Business to the Buddha

Category: Business

  • Farewell 2016







    Wish you a Very Happy New Year.

    Cherish the moments you enjoyed and learn from the mistakes made – that he how we must move on in life and celebrate. Isnt it? The year 2016 was eventful. Every year is eventful though New Year blog 2016, New Year blog 2015, New Year blog 2014, New Year Blog 2013, New Year blog 2012, New Year blog 2011  😉

    Terrorism – There is a new common for the world – terrorism – so that was as usual, religious extremism has not only kept its target India but added Europe to it. These apparently look like some unorganized terrorist attacks, but the end of many of these thread is common. The list is not small – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_2016 We need to ask ourselves – when are we going to be “human” behave like humans? Did we learn anything from this in 2016? In fact I wrote this and heard 2017 has started with terrorist attack in Turkey! Waste! These good for nothing parasites on the face of earth do not understand what nonsense they are involved in, if some religion teaches this that is not a religion at all.

    Business & Economics – There were few big developments in the year, first UK voted to leave European Union, second Wells Fargo of US was found out to be involved in a big scandal and third India demonetized high denomination currencies. Here is a wonderful Ted Talk on UK’s vote to leave EU.

    Wells Fargo scandal has no lesser words for taking strict actions against the high, mighty and decision makers who looked for Q-o-Q results and made up books, profits and rewards the culprits. You must watch this video to know how

    Demonetization in India shook many within India, and to utter surprise three others countries planed to follow suit – http://qz.com/867724/three-countries-across-three-continents-after-modis-india-demonitisation-has-spread-to-other-countries-too/

    What banks did post demonetization in India must be a subject matter of scrutiny same as Wells Forgo in the US.

    Another battle happening currently in India is Tata group Vs Cyrus Mistry (the story is yet to unfold fully in 2017). As of 10th Dec 2016 (source), Investors of Tata group have lost about Rs 81,000 crore (810 Billion INR) in seven top Tata group companies since October 24 as Mistry was replaced by Ratan Tata as Tata Sons chairman.

    Politics – Donald J Trump the next President of USA. It was most surprising and unthinkable when campaigning started last year. I wonder if what inspired Trump was mockery by Obama in white house in 2011.

    Corruption – There was enough and more hue and cry about Panama papers. Corruption of many rich people worldwide. What is Panama papers? Watch the following video to know more. We must ask each one of these filthy rich people – what would they get by making, hoarding and rolling so much money all over the world? Remember we all leave everything here, including the wealth.

    Somethings caught my eyes, were AT&T’s acquisition of Yahoo, LinkedIn’s by Microsoft and the phenomenon called Pokemon Go! https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/11/crunch-report-pokemon-go-mania/
    Pokémon Go added $9B to Nintendo’s value, global rollout continues within a week
    Pokémon Go has an estimated 7.5M U.S. downloads, $1.6M in daily revenue within a week
    Will 22K people turn up to catch Pokémon in San Francisco and what less – Robbers target Pokémon Go players in Missouri.

    What all these events have taught us? Humanity is important than a religion and terrorism. Globalization needs a perspective of interdependence at times we need to let go of some control, at times be need to think of inclusion. Every company has to be responsible, whether its Wells Fargo or Tata group. Never mock anyone, even if you are the president of the worlds most powerful, economically strong country. You will leave your wealth here only, pay your taxes instead of evading it. Legitimate money will make you and your money more respectable and in the end you would leave your body too here, wont take anything back with you. If you are doing something, put your heart and soul in it, make it awesome like the Pokemon Go!

    This was LBC topic for farewell to 2016, I am late, was bit occupied with a preparation for a workshop on IPR held yesterday 31st Dec. You can read other blogs of other Loose Bloggers Consortium members at Ramana Uncleji and Shackman.

  • Resonance







    We were sitting in chairman’s room of a big corporate house. He had gifted me a signed copy of a book written by his family member – the book was related to work, spirituality and family life. I wish I had met the author once, because the book is on aspects of life which I am exploring. The book has a straightforward message similar to Bhagvat Geeta – work is worship and how to achieve a content life even after being fully involved with material world. I had been writing for close to 6 years now on spirituality and business, this was the first time I had met a Chairman of a successful and listed company who spoke so eloquently on spirituality.

    During our discussion I asked him, how does he balance spirituality and work? How can he pass on the message of spirituality to his line managers, executioners’ et al? This question was in my mind because when a person has basic needs fulfilled (shelter, food & clothing) then only he/she may think of higher pursuit in life. So, it sounds tough to send the message of spirituality, work, and growth and still balance in life to those who are struggling to make ends meet, isn’t it?

    His response was pretty interesting. He asked me – “Have you studied Physics?” I said yes. He continued – “So you must be aware of resonance” He further added, “we all are made of same energy. So laws of physics apply to all of us. If someone reaches the resonance frequency of source (s)he starts resonating on the frequency. It does not require for an object to know physics to resonate on its natural frequency, isn’t it? This is how message has to be communicated; this message does not require reading books spirituality, if environment is conducive person learns. That is how the message goes to every level.”

    It was interesting to speak with him, he spoke about business, spirituality and added another dimension to my thinking – science! Even if a person is atheist, the natural law of physics will apply to him; gravitational force will pull him down, right? That is how spirituality is, it does not differentiate. Spirituality is the science which is essence of everything, even if one believes or follows any religion.

    I believe when more and more people become spiritual, the organizations and economy will take a more interesting turn worldwide.

    PS – What is resonance? Every material has its natural frequency of oscillation. Once another object oscillating in same frequency comes near this material, the material starts oscillating or comes into vibrational motion.

    Note – this is more than a year old article published after modification.

  • Lady’s Finger Recipe






    Nope, this post is not about how to make, it is inspired by a grandma making Lady’s Finger.

    When I was in schools, my brother once told me for the subject of history that I did not like – “You have to study it irrespective of your choice. Our system is such that to graduate to the next grade you have to pass each subject, even if you don’t like or enjoy one subject. So better be sincere for the subject, forget scoring well in that at least get passing grades.” After that he added – “Do not think too much about liking or disliking the subject just give it some time to sink in. Just study it do not be feverish about it.”

    This was a good start for some of the things I did not like. It does not mean I enjoyed taking every subject sincerely. I never enjoyed History as a subject, until I had to pass the subject upto grade 10 (include English language upto 12th). Reading anything on history later on was interesting though. There was no pressure to “passing” the subject anymore, no need to remember anything. This point made me somewhat more sincere to “what I did” and somewhat in learning rather than the grades. Well, it still does not mean that I became a great student – I was just an above average student. After all these exercises, I learnt one thing – put some efforts, dedicate time and energy to what one is doing. Sincerity and dedication were two takeaway words from there. The lesson is on and off with me.

    My wife is always interested in cooking new stuff. She keeps on learning new dishes and experiment with those. Recently, she was watching ‘Lady’s Finger Recipe’. Out of curious I too started watching the video with her. To my utter surprise, the cook was not working in a high profile kitchen. It was some open space, not on a good quality burner, but on a chulha, an open air temporarily made fireplace. The first glance made me even more curious. I started watching the recipe. What made me stuck to the video was the dedication of the cook.

    I and my wife spoke to each other – wow! She is so content, no pressure of running to office after cooking food and packing it in tiffins. No pressure of cooking, dinner, washing utensils and sleeping to get ready for the next day either. She looks so peaceful making this. This kind of devotedness one needs to be happy in life, isnt it? No worries of getting passing grades and dislike for doing what you are doing.

    This kind of work ethics remind me of meditation. Work does not remain work, it becomes a prayer.

    Isn’t there a lot of learn from grandma in this small 8 min video?

    Related blogs – Truth is something you really do.

     

  • Free will







    I was watching this link of Time magazine – 100 photos of all time. These are 100 photos that are kind of defining in our recent past. These photos include photo from first man on moon and Mohammad Ali winning against Sonny Liston to Tank man (China democracy demand of late 1980s) to other atrocities based photos et al. These photos also include photos of AIDS victim, Somalia, burning monk & Terror of war (Vitenam war) and black power salute (against discrimination in the USA).mahatma-vs-hitler

    After watching all these pictures, I could think of one thing – choice is always ours – should be dream of man to be on moon, or be a winner of games or winners of the games with demanding the respect a community deserves which the sports person belongs to. The choice is always ours if we want to demand peace, prosperity, development and compassion.

    Choice is always ours – to be the Mahatma or Mushroom Cloud creator Over Nagasaki. This is “free will”.

    Everything is perfect in this world (authors old blog post 🙂 the world is imperfect), only thing is we need to change our perspective. The choice is ours – if we want we can see beauty of the chaos or the order also seems meaningless & confusing.

    Whenever we talk about Free will, question of fate crops up. Concept of free will applies to our industries too – global warming and environmental damages are representation of our free will. The fate of our coming generation is at the cost of our present free will. This is why the emphasis on Business to the Buddha. I remember in one old talk by Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) somewhere when he said – “All your past was your fate (Karma), all your future is free will.” Interesting, isnt it? There is a balance. So always choice is yours – take current action (free will) such that your fate (karma) becomes good for you.

    This week’s Loose Bloggers Consortium blog was titled – Free Will. I have written a couple of times on this title earlier too, read them . You can read other LBC bloggers thoughts here – – Rummuser and Shackman.

  • Lessons from animations

    In Three idiots, character of Aamir Khan says – “Sab jagah gyan bant raha hai, jahan se jitna man kare, le lo”

    In Hindi – सब जगह ज्ञान बाँट रहा है, जहाँ से जितना मन करे, ले लो

    Translation – Knowledge is everywhere (shared), whatever amount of it you want to capture, just grab it.

    It is correct that we can learn from everywhere. I shall take few examples from animation movies. These movies are generally made of entertainment of kids. I am not sure how much kids learn from these, however, we grown ups can learn a lot.

    We are all unique (to Marty in Madagascar), yet are engaged in exactly the same activities day in and day out (Scrat in Ice age). Eventually, individually we all will extinct one day (Ice age animation franchisee is based on extinction), yet until we are alive – we must live in NOW, with inner peace and continuously tryout new things (Kung Fu Panda). The lessons apply to us in everyday life, include business or professional life too.

    Watch all of them below. Source Youtube.

    All the Zebra’s to Marty “We are unique”

    We are really unique. But we have forgotten that. All of us are doing what Scrat in Ice age kept on doing starting Ice age 1 to the recent Ice age. We are doing this for generations. Its was initially for survival and now it is a fighting for your possession.

    I like these small movie clips, characters and their resemblance to us and teachings for us in general.

    Kung Fu Panda is one such character which has always (for at least past three consecutive movies) has surprised, made me think and engaged me is – Kung Fu Panda. I have written about the teachings earlier too. Here are some three good lessons –

    1. We are unique, we should not try to be copy of someone else. A leader should not try to make his/her followers or support staff a copy of self. Po says “I have to teach you to be you”
    2. If you keep on doing what you have been doing you cannot grow as a professional
    3. Time is just an illusion, there is only the Now

    Universe is full of such lessons, we just need to open our eyes, Isnt it?

    This week’s Loose Bloggers Consortium blog was titled – Your favorite cartoon character. As usual I changed it. You can read other LBC bloggers thoughts here – – Rummuser and Shackman.

    Copyright disclaimer: The videos are copyright of individual owners / producers. I am using the videos here for illustration purpose (driving home the point)!

  • Everything is ephemeral







    Water was boiling, I stared at it for a while, brought sugar and tea powder. We make tea/coffee rarely at home, mostly on weekends. Soon I was adrift with many thoughts and boiling water started evaporating. I quickly added more water to the kettle, added sugar, tea powder and grated some ginger. Again the same oblivion cropped in. This time around the thoughts were about effervescent boiling water into steam vapors. So suddenly water was lost everything the kettle was empty. I could add more water here, how about us? We die!

    [Tweet “Whatever has a beginning has an end too.”]

    Drop meeting OceanOur life – similarly – is also ephemeral. You take a lot of time to understand and by the time you feel you are getting a hang of it, it is over! Wonder how many people even get to understand or even give it a try to understand. Though I am not an expert, but think about life. At times when I see no clue, it comes in mind as if the end (death) itself is the ultimate truth when everything of what we perceive as “reality” ends. Perhaps there is some meaning beyond these perceptions. When we hear enlightened masters, they say everything is “here and now”.

    When a person dies, does the world become useless for him/her or the person become worthless for the world? The question was weird going through this little mind. The other point in this small complicated thing was with so transitory life, we have so many things to be proud (arrogant) about. I ranked this, I did that great thing, increased revenue by X% and traveled around so many places. In fact the Indian postulate on life/death is, we come back – rebirth. That is even more interesting, convoluted and thinks of even higher mind.

    In all these thoughts, the tea was ready, thankfully this time around I was bit alert. I poured it in cups. We sat on the dinning table sipping our tea. You know this cup of tea will end soon. At times it happens such that by the time you are aware that this tea was awesome, it is over! Whatever has a beginning has an end too – the Buddha said it. It is true, be it being a Chairman of Tata Groups or a note of 500/1000 rupee in India. How long can one hold on to position? How long can the currency keep its value? Everything changes with time, some end some improve some extinct. Why worry? If things are improving why interfere? There were hiccups in Infosys recently, it looks like it is going back on track. One shouldn’t be too attached to anything. My water evaporated, my tea finished in some time. The currency notes of 500 and 1000 are out! Instead of attachment or being possessive one must know that things are evanescent, life is ephemeral, if something has a beginning, it surely will have an end too.

    [Tweet “Flow is the name of life, stagnation is end.”]

    Flow is the name of life, stagnation is end.

    All this rambling started with boiling water of tea, ended up at Tata group and currency notes of India. The tea was over, but thoughts were not. Though I could add water in my boiling kettle, whats the use of adding more water in our life?

    We witnessed end of currency notes, we see people dying, but unfortunately we keep on thinking that we are immortal. My question is, if we accepted that “I will die some day”, what next? What we should search for, what we should strive for? What is the quest? What is that, that keeps one up at the night, and pushes you out of bed every morning? What is that?

    Sadhguru on Things We must do every Morning


  • Broken pail







    Once upon a time in India, there was a farmer – Ram. In those days there were no facilities of having water in nearby areas. So, Ram used to go long distance to bring water for farming. He used to tie one pail (Ghada in Hindi) each on two corners of a stick and used to take it on his shoulders to the nearest water body. He used to fill these pails and bring them back to his farm.

    FarmerOne of the two pails was broken and Ram was poor so he wouldn’t afford to buy new one. He used to fill both the pails but by the time he is back, the broken pail used to get empty. It kept on happening for long time. The other pail used to feel proud of himself.

    These were old times, when non-living things too used to have sentiments – now even humans seem to have lost the emotions. Much to his chagrin, the broken pail used to feel because it is broken, Ram’s efforts get wasted.

    Once, out of compassion, the broke pail told to Ram – yes those were the days when people could hear murmur of non-living things too. Alas we dont listen to ourselves and fellow human beings – “I feel bad for you that I am broken and your hard-work goes in vain when by the time you reach home, I am empty. I am sorry for that.

    Ram too felt bad for the pail, however he said to the pail – today When we come back with water, look around en-route, there are a lot of flowers dont worry about water.

    The pail followed, there were a lot of different colored flowers with many different fragrances. it was happy seeing the flowers allover the route. When the famer reached his farm the broken pail was empty. Pail again felt sorry for loss incurred by Ram because of him. He again asked for apologies to him.

    Ram laughed this time around, he said to the pail. You know what? Those flowers exist because of you, I know you are broken, and water spill out of you all over the route. Knowing this I had put seeds of the flowers in the route. These flowers have made the road beautiful. People pluck the flowers to confer it to gods during prayers. You are broken but see, this helped a lot of people.

    —

    In my innovation consulting engagements, we used to talk about – utilization of available resources. This was a good example of utilization of resource. Can you learn from Ram how to utilize the shortcoming of his resource to his benefit, or society’s benefit?

    Is it the case of strategic decisions – get rid of loss making or less profitable business and utilize the resources on other higher RoI projects? Does our Farmer in this case looks like Mr Ratan Tata?

    No, no, I have my opinions on the corporate (mis)governance, recent development in Tata group and Mr Dholakia of Shri Ram Krishna Exports. I hope to write on these some other time.

    Source of this Jataka Tale – http://www.hindisoch.com/jataka-tales-in-hindi/  (translated with freedom by KRD Pravin)

    Image source – http://mindry.in/blog/2011/05/29/civil-society-asks-government-to-acquire-highways-and-make-them-arable-lands/

  • How do you define winning?







    I am trying to keep pace with my work and personal life. It is difficult to get time to read books these days. So, whenever something comes up I read it, not necessarily a book. Here is one interesting read for you –

    —–

    An experiment was done with fourth grade children (reference The Payoff Principle) in a school – a game of stomping balloon. Each child was tied a balloon on his/her leg. The objective of the game was to pop others balloon while saving your baKid-Balloonlloon. The person who is left with intact balloon would be declared winner.

    The children in one group played the game with full commitment and stomped balloon of others as quickly as possible. It was a battle of being pushy, offensive and powerful to get others out of the game. Within no time all the balloon were stomped.

    This same game was played in a different school with special children. They were given same explanation as the previous group, but this group played the game very differently. Since it was a group of differently abled children perhaps they were not clear of instruction. This group understood the game like this – “we have to pop the balloons”. These kids were concentrating on balloon to pop and move on to next rather than saving their own and the other child as the target.

    These kids started helping each other pop the balloons. For example – one kid took his balloon and held it in hands so that other can pop it. Once that was popped, the other kid took the balloon tied in his leg and held it, someone popped that balloon. In some time, all balloons were stomped. It went on like this for some time until the balloons were popped, in the end every child cheered and every child won!

    The author concludes – ” …we tend to think another man’s success as one less opportunity for us to succeed. …in our world we have one top dog…” “…If we ever find yourself in that enviable position, we will fight like a mad man to maintain our hold on it… How are you playing your game?”

    This is where the difference comes into play. The concept of this blog Business to the Buddha is similar, we need to change the perspective of our world, our own-self and things will change only to improve.

    Image source – https://pixabay.com/en/balloon-happy-child-infant-kid-154183/

    Story source – The Payoff Principle (Google Books sample)

  • Profit based healthcare







    Every business or industry remains in business if and only if it provides some solution to the society. Isn’t it? Guns and grenades are there for providing security to borders of country, however bad it sounds when some mad-man opens fire injuring or killing innocent people but the industry and its prime motive remains. Healthcare is a similar industry which tries to save – as against the concept of weapon manufacturing industry – lives.

    “Profit based healthcare” is interesting point to ponder upon. There is a saying in Hindi – “Ghoda agar ghaas se dosti karega to khayega kya?” I dont know the exact idiom for this in English, but we may say – “deer and tiger can not walk together” or “what will a tiger eat, if it befriends a lamb?” It is interesting to write on healthcare and profits. It is a perfect conflict. It is fine to have profit when doing business, that profit makes one live life comfortably. The point of a moral dilemma is – how much is too much? What should one select social good vs individual benefits? Social requirement vs greed! If there is no possibility of profit, would anyone consider getting into this industry? Would the industry survive? If this industry does not survive can we as human survive? Effectively, it is a circular logic and therefore a dilemma too.

    health-is-wealthBefore getting into these questions let us first know healthcare and profits a bit. Healthcare is defined as maintenance or improvement of health of human being. This could be done by any means right from diagnosis to treatment. Healthcare involves health professionals and other health related professionals include – pharmacists, medicine producing companies and insurance companies – in some ways specially where cost of healthcare insurance is a huge business. Profit is excess over the revenue or the money a firm / individual saves after all the expenses incurred to generate some revenue.

    As per some data healthcare industry is one of the fastest growing covering as much as 10% of GDPs of developed countries! At the same time healthcare is a basic necessity. The 10% of GDP and industry growth rate makes healthcare a lucrative business instead of a social / welfare work. No question on running a business successfully and making money, no one can  argue on that, but making a hotel out of a hospital (many large private hospitals in India), charging exorbitant fees, prescribing expensive (or a preferred brand) medicine are the questions one may ask on expensive healthcare and thus making healthcare more of profit based curse on society than a basic necessity.

    Last month, one of my family member underwent an operation, insurance cover helped us to a large extent. Currently, also I am writing this blog post sitting in hospital. Insurance is another thing which is good but again at times makes healthcare expensive. Though, health insurance is good to have in India. India also happens to be relatively cheaper compared to developed world.

    In India another difference is that Doctor’s write brand name of medicine which makes Doctors as primary customers of pharma companies a news here (Doctor’s junket). There is a different turf on which the pharma world is contesting in India that is IPR a much talked about case in India Novartis Vs Union of India WSJ news. Recently, couple of doctors were imprisoned in Mumbai for running a kidney racket (Hiranandani Hospital Powai). Is it what we call healthcare? Nope that is criminal or only profiteering there is no health “care” in that. But if we are talking about expensive healthcare, there has to be a discussion on how much is too much?

    I have only understood these concepts for live and profession – moderation, balance and compassion, what have you? Check Ramana uncleji’s and Shackman uncleji’s opinion on Profit based Healthcare on their blogs.

    http://business2buddha.com/2012/12/03/for-profit-businesses/

    http://business2buddha.com/2013/06/25/marginal-analysis/

    Image source unknown.

  • How do you identify your mojo?







    This LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) blog title was suggested by yours truly. It was not a suggested topic in real sense, it was a question raised in mail to all the 12 long time authors of LBC; though only a few write on LBC now. When this question was sent, I was under an impression that Mojo means – your one or few passions that you can do best or something you enjoy doing or something you would do without cheating even if no one is watching you.

    The topic sounds strange when you replace mojo with my assumed meanings. How do you identify your passion, or how do you identify what you enjoy doing? Does not it sound weird. You dont find these things, you just know it!

    Ready to Race

    My problem had been different – I had enjoyed many of the things. As a kid whenever I took something up I took it up very sincerely and seriously, an example is improving mathematics. When I played I played just to win (more here). When I was in NCC I did everything possible to be the best cadet. Anyways. So, mostly if I got involved with something, I was involved passionately. Thus came this thought, how does one find out one’s passion? I did whatever I did with complete sincerity and commitment so I think I dont know what is that something I am passionate about intrinsically. So how can one find one’s passion. This was the question I asked my fellow authors! Do I know what I am passionate about? For example writing on management & spirituality is that I am passionate about? Because besides this I do other things too, so can I learn from others that how do I identify my passion. This was the reason the blog title came into existence.

    So the question itself was incorrect if I review the dictionary meaning of Mojo, which is influence, charm or magic spell. I do not know what is my magic spell. I think I need to go back to few of the potential alliances whom I met for my marriage proposals. I know few of them rejected me – perhaps they can tell me what is not “that good” in me! I am surely going to ask my wife about it.

    Now, when I am looking back at the topic, I am wondering – why should one know about one’s mojo? Do what you enjoy doing or find what you enjoy doing and just do it.

    This knowing / doing point at times confuses me – knowing my mojo (passion or charm) is one thing, utilizing it for achieve something is another. In conclusion on this conundrum I would like to quote a Zen master

    “…The significance of our life is not experienced in striving to create some perfect thing. We must simply start with accepting ourselves. Sitting brings us back to actually who and where we are… Self-acceptance is the hardest thing to do. If we can’t accept ourselves, we are living in ignorance, this darkest night. We may still be awake, but we don’t know where we are. We cannot see. The mind has no light…”

    Missed it earlier – read thoughts of my fellow blogger’s on this topic at Shackman and Rummuser.