Leaders

The walk, the talk, the conduct, the air - by dexterously copying the established stereotypes is how most people fit into their professional roles which are of leadership and managerial nature. To play the part, you should first look the part - it is suggested. And that's where quite a few leadership aspirants start their makeover. Many others selectively copy traits of leaders. Resting on your chair with your feet on the table in front of a prospective investor, for example. Steve Jobs may or may not have really done that, but he's certainly inspired a few to want to do so nonetheless. But when it comes to human interactions, every situation is different. One can copy the behavioral content, but the context is totally outside one's control and it can never ever be same as anything else that has happened before or after - assuming past, present and future are all determined.

The redundant yet powerful leaders in organizations today dominate a lot of corporate effort and suck a lot of the generated value. Their redundancy is because of absence of any tangible inputs from them in the organizational functioning towards its stated goals. At best they indulge in hit-and-trial games, which is largely a mess-manufacturing exercise, until there's the next cleanup cycle called 'restructuring' which is a reset button for all practical purposes, so that the games at the top can continue with players having clean pitches to bat on and spoil. However they do sit on top - and continue to rise further for the rest of their professional lives - to claim the biggest share of the generated value, as being at the top of the organizational pyramid entitles them to it by default. The position is still supposedly full of stress, as there are local pyramids and hierarchies - extremely concentrated and heated up - many participants willing to kill to make a killing. The guy at the ultimate top - the owner of the whole organizational ATM machine - is the creator of all stress, that flows top-down, and in different ways at different levels. Somehow, in all this organizational stress, there is thrill alongside heart disease and excitement alongside hypertension. In the end, it's all about making more money, which is strangely seen as a vicious motive even in the most capitalist of cultures, even the US, perhaps coz they're not doing very well. Probably when people turn poor, the rich do induce jealousy. If everyone is having a decent standard of living, not being rich can often be a pretended choice.

My boss in a job a few years back once told me - as you rise higher, you are responsible for fewer things (read tasks / activities), and you are accountable for more and more (read outcomes). And the positions with the highest accountability are also the most powerful, yet most stressful and risky because of the pressure to deliver. Like Spiderman said, or rather his uncle did - with great power comes great responsibility. Responsibility here means the importance of acting responsibly, wisely and in the best interests. It is therefore important for leaders at all levels to understand and appreciate the importance of their positions and to not assume redundant states until the next restructuring or a new job, but act responsibly, wisely, and in the best interests coz they are accountable for something of value, and the well-being of many depends on their delivering that value collectively with those many. And to match the risk they take by holding the accountability, they are indeed rewarded, often disproportionately. And as for the walk, the talk, the conduct, the air - when the moon is right, who can stop the waves?

Dumb and Dumber

The most ironic thing about social media is that people are reading a lot, and yet are becoming dumber day by day. I feel that about myself too. Enormous and ever increasing volumes of crap is generated every day and fed to us through a bunch of channels. We pick and pass crap, and keep doing that until the crap is thoroughly consumed by everyone. And then we move on to other crap, and keep doing that all the time on our mobile devices. Even if we try to take a break from all this madness, we get extremely restless with the feeling of getting left behind. We can't stay away for long and are internally pushed back towards it. It has deeply screwed our minds and our ability to control them. While the creators of crap do that to get more visits and somehow get more ad revenue or plain attention, the readers are going on reading and getting entertained. It's like a whole new medium of entertainment has emerged for all idle times and when on the go - all situations with no brain usage required and when reflexes are enough to manage the physical activity. If TV was once seen as killer of all productive time, mobile and data now are together the modern-day weapons of mass destruction. (Warren Buffett needs to revise his quote in the changing times, but this one's taken now!) And yet, TV has not been displaced. In fact TV has transformed to become a tool in this whole data game.

There are indeed positive aspects in all this. For example, without doubt, the awareness of people has reached a whole new and advanced level. Information travels fast and wide within no time. And when it matters, it's really useful and exciting to have everybody on the same page. But of late I've started seeing this feature getting abused abundantly. Things on social media have a repetitive nature, and the same detail or info or news gets reinforced in our minds as it keeps appearing in front of our eyes as we scroll screens. It has 2 effects. One - agents who want to spread something - a message, some news, or a perception - even totally false - are smartly manipulating people's minds to achieve targeted outcomes. Two - as most of the stuff is on topics of minor intellectual value, we feed ourselves continuously on shit that neither helps us nor adds to our knowledge of the world. Our brain probably dynamically allocates resources for new shit by freeing up some old shit which is sent to some long-term area of the brain that keeps piling up shit but offers very minimal ability to retrieve or recall. And this long-term shitty area is getting loaded with more and more shit - at the fastest pace ever in the history of human species. So much ever increasing load chokes the brain, slows us down and makes us dumb. All this technology was supposed to make us smart, but it's only turning us into idiot boxes which can't think. And that's the irony.

Trump vs Hillary - Presidential debate in a few hours

In a few hours we have the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. While I am a fan of neither of them, and why would I give a shit about American elections anyway - I watch only for entertainment, I find these direct debates live on camera between candidates competing in elections a very great practice. It needs lot of courage, meticulous preparation and mental strength for a candidate to be able to take that. One can of course blow it up, but it's unlikely after reaching that level after winning many such debates with other competitors in the primaries. Like a good boxing match, there is lot of punching, offence and defense. And it's fun to watch. A lot of questions are quite direct and as the whole world is watching, you can't bullshit your way into the white house, i.e., in a relative sense only. I say relative coz there could be situations where neither of the candidates has really worked out clear stands on issues and policies, and both are just farting random shit. And in that situation, the one that sounds less insane would win - the debate, at least.

While I was writing the last line, I realized how futile these dabates can be from the point of view of deciding the electability of the candidates. One way to look at these is as reality-shows telecast on TV at prime time meant only for TRPs, entertainment and the linked revenue for engaged parties. But then, they do affect viewers' opinions about the candidates and it wouldn't be totally untrue to say a lot of voters may be influenced by the outcome of a presidential debate. Its very nature is quite unique as it brings the candidates side-by-side on the same stage and the viewers see them taking each other head on.

In the last elections if was fun watching the Obama vs Mit Romney debate. Romney never seemed very clear in his economic policy, and like a good consultant - having had a strong BCG foundation - he kept talking stuff that had more volume - both in space and vibration terms - and less sense. I am not sure Obama made much sense either... but that didn't matter coz he spoke so well!

Now we have Trump and Hillary - neither of them good orators, neither has a clean image and neither has the charisma to evoke respect that's irrespective of what they talk. Will Trump call his opponent 'Crooked Hillary' on her face? Will there be some clear talk or random gyaanbaazi? Let's see.

Wish we had these things in India. There was a time a few years back when Arvind Kejriwal invited, rather challenged, even Modi ji for a public debate. And many others too during the IAC fights for Lokpal bill. But nobody ever accepted those challenges. We know some readers may be getting furious at the mention of Kejriwal in a bit of a positive light and Modi in somewhat negative, and many would retort saying Modi has better things to do than to take a challenge from an idiot (his image at the moment, apparently) like Kejriwal who isn't qualified for a debate... bla bla... But that was not the point here... To give another example, just to dilute the hormones of Kejriwal haters and Modi lovers, our Mr. Smartass Arnab Goswami also called for debates between prime ministerial candidates during elections - with he as the moderator of course, asking all the tough questions. But nobody gave a shit. Perhaps, our leaders just don't want to set a precedent that they might later regret having to do these debates in every election thereafter. Besides, our elections are technically between parties, not people. And party stand is published or formally issued when required.

Anyway, it's already 1 am... I've to get up early to watch the debate... It's at 6.30 AM IST today i.e., 27th September 2016. Good night! Sweet Dreams!

Update - 30th Sept 2016:

The debate was one of the worst I've ever seen. Neither candidates had much to say, except some basic stuff like economy and jobs throwing numbers loosely, and a lot of mud-slinging on each other. Neither of the candidates had much concrete to say about what they were offering. Trump said tax cuts will fix everything and Hillary said tax increases will fix everything - this was perhaps the only clear statement either made on their economic policy and points of view. And neither had much of a basis apparently. One can of course argue with sufficient evidence that most economic policies based on gut feel work as good as those worked out scientifically. Perhaps even better at times. The world is fooled by randomness indeed.

So, this debate was an hour and a half of crap talk. And yet one of the candidates was declared a winner - Hillary Clinton to be specific - while it is noteworthy that the basis for her victory was not her eligibility for being the President, but was the fact that she outsmarted and out-spoke Trump quite well and very clearly. Trump, on the other hand was struggling to attack Hillary and kept failing in the absence of strong prepared and rehearsed content.

But one thing is quite clear to me after following the Obama-Romney and Trump-Hillary debates - these are no great debates, and are mostly full of finger pointing and nonsense arguments - much like the Newshour Debates of Arnab Goswami. And the quality of issues which become election game changers are as cheap in the US as they are in India. In many ways we have less pretence and more indulgent bull-shitting in India, and so we don't even bother about things like fact-checking and policy stands. The entertainment bit is handled better in the US in my view. In all this, democracy shows up as a neat hoax, but everyone wants to believe it's all by the people, for the people and of the people. Good if that makes people happy in whatever form it is.

Growth and Inequality

The world is based on an economic model which drives everything that goes on here, including what we do and how we act, and not just from the work standpoint. And it obviously determines the share of the world's resources that each one of us has the right to claim. There is of course the all-powerful thing called "money", and to earn it within the economic boundaries is all there is to life for almost the entire human race of the day. And the model is designed to grow all the time - prices have to rise, people have to keep earning more than before, entities have to increase in size or volume - basically everything is made to behave like a living creature - a human, to be more specific. Even the denial of death is not uncharacteristic. Why should growth be a given in a world which is fixed in size and the resources it has to offer?

Before I go further, I must declare: I've started reading the book - "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity" by Douglas Rushkoff, and the thoughts above are influenced by the first 70 pages of the book that I've read so far. I couldn't wait till I completed it before expressing my thoughts, so here I am.

There is also a fundamental reason, in my view, behind aspiring growth which is not entirely just about crazy pursuit - it is the gradual uncovering of the mysteries of the universe by us, and which has continuously led to new possibilities for better life for us. And in principle the entire machinery of the world economy is after enabling that better life using whatever resources and knowledge we have, while also constraining its distribution with a parameter called affordability. While it can still be argued that the standard of living has increased even for the lowest of the affordability layers, the benefits increasingly get concentrated at the top. In other words, people grow at different rates.

The dominant economic thought promotes boundary-less pursuit of self-interest by individuals as a way of achieving overall prosperity, and thereby recognizes the fact that there will be unequal achievement by individuals, leading to different classes of human beings, although it claims that every class would experience net improvement in its living standard (or perish?). As even if everyone was brought to an equal level and made to run, there will always be someone winning the race and someone far behind struggling to catch up - as abilities differ, and we're born with pre-decided levels of most of them. There may be more cozy tracks to run now than in the past or better shoes to help the feet - and that's the overall upliftment achieved. But our unfair models still allow the strong to get more food than the weak because of their corresponding inherent ability to compete for food, resulting in the strong getting stronger and the weak getting weaker. We whisper of equality, but we cannot have it in the current economic model. We talk instead of equal opportunity, which is also not really a fair offer as unequal individuals do not have an equal ability to convert an opportunity. In a way we have extended God's 'natural selection' into the way the world is run, so that we can discard individuals competing poorly. If God could do this with every life form, why can't we do it with ourselves? But whoever is playing God in this model we have made for ourselves is one of us, and is also the highest beneficiary of this economic natural selection. And that's the conflict of interest which screws with the world order.

Musical Sunday morning... Gulaabi aankhein...

Sad

9 people died by falling from the top (12th floor) of a building under construction near my home. A few others are critically injured. A slab broke off, apparently. It is extremely sad and unfortunate indeed. Just a few days back, a guy died at the same site in a similar accident. This is a reflection of the poor safety norms in most work places in India. The culture of jugaad leads to too many compromises in safety, quality and accountability. We live with that as the rich/powerful get away without being held responsible, the poor risk their lives as they don't have any other option, and the middle class just accepts without knowing enough and becomes a victim when things go down. And probably, contrary to what we generally believe, we are also somewhat reckless folk, and more adventurous than one in his/her right mind should be. We are like that only!

Oratory

Oratory, especially that at the most watched platforms, in the current times, is a skill that is less of what it used to be once upon a time. Good speeches still generate some euphoria, but it's less the skill of the speaker and more a lot of other factors that make public speaking so easy now, especially at the topmost platforms where the speakers have all kinds of tools which help them deliver content; and in the end all they do is just that - deliver, without putting much of a brain to it. And even the content is not written by the speakers... so basically all they do is stand on stage and act like they mean what they say. And then these news channels analyse that bull-shit for hours, as if it really mattered. A lot of time and energy can be saved if the content is directly made public, and we avoid all the unnecessary drama. Unless, of course, the speech is supposed to have an immediate psychological impact on the audience - like creating some sort of ecstasy about something and they go and do something they otherwise won't in their right minds. I guess Gandhi's and Hitler's speeches had such impacts on people. Perhaps Obama's speeches did too to some extent - in making the people vote for him - and he delivered them well in spite of just reading stuff on teleprompters; stuff written by someone else, of course. And one may say that every speaker would like such an impact if he can manage. And therefore, there is a strong argument in favor of live oratory in any case. And if we separate the content - read or rehearsed - from the delivery, the latter still requires the human and personality element so as to be really impactful... so we can't really replace the person with a robot that blurts out the content in the best possible manner as per the intended impact. But for people to be impacted by a read-out piece even by a human will increasingly get difficult as they become more and more aware of the fact that it is just acted out by the speaker and is not coming from deep down his mind, especially with more technology getting used - and technology has a turn-off effect in speeches. Teleprompters, for example, are designed to give an impression to the audience that they speaker is looking at  them, while he actually isn't. And the moment you discover that first time, you do feel cheated somewhere deep down. Given that, if someone can manage conventional oratory, he can sweep the crowds away still and have a competitive advantage too. Perhaps Donald Trump is managing that to a significant degree.