributes).

At a basic level we correlate knowledge to education level (though that may not be always true). One cannot fail to notice the increase in number of qualified people in almost every field. If one want to ignore the qualification, the understanding and vastness in knowledge that the next generation demonstrates is far from imagination. While the early men were also good at reasoning and thinking, which is the base for “knowledge”, the number of such people has increased.

“Ability to Perform” refers to one’s ability to do or perform a task. The advancement in technology has enabled even ordinary people to perform extraordinary both in terms of quality and quantity. In today’s job market if an organisation wants a hire an accountant who may not know how to use accounting software is next to impossible. Stephen Hawking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking) is an example of how technology can enable people to achieve feats that are unimaginable earlier. With advancement in office automation, the role of secretaries is disappearing.

Behaviour (Attribute) of job seekers and Job providers has also changed. Job Seekers are more open to path less travelled. Job Providers are now moving from industry specific experience to generic skill background. The traditional employment process driven by “apprenticeship” associated individuals to an industry or trade. A “papermaker” was “papermaker” for life. Today people migration from one industry to another and one function to another function is order of the day.

Machineries

Machineries have changed that way home or factory used to operate. They have influenced people’s ability to work. Many have become obsolete. For example it extremely difficult to locate a convention printing press. It is not possible for one to now use statistical machines that were used in colleges earlier for large scale computing.

Material

Material in almost all area have either already become rare or on the verge of becoming one. The conservation of material is the key. Most struggles between countries today can be traced to a desire to gain control over Material.

Infrastructures

The change in infrastructure need not be highlighted. Almost every form of infrastructure has undergone change since mankind discovered wheel. Thinking Global and Acting Local is feasible only because of reduction in the geographical boundaries.

I will continue with other Koshas in next issue.

Management Lessons from History - 1

2010-09-20T21:21:00.001-07:00

History as subject most of us do not like to read in school or at least do nto like to appear for the tests on history. Some of my recent readings on history gave me certain insights on the Management Lessons that can be drawn from the pages of History. I am not the only one to have this insight. I thought to share my thoughts as well.

Babur's Invasion into Hindustan

Zahir ud-din Muhammad Babur,( 1483 — 1531) was a Muslim conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty of India. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother. Babur in his journey of conquering nations starting from Faragana (Present day Uzbegistan) had largely battled in the terrain that supported his style of battled. He was more used close combat in hilly region. His success factors were tactical use of terrain and surprise factor in attacks.
When he had to succeed in war against Ibrahim Lodi, his difficulty was the open terrain in battlefield of Panipat. He knew his strength and created environment in the Battlefield by digging ditches and creating obstacles by felling large trees. This enabled him to restrict Ibrahim Lodi's size, as large number of forces cannot be deployed in the constricted space. The trees and ditches enabled Babur's force to deploy element of surprises.

Knowing one's strength and deploying that under any circumstances makes a winner. Even in adverse situation if one creates environment that would be conducive to the known strength, one can succeed. To me success stories of Cavin Kare and Nirma are example of this. Both knew that they cannot take on the giant in the industry. They knew that they are small and they also knew that there strength is in meeting need for Bottom of Pyramid market. They went on to play to their strength. Cavin Kare today has range of products that are sold in sachet form. Nirma has range of products that cater to "bottom of pyramid" market.

Management Lessons from Srimad Bhagvat Geeta

2010-01-29T00:26:00.000-08:00

We have read and heard about the “”warriors” who would waste your energy. They would also create all kinds of distraction (Physical, Psychological, or any other means). Let’s discuss now to work around and succeed without wasting energy to identify and defeat these warriors without shedding any blood. The solution lies within us. When we are getting distracted we are not because of noise factors outside. The story of deaf frog in my earlier blog should reiterate this.

The key lies in converting ourselves and our abilities that can enable us to focus on what we want to achieve.

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.

Jim Rohn

41. “On this auspicious path, O Kurunandan (Arjun), the resolute mind is one, but the minds of the ignorant are divided and many.’’

The most important step towards this would to build a mind which is earnestly and firmly oriented to selfless action towards the goals that has been set. If we have to compare with those who propagate more than one mode of action, we must observe at the dilemma they constantly enter into. The minds of such employees are endlessly divided and that is why they conjure up endless ways. This is often visible in form of confused state of functioning by such employees.

It is these employees who tend to blame every one else for their failures. I am reminded of statement from the book The Success Principle by Jack Canfield, the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul

Quote:

In fact most of have been conditioned to blame something outside of ourselves for the parts of our life we don’t like. We blame our parents, our bosses, our friends, the media, our coworkers, our clients, our spouse, the weather, the economy, our astrological chart, our lack of money – anyone or anything we can pin blame on. Wee never want to look at where the real problem is – ourselves

Unquote

47. “Since you are entitled only to the performance of action but never to the fruits thereof, you should neither desire rewards of action nor be drawn to inaction.”

This is most misunderstood or misinterpreted part of the text from Geeta. The word karma means both action and its consequence. We should not worry about the fruits that we would get. Consequence here is with reference to the user of output of the processes that we manage. In my view its fits in with process approach to management where the belief is that OUTPUT is result of your PROCESSES and INPUTS. The concepts of Process Approach to Management include:

Focus on the Inputs criterion and quality
Focus of the Process controls and factors that lead to Process Management. They are

Rules of the process
Methods (Steps) deployed
Skills and experience of the people managing/ executing the process
Facilities and equipments provided for the process.

Understand consequences of errors and omissions in following the process. This would need to be understood from end user perspective whether a final customer or internal customer.

The characteristics of KARMA as described are

Initial trigger of action is indestructible. Once it is initiated, we would not be able to eliminate the same. (The Chinese proverb “Journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step” is true) Having taken the first step it is not possible to erase the footprints left.

Any flaw in action will never abandons us
Performance of this action, even in small proportions, can give us great amount of confidence and motivation.

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

Zig Ziglar

Future Directions in Quality Journey – Some Views

2010-01-11T22:42:00.001-08:00

Quality as a profession has evolved over a period of time. In prehistoric period Quality was practiced in form of the regulatory requirement. Hammurabi Code is known for the punishment to be met out by the builders/ masons if the house collapses and the people residing in the house suffer injury or death.

Evolution is a process that is characterized by
Variation
or change in more generic sense

The selection of variant that is most suitable and follows the principle of Evolution namely "Survival of the Fittest"

Quality journey in formal sense became necessary with industrialization. The era before mass production was characterized by the individual artisans, who managed the quality of their outputs by themselves. The initial methods of managing Quality were driven by INSPECTION and were controlled by profession that we know as Inspectors/ Testers etc. This new role actually created significant divide between the role of producer and the inspector. This divide is visible even today in many organizations and eliminating this divide is one of the biggest change management exercise for the Quality Professional.

The usage of statistics is the scientific community was well known. The tools used by the researchers crept into the organizations to manage business processes. These got formal name of Statistical Quality Control (initially used primarily by Inspectors) and then came Statistical Process Control (expected to be used by the Process Owners and Operators).

In the 1920's Shewhart introduced the concepts of statistical quality control. Statistical quality control provided the foundation for understanding and reducing variability through application of statistical theories. SPC tools provided the ability to ensure that processes and variability were controlled to provide consistent high quality telephones and networks for Western Electric and AT&T.

Dr. Deming provided the management philosophy of his theory of profound knowledge, and his 14 points, which were quite radical in his day

The process orientation led to think in terms of using tools to improve

Effectiveness of the Process
Efficiency of the Process.

The lack of above is expressed or reflected as problems in the operations.

The analysis of processes led to concepts of Business Process Reengineering. BPR Focused on making the business processes meaningful and eliminates unnecessary steps / activities. The concept emerged strongly later with Lean Methodologies.

On the productivity Side, in the first part of the 20th century Henry Ford introduced the Ford Production System, which provided the ability to mass-produce a Model T Ford in any color the customer wanted, as long as it was black. The Ford production system was the basis for the Toyota Production system. The Toyota Production System emphasized employee learning and empowerment for the first time. In the 80's, Just-in-Time principles arose as an off-shoot of the Toyota production system. The focus on JIT was to pull supplies and components through a system to arrive where and when they are needed.

As the Toyota Production System and JIT evolved and coalesced into Lean, the philosophies of TQM and the statistical theories of SQC evolved into Six Sigma.

Lean starts with an external focus on supplying the customer with exactly what the customer wants when they want it, through the value chain.

Six Sigma captured the voice of the customer and critical to quality characteristics, a rigorous and structured problem solving methodology, as well as a formal knowledge and tool belt structure, focus on the bottom-line impact of process improvement, and measurement and metrics.

Information Technology has evolved along with the management philosophies and problem solving tools, going from stand-alone software packages, with non-integrated modules, such as the financials, separate from MRP, separate from engineering, process, and production data, as well as customer information. ERP evolved to integrate the wide spectrum of processes and information that wasn't possible in the MRP and MRP II days.

Integration of Lean and Six Sigma enhanced the focus on eliminating waste AND reducing variability at the same time. Supply Chain concepts and tools have integrated the value chain with the information chain.

Further integration of the supply chain with lean six-sigma is already being most talk about concept today. This will lead to focus on improving up and downstream through the supply chain with the suppliers and the distributors.

TQM - Total Quality Management became huge in the 80's and 90's, and was the formulation of many of the quality guru's management philosophies, including Deming, Juran, Crosby, and Feigenbaum.

It was light on statistical tools and problem solving methodology and left that almost to chance, but provided for employee involvement, team-based brainstorming and problem solving, employee empowerment.

Innovation:

Innovation has remained part of Human Evolution in different form. Use of wheel and fire for enhancing quality of life is an example of early innovations.

Innovation as an economic concept includes development of new:

Products and services (Ginger Hotel Chain)
Methods of production or provision (Cellular Manufacturing concept)
Methods of transportation or service delivery (ATM)
Business models (Crowd Sourcing and Social Networking Platform for business)
Markets
Forms of organization

Stereotypically innovation is considered a product of genius, a flash of light. However, the practitioners have evolved systematically planned and organized innovations.

Future of the Quality Tools

Tools:

Tools developed and evolved can be classified in broadly two categories

People Centric
These tools have evolved and become stronger due to

Availability of better skills
Aspiration of more skilled employees to be part of improvement journey
Most employees reaching and striving for higher level of Maslow's hierarchy of motivation

Data Centric
The tools here were largely through statistics and application of statistical approaches. Initially it was largely Bayesian statistics and later the inferential statistics become stronghold. This is becoming stronger with quantity of data that is available now for studies.
It was easier to implement largely due to availability of skilled manpower and also availability of software that assist in using these tools easily.

Some direction on specific areas could be

Six Sigma

Reduction in Cycle Time as project area is most common and is considered to be most beneficial to the customer and industry
Inclusion of Vendor's organization in Six Sigma Projects
Integrating Six Sigma with other initiatives
Restructuring of time allocation within the DMAIC and PDCA Structure
The Impact of Technological Advancements
Modeling Tools
Impact of Global Recession

Open Source Innovation
Quality Tools Deployment would be through automation and also building AI / Neural Network concepts
Documentation of learning and project would become a specialized skill

Challenges in Quality Management

Larger base of knowledge and data
The pace at which the options are available to consumer
The fast pace life of consumer and hence changes in demand at high speed
The challenges in general can be detailed as below:
Ever Demanding Customers
Increased options and greater knowledge on the product life cycle has definitely led to ever increasing demands.
Shifting Customer Value Perception
The life of a value perception is shorter as the product life itself is coming down. The new products introduction, which used to take years, now takes months. The value perception is also frequently subjected to changes due presence of strong media and internet that provides faster information about product and businesses.
Increasing Economic Pressures
Generally demand on all resources has increased sharply. The pressure on organization to perform at higher level is increasing. The organizations performance is being micro viewed by the investors in short run. In fact long term has become either obsolete or the period of long term has come down significantly.
Reduced Control over Data and Information
With internet and computerization, the access and availability of data is relatively easier. RTI has further changed the dimension of the data availability for any analysis and working.
Recognition of Softer Issues in Business Process
With growth in the knowledge of the worker, and the trend of businesses becoming more knowledge focus, the management processes calls for looking into softer issues of Human Relations within and out of the Business Processes. In early part of 20th century Ford wanted only two hands and two legs, but today organizations want the matter above the shoulder more importantly than the limbs. This has definitely forced organization to look into the softer side of human management. The human resource management moved from treating human as another article to a resource that can contribute and enable better utilization of other resources.
Risk Based Management Approach
Risk based management approaches emerged more strongly towards the end of the 20th century and is becoming stronger area of specialization and focus for business entities. While initially the risk was associated only with finance management, but today the risk based approach has been extended to management of Product Development, Process, Employees, Environment etc.
The risk based approach itself has moved from being subjective to an objective evaluation of the risk.

Ways to minimize the BOSS Effect in Meetings

2009-11-23T22:41:00.001-08:00

I saw this on LinkedIn posted by a friend of mine.

Quote

meetings are funny. productivity is determined by how focussed or awake the boss is. you can see group attention change as does boss'

Unquote

It is so true that most of would not even think of disagreeing with the situation. This is result of our approach of one or many of the following:

Rule number 9 & 10| Rule 9—BOSS is always right| Rule 10 – If BOSS is wrong refer rule 9
Several centuries of having ruled under slavery like environment, differing with BOSS is often considered to be courageous (read suicidal)
Path of easy approach
Avoiding confrontation
…

The meetings as I have experienced are of three types:

Exploratory
1. These meetings are often to develop New Plan / New Approaches/ New strategies
2. Most often the agenda is futuristic
3. The current information is only used to look into future (forecast or predict)
4. It is more like brainstorming
Review
1. These meeting are for reviewing
  1. the status of a project
  2. performance as against the target
  3. operations
  4. …
2. These involve
  1. the presentation of data on performance
  2. comparative statements on performance
Information Sharing
1. These are of the type where the senior is expected to communicate on certain important issues like union meeting progress, special business situation etc.

The last type is not an area of concern. I would try to put my thoughts on how to minimize impact of BOSS in first two type of meeting

Exploratory Meetings:

While the meeting is expected to be exploratory, it is necessary to bringing objectivity in the meeting. For example, if we are doing a meeting in to build a strategic plan for the business the steps that could help are
1. Making the topic specific for example in place of saying Business Strategy we can "Strategy to meeting the risk ABC"
2. Insistence of Home work on the topic and circulation of the opinion/ views prior to meeting (This rarely happens)
Most important of all these that BOSS should speak in the last. Most meeting would begin with a "lecture" by the BOSS. Making this last thing in the agenda itself can help in making meeting more productive.

Review Meetings:

The problem begins with not having an objective response to following questions on review:
1. What to review?
  1. Can I say "Sales Actual versus Budget for a period" instead of saying Sales Department Performance
2. Data for review
  1. Often the review comments or the comments on the performance would be subjective. For example "the sales have improved". Instead we should seek to know improved from "where to where in what period".
The review presentation should be made with data and interpretation based on information presented in following order
1. Current Level of Performance
2. Trend in the performance (minimum of 3 data points)
3. Comparison of performance with target, benchmark etc
Interpretation must include the linkage to the process that has resulted in the change in performance.

I have tried to list the above based on my experience. These cannot eliminate the impact of BOSS on behavior during meeting, but would reduce. The most important step toward this would be acceptance of the BOSS to reduce his/her role in the meeting.

Management Lessons from Srimad Bhagvat Geeta

2009-10-12T07:10:00.001-07:00

The more I reflect the more I get absorbed at how certain basic tenets do not change over time. Anyone who has read the book by Partha Bose "Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy" would agree with me that corporate strategy and warfare have not changed since then. I would dwell on that some time later. Continuing from the earlier issue, I would like to explore the aspects around Performance and Performance Management. This time I am picking up shlokas from Chapter 2 of Srimad Bhagawat Geeta.

"And if you do not engage in this righteous war, you will lose the dharma of your Self and glory, and be guilty of sin.''

"And all will for ever speak of your disgrace and such disgrace is worse than death itself for a man of honour.''

All of us engaged with the organization to perform a particular task (dharma) in a righteous manner. What is righteous is driven by the Values and Beliefs of the organization. In absence of Values and Beliefs the "Right" becomes subjective and can get trapped into interpretation of convenience.

If we do not perform our duty (Dharma) we are losing our self and would be guilty of misdeed (sin). We can probably make ourselves believe that we only acted / behaved as instructed, but a simple soul search will tell us the truth. One can lie to all but not to oneself. Abraham Lincoln quoted most appropriately

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

"Unknown"

People will long speak ill of errors and omissions committed by one. We often forget the goods done by individuals, but remember the misdeeds in granular details. We all remember the misdeeds of Indira Gandhi during emergency much more than her contribution to the country.

One must act based on what people would like to write in their epitaph rather than what people would say behind their back. When your life has ended (maybe after you have lived a long, long time), how would you like your friends to remember you? Write a dialogue between two of your friends. What do they say about you?

"Those who say that life is worth living at any cost have already written an epitaph of infamy, for there is no cause and no person that they will not betray to stay alive"

--- Sidney Hook

We must perform at levels where we can make the wish expressed by Iqbal in his famous lyrics true in organization.

"Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqder se pehle

Khuda bande se ye poche bata teri raza kia hai"

(simple meaning of this lyric is one must make oneself such that god would ask one before deciding one's fate)

We must also be aware of the forces that would prevent us from achieving this kind of success. We would definitely remember the famous story of a frog that succeeded only because it was deaf enough not to hear the discouraging calls by his friends.

We try to identify these others. Who are these other great warriors? They have to be warriors as they would either fight for your growth or against your growth. They could be one among your seniors, peers and at time even subordinates at your work place.

"Even the great warriors who have a high regard for you will then scorn you for having turned your back upon the war out of fear.''

The other formidable warriors are those who desire for pleasure/ opportunity towards your visible acts that may not righteous, even if you did it out of ignorance (We do have people who have sadistic pleasure in your failure). These people would prevent you from taking the right path partly out of ignorance and partly intentionally. It is these who would be more critical of you when you fail. Beware of them. Let them not transgress you from your path of success. Identify them as quickly as possible.

We would continue later to discuss how to work around and succeed without wasting energy to identify these warriors.

Learning Management tips from Scriptures

2009-09-24T23:31:00.001-07:00

I have been pondering over to find relevance of Srimad Bhagwad Geeta to the way we manage our work more specific to the IT Industry business processes. I must also confess that these are my views and is not intended to hurt any individual or group in specific. Resemblance to any specific individual or group is mere coincidence.

In the series of these articles, I am going to pick a few shlokas from Srimad Bhagwad Geeta and explain the shloka from the spiritual point of view as explained by yogis and renowned speakers. I would then submit my interpretation of the same with reference to business processes in IT Industry.

Let's begin with a shloka in Chapter One of the Srimad Bhagwad Geeta

11. "So, while keeping to your respective stations in the several divisions, all of you should doubtlessly protect Bheeshma alone on all sides."

Excerpts from Commentary on above (Courtesy www.yatharthgeeta.com):

Duryodhan (The eldest of Kauravas – 100 brothers) commands all his chiefs to keep to their posts and yet protect Bheeshma on all sides. The Kaurav cannot be defeated if Bheeshma is safe and alive. So it is obligatory for all the Kaurav chiefs to defend Bheeshma rather than fight with the Pandav. Bheeshma is a form of delusion. A delusion is commonly defined as a false belief, and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception. So long as delusion is alive, unrighteous impulses cannot be vanquished. If delusion ceases, ignorance too ceases to exist. That which is free from delusion is eternal and unmanifest. Today we admire a sage for his virtue, but the very next day we grumble because we have seen him relishing delicacies. Devotion is shaken by suspicion of even the slightest flaw in the loved one. The impulse of righteousness is undermined and the ties with the object of affectionate devotion are broken.

Interpretation of commentary to IT Business Context

Can we look at the delusions we live in the workspace? Remember this workspace constitutes at least 30% of average working-life, may be many of us this could be as high as 50 %.

Senior Management lives in delusion that is surrounded by being nice rather than being factual. I am reminded of the famous couplet that we read in Sanskrit in school days. "Satyam Vada Priyam Vada …." Which means you must speak truth while you speak it nicely. Speak untruth nicely or speaking truth rudely does not help. I believe this is the essence of PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM. Let us search our soul and find how often we provide feedback that is fact and nicely presented.

Rest of the organization lives in the delusion that absence of feedback means the performance or result is good. In early days of Process of Making anything (say sculpting), the performance/ result was assessed by the maker himself. There were no lines quality professional or managerial teams to give feedback. Self Assessment is core to the PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.

We often classify an individual as GREAT PERFORMER (like the praise to the sage) and next moment we would brand the GREAT PERFORMER as UNFIT For the job (just as we did to the sage because we saw him enjoying delicacies).

Delusions can go only when IGNORANCE disappears. Who can make the IGNORANCE Disappear? I believe there are only 2 sources that can make this happen:

Self Actualization
Ignorance is bliss is not true in most real life scenario. Examples

Customers are not going be satisfied because we were ignorant to their need. (Often we are)
Statutory and Regulatory authorities are not going to spare us because we are ignorant
Employees are not going to consider non-availability just because management is ignorant of what an employee needs
Shareholders are not going to be satisfied because we are ignorant about how to provide returns to them

The list can go on.

Do not blame others for your ignorance. Use the Body of Knowledge available to remove the IGNORANCE. This would actually raise each one of us in the real world and success would be at our beck and call. Body of Knowledge exists in various forms and some of them are Library, Books, Internet, and Experienced Individuals etc.

Nurturance by seniors
Somewhere down the line, we forget how we were taught to speak or for matter of fact anything. The elders in family invested their time with us. They did it with pleasure and the first one to enjoy the success of we writing or speaking was them. Why we cannot behave like those elders in family? Are we not giving the time at the workplace if not more on par with the time with family?
Nurturing the people in one's team is responsibility of the leader of the team. We need to recollect the earliest and probably even today recognized method of learning as GURUKULAM Method. Here the student learns under the guidance and care of the GURU. For most of us the work place is akin to GURUKULAM and our leaders must behave like a GURU.

Post Event Photographs

2009-09-23T02:53:00.001-07:00

The event was a success that was enjoyed by one and all. Speakers liked it because of attendance and attention by the delegates. Approx 225 delegates participated the conference.

The delegates liked it because of the speakers and the take aways from the speakers.

Look at the pictures of the conference. The entire proceedings would be uploaded shortly. The pictures are available at http://cid-ce7469a16caebf88.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Threads%20of%20Excellence?authkey=WtjBfM0kcM0%24

My Views on Culture of Excellence

2009-09-09T21:07:00.001-07:00

My views on the Culture of Excellence can be heard at the links given below

Excellence in Downturn
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=OUehH5hwpyI
Excellence as a journey
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=WGTBpAugCp8
Nationwide Survey on Excellence
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=wCoDAxC32W4
Learning Approach
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=IWvZ8uddBF0
Boardrooms discussion on Quality
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=2L2jG1QFnH4
Approach to Quality certification
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=Bz0WI4oujTk
Short Term vs Long Term
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=Gi8sJwyqnGU
Going Beyond Checklist Approach
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=cJCpeF-ojDE
Inspiration vs Direction
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=QGrBYhn4dvA
Metrics of Excellence
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=ffwaNgPQCz8
Role Media in Building Culture of Excellence
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=_if0wxv9UP4
Role of Acamedia
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=F4gWZKDW014
Change to begin at School
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=abzy9q42804
Factor to bring in cultural change
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=t-c3F7ukizY
Aligning quality with business
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=vKZYG_7vZw0
Can ROI stifle Quality
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=aZXv0UOEelg
Who can be a change agent
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=F8eZHmDdg_c
Threading Individual/ team and Organizational Excellence
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=u1ECNFBZRD8
Performance vs excellence
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=8H0trD9iQYo
Competency and performance
http://www.tweetube.com/videos/preview?vid=UeEYqubkFoY

These are interviews as a precursor to the conference on 18^th September 2009 at Hotel Accord Metropolitan, Chennai. For details, write to pgs@amc.co.in

Interview on Excellence

2009-09-09T01:09:00.001-07:00

My interview on the subject of Culture of Excellence and its link to host of organizational dimension is available at the following:

http://60secondschief.blogspot.com/2009/09/kumar-vembu-founder-ceo-gofrugal.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/pitstop4performers

http://www.experiencefestival.com/forum/vBTube.php?do=user&uname=pitstop4performers

http://www.tweetube.com/search?user=pitstop4performers

Culture of Excellence

2009-08-26T07:05:00.001-07:00

Culture of Excellence is rooted in the Organizational Culture. Organizational cultural has been explained by Schien as “A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to these problems” (Schein, 1992).

Exploring the underlined words from a realistic perspective brings certain interesting and probably true scenario:

a. “pattern” implies a design, a way but it also means that it is evolves over a period of time. Hence, the culture would be dynamic. Hence an acceptable pattern today may not be so tomorrow.

b. “shared” thoughts are always been a dream in the management world. Where does one stop in sharing? Is good enough if one communicates to all? Often the sharing begins and ends with display of values or other artifacts of culture of an organization.

c. “learned” implies that the culture evolves as one learns from the experience. Learning from experience needs to move from Primary learning to Secondary learning. Primary learning can only provide us the immediate feel and are often reactive. Secondary Learning enables absorption of experience that has potential to change our way of life or subsequent response to the experience.

d. “external adaption and internal integration” of the learning would ensure conversion of what we learn into practice. Adaptation to the external stimulus has been essence of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. In organisational context the experiential learning needs to be adapted to match the changing business environment.

The same experience would require to be integrated with organizational practices. As a change in practice with integrating with larger system in organization can lead to suboptimal conditions and hence unstable culture. It necessary to distinguish between change and instability. Change is desirable but not instability.

The practice must lead to benefits to the internal stakeholder like employees and to the external stakeholders like customers, vendors.

e. The experience and learning must be “valid” enough to facilitate reinforcement of the communication of cultural aspects.

f. The culture symbols and practices that represents culture needs to be “taught” to the new employees. This is necessary as every individual comes with his /her own cultural “baggage”, which may not be in sync with organization culture. It is the responsibility of every individual to showcase the culture and enable absorption of the new culture (at times it could be a cultural shock) by the newcomer.

g. The newcomers would need to perceive, think, and feel the culture of excellence. This means the members in the organization would need to walk the talk.

Culture is understood by the Artifacts that represents it. Culture of excellence would possibly be indicated by various measures or system. For example, the quantum of innovation may indicate the excellence culture.

Values would relate to the attitudes and opinions regarding reality and how Innovation (in above example) should be handled. This has to be built into the strategies, goals and philosophies of the organization. In case of the example of Innovation, one would need to see if Innovation has become part of whatever the organization values. Innovation should be part of strategy, organizational goal and the organization must believe in it.

Basic Assumptions about organization, its people and business environment must be conducive to the building culture. There basic assumption relating to the innovation, for example Tolerance to failure would be key characteristics to fuel the innovative mindset. Reinforcing assumption becomes key to the value system and then becomes an integral part of the culture.

Threads of Excellence

2009-08-22T02:33:00.000-07:00

“Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” -- Aristotle

Excellence is often seen as an ideal. In reality, it provides a competitive edge. It enables an organization to achieve and maintain industry leadership for generations. Market leaders have proven time and again that by creating an adaptive, innovation-friendly organization and establishing an inspirational growth culture – they can build sustainable leadership. The best companies have created systems to identify potential leaders and establishing winning teams.

Excellence would need to be seen from different dimensions namely, Individual, Team or Group, Organization or Corporate. The jargons may change but the three dimensions would exist. There are difference in the way it gets created and the way it manifest. This is reflected by the fact that “All excellent organization may not be filled with Excellent Employees, at the same time just because organization has Excellent Individuals do not become Excellent” This theme can be compared with “Unity in Diversity” of Nature and our country.

While Excellence Models like CII Exim Award, RBNQA , MBNQA, Deming etc creates the initial impetus, how to sustain / imbibe excellence beyond the limits of model. Most organizations are driven by the milestones associated with the model. In the process at time the spirit of excellence is lost. We believe that it is possible to create an “excellence” culture by threading the Excellence through all dimensions.

This has led to the conference “Threads of Excellence”. The sessions in this conference would refer to best practices and experience from cultural change aspect. The expected takeaways are
1. Looking at Excellence beyond models
2. Understanding the factors that are common at all dimensions of excellence
3. Generate thought in looking at how to use the excellence available in all dimensions.
4. Knowing what others have done

Visit www.amc.co.in to download details of the conference and brochures for participation.

Threads of Excellence

Success Principles – based on Tantrokta Devisuktam

Reunion - Class of 86

Pre-Reunion

Reunion

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Management Sutra - Part 3

Management Sutra - 2

विज्ञानमयकोश Vigyanamaya Kosh (Intellect Layer/ Budhhi - Knowledge/ Ahankara- EGO)

आनंदमयकोश Anandmaya Kosh (Blissful Layer / Ultimate Joy)

About Maharishi Pathanjali

Management Sutra - Part 1

Management Sutra - Preamble

Management Lessons from History - 1

Babur's Invasion into Hindustan

Management Lessons from Srimad Bhagvat Geeta

Future Directions in Quality Journey – Some Views

Innovation:

Future of the Quality Tools

Tools:

Challenges in Quality Management

Ever Demanding Customers

Shifting Customer Value Perception

Increasing Economic Pressures

Reduced Control over Data and Information

Recognition of Softer Issues in Business Process

Risk Based Management Approach

Ways to minimize the BOSS Effect in Meetings

Management Lessons from Srimad Bhagvat Geeta

Learning Management tips from Scriptures

Post Event Photographs

My Views on Culture of Excellence

Interview on Excellence

Culture of Excellence

Threads of Excellence