Concentrate on concentrating

This article was published in the May’2008 issue of the magazine Management compass

Vagaries of mind

It’s concentration that helps you achieve your goal

I had written seven articles in The Times of India in the year 2006, out of which two made it to the Times Wellness Book. Out of the two, one is on concentration:-
“Indian children are exposed to how Arjuna was asked to focus on the eye as a target for his arrow, as an exercise in concentration. Ralph Waldo Emerson has said ‘Concentration is the secret of success in politics, in war, in all management of human affairs.’
One way of determining what your purpose in life is to try and engage in an activity in which you completely lose awareness of time and space because you are fully concentrated on it. That would be the activity in which you are in your element. Though it can be described as an intense concentration, Osho has elevated it to the level of meditation. He even goes to say that when you are happy doing whatever you are doing, you are automatically meditative. Meditation is a function of happiness and not the other way around. In the children’s context, if their concentration is monitored proactively, it could give an indication of their life’s purpose…

Emerson’s statement has a different connotation as well. It is a well- known fact in Yoga that the power of concentration is the power of the human mind. People are able to perform miraculous feats with the power of concentration. In this context, if you are caught in the wrong profession, a good power of concentration can go a long way in mitigating the misery. One can pass by with a reasonable degree of efficiency if the general level of concentration is high…

So either one is in the right profession (spontaneous concentration) or the general level of concentration is high. At least one of the two should be strong for you to be adept at what you are doing. Therefore we realise the need and importance of developing concentration not only for children, but for our ownselves too.”

The above article was based on a passage that I had come across in an article on meditation: “Many people cannot concentrate on their work because their minds keep straying. Others keep worrying about their pet obsessions. These are the vagaries of the mind which prevent you from doing a good job at any given time. At the other end of the spectrum, you find people daydreaming a chain of colourful thoughts. So deeply engrossed are they that they lose awareness of what is going around them.” I had this problem and I was looking at it from only one perspective of what I could not do. Later, when the “colourful thoughts” made me a writer and a poet, I realised that my mind was concentrated on them which is why I could not concentrate on the jobs. That is perhaps the reason why creative people do not like nine to five jobs; they are simply not cut out for them.

The most well-known enlightened man in the history of mankind, Buddha had this to say in this context “Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” Some of the great artists of this world have described absorption in their work as a kind of orgasmic pleasure. Pablo Picasso said, “It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction”. Whatever be the form of creativity, nothing can replace the artistic satisfaction that one experiences on being able to complete a creative task when one gets completely absorbed in it and achieves a state of total concentration by transcending thought. Some years ago, in an interview, filmstar Shah Rukh Khan had said, “When I stand in front of the camera, I feel as if I am making love to my audience.”

Creative people are known for being emotional, sensitive and mood swings. Einstein had once said, “All great discoveries come from people whose feelings run ahead of their thinking”. From a writer’s/ poets perspective, some of the best creative ideas come when the mind is given a free run. The mind can be explained in terms of centrifugal (stronger at periphery than centre) and centripetal ( logical and centred — stronger at centre) forces and the mind with a centrifugal predisposition has creative
tendencies.

Ayurveda talks of Vata, Pitta and Kapha people. A Vata (air) predominating person will have emotional tendencies towards fear and anxiety. They are very creative and imaginative, make good artists, poets, inventors and writers or have divergent attention concentrated in ideas. They are indecisive, changeable, excitable, moody and solitary people. Kapha minds are the exact opposite — grounded and centred and have convergent attention focused in implementation.

One definition of creativity is to reveal a new synergy between two seemingly disparate ideas or a rearrangement of the old. One is supposed to drench oneself and the subconscious with all the facts one can muster with full concentration and when the mind is calm and relaxed, ideas incubate from the subconscious to correlate, combine, associate and categorise in different kinds of synthesis. No wonder some of the most important discoveries from science have come in a relaxed state of mind when the concerned individuals have been bathing, walking or even shaving.

Apart from getting creative ideas in a relaxed, concentration is facilitated when the mind is in a creative state and vice-versa. The Bhagvad Gita says, “For he who has no tranquility there is no concentration.” The other extreme is also equally true. Psychiatrists use occupational therapy as one of the means to treat people who have been through severe trauma by making them do interesting activities in which their mind becomes so engrossed that they completely forget their painful experiences. In this way concentration can be used to induce tranquility which can further enhance concentration in a virtuous circle.

In one of his discourses, Osho said that people with a thinking disposition and philosophers often complain that mundane things bore them. He divided people into two broad categories — the ‘buffaloes’ and the ‘Buddhas’. He said that the buffaloes were the hedonistic types — they had no grand purpose in life but were content with their daily existence and never thought too much about the monotony of daily existence. The Buddhas on the other hand were the intellectual types, trying to seek a deeper purpose and meaning in life and their existence and would easily tire of routine. Osho said, “Either be a buffalo or a Buddha”. He meant that either ignore the routine activities completely or observe routine so minutely that the novelty of life becomes apparent in this micro-observation. This is the way to transform the mundane into the sacred. This requires tremendous alertness and concentration, which in this context can actually be called awareness, presence, consciousness, mindfulness etc. Incidentally Buddha also said, “The stages of the Noble Path are: Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Behaviour, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.” Right concentration is mentioned last but is certainly not the least — trains in Japan and Germany move at 500 miles an hour because of the concentrated force of superconductivity or electrons moving in one direction without any resistance.

Another statement of Buddha sums it up: “Wakefulness is the way of life.” J krishnamuthy talked of constantly witnessing all thoughts, feelings and actions as they arise. Osho says that being totally aware and in the present is the key to transcend negative emotions and overcome all kinds of suffering. He says, “If you are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen… In fact, there is only one sin and that is unawareness. When you become aware, your body becomes more relaxed, your body becomes more attuned, a deep peace starts prevailing even in your body; a subtle music pulsates in your body”

From the above, it seems that constant watchfulness has the kind of effect on your body and mind that sports do. Talking of sportspeople, the best cricket Team in the world, Australia indulges in sledging primarily to disturb the opponent’s concentration. Sachin Tendulkar actually said once, “If concentration wavers, the brain does not pass signals at the pace that the ball comes.” When asked on a tour to Bangladesh on how easy it must be for someone like him to face Bangladeshi bowlers, Sachin replied, “I only think of the ball and its merit and not the bowler.” This is to induce what sportsmen call a state of “flow” in which they forget all else and are totally focused on their sport as a means to excel. Pete Sampras, who won the maximum number of grand slams, attributes his success to being able to achieve flow as one of the main reasons. Martina Navratilova puts it even more precisely and concisely: “I try to concentrate on concentrating.” Can you afford to do otherwise?

Nurturing good habits should be a habit

This article was published in the May’2007 issue of the magazine Educare.

Nurturing good habits

Old habits die hard; good or bad, habits are incurable, so cultivate good habits

In 1991, I had heard a speech from one of India’s topmost management consultants on how the concept of KASH (Knowledge-Application-Skills-Habits) is applicable in management. In management and seminars, the emphasis generally is on application of knowledge and skills but since habits represent ingrained behaviour, in the context of KASH, one should use the expression, last but not the least ‘habits’. Any pattern of thought or action repeated many times results in a habit because of the formation of a brain groove. The brain comprises of around 100 billion cells called neurons. A brain groove is a series of interconnected neurons that carry the thought patterns of a particular habit. When we give our attention to a habit, we activate the brain groove, releasing the thoughts, desires, and actions related to that habit. If we repeat a thought and action enough times, a new habit is formed. Continued repetition strengthens the habit. Inattention and lack of repetition weakens it. Cultivating good habits can be difficult, but it is more cumbersome to maintain or get rid of bad habits.

Some management authors have stated that it takes around 21 days to form a new habit or break an old one but that would depend upon the nature and type of habit. Recently, my yoga teacher while demonstrating how different people hold their tea cups/ glasses, said that if despite repeated action, they are not able to change , the problem is deep rooted. It reminded me of an experience while attending vipasana meditation. It is a ten day full time course where they teach Buddha’s meditation technique. They claim that it is a deep surgical operation of the mind. One of their discourses talks of deep rooted behavioral habits which they say depends on one’s samskars or inherent tendencies. They claim that samskars are of three types — the shortest duration is like a line drawn in water which can vanish instantly. The second is like a line drawn on sand which takes time to disappear and the third is like a line engraved on a rock, which is the deepest and most difficult to remove. They could have even passed on from your previous life. This would explain why despite all attempts, some people are not able to curb their temper or change other such habits. These statements reflect their perennial nature:

Men do more things through habit than through reason.
Habits make or mar one’s fortune.
Habit is second nature.
Man is a slave of habits.
A habit cannot be forced out of the window; it can be coaxed out one step at a time.
Habit knows no cure.
Custom in infancy becomes nature in old age.

Some people even go for past life regression as a part of past life therapy to get to the root of these unconscious tendencies. Though it is not easy to break bad habits, one only has go google for “How to break bad habits” to find various articles on the topic.
Many famous sayings are a reflection of the importance of habits. For instance the saying “Early to bed and early to rise makes one healthy, wealthy and wise” is to emphasise on the importance of getting up early. The problem is that these statements arise out of the experiences of other people. Unlike the Panchtantra stories where the experience is first narrated and the moral is given at the end, here we have the moral in the form of a sentence but no in- depth understanding of it. With advancing age and increasing problems, one begins to appreciate in greater depth the wisdom of those sayings and feel more inclined to follow them. More often than not, learning comes from negative experiences, which is not always easy to pass on to the coming generation experientially or even in words.

In one of my previous write ups on inter personal conflict, I had given a father son example, which is actually more relevant in the context of habits. There’s a narrative of a father, who tried to get his son to wash his hands before eating, without much success. He took his son to his doctor friend, who educated him on what germs were, showed them under a microscope and further showed a video film on what could happen to the body if it got infected with those germs. After being oriented like this, the child started washing his hands on his own without any further conflict with his father on the issue. During my childhood, my father often used to ask me to take precaution against the chill in the mornings and evenings during change of season in October. I did not pay heed to the warning too seriously till at the age of 26 in September when I got a very severe cold which lasted for three and a half weeks. Thereafter, covering myself while going out in the evenings or early mornings in October became a habit. Good habits may not make such problems disappear but their frequency can be reduced. On getting a severe cold recently, when I checked up on the net, I was surprised to find that it had nothing to do directly with cold weather and was spread more in the cold weather by hand to hand contact as people preferred to stay indoors. Strange thing to know at the age of 42 for forming such new habits. Some health habits like not smoking are best formed early. Recently, the health minister, Anbumani Ramdoss took on the powerful tobacco industry lobby for gory picture advertisements on cigarette packets that reflected the dangers of smoking. Those pictures were given to prevent the formation of bad habits.

Sometimes a simple good habit may help profusely throughout life. In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi says, “I kept account of every farthing I spent , and my expenses were carefully calculated. Every little item of expense would be entered and the balance struck every evening before going to bed. That habit has stayed ever since and I know as a result, though I have had to handle public funds amounting to lakhs,, I have succeeded in exercising strict economy in their disbursement, and instead of outstanding debts have a surplus balance in respect of all movements I have led.”

Professor Debashish Chatterjee , in his book, Break free explains how excellence comes from nurturing good habits; especially from thinking and execution of habits. He explains that a habit is muscle plus mind. Giving the simple example of how if one changes one grip of the pen to write anything, one can experience discomfort, he explains that this is going against the conditioning of your muscle and mind. He says that thinking has to be pruned of stray thoughts to make it effective and calls it lean thinking. The same thing has been explained differently in the wonderful book The power of Now. The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Disease happens when things go out of control. Thinking becomes a disease when you believe that you are your mind instead of being a witness of the thought process. This results in compulsive, involuntary, unconscious, repetitive thinking. Instead of you using your mind, the mind uses you. The author says inhabit the body. This takes your attention away from thought. Sensing the body becomes an anchor for staying present in the now. As soon as your habitual state changes from being out of the body and trapped in your mind to being in the body and present in the now, your physical body will feel lighter, clearer, more alive. In short, being a witness of the mind instead of being closely identified with it is good for both the mind and the body and helps in a variety of ways.
This is put succinctly by the most well known enlightened man in history, Gautam Buddha, who says:

The thought manifests as word;
The word manifests as deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.

The issue is to be able to pass on the importance of habits to the next generation at a young age. Catch them young is more relevant than anything else as habits, whether good or bad get ingrained by repetition. Giving a lecture to children hardly helps for which one has to be vigilant for the right opportunity. When my twelve year old son learnt about taxation in social studies class, I gave him a rough idea of what income tax was and how various bills had to be kept in their places as proof or otherwise, one may end up paying more taxes to the Income tax department. That was to inculcate the habit of putting the right thing at the right place. Once Rahul Dravid gave an interview on how grateful he was to their support staff: the cricket manager, cricket analyst, media manager, cricket coach, physiotherapist, physical trainer etc who did the support work so well that the players could focus entirely on their game. I read it out to my son to explain the importance of being focused and organised. Only if he made a habit of being well organised like putting things in proper places, he would be able to focus well on the main function whether in studies or in sports. At least, children listen to such examples better than a lecture but that also depends on the issue. I tried to stress the importance of yoga after Sachin Tendulkar started doing it seriously but that drew a lukewarm response.

Since habits get formed by repetition, the competency cycle is worth a
mention. When one tries to learn something new or doing the same thing in a better way, one has to go through four stages:

Unconscious incompetence — you maybe unconscious of what you are doing wrong.
Conscious incompetence — you are aware of what you are doing wrong and have started unlearning unlearn established, unconscious patterns/habits.
Conscious competence — acquiring new habits in the process of doing things in a better way.
Unconscious competence — new habits become a normal occurrence and one does not have to think or make a conscious attempt for doing.

Though all this maybe relevant from the point of view of learning a new skill or enhancing an old skill, from another perspective, after one has formed a habit and is able to do it unconsciously, one should still do it consciously to live intensely. Spiritual masters stress on the art of living consciously to be fully in the present which according to some psychologists is an “occupational therapy” and very good for stress management. This implies that even if you are able to do something mechanically after it having become an unconscious habit, one should still try to do it with full consciousness. It could be something mundane like driving to learning a specialised sport or vocation. Therefore, in this context, even not making a habit a habit is a habit.

Money makes the world go round

This article is published in the April’2008 issue of the magazine “Management compass”

Nothing but bucks
How money makes the world go round

In his movie presentation on global warming, former US vice-president Al Gore made this statement somewhat humorously, “It is difficult to convince a man about something if his salary depends upon not following it.” Contrary to what Mr Gore had to say in his presentation, reputed Times of India columnist and former editor of Economic Times, Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyer had this to say in his article Global warming or global cooling that scientific truth (of global warming) is rarely mentioned. Why? Because the global warming movement has now become a multi-billion dollar enterprise, with thousands of jobs and millions in funding for NGOs and think-tanks, top jobs and prizes for scientists, and huge media coverage for predictions of disaster. The vested interests in the global warming theory are now as strong, rich and politically influential as the biggest multinationals. It is no co-incidence, says Crichton, that so many scientists skeptical of global warming are retired professors: they have no need to chase research grants and chairs.

This reminds one of the Luddite movement that was launched against the industrial revolution which began in the later part of the eighteenth century. The manual labour-based economy of Great Britain began to be replaced by manufacturing machinery and industry. Their main objection was that the introduction of new wide-framed looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour could result in the loss of jobs for many textile workers and cause widespread unemployment. For a short time the movement was so strong that it clashed in battles with the British Army. Measures taken by the government included a mass trial at York in 1812 that resulted in many executions and transportations (removal to a penal colony).

Since one has to keep the kitchen fires burning, people are bound to be desperate when their very survival is at stake; how does one decide the Laxman Rekha in such matters? Over the years, one gets to read or hear of several examples such as these from different professions. Some software people are of the opinion that the people who make vaccines for computer viruses introduce the viruses in the first place. Some years ago, it came in the papers that the head of an aids related organisation in Bombay stated how some US multinationals were trying to advocate that HIV and Aids were linked, in order to promote their drugs, although there was enough evidence to the contrary. There were a couple of programmes on a prime Indian televsion channel, which revealed how teachers used to threaten children refusing tuitions with negative marking in exams and how doctors were in tandem with laboratories to recommend all kinds of tests which the patients did not need.

This reminds me of some of my experiences in this connection. My father, while taking his mother to the hospital, was advised rest and a checkup was forced on him because he looked emaciated. His blood pressure did appear less than normal but he was advised to stay in the hospital for the night and a temporary packemaker was inserted in his body. Later, a permanent pacemaker was put in its place next morning. This entailed a lot of cost and till today, he is not sure whether or not this was actually required.I myself suffered from slip disc seven years back. I was advised surgery but since spine surgery is dicey, we thought better to take more than one opinion. All the three doctors advised surgery and two of them proactively asked me whether or not I had a medical insurance. The manner in which the question was mooted reeked of something amiss and what hurt more was that one of the doctors was known to me. I once also heard about a commercial pediatrician, of all things. Even children have started being treated like commodities. The recent case of kidney thief Dr Amit Kumar, aka Dr Santosh Raut who had stolen more than 600 people’s organs in the past seven years is an extreme manifestation of this trend.

There are examples from different strata of society. The Times of India (Nov 25, 2007) talks of Maoist insurgencies violently disturbing the peace in 165 of India’s 602 districts and these are largely made up of unemployed young men, which implies that had they been employed, the turmoil, if any, would be of a lesser degree. This has been true for some of the other terrorists as well. The October 29, 2007 issue of India Today reported how in the last six years, 17 officers of the rank of Brigadier and above have been indicted in corruption and misappropriation of funds, which includes the sale of military rations like meat, pulses, liquor and fuel in the open market. The situation was aptly summed up by a retired major general, “Among politicians and bureaucrats, it is an exception to be honest, in the Army, it is an exception to be corrupt. “There are many people of the view that the Kashmir issue had to be kept alive to sustain the Pakistani Army’s dominance and importance in that country.”

We have cases like prohibition not being implemented because of fear of losing excise revenue of liquor industry and ditto for tobacco. The Times of India reported that health minister, Ramadoss stipulating gory picture advertisements after December 1, 2007, as a measure to prevent smoking , said: “Four chief ministers and 150 MPs have met me to tell me that they don’t want anti-smoking advertisements and labeling of products. Seven chief ministers wrote to me pleading for the beedi workers and one chief minister met me three times regarding this. Are the lives of 1.1 billion people not more valuable than the livelihood of 30 lakh beedi workers from this kind of work?”. He further added that it
was unfortunate that the fight against the tobacco lobby had run into opposition from his own colleagues.

In the corporate world, Arthur Anderson and Enron are examples of fraud by the company’s auditors, as their audit and other consultation compensation depended upon the powers in the corporate world. The chairman of Infosys, Mr Narayan Murthy, a man known as much for his integrity as for his numerous achievements in the software industry admits in the book Business Gurus speak, “Since all our operations were outside, we had very few operations here(India) and had no need to bribe anyone. Maybe we would have done it, if forced to by circumstances. Every corporation can take only a limited amount of nuisance; beyond that it becomes very difficult”. One has to admire Mr Murthy’s forthrightness in admitting this. In motivation speaker Arindham Chaudhary’s book Count the chickens before they hatch, it was mentioned that a popular teleserial espousing simplicity was discontinued for fear of losing ad revenues.

Speaking from my own experience, the best boss(an outstanding CEO and later very successful businessman) that I worked under told me once that “ I draft a legal agreement with the assumption that the entire world is a cheat.”. When I started my career, my father who turned around a sick company warned me: “All your inter-departmental communication and not just communication with outside parties should also be in written form. People flatly deny what they may have committed or said” . One of the factors attributed to Dhirubhai Ambani’s success is trust but it is better to tread the middle ground as advocated by a book on leadership by Harvard University which cautions “Trust but Verify”. How is one to know that the person being trusted remains trustworthy throughout his life.

Since most cases are reported in the media, they also have their share of the black sheep. On July 5 2007, The Times of India reported that a Rajkot woman stages semi-nude protest against dowry demand when alleged mental and physical abuse by her husband’s family drove a 22-year-old woman,Pooja Chuahan to strip to her underwear and walk through the city in protest. I happened to be in Rajkot in August on some personal work and could not help asking a well known personality about this incident. She said that while there was some truth in the matter, she had learnt from reliable sources that Pooja had been encouraged to do this by a local Journalist for a news story. Then she narrated her own experience on how she had given an advertisement in a newspaper once and was called by a rival newspaper to give a similar ad to prevent being projected in a bad light in that paper. When I narrated this story to a gentleman from pharmaceuticals industry on my train back to Delhi, he narrated a similar story of his own. The autobiographies of cricketing superstars, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev reflect very poorly on some elements in the media . A former filmstar who used to be asked about his reported rumors reported in the film press would dismiss such talk with a brusque remark “They have to sell their magazines”. It sounded like they could write anything to sell their magazines. Many spiritual books denounce the ad world for projecting wants as needs or necessities.

The examples of lower strata of society are somewhat amusing. When a panwallah was interviewed during the Babri mandir demolition in Ayodhya about his views on the Mandir- masjid issue, prompt came the reply, “Chaahe kuch bhi bane, humare pet pe laat nahin lagni chaahiye”. (Whatever happens, our livelihood should not be affected) This was followed by a Rickshawalla’s comment in Delhi, “ Mandir bhi banao, masjid bhi banao par sabse pahle Rickshaw stand banao. (Construct both Mandir and Masjid but first construct a Riksha stand). The most humorous remark that I have heard in the context of someone trying to defend his professional interest is “It is like asking a barber whether you need a haircut or not”.

One comes across articles not only on politicians but people from other professions on how they go to any lengths to make money in total disregard of all professional ethics. “Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship god and over these ideals they dispute but everybody worships money” — Mark Twain . It reminds of an old song: “na biwi na bachha na baap bada na bhaiyan the whole thing is that ke bhaiya sabse bada rupaiya.”

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One more song which is perhaps one of the all time greats of Hindi Cinema but could not escape the editor’s scissors above but is representative of the situation(particularly the last two paragraphs). It shows that people have a natural tendncy to pull out all stops to safeguard their professional interest .:-

Chingari koi dhadke, to savan use bujhaaye
savan jo agan lagaye , use kaun bujhaaye ?

Pathjar jo baag ujaade, toh baag bahaar khillaye
jo baag bahar mein ujade, use kaun bujhaye ?

Koi dushman thes lagaaye , to meet jiya bahlaaye,
Man meet jo ghaav lagaaye, use kaun mitaaye ?.

Duniya jo pyaasa rakeen, to majhira pyaas bujhaaye
Majhira jo pyaas lagaaye, use kaun bujhaaye ?.

Majhdar me naiya dole, to maajhi paar lagaayen
Maajhi jo naav duboye, use kaun bachaaye?

Child-A seed or a weed?

This article was published in the April’2008 of the Education magazine Educare

Right education

Enforcing a standard system of education on children to whom it does not apply can be disastrous

On March 17, 2008, The Times of India reported that a total of 5,857 students committed suicide in the year 2006. According to national crime bureau statistics, of this 5,628 students were below the age of 30. In my previous article on the subject in March 2008, I was not aware of the statistics and one really wonders what the overall trend over the years has been. In the previous article, I had mentioned some small practical steps that the government has been taking to ease the exam tension. That apart, since a lot of competition is for admission in educational institutions, the government should seriously contemplate inviting foreign universities or whatever it takes to increase the number of educational institutions. In the same NCRB statistics, it is given that farming related suicides in 2006 were 17,060. If the government can waive Rs 60,000 Cr for farmers in the recent union budget even if it represented vote bank politics, they can surely do something for the students.

The previous article ended with how the education system does not cater to the kinesthetic learner or people who prefer to learn through a more hands on approach. An article on boosting brain power in the Readers Digest divided learners into several IQ groups — the bottom five per cent with a risk of not functioning in society, the next 20 per cent ‘slow learners’; the middle 50 per cent hands-on types who learn better on the job than in the classroom; the next 20 per cent potential leaders. The last category was of the successful five per cent that were the best brains or thinkers. It seems that in spotting the last two categories or the cream, the education system converts the dream of the rest into a nightmare.

As stated above, many people prefer learning by doing or application and to have a standard education system for different kinds of learning or assessing styles is fundamentally wrong. That apart, in practical life, it is application alone that matters and the education system should be more application oriented instead of testing knowledge and memory, which, in any case is a little out of place in the internet era. In an India Today article a few years ago, professor Yash Pal, eminent scientist and chairman of the Steering Committee for Curricular Reform, said, “Technology has provided the means of recording and retrieving information at will. It is stupid for us to want students to do that. We must make exams in such a way that it does not bank on memory but emphasises thinking capability and understanding.” That depends a lot on the individual learning style of the student apart from aptitude.

Bill Gates puts it very profoundly in his book, Business at the speed of thought: “Technology makes it easier to scale classes to age and ability and individualise learning. About fifty major theories attempt to characterise individual learning styles. All people have different levels of aptitude and different personalities and life experiences that may motivate or demotivate them to learn. PCs can help change the learning experience from the traditional approach, a teacher instructing in front of the class room to a more hands-on approach that takes advantage of the natural curiosity of all ages.” Though Gates is talking more in the context of how the PC and the internet can be used to enhance learning , his emphasis on a more hands on approach or an approach that makes learning easier and interesting for different types of children is clearly evident.

Our education system seems to stick to traditional methods of teaching and assessing, which is perhaps in their own interest. George Bernard Shaw said: “Those who can, teach, else they do”. Steve Nordby improved upon that quote by saying: “Those who can do. Those who can’t teach. Those who can’t teach train teachers. Those who can’t train teachers write teacher training textbooks.” In some ways, it seems that teaching is more geared to fulfil the needs of the teacher to teach rather than customising what is taught to the learning style of the students.

Here, the role of kith and kin of the students also have a role to play. I had on one occasion discussed student suicides with one of Delhi’s top nuero-psychiatrists who had pamphlets in his reception on how to spot a potential suicide from a variety of reasons. Where students are concerned, he said, “The problem in India is that everybody considers themselves an expert on all sorts of issues. When the person concerned himself has a lot of problem determining his own potential, where is the need for everyone to give an opinion?” People have tendencies to make comparisons with others and offer judgments like ‘excuses’ or ‘attitude problem’, which maybe far from the truth, which may have more to do with the individuality of the person concerned.

Recently, I completed a one week ‘Training the Trainer’ programme from the Indian society for training and development. While I was contemplating joining the programme, I asked the programme director, Major General Dhir, the difference between the one-week programme and an eighteen-month diploma on the same subject. He promptly replied, “In the diploma, the focus is more on the subject and the knowledge. In the one week course, the focus is more on the individual and skills.” In other words, the workshop was more application oriented. I could not help wondering whether or not what Major General Dhir said was the bane of the education system. We are required to answer a questionnaire referring to notes and outside books, write a dissertation followed by a video recording of six hours of training. This may not suit all subjects but is a far more practical method of assessment. Testing memory puts unnecessary stress on the students and does not really test their potential. Therefore, it is a loss both ways. Training is clearly a more hands-on approach than teaching and probably suits a lot of students.

I have myself come across several people, who, though not qualified MBAs have better functional talent. Here is an example of one such hands-on learner, Suvir Behl, a shares trader and investor who did very well in practical life despite not doing that well academically. In his own words: “After completing my graduation in 1998, I completed a course at National Institute of Fashion Technology in New Delhi in the year 2000, after which I tried for a couple of jobs in the garments sector, but they did not appeal to me. Since my maternal grandfather had been a very good and successful investor, the stock markets had always been a fascination. I started in the stock markets in a small way in 2001, by investing small sums of money both for me and my immediate family. Initially, there were times when I lost money but they were more in the nature of teething troubles and learning experiences. In my view, the failures are as instrumental for consistent long term success as knowledge or intelligence. I started reading extensively about the markets and the various companies I invested in. I learnt a lot and consider myself reasonably successful today. From the seed capital with which I started , my portfolio has multiplied several times, and my clientele is improving quantitatively and qualitatively every year.”

He added: “Though never short of confidence, I was an average student throughout school and college. I feel that to be successful in life, deep interest and knowledge about one’s profession which comes by experience and basic practical in intelligence is more important than degrees. In my own case, though I never attended any formal course in the stock market, the broad reading fuelled by my natural interest queered the pitch for success.”

I must add here that following Suvir’s footsteps is not recommended. The stockmarket has also proved to be extremely dangerous for certain other youngsters. The broker confirmed that Suvir was a good investor and a success as a trader which is more an exception than the rule.. Trading psychology itself advocates that one should discover one’s niche and style instead of blindly acquiring knowledge. I found Suvir equally if not more resourceful than some of other well known and more qualified traders.

In my previous article, I mentioned about my friend AK, who got several double promotions and went on to establish businesses of his own. In my last meeting with him, he mentioned that in his engineering college, one of his friends, RG was the topper but in real life he invited AK to join his company as finance was not his cup of tea and AK had better all round practical intelligence. AK also mentioned that a few months back a relatively less qualified but street smart businessman could prove to be a tough competitor but qualifications can make a very good first impression. However, if degrees are not backed by performance, they can flatter to deceive. There is another friend of ours who is a chartered accountant by qualification but does not seem to be doing well either in that profession or the businesses that he has tried so far.

In recent times, two men who have done really well in real life without commensurate educational achievements are Sunil Mittal, the chairman of Bharti Telecom and Naresh Goyal, chairman of Jet Airways. Amitabh Bachchan and Kishore Kumar had no real formal training in their respective fields but both were outstanding successes in their chosen professions. In a recent book Dhirubhaiism, the author, AG Krishnamurthy states: “Dhirubhai could see skills in us we never knew we had.” The author further states that in following Dhirubhai’s philosophy, as chairman of Mudra advertising , he went to talented newcomers instead of tried and tested superstars and reaped rich dividends. It is ultimately functional and practical talent that matters more in the real world than anything else.

In a recent book Be Inspired, the author, a Sydney-based Indian, Amber Ahuja has given each of the above in detail in the form of worksheet skills and abilities assessment directions. Giving Indian examples, the same book also states at four give different places how critical it is to identify one’s career correctly early in life for long term success. That need not be necessarily reflected in one’s qualifications. Morgan and Banks have also stated that niche individuals or those who are good at few things should even be more particular about choosing the right career. What happens to those who are not able to do so?

I had written my first article on career misfits in life. Though I had titled it ‘The essence of true education’, the editor after finding the content too strong, changed it to “Don’t settle for less than a calling”. Thereafter, I have regularly come across 2-3 US-based websites every year, which talk of frustration in the wrong career even, if, in some cases it pays off well. One website I came across last week is UK centric and is called www.careershifters.org. Some of the terms used in this website like switch doctors, switch surgeries apart from giving ‘inspiring real life stories’ also reflect the magnitude of the problem. Several career coaches or switch doctors have written several articles on the subject. Some of them are drastic career switches from what they were earlier doing or qualified.

One of the links from this site leads to http://www.escape-club.org/ the objective of which reads something like this: “Are you a successful professional, but bored or unhappy with your work? Do you want to be more fulfilled and feel that your work actually has an impact? We believe that you can ‘escape’ to work that is meaningful, and want to help you a identify what is the work that would bring you more fulfilment and overall happiness, create an action plan to help you get the work.” It really reminds me of the movie The great escape. In one cover story of Fortune magazine, one executive was quoted as saying, “You get to the top of the ladder and find that maybe it’s leaning against the wrong building.”. This clearly shows that just being well qualified and reaching the top does not lead to the kind of personal fulfilment that should normally be the end result of by product of success. There is plenty of evidence to show that in the long run, people look more for meaningful work than mere monetary reward. Reminds one of the interesting saying “Work is what you do to make the money to do what you really want to do.”

One has to be able to identify one’s true calling as early as possible. IIM Lucknow professor, Debashish Chatterjee in his book Break free states that to identify one’s true talent, one has to go back to one’s school days and determine what activity they enjoyed the most during leisure, to find out whether one could carry out this activity for a long period of time and determine whether or not this activity made you truly happy. Professor Chatterjee’s views are in congruence with what many American psychologists have to say on the subject. The teacher’s role should be geared more towards this when a child is more in the seed form rather than blindly stuffing knowledge.

One wonders if the biblical parable of the sower and the seed can be applied to different kinds of individuals in terms of their learning styles and how a standard education system can be redundant. In the parable it is said that some seeds scattered by the farmer fell on the wayside and were devoured by the birds; some fell on stony places where they could not build sufficient root and withered when the sun shone; some fell among thorns, which grew up and choked them but some fell on good ground where they grew and bore fruit. A child is like a seed and this is what can happen to the seed if it falls in the wrong place in terms of a wrong career and of the wrong learning style that has been vividly described above. Once again, the words of Wipro chairman Azim Premji come to mind. Imagine a school, which sees children as seeds to be nurtured — here the teacher is a gardener who tries to bring out the potential already present in the child. This is very different from the current view, which sees the child as clay to be moulded where the teachers and parents are potters deciding what shape the clay should take.” Enforcing a standard education system on children to whom it does not apply is bound to have disastrous results. There is an old Chinese saying, “Give a seed to a potter and you shall have a bonsai.”

From the suicide statistics, it almost seems that instead of a seed, a child is treated like a weed in our society. About 2,500 years ago, Socrates said that education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. According to Prof Chatterjee, the difference between a candle and a flame is the difference between a resource and a source. A resource reduces when shared and a source gets augmented when shared. A candle is a good source but is burnt out. On the other hand , a flame can alight a million other flames, which is what can happen in the long run when a seed is given the right kind of environment.

Lead India; don’t Bleed India

This article is published in the March’2008 issue of the magazine Management compass

What is an idea without execution?

RK Mishra’s readiness to get hands dirty made him Lead India winner

The lead India campaign launched by The Times of India to provide an alternative platform for those desirous of joining politics culminated on February 9, 2007 when RK Mishra from Bangalore was declared winner and Dewang Nanavati was declared the runner up. The manner in which the entire campaign was conducted and the kind of response it drew made it seem that the process itself was the biggest winner. No wonder former President Abdul Kalam declared, “Lead India is the best movement I have come across in the recent past.”

Victory apart, Mr Mishra has an interesting profile and is quite a role model for young people. Born in 1965, he is an ME graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Having been a successful entrepreneur, he left the lucrative corporate world in 2005 to bring about large-scale social change. Mishra specialises in policy planning and investments and works with the governments of Karnataka and Rajasthan among others. He is obsessed with making a difference in infrastructure and rural education, as reflected in his blog http://rajendramisra.blogspot.com.

What clinched the victory was a plan that he outlined to set up a co-operative dairy farm to transform the life in the village where he was born. He presented a well thought- out plan with time-bound targets and actionable goals, which impressed both the audience and the jury. The Times of India further reports, “The combination of Mishra’s story — rags to riches to social service — and his successful track record both as serial entrepreneur and activist proved to be unbeatable. His ability to think big, coupled with his willingness to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty, made a big impact in the one sided 6-1 verdict.”

He reminds you of Shah Rukh Khan’s role in Swades, where he plays an NRI who becomes determined to help bring prosperity to his village. Around the time the movie was released, India Today, in one of its issues, highlighted how some other NRIs in reality were actually doing the same thing. It is not everyday that real life follows reel life in such matters and it should form a complete virtuous circle when they are again highlighted on reel — on television. Shah Rukh had said in one of his interviews, “It takes a show off to be a show on.” Who would have known about Mishra if Lead India and TV had not highlighted him. Such committed people can do a world of good to politics.

Both the winner and the runner-up complimented each other’s strengths. Nanavati conceded that “RK is a doer, not a talker” which probably gave him the edge. Mishra acknowledged Nanavati’s skills “Dewang argues his case well. I must learn from him.” Their comments reminds one of the Japanese proverb “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” Articulating one’s vision effectively and implementing the same are equally important. Even venture capitalists say that they fund teams and execution, not ideas. Our entrepreneurs are now being respected in boardrooms and markets all over the world for their ability to combine vision and ambition with execution. There is no reason why it should be different in politics; the hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh made an interesting remark
“Lead India is a very good concept. But it deals with the classes. Only when these finalists have their share of blending with the masses, will a real leader emerge.” Being proved competent is one thing but that need not always translate into votes. Former Pakistani captain Imran Khan is a case in point. Being a national icon because of being a very good all rounder and a great cricket captain, who won them the world cup in 1992, he also took the initiative of having a cancer hospital constructed, which also won him a lot of appreciation. But when he joined active politics, he could not translate his achievements into votes. Even accounting for the fact that Pakistan is not really a successful democracy, one cannot take the voters or a mass base for granted.

Talking of Pakistan in this context brings to mind Fatima Bhutto, the daughter of Murtaza and grand daughter of former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. An established newspaper columnist in her own right, this is what Fatima had to say about dynastic politics after the recent death of her aunt, Benazir, “The idea that it has to be a Bhutto, I think, is a dangerous one. It doesn’t benefit Pakistan. It doesn’t benefit a party that’s supposed to be run on democratic lines and it doesn’t benefit us as citizens if we think only about personalities and not about platforms.” She also rejected her own claim to the Bhutto legacy. The Times initiative has created a kind of alternative platform of sorts in India at least and it is only a matter of time before other personalities emerge.

In India’s context, a prominent former US secretary of state had once said, “The most powerful job in the world is that of the president of the United states but the most difficult job in the world is that of the prime minister of India.” He probably said that because of the different kinds of diversities that we have in India which can make a politician’s job tougher and implies the need for really talented people. Whether somebody should come from a political family or not, he should be and seen to be competent. Ability should be supported by visibility and the Lead India has shown how TV can be used effectively for this to fructify.

One of the best performing politicians in recent times has been Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. Being a Delhi based Gujarati, one cannot know the ground reality in Gujarat but whenever I go to Ahmedabad, I am amazed at the kind of popular support he enjoys. The people there not only keep reiterating that he knows how to run the government but also speak about his clean image. Having won the election for the third time in succession, he has proved that the anti-incumbency syndrome can be an exception, not the rule. The February 18 latest issue of India Today has reported that voters across the country voted him as the best chief minister. Though 77 per cent of the voters in Gujarat rated him the best chief minister ever, he got a nationwide approval rating of 19 per cent and polled double the number of votes than his nearest rival, UP chief minister Mayawati. This shows that for people, development and not emotive issues is the prime agenda. Maybe television could also be used to highlight the good points of Modi’s governance for everybody’s benefit, just as young MBAs used to go to Karasanbhai Patel’s Nirma once upon a time to learn about how it took on Hindustan lever.

Unfortunately, unlike the two major forces that unite India, Bollywood and cricket, politics is not transparent enough for the wrong kind of people to be weeded out. Unlike the corporate world, where in addition to short and long term goals, job description, competencies and role analysis are identified and followed up by performance management, nothing like that takes place in politics, which is strange because the scale of operations and implications are far greater in a country than a company. One gets to read several newspaper reports that the public in the US is not only disenchanted with President Bush but also dissatisfied with the kind of leadership options that they have in the current Presidential elections. When people like Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj singh can be criticised strongly for non-performance, there should be no scope for poor performance in politics even in the short term and there should be a mechanism for removing non performers instead of waiting for five years. Such mechanisms should also prevent them from taking grossly unpopular moves like the Iraq war for instance.

At the same time, one should have realistic expectations from politicians. The book Mind of a Manager, Soul of a Leader says that charismatic leaders get organisations started and then pass on the baton to the bureaucrats, professionals or scientific managers who can run them. In the BJP, while Vajpayee is credited with brilliant oratory and charisma, it is Advani who is perceived as the capable organisation man. Thought leadership and executive leadership does not necessarily have to emanate from the same person. There should be a proper follow —through to ensure that they are performing to their potential.

Modi had said in one of his interviews that development without security does not have much meaning. In a similar vein, talent without transparency does not have much meaning. In the past 15 years, business has increasingly discovered the virtues of good governance, not necessarily because of a sudden stab of conscience, but because of the premium that foreign investors place on transparency Why should voters not do the same? In the age of mass communication, if the media does not make latent political talent transparent, who will? Lead India is an effective rebuttal to those who say that the media only focuses on negative events. The rest of the media should follow the lead of The Times of India, which in turn should also try to highlight non —performers — Lead India; don’t Bleed India.

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In my original submission to the editor, I had mentioned in the context of different thought and executive leaderhship that the current ruling party team of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh also reperesent different leaderships. While Mrs Gandhi can sway the masses with the background of her political legacy of the Gandhi family, Mr Manmohan singh is the head of the government on merit. The orator/charmer/rabble rouser does not have to be a part of the govt and vice versa. One can only hope for the day, when like our cricket and filmstars, politicians too acquire a mass base on good governance instead of parochial emotive issues or diversities fuelled by the illiteracy of our masses.

For those interested I had also covered Talent Management in Politics in my earlier article Pahle Aandhi Phir Gandhi published in the same magazine in October’2007.

Ability and Visibility- Education and Training

This article is published in the March’2008 of the Education magazine Educare.

Style and substance

Skills that you need to work upon to succeed in life

In my previous article, I had tried to bring to light certain wrong perceptions connected to practical life that may aggravate the already over-stressed students. It was more focused on negatives -what to avoid doing. This article is about positives — what to do to be abreast of the realities of practical life in the current world.

When I did my postgraduate management course in 1991 from the International Management Institute, one of the first golden thumb rules that we were taught in the corporate context was “Produce that which can be sold and not sell what you have produced”. It seems that management institutes are violating this principle because a lot of institutes are coming up to promote employability training or employability enhancing to supplement the efforts of conventional education, which is proving to be grossly inadequate.

The situation is best explained by one such company, Hero Mindmine’s employability enhancement module on their website www.heromindime.com :-

Hero Mindmine’s finishing school initiative got born out of one of India’s most recalcitrant problems - the dearth of employable talent, despite huge numbers of engineers and MBAs graduating from thousands of institutions. This problem has assumed dangerous proportions now and threatens to jeopardise the very growth of the Indian industry and economy.

Researches carried out by several independent agencies, including NASSCOM and CapitalH, have all converged to the conclusion that the professionally-educated Indian fresh talents (engineers, MBAs etc.) display severe competence handicap in areas that are most critical for entry level positions in jobs.

Apart from gaps in technical, subject related skills and knowledge, there are glaring soft-skills and personality-linked inadequacies in the young professionals, which hinders their ability to comprehend their roles in the correct perspective and therefore impacts their professional performance in their first job.

Hero Mindmine and CapitalH together have created and tested a slew of highly-focused and effective employability enhancement programmes for graduating engineers and MBAs. These programmes run parallel to the academic activities of a student and clinically focus on developing her exactly in the areas that a typical entry-level job in a large organisation demands.

Using specially-developed training and skill-building techniques and methodologies, Hero Mindmine trainers carefully guide students away from theory and into the application environment. Numerous top recruiters have responded extremely favourably to this initiative and Hero Mindmine plans to launch the finishing school concept in selected engineering and business management institutions.

Another module explains how the IT Employment Suitability Test (ITEST), based on assessments in nine critical employability dimensions, aims at testing the employability of fresh engineers in the IT Industry. Similarly, the BizTest assesses fresh MBAs on five general parameters and five function-specific parameters to spot the best available talent among students.

It almost seems that they are running some kind of parallel education, which is more skill and talent than knowledge-oriented or in the exact words used above, the aim is “to guide students away from theory and into the application environment.”

In addition to saying the same thing about the inadequacy in the above mentioned skills in students for entry level jobs, another company, www.astrumonline.com goes a step further in its section on youth training:

Astrum’s experience in working with corporates provides it the unique advantage of understanding the industry expectations from the new joinees and training them even before they are employed through mid-to-long-term phased interventions across India. We are also designing and delivering faculty development programmes at various educational institutes. This is something like the cart pulling the horse; they are trying to influence conventional education.

I had the privilege of spending a couple of days with Astrum in an engineering institute on the outskirts of Faridabad. They had modules on communication skills, which involved ex-tempore public speaking, creative writing, mock interviews, group discussions etc, and last but not the least, problem solving in maths. When I expressed surprise that third and fourth year engineering students were doing problems which I do with my 12-year-old son who is in class VII, one student told me that it is not that they don’t know these things but they are expected to be direct and fast in solving problems. The emphasis was on speed along with accuracy and another issue was that they were a little out of touch as they had not done such problems since high school. The speed and accuracy reminded me of my practical management course where they tried to cover the entire MBA curriculum in nine months. The idea, they said, was to simulate real life situations where one has to think on one’s feet with little time and sometimes limited information. That turned out to be true because practical management life is a lot like one-day cricket.

That apart, I have seen engineers in my working life who don’t have what is called commercial sense or financial savvy, which dents their career prospects considerably. In previous articles, I have referred to my super efficient boss, an engineer-MBA who got several double promotions and then went on to establish a business of his own; in my last meeting he told me how he had joined a software company run by four engineers as they still felt uncomfortable with balance sheets despite practical experience of years of operation.

Where English in general and as one of the favorable legacies of the British rule is concerned, it is perhaps the shortsightedness of the education system that even so many years after independence, even though we have English as one of the main mediums of imparting education, students passing out of colleges are not confident of communicating fluently. This is because colloquial English is quite different from English as an education imparting tool and can be learnt only by practising conversational speaking and writing in English, which in many semi-urban and rural parts of India is more an exception than a rule.

The English barrier can be quite a formidable. My father, a chartered accountant who passed out in 1963, told me once how even after years of apprenticeship in CA, in his first job, he did not initially have the confidence to dictate letters and would write the whole letter himself before reading it out, which wasted a lot of time. One of his assistants, who is a brilliant accountant, is still not able to write simple inter-office memos properly or able to lead English speaking people under her, which affects her career prospects adversely, apart from causing inter-personal problems. When my father got transferred in 1972, as a seven-year-old, I was catapulted to upper middle class Delhi from lower middle class Bombay and it took me 11 years to break the English barrier despite studying in one of the best schools and staying in a posh locality. My mother-in-law, even at 70, laments not being able to communicate in English when both her English speaking daughters concede that she is far more versatile than them. An extremely active social worker, it is as if not knowing English nullifies her achievements. My son studies in Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, where Hindi is the medium of education till secondary school, after which English takes over for both the local and global effect.

The problem these days is that with business process outsourcing proving to be India’s core-competence and with all the multinationals coming to India because of the economic boom, English has become an absolute necessity. In China, English has been made compulsory from kindergarten. That itself shows how the stock of English as an International link language has grown considerably over the past few years. The problem is not just communication skills. One of the faculties at Astrum pointed out to me that some of the engineers in the rural and semi-urban areas were good technically but would not even read the newspaper regularly, with the result that they had very little to contribute in a group discussion of substance, which could make them feel alienated and out of place in the current work ambience. That makes it more of a culture problem as well. Both form and content or style and substance have to improve and they have to be encouraged to be well read as well.

Some institutes believe in tackling the problem from a young age. Dinesh Victor, the managing director of Chennai-based SIP academy, says, “The latest findings in the growing body of medical research on early brain development reveal that social sensory experiences during the early years have a direct effect on children’s capacity to learn in the future. The findings confirm that early interactions and experiences play a vital role in brain development. Our programmes help in brain development in children, who are just beginning to learn and discover. This is only possible by making both sides of the brain to work, so that any major puzzle can be solved in seconds.” According to their website, their SIP Abacus and Brain Gym programme, is currently available in eight countries, in which more than 2,50,000 children have benefited across 1,000 learning centres. In India since 2002 more than 50,000 children were trained in 20 states by October 2007 and they plan to penetrate the smaller towns to help children improve life skills.

Their Global art programme aims at developing the artistic and creative potential of children. The SIPAmal programme (accelerated mental learning) recognises that each of us has a preferred way of learning that suits us best. When you learn the techniques that exactly match your personal learning style, you will be learning in the way that is most natural for you. Bill Gates has mentioned this in one of his books. Because it is natural, it is easier; because it is easier, it is faster. Accelerated Mental Learning uses the five senses of the children to develop and balance their mental, physical, social interaction, emotional, personality and self-confidence. It also helps children to overcome
‘numeric phobia’ and enhance their confidence towards their academic excellence. Their mikids and orator programmes are geared towards developing language skills. In Delhi, a programme with the same objectives is conducted by http://www.creativeeducationalaids.com/.

The world famous authority on thinking, Edward de Bono has explained in his wonderful book Teach your Child How to Think, how thinking is a skill which needs to be imparted instead of blindly stuffing facts and information. A good intellectual is not necessarily a good thinker and it is one’s thought process that can differentiate in the internet era where knowledge is easily available. Analysing uniquely well or having a good synergistic understanding of one’s subject with other factors is what is needed than mere knowledge of facts. It seems that this parallel system of education is more geared to achieve all this. Some of their techniques also enhance memory, concentration and application skills, which actually give an insight into the child’s innate potential which is the main purpose of education.

Where communication is concerned, it is up to the students to decide where they want to end up. Some of the Pakistani cricket captains, though equally great in terms of ability vis-à-vis their Indian counterparts, have cut a sorry figure in the post-match presentations because of their inability to communicate effectively. One excellent example from the cricketing world is our current one-day captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Considering the fact that he comes from a lower middle class background from a small town, he speaks very well and can be a role model in this context for similar people with rural and semi urban backgrounds.

Though having communicating ability without the requisite intelligence is actually missing the wood for the trees, in practical life, vice-versa can be equally dangerous. One has to know how to project and sell oneself, as ability without visibility has no meaning. One can flatter to deceive badly and fatally — that first impression can turn out to be the last impression.

Testing times

This article is published in the February issue of the Education magazine, Educare.

Testing times

Unrealistic expectations drive students to drastic steps, including suicide

March 2006 reported four suicides related to the board exams in New Delhi in a very short time span. In March 2005, six students took their lives a fortnight before the board exams, 300 others reportedly attempted to commit suicide and 70 per cent of the students were reported to be suffering from stress and anxiety. In Surat, two out of three girls who attempted suicide died. In March 2004, two Calcutta based students committed suicide within a span of a week because of being unable to bear the stress of exams.
Year after year, one gets to read news like this in the month of March. One wonders whether the battle against the board exams has been able to march forward or not. NCERT has recommended steps like provision for retaking the exam in a short span, using words other than “fail” to reduce stigma and avoid complete demoralisation, reform the examination system and remodel the question paper to test creativity and application of mind, have flexible time during the exams, use grading system instead of marks, have counsellors interact with students, teachers and parents, provide for one teacher
from each school to be given short term training for stress related problems etc.

While all these steps are very welcome, one wonders if they strike at the root of the problem. The fear of the boards is largely a fear of not doing well in life because in the ultimate analysis, the exam is a means to an end. Just as cricketers require match practice to simulate real match situations in addition to net practice for the real matches, education of practical life situations is a must as the exams come more in the category of net practice. One article on board exam suicides spoke of the need for emotional intelligence, but in my view, there should be more education on how practical life functions because that is the real thing. It may sound fancy to say that there is more to life than exams but what it means in reality is that some foolish perceptions related to the exams and practical life should also be reviewed by the students, parents, teachers and society at large.

From the life success perspective, the perception that the whole future of the student hinges on one exam is like saying that the entire batting hinges on the opening batsmen in cricket. In an article in India Today some years back, this is what the then vice chancellor, Delhi University, Deepak Nayyar had to say, “It’s like the Last Chance Saloon, there is no second choice. Class XII is looked upon as the end of the world. Some of the greatest innovative successes in the world have happened because people followed their heart, pursued their passion and brought about something new the formal education of which was obviously non-existent at that time. I gave the example of Henri Ford in my previous writeup. In the modern world, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, the google founders all come in that category. All three left formal education to pursue their dream.

This should also serve as a lesson for those parents who try to impose their dreams on their child. Everybody cannot follow their heart like the above gentlemen but giving over importance to formal education is also not correct. You may prove to be good at the real thing. I also read about a couple of Nobel prize winners explaining how formal education would have been a liability instead of an asset in their case because lack of structured thinking facilitated creative ideas. This maybe an exception rather than the rule but puts things in perspective because ultimately, creative ideas in any field lead to grand success.
Nayyar further added, “It would be terrible in the world if everyone stood first or everyone was outstanding.” I met one such super achiever in management whom I consider my best boss. After getting three double promotions and rising to become CEO from assistant manager in just one year, he outclassed the chairman and went on to set up a big project consultancy business within a span of few years and further diversified into hotels and BPOs. Since there were four others from the same institute, it would have created a lot of office politics and friction had he not been obviously outstanding and his leadership straightaway accepted by the others. It is a good thing that providence does not make people equally talented as otherwise, if people continuously try to outdo one another, nothing concrete could be achieved.

That apart, there are some practical constraints to be kept in mind even if one’s child becomes a super achiever. The same boss mentioned above, who had the all round excellence gave equal partnerships to all partners when he started his business though he could have easily got the lion’s share. In his own words this was because “he could not be at all places at all times”. He achieved more in three years than people do in ten because of this wisdom in addition to business smartness. Everybody may not be able to follow this example but certain realities of practical life have to be taken into account before setting individual goals. I met one gentleman on the Tennis court who claimed to be a super achiever in sports; he said that he was good at all racquet games and was selected for his school in all three- Table Tennis, Badminton and Lawn Tennis but he had to drop Table Tennis as its tournaments were clashing with the other two. In his autobiography A double life, former Lintas chairman Alyque Padamsee explains the practical problems on perusing two careers throughout life. Even within the right career, it is better if one is in the right sub-vocation. Charles Dickens found no success as a playwright despite great effort. Author of innumerable children’s books, Enid Blyton admitted that if she had to write an article she would find it difficult. Our own VVS Laxman enjoys an awesome reputation against the best cricket team in the world, Australia but is overlooked for one- day cricket and has not played a single world cup.

This reminds me of some parents’ obsession of making “all rounders” of their children.
A six year child’s schedule was mentioned in an article on raising superkids: 9-2 school, 3.30-4.30 tuition, 5-6 Lawn Tennis classes, 6-7 Guitar class, homework upto 9, after which thankfully he retires to bed. He also attends special three-hour maths classes during weekends. This hardly leaves any scope for childhood experiences or knowing the child’s innate potential. Practical life looks more for well-rounded teams and well-rounded individuals with specified niches, instead of super all rounders. In cricket, genuinely good all rounders as a percentage of total cricketers is very low. Only Imran Khan has the unique record of being very good all rounder and a great captain. Some years ago, Rahul Dravid mentioned in an interview how young people try to start as all rounders but when they come across a tough wicket, they realise that bowling is not their cup of tea. When one thinks of India’s great all rounders, only Kapil Dev and Vinoo Mankad come to mind. Recently, even after getting a test hundred, Irfaan Pathan said that he had the makings of a consistent good all rounder only in the long run. It is better to be a well-rounded person knowing your niche rather than an all marauding super all rounder. Jack of all, master of none does not mean anything in today’s world.

Instead of striving for all round excellence, it is better make an inventory of one’s talents and interests and focus on that. In my August 2007 article Livelihood, a lively way, I have given several examples how very well qualified people also choose a completely different career because that is where their passion lies. Sometimes, the new careers lack both status and money compared to the previous ones. There are 11 similar articles on my blog- http://mypyp.wordpress.com/.

Since a majority of examples are American, the views of an Indian, Virendra Kapoor, who is on the HR committee of CII, are worth noting. This is what he has written in his wonderful book, Passion Quotient: The Greatest Secret of Success. “I met one fellow who had done his electrical engineering and today he is a top criminal lawyer. I asked him how did this happen. In very simple words he said that after graduating from IIT, he worked for a good MNC for three years, was earning a good pay packed but was not really enjoying his job. So he did his LLB and then LLM and has been practicing law for more than fifteen years. You therefore see chartered accountants as successful film directors, mathematics professors turning into great actors or doctors becoming top cops.”

One has to know correctly where one’s talents and interest lie and follow that wholeheartedly, instead of being obsessed with degrees. This is what Gita Piramal has to say on one super achiever in real life, the late Dhirubhai Ambani in her book Business Maharahas. “Ambani’s single mindedness is legendary and he is proud of it. In his own words, ‘I am not a director in other companies. I am not actively participating in any associations or anything else. My whole thinking, one hundred percent of my time, from morning till evening, is about how to do better and better at Reliance. No art previews, no theatre, no films and he rarely used to switch his CD player.” Contrary to this, my father, a CA who turned around a sick company, had this to say of his would-be partner constantly attending mourning functions because of his vast social network, “How can one function if one attends so many functions. If he continues like this, he may have to mourn for his own company one day.”

Apart from the perception of super achievement, a lot many exam related fears are there because of fear of degrees and qualifications. One reads about students killing themselves for not getting a degree of a top institute of their choice. Dhirubhai’s views on that are worth noting. Though they got the best people for technical jobs, on the management side Piramal writes, “The Ambanis don’t rely on paper qualifications. On the contrary, whoever shows initiative gets the job. Reliance’s first marketing manger used to sell petroleum products. Its knitting manager used to be an auto parts salesman.”

The objective of this article is not to undermine formal education but to convey that practical life can be a great leveller and therefore, blind fear or obsession of qualifications does not help in the long run. In the same India Today article it is stated that the problem is that Indian schools teach to produce outstanding students and the uniformity doesn’t accept the average students but puts them through the same obstacles as the high performers do. This can be a problem because the same teaching process need not suit everyone. I heard the great Jimmy Connors say in a video cassette on Tennis, “There is no right or wrong way to play Tennis. It is a matter of what suits you.” Even in cricket Virendra Sehwag and MS Dhoni have succeeded despite having totally unconventional techniques. Dhirubhai Ambani’s success was also more because of unconventional, out of the box thinking than anything else.

Many people who do not do so well academically display pretty practical intelligence in real life. The analyst in a theoretical course need not excel in real life. Prasanna Raman, a software engineer in Bangalore invented a video analysis system for the Indian cricket team and gradually became the technical head of the National cricket academy and computer analyst for the under 19 time. The cricketer or manager, on the other hand need not be a good analyst. Some, like our current captain Anil Kumble maybe good at both-as player and student of the game. Some may decide that their real talent and passion lies somewhere else. Here too, practical life maybe a great leveller. Society should also stop judging people in terms of degrees alone and look for the individual beyond the qualification. What he can actually do well in a sustained manner in practical life is more important that what his degree reveals.

The current education system caters more to the auditory and visual learner (learning through seeing and listening respectively) than the kinesthetic or tactile learners who learn better with a more hands-on approach. Training institutions are proliferating currently who can perhaps provide practical training through workshops to those who may want to learn through a more hands on approach alongside their jobs rather than a purely theoretical course. Practical life is quite different from student life and runs more on this principle by the great Chinese philosopher, Confucius “Tell me and I will Forget, show me and I will remember, involve me and I will understand.”

Dignified in defeat

This article is published in the February edition of the magazine, Management Compass

Defeat march

Bow out gracefully, and register a lasting positive impression in people’s mind

In the final of the Television dance programme Nach Baliye III, after Rakhi Sawant and her partner Abhishek lost, they faded away in the background and didn’t return to show up as runners-up. They neither congratulated the winners nor thought it necessary to be courteous to judges, who had encouraged them all along. Cinestar Salman Khan also had to comment that winning and losing is a part of life and they should show some sportsman spirit. In the other dance programme, Jhalak dikhla jaa, all the three judges spoke very highly of Sandhya Mridul throughout the programme but she still lost to Prachi Desai. Last year, it was more or less the same scenario, where, despite the judges speaking very highly of Shweta Salve, she still lost to Mona Singh. Both Shweta and Sandhya were more dignified in defeat. Why is one person able to take defeat so graciously and not everybody?

Talking of sportsman spirit brings to mind one of the finest sportsmen India produced, Tennis ace Vijay Amritraj. Though he was extremely talented and gave some of the most established players a run for their money in his time, he never ever won a single grand slam. Whenever he is asked whether or not he regretted it, his reply is, “That would be looking at the glass half empty. I try to look at it as glass half full. The atmosphere and the ambience at Wimbledon makes participation itself a great achievement.” In this context, one can also mention former cricket captain Sourav Ganguly. After being dropped from the Indian cricket team for poor batting form, it took him almost a year and a half to make a comeback. Considering that he had been playing for almost a decade and in the last five years as captain, being dropped must have been a huge disappointment. It is like a managing director of a company being removed and asked to try to rejoin along with other trainees in full public glare. Though in some quarters, he is deemed the greatest cricket captain ever, in metal strength and resilience, his stock he is even higher. If this is dadagiri (Ganguly is often referred to as dada), I am all for it.

Sawant hardly has such a reputation to speak of. Maybe, she could learn a thing or two from Amritraj. In the good old days when only Doordarshan was there or before that, a talented dancer could not even dream of such platforms to showcase her talent. That apart, despite the proliferation of reality shows on television, when one considers India’s total population, the percentage of people who actually get to display their talent is still abysmally small. One should consider oneself fortunate if one is able to participate and even if defeated, be thankful for the experience which is what Shweta Salve did when she said the despite the fact that she lost, this was her first big exposure despite trying for several years. One should also keep in mind that this is a reality show and though they are indicative of popularity, they may not reflect real merit. Lots of bad commercial films are hits and good art films struggle at the box office. In the practical world, a good actor like Govinda may do better commercially than a brilliant actor like Naseeruddin Shah but that cannot obviously be the sole criteria for judgment of success. Everything that is good is not necessarily successful and vice- versa. Though god alone how much of that applies to Ms Sawant, she could have also taken solace from that fact.

Apart from artists, scientists and inventors too are known for their patience and persistence. When a young reporter asked how it felt to fail 2000 times before he got the light bulb to work, Thomas Edison replied “ I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000 step process”. This was rephrasing the experience in a way which reveals a positive attitude that enables such persistence. The Wright brothers had to try 805 times before they could achieve sustained flight. When he was constructing a rocket that the Germans hoped would destroy London and end World war II, Wemher von Braun was asked how many changes he had sent to the factories, the ridiculous figure was 65,121. Van braun acknowledged so many mistakes and estimated that it would take 5000 more before the rocket was ready. It takes real passion to go through all this and one wonders whether his bosses would have had second thoughts had they known it would take so many trials. All these people really live up to the famous saying “Failure is the stepping stone to
success”

In this context, the most famous management example that comes to mind is that of Lee Iacocca, who was President of the Ford Motor Company before being humiliated and fired by Henri Ford II. The change in circumstances would have broken a lesser man. His new office at the Chrysler corporation was in a small cubicle in a warehouse with cracked linoleum floor and two plastics cups on his table. In contrast, at Ford, he was served by white collar workers at his huge, spacious office. This particular chapter of his autobiography makes the most compelling reading on how he motivated himself and bit by bit, step by step was able to gradually turn around Chrysler and become a national hero. He was even considered an ideal candidate for the Presidency of the United states for quite some time. None of this would have been possible had he not been able to keep his chin up when he was down in the dumps.

It would be a gross injustice if one were not to take an example from politics. The obvious example that comes to mind is the most revered President of United States, Abraham Lincoln. He failed in business at the age of 21 ; was defeated in a legislative race at age 22; failed again in business at age 24; overcame the death of his sweetheart at age 26; had a nervous breakdown at age 27; lost a congressional race at age 34; lost a senatorial race at age 45; failed in an effort to become vice-president at age 47; lost a senatorial race at age 49; and was elected president of the United States at age 52.. To face serious health, relationship repeated occupation failures and yet rise to the highest office in the land over a stretch of 32 years is a fantastic achievement. Another of their greatest Presidents Franklin. D, Roosevelt who is remembered for his leadership during both the great depression and World War II. He was stricken with Polio when he was 39. Yet he remained active in politics and was elected thrice the President of United States of America, the only President to be elected three times.

Talking of the handicapped President brings to mind Helen Adams Keller , the first deaf-blind person to graduate from college who went on to become an author, activist and lecturer. Her sight and hearing were destroyed by brain fever before she was two.. She was living as a deaf-mute apart from being blind. After her teacher Annie Sullivan was able to make contact with her mind through the sense of touch, she could read and write in Braille within three years. Though she could talk only in sign language upto the age of ten, her determination to speak enabled her to enter preparatory school by the time she was sixteen. She lectured on behalf of the blind and the deaf in more than twenty five countries and her books are best sellers and translated in more than fifty languages. On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Helen Keller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States’ highest two civilian honors and in 1965 ,she was elected to the Women’s Hall of Fame at the New York World’s Fair.

The movie “Black” was inspired by her life . Nobody can guarantee long term commercial success as it depends upon the forces of demand and supply which is probably why the Bhagvad Gita advises to act but not be obsessed with the fruits of the action. However, being able to take setbacks in one’s stride improves one’s chances with factors that are in one’s control. Transitory periods of set backs in between may seem like eternity but they maybe life’s way of molding us for a higher purpose for the next phase of our lives. Just as a lower bottom in the stock market can result in a higher top in the long run if taken positively, unless short term failures are taken in the right spirit and attempts are made to learn from them, one’s long term future can be precisely like the movie-Black.

Aamir Khan’s “Taare Zameen Par”

This article is published in the January’2008 edition of the education magazine “Educare”

Aamir Khan’s latest film raises very crucial questions

The film Taare Zameen par is a sensitive portrayal of the ordeal of a dyslexic child, Ishaan Awasthi, whose abnormal behaviour is misunderstood and mistaken to be something else both by his teachers and parents. Unaware of dyslexia, they think that he is lazy, stupid, naughty and even arrogant on occasions. Dyslexia is a neurological language processing disorder that affects a student’s ability to process written and spoken information. Students with dyslexia have difficulty pronouncing words, repeating phrases that are spoken to them, understanding the meaning from spoken phrases, and following detailed instructions. They particularly have difficulty in distinguishing similar sounding words and letters.

Ishaan’s agony and ordeal is reduced and gradually overcome when, in the form of Aamir Khan (Ram Shankar Nikumbh in the movie), he meets a teacher who has himself suffered from the problem as a child and is therefore, able to guide him correctly. He is able to draw the attention of both the parents and other teachers on the right focus - on what Ishaan can do or his strengths, rather than his weaknesses. After building his self- confidence by drawing out the painter in him, he gradually manages to reduce the child’s weaknesses through other unique teaching techniques.

Aamir Khan’s first directorial venture does a very good job of highlighting the real and ideal direction of education - drawing out innate potential rather than blindly stuffing facts. Since the film brings that out very well, Azim Premji’s words in my earlier article “Teacher, educate thyself” are worth repeating:-

“The primary purpose of a school is to guide the child’s discovery of herself and her world and to identify and mature the child’s talents. Just as each seed contains the future tree, each child is born with infinite potential.” In the article, he suggested that many teachers and parents try to be potters instead of gardeners in moulding their children’s future. Imagine a school which sees children as seeds to be nurtured - here the teacher is a gardener who tries to bring out the potential already present in the child.
In that article, I had mentioned some famous dyslexics in passing reference, which are mentioned as examples in the movie. Their details are engrossing:

Loenardo Da Vinci: a great painter, designer, scientist, futurist and thinker. Most of the time, he wrote his notes backwards, which is exhibited with a mirror in the movie by Aamir. Although unusual, this is a trait shared by many left-handed dyslexic people. Leonardo’s spelling was also considered erratic and quite strange. He also started many more projects then he ever finished - a characteristic now often considered to be ‘ADD’ or attention deficit disorder. However, when it came to drawing illustrations, Leonardo’s work is detailed and precise. Loenardo’s words are revealing: “You should prefer a good scientist without literary abilities than a literate one without scientific skills.”

Thomas Edison, the famous inventor: he was noted to be terrible at mathematics, unable to focus, and had difficulty with words and speech. He was unable to read until he was 12 and his writing skills were poor throughout his life. His teacher thought him to be mentally ill. His mother withdrew the child from school and taught him herself. In his own words “My teachers say I’m addled . . . my father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided I must be a dunce.”

Albert Einstein, history’s most prominent scientist: he could not talk until the age of four. He did not learn to read until he was nine. His teachers considered him slow, unsociable and a dreamer. He failed the entrance examinations to college but finally passed after an additional year of preparation. He lost three teaching positions and then became a paten clerk. In his own words “Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater.” He also said, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”

Pablo Picasso the famous painter: his dyslexia made school difficult, and Pablo never really benefited from school or learning. Dyslexia troubled Picasso for the rest of his long life. Pablo’s father taught art, this got him interested in painting. Picasso also painted because he was born with an ability to see people the way they wanted to be seen, the way they were seen, and the special way Picasso saw them. In his own words, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” That is possible only if children realise their innate potential or essence as very few have multi-dimensional talent.

Picasso’s story is closest to what is shown in the movie. Ishaan is shown to be a very good painter despite being a severe dyslexic, a fact that is highlighted when Aamir joins the school as a temporary arts teacher. The manner in which Ishaan is shown staring out of the window on occasions reminds one of an extract of Osho’s discourse:

“The teacher goes on telling to the small children, ‘Give attention to me. Be attentive.’ They are attentive. But they are attentive somewhere else. A cuckoo is crying his heart outside the school building and the child is attentive. Nobody can say that he is not attentive. Nobody can say that he is not meditative. Nobody can say that he is in deep concentration. He is. In fact, he has completely forgotten the teacher and the arithmetic that he is doing on the board. He is completely oblivious. He is completely possessed by the cuckoo. The child is attentive. It is happening naturally. Listening to the cuckoo he is happy. The teacher is distracting and the teacher says that you are not attentive. He is simply stating a lie. The child was attentive. The cuckoo was more attractive to him. The teacher was not so attractive. The arithmetic has no such appeal. But we are not all born to be mathematicians. There are few children who will not be interested in the cuckoo.The cuckoo may go on madder and madder and they will be attentive to the blackboard. Then Arithmetic is for them. Then they have a meditation, a natural meditative state ”

Since every weak child is hardly likely to become an Edison or an Einstein, there should be special education on how they fit in. Since many of these great people struggled in humble skills, humble talents should not be taken for granted. The Gallup corporation in its book “First, break all the rules” highlights examples of waiters, bartenders, housekeepers, nurses, data entry operators etc as to how the best were different from the rest even in minor jobs and were compensated highly without necessarily being promoted, if they did not have the talent for man management. The best bartender was someone who remembered names of 3,000 guests and their drinks and the champion data entry operator was four times faster than the rest. Even something like housekeeping is studied in great detail so that the rest (poor housekeepers) learn from the best.

Though the movie shows the child making some headway in overcoming his weaknesses, real life does not always turn out to be like that. Apart from Picasso, there are several famous dyslexics, who have had similar problems throughout their lives - General George Patton, President Woodrow Wilson, President George Washington, writer Agatha Christie etc. Another famous dyslexic, Tom Cruise, despite being a success in his chosen field, can learn lines only by listening to a tape. If one googles for dyslexia, one comes across sites with a message like “famous people with the gift of dyslexia” Lesser-known celebrities also have severe reading difficulties but are yet successful in their respective fields. An extreme case is that of Ronald Davis, author. “At the age of 38 I could score 169 on the IQ test but I couldn’t read a menu in a restaurant. What the average person could read in 5 minutes would take me an hour,” the author once said about himself.

The lives of two famous dyslexics not mentioned in the movie - Henri Ford and Winston Churchill. Henri Ford: His father, a farmer, had only that career in mind for his son and tried to equip him with all the relevant skills - tending plants, eliminating pests and weeds, ploughing etc. Henry occasionally went with his father to the farm, but, his mind hovered around the hoe and the mechanical plough, the tools of his trade. His father, often exasperated, pleaded, cajoled, shouted and screamed. These had only a temporary impact. Henri’s heart was not in farming. In the movie Aamir Khan says, “Bachche ka hunar kya hai?”. His “hunar” or functional talent may not be necessarily reflected in his qualifications, which is why it is said, “Choose your career not on the basis of what you know but who you are”. It is very hard to believe that a mentally disabled child can do well in a field not of his liking. If that were so, they would not have so many problems with conventional education. Can one imagine Henri Ford achieving the same success in farming or any other field?

Churchill failed grade VIII, did terrible in math and generally hated school. In his own words, “I was, on the whole, considerably discouraged by my school days. It was not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the beginning of the race.” Being in the right occupation is probably how the problems of some of the dyslexics got neutralised and how they were able to sustain their success despite suffering for a lifetime. On the other hand, being in the wrong occupation can entail a lifetime of suffering despite having no mental disability.

Since some psychologists try to identify childhood interests to solve this problem, the views of the other great mystic/intellectual J Krishnamurthy are worth noting: “In building enormous educational institutions and employing teachers who depend on a system instead of being alert and observant in their relationship with the individual student, we merely encourage the accumulation of facts, the development of capacity and the habit of thinking mechanically, according to a pattern; but certainly none of this helps the student to grow into an integrated human being. A large and flourishing educational institution can turn out bank clerks and super salesmen, industrialists or commissars, superficial people who are technically efficient but there is hope only in the integrated individual which the small school can bring about. If the classes are small and the teacher is able to give his full attention to each child, observing him and helping him, then compulsion or domination in any form is obviously unnecessary. It is intelligence that brings order, not discipline.” This can be witnessed in the movie when Aamir starts giving individual attention to the Ishaan and is able to help overcome his difficulty. Both Osho and Krishnamurthy have stressed the importance of helping the child find his right vocation in their discourses.

Since Aamir’s role fits into Krishnamurthy’s description of an ideal educator, his comments on the teacher’s role are worth mentioning “ If the teachers are not sure of their own vocation and interest, there are bound to be superficial bickerings, jealousies, misunderstandings etc, which can be passed over only if there is a burning interest in bringing about the right kind of education. To observe each child’s tendencies, his aptitudes, his temperament, his attitudes, to understand his difficulties taking his heredity and parental influence into account requires patience, alertness, intelligence, skill, interest and above all a sense of affection. To produce educators endowed with these qualities is one of our major problems today.”

Aamir has shown basically what talent management is all about. There are people like Dhirubhai Ambani, Bill Gates and Jack Welch, who have been able to see the latent talent and been able to draw that out, despite different degrees and qualifications. The focus always has to be more on uniqueness of the individual - what the individual does with the knowledge rather than knowledge per se, or what he can do uniquely. All life is talent management. If that were not so, books like Working identity would never be written. Since it explains how tough career transition can be, special efforts should be made to help people who may have made the wrong choice. In a recent article in Readers Digest, the great mathematician Hardy says that he may have mentored maths genius Ramanujan but he learnt much more from Ramanujan then the other way around. This is what happen when teachers see their role as educators- just as Aamir has directed the film so well, they have to provide the direction in real life.

—————————-End——————————————–
The sentences in bold above should also have been included. Though the editor omitted this paragraph, I personally feel that after the para in which Osho describes the child obsessed with the cuckoo, this should have been added:-

Though Osho probably said this in the context of detecting the different kind of child, it has to be taken in the right perspective. Just as television is considered to be the “chewing gum” or “idiot box” , too much idle day dreaming without applying brains at all can be a case of “Use it or lose it”. The brain also needs other exercises apart from imagination for an evenly balanced growth.

These views of eminent dyslexics also deserve a mention-

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction- Picasso

“Working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation”- Winston churchill

“I never worked in my life. It was all fun”- Thomas Edison

This is a humorous story that on Sir Issac Newton that could also have been added:-

Apart from Einstein’s comment on Income tax , there is a humorous story of the great inventor, Sir Issac Newton and his cats. Whilst studying color and the order it came in a prism, Newton used to go up to his attic where there was only one window and in order to control light, he needed to black out the room. His cat loved to be with him, and she constantly nosed the door open, which would then let the light in – thus spoiling his experiments. Not wanting to upset her, he decided to cut a small opening in the doorway which he then covered with felt attached to the top of the opening Now cat and master were happy – the cat could come and go at will, and Isaac wasn’t disturbed by her comings and goings, and could continue his experiments in peace. It is said that all geniuses sometimes have a blind spot and when his cat had kittens, so anxious was he to please them, that he cut several smaller holes alongside the original one so that they could come and go whenever they wanted to. It didn’t occur to him they could use the existing one! As they say, “common sense is most uncommon” and even geniuses are not immune to that.

Former International HR consultants Morgan and Banks had expressed the view that niche individuals who were good at only a few things had the worst time in the wrong profession. Dyslexics/ADHD children have high IQ but often have such one dimensional intelligence.

The significance of Contextual Thinking

This article is published in the January’2008 Edition of the magazine “Management Compass”

Unbridled optimism

Don’t confuse blind confidence with glass-is-half-full approach

One of the world’s top 50 management thinkers and an international authority on lateral thinking, Edward De Bono, while commenting on the difference between Intelligence and thinking, commented, “The power of the car is the potential of the car just as intelligence is the potential of the mind. The skill of the driver determines how the power of the car is used. The skill of the thinker determines how intelligence is used.”

He further specifies, “Many highly intelligent people take up a point of view on a subject and defend their point of view. Since they can defend the view very well, they never see the need to explore the subject or listen to alternative views. This is poor thinking and is a part of intelligence trap. One thinker may see a situation and instantly judge it. Another person sees a situation, explores the situation on other alternatives and only then proceeds to judge it. The highly intelligent person may carry out the seeing and judging very well indeed but if the exploring is absent, that is bad thinking.”

Much before and after I read this, I had some strange experiences with some “highly intelligent people” who conduct workshops to coach people in the corporate world. They may be deemed highly intelligent since only then can they be genuinely deemed competent to coach other people. The first experience I had in the mid-Nineties was during a stress management workshop with a gentleman. The speaker had some novel concepts in stress management, which I was quick to appreciate.

While discussing communication and presentation skills, somebody in the audience with a marketing background commented, “A salesman is one who is able to sell a comb to a bald man.” I was surprised when the conductor of the workshop stated that this was a wrong and unethical statement. I said that the gentleman concerned was only saying that in the context of presentation and not ethics. He defended his earlier stance that this was morally wrong. I had to clarify that one of the greatest Bollywood directors had said once, “You have to be a show off to be a show on.” That does not imply that the director is advocating that one should show off but only trying to convey strongly, the importance of presenting oneself well. However, that man gave a bland response, “We should not say things which are undesirable” which I found strange considering that all kinds of metaphors and analogies are used to convey a point of view.

While discussing goals and purpose in life, he started to tell how the purpose was the bigger picture and goals, like monetary rewards were just a means towards the ends and were bi-products. Then he said, “If you focus on the purpose, the goal is automatically achieved,” which was something on the lines of a book entitled Follow your heart and money shall follow. I found that a fundamentally incorrect statement. It was as if he was trying to tell us what we wanted to hear. I raised the example of actor Shashi Kapoor, who, in the late Seventies and early Eighties, tried to produce films which, according to him were meaningful cinema but which did not do well at the box office. According to press reports, he finally had do make a commercial film called Ajooba to recover his losses. I also pointed out the examples of Munshi Premchand, Shakespeare and painter Vincent van Gogh, who were all posthumous successes and lived a life of penury despite focusing on their respective purposes or occupations. He responded that I should not give negative examples. I replied that the focus indeed should be on the positive examples but that does not imply that one should not be aware of the negative factors. In MBA, one learns of SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), which is obviously a balanced analysis since it also takes cognizance of weaknesses and threats.

Does positive thinking imply blind optimism? I met one person in Ahmedabad during the Harshad Mehta scam, who said that he was an “incurable optimist” and told how he was going to invest all his money in the stock market as it was likely to go further up. I told him that the market was going up artificially and was bound to come down sooner or later. He again repeated his statement of being an incurable optimist. I replied that in reality, his optimism needed to be cured but did not carry the discussion further. I heard later that he had suffered heavy losses when the market fell. Years later, while dabbling in professional trading when I told an acquaintance that professional trading had a 95 per cent failure rate even in the United states, pop came the reply, “So what? If one tries hard, he maybe among the 5 per cent to succeed.” He completely overlooked the fact that one had to be extremely talented as well. The failure rate would never be so high if it was not talent intensive.

Isn’t genuine pessimism when the situation calls for it better than false optimism? Some 20 years back, I had read in one of India’s most reputed magazines about how genuine business talent and leadership was more an exception than the rule. I read in a book on venture capitalists as to how they fund only two out of ten ideas because though many people came up with bright ideas, very few have execution and implementation skills which incidentally happens to be a major reason for Reliance’s phenomenal progress. They had a clear policy of funding teams and not just ideas. As they say, “Th