Business to the Buddha

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  • When the Buddha dies, the schools are born







    I wrote earlier about the business of religion, recently found an interesting story on the same and thought to share it here. This story is from a book – ‘The prayer of the Frog’ by Father Anthony de Mello, S.J.. This book has very interesting stories on religion, spirituality and human relations etc. The story I am referring here is from ‘The prayer of the Frog – Volume 1, Page 95, Part – Religion

    The resurrected philosopher
    An ancient philosopher, dead for many centuries, was told that his teachings were being misrepresented by his representatives. Being a compassionate and truth-loving individual, he managed, after much effort, to get the grace to come back to earth for a few days.

    It took him several days to convince his successors of his identity. Once that was established, they promptly lost all interest in what he had to say and begged him to disclose to them the secret of coming back to life from the grave.

    It was only after considerable exertion that he finally convinced them that there was no way he could impart this secret to them and that it was infinitely more important for the good of humanity that they restore his teaching to its original purity.

    A futile task! What they said to him was “Don’t you see that what is important is not what you taught but our interpretation of what you taught? After all, you are only a bird of passage whereas we reside here permanently.”

    When the Buddha dies, the schools are born.
    ***
    These small stories are so interesting that I would refer to them again in future.

    When I say business to the Buddha, I mean teachings applied in real life (including Businesses) and not interpreted/misinterpreted by someone (priest) for the common public.

  • Ego







    Two men in a room, room is in an apartment, apartment is in a building
    Building is in a locality, locality is in a city, city is in a state
    State is in a Nation, Nation is in a continent, continent is on The Earth
    The Earth is in a solar system, solar system is in the galaxy
    The Galaxy is in the Milky way…

    We are so small still we create TWO WORLDs in a single room!

    Me on the top of the world
    ‘Me’ on the top of the world

    When I was in school, I read this poem in Hindi in my course. It is very meaningful and important story of our life. We are nothing if we follow the trace suggested by the poet. Yet, we create our own world and cause problems in our surroundings, our near and dears life and life of our colleagues. All this for what – to manage, boost and nurture our Ego. If the ego goes beyond our near & dear and colleagues, it goes to kill people in the name of our belief system. Majority of the wars fought in the world are because of Ego.

    Alexander the great – why “the great” because he conquered the world – with sword! Cold war – why? To prove WE are better than YOU. MY country is superior than YOURs. This applies to the recent attacks in cities of Afghanistan, social unrest in the Middle East (suppressed ego of citizen and suppressing ego of the respective rulers) and Nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. We see political, religious, cultural and regional problems because of Ego.

    At the same time, I am of the opinion that ego is not a problem, the manifestation of the same is a problem. Self respect becomes ego when it crosses a certain line. I see many solutions to this, one is when we start looking at ourselves through the lenses of the poet who wrote the above lines. We are tiny small creatures and there are many things beyond I and MY GROUP. For some, ‘I’ and ‘My group’ becomes purpose of existence. Second solution I see is through the eyes of Mirdad. Other is through the peaceful methods e.g. meditation suggested by spiritual masters.

    What say you – is ego ‘purpose of existence’ or a problem?

    Related blog based on The book of Mirdad – Forbidden word

  • We need pessimists!







    I was thinking about the middle path and two types of people came to my mind – optimists and pessimists. I went back in the memory lanes. As an innovation consultant, I was a part of a Summit on Innovation. Few of the workshops in the summit were on “Culture of innovation” in organizations. Everyone agreed that we need diverse team for innovation, however, everyone agreed that we need to engage only energetic and optimist members in teams. I asked myself; Why are we categorizing people as optimist and others? Does innovation require labeling people and then creating teams? In other words why we – as innovation consultants – are agreeing not to have diversity in team? Even in systematic innovation drives, we need people of different thinking styles and opinions.

    I asked myself let me define ‘pessimists’, to see if my questions make sense in team composition for innovation efforts? According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, pessimist is one who has an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or expectation of worst possible outcome. Pessimists are those who negate or say no to anything because of their experience, knowledge, logical, old understanding or mere negative thoughts. Does it mean that they shouldn’t be a part of any team on say innovation efforts? I have heard somewhere – if an optimist makes an airplane, pessimist makes a parachute. Pessimists could be extra-cautious and introspective people, isn’t it?

    We need pessimists!
    Why we need pessimists too in innovation drives?

    In fact, pessimist is needed at places, because he/she may help improve solution with a “no” for many solutions. For example extra-cautious people help device seat belts in cars, safety values in pressure cookers, exit strategy in project/business plan. This “no” trigger teams to look beyond the horizon and ideate. Pessimists are the people who can be a great part in defining the problem and creating more challenges around the problem by questioning and negating. They endow the team with a new dimension to assumptions. It is well said – a problem clearly defined is half the problem solved. So do we not need pessimists, in defining problems? Pessimists can be a good help in exercises like heuristic redefinition and forward and backward thinking of the team because when they drive their thought process they also have an eye on the rear view mirror. I have heard – “Ideas of pessimists have saved more lives then ideas of optimists”, do we not need a balance in innovation teams?

    Pessimism is one face of a coin, other is optimism and a coin cannot exist without two faces. A good leader and an innovation team is one where best out of pessimists is utilized for improving its performance. Isn’t it right that we need pessimists… too!
    Copyrights KRD Pravin

  • Microsoft plans to make its Operating System Open Source!*







    With Ashar and Vineet

    Microsoft is considering making its operating system (OS) business open source. Microsoft started it operations in 1975 and had become formidable in desktop computers operating system market between late 90’s and the first decade of 21st century. During that time it captured more than 80% market share of operating systems. Microsoft is one of the companies which has fought maximum number of patent infringement cases over last two decades. Microsoft’s last five years strategy also suggests that this move could have been decided in 201I when it started allocating its resources of OS business to other lucrative business propositions.

    The plan of Microsoft is motivated on various factors, including but not limited to – reducing popularity of the OS amongst the partner companies such as Dell, Lenovo and HP reducing market share of Microsoft in OS worldwide, reduction in profits from OS businesses due to huge investments in patent infringement cases and availability of other more lucrative businesses opportunities.

    Over the years Dell, Lenovo, HP and others have started providing different options to purchasers. This has caused huge dent in the market penetration of Microsoft. With the advent of Cloud Computing in late 2000’s, it was evident that there are going to be large scale changes in the OS and OS businesses worldwide. The shift started with the Google’s OS Chrome and other electronic devices such as mobiles, iPad and Kindle. In late 2000’s many mobiles and other devices started replacing Desktop and laptop for day today office and personal applications. Internet on the move and office applications on mobiles created tough competition for Microsoft. The smaller competition from Linux based Open Sources was another trouble for Microsoft. Different flavor of Linux and Android based OS has already taken substantial lead in different parts of the world.

    Microsoft has fought many patent infringement cases in past each causing almost 300 million dollars to the profits of Microsoft. The numbers grew slowly from none in 1997 to more than 40 in ten year and this growth of number of patent infringement cases continued resulting in expenditure of over 12 billion in late 2000’s. This statistics forced Microsoft to look back at its strategy which eventually happened in 201I, now slowly Microsoft is moving away from the USPTO and other patent offices for few of its software products.

    Analysts suggest that this move of Microsoft will cause immense turmoil not only in IT industry but also in software patent (IP protection) industry. Other IT companies producing identical software would not be able to protect their IP eventually they may also follow the suit and the domino effect will eat up the software patent industry.

    Microsoft has already redeployed its resources towards development of other products. It is also considering development of more entertainment based product under the leadership of new CEO Donald Murphy, who largely has been involved with games and other entertainment based products for a long time of his career. Additionally, the money not pumped in the patent infringement cases would be used to sustain its open source development and the Bill & Melinda Gates foundations.

    *WELL THIS WAS A 1st APRIL BLOG… Do not take it to your heart. Some numbers are facts as per 2005-10 however this blog is a work of fiction. The year 201I is no year as such. 201 is number whereas last digit is ‘capital-i’. Name of the CEO ‘Donald Murphy’ is also a work of fiction – Donald from Disney’s character Donald (relating to Games and Entertainment) and Murphy (character from Happy Feet – movie on Penguins. Penguins which is related to Linux).

    What if this becomes a reality?

  • Pulse polio and dependent co-arising







    Its been three weeks I did not write anything on blog. I felt as if I am not doing justice with my blogging. However, I was too busy with work and therefore could not fulfill this commitment. This passion when put on hold by professional responsibilities, I can understand how difficult would it be for us to think of some lesser important things which may hamper our personal life. Well, whom to apologies for this – to myself?

    Since 1995-96 India is on a mission – Remove Polio from India. I remember I – as a student – had to participate in a speech on the same in 1995-96. Daughter of one of my acquaintance herself went to a stall of Pulse Polio mission and got administered these drops (she was quite adventurous!). This mission is still running, apparently every year February to April the activities are quite high. Last Sunday my niece was administered these drops. This initiative made me think.

    I remembered my MBA class of economics. In that class Prof asked – what if I alone have a Fax Machine in the whole world? There is no use of such device when one cannot send or receive faxes, right? I tried extended this concept of network effect on the Polio issue. Even if a child is left without treatment for polio chances are that the decease may extend to coming generations. I could also connect this network effect and treatment of polio to interdependent co-arising. Needless to say, Polio virus would not see if a child is born rich or poor, belongs to which caste, color or religion. Therefore, the important thing is – we need to help each other as a society and get rid of things such as Polio or let us go beyond Polio – corruption, greed and selfishness etc etc. Because we are all connected to each other.

  • Leadership and education







    Election results of couple of Indian states are out and largely there are clear mandates in all states. So, there are not many permutations and combinations happening for forming governments. I was wondering about the elections, results and post results – five years. The long term thoughts (five years after results) were hampered by a news of rabble rousing activities in UP. Does the confidence of victory create so much defiance that people do not mind taking law in their hands or crossing the limits?

    This question lets me ask myself – what do we need? Politicians or leaders? Are politicians really leaders? I was thinking about this and on LinkedIn I read a question. IF YOU HAVE GOOD STRATEGY, DO YOU STILL NEED A LEADER?

    Can a good strategy create a leader or leaders can create effective strategies? My answer is leaders can create effective strategies. Also, I heard someone say – An army of sheep led by a lion are more to be feared than an army of lions led by a sheep.

    I was talking to Prof Ramanathan, he told me “…Pravin I see there is a lack of leadership at various levels, be it corporate or others…”

    The fact of the matter is the crisis is wide spread are we creating leaders? Are we creating excel, power point and ivory tower experts of solutions? When I read the book – I have a dream I realized that there are people who took initiatives, who rolled their sleeves and got down to work. There may be many more not covered in the book, yet how many of us have become leaders after studying at Ivy league?

    Recently, I met Prof Mankad, we discussed Greek crisis and the visible solutions to it. He made a good observation on the economic power of China that made me think – having and managing power requires a sense of responsibility and ability to be fair. This ability requires courage and confidence to say – ‘yes I erred’ when one did commit mistake. Does our education teach kids to have these qualities?

  • Humans are social animals







    Have you ever asked a question to yourself – why? Why am I doing it? Why am I running from pillars to posts either aimlessly or with an aim. Once the aim is achieved – what next? Every strategic question stems a WHY in the mind of management also, right?

    So the question, why? Leads organizations as well as individuals. This question has led me to think about far in the future how we (individually, socially and economically) might evolve, as well as how I see things should/could happen. This is where I see the collaboration would play a bigger role. Look at crowd sourcing, look at open source. My assumption is – in a given day – maximum downloads in the world are happening from Android market place. That is again a collaboration – a freemium service (free+paid).

    *If I talk about some more technical stuff – at times companies make their intellectual properties ‘public’ without a patent, for example SQL. It was invented at IBM however was kept open (not patented, of course you may argue on the possibility of software patent in 1970s etc etc). Also you may argue that it was a mistake.*

    A couple of years back I wrote articles on format wars and the failure of Betamax (and of HD DVD). Have you ever seen there are times when you have to stop fighting and start working together? There may be times when a company has to collaborate because of its dependence or loss in the market place. The fact of the matter is – at times collaboration is forced and in other cases by choice. Yesterday I read a news article on The Hindu that RIM (manufacturer of Black Berry) introduced its new operating system (OS) for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablets with additional functionalities, including the ability to run Android-based applications. Nokia with Windows, Blu-ray with content providers and manufacturers, VHS with OEM. I am confident the future businesses would be built on Collaboration, association and aggregation.

    …And as the cliche is – humans are social animals – we would remain social animals and collaboration would be the name of the game. So, for business some “business rules” would go on shelf and some new rules would evolve.

    * Readers are warned that the IBM and SQL part is not a professional advice as a registered patent agent, the example is used as representation of authors thoughts about the future.

  • Business of politics







    “Religion-based quota won’t divide our people. Google will. That’s our Government’s logic.”
    – Chetan Bhagat, Author

    My friend Tejas Phatak (T Gates) recently wrote a blog – ‘Dot hai to Hot hai!’ I was thinking about the democracy, elections for couple of days and honestly laughing on the kind of stories and promises we hear from politicians. Specially during the election season.

    With due respect to the ‘business’ of politicians, I do not see many changes QUOTED/STATED (I am not using words such as done and made) by them and work done often falls way behind the promises. Look outside your window you would ‘see’ examples. I remember a statement of Collector of Indore (somewhere in 1997-2000) – Mr Manoj Shrivastava – in Nai Dunia (Very famous news paper in MP specially in Indore) that “reason for development of Indore is the people – not the politicians – of the city“. This applies to any city in India I believe.

    When we talk about ‘business’ of politicians, we hear categorical statements of religious bias too. During the seasons of elections you see ‘business of religion’ and ‘business of politics’ meet. I wonder according to the constitution of India where does religion get special status? I think in India every religion is given equal rights. Referring to the Wiki article Population statistics of India by religion I am wondering why we talk about religion based quota? If religion should be the basic Jains and Buddhists should get quota; is that happening? The very fundamental issue is – we want quota everywhere. I recall Lokpal debate everyone wanted quota there too.

    There are responsible positions where we need people who are capable – irrespective of their caste, religion or region (specially we have seen my Prime Ministers from UP!). I understand the prime reason for quota system is to bring equality in society, should we consider other methods of bringing equality – creating entrepreneurs for example.

    Tejas – voting in Mumbai has not been very encouraging. I think the reason for apathy in Mumbai is – people live here on a daily basis, we care more for our survival. How many politicians are solving problems of daily basis. I heard Arnab Goswami saying yesterday – ‘reason of Shiv Sena winning here could be the grass route work of the workers. They are available when there is a need’. Secondly, in Mumbai perhaps maximum jobs are in private sector where Quota statement does not make much sense for voting.

    I support quality work irrespective of political affiliation. So the ‘business of politics’ and ‘business of religion’ should talk about the kind of work and developments happening for the guys next door like you and me!

  • Interdependent co-arising – a farmer’s example







    Recently Dr Raghunathan shared a link of his interview with Wharton with me We are individually very smart but collectively dumb. The very first paragraph of the interview has an example of a farmer. A farmer whose corn won top awards year after year. When a reporter asked about the secret of his success, the farmer attributed it to the fact that he shared his corn with his neighbors. Why, the reporter wondered, would the farmer want to share his seed when those neighbors also competed with him for the prize? The farmer’s reply was, “The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grew inferior corn, cross-pollination would steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors do the same.”

    I am writing time and again on interdependent co-arising and how it applies to businesses, I think this small story on BUSINESS – a winning business – states a lot about ‘interdependent co-arising’. This example applies beyond India, the long term gain for world economy would be working on the concepts of interdependent co-arising.

    Related blogs on interdependent co-arising

  • Individually smart, collectively dumb!







    Book Games Indians Play cover
    Games Indians Play
    Have you read Games Indians Play! by Dr Raghunathan? Very interesting book with pertinent examples of issues we face, many a times overlook and are facing worldwide. In that book he says – “We are individually very smart but collectively dumb”. I think we are collectively dumb and therefore we are in the economy-related mess we have created.

    I did not know that I would be referring to my new year blog so early in this year. Newspapers of 3-Feb-2012 made me do so. The news was about the 2G scam which had been under scrutiny for a long time now. In my opinion the verdict clearly stated that power corrupts and it gives you confidence that you can get away with murders too (many such cases pending in India)!

    I thought hard – really very hard – to find a solution. I think I will go back to TRIZ (theory of Inventive Problem Solving) to decide conflicts and resolving them. Until I find a one size fit all ‘man made’ solution, I could think of only one possibility. This solution is self restraint, and owning responsibility to make sure we are morally correct.

    This word ‘Moral’ reminds me of my economics and business ethics class of MBA where we discussed moral hazards with Prof Mankad and Prof Arun Ramanathan. I was reading this article on Moral hazards at Wharton. The article talks about authorities and new stringent rules. This regulatory authority will tomorrow need another (other set of rules) and so on and so forth. How long will we create such authorities? Moral hazards would end very easily when each one takes responsibility and become accountable for his/her action. This accountability has to come on each level and for all the actions. The problem lies with a reality that – ‘We are individually very smart but collectively dumb’. This ‘being individually smart’ begets moral hazard. The solution for this problem is one’s own self. Take responsibility own it and be accountable. Perhaps initially we (as individual) will fail but collectively we will start succeeding.

    I am hopeful that once we start from ourselves (individually), each one of us would be able to avoid situations where we would talk about Newspapers of 3-Feb-12 (2G Scam), other scams and the bad shape of world economy. Hoping that we would save our energy to concentrate on something constructive.