Business to the Buddha

Tag: Change

  • Change in belief

    Incidents shape our experience, experiences shape our opinions and opinions in long term shape our beliefs and set of belief become our religious practices. With time everything must evolve and must change! We must always remember – This too shall pass and should always be ready to accept change in belief, questioning our assumptions based on new experiences. Here is an incident that changed a laughing stock of our life into a serious affair after the Corona pandemic in which more than 2,00,000 reported deaths have happened until now.

    Our incident

    It was the year 2015, I had married to Simple – my wife – for only 8 months. In these 8 months, I had to travel out of India twice for a month or more. So before leaving for the second time, I had arranged for my wife’s travel to join me in Toronto. Due to her half-yearly audit preparation, she flew later. This is a story how things make or change us.

    While in flight, Simple sneezed. Fellow passenger, who was flying to the USA, was somewhat taken aback. She quickly took out her first aid box and gave a tablet to Simple. Initially, Simple was a bit hesitant to take this medicine. Remember we were told in our childhood – “while traveling do not eat anything given by others.” She said I am alright, it was due to the cabin temperature I do not have a cough or a cold. Probably the co-passenger was also told something like, don’t eat anything given by strangers, in her childhood. So the co-passenger read the content line by line and said it is just multivitamin. Somehow Simple got away this time. However, she sneezed again, this time she could not say no to her. Simple had realized by now how petrified the lady on her next seat was. So, this time around she took the medicine – unwillingly though. So, the whole flight afterward was peaceful for both – Simple and the passenger.

    Simple landed in Toronto and the first thing that she narrated was this incident. We laughed together on this and, I told her somehow in India it is not a big deal, I think we are so immune to it isn’t it? We remembered this incident whenever we flew, smiled at each other. Karma you call it. This small smile and fun started haunting me recently.

    Change-in-belief

    This Corona happened and we are all locked down at home. Now whenever we go out for buying essentials, we get hand sanitizer at the entrance of D-Mart as if it is a Prasad! Honestly speaking, touching the shopping trolley I feel scared and giving cash or card, I tell myself hope this person is safe. Now, I realize how that co-passenger must be feeling about sneezing of Simple. How life, experience and opinions change, isn’t it?

    One virus that is bothering everyone across the globe has given a new perspective to the joke we used to tell each other almost every time we flew. Small or big all types of incidents shape us as we grow up. So I changed my opinion about coughing, sneezing and more! If someone coughs around us now the eyebrows rise. Simple and I changed our opinion towards the fellow passenger of Simple in 2015.

    http://business2buddha.com/2019/11/10/this-too-shall-pass/

  • Change – is it welcome?







    I have a garden. Actually, I had a bit of open space.  It was an opportunity not to be ignored and I converted that open space into a garden. After a while, I put in some plants.  I however felt that the order, organization and quality of the garden could be improved. People visiting and sitting there felt good about the open space converted to a garden but were not happy about the quality of plants and some things which they could not articulate.

    I was obsessed with the success of converting the space into an acceptable garden. One day a respected person whose hobby was gardening visited and suggested that I should bring in more fresh plants and improve the look and feel. I followed the advice, brought new plants and planted them in the available space. That did not solve the problem. A few weeks later, these new plants could not survive. Some died/dried and some lost their beauty. I again asked for help from the same person. He asked to see the new plants that I had brought into the garden, I told him about those plants. He said that those were not suitable plants for that particular garden, for the climate this city. [This is our habit, we try to find out wrong with the possible change]

    He further added, “Why don’t you try different plants?” I did it again; this time too the results were no different. Now, I thought that I should go to some expert. Fortunately, I met one, shared my problem with him and gave him the history of the last couple of months. He too shared the same opinion as the hobbyist.  He however added that my plantation and watering process had issues, I should have put in some fertilizers etc.

    I was not convinced – Once bitten twice shy. This time, instead of relying on just advice and suggestions I asked a professional farmer/gardener to visit my garden. He came, I offered him some coffee; we discussed what had been happening and we visited my garden. He said everything was right but, you did not weed out the weeds! I didn’t understand so with all humility I asked him – to explain.  He said – “Pravin, over time, if you miss out on opportunities, if you overlook a few things, some plants become susceptible of weeds and unwanted – not good – plants also grow in the ground. At times this happens because of the soil with which your new plants were planted. That soil might have had those weed seeds.

    “So what is the solution?” I again asked him humbly.

    He said – before investing any further in your garden, you do a few things. Firstly make your garden worthy of new plants. Secondly, take care of the soil and make it a habit to water and fertilize the ground. After a couple of weeks go to the market, bring suitable plants for your garden, capable of flourishing in the local climate.

    Lastly, remember that you cannot leave your garden at god’s mercy. You have to keep an eye on it, keep on investing in fertilizer, watering, weeding etc and keep on maintaining the garden. Perhaps, find a person who can do all this over a period of time, if you are finding it difficult to do so yourself.

    Now replace as following –

    Garden as your organization.

    Plants as your employees – some of whom make the garden grow weeds!

    Water, ground, soil as culture and future (strategy)

    New plants – new hires

    Valuable advisers – You know who are they.

    PS – This is just a story, author does not own any land, not even a wheel of bicycle, forget owning material thing 🙂

    This was just a way to express how Organization change can fail. For knowing more on Change Management please reach the Author

  • Impermenance







    Recently, I relocated from Posh South Mumbai to Suburban Mumbai. There were reasons for this move. I used to travel 2+ hours one way in different public transports (a meager 35 KM distance). Not that I cannot afford a personal vehicle (or can not drive); I do not want to buy one. Considering various issues in Mumbai (India) – parking, traffic jam and notwithstanding petrol prices.

    So, after a troublesome one year travel of 4+ hours each working day, I decided to move on from the coveted South Mumbai (SoBo) to Suburban Mumbai. Now I travel 20-25 min (walk). Considering the kind of horrible experiences I had in last one year, this was a wonderful change. Alas! it had cost associated with it. (If you want to achieve something you have to let go of something else!) One one side I was happy that I am saving more than 3 hours of travel daily but the flip side was the kind of royal life e.g. three swimming pools (one Olympic size), track (again Olympic size well maintained) Golf Course at backyard (yes you can see a hole from 1 window of my bedroom), Happening place etc etc.

    I knew since day one of shifting to SoBo that I cannot afford it and I don’t belong here (at least currently). I always knew that this is not a permanent place for me. However, when I moved out of that comfort I felt strange as if that was my permanent abode. While I am yet settling down in Suburb, I know this is also a temporary abode (rented apartment). Yet, slowly we try to settle down as if we are to stay here forever. This transfer taught me good lesson on impermanence and our inability to come to terms with life and change. Change is difficult and change makes us uncomfortable.

    As an individual I found a very important change difficult; this must be even more difficult for organizations where many do not even realize the need for change, many are not willing to change and many just can not withstand change.

    Now I remember my MBA Marketing class with Prof Lopez, even more. He told me – “Pravin Marketing is like playing golf, you need to swing naturally.” Now there is no Golf course view from my bedroom and I did not move out of SoBo Naturally! Everything is impermanent even Sachin Tendulkar (God of Cricket) playing Cricket for India.

  • Power corrupts!







    It is an old saying – power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I was wondering on the saying and the recent news. I thought to understand how ‘power’ has morphed in different forms, starting from the prehistoric muscle power to money, economy and authority.

    For a long time power was defined as muscle power of individual. When humans created concept of ‘money’ slowly economy took precedence over muscle power. European countries colonized more than half of the world and economic superiority took precedence worldwide. Until now economic power has been the major factor influencing force. So, countries having economic influence changed the world (for good or bad is disputed), such as oil crisis of 1970s, slow down of 1980s and recession of the last decade (which still continues and perhaps result in double dip).

    Then I started looking at ‘authority’ as power. Recent news about Egypt and arrest of Indian politician triggered this thought in my mind that authority is one major factor to prove the saying – “…absolute power corrupts absolutely”. We have debated enough on democracy and dictatorship, which one is good? There is no debate over this – authority given in either case corrupts.

    We see that power corrupts but who gives the freedom to others to exercise those ‘right’ to influence? Are we not equally responsible for the state we are in? Should not we take charge of ourselves and – rather than being spectators – act to bring the change?

  • Change is the only constant!







    Long back, I was thinking about the common wealth games (CWG), the news around that and what can I learn from that. I generally don’t want to comment on politics; nevertheless I learnt from these events and therefore I am trying to put my opinion on the same.

    When the news of corruption in CWG preparation started surfacing the Prime minister’s office (PMO) took control of the situation. The following events taught me few lessons such as be patient and do what makes most sense.

    The decision of the PMO was to tackle the core issue at a later stage, and therefore the management of CWG was not changed immediately. Delaying the decision is the best way of tackling certain situations. Therefore the business was moved from incapable hands to those hands which could complete the project on war footing basis. This transition was smooth and the event was successful. This was the best example of change of management, in recent past, in a dire situation.

    I was talking to my friend Romit Gupta and he suddenly made a statement – “Change cannot be given to you every time. You have to bring your own change”. This statement made perfect sense to me. Yes! If you need change, YOU have to be the catalyst for the same. In business either you change the rules of the game or the competitor changes it, better you change it before anyone does.

    The statement was made by a BEST bus conductor in a bus in which Romit was travelling long time back. Romit heard it passively yet he could not forget. He restated the same verbatim almost 6 years later. Why, because if someone is willing to learn he/she can learn from anywhere and anytime. My learning from this blog has been multi-fold – I am seeing dots being connected and changes being made. The dots are my earlier post on – ‘game changers’ and ‘Learning… and possibility thinking’. I took these cues and have decided to change the design of my blog. You see! Change is the only constant.

  • The line of understanding







    I heard a story that a person was ready to change his religion because of the strange rituals followed in time of demise of someone in the family. The question to ask at such times is – Are we meant for systems or systems are meant for us?

    A mobile operator and a credit card company did the same with me. I always paid bills on time, at times in advance! Yes, I paid 1/3rd of my credit limit in advance. The problem with them was they did not listen to my problems because of an error in their system! Yes, ‘paralysis of system dependency’ – I would call it – could result in loss of business. I have also heard and witnessed in some cases – not invented here! and cannot work in this setup, type of comments. The reason for such limited thinking is our dependencies and self imposed limitations. I recall one of my senior facing similar situation, told to the client – are tum karo to sahi, bad me dekhenge kya problem hai. (You just do it we will analyze if there is any problem). He could say this with confidence because he knew what works, what is going to work and importantly he was not the part of the system.

    I am not arguing against systems. I am just trying to say that one has to answer the question – why at first place we designed systems? Answer is to

    1. facilitate operations of society (in case of religion, culture and laws)
    2. facilitate operations of work (in case of businesses).

    We resist change – because we have become inured to our system. See what is happening in case of banking reforms in USA. The situation is dire, yet reforms seem to be a tough nut to crack.

    How long are we going to depend on systems and follow the system till death even if systems are not supporting our cause? Were systems made for making our life miserable? Well, I am not asking to rebel against systems, what I am giving a thought to is – why not critically look at why we are doing what we are doing and question our assumptions. These questions and issues if not addressed correctly create rebellion such as hippie movement.

    What I could see is – There has to be two lines drawn, one between system and understanding its short comings and the other is understanding and rebelling against the system. I would call that line ‘the line of understanding’. More on this in future when I take information age Vs other ages.

    I know this all seems a very weird connection, starting with religion, talking about my personal experience, challenge of a consulting assignment and then banking reforms and lastly to hippie movement! The reason I found is – in the end we all are human being, and everything connects somewhere. The need is to learning to see (oops its a title of a book on LEAN, which I have not read yet) and yes questioning assumptions.