APPRAISAL TIME (Part 2)

Reading my earlier article, many readers termed it (and me, off course these were my views) as Pro-govt.  Some even called me that you are not supporting the ANNA way of protest, so you are against Anna and if you are against anna, it means you are against noble cause of  fighting corruption and you are like corrupt politicians.  I am unable to comprehend people’s (Anna supporters)  thinking,  amn’t  I also excercising  the right of freedom of expression which is same as anna’s philosophy. So what if they aren’t exactly matching with other’s point of view .

Anyways following are my vievs in elaborative way. Read these as background and then read above article:-

1.     Regarding my pro-govt views:- On 16th & 17Th aug , media and opposition attacked congress directly (they started playing politics out of this noble cause). Anna ji’s views are different from what were being projected. So some section of large supporters have misguided from the main topic of fighting against system and not congress, as people in emotional state of mind can believe whatever which has some closeness to topic and then by drifting inch by inch from main topic. This is property of Mob, they tend to make their own theories and views ( partition of india could be the result of this property of Mob)
Personally I like Anna jis cause but I didn’t like the deadlock which happened on 16th & 17th Aug.
I had apprehensions that if anna ji negotiations mein aise hi Zidd pe ade rahe to ultimately there will be more political pressure from opposition and coalition parties which can lead to dissolution of govt and we would have faced election again. (because media was using the word “Kranti kranti” again & again , and generally we think toppling of present inefficient autocratic govt. as victory in kranti). Result of election would be the same (whether Congress or BJP wins) but with additional cost of elections which is not good for debt ridden country. By this, we could have drifted from actual cause of CHANGING SYSTEM and LAWS. But it was projected as CHANGING GOVT, which is not viable option as of now as this is SOMEWHAT better than BJP (See I am pro-govt in this sense).

2.     Regarding Corruption & LOkPAL BILL:- I think corruption and other such vices are in our INDIAN DNA. Its just that top people got chance to exercise this vice and others don’t. I doubt common man, who are burning candles, will behave like harishchandra, when given power. So its deep rooted psychological problem, its difficult to cure this virus by force in one perfect bill. This is a process.
I think this LOKPAL BILL is an effort to start the PROCESS of changing PRESENT SYSTEM which is used for 64 years and proved to be failure (Still we are not sure about success of LOKPAL BILL, but there’s no harm in experimenting the theory , which seems good on paper). For this, full credit goes to Anna ji for his braveness in initiating this process. But I think he is too adamant in negotiating, he is asking to first draft the PERFECT BILL that HE thinks is right (Its same as famous story that, one person want all lights in the city to be green before starting his journey from home). Instead he should press govt to start discussion in parliament as soon as possible (so that not to get taarikh pe tariikh)  atleast on Govt Bill. In discussion opposition party can put JAN LOKPAL BILL as “Private members BILL”, as proposed by Varun Gandhi yesterday. In any case , whether Anna get JAN LOKPAL BILL presented through govt or Varun Gandhi puts it in alternative way, Majority of MPs should agree on points of Jan LOKPAL BILL to make it law. To make the discussions fair, Anna should press for broadcasting of that session.
Simple summary of my views is to get it started kyunki “Baat karne se hi Baat banati hai”. And now after so many efforts of Anna ji, govt is ready to discuss, don’t let it spoiled by being adamant.

APPRAISAL TIME

                                         On this independence day, there is talk about reforms in system to root out corruption. There is negativity about UPA govt. and  India’s future.  Opposition parties are aiming their guns , with bullets of  negativity, towards Govt. and shoot whenever they got chance. It seems that present govt. is good for nothing, it is failure in every area of governance. But I remember, there was air of positivity about this two times elected Govt.  Also we have critics about “Team India”. People are talking about capability of players Team India after their recent loss in test series. Is loss of one test series the reason enough for having doubt in the capability of same team who won us World Cup few months back and many such achievements before ?  Are Manmohan Singh and M.S  Dhoni failed in their appraisals and are not good employee anymore ?

                                         Above facts draws my attention towards our personal lives as we also feel so positive about ourselves at times and negative at other time. Being a engineering student, I believe there is relation between individual personal (read atoms) phenomenon and society (material) at large.  We can understand whole material properties better by studying at atomic level, have you just said Nanotechnology ? Lets try to relate these two:

                                      Whenever we had some failures like bad presentation, failure in interview, failure in exam etc, sometimes we get so negative that we overlook our positives.  We concentrate on our negatives rather than our positives despite the fact that those positives are result of lifelong efforts.

Similarly, aren’t we concentrating too much on failure of govt.  on morality front (read corruption).  Aren’t we overlooking the intellectual capability and leadership of this govt. over other available alternatives, this capability is reflected in the fact that people of india elected it , over others, for maximum no of times in the life of free democratic independent  india. There are many other problems like rising inflation etc which demands govt. focus. Let’s give govt. some air to use their strength and concentrate on other important issues as well. This doesn’t mean to be negligent towards corruption and have a “Chalta hai” attitude. A successful person never run away from his deficiencies, but in a bad phase he can park his deficiencies for some time and then later work on these deficiencies by positive energy of success obtained due to his strengths. It is called spillover effect. Lets be positive and upbeat about india and of course Team India ,for whatever we have achieved so far,  and then find ways and ideas for tackling corruption and other deficiencies/failures.  Ideas generated from positive, collaborative and rational  mindset are much more effective than ideas generated from negative,defiant, emotional and biased mindset. Lets help both govt. and Team India in working out their problems. But this also needs openness from govt. and Team India for accepting and discussing new ideas for improvement. Isn’t the way our progressive youth works in competitive MNCs today ? Do today’s young employee (analogous to Govt. or Captain) considers himself as failure if his boss (We, the people) fails him in his appraisal based on employee’s  failure in one of the many MOPs (Measure of performance) assigned to him ?

" Either Or " v/s "As well as"

Once Guru Nanak Dev Ji, in his childhood, was playing in his courtyard, suddenly he fell down. Both Pandit (Hindu) and Muslim learned man, who were standing beside him, extended their one hand each to help him. To know Guru Nanak Dev Ji's religious inclination, they decided that whichever hand will he (Guru Nanak Dev Ji) use for getting up, he will follow that religion means if child use Pandit hand for support then child follows Hindu religion and vice versa. To their surprise, Guru Nanak Dev Ji used both men's hand for support.
                            This small secular story,taught in school, guided my religious bent of mind and i ended up being a Universalist Unitarian. Looking above story from different angle (besides religion), Guru Nanak Dev Ji could either chose Hindu hand or Muslim hand but he chose hindu's as well as Muslim's hand. This fact triggered another set of questions and dilemma of choosing between "Either Or " and "As well as" for me. I observed the application of this fact in day to day decision making situations and started evaluating situations based on this fact. Some of my observations are:

1. In childhood, its been often asked that whom do you like the most, mom or dad ?
Immediate answer for above question would have, Mom as well as Dad. But generally question is asked by a biased person, so i first judge the bias of person who is asking question and then answer accordingly. For ex. if my brother asks, then i recall that dad scold him while teaching, so he must not like dad, and i answer in Mom's favour to keep him happy so that he keeps me happy and take me for long drive along with him :).(Thank God !! My brother doesn't read blogs :)). So i ended up choosing either dad or mom rather than Mom as well as Dad. In other words i graduated from lebel "Bachhe man ke sache" to lebel "Duniyadari sikhna"

2. In school days, most of us are often in dilemma of whether to concentrate on studies or sports ?
So we needed to choose either studies or sports. We sometimes wondered how some students , All Rounders ,  manage to do well in sports as well as studies. But due to shortage of time we even stop wondering and select the appropriate option (sport in case of Sachin Tendulkar !!).

 3. As a working individual, we often face dilemma between earning money and family life and this is called as work life balance. Most of us think if we want money in life then we have to sactifice family life / hobbies. If somebody is pursuing some hobbies or enjoying family life, we unconciously think that he is not focussed on career and not going to be too rich or succesful. Are we conditioned from childhood to think like this ? Can't we believe or atleast imagine that a person can be a rich in money and other aspects of life ( a real rich). People have done that, read about Richard Branson...

 4. There can be many more such examples that we can think of, now i have option of either continuing with examples or move ahead. Due to shortage of time i choose to move ahead :).

              
                

Dancing Manager

                         Dance has always been my passion from childhood. I used to copy dancing steps of Salman khan (O O Jaane jana), Hrithik Roshan (Ek pal ka jeena) and others. As i started earning in my corporate working life, i was sure to give oxygen to that fire of passion. But I sensed an unwritten archaic perception among senior managers that dancing and other such activities are wastage of time. Instead young employees should work on weekends (so that bosses can enjoy on weekdays also :) ) , for the so called better learning and growth opportunities. Being amateur, i took my seniors advice for granted and participated in rat race.

                          As i started gaining experience in corporate life, i observed that normal corporate working is mainly about management. You need to be smart manager rather than being intelligent scientist. After a lot of reading and attending seminars on management, i conclude that basic building block for management is about dealing with people. All other management concepts are made by using this building block. Each individual has his/her own way of using this block which makes different styles of manangement.

                          With this understanding of management and the belief in horizontal deployment of learning, i decided to learn something related to dealing with people besides office work. Being childhood passion, dance was the obvious choice. Keeping marriagable age into consideration, i chose couple dance (SALSA & other latin american dances) as it would help me in getting experience of most difficult work i.e Understanding women. I thought i will kill three birds viz. learning management, following passion and understanding women, with one shot.

                         While learning dance, i observed the relation between dance and management. We have group dance performance in which all the couples in group need to be synchronised. So first we need to be in sync with our partner and then couple need to be in sync with other couples in group. It is analogous to manufacturing plant, as first we need to be in sync within our department and then individual department need to be in sync with other departments for achiveing the common goal. In dance, one needs to have good friendly relation with partner because if your partner doesn't like you then she will not like dancing with you. This can lead to lack of interest and passion and will result in out of sync performance. Eventually whole performance will be affected although all other couples are doing fine. Similarly in office, rift betwen two employees will result in inefficiency of one department which becomes the bottleneck for whole plant. Eventually whole plant becomes in efficient.

            Keeping these analogies in view, my belief of horizontal deployment of learning got stronger.
While doing our Constitutional  fundamental duty of developing Scientific temper, we should challenge stereotypical thinking and should accept things only on the basis of personal experiements and experience. I started by becoming a DANCING MANAGER.. What about you ?