#281 To #300

#282: Dal Chawal Innovation

I am reproducing (with permission) an interesting little piece from the IdeasRS blog by R. Sridhar, the most serious creativity trainer I have met (let me hasten to clarify that I meant that as a good thing). Some discussion on the comments section have also been included.

Dal Chawal Innovation
May 18th, 2010

Let me tell you a story first. I use this story often in my Creative Blockbusting© workshops. I have a friend Natarajan (Nat to his friends) who is also a Tambrahm (Tamilian Brahmin) like me. He is a senior manager in one of the Indian Multi-Nationals. He and his family are vegetarians.

Nat has a nice practice. Every month he takes out his family – wife, teenage daughter, and son- for dinner. This has been going on for years. Nat had his favourite restaurant list and would choose one from his favourite list every month. However, his daughter was not happy with his choice of restaurants.

One month she said, “Dad, I will take you to a different restaurant this month. It is of course 100% vegetarian.”

“Which one is this?”

“Little Italy”

“What cuisine do they serve?”

“Authentic Italian food.”

Before Nat could respond, his son jumped into the conversation and “Wow! Dad we must go there.” When he looked at his wife, she nodded and said, “Why don’t we try it? The children seem to like it.”

Nat said “Why not? I am all for experimentation. Let us go for it.”

On the appointed day, both his daughter and son asked his permission to bring their best friend. Nat readily agreed. (He was somewhat relieved too. He was constantly running out of subjects to talk to his children. What he found interesting, did not interest them.)

When they settled down the children were the first to get off the mark. They seemed to know the items on the menu pretty well. Nat looked at his wife and she smiled and said, “I will go by your choice.”

Nat read the menu card once again and was completely lost. He had never been to an Italian restaurant before. He did not feel comfortable to talk to the manager and find out more about the items on the menu. What will his children and their friends think?

Nat then beckoned the steward and told him “My wife and I are not happy with any of this. Can you organize for some nice dal, chawal, jeera aloo and a raita for us? We are sick and tired of our sambar & rice you see. This will be a good change.”

I stop my story here but use the story to explain what happens in organizations that start looking for break-through innovations, but end up with incremental improvements. Very often the culprit is the senior management.

The CEO declares that he is all for experimentation and will support any innovation, provided of course it is relevant. (This is like Nat saying ‘I am prepared to experiment with any cuisine, provided it is vegetarian.’)

This is a good beginning. However, what happens when the CEO is presented with outstanding ideas – ideas that have never occurred to him or his board members. If these ideas are implemented the benefits will be immense. Some of them could be game-changers.

Then the CEO and his colleagues on the board, start analyzing the ideas. They look unfamiliar, and they make them feel quite uncomfortable. They start making the ideas familiar by changing couple of features and introducing features that they like.

Finally, they have something marginally different from what they normally do. However, the ideas are not disruptive and will not cause any discomfort. Everyone is happy now.

They followed Nat’s formula and settled for “Dal Chawal”. They even felt happy that they made progress from their usual, predictable ‘Sambar Rice.”

This is what I call ‘Dal Chawal Innovation’. Incremental improvements like a marginal change in the menu. Status quo will be intact and safe.

I am not disdainful of improvements of any kind. However, I feel frustrated when I see outstanding ideas transform to become ‘Dal Chawal’, because the senior management did not want to put in the effort make the big idea happen. “Too much work, too many changes” says the CEO dismissively. What annoys me even more are the ‘I know all’ attitude and a refusal to look at new things with an open mind.

The last straw on the proverbial camel’s back is when the CEO delivers a speech on Innovation at some forum and gets a standing ovation!

‘Dal Chawal Innovation’ is the staple food for many CEOs who could make a big difference to the culture of innovation in their organizations. Sadly, they constantly signal to the people that ‘Dal Chawal’ is good enough!

____
My comment was: While continuous, incremental improvement and radical, disruptive innovation are both important, you have brought out the danger of seemingly converting one to the other for the wrong reasons by top management. In your usual simple and profound manner.

There is a certain mindset of devolvement that all seniors and elders need to cultivate in order for the fresh, disruptive ideas of the next generation to emerge. This leads to the additional benefits of grooming youngsters for succession, and seniors retaining respect. Yes, some new ideas may not work. Nat may discover he never ever wants to eat fetta-filled ravioli but he can enjoy discovering that fact and try penne arrabiata next time, or Mexican tacos!

To which blog author and creativity guru Sridhar replied:

Thank you RG. I appreciate your taking the time to comment on this. And your point is absolutely valid: Nat should try and find out what suits his taste best rather than suffer Italian food he does not like.

On re-reading this piece I realise that I have probably created an impression that all new (disruptive) ideas are good and all old ideas are bad. Not my intention at all.

I am only urging leaders in organisations to listen to fresh new ideas, even if it seems a bit uncomfortable initially.

I have also seen CEOs add great value by smoothening the rough edges of a new disruptive idea and make even more powerful.

#281: More Deadly Sho(r)ts

Many of you liked i-TFTD #198: Deadly Sho(r)ts so here is another set.

#281-1. Either you succeed or you learn.
-Anon

#281-2. Change yourself. Period.
-Anon (from a poster in the room of Dilip Kulkarni, a senior manager and great teacher)

#281-3. The only known cure for fear is faith.
-Lena Kellogg Sadler

____

Powerful mantra for today's rapid-changing world where companies that are innovative leaders create an environment of "fail fast". Management guru Tom Peters says, "Test fast. Fail fast. Adjust fast." At the beginning of my career I was lucky to come across the concept of rapid prototyping and achieved moderate success in propagating it in the field of software. Only later I discovered its profound applicability in personal progress and organizational agility.

We can only really change ourselves. And even that is not easy. This does not mean that we do not try to influence others. Nor does it prescribe that we have to forcibly accept or tolerate anything from anybody. It just highlights that our attention should more fruitfully be focused on what we can change in our views or our actions. Paradoxically, that focus would make us better influencers of positive change in others.

Faith, by definition, means believing something without evidence for it. While usually associated negatively with things that modern science has not proved, it is a popular and useful behavior—successful people everywhere demonstrate it. A positive belief in achieving success without rational data to support such a "faith" is something worth cultivating.

#261 To #280

#280: Rent. Read. Return.

To celebrate the opening of the first branch of Just Books, a successful chain of libraries in Bangalore, in Nerul, Navi Mumbai, by my better half, here is a bonus edition of i-TFTD with quotes on books and reading.

(Yes, the above is a not-so-subtle plug, please inform all your acquaintances and do drop by on a weekend between 9:00 AM and 9:00 PM. Navigate using this Google maps link. As you can see from the photos, there are thousands of new fiction, non-fiction and young readers' books to browse.)

#280-1. Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.
-Jesse Lee Bennett

#280-2. If you do not have the time to read, you do not have the time to lead.
-Phillip Schlechty

#280-3. Not to know is bad, not to wish to know is worse.
-Nigerian Proverb

#280-4. Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.
-Christopher Morley

(Thanks to Atul Kahate for sharing this.)

#280-5. Successful people have libraries. The rest have big screen TVs.
-Jim Rohn

(Thanks to Shuja Rahman for sharing this.)

#280-6. Be an explorer... read, surf the internet, visit customers, enjoy arts, watch children play... do anything to prevent yourself from becoming a prisoner of your knowledge, experience, and current view of the world.
-Charles 'Chic' Thompson in 'What a Great Idea'

#280-7. A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
-Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart in 'The Ghost of Napoleon'

#280-8. Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.
-Samuel Johnson

____
When talking about books and reading, some people retort, "Reading is not going to help" or, "You cannot learn this from books!" Other than a few rare situations, such statements are pointless and even dangerous. One can substitute anything in the place of "reading", like, "Talking is not going to help" and "Thinking is not..." What one learns from reading is one kind of knowledge, there are many other useful kinds that one has to learn through other methods. Look at any person who has had a positive impact and you will find they are readers and often give credit for their success to something they read.

Not everyone can buy lots of books, not all books worth reading are worth buying, which is why, it has been one of my childhood dreams to open a library—a place where many people can benefit from access to the treasure trove of distilled experience from around the world. While I continued to periodically imagine about doing such a thing in future, my wife, the person who is most evidently different from me, who disagrees with me on most topics, just went ahead and started one, right under my nose. Delicious irony?

#279: We Are, But Do We Want to Be, Like This Only?

I am sure we all receive several forwarded mails a week containing scam schemes, irritating marketing offers (thank you, corporate firewall, this is only a problem in my personal email IDs) and occasionally a nice quote or anecdote a la i-TFTD, but often embedded in a huge presentation file with scenic pictures (something we avoid doing in i-TFTD).

Some mails provoke an immediate smile or a knowing nod but further reflection may lead to different insights. Here's one I received recently from Tejinder Sethi and a couple of others.

We live in a nation:

i) where pizza reaches home faster than ambulance/police
ii) where you get car loan at 5% and education loan at 12%
iii) where rice is Rs 40/- per kg but SIM card is free
iv) where a millionaire can buy a cricket team instead of donating the money to any charity
v) where the footwear we wear on our feet are sold in AC showrooms, but vegetables that we eat are sold on the footpath
vi) where everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to follow the path to be famous
vii) where we make lemon juice with artificial flavours and dish washing liquids with real lemon
viii) where people are standing at tea stalls reading an article about child labour from a newspaper and say, "Yaar bachhonse kaam karvaane waale ko to phaansi par chadha dena chaahiye" and then they shout, "Oye chhotu, 2 chai laao!" (roughly translated as, "People who employ children must be hanged!" followed by, "Hey boy, get me two cups of tea!")

Incredible India, Mera Bharat Mahaan (My India is Great).

____
Cute and clever. Yes, this largely reflects reality in 2010 in India, indisputably incredible in many good and not so good ways. As a fun or even funny piece this can be appreciated. But drawing serious conclusions too quickly would not be rational.

Let us consider a few possible counterviews as a thinking exercise.

viii) (Chai boy) Irony, yes. Hypocrisy? Possibly. What should a good human being do? Is refraining from commenting on the article a better behavior? Some friends working to improve the lives of street children in India have narrated so many puzzling conundrums of survival faced by poor families that are not easy to form opinions about.

vii) (Lemon flavor) This I like. Too many people get fooled with the aggressive advertising of consumer goods companies. Preferences within one's affordability have to be exercised prudently but to each his or her own.

vi) (Famous) Slightly out of character in this list. Preachy and broad statement that does not really illuminate.

v) Footwear can also be purchased on the streets and that unorganized market is probably larger than the one consisting of air-conditioned showrooms. See also ii) below.

iv) Anything a millionaire does can be contrasted with giving the money to charity. Luckily, most millionaires ignore such melodramatic mush and some of the richest billionaires (Gates and Buffett) are really trying to contribute to changing the world.

iii) (Rice vs SIM) Let us not waste injecting logic by questioning whether one SIM card is the equivalent of one kilogram of rice. I am reminded of a picture from the early 1990s in The Economist—a brilliant magazine except for its occasional condescending tone towards India—which showed a satellite dish being carried by a bullock cart. It symbolized the contrasts that is India. Many Indians think it is obvious that we should not invest in expensive space exploration when we cannot provide food and basic education to millions. This ignores not just the available evidence of the impact of science and technology, but the entire history of human progress. On a lighter note, the comparison probably indicates the penchant of Indians to talk more than their need to eat!

ii) (Loan rates) Free market economics decides whether the nature of the product and its demand-supply equation would make education loans cheaper than car loans. We as borrowers benefit from competitive market forces and our behavior guides market trends. Hmmm... if all of us sell off our cars to fund the costs of sending our children to an American university, maybe...

i) Should quick home delivery of pizza be banned until ambulance services are made available in a shorter timeframe? We need people like Steven "Freakonomics" Levitt and Tim "Undercover Economist" Harford to enlighten us with statistics on the number of ambulances and their coverage along with those for pizza delivery.

Our Bharat will be mahaan (great) when we regain the supremely logical thinking ability that this land has seen in ages gone by (Buddha circa 460 BCE, Shankara 780 CE though some argue BCE) and adapt, as only we with the jugaad factor can, to the realities of the modern world with a scientific spirit and yes, Indian values.

BTW, I am conscious that the comments above could be construed as a typical example of the argumentative nature of Indians.

#278: Amzanig Sepillng?

I cd not blveiee taht I cluod aulactly uesdnatnrd waht I was rdeanig. The phaonmneal pweor of the huamn mnid - Aoccdrnig to a rserecah, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseaae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig? and I awlyas tohught slpeling was ipmorantt!

____
One of the nicer forwards that has been in circulation for a while. Some clever and logico-analytical readers (like me) may think that this is rigged, that there is some specific pattern in which the letters have been jumbled. I have tried a few times to make up such sentences and found that it works in almost all cases.

This triggers many thoughts: (i) there are fascinating aspects of the human mind and language that continue to be discovered (ii) Sticklers for spelling and grammar (like me) need to remind themselves that the essence of communication of meaning lies elsewhere (iii) Part of the reason the above garbled text seems to work is that we rarely pay close attention to what is in front of us, approaching things with a preconceived bias so in situations when we feel an impulse to react strongly we should step back and look at the facts afresh. (iv) Another good reason for this to work is that the mind tries to understand things in relation to the context rather than in absolute terms.

Points (iii) and (iv) are the source of many perceptual tricks and psychological experiments.

#277: On Owning Up to Decisions

#277-1. These days Wall Street bankers sound like the lady who killed her husband and then asked for mercy because she was a widow.
-Nitin Desai in his article, Welfare for the Wealthy, on business-standard.com, Feb 19, 2009

#277-2. At most companies, people spend 2 percent of their time recruiting and 75 percent managing their recruiting mistakes.
-Richard Fairbank, CEO, Capital One, quoted by Harvard prof. Jim Heskett in his article, Why Can't We Figure Out How to Select Leaders?, at http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6103.html, Feb 5, 2009

#277-3. Difficulty in reaching consensus rises with the number of 'stakeholders' and usually means the end result is too many 'holders' and too little 'stake'.
-Dean Procter in his article, Collaboration Does Not Always Lead To Innovation, on FinExtra.com, Nov 23, 2008

____
A lot of people at the helm of banking and the US economy are talking about learning lessons from the past but their actions belie their stated intent.

Part of the problem is that there are no foolproof, universal methods of selection. Another problem is that the people who have the deciding power on critical appointments may not be the most effective judges.

I can involve my team and seek inputs from many other peers but I should never confuse such a participative and inclusive approach with my decision-making responsibility. Once a decision is taken and acted upon, I have to own the consequences.

#276: Inspiration from Carpenters, Stonecutters and Car Reviewers

#276-1. When I was a carpenter, I once worked with this Russian lady architect. I would tell her, "Look, I'm terribly sorry, but I want to change that a half inch," and she would say, "No limit for better." I think that is a worthy credo. You keep on going until you get it as close to being right as the time and patience of others will allow.
-Harrison Ford, carpenter-turned-Hollywood-star, in an interview in Parade magazine in Jan 2010

#276-2. When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.
-Jacob August Riis, Danish-born American journalist and social reformer (1849-1914)

#276-3. Many people claim to love inanimate objects. They say they love clothing from a particular store or a type of sandwich served at a specific restaurant or that restored Victorian over on Elm Street, the one with the porch swing. I've always thought that a statement like that was slightly dishonest, and that the more objects a person claimed to love, the less you could believe anything they said, whether it had to do with your new haircut or the latest release by R.E.M.
-Christian Wardlaw, Edmund's Automobile Road Tests (from a review of the Mazda Miata)

____
The itch to tweak, familiar to good software programmers and good artists and craftspersons of any kind, can be the path to excellence when indulged within limits.

Great output seems to come from magical abilities but those who produce it know the persistent effort that preceded the final exertion.

The love for such perfection is very different from the love of objects; the limitation of language tends to mislead.

#275: Beware of Garbage Trucks

Beware of Garbage Trucks
By David J. Pollay

How often do you let other people's nonsense change your mood?

Do you let a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss, or an insensitive employee ruin your day? Unless you're the Terminator, for an instant you're probably set back on your heels. However, the mark of a successful person is how quickly one can get back their focus on what's important.

Sixteen years ago I learned this lesson. I learned it in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Here's what happened.

I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station. We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other car's back end by just inches!

The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was friendly. So, I said, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!"

And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, "The Law of the Garbage Truck."

"Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be happy you did."

So this was it: The "Law of the Garbage Truck." I started thinking, how often do I let Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people: at work, at home, on the streets? It was that day I said, "I'm not going to do it anymore."

I began to see garbage trucks. Like in the movie "The Sixth Sense," the little boy said, "I see Dead People." Well, now "I see Garbage Trucks." I see the load they're carrying. I see them coming to drop it off. And like my Taxi Driver, I don't make it a personal thing; I just smile, wave, wish them well, and I move on.

One of my favorite football players of all time, Walter Payton, did this every day on the football field. He would jump up as quickly as he hit the ground after being tackled. He never dwelled on a hit. Payton was ready to make the next play his best. Good leaders know they have to be ready for their next meeting.

Good parents know that they have to welcome their children home from school with hugs and kisses. Leaders and parents know that they have to be fully present, and at their best for the people they care about.

The bottom line is that successful people do not let Garbage Trucks take over their day.

What about you? What would happen in your life, starting today, if you let more garbage trucks pass you by?

Here's my bet. You'll be happier.

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. Love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, TAKE IT! If it changes your life, LET IT!

Nobody said it would be easy… they just promised it would be worth it!

(Thanks to Neerav Joshipura for sharing this.)

____
I have sometimes wasted my mental CPU cycles, trying to analyze my interaction with some people who were simply unloading their garbage.

Of course, like other inspiring thoughts, it needs to be applied judiciously. This is not a prescription to ignore feedback from others when we don't like it. Or to be insensitive to another's plight. Just to move on and spend energy on the next step forward.

#274: Open Mind Surgery Ha Ha

#274-1. The closed mind, if closed long enough, can be opened by nothing short of dynamite.
-Gerald Johnson

#274-2. Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
-GK Chesterton

#274-3. A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke—and that the joke is oneself.
-Clifton Fadiman

____
Some traps to avoid: If I do it, I call it open-mindedness; if you do it, it is indecisiveness! I am open-minded towards people who are worth it.

I find humour to be a great mind-opener. It lets some things be said in an acceptable manner that cannot otherwise be easily said. A good, meaningful remark made in a lighter vein has the desired effect of triggering thought in the listener. The same message given as direct advice might be resisted defensively. Having a sense of humour requires some amount of open-mindedness.

#273: Who Knows

A gentleman once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised he asked the sculptor, "Do you need two statues of the same idol?" "No," said the sculptor without looking up, "We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage."

The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. "Where is the damage?" asked the gentleman. "There is a scratch on the nose of the idol." said the sculptor, still busy with his work.

"Where are you going to install the idol?"

The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high.

"If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?" the gentleman asked.

The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, "I know it and God knows it!"

The desire to excel should be exclusive of the fact whether someone appreciates it or not. Excellence is a drive from inside, not outside. Excel at a task today—not necessarily for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction.

(Thanks to Kiran Kudtarkar for sharing this.)

_____
We know this is a useful bit of advice but it is not easy to follow. It is easier to moan that the world does not appreciate the value of excellence.

One thing to watch out for is perfectionism. In the name of excellence I cannot ignore deadlines or cost considerations. If my level of attention to fixing every detail is seen as nitpicking by most people around me who are otherwise sensible people, I need to re-evaluate my thinking.

Many seem to be wondering when to make practical choices and when not to give up. One method I suggest is to look for perfection at a higher level, or a larger goal. An example could help understand what I mean by higher level. I have fixed all the bugs and screen layout defects in my software module and tested it. If my getting stuck on one strange font color setting problem delays the entire project schedule, it is case of bad perfectionism. I need to focus my mind on the perfection of timely delivery and my contribution to the team as a whole as against my mastery in unravelling a non-critical problem.

Finally, I believe we must aspire and strive for perfection but tolerantly accept less than ideal results, especially where other people are involved.

#272: On Knowledge and Ideas

#272-1. Whoever in debate quotes authority uses not intellect, but memory.
-Leonardo Da Vinci

#272-2. The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
-Charles de Gaulle

#272-3. A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.
-Mary Kay Ash

_____
Quoting authority is not necessarily a bad strategy. Its effectiveness depends on the acceptability of the authority to the listener. Many make the mistake of choosing the authority that they (the speaker) respect.

Withholding information, continuing to be the only expert in the team, making sure others depend on me… these are previous-century tactics. The benefits of consciously and regularly making myself dispensable are: (i) I make it easier to move on to newer roles and responsibilities (ii) I demonstrate leadership by developing others (iii) My contribution is not only my performance output but I leave a legacy of success via others.

An idea, to succeed, needs to reach the right minds at the right time. Too early or too late or to the wrong people... could kill the idea prematurely. Innovation (applied creativity) requires selling of ideas.

#271: Excerpts from The Cocktail Party

The following are selected lines from the poem written in 1949.

The Cocktail Party
by T.S. Eliot

It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.
Resign yourself to be the fool you are.

You will find that you survive humiliation
And that's an experience of incalculable value.
...
We die to each other daily.
What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them. And they have changed since then.
To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes broken. We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.
...
Half the harm that is done in this world
Is due to people who want to feel important.
They don't mean to do harm—but the harm does not interest them.
Or they do not see it, or they justify it
Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle
To think well of themselves.
...
We must always take risks. That is our destiny.
...
Only by acceptance of the past will you alter its meaning.

Every moment is a fresh beginning.

(Thanks to Ranu Pande for pointing me to this.)

_____

So much has been said

And written about, over time

We fail to reflect.

#270: On Effectiveness and Thinking

#270-1. The only reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
-Anon

#270-2. To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult.
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

#270-3. If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.
-Peace Pilgrim

____
Effective thinking is difficult and rare. Sustained thinking is rarer. Mental fatigue sets in. The chairman of one of the Korean chaebols used the phrase, "Thinking till it hurts". We brood and go over the same set of limited options when confronted with an important decision, usually a personal one. Edward de Bono has written about systematic teaching of better thinking, both logical and lateral. I have found that writing down the options helps my brain to move towards generating more alternatives. "Thinking About Thinking" by K.R. Ravi is a great book that lists many common logical fallacies that we all fall prey to.

You may also want to review earlier posts such as Thoughts on Thinking, On Intelligent Thinking, Thinking Deep and Wide and Degrees of Positive Thinking.

#269: From the Nitwittersphere

Having coined a word for the title of this i-TFTD, I feel compelled to explain and enlighten you of its origin.

Twittersphere, of course, is the total universe of Twitter users and their output in the form of tweets.

A nitwit is a stupid person. A nitwitter as per urban dictionary is a person who irritatingly discusses their twitting frequently. Someone else has defined nitwitter as a person who writes hopelessly incomprehensible Twitter posts.

So, my contribution to the blogosphere is nitwittersphere. Sorry. Will do better next time.

Unlike the above gobbledygook, tweets on Twitter can be useful, funny and thought-provoking. Here are three for this edition of i-TFTD.

#269-1. @funnyoneliners: Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.

#269-2. @michaelmelcher: Your inbox is not your to do list.

#269-3. @r_ganesh: Doers are too busy to consult thinkers, who don't know or care to sell to doers or have action bias. Think I must do something!

____
The first one is a variation of ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’. The second is about prioritization. Some people worry about not having time to prioritize and plunge into activity while some others agonize too long in synchronizing detailed to do lists in various gadgets! For both categories of folks, I recommend reading a short post at http://ribbonfarm.posterous.com/when-you-fail-to-prioritize-prioritizing. The third was my attempt to point out the irony in the artificial classification of people into thinkers and doers. I think we all do both though the degree and the domains may vary from time to time.

#268: On Sense and News

#268-1. I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, "I'm in favor of privatization," or, "I'm deeply in favor of public ownership." I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case.
-John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian-American economist (1908-2006)

#268-2. I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.
-Theodor (Dr.) Seuss Geisel, American children's writer and cartoonist (1904-1991)

#268-3. If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.
-Mark Twain, American humorist, writer and lecturer (1835-1910)

____
I like Galbraith's nonsense and Dr. Seuss's pragmatism . Many great thinkers, including Rajaji and poet Walt Whitman, have expressed the need for ‘improving’ our views. Forming opinions with confidence is the first stage in learning a new subject but further steps of growth necessarily involve reversing earlier thoughts. Attenuation is different from having a weak signal to begin with. Playful tweaking is an essential activity for rapid learning.

After The Indian Express, The Hindu is the second respected daily English newspaper in India facing family ownership related problems. Such are the times (pun intended) that we are left with a monopoly newspaper group that proudly auctions its pages all of which are worthy of being called ‘Page 3’. Like my friends in America have been doing for years I would soon be consuming news from Google et al rather than the physical paper accompanying the morning cuppa. Not much to lament about when you can explore topics with innovative services like Trailmeme.

#267: Deep Thoughts

Some quotes, in addition to conveying a useful thought, lend themselves to multiple interpretations, or provoke us to reflect deeper. Like it? Let me know.

#267-1. Eminent posts make great men greater, and little men less.
-Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist (1645-1696)

One obvious meaning is what people become through their actions after reaching the post. Great ones now have a better platform to do more good, while lesser ones misuse power. Another interpretation is that the successful attainment of eminent posts itself makes them more of what they are. Good people become better in the path to higher levels while others tend to take short cuts of dubious standards to attain success. A related but slightly different view is that the achievement itself is a strong proof of someone's greatness or lack of scruple.

#267-2. A good leader can't get too far ahead of his followers.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

Cannot could mean should not, that is, should lead and pace by adapting to the team in order to be effective. Too much awe or respect of the leader's ability would make the team reconcile themselves to their current state rather than inspiring them to attain higher levels. Cannot could also mean will not be able to, that is, a leader is constrained by the team's capability levels. Where possible, selecting the right mix in the team becomes a leader's important responsibility. How about: "Followers can't get too much behind a leader." Reminds me of the question: which is a better performing team, a group of lions led by a deer or a herd of deer led by a lion? The answer is not too obvious to me. Is there one correct answer?

#267-3. Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

Insecurity induces damaging behavior from leaders, eventually self-damaging. Accumulation of more wealth and affording luxury do not correlate with contentment. This unquenchable thirst reminds me of the unwakeable sleep-pretender. A different thought is: dissatisfaction with a working system is a thirst that can be quenched with innovative improvements. In fact, that is the creative urge that brings progress or poetry.

#266: Riding into the Storm

#266-1. All men should strive to learn before they die
What they are running from, and to, and why.
-James Thurber, American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit (1894–1961)

#266-2. The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
-Edward Gibbon, English historian and Member of Parliament (1737-1794)

#266-3. The wise have encountered the negative thoughts and the temptations which are illusions of what is good. The illusion of good is what seems good now but is not good tomorrow.
-Thomas D. Willhite, motivational author

____
I remember Thurber for his hilarious piece I once read titled, "My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage", which, unfortunately, I could not locate online. His quote was immediately thought-provoking when I saw it. Most of us seem to be running away from something most of the time. What? Why? Pausing to reflect seems useful even if there are no clear answers.

Positive thinkers tend to feel lucky, as Richard Wiseman has found (online here). Maybe the so-called universal energy prefers to favor excellence?

The key is to keep doing the right thing to the best of one's ability even when the wind does not seem to be on our side.

#265: On Praise and Criticism

#265-1. The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.
-François de la Rochefoucauld, French author of maxims and memoirs (1613 –1680)

(Thanks and a doff of hat to K Shailesh, another broadcaster of thoughts, for sharing this and many others.)

#265-2. Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made, kills initiative.
-William L. McKnight, President and Chairman of 3M from 1949 to 1966

(Thanks to D Karthikeyan for sharing this.)

#265-3. If there was no praise or criticism in the world, then who would you be?
-Howard Behar, author of "It's Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks"

(Thanks to Ramanan Jagannathan for sharing this.)

____
This is not necessarily a bad thing. I have seen parents use this successfully with their children to elicit the desired behavior by praising even before the behavior has been demonstrated. Though we might sometimes experience a little shame on undeserved praise, most of the time, our rationalizing brain would lead us to convince ourselves that we actually deserve it. Daniel Gilbert, whose research at Harvard has earned him the nickname of Professor Happiness, whose delightfully informative book titled, "Stumbling on Happiness" I recently read, says this is part of our psychological immune system.

Striking a balance in management approach of encouraging risk taking (and therefore, by definition, mistakes) while also demanding excellence is so difficult, which is why we admire those companies and leaders that seem able to achieve it.

Tough to imagine a situation of no praise and no criticism! Pondering this question would lead us to a better understanding of our values and morals.

#264: On Action Orientation

#264-1. God gives every bird its worm, but he does not throw it into the nest.
-Swedish proverb

#264-2. Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.
-Norman Vincent Peale

#264-3. Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past.
-Tyron Edwards

_____
Sometimes it seems like a worm was thrown into our nest (lucky day feeling) or someone else's (much more often) but I believe sincere effort and fruits even out in the medium-to-long term, and it is we who do not make the connections easily. The process changes the person, even if the effort superficially appears to yield no result.

Any action is better than inaction caused by too much pondering. It is good to remember this when trying to begin something. However...

The keyword in the third quote is "right"—plunging into activity that repeats past mistakes and justifying it with "any action is better than no action" will harm, not help.

#263: Snippets on Giving and Receiving Feedback

7 characteristics of highly effective feedback
Posted by Wally Bock on Oct 17, 2008 at his blog

-Highly effective feedback works in the context of clear and reasonable expectations.
-Highly effective feedback takes place in a climate where everyone is treated fairly.
-Highly effective feedback takes place in an atmosphere of candor.
-Most highly effective feedback sessions are short and informal.
-Lots of short, informal feedback sessions produce better results than fewer, more formal sessions.
-Positive feedback is the tool of choice for getting a person to try something or continue something.
-Negative feedback is the tool of choice for getting a person to stop something.

Management Advice from the Buddha
Posted by Marshall Goldsmith on March 16, 2008 at HBS Forum

Buddha suggested that his followers only do what he taught if it worked in the context of their own lives. He encouraged people to listen to his ideas, think about his suggestions, try out what made sense – keep doing what worked – and to just "let go" of what did not work. Similarly, I teach my clients to ask their key stakeholders for suggestions on they can become more effective leaders then listen to these ideas, think about the suggestions, try out what makes sense – keep doing what works – and let go of what does not.

When our stakeholders give us suggestions on how we can become more effective, we can look at these suggestions as gifts – and treat our stakeholders as gift-givers. When someone gives you a gift you wouldn’t say, “Stinky gift!” “Bad gift!” or “I already have this stupid gift!” You would say, “Thank you.” If you can use the gift – use it. If you don’t want to use the gift, put it in the closet and "let it go."

You would not insult the person who is trying to be nice by giving you a gift. In the same way, when our stakeholders give us ideas, we don’t want to insult them or their ideas. We can just learn to say, “Thank you.”

We cannot promise to do everything that people suggest we should do. We can promise to listen to our key stakeholders, think about their ideas, and do what we can. This is all that we can promise–and this is all that they expect.

My good friend, Chris Cappy, is a world expert on large-scale change, has a great philosophy on getting ideas. He always says, “I won’t learn less.” When we get ideas and suggestions, we may learn more – but we won’t learn less. Get in the habit of asking the important people in your life, “How can I be a better…?”

This works at work – in your efforts to become a better leader, team member, or co-worker.

This works at home – in your efforts to become a better friend or family member.

____
Like most good advice, these are easy to understand and agree with but hard to practise! Formal appraisals are one situation where we have to give feedback. Many find it difficult to do so they opt to give vague, generally positive comments and avoid providing negative feedback. If timely feedback is given throughout the year, it becomes easy to summarize the highlights at the formal annual appraisal. If specific events are noted down to quote as examples, the discussion can be more focused and fruitful.

Everybody these days seems to express a desire to receive feedback but the more accomplished the person, the more defensive the reaction to feedback. Pragati Leadership Institute suggests receiving feedback like 'prasad’, the blessing in the form of a sweet distributed in a temple. Even if one were to refrain from consuming it for medical or hygienic reasons, one would dispose of it discreetly and not offend the giver by refusing it.

#262: On Belief

#262-1. If something exists, it must be possible.
-Amory Bloch Lovins (b. 1947), experimental physicist and environmentalist

#262-2. They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness.
-Louise Erdrich, (b. 1954), author

#262-3. Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.
-Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), English author, critic, & lexicographer

____
Though the original context could have been different, the quote could help us catch ourselves from the common phenomenon of denial. It could be a software developer's first reaction to a tester, "There is no bug!" It could be a manager saying the product cannot be maintained at the same quality and sold at a lower price when told that a competitor is doing precisely that.

Such an ostrich-like attitude when persistently demonstrated by groups of people, can lead to dangerous situations.

All this might have started innocuously out of sheer mental laziness. Tim Hurson says in his book, "Think Better" that productive thinking is hard work because nature and evolution have designed our brain to take efficient shortcuts in the form of well-set patterns.

#261: On Balance in the Journey

#261-1. Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them work, family, health, friends and love and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls—family,health, friends and love—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.
-Bryan Dyson, former CEO of Coca Cola

(Thanks to Durgaprasad Kulkarni for sharing this.)

#261-2. If the path is beautiful, let's not ask where it leads. And if the destination is beautiful, let's not ask how the path is.
-Anon

(Thanks to Chandan Relan for sharing this.)

#261-3. If someone has written a good poem, we need not throw it away because of a few mistakes in spelling. If it is a bad poem, correct spelling will not save it from the dustbin.
-Dwaraknath Reddy, former chairman of Nutrine group and spiritual author, in "Gentle Breeze, Rustling Leaves"

____
The need for and presence of balance is a profound lesson we periodically learn from nature and even human affairs. I like to point out, especially to younger folk, that balance is useful only when imbalance has been achieved. A pre-requisite on the path of career success is to overdo, to tilt in some direction before even contemplating balance. Excellence is extreme and one at least has to be aspire for and pursue it. Balance need not imply holding back, one could achieve balance by developing interests in different domains of life.

A destination may make the hard journey worthwhile, but many times we do not know whether it is so. Exploring without a predetermined goal is not always bad.

One may ask what makes a poem ‘bad’? This is the kind of question that the octagenarian Mr. Reddy would appreciate. His book, “Birth Play and Finale of Mind” that logically and humorously explores consciousness and science’s difficulty in dealing with it, is unfortunately not widely available.

#241 To #260

#260: The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming

These are The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming (From a classic book written in the early 1970s called, "The Psychology of Computer Programming" by Gerald Weinberg) but most of the recommendations are applicable in a wider context.

1. Understand and accept that you will make mistakes. The point is to find them early, before they make it into production. Fortunately, except for the few of us developing rocket guidance software at JPL, mistakes are rarely fatal in our industry, so we can, and should, learn, laugh, and move on.

2. You are not your code. Remember that the entire point of a review is to find problems, and problems will be found. Don't take it personally when one is uncovered.

3. No matter how much "karate" you know, someone else will always know more. Such an individual can teach you some new moves if you ask. Seek and accept input from others, especially when you think it's not needed.

4. Don't rewrite code without consultation. There's a fine line between "fixing code" and "rewriting code." Know the difference, and pursue stylistic changes within the framework of a code review, not as a lone enforcer.

5. Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience. Nontechnical people who deal with developers on a regular basis almost universally hold the opinion that we are prima donnas at best and crybabies at worst. Don't reinforce this stereotype with anger and impatience.

6. The only constant in the world is change. Be open to it and accept it with a smile. Look at each change to your requirements, platform, or tool as a new challenge, not as some serious inconvenience to be fought.

7. The only true authority stems from knowledge, not from position. Knowledge engenders authority, and authority engenders respect—so if you want respect in an egoless environment, cultivate knowledge.

8. Fight for what you believe, but gracefully accept defeat. Understand that sometimes your ideas will be overruled. Even if you do turn out to be right, don't take revenge or say, "I told you so" more than a few times at most, and don't make your dearly departed idea a martyr or rallying cry.

9. Don't be "the guy in the room." Don't be the guy coding in the dark office emerging only to buy cola. The guy in the room is out of touch, out of sight, and out of control and has no place in an open, collaborative environment.

10. Critique code instead of people—be kind to the coder, not to the code. As much as possible, make all of your comments positive and oriented to improving the code. Relate comments to local standards, program specs, increased performance, etc.

#259: On Managing

#259-1. Of all the decisions an executive makes, none is as important as the decisions about people, because they determine the performance capacity of the organization.
-Peter F. Drucker

#259-2. "Management" means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and muscle, of knowledge for folklore and superstition, and of cooperation for force.
-Peter F. Drucker

#259-3. I believe managing is like holding a dove in your hands. If you hold it too tightly, you crush it, but if you hold it too loosely, you lose it.
-Tommy Lasorda

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Drucker, the original management guru, has said so many profound things in his usual sober style that are still being fully understood. People decisions—right from hiring to role allocation to promotion—make all the difference. I have always emphasized to members of interview panels that they carry a mighty responsibility on their shoulders. They are the gatekeepers who filter the quality of intake but the question is whether we take sufficient care in training them.

The application of knowledge and thinking in order to manage better sounds like common sense but he pointed it out several decades ago, before the arrival of the information age or knowledge era. In fact, he coined the term, "knowledge worker". In 1959!

The fine balance required in holding a dove is a good analogy for leadership. I think this is related to the dilemma that many leaders face, namely, how much to delegate and let go versus how much hands-on involvement one should have. The answer should be determined by results—both short-term and long-term. If I achieve a short-term objective by doing a task myself have I compromised the goal of developing my team? If I let a critical situation get out of hand by refraining from doing what I am good at, all the theories in the world would not change the fact of a leadership failure in attaining the desired result.

The analogy reminds me of another beautiful one from India’s ancient grammarian Panini (whose rules are associated with a fundamental concept of computer science, the Backus-Naur Form) where he advises correct pronunciation to be done like a tigress carrying her cub by her teeth, neither too gentle such that the cub slips and falls nor too hard, which might hurt the cub.

#258: On Thoughts and Words

#258-1. There are some who only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.
-Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

#258-2. Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

#258-3. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.
-Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Indian independence leader and thinker (1869-1948)

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The words we utter could be weapons, shields, masks, medicine… even unintended leaks!

The simple trick of role playing changes our thoughts and words as seen in many training programmes. It also manifests when a person takes on a new position and suddenly supports the opposite of the viewpoint that person was espousing until then!

Taking Gandhi’s view, to confirm that I am growing, I could check if there is refinement in the language I use.

#257: Happy in the Moment

#257-1. Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
-Alexander Graham Bell

#257-2. If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
-Socrates

#257-3. The man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.
-Henry David Thoreau

_____
Even in a leisure activity, one derives maximum pleasure or relaxation when one is in the present moment rather than have the mind wander—out of habit—into the future or the past. I have observed this kind of focus in high achievers. They work hard and play hard. When we do this we are in flow state.

We have earlier discussed the universal but useless thought, "Why me/us?". Our bad luck and constraints appear significant only until we really see what other people are facing. Periodically feeling an attitude of gratitude for what good things we have, what we have achieved and the good relationships we enjoy, helps in maintaining a positive outlook. Incidentally, amongst the great Western philosophers from Greece (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), Socrates inspires me the most as he was a hard-core believer in practical wisdom and engaging in worldly activity, while simultaneously applying his mind on deep matters. Not unlike Vivekananda.

Cheapest pleasure need not be about consuming lower quality luxuries. It could be that one enjoys the company of children, the smell of rain and many other "little pleasures" that we sometimes forget as we age. This has helped me a lot.

#256: On Trusting Ourselves

#256-1. I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.
-Mother Teresa

#256-2. Trust yourself. you know more than you think you do.
-Anon

#256-3. The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small voice' within me.
-Mahatma Gandhi

____
It is useful to believe that nothing we encounter is beyond the scope of our reasonable effort to respond. I relate to the idea of trusting our instinct and judgement, and of periodically listening to that small voice inside. These do not apply to those who do not have the humility or self-doubt to listen to anyone.

#255: Revenge of the Right Brain

This article by Dan Pink was a preview excerpt from his bestseller book, A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. I recommend this book to every parent interested in helping their child figure out where the world is going and in supporting them be successful and happy in it. It is a pleasurable read with its humor and deep insights based on cutting edge research, along with specific resources to explore each of the themes he covers in the book.

An important point to note while reading this is that this is not the old left brain vs right brain simplistic view but Dan Pink is using the hemispheric division of the brain as a metaphor.

(Thanks to Satyen Zaveri for sharing this.)

Revenge of the Right Brain
Logical and precise, left-brain thinking gave us the Information Age. Now comes the Conceptual Age - ruled by artistry, empathy, and emotion.
By Daniel H. Pink
February 2005

From http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/brain.html

When I was a kid - growing up in a middle-class family, in the middle of America, in the middle of the 1970s - parents dished out a familiar plate of advice to their children: Get good grades, go to college, and pursue a profession that offers a decent standard of living and perhaps a dollop of prestige. If you were good at math and science, become a doctor. If you were better at English and history, become a lawyer. If blood grossed you out and your verbal skills needed work, become an accountant. Later, as computers appeared on desktops and CEOs on magazine covers, the youngsters who were really good at math and science chose high tech, while others flocked to business school, thinking that success was spelled MBA.

Tax attorneys. Radiologists. Financial analysts. Software engineers. Management guru Peter Drucker gave this cadre of professionals an enduring, if somewhat wonky, name: knowledge workers. These are, he wrote, "people who get paid for putting to work what one learns in school rather than for their physical strength or manual skill." What distinguished members of this group and enabled them to reap society's greatest rewards, was their "ability to acquire and to apply theoretical and analytic knowledge." And any of us could join their ranks. All we had to do was study hard and play by the rules of the meritocratic regime. That was the path to professional success and personal fulfillment.

But a funny thing happened while we were pressing our noses to the grindstone: The world changed. The future no longer belongs to people who can reason with computer-like logic, speed, and precision. It belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind. Today - amid the uncertainties of an economy that has gone from boom to bust to blah - there's a metaphor that explains what's going on. And it's right inside our heads.

Scientists have long known that a neurological Mason-Dixon line cleaves our brains into two regions - the left and right hemispheres. But in the last 10 years, thanks in part to advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging, researchers have begun to identify more precisely how the two sides divide responsibilities. The left hemisphere handles sequence, literalness, and analysis. The right hemisphere, meanwhile, takes care of context, emotional expression, and synthesis. Of course, the human brain, with its 100 billion cells forging 1 quadrillion connections, is breathtakingly complex. The two hemispheres work in concert, and we enlist both sides for nearly everything we do. But the structure of our brains can help explain the contours of our times.

Until recently, the abilities that led to success in school, work, and business were characteristic of the left hemisphere. They were the sorts of linear, logical, analytical talents measured by SATs and deployed by CPAs. Today, those capabilities are still necessary. But they're no longer sufficient. In a world upended by outsourcing, deluged with data, and choked with choices, the abilities that matter most are now closer in spirit to the specialties of the right hemisphere - artistry, empathy, seeing the big picture, and pursuing the transcendent.

Beneath the nervous clatter of our half-completed decade stirs a slow but seismic shift. The Information Age we all prepared for is ending. Rising in its place is what I call the Conceptual Age, an era in which mastery of abilities that we've often overlooked and undervalued marks the fault line between who gets ahead and who falls behind.

To some of you, this shift - from an economy built on the logical, sequential abilities of the Information Age to an economy built on the inventive, empathic abilities of the Conceptual Age - sounds delightful. "You had me at hello!" I can hear the painters and nurses exulting. But to others, this sounds like a crock. "Prove it!" I hear the programmers and lawyers demanding.

OK. To convince you, I'll explain the reasons for this shift, using the mechanistic language of cause and effect.

The effect: the scales tilting in favor of right brain-style thinking. The causes: Asia, automation, and abundance.

Asia

Few issues today spark more controversy than outsourcing. Those squadrons of white-collar workers in India, the Philippines, and China are scaring the bejesus out of software jockeys across North America and Europe. According to Forrester Research, 1 in 9 jobs in the US information technology industry will move overseas by 2010. And it's not just tech work. Visit India's office parks and you'll see chartered accountants preparing American tax returns, lawyers researching American lawsuits, and radiologists reading CAT scans for US hospitals.

The reality behind the alarm is this: Outsourcing to Asia is overhyped in the short term, but underhyped in the long term. We're not all going to lose our jobs tomorrow. (The total number of jobs lost to offshoring so far represents less than 1 percent of the US labor force.) But as the cost of communicating with the other side of the globe falls essentially to zero, as India becomes (by 2010) the country with the most English speakers in the world, and as developing nations continue to mint millions of extremely capable knowledge workers, the professional lives of people in the West will change dramatically. If number crunching, chart reading, and code writing can be done for a lot less overseas and delivered to clients instantly via fiber-optic cable, that's where the work will go.

But these gusts of comparative advantage are blowing away only certain kinds of white-collar jobs - those that can be reduced to a set of rules, routines, and instructions. That's why narrow left-brain work such as basic computer coding, accounting, legal research, and financial analysis is migrating across the oceans. But that's also why plenty of opportunities remain for people and companies doing less routine work - programmers who can design entire systems, accountants who serve as life planners, and bankers expert less in the intricacies of Excel than in the art of the deal. Now that foreigners can do left-brain work cheaper, we in the US must do right-brain work better.

Automation

Last century, machines proved they could replace human muscle. This century, technologies are proving they can outperform human left brains - they can execute sequential, reductive, computational work better, faster, and more accurately than even those with the highest IQs. (Just ask chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.)

Consider jobs in financial services. Stockbrokers who merely execute transactions are history. Online trading services and market makers do such work far more efficiently. The brokers who survived have morphed from routine order-takers to less easily replicated advisers, who can understand a client's broader financial objectives and even the client's emotions and dreams.

Or take lawyers. Dozens of inexpensive information and advice services are reshaping law practice. At CompleteCase.com, you can get an uncontested divorce for $249, less than a 10th of the cost of a divorce lawyer. Meanwhile, the Web is cracking the information monopoly that has long been the source of many lawyers' high incomes and professional mystique. Go to USlegalforms.com and you can download - for the price of two movie tickets - fill-in-the-blank wills, contracts, and articles of incorporation that used to reside exclusively on lawyers' hard drives. Instead of hiring a lawyer for 10 hours to craft a contract, consumers can fill out the form themselves and hire a lawyer for one hour to look it over. Consequently, legal abilities that can't be digitized - convincing a jury or understanding the subtleties of a negotiation - become more valuable.

Even computer programmers may feel the pinch. "In the old days," legendary computer scientist Vernor Vinge has said, "anybody with even routine skills could get a job as a programmer. That isn't true anymore. The routine functions are increasingly being turned over to machines." The result: As the scut work gets offloaded, engineers will have to master different aptitudes, relying more on creativity than competence.

Any job that can be reduced to a set of rules is at risk. If a $500-a-month accountant in India doesn't swipe your accounting job, TurboTax will. Now that computers can emulate left-hemisphere skills, we'll have to rely ever more on our right hemispheres.

Abundance

Our left brains have made us rich. Powered by armies of Drucker's knowledge workers, the information economy has produced a standard of living that would have been unfathomable in our grandparents' youth. Their lives were defined by scarcity. Ours are shaped by abundance. Want evidence? Spend five minutes at Best Buy. Or look in your garage. Owning a car used to be a grand American aspiration. Today, there are more automobiles in the US than there are licensed drivers - which means that, on average, everybody who can drive has a car of their own. And if your garage is also piled with excess consumer goods, you're not alone. Self-storage - a business devoted to housing our extra crap - is now a $17 billion annual industry in the US, nearly double Hollywood's yearly box office take.

But abundance has produced an ironic result. The Information Age has unleashed a prosperity that in turn places a premium on less rational sensibilities - beauty, spirituality, emotion. For companies and entrepreneurs, it's no longer enough to create a product, a service, or an experience that's reasonably priced and adequately functional. In an age of abundance, consumers demand something more. Check out your bathroom. If you're like a few million Americans, you've got a Michael Graves toilet brush or a Karim Rashid trash can that you bought at Target. Try explaining a designer garbage pail to the left side of your brain! Or consider illumination. Electric lighting was rare a century ago, but now it's commonplace. Yet in the US, candles are a $2 billion a year business - for reasons that stretch beyond the logical need for luminosity to a prosperous country's more inchoate desire for pleasure and transcendence.

Liberated by this prosperity but not fulfilled by it, more people are searching for meaning. From the mainstream embrace of such once-exotic practices as yoga and meditation to the rise of spirituality in the workplace to the influence of evangelism in pop culture and politics, the quest for meaning and purpose has become an integral part of everyday life. And that will only intensify as the first children of abundance, the baby boomers, realize that they have more of their lives behind them than ahead. In both business and personal life, now that our left-brain needs have largely been sated, our right-brain yearnings will demand to be fed.

As the forces of Asia, automation, and abundance strengthen and accelerate, the curtain is rising on a new era, the Conceptual Age. If the Industrial Age was built on people's backs, and the Information Age on people's left hemispheres, the Conceptual Age is being built on people's right hemispheres. We've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.

But let me be clear: The future is not some Manichaean landscape in which individuals are either left-brained and extinct or right-brained and ecstatic - a land in which millionaire yoga instructors drive BMWs and programmers scrub counters at Chick-fil-A. Logical, linear, analytic thinking remains indispensable. But it's no longer enough.

To flourish in this age, we'll need to supplement our well-developed high tech abilities with aptitudes that are "high concept" and "high touch." High concept involves the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to come up with inventions the world didn't know it was missing. High touch involves the capacity to empathize, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one's self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.

Developing these high concept, high touch abilities won't be easy for everyone. For some, the prospect seems unattainable. Fear not (or at least fear less). The sorts of abilities that now matter most are fundamentally human attributes. After all, back on the savannah, our caveperson ancestors weren't plugging numbers into spreadsheets or debugging code. But they were telling stories, demonstrating empathy, and designing innovations. These abilities have always been part of what it means to be human. It's just that after a few generations in the Information Age, many of our high concept, high touch muscles have atrophied. The challenge is to work them back into shape.

Want to get ahead today? Forget what your parents told you. Instead, do something foreigners can't do cheaper. Something computers can't do faster. And something that fills one of the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age. In other words, go right, young man and woman, go right.

#254: For Busy-ness Patients

#254-1. Most people are so busy knocking themselves out trying to do everything they think they should do, they never get around to what they want to do.
-Anon

#254-2. It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.
-Andre Gide

#254-3. How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?
-Paul Sweeney

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Patience and priorities… A lot of people have commented on how the Internet age has led to an expectation of "instant gratification" in every sphere of life. Attention spans are decreasing, short-term thinking determines plans and road rage is rampant even in the developing world. In the business world people are questioning the obsession with quarterly results and CEOs who are one-year-wonders with a hefty severance package. A popular mail forward talks about a "slowdown culture" inspired by the Swedish.

On the other hand, this is not applicable to everyone. Instant cameras are great, frozen dinners are fantastic for some.

#253: The Time is Now

Leading Ideas: Be Happy Now
by Doug Sundheim at Fastcompany.com (highlights mine)

7 Sep 2006

We are [repeatedly] sucked away into the future... incapable of actually living one minute of life.
-Thich Nhat Hanh, in The Miracle of Mindfulness

For so many of us, the life we want is just barely out of reach. We can see it. It's just a couple "if only's" away. We tell ourselves, "If only _____, then I'd be happy. I could relax." And so we pursue what we feel is missing—confident in the knowledge that while we're not happy right now, we will be soon. But then we achieve what we're after and yet something still feels missing. New "if only's" pop up to replace the old ones. We're caught in a race with a moving finish line. Contentment is more elusive than we had originally thought. Eventually, if we want to be happy, we must come to grips with an important fact. That we've been fooling ourselves. Contentment, it turns out, is not a destination. Rather, it's a manner of traveling. And if we can't feel it today, we won't find it tomorrow.

Consider This:
One of the most common questions I hear is, "How do I maintain a strong desire to progress/grow/achieve while also being happy where I am? They seem mutually exclusive." I point out that while this seems true on the surface, it's actually an illusion. What most people fail to realize is that if their happiness is dependent upon achieving something, when they achieve it they still won't be happy because they'll be consumed with trying to hold on to it. It comes down to the difference between commitment and attachment. If we're committed to a goal, our happiness is independent from its fulfillment. If we're attached to a goal, our happiness is dependent on its fulfillment. And we unwittingly end up a slave to the very thing we think will free us.

Try This:
1. Take 10 minutes to jot down as many of your "if only's" you can think of. Finish the sentence, "If only _____, then I'd be happy."
2. Consider how you've made your happiness dependent upon the items on the list.
3. Don't judge yourself or the list. Realize that these are deeply embedded patterns that are not likely to go away quickly (the purpose of the exercise is merely to let you know what dealing with).
4. Let the list work on you over time.
5. Recognize when one of your "if only's" is robbing you of the present moment and bring yourself back to enjoying your immediate experience.
6. Repeat daily.

____
In addition to the dimension of happiness by focusing on the moment, the above is also applicable to continued effectiveness in general. This phenomenon of postponing the start of something to a more suitable time in the future is so common, isn’t it? “When this project pressure subsides, we can look at process improvement.” “I shall organize my shelves as soon as my vacation begins.” “Let us solve the problems on hand, we will educate people on avoiding mistakes later.” Sounds familiar? It is the same pattern, I believe, that underlies mail folders containing tons of unread newsletters and articles that we hope to get to, “one day”. Highly effective people strike a judicious balance between short-term and long-term issues, they weave changes and small pleasures within the daily grind of urgent tasks.

#252: On the Why and How of Change

#252-1. Either you're an agent of change, or you're destined to become a victim of change. You simply can't survive over the long term if you insist on standing still.
-Norm Brodsky, entrepreneur and author

#252-2. If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.
-Irwin Corey, comedian

#252-3. The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything...or nothing.
–Lady Nancy Astor

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Change is inevitable and can be deadly or full of wonderful opportunities, depending on how we look at it. Leaders cannot afford to be ignorant about the necessity of tackling this mindset issue up front—first in themselves and then in their teams. Taking an all or nothing stand is not wise.

#251: On Leadership and Power

#251-1. Leadership is not a formal authority one exercises over others. It is about developing moral authority within oneself.
-Stephen Covey, quoted in Business Standard India, Jan 2009

#251-2. To use power wisely is the final test of leadership. Thus, the first rule in the game of power (or life) and, in fact, the only hard and fast rule in the entire game is: Power must be the servant; it must not be the master!
-Thomas D. Willhite

#251-3. We in the West are just beginning to understand what globalization really means. The old lament, "When I was young, things were tougher," is, in my opinion, no longer accurate. I say: "When I was young, things were easier!"
-Marshall Goldsmith in his AskTheCoach column on Harvard Business School site, Dec 2008

____
Power is misunderstood and misused. Then it becomes an intoxicant. It provides a heady feeling for a short while with dangerous consequences later. When one wields it as one holds a new hammer—with respect for its efficacy and as a tool to achieve an intended effect—it is a great aid.

Change feels complex and difficult to those who resist it. Adaptable people perceive new opportunities and enjoy the process of figuring them out. Scaling up and maturing into a higher leadership role can also be seen as a change process.

#250: Advice for Rebels

#250-1. A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.
-H. H. Munro

#250-2. Lots of times you have to pretend to join a parade in which you're not really interested in order to get where you're going.
-Christopher Morley

#250-3. Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
-Mark Twain

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In the first quote I believe the keyword is "sometimes", inaccuracy out of sloppiness or ignorance or fear of having to explain is not advised.

The second is about means and ends, putting up with a harmless cause and accomplishing a higher goal. Aimed at those who have the courage to rebel.

The third reminds us not to join and continue with the parade out of comfort and fear to rebel.

#249: Amazing Duck Rescue Story

On Tuesday, May 20, a Spokane man who works downtown as a loan officer at a local bank, became a hero in the eyes of his sister and many of his co-workers. What follows is his story, as told by his sister, Candace Mumm.

Something really amazing happened in Downtown Spokane this week and I had to share the story with you. Some of you may know that my brother, Joel Armstrong, is a loan officer at Sterling Bank. He works downtown in a second story office building, overlooking busy Riverside Avenue. Several weeks ago he watched a mother duck choose the cement awning outside his window as the uncanny place to build a nest above the sidewalk. The mallard laid ten eggs in a nest in the corner of the planter that is perched over 15 feet in the air. She dutifully kept the eggs warm for weeks, and Monday afternoon all ten of her ducklings hatched.

Joel worried all night how the momma duck was going to get those babies safely off their perch in a busy, downtown, urban environment to take to water, which typically happens in the first 48 hours of a duck hatching.

Tuesday morning, Joel came to work and watched the mother duck encourage her babies to the edge of the perch with the intent to show them how to jump off! The mother flew down below and started quacking to her babies above. In his disbelief Joel watched as the first fuzzy newborn toddled to the edge and astonishingly leapt into thin air, crashing onto the cement below. My brother couldn't watch how this might play out. He dashed out of his office and ran down the stairs to the sidewalk where the first obedient duckling was stuporing near its mother from the near fatal fall. Joel looked up. The second duckling was getting ready to jump! He quickly dodged out of the duckling's sight under the awning while the mother duck quacked at him and the babies above. As the second one took the plunge, Joel jumped forward and caught it with his bare hands before it hit the cement. Safe and sound, he set it by the momma and the other stunned sibling, still recovering from its painful leap.

One by one the babies continued to jump to join their anxious family below. Each time Joel hid under the awning, just to reach out in the nick of time as the duckling made its freefall. The downtown sidewalk came to a standstill. Time after time, Joel was able to catch the remaining eight and set them by their approving mother. At this point Joel realized the duck family had only made part of its dangerous journey. They had at least two full blocks to walk across traffic, crosswalks, curbs, and pedestrians to get to the closest open water, the Spokane River.

The onlooking office co-workers then joined in and hurriedly brought an empty copy paper box to collect the babies. They carefully corralled them, with the mother's approval, and loaded them up into the white cardboard container. Joel held the box low enough for the mom to see her brood. He then slowly navigated through the downtown streets toward the Spokane River, as the mother waddled behind and kept her babies in sight. They walked block by block to the water’s edge. As they reached the river, the Sterling Bank office staff then tipped the box and encouraged the younglings, quite nervous from their adventurous ride, to walk toward the water and their mother. She approached her brood and marched them to the brink, ushering them with a splash into their new watery home.

All ten darling ducklings safely made the plunge and paddled up snugly to momma duck. Joel said the mom swam in circles, looking back toward the beaming bank workers, proudly quacking as if to say, "See, we did it! Thanks for all the help!"

Photos at http://www.spokane.net/stay_connected/HotTopics_DuckHero.aspx

____
The hero’s genuine caring and willingness to act is obviously inspiring. Interesting to note how the mother duck and his co-workers responded immediately to his authentic leadership in the situation.

Other points to ponder:
-the mother duck’s determined decision making in the face of obvious risks to her children
-the trust of the newborn ducks in the mother
-which of the following would make any difference to Joel’s sense of satisfaction:
o if he received no public recognition of his kind act
o if his co-workers did not join hands

#248: Ancient Thoughts, Practical Advice

#248-1. You are what your driving desire is.
As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.
-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad c. 800BCE, IV.4.5

#248-2. Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.
-Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

#248-3. A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze.
-Diogenes, philosopher (412?-323 BCE)

____
The first thing that strikes me on seeing the above is that thinkers thousands of years ago could articulate such profound and practically useful advice.

Whatever drives us, our passion areas, determine the success or failure we achieve because it impacts the intensity of our actions. What we decide to act upon is guided by our thoughts. To improve thoughts, we should be willing to spend effort in learning. We learn many things but that has to reflect in our improved judgement and action otherwise it is futile.

All the above is self-centric. In an organizational context managing the relationship with our superior is an important element that we sometimes forget to pay attention to.

Powerful metaphor for a boss—fire! Getting too close to my boss leads to the danger of confusing one’s personal equation and friendship with the professional role-driven relationship. Staying disconnected and too far from a boss with whom I do not find common ground could lead to being unnoticed—I could miss opportunities for feedback, learning, help and possibly finding common ground. Fire does not have to be likeable. One does not dislike fire for its nature, one merely understands and looks for containing its destructive power. It is needed for igniting dormant fuel.

#247: Who Has the Answers

The nest of young eagles hung on to every word as the Master Eagle described his exploits. This was an important day for the eaglets. They were preparing for their first solo flight from the nest. It was the confidence builder many of them needed to fulfill their destiny.

"How far can I travel?" asked one of the eaglets. "How far can you see?" responded the Master Eagle.

"How high can I fly?" quizzed the young eaglet. "How far can you stretch your wings?" asked the old eagle.

"How long can I fly?" the eaglet persisted. "How far is the horizon?" the mentor rebounded.

"How much can I achieve?" the young eagle continued. "How much can you believe?" the old eagle challenged.

Frustrated by the banter, the young eagle demanded, "Why don't you answer my questions?"

"I did."

"Yes. But you answered them with questions."

"I answered them the best I could."

"But you're the Master Eagle. You're supposed to know everything. If you can't answer these questions, who can?"

"You." The old wise eagle reassured. "Me? How?" the young eagle was confused.

"No one can tell you how high to fly or how much to dream. It's different for each eagle. Only God and you know how far you'll go. No one on this earth knows your potential or what's in your heart. You alone will answer that. The only thing that limits you is the edge of your imagination."

The young eagle, puzzled by this asked, "What should I do?"

"Look to the horizon, spread your wings, and fly."

____
How much I should aspire to need not be equal to how much I will achieve. Too large a mismatch between my assessment of potential based on circumstances and the track record of my actual accomplishments would at best be frustrating and, at worst, hinder even attainable goals. The history of visionaries teaches us not to be too realistic. A sweet spot seems to exist somewhere between pragmatism and dreams. The trick is to periodically examine our goals, direction, achievements and fine-tune as we go along.

#246: On Anger and Self-awareness

#246-1. If you know what you know, you are OK
If you know what you don’t know, you are better off
If you don't know what you know, you are in for surprises
If you don't know what you don’t know, you are in deep trouble.
-Anon

(Thanks to Lax for sharing this.)

#246-2. Holding anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; You are the one who gets burned.
-Anon

(Thanks to Prashant Varekar for sharing this.)

#246-3. Two ways to be happy forever:
-Never Give the Help of Tears to Your Emotions
-Never Give the Help of Your Tongue to Your Anger
-Anon

(Thanks to Nehal Shah for sharing this.)

_____
The first one reminds me of the JoHari window on self-awareness. More self-knowledge is generally useful.

There are many techniques to avoid acting on impulse when angry. The longer-term solution for those prone to anger is spiritual maturity. More self-acceptance and better awareness of the world reduces the frequency and intensity of anger.

#245: On Motivation

#245-1. Managers ask me how to motivate the people who report to them. I think that's the wrong question. Stop doing things that demotivate people, and create an environment for success.

-Esther Derby

#245-2. You can buy a person's time; you can buy his physical presence in a given place; you can even buy a measured number of his skilled muscular motions per hour. But you cannot buy enthusiasm. You cannot buy initiative. You cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds and souls. You have to earn those things.
-Clarence Francis

#245-3. The assets of most businesses walk out of the door at the end of each day. The challenge to management is to create an environment which will motivate them to want to return the next day.
-Lynn Yates

_____
You might wonder if managers really do things to demotivate their teams. Obviously no one sets out in the morning to think up ways to make people feel bad. It could be small, unintentional actions without sensing the reaction. For instance, a manager with a self-perception of being soft might try to be too strict on trivial matters or keep distance from subordinates. Another might spend a lot of time taking care of the star member without realizing how it is perceived by other members. The traditional employer-employee relationship has changed due to many environmental factors but mindsets take longer to accept and adapt.

#244: Becoming Luckier

Why Some People Have All the Luck
By Professor Richard Wiseman, University of Hertfordshire, author of The Luck Factor

I set out to examine luck, 10 years ago. Why are some people always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune? I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.

Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research and over the years, have been interviewed by me. I have monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments. The results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune. Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not.

I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: 'Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $50'.

This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.

Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.

As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.

Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for. My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

I wondered towards the end of the work, whether these principles could be used to create good luck. I asked a group of volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. Dramatic results! These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck. One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80 per cent of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier.

The lucky people had become even luckier and the unlucky had become lucky. Finally, I had found the elusive 'luck factor'. Here are four top tips for becoming lucky:

1) Listen to your gut instincts—they are normally right.
2) Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine.
3) Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well.
4) Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call.

Have a lucky day and work for it. The happiest people in the world are not those who have no problems, but those who learn to live with things that are less than perfect.

(Thanks to D Karthikeyan, Arvindkumar Patnam and Ambarish Kulkarni for sharing this.)

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I love the scientific spirit with which Prof. Richard Wiseman has studied a common human belief and brought out useful guidelines. As one of the email forwards puts it, luck can be seen as Labouring Under Correct Knowledge. I can choose to discard the wrong knowledge that I am especially unlucky. Perceived randomness in the universe is a fact but instead of resigning to it, one can hope to benefit by the non-finality of certain happenings. Increased understanding uncovers the patterns, principles or laws underlying apparently random occurrences.

#243: On Discussing Effectively

#243-1. Nothing lowers the level of conversation more than raising the voice.
-Stanley Horowitz

#243-2. The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
-Joseph Joubert

#243-3. In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.
-Anon

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Healthy debate based on principles, values, facts and logic is like oxygen for any society, including an organization. Too many people avoid arguments, and managers prevent them. One research study conducted on poorly performing teams found that there was a lot of arguments amongst members of the team. They were surprised when they found that the successful, high-performing teams also had the same characteristic! I am sure the quality of debate in the two cases would have been different—quality in terms of content, issues being debated, tone and also how members behaved after the debate.

Am glad to note that a satirical piece I posted in July 2007 on our internal PMBlog titled, “Top 10 Mistakes i-flex PMs Make” elicited positive feedback mail rather than anyone taking offence. I also followed it up with a more sober post titled, “Top 10 Qualities Needed for an i-flex PM”.

#242: Thinking Deep and Wide

#242-1. When policy fails try thinking.
-Anon

#242-2. Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.
-Bertrand Russell

#242-3. I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.
-Neil Gaiman

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A few schools in the world, thanks to Edward de Bono, actually have thinking skills taught separately as a subject. Often we think we think when we are actually quickly jumping to a prejudiced conclusion or pampering our emotions. True thinking has to be dispassionate. Continued thinking is harder than most of us admit, fatigue sets in as soon as we skim the obvious parameters in a situation and the mind goes into a loop over the same thoughts. We have to train the mind to think through, to generate a larger set of options. Expanding awareness on a variety of subjects–relevant and seemingly irrelevant—helps.

#241: On Intelligent Thinking

#241-1. Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way a car is driven.
-Edward de Bono

#241-2. The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.
-Bill Gates

#241-3. Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.
-Benjamin Disraeli

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Edward de Bono has written more books on teaching practical thinking than anybody else. Most of his 70+ books are boring repetitions of a few points but I recommend his “Serious Creativity” and “Lateral Thinking”. His use of the word intelligence may be unusual to some. We rarely distinguish between thinking ability and intelligence, a broader term that incorporates knowledge of facts and language skills. Concentration and practice help improve thinking. What I like to call "mental laziness" is a barrier. I find that people with above-average intelligence within their circle of acquaintances are more prone to mental laziness.

Automation (or improved efficiency) is a double-edged sword that needs to be carefully applied to an effective, correct process.

Desperation can be artificially created as Andy Grove did at Intel (he wrote, "Only the Paranoid Survive") and Bill Gates did in 1995 when Microsoft was perceived as lagging behind the Internet trend. They both believed in creating a crisis in their company when the external market or competition did not.