How frank should our leaders be?

Last night I read Mohinish Sinha's article on leadership. It talks about a situation where leaders dont either see the bad picture (due to their own rosy glasses) or dont want to let it out in the open lest everyone else comes to know of it. He says "...Leaders, whose self concept is brittle, hesitate to call the truths lest they will be found out. ..."

However, as I see it, there is another side of the story. As he writes in the preceding line, " Organisations tend to mimic the behaviors of the leaders at the top." So a leader might want to shield the bad news from the employees - just to keep them motivated. This, however noble it appears, is not without its flaws. A leader has to be able to see the whole picture, and know the short-comings well. So even if the bad news is not let out in the open, it has to be dealt with - firmly.

HBS too had a similar article/ opinion poll sometime back. They talk about the National leaders during times of crisis. The question posed is if or how frank or deceptive should the leaders be during crisis. The leader showing negative sentiments is not a good sign and it tends to reduce the general morale. However no one wants a leader who lives in a cocoon of self-deception and believes that everything is fine.

As is reported elsewhere, about 70% communication happens via non-verbal means. So the self-deceptive will come out as more natural and more convincing while the one who understands realty will show some signs of distress. But human brain is pretty good at understanding cues from fellow human beings. We can understand if someone is in a slight distress and still very optimistic. Most people would trust such a person more than someone who shows no signs of crisis.

Irony - as (or do ) we understand it

I had heard this classical hindi song called "पानी में मीन प्यासी | मोहे सुन सुन आवत हांसी ||..." - when I was kid - when translated to English, it reads "I find it really funny that the fish feels thirsty despite being in water..." . It somehow surfaced from my subconscious to the 'everyday-mind' a few days back. And from there on, I could always recognise some irony that reminded me of the song.

The fact is that we are so obsessed with our own understanding of the world and its accompanying prejudices that we tend to ignore/discredit things that do not fit into our instinctive model. Like the other day, I was talking with my friends about the potential for extra-terrestrial life - and almost everyone seemed to believe that they will need an organic photosynthesis (or its sillicon analogous compound). But why cant it be that case that they derive their energy not from a external sun- but from its core itself. We tend to ignore this possibility simply because we assume that life will not be sustainable at those temperatures. When I first proposed this, the audience was startled and started rubbishing it even without thinking. Then when we discussed it with some cool head, it turns out that everyone was convinced that it could indeed be the case. This is a classic case of prejudices blocking our vision.

In a general case, just because others covet a particular thing, it does not mean that the person having it will find it of any or much use. A typical case would be that of abundance - if someone has more money than what he/she finds sufficient, any incremental money has very little potential for making the person happy. Same could be the case with the protagonist fish in the afore mentioned song. Its our own inability to judge the drive of others that induces laughter at the situation - so in a way we are mocking ourselves.

I am elated

Tulir - a NGO - (with whom I have been associated with for more than a year now) just received a mail from a guy(gal) saying that he(she) saw my blog through the Microsoft Student partner (MSP) link and that he(she) was really touched by my previous post on Tulir.

Further he(she) wants to work with this team to help in eliminating child sexual abuse. It feels really good if one gets even a single person to help in a cause you believe in.

Here is an excerpt from the mail:
"...when i read a blog by a student from IIT -madras called ankit ashok who had mentioned about an NGO where he was working and thought it was something i found was a real social problem and have been wanting to do something about it, but did not know how to go about and realised that i could really do something about this problem if i was a part of your organisation."

Boy, I hope more people will get interested in eradicating this social evil.

Source of motivation

Watched "Slum dog Millionaire" last night. and have not stopped thinking about it.
A wonderful movie - none of the actors overshadowed a 10/10 script. And the best part about the movie - the guy never forgets his childhood love, and tries to get her time and again: despite all odds. All this while there was not once that they professed love towards each other. Like the instance when he had to fight his elder brother to try to elope with the girl. And the girl willing to sacrifice for the sake of the boy.

The story got me thinking, what motivated the protagonist to do all that he did. For that matter, what drives a person to attempt world defying feats? what makes a man try things that none else would imagine doing? Assuming everyone to be rational, a person will venture into such a thing only if he/she finds the potential rewards to be greater than the value of the effort required. The only way this could happen with a consistent valuation is that he/she sees a potential that others don't. It requires a vision to be able to spot an opportunity when its not evident. Also it needs courage to try out new things, may be the fact that they trust themselves when they do so makes them successful. Ancient Chinese script, Tao Te Ching says - Love gives the ability to be brave. In this context, its the love for the winning that gives them the ability to attempt things unprecedented.

Lets look at various motivational techniques people use:
For a few people, its easier to stay focused if they have something to look for, like Clearing IIT-JEE, Clearing CAT, designing a novel pump, building a world class organization.

But if a persons' aspirations, dreams are limited to falling into the arms of some other person: I don't see how that can drive him/her. Probably I am ignorant of the ways love works.


As I am pretty sure, you must have observed: The journey towards the goal is often more fun filled than the destination itself. That is what drove the founders of now world leading companies - continual improvement. Once establishing the organisation was complete, they could have gone to cool off their heels. But they did not - they toiled hard, to improve, even if by just a tiny bit. That's what made them great.

Its the determination and perseverance that gave them a reason to work. And when a quantifiable goal is cut-out, motivation comes naturally.

But is the challenging work, the only motivating factor for us? Apparently no. As documented so well in numerous Bollywood scripts and romantic novels, "LOVE" triumphs all when it comes to motivating the protagonists. Apart from that, (I risk being politically incorrect when I write this, but what the hell !), money that one makes while working is also a huge (de)motivating influence.
Probably its to do with personal priorities. Different people are driven by different things and its the valuation of the work-love-money mix against one's own standards is what determines the motivation level.

PS - While writing the "Different people are driven by different things..", I could not help recalling the lovely Obelix from the Asterix series who cared for nothing more than a sumptuous meal of wild boars. Well now You know why I named this blog "Foodological".

The Selfish gene - a treatise on logic building

I read this book "THE SELFISH GENE" by Richard Dawkins - first released in 1976 . An engrossing read.

In the book, The Author proposes that the fundamental level that Darwinian selection takes place is at the gene level. Then he goes on to provide examples that support his views.
Further he ventures into fields that seem anomalous as seen from the individual selection but fir perfectly into the gene selection framework.

For me the most interesting aspect of the book (I am sure the ones with better knowledge of biology can find other things more insightful, so please do keep in mind that its the opinion of an out and out mathematical bent analysis guy) was the fact that he introduced a new concept, applied it from the first principles to begin with - and then gradually built levels of abstraction - individuals and communities. This was done noting the areas the abstraction is likely to fail, and the beauty of all this is that once he has described a situation , one IMMEDIATELY knows if the abstraction level will fail or not.

If anyone ever had the (outrageous) notion that biology cant incorporate logic, I recommend this book greatly. The way the logic is developed, It could well have been a book on practical logic building. Its just that the author was interested in biology that he chose to write on this.


Warning- Chapters 8 and 9 of this book should not be read by kids. I, despite being an adult of 20 - pursuing engineering - felt uneasy while reading those chapters. In these chapters, Dawknis applies his selfish gene concept to humans. And deeply committed to our families, as we are, we find it difficult to digest all that he has to say. His analysis should hold good for uncivilized nomads - but he has not taken into account society and its effects and hence I dont think his analysis hold good in this case.

Overreliance on models

As humans, we tend to have a desire to explain everything. If something does not fit our previous model, we create a new model to fit the new data into it. We need a model to explain everything. We learn, and let our models grow- enriching our knowledge and understanding of the world.

So far, so good. but the centuries of (implicit) model fitting has demeaned our ability to account for completely unforeseen possibilities. As Nassim Taleb puts it in "The black swan", we restrict our views to our imagination. And most people cant imagine things that contrast with the existing model, yet dont have any fundamental reasons for not being true. We often overlook the limitations of the model and believe it to be an accurate representation of the world.

Like the black swan itself, until the black swan was discovered by the Europeans in Australia in 1606, it was believed that swans could only be white. It was then that people realised that there is no limitation in the model of the swans that predicts the existence of white swans only.

We do a lot of implicit model fitting - "this female is pretty"- this indication is generated after the brain takes in sensory data, and fits it to the idol, finds the matching coefficient and produces a result in the form describable to other humans. Likewise, A lion on the look for a prey would glance at the herd of deers and decide to eat one particular deer - he does this after analysing the deer's features and size, and computes the expected benefit - cost . The lion finally will pursue the deer with the largest positive gain. This is again arrived at by implicit model fitting. These models can be created by two methods - by interaction with the surroundings, and through the hard-wiring of the genes. In fact, as I look at it, genes provide only the basic framework for the decisions. All the models are designed to meet the guidelines outlined by the genes. I am not aware of any study that tested an animal's reaction when its newborn was subjected to environmental learning that contrasted with its native learning environment. Maybe any of my readers could help me in this.

But the essential part to be kept in mind while using models are, that well they are models after all. Models are meant to take into account most of the available data and predict the outcome - with a certain degree of accuracy. These CAN NOT predict the future. Once we get used to the idea that our mind uses models (most probably more sophisticated NNs(Neural Networks) than any ANN(Artificial Neural Network) in use today) to predict outcomes, and that models CAN go wrong - then we can be in better control of things.

Is the wired touch more important than the human touch?

Increasingly it is becoming more important to be "connected" than actually talking and touching people. We feel being under a compulsion to check mails, poke on Facebook, and look for any scraps left for us on Orkut. Amidst all this "being connected" mania, we tend to overlook the real connectivity - face to face.

All communication systems are designed keeping in mind the people who are expected to use the technology. The driving factor for all the social networking sites, video conferencing techniques (that reminds me of a wonderful 3D hologram projection technique) - is that people want to feel as close to the person talking/chatting with as a person sitting next door. But somehow, this net addiction has got on to us. We have more interaction with people on the net than in real life


Net is a great facilitator for contact with other humans. But, the difference between real people than their virtual persona has become so blurred that we tend to overlook the difference. It all boils down to this, do we have a virtual life because we have a real life ?or vice-versa?

Ways of market endorsement

Every time you buy something, you endorse the way the company does its business.

When we buy a product or service from a particular company, we are promoting the company, its policies, its business model, its work culture - everything. As long as a company is doing good, (by good I mean achieving its target sales and revenue) it wont feel the need to drastically change its model. Ultimately, its the signals from the market that the company responds to.

Of course its products will follow its own life cycle, question marks will turn into stars, if proper sales push is effected. The cash cows will remain so until competition forces pushes it to the dogs status.

As long as there is high growth in a particular segment and the company is having a high market share, the company will never change its policies. Let's say, if the company is heavy on environment pollution, but its products do not find any difficulty in the market, it wont bother much about self regulating the pollution. But once customers start drifting away from the company, then the company will need to change its stance. It will try to bring in regulation and more efficiency, so that its products can regain lost ground.

Likewise,let's say a chip manufacturer brings in faster chips but with poor power dissipation. That is, the comp would get heated up easily.If people are willing to live with the higher heat, the company will continue trying to produce faster chips without caring much about the heat dissipation systems. But once the customers find the heat too annoying or the increased speed not worth bearing with the heat or an alternative product that generates lesser heat, the company will feel the impact (Or if their market research people are savvy enough, and see it coming) and they will devote more effort towards reducing the heat.

Markets are the deciding factor for all business decisions.As long as it keeps the markets happy , the company is doing good.