Donkey’s Life
This parable is told of a farmer who owned an old Donkey. The Donkey fell into the farmer’s well, the farmer sympathized with the animal, but decided that neither the donkey nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he decided to get help to haul dirt into the well and bury  the donkey in the well to put him out of his misery.

Initially as the mud came pouring down upon him, the old animal was hysterical! But as the farmer continued shovelling and the dirt hit his back, and slipped to the ground, the donkey stepped up on the heap. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back, HE COULD SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP!. It was repeated torture, with shovels of mud hitting his back. No matter how painful the blows, or how distressing the situation seemed, the old animal fought panic and just kept right on SHAKING IT OFF AND STEPPING UP!

Finally,  battered and exhausted, he stepped triumphantly over the wall of that well as all the mud flung down helped in raising the floor of the well to the brim. ! What seemed like certain death, seem to have been avoided by clever thinking. . . all because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.

Gyan Guru’s take.

Quite often in life, we are taken for donkeys and surprisingly we get to accept the comparison even if for a brief interval, wrongly blaming ourselves for lot of flaws. In the process we allow lot of dirt to be piled upon us, and carry the burden to our grave.

 
As a farmers we are all aware of lots of ways of burying the donkeys, and as supervisors, we routinely help in this activity a lot. In the more sympathetic ages of yore, the farmers would struggle to bring the donkeys out of the well, tend and care for the injuries that they might have suffered during the fall, and in case they are incapacitated, the farmer would try to maintain the animal as much as he could.

Alas in this harshly competitive man eat donkey world, lesser animals don’t count,  so its incumbent upon the farmer to push all donkeys down the nearest well that they find.

By the way, I sometimes do wonder, did the farmer actually do his maths well. As anyone in the construction industry would know,  even dirt has a cost,  I wonder, how did the farmer, get to lay his hands on such a huge quantity of mud to fill up a well,  in which a full grown donkey could fit in. A rough estimate would be ten truck loads of soil, plus the labour costs. That indeed would have cost the farmer dear, that is, if in the meanwhile, the PETA activist had not landed up at his address.

Well not all donkeys are asses like me,  So lets see what the various breeds of donkeys would have done post this draining experience.

There are donkeys which are great motivators, one of them would come out with various flips to his experience, flooded by invitations from across the globe to various workshops, he would talk at length about what went through him, as the dust came tumbling down,  how thirsty he felt, how his nostrils hurt with all that mud pouring on to him. He would have talked about the turmoil in his head, as he battled the negative feelings for the farmer. He would be at pains to explain as to how none of these emotions clouded his vision during those few hours that it took the farmer to fill the well. He would further elaborate that his determination to succeed in life made him game for any adversity. Not to be found on the wrong side of the table, he would also praise the farmer a lot, and swear on his loyalty for him. he would promise that never ever would he leave the current farm, without caring to explain that ever since that incident, he has been so busy attending workshops that he had clocked not even two continuous days work on the farm.

 As more and more universities, start inviting him to share his experiences, he would think of writing a book, and being a donkey that he is, would deploy a ghost writer to pen his memories aptly named  “Two clever steps to kick dirt the professional way”.

Needless to add, with the world so thirsty for knowledge, the book would become an instant hit, and would sell ten million copies, and our noble author would be pressurised to come out with more sequels to the original book.

The next thing you know the books stands would promptly announce, from the author of the ‘ Two clever steps to kick dirt professionally’, comes another invigorating tale of determination and steady mindedness ‘Two clever steps to lick dirt efficiently’.  So there you are, a donkey made successful in spite of the best intention of the farmer to the contrary.

Then there are those loyal donkeys, who would blindly believe, that the farmer, not finding any other option to save him, had indeed started piling mud on to the well just to save the animal, he would profusely thank his employer, for saving his life, and profess never to leave the farm for life, to the sheer dismay of the farmer.

The depressed donkeys, who go into shock at the turn of small events are yet another group. Not willing to believe in their own worth, they would get so depressed that would start looking for another well to jump in for ending their lives.

None of this could beat, the boastful donkey. He would announce to the world, as to how he beat the farmer at his own game. How he tricked the farmer into piling buckets upon buckets of soil down,so that he could escape. He would declare as to how he knew from day one that the farmer was after his skin, he would talk for hours as to how he had been exploited at the farm, as to how hard he had to work, and as to how low his compensation was, he would announce to the world his intention of joining competition, to beat the farmer at his own game. He would not want to add, that not finding the competition to be his cup of tea either, he would have no qualms about coming back to the employ of this farmer again in a few months time.

So come to think of it, its totally up to you, as to how you take it, if someone decides to bury your donkey. You could take it lying down, you could write a book on it, you could have your little revenge by kicking the farmer hard, you know where, or you could just pat yourself on the back, pick up your belongings, and walk on, unmindful of what had happened, OR,  prove to the world that ‘YOU ARE NOT A DONKEY’.

Between 'The Rock' and the hard place

A Tale: Story of the sand in the jar - Here is a story I came across on setting priorities.

One day, an old professor of the School of Public Management in France, was invited to lecture on the topic of “Efficient Time Management”. Commencing his lecture, the professor pulled out a big glass jar from under the table.

 Next, he took out a bag of rocks, each the size of a tennis ball, and placed the rocks, one by one in the jar. He did so until there was no room to add another stone in the jar. Lifting his gaze to the managers, the professor asked, “Is the jar full?” The managers replied, “Yes”.

Once again, he reached under the table and pulled out a bag full of pebbles. Carefully, the professor poured the pebbles in and slightly rattled the jar, allowing the pebbles to slip through the larger stones, until they settled at the bottom. Again, the professor lifted his gaze to his audience and asked, “Is the jar full?”

At this point, the managers began to understand his intentions. One replied, “apparently not!”

“Correct”, replied the old professor, now pulling out a bag of sand from under the table. Cautiously, the professor poured the sand into the jar. The sand filled up the spaces between the stones and the pebbles.

Yet again, the professor asked, “Is the jar full?” and as was expected by the students, the professor reached for the pitcher of water that was on the table, and poured water in the jar until it was absolutely full. The professor now lifted his gaze once again and asked, “What great truth can we surmise from this experiment?”

With his thoughts on the lecture topic, one manager quickly replied, “We learn that as full as our schedules may appear, if we only increase our effort, it is always possible to add more meetings and tasks.”

“No”, replied the professor. The great truth that we can conclude from this experiment is:

If we don’t put all the larger rocks in the jar first, we will never be able to fit all of them later.

The old professor continued, “What are the large rocks in your life? Health? Family? Friends? Your goals? Doing what you love? Fighting for a Cause? Taking time for yourself?”

What we must remember is that it is most important to include the lager rocks in our lives, because if we don’t do so, we are likely to miss out on life altogether. If we give priority to the smaller things in life (pebbles & sand), our lives will be filled up with less important things, leaving little or no time for the things in our lives that are most important to us. Because of this, never forget to ask yourself, What are the Large Stones in your Life? And once you identify them, be sure to put them first in your “Jar of Life”.

                                                         * * * * * * * * *

Gyan Guru’s learning’s

Well that was a nice little story, with a hug huge dollop of Gyan (knowledge) as a ‘take away’. My mind goes back to my childhood, days bereft of television or the laptops, our favourite learning posts were grandma’s stories, and locally available Tamil magazines or children’s magazines. In those days, India was not yet outward looking, apart from snippets of the ‘would u believe it kind’, or a reference to an earth shaking international event, these magazine were full of the old world charm, containing a weekly medication of moral stories, stories from the Panchatantra, stories from mythologies & about freedom fighters, and of course the usual updates on Tollywood & Bollywood (Hindi & Tamil Cinema, as we call them).

So the mind is still fresh from the stories about sages who cursed people to be stones, about wicked magicians who’s life resided in a parrot deep inside a well in the jungle, about brilliant ministers who solved every puzzle put forth by clever schemers in the emperors courts, about court poets who had to prove their greatness by challenging others to a poetic duel etc.

Unlike the minds of today, we were not reared up, aspiring for ‘Wall Street’, Fleet Street, or Madison Avenue, but more made for the Paranthe Wali Gali (a food street in Delhi). A satiating meal and a bed time story with all the siblings huddled together, followed by a tight sleep, and dreaming about discovering a house made of chocolates,  was how carefree life was, as against today’s clearly focused, by the clock-work, Yoga to Coaching Classes to dance classes again back to coaching class routine of youngsters today.

Oh! I have digressed. The point is, that the stories continue, but the flavours have changed, if, earlier the stories were about good vs. evil, today the stories are more about performance, earlier the stories were about contentment, today the stories are about wholesomeness, earlier the stories had not commercial connotations, reverse is the case today, when all stories can actually be mapped to some business intent.

 Coming back, to our professor. I found the learning very elevating, but as stories go, they are only as good as the meaning that each one of us makes out of them.  So I asked some of my colleagues, their take on it, before the trainer could.

I leaned across to the gentleman on the right, who was focused on the bowl of peanuts placed on table, with one eye already on the crunchy wafers laid out on the training table. I still don’t understand, why the corporate’s of today, can’t detach work-shopping from eating, but then there can always be another story to it, I guess, to be penned separately.

Sir, I asked the colleague, what is your take on the Jar?  Well, he replied, emitting a loud burp, bowls always remind me of food.  You see the large stones are like the leg pieces of the chicken, he replied with a nostalgic glint in his eyes, and the pebbles you see, are the starters that are served in a party, or these peanuts that you have just devoured I wanted to add. You see these pebble things are big enough to contain the initial pangs of hunger, but not something that can fill your stomach, he continued! I waited, nodding my head, with abated breath for more enlightenment. You see, the large stones can also be the ‘Rasogullas’, * or your South Indian ‘Rava Ladus’ *, but today I would rather prefer them to be Leg pieces, he burped again. “The sand”, I exclaimed! Oh, I have no place for sand in my life, you see, I would rather have some gravy,  that can fill the whole jar, like the yummy garlic and cream gravy that my wife makes with feesh, he replied in his typical accent. Then where is the place for the water I asked him. Not to worry! He replied, I start with the Jackie Daniel’s with soda, and once I start then there is always space for more and more, not to worry about the water he smiled in his accent.

 (* Desserts not to be missed while in India)

So much for the training, I now really wanted a different perspective to the story and I turned to the guy behind me, who sat there frowning as if the world is going to come to an end. What happened friend, I asked. “Dammed trainings”, he replied, “always happens when you are planning an off”, he replied.  Why what happened, and what do u think of this Jar thing, I asked. You know Mandira? He asked. The Bedi?  I said. No, he replied, my wife. Well the stones are the tasks that she sets me. Aah, I could not push back a sense of déjà vu. “Like today I was to pick up my mom-in-law from the airport, and had to cancel it for this stupid training” he continued.  Oh so she is not coming is she ?,  “You see there can be nothing more insulting for the mom- in-law, not to be received from the airport, so I had to send my assistant instead”,  he muttered,  seething with anxiety.  Now this is one story I did not want to prolong.  How could I tell him that the stones that he talked about are not stones but monoliths around his neck?

 By now the logics were getting fuzzy in my head. I really looked for one bright spark in the group. “The Boss” I now remembered, if there was one person who could throw light on this story, it was him. Sir, I whispered, what a brilliant training, I said, just to be in the right side of the ‘Bull’. Grrr...  He grumbled true to his nickname. Sir... the ‘Jar’, I tried to continue as he interjected. “Reminds me, why was you presentation so jarring yesterday”? He grumbled in a constipated tone. I sheepishly tried to divert, Sir, ‘the rocks’!! ... Yes son, The Rocks,   you see Bahamas Rocks, Mauritius Rocks, Bangkok Rocks,  one can rock all night at these places son, he smiled uncharacteristically. Do remember to complete the project while I am away, he winked, “I know with whom”, I thought to myself.

After that one intervention, I gave up, if The Boss can’t throw light, (and I did not mean the disc probe) no one can.

So you see stories are only what one makes out of them. By habit, I have always read stories to escape from the present, I continue to do so even in this age, picking out a learning from an event is gift, a gift that one needs to start practicing at an young age, so what if it hurts the child in you, so what if it takes away the fairy tale out of the story, so what if it dumps you into a harsh world that is ‘today’. Always try to identify the rocks in your life, rocks that can be replaced with gravy, rocks can be as exciting as in rocks in the Bahamas, or they can also the biggest barriers to your success, remove those that are barriers, keep the jar brimming, let the cup splash, as they say in Hindi, the more it splashes, the more there is life. ‘A complete Life’

My way with Face-book

 

This is perhaps a bit late in the day to be penning a page about ‘Face-book’, around the time that this medium is already towards the latter part of its life cycle when people have moved on to other avenues of excitement, blogging has become passé, tweeting a thing one did in your teens, and the people left on FB now are there more by habit.

 

One feature of FB, which I am sure has already been discussed threadbare, is the ‘Like’ feature. Man is been born with a thousand emotions, but the creators of the site chose to remain with the ‘Like’ feature.  No matter what you see on the home page, you are left with only two choices, either  to ‘Like’ the post or remain a silent observer. Rather primitive way of making people interact, if i may say so.

 

Well let me elaborate, a trip to Timbuktu, hubby in his pyjamas, child on to its monkey pranks, or the pet with its wild behaviour all manage to get a ‘Like’. Your rivals at work, manage to get a promotion, you don’t have option but to give them a ‘Like’, especially if the whole team at work has already wished him on his success, the neighbours have gone on their fourth vacation in as many months, and you are livid with envy, but do you have any options.

 

FB may be a Fortune 500 company, having  been started only for Harvard Graduates, but now when it caters to every one who can click a button, should it not be helping people express themselves better. I still wonder how many marks the behavioural scientists would give to this site. Have they studied this strange facet of human behaviour of making do with a single mode of acknowledgement of events in others life, giving or deciding not to give a ‘Like’!. What do experts in the art of communications have to say on this.

 

That is where, yours truly, comes on the scene with a whole lot of ideas to transform FB. Mother-in-law, planning to visit you, she announces on FB, wish people could notice that you clicked ‘like’ on your mouse so harshly that, had it been a more interactive software, it would have burned a hole in the web page. Imagine being able to burn a hole in the web page.  Well thats not a bad idea is it, what do u  say ?. The  ‘Hole’ would come with a acknowledgement saying “ MR.ABC burnt a hole in the status”. Of course you could still retain the option of selecting who all could see that hole.  Now do you realise how drab FB really is ?. I am still trying to imagine more opportunities here.  

 

Boss got a recognition for a work that you did, while he was away on that ignominious trip with his cute executive assistant, burn it down, but of course make sure that only the right people are able to see it, else it could burn a hole in your CV. The cousin that you have been competing with since you were five year old, marries the richest old man in the city, and you read about them leaving for their honeymoon in their private jet, matchbox here I come,  neighbour posing with the latest ‘Audi’ they had acquired, so what if they all open the doors at each traffic signal to vomit out tobacco spittle,  burn it down, i mean the web page not the Audi of course.

 

That was about extreme hatred, but you still could want to react with a negative emotion. Like slap, kick, punch, bite, someone whom you cannot stand.  So go ahead, had I been an advisor to FB, I would have made sure that there were buttons for each of these reactions.

 

Now don’t get ideas about how negative and sceptical I am. Who said I would not be arranging for buttons for kiss, love, empathise, fondle (OMG),  being on the subject why not a OMG button, when a friend fails an exam, you could click  OMG, or even when your ex post a photograph in which she has put on five kilos. Better still, we could have a customised button, which lets you express your feelings better, like in the above example you could say, ‘Join sliming classes’

 Mark  Zuckerberg are you listening ?

The shark tale

 

A Tale : Put a shark in your tank

 

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. 

If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste. To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish.

 The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference.

Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged so they remain active in the water, and yet fresh when delivered at the ports.

Gyan Guru’s learnings

Well like the disclaimer I had already put in, I am no management guru, so hardly can comment on the various learning’s that come out of the above story, like, as to how in a group, something like a shark, keeps a group on their toes, &  helps in pushing their performance a few notch etc. Can’t help remembering the similarity with the case of the Egyptian slaves being whipped during the construction of the pyramids. Its sad that we acknowledge the fact that men cant perform unless whipped.  A far fetched conclusion but a sad one nevertheless.

Here’s my twist to the story : The fishing companies are thrilled by the results that the shark provide, and are making good profits.  In a one-up-manship, one of the fishing companies in order to achieve their aggressive budget targets, try to add one more shark to the pool to keep the fishes more charged up. Over a period the shark counts increases ( you see the fishing companies also added some female sharks to the tank).  The sharks have a whale of a time (oops pun unintended). They eat more and more fishes,  the production reduces,  eventually the sharks become quite rounded. They keep barking at the poor fishes, and swallow as many as they can.  The fishing companies are now in despair. They are unable to manage the cost of maintaining the sharks,   So one fine day, one of the fishing company lets call the company ‘’Shark-o-soft’ decides to kill the sharks. Killing sharks is illegal, so Shark-o-soft decides to take them to the shores of a developing company and kill them there because of lax regulations. Having killed them  don’t know what to do with the shark meat.  They decide to trying to sell it at cheap prices in the local market. This desperate measure to save themselves hits the jackpot, as the shark meat becomes a rage in the market, soon it starts getting exported to countries already starving of hunger,  the management is  thrilled in having discovered a new business opportunity. There is sudden demand for shark meat, and the stock prices of Shark-o-soft hit the roof. So here are the learning’s-

·         Innovate Innovate & Innovate

·         One shark  fires up the team

·         Too many sharks add to cost and only erode the bottom-line

·         If necessary sacrifice the sharks and make a business out of them

·         Those who create new lifestyle habits can make a pile of gold for ex. Apple did with Iphones

So if you are a fish don’t worry, there will soon come a time when the fishing company will tire of the sharks, and you will be free once more.

These were thoughts that came to my mind, but I dismissed all of that as products of my sceptical mind. You see the management books cant be wrong and I was never good at management studies, no wonder I am still at the bottom of the pyramid.

 There are other thoughts which struck me, I had to brush them aside. You see I had no explanation for them for example,

·         Why did the Japanese not take to our Indian Dal Makni and pudina parantha, why did they insist on fresh fish ?

·         If their shores were always devoid of fresh fish, how did they get into this habit of eating only fresh fish in the first place ? Why were they so finicky.

·         Did they have Pepsi or Coke with their fish,  Were they getting a fresh supply of these drinks or where these drinks also stale,   if so then how did they make their drinks fresh – put sharks there also ?

O Oh, I am getting late, the sharks are coming, get back to you folks latter, need to catch up on my work.

 

The Internet seems to abound in 'Gyan' served out in generous dollops, one has only to log on to the mail for a quick check, to stumble upon stories upon stories of motivational kitsch, which gets one going soft in the heart, and making you wonder as to how you have remained functional all your life without ever understood the basics of life.

When in comes to Management Gyan, the deluge is almost overwhelming. The western world makes sure to rub in their understanding of business and business practices, and make one wail in realisation, as to how primitive and shallow Indian practices, especially the ones you follow are, in comparison to the best practices world wide. To rub insult to injury even the Chinese & Japanese joint in with their theories formulated based on their heritage and ancient knowledge.

Having said that, me being what I am. I cant help noticing the funnier side of such stories, if nothing just to reinforce my self esteem and feel less inferior in the knowledge that I beat them in their own game. So have a good laugh at my foolishness if u may.

So here goes my flip to the stories that come chasing us. Recently I received a new story in my email, lets see what meanings I could make out of it.