Learn Success from Failures

"In success, everyone is a sharing partner; in failure, none" says an old song. The news of the declining economies of all nations and corporations is not a happy situation where people would like to share responsibilities. 

We are aware that the living beings perform excellently in defence rather than in offence, which have been proved in biological and social research. KM gives us an exemplary opportunity to learn from the failures of the both the extreme economic models of socialism and capitalism. 

In the new century, let us not lose optimism and look forward to innovative new ways of managing our economies where global equity and prosperity are ensured. 

Let us go for this innovative opportunity to learn Success from Failures.

My Way and Your Way

When I was a school going child, I remember that the main pastime for a group of us was to trek to the temple in the centre of the town, every day, after return from the school, as it provided ample opportunities for playing, friendship making, shopping, worshipping, quarrelling etc. etc. There were no televisions those days and that made the daily chore of temple trips more likeable and adventurous. 

Once in our group discussions, there was a challenge as to which child would find the maximum number of paths to traverse the distance from the home to the temple. Everyone of us took the challenge seriously and thus started the urge for the great discovery of different roads, lanes, bypasses, crosspaths through relatives' houses, jumping over boundary walls, crossing small streams, climbing trees and so on to reach the temple from our houses through different ways. The game went on and on for months together and we would have discovered together almost hundreds of different routes which were cherished by us much like Columbus and Vosco da gamas. Of course the game somehow ended and changed to some other pastimes and we all forgot about it.

Now when I observe the Knowledge Barriers in some organisations, I am reminded of the 'seek and discover paths to the temples' pursuit of our childhood. The desire to reach the temple from the homes through a path of discovery provided various routes to achieve the same ultimate goal. And each one us, the children, never compared one's way with the other to evaluate as to whose is better. All of us cherished the achivements together in its diversity and entirety and shared the experience. In our work organisations, where the grown ups learn to believe in "My Way is Probably Correct and Your Way is Certainly Incorrect", it is easy to visualise how the Knowledge Barriers keep growing despite serious attempts for KM. 

Accepting the fundamental principle that there are as many paths from your Ignorant homes to the Knowledge temples and all these paths are equally correct is the Childish behaviour to be now  relearnt by us grownups! 

Virtual Reality

How is it that people who are quite comfortable with their virtual identify in the digital net shpere seem to be quite averse to making and maintaining relations in the real world? A study has reported recently that many persons who have large connections and friends' network in social networking sites have very few real life friends and they don't also confide with even those few.

Another report says that young people who spend large proportions of their times connecting through the social networks get their brain chemistry altered permanently to be of believers in virtual happenings. Many of them imagine and prgrammed into a false identity for them which becomes their virtual personality.

Certainly in the new emerging Technology oriented Knowledge era, a fine balance between virtual relations and realistic flesh and blood connections need to be evolved. Knowledge Management in its fundamental concept reiterate this importance, that is, virtual balanced with reality.

Aspirations and Inspirations

I join the celebrations for the transformation that Indian entertainment business got truely globalised with the Oscars going the 'Slum Dog' way. 

Some years back, there was this news that the poor young girls working in Match Factories in Sivakasi in South India, spent a good portion of their meagre earnings in the beauty product "Fair and Lovely" to improve their complexion.

Then there was another story that the villagers in Kalahandi in Orissa, a district always affected by drought and hunger, wanted not the rations but a 'Low Power Transmitter' to watch global television programmes.

Now we find people from the lowest economic strata not only getting recognised for their talents but also taking intensive part in the actions from professional contribution to celebration of its success.

Cheers to the Newly Emerging Indian Aspirations and Inspirations!

CKO Humour Series

First CKO: I am sure our new CFO has no idea on what KM is about!

Second CKO: How are  you sure?

First CKO: When I told him that KM is all about 'Share' culture, he enquired whether we are in the 'Bulls' or "Bears' phase.

Innovative Innovation Index

The Global Innovation Index ranking by Insead ranks India at 41st out of 130 countries. China at 37 is a litte ahead and US, Germany and Sweden occupy the first three positions.

The indexing criteria considered various parameters of input factors and output factors related to innovation of a Nation. But I am wondering whether the innovative spirits in the minds of the people is quantifiable and are we missing the miraculous ways and means of grassroot level population in sustaining themselves under most difficult circumstances. 

May be innovative methods need to be devised to fine tune the 'Innovation Index' itself.

On the lighter side, US has been rightly selected as the most innovative nation, as we could see the results of its bizarre innovative financial instruments and economy management resulting in crashing of the Global Growth. :-( 

Creative Destruction

Thanks to Professor Vinay Nangia of IIT Roorkee to have provided this link to the 16 habits of creative people.

Creative people are exemplary to have the ability to surmount all types of hurdles under arduous situations. Even when the crowd and the leader give up trying, under despair, the 'creative' manage to find some rathole to sneak through.

In my opinion, apart from the 16 habits of the creative people mentioned in the article, the ability to destruct creatively is another major habit that complements the 'Creative' trait, . The human brain despite its vast memory capability, can get overloaded with past practices,beliefs, cultures, notions etc. The habit to identify and destruct these outdated and obsolete overload before learning new ways of life is the USP of the 'Creative'. 

The creative people are aware of the cosmic cycle of creation-protection-destruction and use their creative destruction ability to be continuously 'Creative'.

Let us 'destruct' creatively to be superlatively 'Creative'

Productivity in Food Cycle

Food is the basic fundamental necessity for survival and it is going to be dearer and dearer, warns this news item.

There had been attempts in the past to increase productivity of food production through various technological developments. But the means and processes used sometimes produced more long term damages compared to the short term advantages they created. Packaging of little quantities of food items in plastic sachets lead to enormous pollutions and land degradations, the problem that has become unmanageable in many developing urban and rural places. I also heard in one seminar that it goes to consume seven litres of water in the manufacturing cycle, before a litre of bottled (in plastic) water is produced and sold in the market

There is specific warning of lurking dangers in the way the present food consumption patterns are being projected and promoted, in the following statements made in the news:

“We need a Green Revolution in a Green Economy but one with a capital G,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner. “We need to deal with not only the way the world produces food but the way it is distributed, sold and consumed and we need a revolution that can boost yields by working with rather than against nature.”

He noted over half of the food produced today is lost, wasted or discarded as a result of inefficiency in the human-managed food chain. “There is evidence within the report that the world could feed the entire projected population growth alone by becoming more efficient while also ensuring the survival of wild animals, birds and fish on this planet,” said Mr. Steiner.

Let us wake up to the knowledge of productivity to manage our food chain better.

Prosperity Through Productivity

Well! NPC is celebrating its Golden Jubilee and the Productivity Week to commemorate its foundation on 12th February, 1958. A theme of "Prosperity through Productivity" has been coined to publicise during the week.

If we understand Prosperity in the conventional sense of Western beliefs, we would be eventually led to the bubble burst that happened in the US recently imploding along with it many developing and underdeveloped economies. Prosperity has to be a combination of "Sufficiency in Wealth", but more importantly balanced with "Abundance in Spiritual Love and Peace".

It is customary to coin slogans to highlight a celebration. Considering the real meaning of the Theme of the Productivity Week, I feel the following slogan can aptly describe the above wish.

"Prosperity through Productivity means welfare of all
Its Real beauty lies in universal peace of the Soul"

Happy Productivity Week to all fellow bloggers !

Valentine Thoughts

Those of you whose ambition is to spread love and peace may be interested to know that a news item reported today that the 'Romantic' version of the love emanates not from the 'Heart' but from a square circuit in the 'Brain'. The study says that the circuit behaves in a specific chemical way to produce the 'love' whether it is the newborne version of the freshers or ingrained over time version of the old couples.

Knowledge of how love gets formed in the brain, however, is only secondary to the knowledge we should have as to how love for the life and the universe can be transcended by the feeling for oneness of body, mind and soul.

Here is wishing an ever loving universe, whether from the Heart or from the Brain!

Blog to Respect

There is a tradition in South India to invite a well respected leader to important meetings and functions and give him the leading position, the ritural being called "Mudal Mariyadhai" (means First to be Respected).

This news provides a similar treatment to a blogger at the instance of the American President. With the leader of opposition in India also taking to blogging, we can see in the near future, blogging will get status of respect in different platforms including traditional stages like politics, religion and so on.

Are you already going blog high? 

Change - From Fear to Bliss

Someone asked me this question recently - "Why do you change your basic subject of interest too often?" - to which I replied "For me 'change' is the mental tonic to keep afresh; or else I get bored if I don't change what I learn and talk about, broadly in a time phase of about 3 years".

I remember to have read a book by Management Guru "Peter Drucker" who quotes that his major professional strategy was to master a particular subject for a select period of time and then "CHANGE" to a new subject and start all over.

We detest change whenever we are overcome by the 'fear' of ill effects imagined by us that would become on us due to that change. In that situation, we create plenty of internal hurdles and our fearful mind manages us not to explore new possibilities.

If, however, we can overcome the initial inflection point of resistance, it would be possible to enjoy the adventures of the new changed path and realise for oneself the ability to guide  your mind to the pleasures of new learnings.

For 'CHANGE' to be effective, train  your mind to reject 'FEAR' and transcend to 'BLISS'

Remember Swami Vivekananda's quote "Reject all those mysterious things that would make you fearful and lose Strength and evolve into the realms of divine things that continuously add Strength to your Body, Soul and Mind"

Change you must - From "Fear" to "Bliss"  

Knowledge - Empowering the Billions at the Primary level

I am attending the National Quality Conclave the theme of which is titled as "Quality for Empowering the Billion". The task of empowering the entire Indian peopleforce seem to be a mammoth challenge considering the facts narrated  by Dr.Balagurusamy, Vice Chancellor of Anna University on primary education in India exposed to the millions of children in the country. As expected, he did not use any power point as he wanted everyone to look at him and not at the screen.

Well, the examples he cited, though commonly known, are still chill frightening to the heart.

• Thousands of Primary schools in the country don't have infrastructure, no buildings, no toilets, no blackboards, no chalks even if blackboards are present etc. etc.
• There is only one teacher in many schools and even he absents himself or in some places peculiarly, outsources his job to some body else for a consideration.
• The single teacher is expected to teach all subjects, curriculum of which itself is outdated
• The curriculum and standards are downgraded by the Government if it feels that the students are unable to raise to the higher expectations
• The teacher is expected to cook the mid-day meals also which he does less skillfully than he cooks the records of the schools.
• The poor children who manage to enter the primary schools, many of them drop out even before they enter the secondary levels.

Not a bright picture for a nation which is talking about Quality Empowerment of the Billions; but there is always a wishful other side; the awareness levels of these difficulties are being awakened and the basic inspiration to knowledge and productivity enhancement would provide the path to the emergence of a better future for the Nation - so felt many speakers. I agree !!