The Nibble Theory

Way back in ‘73, she was one of the first women to enter the field of management consulting and had to face discrimination and nibbles like: “Why are you here?” “Who’ taking care of your children?” “What would a woman know?” “Hey, you’re pretty cute to be doing this kind of work”.

Where other’s would have given up, Kaleel’ a story of dogged determination and persistance. She went on to live a strong legacy - The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group and even more enduring would be her book: “The Nibble Theory and the Kernel of Power”. Buy it and read it. It is a small book, less than 75 pages, but contains a very powerful message on self empowerment. Not only does the book encourage you to look at yourself deeply and grow, but more importantly, help others grow too!

A reviewer on the back cover of the book says “[This book] is an excellent resource for leaders, managers, and anyone who wants to improve their interactions with others”.

Spirituality and Workplace Series - About Oneness

Lance Secretan - ex-CEO of ManPower - has written a superb book on Conscious Leadership titled “One - The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership”

This book is based on the premise that we are all one and are connected to each other in ways that are not apparent on the surface, but dig a little deeper and we find the connections. It is divided into two parts - the first talks of the oneness and how we seemed to have lost the oneness and the second part talks of 6 principles (CASTLE - Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfullness, Love and Effectiveness) that help us regain the oneness.

I loved this book. Lance draws superb examples from Industry and his practice which makes this book immensly readable. Plus each of the chapters relating to the CASTLE principles have a workbook that allows space for one to reflect on the principles in our own situations.

Click here for Lance’ blog. (Corrected the link!)

Spirituality and the Workplace

This weekend, I stumbled upon “The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners” by Jack Hawley and on a quick reading purchased it. It was a good decision. I have read Eknath Easwaran’s three volumes on ” The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living” quite a few times and have regarded it as one of the finest translations of Gita for the modern world.

Since the time Guruji advised us all to read The Gita regularly, I have always carried the pocket book of The Shrimad Bhagavad Gita ( search for code 455 and yes don’t be surprised by the price, it does cost rupees six only!) from Gita Press with me always, reading it as and when I have time.

I am yet to complete reading Jack’ translation, but having read the first two chapters, I can say that this book comes from the rich depth of someone who understands the meaning behind the verses and someone who has walked on the spiritual path.

Jack’s translation of the 2nd chapter is so beautiful that I have re-read it quite a few times. Looking up for Jack on the Internet I stumbled upon his website and found his responses to the Spirituality and workplace so apt that I reproduce them here.

LW: How to introduce, channel, and better use spirituality in the workplace to enhance wellness?
JH: In the West, the term wellness, especially when used in connection with workplace connotes the promotion of the physical well being of workers. It’s a good and smart thing to do, and in some cases concern for workers’ health is of the same family tree as spiritual values, but I do not consider this to be a
main aim of spirituality.

I’m apprehensive that people will begin using spirituality as a method or strategy for enhancing worldly things. Ramakrishna, the renowned Indian saint of the late 1800s, explained spirituality this way: “Using spiritual means to achieve worldly ends is not spirituality; using worldly means to achieve spiritual ends is spirituality.” It is important today to understand that spirituality at work is not just another way to manipulate workers to work harder. Increased productivity may be a byproduct of spiritual values at work, but it is certainly not the purpose of it.

LW: How can we increase a holistic approach to work, integrate the spiritual and the material sides of life into the work?
JH: First, just acknowledge that both the spiritual and material sides coexist. Convey to people that spiritual aspects of life are legitimate topics for them to think about and factor into their work and their lives. Second, trust that a balanced, whole person (i.e., holistic person) is indeed a good thing to
become-and a good thing to foster, advance and encourage at work. Third, know that if you do this merely to enhance profits your effort will probably fail. Do it because humans are both spiritual and worldly beings. Do it because you know that people need to live a more balanced existence in a more spiritually balanced world.

I look forward to reading this book at leisure and I am sure I will go back mark pages and read them over and over again. Also in my to read list is Pujan Roka’s The Bhagavad Gita on Effective Leadership I have been searching for this book in bookstores in Bangalore without luck, seems like I may have to order this via Amazon or wait till I go to US to purchase a copy of this.

Meanwhile, if you dear readers have any recommendations on Leadership books written from a Spiritual perspective, please do let me know.

Related Website: Check out Apex

Back….with book reviews

I am back after a hiatus. Have been meaning to post for some time now, but guess it had to wait till now. Last few days have all been about catching up with reading. So here we go:

After having heard Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik speak, it was only a matter of time that I went ahead and purchased his books. Archana too recommended his books strongly so I had no choice and I wasn’t disappointed. Myth=Mithya is a brilliant composition on Hindu Mythology. So if you have difficulty explaining why Hindus have 330 million gods, why Rama despite abandoning Sita remains the model king, how and why the Krishna of Vrindavana differs from Krishna of Dwarka, look no further than this book. Written in a very engaging and rational way, Devdutt does not thrust his viewpoints on the readers, rather lets the stories and their explanation unfold in a very easy manner.

The other book that I recently concluded reading was “The Case of the Bonsai Manager: Lessons from Nature on Growing.” by R. Gopalakrishnan. Reviewing the book, Telegraph writes:

The title, The Case of the Bonsai Manager, at first blush, suggests a Perry Mason whodunit. The author quickly clarifies that it is, in fact, about how not to become like a stunted bonsai and grow to your full potential as a manager. But, on final analysis, it is a book about leadership, and a powerful one at that.

R. Gopalakrishnan deploys a wondrous array of examples and analogies not just from nature but also from science, business, mythology, culture, society, history, economics, politics, religion (the list is really quite impressive) and his personal experiences of forty years in the transformation of two of India’s greatest corporations— Hindustan Lever Limited and the Tata Group.

For example, in just one of the sixteen chapters, he begins with the Australian ecosystem then goes on to Dubai’s economy, the primitive societies of Shoshone in North America and the Kung San in the African Kalahari, Joseph Stiglitz and “resource-cursed” economies, Singapore’s approach to risk relative to the US, crowd management at the Kumbh Mela, a family visit to Disneyland, the introduction of TV into Bhutan, and Philippine professor Caesar Saloma’s experiments with panicky mice, with lessons from Samuel Johnson, C.K. Prahalad, Gandhi and John F. Kennedy sprinkled across for good measure! While the book is obviously much more than these examples, their abundance and sheer diversity not only show the amazing depth and breadth of the author’s experience and thinking, but also whet the reader’s appetite and make The Case of the Bonsai Manager a page-turner.

and the last book that I finished reading was The Secret. You will either like it or you will trash it as a piece of humbug! Either way do read it before deciding. Wikipedia has a long page of discussion on it.

On Questions

Sibu observes that not only our quantity but also our quality of questions also goes down as we age….and asks how can we consciously reverse the same?

Excellent post Sibu. I think we lose this ability to ask great questions because we have forgotten how to still ourselves and look at ourselves deep within. Questions like creative impulses come from deep within. In the humdrum of our day to day existence, we have started living very mechanically. As we grow up, we build filters in our mind and we listen through these filters. We accept something that falls within the bandwidth of the filter and reject everything else. Just observe this phenomena….we claim we are open to the world, but in reality our reaction to the world is something that is pre-conceived and pre-meditated. So how would creativity blossom when we have a closed mind? That is not the case with Children, they are so very spontaneous because they are living in the moment. Adult hood robs us of this innocence and with it out goes all the creativity. And very specifically I blame our education system in India that does not allow us to question our teachers, our parents, our culture, our value systems etc and that’s why you have a team Sibu that is not so curious to ask more questions. You see we kill that curiosity at a very tender age. That is the reason why clients complain that they don’t see push back happening. That’s why you see that projects go haywire because none in the team questions the leadership on the path taken. Very recently my kid (age eight) got up in the maths class to ask a question and was shouted down by the teacher who had very little patience to even listen to the question, forget answering it. So here we are trying to make sure that our kid is curious, open to learning, open to wondering and on the other hand we have teachers who resist questions in classroom. Anyway…

I had written about Questions in my previous posts. [Learning Leadership] and [Lest ye be as Little Children]

Leading with Questions by Michael Marquardt is a book that I would highly recommend to all Managers. Consisting of three parts, it starts with setting the premise as to why questions are can be so powerful for individuals and Organizations. He examines why leaders prefer to provide answers rather than ask questions and how limiting - and disastrous - that can be. (and we have all seen that, right Sibu? ). In Part 2 he offers practical guidance on asking questions effectively, examining how one’s attitude, mindset, pace and timing all affect the impact of asking questions {The Art of asking questions!) and the final part is all about guiding leaders on using questions to achieve specific results for individuals, teams, and organizations. I keep going back to it ever so frequently to see what else I can learn.

The other book that I have read on questions is “Change your questions, change your life” by Marilee G. Adams With such a catchy title there was no way I was going to not buy this book. And more importantly I bought this because it had a foreword from Marshall Goldsmith - author of “What got you here, won’t get you there” (Another must read!) This is written in a novel like fashion where the protagonist is promoted to a new position in Management, unable to cope, he decides to resign. His Manager steps in and introduces him to a coach who helps him make the transformation needed in both his professional and personal life.

Several Management books that I have read talk about the importance of questions. Ram Charan in his latest book “Know-How” writes:

“It is essential to be able to navigate a full range of altitudes from the 50,000 foot level of conceptual thinking to the worm’ eye view, probing the messy details of a situation. Early in your career you have to concentrate on the details of your job. As you rise you become more concerned with the big picture and high concepts. But your use of the know-hows is better when you are able to do both: think in terms of concepts but also drill to the specifics. You see this ability in leaders who ask probing questions that hit on exactly the right points or unearth the critical but unspoken assumptions, and in those who can cut through complexity. Many leaders love the world of big ideas but can’t link them to the specifics of how they will be achieved or how they will make money. Their questions are too broad and general rather than incisive. On the other hand, some leaders are so focussed on the details that they miss the forest for the trees. Either extreme can be damaging….

Way back in 92 I purchased a book called “The Complete Mental Fitness book” by Tom Wujec. He introduced me to the concept of “What if thinking” in a very delightful way by asking hypothetical questions. Some examples:

• What if time ran backwards? (Would our sense of good and bad change?)

• What if we lived to 600 years? (Would be take more risks? How would it affect our financial planning)

• What if there were three sexes instead of two (how would families changes?, Would there be more or less Gender discrimination?)

More importantly, progress on spiritual path begins with the most fundamental question - Who am I? This question opens the gate to dive deep within. Very interestingly, most of the scriptures and tales are an outcome of questions being asked. Ashtavakra Gita - described as one of the most unique conversations to have taken place on this planet - starts with a question being asked by King Janaka to Sage Ashtavakra. Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ) explaining the Ashtavakhra Gita says that on the spiritual path it is important that questions that are asked should meet the following criteria- “proper questions, asked at the proper time and with proper attitude” only then does the knowledge flows. Very interestingly, to experience the power of questions, one should do the Art of Living Part 1 course.

More later!

From Entrepreneurship to Giving it up all!

First it was the Crossword Annual Book sale followed by the Bangalore Book sale and now the Strand book sale. Irrespective of the fact that I had decided, I won’t splurge on books any further, I did end up with a handful on my hand.

Couple of reviews this week:

Subroto Bagchi’ “The High Performance Entrepreneur” is a must read for anyone within the Software Industry today. Written in typical Subroto style this makes for fascinating reading. MindTree’s website has reviews from variety of Business Magazines collated at a place. Undoubtedly this book will occupy the top slot in my bookshelf.

John Wood’s “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World“. My association with the Art of Living Foundation and some of it’s activity has awakened a sense of purpose in life and I constantly read about people who make a difference in other’ life. John Wood’ story about how he quit Microsoft to follow his dream of making a substantial difference in Children’s lives in 7 different countries including India makes for great reading. “You can pull a bandage slowly and painfully or quickly and painfully” he says. I am still painfully struggling with my bandage’s in life currently. A good review is here

I also picked up Steve Hamm’s “Bangalore Tiger” - this one is all about Wipro. Put in comparison with with the above 2 books this pales in comparison. Still gives an insight into the working of Wipro and if you are part of the Industry, you can make things out.

Science unravels Spirituality

Code Name God by Mani Bhaumik -  is the latest edition to my bookshelf. I picked this up after reading a review in DeccanHerald. I breezed through the first half of the book pretty easily. When Mani gets gets into the later part of the book where he deep dives into physics to get his point across, I lost him. Now wait before you jump to conclusion, this book is brilliantly written. It is my lack of understanding of physics that has had me derailed. It is an opportunity to go back to the subject and get some funda' cleared. 

This book has received rave reviews from the Indian press and they are not off the mark.

Indian Express writes:

 This spiritual odyssey is intense in its drama and deeply revealing in its insight.Mani has a gift for explaining philosophy, cosmology and quantum physics in terms that anyone can understand. He weaves science and spirituality together to show their common thread - that a unified field of consciousness underlies all of Creation.

The Hindu Businessline writes:

Meet Mani Bhaumik, one of the pioneers of laser technology that made Lasik laser eye surgery possible. He is on a mission — after making "people see better with their eyes, I now want to help them see better with their mind."

Mani writes extensively about consciousness and meditation. One statement that resonates with me is when Mani writes: "Once you get a taste of the experience, you will know for sure that an innocuos process like meditation can bring a profound change in the quality of your life." I can vouch for this!

My BookShelf - I

So here is it , a few of the books from my bookshelf. Will write about them over the course of the next few months. Will link to Amazon over the next few days. Till then please bear with me.

Tim Sander's: "Love is the Killer Application"

Dick Richard's: "The Art of Winning Commitment"

Putnam & Meyer: "Five Core Metrics"

Pickover: "Wonder of Numbers: Adventures in Mathematics, Mind and Meaning"

Swami Rama: "Living with the Himalayan Masters"

Swami Rama: "The Art of Joyful Living"

Ramesh Baleskar: "The Duet of One"

Thich Nhat Hans: "Peace is Every Step"

Swami Satyanand Saraswati: "Asanas, Pranayam, Mudra Bandhas"

Swami Satyanand Saraswati: "Surya Namaskar"

Steve McConnell "Software Estimation"

Marquardt: "Leading with Questions"

Sri Aurobindo: "The Upanishad"

BKS Iyengar: "Light on Life"

Tom Sant's: "Writing Persuasive Business Proposals"

Caper Jones: "Estimating Software costs"

Sanjiv Purba: "Project Rescue"

P. Sainath's: "Everbody loves a good drought"

Wedemeyers: "The Inner Edge"

Marcus Buckhingham: "First Break all the rules"

John O Neil: "Leadership Aikido"

Mark McCormack: "What you never learn on the internet"

Steve McConnell: "Rapid Development"

DeMarco & Lister: "Waltzing with Bears" and "Peopleware"

William Zinsser: "On Writing Well"

Watts Humphrey: "Winning with Software"

Mike Cope: "Lead Yourself"

Sally Helgesen: "Thriving in 24/7"

Nicols Pillips: "The Big Difference"

Covey's: "First Things First"

Vijay Easwaran's: "In the Sphere of Silence"

Palmer: "A Practical guide to Feature Driven Development"

Adams: "Change your Questions, Change your life"

Scott Berkun: "The Art of Project Management"

Brooks: "The Mythical Man Month"

Kenneth Wydro: "Think on your feet"

Kerry Patterson: "Crucial Conversations"

Kerry Patterson: "Crucial Confrontations"

Swanson' "The Unwritten Rules of Management"

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: The Source of Life

David Allen: "Getting things done"

James Collins: "Built to Last"

Good Pastur: "Qualitative Methods in PM"

Wlyoski "Effective Project Management"

Kendrick: "Identifying and Managing Project Risks"

Semler: "Maverick" and "7 Days Weekend"

Alex Brenson: "The Number"

Denning: "Squirrel Inc"

Dennis Sherwood: "Seeing the Forests for the Trees"

Strunk & White: "The Elements of Style"

Geoffrey Moore: "Crossing The Chasm"

Ken Blanchard: "Heart of a Leader"

Hammel & Prahalad: "Competing for the future"

Idries Shah: "Pleasantaries of Mulla Nasruddin"

Roger Fisher: "Getting Together" and "Getting to Yes"

Easwaran: "Climbing the Blue Mountain"

Easwaran: "The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living - Vol 1 to 3"

Easwaran: "The Constant Companion"

Easwaran: "The Conquest of the Mind"

Rustomji: "Watch for figures"

Davis: "201 Principles of S/W Development"

Kevin Freiberg: "Nuts"

Swami Chinmayananda: "Astavakhra Gita"

Jim McCarthy: "The Dynamics of S/W Development"

Thonsett: "Radical Project Management"

Cockburn: "Surviving Object Oriented Projects"

Rustomji: "Excellence in Management"

Maister: "F1rst amongst Equals"

Wayne Dyer: "Your Sacred Self" & "Inspiration"

Sri Sri RaviShankar: "The Space Within"

Mohan Singh: "Kabir"

Ramnchor Prime: "The Illustrated Bhagavad Gita"

Chakraborty: "The Gita and the art of successful Management"

Mitch Alborn: "Tuesdays with Morrie"

Bhavan's: "Bhaja Govindam"

Tom Wujec: "Mental Fitness"

Anna Quindlen: "A Short Guide to a Happy Life" & "Being Perfect"

"Naman - A Book of Prayers"

Parikh: "Managing Yourself"

Vivekananda: "Living at the Source"

Mahadevan: "The Hymns of Sankara"

Wayne Dyer: "The Wisdom of the Ages"

Venkatacharya: "Sri Venkatesa Suprabhatam"

Acharya Ratnananda: "More Light on teh less known - Vol 1 and 2"

Francois Gautier: "The Guru of Joy"

Jim Collins: "good to great"

Jon Kabat-Zinn: "Coming to our senses"

Kewinsky: "Magic Words"

HBS: "The Essentials of Negotiations" & "Managing Projects Large & Small"

Yogananda: "Autobiography of a Yogi"

Ghoshal: "A Bias for Action"

Susan Scott: "Fierce Covnersation"

Harkins: "Powerful Conversations"

Stevenson: "Never Be Boring Again"

Dennis Waitley: "Empires of the Mind"

Galorath: "S/W Sizing, Estimation and Risk Management"

Philippe Delerm: "We could almost eat outside: An Appreciation of Life's small pleasures"

Sri Sri RaviShankar: "God Loves Fun"

Sri Sri RaviShankar: "Wisdom for the New Millenium"

Sri Sri RaviShankar: "An Intimate Note to the Sincere Seeker: Vol 1 to 7"

Sri Sri RaviShankar: "Celebrating Silence"

McGovern: "A Practical Guide to Enterprise Architecture"

Nassim: "Fooled By Randomness"

Schultz: "Pour your Heart into it"

The fascinating world of books

I have been fortunate or blessed to have the ability or means to pursue knowledge. While one can devour books and learn from others experience, true knowledge dawns only by the grace of a Guru. To a lot of you out there, this may seem like mumbo-jumbo, but some of the experiential truths cannot be put into words. Having said that, this posting is about the former - knowledge devoured by books. And I have plenty of them.

I buy them on the basis of what I have read on the net, on recommendation by colleagues or friends and a lot just on the basis of looks

While reading, I occassionally tag, underline, make notes on the books, most of the times, the books are as new as when I bought them. Over several posts in the coming months, I intend to share with you, what I liked about the book, how it helped me, excerpts from the books and so on.

But first let us take a peek into my bookshelf.

The Story behind the IdeaBook!

I honestly don’t remember, how I landed at “theideabook.org” website! A very interesting book with 150 pages about ideas and another 150 pages to note down your own ideas! I downloaded the sample and was blown away! Just the thought of owning this book gave me goosebumps! I sent an email a few weeks back and in the daily grind of things forgot about the email that I sent.

A week back Teo Härén - CEO of The Ideabook, wrote apologizing for the delay in responding to my email and offered to send me not one, but two copies of the IdeaBook free of charge including shipping! This gesture really touched my heart! It wasn’t really a big deal, people take time to respond to emails and here I was just dropping in a note expressing my interest in the book.

Just goes to shows the kind of character and integrity that Teo has!

The books arrived today and I am waiting to lay my hands on them! Meanwhile, I did my bit, by sending Teo a copy of Celebrating Silence! I hope she (my mistake) he likes it as much as I do!

Also do take a minute to visit Convenient.info - another company which Teo runs!

Thanks Teo! I am delighted to have crossed paths with you and known such a genuine person!