Author: alearningaday

How ‘corporations’ came about..

Big multi national corporations are the order of the day. In fact, job ‘prestige‘ typically comes from working for a globally recognized behemoth – (Think Goldman Sachs, GE, Microsoft, IBM etc) – it’s interesting to think that this concept did not exist a few decades ago.

Of course, why would you need multi nationals if your business typically did not exist beyond your locale?

What’s interesting is that today’s CEO’s and corporate workers owe the Dutch and Britishers for this concept. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Spanish and Portuguese led the race for the trade of spices, for discovery of new lands etc. The biggest issue then is the same as the biggest issue for a new venture now – Funding. The venture capitalists of those days were the royalty.

The Dutch and British changed this by taking advantage of a trend they noticed. They realized that one way of funding expeditions was to take small amounts of money from many instead of the traditional ‘big daddy funding‘ approach. So, it was not uncommon for a small businessman in those days to contribute a small amount to a new voyage in return for a share of the spices etc if the ship came back. The catch here is ‘IF‘ as the success rate was typically not too high (I’d estimate between 10-20%).

But, already, you can see the modern corporation and financial system evolving with the ship’s crew being the employees and the financial contributors being the key stakeholders. While the Dutch started the trend of forming a company (VOC – The Dutch East India Company), it was the Britishers who took this concept of investment to a whole new level.

Asking the ‘why‘ question often brings forth some very interesting insights, doesn’t it? :)

On clean fire trucks:

Bob, the CEO of a large multinational, used to pass by the local firestation on the way to work. He was always amazed as to how clean the firetrucks were. One Friday morning, he stopped and asked the head fireman as to why this was the case. ‘They clean between fires.’ -the head replied. ‘As this is typically a long period of time, the firetrucks are always clean!’

At that moment, Bob thought of his own organization and, in a flash, he realized why growth in his mammoth organization had stagnated. He realized that, while they were successful because they were extremely organized, they were not pushing the boundaries of what they could do. In essence, employees in his company were using their potential to keep things ‘clean’ while waiting for a crisis to act..

For this week, here’s a question for us to think about – Are we going through work, life etc as excellent firefighters? i.e. are we staying ‘clean‘, ‘neat‘ but never pushing the boundaries, and hence just falling into a ‘clean’ comfort zone?

Food for thought.. :)

—
Source: Small is the new big by Seth Godin

The Whale – a story..

‘If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around as she was thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you.

And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude. I pass this on to you, my friends, in the same spirit.’

—
Lovely! Thanks Miriam & Ankur! :)

How I (almost) never gave myself a chance – A struggle within..

I’ve been here on project in Oman for 2 weeks now. Every morning, our team gets together in our team room and starts the day with an energizer. I knew of this before I came and had a fair number of energizers in mind as well but I decided to give myself time to bed in.

5 days passed and a colleague mentioned that I should probably take lead and share a few energizers. And I found myself smiling in reply..

Again, another couple of days and she reminded me again. This time, I said ‘Sure – will do it!’

Here’s the background – I’ve lead more group energizers than I can count at seminars, for diverse groups etc but somehow, the thought of doing it in this new setting unnerved me. Maybe it was because the people involved here are way more senior, but I found myself having serious doubts.

Anyway, once I’d given my word, there was no taking it back. So, I had the energizer all ready and on the way to work, I found myself go through an incredible exchange. I could feel one part of me saying –
‘Hey, don’t bother. Let it be.. why would you want to take charge? What if they don’t like it? What if they laugh at your chance?’

‘What do you mean‘ – said a feebler voice ‘This is easy – and what’s the worst that can happen anyway? It’ll fail.. Pfft! Since, when have you been afraid of that?’

And gradually I could feel my ‘Don’t do it’ voice grow louder.

But right at that point, I remembered a line from ‘Small is the new big’ (by Seth Godin – a book I was reading then) where Seth asks us if we are allowing ourselves to be remarkable or are we letting ourselves off loose and just going with the flow!

And bam! The feebler voice grew strong all of a sudden and said ‘Let’s try to be remarkable. Even if we failed, so what! Atleast we would have tried’

And I walked in to the room, lead the energizer and all went smooth.
Was it perfect? No! Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Was it appreciated? Maybe..
But hey, I have dozens of new ideas of what could work with this group and I’ll make sure I try (till they stop me atleast.. haha).

Atleast I don’t feel like I denied myself a chance.I felt myself mentally saluting the ever insightful Nelson Mandela –
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

How true..

A 16 point list: It takes a bigger person to..

1) Accept somebody as they are..

2) Give advice only when asked.. (we have this need to be autobiographical..)

3) Let people we love go and be themselves..

4) Make sure feedback is always constructive..

5) To not let their 5 second judgments cloud reality..

6) To speak their mind but do so with tact..

7) To not embarrass somebody and make their ears go red in conversation or feedback..

8) To not cheat in a relationship..

9) To decide to settle a matter with open feedback rather than whisper behind backs..

10) To maintain grace, calm and positivity under pressure..

11) To be themselves even when granted considerable power..

12) To like themselves and not be on a constant mission to prove themselves..

13) To laugh at themselves, and not at others..

14) To accept and be comfortable with their past and not look at it as an aberration..

15) To not complain..

16) To live by their values, rather than talk about fighting for them..
—

I made this list as I’m going through this process of acceptance with myself. I am one of those incredibly boring people when it comes to not having a life. And I love the fact that I –

-> Like to laze in one place on weekends..
-> Don’t find hitting a night club/bar for a drink so much fun (And am very happy for those that do.. just that I love those who let me be even more)
-> Like reading books on leadership, entrepreneurship, life, wherever I go (Yes, the geek glasses are on..)
-> Love working on little initiatives like my blogs (and I’m immensely proud of them)..
-> Spend lot of time on strengthening relationships with family and friends, and keeping in touch with those who I don’t spend time with any more..
-> Sleep, eat and play a lot (and hope I will always keep the kid within alive..)
-> Typically end up working pretty hard and simple LOVE intellectual stimulation..
-> And of course, I love philosophizing about life, values and the like.

I am weird, yes, but who isn’t..

But I guess it’s accepting the first part of the above sentence that requires me to be the ‘bigger person‘. And hence the list is a reminder to myself that it’d be nice to be the bigger person once a while.. haha.