Intuition, a trusted friend!

 Email or call? Tea or Coffee? Exercise or another hour of peaceful sleep? Resigning right now or staying? Writing or reading? White shirt, grey suit or pink shirt & black suit? To be or not to be? 

Decisions .. yes, that is right, we make an awful lot of decisions every day, if you studied psychology like I did back in school, you’d know that on an average day a functional & thinking human being makes 35,000 conscious decisions, alone, if I bring subconscious decisions into the counting as well .. the figure will bloat itself into a number which will sound unbelievable to many. Decision making is integral to being human. Decision that we take influence every part of our being .. at all levels. The binary scale of good or bad applies to decision making also, except, it is not as binary always as we might think & to make that point, I’m going to conveniently bring what we know as ‘perspective’. What may seem like a bad decision from one angle may appear fabulous from another. Don’t believe me .. let’s take an example. Titanic ended in a tragedy on its very first voyage .. it was catastrophic, a tragedy that terrified the world. The loss of human life and property is lamented, even today. Let’s observe a moment of silence for people who suffered that night.  Now, let’s take another perspective, think of crabs (of course living ones) that must have been kept in the salty tank to be cooked the following day? When this crash happened and they met water again .. Wouldn’t it have felt celebratory to them? Nice for sure. Had Titanic not happened Kate Winslet and Leonardo De-Caprio wouldn’t have delivered a massive hit years later. That Oscar that had Titanic written over it wouldn’t have existed if that tragedy wasn’t a fat reality of an ugly day.

Having studied history as my second subject I can go on and on about listing dreadful events and talk about the ways in which they changed the course of humanity for good after they happened but I think the point has been well made so would ‘decide’ to stop right here, that is another decision made ;) 

The point I was trying to drive home is that perspective makes a decision either good or bad and that at all times both worldviews exist, you can never be 100% sure of anything, in life. That pushes me to the next logical question .. what should we then do,  not make any decision or just make random ones when they go wrong find the perspective that makes them feel right and cling on to them? Of course not. That is not what I’m suggesting. If 100 decisions go wrong in a row you will still need to make the 101st decision hoping that it turns right.

Before we delve deeper, let’s get the definition out of the way.

Decision making is the process of identifying the rational choice among several available alternatives. Now that we have a working definition, let’s just say that broadly there are two kinds of decision making, while a few books that I read last year seem to suggest that there are more than 2 but textbook definition 8 out of 10 times goes with these categories so I’d consider them for this article.

Judgmental and intuitive! 

  

We all know what judgmental is, so let me pick the later.

Smart people, gather data, evaluate them to find discernible patterns use those to make models, pit one model against the other, weigh the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, the short term vs the long term and then pick what comes out to be the best option from the available lot. Only 1.68% (as per a research paper from the Yale University) life situations do not give you choices, for instances if your kidneys have failed and you wish to live longer .. transplant is the only option. Situations like these aren’t popular and aren’t even frequent, so don’t worry. Statistically speaking, in a lifetime of 65 years you will not have more than 60 such instances where there are absolutely no alternatives, very small quantity, you can even ignore those should you choose to.

The popular perception is that unemotional decisions are the best ones and thus we should not allow emotions to cloud judgment; the only problem with this theory is that it is untrue, strictly scientifically speaking. Human mind read data as emotion and leans on biases that they identify most with and then pick that over everything else that is available. Yes, I’m open to a bet on this concept. 

What is intuition; it is a form of knowing .. connected to a deeper perception, it is this magical black box with unknown dimensions, it resides at a formative layer of our cognitive structure. For a long time, researchers have had a problem comprehending it fully. When you are making a decision and you can’t clearly articulate why you are making it .. it just feels like the right decision to make is when you are relying on this much deeper system engraved in the most intelligent parts of your brain. Call it gut, instinct, experience or just intuition.

Oddly enough, psychologists, believe that intuition is a companion to rational decision making, my professor, would tell me that is an inseparable part of decision making. I’d like to believe him .. he is my Guru, after all, I haven’t quite found enough literary evidence of that but then it feels kinda right. It is a complementary component. Senses and how you feel are all indicators of what decision is likely to be a good or a bad choice.

As human, we believe that we normally form an opinion or take a decision based on data and that we make decision thoughtfully and later come to have an emotional attachment to it, more and more researches are showing that it is not true, we make an emotional decision first and later find data to support it. Rational decision making requires data but then often times data can cause problems and uncertainties of incomprehensible magnitude. And this principle is NOT to be applied in business. When at work .. you gotta rely on data heavily, this article is about larger decisions in life, substantial ones or should I say personal decisions. To pick a good performer at work you must look towards data but who to befriend is the kind of decision where only data will be less useful. This article is about those kinds of decisions, informal ones that determine the formal set up at an organizational (organization here doesn’t mean a business unit .. it means 'set up' ) level. Coming back to data, sometimes data is not enough .. or just not complete, sometimes you are pressed against time or trapped in cognitive biases. What do you do then?

Moments like these are when turning toward intuition may have real benefit. Let me throw such an example, here. Have you ever had to get down at a small railway station when it was midnight dark? To walk that 2 Kms or wait for the sun to come out is a decision that only your intuition will help you make. If even you had data .. you won’t rely on it solely. I hope you understand what I’m trying to say, here. Human brain is wired to see what can’t be processed through numbers ... which is why we have a complete system of recognition and safety built in the brain. Blinking of the eye is not a result of thoughtful decision making but an involuntary defense system put to action by the part of the brain that is for sake of simplicity (I'd say) is most awake and functional, even in those individuals who are slow or seated below in the intellectual scale.

Psychologists around the world have been trying to break the code of intuition but they haven’t succeeded in it as of yet. Why senses know things before you’ve had the chance to gather information is still unresolved. 

The question then is what do we do with it? Is there a formal training for it? Like exercising strengthens your muscle more decision making makes you a better decision maker, of course, conscious efforts have made to learn from a bad decision and examine well when to let gut take over. The only way know thus far is be aware and in some sense quantify how well does your gut serve you? In what matter it works better for you and are you willing to bear the cost of a bad decision? Every one has a way of knowing it, the question is do you have the courage to pursue it?

There is no formal training in intuition. You can exercise, begin with lower stake decision. Observe and learn to see how you can improve. If your gut pays off you know .. it is good and you can rely on it. I must emphasize on the fact when you take most personal decisions of life you are alone, but its impact almost always will spill over your private spaces and impact those connected to you, therefore you have to be cautious.

You must have heard “ignorance is a bliss” a couple of thousand times in your life if not more. The thing here is happiness is a creation of our own, when we are getting into smoking .. every drag make us happy. The day we realize that smoking is a bad habit and we must quit, every cigarette avoided gives us happiness. So you see how a change of context changes an unhappy act into a happy one and vice versa? There is a reason why those with lower IQ or intellectual capacity lead a happier life, if you have the burden of a high scoring IQ, you will see things which others easily miss. You will analyze, over analyze and remain in this unhappy space, most part of your life. But your higher IQ (130+) is a gift .. if you see things which others don’t. You must use it to make decisions that others don’t.

At the end of the day, it is not always about being right but taking a stand. The way life is you will never be 100% sure, sometime you just gotta listen to the calling of your deeper self and do as it commands. When you fail, take it as your, inner self’s way of giving you an opportunity to work on reconstruction.

At the end of it all, every choice is a matter of chance.

Wishing you and your family a very happy and prosperous Diwali in advance!

     

Balance is a myth!

Balance, a situation in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions to the extent of egalitarianism. Yes, that!

Balance is one of the most commonly heard words from the wise. There is balance in ‘diet’, in posture, even between work and life; I’m here to argue otherwise. In absolute terms there is nothing called balance .. most practical translation of balance is choice. When we like a certain thing and we for some reason are not comfortable pushing the argument in its true color forward, we take the cover of balance to roll it across as a solidly knitted argument. Let me take the example of ‘work-life balance’. Successful people work a lot .. they work hard, round the clock .. they make work their life and therefore inch ahead of everyone else. Ruskin Bond, Sachin Tendulkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Shah Rukh Khan, Roger Federer, Barak Obama, Nushrat Fateh Ali Khan, Nelson Mandela & Steve Jobs .. did not do a 9 to 5 to achieve the level of greatness that they did.  There is another set that keeps clamoring for a better balance between work and life; truth be told, this set likes other things more than they like their work and to fund that other thing with more time and resources they often argue for a greater balance between life and work. Actually, the demand is not at all that of balance but of choice. And that is alright, everyone gets a vote and when it comes to their life they must enjoy ‘veto’. But it will be so much better if you just said it.. plainly.

One of my previous employers had this amazing tradition, in which, after annual performance appraisals rating closure employees were encouraged to bid for open roles higher in the hierarchy than their current one. Interested employees were then given a week to prepare for a presentation/talk in which they were expected to establish their suitability. Those who impressed the judges enough bagged the position and additional raise that came with it. Announcements were made public and it marked the end of PMS for the year. Those who had designed the process made sure that they picked the jury for each role in a manner which made familiarity or let’s say the popularity of a candidate absolutely useless .. 9 out of ten times the jury picked didn’t even know the names of the candidates before arriving in the meeting room. They were often chosen from different business and different geographies.

In last 15 yrs that I’ve been on; I have had 11 promotions .. out of which 4 were from this amazing process, naturally, I owe my success, 36% of career progression to this and therefore I love it. 

Opinions were divided on this policy, though! Because opponents were looking to create balance.

Those who benefited from it, like me, went all out to appreciate it. The policy rendered efforts spent in building ‘relationship’ with the immediate supervisory and their leaders, somewhat less useful and therefore unnecessary. People went about doing their work, making sure their KRAs were substantially delivered on because that was the only way to get to the bid for the next level. This single policy in a decade of its existence prepared a generation of employees who neither worked extra hours to become somebodies favorite or really expected their subordinates to treat them in a particular manner, all they cared for was delivery and work. Output measures, 8 out of 10 times remained at the center of all conversations. It all looked perfect from a distance. This brilliant system also had its side effects.. in the sense people to people bond started becoming less and less emotional and more and more purpose or should I say task driven. People became dangerously cautious of what they were doing and if in any way it will let them in a position of disadvantage. Year-round people worked crazily on improving their presentation, leadership, analytical & organizational skills etc but devoted little time toward the development of the teams that they were responsible for, which in some cases also proved counterproductive. Critiques of this system said it is incentivizing selfishness.

The other group found this policy absolutely outrageous and were often heard saying that this policy was crafted purposefully to disproportionately support ‘extroverts’. Their principal argument was that an organization has a mix of personalities .. people with all kinds of strengths. Why should the system be rigged to this extent to support one set of skills completely ignoring the other sets? Natural outcomes included attrition, lower moral in people who were not wanting to improve on the skills at the same time were also not getting opportunities outside.

Perfection is a textbook idea.. in reality every story has another telling. Ours is a complicated world. Most harmless activity when dissected mercilessly, may make completely opposite of the original intention appear as the valid one. Let’s take an example of you praying for your own success on something which has only one prize. What are you then essentially saying? That may everyone else competing for it scoreless then you do? Of course, you don’t mean it that way and it is a great thing to hope & pray for, but those who have to critique will do so, anyway. And if they apply their minds enough, they would also land a few sane sounding reasons but then should it make someone choose one over other, against their original inkling because there is opposition? Certainly not, irrespective of which side you choose there will always be other sides.

That brings me back to the primordial question; Does balance exist? Should one strive for it? On a number scale zero is placed at the perfect center, how many wish to be there at that number? People want bigger and better numbers .. don’t they? Ok, those of you who think zero is a good number, when it is to denote ‘errors’ or losses .. great, understand! Even that notion is so because we want a positive outcome on a whole, which is inherently towards the right of the number scale .. off its center, isn’t it? So is there any balance, at all?

What do we do then? Smart people trade, the way nature has negotiated gravitational force to enable vertical alignment for. Make the best of what is available.

Be off balance, if you truly believe in your cause and do what is needed to forward that, at the same time remember, you are entitled to be whoever you’d want to be.. you have just one life. Be unapologetic for the choices that you make but it will always be good .. to remain ethical and hold high moral grounds in the process. Because .. what is ‘good’ doesn’t age!!

Have a great Sunday!

See you in the next one. 

Empathy & Organisations!

I won’t hold it against you if you accord less than warm reception when I go on to mention ‘empathy and organization’ in the same breath. For far too long, virtues, in general, have been getting a solid beating from their flashy cousin ‘numbers’ ( to do with top & bottom line, performance & other tangible titbits). It is only natural to get lured into thinking that ‘numbers’ along matter and everything else is not worthy of our attention .. such abrasive attitude surprisingly even attracts applauds in boardrooms across the world, today. There is no denying the fact that such talks have a tendency of sounding aggressive .. so much so that even wisest sometime forget to pause to look for substance beneath the claim. We greet it as it hits us .. warm and loud and move on with a happy and satisfied feeling. What happens after however is not always desirable and we know that for a fact, don’t we? Targets get missed, deliveries do get delayed and prospects shut doors .. real world failures.

I do not wish to say that numbers aren't important, they indeed are ; unless you are making the money that you need to run your affairs you won't be able to sustain .. this write up is towards highlighting that foundational layer that comes handy in creating a base on which you can lay plans for the future firmly .. of growth, relevance, and of sustenance. 

Before you go on any further : I need to mention this that I’m very much for numbers and have been driving those for most of my life; as a student .. grades and as a professional organisational ’mandates’ and at the risk of sounding boastful, would say that have done a damn good job at creating spectacular results, some of which are standing benchmarks in my area of work. What I’m here to discuss however is what I have uncovered in my own mad and sometimes even mindless perusal of numbers and how it has deeply affected the way I operate. It is my duty to mention that my way is not essentially the ‘best’ way. It is merely a statement of the way that has worked surprisingly well for me.

Our work routine invariably revolves around three things;

1) Where am I?

2) Where should I have been?

3) How do I get ahead from wherever I’m?

These apply to everyone in equal measure; you could be an individual contributor, a beginner, team managers, someone in the mid-management rank or an executive from the higher office - all that you do can be categorized in these three statements, broadly though. Let’s take a pause here and think .. what are organizations really? At its core, it is a group of people, larger the size more heterogeneous the mix, coming together to fulfill what is a 'common goal'. That goal can be expressed in monitory terms: “Have to become a trillion dollar company” or can have relative connotation: “We must be the biggest and the largest in our area” etc. I personally like the later more.. because it doesn't have a ceiling, not even in the short term. 

How are these goals going to get accomplished? The science part of it gets addressed rather easily, see what is working, what is not .. validate by data, research action, build prototypes, refine and regulate .. implement, observe and rework. Keep repeating the sequence & the cycles for so long as you discover the set of activities that meet your effort capacity and give you what is your desired output, at the cost that you can bear and in the time that your customers would happily give you.  What is difficult to achieve is that ‘art’ of problem-solving. There, let me come back to that statement that I made a while ago; organization are essentially a group of people and thus human emotions play a part, seminal in nature. And therefore it is only vital for leaders like us invest in it. Remember, you’ll need great people by your side to weather storms of a bad market, poor economy, upset client and cyclic poor performance that will keep showing up every once in a while.

Because we’re talking about organizational symmetry & set up; let us look at what could be a measure of success; a number .. we all need it.

Attrition could be one

Employee satisfaction another 

I don’t think I need to make a case here to say that an engaged and happy workforce almost always outperforms those who are dissatisfied or plain unhappy. Happiness can't be bought by throwing stacks of cash .. you can be paying handsomely, providing your employees with shiniest of the offices or most efficient of the infra but they could still be disengaged, unhappy, disturbed and even disgusted. A good way of testing if that is the case is seeing if problems keep resurfacing, check for clients expressing repeated discomfort, check for how much people actually care about the issue at hand. Do people take responsibility for errors easily or keep explaining how it is not to do with them but everyone else on the planet? If these tests come positive .. you have a problem which you wanna solve.

Happiness is created by trading in the currency of intent. Bad results are often overlooked if ‘intent’ somehow proves itself to be good & intact. From an organization, it is critical that ‘intent’ is always voiced out loud and clear. Over-communication here is not entirely undesirable. And that brings me to the word with which title of this blog begins “Empathy”.

All of us have at least once watched tightrope walk being performed by artists in circus .. when they walk on that rope, the onlookers feel sweat in their palm, wide open eyes get glued to the point where the rope meets the feet of the walker, heart begins to race faster than usual and we almost unknowingly start praying that he ends up on the other side of the rope without falling off and when he does it; we clap in cheer and feel happy as though, we conducted the gymnastic ourselves - This feeling is "empathy"!

When you not only understand other’s feeling but also feel it yourself; you connect at a level which is deep and meaningful. From it comes the resolve to act and then the delivery gets magically aligned to the purpose and from there on it is a function of time that one puts on the issues, that determines success. Solutions only keep getting better. Think of it yourself .. if you were to bet your life on someone; who would you choose? Someone who empathizes with you completely and honestly or those who understand your problem but do not quite care as much for its impact on you? 9/10 people will choose the one with empathy .. the 10th person, well .. let’s empathize with him and let him be.

In all organizations, people essentially solve for their customers and in the process work towards making their organization/entity richer, more prosperous, known and respected and there if employees were to not care deeply about the thing/issue they are solving for or feel for it as much, the effort that they will put will always be inadequate and that will sadly reflect in the results visible to the customers/ clients/ employees/ stakeholders ....everyone. The surest way of delivering great results is building empathy with the problem and those affected by it. Superficialities do not count here. These are four important things to do.

Understanding: Not just the issue but also the plight of those who are impacted by it.

Passion: for solving it and solving it for real

Honesty: Being open and candid about stating facts and laying out plans.

Communication: Let people know about the cause, the effect and also the remedy. 

Given the obvious benefits, it is wise to build an organization that believes in the need to be empathetic and practices it at all times. Remember empathy won’t insulate you from failures or losses or delays but if implemented well, it will surely reduce such possibilities greatly and should they still occur you'll have a group of people who are committed to the cause greater than ever and from it will stem awesome things like collaboration, cooperation, accountability, and sensitivity . Treatment will not be merely symptomatic but one that eliminates the root cause. Whenever the undesirable happens you will have a whole organization ready to understand, care and solve for it with utmost honesty and commitment.

On that note, allow me to offer my best wishes to you on this friendship day.

See you in the next one.

Innovation : Why & How!

In the better part of the 20th century, the need for things to become smart was felt strongly as a result of the shift that economy took from conventional industries to newer avenues, then it became essential to supply goods to a market which was already populated with options and suppliers, logical manoeuvring took center stage pushing unidimensional pace to corners. It was done to reach the product right at the spot of consumption. Traditional manufacturing had to change itself to keep up with newer ways of buying, consumption, and service.

What was largely limited to manufacturing advances in the early days of the rage slowly made its way into other things as well, like - handheld devices,  washing machines, air conditioners & has even reached modern day speakers, yes, speakers now have a brain! Apple in its WWDC 2017 announced that its speaker will be powered by an A8 chip .. Amazone has been into this for nearly 8 months now.

A8 chip BTW on a relative scale can do all that a 1st generation computer could do, but at a 10X speed - Take a pause and think, how has capability increased with the size of the delivery engine shrinking in a proportion greater than the output itself.

Traditional ways of doing business are no longer profitable .. newer horizons are being explored by organizations - and all of it, like always, revolves in the realms of Ideas. Let me state a few examples - From rising of OLA & UBER to market for organizations like ZoomCar. Huge customer/user base that’s transacting on Facebook, Flipkart, WordPress or Paytm, for that matter, is a startling proof of that fact that this century - will welcome Ideas which provide the solution, like never before.

What is that one thing that underpins all of this?

It is Innovation!

If we were to make a word cloud of the content that is being spoken in corporations world over these days - ‘Innovation’ alone will occupy roughly about 30% of it, and will be followed by its tentacles - Ideas, strategy, smart, technology, automation- etc.

Something very similar to what you see in the below diagram ( Googled image)

What innovation really is? The answer to this question is not as simple and as straight forward as saying - two molecules of hydrogen combined with one molecule of oxygen is water. Different people define it differently, most try to come up with a definition that suits their need or in other words - they just try to state what they wish to attain thru innovation as its definition!

No answer is incorrect as long as it entails sentiments of Idea, solution & thinking.

I’ve tried applying my thoughts to try & define what innovation is for me.

Here is what I think.

Innovation is a continuous process by which existing knowledge and inputs are creatively and efficiently rearranged to create valuable outputs essentially consuming lesser resources.

Innovation is a value chain comprising of three progressive items: idea generation, conversion, and diffusion.

And my favorite - Innovation essentially is solutioning creatively & efficiently.

If an idea doesn’t solve a problem faced by the present generation or what will become a challenge in the future - it can be anything but innovation. Things like “out of box”, “Pathbreaking”, “Earth Shattering” - etc have great aesthetic value and immense presentational equity by the real essence of the entire drive is preparing for the future - being future ready!

Organizations around the world have been trying to evolve through “innovation” -  simply put, they wish to remain in the “game” and thus are willing to shed their inhibition and are ready to launch into the unchartered arena.

I’m no expert .. I do not know much .. my Ph.D. is not in innovation - but because I’m a keen observer and someone who has an appetite for reading (really long research work & white papers) etc. I can with a great amount of certainty say,  If you can get below three steps right - you’ve got the recipe for creating the culture of innovation in your organization. Validation of this concept, so to say, comes from 1.5 decades of experience that I’ve gathered working in top corporations.

1)Gather

2)Elect

3)Execute

Here is a little diagram ( photoshopped on MAC)

Let’s look at each of these; one after the other.

Gather  - You need to have your entire organization partner in this, all departments & verticals across all positions, roles, and levels - you’ll need to build a community of sorts and give them a platform to think and share. A simple tool with well-defined workflows will come handy. We know the goodness of incentivizing good behavior so won't elaborate on it. We must reward those who contribute.

Offline - is surely not the best way to be.

Elect- In this phase, you require Subject Matter Experts (SME) to evaluate and elect the best ideas worthy of investing efforts & money - it is best done by a small group of individuals, make sure you at least have 1 PHDs in that group - Not saying those who aren’t Ph.Ds are not smart - it is just that, the whole exercise of getting a Ph.D. grooms you to look at all possible aspects of a subject.Basically, their horizons are extended & research background certainly helps.

Then comes the most critical part.

Execute- Simply put - in this phase selected ideas have to be turned into projects with defined milestones, well articulated ‘Measures of Success’ and clearly spelled out roles and responsibility. Let the team come up with the prototype of the solution, pilot it on a controlled group - validate your belief with the results and then go broad brush, make it an org-wide implementation.

But this is easier said than done - mistakes that I’ve witnesses organizations make.

 1 Mistake enthusiasm for competence.

 2 Value social skills over “Solid” delivery.

 3 Providing limited - resources in terms of time, platforms, tool & capital.

 4 Reading “Delays” as “Disappointment”

 5 Not motivating the team enough.

 6 Lastly not investing enough in details.

Always remember - a demotivate mind will never produce great results .. thru the process keep your people meaningfully engaged, boost their morale and give them the support that they expect to get. STAND FOR YOUR PEOPLE!

Approach the whole initiative with an open mind .. encourage people to think big, give them enough motivation and support to be bold - and RESULTS will knock at your door, remember - nobody works to fail!

Have a great weekend!