Indecisiveness

Gone are the days of "I think, so I am". Now is the time for "I Blog, so I am".

But, the one that caught my attention is the one below.

I doubt; so, I might be.

There are only two kinds of people in the world - those who can decisions and those who cannot. Taking decisions is the only thing that matters in this world - and, differentiates leaders from others. Even in organisations, I wonder what is it that the boss has, that the other employees do not have. While everyone may go in circles, the boss bites the bullet and takes the decisions.
There is a finer point, of course. The boss also needs to decide, when not to take decisions. Some temporary power games between a couple of people does not need any intervention - probably, it will sort itself out in due course. So, not to decide something is also a key.

How good am I as a decision maker? As I am a firm believer of the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen - small and continuous improvements, I don't really need to make big decisions that will revamp the whole organisation. (Kaizen methodology includes making changes and monitoring results, then adjusting. Large-scale pre-planning and extensive project scheduling are replaced by smaller experiments, which can be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested).

But, in personal life, there are quite a few things that require us to make big decisions. Almost till now, I have successfully managed not to take any important responsibility and to wash my hands off things wherever possible! While it may bug others, I plan to continue to be irresponsible and not to be a decision maker. Anyway, no reason to change the winning formula. If this has worked for 40 years, I can play it out this way for another 10-15 years at the maximum. (I have decisively taken a vow not to go beyond this period!)

And, finally, I think, probably, I may complete this post with a quote.

I thought I was indecisive; now I'm not so sure.

Girls outshine boys

The exam results of the 10th standard students are out today. The usual story. All the headlines in all the newspapers scream the same thing.

Girls outshine boys

Girls perform better than boys

Pass percentage among girls better than boys.

Gudalur girl tops Nilgiris district

And, all the photographs show beaming girls all over the paper. So, academically girls perform much better in our schools. Right from the time I remember, this has always been the case.

Why only in studies? In almost everything, girls seem to be better than boys. During the last five years, I have a very serious apprehension that if and when I am born again, I may have to choose to be a girl only. Because, there will not be any boys.

If not immediately, surely after a couple of centuries, there will not be any boys, I tell you. Why do we need men at all? Whatever we can do, girls do better. Taking the darwin's theory, if the dominant race will succeed eventually and wipe out the less-performing ones. So, men will perish and women will rule the world, I am sure.

Probably, sensing this, men also try out stunts like becoming pregnant and what not. But, in the end, women don't need men for anything. I even thought, world may become like a big bee colony or ant colony - queen bees and male worker bees and all that sort of thing. But, even having men as workers is too troublesome. Better have machines, than men. Unless, of course, women want machines that will argue (and lose).

During college days, Ashok Gopal and myself had a very successful theory - "All girls are nice". But, if there are only girls, I wonder what will happen to our conviction...

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is an interesting thing. I mean, words having fixed meanings throughout their entire life. I wish, we can just have some fixed tenures for the words. Once in a couple of decades or centuries, we must change the meanings of words - just to make things interesting. Most of us in Gudalur speaking different languages speak a kichdi kind of language, which is neither Tamil nor Malayalam. And, if you add the adivasi languages also into the pot, you get one really terrific mixture.


Once upon a time, we young boys took vocabulary very seriously. When I was preparing for my MBA exams. Having studied English as a special subject and having been taught English with Tamil instructions, it was a totally alien language for most of my friends. But, the MBA exams insisted that we must be good in English vocabulary and there were solid 5 marks for that. While analytical ability and all those mathematical questions were fine for us, we could not answer even one of the five questions under the vocabulary section : When we took the question papers of the last 10 years!! (It is a different matter that I may not be able to answer most of those questions even now, though I am considered a reasonably good management professional...)

So, we were memorising every day twenty to thirty words. Reading the dictionary every day morning was a ritual for us. It was the smallest possible dictionary we could get hold off. But, even then, after 2 months of solid work, we had not completed even the first alphabet A. So, we gave up. The important management lesson we learnt that day. "Leave things that we cannot change. See if your efforts result in proportionate successes" etc.

Today, I am quite comfortable with English. Most often, I am thinking in English and find it difficult to translate many thoughts into Tamil etc. Missing reading in Tamil. Especially writing. But, those initial struggles to learn English vocabulary is still fresh in my mind. Whenever I happen to meet any of those school mates with whom I did 'combined study', the first thing we talk about is our vocabulary trials...


I can identify with this Francis...

Performance vs Position

Nambi sent a brilliant story which highlights an important management theory. Doesn't matter whether you are the Managing Director or a lowly clerk in an organisation; it is the result that you achieve that counts....

A Priest dies & is awaiting his turn in line at the Heaven's Gates.

Ahead of him is a guy, fashionably dressed, in dark sun glasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket & jeans.

God asks him: Please tell me who are you, so that I may know whether to admit you into the kingdom of Heaven or not?

The guy replies: I am Pandi, Auto driver from Chennai!

God consults his ledger, smiles & says to Pandi: Please take this silken robe & gold scarf & enter the Kingdom of Heaven ...

Now it is the priest's turn. He stands erect and speaks out in a booming voice: I am Pope's Assistant so & so, Head Priest of the so & so Church for the last 40 years.

God consults his ledger & says to the Priest: Please take this cotton robe & enter the Kingdom of Heaven ...

'Just a minute,' says the agonized Priest. 'How is it that a foul mouthed, rash driving Auto Driver is given a Silken robe & a Golden scarf and me, a Priest, who's spent his whole life preaching your Name & goodness has to make do with a Cotton robe?'

'Results my friend, results,' shrugs God.

'While you preached, people SLEPT; but when he drove his Auto, people PRAYED'

"It's PERFORMANCE & not POSITION that ultimately counts."

Wow, what a story! It is not enough to do things, but we must achieve our objectives...

Gloomy days are good for Brain!!

These days, when a person sets out to research something, you can be assured that s/he can prove anything after spending a few days with the data collected. One of my hardcore beliefs about statistics and 'scientific' research is best expressed by this following quote:

"Numbers are also like people. If you torture them enough, they will tell you what you want to hear..."

So, our researchers come out with vague findings and sprinkle their report with numbers, percentages, percentiles and what not, and you have to admit that probably, what they are saying is true. Or, at least, you can't put your finger what is incorrect - on the face of it.

Recently, just last week, I read this research article, which says that gloomy days and sadness are good for brain. Read it below.

"
Every cloud seems to really have a silver lining, for a new study has claimed that gloomy days are good for the brain.

An international team has carried out the study and found that while wet weather makes people feel gloomy, it also sharpens the memory and improves recall power -- while those who feel good as it's sunny are able to remember less well.

"It seems counter-intuitive but a little bit of sadness is a good thing. People performed much better on our memory test when the weather was unpleasant and they're in a slightly negative mood. On bright sunny days, when they were more likely to be happy and carefree, they flunked it," Prof Joe Forgas, who led the study, was quoted by the Daily Mail.

For their study, the researchers at the University of New South Wales School of Psychology carried out tests on on shoppers at a store in Sydney.

They randomly placed ten small ornamental objects on the check-out counter, which included plastic animal figures, a toy cannon, a pink piggy bank and four small matchbox-sized vehicles, including a red London bus and a tractor.

On rainy days, sad music was played in the store including requiems or slow pieces by Chopin. And, when it was bright and sunny, customers heard cheery music such as Bizet's Carmen and Gilbert and Sullivan tunes.

This was done to further influence them towards negative or positive moods. After shopping, customers were asked how many of the objects they could remember. The scores were three times higher when the weather was bad and they were feeling grumpy, compared with those tested on sunny days.

"We predicted and found that weather-induced negative mood improved memory accuracy. Shoppers in a negative mood showed better memory and higher discrimination ability," Prof
Forgas said.

The findings have been published in the 'Journal of Experimental Psychology'."

Now, all we have to do to improve the memory of our kids before they go for these exams is to make them gloomy and play sad songs? Rubbish. I am cancelling my subscription to this journal of experimental psychology...