How Do I?

How do I begin this poem?

How do I explain this in words?

How do I describe my love, my darling?

How do I tell the story of bees and birds?

How do express what I feel?

How do I ensure I tell it all?

How do I say your smile is my high?

How do I say your tears are my fall?

How do I promise uninterrupted happiness?

How do I convince you that I share your pain?

How do I manage all, or any of it?

How do I get you back in my arms again?

How do I sleep at night?

How do I wake up every morning next to you?

How do I remove the miles that separate us today?

How do I fly across the seven seas to be with you?

How do I change our situation?

How do I tell you, how I miss your touch?

How do I make things better?

How do I make this poem convey so much?

How do I?

Concept of Control

Problem with concept of control is simply this: people, in general, think of control as one concept - overarching on their entire existence. That is: either people think they can control everything, or the other extreme that nothing is in their control.

In my view, simplistically, we need to think of control at two levels (not one) - external and internal. External control is over others, over scenarios, over life in general (etc.), and internal control is over self - my views, my thoughts, my reactions, my actions (etc.). Most people mistakenly think they can control the external, and not focus enough on controlling the internal. In reality, people need to do the exact opposite - control the internal (self-control) and stop worrying about the external.

This distinction is important to understand - more in today's environment because there are many self-proclaimed gurus preaching that control is an illusion. "Control is an illusion" has become a mantra - being talked of in corporate circles to better manage stress. In this instance, logic that flows is this: accept that the outcome is not entirely in your control, thus don't be stressed about it. However, usually, these self-proclaimed gurus forget to highlight the need for reducing the thought of controlling the external and at same time increasing the level of controlling the internal.

Stress may be a by product of so many different factors (personal, professional) and may / may not be anything to do with feeling in control or not...or even wanting to be in control or not. In order to better manage stress, we need to understand why are we stressed, remove the elements that are not in our control (usually external causes, let's say - we have only 24 hours in a day, we have only one body etc OR clash of priorities set by seniors in the organisation to our plans / thoughts - things not in our control) and focus on what all is in our control (usually internal, for example - our emotions, our reactions etc). Essentially, let go of the illusion of controlling the external, and focus on improving control over the internal.

In our daily lives, we exercise some degree of self-control almost all the time. We don't say everything we want to, we don't do everything we want to, we don't punch everyone that we think deserves one...yes, we constantly live with self-control.

Because we are wired in a manner, and society further helps us learn self-control (by punishing lack of it, mostly), some degree of self-control happens in auto-mode. But it leads us to believe in the concept of control, and further creates the illusion of control over external.

Although self-control happens in auto-mode, it takes energy away from us. It is exhausting to always be in control - stop self from doing things that we want to. This energy-sapping element working on auto-mode depletes our ability to improve self-control - build it so, that it comes in our conscious decision making, not merely auto-mode. We get restricted to controlling our societal (in public view) actions and words, but not work towards controlling our emotions. Lack of control over emotions leads to lack of on-demand control over our reactions, which brings out outbursts that cannot be controlled by auto-mode self-control.

There are different cycles that we enter, with each of these choices we make. The cycle when we live with the illusion of controlling the external (to human levels), we often find ourselves to be disappointed, hurt or angry at something someone did (or equally much, did not do). Because we did not work on improving self-control, our emotions rule our reactions - our exasperation makes us irritable. People see that in us, keep their distance from us. As people grow distant, and the more control over external we want to exercise, the more hurt we get by the behaviour of others.

The other cycle that we could enter into is this: we let go of the illusion of controlling the external, and work on improving self-control. This relieves us of pressures that are, at times, unnecessary and will not go away just because we are worrying about them. Also, because we work on improving self-control - we become relaxed and more pleasing in public setting. This may lead to people reacting to us more positively, and for us to get more of what we need from them.

There is no route, or suggested course of action that I want to prescribe here for how to achieve any of what I have stated above. Simple reason - what worked for me, might not work for you at all (if not worsen things up). My aim with this post is to highlight an issue, break it down a bit and to leave the thought with the reader - for the reader to introspect and find the best combination solution that works for her / him. From personal experience I say this: it is freedom to let go of the illusion of controlling the external, and focussing on controlling the internal.

Keep It Simple - The Best Advice I Ever Received

Not often do we realise the value of advice given to us, at the time that advice is given to us. In my experience, self-confidence (in this context - over confidence) is the usual culprit. Add to self-confidence, other reasons contributing to our disregarding advice range from the lack of respect we have for the person giving advice (if I don't respect the person, I am less likely to take his / her advice) to obviousness & simplicity of the advice given that leads us to miss its deep meaning or its long-term implications. However, there are times when we are reminded of an advice that was given to us in past and holds good in our present scenario - just wish we had paid attention to that advice when it was given to us.

One such advice, which I didn't take seriously, came from a colleague at the start of my career. I was simply told to keep things simple!

As an early 20-something, in my first job, with all the euphoric feeling of independence and responsibility (as much as junior-most guy in any team can enjoy), I wasn't matured enough to think how such a simple advice could be valuable - I didn't value simplicity because I was gunning to do more, have chaos around me and have my fingers in as many pies as possible. It didn't take many years for me to realise just how important this simple-sounding advice was.

As I climbed the corporate ladder, and personal responsibilities increased as well (i.e., got married) I was reminded of these very sound words - keep things simple!

I found myself surrounded by the chaos that I once worked hard to get around me. The pressure of responsibilities seemed to be crushing my spirit, which only led me to worsen my performance...and so began a vicious cycle of chaos, pressure and poor performance.

Post-realisation of value of these words, I didn't know what I could or should do immediately to make things simple. Although I knew that I had to do something, I knew in my gut that moving away from chaos, and towards simplicity will help me immensely. This started a journey, showed me a path that I walk on even today - not only in my professional life, but also my personal life.

With some amount of pain and a lot of time spent on introspection - I realised two areas that caused me most difficulty: a) the illusion of control, and b) attachment. The former broke my heart, and confidence every time there was a fuck-up, and the latter forced me to live in the past, rather than be fluid & moving ahead.

Such a realisation is neither simple to act upon, nor easy to verbalise. It took a lot of effort, some rather big fuck-ups, and luck to find the path of simplicity. Essentially, I gave up the illusion of controlling every aspect of my life - rather focussed on controlling my reactions & emotions (as much as possible given the situation). Also, I started to understand what attachment meant to me - where it was required, and where I could completely let it go.

Keeping things simple has freed up my time for things that really matter, has provided a compass for decisions and directions I want to take, and has renewed my confidence. There is a lot, still, that I need to improve on to further simplify in my life, but I am glad that I have found a path and am walking on it. I am constantly reminded of the learnings I have had since I started on this journey - I still falter, but an internal kick comes to stop me from wandering off-course for long. 

Who am I, what am I?

Who am I, what am I?

What I do – does that define me?

Who am I with – does that define me?

Where I was born, does that make me, me?

Or where I am now that makes me, me?

Do my past experiences mould me?

Or where I want to be that shapes me?

How good I look, is what makes me attractive?

Or how good I am from within that makes me attractive?

Do I fit a square, a circle, or even a triangle – do I fit at all?

Am I unique in this world, or alone hiding behind a wall?

Am I strong, as I think, or actually weak?

Am I at the bottom of the pyramid, or have I reached the peak?

What’s more important - my success or how many times I fail and fall?

Am I over-thinking it all?

Am I what the other person sees in me?

Or am I what I am – ME?

Who am I, what am I?

We are more of both these days: Insensitive & Sensitive

It is not wrong when people think that the world has become a smaller place these days. People travel a lot more frequently, and many more do, from almost anywhere in the world to almost anywhere else…communication across the globe does happen a lot easily in 21^st century than even the last decade of 20^th century…and well, yes, ideas originating in one person’s mind can spread across the globe like wild fire, which has led to revolutions (Arab springs) to throw out unpopular governments.

Technology, of one form or another, is at the root of such sea-change in the way people work, relax, communicate, share, and live now. With all these changes, there is a dichotomous behavioural change happening as well – as a society, we are becoming more of both, insensitive (inconsiderate) and sensitive (thin-skinned) at the same time...insensitive towards others, sensitive w.r.t. our own thoughts / ideology / beliefs.

On one hand, it has become important to promote the concept of ‘freedom of speech’, allowing anyone to say anything (let’s say within some legal & moral limits), yet on the other hand acceptance of another person’s opposing views to our own is next to impossible. It is almost like this: I have a thought, I want to share with the world, this thought can potentially hurt some, but what do I care – via freedom of speech, I have a right to say anything to anyone. This is how we show insensitivity. At the same time, there are more people just waiting to be offended by this thought – even when it comes from someone as insignificant as me. Thus, showing sensitivity of stupid levels, where religion / faith get threatened by few words.

How can we become such fools – promote a concept as a basic right in our society, and at the same time not put the same concept to practise when it is required the most?

I believe, just as mother nature is all about equilibrium, human nature too needs balance. If one set of humans become better on something than they used to be, then at the same time, some other set of humans must become worse at the same thing, than they used to be. Thus – becoming more of both: insensitive and sensitive at the same time!

Role of Business Schools in Preparing 21st Century Managers

It is obvious that business education is one of the most sought after degrees in the world, for corporate job-seekers. Business schools pride themselves in preparing managers for the business world – those who can manage, and lead, in a complex environment. Thus, business schools demand respect, both from prospective students and from the academicians – with success of alumni getting directly linked to quality of business school’s programme.

One of the challenges facing business schools is a simple one, is education their business and students their customers, or do the schools have responsibility towards quality of managers supplied from their stable. If it is simply the former, then teaching will mean one-way knowledge imparting, end of matter! However, it is quite unlikely that such a business school will manage world repute and rankings. Knock-on effect will be fewer applicants, lower quality intake, poorer managers being supplied to corporate world, and finally business school not getting the benefit of successful alumni.

It is, thus, clearly understood that business schools’ success is closely related to the quality of managers they produce. Thus, it is in their own best interest to invest in preparing managers who not only know how to manage businesses, but also are prepared to operate in the complex, uncertain and shaky business environment of the 21^st century.

As our world is becoming more complex, due to socio-economic challenges, political uncertainty and technological developments, and social media becoming a tool in the hands of general masses, we see that managers are under unprecedented pressure. If the world is becoming more complex, indeed business management is becoming more challenging as well.

Lastly, there is a concept of corporate psychopaths and bullies in workplace that bring harm to not only teams they work in, but also to organisations (as a whole) that they work for. Although, quite few, corporate psychopaths and bullies are known to exist, and are destructive in nature.

Questions that need consideration are: has business education changed with changing times, can business schools identify potential psychopaths and / or bullies before they reach out to the corporate world, are business schools doing enough to prepare managers for some of the management challenges that will be faced only in the 21^st century, and finally, is the challenge greater in lack of business acumen / understanding or more to do with people - their behaviour, attitude, and biases?

When some of the businesses fail, and many do, impact of failure is not felt beyond people who were directly involved with these businesses – such as, the owners, the investors and the employees. Most of these failures have little to no impact on suppliers and customers. However, in last two decades, there have been failures of greater magnitude – Enron and the subprime mortgage crisis are two examples of business failures that had a widespread impact – not only on the people involved in these businesses, but also on their suppliers (Arthur Anderson, in the case of Enron) and world economy.

Are we to assume that managers at Enron, Arthur Anderson and all the financial institutions dealing with subprime mortgages were ill-equipped to manage businesses or that all these people were pure evil? There must be some other explanation to these failures.

Bazerman and Tenbrunsel have given a possible explanation in their book – Blind Spots. As per them, these failures are more due to ethical failures and biases going unchecked. It is interesting to observe here that in their book, Blind Spots, Bazerman and Tenbrunsel have made a note for the possibility of managers not seeing their decisions (and behaviour) as unethical, and directing the discussion towards “blind spots” or sub-conscious biases. As per the authors, these blind spots are essentially gaps between the person, an individual thinks he / she is, and the actual person he / she really is.

Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, provides some additional concepts that help us understand why managers may take decisions that are not in best long-term interests (neither for their companies, nor for public at large). Kahneman’s description of Systems 1 (automatic) & 2 (conscious) and his concept of WYSIATI help us understand decision making better. Post-event, hindsight bias and outcome bias, are some other important concepts that Kahneman brings to life in his book.

Subprime mortgage crisis is unique in a way that it involved not only managers from the business world, but also general public. Failure to think through the eventual outcome of the bubble that was getting bigger (and bigger), is a good example of Kahneman’s concept of – What You See, Is All There Is (WYSIATI). Members of general public got mortgages, when their System 2 (conscious) was incapable to computing their own worthiness to get a mortgage. This inability led them to believe the rosy picture shown to them, by mortgage agents, and decisions were made solely on the discretion of System 1 (automatic) – and that is quintessential WYSIATI.

Managers at financial institutions, sales agents and insurance companies were smart enough to know (and understand) the bubble, and its implications. For them, it is not that their System 2 was incapable or failed, but WYSIATI, clubbed with overconfidence and short-termism, led them away from checking, controlling and stopping the bubble from becoming bigger.

Importance of post-event hindsight bias and outcome bias is a strong one, especially to understand whether it was an individual, an organisation or an entire system that was at fault. Post-event investigations, evaluations, recommendations and conclusions are all for one purpose – know what happened, why it happened, what needs to be in future in order the same doesn’t happen again (for a failure related issue). However, if all this analysis is done with hindsight bias (that suggests so-called experts “knew” there was a problem – essentially that they know all variables involved), and outcome bias (that suggests if the outcome is bad, someone must be at fault) then the output of the analysis would be neither fair nor accurate.

Discovering that such blind spots exist, and accepting individual fallibility due to these blind spots / biases are the first steps managers need to take to improve their chances of succeeding. Although the works of Bazerman and Tenbrunsel, and Kahneman, provide just that – it is critical to know what should be done now that this knowledge is acquired. It is also important to know all institutions involved, at various stages, that hold power to influence sound decision-making and improve managers’ ability.

It is for this that one should look at Nudge – a book co-authored by Thaler and Sunstein. Their views on choice architecture, nudge-in-the-desired-direction, and priming help explain some of the ways managerial decision making can be improved – both in public and private sector.

Finally, another important area to understand is that of corporate psychopaths. Research conducted about corporate psychopaths by Clive Boddy, shows that “26% of bullying is accounted for by 1% of employee population, those who are Corporate Psychopaths”. Boddy describes workplace bullying as – “repeated unethical and unfavourable treatment of one person by another in the workplace.”, which costs UK economy nearly £18 billion due to staff turnover and loss in productivity. In another study, conducted by a forensic psychologist, Mr. Nathan Brooks, it is suggested that 1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths, while this number is 1 in 100 in general public.

With nearly 1 in 3 CEOs, of FT500 companies (as of December 2015), having studied at a business school for their MBA, one cannot but think there is some responsibility that resides with business schools to prepare better managers (and leaders). With business failures (some examples discussed above) and corporate psychopaths costing billions, business schools cannot separate business education from how business is practiced.

There are two clear areas that are still lacking in business school education – firstly, the curriculum is prepared and taught in vertical silos (marketing, finance, HR etc.) and secondly, behavioural sciences as a subject is still not treated as a core module by majority of business schools.

Many economists have cited “working in silos” as a major reason for general failure to predict financial crisis that hit the world economy in 2008. A letter, written by eminent economists, explaining why this financial crisis was not caught and controlled well in time, was sent to Queen Elizabeth II. This group of economists suggest that although everyone was doing the job they were paid to do, and doing a good job, but no one could see the whole picture. A typical environment of everyone working in their respective silos, without a concern towards how their decisions have an impact on others or other departments. One cannot help but think, this is yet another case of WYSIATI.

As long as business schools do not prepare a way of teaching that cuts across the departmental verticals, these silos would continue to exist and problems would occur. A marketing manager will continue to blame the production manager for poor turn-around time of new designs, and production manager would continue to blame marketing manager of irrational promises and impossible time-lines. There will be, and are, many similar inter-departmental business problems that frequently occur.

Another way to look at it is concept of System 1 & System 2. When work life forces employees to think in silos, and business schools teach students in silos – for an individual who starts working after completing undergraduate studies, works for a few years and decides to enrol for a business degree – his / her System 2 (conscious) is only prepared for operating in silos – there is no input that suggests otherwise. Needless to say, System 1 (automatic) is not built to think of all possible implications or repercussions of decisions. An individual ends up reacting, rather be proactive.

The second missing aspect from business school education, as noted earlier, is lack of focus on behavioural sciences as a core subject. Business schools still believe they, first, need to prepare future-leaders by teaching them subjects of business – such as, marketing, finance, HR etc. – but not behaviour sciences. For most schools, business ethics is talked about – only as a topic, not a subject. If ethics are just a topic, inherent biases and their impact is only a sub-topic.

As cited by Bazerman and Tenbrunsel, in their book Blind Spots, in 2009, after the financial crisis of 2008, 33 second-year students of Harvard Business School wrote an oath of ethicality – an example of how business school missed talking about ethics on its own, and students picked it up. There are obvious doubts on the success of such an oath, or even the sincerity of students who are signing it, however Thaler and Sunstein suggest in their book, Nudge, that such an oath when signed can work on brain’s automatic system – they called this effect as “priming”.

There is some weight in this concept – the comparison is between an oath being signed and no oath being signed. The concept of priming would affect some, if not all, however it will have an impact on improving overall ethicality of managers – which, in this case starts at a business school.

A strong argument in favour of promoting behaviour sciences as a subject, from elective to core, is the cost to businesses (and economies) due to poor judgement calls, unethical decisions, or bullying. It is no longer enough to go to a business school and learn how to manage a business, but it is increasingly becoming important to go to a business school to become a better manager.

Once again, taking from Thaler and Sunstein’s book, Nudge, this is a matter of choice architecture. By making behavioural science an elective, business schools send a message that this subject is not critical for business manager’s work-life. A message of this kind suggests problems arising due to biases and ethical dilemmas are either not difficult to manage, or not frequent enough to cost individuals much in their respective careers.

So far the discussion has been about what is taught in a business school, and what should be made more prominent than it is today. The curriculum changes will not be enough to manage harm of corporate psychopaths. As noted earlier in this essay, 1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths and 1 in 3 CEOs (in FT500) have MBAs, thus 1 in 15 CEOs with MBA degree is a psychopath. Can, and should, business schools feel safe with this statistic? Given that within FT500, there will be a small number of business schools producing managers to become CEOs, this statistic is obviously higher for these “premier” business schools.

Although it is not reasonable to expect all prospective students to be made to take a psychopath test, however controlling it via change in curriculum and other priming tools (such as the oath) will definitely help.

Another way to identify such individuals early on could be group-work, with coach / facilitators that are trained to spot such behaviour. Group work puts individuals under pressure and brings out their true instincts. However, any such programme must be closely monitored and proper plan of action should be in place in case any individual is identified as a potential psychopath.

Although different business schools have different approaches to teaching - western world is more discussion oriented than eastern world, American schools focus for on class-participation than British schools etc. – there is a commonality of pushing students towards silo-thinking. Kahneman’s concept of WYSIATI is a limiting factor towards making good, long-term, judgement calls, and silo-thinking doesn’t allow the decision maker to think beyond the departmental / divisional problem he / she is trying to resolve.

It is time that business schools make use of Thaler and Sunstein’s concepts of choice architecture and priming, to not only improve regular curriculum but also to increase chances of their students avoiding unethical pitfalls on returning to the corporate world. Creating an Ethics committee, which could have participation from both the student body and professors, may be one way to inculcate importance of business ethics.

With the amount of research done for this essay, I am of the view that business schools have not understood (and accepted) the need to change, in order to prepare managers for the challenges business world faces. It is worth noting here that since I have personal experience of just one business school, this has led me to gather data from secondary sources and make use of some intelligent guess-work.

Finally, to me, it is clear that the current business school education format needs some creative inputs and additions...status quo isn't enough, and it can be more harmful than helpful in not-so-distant future. Whether an overall change is required or not, that depends on different business schools and their own philosophies, however change they must...all wouldn't just fall in place magically!