Chaturashrama as a metaphor for personal and professional management

Chaturashrama, an ancient Hindu subtext (part of the Manusmriti) describes the four ideal stages of a human's (man's) life. Indeed, Chaturashrama has received a lot of flak for being patriarchal, for being the source of much determinism in modern Indian society, and for being But this post is not about such existing debates.

The four stages (or ashramas) are Brahmacharya (the stage of learning and preparation for life), Grihastha (the stage of taking responsibility and acquiring material, and emotional wealth, thus performing one's core evolutionary duty), Vanaprastha (the state of learning to let go of wordly comforts and spreading wisdom) and Sanyasa (the stage of isolated contemplation). Implicit in the Chaturashrama is that the path to each stage is through the previous. For instance, one cannot learn to let go in the right way unless one has been in complete control. Thus, these four stages represent four key functions of a person's journey through life: learning, taking control, letting go, and reflection.

While the four stages are prescribed for different periods in life, the modern world is seldom so linear. I'll proceed to claim that each stage is constantly present in our lives, and further, that each stage individually can provide both positive and negative feedback on the other. I'll argue that mastering the balance between these constraints or tensions can result in unprecedented success (spiritual, emotional, and or financial).

To be successful in the modern world, any entity (be it an individual direct the course of his/her personal life or a large organization) must continually cycle through these four functions every waking moment. To elaborate, one must continually

• learn (update oneself about the state of the world)
• take control (make decisions based on the knowledge gathered and take responsibility for the consequences)
• trust and let go (be able to delegate responsibilities to those who step up and trust them to do it, as well as move on from unexpected failures)
• reflect (create new knowledge through reevaluation and contextualization of own experience and state of the world).

Seen thus, experiences from personal life have direct parallels in management. In fact, several management functions can be (and have been) organized according to these criteria. Given that one is always playing the balancing act between these functions, it is worthwhile asking when they are in conflict with each other, and when they reinforce each other.

The G-V Balance, or how to DO well. Lessons in executive excellence
Mastering the tension between taking control and letting go (Grihastha-Vanaprastha balance), is a trait that can be seen in the best leaders of the world.

The B-S Balance, or how to THINK well. Lessons in strategic excellence
Likewise, closing the loop between learning and reflection (Brahmacharya-Sanyasa balance) can been seen in some of the world's best thinkers. Here learning refers to casting a wide net for ideas and knowledge and having the humility and curiosity to learn from anyone, while reflection refers to the courage to think on one's own reject good ideas at times, the vision to separate bad ideas from good ones, and the capacity to synthesize new knowledge.

[Footnote: Couldn't resist, but excellent thinking is mostly about knowing your way around B-S!]

The D-T Balance, or how to THINK by DOING and DO by THINKING
While the G-V balance deals with the issue of how to be a good doer [in management world, an executive; in the scientific world, an experimentalist], the B-S balance deals with how to be a good thinker [in the management world, a strategist; in the scientific world, a theorist]. And doubtlessly, acquiring each balance is a lesson in acquiring the other. By extension, it is possible to imagine that one always pursue excellence in thinking through excellence in doing and vice versa, leading us to study a third balance: the thinking-doing balance.

Mastering each of these balances is a book in itself and may be the subject of future posts!

On crossing the chasm and reshaping the adoption curve

Moore's bestseller, Crossing the chasm talks about the diffusion of innovation through the technology adoption distribution as though it is a static distribution of people ranging from early adopters to laggards. The book presents a framework to study the dynamics of adoption of a certain idea (or more often, commercial product) and helps us understand its spread from being niche meme to mass hysteria to slow fade out.

Marketing-to-geek ideologies suggest that innovators, rather than making 'average products for average people' (to paraphrase the ideologies of giants such as UniLever and P&G from the mid-20th century) should target the early adopters and recruit their faith and passion to help cross the chasm.

In reality however, the adoption distribution is not static. There is a constant traffic of people from one part of the distribution to another. Laggards sometimes open up, and tend to become mainstream adopters. In other situations, mainstream adopters can become early adopters. People evolve into some ideas, and devlove into others. This flow in turn may be steeply dependent on a few irreducible parameters. I wonder how much this kind of flow has been modeled or studied in behavioral economics, for instance.

Given this assumption of a parametrically varying adoption distribution, it is possible to conceive of a new marketing strategy, which would come up with methods prepare or pre-seed the adoption distribution by tracking the right parameters which control people flow, so that we have inherently more early adopters than mainstream users or laggards. The chasm would not be one static point in the distribution somewhere between the early adopters and the early mainstream, but shuffle around depending on this people-flow across the distribution. We could call such a marketing strategy: Where is the Chasm now?

It is my gut feeling that general purpose initiatives which aim to inspire people and make them take a proactive, curious, experimental stance to life such as TED, would play a very strong role in making the chasm move left, and would thus become a more and more integral aspect of marketing functions in insitutions worldwide.

The third thing about fame

Among the many assertions that have been made about fame are the following. Fame brings wealth, renown and a great social standing. Aspiring to be famous is for the selfish and power-hungry. Fame breeds arrogance, laziness and corruption. Etc. But are there only those two sides to fame?

Perhaps a nuanced assertion that has been made less often is the following. Aspiring to fame is a deep willingness and open invitation to be judged by the world. It is a complete submission, and a handing over of the right to be criticized, praised and talked about, to everybody in the world, regardless of their qualification or emotional stake in passing judgment. Aspiring to a public life is thus an aspiration to live in complete and utter openness. I'll argue here that there is a right way, a noble way, to aspire to be renowned, that fame is not always base. Let's call this fame 3.0 for simplicity.

Fame 3.0 is very close conceptually to ideas from several places. For instance, it is very close to the the Bhagavad Gita's "actions > rewards" prescription, or the stress of process over results from the enterpreneurial school of thought.

And it's probably fame 3.0 being confused for fame 1.0 or 2.0 that got Jesus crucified or Martin Luther King assassinated.

December season's reflections of a midsummer escapade

What if Garcia-Marquez had been brought up a Tam Brahm? That is the subject of this experimental fiction piece.

---------------------------x----------------------------

Gopal-Giridhar Madhusudhan looked out of the window, idly, about to roll over and go back to sleep, only to recall the promise he had made to himself this time: to get more out of the trip. It was his seventh visit back to Chennai in as many years. Each December, he had returned, if not from a faithfulness, then from a simple, acknowledged, fear of loneliness in the darkest weeks of the year.

Over Gopal’s first few visits, he had not wanted much, content to laze around in his parents’ home, get driven around, and generally fed the middle-class version of a dream vacation. In later years, he became a more conscientious vacation planner. Once, he accumulated culture-vulture oomph meticulously, attending every lec-dem session in the December sabhas, downing cups of filter coffee with dhonnais of steaming hot kesari in the mornings. Another time, he collected greenie points from wildlife trips. From a Valmik Thapar rant, through discussions with a friend about RFID collars for endangered species and the ethics of it, he had chalked out and executed a trail through Sariska. Yet another time, he sought free-spirit points by doing unplanned road trips through a randomly chosen region, performing informal case studies of microeconomic behavior. This year again, he had set himself such a goal. He would later realize that each vacation’s goal could succinctly be summarized thus: to get a sufficient dose of ‘wholesomeness’ out of the December visit to last him through the next sterile winter.

---------------------------x----------------------------

Gopal sat down, pen in hand, fresh coffee by his side, lighting to his satisfaction. He wrote:

Creativity is not a faucet.

That same tired witticism he had picked up from a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Not very creative. This was not some e-mail to a junior.

Lately, Gopal had been exploring the effects of the environment and elaborately designed mood scenarios on writing quality, the null hypothesis being that no morbid or weak thoughts could be forthcoming from the nourished, fresh-coffee-equipped soul, on a satisfactorily-lit Chennai morning. He wrote again:

"I'll give you 30 seconds in heaven", she said. "What, literally?" he retorted, faking a nervous laugh, by now. "Yeah, my name is heaven". He was snubbed.

No, no that’s not right. That’s terrible. He was snubbed? Snubbed? Staccato. Faking a nervous laugh? More like trying too hard and not enough altogether at once. No flow. My name is heaven?! Stand-up comedy? He scratched it out and tried again.

“I’ll give you 30 seconds in heaven”, she said. “What, literally?” he retorted, trying on a macho, assured laugh. Wrong move. The ‘Wh’ came out high pitched. He kicked himself internally, but it showed and she laughed. In future recountings of the incident to himself, he would always stress that her laughter was knowing and amused, a laughter of the eye, an ‘I get you, and that’s cool’ signal rather than an exposing, sarcastic laughter. “Yeah,” she replied with a blank stare, quickly checking her impulse to flash a smile, “my name is heaven”. Her future recountings of this moment were fond, and slightly self-congratulatory on account of her spontaneous naughtiness.

Better already. The drama was unfolding neatly. But the punchline had moved too far away for a reader to make the connection. But at this point Gopal checked himself. Too much academic writing, reader simulations, paragraph conjunctions. Humbug. More importantly, this was far from morbid. He seemed to be deviating from the task at hand. Was the null hypothesis undeniable? He tried again. Directness with two esses.

He had fucked a whore, bought himself a ticket to intimacy, barely conscious of the possibility of future remorse. He would later learn to describe this moment as a signing away of his 'claim to have always strived for the greatest good'.

Big deal. That came out just preachy, not morbid.

The aesthete in him made him cringe. The coffee had lost its steamy nip and the sun had risen too high. Imperceptibly at first, but unmistakably, he felt crippled. This was his third day in a row attempting to sketch the same scene. It was going to be yet another sultry day of inaction.

More books

Stuff I have been snacking on.

Sustainable swimming beaches in Chennai

Chennai has a large coastline. However, there are hardly any clean and safe swimming beaches. This is largely due to fishing settlements in many inner city beaches. The fishermen do not have access to clean toilets. So, they use the sea as a toilet. This is especially common at dawn, when one would ideally like to go for a swim before it gets too hot.

Another problem caused by the fishing settlements is the inability to build coastal roads through these settlements, leading to congestion in narrow lanes forced to become arterial roads (e.g. Anna Street connecting Kalakshetra colony and Marundeeshwarar temple).

However, the fishing settlement can be empowered with a tremendous resource right at their doorstep. Waves. Small scale offshore wave energy turbines can be installed in each such settlement. A fraction of the energy generated can be used to power low cost housing for these settlements. The rest can be traded in the energy market. The proceeds can go towards funding low cost housing, and a sanitation system, followed by beach beautification.

So that the fishermen can remain economically independent, we need an NGO to fund the setting up of wave turbines, which the settlement can own or part-own with an energy company.

A derivative product can be structured around the risks (the energy company giving the knowhow and equipment for wave turbines needs high waves, the fishermen need low waves).

If this can be piloted in a handful of beach-kuppams in Chennai, over time the beach can become clean. Beautification projects can be started, and people can feel safe to go for a swim without fear of diarrhoea.

Obviously my suggestion is very lazy and naive. It does not take into account the cost of setting up wave turbines, their energy output efficiency, the ability to integrate the generated energy into the local grid and how the energy market works. Oracles, please help me work out the details in the comments section.

For more info:
http://indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/content/ocean-wave-power-generation-concept-trial-orissa-and-other-coastal-states
http://www.thehindu.com/2009/06/05/stories/2009060558970400.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai_Elevated_Expressways

New acquisitions

Some new acquisitions from Landmark over Diwali: