Face the worst first and get rid of it asap.

This is yet another discussion with Doddappa (Uncle). It’s a pretty simple thing yet a lot of us do not seem to remember it and practice it. I do not remember how this one came up, but its here. This is one of his philosophies which have been appreciated by others. The idea is about prioritizing the things/to-dos of the day. There will be a lot of days in every person’s life when there will a few “good” to-dos and a probably a couple of “not so good” or “difficult” to-dos also. And these difficult ones will generally be such that we will be hesitating to carry out them. And, as a result we generally keep postponing them as we would be afraid to face them. Also nobody would like to start the day with something bad, because of a strange belief that the rest of the day would also be bad. But what most of us forget is that these unwanted responsibilities keep eating our resources – time, thought and energy, until we get rid of them. This directly results in a reduction in our efficiency even when we are doing something that we love the most, because the fear of having to do the unwanted will always be eating us from the inside. We do not get rid of the unwanted even when we know that it is something that we ultimately will have to face. So to avoid all the losses or resources the best thing would be to finish of the most unwanted and most feared task of the day as soon as possible in the early hours of the day. This will ensure us a successful and more productive day ahead of us. So just get rid of the unwanted and feared things first and that will allow us to enjoy the things we actually like to do.

WaterWays - An amazing way of transfer

Water ways - The most cost effective transport system:

This is the outcome ofyet another discussion with Doddappa(Uncle). We were actually about varied careers and how one can be successful and not be yet another engineer or a doctor. Though we came up with a lot of options like being a scientist after doing a masters in pure science or may be be take up journalism and many more, but the one that stood out as an extremely lucrative one was Merchant Navy. Then my sister asked the typical youngster question: "What do these people at Merchat Navy do??!!". That was what my uncle was precisely waiting for, an opportunity, and he started the gyaan transfer.

Though most of what he said was known to me, there was one thing which struck me like anything. He said that a large part of mass-goods transfer i.e actual large scale business hapened through water-ways because it was the cheapest mode. Though I knew this bit of fact the reason for this interested me more than anything. It is very simple. For roadways we ave to "maintain roads", for railways we have to "maintain rails", for airways though we do not have to "maintain air" its really a costly affair to maintain airports, the air traffic control and hence makes air-transport an ultimately costly choice for transfer of all regular mass usage goods. But with waterways there is no such thing at all. Ships move on waters and seas and oceans take care of that. Traffic control is a lot easier than airways. From what I know fuel is also much cheaper compared to the extremely high quality air-fuel. (So much of comparision with airways is because the others cannot be used for transport across the globe)

So all that we need to worry about is ports/harbours. i have heard about natural harbours and hence I guess even those costs are partly taken care by Mother nature already. This and so many other things make water ways the obvious choice for shipping large amounts of goods. may be other modes of transport will make transportation charges itself more than the actual cost of the goods being transported.

Now there might be some environmental considerations that need to be taken care of. Because recently when some American or French ship was coming to Gujarat port for scrapping there was a lot of opposition as it was hazardous and leading to pollution big time. But still cost stands a big deal. I hope our good scientist fellows will soon find a less hazardous and pollution-free shipping ways. :-)

So businessman and would be businessman, watch out for your shipyard. And also learn how to swim, just in case, you know. ;-)
Hail Water-ways, Hail mother Nature... (Thank god I can swim :P )

Theory X and Theory Y

This is yet another discussion that I had with my Doddappa(uncle). The title seems to be a very interesting and something exciting. Even I felt the same when my uncle first mentioned it. But it eventually turned out that it was a very much common and known thing. Then why the hell am I writing about this here?? Well the answer is, I did not know that such a common thing could be documented so well and that it would be on of the most important management theories.

There is a nice Wikipedia article about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_theory_Y and hence I will not be writing anything about this here.

In short Theory X is the pessimistic view and Y is the optimistic view about the people you are managing. But in reality people at any place are really a mix of this and are generally somewhere in between these two extremes. So the manager needs to shrewed enough to identify and categorize people and manage them accordingly. Because X-type of management will piss-off the Y-type of people and may result in resource loss. The reason is that self motivated and creative people want freedom and do not like to be persistently nagged. On the other hand Y-type of management for X-type of people will result in zero or close to zero output and the manager's neck is on the blade. The reason simply being that lazy people who are at work just for money and exploit all facilities will just do that and refrain from working. So managers and people aspiring to be managers, though this is a very common and old and also a sort of outdated philosophy my guess is that it still is an important one.

Learn to say NO , Learn to be harsh

Doddappa & General Dyer

This is one of the several discussions or talks that I had with my Doddappa (Uncle). It was during and after supper (during mine and after his.. though we started together). He just started with the JalianWala Bagh incident which happened before Indian Independence. Just to recall, a large number of Sikhs had gathered in this place JalianWala Bagh for a religious meeting (from what I know). At that time General Dyer had issued a notice that no public meetings could be held, as it was a sign of freedom struggle and the British always wanted to avoid a full fledged opposition to their rule. When General Dyer became aware of this religious meeting he came with a troop of gunmen and positioned them behind the Sikhs covering the only the entrance to the enclosed JalianWala Bagh ground where they had assembled. He gave a warning telling the people there to clear before his countdown ends. The Sikhs did not budge and the General ordered the troops to open fire on the people. He killed almost all of the Sikhs present there. Some say the number was hundreds and some say it was thousands. Whatever it is, I am pretty sure it was big number.

There was a lot of opposition and revolt after this incidence in a lot of places in India. Also there was a great big opposition in England also, about the action of General Dyer. So the British, fair in governance as they few call them, formed a committee to investigate the matter. The committee had Indian(s) too.

It started with the General Dyer being questioned. When he was asked for a reason to take in a troop of gunmen inside that enclosed area, he said "The entrance was too small for my tanker/automated firearm weapon to move in. Thats why I had to finish the job with few gunmen". This might enrage the Indians, but there is a lesson to be learnt here.

Never in the interrogation did he confess that he did a mistake. Never was he sorry that he killed so many people. Not even through out his life. Any time he was asked about that incident he said "I was just protecting the queen. I was following my orders. I just did my duty". Never did he regret that action of his and he always considered that he had discharged his duty properly.

Each one of us will face a similar scenario in our careers. We will come across situations when we are supposed to make harsh statements or we receive such harsh comments. In either cases, it that was the need of the hour then we should never regret about the situation. Sometime a senior of ours may scold us or make certain negative remarks. If those are justified then all that he has done is his job. He would have failed in his duties if he had not done that. This justification is again a very difficult thing. Not all would be ready to accept any such thing told. The very first reaction would be think that its wrong. But a proper thinking with a cool mind will sort out the things.

On the other hand there might be a situation when we are supposed to speak like that or make certain hard decisions. If that is in the best interest of all then we should never hesitate to do it. The person at the receiving end may consider us to be rude, but we know we are not. All that we have done is dischared our duties. This is the harder part. And this is what we have to learn from the above mentioned incident in the life of General Dyer.