New Delhi has scarcely succeeded in bothering the analytical musty corner of my brain. Something must be wrong with musty; Delhi has inspired many a writer, poet, painter, conqueror, diplomat, statesman and businessman to try the untried and reach the unfathomable. College students, I remember you too. But, I never liked college much, so I remembered to forget you. Oh, so New Delhi this time focused its cacophony and disorderliness towards me. It was a seminar, maybe a lecture; I think it was a conference, to discuss ‘leadership’.
Wow! I thought. Not another one! Ever since I fell prey to the worldly trap of following a ‘profession’ that I may or may not profess, just to earn money, just to be one of everyone else, who were also prey to the same trap, ‘leadership’ had been introduced, induced, taught, re-taught, revised and engrained... everything short of forcing the centuries old rules down my throat with a toilet pump. Then the enlightened masters would look at you with a tired smile, a bent back, drooping shoulders, drawn and dull eyes and say ‘lead from the front, lead by example’. Pride and happiness would overwhelm, pride of having learnt the importance and the art of ‘leading by example’ and happiness of the ordeal being over. The uninspiring man at the street who decided to run the traffic light was repulsive, how could he ever lead from front or by example I thought; such losers. His Honda CR-V was impressive though.
Next day I wanted to receive the ‘lead from front, lead by example’ professor myself. He drove in. His Honda CR-V was not impressive anymore. I wanted to take over the stage myself that day. Civic sense needed more emphasis than leadership in our nation, I thought. Then I saw the newspaper, the suave girl next to me was holding. She seemed perfect, beautiful hair, big green eyes, a nice business suit, tall and slim, lovely hands. The hands then went inside the newspaper and out came a local ‘deep-old-oil-fried’ snack and flew straight down her food pipe. The perfection vanished sooner than it had dawned. Civic sense was a bridge still too far. The newspaper bag landed at my shoes. People who had better civic sense would crumple it at least. But the littering looked better if left un-crumpled. Some political leaders had been arrested by the police for embezzlement of public funds, murder, sabotage and extortion; the newspaper said. The names of the leaders were smudged with stale oil. Their statements were still oil free... “even Mahatma Gandhi went to jail many times”. “Leaders do not demand respect or following, they earn these with their inspirational presence and actions”, Mr. Honda CR-V was ranting away. What a waste of eloquence. Leadership for sure was smudged with oil.
After the enlightening two day seminar on leadership, the undiscovered leader within me arose from slumber, and landed at Cha-bar. Cha-bar happens to be my favorite hang-out place at New Delhi. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s a coffee house-cum-book store in Westminister’s building at Barakhamba Road. The hunt began. Next four days were lost in searching everything available on leadership in the book store. At the end of day two, Tina, the owner, had realized my agony and led me straight to the section marked ‘Leadership’. I immediately asked her for the section marked ‘Common Sense’, there was none. She smiled the perfect smile, lovely black hair, a beautiful pink dress... I didn’t want to notice more. I had become wary of oil soiled newspaper bags.
The leadership section was resplendent with all variety of leaderships. Spiritual, political, emotional, corporate, military... Tina was happy. She knew this meant lot of business for her; like always. I wasn’t, I was nearly broke. New Delhi has that effect on people. Next couple of days, hence, were spent having every variety of iced tea and cold coffee Cha-bar could offer and going through the astoundingly unimaginative, un-inspirational and de-motivating prose I had encountered. Tina didn’t mind my reading the books and not buying them. ‘Being a leader is boring’, was my first inference. If learning about the process was such a drag, how could anyone fathom its implementation? I was already shedding tears of sympathy for the millions on whom these principles would be applied; I think experimented. These lowly worker class employees, the scum of the earth, were like guinea pigs on whom the researchers; their managers and leaders, would carry out trials of leadership, using formulae formulated immediately after the big bang millenniums ago.
People had thought of everything about leadership. Right from motivation, leading by example, leading by hanging the carrot of ‘success’ on the stick of meeting deadlines and delivering the targets. Leadership was losing its charm in a jiffy and so was the motivation to meet goal for ‘leaders’. The book failed to inspire. It was promptly thrown back from where it emerged. Another iced tea rekindled the curiosity. ‘Spiritual Leadership’, I thought the novelty would keep my mind engaged. Lessons from the Bhagvad Gita, where lord Krishna motivated or inspired or talked the unwilling Pandav prince Arjun into fighting a battle were intoxicating. Lead by awakening the sense of ‘non-doership’, of karma, of faith in the highest power, of just being an instrument of the universal will. The concept was admirable, intriguing as well. I could imagine being the perfect leader. Of leading everyone I was expected to lead, to unscaled heights of glory and selflessness, to the ever so evasive goal where they would sacrifice themselves for the organizational good. It happened! There I was, inspiring my team to stand and deliver, because they were just God’s instruments of manifesting what needed to be manifested. Motivating them to hold on, push on, when nothing in them was left, except the will to hold on and push on. “Coffee?”, Tina woke me up. The leader and the led dissolved. The rich, enterprising and beautiful book store owner had just asked me out on a date! Who had the time for leadership, I thought. I hadn’t finished rubbing my eyes, the coffee was there. Some date!! Just a shop owner doing business. Spiritual leadership was not my cup of coffee..tea, either.
I should have been reading a book on dating. There were many. Leadership won with a small mental struggle though. Why can’t we ever think from our hearts? Mind was a better leader, so leadership was the winner. ‘Practical Leadership’. This was it. I love practical. The two hundred page gibberish had a twenty word gist. “Suck up to the right guy, crush the competition and be a star manipulator so that your slightest inch forward seemed a greater leadership miracle than this creation itself.” Great! I thought. Down the sewage drain went my aspirations to assimilate leadership. If one had to strangulate ones conscience and fool the world and ones team into thinking that you are successful and a follow-able leader, the book would have replaced the Bible as the most sacred around. The despicable Americans, I thought. The author turned out to be an Indian. Hail America!
‘Rommel : Desert Leader’. Ah! How dumb I had been. Of course, what other than military leadership could be profound? They had taught the world the concept of leading men, to victories, to triumph, to death. The book managed to dilate my pupils. But was Rommel’s success an effect of his leadership or was his leadership a result of his success? I scratched my head. I needed a haircut. I was looking for lessons I could use. There were too many, too confusing, too verbose, too unconvincing. If I had to win the respect of the command, it was still not a guarantee that they would follow every direction, what was the need to ‘enforce’ discipline and obedience if respect was already won? Is leadership just about commanding respect or just about ‘enforcing’ compliance or both? How can I enforce compliance? Isn’t it ironic? Where did I pick up this book from? It was replaced irrespective.
My mind went numb. Too much reading for one day it had been. The exotic cars speeding into the dusk on the road were a pleasant change from static black letters on white pages. I knew for sure, leadership was boring and being led was worse. I kept gazing out of the fifth floor windows. The sight was monotonous. All kinds of vehicles speeding to a traffic signal, then waiting for it to turn green; then speeding again to the next one. I didn’t move a muscle for an hour. I don’t remember what went through my mind in that one hour. But I was awake, watching the traffic.
Day four was no longer fun or curiosity. It was a tired man’s stubbornness to find answers to unknown questions. Tina was on leave. That didn’t help. Some more leadership books flew from under my eyes. There were numerous methods and approaches that were discussed. These boiled down to either exploiting the ambitions of promotions, better pay or better reports to motivate the work force. The carrot and stick approach where you pat the back of one who ignores his personal life, health and his kids to work like a bulldozer and boot the ones who chose to go easy for reasons whose merit could never be greater than meeting the deadlines. The healthy competition nonsense, where you pitch different players against each other to meet deadlines and deliver the goods. Invariably this ends up in filthy politics and waste of energy and time. As such, the novelty of the game wears off too soon. Management gurus had also cooked up a theory where establishing a personal rapport with the led could rare them to go. Some thought that making them identify with a higher common goal could also give them the drive to deliver. Leading with an iron fist as in most armed forces was autocracy by my standards not leadership. Day four was over.
Even before having gone through this monumental mountain of words, I had had the opportunity to apply many of these, age old principles. Some, I applied after my Cha-bar adventure. But there was one commonality in all these approaches, principles or methods; none of them were effective. They failed because this was 2010, I couldn’t superimpose five hundred year old templates on today’s work force. The work force which is so much more aware, so much more ambitious, so much more vibrant with eagerness to contribute meaningfully, so much more immune to emotions that inspiring them is like putting life in machines. We are so much more goal oriented, so much more lazy, and so much more dependant on technology that human values and spirit to win have scanty influence over us. We are so much more monetarily oriented, so much more materialistic than older generations. This was something that was realized but comprehended in an erroneous manner. The interpretation of all these changes was simple, ‘Huge pay’. It works most places. But this is not leadership, it’s a bribe. What works?
The greatest quality of a leader is to diffuse tension, stress, pressure and anxiety. There are no rules that can ensure this. No particular set of orders or directions that can guarantee this. It’s possible only if the leader has the attitude to see the bigger picture, to realize that there is so much more to a person’s life than meeting deadlines for his boss, to know that the most efficient employee will be the one who is happiest and to know that leading means being followed not being pushed behind you. The missing ingredient in leadership is the attitude to let go; to let go of restlessness, perfection, haughtiness, ego and the insatiable insane greed to win every time and everywhere, to dictate the what, how, when, where and why all by your own viewpoint. Goals, deadlines and results are important. These can blindly be chased even by a robot. But leaders cannot be made, they are born. Born to change work from being a profession to a passion, where work, play, fun, happiness, growth, deadlines, contributions and goals, both personal and professional, intermingle into a vicious network. Where I could be proud of doing what I was doing and do it willingly.
The cell-phone buzzed. The report on the seminar was due yesterday. I was late. A previous assignment was ‘atrocious’. It was ‘too’ modern. My boss’ boss hated change. I had overstayed a day at New Delhi for which I had to give a written explanation so that disciplinary action could be initiated. My pay had not been credited this month as the documents required were in a wrong format. The boss was furious. I knew I was in a soup. Darn leadership...
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Trust and Faith
At last God did come to me, in my dreams of course. The flashing blue – white light, the sparkling aura, the blindingly dazzling ambience and just Him and me. It was a dream come true, in a dream all right, an intimate meeting with the Almighty. The dumbstruck me could not utter a word and He blessed me and said you will have all you want but there shall be no trust and faith. Before I could gather my mind, body and heart together, the flashing blue – white light, the sparkling aura, the blindingly dazzling ambience vanished and was just me and this world, all by ourselves. The alarm rang as loud as always, it was time to wake up, the dream was gone, and in a flash the present and the future all turned to history. Who cared for time? Who cared about trust and faith in this world? This is life ruled by Darwin’s theory ‘survival of the fittest’ and the fittest were totally independent, self-sustained, self-motivated and self-made. There was no scope for trust and faith. These words died a natural death with the dinosaurs, long back, centuries ago.
So here I was; trying to be independent, self-sustained, self-motivated and self-made and self-everything else, after all the invincible all pervading omni present had told me I would have everything, what else was needed? I left my bed. I couldn’t trust the bed; it could break any time and leave my sprawling on the floor with a bruised body and a bruised ego. The day was sunny, warm and bright, flowers bloomed in every nook of the garden but I could not bring about myself to enjoy the nature, after all nature was unpredictable, who knows how lasting this beauty would be. The milkman could not be trusted with his job, no food could be trusted to be safe, the air could be trusted to be clean! I somehow managed to get out of the four walls I slept in and called my ‘room’. I wanted to go out and take on the world head on, after all I would have everything, I knew, everything!! And so I summoned the best of the cars that I now had newly possessed, the most exotic, the most comfortable, the fastest and the trendiest of all. Ultimately I took a cab; none of the cars could be trusted with my life after all. The cab driver took off, I told him where I had to go. He sped; my heart skipped a couple of beats. I couldn’t trust him to take me right, to take me safely, to charge me the correct sum. It was all too much. Finally, I reached my destination, the biggest and costliest shopping mall in the city and if you haven’t guessed it yet, I reached on foot. Walking down was much more difficult today, who could trust the construction companies to have built a safe and suitable pavement? And what about the roads? Could I trust each and every person in this world driving like a mad man on these untrustworthy roads to drive safely and not kill and maul me when the innocent me was just innocently walking?
Anyways, the mall had been reached with the fifteen floors towering far above my high head. I entered inside. I would buy everything I liked in a snap today I thought. “Sir, you will have to leave that carry bag at the counter over there” a crooked finger pointed with a husky voice of the doorkeeper. No! How could I trust the hard-core businessmen of the mall with the safety of my prized bag? Had I not always been very particular about the bag? I thought I would convince the doorkeeper to let me take it along, but I could not trust my ability to do so. And who could trust the doorkeeper, what if he got violent? I didn’t try to. Leaving the bag at the counter, I convinced myself that it was gone forever.
The gray jacket at the show window was stunning, and that price, unbelievable! I walked in. Somehow I could not trust the salesman when he said that it would last me for many years to come and that it would be the best buy I would make at least for some time to come. I took it nevertheless. Who cared about longevity and money anymore? Money! I had a huge sum in the bank now. How could I be so reckless? How could I leave so much money with a firm that fed on other’s money? I could not have trusted a ‘bank’ to keep my money safely and to take care of my returns and savings. I dashed from the mall. The money had to be secure. The bank was closed for lunch. It would open after two hours. Two hours! I thought. Who could trust a skinny sentry with an outdated manually operated rifle to keep my money safe till then? I as such did not trust the law enforcing bodies to come up with any results in case of any mishap. Probably I thought too loudly. The skinny sentry seemed hurt. “ Sir, you can trust my capabilities, I served in the defense forces for over thirty years”. Defense forces, I gasped, the safety and integrity of my nation and my family and friends and my self was totally at the disposal of hand picked inefficient soldiers at the borders. Who could trust their mettle in today’s supersonic bit-byte-megabyte age? I couldn’t. I felt so helpless, so vulnerable. I left. Who could stand at the same place for two hours and wait for the bank to open. How could I trust the board that told the timings of the bank, what if they never opened again? Besides it would be foolish to trust all the passersby to be innocent and decent people who would mind only their own business. What if someone robbed or kidnapped me? I did not trust anyone to come to my rescue even if such a thing did take place.
It was all becoming too much, I thought. I needed a break. “How about a cup of coffee?” I thought. I walked into the nearest coffee shop in sight. I ordered a black coffee with extra sugar. The waiter bowed and departed. What if he got me no extra sugar? What if the coffee wasn’t good? What if the cashier charged me somebody else’s bill? How could I trust the coffee to be of a good quality? Who could trust the cultivators, or the manufacturers, or the dealers, or the shopkeepers, or the cooks of the eatery? I left even more flabbergasted than before. No coffee. I thought that maybe a small walk along the beach would pacify me. But who could trust the waves and the tides? What about all the people who would also be there? Who could be trusted?
It was all too much. I decided to seek help from God himself, before I went insane. So I ran to the nearest place of worship. I lay half dead with exhaustion and half mad on the floor before the image of God to pray. I wanted to pray but I did not have any faith, any faith at all to even say the first few words of prayer. I could have worshipped the devil that day but even that demanded faith, far greater than what I had. I thought this was the end of life, the end of existence, the end of just ‘being’. Tears! Could I trust the authenticity of my own tears? That day I couldn’t.
The alarm rang as loud as always, it was time to wake up, the dream was gone and in a flash the present and the future all turned to history. I woke up with the greatest happiness known to man. Awake and thankfully happy that it was all a terrible dream. And with the morning - trust and faith drive this world. And I say this neither because of the beauty of the words in this phrase, nor because of the lucidity or the rhythm with which it flows, but because the totality of truth in this phrase has got diluted in the vastness of falsehood and half -truths that we spend our lives in. To realize the correctness of this statement is one of the most beautiful gifts one can give himself. It shall grant each one of us a very ironical but beautiful outlook to life in general. Every moment we spend, every breath we take is underlined by unconditional silent trust and faith in people, situations, nature, life and lifelessness that we come across in our lives. And if you don’t trust me, have faith in yourself and try losing trust and faith. I have full faith and trust myself enough to say that sooner or later you will also believe that ‘TRUST AND FAITH DRIVE THIS WORLD.’
So here I was; trying to be independent, self-sustained, self-motivated and self-made and self-everything else, after all the invincible all pervading omni present had told me I would have everything, what else was needed? I left my bed. I couldn’t trust the bed; it could break any time and leave my sprawling on the floor with a bruised body and a bruised ego. The day was sunny, warm and bright, flowers bloomed in every nook of the garden but I could not bring about myself to enjoy the nature, after all nature was unpredictable, who knows how lasting this beauty would be. The milkman could not be trusted with his job, no food could be trusted to be safe, the air could be trusted to be clean! I somehow managed to get out of the four walls I slept in and called my ‘room’. I wanted to go out and take on the world head on, after all I would have everything, I knew, everything!! And so I summoned the best of the cars that I now had newly possessed, the most exotic, the most comfortable, the fastest and the trendiest of all. Ultimately I took a cab; none of the cars could be trusted with my life after all. The cab driver took off, I told him where I had to go. He sped; my heart skipped a couple of beats. I couldn’t trust him to take me right, to take me safely, to charge me the correct sum. It was all too much. Finally, I reached my destination, the biggest and costliest shopping mall in the city and if you haven’t guessed it yet, I reached on foot. Walking down was much more difficult today, who could trust the construction companies to have built a safe and suitable pavement? And what about the roads? Could I trust each and every person in this world driving like a mad man on these untrustworthy roads to drive safely and not kill and maul me when the innocent me was just innocently walking?
Anyways, the mall had been reached with the fifteen floors towering far above my high head. I entered inside. I would buy everything I liked in a snap today I thought. “Sir, you will have to leave that carry bag at the counter over there” a crooked finger pointed with a husky voice of the doorkeeper. No! How could I trust the hard-core businessmen of the mall with the safety of my prized bag? Had I not always been very particular about the bag? I thought I would convince the doorkeeper to let me take it along, but I could not trust my ability to do so. And who could trust the doorkeeper, what if he got violent? I didn’t try to. Leaving the bag at the counter, I convinced myself that it was gone forever.
The gray jacket at the show window was stunning, and that price, unbelievable! I walked in. Somehow I could not trust the salesman when he said that it would last me for many years to come and that it would be the best buy I would make at least for some time to come. I took it nevertheless. Who cared about longevity and money anymore? Money! I had a huge sum in the bank now. How could I be so reckless? How could I leave so much money with a firm that fed on other’s money? I could not have trusted a ‘bank’ to keep my money safely and to take care of my returns and savings. I dashed from the mall. The money had to be secure. The bank was closed for lunch. It would open after two hours. Two hours! I thought. Who could trust a skinny sentry with an outdated manually operated rifle to keep my money safe till then? I as such did not trust the law enforcing bodies to come up with any results in case of any mishap. Probably I thought too loudly. The skinny sentry seemed hurt. “ Sir, you can trust my capabilities, I served in the defense forces for over thirty years”. Defense forces, I gasped, the safety and integrity of my nation and my family and friends and my self was totally at the disposal of hand picked inefficient soldiers at the borders. Who could trust their mettle in today’s supersonic bit-byte-megabyte age? I couldn’t. I felt so helpless, so vulnerable. I left. Who could stand at the same place for two hours and wait for the bank to open. How could I trust the board that told the timings of the bank, what if they never opened again? Besides it would be foolish to trust all the passersby to be innocent and decent people who would mind only their own business. What if someone robbed or kidnapped me? I did not trust anyone to come to my rescue even if such a thing did take place.
It was all becoming too much, I thought. I needed a break. “How about a cup of coffee?” I thought. I walked into the nearest coffee shop in sight. I ordered a black coffee with extra sugar. The waiter bowed and departed. What if he got me no extra sugar? What if the coffee wasn’t good? What if the cashier charged me somebody else’s bill? How could I trust the coffee to be of a good quality? Who could trust the cultivators, or the manufacturers, or the dealers, or the shopkeepers, or the cooks of the eatery? I left even more flabbergasted than before. No coffee. I thought that maybe a small walk along the beach would pacify me. But who could trust the waves and the tides? What about all the people who would also be there? Who could be trusted?
It was all too much. I decided to seek help from God himself, before I went insane. So I ran to the nearest place of worship. I lay half dead with exhaustion and half mad on the floor before the image of God to pray. I wanted to pray but I did not have any faith, any faith at all to even say the first few words of prayer. I could have worshipped the devil that day but even that demanded faith, far greater than what I had. I thought this was the end of life, the end of existence, the end of just ‘being’. Tears! Could I trust the authenticity of my own tears? That day I couldn’t.
The alarm rang as loud as always, it was time to wake up, the dream was gone and in a flash the present and the future all turned to history. I woke up with the greatest happiness known to man. Awake and thankfully happy that it was all a terrible dream. And with the morning - trust and faith drive this world. And I say this neither because of the beauty of the words in this phrase, nor because of the lucidity or the rhythm with which it flows, but because the totality of truth in this phrase has got diluted in the vastness of falsehood and half -truths that we spend our lives in. To realize the correctness of this statement is one of the most beautiful gifts one can give himself. It shall grant each one of us a very ironical but beautiful outlook to life in general. Every moment we spend, every breath we take is underlined by unconditional silent trust and faith in people, situations, nature, life and lifelessness that we come across in our lives. And if you don’t trust me, have faith in yourself and try losing trust and faith. I have full faith and trust myself enough to say that sooner or later you will also believe that ‘TRUST AND FAITH DRIVE THIS WORLD.’
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