Your freedom ends where my nose begins

I have come across this story in school. An interesting one and even more relevant today with everyone is free to do what they want, but very few understand the limits of such freedom. The story goes like this

London historically is a city with unpredictable rains. So people used to carry umbrella all the time while going out. There is one gentleman who is walking on the streets with his umbrella in hand. Lost in his thoughts, he starts casually waving his hand to and fro while taking small steps towards his destination. As he sped ahead, the waving of hand gains equal momentum and unfortunately the umbrella hits the nose of the other gentleman coming from behind. They both start an altercation.

First Gentleman: “What is your problem? It is my hand and my umbrella and I am free to wave it as per my wish”

Second Gentleman: “I have no contention about your freedom. However, you must note that your freedom ends where my nose begins”

Wonderful statement isn’t it?  We are free to do what we want so long as it does not hurt anyone directly or indirectly. Most of our actions are not executed in isolation. As social animals we are, our actions have an impact to others. It could be affecting someone in the family, friends, neighborhood, nation or the society in general. We must be cognizant of this and take utmost care that our actions do not lead to detrimental effect on others. 

Strategic Leadership

Leadership is an important function that is responsible for formulation, communication and execution of strategies in every organization, company or state.  In all these phases, the leader should connect to ground reality, assess the status quo, then drive the change and take feedback. Most organizations have leaders sitting at top making decisions that impact each staff but barely understand them, thus leading to badly devised strategies or good strategies that are executed bad.

Formulation:

Any leader who is not connected to the ground will be bound to fail in his strategy, as he would have designed something that may not fit the situation. We are in a complex business scenario where off the shelf strategies wont work well. Leadership trying to copy strategy from successful companies are doing at their peril.  In order to device and design  strategy a leader should have a profound understanding of the situation, strengths and weaknesses of the people and the competition among others.

Communication:

Success of any strategy depends on appropriate communication of actions required for the strategic outcome. Communication of the actions forms prime precursor to its execution. A well communicated strategic actions derive much more benefits as the ground staff understand and stand committed to the strategy.  Any strategic action enforced on the staff with out adequate communication, will inevitably lead to mixed outcomes due to lack of clarity on what is expected out of actions.

 Lead the change:

Change doesn't happen automatically, it needs to be lead. Hands-off leaders will suffer the surprise that change did not bring needed results. This is because they have given directions to subordinates and relax in their cabins hoping things to beget results. How ever, in absence of leadership, change will meet resistance and finally dies down before it shows impact.

Feedback :

One potential cause of failure is when the necessary feedback is not fed back to leadership team/leader on what is not working. This happens when the subordinates are scared to give any bad news to boss or when the ‘yes men’ of the boss always filter and moderate the feedback.  This will stop the much needed corrective action to make things work and thus lead to failure path. 

When Learning is Fun

My four year old daughter shot a dozen questions at us during weekend. Most questions relate to Hindi words she picked up during the week from her Hindi speaking classmates. When we gave her answer to each question, some glow is on her face signifying she is enjoying the learning act. I was very happy to see that, because learning is the motive behind education and it is awesome when some one enjoys learning new stuff. At that tender age every learning excites the kid. Problem is with grownups when they are exposed to learning. 

Problem1:

Organizations spend lot of time and efforts on training and development of their staff, how ever its success is miserably low and the impact the training brings to the day job of the staff is minimal. Also most times training are dictated either by central training department, senior management or the line management. This can sometimes lead to sending the wrong employee to wrong set of training. Employees lack commitment to training that they have not requested for and had to go just because of compulsion. 

As one ages, a feeling I-Know-it-all dominates few folks. They are face a not so receptive to new learning, discounting them as old wine in new bottle. Their prejudices disallow from enjoying as well as assimilating the learning.

Some folks are too scared of change. So instead of enjoying the new things , they become skeptical and most times resist change. This will prevent them from enjoying the new learning.

Problem2:

At tender age kids pick up many things by the way of questioning. There is no silly or simple question to their eyes and they can ask anything and everything. Grown ups struggle to ask questions at times, not because they do not have them but because of psychological barriers.

Lets say a person who is widely respected as super performer and brilliant person at workplace. He most times feels a pressure to suppress any simple question that's deemed understood by rest of the herd. If he doesn't people will think him not smart enough. Some people have fear of being ridiculed in public when a basic question is asked. Some folks have the’sheep’ mentality and does not want to ask any question to their boss, this is sometimes looked at as disobedience. Also politics at work place causes another barrier as most often ironically, people do not see the ‘what’part of a question and instead start making absurd guesses about’why’ is he asking this question.

Conclusion:

Learning is really so much fun, if its done in right spirit. The excitement  of knowing a new thing is the real motivating factor for the act. 

Where there is a ‘Will’, There is a way

Popular misconception that a ‘Will’ is typically prepared by dying old men in 70s/80s to document how their wealth is to be distributed among the kin. Another related misconception is that its only for the rich folks who have lots of money to be distributed.  On the contrary ‘will’ is the document that gives direction on how your assets and wealth is to be distributed, in the unfortunate event of death and is so applicable to all. I try to give a perspective to this

You definitely need one, if you have complicated family relationships:

Lets say a person A got married to B and they have children C & D. A gets divorced with B and remarries with E and their children are F & G. A gets divorced with E and starts living H and they have a kid I.  In the absence of a well documented and registered will, and an unfortunate event of A’s death, there is heavy chance of dispute arising. In the end the property left by A may not be distributed in the manner he would have wanted. So its important for people in complicated relationships to have a will and register it as well.  Registering the will can help in case anyone tries to contest the authenticity.

You are an accomplished individual in 50s and above:

A person who is in 50s and has some wealth accumulated through his lifetime of hard work. Even if he/she does not have complicated relationships and had kids from single marriage,  a will would help his lifetime of earnings to be distributed in an amicable manner between the sons/daughters.

You have a single spouse and single kid:

This looks like a straight forward case where there is no need for a will, isn’t it? Yes until you hear about cases in this world where the father’s money is taken all by the son/daughter and dead man’d widow is left to struggle for making a living. So an explicit will stating how the wealth needs to be shared between spouse and kids is going to help in getting into such situations.

You have a single spouse and no kids:

Come on, nothing can be more straight forward. Why does one need a will? Okay let me explain that  Will is a document containing complete document of the assets and wealth a person has. Lets say a person A deposits x amount of money in a bank account in the form of fixed deposits. Unless spouse is aware of this account, she would not be able to claim that amount. There are many unclaimed deposits lying with banks as the next of kin are not aware of the fact. Will can serve as document of reference for the loved ones left behind.  Also if one has noble thought of donating some of his fortune to charity, it needs to be documented in will so that its executed accordingly.

You have complicated financial transactions:

In a country like India, we complicate our lives by indulging in transactions for petty financial benefits.  So will becomes a necessity. I know a situation where an uncle of mine invested his grand mother’s money in his name, as he was eligible for better dividends. Up on his death, as this element was not documented, the money wen to his legal heir. A will could have helped. 

So I would conclude that ‘will’ is a document which makes sure your preference of allocation of your fortune is done justly in your absence. For people who are in youth as well this is a must and it can be changed periodically (once in few years) to reflect accurate state of affairs and preferences. 

Being Thyself

One common trait that connects many successful people in various disciplines is that they were pursuing their passion and through out their lives they remained their true self.

Hurdles: 
Before blaming others, the first of all one must put major responsibility on him/herself for not being able to be yourself. We take self inflicted, peer, family, social pressures as excuses but if one believes in something these pressures cant really change it. Self inflicted pressures include pressure to impress, fear of failure, conflicting priorities on passion verses needs. As we watch peers pursuing something or traversing a lucrative path in career or life, we get tempted to imitate or follow them, with a fear of looking stupid or a fear of missing the bandwagon.

How ever this doesn't mean the external pressure do not exist. People from orthodox and conservative families get pressure if they try anything out of the ordinary. Social norms of the day prevent at certain times the innovative and path breaking trends. Peer group, at times, will directly or indirectly ridicule if you fail by pursuing the passion. If one is not innately from well-to-do family, he/she faces pressure of earning daily bread and supporting the family as soon as graduation.

Advantages:
Being yourself is less stressful as you continue to pursue the thought process, ideas, reactions that come naturally. It eventually brings out best self out in all the endeavors. Also being yourself makes you feel happy, content and comfortable.

Who is a Friend?

With the advent of facebook revolution, we all are entitled to freinds list exceeding 100s for less social people and exceeding 1000 for social people. Gender will also play a significant role in the number of friends you have on facebook. Old times definition of friend is summarized by statement " A friend in need is a friend indeed!!" Have you ever wondered how many of those 100s of friends in fb list will turn up when you need? If you were to think honestly,  may be 4 or 5 out of 100+ will come to your rescue in toubled times. Then what about other friends in the fb signify ?

Acquaintances - These are the folks whom we know by face and probably have met couple of times on business or personal front. We just want to keep in touch as any social animal would want to.

Relations    - These are next-of-kin who are technically not friends usually spread across various age groups. But some of them could be friends depending on the closeness and affinity.

compulsion friends - Lets take case of a girl who is studying in college or working and she receives a friend request from her lecturer or boss. Even though it is not a hard and fast rule but many a times she accepts it out of compulsion. This explains it.

Benefit friends - We befriend some folks in power with a hope to get some benefit from them or some favors from them in future.

Gravity Friends - Lets take a pretty looking girl or a handsome male, there would be many folks in opposite sex who want to be acquainted at the least and keep sending friend requests. Some like such attention and that explains the huge friends list.

Alumni Friends - For school/college passouts, their alma mater is very close to their heart. They try to keep in touch with the gang who went to school/college.

Courtesy Friends - Be it a neighbor in the place you live or a staff from the place you work, they are your facebook list because you don't want to be rude enough to decline their friend request. They are courtesy friends per me.

Same situation friends - we connect ourselves with people going through similar stage in life like parents of your kid's classmates, your prospective neighbor in apartment you plan to buy.


I would like to conclude that a true friend need not be on your facebook, need not wish you luck on your life events, need not like your pictures/videos shared, need not respond to your status messages but he/she would be there when ever you are in need.  Also don't count your friends by looking at friends list in fb.

Systematic Investment

There are some fundamental principles that can be applied everywhere and they dont fail us. There are many manufacturing principles applied in electronics and then in software and industry benefited from thus. So irrespective of the field of operation, the knowledge and application of such principles are beneficial to us. Here is my 2 cents worth from me on one such principle.

Principle: 
Systematic Investment is one principle that I guess will benefit many of us if applied in our lives. We have heard during childhood slow and steady wins the race. Systematic investment is nothing but a polished version of the moral that is taught to us.

Application: 

Personal Finance: 
Mutual fund industry is vouching on the principle to lure retail investors. Its definitely a win-win for customer as well as the AMC (asset management company ie., Mutual Fund company). Lots of people want to be rich but they want to be rich overnight and keep worrying about the possible jackpot options that can fulfill their dream. Systematic investment is one sure way of making people rich through disciplined, focused , regular (monthly in most cases) investments. Investment can be made in different avenues depending on person's risk appetite but the using power of compounding, its certain that benefits can be reaped.

Reading: 
Who ever want to be knowledgeable in focused area or various subjects, can start doing systematic investment. Yes!! Systematic investment of their time. It is a slow but sure way towards knowledge acquisition. Even though its difficult to measure the knowledge progression quantitatively, qualitative progress is typically reflected in behavior, personality and confidence levels.

Health: 
Two aspects of health needs to be inspected in this context. Firstly eating a balanced diet which includes needed proteins, minerals , vitamins and other needed essential nutrients. At least who can afford should try to eat appropriate portions of fruits avilable and possibly reserve one meal a week for fruits.

Second aspect of health is regular exercise. Exercise not just to be viewed as a mechanism to build six pack or zero size body. Lets leave them for our film stars who  ought to look special. For other mortals, exercise is a means of maintaining good health. Through systematic investment in the form morning walks, evening strolls, yoga, participating in some sports as convenient to one, one can build a healthy body that helps when we reach ripe age.

The list can go on but I think I will stop here for now.