The Dream Team - Utzon and Columbus

I was inspired to write this blog when I visited Sydney Opera House recently. They have a beautiful tour within Sydney Opera house to explain the history and the making of Opera House, the story of how opera house came into being. A global competition was held for designing Opera house. Most reknowned architects and designers participated from all over the world. Most of the entries had shown a roomy, boxy conventional designs, except for a dutch architect Mr. Utzon, which eventually got selected and is standing near harbor bridge for us to see. We all know that the design is very distinctive, innovative etc etc. But what intrigued me was when Mr. Utzon sent this design it was just a sketch. They liked it but nobody knew for sure - including Mr. Utzon whether such a structure could be built. They just embarked on a dream project and eventually fulfilled the dream after several years of delay and several million dollars spent over budget. Mr. Utzon oversaw the project for a very long time but Sydney government had to relieve him of his duties as he could not get job done. Mr. Utzon, despite making such a great design, could never visit his dream project after its completion. The creator of the concept just remained a pure dreamer who could not even see his dream turned to reality because of his poor execution skills.

That reminded me of Columbus - the great for different reason altogether. He had a completely different skill set. He set out to find alternate route to India and accidentally landed in American continent near carribian islands. When he landed he did not know where he was, when he returned he could not explain where he had been. Till he died he believed that he had found an alternate route to Indian subcontinent. In short, he had absolutely no idea about where he has reached but he did complete 3 more voyages to America in next few years. Without knowing big picture he could achieve the same result under complex conditions with impeccable accuracy. Thats what I called implementation excellence.

Look around you. You will easily spot lots of Utzons and Columbuses. The Utzons may tell stories that look infeasible, may appear dreamy and may be easily written off as useless. Thats where the columbus should begin. he should strive hard to get that dream to reality. He may not understand the dream or appreciate the big picture but thats not his job. His job is to implement it without worrying about whether its doable or not.

We find scores of Utzons and Columbuses in any organization. Both of them may struggle to find their own space and succeed in the organization. Somehow, our modern organizations are built for people who are closer to the median on most organizational skills, not for people closer to extremes. Thats where the management skill is required to bring these two complimentary skills to gather and make the dream team. The team that has capability to dream the impossible and then bring to reality against all odds, again and again, the team that consists of Mr. Utzon and Mr. Columbus.

Managing the Career - Diet plan way

One of my friends recently underwent a detox­ cum ­weightloss program. His daily diet consisted of some pills that had measured and balanced nutrition with all the vitamins, proteins and carbs, he needed for the day. Technically, he could just pop those few pills and all his nutritional needs were met. He need not eat anything else for rest of the day for his nutritional needs. But diet plan consisting of pills won’t work as the stomach is not built to run on pills. Hunger strikes and then you got to eat certain volume of food. His diet program had a fiber jelly which just filled the stomach and did not have considerable nutrition. Thats how the balance in the diet was managed.

I thought our careers were no different. A balanced career should keep you gainfully occupied for the whole day and should pay you enough at the end of the month. Keeping gainfully occupied is similar to nutritional value provided by your diet and salary at the end of the month fills your stomach..literally.

But how many of us really have such careers?

Feeling underpaid and overworked is quite common and apparent. This is very similar to spotting a hungry person, quite straight forward. If you look around you would find many who are not happy with their salary. There are many who complain about the being overworked. It is quite easy to spot the problem and even correct the situation - just find yourselves a better paying job.

But there are many who are suffering in silence because they feel underutilized. Their pay might be good but the job does not challenge them enough or does not give them enough mental fodder to think about. The job is simply not challenging enough. It feels as if your brain is rusting. This is very similar to sufficient diet which is not nutritious enough.

Watch out ... have you fallen in this trap? Unfortunately, if you have then you have to go the diet­plan way. Separate feeling of being well utilized from feeling well paid. You deserve to have both. Push yourself in current job, get out of your comfort zone, volunteer for the new position nobody wants to take. If none of these is possible, look for something that will challenge you outside your workplace. Volunteer to run the charity donation drive, join support groups, mentor a budding entrepreneurs, teach some students... Make sure you feel well utilized.

You can easily spot imbalance in diet and join a plan to set it right. Balanced diet means enough quantity with sufficient nutrition. We should also look at our careers once in awhile and rebalance it. Like a balance diet, you should be well paid and also well utilized. There is no real choice.

Power of Restart

S**t happens. Projects get screwed up. Schedules go haywire. Your most trusted team member may vanish when you needed the most. Computers crash. The PO you wanted the most may not come despite all verbal assurances. Shipments get delayed.

What does it do to you? Well you feel overwhelmed or cheated or fooled or let down or infuriated or frustrated or all of these. The worst part is, it does not matter who screwed up, it is your job to set it right. You feel as if you are asked to move a mountain-sized debris with a mini-sized shovel. All problems appear larger than life, everything is equally urgent, no re-scheduling ever looks feasible.

What do you do in such a case? Well, Learn from Microsoft Windows. Most of Windows problems disappear on restart. Perhaps, our mind works the same way. Switch off, wait for sometime, ensure you have forgotten about the problem. Then approach the problem all over again.

You would have got your bearings back, your natural instincts would be much sharper. The the most powerful muscle in your body, the brain, would have got adjusted to the crisis and subconsciously would have worked a few things out. If the news about the crisis has spread and if there are any allies around you, they would be on their way with help.

It hasn't just worked for me but this a successful recipe of millions of Windows users worldwide. Restarting has miraculous effects. Try it!

Are you a dinosaur? How I wish...

Dinosaurs as a metaphor is quite popular in boardrooms and corporate corridors. It stands for something that is outdated, not able to keep up with the time or simply not advanced enough. Till recently I also used this metaphor at will without giving it a second thought.
Last night I was reading kids encyclopedia to my son. It had an interesting concept called world clock. The concept is quite simple, entire earth's history were to be converted to 24 hours. First signs of life arrived by midnight and it took 9 PM for the animal to appear on land. Dinosaurs ruled the earth from half past 9 PM to 11 PM. I was eager to read about human history. The entire human history is squeezed into last quarter of a second. Just compare quarter of a second to two long hours?
Isn't it amazing we humans who are walking on earth for just about 300,000 years call dinosaurs who ruled the earth for 135 million years a failure? They discovered flying long before we did, they stood on two legs long before we did, they went around the earth long before we did, still we call them failures just because they are not here.
There are many theories about why they were extinct. These theories vary from asteroids to volcanos to mammals eating their eggs. None of the theories mention that dinosaurs failed to adapt in any way. They were extinct because spike in external conditions, not because they failed to adapt.
Now look at humans. We appeared on earth clock half a second ago. In another infinitesimally small amount of time we have destroyed 50% of forest cover on the mother planet. We are plundering her resources like there is no tomorrow. It is our activities that is causing depletion of Ozone layer and global warming. Do we have what it takes to last 230 million years? If we are extinct before that it is not because of
Dinosaurs stayed on earth without destroying it. Human race would be better off learning from them how they could do it...rather than calling them a failure.
There are many set beliefs around us going around unquestioned, unchallenged. Look around, think, challenge them once in awhile. There may be big learnings from what we conventionally considered as failures.

Right Story - Wrong Conclusions!

It was bedtime for my son and following usual routine I was reading him some stories. Today we picked Aesop fables - The hare and the tortoise.
The hare was very proud that he was the fastest. The tortoise challenged him. The race started and the the hare sprinted on the race track as the tortoise slowly prodded along. The hare had almost reached when he thought of taking some rest and he slept. The tortoise slowly continued and reached the finishing line as the hare kept sleeping. The hare woke up and realized he had lost the race.
Moral : slow and steady wins the race!

My son was asleep but I was wide awake! I am sure most of us have grown up reading this story and believing the moral without questioning it. However, today I was thinking about it afresh. I looked around me in the office. None of the winners were slow and steady. And those who were slow and steady did not win every time.

I started analyzing the story dispassionately. Well, the tortoise did not really have any strategy at all. He was relying on his competition to make some mistake. He was plain and simple lucky to pull off an upset win. His success was flash in the pan, not really a sustained strategy. What would happen if the hare challenged the tortoise again? What are the chances the hare would make the same mistake again? What are the chances he would ever sleep during the race?

In the corporate world, when we are competing against other value chains, organizations, departments, teams or even individual we need strategies that would give us sustained advantage. Knowledge and wisdom is freely available in todays world. We must try to become the hare who does not sleep. He has far higher chances of winning over the tortoise. But what if you are the tortoise competing with the hare in today's world?

What should the tortoise do then? How does he compete? Does he have any chance at all? Well, yes. The tortoise has to plan his strategy based on the assumption that the hare will not sleep. The tortoises's success will depend on how well he can play to his strength. He can't run faster but can certainly swim faster. His success depends on whether he can find a short cut through water that takes him to finishing before the sprinting hare.

A strategically thinking tortoise who plays to his strength has a far higher chances of winning than a slow and steady tortoise in today's world.