Business to the Buddha

Category: Misc

  • Possibility thinking continued…







    I posted possibility thinking blog yesterday and one of my friends, Amol, responded to one of the photo I posted on Facebook earlier. The context of the image and the image is as follows –

    Flood in Western India
    Necessity is mother of invention
    This was a photo in Mid-day (a newspaper in Mumbai) sometime in 2007/08/09. I do not own the copyright for the picture.
    Posting this photo for sensitizing people about problem in some parts of India…

    Caption for this image in Mid-day was – Father of Invention.
    Response of my friend to this (possibility thinking) is
    I see few good things in it…
    1. It supports “go green” concept as this boat is not made of wood – saving trees..
    2. It shows next generation boat where one or two holes wont drown it – multiple air sockets help it float…at the same time, it has option for expansion due to open ends…
    3. I see unity – multiple pots r helping together to keep this guy float
    4. I see alternative way of selling veg/fish/flowers, etc. which can be carried out in these pots as permissible – fun way of shopping for me!
    5. At the end of the day, u can bring home some fresh water… 😉

    If he can do this without education, he can do ++ with education….

  • Learning… and possibility thinking







    Today, after a long time I was watching Television, the channel was Fox History and program – building the ultimate: roller coaster. This program was a story of development of roller coasters, a very good and informative program. What struck to me was one development which was taken from the world war II German defense system. This system was a breakthrough in material for the wheel of the coaster. I started wondering, how these roller coaster designers took one thing (about 20 years old) from one place to different place and with some success. My take from this is – we can learn from anywhere; only basic need is willingness to learn and being open to possibilities. I heard some author earlier used a term – ‘possibility thinking’. This concept has been reinforced often to me. I have worked on TRIZ– the theory of inventive problem solving – and have worked on application of TRIZ (a very engineering based problem solving method) to social sector innovation and medical science etc. The concept of TRIZ is similar and very structured.

    Half full, half empty, possibility thinking, optimism, pessimism
    Possibility thinking
    Let me give one analogy – a glass is half-full. An optimist says – the glass is half full, a pessimist says – the glass is half empty and the possibility thinker says there is room for more water in the glass. Going one step further – what if the glass is not there? Some would say – Glass IS (many possibilities). In my opinion this is possibility thinking; when you say Glass IS, you open opportunities to think more and more about what can be? The challenge is to switch back and forth from structured to more creative thinking.

    Coming back to the point of learning, the idea I want to reinforce is – we can learn from anywhere; only basic need is willingness to learn and being open to possibilities. The idea of this blog – Business to the Buddha was similar concept.

    References –
    1. Fox history schedule – http://www.foxhistory.com/Schedule/Daily.aspx
    2. Glass half full – http://www.zazzle.com/glass_half_full_23_poster-228602679415734701

  • Why this title?







    First thing first, why this title to the blog? Does Business and the Buddha sound ok together? Is there any connection? Let me explain origin of this thought and why I see there is relation between business and the Buddha.

    I was reading a book – old path white clouds, walking in the footsteps of Buddha – by Thich Nhat Hanh. There were many lessons of Buddhism in the book. One which stuck to me very profoundly was – interdependent co-arising. My interpretation of the concept in layman’s terms is – we all grow when we help each other to grow whether it is our subordinates or our competitors.

    “When Ferrari and Honda run on the racing track competing for the first spot, they are not eying at the first spot, they are racing to offer best product to their customers.” The Buddha’s teaching on ‘Dependent co-arising’ teaches me this. “Each one of us is a rung of a ladder to the other and vice versa, hence for self development and moving higher up, one’s ladder should be strong enough, even one’s competitors.” I believe this will be the extension of P&G’s present approach of Connect & Develop in future; working on various fronts with the competitors such as IPR – strategically innovating – besides others.

    What I feel is as we evolve as humans further, such philosophical concepts will come in our main stream without our conscious knowledge. We studied a case in our marketing course recently, launch of Z3 (BMW car) with the New James Bond movie Golden Eye. This was again a case of interdependent co-arising. How many knew about this?

    Effectively, the title of business to Buddha looked apt to me. The other reason for the same was – these two seemingly different concepts encompass almost everything on which I would possibly write on the blogs. Therefore, I selected the title with its caption – Everything from earthly and unearthly. The blog would be my thoughts from physical to metaphysical all. I trust I will be able to keep pace with life and still take time to write some or the other things on the blog.