An amazing Poem!

I came across this amazing autobiographic poem of John D. Rockefeller

"I was early taught to work as well as play,

My life has been one long, happy holiday;

Full of work and full of play-

I dropped the worry on the way-

And God was good to me everyday."

Rockefeller is often regarded as the richest person in history. For many of his competitors, Rockefeller had merely to show them his books so they could see what they were up against, then make them a decent offer. If they refused his offer, he told them he would run them into bankruptcy, then cheaply buy up their assets at auction.

Rockefeller spent the last 40 years of his life in retirement.His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy with foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research.

I was suddenly reminded of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Andrew Carnegie.... all the richest people in the world have had one thing in common, they did everything to wash away competition, leveraged the monopoly and finally turned billion of dollars towards philanthropy. Did they do it to acquire the wealth from the riches and gave it away to poor?? or they feared being remembered as self centered monopolist, so they took shelter behind philanthropy....or they simply realize life is not about making money but about creating value for the fellow human beings
:)

Breakthrough Innovators

(re-construction of something I read in HBR)

Finding and grooming breakthrough innovators have been the key to successful firms. More often people replicate previous best practices of their seniors or counterparts. But breakthrough innovators don't even rely on their own previous laurels to replicate success.

What do breakthrough innovators look like:

• High cognitive ability, and analytical skill
• Ability to focus on important data and separate it from peripheral issues attached to it.
• Restless and never content with their success. (Creative envy)
• Ridiculously socially aware of their surroundings at all times.eg: someone who able to walk into a meeting full of customers, investors, bosses, vendors, workers and quickly discern each ones motivation.
• Persuasive and charming
• Ability to garner organizational support for an innovative idea which might sound obscure to everyone else.
• Extremely curious
• They are efficient in managing tension between their independent mind and their social engagement with colleagues

By definition an innovator must access resources and recombine ideas in ways that are unfamiliar to the organization. Doing so moving beyond the conventional boundaries and safety of the existing position ,which can be a lonely experience. At the same time innovators must be able to bring the knowledge they have gained back to traditional hierarchies , which can be frustrating. After reading this article the first name that came to my mind is Steve jobs , I wonder if Apple would find his replacement.

Management!

Time and again I have asked myself "Do I really wanna do an MBA?", "What is so special about management that an engineer can't handle it","Is actually going to transform my career or I wanna do this because everyone else is doing it?".

I want to do an MBA for a career leap, MBA is like a pole vault, if I can do it I can crossover to a managerial position. But then MBA is an answer to my question only if my ultimate goal in life was to become a manager. How many of us dreamt of becoming a manager in our childhood, As a child I used to dream of making a car that would fly as well. There were others who dreamt of becoming a pilot, doctor, engineer, scientist, etc. But why all of them today are appearing for CAT.

Management is a separate knowledge domain, Engineers do not have management knowledge and the way a electrical engineer cannot do a civil engineers job well, similarly engineers without the management knowledge cannot handle a managerial position.

Management is a definitely the hip thing today. It pays well, but with evolution wealth has moved from one section to another depending on economics. There was a time when cattle were the measure of wealth, then farmers were the riches, then probably engineers with initial industrial revolution. Today it is managers. But what about tomorrow. Management has been around for long enough for it to be the thing of future. Management was actually born because of engineering. Engineering brought industrial revolution and large scale production. Large scale production required semi-skilled employees to perform repetitive activities competently, diligently and efficiently. And then coordinate these efforts to produce complex goods and services in large quantities. So management was born. Essentially management looks at human beings as machine and because these machines are not governed by n number of fundamental laws of science(which is static) management is much more complex compared to engineering. Human beings are dynamic which makes management dynamic. But important thing here is that management has same philosophical foundation as engineering has. Both the knowledge have enabled large scale production. They look at everything as production units/machines and try maximizing efficiency and the quality produced by such a unit.

Human beings are not machines because machines cannot manage themselves. If management is not going to be the hip thing in future then what else would be????? The answer can be easily deduced if we look at current revolution. After information revolution today human beings are moving towards innovation and co-creation. Human beings have two unique ability to adapt and create. With the changing times these two are becoming all the more important. Why lehman brothers a 156 years old organization which made 2 billion dollars in profits in 2007 could not adapt to changing environment of 2008 and collapsed. Having worked for lehman I can say it had one of the world class management systems in place. All its managers were world class. It collapsed because it lacked the human dimension of adaptability and co-creation. In fact in the coming days of recession a number of large organizations might come down, but small individually run business will not because they have the adaptability. Other large organization which will survive recession are organization like Apple, Toyota, which have exploited the creative dimension of human beings and have become centers of innovation.

Entrepreneurship is going to be the hip thing in future. The wave has already started. Entrepreneurship has the same philosophical foundation as innovation and co-creation. Every entrepreneur looks at his employees as complete human beings who have adaptability and creativity. A true leader today is an entrepreneur who does not lead by means of his position but by means of his ability to inspire employees to bring gift of initiative, imagination and passion to work. Tomorrow's successful organization will be more human, every human being then would manage himself, management will then become a trivial knowledge.

Luck by chance!

For a change I am watching a lot of movies these days (courtesy vinay sharma) and i m lucky last 2 were good. Good in my language means something which is created out of sincere efforts and with a vision.



Movies can be source of ideas, reflections etc. apart from entertainment. The current economic crisis is lucky for none but India. In my view the fundamental reason for the crisis is the exorbitant consumption by the west and the blind production by the east in the service of west. If you consume more than you produce you will one day deplete everything your forefathers earned and left for you. And if you presume that there is infinite wealth in west and keep accepting credit bills assuming they are against a real treasure hidden in the west, it will only leave you with paper and a lot of it. US and china are perfect examples of the west and the east. US crude consumption is 30 times that of India for a population less than 1/3rd of India, China exports are 9 times that of India. Today US does not have money to support its consumption and china does not have a wealthy sethji to serve.



India is lucky by chance. Being a poor country we could not afford to be a sethji and being lazy we weren't really interested in serving the sethji. There are two fundamental dimensions to out nature, maximum return in minimum efforts, and save as much as possible and consume as little as possible. Both these dimensions has put us in a unique position: "Luck by chance". We don't have a trade surplus so we don't care whether there is a sethji out there or not and because we have been saving for the future we have deep pockets. India is in a unique position to develop itself to a most powerful economy provided we break our notion of being a underdeveloped or backward nation. This very notion has lead us to follow west and not recognize the leader inside us. Instead of running for a better life to western countries, we can create a better life in our own country. Provided we see ourselves capable doing it.



I know by now you have got into pragmatic mode. "Blog likhne se development ho jata hain kya" Nah! it doesn't happen because of writing blog , blog likhne se time paas hotaa hain :) Development needs resources and productive human beings. We have 1/6th of the total human beings on the earth and resources are getting cheaper day by day, crude is 38$ a barrel today, it has fallen from its peak of 140$ a barrel in july 2008, so is the case with other commodities. Only thing we have to do is consume less than we produce. If we build new roads there will be enough cars to occupy them, if we build new public transport there are people waiting to travel in peace, If we produce world-class consumer products , there are plenty of buyers in the country with a taste for them and even deep pockets to buy them.



So as long as people are willing to produce first then consume, we don't need the world, we can achieve rapid development indigenously! see "Luck by chance"!