Tipping Point - A Book Review

Yet another interesting insight from Malcolm Gladwell. This book talks about what it takes for ideas to click to  create epidemics  - positive or negative. It all begins with the "message" and he talks about different kinds of people - the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen.

Talking about the message his key point is about the "stickiness" of the message. The concept where a message does not goes through one ear and goes out via the other. He says the message should stick "you can't get it out of your head" for it to be effective.  Connectors are those who can take that sticky message out to the world using their multitude of connections. I guess the Facebooks and LinkedIns are popular purely because of this concept. Mavens are those who are truly passionate about the message that is being passed on. Salesmen are those who can be very persuasive about spreading the message. Talking about persuasion he stresses quite a bit on the "non-verbal" messages that accompany a message for it reach the intended audience.

One of the most interesting concepts I found was the Power of Context. "Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context. The reason that most of us seem to have a consistent character is that most of us are really good at controlling our environment.". He narrates a study where an experiment was conducted on a group of seminaries to test their "character". Not all of them demonstrated the behaviour of a "Good Samaritan" when forced to be in slightly different conditions. He says "....the convictions of the heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions than the immediate context of your behaviour."

He talks about a "Social Channel Capacity" where he says that at any point one can be "close" to only 10-15 people. Any "network" beyond that he claims will be an overload. He says "To be someone's best friend requires a minimum investment of time. More than that it takes emotional energy. Caring about someone deeply is exhausting." A very strong statement I guess!!

There is something called "Transactional Memory".  "Not everything that we remember is actually stored inside our brains." The book says when people know each other so well, they create an implicit "joint memory system" -  a transactive memory system - which is based on an understanding of who is best suited to remember what kind of things. I suppose this is true of any kind of relationship - personal or business.

So...concepts like the above definitely gives an interesting view point on many things that are required to Tip a message.

Happy Reading!!

C

Sydney Stories - Week 88

Hello,

Back again after a while. Last few weeks has been crazy to put it lightly. Got some catch up time this weekend finally.

Spring is in and with it,  brings all the minor inconveniences to health. The GP took some consideration on us and even gave a buy-2-get-1 free offer on consultation charges when he came to know that we don't have medicare. Weather of course is turning to be great. Got to resume the outdoor activities.

These days my  Saturday morning routine is to play a Pokemon Monopoly game with Nandhitha. We have to wait till Nandha goes to sleep and then start playing. We usually get one of us bankrupt in about 30 minutes. From that point on Nandhitha makes up her own rules to play without any money. I end up setting some pre-expectations on the number of variations we are going to play for the day. If I don't we can go the entire morning on Monopoly.

Roger Federer is in town and I didn't get a chance to say hello. What a pity!! ;-) He's here for a Davis cup match between Swiss and the Aussies. Apparently he beat Tomic today.

Am now part of a committee for organizing the Christmas party at my client's office. Yes, that's a pretty serious affair. Many venues have already been booked out for the premium dates - usually Friday nights beginning 2nd-3rd week of November till mid December. It is very interesting to hear viewpoints on what people want to do or not do in an office party.

"Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell is coming along well. One "concept" that stood out recently was about the fact - Character is contextual. It says that anybody is Good or Bad purely based on the situation (context) they are in at that point. More about this once I am done with the book.

Have A Great Week.

C

Principle Centered Leadership - A Book Review

I believe there is a trilogy of leadership books from the Covey family. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Speed of Trust and Principle Centered Leadership - each citing excerpts from the other with 7 Habits being the core. Of course there are other books from them which again must be derived from these 3.

Principle Centered Leadership is more of a collection of essays written by a few people. As in any book there are a few sections that I just skimmed through, but there were a few which stands out as something each person who has been or intending to be responsible for 1 or more person other than themselves. Have noted below a few sections which I found to be the most interesting.

Characteristics of Principle Centered Leaders

1. Continually learning.
2. Service Oriented
3. Radiate Positive Energy
4. Believe in Other People
5. Lead Balanced Lives
6. See Life as an Adventure
7. Synergistic
8. Exercise Self-Renewal

Am sure there will be one or more areas that we would want to improve on the above.

A principle - "Possessing precedes giving". A simple thought...but at times we tend to forget. We try to give without even possessing and get into trouble. :-)

"There are times to teach and train and times not to teach. When relationships are strained and charged with emotion, attempts to teach or train are often perceived as a form of judgement and rejection. "

Three Types of Power

• Coercive Power - Power created by fear utilizing power, authority etc.
• Utility Power - Power created by a particular utility / purpose (because of the benefits that could be derived from the leader)
• Legitimate Power - Knowledgeable, Wholehearted, Uninhibited Commitment. He clearly distinguishes that this is not blind faith, mindless obedience or robotic servitude. "Whatever they (leaders) did they did because they believed in us, and we reciprocate with respect, loyalty, commitment, and a willingness to follow, almost without condition or restriction.

"You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again.

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn"

Power Tools

• Persuasion
• Patience
• Gentleness
• Teachableness - Operating with the assumption that you do not have all the answers, all the insights and valuing different viewpoints, judgement and experiences followers may have.
• Acceptance - withholding judgement
• Kindness
• Openness
• Compassionate Confrontation
• Consistency
• Integrity

Three Big Mistakes

1. Advise before understand
2. Attempt to build/rebuild relationships without changing conduct or attitude.
3. Assume that good example and relationship are sufficient

"Just as vision without love contains no motivation, so also love without vision contains no goals, no guidelines, no standards, (and hence) no lifting power ."

Approach to Problem Solving

1. Where are we?
2. Where do we want to go?
3. How do we get there?
4. How will we know we have arrived?

I wonder how many times we have asked ourselves these questions!!!

Manager's Attitude - "Where are we going?" or "Where do you want to go?" or "What are your goals?"
 - "and how can I help you?"

Principles of Win-Win Performance (KRA time!!!)

• Specify desired results, but don't supervise methods and means.
• Go heavy on guidelines, light on procedures
• Mention all available resources (within the organization and outside networks)
• Involve people in setting the standards or criteria of acceptable and exceptional performance
• Maintain trust and use discernment, more than so-called objective or quantitative measurements to assess results.
• Reach an understanding of what positive and negative consequences might follow achieving or failing to achieve desired results.
• Make sure the performance agreement is reinforced by organizational structure and systems to stand the test of time.

"Leadership deals with direction - with making sure that the ladder is leaning against the right wall. Management deals with speed. To double one's speed in the wrong direction, however is the very definition of foolishness."

Happy Leading!!

C

Sydney Stories - Week 84(??)

Hello,

Thanks to Janmashtami and Gurgaon taking a day off I could sit down for a few minutes to get to the Sydney Stories. I've lost track of my weeks in Sydney. Should be somewhere around 84. Will go with that even number for now.

After all the ordeal at the Delhi airport with a 5 hour blackout finally made it to my flight to Singapore without too much of a delay. To add to the story I didn't have a printed itinerary in my hand. I must appreciate the customer service desk located in the visitors area at the airport. He very patiently warded off tired customers in their quest to figure out what was happening.

Nevertheless, Delhi airport does look cool gives a good competition to other international airports. The area  on arrival before immigration looks so cool. A decent first impression to first time tourists to India.

Made it back to Sydney after a short stop over in Singapore. Met Mamai and Lavan for a quick get together at an Irish pub. Uma had come to the airport with the kids to pick me up.

Life back in Sydney has been pretty hectic so far. Had to prepare for a presentation I had to submit for the a  conference in Sydney. That will be my first public appearance coming up next week.

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A short break of about just 2 weeks happened before I could continue on this. Somewhere between a 4 hour airport power outage, to a 2 hour train to a 30 minute car outage life is still going on in crazy speed. 

The 2 hour train outage was crazy. Some poor woman got killed on the train tracks on the way home (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/train-delays-after-woman-killed-on-tracks/story-e6freuzi-1226122458460). The train I got on kept shuttling between 2 stations so I could either decide to get off or not. Eventually I slept through for about 1.5 hours to wake up at the same station. Finally got a cab and reached home at around 1 AM.

I had my first public appearance earlier this week in Sydney. This was part of a free quarterly conference conducted by the local testing body. It was an interesting experience. It seemed to have went on well. Yet to receive formal feedback. 

Our Vinayagar Chaturthi was interesting too. After a long time we decided to go to the nearby temple to say Happy B'day to Pillaiyar. Uma and kids picked me up from the station. Luck would have it that we had to go back home for something. I was waiting outside with the kids in the car while Uma went home. Just as she was coming back the car wouldn't start. Had to call NRMA (equivalent of AAA in US) to get the batteries replaced. Thankfully I got the membership a few months ago.

The Australian Father's day is this Sunday. There was a Fathers' event happening at Nandhitha's pre-school that the dads (and grand dads) could go and spend time with the kids. I planned for a visit today. At the end of the visit I was gifted with a "surprise" coffee mug designed by Nandhitha.

I guess I shouldn't wait for the weekend to write a post going forward. Weekends have been the busiest time of the week !!!

Have A Great Weekend!!

C