WorthvieW

Snippets from One of the most glaringly frank articles in the recent times by Magsasay Awardee Journalist P Sainath. (columnist in The Hindu).

“Issues today have to be dressed up in ways certified by the corporate media. They have to be justified not by their importance to the public but by their acceptability to the media, their owners and sponsors”

Every issue is now reduced to a fight between individuals, heroic, villainous or just fun figures. So the complex issues behind the shunning of Pakistani cricketers by the Indian Premier League are reduced to a fight between Shah Rukh Khan and Bal Thackeray. (As one television channel began its programme: “Shah Rukh stands tall. His message to the nation …”). The agonies of Bundelkhand are not about hunger and distress in our Tiger Economy. They are just a stand-off between Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati. The issues of language and migrations in Maharashtra are merely a battle between Rahul Gandhi and Uddhav Thackeray. And the coverage is all about who blinked first, who lost face.

The devastating rise in food prices (let’s skip the boring factors) and the mess in agriculture are a face-off between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. The pathetic squabble within the Samajwadi Party is virtually a television serial. A blow-by-blow account of Amar Singh’s valiant bid to retain his honour against Mulayam Singh’s yahoos. (Indeed, some Hindi channels have begun using the language of theatre to report it — Act II, Scene II. And there was one programme which Mr. Amar Singh ended humming verses from his favourite film song). The Bt brinjal story had mostly only one villain — Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. He had no visible adversary unless you pose the humble Brinjal as the hero. But that won’t work for television. The other, more sinister heroes in this media story preferred to function from behind the scenes, plying newspapers and channels with faked data and false information. Hell hath no fury like a powerful corporate scorned, as the Minister is learning.

Leave aside escaping a recession, India Shining is back. The cover story of a leading weekly gushes over the fantastic ‘rural resurgence’ that is, in fact, saving all of us. Farmers are doing just great. Drip, micro-sprinkler, and other micro irrigation, the stories in it suggest, played a major role in this hidden-from-the-human-eye revival. And the proliferation of such stories across the media spectrum reflects, in part, the strenuous media efforts of a major Maharashtra-based company. A corporate group that spends a fortune on propaganda and whose interests in this line of irrigation are pushed by some of the most powerful members of the Union Cabinet.

The main ‘rural resurgence’ story hit the stands the same day the National Crime Records Bureau officially brought the 2008 data for farm suicides on to its website. The 16,196 suicides that year brought the tally of farmers’ suicides since 1997 to 199,132. That’s the largest single, sustained wave of such suicides ever recorded in history — anywhere. Guess nobody told them about the resurgence. Farmers in 2008 did know of that year’s loan waiver, but it didn’t stop large numbers of them from taking their lives.

Whether it’s the Suresh Tendulkar committee, the BPL Expert Group, or earlier the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised sector, Or a U.N. study which reports that 34 million more Indians remained poor or joined their ranks in 2008 and 2009, because of the ‘slowdown.’ That is, 34 million more than would have met that fate prior to the 2008 crisis. It matters little if Census data show us that 8 million cultivators quit agriculture between just 1991 and 2001. (That is, on average, well over 2,000 a day, every day for 10 years.) Or that the 2011 Census just months from now will show us how many more have fled agriculture since then, un-seduced by the rural resurgence. Never mind the facts. One giant private irrigation company stands to make its already huge fortune bigger. Good for growth.

The ABC of Indian media roughly translates as Advertising, Bollywood and Corporate power. Some years ago, the ‘C’ would have been cricket, but that great sport is fast becoming a small cog in the large wheel of corporate profit. (In the IPL, the ABC of media converge, even merge.) And, of course, everything but everything, has to be bollywoodised. To now earn attention, issues have to be dressed up only in ways certified by the corporate media. They have to be justified not by their importance to the public but by their acceptability to the media, their owners and sponsors. The more entrenched that ABC gets, the greater the danger to the language of democracy the media so proudly claim to champion.

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul !

How do we inspire ourselves to greatness when nothing else is ready to inspire? Where do we get the confidence from ?

The other day I was watching the Australian open final between Murray and Federer. Match is in the final set, Murray was down for almost 3/4 of the match, he is out of confidence and nothing is going his way. Who will inspire him then ? The crowd cheering is not helping either. His team, coach, mother (he doesn’t have a girl friend yet it seems !) all look more tensed than himself.
What he got is himself, just himself, he must exceed his own expectations !
He has to fight for his inspiration all alone. Come’on !!!! Come’on … he shouted.
The game progressed and he was able to get a winner out of his best shots (forehand). That shot brought him back on the track. He conquered his confidence ! “Allow yourself to expect more of yourself “.
(Though he lost the game to Federer, it was in the end, not because of loss of confidence but of competence )

How do we inspire everyone around us : lead by example.
How do we inspire a team ? For this, I found a very emphatic line from one of the superb movies I watched in the recent times – Invictus.

“His people wanted a leader. He gave them a champion”

The movie was based on how Nelson Mandela and his life (including the 27 year imprisonment) has inspired the captian of the South African Rugby Team to win the Rugby World Cup 1995 ! A real time inspiration !! Truly is.
Mandela also shares with the captian of the team that a poem, Invictus, had been inspiring to him during his time in prison, helping him to
“stand when all he wanted to do was lie down”.

I was unable to contain my turbulent mind after watching the movie, googled up the bacground and got this :
“Invictus” is a short poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903). It was written in 1875 and first published in 1888[1] in Henley’s Book of Verses.

Invictus is the Latin for “Unconquered” !!
At the age of 12, Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. In 1867 he successfully passed the Oxford local examination as a senior student. In 1875 he wrote the “Invictus” poem from a hospital bed. Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until the age of 53.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

WorthvieW

The Western Electric company was giving its workers practically everything – the latest pension plans, sick and other benefits, recreational programmes, but still things were not going well. Somebody thought, office lighting had to something to do! The company engaged some research people to study the effect of lighting on production. The researchers selected two groups of operators. The first group was kept working under the old amount of light and the second group was given more light. With more light, output increased as expected. But surprisingly, the output of group first also went up! Group second was given less light to work while the output still went up and so did the other groups. Finally, they put two workers in a room without any light at all, working by sense of touch completely in the dark. Despite this handicap the workers kept up the increased output.

This was a puzzle!!!

Research workers experimented further, they isolated a study group of give women workers. For a year and a half, they checked the girl’s production under different conditions (its just work production! n nothing else ). The gilrs were given two five minutes’ rest periods, output went up. Two ten minutes’ rest periods, output went up still. Then 15 min and the girls were served a hot snack, the output was up again. The girls were let off half an hour earlier, still the output soared higher.  It remained on that high level when their weekly hours were cut from 48 to 40. As a test, the scientists restored the original conditions. The girls went back to time work, no rest periods no hot snack and 48 hrs a week, the result: output hit all time high.

A skilled statistician spent several years trying to relate variations in output with variations in physical circumstances of the five operators. The attempt to relate changes in physical conditions to variations in output resulted in not a single correlation of enough statistical significance to be recognized by any competent statistician as having any meaning. The investigators were forced to the conclusion that human situations are likely to be complex. The girls who were being experimented upon were not stones and they were unaware of the fact that they were being experimented upon. The attitude of the subject to the experiment is an important factor in determining the response to situation. The result led to the inevitable conclusion that whether or not a person is going to give his services whole heartedly to the group depends in good part on the way he feels about his job, his fellow-co workers and supervisors.

A new line of approach was therefore adopted. A few experimenters went in to the shops to talk to the workers and to get to know them. It was discovered that a person can talk about what is uppermost in the mind. Even the complaints were listened to carefully. Quite a few of the complaints were investigated and set right, but several times the experimenters did absolutely nothing about the object of the complaint, but, after the interview, curiously enough, the complaint disappered. They found that some people did not really want anything done about difficulties of which they are complaining.

“They just wanted an opportunity to talk about their troubles to a sympathetic listener. ”

This led to a further re-thinking on the subject. The notion of the economic man , man primarily motivated by economic interests was shaken. The conception of the worker was changed. The experiments indicated that the behavior of workers could not be understood apart from their feelings and sentiments. Secondly, it was found that sentiments were easily disguised. Thirdly, the manifestations of sentiments could not be understood as things in and by themselves, but only in terms of the total situation of person. (This doesn’t in any way be taken that i am not looking for a salary hike. Actually I’m desperate for it. Social situation isn’t it! )

Response to work, to a change depends on conditioning of the sentiments, the kind of human satisfaction he is deriving from his social participation with other workers and supervisors in the immediate work group of which he is a member and hence, the effect of the change on his customary interpersonal relations. The worker is not an isolated atomic individual. He is a member of a group. Within each of these groups, the individual has feelings and sentiments towards each other which bind them together in collaborative efforts. It was found that operating within this group were four basic sentiments: You should turn out too much work, if you are, you are a rate buster; you should not turn out too little work, if you are, you are a chiseller. You should not say anything to the supervisor which would react to the detriment of one of your associates. If you are,you are a squealer. You should not be too officious. If you are an inspector, you should not act like one. To be an accepted member of a group, a man has to act in accordance with these social standards.

The experiments further considered the possibility that differences in individual performances might be related to difference in abilities. They compared each workers’ relative rank in output with his relative rank in intelligence and dexterity as measured on certain tests. The results were interesting. The lowest producing in te room ranked first in intelligence and third in dexterity. The highest producing in the room was seventh in dexterity and lowest in intelligence. This did not seem to make sense.  The researchers thought there must be other factors which explained individual differences. They started studying the beliefs and creeds, their social codes and norms of behavior, the important social functions these groups perform , the history of these groups.

The important points these experiments summarized were: workers were not isolated and unrelated individuals. They are social animals and should be treated as such. It is further evident from the methods of handling them are still archaic. We must obtain a new understanding of human motivations and behavior in an organization. Each person is unique and brings to his job certain attitudes, benefits and ways of life as certain skills: technical, social and logical !

After seventy years of these experiments, the points still hold true. Perfectly true.

If you like this discussion, please let me know and I would discuss more on human work motivation and the impact of salary in my next post.

(Background information: Some studies were made in the Hawthorne plant, a manufacturing unit of the Western Electric Company at Chicago which itself was a part of the Bell telephone and Telegraph System with headquarters at Philadelphia, by a team from the Harward Business School under the leadership of Elton Mayo. The experiments were spread over a period of 16 yrs (19230-39) and are probably “the most famous consciously planned experiments in the history of social science to date.” )

Plan your Time, Write your mind:

This thinking came up to me when I sat down to see what all things happened in 2009 in my life. I was able to find some real good ‘highlights’ in my last year and overall I rate 2009 around 7/10. Pretty good rating huh ?! Apart from the highlights and few other very nice moments, I was with ‘unhealthy’ mind for some ‘valuable’ part of the year. Generally in our ‘overall’ ratings, this gets skipped.

When I look at the bad things that happened , I feel like changing. But there are somethings in this world that will never change !!
When I look at the good things that happened, I feel to have them this year, next year and everytime. But! Change it seems, is inherent in every system of the universe.
Contradicting myself, I ended up writing up my mind thinking it might help in making things clear. I don’t want to repeat the unhealthy time I had last year.

2010 is already 16 days old ! I missed giving a grand opening to the new year. Simply to speak, there is nothing much I did (literally nothing! and I don’t count office work as something I ‘did’) in the last two and half weeks. I am not talking of goals of life or productive work and anything like that. I am just talking of life and living life. And when we add goals, passions, ideals to this, definitely some time lost. The more we live, the more its getting deviated from what we want to do and what we end up doing.

When in the movie ‘3 idiots’ its shown that sometimes parents, education system or social conditions restrict in not allowing to do what we want in life,  We take it to be valid. But when we are totally out of all those and are ‘free’ to do anything, we are not faring any better!!!! Strange yet again!!!!

I donno how 2010 would turn out finally for me, but I want to not just spend my time, but earn my time while spending !  Unhealthy times are strictly prohibited.
I don’t mind not having a grand opening, but I do wish a good exit !

It sounds strange to ‘plan’ our life (life is not a insurance scheme to plan! ), but a year’s time can definitely be earned, if not planned.
Take life year by year. Make sure every year is filled with everything you want to see in your life. I am going to do that.
Fill it with friends, music, little work, little study, family, knowledge, wisdom, fun, love, cricket, 0 % sadness and 0% idleness.

Be passionate, run your life. Make 2010 a memorable number in your life. Give life a chance.

I don’t much like giving free advises but I do like to share my mind, given any takers. That’s Human ! Isn’t it ?
We want to see our shadows everywhere. If we can see ourselves and our reflections everywhere, how beautiful this world can be !!!

Do something not for the country, not for your brethren, but for yourself. Just yourself. They are never alone that are accompained with noble thoughts.

See yourself in everything. Feel it.

Does Software sucks? Being a manager is not so easy…

Yuck ! It might really suck. There are more sucking things than those though ! (See the previous post for more information !!)

Are we sucked up by the work ? or with too much work load ? or too much pressure ?
Ya…atleast some of these , to at least some of us.

So, if there is some work that is sucking up, there is someone on top who in the first place, gave us the work. The sucker is here !!

The most sucking thing that can happen is , when you are in loads of sucking work, your colleage comes to you and asks you, why are you looking sucked up ?!!?!

Bad words apart, when we say it sucks.. what doesnt suck ? Every job is like that. Every work is some way or the other tough. We just label few out of some repeatedly heard news or information, and hence the impression.

Neither the sucker who is here till now is not so bad. Being a manager is not so easy. “A manager cannot be nice to his direct reports”. He has to extract work, not in the way he wants, not in the way his direct reports do it , but in the way his manager wants it to be done ! So his manager sucks too !

This is just a heirarchy that causes the work load. Not the work itself. Not the manager himself.

Do we inherently dislike work ? May not be. I personally dont accept this at all. I want to love my work. Enjoy it , take the least pressure and before it gets to suck me, i wanna ’s/f’uck it.

It will be a great opportunity to manage people if you know how to not trouble the relations, and if you remember how you feel when you are in your direct reportees’ place.

Manager-Reportee relation is one beautiful ‘couple’, which if coupled with proper encouragement, a tap on the back for small and insignificant achievements and with freedom/time can make ‘dead’ lines invisible.

I wanna do research on this. Anyone interested in coming along?

For those of you, who didnt have any experience of this sucking, and just presuming that software industry sucks : you are honestly and seriously mistaken. Take a relook. Experience it yourself. Enjoy the enjoyment being a pink collared labour !

Note: edo mind dobbi rasindi andi idanta. Picha lite tesukondi ….

WorthvieW Team.