Leaders eat first

It’s that time of the year when everyone starts resolving to make a resolution for the New Year. Most are clichés. Clichés that pretty much puts into perspective a surge in gym memberships after the binge drinking in December. Studies from various parts of the world report 8 out of the 10 people who sign up for gym memberships, stop by the end of January. I stand by the altar of the guilty as well. 

Last year, though, I shied away from a fitness resolution. Instead, I filed away two altogether different resolutions. The first, that I will practice meditation for at least a half hour every day. The second, that I will either meet one new person, or latch onto a new book every week.

I am happy to report that for all practical purposes, my resolutions stand executed. I do not intend to make any this year. Because there is much work to be done on these old ones.

December is as good a time as any to reflect on the learnings and outcomes that have emerged until now. With the benefit of hindsight, I think I know three things.

1. When confronted with silence, the head is a very noisy place.

2. Between listening deeply to people share their stories one-on-one, and reading from the pages of a book, listening beats what is embedded in books.

3. There are no bad people. Only circumstances. It is just that each person responds to fortune and adversity differently. That is what makes each one unique.

A caveat must be filed. The reason I stated upfront that “I think I know" is because these learnings are basis my perceptions so far. As that saying goes: “When the facts change, I change my mind." There is no consensus around who said it first.

Regardless of the mutability of facts, the things I’ve learned in conversations with the people who have earned my respect over the year are these.

The sky is blue

When it came to meditation, one of the first things I was told was to practice sitting in silence, meditate, and focus on just breathing in deeply, and exhaling completely, to the exclusion of everything else. When starting out, I was told to attempt the exercise for no longer than 10 minutes before progressing to longer periods. “Sounds ridiculously simple," a voice in the head suggested.

That this is extremely hard dawned on me only when the practice started. That was also when that phrase, “the mind is like a monkey" started to fall into perspective. It is the kind of creature that can tease, provoke, anger, amuse, infuse thoughts of all kinds—and do it all at once.

Over time, I could begin to see what those who are close to me have always told me—that I am a difficult person to be with. And that the demeanour I put on with those who don’t know me too well of being an easy-going bloke is a façade. In attempting to stay silent and focus on the breath, I could, for the first time, see myself in the third person and witness that I am indeed a difficult person.

My mind is constantly “chattering". It has an opinion about everything. I could hear myself talk and opine all the time—until even “me" started to get infuriated by the voices in my head. Can’t I just shut up?

Some conversations with an experienced practitioner of meditation offered pointers.

Such behaviour, it seems, is difficult for people who cannot deal with ambiguity. People like me need a clear line of sight on what must be done. But life does not offer such luxuries. It plays itself out. The best of plans can go awry. You adapt and go with the flow.

Those who insist on a clear line of sight are plain pig-headed and not cut out to be either chess-players or leaders. They can get cranky and are inevitably difficult to live with. To understand that better, I was asked to look up at the sky. There are days when it is cloudy. Then there are other days when it rains and dark clouds appear. But anyone who has been on an airplane knows that the clouds are only an obfuscation. And that once you cross the turbulence, there is a clear blue sky. Clouds, by its nature are transitory. It comes and goes with the wind.

Getting agitated then is an exercise in petulance if you implicitly understand that the sky is blue. All you need then is the patience to let the clouds pass, and develop a mental muscle memory not to do anything stupid when it gets overcast.

GyShiDo over perfection

I am, so to speak, frequently conflicted. On the one hand, I admire perfection and remain convinced nothing must go out until, as it were, that greatest of artists Michelangelo himself may approve of the perfection in it. Then on the other hand there is the idea of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) embedded in my head.

Personally, I can trace the roots of this conflict to my days when I used to report to a team of editors based out of Munich. When looked at from their West European eyes, they’d cluck their tongues in disapproval at the slightest hint of tardiness and convey their displeasure in no uncertain terms. They wanted perfection down to the last detail before the product could roll out.

Then on the other hand, my training as a business journalist, conversations with entrepreneurs of all kinds who make things happen at scale, getting hands dirty in a newsroom where deadlines are tight, and in attempting to take things off the ground, it suggests GyShiDo—a polite way to say, “Getting your shit done"—is the way to be.

Over the last year on the back of experience and multiple conversations, I now veer towards that view that perfection can wait. GyShido comes first.

By way of example, men like Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs are celebrated for their obsession for being perfectionists. But what is not spoken of much in the public domain is that Steve Jobs’ quest to find perfection also made him a jerk. He bullied people, was a control freak, and had no moral qualms about building a monolith by exploiting cheap Chinese labour. I am still to read Walter Issacson’s biography of Leonardo. But there is no taking away from the point that his quest for perfection made him a procrastinator and his worst enemy as well.

When looked at from that perspective, it is possible to argue that the quest for perfectionism is an ideal pursuit, and one that must be a lifelong one at that. But while at it, implement a minimum viable product that gets you off the ground. You iterate and fix things as you go along.

If any evidence of the viability of this process is needed, look no further than what is apparently the most evolved of all businesses: Software. Each time a new version is released, it is touted as an improvement over the previous one. Nobody complains. Instead, everyone complies and upgrades.

There will be naysayers and doomsday predictors of all kinds. Pay heed to their voices for all that it is worth. But at some point, you’ve got to take a call and roll with what you have. Ideologues talk from pulpits. People who make the world go around place a premium on GyShiDo.

There are no bad guys

Contrary to what popular narrative would have us believe, there is no such thing as “us" and “them". Only different ways of looking at the world. The world needs ideologues who stoke debates and the kinds who make things happen. Both are fiercely motivated and believe deeply in what they are invested in. So even if you subscribe to the GyShiDo manifesto, it would be outright stupid to dismiss ideologues.

Because at the end of the day, there is no getting away from the reality that perfection is an ideal state. And one must do all that it takes to get there. It is a journey. The issue on hand is, which path do you take to get there the fastest. That is where decisions must be taken.

But how do you choose? Which path do I take? I asked an entrepreneur who subscribes to GyShiDo even as he keeps track of where may perfection lie, how does he manage.

His answer was a simple one. He does not judge people. He only evaluates the idea. In doing that, he asks himself some questions.

1. If I adopt this suggestion, is the outcome reversible? 

2. If the outcome is reversible, how fast can a new iteration be created?

3. If the suggestion is irreversible, what may the possible outcomes be? 

4. How many people can potentially be impacted by a negative outcome? 

5. Does an option exist to an irreversible suggestion? 

The answers to these questions are ones he cannot obtain by consensus and in a democratic manner. It is his cross to carry. Whatever be the outcome of his decision, it is conveyed and executed. But his decisions have to be made in real time. People look up to him. To that extent, he is a very lonely man.

But to stay the course, he is also aware he must also perform at his peak potential at any given point in time. To do that, he needs some creature comforts. That includes right of way and an implicit mandate to eat before the others do.

This was first published in Mint on Sunday

On Writing

Writing is thinking, distilled.

Everyone has ideas that hit every other second. And ideas are a dime a dozen. But when those ideas are written down, gaps in thinking are exposed and as the idea through emerges on paper, tough questions stare at the writer. There is no running away from it.

A good writer use the many tools of the craft to can fool the world, but not for long. More importantly still, you cannot fool yourself. That is also why, writing is pure meditation as well.

Missionaries verus Mercenaries

Legend has it that once upon a time Picasso was sitting at a café and whiling his time away. Some versions of the story have it that he was at a bar. Be that as it may, a star struck fan spotted him and approached him with a request—could he make a quick sketch on a paper napkin for the admirer? 

Picasso acquiesced and in about a minute sketched a dove. The much-delighted fan could not believe what transpired and thanked the artist profusely. Picasso though growled and demanded a huge amount of money for the sketch. The admirer couldn’t believe the ask, looked stumped and insisted the demand is an impossible one. “It took just a minute to sketch the dove,” the man said.

In his thick Spanish accent, Picasso growled right back: “No, it took me 40 years.”

I was reminded of this story when a young man called me up. We had first met at a spiritual retreat in the middle of nowhere near Coimbatore. We couldn’t be more different from each other. 

He grew up in the Hindi heartland; I lived in Mumbai. He has a degree in computer science from one of India’s premier institutes and an MBA from an Ivy League college in the US. Even as his graduation certificate at B-School was being handed over, he was made an offer on campus by an American entity most people would give an arm and a leg to be a part of. By every which yardstick, he was living the dream. My slog continues.

But the both of us bonded for various reasons. The most prominent being that we were the only odd ones at the retreat used to uttering profanities in an otherwise serene environment. We wondered every once a while just how did we get there. The other things that kept us occupied included conspiring where to find masala chai and meat in a world where tulsi tea and vegetarian food were the staples. We have stayed in touch since. He had gotten used to calling me bhaiyya and I call him chotte bhai.

A few months ago, he called up with a question. An Indian conglomerate of significant repute had made him an offer. They wanted people like him to “come back home” that they may “build something of global consequence in India by Indians”.  He told me he liked the sound of the pitch and that the people who spoke to him sounded equally sincere. He wanted an opinion. 

I told him I have my biases and am not an expert on the domain he works in. Instead, I referred him to a few friends and suggested he speak to them in confidence. After hearing him out, one of them asked him an interesting question: “After factoring in for the I-want-to-do-something-for-my-country spiel, if the offer on hand does not match or exceed what you currently earn, would you still take it up?” 

It wasn’t the money that had got his attention, but the call to action for a larger purpose. And that the money while on the offer surpassed his current offering, it was not on his mind because the quality of life in the US where he then resided is higher than what any Indian city can possibly offer he said.

My friends reckoned the conglomerate was leading him up the garden path. And that this bloke wouldn’t bite if it weren’t for the money. They punted he would take up the assignment and that the relationship wouldn’t last long. Darned right they were on all counts. 

Back then, these veterans suggested this was the mind of an inexperienced mercenary at work. With the kind of money on offer, he could buy a lot more than the First World could offer him in terms of a lifestyle. “Patriotism” was his way of justifying the move back from the First World to himself and those around him. 

If he were to continue working in the US, it would take him a few years to earn privileges such as living in a gated community and moving around in rarefied circles of the kind only the uber-rich in the First World get to move in. Overnight, these would suddenly be accessible to him in India. His being an Indian resident would only be incidental.

But conglomerates don’t get to become conglomerates on the back of coincidence. They know exactly what levers to turn on and hunt mercenaries down. He took the offer up. And to live up to his part of the deal, got an A-team on board, sold them a dream, and all of them got down to work in earnest. After all, they had studied at the best places, had worked at global entities—on average for two odd years, and believed they had earned the right to live the kind of lives they now lived.

But when thought about deeply, had they? Would Picasso have growled for big monies when he was an apprentice? The thought crossed my mind when, much like the veterans predicted, the young man called earlier this week. He told me he was done with the conglomerate because their attitude was “unprofessional”. I heard him out. 

To cut a long story short, he asked for a favour. That he be introduced to a doyen from the industry who he was told is looking for a few bright people to start a new line of business. This bloke wanted to pitch to him. Emotion won over reason and in a moment of weakness, I gave in.

Having done that, I thought I’d hear from the young chap on what transpired. There was no word. Curiosity came over and I called the veteran to ask what happened. He told me in no uncertain terms the kid won’t go too far because his world view is a myopic one. It is dictated by discourses from a the past and the future. 

His past resides the arches of the institutions where he graduated from; as for the future, he is wedded in his head to dreams. And dreams are just that—dreams. It can be broken anytime. Does he have it in him to snap his fingers and wake up to the moment that he lives in now? Can he see reality and the world for what it is? Until he does not imbibe the present moment and learn from it, he will neither let go of his past and continue to dream about a fuzzy future that may or may not happen. He had a long way to go before he earns his place in the sun, the doyen told me. This, he added, is the kind of mercenary he can hire and fire at will from any part of the world. They’ll bite at anything for money and the attendant perks. 

I pushed him for some perspective and tried to reflect on what is it my grey-haired friends were punting on. Turns out the answers are simple. But difficult for the mercenaries to comprehend.

This young man is plain stupid. Getting to be top dog in Silicon Valley doesn’t happen on the back of merit alone as the movies or breathless narratives would have us believe. I haven’t met any of these people personally. But on the back of conversations with people who know them first hand and from documented accounts on how they conduct themselves, there is reason to believe the circumstances they live in and the kind of people they chose to be conspired to take them to where they are.

Let’s deconstruct one thing at a time and begin with the circumstances they live in. 

The circumstances

How entities operate in Silicon Valley is very different from how a conglomerate works in any other part of the world. To put that into perspective, those who graduate from the best institutions are weaned into a workforce early on with fancy salaries and perks that make sense in Silicon Valley. This is done with a reason. 

It is more economical to have an employee working and living on campus than some distance away. This is a practice that has been chiselled and honed over the years at entities like Google among others. The outcomes are measured down to minutiae like what impact does it have on creativity and productivity among other things. Turns out, at the end of the day, all of what is portrayed as fun places to work at in popular reports, are designed such that an individual’s personal and professional lives merge. It takes an enormous amount of mental muscle on part of an individual to see through this.

 Oftentimes though, this is overlooked, and it is seen as a culture that ought to be celebrated. That is why many countries, India included, have attempted to clone it. But cultures cannot be cloned. It evolves over time and at a certain place. It cannot happen outside of that place. 

 Consider China for instance. It tried to clone Silicon Valley. But there is only so much you can clone. After that you must innovate. For that matter, the culture that exists in Silicon Valley cannot exist in any other place than the geography that it is confined to a small corner of the US. Why? Because circumstances conspired to create a culture in that part of a large country where failure is not frowned upon. Instead, failure is looked upon as an opportunity to learn and according to the language used in Silicon Valley, the time to “pivot” or change track. This option does not exist anyplace else in the world—even in New York, the financial capital of the world, which provides a pipeline of funds that keeps Silicon Valley oiled. New York does not tolerate failure. The beast is a complex one and the nuances of it are lost. 

 The people

Then there are the people who populate this world and the leaders who lead them. There are two kinds of leaders—the missionaries and the mercenaries. While both can win wars, the worlds they live in are different ones. 

 Missionaries cannot be hired. Mercenaries can be. This is put into perspective on the back of a brilliant talk by Simon Sinek on Why Leaders Eat Last. This is where he drives home a powerful point.

 “Leadership is a choice. It is not a rank. I know many people at the senior most levels of organisations who are absolutely not leaders. They are authorities, and we do what they say because they have authority over us, but we would not follow them. And I know many people who are at the bottoms of organisations who have no authority and they are absolutely leaders, and this is because they have chosen to look after the person to the left of them, and they have chosen to look after the person to the right of them. This is what a leader is.”

 This leads me to believe that in the history of contemporary business, the ones who attract fanatical devotion from employees and customers hare missionary leaders. By all accounts, they are maniacs as well. But there is a purpose that drives them and it goes beyond money. The audacity to imagine they can change the world. Think of all the greats Silicon Valley has produced.

 Missionaries are acutely aware there are mercenaries as well out there who are as good as they are. The thin line that separates them though is that missionaries cannot be hired—mercenaries can be baited with monetary perks and the lure of gold. Like my young friend. 

 But mercenaries don’t know that and believe Silicon Valley is what it is and operates in a certain way. This is because they have been weaned on stories of entrepreneurs who’ve earned their billions while still in their twenties in Silicon Valley even as they started building their products when in college. The young ones think therefore it is an immutable truth that all can be had at once.

 What they are unwilling to acknowledge or understand is that every part of the world has its own nuance, demons and beasts to deal with. It is one that needs to be understood—and not looked at from the prism that is Hollywood. These blokes though don’t get it. Like the grey-haired folks with much wisdom have told me across multiple conversations over the years, an ecosystem exists between the financial capital of the world that is New York and Silicon Valley that conspires to groom the young ones who grow up in the West to build systems tailored for their worlds. 

 When shifted from the cocoon that is a premier campus in India to another one in the West, the young ones from markets like India imagine they have arrived. And when presented with an offer on the first day they graduate from B-School, they go over the moon. 

 But nothing can be farther than the truth. They have neither arrived nor have they earned their place yet. These are dumb mercenaries who will go anyplace for a few dollars more. They are rooted in a past as seen on the screen and imagine a future that is yet to unfold. The present is something they are totally tuned out of.  It is inevitable then that they be condemned to a life of unhappiness. 

 Picasso could sit there, sip his drink, watch the world go by, and sketch the way he could because he had spent an enormous amount of time practicing his craft in the past. He had moved on since then. He lived in the moment, was acutely aware of the grind he had gone through to get there and had no pretensions of what the future may hold. He had earned his right to demand the kind of obscene money he did. This young man hadn’t. 

Grown men don't cry

As is my norm, I woke up a little while ago. Around 4.00 am. It is a Wednesday morning. My two mugs of chai are ready and the sounds of silence are around. The silence will last a while longer. Grim news was conveyed to me by my friend and family physician around midday yesterday. “He’s got 72 hours on the outside.”

It was dad he was talking about.

The first time I had attempted to write about dad and him slipping away was when a stroke too him down. The prognosis sounded grim then as well and the physician attending to him the ICU sounded as unambiguous. But he survived — to put it bluntly, as a vegetable.

Since then, for all my philosophical differences with dad, it compelled me to step back and look at life from his perspective and the times he lived in. When looked at from there, I feel grateful for all of what he gave me.

Much water has passed under the bridge over these months. An ecosystem of sorts has come to breathe around this semi-comatose man who lingers in Bardo as articulated by the Tibetans, or in Purgatory as his Catholic faith defines it. I am no authority either in theology or on the medical condition and can be challenged. But in my limited understanding, this is where he now lies. I don’t intend to delve into the philosophical moorings here. But on the ecosystem that has grown around him. And how, like he would have, I have come to empathise with it.

Every morning, on the dot at 8.00am, the doorbell rings and a nurse walks in. Come hell or high water, festival or domestic problem, she’s there. My little girls are comfortable with her, and over time, she has grown to be fiercely protective about them.

She is now as much part of our home as any member of the family is. She spends most of her waking hours with us. She is the one who knows most about dad’s physical condition; the one mum has gotten used talking to most often because they are more or less of the same age; and perhaps share the same set of concerns.

When in doubt about what her son ought to do, she sends him to me. When in distress, she shares it in confidence with my wife.

Yesterday morning, though, I thought she looked troubled when she walked in and started on her routine of checking his vitals. She called my wife and me aside. “His time to go has come”, she told us quietly. I asked of her what is to be done next.

“Nothing," she said in the quiet Marathi we talk to each other in. “You can call the doctor if you want a second opinion.” That’s how my friend had gotten there.

But unlike dad who would have dropped everything else, I had other things playing on the mind. Such as calls to make for a story I had been obsessed about for a while. And other fine print to be pored over. Life, after all, must to go on and death is a part of it, a voice in the head said.

“Are you doing okay or in denial?” my wife asked a little later. This had to do with that a little before the nurse walked in, the attendant who spends his nights at home, from the time dad fell unwell, told me first thing in the morning on waking up was that dad’s time to go had come.

“And how do you know?" I asked him.

“I’m not a doctor," he told me. “But I’ve worked at a hospital all my life. And I know when a man is dying. He and I had gotten to bond over the months in an interesting way. The first thing I do when I wake up is brew the both of us chai. Two mugs for me. A small cup for him. He tells me I make lovely chai.

Each night, a little after the nurse leaves, he comes home to spend the night. Like her, he has become a part of this ecosystem.

My younger one waits for him because she likes what his wife cooks. And he makes it a point to bring a little portion of his dinner for her. It’s pretty much part of her daily routine and they seem to enjoy it.

Yesterday morning, though, things were different. He looked different. Even as I started my routine, he walked into the kitchen and, the devout Catholic that he is, asked me to call in the priest to administer the “Last Sacrament”. That’s what had triggered all this activity around.

I muttered “not again" and asked him if he’s up to a chai. “Whatever," he said. “But call the priest." A little after the nurse walked in, basis her observations and jottings, she confirmed the man’s prognosis.

One examing dad, how did the my friend, the doctor, conclude he has no more than 72 hours? Things certainly couldn’t be as clinical as he made it out to be. “He is now in coma. The pupils aren’t dilating in response to light. The urine output is negligible and the swollen body means his renal system has begun to fail. But he can’t feel pain."

“So what do I do now?”

“Stop all medications. His kidney’s cannot process anything, any more. Reduce his liquid feeds from 2,500ml to 2,000ml. Let the nurse take a call depending on what she thinks is right."

I eventually managed to connect with Dr Rajat Chauhan, a close friend. He put things in perspective: “It is a physician’s assessment basis his diagnosis and the statistical evidence that supports the diagnosis. He may be on or off the mark by some time. But accept it and move on." 

I got the point.

The way I look at it, the only person who needed to be cared for was mum. She needed to be prepared the fact that her spouse with whom she had spent all of her best years was on his way out. And it was best if my brother and I had a conversation with her. But I guess she intuitively knew. 

My wife told me later that the nurse attending to dad is the only earning member of her family. I’ve known that for a long time. But over the many months that she’s been the primary caregiver to dad, she had confessed how she has gotten emotionally attached to him and our family. 

So, in spite, of her economic compulsions, and in spite of knowing what medical evidence tells her, she does not intend to take up another assignment. It turns out that she needs time to get over her bonding with dad, my kids and her being part of what is my home. It isn’t only the money that keeps her going. 

For a man who starts his days at 4 am, 11 pm is a late hour. The eyes were beginning to droop. But my younger girl, who is now four and a half, wouldn’t let me be until we had shared our secrets for the day and exchanged notes. 

“Dada, can we take daddy (my girls call dad that) for a picnic when he is fine? Daddy looks so tired."

I didn’t know what to tell a girl as little as that daddy will never be fine again. 

The best answer the atheist in me could come up with was “Some angels want to take daddy for a picnic baby. So we’ll have to wait."

“Oh! Dada, can I talk to them? I’ll give them my chocolates if they let me be with daddy for some more time and take him out."

“They’ve been waiting for a long time baby. They’re friends of his, you know."

“Angels don’t like chocolates?"

“I don’t know. Maybe they do."

“I’ll give them my chocolates if they let daddy stay."

My eyes drooped as she snuggled close to me. For the first time I felt a tear run down my cheek. I wished I had spent more time with dad. The lines from a song I’d almost forgotten existed started to play in a loop someplace in the back of the head. 

I’m sittin’ here with my kids and my wife

And everything that I hold dear in my life

We say grace and thank the Lord

Got so much to be thankful for 

Then it’s up the stairs and off to bed and my little girl says 

“I haven’t had my story yet." 

And everything weighin’ on my mind disappears just like that 

When she lifts her head off her pillow and says, “I Love You Dad" 

I don’t know why they say grown men don’t cry 

I don’t know why they say grown men don’t cry

This is an abbreviated and modified version of a piece that was first published in Mint in October 2016

The cost of attention

A little under Rs 41 – that’s the average price for each hour of an Indian’s attention. But this is assuming the worst case that you’re way down the pecking order. The cost of attention multiplies exponentially as you go higher up the earning ladder.

If I have your attention now, just how did I get to this number is a question you ought to ask.

The most recent estimates have it that the average Indian earns Rs 1.27 lakh (Rs 127,000) per annum. That’s just about Rs 10,500 per month.

For the sake of an argument, and given the awful times we live in, assuming this average person must work 26 days each month, 10 hours every day, the price of the average person’s attention works to a little over Rs 40 for hour of work they put in.

Now, imagine for a moment that someone earns Rs 50,000 each month. The monetary value of their attention shoots up to about Rs 192 for each hour of work they engage in. This is basis the assumptions made earlier.

Do the math in your context and ask if you’d give part with such kind of monies away to anyone screaming, such as a telecaster or a cranky colleague who needs attention. Or, would you much make the case that you be paid more so you stay focused ?

If that math has begun to sunk in, and money isn’t a constraint or doesn’t play a big role in your life, here’s another way to look at things: Where would you much rather invest your time in that so that you get the highest ROI in terms of joy and fulfilment?

I cannot think of a more stronger case to stay focused.

Bach and Beethoven

It is plain impossible to remain unmoved by the St Matthew Passion composed by Johann Bach. This premiered on April 11, 1727, a Good Friday.

If there be another piece of music that evokes such emotion, it is Beethoven’s Concerto 5. When this made its debut, critics didn’t know what to make of it. This was music that broke the rules as they understood it. But Beethoven was ahead of their time.

We listen to their works, centuries after the composers have gone gone. We can’t stop listening to their works. The more we hear of what they created, the more apparent it becomes that much of what passes of as contemporary music sounds like rubbish.

Their music underscores a truth as well: Anything of consequence stands the test of time.