Serendipity and Learning

 Seth Godin nails it.    Lets call soft skills, real skills he says.  We give too little respect to the other skills  when we call them “soft”  and imply that they’re optional.  What actually separates thriving organizations from struggling ones are the difficult-to-measure attitudes, processes and perceptions of the people who do the work. Vocational skills can be taught: You’re not born knowing engineering or copywriting or even graphic design, therefore they must be something we can teach. But we let ourselves off the hook when it comes to decision-making, eager participation, dancing with fear, speaking with authority,  working in teams , seeing the truth, speaking the truth, inspiring others, doing more than we’re asked, caring and being willing to change things. We underinvest in this training, fearful that these things are innate and can’t be taught. Perhaps they’re talents. And so we downplay them, calling them soft skills, making it easy ...

As a leader we often expect our subordinates to take whatever feedback we give in a positive manner. Somehow as a leader we put the onus on the receiver.  I have a different view on this.  As a leader, it is your duty to learn the skills of giving feedback. Just because you happen to be in a position of authority doesn't mean that you feeedback will be taken whichever way you give it.  So, at the first point when you have people reporting upto you - please do yourself and the organization and the people who work with a favour and learn how to give feedback (all types).  It is a great foundation for your career ahead, leadership skills and the culture of the team and the company.  Sure there are examples of people who did not have this skill - but you dont have to be that way. You can tread a different path. 

More automation means more training. Isnt this counterintuitive? This article is a very well written account from the perspective of piloting aeroplanes.  In a nutshell it is that as planes become more and more automated - in case of a failure, the risks are very high unless the pilot is skilled to that level and is able to handle an emergency. Todays pilots are those who can skillfully manage a plane. And when they are trained in automation - they know how to handle an issue. What happens in future as more and more basic tasks are taken over by the autopilot? And this might be an issue only for airplanes - no - it isnt. Years ago when I was handling a function, we faced this issue. As the project became more and more automated - we realised that exception handling was becoming more and more difficulty - because the skill levels of the incumbents were low.  This will begin to repeat across functions. And if you think about it - as the basic task becomes more and more easy, th...

As a fan of Sherlock Holmes and its various interpretations over the years, it is fascinating to see the protagonist 'deduce' various things by looking at people, clues, crime scenes and so on. And while they are all in a sense, just well written stories, the fact of the matter is that Sherlock is a man of heightened sensitivities. He has hones this skill of his to perfection - perhaps magical levels. See this TED talk by Apollo Robbin s where he 'misdirects' - a story of heightened sensitivities. Or this classic TED talk by Keith Barry where he 'reads people'. What can a person with heightened sensitivities do? A conman can use it for evil purposes, a good person can use it for the common or individual good - we can all do it. And we do this in many of this do this in our own worlds as well. Salesmen hone their sensitivities. Coaches do the same. Detectives. Lawyers. All of us can do it - if we try. But we can do it. 

I was talking to a long time friend of mine who is now a yoga teacher. He is the unlikeliest of yoga teachers. He runs his own factory, had no connection with spirituality or philosophy and joined yoga out of curiosity because he wanted to accompany his mom. His mom stopped, and he continued and continued.  For 12 odd years.  At the end of which he knows enough to be a teacher - somewhat, in his words. And he started teaching a few people,assisting the experts in teaching and so on and so forth. The line of yoga he is a teacher is in - is the world renowned Iyengar Yoga.  It has no certifications, no fixed hours, no syllabus and follows a rigorous method of learning. People learn for years and there is a method and an order for it.  All around, while there are others offering quick fix teachers certifications and yoga courses, this method continues to follow a time honoured tradition of building skills and expertise.  This is not about whet...

The Indian team went to South Africa and had a tough time. This was not the first time. This has been a debate for 30 plus years now. Why doesnt the Indian team not perform well on overseas pitches? The answer is simple. There is no practice. There is no skill building. This answer is also nothing new. How does one build a new skill? By putting onself out there, trying, failing, learning, unlearning, relearning and finally bit by bit climbing the ladder of skills. So, if the team has to be play on fast bouncy pitches abroad - they need to play on fast bouncy pitches at home. And that means, when the next generation of kids grow up, they need to learn to play on fast bouncy pitches. In theory, all it means is to have every alternate match to be played on a different pitch. And you do this over a generation - even 5 years, you have a battle ready team. Cut to business. If you need to learn to handle a difficult conversation like a pro, you have to practice doing it. Simply becau...

Many years ago, when I was in school - an elderly gentleman told me, "I am amazed at the level of thought that you have. You are blessed to have a high level of awareness. I wish I had this when I was your age" I did not understand the meaning of this at that time - but I think I am able to see what that gentleman meant now. I am amazed at the level of awareness that people have today. Not all people. But I think as generations progress, with the vast levels of information available to people - there is a chance - a great chance to be aware - far more aware than perhaps any previous generation. I wish I had that level of awareness, reading, access to information at that age. Sometimes, I feel my education years could have been better spent with more learning...I also cringe at the low level of awareness I had at that age...(regardless of what the gentleman felt). People who are say, about 20 years today have a far greater level of awareness than people in their 40s t...

Now, if the future is uncertain (as it always is) - where does that leave us? Our children? What does that mean for us - as we think of developing the right skills for children? Here is my thought. As much as the future changes and in whichever direction, some basic things wont change. The fact is that nothing can be achieved by Effort. Discipline. Building these skills are very important. To know that effort has its rewards - not in a material sense - but in the joy of learning and becoming 'good' at something for the sake of it. It is good to try out many things - but being a jack of all trades is not good enough. One needs to master at atleast 1 or 2 things. That means conceptual clarity - clarity which comes with years of education, trial and error - is important. Having had the above conceptual clarity - how much can you step out of it and view the world that you know well and break those rules - that is innovation. Whatever else you have or do not have - in...

The title is a play on Go East, Young Man - as applied to people in the Indian IT industry. As Karthink observes in his very perspicacious post, it is the End of Experience . As someone who has been in this industry doing various roles including Leading Java modules without knowing to code to searching nonexistent flex fields in Oracle applications so that I could satisfy business needs (this role, was indeed quite satisfying) to Implementing a useless ERP for a firm that couldn't care less on the supply side to a firm which was not interested in the system anyway to Leading a testing team to charge down whatever the developers coded (how I loved this role) to  Chief Form filling administrative officer in a multitude of useless sytems that measure useless metrics to be viewed by no-one in particular. And then I was the chief form filling officer for an entire business unit where I got a hapless team to fill out complex excel sheets without using a single formula but using all th...

Consider the game of cricket. In the 70s if you looked at our cricket stalwarts - lets say a Sunil Gavaskar and built a competency model based on Gavaskar  - there is no way a Virendra Sehwag would make the cut or a Jonty Rhodes or perhaps even a Krish Srikkanth.  Most likely a Sachin Tendulkar would also fall by the wayside. Ditto for almost any other sport or discipline. So, what gives? For one, the sport has moved. From test cricket in the 70s to one day cricket in the 80s to faster pace of cricket in the 90s to the shorter format therafter. Suddenly with the entry of Jonty Rhodes, fielding (direct hits) became a competency that was hitherto ignored. With the arrival of Jayasuriya, pinch hitting became a competency. Second, it ignores what an individual brings to the role. And herein is the bigger issue. Two persons can succeed in a role in a very different way. And that is their strength. A look at competency is a bit of reinforcement of confirmation bias - and an...

Push cars is one of the new game app on the Apple Store. We downloaded this quite by chance. It takes off where "Unblock me" (video above) and its parking counterpart (same game using cars) left. Myself and the little one have been playing this with gusto for the past few weeks (except somewhere during the iOS5 upgrade, the game went kaput). There are versions of physical unblock mes available - and are used quite widely in schools as part of their co-curricular (usually paid separately) activities. Where push cars scores is making the whole damn thing so mobile, and just so simple. The bad cars have to crash while the good cars have to escape. Every city introduces a new car (good or bad) with slightly complex features and keeping it all in mind, one has to ensure that the good cars escape and the bad cars crash. The levels are not simple. And require quite a bit of contrarian thinking to make it work. And yes, they are far better than mindless single person sho...