First Australian Road Trip

Hello,

Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was fabulous with a fairly quiet ending.

This weekend we celebrated the Labour Day in Australia well...in New South Wales. Labour Day is celebrated on different days in different states in Australia. In NSW it was celebrated this weekend. I am not sure if I should call it a coincidence to have it as the day after the National Rugby League ( NRL) Grand Finals.  Am sure a day off would help who had a beer or 2 to recuperate.

So...being a long weekend some of our friends planned to get on a short road trip to Canberra - the Capital city. We were 13 people (including 3 kids) in 3 cars. This happens to be our first Australian road trip. Road trip considering the fact we drove and stayed in some place. Have done longer drives, but they were more of day trips. Anyways....we set sail from Westmead at around 8 AM. Enroute we stopped at a Macca's (Mc'donald's) for breakfast at a village called Picton. From the freeway we saw signs for "food" and took the exit. Only then did we realize it was a 10 km deviation from the freeway. It seemed like an all Aussie village. I guess they might not have seen so many Indians at the same time.

From Picton our next stop was at Bowral. There was a tulip festival going on with approximately 100k tulips. There were some interesting colour combinations of tulips. The best that caught my eye was a simple light pink tulip. That is were the most dreaded thing happened - our camera battery went out of power and I knew I had left the charger at home. So if you are wondering why you are not seeing any photos here - this is the reason. Our first Aussie road trip sans the camera. It was such a bummer. Guess we will have to repeat the same trip again some other time. Hopefully I will have a good camera as well by then.

The next stop was at a rest / picnic area somewhere along the way. We had taken "kattu saadham" - typical south indian "picnic food" for lunch. Bisi Belebath, Cauliflower and Carrot poriyals (stir fried veggies) & Curd Rice. There was even Mysore Pak imported from India. It was a different experience having a picnic under a 10 deg C weather with decent wind factor as well (hence the bisi). After the re-fuelling session our next stop was at the Australian War Memorial. It was a nice museum I suppose with collections from the various wars that the Aussies participated. As I mentioned in an earlier story,  none of the wars were fought to either safe guard Australia or to avenge someone who hurt the Aussies. It was all to support the Queen Mother or Big Uncle Sam. But they did seem to have gone around the world for others. The view from the memorial was pretty good with the Aussie Parli (ament) at the other end.

After watching the closing down ceremony, we headed towards our cabin. It was more of an urban campsite. It was a cross between a campsite, an RV park and a motel. We had booked 2 cabins for our gang. After a bit of settling down we left for the night show at Floriade. That was the key highlight (supposedly) of the trip. Had a tough time finding a parking spot - was almost about to get my car into the water. The weather was so cold for us to enjoy the time there. We were prepared for the cold but probably not prepared enough. The kids were beginning to get quite uncomfortable and it was almost time to wrap up. Had whatever that was available and edible for dinner.

The next morning started with an in-situ breakfast in the cabins with scrambled eggs (mushrooms for the veggies) and toast.  We started with a visit to the Parliament house. It wasn't a huge structure compared to White House or for that matter our own Parliament. Not even as grand as Vidhana Soudha from the outside. Again, the view back from the Parliament house to the Memorial was nice. Being the first Parliament house I've ever been to not able to compare to anything else on the interiors. After the sights, had our lunch in the cafe there. Pretty good stuff for a parliament canteen. 

From the Parliament house we headed towards the Telstra towers. It have us a nice 360 degree view of Canberra from the viewing tower. We saw the storm coming from afar and before we could get out to our cars we had to get drenched. Time was running short as we had one last stop before we could head home. It was the miniature garden where they had replicas of some of world's monuments. For India, it was the Red Fort. Guess the red colour had washed way in the rain because it looked quite brown. Did a few rounds on the mini train. That's where I learnt "Chuga Chuga choo choo...chuga chuga choo choo Train Coming Through" from Nandhitha.

Headed back to Sydney with a pit stop at Goulburn at some "historic" cafe. This trip was quite memorable. Going on a road trip with 2 young ones can be quite "interesting" just by itself. Thankfully we went with a group of people who lent a helping hand many a times. It had all the expected routines of throwing up and cleaning up. We are now masters of handling those situations. After a long time listened to Tamil songs while driving. Nandhitha was co-ordinating a "dance show" where we had to dance seated in the car. Whenever a female voice sings it her turn to dance and if it is male then it is mine. At times she got confused when there was just music playing. We had a grand finale to the trip with a great dinner at Sri Annapurna - Liverpool.  After a looong time had parotta kurma - South Indian style (the veggie version).  Thanks to our trip "Manager" Gayathri for organizing this. :-)

Have A Great Week

C

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.

=============

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

Presentation Tips

It has been a terrific few weeks preparing for the presentation with the grand finale being the last few days in US. It was an interesting experience the last month or so working on this presentation. There were a few lessons learned during this time, that I thought might be of some help - probably just to myself. :-)

1) Begin with a theme. This will be the foundation for your presentation. Make sure your theme will be of interest to your audience. Try to identify a challenge that your audience will be facing currently to form your theme. Establish a reason why they need to be listening to you for the next 1 hour (or so). If you lose your audience here, whatever else you do later in the presentation will be of little or no use.

2) Build a story line around your theme. Start with a challenge / problem that would be relevant to the audience and go about solving them with a coherent and logical flow. 

3) Do not have your entire script on your presentation. Keep it crisp. We have an habit of pouring our mind in PPT as if it is some legal document. NO. A PPT file is just that - a PPT file supposed to help you and your audience to stay in course with the story. Not to be used as reading material.

4) Remove bullets as much as possible. Bullets are for documents - not for presentations. Have more meaningful images instead. Try not to have more 3-4 points in a single slide. This will help maintain their attention throughout. Cluttered information will easily put people to sleep.

5) Use animations effectively. Got to watch out for those unwanted and out of order boxes appearing out of no where.

6) Rehearse the script. Especially if you are co-presenting, co-ordinate transition points with your co-presenter.

7) Know the geography of where you are presenting. Do sufficient research on which room you are going to be presenting. Make sure it has all the infrastructure necessary. The last thing you want is a room with no projector and you have exotic animations all through your presentation.Have your backup or Plan B available if in case you do not have the expected infrastucture.

8) Time your presentation. Prepare cue cards in advance to notify you of available time. Be prepared to adapt your presentation when you don't have sufficient time.

9) Have Fun!! A presentation will be more effective if you can be casual and collected.

Enjoy...

Trip to India - USA - July-August 2011 - Part 2

This last week has been the most craziest week in a long long time. Starting the day in Australian time zone and ending the day in IST is definitely not fun. However it has been a very interesting week as well. Got to meet all my team members and colleagues in Gurgaon. Some of them for the first time. We had a great team party at a club called Jolly Rogers. This time in Gurgaon there was the "Kavarias" (SIC) (pronounce kavadias) yatra going on. It's about Shiva devotees carrying the Kawar - which we call as Kavadi in Tamil Nadu. 

Every airline check-in brings in a bit of a twist. This time I was carrying a whole bunch of boxes as mementos to be given to customers. I was expecting to be charged for overweight. At the counter the lady offered 2 options - one cheaper and one more expensive. That was a pleasant surprise. Checked in my hand luggage as well for a charge. Worked out just fine because I could just carry along my laptop bag. Met with Anand (my VP) post immigration and had a good time chatting with him. 

I flew Lufthansa for the first time - clearly they are ages behind Singapore airlines even with a Boeing 747 aircraft. Boarding was done like a herd of sheep getting into the aircraft - no seat number wise boarding. There was no individual monitors available in the aircraft. Guess I got too spoilt by the A380 in SQ. Frankfurt - wow - what an airport!!!! For the first time I saw people had to queue up to go to the restroom. It was so small and cramped. Germany - you disappointed me.

This seems to be the longest week as well spanning multiple time zones, so I get 1 extra day. :-) The hotel in Denver was quite comfortable. It was the Embassy Suites part of the Hilton group. Had a decent spread for the morning breakfast buffet. The few days in Denver zoomed past pretty quick as well. We had a team bowling party. Did a few strikes in 2 games. Not bad for bowling every other year or so. Jetlag was awful. I was confused between Aussie, Indian and Denver time zones. Caught up with whatever sleep I could. Managed to eat most of my american favourites which I've been missing in Sydney. The highlight being - Clam Chowder. I had been to Red Lobster with a client. He was a food lover as well so we had a lot in common to talk about other than work. Caught up with a old friend of mine (Naveen) whom I probably met after almost 12 years - Thanks to Facebook.

The Denver airport had a cool feature in the underground train shuttle which takes passengers between terminals. They had installed tiny fans along the tunnel which rotates as the train passes by in full speed. I am guessing that it could be to generate some wind energy. The flight to Atlanta was quite uneventful. Met up with the rest of the team at Atlanta airport. It was good timing since one group flew from Kansas City and we were able to pile up together on the trip to the hotel.

The hotel in Atlanta was quite spacious probably the same size as our apartment or maybe even larger. However it was not as nice as in Embassy suites. They had worn down sofas that went in completely as you plomp in. Even worse I had plumbing problems with the toilet. Being used to "manage" such issues before I was able to use it - didn't expect this in a hotel. I had an habit of not dressing up until after breakfast during this stay. It turned out to be a disaster when I did the same on the day of the presentation. Everybody else were suited and booted at the breakfast table and I was there in my t-shirts and shorts. Everybody asked if I was actually presenting that day. What an embarassment!!! My first impression with a senior management person in the company would've gone down the drain. Oh well...

The presentation went on well (I suppose!!). Of course there were some lessons learnt along the way. More on that in a separate post. It was more than a month of preparation with at least 10 versions before we could get to the final version. So much for talking for 15 minutes!! :-)  Atlanta - it was about 90% populated by people who had originated from the African continent. I had a tough time communicating with some of them when I had to ask for directions to take the right bus or train. You mix up the African American with the Southern (US) accent - you've got a killer there. ;-) Caught up with Murali in the evening. He was staying downtown Atlanta. Had to take a bus and a train to get there. Had great Chinese food at one of his regular spots. They even remembered his favourite table. The weather was just like in Chennai. 90 deg+ and as humid as it can be. 

Left back for Delhi on Friday afternoon. Good Bye America - for now!!. USA - it was interesting to observe as a visitor. Every suburb is like a template. It had to have the same elements in the type of shops. Everything looked the same including the structure within the office  even the cafeteria. Everything looked so similar to how it used to be in Phoenix. The flight back from Atlanta was a very pleasant surprise. It was a A340 aircraft and seems like Lufthansa has some decent aircrafts too. ;-) It was very much like A380 in terms of the entertainment features available. Finally I travelled without ordering for "special" meals and ate like a "commoner" in the flight. We had an interesting announcement to shut down the window on night fall. The captain said it will be a very short night tonight, so please close the window before you sleep so you don't disturb other passengers. I just had dinner but it is breakfast in Australia. To sleep or not to sleep has been the biggest question.

The 4+ hour wait in  Frankfurt was a quite boring. Frankfurt airport doesn't have much to offer except for one big BAYER sign revolving. However the terminal I had to board the Delhi flight was definitely much better than where I boarded for the US flight earlier last week. At least this terminal had WIDE toilets and didn't have to queue up outside. Travelled a window seat after a long time. Not by choice but by a request from a fellow traveller whose wife get's sick near the window. Interestingly there was another European traveller who said "Are you travelling alone - my LIFE (wife) is sitting there and I would like to sit next to her." I am pretty sure he didn't mean life but couldn't say wife. :-) Am beginning to hate Boeings. Frankfurt - Delhi was a Boeing 747 and it didn't have the individual TV. :-( Ended up listening to some old hindi songs and a hindi movie in the overhead monitor (without hearing the dialogues).