Sujavna 1:9

Giri at 1130am on 24^th April 2011

Welcome to yet another post of Sujavna. Hope you are all finding my posts interesting to read, though I do get a feeling that they may not be exciting enough for most of you to comment and react. The comments boxes have remained empty all of April!

The week that went by: Corruption remained a media-darling for most of the week in India. And Catherine Zeta Jones’ bipolar disorder also occupied a lot of the print-media space towards the end of the week, with today’s paper focusing on the growing menace of depression amongst Indian urban citizens.

Padma (my wife) and I chatted on this issue this morning and we think that while there are a growing number of reasons for this, the empathy and support that immediate family-members can give, identifying and attempting some creative pursuits and putting in efforts to widen the circle of friends and acquaintances can all, probably, help people manage depressions. Easier said than done, you may think! How does one go about with any of these? Are there support-groups in Indian cities that can help people through their depressions? Perhaps each city should have a “Hug-a-friend” network of centres where depressed individuals could go any time of the day and find volunteers who are ready to give them a hug and say a positively-reinforcing message that ignites a spark in the persons to think positively about the issues that they confront. The network of centres could be sponsored by comfort-food companies as part of their own CSR initiatives! (not sure if this is a good idea, though).

Hope the long Easter weekend is rejuvenating you all. I look forward to reading your comments and views – not only on those topics that I have written about, but on anything else where you think you have some great suggestions to offer - so please use the comments box. Until next Sunday......

Sujavna 1:8

Giri at 1400 hrs on 17^th April 2011

Hello there. I hope you are all having a great weekend. Mine is turning out to be hectic as I have scheduled some maintenance work at home.

But more than the hectic bit, the work throws up some very interesting thoughts: (a) why the construction and civil repairs and maintenance works sector in India has not embraced benchmarked processes and project management techniques? (b) why is there no transparency in dealing with customers, be it in terms of providing quotes based on BOM and labour rates or in terms of providing timeframes and quality guarantees for completion of works? (c) Is worker health and safety given any consideration at all? To me greed seems to be the only trait that characterises all these contractors and materials suppliers. So what are the options for someone who wants to engage a good contractor for civil repairs and maintenance? Is there a case for incentivising this sector to adopt professional work cultures and customer-friendly work practices? If so what sort of incentives are appropriate? Free or subsidised safety apparel for workers.....special rebates and write-offs from some applicable local taxes on work contracts that have been executed and have met all health, safety and other professional standards.....

Rushing off to check if the floor tiling work is being done properly, so signing off here, Looking forward to reading your comments and feedback.

Sujavna 1:7

Giri at 1730 hours on 10^th April 2011

Firstly, to keep up to my promise on reporting some of my findings on lateral thinking!

Much of my random search of over 200 sites (there are over 121000 entries that are spewed out by a search of lateral thinking for business success) confirm that Edward de Bono seems to have a monopoly on the subject. While that itself is not surprising, it is the range of business circumstances that actually benefit, which astounds me. I never even imagined that virtual meetings have been shown to benefit from such approaches.

Each of these 200 or odd sites is a treasure to read. If you have not really been introduced to Edward de Bono, try looking up at www.debonoconsulting.com. I specifically refer you to search for de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats Approach to lateral thinking. SIX THINKING HATS is a de Bono classic, used by businessmen worldwide to develop techniques of creative thinking in the boardroom. The Six Hats method aims to make the fullest use of everyone’s intelligence, experience and information.

Six Thinking Hats, (White Hat thinking focuses on data, facts, information known or needed; Black Hat thinking focuses on difficulties, potential problems and Why something may not work; Red Hat thinking focuses on feelings, hunches, gut instinct, and intuition; Green Hat thinking focuses on creativity: possibilities, alternatives, solutions, new ideas; Yellow Hat thinking focuses on values and benefits and Why something may work; Blue Hat thinking focuses on manage the thinking process, focus, next steps, action plans) teaches parallel thinking as an alternative to argument. Parallel thinking guides thought processes in one direction at a time so we can effectively analyze issues, generate new ideas, and make better decisions.

But Six Hats and other lateral thinking techniques, as I learnt from the numerous websites that I browsed, can be successfully used outside of the Boardroom – in virtual meetings, at garage-run home-businesses, in political campaigns, in crisis management, in negotiations with criminals ..... The processes employed in lateral thinking can be summed up in 7-steps:

·         Alternatives: Utilize the concepts to formulate new ideas.   

·         Focus: improve or alter your focus to improve your creative efforts.

·         Challenge: Get out of the traditional ways of approaching a solution.

·         Random Entry: Broaden the concept of thinking.

·         Provocation: Start from a provocative statement and divert to practical ideas.

·         Treatment of Ideas: Develop ideas and shape them to fit your circumstances.

·         Selecting: Select the best ideas and evolve them into an activity plan.

Hope this has given you a flavour of what all I am finding out from the internet. More in my future blogs.

And now for that one event that kept my intellectual juices flowing during most of the week that went by: Yes, it was the stand-off between Anna Hazare the crusader against corruption and the Government of India on the Jan Lokpal Bill. The fast-unto death threat that Anna made had its effect and the government has agreed to moving forward on the Bill along the lines suggested by Anna. Now here is my take on the whole standoff: Can Anna Hazare also go on a similar fast-unto-death to coerce each of the India’s top businessmen and traders, doctors and lawyers, Bollywood producers and artistes, cricket stars and sports administrators to agree to a similar vigilante body? After all it takes two hands to clap and corruption is not just the result of greed from powerful government officials and politicians! The Chambers of Commerce and professional trade associations can also be a target of such coercive tactics and may have to respond positively to such tactics!

So until the 17^th of April, wishing you all a very exciting and beneficial week ahead.

Sujavna 1:6

Giri at 0730pm on 03^rd April

India’s win yesterday in the cricket World Cup after 28 years was an exciting treat to many of us Indians and it was comforting to see, for a change, many of India’s corporate honchos and Bollywood stars acting like cheerleaders at the Wankhade stadium. I wonder if the next season of IPL, that will soon begin, will generate the same fervour as this World Cup!

Cricket-diplomacy, in the sub-continent, has been used several times in the past to facilitate geo-political dialogues. While the results are debatable, there is no doubt that the concept of using sports, arts and culture as ice-breakers between disputing parties and as reinforcing pillars for shared efforts between neighbouring nations and states has the latent potential and will continue to be attempted. That being the case, how about using art, sports and culture to resolve inter-state, centre-state disputes (such as river-water sharing disputes) or event the Maoist problem in India! Perhaps an annual touring exhibition of the most popular cinema, music, theatre, dance personalities and their works, generously sponsored by a public-private partnership (Government of India’s Home Ministry, state governments’ cultural departments and leading chambers of commerce and industry) may provide the right environment for ensuring that stalemates in dialogues do not remain so for a long time; the pressure from people-to-people contacts and cultural collaborations that results from such touring exhibitions will be a force to reckon with.

It’s going to be sometime, before I write on my findings from the internet on the subject of the lateral thinking and how suggestions have made a difference in business and social contexts. This is because, I am still trying to collate all the information that I am reading, into some order for presenting. So please bear with me.

I wish you all a very interesting and satisfying week ahead. Expect my next post on 10^th April. Until then........