Why Write

(Reproduced verbatim from the 1st post on an old blog of mine - December 3, 2011)

Questioning leads to better understanding, greater wisdom and a better life. In fact, all of us owe our very survival to our own willingness and ability to question. Hence, it is fitting that I ask myself why I am here.

Here is why (I think) I want to write.

1. I love writing.
2. I have something of some meaning to say.
3. I believe I can write well - fairly well.
4. Hence I believe a fair share of the readers - myself included - would enjoy, derive some value from and appreciate my writing, and hence me. (Lessons learned from the past indicate that it does not demand a huge leap of faith to subscribe to this belief.)
5. I want to get better (and better) at all of the above.

And here is why I want to want to keep writing and why I want to keep wanting to write - in other (and simpler) words, why I think I should write and keep writing.

1. Because (I think) I want to write.
2. Writing demands a 'slowing down' - a departure from the otherwise turbulent disequilibrium that often characterizes my mind. Thus I hope it would compel me to observe and get in closer and deeper touch with the worlds inside as well as outside myself. I should promptly add that I am indebted primarily to two sources for pointing out to me the supreme importance of 'slowing down and observing' - i) my own (two) younger brothers whose meticulous, sensitive, empathetic, humble and careful approach to life and living has come to define a lot of what I am and ii) the great Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, whose central message in all of his talks is to 'slow down and observe', as pointed out by Fr. George Stephen (a priest known for his highly effective and practical spiritual 'retreats')  in the book "Be Fruitful". I would reflect more on the importance of this theme in my later posts.
3. Writing provides me a wonderful opportunity to thus immerse myself in and enjoy the beauty and goodness of the people who have touched me and thus also to proclaim and share this joy with you.
4. I think writing is a great and meaningful tool to influence minds - and indeed be influenced as well; it can be a rich and evolving learning experience.
5. I believe it would enable me to continually become more honest and humble.
6. I believe it would make me read (and reflect) more.

I do find other reasons that can be advanced to justify my desire to write. However, I have already run into the problem of not being able to present these reasons in a mutually exclusive (let alone collectively exhaustive) manner.

So, let me stop here - leaving what has been written imperfect, and the rest unsaid (and perfect!). I close with the hope that I find this journey to be a fruitful and enjoyable one - for me and hopefully for you as well in some small way.

Please do let me know if this humble post instills/strengthens your desire to start/keep writing.

Thank you for your time,

Your thoughts are most welcome,

God bless.

(Reproduced verbatim from the 1st post on an old blog of mine - December 3, 2011)

Discovering the purpose of one’s life

(Reproduced verbatim from a post on one of my old blogs - written on December 6, 2011)

Over the last few days, I was battling with what I believed to be a reasonably serious problem, though I did think  it was nevertheless a nice problem to have. Stated very simply and somewhat crudely, the problem that occupied my mind is that I did not have an answer to the following, very innocent and deceptively simple question:

“What should I do (in life)?”

I thought I would be much more at peace if and when I have a clear, convincing (to my inner self) and enduring answer to this question, which made me want to find the answer as soon as possible.

The quest to find an answer to the above question – which arguably many people face at some point in their lives – brought my attention to what is plausibly an even more fundamental question: 

“How does one figure out what one should do (in life)?”

In other words, I was wondering whether there could be a universally applicable “algorithm” or “process”, following which each individual could  arrive at his/her own specific and unique answer to the first question posed above.

It did not take me long to discover that I did not have an answer to the second (and to my mind a more fundamental) question either. I therefore considered it advisable to focus my energies on finding an answer to this question first, which would in turn guide me towards the answer to the first.

(A little more reflection now makes me realize that many, if not most, people would have found an answer to the first question without asking themselves the second question and/or without knowing the answer to the second question and/or even without asking themselves even the first question! They might just have come to “know” it – convincingly yet in a somewhat mystical manner. But alas, I seem not to have seen the answer yet. Or have I?)

Anyway, let us stay with the second question for the time being. The quest to answer this made me think about values and the value typology propounded by the social psychologist Milton Rockeach (the Rockeach Value Survey is a values classification instrument founded on this value typology). This typology consists of two sets of values, each set containing eighteen individual value items. One set, called terminal values, refers to desirable end states of existence. These are the goals a person would like to achieve during his/her lifetime. The other set, called instrumental values, refers to preferable modes of behaviour, or means of achieving the terminal values.

Coming back to our question (i.e., the second), I was wondering how one can incorporate this dichotomous value framework in coming up with a process to find an answer to the first question. Is there a conflict between terminal and instrumental values? If yes, should I give priority to my terminal or instrumental values?  Or is there a way of marrying the two seamlessly?

I went to bed yesterday, my mind occupied with and somewhat troubled by these decidedly nagging questions.

Before I proceed further, I should point out that I believe firmly in God (indeed, I need to continually make my belief firmer and stronger). I also believe that God has a plan for each one of us – a plan that is for our good, only for our good, for our individual as well as collective  good and a plan that is much more beautiful and better than what we can ever imagine. Hence I believe it is our sacred call to realize His vision of us by doing His will.

Ok, so I got up today morning with a fresh mind, and was not quite thinking about the questions mentioned above. And it turned out that I had an open conversation with my (two, younger) brothers about some matters that concern us as a family. During the conversation, one of my brothers highlighted the important distinction between career and life, which also made me recollect what my “General Psychology” Professor told us in one of his classes: that we should always remember that career is only a subset of life (one might add that it is only a proper subset).

This makes me wonder whether I was asking the wrong set of questions after all. Instead of asking “What should I do (in life)?”, should I rather be asking “Who should I be?” ? I wonder. I still wonder.

I find a lot of merit in trying to answer this question, rather than the earlier ones. For one, it seems a lot easier! Secondly, perhaps it would inevitably lead me to the former set of answers. Or would it?

I think it depends to a large extent on how much of the fulfillment we need in life we need to derive from work and hence how much meaningful our work should be.

Well, for now, let me close here. Will keep reflecting on these and sharing my thoughts with you.

Thank you for reading,

Welcoming your thoughts,

God bless.

(Reproduced verbatim from a post on one of my old blogs - written on December 6, 2011)

Postscript:

It has been close to five years since I wrote the above; the experiences and reflections of these years have led me to closer to my life's purpose. I will be sharing these soon. Meanwhile, here is one book I read (in 2012) which I would like to strongly recommend: How will you Measure your Life?

For the Seekers:

1. How to Read the 3 Signs Telling You Your Purpose in Life
2. 7 Strange Questions that help you find your life purpose
3. 3 Unexpected Ways to Find Your Life Purpose
4. How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes
5. How to Know Your Life Purpose in 5 Minutes: Adam Leipzig at TEDxMalibu

Should the Indian Bureaucracy Learn to Say No to "Yes Sir/Madam"?

Case I: It's all in the Name

August 2004. It was our first week at Oracle, a multinational software company. We were told that we were supposed to call everyone by name - the first name would suffice. No substitutes or suffixes such as Sir or Madam.

We were fresh out of university, and it was our first experience, working in an MNC. We could not accept it immediately; despite the instruction, we addressed some seniors as Sir and were promptly corrected 2-3 more times, before we adopted the cultural norm of the organization. And yes, having adopted it, we were quite happy and comfortable using it. We soon realized that there were no exceptions to the rule whatsoever; even the CEO (then Larry Ellison) used to be addressed as Larry, by everyone.

Case II: What's in a Name? It's all in the Rank

October 2014. It had been more than a year since I joined Indian Information Service, as a developmental storyteller (so to say), in Government of India. I happened to call someone senior to me in the organization as "Ms. Namita" (name changed). The "Ms" was rather feeble, duly compensated by the emphatic reply: I am your senior, you shall not call me Namita, you have to call me Ma'am.

(I have the highest regard for this senior lady officer; however, I am not disclosing her name, lest I happen to embarrass her. Though she does not need to be embarrassed, she was just trying to enforce a cultural norm).

Though I clarified that there was a Ms. which seem to have left unheard, the message was loud and clear. In fact, I was a fool to have been such a slow learner - of the Government culture.

Fast forward to July 2016. While speaking to a senior officer, I happened to refer to a Minister by her (full) name, raising a question mark not only in the officer's mind but also on his face. Well, I am a very slow learner indeed.

The Manifestations of Organizational Hierarchy

Why do you think Oracle and Government of India differ so much in this cultural norm? It is not because the latter is a more hierarchical organization (Oracle too is a hierarchical organization, though not as much as Government). I think it is rather because of the different ways in which hierarchy manifests itself in the daily work lives of their employees.

In Oracle, the hierarchy is manifested largely in functional ways - in reporting relationships; in other words, in facilitating distribution of tasks among various levels and in enforcing their completion. In Government too, the functional manifestation is a towering reality; however, unlike Oracle, in Government, what was designed arguably as a solely functional tool has come to have huge cultural and even social spillovers. Of course, the influence has been bidirectional - the social and cultural history of India has played a big role in both the origin and entrenchment of these spillovers. 

We can reflect on these externalities in another post; for the moment, let us focus on just the facet of Sir/Ma'am - an apparently small yet strongly emblematic example.

Sir/Ma'am: The Grammar of Indian Bureaucracy

It is my bet that a content analysis of the everyday conversations involving bureaucrats would assign a very big cloud to Sir/Ma'am. More spoken sentences than one would imagine tend to sport either Sir or Ma'am somewhere. And especially while giving explanations, the word tends to accompany even individual clauses. Further, Sir/Ma'am is a valid and oft-used sentence, in its own right. 

Now, the last part especially is something that disturbs me. Let me clarify.

The Slippery Slope: From Sir/Ma'am to Yes Sir/Ma'am and beyond

I hate being forced - culturally - to call all seniors as Sir/Ma'am. I would have preferred - and perhaps even loved! - to do it as per my own volition. However, I can tolerate this - I am tolerating it! But more than the personal discomfiture, I am disturbed by the apparent deleterious consequences of this cultural norm. 

Hypothesis: The cultural norm of Sir/Ma'am in the Indian bureaucracy leads to a significant increase in conformance and groupthink, thereby reducing the quality of executive decisions.

Note: In the absence of research backed by evidence, I am only advancing this as a hypothesis, not an assertion. Yes, but I do suspect that this holds, backed by anecdotal experiences.

Yes, the Sir/Ma'am is all too often Yes Sir/Ma'am. We pride ourselves on being the world's largest democracy; however, democracy seems to be in rather shortly supply (and demand) within the bureaucracy. Indeed, the system (technically) gives sufficient room for dissent. However, the organizational and cultural elements of the system tend to make people behave differently - for superiors to demand consent, and subordinates to supply it. 

Often, projects of grand scale that are guided not by the right motives are executed, because someone somewhere bent down to an unequivocal Yes. By adopting a cultural vocabulary that is prejudiced against alternate voices, the Indian bureaucracy seems to amplify the innate tendency of individuals and groups to dance to the voices of power - often scuttling organizational effectiveness. Even those superiors who venture to take decisions in a participatory fashion have to go to the extra mile to convince their team that No Sir/Ma'am is acceptable and even welcome.

Besides thus contributing to poor decision-making, the external projection of the Sir culture from within the organization to the societal sphere has contributed in increasing social distance between the public servant and the citizen. In our culture, we carry our professional identity everywhere - even outside work. Due to this, a Sir in bureaucracy often remains a Sir on the street as well - thereby influencing the power relation that would be established in the social sphere.

Sir/Ma'am: A Functional Necessity for the Indian Bureaucracy?

Despite the above, I am not quite arguing for an abandonment of this norm. Not yet. The norm cannot be viewed in isolation; a holistic approach needs to be taken. One that appreciates the vitality of this norm in sustaining the executive machinery of the Government, given the current situation.

In my assessment and experience, the Government system relies heavily on authority in eliciting organizational performance. It is a system that is sustained more by stick than by carrot. A private sector organization where individual progress is strongly dependent on performance would find it suitable to have an open and non-hierarchical culture. On the other hand, a system where variance in individual career progression is minimal would be more dependent on such soft forms of power.

Also, it is often said that the bureaucracy has been so designed to ensure stability. This putative bias towards continuity as opposed to change is also one factor which seems to favour the continuance of the Yes Sir/Ma'am culture. 

Though I believe that change is the only permanent thing, and that the Government too needs to innovate continuously (here is why), and should therefore look at institutionalizing continuous change and innovation, not eternal stability. Which is why I believe Yes Sir/Ma'am is an innovation killer in the Government (you can find many more killers here).

Postscript: My personal Sir/Ma'am policy

I do call seniors as Sir/Ma'am. However, this has no correlation with the respect I have for them. One may have the highest regard for someone and yet may call him by name; and one can call someone Sir/Ma'am, and yet give him nothing more than the basic respect one gives all human beings in general. (This is another issue I have with this culture; it concentrates more on show of respect, rather than respect itself).

And I have often encouraged my juniors to call me by name, to not regard me principally as a senior. But yes, it is often awkward to say this in our current culture, and many don't follow my advice anyway.

Your Thoughts

So, what do you think? Do you agree with my hypothesis? Is Yes Sir/Ma'am desirable? Or should we learn to say no to it? Requesting your invaluable views. Thank you.