Good parenting for Business.

If you have taken years of pain to grow your business right from its infancy, till the time it gets matured; and have instilled your righteous values and ethics in it, protected it from getting exposed to the roots of dishonesty, then it is bound to act and function the way you have structured it to be.

Often, during teens, when there are sporadic clashes between you and your child, do you simply cut off your ties with it and choose to give up on "parenting"?

If your connection is built on the basis of truthfulness, you can surely reach a positive agreement between the two of you.

The same way, if you have maintained a transparency in your business and with the people associated with it, then you can handle it well enough during your downturns.

Many of us believe that, in this money grabbing world, there is no way to go from rags to riches in a whirlwind, without gluing in a little chicanery.

However, believe you me, when you attach your business with the strings of dishonesty, you would not only hit pay dirt faster, but also face an equally fast and early deprivation.

When your business walks on the path of authenticity and patience, there might be a negligibly slow growth, but never a defeat.

Entrepreneurship is all about experiencing recurrent success and failure, but is often wrongly juxtaposed with ‘Winning and Losing’. And this is the root cause of depression, aggressive behaviour, even suicides, that happen after a business pitfall.

You may fail many a times, but that doesn't mean you’ve lost the game of life.

Failure is not defeat.

The problem is not when an entrepreneur faces bankruptcy, but when he builds a pyramid of false wealth and can't hold onto it for a longer time.

It all starts when a child steals a five-rupee coin for the very first time to buy a toffee and enjoys the trick. When you take no action against it and allow it to happen, it becomes his habit.

So, 5 rupees multiply by 365 days! And well, your stealing value in business reach lakhs and crores. And in this process of enjoying easy money, you forget the pile of risks that you have been building up all this time.

A better scheme is to religiously focus on your business with utmost diligence and veracity, because only then will you sustain yourself in the business for a longer duration, without having the fear of losing yourself completely in the game. Think of your business as your son, as a separate entity. You don’t steal from your son! And you always want your son to tread the path of honesty.  

While a business where the resources are honestly earned by you, might not necessarily bring you 100% superlative outcome; but will ensure a seemingly undisturbed sleep at night.

And well, during the pitfalls, simply channel your grief in a professionally meaningful way and make peace with your mind. Because, only your voice from within will give you answers for everything.

Including the solution.

The need to kill

Evolution has ordained that each living being has a relationship with nature; and all other beings, in a delicate balance. As time passes, the DNA of those who survive get passed on, and the traits of the parent DNA get replicated. Each of us have a great common feature. We can trace our lineage to the earliest living organisms. The line is uninterrupted; and the evidence is that you, who are reading this, is alive. The others simply couldn’t make it.

The traits you carry, are those that enabled your ancestors to survive, and these have got passed on to your DNA. The only mismatch is that while evolution of physical traits happens slowly over millennia, development in the human mind has been much more rapid. The instincts we have may hark back to the stone age, but our surroundings no more contain the source for the instinctive reaction. For instance, the fear of predators may have made our ancestors behave in a certain way upon hearing a loud sound. While we are no more faced with predators in our cities, yet we cringe and feel afraid if a loud sound is hard. We get startled and start looking around to understand the source of the sound, similar to how our ancestors would have done.

Having said that, I must take you back; to the early days of existence of our Homo Sapiens’ ancestors. It was a time when everything was in harmony, with each living being taking only what he required, from nature. There was abundance of everything. And then, one of our ancestors killed a bird/animal for the fun of it. This was the original earth shattering event. It was from then onwards that imbalance in nature stared. This event led to fear in the minds of others, that there is likelihood of shortage. Hoarding and accumulation became the insurance against such shortages.

The lives of people moved from the present to the future.

Violence is a part of existence. Every living being has to devour someone, whether of plant or animal origin, to survive. Is violence the way of life? The Buddha comes to our rescue and answers the question. He says that we must understand the difference between” Need to kill” and “Will to kill”. While the first is essential, the second is needless and creates sorrow.

In an expanding Universe, resources are increasing, so we have to set our fears at rest and live happy, healthy and peaceful lives. The negativity created by the first act of needless killing has led us to this state, where our fears have led to exploitation, which carries on to this day.

The unfinished agenda

Reactions to the Pulwama event made me think that we seem to have lost the plot since 1987.

Allegations of widespread rigging in the elections in 1987, created massive disaffection in the Kashmiri populace against the Government.

This was exploited to the hilt by Pakistan, wherein the same Kashmiri people who supported India in 1947, 1965 and 1971, were brainwashed against India. 

This was a carefully played card wherein infiltration was not by armed men, but by soothsayers who infiltrated the mind. Money for this came from Pak and the seasonal infiltration by armed terrorists was a decoy to give cover to the real infiltration- the infiltration of the minds of the youth.

We could have played the same game by isolating such elements and counter infiltration of the mind, by creating a love for India.

The opening up of the road to PoK was one such move by the Vajpayee Govt.

I recall that during my tenure as Election Observer in Kashmir in 2008, all those who had visited PoK were massively disappointed and said “We are much better off in India. Life is hell in PoK”.

The hard line adopted by the Govt against disturbance was not accompanied by a soft parallel approach to win over the populace sitting on the fence.

The Army did conduct some great outreach programs. Some students were taken to visit other parts of India. But the vigour with which we rallied against attacks was missing.

The covert game played by Pak should have been met with equally well funded counter measures. But this requires painstaking efforts by nameless, faceless people. It’s a thankless job with no glamour attached.

Harsh vigorous josh wala battles may be glamorous but are passé now. 

We have to defeat the enemy in the mind game he is playing.

Such battles are not fought with swords or guns or fighter jets.

They are fought with brains.

Hysteria will lead us to further alienate the Kashmiri which is what the Pakis want.

After the punishment which our Armed forces are definitely going to mete out; to avenge Pulwama, we have an unfinished agenda - to win over the Kashmiri Indians, who stay in PoK; by offering them a better life  in India, than the hell in which they live presently. 

Think

Organisations are different from individuals. The moment two individuals get together and organise themselves into one unit, say a family; each individual loses something which is given to the unit. In hunter gatherer societies, it was necessary and efficient to join hands to get food security.

As they started off, each organisation was created to serve human needs. An individual was willing to forgo some of his individuality to get better returns. As history progressed, the organisations started getting bigger and stronger. The individual now had to part with more and more of his individuality.

Life is all about give and take. For every piece of extra security, the individual gave a bit of his freedom.

In any cycle there is a range of optimum level where one gets a good mix of two alternatives. Here the two ends of the pendulum have freedom on one side and security on the other. As one moves towards security, one loses freedom and vice versa. Each person makes his place somewhere along this pendulum path with his own mix of this much security and this much freedom.

As history progressed, organisations started developing their own personalities. They consisted of individual humans, but these humans had to convert themselves into a rank or a position from their own personalities. Organisations insisted that one dissolves individual personality and assume the one ordained by the system.

By definition, organisations will always be against individuals.

The need for security will always create the need for organisations.

Once the organisations developed their own personalities, they started creating the need for their raison d'être. They created more and more need for security. Fear is the key.

The situation has now reached a stage where the fear has reached such proportions that organisations have made humans subservient rather than them serving humans.

We don’t have to look for aliens. They are amongst us.

The organisations we created to serve us have become the monster aliens.

Restrictions are increasing, CCTV surveillance, Gated communities, Id cards…

Where does one go from here?

We need to pause. We need to review. We need to rethink.

But will it be possible?

Our minds have been overpowered so much, that it seems well nigh impossible for us to think independently.

As always. there will be some of us who will rise above their fears. Others will continue harping on the greatness of the organisations.

It is necessary that organisations are kept at a level that they serve us instead of us serving them.

THINK

Extinction, the bright future.

We are at the beginning of a new era.

The dinosaurs are getting extinct.

The new age entails:

Reduction of one way media like television and newspapers. Gone are the days when one way information was king. From the newspaper barons, the Pulitzers and the Hearsts, we went on to TV as the chief source of infotainment. What next?

The signs of decay are evident. With more and more interactivity in the hands of the individual, the last desperate gasp of TV can be seen in the way news channels in India are screaming aloud, throwing all decorum to the winds, totally biased and unbalanced, they are desperate for eyeballs which simply are not there.

Ad spends will vanish on these screaming monkeys, as they will swing towards state patronage as a last-ditch effort to stay alive. They will grovel, they will scream, they will crawl, but won’t survive. Already the intelligentsia has give up on them. The masses will soon get over the hypnosis created out of bogeys and crying wolf.

With rise in interactive media, an entire industry is on the brink of collapse.

This is a mere indication of what is coming. And its coming sooner than you think.

This is what according to me is what the future entails:

1.       The good old ways of governance will change.

2.       The shape will change from the leader of the pack system to a bee swarm system.

3.       Focus will shift away from the Executors to the Prey.

4.       Development will shift from infrastructure to micro level.

5.       The focus will shift from the cities to the villages.

6.       Large business will yield to the small and micro level units.

7.       Economies of scale will assume a new meaning.

8.       Linkages will become important and these will cease to be in control of a few.

9.       Ethics and honesty will rule.

10.       The dishonest and unethical will be eliminated not by law enforcement but by denial of  opportunity.

11.   Social systems will change. Merit will mean not just caste, but actual quality of product determined by the consumer.

12.   The state will lose importance.

13.   Political boundaries will lose importance.

14.   Barriers of language, religion, will become extinct.

15.   Stealing and loot of resources will cease as digital currency and blockchain will ensure complete transparency and accountability. Those not adhering will cease to be operative.

Lets welcome the extinction. Lets plan for the future.

The fault lies within

We brace for the shock,
As we take stock.
For soon the fangs will be revealed,
Blood splattered all over the killing field.
It is a wolf not grandma on the bed,
Red Riding Hood stunned when all was done and said.
Twas never gentle the real intention
Forever fooled was the nation.
Divided were we by philosophy so old,
Father the saint was himself caste in the mould.
Privileged were some and shall forever be,
Condemned were they who wanted to be free.
How dare Oliver ask for some more,
We'll teach him a lesson with blood and gore.
He carries a lethal weapon they say,
Snatching the blindman's stick away.
Privileges are theirs till humanity will last,
Any attempt otherwise is "dividing on caste".
All watch with glee and hope as the mock fight goes on,
The suitors to the throne all promise a new morn.
Diverting attention by singing a tune,
We stand in a cesspool while aiming for the moon.
An ignorant society with belief in poison,
Changing heads instead of antidotal solution.
Each one of us, a beast cloaked in colors fair,
Searching for demons to vanquish in our lair.
Kicking the fallen is now to be called an act so brave,
Beheaded Marie lies squirming in her grave.

Life in a pen

The sheep were all gathered

A worried look on their face

For if what they heard was true

Wiped out would be their race

Their race

Now that was a joke

For among them they had

Differences that forever kept them broke

They looked all alike

Yet the equality was misleading

Some were superior & born twice

While the remaining did their bidding

Herbivores and harmless they seemed

Yet in cruelty they surpassed the worst

Darwin would turn in his grave

As his theory they simply bust

The fittest gene no more survived

For the twice born used the meme

Enslave the minds was what they did

And the unfit could do as they deem

The sheep multiplied and rapidly expanded

Their bleats turning into thunderous roar

Ravaging the countryside of all it had

Scaring everyone from canine to boar

Their strength came not from numbers

But from the captivity of their mind

The safe cocoon of categories did the trick

Each sheep having pride in their kind

Like zombies they believed and behaved

Ne'er one could from the path stray

A fully disjointed group yet a large one

In differences, their unity lay

As is wont of every safe haven

The pioneering risk was absent

Anyone could come and rule

So long as the status quo was present

Everyone waited for the lion to come

Who would provide the leadership needed

For the fear of the wolf kept them trembling

In nightmares they often bleated

Ne'er trusting anyone amongst them

To combat fear they sought information

Learning and growing while among them they fought

Their eyes turned upwards, pregnant with expectation

Any pioneer, anyone who could take risk

Was condemned to be the wolf in sheep's clothing

Buccaneers who'd often provide directions

Were treated with scorned loathing

Nipping in the bud any potential lion

While their populace got a bloating

They looked askance for guidance but alas

All they got were sheep in wolf's clothing