Happy new year 2007

Wishing you and your family a very happy and prosperous new year 2007.

Thank you (you know who you all are) for your wishes. I am really grateful especially for all those who have become friends in this cyber world thru this blog. Thanks for taking time to let me know your comments either via e-mail or by leaving right on the blog. I have learnt a great deal from your many insights. Continue to keep them coming. It's win-win to share and learn.

Hope your resolutions stick for the new year and beyond and help you to achieve whatever you are aiming to achieve. Use right means towards right ends and you will be successful. Wrong means do not justify even right ends. As Gandhi said "full effort, full victory."

Cheers for the new year 2007!

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Software schedule

"I suspect the typical software engineer doesn't work overtime to make the schedule, but in order not to feel so bad about not making it."

--- Tom Demacro in "Why Does Software Cost So Much?: And Other Puzzles of the Information Age (Paperback)by Tom Demarco

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Agile Estimating and Planning

Agile Estimating and Planning (Robert C. Martin Series) [Paperback]
By: Mike Cohn

A lot of books on agile do a lot 'talk the talk' and fall short on 'walk the talk'. This book is rich from practical standpoint and is indispensable for all interested professional especially if you have the hard job of selling agile development to your management.

Mike Kohn, as the author, is simply a master in teaching 'how to' behind whole agile development methodology. He does not take any particular fancy to any one methodology ( be it XP or SCRUM or Crystal) but drives towards an unified view of the principles and delivers practices that can be put to use directly.

Agile does not ignore planning. It is just advocates adaptive planning and execution. Knowing the fact that you can only foresee to the extent, it provides a formula ( literally a math formula to determine your visibility in literal sense) for how often to plan, how to refine, how to setup a release plan, how to engage the team and whole gamut of release management from agile standpoint.

One book that should be read before jumping on agile bandwagon before putting 'pedal to the metal'.

The book is one of the finest books on agile in the world that has been flooded with many books on the subject. This stands out as a real jewel.

Cheers!

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Lean Software Development

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers... [Paperback]
By: Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck

This is a very informative book which looks at best practices that revolutionized manufacturing industry and how they can be intelligently applied to software engineering.

Sometimes in our zeal to bring engineering discipline to software engineering, we strive to make software development like a true engineering profession. However, often times, key distinction that is exists very clearly is  missed. The key distinction is product development v/s product manufacturing. We  miss out product development part of it and try to discipline software development like manufacturing. This book address that distinction very well and gives some nice ways to adopt successful principles of lean development which were pioneered by Toyota.

Authors who have had extensive experience with manufacturing and software development combine their in-depth knowledge of both fields to provide many best practices that can be directly applied to software engineering. 'Avoid wastage', 'Kanban' (JIT) etc. are easy to understand from manufacturing standpoint but translating them into software engineering requires a lot ingenuity. Authors bring this out very well.

'Innovation can not be scheduled' is probably the best punch line of the book. If we get just this out of this book, it's worth it.

Nice perspective and support for agile development practices.

Cheers!

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Wisdom

"Common sense in uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom."
                                            -- Sam Coleridge

Probably the best definition of WISDOM.

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Snakes in Suits

Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (Hardcover)
by Paul Babiak, Robert D. Hare


Psychopaths, sociopath, asocial, antisocial - these are all the terms, many times used interchangeably and many times irresponsibly to brand people. Many time even a small displeasure may prompt us to brand someone as a psychopath. But, who exactly qualifies to be a psychopath, what are their characteristics, what are they trying to achieve etc. etc. are burning questions. This book attempts to answer many of them.

Full thumbs-up to authors for being successful at presenting dry psychology in a very interesting and captivating manner so as to appeal even to a common reader with some interest in understanding interesting terms such as psychopath. Very well woven with day-to-day examples and a case study which runs parallel to the main theme of the book. That case study makes this more like corporate thriller than a book on psychology. What a page-turner? Simply an excellent book.

Authors, quite rightly, caution users not to jump into conclusion and brand someone as a psychopath. No untrained person can determine with certainty if someone is a psychopath merely based on observing some behaviors and some characteristics which seem to resemble the characteristics of psychopath. Authors use a very good analogy to drive home the point. All of us have blood pressure. Without which humans do not survive. But, just because we have blood pressure does not mean we have high or low blood pressure and related diseases. Similarly many characteristics, such as deceit, cold bloodedness, treachery, back stabbing etc. etc. are present in everybody in different amounts. What makes psychopath is the presence of these negative qualities in abnormally high levels. We can not determine the levels by mere observation of certain behaviors. Even if these qualities show up in an individual at some point in time, they may not be lasting to make him or her a psychopath.

After reading this book, the risk of identifying oneself or others with psychopath and related symptoms are very high. Especially in these paranoid times of ours and world full of paranoia. That's the big risk if readers selectively absorb the material in this books and do not take into account of the cautionary message that authors are trying to drive home. That's really bothersome. If people in key areas of responsibility read the book with paranoia, they might start branding everyone as a psychopath at the slightest display of negative tendencies.

It is good to know about the theory behind psychopath and that psychopaths exists and they many times come to work along with us. However, let that not make us become paranoid and start viewing every other human being with suspicion. Trust, as such, is very hard to come by and cultivate. But, trust is the bedrock of successful career or for that matter any relationship or endeavor requiring team work.

Psychopath has become more of curse word in the hands of untrained mind. This book attempts to set that straight with its honest plea to understanding the term and giving up its usage in common sense as it not meant to be used in common vocabulary because of the rigorous discipline that is required to understand and use it professionally.

Excellent book.

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Future

"There is no future in any job. Future is in the person doing the job."

Nice quote.

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Six sigma green belt training from www.6sigmastudy.com

Six Sigma Quality Program has become a very respectable quality improvement program all over the world after renowned companies such as Motorola, Allied Signals, GE embraced it and made it a defacto corporate-wide initiative. Motorola has publicly acknowledged that it has saved more than 13 billion dollars directly due to its focus on six sigma quality. Jack Welch, legendary CEO of GE, who does not get influenced by fads, thoroughly researched this program and was so influenced by it that he championed it at GE.

6 Sigma concept is very simple at the core. Reduce the variability, deliver consistency. Excellent goal for manufacturing, call centers etc. Not sure how it has been used in software engineering.  How effectively defects are fixed in a software release may probably benefit from six sigma.

A nice framework of knowledge, similar to PMBOK by PMI, is built around six sigma to help practitioners . Different "color" belts are awarded to practitioners with different levels of proficiency with six sigma program. Starting point is "Green belt". A person with "Green belt" is expected to "talk the talk and be in a position to learn to walk the walk". Different organization offer six sigma certification on completion of certain hours of classroom or self study followed by a test to measure fundamental understanding of six sigma.

For PMI certified professionals, getting certified in Six sigma is a good thing to do. Six sigma embraces PMI provided project management framework to run a six sigma projects. Thus, PMPs who develop increasing knowledge of six sigma make themselves very useful to organizations which embark on six sigma. Depending upon further interest, one can gain further expertise and become PMP equivalent in six sigma by acquiring "black belt" which is the ultimate certification in six sigma. Very demanding certification as one has to have done a lot of practical and real life six sigma work.

www.6sigmastudy.com provides a very economical and effective way to get green belt certification. The course and the examination cost only USD 225. Course material is very useful. To get all that material, you probably have to scour dozens of books. Certification process is simple but not something one can get without putting adequate effort. Every module has a test at the end which one has to pass with 80% before moving on to the next module. Although there is no restriction on the number of times you can take a test or no controls on being able to "cheat", the amount of time it forces one to go over the study material itself  makes one get at least surface level understanding of six sigma. After all, that is the goal of six sigma.

This web based certification is very well administered. Once you pay the fee using PayPal, the course becomes available and you can complete the certification anytime within 3 months. Realistically it takes only 3-4 days at the rate of 2-3 hours per day. Each case study and the test based on the case study is better attempted on a new day.

This web site is the sister company of www.pmstudy.com. I have a lot of good things to say about them as well. Their sample tests for PMP certification are probably one of the best. Very close to the PMP exam. Once again very reasonably priced compared to other training programs. PMStudy.com also has several courses which provide PDUs once you become a PMP. Overall an indispensable resource for PMPs and wannabe PMPs.

Another good thing about getting six sigma certification from this company is that you get 25 PDUs that you can use to meet professional development and continuous learning requirement for PMPs.

Cheers!

Speed is Life by Bob Davis

Speed Is Life: Street Smart Lessons from the Front Lines of Business (Hardcover)
by Bob Davis

Before "Google"  became the defacto search engine, Lycos was quite popular as a search engine and as a web portal. With its acquisition of popular web sites such as Tripod, it was a force to reckon with. Lycos was one of the early internet startups which shaped the internet and search as we know today. It competed with Yahoo and many other search engines. In fact, before Google came to prominence, it was quite good and did a nice job of web search.

Bob Davis, who founded and ran the company for 6 years till its merger with Spanish media giant Terra, is the author of this book. In this book, he shares details about himself, his time with Lycos and business knowledge he gained while running the book. By any means, a passionate account from a passionate business executive.

Well written. Fast read.

The author regrets that his efforts to merge Lycos with USA Interactive (of Barry Diller) did not succeed and sighs that if it were to go through it would have been "as or more successful" than the merge of AOL and Time Warner. I think his crystal ball was colored more with personal regret than anything else. As the whole world came to know about, AOL and Time Warner merger was a marriage made in "hell" and Time Warner which was "acquired" by AOL had to try hard to get rid of AOL and a lot of stigma attached the whole deal and its affect on the value of the company. It was a big mess which the current CEO Dick Parson is still trying to clean up. "Fools Rush In" is a great book capturing the drama behind the merger of AOL and Time Warner and the comedy it became.

Anyway, good read. A lot of business insight.

It is interesting to research what happened after Lycos merged with Terra. Did anything similar to what happened with AOL/ TW followed here as well? Not heard of. But, Lycos is no more a name it used to be. Google has put all search engines behind. Lycos portal exists. Tripod still lets people build nice home pages, blogs etc. But, what happened to stock holders and their money? Needs some investigation.

Cheers!

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Magic Formula Investing

This is the accompanying web site based tool for much acclaimed book -"The little book that beats the market".

Good book and a simple web based tool showing the results of the calculations and formula described in the book.

I have not been a big fan of get-rich-quick formulas to buy and sell stocks. But, once you carefully read this book, a lot of what is said in the book is based on solid fundamental analysis which takes you closer to valuing the company well. It is no brainer that if you can value the company reasonably well, buy the stock when it is trading well below the value and time your trades well, you are going to be better off the market. Thus this book puts basic value investing to good practice.

The author, a well acclaimed professor of finance, has gone ahead and made available the tool at http://www.magicformulainvesting.com/ absolutely free of cost. Certainly deserves some praise here. Interesting thing is that the list of stock recommendations generated by the tool are pretty neat. Most of them are trading well below P/E of 15 which should be one of the criteria to base your trading on. That way you do not end up paying more than a reasonable price. The formula also takes into account other things such as return on capital etc. to make it a more sound investment.

5 stars.

Even if you do not want to use the formula and practice as recommended by the book, you can use the tool to eliminate many companies which would have taken substantial time if you were to do the research using other means.

Cheers!

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Dor

Dor - hindi movie starring Gul Panag, Ayesha Takia, Shreyas Talpade, Girish Karnad. Directed by Nagesh Kuknoor.

After a long time, a good movie. Kuknoor who has created a genre of his own with his creative movies delivers a simple yet one with deep emotions. Refreshing to see actresses such as Ayesh Takia, written off as glamour dolls, delivering some good performance. Also good to see is people like Girish Karnad coming back although in a very small role.

Movie is about two women. Husband of one is allegedly killed by the husband of the other when they are working together in Saudi Arabia. The accused is going to be executed. Only way to save him is if the widow forgives the killer and explicitly instructs the court to release him. So, the determined wife of the accused resolves to get what she desperately needs from the wife of the dead. Does she succeed? How does she manage to do what she does when she does not even know where the wife of the dead lives? Answers to these questions forms the heart of the movie.

Gul Panag as the wife of the accused and Ayesha Takia as the wife of the dead are excellent. The chemistry is unmistakable and perfect for two women who go thru emotional roller coaster. Shreyas Talpade's performance is good too. Nagesh Kuknoor and Girish Karnand take small roles and do justice.

Very well picturized in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. Beautiful folk music for background is a nice one. No unnecessary songs or boring dialogs. After a long time one nice movie.

Cheers!

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Thumbs up for http://www.inkjetsuperstore.com

Received good service from http://www.inkjetsuperstore.com.

Was searching for a place to buy printer ink cartridges. This store had good prices. Their customer service shone when I had to make some changes to the order. When you order online, it is many time hard to change it without confusing the seller. But, with this company, it was a breeze here. Just sent an e-mail to make the change and ship the order accordingly. Did not really hope that it would be taken care of and order would be shipped correctly. But, I was pleasantly surprised to get an e-mail confirmation from customer service to that effect, a new bill with prices correctly adjusted to reflect changes and the products shipped in no time and on my door steps in less than a week. That being shipped from the west coast.

I have not yet used the cartridges. So, can not say anything if the inexpensive cartridges cut the mustard. But, it was refreshing to see an Internet business operating smoothly and having some intelligent people who can understand customer requests and process them accordingly. With so many businesses full of workers whose stacks would overflow if you ask them to do little different than their prescribed regiment. Try "water without ice" instead of what they are used to "water with no ice". And you will cause the stack overflow.

Thumbs up for - http://www.inkjetsuperstore.com

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Practical Product Management

There are not many training courses or training companies which impart training in Product Management.

Product Management is not covered in adequate detail in MBA programs. Even those who specialize in 'Marketing' get to learn more about 'Marketing' which is only a piece of the product management. For any role in software development, exposure to product management can be helpful because what we develop or help get developed is a product or service which is owned by someone with designation of 'product manager'. It does not matter if anyone understands what that role is meant to be.

Pragmatic Marketing a niche training organizations which provides several training courses meant for product managers. The most useful and generic one which aims to provide good basic foundation in 'real' product management is 'Practical Product Management'. This 2 day course taught by experienced trainers is a good place to start and depending on your interest you can choose to do additional courses in requirements, marketing etc.

Pragmatic Marketing also offers a certification which tests applicants on the basics learnt in their course. It is a certification that is gaining credibility in the market. With everything being equal, employers certainly prefer someone with such credentials because that shows that the person has gone an extra mile to augment his/her knowledge.

I took PPM course recently in Boston taught by Steve Johnson of Pragmatic Marketing, Outstanding class and outstanding instructor. There is a lot of material which is covered. So, it's fast paced class without unnecessary role plays or similar such rituals which many such soft training programs suffer from. Steve Johnson as an instructor is excellent. He draws from his diverse experience and delivers good training in his inimitable style packed with a punch of humor. 2 days well spent.

Certification test is also well developed which aims to test fundamentals learnt in the course.

Course material is good. Not bulky. Meant for frequent referring. Many pointers to where to find additional information. Tonnes of templates. A lot supporting material on their web site.

All in all a great training program. Worth the money. These classes are held all thru the US often. Try if you want to get a head start in product management. Even if you do not do product management you can teach a thing or two to people who are doing something totally different in the name of 'product management'. That's the tragedy of software engineering. Anyone can become anyone without formal training. Try that in electrical engineering or mechanical engineering. Unless we develop a sense of professionalism in software engineering with clear focus on development, product management, project management, our field is going to continue to much maligned. But trends are indeed changing. It is heartening to see employers insisting on PMI certification for project managers and SCRUM certification for all those who claim to do agile development and other technical certifications for technical experts. Way to go...

Cheers!

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Run v/s stand

"Sometimes, good run is better than a bad stand."

What it means is that sometimes giving up on things that are not important is better than fighting for them. Saying - you win, I lose and then moving on is better many times. It is which battle which we choose to fight and which we try to give up and yield small victories to the other party.

Remember - "Life is a war won by carefully choosing all the battles not to fight. And many battles are not worth fighting anyway." "Do not sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff."

Cheers!

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Run v/s stand

"Sometimes, good run is better than a bad stand."

What it means is that sometimes giving up on things that are not important is better than fighting for them. Saying - you win, I lose and then moving on is better many times. It is which battle which we choose to fight and which we try to give up and yield small victories to the other party.

Remember - "Life is a war won by carefully choosing all the battles not to fight. And many battles are not worth fighting anyway." "Do not sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff."

Cheers!

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Wheel

"Don't reinvent the wheel." I will buy that. IMO, there is only and one thing that needs reinventing. That is 'YOU' and you alone. I would rather term it as discovery than invention. It is the  discovery of  all that we never knew we had in us. In many cases, we would need someone else to steer us in the right direction of self discovery.

We also need new situations and circumstances which will force us to think out of box. In order to go after new situations and circumstances we need to get out of comfort zone and stick our neck out. Remember - "tortoise may be safe when its neck is drawn in its shell. But, tortoise can move only when it sticks its neck out."

Good luck with your self discovery.

Cheers!

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Honey v/s Vinegar

"You can attract more flies using a drop of honey than a gallon of vinegar."


Very nice put quotation. Often used in Dale Carnige's books.


So, does 'honey' in the above quotation mean sweet talking someone into doing something they may not want to do? No  leader worth their salt ever try to manipulate people. "You may fool some people some times. You may fool some people all times. You will not be able to fool all people all time."


What this quote means is that we can take empathetic approach to any argument and first make the other party understand that we fully understand or trying to understand their point of view. People are willing to give up certain things  after they are satisfied that they have been listened to. People are reasonable and do not stick to their opinions stubbornly. They will yield but only when treated with respect, empathy and more importantly listened to with full attention.


'Honey' in the above quotation means all the above. Being nice to people, making them comfortable, diffusing all their defensiveness by being very approachable. Of course, you also have to understand that you also can not get everything your way. Both the parties have to meet somewhere in the middle and be happy about doing so.


Don't think that this approach works best only when you do not have power over the person you are dealing with. You can use the same principle even with people reporting directly to you on whom you have officially granted (however ineffective it may be) control. Using your power may be able to coerce people to doing something they hate to do but it come back to bite you. Defense mechanism of people is triggered as soon as you approach them. Very soon you will end up having a team which you have destructed so well to be of no use.


Tom Demacro, in his book 'Slack', says something like - "in order to have real control, you have to give up false control." What Demacro is saying is that by giving up the control over people and putting them in charge, you are automatically making them feel empowered and protect your best interests. Isn't that better control than being able to crack the whip for no good results?


So, use honey often. Not the term. Not the material. But, the concept.

Cheers!

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Red light

Have you ever crossed a traffic junction with red light on? I mean inadvertently. Without any intention to run thru a red signal.


If you have, can you remember the most important thing about that incident? In all likelihood, you ran thru a red traffic light when there was no traffic at all.


It brings up a very interesting question. What is more influencing a red light or the sight of other cars at the junction which make us slow down and follow rules?


There may not be one right answer here. But, the fact that moving traffic in and around your car provide a strong feedback to your driving as much or more than the traffic lights.


Same thing is true when you miss strop signs. Sound of oncoming traffic, even a flicker of light etc, are more poignant reminder than the actual stop sign.


Cheers!

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Peopleware

Peopleware by Tom Demacro and Tim Lister.


One of the classics of software engineering. This addresses much ignored 'soft' side of software engineering. Focused on people, organizations, organization behavior, how organizations help or hurt good software development, people management and how old type 'task managers'  hurt more than they help.


Tom Demacro is one author who has latched on to 'soft' side of software engineering and has developed very valuable insights. It is very important that we benefit from his insight from long drawn experience.


Another thing that makes his books interesting are his style. Very simple, conversational and to the point. His books are organized as a collection of small essays. You can read 1-3 essays in one sitting and you are not overloaded or unde loaded.


I am glad to reverse my original impression about Demacro. My first exposure Demacro was thru one of his books which was prescribed for the project management course I had done as part of my graduate degree way back in 1999. The book was written as novel and set in some imaginary land. It did not appeal to me that much.


But, 'Peopleware' and the other book 'Slack' that I am reading now have really changed my impressions. I am only glad. Otherwise I would have missed out on treasure of valuable insights.


Cheers!

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Peopleware

Peopleware by Tom Demacro and Tim Lister.


One of the classics of software engineering. This addresses much ignored 'soft' side of software engineering. Focused on people, organizations, organization behavior, how organizations help or hurt good software development, people management and how old type 'task managers'  hurt more than they help.


Tom Demacro is one author who has latched on to 'soft' side of software engineering and has developed very valuable insights. It is very important that we benefit from his insight from long drawn experience.


Another thing that makes his books interesting are his style. Very simple, conversational and to the point. His books are organized as a collection of small essays. You can read 1-3 essays in one sitting and you are not overloaded or unde loaded.


I am glad to reverse my original impression about Demacro. My first exposure Demacro was thru one of his books which was prescribed for the project management course I had done as part of my graduate degree way back in 1999. The book was written as novel and set in some imaginary land. It did not appeal to me that much.


But, 'Peopleware' and the other book 'Slack' that I am reading now have really changed my impressions. I am only glad. Otherwise I would have missed out on treasure of valuable insights.


Cheers!

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Human body

Few years back scientists ran some numbers to find out the 'price' of a human body. Guess what the 'price' was? If you just take up the chemicals that make human body and calculate the value, it was around 8-10 dollars in 70s.

First of all, major portion of human body is hollow. It is space. That's it. Any chemicals that make up are water, carbon and other organic chemicals which are very inexpensive.

But, the  value of our body  'priceless'. 'Sound mind in sound body.' Although the chemical value of our body is only few dollars, we can not get a new body or do fundamental changes to our body with whatever sums of money. Millions, billions, trillions do not matter. This should be an eye opener why it is important to take care of our physical bodies and make it last as long as it has to. If we believe that 'God uses us as his instrument in his works', how can we give him a useless instrument? Are we not embarrassed to go and tell God - 'God, you gave me a good body to begin with. Now I have screwed it up. Use it as your instrument.' What do you think God would say -'I would rather give you a new body. Come home, my son.' And, that is the END of that particular life. But, the END may be quite painful because although our body is being replaced we are still hanging on to all unfulfilled desires and it is hard for our soul to give up the body and this duel causes too much pain and grief at the end. At least, this his how some schools of philosophy explain body, its significance, its importance and so on.

Another very encouraging thing about our bodies is its power to rejuvenate itself as soon as you help it by taking good care of it. Scientists  have found so many amazing cases when they thought certain organ was damaged beyond repair in an accident or due to abuse, regenerated itself. It's certainly divinity that God has instilled in us. If not, how can we believe that a smoker who has smoked for decades starts regaining most of his lost lung capacity in less than  3 months (or so) after quitting smoking. Liver is one organ I am told does not regenerate fully. So, that needs extra care.

However, let's not take undue advantage body's healing power. It's like a rubber band. We do not know when it will snap and tear up. So, let's not stretch it too far. Let's  bring ourselves back on right track to take care of our bodies even if it is worth only few dollars. For chemicals there is master card but the body we have  is priceless.

Cheers!

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EVA - Economic Value Added

If you invest in a business and if the net income (bottom line) is positive, do you think your investment in this business is a good idea?

It depends. What would the same investment have earned elsewhere? If you earned 100,000 on 1,000,000 in this business then you earned 10% profit. If investing elsewhere would have gotten you 130,000 that is 13% interest then this business did not really earn you any profit, instead you lost money due to missed opportunity cost.

So, a new measure was required to determine if the business is doing justice to the capital invested. What makes up capital? 1) Paid in capital when shares were issued 2) Retained earnings  3) Debt. 1 and 2 can be combined treated as capital invested by owners and capital invested by debtors.

Debtors always have a rate of return regardless of how business does. The interest rate they charge is what is their rate of return. But what about the owners or investors. What rate they should  expect? One way to come up with appropriate rate of return is to match it up with the risk of the investment. We can use beta of a stock and use CAPM to come up with a appropriate rate of return. Expected return = risk free rate + beta (market return - risk free rate).

Then, the capital structure of any company  consists of debt and equity in different portions. So, we can take the weighted average of debt capital and equity capital and determine WACC (Weighted average cost of capital). We use this to find out new measure economic value added.

We start with NOPAT (net operating profit after taxes). This is done to unmask the tax impact of interest you are paying on the debt. We want to remove the tax benefits first. NOPAT = Operating income * (1- tax rate).

Now calculate EVA  as EVA - NOPAT - (Capital * cost of capital).

EVA helps you compare any investment with respect to other investment opportunities. Many companies such as Coca Cola, TCS adopted EVA with zeal to make it a point to show to their shareholders that investing in their companies is the best or one of the best investing opportunities they can find amongst many such opportunities. Way to go.

Check out www.investopedia.com for nice articles, tutorials on EVA. But, it is not very easy to calculate EVA for every company that interests you unless you can come up with a pluggable spreadsheet or find ready-made calculator. But, you can develop a rule of thumb. That is to subtract a percentage of market value from the net income an see how it fairs. Market value is the worth of your investment. You can dump it at this time, collect that much money and move one. So, market value is the theoretical money you have. On that you want to earn say 13%. So, if the market value of your company is 1 million dollars then you have to earn at least 100,000 per year. Is your company earning that much?

Cheers!

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Stock picking

After dabbling a bit in stocks, I think following set of criteria has worked to pick and choose some investment grade securities. I stress 'investment grade' and not 'speculative'. These rules also have helped to decide when to sell and when to buy. This basically comes down to 'buy low, sell high'. It has been very difficult to put this rule in practice because not much attention has been paid regarding what to use to determine low and high and low and high of WHAT. It certainly is not the price but VALUE. Price is what market has priced it to be. Value is what fundamentals indicate.

Buying:

1) Always make sure that the price you are paying is not outrageous. If you buy something at an outrageous price, you are most likely to incur loss because greater fool theory does not work. Look at Price to Earnings ratio for trailing twelve months (ttm). Cap P/E (ttm) ideally at 15 and no more than 20. If stocks do not meet this criteria, do not even go further. However attractive these stocks may be, they are priced too high if P/E is above 20. Market will provide sufficient opportunities in the future to buy these stocks at right prices when euphoria dies down and stock's trading price is in line with P/E (ttm) less than 20.


2) You want to make sure the company has little or no debt.

3) Cash is king. You want to make sure that company is generating plosive cash flow from 'operating activities'. I stress 'operating' because you want the company's operations generating cash flow and not investing and financing.


4) Increasing revenue and net income. At least not erratic.


5) Preferably dividend paying. Cash in handed over today is uncertain market appreciation in the future.


Selling.

1) There is only one rule. Sell when P/E (ttm) exceeds 25. Don't hold back thinking it will keep going up. At least have a plan to sell some number of shares when you have locked in 15, 30, 50 % profits.

2) Why it makes sense to sell stocks that P/E (ttm) 25 or more. For the very reason you do not buy those stocks. They have been priced for more than they are earning for you. However much you like the stock, sell it and buy it back again when the price falls if and only if fundamentals are strong. If fundamentals are strong and if the stock is priced reasonably, you can buy it regardless of what market has priced it to be. For fundamentals - refer to 2,3,4 and 5


This is nothing but time tested principles of value investing. I had to prove it to myself with some trades of my own.


Great buy opportunities - TM (Toyota), TXN (Texas Instruments). Great companies trading at unbelievable P/E of 15 and 11 respectively.


Sell if you have in portfolio - HDB (HDFC bank), WIT (Wipro) trading at too high P/E.

Watch and sell some portion - MSFT (Microsoft) has nicely appreciated over last few months. P/E has moved to 22.

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Management

"You can not manage people. You can manage inventory, you can manage cash etc. But, you can not manage people."


Ross Perot said it. Some others may have alluded to the same concept.


All those things that we associate 'management' with are not really manageable. Time management - can you manage time? We can only manage ourselves relative to time. I think this is what we actually mean when we say time management but it is said as though we are capable of managing time.


With people management, some things change a bit. You can not manage people. That can be taken as God's world. You do manage yourself with respect to people. That has some meaning in it. But, the most important  about people management is to realize that we can and must manage our agreements with people. That's what leads to effective people management.


As adults, managing  professional people can mean only one thing. As adults, we get together, discuss responsibilities, hash around what each person can do, what resources are required, what is a reasonable deadline, how do we communicate, how do measure completion, how do we hold each other accountable. Once these things are agreed upon, people management is all about managing this crucial agreement and making changes as needed. If the person we are trying to manage says that he needs additional resources, we ask for facts, if we are convinced, we will amend the agreement by either giving him more resources or letting him take more time. Agreement is base lined again and performance is tracked against the new baseline.


Looking at managing people as managing agreements between two adults help reduce so much stress, confusion and ambiguity associated with managing people. With this concept in mind, we can easily ignore idiosyncrasies which sometimes bother us more than actual people themselves. We can discount all that and focus on nailing down the agreement and then managing the agreement and ignore whether we like the people or not (vice versa), whether he works enough hours or not, if he dresses well or not, all these fall aside. Where possible, along with managing agreements, we also try to build, nurture and enhance relationships. With most individuals, it only  helps make formality around "agreement management" less and less as we develop more trust. Some people do not like friendly gestures, we need to respect that too and focus on the agreement and move on.


This framework should also be handy in all human relationships not just human relationships at work. Although, may require some changes to the framework to put it in practice in family situations.


Cheers!

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Sword

"Those who live by sword die by sword."


Let' say you are someone who make a living by sword. I mean use sword (or axe or whatever) to cut trees to make lumber. If we have to modify the above quote for someone like wood cutter it may look like - "Those who live by sword must take time to sharpen the blade from time to time."


I think the concept of sharpening the saw is one of the corner stones of Stephen Covey's books. I think it is a very important concept. By taking time to sharpen the saw, we can cut more trees in less time. But, many people who get sucked into today's rat race totally forget about sharpening the saw, work like crazy with a saw that is losing its sharpness everyday and one fine day the blade is damaged beyond repair meaning they burn out and quit for good.


Little better are those who get the concept of sharpening but sharpen the blade in a totally wrong way or worse sharpen the wrong side of the saw. Examples - super busy technical professionals who ignore the fact that sharpening saw means keeping up-to-date with developments in their field. They waste small amount of time they have on things like learning belly dancing or basket weaving. Not to mean that no one should pursue those hobbies but only after you have sharpened your professional saw. Example of people sharpening the wrong side saw include those who focus on personality development when they need professional development. You can come up with many examples.


What we get in school, college, university is instruction. What formal education teaches, at best, is how to learn new things effectively. If it has done its job, it has taught you the basics of learning new things. If it has imparted that knowledge to you and you have learnt the art of learning effectively and have developed an insatiable urge to keep bettering your knowledge, then your formal education is worth it. Now, it is time to build on it.


Once we realize this and register it well in our minds, means and ways to sharpen the saw start appearing naturally. Take courses, attend seminars, get certifications, get back to school, write articles, speak in professional forums. Choices are innumerable. Possibilities range from free to ivy league education. Choice is yours. Just make sure that you understand that sharpening the saw is an ongoing activity and not something that you spend 6 months once in 10 years.


Easiest thing to start is the advice I got from my mentor long time back. That is to read, at least, one book per month. If you do it on daily basis, it takes no more than 30 mins even for big book. But, unless you commit to it, it just becomes so hard. The few hours left are spent watching TV or browsing net or some other meaningless activity and no time left for reading. Reading before bed time is also a great idea but I personally discourage that unless you are reading something that is spiritual. Professional reading is better carried out separately. The ideas, you go to sleep with, reverberate all thru your sleep. If that is the case, I would rather have ideas from Bhagvadgita or the discourse of Sri Ramkrishna reverberate than new ideas of project management or some new stuff such as "ruby on rails" (like the name). But, going to sleep reading is one of the best ways ease into sound sleep.


So, take good care of yourself and invest in yourself. Once you do that then you can spend all your time using the saw to your heart's content or helping others with their saws. Whatever you like. Never ever get into a situation when your saw is on the brink of failure. God forbid that happen before you end your journey here and consequences can be very dire.


Cheers!



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Queuing theory

How about revisiting queuing theory for a while? You must be thinking - queuing theory?learnt in undergrad and never wanted to go back there.


But, some of the insights from queuing theory make far more sense when you have to manage resource effectively. What is a good way to manage resources, say a web servers? Run one web server at 100% utilization or  run at around  80% but add additional sever as required. For example, run 2 servers at 100% or run 3 at say 70%?


No right or wrong answer here? Both work equally well because 2 servers working 100% is almost same as 3 servers working 70%? Numerically yes but the difference is on system performance. Only time 2 servers working at 100% is better than 3 servers working at 70% is when the jobs arrive exactly at the same rate and every job takes exactly the same time. Test it on a simple scenario - consider a bank where every task takes 5 mins and customers arrive at the rate of one customer per 5 mins. So, the teller runs at 100% utilization. He finishes the task of one customer and the next one is just-in-time. Let's say the teller fumbles one task and it takes 1 minute longer. So, the customer now has to wait for 1 min and so is the next customer. If the rate of customer increases then wait gets worse. System gradually degrades. Only if the rate of job decreases and system gets to catch up. Moreover, no where there is so much certainty about how long does the job take and how is the rate. We need to approximate both and determine how many full time resource we need and then use variability to add some slack such as instead of 2 full time resource, using 3 resources at 70%.


The the impact of wait as seen in the above example becomes worse if there are down stream activities. More the number of steps in the process, worse it gets and the whole system becomes less effective.


This is why no resources such as web servers, db servers are run no more than 80% average utilization.


If we see the sense in this then why do we many times insist that people should be 100% busy at work. Your developers can not be and should not be 100% busy. Managers trying to achieve that are simply not reasonable. If you require 2 full time resources, plan to have 3 with 70% utilization. If the work load varies, you have a good mechanism to prevent negative impact from queuing. Let your people have some down time which they can use to do whatever. That downtime helps them put more hours when required.


Effect queuing theory is nicely described in the book 'Lean development'.


Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers (Paperback)
by Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck

Cheers!

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No & Yes

"Don't take no from someone who can't say yes."


This is one of the best quotes I have heard. It is so powerful. I think I heard it in audio book "Rainmaker Secrets" which is a book on effective selling.


Regardless of our work, we are all selling one thing or the other all the time. Most importantly we sell our ideas when employed and ourselves, our skills, our experience, education when we are looking for employment. We all are  the brand managers of most important brand that is "I". So, we need to master sales techniques.


Rejection is part of selling. Answers you get when you try to sell something are - Yes, No or May be. So, "No" is probably what you will be told at least 1 for every 3 sales attempts. "May be" has large band width and can lean more towards "Yes" or "No". So, "No" becomes even more probable. So, having to hear "No" half the time is normal and to be taken that way.


But, rejection is very hard. People many times avoid trying - more because they can not face rejection than they fear failure. Rejection hurts and lasts for quite some time. But, we have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves and move on.


This is where the above quote provide a lot of motivation and encouragement. First we have to ask ourselves if the person who is rejecting us is really capable of accepting. In any sales cycle, we have to go thru many layers. Some times people at  lower levels who really do not have the power to say 'yes' are overly eager to say 'no'. May be because it gives them   a false sense of authority or helps them compensate their inferiority complex which may triggered by your towering personality or  worthiness of what you are trying to sell. It is really unfortunate if these people who can say no but can not say yes are hard gate keepers. If that's indeed the case screw that potential customer because they have insulated themselves from all creative selling. In a way you do not want them as your customers because they are going to become extinct because they have most incompetent people who can say no but can not say yes. Move on.


But, you also run into situations where you get to hear a lot of No's but you still have a shot to make your case to higher people. Just keep plugging on. You can try to win over nay sayers, wine them, dine them, become friends, do everything that is legal to smoothen your way to the top while working aggressively on perfecting selling techniques to people who can say Yes.


So, say YES and get to work!

Cheers!

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Music

What do you think about  doing serious work while listening to music in the background?

Do you think music helps or hurts?Researchers at Cornell University were intrigued enough to investigate this. There are people who vouch that without music they can not get work done. Others just find it too distracting. Majority falls somewhere in between. Majority of us can work without serious issues with soft instrumental music in the background but anything loud with a lot of variation becomes distracting.


The experiment that was done at Cornell was very simple. They divided a group of computer majors into two groups. Each group was carefully selected to make sure that one group did not have any sort of advantage over the others such a lot of high IQ, high GPA people in one group.


They asked both groups to develop a program in Fortran for a problem specified in adequate detail. One group was asked to work in a room with the background music and other was housed in a room with no music.


The observation was very interesting. There was no visible difference in the performance of two groups. The number of correct entries, number of defects, time taken etc. varied very little. However, there was one thing that stood out. The problem was something which could be solved by following a sequence of steps or if someone identified a pattern then it could be solved in smaller number of steps using that pattern. The group in the room with music solved the problem sequentially. There was none in that group which could identify quicker and more intuitive way to solve the problem. Majority of the group in the quiet room had honed in on the intelligent way of solving the problem.


When they tried to analyze this peculiar observation, they found that it was in line with how the brain operates. The left half brain is what does most of analytical activities. Right side does most of the creative activities such as music, fine arts, emotions , creativity etc. The right side of the brain of people in the room with music was occupied listening to the music and could not exercise the creativity to solve the problem creatively. The right side  of brain of people in the quiet room was able to use right side to maximum and came up with the creative solution.


This is an interesting observation. However, caution should be exercised when it comes to the matter of brain because very little about brain is understood clearly. The understanding of brain and its working increases every year.

This came from Tom Demacro's 'Peopleware' book.

Cheers!

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Tough choices - a memoir by Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina, the ex-CEO of HP, finally ends her silence and comes up with this book. For anyone who remembers how she was ousted in early 2005, it's been a book that we have waited to read.


Fiorina was hired in 1999 to turn around HP which was losing its glory. Fiorina was responsible for many changes in 6 years of her tenure at HP. She changed the organization and acquired Compaq. She had many tough moments. Especially when a portion of board led by Bill Hewlett challenged Compaq acquisition. She won the nasty proxy battle that followed and completed the acquisition.


Good portion of the book is devoted to Fiorina's early career and how she rose up to become an EVP at Lucent before becoming CEO of HP. Fiorina spent 20+ years at AT&T, Lucent among other plethora of avatars of Big Bell. She rapidly advanced in  sales line and in the late 80s considered to be one of the most powerful women in the business. Time, Fortune etc. ran cover stories on her.


Fiorina was always mentioned for her marketing blitz, media savvy, general attractiveness and strategy. She was never recognized for her operational excellence which was not her forte any way. In this book she stresses operation excellence so much so that it's hard to believe people let her go because she wouldn't hire a COO to manage day to day operations letting her focus on strategy.

A faction in HP board which was extremely technical also could not get along with her well. They were suggesting acquiring several companies and Fiorina would not do that. One thing lead to another and in 2005, she was fired without right protocol or respect.

She departed with 50+ million dollars in severance.

Nice book.

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Insecurity

Do you suffer from a sense of insecurity that lingers all the time? Do you listen to a lot of loud music? Do you try to overload your senses doing multiple things such as eating, watching TV, talking and using computer  all at the same time?


It's very much possible that the sense of insecurity is coming from these. Loud music is found to be one of the reasons for insecurity. I can not cite any evidence other than self-experience and what Sri Easwaran said in one of his books. Overloading sense objects with multiple sense activities at the same time can also result in insecurity. Another empirical proof comes from the fact that Buddhist tradition recommends a lot of Zen music as  an accompaniment for spiritual process. That music is mellow, smooth and soothing. If such music induces calmness, I won't be surprised if loud music induces insecurity and stress.

One occasion that we may allow ourselves some amount of leeway is when we are exercising. Fast music makes exercising  more fun at times. If you can exercises without fast music or do not need music at all, then do not get into listening to fast music. This is for those who need fast music to reduce the monotony of exercise.

Zen music, solo performance of instruments, classical music with focus on voice rather than instruments, these are all great music to relax.

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Gift

"What you are is God's gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God."


What a beautiful quote?


God has given us the raw material. That itself is a great gift. Even if the God has not given all the raw materials that we would have liked, rest assured, in the grand design of God, you have all the raw material in the exact proportion to deliver what is expected of you. It's a matter of looking inward and finding what you have to make of yourself. Work on that diligently and before raw materials are finished, make something out of ourselves that we are proud of and our master is proud of.


This quote is from the book "Tough choices" by Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of HP.

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Become a venture capitalist using www.kiva.org

Many times we would like to finance worthwhile causes but the amount of money required in millions. So, we look and others who already have money are financing start up companies to make more money. Many times our interest to finance it also to finance some meaningful enterprises but what we get to finance, even when we get rich, are once again commercial interests whose aim is to make more money and nothing else.

How do you feel about lending (I say lending not donating) small amount of money to someone who wants start a small business? We probably are interested. But, is there a way to systematically do it? Now, yes there is.

www.kiva.org is provided a neat platform to micro finance. Micro finance should be familiar term with Dr. Khan of Bangladesh winning this year's Nobel prize in economics for his landmark and pioneering work in micro finance which revolutionized the lives many small time vendors in Bangladesh.

For more information, visit www.kiva.org. There you would find many simple business plans of several needy people who can put your $25 to good use to setup small businesses. www.kiva.org has done a great job of providing systematic channel to take your small contribution, pooling it up with contributions from similar minded people and then channeling the money to one or more business people via it's tie up with local financial institutions. These amounts are lent as loans and you can track how money is put to use, what is happening to the business, how far the business has returned the money and so on. Like any venture, some of the businesses you finance may fumble. That's ok as all that you lose may be $25 for a business and not more. But, on the positive side, the satisfaction you may get is something that can not be put in words. It is helping someone start making a honest living and if business does well, it may change their lives and the lives of their children for far better. You are making a difference.

This idea appealed to me tremendously. I have been big supporter of charities and donate a small amount to my favorite charities such as children international. But, what is important to many of us is to be able to see some tangible and precise way of how it is making any difference if any. Children international lets you sponsor one or more children for a monthly contribution. But, it is hard to say that your money really made a difference as the money is pooled with many big time donors and distributed to needy children. But, with kiva, you are lending money and not donating. If the person does well and returns your money, you can recycle it and lend it to some other needy person.

Hope that micro finance develops really well especially in developing countries. Small business owners there can take even a small amount such as $500 and make it really big at least for themselves.

So, what is stopping you from becoming a venture capitalist or angel investor? You can say in parties that you too are a venture capitalist :) and seriously providing capital to some meaningful venture. Is there any more meaningful venture than to help someone get a foot hold in life?

Btw, lending money is breeze with their seamless integration with PayPal. PayPal has to be commended for waiving transaction fees. So, all your money goes to the business person.

Cheers!

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Dead dog

Do you feel bad when somebody yells at you? You know, that's the time to feel good. This is because people being angry or upset with you is far better than people being indifferent. "Love me or hate me, I got you. Ignore me and I have lost you."


OK, this is not to mean that all sort of yelling and personal attacks belong to this category. The things that belong to this category are the professional yellings you get from your bosses and constructive criticism from anyone.


OK, if nothing helps to make sense to believe that being yelled is a good thing, remember "nobody kicks a dead dog". People apparently kick a live dog for whatever reasons. You get yelled at because people still think you are important and can deliver something they want but are impatient with you. Being yelled at more and more is a sign that you have got them hooked. Do not take it too far though. Once the value of yelling exceeds the value that you provide, people start thinking that they rather spend their energy finding more responsive dog to kick rather than kicking you who is becoming a dead dog. So, keep wagging the tail, get kicked and feel important.


Becoming yellable is also a good quality. By becoming yellable, you make it easy for all kinds of people to provide feedback. If you are not yellable and take offense to being yelled at, then people being afraid of anti-harassment and other HR policies refrain from yelling but you lose out on their valuable feedback. So, even if you do not agree with their way of providing feedback, do not take an exception to that. Bear with it. Extract valid feedback and work on it. Also, do not let people to walk all over you. That's not going to earn you any respect either especially from your peers and subordinates.


When we are in the process of becoming yellable, it is not easy to put up with a boss or someone in the position of authority whose primary means of providing feedback is yelling. If the person is genuinely nice person, then telling that person in a diplomatic way that you very much value his/her feedback but when they raise the voice the point is lost. Sometimes people like such candid feedback and change their ways.


Then there is a category of people who yell at people especially the ones less powerful than them just to insult them and make them feel miserable. With such people,you have to develop a thick skin. If the position you are in really matters to you, then moving away from such people only lets them become more belligerent with you and others. That's the time to stand firm and take it to whatever level necessary to show such people where there position is. No organization tolerates people who routinely yell at people for no good reason. Smart people are aware that reprimands delivered in harsh ways only demoralize the work place. With such people, take it up with their higher authorities and eventually with HR as needed.


Actually even faking that you do not bother about the harshness of the yelling is the best way to go. People tend to develop respect for your maturity even if you are faking it. Whatever you do, do not ever lose your temper in a professional setting, that's the worse thing that can happen to a good professional in you. People will remember that one instance when you lost your cool. Even if your boiling, count till 100 and remain calm. Such virtues are more admired than someone raising their BP and acting like a jerk.



With all this, I am sure, you would never yell at anyone else. That goes without saying. There are professional ways to disagree, there are professional ways to provide feedback and there are professional ways to remove people who are not working for you. Whatever you do, do not 'kick the dog' that hard that it bite you so badly that you will lose a good portion of your leg :)

Cheers!

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3rd Party

Let's say,  we are in a gathering. Some topic comes up. Someone picks it up and starts off talking about it like an authority. For a few minutes, we think he may be a real authority. But, very soon, if we know something about the topic, we start recognizing a few deviations from facts and sometimes truth stretched way too far. We also notice that there are others also who are feeling the same way. No one saying anything to counter him or her for either sounding rude or being snubbed off or some other kind of harsh treatment. People who are overconfident, careless, insensitive, spotlight-hungry are routinely seen talking about subjects which they know little or nothing about. So, how do we deal with that without being put up with the crap they are dumping on us and other sensible folks in the gathering.


There are a few ways. Easiest is to  walk away and be done with it. You can do that if you are the only person there and if you leave, this person automatically stops his/her dumping. In such a case, do not even waste your breath, just leave with little wastage of your energy. Those kind of people do not deserve your time or effort to refute. They are not willing to correct themselves in any case.


However, if you are in a gathering of many nice people, by leaving, you will lose out on the fun which you can have with those nice people. That may have been the only reason you came in the first place and this person has taken the assembly hostage by his non stop blabber on something.


You very well know that if you refute what he is saying directly, using his sharp tongue, he is going to insult your or make some corny remarks. So, you bring a fictitious third party to fight on your behalf. You would start off saying - "you know, if someone objects to what you are saying with these facts, how do you respond?". Most of the people who are talking about something they do not know fall for this trap and waste their breath, they blow hot and cold over the fictitious person you have introduced and take their ire against them. Moreover, another thing is they get frustrated too as they can not lynch this fictitious person who has challenged them. Now they are focused on attacking the fictitious person that talking crap about some nice subject on which some other knowledgeable person would have spoken. Now they start talking to you privately berating the fictitious person that you brought up. They will be speaking like "who is the person who asks such a question? Do you know him? I must know because I want to have a good argument with him and show him his place," and so on. This is your opportunity to let this person get off the high way, ease into exit and move on. Good riddance.


Once I had run into a relative who started off on something and ended explaining how his acidity problem went away when the ceiling fan fell on him and grievously injured him. Despite keeping as open mind as possible, I could not stretch my imagination to this level. There was no way to deal with this person with any fictitious person or anything. It was amazing that this person was making stronger and stronger case for  disappearance of acidity due the fall of the fan with all bogus medical reasons. Thankfully there was no doctor over there. I enjoyed his bogus medical theory for a while and said I had to take a nap. That was the end of it. Gosh, I still can not believe someone can make up such a story just defend something that they told which was untrue in the first place.


Another incident was equally funny. There was this guy whose cousin was like God. I am pretty sure this cousin  was a fictitious character this guy was using to display his knowledge of everything on the earth. You talk about Wimbledon, he would say his cousin was there in the last Wibledonr. That's it. He would start one lie after another and you should not be surprised if he ends up saying his cousin had tea with the queen of England at the end of Wimbledon. The original point was lost and the nice discussion  you could have had was lost with his cousin's visit to the Wimbledon. Next time you say something else on cricket. He would again begin his cousin's experience with cricket match which may end he having played with one or the other cricketer during his college days. So on. If you challenge him how can his same cousin have all these experiences, he would become defensive and say these are all different cousins. This way he would have needed the entire humanity to be his cousin.


Once we made  'bakra' (fool) out of him and had a lot of fun behind his back. I am sure he does not know about this even now. In order to lure him into the trap, one person in our group started talking about a garment which had the brand name of Galaxy. We were not sure that this person would walk into our trap that easily because Galaxy was a very heavily advertised brand and most of us adolescents were curious about this garment than any other garment at that time. That's it. As soon as he heard Galaxy and somehow made connection that this was garment, he started telling about his cousin and making up all stuff about that. Such as his cousin buying that exclusive brand in London and bringing it in dozens, customs catching and what no. We were all trying hard to hold back our laughter. Ultimately when he finished his cousins triumph with galaxy we all had a hearty laugh. When he inquired we told him that we found his cousin doing all that to get galaxy so funny and brave. In truth, galaxy was a brand name for most commonly available brassier. This person who always had only male cousins had not even bothered but had gone on to make a lot of stories about a male cousin buying expensive galaxy branded outfit from London and bringing all that to India facing enormous problem with customs. :)

Cheers!

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Leaky boat

"Pouring water out of a leaky boat takes away the focus and energy from rowing the boat." We have heard this or a variant of this. This says that any obstacles or nuisances deter us from focusing our efforts on the goal thus making the achievement of the goal that much more difficult. That is all  valid.


Important question is - how do we get back our focus on to rowing the boat and less on pouring out the water that is getting into the boat from the leak? We can plug the leak or we can carry a pump which once started can empty the water out. Which approach do we take? There is no one answer for this. It's very subjective. However, a new insight develops when we look critically into the scenario and see how it applies to ourselves. One possible way is to compare the leak to one of our weaknesses and how it affects our ability to achieve what we set out to achieve. In order to achieve a goal, we need different strengths in different measures. We may not have some strengths and in fact we may even be weak in those areas. Due to such weaknesses, the obstacles keep popping up and we have to give up rowing to pour the water out. Plugging the leak is like working on our weakness and to reduce it or eliminate it. This is one plausible solution. Using a pump to take the water out is like substituting someone else in that area where we are weak but the other person is strong. This also works.


It probably is much easier to further strengthen our strengths than to improve upon the area where we are weak. We are weak in a area for a reason. We are not able to motivate ourselves enough to become good at it. Classic example is those subjects in which we were not good at. For some it may be maths and for others it may be history and so on.


With inordinate amount of effort and frustration, we may attain passing score in the area that we are trying to improve. But, in that pursuit we may lose out on the opportunity or the level we reach even after so much effort may not be adequate to attain our goal. It's like we trying to plug the hole but water still seeping in. So, having someone fill in for us seems to be a better option. Of course, that does come with a risk because we become dependent on the person and our destiny does not seem to be entirely in our own hands. One way to address lack of control on our own destiny in such cases to address the risks. In the example of a pump, we can keep another pump. If that's too expensive and impractical, we can keep parts required to repair. We can choose to visit the shore often enough to make sure that pump is ok and so on.


Leading experts have said it over and again that it is much easier to strengthen our strengths than work on our weaknesses. "What is the best direction to ride the horse? The direction it is already going." Trying to work on our weaknesses is like trying to sharpen that side of the sword which has no blade in the first place. How futile that activity can be? But, we expend so much of precious energy doing exactly the same. We end up being mediocre. Look at highly successful people. Smartest of all just hire the best, give broad outline and get out of the way. People accomplish more than expected when empowered. Next best option is to work hard but do realize and hire right help where needed without fail. Both options work well. One that is sure to bomb  is to focus all your energy on working on our weaknesses. At the end, you may not develop required skills, your strengths may not be at their best, you may lose confidence become diffident and give up on a valid goal which was very much within the reach only if you were to change your strategy. Remember "successful people do not do different things. They do same things differently."

Cheers!

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Wet paint - don't touch

"If a scientist says that there is a planet far away in the galaxy, we believe without a second guess. However, we have to touch to believe the park bench even when the prominent sign says - wet paint. don't touch."

It is always mind boggling that more obvious the things are, more is our need to verify it for ourselves. Less obvious the things are less is our need to verify it. It is really funny.

Same thing applies to science versus divine science. We believe all great scientific theories even if have no idea about complex mathematics that goes behind those theories. But, the same ignorant us do not believe the law of karma or that any mystic ever attained nirvana. We with our limited knowledge put forward counter argument and ask the person to prove it. Why don't we ask a physicist to prove the existence of that far away planet, why don't we say e= mc squared can not be right? But, if we read that Ramana Maharshi or Sri Ramakrishna attained nirvana, we start questioning the very fundamentals of concepts such as karma, nirvana, god, self, soul and reincarnation. It's not at all bad to question. But, questioner in order to be taken seriously has to be open minded too. That's why smart people do not entertain questioners who approach with a preconceived notion. It is like "you can awaken the person who is sleeping but you can never awaken the person who is pretending to be sleeping." If a person with an open mind asks a question, we can attempt to answer to best of our knowledge. If we do a good job and if the intellect of the questioner is adequate, well and good. Otherwise, he will still look confused but his curiosity to find the answer is even more aroused. He will find the answer when the time is right and when he finds a guru.

One more thing that makes it even harder to convince people of spiritual truths is the fact that they are experiential. In the sense they have to be experienced and can not be explained or derived like mathematical equation. Of course, empirical evidence of law of karma is more than strong enough to convince any skeptic. But, it again is empirical and more like heuristic than an algorithm. "For believers no explanation is necessary. For non-believers no explanation is possible." This is the situation.

It's true that we are trained to question everything. That is a good thing. But, in over zealousness to question everything we should not become close minded. What, we as a humanity, have managed to understand in our millions of years of existence is very little of this universe. What mystics and sages are saying is simply this - there is more than what you have understood. It will take long time for each of you to understand all that individually. Some of us have understood it far more and these are the empirical proofs and it's in your best interest to believe in them rather than endlessly questioning them.

Einstein, greatest inquisitive mind, put it all this best when he said - everything that can be counted does not count. Everything that counts can not be counted.

So, next time when you see 'wet  paint' sign,  remember not to feel a strong urge to touch it to make sure that it is indeed wet paint.

Cheers!

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