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Archives for July 2007

$piritual Business: Acceptance before Change

admin · July 30, 2007 · Leave a Comment

The response to my post on ‘Five lessons I learned at IIT Conference’ was overwhelmingly positive and got me to think about some other key lessons I have learned over the years. And many of these lessons did not come from the business domain exclusively.

The common perception is that spirituality is for the ascetics or people that are probably not as interested in the material world. The truth is there are many many lessons that can be applied to succeed in the business world – I will be bringing a few to your attention over next several weeks – starting with Acceptance.

What is Acceptance? One definition suggests Acceptance means that you perceive reality accurately and consciously acknowledge what you perceive. Some people misconstrue acceptance to mean that when you ‘accept’, you put up with the improper behavior of others towards you. In fact, by ‘accepting’ the reality that someone is manipulative or aggressive, you become consciously aware and then can respond to the person and her behavior in the most appropriate manner.

Acceptance in Business: So how does this apply to business or work life. Let us take an example. Many years ago, I worked on a product that was poorly architected and was being built with the wrong use case scenarios. It was clear to sales and other organizations outside of this core team that the product would never succeed in the market. However, most people on the team failed to accept this. The few that did sense something was wrong simply got into shouting matches and were unable to effect any real change – they either ruined their career prospects or ended up leaving the firm. They saw the flaw in the product but did not accept the reality of how others on the team felt. A very small number actually accepted both realities – that the product as designed was not going to succeed, and that many team members and leaders were unwilling to see this. By fully accepting both facts, this small subset approached senior executive management to make a case for change. The senior executive management accepted this reality and brought in new leadership. With new management, the product was mothballed and a newer product built and launched resulting in one of the most successful product launches in this company’s history.

The key message of the story is that you must fully ‘accept’ all of reality including people, their preset notions, the market, etc. if you want to effect change. And, don’t forget to accept and become aware of your own biases and tendencies.

How can I learn Acceptance? I have found that there are several areas of our lives where many of us tend to be naturally accepting and we may want to learn from them.

  • Hiking in the Forest: When you are hiking you accept the surroundings, the shape of the hills, the thorns of bushes and the occasional rain. In fact, I would argue that one of the reasons we feel good when we are with nature is because we do not have any ‘expectations’- and this enables us to accept all as is. Perhaps next time you go to a meeting, be willing to see more than what you are primed to look for. The recent New York Times article Who is Minding the Mind? sites research by psychologists and neuroscientists on the myriad biases originating from our subconscious.
  • Playing with babies: When a baby bites your hand or ruins your best shirt, you do not lash out against her. Again, you are accepting (while throwing the baby back to the crib) of what is rather than what should or could have been. A lot of salesmen refuse to acknowledge genuine objections by an attendee that is not C-level in the hopes that ignoring the objection would help move the process along. In reality, they are simply choosing to see an alternate reality – a dream sale – that may never come to fruition. In stead, by acknowledging reality of exactly what everyone is thinking (or saying) in a meeting can be the first step towards establishing rapport, answering the objections on path to a sale.

I am not suggesting that you go for a hike or play with babies to learn acceptance – not that that would be a bad idea – but what I am suggesting is that you become consciously aware of times when you are accepting (i.e., seeing reality as is) and when you are in denial.

(Suggested further reading: Are you ready to Succeed?, and your favorite spiritual book.)

Top 5 Blog Posts

admin · July 17, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Here are some of my recent posts that have attracted more than their fair share of hits, and you may enjoy:

  • Apple insider reveals secret plan to launch revolutionary iCar
  • Charlie Munger’s lessons on life
  • New Meme: Software is Free, Service is Not (Book Review)
  • Power of visualization: Debunking Myths about the Developing World
  • Five Things I learned at IIT 2007 Alumni Conference

I would love to hear your comments and ideas. Also, if you like these posts consider subscribing to the blog by using the widget on the right – you can get them by Email or in your favorite RSS Reader.

Five Things I learned at IIT 2007 Alumni Conference

admin · July 8, 2007 · 4 Comments

Jeff Immelt addressing IIT 2007: “GE loves the IIT product- its graduates”
picture by PAN IIT 2007

I just spent last two days at the IIT 2007 Alumni Conference. I spent 4 years in the 90’s, the best 4 years of my life, in a small college town of Kharagpur. Although it does not have the quiet charm of a Chapel Hill (my graduate school town) or the romance of Austin – it did share some of the same qualities. Secluded from civilization, around 100 miles from Calcutta, Kharagpur is a town with very little except a very long railway platform and the IIT. The advantage of being so far away from civilization (and women – only 5% of the class – to our great dismay), the seclusion makes you bond closer with your classmates. Much like any great college in the US, IIT attracts students from all parts of the country, creating a small microcosm of India – with kids of all languages, religions, castes (yes, that too) and economic classes. The conference and speakers like Arun Sarin (CEO, Vodafone and fellow alumnus) sent me back to those golden years. In the short span of two days, I learned a few things about myself, careers and life that I would like to share.

  1. People love to help people: Yes, its not a revelation but in the cynical world we live in – we often forget how many people go out of their way to help each other. I heard stories of alumni coaching and reaching out. Delip Andra, CEO of Minekey, went back to his alma mater Kharagpur to incubate a startup and help students get a lesson in entrepreneurship. Arun Sarin of Vodafone used his influence to make India an important part of his company’s growth strategy. As he said and I paraphrase – I made it clear that I wanted this deal done. He mentioned how he often takes calls to refer his friends and alumni to VC’s. Raj Jaswa, Vish Mishra and Raj Mashruwala of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) shared tips on coaching and mentoring – and described how they have been helping young entrepreneurs.
  2. Adversity is the door to success: As I mingled with the alumni who have varied levels of success in their careers and personal life – this theme emerged again and again – what seemed like adversity at one point, in retrospect, turned out to be a blessing. A hedge fund manager from New York recounted this story: After graduating from IIT in mid-80’s with a degree in Naval Architecture – he joined the industry but the oil price collapse led to widespread recession in ship building and offshore platforms business. He did not loose his job but was forced to reconsider his options – opting to go to business school. Not only did that lead to a successful career as an investment professional, he now leverages the knowledge he gained in the lost years spent in oil & gas. As Steve Jobs, said in his commencement speech at Stanford University, the dots sometimes connect only in retrospect.
  3. No one regrets taking a risk, not even the ‘failed’: People that take chances, especially entrepreneurs, fail. Some of these people have become wildly successful over the years and as you would expect they don’t regret having taken a risk. The interesting and somewhat unexpected learning for me was that the people that never went on to be multi-millionaire successes also don’t regret having taken a chance. Almost universally, they told of how the experiences made them happier.
  4. Talk to the quiet ones: I am a pretty extrovert person (hence, the blog!) and as with most people I find it easier to approach co-workers and friends that are extroverts – its a lot easier. I learned this is not the best strategy. By way of example, I met a professional acquaintance I have known for over 2 years but who is rather quiet and I never took the opportunity to get to know him better. I got a chance to talk to him and I learned that we shared interests in value investing, studying human behavior and love of Warren Buffett. He had an extremely intelligent, deep and analytical understanding of the market. I met a few other people that were quiet but when I approached them and talked to them had some very interesting life stories.
  5. iPhone is popular: Don’t laugh. It may not seem like a learning but I found that the easiest topic to approach anyone at the event was to make a remark about the iPhone. It made people light up and talk – the ones that loved it and the ones that hated it. Standing in the queue or waiting for a talk to start, all I had to do to spark a conversation or get to know someone was say Did you get an iPhone? or Do you think iPhone is really that good? And three minutes later I was having an interesting discussion, unrelated to iPhone, about something we mutually cared about be it software, India or entrepreneurship.

Also: ZDNet’s Dan Farber has a couple of very interesting posts on the IIT 2007 conference including GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt’s keynote on Globalization, India and IITs and MR Rangaswami’s panel on Web2.0 with Google and WebEx panelists.

Bonus, 6th: Not related to IIT conference, check out this post, by Jason Corsello. As Jason says,

Just because a talented individual doesn’t look the part and lacks confidence doesn’t mean they can’t be a top performer..

Are you ignoring what true talent looks like? Can you tap into the unexposed skills of your employees?

Learning: Don’t judge too soon.

Deferred Life Plan, the new improved Al Gore and your career

admin · July 6, 2007 · 2 Comments

If any of you have seen or heard the new Al Gore lately, you may have found him to be much more likable. Even if you still hate his politics, you may concede that this new Al Gore is more amiable than the politician Al Gore. He seems to be actually having fun, being himself and enjoying his new role as an evangelist for the environmental movement.

No good reason, just like this picture of an Avacado.

It appears clear now that the new Al Gore is really passionate about change; and may have been since the early 90’s, if not earlier. Then what the hell was he doing running campaigns, kissing babies and trying to out tap dance Bush W.? Well, he was doing what many of us are probably doing with our lives today without even realizing it. He was living the Deferred Life Plan.

The Deferred Life Plan, a phrase used in Randy Komisar’s book “The Monk and the Riddle” is defined as: I will do now what needs to be done now, and will eventually do I really want to do. The idea is to focus on some conventional notion of success, some superficial goal and only after achieving that goal to move on to life’s purpose. In Al Gore’s case, it would be stated as “I will be a politician and become President so that I can one day fix the environment”.

There are many problems with the Deferred Life Plan:

  • What if you never get done with your first phase. Be it having a million bucks (or ten or hundred) in the bank or kids going to college – life always brings surprises and you may find yourself way past your prime age or worse – before you get to the second phase – the one that you really wanted to live.
  • The passion that comes with doing what you really want to do makes you glow, makes you likely to generate passion in others, makes you a leader – makes you the new Al Gore. So whatever that next phase is may be the thing you should be doing first anyways even if its purely for external or material success.

As I attend my alumni meet this week, over a decade after graduation, I will surely be pondering over these questions. And I urge you too to take a moment – Is what you are doing right now what you really want to be doing? Or is this the thing that you think needs to be done before you can do what you really want to do?

May be its time to begin your life, have fun and success may follow (or not which may not be a bad thing if you are happy) – do you want to be the new Al Gore or the old Al Gore?

(Thanks to Sharad Sharma, fellow blogger and newly minted Enterprise Irregular, who introduced me to these concepts and to the book. Here is a good post on this topic by Mark Batterson of Evotional blog.)

Coming to IIT 2007?

admin · July 2, 2007 · Leave a Comment

This week (July 6-9), IIT almuni are getting together in Santa Clara Convention Center for IIT 2007. With marquee names like Hillary Clinton, Arun Sarin (CEO, Vodafone), Jeff Immelt (CEO, GE) – this promises to be an exciting event. But the true stars of the show will be thousand plus IIT alumni gathered to meet up, exchange ideas and most importantly have fun and celebrate.

IIT Kharagpur (Photo by seaview99)

I plan to be there along with several other friends. Drop me a line if you want to meet up. (anshu at anshublog.com)

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