Egos & Limited perspectives !!!

I recently faced many situations where EGOS of various persons were involved. And I noticed one thing that people can be very silly due to their Egos. People get stuck only with a single stand because it feeds their egos. They do not want to see other side of the issue. They do not want to take a larger perspective and look at things with very limited perspectives.

In Organisational Behavior course we read about Sub-unit orientation. I thought this is because an unit in an organisation sees things from its perspective and hence misses larger perspective. But after my recent observations I think the main reason for sub-unit orientation is that people cant think beyond serving their Egos. They don't want to be defeated by accepting a different view point than that of their own. They do it even it they know what they are saying is illogical to a large extent.

If you see from Historical perspective it is the Ego of human that has driven progress of mankind to a large extent. However the same ego caused battles as big as "Mahabharata" which decimated whole civilizations. so effect of EGO is paradoxical in some sense. Some confuse EGO with Individualism which I think is a very gross mistake to do. I personally think that Individualism is key to development of any civilization but at the same time Egos if inflated can create havocs.

Well, from last some exchanges I understood that if you come across such a situation where inflated EGOs are involved, always be determined and make sure that you put your point forward. Give the person sometime to think beyond his ego and talk to him later again. There is a chance that person sees the other perspective also. This worked for me and I think can always work as an effective strategy in similar situations. :-)

busy times at XLRI

#I have had very hectic last few days and many more such days are awaiting me. Have been forced to use all sorts of methods to manage my time ( prioritization/avoiding work/slogging hard etc.) Still have not been able to focus of all the things. But I foresee good times ahead.

#I have also been completely out of touch with many friends and infact have not talked to some of them in last 4-5 months.

#Learned many things about myself and others during this period. That has been the best thing in these days.

# XLRI evenings & nights have become beautiful. A tree graced me with beautiful flowers today. felt like going back to Almora. I decided to buy a good Camera.

# Made some good friends in recent days. That is another good thing.

# A Friend of mine @ IIMB writing a book. waiting eagerly for the same.

Friends for ever

People do MBA for money, career goals, Intellectual stimulation and what not. But somethings those come along with all these things are friends. Its difficult to understand value of friends when they are around you. However when you know that they are about to leave you, sometimes heart says, No, Don't go away mate. You cared for me, you supported me. We shared joy and sorrow together. I never felt alone in your presence. How would I go further from here?? Time passes by and you make new friends. But it takes a lot of time and luck to find friends like old ones. People say life moves on. May be it does. but somethings can't be forgotten. A true friend stays for ever and friendship stays for ever. True friends stay for ever.

Eyes Closed

It is said that Outer world is a reflection of our inner world and our eyes create this veil in front of us which prevents us from seeing the reality. I closed my eyes and my last few days rolled over in front of me. Only that images were different. these images were originally hidden behind faces of people, sound of loud speaker and smile of our gatekeeper ( Bahadur Bhaiya). But Now I could see them. These were images of Hope, images of Happiness, images of Mental Strength, images of concern for others, images of Resolve. These images were shining bright. However there were other images also those of Smugness, irresponsibility. I opened my eyes and closed them again. Now there was only one image that I saw and that was Image of Hope. That is why I kept my eyes closed for some more moments !!! I felt relaxed.

My moment & your memories

You are not here but your memories definitely are
You can not be here but your memories definitely are
You will not be here but your memories definitely will be

It seems it is not you but some auxiliary verbs those troubling me here!!!

Impact of history on business

Our civilization has a huge history of conflicts. These conflicts have impacted our patterns of thinking in a huge way. For instance most theories of Strategic management are driven out of wars. Some people define strategy as the bottom-line behind actions of a firm to gain competitive advantage. However with globalization in most business scenarios today, defining competition for a firm itself is a huge task. This makes it very difficult to employ strategies which are driven by competition. Therefore the new era is era of blue-ocean strategies or developmental strategies. There is also a huge discussion going on these days about Cooperative strategies. Today only companies which are able to innovate and develop new businesses are able to create huge profits. If you take a list of fortune 500 companies and consider their growth rate on the basis of revenues, you can easily see that top 10 companies are the ones who are innovating very fast. The point that I am drive forward is that our history has impacted our patterns of thinking to a very large extent. Had it not been so, the business practices could have been very different from what they today are. So in this world of differentiation, a good strategy is to start with out any frame work or preconceived plan of action. Thinking afresh will help to be succeed in business today. You can see Google has done just that !!

@XL-4 (Republic day at XLRI)

Today I woke up at morning 8:30 and rushed in front of XLRI academic block for attending flag hoisting ceremony at 9:30 am. It is nice to see so many people attending this ceremony without any compulsion. There were professors, their families, students and working staff of XLRI. Today it was 61st Republic day for the country. The first song performed by Bodhitree( The official Band of XLRI) was " Aye Mere Vatan ke logon, Jaraa aankh mein bhar lo paanee, Jo shaheed huyein hai unkee, jaraa yaad karo kurbaani". The song asks us to remember all the freedom fighters of the country who donated their lives in the cause of freedom for the country. We are the young generation of our country and fortunately we have not seen any major debacle/insurgency in our country. We are MBA students and the biggest tragedies we remember are 2002 Dotcom burst or for that matter the recent economic recession. We are troubled by "Satyam Saga". We are one of the most genuine persons in the country who have worked enormously hard to make our ways to XLRI. But we have a tenderness in our approach. We have a fear against instability in our lives. Do we truly remember the sacrifice of people done by our freedom fighters. How many of us do understand the enormity of the cause that our forefathers took up or how many of us can feel even a fraction of pain that instigated them to donate their lives to freedom movement of India. I think our generation is well past that pain because if there was even a slight feeling of gratitude, respect to our freedom fighters, we the so called capable ones would have fought prevalent poverty, illiteracy, improper health care in our country. Each of us would have at least taken more responsibilities in our lives. I really believe that we have potential to become a great country but we need people who assume their all responsibilties and make it a point to fullfill them.