A journey to remember

With the things fast changing around me, things which are evolving around me, it is imperative that I should need to adapt for the changes around me. It may not be applicable to each and everything in me. However, I need to if at all the changes are in sync or cohesion with my line of thought, belief and conviction. Sometimes, the changes around me may not directly affect me; however, if it is affecting directly or indirectly society, I should be part of it, nurture it and accept it finally. It would be grossly unfair if I do not mention the fact that changes in me may not actually be the reflection of societal changes always! Sometimes, they can be self-motivated as well. During this phase of adaptation or transformation, I may need to learn new things; need to unlearn few; need to polish few; finally, I may not need to change few of them at all. During this phase of adaptation, some of the skills within me which are active can potentially become “dormant” within me – meaning I may not use them like I used to. The “skills” that I am talking to me are nothing but the actions/practices we do every day and every time. They are called skills if they keep changing with time. Otherwise, they would be branded as “habits”. I always use to think what happens to those skills which keep changing and have become dormant because of the change. Do they die within me? I think they are not. The saying “Habits do not die overnight” is applicable even to skills that I possess. They may not be used frequently; but they are dormant within me. Also, it is important to note that, certain skills may not be changed once they reach a point. This can be due to various reasons. I think those skills can be termed as habits!

If I can give an example for the above thesis – I could consider the newspaper reading! For a kid, it can be a nice thing to have. However, for grown up, it would be a habit. But, this skill had undergone many changes before it could be termed as habit. When I was a kid, it was not possible for me to read to newspaper in hand. I was spreading the newspaper on the floor and read it. Slowly but surely, I developed the art of reading it in hand sitting on chair, moved to read it by sleeping on the bed. With the advent of e-papers, I picked up the art of reading news dailies on the computer; now on the tablets as well. So, it has become a habit. However, my uncle may not be able to change himself to read a newspaper in computer or a table for that matter but for him it is still a habit as he stopped to change himself.

I am telling all these things because I happened to commute to office in public transportation system one of these days. I’ve stopped using public transportation ever since company started to provide its transportation service and once I changed the company I switched to personal transportation. It was almost two years ago. It was a testing time to see whether I could manage to handle the crowd and the long journey from home to office. It was testing time for my “dormant” skill which I acquired.

To reach my office from my current living place, I have to travel close to 25KM. To do this in bus, I’ve to make a stopover at Kempegowda Bus Stand and then make another change at Kormangala-Sarjpur Road junction or at Marathahalli. 

I think it was a Wednesday. I got up at 6:00AM and switch on the heater. I finished the nature calls and was out of home by 7:10 AM. I head straight into a darshini nearby and hand couple of idlis with chutney NO sambhar! After that I started to walk on the usual road which takes me to bus stand. This was the beginning. This is something like streams joining the rivers. The scene had not changed at all like it used to be couple of years ago. The senior citizens were heading back from their morning walk and were stopping at milk parlours to get the milk packets. Some of the college goers (I suppose) were at the coffee shop having coffee or tea and sharing cigarettes. Some were cleaning their yards and putting rangolis. I diligently walked on the road without walking on the rangolis and reached the bus stop. One noticeable change was there were no dogs – stray or pet dogs. Earlier people were taking their dogs for morning walk. At that time, I was thinking who is taking whom for walk – dog taking its owner or owner taking the dog!?

From my house to KBS is not far. This is easier part of the journey as number of commuters will be less at the time I used to commute. I got into the bus and asked for a ticket. Conductor issued me the ticket. I could see smile in his face as I tendered the exact amount. It was my practice to carry 1 ten rupee note, 2 two rupee coins, 1 one rupee coin and 1 five rupee coin. With this combination, I could make any number b/w 1 to 20! I needed to do this if I don’t use pass! If I gave 100 rupees, I would get ticket plus and conductor would yell at me! Paisa bhi do aur gaali bhi khao! Not acceptable for me! Bus pass reminds one more thing with the conductor. It was always a victory for pass holders (especially for me) to produce the pass on the first day of the new month with conductor. If I could pull of this and if conductor gives a constipation-like look, then it is mini victory for me! I would have loved to do this every month. This is because conductor gives the impression that the pass holders are travelling for free if we show him the pass! But he tends to forget the fact that we’ve paid the money in advance. Coming back to the commute – this is smooth since it is not a long commute and fewer crowds. But this journey made to bring in some change in me from the usual. In this route, I lost my mobile. So, this made me to remain careful from carefree and made me to think of a way to protect my items. I started to keep all valuable items in my bag and backpack bag became an integral part of me ever since! 

Within 15 minutes, I reached KBS. This is an ocean of madness. I can see all walks of people like – kids, college students, working class, senior citizens, patients and importantly floating population. This can be entropy for randomness! One common thing I can think among all is – everybody is running against the time machine. This part of the commute is always challenging, scary and sometimes injurious as well. I’d to be smart, rude, ruthless, bullying and finally patient. Once I get down from bus here, I could reach the platform from I used to get connecting bus. I should be smart enough to understand by looking at the people around me in the platform. If I could see more people, it was evident that some of the buses had not made it to the bus stand on time. If I could see some faces still waiting, then I should be able to sense that my bus had not yet arrived! Those faces are known faces but they were still alien to me and vice versa as we never talked each other. We form a group on the fly and group is valid for few minutes and gets dismantled once we get into the bus. This is nicely depicted in the movie “A Wednesday” as well! 

Once the bus comes to the platform, I would make sure that I stand on the left side of the door as people inside the bus would get down from the bus from their left side. The rest is simple. Others would push me into the bus and my job was to find a seat! I always preferred right side seats over the left side (reason explained further down). If I could not make it to the door, leave the bus and wait for the next one to arrive! Once I seated first thing is to check the belongings. Once the bus gets filled with people, I could see people who were frustrated for not getting seats, who were happy as they got their seats and some were devastated because after such a struggle they got into wrong bus! I’d undergone all these emotions! With experience, I learned to adapt to the art of tranquility. I never felt happy if I got the seat; at the same time never felt bad because I could not get a seat. However, I never let the attitude to struggle for the seat. In the hindsight, if I think now – this attitude drove me every day. Once the dust settles inside the bus, some of the seat holders would be beaming as if they won a battle! The frustrated souls would be finding for a reason to burst out. If they managed to find one, then the volcano would be erupted. It could be petty exchange of words; fully blown quarrels; some time physical as well. People would enjoy this as long as it continues. If it does not end, the conductor or some pacifier will do the role of devil’s advocate and pacify the parties in action! I never gave importance to all these. In fact, I never used to start conversation with anybody in the bus and almost felt like disturbing if some unknown person talked to me! 

From here, the journey is quite long. It takes almost an hour to reach my old office. For my current office, I need one and half hour. I would be on iPod or novel. Prior to iPod days, I would be on FM or songs on my phone. I would sleep if I had come back from my native on that day. I prefer right side seats, because during Koramangala days, I had to pass thru lots of chicken shops on the left hand side and could not see butchery of butcher. Also, on the right hand side, we’ve Christ University (previously Christ College). The time at which I used to reach there was the time at which I could see lots of girls. The only high point of the journey is not to miss this phase at any cost. Many time, while reading I did miss! After the commerce and management grads, I had the privilege to see girls in aprons – they could be doctors, pharmacists, nurses! It did not make much difference that they were to me as all are girls! Then comes the school – it would be fun to observe the school during the month of June. New kids who are getting admitted into the school for first time would be crying and the mixed feeling of excitement and concern in the faces of parents were always nice to cherish and remember. If it were an old office, I should have got down by this time. Once I got down, the relationship is over with that bus and the co-travellers and a new one would get formed once I board the bus next time! 

I did all these this time as well instinctively! Like I said earlier, this proved me that skills which I acquired over last 6 years won’t die in me because I’ve changed to different life style and I’ve undergone the process of adaptation! They are just dormant and will come out instinctively when required!

Symbol of modern woman

Here is a story of a woman who was born in 50s in a coservative family. She was raised under the influence of her brothers who could only share debts, hungry and wisdom! With all the difficulties, only thing she could do is to think. The situation and environment taught her to struggle and fight against all the odds. She did what was dreamt off during that time and scored 100/100 in Mathematics examination and completed her graduation with an aim to do masters. However, the situation was not in her favor to go in that route even though brothers intention was to secure a masters degree. With chances to go for higher education became narrow and she decided to find an employment. With the dreams of getting a masters degree fell apart, she got through in one of the govt services and secured a job. She did there for couple of years and left to join one of the banking firms. All this happened during the time where this part of world was not used to that. 

From then onwards, it was just the journey many of us really envy of. She got married and a baby was born. Because of domestic issues and because she was working, she was compelled to leave the capital and go back to her birth place so that baby survives and succeeds. With a monthly salary of 300 rupees, she and her husband had the audacity to build a house for her family and she did it in 2 years. Life continued for many years like that and situation changed 90s. Her children were not babies anymore and her life was as nice as possible. When she was thinking everything was going smoothly, she was made to travel to another town. She was tensed because kids were very young and but again showed the same attitude which she showed when she relocated from capital. She succeeded in that too. In last decade, it was smooth ride for her with both kids settled. However, she had to face a near-deadly blow in 2009. All these years, the situations which came across never demanded anything like now. It was her health and all the struggles that she put over the years were about to give fruits; but health did not join with her this time for party. But, she was adamant and she had the single pursuit of completing her service in the banking firm and want to see the things which she wanted to see during her struggling days. That single pursuit of living life saved her from deadly disease and everything seems to be normal for her now.

Today is the day when she has to retire from her service! Today is her last day at office which gave her an enormous support during struggling days. This is the day she really wanted to see and the day has arrived. 

Who is she? She is my mother. According to me, people like her represent the idealism of a modern woman! I think this can go as the fine example for women empowerment. 

When I look back, it is mixed bags for me. I think I never had lunches with my mother! When I came home for lunch during school/college days, the empty chairs were my companions! After my education, I had to leave my hometown and settle here and again I am missing my lunches. However, I do not regret about it! It was a compromise we had to make and now it is giving me the fruit. I hail you Amma! I salute thee! 

THANKS!


AR

What are ideal values?

The last two blogs that I wrote concentrated predominantly on the organization values and system which sets manages and changes them as and when requirement comes up. The system (troika) that I talked ideally should set values which always tend to excel the organization. That ideal system if at all exists, then it can be assumed that organization is in safe hands and definitely we can expect changes within the organization when organization itself looks to excel. This is the summary of my previous blogs.

Before I start my current blog, I would like to take re-organization which happened in Infosys Technologies recently with NRN going out and K V Kamath taking his position along with other management changes at the top most level of the organization. I think this change supports my theory I mentioned in my previous blogs. Because of competitive market pressure, INFY to excel itself it needs to change itself and needs to evolve to shield the market pressure. Management felt the need of overhaul. It is because of clear fundamental values associated with organization – such a re-organization had been achieved smoothly. Now we have a new troika to see INFY 3.0. Obviously we can expect changes within the organization with respect to policies to achieve their organization objective. I also mentioned earlier my blog that if organization values change too much, there will be more chances that organization will be renamed; same happened with INFY and I suppose this is one of the first changes in the organization and many more to follow as the situation is nothing but reinventing itself. I also feel that INFY becomes a matter of case study like it used to be from last two decades.

After digressing a bit from my current blog, let me come back. With some of the events that happened and happening in my professional front, I’m more fascinated to know how an organization decides its values, objectives? How it drafts policies? And the most important and tricky one – “What are ideal values of an organization?”

If I have a group of ideal people who can draft beautiful, scientific, employee-friendly organization values, will it be possible for them to draft the most “ideal” values? It will be a mystery to me to understand these things.

I am trying to explore more on what are ideal values through this blog. Before I proceed, I feel that I may be wrong here in understanding the facets of ideal values or ethics of an organization as I had been part of only one organization all through my 6 years. Also, I may have skewed-view of these values as I have been only an          employee all through 6 years and never been an employer (manager).

Generally, in an objective based organization, objectives are associated with organization indirectly. However, directly they are associated with people who run organization and people who work for organization. These objectives must always adhere to organization values and ethics. This means all of them who are part of the organization will be either directly or indirectly adhering to organization values either through objectives or through changing the organization values themselves.

I believe (rather strongly) that organization values are individualistic in nature when organization is incepted and they evolve as organization grows and matures itself. Organization when incepted will have very few individuals and values will be based on these individuals. In many cases it may not be ideal when started instead they will be primitive and becomes core values as organization evolve over the period of time.  The ethics or values of organization can be visualized with the different stand points – employer view and employees view.

An employee thinks that ideal workplace should provide him/her job satisfaction, job protection and good monetary benefits. I cannot think anything else other than these as of now. From an employer perspective, ideal values should meet or adhere to organizational objectives and also there will be many more other things to achieve organizational objectives and hence may not be able to provide everything that an employee thinks ideal. So, there will be a compromise plan that will be laid down by organization in agreement with “troika” that I mentioned earlier. So, organization should now set values or ethics which will eventually help to achieve the organizational objectives along with the fact that everybody in troika adheres to it. In other words, organization should draft policies which adhere to its values and creates a conducive “environment” for employees to work. I feel this will be the greatest challenge for any organization after its inception.

All I am pointing is the way ideal values will be drafted or evolved within the organization. But never mentioned anything about them and how they should be. If I can think of ideal values of any organization, I always quote a quote from mother of Narendranath Dutta, Swami Vivekananda and quote goes like this:

“"Remain pure all your life; guard your own honor and never transgress the honor of others. Be very tranquil, but when necessary, harden your heart."

If my understandings are correct and I can add my bits to the above lines –

“Be honest to yourself first and then to others as well; be accountable, responsible and disciplined so that one can protect his/her honour; never disrespect others; be calm at all the times and remain practical when required.”

If organization and people who are part of the organization follow above lines, I think and I am pretty sure that such organization will have ideal values associated with and people are following it without fail. The other important thing these lines speak – the idealism in yourself. If an organization drafts an ethical pattern which can be adapted in oneself or in other words if that becomes a walk of life – then definitely people follow it w/o fail and they can be differentiated as distinguished ideal values. I am saying this because (especially in India) we tend to celebrate everything. We believe in group based activity. We celebrate festivals together; we mourn together; we celebrate government activities such election, polio drops programme together. For us everything is celebration. Thus, if our policies or ideals are designed in that way, I am pretty sure they succeed. Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr. Modi says same thing. When a scheme or a policy be designed as Janandonalan or people-oriented then that scheme/policy succeeds. He exemplifies with water harvesting, malnourishment improvement schemes by asking milk suppliers to donate 100ml of milk everyday to name a few. I am sure that above values if adapted amongst the people and also by organization itself, they automatically become ideal.

I read above lines when I was browsing something on Swamiji. But, I have had this inhibition of comparing these lines at organizational level and individually.

I think by this time many people would have realized which organization I am talking as I have worked with only organization. Yes “VeriSign”. This company has got greatest concept of “RAPID” values and these are the values which I cherish forever. I tried to adapt it in my day to day activities along with my professional values. For those who aren’t or weren’t part of VeriSign, RAPID means Respect, Accountable, Passion, Integrity and Drive. Let us compare these values with the above lines. They match exactly! Don’t they? We have respect, responsibility and integrity defined in the organizational values which cover first two lines! We’ve passion and drive defined as well. Whatever may be the situation in employee’s life, if you have drive and passion, you deliver! Aren’t they satisfying those lines? According to me, they are for sure.  

Like VeriSign, we can find many people who follow those values or principles. One of the apt examples would none other than Sachin Tendulkar.

He has been playing for India from last 21 years. He would have faced so many balls in his careers and during practice as well against such a nice bowling attack over 21 years. But even now, before match, he practices and respects each and every ball and of course every other cricketer. His humility and his humble nature towards other cricketers make him great and commands respect from all corners. So, I can mark R of RAPID as covered. Next will be his accountability. Do I need to explain? He takes his responsibilities every time he comes to middle. Integrity – I think I do need to talk about this. Passion and drive – if Sachin does not have these then he would have retired long time ago. It is his drive which took him past the tennis elbow problem and it was his cricketing passion which makes him to wake up early in the morning, practice for 3 hours, play for 8 hours on field, practice again, have tea and sleep on dining benches. He did this for 55 days non-stop at age of 14! He does even now and he may not sleep on bench though! He is following same RAPID values and of course those lines as well!

Organizational values and significance

After completing my last blog, I did research more on organizational values and its principles. I found that along with strong fundamental values and universal implementation of the same, an organization must have an attitude to thrive itself further. To do that change is required. Also, this raises serious questions. Why to change? When to change? How to change? First two questions are simple. When organization decides to thrive itself or grow bigger itself, it starts thinking about the change. The last question is a serious question and implementation of change is always a challenge in any place. The probably way is to adopt re-engineering, reinventing and recycling strategies within the organization to achieve the objectives set by itself. To achieve, this  I think we need troika consisting of executor, philosopher and follower with each of them work in conjunction towards the objective of thriving.

This troika is more or less similar to any democratic elected system. If India is concerned and with current set-up, it is PM belonging to party and elected by people of India acts as an executor with supporting staff like (Military, Government officials and other elected representatives). People would be the followers of the policies and of course Judiciary, media act as philosopher or guide. In this ecosystem, everybody has same objective to achieve wellness of nation and people. This means collectively troika should try in achieving the wellness of the society.

Similarly, all the profit-oriented organizations will have more or less have troika model. Like any democratic system, it will also be collectively working towards wellness of the organization and employees who are part of it. Here I would say management becomes executors, board becomes philosopher and employees become followers. All in unison will be working towards an objective of thriving themselves directly and indirectly making organization to grow.

In the political spectrum, the prime minister is accountable to people who elected him and also to the party at the same to which he/she belongs. In this sort of system, there will be considerable percentage of people who are not willing to accept the policies of the party to which prime minister belongs. So, it becomes the prime minister’s responsibility to take these people without affecting his party line of thinking. If party starts to dictate or manages PMO, definitely we see issues in the policies and people/nation will suffer at the end. It is happening now with Congress controlling PMO and it happened earlier during Nehruvian time or Vajpayee’s time. Nehru asked to remove party president when party started to question Government policies (more read: Feroz Gandhi vs Nehru). Vajpayee when he was in power, BJP’s sister concern RSS troubled him over many issues resulting in embarrassment. Thus, everybody in the troika that I mentioned earlier has got their roles and responsibilities to perform. All are accountable to their actions and responsibilities.

In the same analogy, every business organization, certainly some set of employees who are not on with management. Management has to consider them during their policy changes or making. Also, if management unilaterally takes certain decisions, then it is board which should guide them during the crunch time.  Finally, the employees must adhere to the organization values set up by management after board’s approval. Like any elected government, organization’s troika must work in unison to achieve organization goals. Like any democratic systems, everybody who is part of organizational troika must perform their roles and responsibilities.

In the beginning, I said about organization thriving with reinvention, re-engineering and recycling. To achieve this, the important aspect would be that objectives tend to change. The CHANGE is the only way to achieve organization growth as change is the only thing which is constant in this world. In my previous blog, I did mention that changes should happen in the organization. Also, I did mention that changes should happen if and only if it is required. And these changes must adhere to organizational philosophies. This means changes must be in conjunction with organization values or set-up. Secondly, the changes should not shackle the fundamentals of organization as the organization has been built upon those values. Finally, changes must be universal to accept. To thrive, these things are needed and should be methodically done to achieve the organization goal. This means the changes must be designed considering the organizational values and differences of opinion on the change itself by the executors. The changes should be revisited and should be approved by the philosophers and finally it should be thoroughly followed by the followers.

Along with troika, one more important factor which can directly influence the path of change is the individual growth within the organization in specific or society in general. In a society or organization, as organization grows, individuals who are part of it will also thrive. It is natural and expected. But there is conflict of interest which can bring the organization into its knees even after having strong organizational values. The personality quotient, PQ, within every person will have direct influence on the path of change. I suppose PQ is the biggest potential to thrive and at the same time biggest threat to organization.

Let me give few examples which did not follow the process I explained earlier so that we can better understand my analogy.

Let us consider Satyam Computer Services Private Limited. This company is one of the pioneers of India’s IT supremacy. It explains in the best possible way of my analogy of troika system and personality quotient and conflict of interests. This company when incepted had had some organizational values. In the process of growth, it instrumented some organizational changes. With more personal interests, executors without the board’s approval introduced the changes without adhering to organizational core values resulting in company falling like WTC! What next – the IT czar was behind the bars. The organization collapsed and followers suffered.

Another great example would be VeriSign itself. Here the executors and philosophers failed. The company in order to thrive bought some companies which were not part of their core business strength. That change back-fired them and company CEO was also fired at the same time. In the path of thrive, company tanked.

Finally, let me consider our medium and small scale industries. Here the followers failed to adapt  to valid and rational changes drafted by executors with philosophers' approval. In ‘90s, Bangalore had 15K small scale industries. In order to grow, the small scale industries needed to  increase the produce. So, owners decided to introduce new working policies to thrive the production. However, employee unions did not accept the new policies. Now both executors and followers are in dire straits.

Contrastingly, Personality Quotient, PQ, as I said earlier can be a boon to an organization. Let us consider people like Steve Jobs, NRN and Richard Branson who can influence the whole organization with their mercurial thinking resulting in extra-ordinary growth of the organization. All these personalities are individualistic in nature but they never violated any of the company policies and philosophies. They stuck to their company values. 

From these negative examples, my belief has increased and also even with troika system and proper implementation scheme, if anyone in the troika thinks irrationally, destruction will happen affecting the ecosystem. Also, I suppose and believe that everybody threw the values of themselves and the organization in the name of growth. The personal significance ruined the organizational values. None of them understood the significance of value-based living.  On the other hand, personal influence did help organization growth since persons stuck to their values and organizational values. Therefore, I think organization must teach its employees the significance of principles, philosophies and rules. At the same time, employees should understand them and adapt them to grow themselves from one stratum to another. 

Ideology, Philosophy and Policy

IDEOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY AND POLICY

Ideology refers to a set of self beliefs and doctrines which are associated with a society, an institution or a business organization. Secondly, philosophy is a logical, analytical and pragmatic study of current state of society, institution or an organization with the help of philosophers.  Finally, policies are set of rules, guidelines which can be used as a tool to enforce the ideals associated with society, institution or an organization.

Here in my blog, I would like to restrict myself to a business organization as I am not qualified enough to understand the sociological aspects of the society.

Ideology

Before the inception of any business organization or a social institution, the respective personnel who are part of the organization should come up with a set of ideal or ideologies primarily considering the current situation with a future vision of society and with an intention of bright future for the organization. In other words, ideologies must be adhered to a philosophy as philosophy is a scale to analyze the current state. These ideologies are generally ideologies of individuals. Every individual will have his/her own way of thoughts and beliefs. The organization ideologies will be based on these individual values and different individual values must be rightly blended together. Generally, the ideologies are agenda-oriented, very personal for most of the times, dogmatic and very emotional. Ideologies are either harmful to society and at the same time it can be very good to society depending upon how it is accepted in the society. At one time, communism was a fashion. My father and uncle say that wearing a kurta with glasses with beard on was a way of life. Communism was the thing for many individuals. However, in 15-20 years, everybody knew about that ideology and everybody has been moved out of it or moving out of it. I feel generally ideology is an aggressive of expressing individualistic thoughts and beliefs on somebody else by ideologues.

Philosophy

Philosophy, on the other hand, is a way of life. It is way of thinking, analyzing and understanding the way of life so that more wisdom and knowledge is gained. It is always analytical, logical study of way of life. It always talks about current state of life and thinks about it and tries to understand about the current affairs. Philosophy is pragmatic approach to life and is always societal or social in nature. It is neither harmful to society or may not do any good to society at the same time. It is a very passive way of understanding the things so that it reflects the current societal values or organization values. Also, it is the philosophy which creates the ideals, ideologies. All the ideologies are built upon philosophy as it is actual reflection of current affairs. Philosophy is not as rigid as ideology; but the change in philosophy is generally gradual in nature. However, sometimes it can be fast-paced to term that as revolution. Unlike ideology, there is a scope for change here.

Policy

Policy is a set of rules, guidelines which are outlined by ideologues so that they can impose the ideologies on the society or organization. Policies are always a guide to way of life. Policy is the way of implementing ideals into society or organization. Philosophers review these policies when they see winds of change in the organization generally. In some cases, it may not be true. If these reviews are fast paced and need to be changed immediately, ideally, ideologies need not to be tweaked or morphed so that new rules can be in place with immediate effect. But, if the new rule is going to change the current equilibrium of the organization, and then ideologies need to be revisited at the same time so that new rule benefits everybody within the organization.

Case Study

Societal Situations

We all know the origination of Semitic religions. This is one of the good case studies. Because of Jewish oppression and idealists’ attitude, philosophers felt that there was a need for change. The analysis and logical thinking of society was long driven process and philosophers suggested for change after a long gap of time. One of the philosophers was Jesus Christ. However, Jewish idealists went bizarre and the need for change reached pinnacle with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The philosophers ushered the winds of change across the latitudes and longitudes resulting with new ideals, ideologies etc. The new ideologies were built upon the situation at that time.

However, there are even now people who do not accept that ideologies and still follow their own ideologies. From this, it is very apparent that ideologies need not be accepted blindly and followers part ways if they cannot merge. But, now we’ve Pope or Prophet who issue new ideologies without going thru the process which their fore fathers followed. Can we expect one more change? Of course.

In India, I think we had philosophers only; no ideologues. Ashoka, the great, could be one of the ideologues who conquered the World and imposed his violence attitude across the society. Buddha was born to guide him in the right path. Ashoka accepted the fact that change was necessary and changed the ideologies and spread the new ideologies.

However, ideologies that Buddha drafted were re-looked after some centuries by Adi Shankara, a philosopher, again. Adi Shankara felt the changes that occurred over the years and felt the need of new ideologies. This resulted in new values and ideologies to society. To follow these new ideals, new rules were defined and added a new dimension to society.

The above two case studies prove that analytical thinkers are needed in a society so that changes are identified and necessary actions need to be taken whenever it is required. Also, idealists need not be in agree with other ideologies at the same time. They may agree to disagree.

Organizational Situations

If an organization is concerned, it can be seen as a society as it is comprised of individuals with different thoughts and beliefs and all are adhered to company’s ideals and ideologies. Like society, each organization has got its own philosophy and set of rules. Any organization when started will have some philosophy upon with ideologies are built. But, as time moves on, philosophy of the organization does tend to change. Generally, it is a gradual process. So, it is the responsibility of the philosophers or so called executives to keep a watch on this gradual process.  Thus, there exists a responsibility to redefine, change or remove certain ideologies depending on the current state. In other words, executives need to change ideologies before changing the rules if they feel a reflective change in the philosophy of the organization.

Let us consider the European companies current state – most of the companies are under loss or labour problems. This is all because of the earlier communist or left ideologies resulted in illogical labour laws. The current situation is not at all good and there is a change in the society. Executives are coming up with new ideologies so that companies can be revived with old or existing ideologies will be scrapped. The new ideologies will be built based on current state and new rules will be defined to achieve it.

Conclusion

Ideologies for an organization are built up on philosophies with clear definition, vision and thought along with set of rules to achieve it. At the same time, these things are accepted generally across the organization. Also, ideologies need to be changed only when philosophically organization is changed.

Ironically, in my organization - rules have been bent to impose somebody’s ideology even though the current state of the organization does not need it.

The Sound Of Silence

I happened to listen to Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" accidentally when I was randomly looking for good quality piano piece of "Love Story" (Hollywood movie) theme. This song depicting the sound of silence fascinated me so much that I could not resist myself from writing this piece. I am really not sure the reason behind this song; but, after some research, I did find that it was written after the assassination of the US President, John F Kennedy. But, I can relate this song with the changes that happened in my daily routine as my office got shifted to new facility last week.

The lyrics of "The Sound Of Silence":

Hello darkness, my old friend,

I've come to talk with you again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone,

'Neath the halo of a street lamp,

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more.

People talking without speaking,

People hearing without listening,

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence.

"Fools" said I, "You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows.

Hear my words that I might teach you,

Take my arms that I might reach you."

But my words like silent raindrops fell,

And echoed

In the wells of silence.

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made.

And the sign flashed out its warning,

In the words that it was forming.

And the sign said, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls.

And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.

Now, let me analyze this with changes happened to my daily routine. This song makes me very significant w.r.t to changes happened to my daily routine because of office moving to new facility. Let me explain -

The time of disturbance towards my “sound of silence (sleep)” has not been changed as I get up from my bed at the same when my office was in Koramangala. However, everything else is changed from then onwards. I used to commute to old office empty buses with unknown faces and nobody had dare to disturb my sound of silence. I used to make a detour to Majestic bus stand w/o disturbing my sound of silence (that is w/o uttering a word) until I reach office. Many of the times, I've never spoken until I reach office. However, now even if I try to be silent, “known” faces disturb it; if not people, FM channels won't leave me alone. These channels bombard with high decibel utter non-sense illogical lyrical shit and hence disturbing my sound of silence. With this new office commute, my dreams which were seeded during my sleep were destroyed as my sound of silence has been destroyed with utter non-sense FM channels!

Most of the time, I was the first person to be in office in my old building. The scenario was so beautiful as there was nobody except the sound of A/C if that was switched on. The office was also happy with its own sound of silence and might be cursing me because I was the known face who was disturbing its dreams that were seeded during its sleep with a sound produced from my laptop mounting on the docking station! The scene in new building is totally different. I've whole lot of people at that time with full of disturbance to sound of silence!

In old office, the silence breaker was my manager (Oops! my ex-manager), Ravi Rao, who used to pull me out for a tea! Most of the times, I would have uttered my first word of the day at this time! The discussion would invariably on music or on the adventures of his daughter! I miss them nowadays!

Let me fast forward out clocks to lunch. It used to take 30 minutes in our old office for a peaceful lunch; but here we are forced to have our lunch in b/w the people who are talking without eating; people who are listening without eating; people are cursing that are never shared!

Now, let’s go back to song.

“Fools", said I, "You do not know…. Silence like a cancer grows…..Hear my words that I might teach you…. Take my arms that I might reach you" But my words, like silent raindrops fell And echoed In the wells of silence

So nice lines! Now, it is high time to consider the above line! I cannot keep my sound of silence like this! Otherwise the cancer of disturbance increases. So, I need to make noise to reduce the disturbance in any form; but as written above and from previous examples, it is evident that my noise will be so much that it will be more than 20K Decibels or less than 20 decibels making them not audible! In other words, it can be as silent as rain drops or it is getting echoed within the walls of mind or cubicle or GM!

As I am completing this, my mind says - "The Silence of Sound" similar to ending of "The silence of lambs".

- AR