Have fun while you do it...

It was an odd day today. Missed attending a close friend's wedding - thanks to the insane weather at Rajastan around this time of the year. Decided to attend TEDx Bangalore instead... Disappointed again as it turned out to be a live streaming of a global event.

Anyway this led me to have a session of jogging after quite sometime. A relaxation in the park after the jog and I sat down observing the kids playing nearby. Kids have always been an interesting mode of observation for me. The amount of need, urge, innocence, inquisitiveness and the resultant joy is immense... There was an old fellow teaching his grandson to count from 1-10 in various languages while he was playing on a swing. Every time the count reached 10, the kid used to be filled with joy and look forward for the next series. This made me think... Can we ever create such an environment at work / academia? Can we have so much passion and fun associated with learning that pride is associated with it?

In the due course of 'growing up', humans usually learn a lot of Dos and Don'ts associated with every activity they perform. These rules of Dos and Don'ts however is associated with the kind of environment they grow up in; the kind of situations they encounter in life. The amount of influence each event in life has on a person's mind generally decides who he turns out as. So, is it just innocence that makes the community of kids enjoy whatever they do? Probably not... It is a combination of many things...

If you think about it and consider all the parameters that influence this thought process, the whole question of passion and fun getting associated revolves around the attitude of an individual. As a person who will groom people, should the maximum time be spent on getting the right attitude in the individual? How does a change in attitude affect the association of a person with his work? Before we do that, is it all that easy to change the attitude of a 'grown-up'? :)

The answers to these questions differs from person to person based on the level of experience, exposure and maturity. For now, from my perspective all I would say is - Yes! A change in attitude can be brought. It takes time, requires effort to customize it, requires a lot of patience and needs to under-go an act of 'getting screwed at the grass root level' ...

Anyway... getting back - Can we create such an environment at work? I think we sure can... All it requires is energy, creativity, right attitude, inquisitiveness, maturity and an open mind. Well, deadly and a rare combination for sure... But where can we find such a combination at all levels of a growing economy? Its humanely not practical. All we require is a top layer which ooze out this combination. Style of leadership differs for sure... but however it is, all we require is a proper mechanism of grooming around the behavioral parameters which should help this to be percolated till the ground level... This will mean that as an organization, there will be attrition, weeding exercises etc... To counter this a proper recruitment team who have the same intent should help build the organization. So basically, a holistic approach towards building an organization from all the associated support functions and we should be there ... Difficult; but achievable.

Client Server

The idea bulb switches on in weird places at times... Today was one such day! 7:50AM when I was taking bath and out of nowhere this concept of client-server architecture sat in my mind. Nothing technical... but just the term came in and I started thinking; correlating the concepts of management and technology (of course was taking bath in parallel :D ...)

In a classical Client–server model, the client is the requestor and the server is the service provider. The same thing applies to a typical service design model. The clients are the ones with requirements and the servers act as knowledge / analytics base and service the request.

At the management level, there are innumerable number of parameters which contribute to design thinking. In the due course of dealing with all these parameters one gets lost in the thought that the client is the boss (more widely used as 'Customer is the King'). Really? What if the server (service provider) goes down? Will it not disrupt the client? :) ... But this isn't the way it works in the technology front. You have counter strategies which are much easy to deal with and feasible to work out. This lead to conceptualising this (w)hole thought into a new addition to the list of oxymorons. The first thought which came into my mind was whether these concepts qualify to be a pair of oxymoron. Yes, a pair of it - Client-Server wrapped under Technology and Management concepts. So mathematically speaking a second degree oxymoron...

The Bangalore traffic then let me have a different perception though :). Is it really the case?? Are there any similarities (a 180 deg phase shift... :P) between the conepts in technology and management? Hmm... In a technical arena, what happens when a server goes down? A reboot? Replacement? Revamp? ... many ways to counter it... So basically, a backup strategy is planned. What happens in a management arena? What if a service provider brings the shutters down? Will it be an end to the client operations? Not really, a service doesn't shut down over night. There will be a phase of transition and handover where the incumbent is paid to work. It may be no loss no gain scenario for the incumbent but this means that a backup strategy exists. Of course there are other parameters of legal, ethical & blah associated to make the situation more complex...

So what have I arrived at as I walk in to office in the morning?? A confused state of mind? A don't care attitude for the day? A 'What the hell!' feeling? ... Well... a happy state that I atleast was able to continue the thought that originated early in the morning and have a logical conclusion. They aren't oxymorons after all. They are similar concepts dealt under different situations at different levels of complexity...

Randomness is good...

'Randomness is fun dad! It makes you deal with situations as and how they come... You don't need to actually plan stuff but at the same time you gotta make sure that things work in the right way when they come up. The positive side of this is that the person dealing with it is avoiding himself from unnecessary worries of a "PLAN" not working and the risks being mitigated!'

Well, I know ... a heavy conversation between a dad and his son... But this was the way my day ended! A lovely laughter after that and my dad was all in the mood to switch the idiot box ON for the series of his daily soap operas... I came back to my mode of dreaming... Is it really true that randomness creates a situation where you don't need to plan? Doesn't it create more and more chaos? Doesn't it create imbalance, anxiety and thus higher blood pressure? :)

If I think of it now, I can link it to the concept of creative chaos which I am right now concentrating on ... How can we build something around randomness to reduce the chaos? Do we ever need to reduce the chaos BTW? What is the problem with having such a chaotic environment? Is it not condusive for problem resolution? Is it not fostering creativity any more? Is it something which leads to an increased level of confusion? ...

Randomness comes with a beautiful gift of expectation of increased level of smartness from a person dealing with it. Yes, it is a blessing in disguise! I have been observing this at work and trying to implement it as much as I can... Do not actually plan things considering all the factors in place... Let a few factors come and influence your plan as and when they appear. This fills the concept of a plan with excitement... An unexpected behavior adds on the much required (rather pretty much missed these days...) surprise element in the implementation of a plan. If these externals factors stop influencing, the involvement of people will start reducing as they will not be motivated enough to just become 'implementors'. They will not learn the hard way... They will not be groomed enough to take up the task of planning when it is really required for them to scale up... So, Randomness is good! :)