Why Winning is So Imp!

It is often said, that winning is not important. What is important is being part of the game, participation in it, putting your heart out for it; and then winning and losing is just an outcome. Here, the reference to game is not only about sports game, but anything that you want to do in your life. But, a Big But. If you want to do something big in your life, then you must Win. Who are remembered, are the ones who Win. The ones who win at consistency.

Why do we still remember Dhyanchand? Why is Sachin made name for himself. Why do we follow Dhoni, or Saina, or Sania. Not alone their hard work, but the results that they delivered for themselves and nation. Not once or twice. But, consistently. 

Tatas, Ambanis, Mahindra's, not one generation, but generation after generations have delivered success for themselves, for the country and its people. 

See, we also remember Muhammad Ghouri. He lost battles after battles against Prithaviraj Chauhan. But he kept trying. He prepared hard, kept coming back again and again. Finally he did win. That win made his names engraved forever. His will to keep trying for that WIN, made him special. Such hard earned wins are remembered.

You don't remember those, who have not won. Or who became mediocre after the first win. You don't remember those, who never tried to win.

See it is completely one's personal decision, the path that one takes, to go for a win, or settle for something mediocre or settle for nothing. It is a choice that one takes for oneself. We must respect it. We must respect our own abilities of doing something. Don't push yourself if you can't.

Taking your own life, if you can't achieve something is absolutely not an option. One must not do it. Either keep trying to extract a win. Or quit the profession to try something else is always another option.

Winning at any cost is not right. Being fair, being human must come first when winning. Otherwise history will not judge you fairly. There are examples, after examples, on how people have become villain in their lives, and post-life if they had not done things fairly.

So, go out, put your hearts out and try to Win your game, make your lives count. Else, keep trying. Else there is something else in the life for you to do. Right? That is always an option.

Corona Mess in India!

India is going through tragic times. Corona cases and causalities are an all-time high. Every day is adding to the numbers, stress and chaos. It has truly caused strain on the healthcare resources, i.e. staff, medicines, and other related infrastructure. It pains to see that hospitals are not able to save lives, due to shortage of oxygen. Fire in hospitals causing deaths is a common news.

So, what went wrong? A question on everyone's top of mind. We just came out of wave 1, when we saw the other world was grappling with wave 2, and a severe one. So, did we not learn the lessons, did we not act in timely manner, did we assume that corona will be kinder to us. Sample the inconsistencies. While Holi celebrations were banned in March, Kumbh was allowed to happen in April. Gatherings during election campaigns were allowed to be bigger, and better each time. Local trains were opened in Maharashtra. Schools were opened everywhere. All mass-gathering activities were allowed to be opened with no check and balance. When? When the second wave has already struck; the cases in India has already started increasing from the 'low'. But the right sense did not prevail as early as April 14.

When the entire world was dealing with Corona wave 2, why were we sleeping? Why didn't we upgrade the healthcare infrastructure? Why didn't we increase the capacity all-across? Why didn't we go a bit slow on opening up, and wait for vaccination to conclude? Why did we lax on the awareness campaigns?

People got relaxed, casual behavior added to the panic and mess. Our Prime Minister was so instrumental in controlling the pandemic during the initial months of wave 1. He maneuvered the behavior of public. He should have done it this time as well. Our own people need reminders, need the same consoling, need the strict action from police-force and govt to fall-in-line. 

For now, we see that the central and state level govts are in action. Vaccination has been sped up. People have learnt the lessons amid the scare. Hoping that things get in better control in next few weeks. Hoping that God is kinder to us, and all is well soon! 

Exhibiting Leadership in Connected World!

Co-location of teams is always an important part of executing IT projects. Being Agile, this is one of the adopted principles as well.

It does help to have all team members located at a common place. It makes discussions easier, enables quicker decision making and executing projects smoothly. This also helps in developing team atmosphere.

However, the world that we live in today, is more scattered, and it requires connecting various locations across geographies which go beyond oceans. Managers and leaders get to manage teams spread across. That presents a challenge in itself.

The reasons for such a diverse presence are different. Cost obviously is the reason, but getting the right talent pool is important too. Most of the IT service organizations have teams split between Onshore, and multiple offshore development centers. The most complex set-ups specifically are product development shops, who do niche development work. They set-up offices across the globe to attract best talents. They will have multiple offices across the world, and each team will have team members spanning across different set-ups. E.g. it may consists of few developers from New York, Nashville and Mumbai. Testers could be from Chennai. Business Analysts could be from Japan. This is not always a forced choice, but many a times by design.

In such a set-up, a manager appointed for such a group will be based out of one location, so how does he manage such a scattered team. He will have different challenges to deal with, scarce choices to make but with the same set of goals/ objectives as that of any collocated teams i.e. to execute the project successfully.

Any such leader needs to be always aware of what are they missing because their teams are not co-located:

1. Unable to have adhoc connect and meetings with individuals and teams
2. Ability to empathize with people in person 
3. Unable to quickly understand sensitivities, not sure of likes and dislikes of team members
4. Team Celebrations, Off hour connects between team members

Below is some of the guidance steps, one must take in such set-ups:

Always Plan Ahead for Discussions
Set expectations upfront for project meetings. Define a clear-cut guidance on how to set-up, conduct and follow-up on these meetings.

Plan for your discussions much ahead. Think through what requires to be communicated, how it needs to be communicated.
Particularly for remote teams, it is important that the core message is re-iterated so that it is understood uniformly across all of the teams. It may be a good idea to have at least one member at each location to repeat the message.

Frequent Feedback Discussions
This is an extremely important item in today's world. Setting clear expectations for each role and each individual in the team; tracking it more often and then providing periodic feedback to the team to allow them to course-correct.
In a connected world, this becomes extremely important. It is easier for the team to mis-understand the ask, and get non-aligned to the core goals.
One needs to prepare well on what feedback to share, and how it needs to be shared. Understand the nuances of language that you will use, and what aspects will be interpreted in what way.
While practicing, I always suggest anyone to play a dual role - one himself, and the other one who will receive the feedback.

Video Connectivity
This is a must item in today's connected world. This helps add personal touch in absence of in person meetings.
Educate your teams to leverage vidoe calls and video meetings more often.

While the teams are set to get more and more scattered as the organizations continue to grow; it is important to improve the infrastructure, frequent coordination, etc.

People have voted! Now the wait for the D-day!

I am publishing this a day earlier. Election campaign is finally over in India. The entire world can only guess the size and scale. No part in the world could match the democracy exercise that India just went through. It is the largest franchise in the world. And, India, and the people of India celebrate it to the core.

This election season was as intense as it can get. Political parties and candidates have put in all their might, their energy and soul into it. They know, if they lose this time; the wait is for 5 years. So, 'make it happen, and happen this time' is the mantra that they are following. "Win at any cost" is true, if you follow the entire discourse. The sloganeering, and language has gotten only cruel, abuses have become common, lies or twisting of facts are thrown as weapons. I cannot say that the political discourse has gotten low or lowest this time, as I have seen this happening every election past many-many years. The only difference this time is real-time news coverage, and spread of the coverage; that makes this years and future elections very different from the prior ones.

In this process, media and social media is being used, misused and abused. They are being played into by each side. Media thinks that Information is being thrown and they think they are lapping into it. But is is reverse. They are made to lap onto it. You could sense optimism and pessimism in every news in how it is covered.

Anyways as the current prime minister has said, that the biggest festival of democracy is about to conclude. All the political pundits have started putting their predictions, math and statistics and formulating the various possibilities. Obviously NDA is claiming a clear majority and the other two groups (UPA and Third front) are claiming that they will secure the maximum no of seats. The intellectuals and news outlets are clearly indicating a major lead for NDA; however still short of half way mark. I predict it to be plus-minus 25 seats for BJP from the half-way mark; and NDA to secure the full majority by themselves.

Let us wait for the May 23; when the results will be out. Let the people come out as triumphant. Long live the democracy.

Let Voter do the talking!

So, the election season is on. 

There is a euphoria all across. It is all about whether, PM Modi will get a second term, or he will be replaced. Mind me, the replacement is possible in two of the three situations.  NDA does not get enough seats to form the government, and opposition is at the forefront. NDA gets enough support within and outside the current umbrella, but Modi as PM is not acceptable to the supporting parties  who are in a position to call the shots.

On campaign trail, PM Modi and his lieutenants are trying very hard to communicate to the masses on the achievements of the government. Also, tilting the balance on their favor using the other non-development factors such as security, sentiments of majority and so on.

Opposition is fragmented, have done the ties as much as possible. However, anyone can guess the situation post-election on the potential tie-ups. With respect to messaging, there is nothing new. There are lies, half baked truths, big bang promises and Modi bashing.

There is a role, Media is playing as well. They are running their own campaigns. Almost all of them clearly have some political affiliations. They are presenting the perspectives of their political bosses. It is the same topic, you would hear two different perspectives on two different channels. You will be convinced with one side if you do not hear the same story on the other channel. 

Let Voter decide, is what you would hear on most occasions. Without being sarcastic, I just wished that each one of the voters were intelligent. I do not mean that they need to be academically qualified, but there is a need of education on elections and voting to masses. Every voter needs to vote based on their needs, the priorities; and not based on caste, religious preferences, or influence or favoritism.

But that's India. We have progressed in 70 years; and improved every election. More to come in the coming years. Democracy is here to stay.

2018 Bollywood Superstars

After a long long time, I see superstars being produced in Bollywood. This is in this year, 2018. These are the times, when we, the public are moving away from Khans, Bachhans and Kapoors; and ready to explore, give a chance to new generation of actors.

In around 2000-2004, when we saw Hritik and Abhishek coming in, there was hope that they can displace the Khan superstars of that time. However, that euphoria fizzled out very soon. While Abhishek could not establish himself as an actor, leave aside star status. Hritik showed some promise, but a few wrong choices and judgement did not allow him to sustain the momentum. He has picked up his act in last few years, however not enough to bring back the glory for himself. It was the same period, when an average actor Akshay made some right choices, did the right movies, improved on his acting quotient, exhibited consistency and he acquired the superstar status. His name is now taken in parallel with some of other superstars of Indian cinema.

This year (2018), we saw the coming of Rajkumar Rao, Ayushmann Khurrana. Public has accepted their acting talent in last few years; but giving them the well-deserved 100-crore superhits establishes them as superstars in the Indian Bollywood industry. This is really a good sign for Indian cinema.

I simply love the way, how public is becoming more aware of what interests them, and what they want to watch. There were those days, and those years; when films were hit or even superhit because there was a particular actor in the movie, or it was a movie from a particular director. However, now a film cannot sustain itself, if the so called actors don't perform, if the movie is not backed by strong content, if the story is not holding together a movie. We have seen bigger blunders, and disasters from the actors and directors who were reckoning once.

Todays moviegoers crave for watching meaningful cinema has given rise to Rajkumar's and Ayushmann's of the world...Also, another crop of good actors such as Vickie Kaushal are coming up. These are indeed good times for Bollywood.

For now, let us welcome these new age actors of our times. May the good work shine, and create place for itself. May the public become more demanding.

Have Differences, Resolve It Soon!

We get into conflicts at work, and in life. Humans do think, and each one is unique in their thinking. Everyone is not necessarily seeing something the same way. When the interpretations are different, there are bound to be differences between individuals, teams and societies at large.

Life is so unpredictable. It is as short, as it can get. Why to carry the old baggage, and carry on with a territory of dispute for long.

One must try and do their own best to resolve the differences in their lifetime.

Initiate a Talk

Yes, talk it out, and you will more or less understand each other. Talking helps resolve differences.

It takes lot of courage to step up, and initiate conversation with someone. Someone, with whom you do not agree, or you do not share the same set of principles, or thought process.

Remember, it is only the initial effort that you take, and reciprocity from the other side then makes it easy.
If you hear "Yes", then it is first step towards resolving your differences. If it is "No", then don't attach this to your prestige, and lose your sleep over it.

Go with an Open mind

You must get into a discussion with a right frame of mind.

Prepare well on arguments, and counter-arguments. But, be ready to be surprised with something new. Do not be judgmental. Be respectful of each other.

Understand perspectives

Be sure of yours. And, appreciate the one, that the other one has.

Be ready to listen. Appreciate the fact that there is a difference of understanding, and opinion. The other party is not seeing the situation with the same pair of eyes.

Encourage Facts

Encourage fact based discussion to reach to a conclusion.
Clarify if there are any observations. Observations are nothing but interpretations. It is important to knock off those interpretations or observations, which are not facts.

Try to conclude

This is an extremely important step. Be flexible in arriving at conclusion.

Apply the various conflict resolution strategies to arrive at conclusion. The famous conflict resolution model is "Dual Concern model", which is based on concern for self and concern for others.

• Avoidance - Avoid engagement into conflict.
• Competitive - win/ lose. Maximizing favorable outcome to you. No concession to others.
• Accommodate - Give in to the others wish.
• Compromise - Give and take of resources..
• Collaborate - Work together to mutually agreeable solution

During your discussion, it is important to maintain respect for each other. When you sense a destruction or deterioration of discussion, try to calm things down. Note the topic of conflict that you both can take up at later stage.

If it looks difficult to reach to a mutually agreeable decision, then the best conclusion would be to schedule the next meeting for discussion.
Isn't it always good to end your meeting with phrase "We'll talk soon".