British Happiest at 38

People in Britain are at their happiest and content with life at the age of 38.  The new poll conducted on 2,000 British adults, aged 18 and above, also revealed that Britons better about themselves in their thirties than when younger, suggesting that it’s “not just wisdom that comes with age”.

http://zeenews.india.com/entertainment/and-more/brits-happiest-and-most-content-at-38_99176.htm

Not Wanting The Labour Pains

Just wanting the baby and not the labour pains is the route down the road often travelled.  The destination that this road leads to is mediocrity.

The Bible mentions “Go to the ant – consider its ways and be wise”.  The ant is one of nature’s most productive creatures.  Have you seen how motivated and organized ants are?  Look at the ant working and you will see the heights of single-mindedness of purpose.

We see Pandit Shivkumar Sharma and other music maestros perform and notice public admiration that they get.  What we don’t see is the painstaking efforts that they have put in during their training to achieve mastery.  Pandit Ravishankar would train in Maihar in Madhya Pradesh, India where it is 47 degrees centigrade during the summer.

Why do we want the finished product right away?  There is nothing in nature that seems to want things this way! The trees don’t bear fruit unless it has grown and matured enough to do so.

Work ethic – the fact that work in itself is good – is what schools and colleges must build into its students.  Parents need to mould their children and instil a set of values about the moral benefit of work and how the attitude leads to development and refinement of character.


Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha

True Empowerment

Empowerment has been the major thrust in management philosophy.  Empowerment at work is the availability of opportunities at the work place for the employees to be able to make their own decisions about their tasks at work.  Many business houses are practicing empowerment with their employees in order to offer better opportunities at work and to create an environment conducive to employee satisfaction.

Empowerment entails, amongst other things, some autonomy.  There are many theories and much research material on empowerment.  However, it believe that true empowerment lies is a superior’s ability to manage himself WHILE HIS SUBORDINATE is exercising autonomy.  The degree of autonomy may vary as per time, place and the situation – but autonomy remains at the core.

The “trust deficit” and the negative fantasies of “existential risk” in the superior’s mind strike at the heart of true empowerment.

The success of any organization depends on the ability of its organization structure and management to empower the lower hierarchy.  This is a given.  However, the flip side to this statement is that the success of any organization depends on the ability of its organization and management to

a)       Trust their own HR department about the quality of the employees that it offers positions to

b)      Trust the organizational structure and its systems of checks and balances

c)       Trust themselves and replace their insecurities and fears with a positive mindset

True empowerment fails when the above core ingredients are missing


Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha

Negative Feedback Can Be Nourishing

Our concept of our self may, at times, prevent us from accepting feedback that works against it.  We may form mental images of ourselves that may, over a period of time, drive us away from reality.  We may thus experience dissonance when we receive negative feedback from our work or home or from the social environment at large.  Businesses can get arrogant and forget the basic fact that a business is a business only because there is a customer.

We may wonder what kind of a sequence of thoughts or events take place before this non-acceptance of negative feedback or arrogance creeps in to our system of thoughts and behaviour.   I was scratching my head over them and here are my thoughts:

Failure is built in to success:  Success can be a real enemy.   Success can cause blindness and complacency.  The euphoria accompanying success can create an impenetrable wall that can block all the synapses through which we connect to the world and experience reality.  The ability to challenge oneself, introspection and humility are the only antidotes to this trap.

Pride comes before a fall:  As clichéd as this proverb may sound – it rings true.  Pride is the culmination of our self concept of infallibility.  The inflated sense of our accomplishments blocks our ability to accept negative feedback.

So how is negative feedback nourishing?  Well, this depends on our ability to generate action as a result of the feedback.  We have to differentiate the roles that we play in our lives with what we are as a person.  This crucial separation is what may be required so that we may not gather rust. The basis of this crucial separation comes from our language and daily communication.

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Life Lessons From A Child’s Speech

My son Saatvick was campaigning for the post of the “Sports' Captain” for his house.  He was enthusiastic about his speech and its content.  When he came home this October, he brought me a copy of his speech.  It was intriguing.  Here is the speech:

“It is rightly said that action speaks louder than words”.  I, Saatvick Kotecha, am a candidate for the Sport’s Captain for this current academic year.  I have a manifesto and I hereby commit myself to everything mentioned therein.  I will not only encourage sports in the school; I resolve to enforce discipline and add sport to sports.”

“The frequently asked question here at school is what would my attitude be if I were to lose?  Here is my answer – I don’t believe I will lose.  In case I do, there is no problem.  I shall pursue my objectives as laid out in my manifesto.  The idea is that no one ever becomes a boss – there is always someone at the top or at the bottom.  There are no bosses – only helping hands.”

“My symbol is a traffic light.  The red color asks us to stop and think.  The yellow color signifies our preparedness.  The green is for “Go!”  This is the approach I will have in all I will do as your Sport’s Captain.”

“I hope you will make a precious contribution in my favour when you approach the vote box”

This is not exactly your “President of the United States of America” kind of speech.  However, there are many lessons that can come to light when we peep in to the workings of children.

1)       Why worry about being the boss?  The idea is to do work.  Robin Sharma talks about a leader with no title and I feel this is exactly what my son was talking about.  A leader is a person who sees a situation and takes charge.  He is not worried about getting some official title for himself

2)      Why worry about who gets the credit?  If you see a situation that needs a fix, you go about asserting yourself till its fixed.  It is typically the higher-ups who get credit for work.  However, a sincere worker does not need credit as he is comfortable with his self concept and self esteem.

3)      The words “add sport to sports” are very crucial here.  To me, this forms the crux of the speech and also gives me an insight into what my son was thinking.  The whole idea of “adding sport to sports” is about integrity and character.  Sportsmanship is the ability to play a sport competitively while respecting all the participants’ right to the number one position.  It’s about mutual respect.  It’s about learning to meet defeat for what it is and not who was instrumental for it.  It is the falling and rising and the falling and the rising – and assuming that all this falling and rising is in harmony with nature that builds sportsmanship - and eventually leadership and character.

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Focus On A Few Things

The ability to achieve depends on your ability to focus on a few things.

One cannot drink the ocean.  A career decision, the choice in formal education etc – all these depend on your ability to select a specialized area of knowledge and then focus on it.  This is the way to excellence.  Spreading our attention too thin does lead to under-performance.

The root of this predicament can be drawn to bad parenting.  Dominating parents do unconsciously make decisions on their children’s behalf while the children are in their formative years.  The children do loose ability to think through the consequences of those decisions largely on account of the credibility associated with the parents as well-wishers.   The loss of ability to think through gradually eats into the basic ability to make decisions.

During the course of my teachings, I have met many students who are lost.  They are lost in terms not understanding what they are doing, why they are doing whatever they are doing, and most importantly - what they should do.  They pursue their education in an auto pilot mode where somehow the School and College seem to have taken the responsibility to perfect its student.

Parents need to ensure that they are more focused on helping their child develop their focus by gradually manoeuvring them into what it really is that they want.  Manipulation can be the enemy here if the parents are actually cajoling them into their own unfulfilled dreams and not what the child really wants.


Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha

Laws of Success

My son returned from school with a handwritten note which mentioned “Laws of Success”.  I have no idea of the source of this material.  However, I found it intriguing.  These are simple statements and yet not simplistic.  Intelligent people don’t like to pay attention to simple things, some say.

I found much merit in these statements and I shall post them for you.

The Greatest Cripple – Fear

The Greatest Sin – Gossip

The Greatest Mistake – Giving Up

The Greatest Mistake – Good Health

The Most Satisfying Experience – Doing Your Duty First

The Best Action – Keeping the Mind Clear and the Judgment Good

The Biggest Fool – The Person Who Lies To the Person in The Mirror

The Most Certain Thing in Life – Change

The Most Potent Force – Positive Thinking

The Greatest Opportunity – The Next One

The Greatest Though – God

The Greatest Victory – Victory over Oneself

The Best Play – Successful Work

The Greatest Handicap – Ego

The Most Dangerous Person – A Liar

The Most Ridiculous Trait - False Pride

The Great Loss – Loss of Self Confidence

The Greatest Need – Common Sense


Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha

The RBI does it again

The Reserve Bank of India has once again raised the interest rates. Yet another round of an increase in the lending rate for reasons not entirely attributable to money supply. 

The WSJ reports 

MUMBAI – India's central bank raised its key lending rate by 0.25 percentage point Tuesday, but hinted at an imminent end to its tightening cycle, saying it is unlikely to increase the rate again at its December meeting as inflation should be easing by then. 

"Notwithstanding current rates of inflation persisting till November, the likelihood of a rate action in the December mid-quarter review is relatively low," the Reserve Bank of India said in its mid-year monetary policy review after raising the repurchase rate to 8.50%. "Beyond that, if the inflation trajectory confirms to projections, further rate hikes may not be warranted." 

The RBI has raised rates 13 times in the past 19 months but has failed to take the sting out of inflation, which accelerated at 9.72% in September. A poll of 15 economists after the rate decision showed all of them now expect the RBI to hold steady until March. 

Based on the current economic scenario, Tuesday's rate move could be the last in the policy tightening cycle, RBI Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn said. 

The RBI's dovish comments come as growth in Asia's third-largest economy is showing clear signs of a slowdown, crimped by the aggressive monetary tightening and deepening economic troubles in advanced nations.

Still, the rate increase puts India at odds with the rest of Asia, where most central banks have stayed on hold during a period of renewed economic turbulence, while a few have even begun to ease policy.

This is supposedly the last round of increase. Well, it’s not surprising, considering that all macro-economic indicators are pointing towards a slow growth.

Food inflation has been the enemy of the year 2011. The government can do well by clearing the supply bottlenecks. The complete mismanagement of crops and their storage by the Government is brushed under the carpet. We now have a country where food shortage and food surplus go together. There are Indians who go hungry and there are Government storages where food is allowed to rot.

The Honorable Supreme Court of India directed the Government to give the grains for free to the poor. Our erudite and learned Prime Minister and his even more erudite and learned Agriculture and Food Minister objected to this suggestion by the Supreme Court.

The message to the Honorable Supreme Court by the Prime Minister was “Don’t try to run the Government” - a very assertive response from a Prime Minister who heads a Government with more scams than ever in India’s history.


Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha-

Lighten Up Man!!

Yesterday, an acquaintance informed me of an incident that she experienced some time ago.  She informed me that her nephew was planning to divorce his wife.  However, the fellow was reluctant to proceed with the divorce as he was not so sure about getting remarried!  My friend wanted to know what I think about this.

I had a huge laugh.  I think this is the tragedy of the Indian mindset.  Acquiring a “married” status is equal to an Oscar performance.  A divorce is the equivalent of a sin that deserves the capital punishment.  And then, not surprisingly enough, acquiring a “re-married” status is the equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Anyways, apart from advising him that they know what is best, I asked her a question – “Can you give me some reasons as to why a lady should marry your nephew?”  The nephew had already cut a sorry figure with me and I was wondering whether he deserved marriage in the first place!

I am quite sure that my friend was perplexed.   I asked her not to seek any advice from me until she had something to tell me.  However, this had me thinking.  I think that all the Indian to-be brides and to-be grooms who are in their prime, need to address the above question to themselves before they entertain any fantasies about marriage and the like.

Here are some additional meaningful questions that may be helpful

1)       What can I give to this marriage?

2)      What can I positively contribute to my would-be spouse?

3)      What are the negative qualities / behaviours that I have that need to be addressed before I think about marriage?

Why is marriage an achievement of sorts?  I see marriage as commitment of two individuals who decide to journey together – a journey that would not be as lovely and beautiful as going it alone.  Now, if for some reason, the shared vision no longer exists, a person respectfully parts ways and finds meaning from the incident and hopefully in another person.  I think the Indian psyche of adding glory and melodrama to a marriage creates a dark ominous cloud which blinds a couple about what they want from a marriage.

A part of this mindset may be attributed to the fact that an Indian groom dresses up like a king and likewise, the bride is dressed up as a queen.  I am sure that there are no illusions about being a king or a queen but what I am not so sure about is the mental imagery that such ornamentation would create – and its ultimate effect on the decision for a divorce.

And here is food for thought – Why is there no similar mindset for a couple where both are divorcees and are getting remarried?  Do they not have a future?  Can they not have a shared vision?  Can they not contribute to each other, to their to-be children, and to the world?  Is it possible that this whole image of  “underperformance” and “under-entertainment”, as compared to a first marriage, be a stumbling block for getting out of a bad marriage?

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Mumbai Meri Jaan (Hindi)

Warning – Spoiler Alert

Mumbai Meri Jaan is an excerpt from the lives of a few people over a period of seven days following the bomb blasts that took place in Mumbai on July 11, 2005.  The lives of two constables, a TV News reporter, a soon- to-be-father-cum-train-commuter, a roadside vendor and bunch of jobless vagabonds are woven in to each other in the back drop of the incident.  These people suffer the incident in their own way and generate their unique responses.

This is a very watchable film.  However, the movie, at the psychological level, addresses the issues of contamination and closure.  Contamination is a narrative sequence of storytelling wherein the individual makes a negative theme out of events that potentially lead to negative imagery.  Closure is the narrative sequence of storytelling wherein the individual makes a meaningful theme out of events that potentially lead to negative imagery.  There is enough research to suggest that contamination sequences in life stories have a high correlation with depression and low life satisfaction.  Tragedies like the Mumbai blasts pose a challenge to meaning making.  A more meaningful imagery of such national tragedies, albeit a challenge, promises a better psychological well being.  Understanding the way people make meaning of an event that throws up personal challenges, gives us an opportunity to understand the psyche.

Mumbai Meri Jaan provides us with this excellent opportunity to study some of the responses that may have generated in the Indian Psyche.  However, the film examines both the contamination and the closure sequences and thereby adding a much more mature content to the film.

The serenity prayer encourages us to develop our ability to understand the things that we can or cannot control.  A firm understanding of this can actually modify the contaminating sequences that we may experience.

Watch and Enjoy !

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Just Be Glad

O heart of mine, we shouldn't worry so,

What we have missed of calm
we couldn't have, you know!

What we've met of stormy pain,

And of sorrow's driving rain,

We can better meet again, If it blow.

We have erred in that dark hour, we have known

When the tear fell with the shower, all alone.

Were not shine and shower blent

As the gracious Master meant?

Let us temper our content with His own.

For we know not every morrow can be sad;

So forgetting all the sorrow

We have had,

Let us fold away our fears,

And put by our foolish tears,

And through all the coming years,

Just be glad.

By James Whitcomb Riley.

There is a way to be glad.  Go back to the basics.  Peace, Joy and Happiness.  This is the root of all we want.  This attitude does not come easily.  We have to understand this intellectually and intuitively.

Hindu philosophy has a standard rationalization for all events – “Whatever happens, happens for the good”.  This can be very difficult to explain or implement for example, to someone who has lost a parent or child or a family member.  Nevertheless, there is merit in the statement.

Faith and a spiritual approach to life come to our assistance. To quote Pippa “God’s in his heaven; All is right with the world”.  It is difficult to accept this ideology as we often use God as our errand boy and forget the organizational hierarchy and God’s supreme position in the process!!!

The bible suggests "Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known unto God". (Phil 4:6.)

“And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 7. 7.)

Have a peaceful day !

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Be Aware Of What Is Not Being Said (But Communicated Still)

Yes... I am talking about the gnawing feeling that we have when communication occurs like this.  Dysfunctional families at dining tables are super examples of this.   The conversations are either not there or they are all watching TV.  If there are conversations, they relate to all the comfortable no risk topics live movies, weather, news, etc.

Exploring the “unsaid” is like taking on a huge risk.  There exists the possibility of a serious altercation either due to the semantics of the conversation or the apparent of lack of integrity and sincerity on the part of the person initiating the conversation.

Being aware of what is not said lies at the root of our communication ability.  I asked one my students as to why this awareness was important.  He mentioned that “awareness creates choices and choices give us results”.  

Nothing could be closer to the truth.

Here are some areas we can touch upon to increase our awareness:

Communication occurs at the verbal (words), non-verbal (gestures), the extra-verbal (semantics) and at the intra-verbal (sounds, intonations) level.  Being aware will require you to master the art of recognizing and responding to such unsaid messages.

Being aware will also mean admitting that one is less than aware.  This is crucial as we cannot change what we refuse to acknowledge.

Communication stemming from insincerity is obvious.  We must do what Carnegie suggested – take sincere interest in other people.  Plan the best time to say what you want to say.

We convey our external and internal messages during communication – whether we ourselves are aware or not!!!


Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha

Where are you looking?

An old man was walking home late one night, when he saw his friend on his knees under a street light, searching for something.

“What are you doing?” he asked his friend.

“I dropped the key to my house” he said.

“I will help you look” said the old man.  After a few minutes of frustrated searching, the old man asked “Where exactly were you when you dropped the key?”

His friend pointed towards the darkness “Over there”

“Then why are you looking for it here?”

“Because this is where the light is”

This Sufi parable says much about human behaviour.  There are many who have developed the unfortunate habit of searching whatever they are looking for, in the wrong place.  The lighted area is symbolic of our natural tendency to look in the obvious place.

The classic case is of pleasure and happiness.  Happiness is found within.  Pleasure is found outside in the material world.  The average person pursues pleasure and, soon before he or she realizes, that its happiness that one wants.  The confusion between pleasure and happiness has its effect on marital relationships too.

We can look at pride and self-esteem in a similar manner.  A high Self-esteem produces calm where the person is comfortable with himself.  Pride on the other hand, takes us on a ride where one has to continuously feed off from external inputs.  Needless to say, self-esteem is found by knowing what you love, find empowering, or nourishing and doing it often i.e. within oneself.

There is a lovely quote which goes something like this “We go around the world searching, and then finally come home and find it”

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Your Next Three Years

Why would you want your next three years to be like the last three years?

I see this as a pertinent question.  Inability to embrace change could be a reason.  This question can have us tossing and turning in our heads.  Let us look at this.

Are we change- ready?  A pre-requisite to being ready for change is level of self-esteem the individual has.  Let us not confuse self-esteem with pride.  Self-esteem is derived from experiences and by being effective in at your work place.

Are you motivated enough to embrace the change that may occur?  Do you have that fire in your belly that will motivate you and propel you forward irrespective of the fact that you may be out of your comfort zone?

Change occurring at an individual level requires you to communicate effectively to those who have emotional investments in you.  In case you are in an organization, change becomes a team effort.  Performance can come under risk depending on how change “occurs” in each member’s frame of mind.

Management Guru Deming talked about driving out fear from an organization.  Fear, whether at the organizational or at a personal level, is immobilizing and reduces our appetite for change.  Fear encourages us to avoid speaking assertively, risk taking and finding path breaking solutions.

This idea now takes us to another question “What would you do if you had no fear?”

Let us leave its answer for another blog!

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Dhobi Ghat (Hindi) – Mumbai Diaries (English)

Warning – Spoiler Alert !

I would rate this movie to be one of the most poetic films ever to be made in India.  This movie will either captivate you or bore you till you are ready to walk up the wall.  It takes some kind of an earlier experience with international cinema in order to palate this dish.

The interweaving stories in the film are pretty much straightforward.  There were not many people with whom I could interact and discuss this brilliant film.  However, of those I met, some mentioned that they were intrigued but the Old lady, who also happened to be Amir Khan’s neighbor.  Here is my take.

The Old Lady is old, fat, and silent.  She only gazes out of her door.  She does not respond and neither does she make any effort to communicate.

Dhobi Ghat is a movie replete with symbolism and there is no reason to believe that the Old Lady does not symbolize anything.  Well, I feel, the Old Lady symbolizes Mumbai.

Mumbai is Mumbai.  It does not care whether you are happy, sad, good, bad or ugly. Mumbai is what it is.  Some people in Mumbai are happy and on a roll.  Many in Mumbai are sad and gloomy.  Mumbai does not care what it is.  Some reach Mumbai and make money while there are others who lose a fortune there.  Mumbai is detached, impersonal and cold.  This is the reason why we don’t see the Old Lady bat an eyelid even when Amir Khan is tortured with the thought of what happened to the Muslim Girl.

Mumbai Diaries is world class cinema.  Grab the DVD, in case you have still not seen this wonderful movie.

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Have Conversations with people elder than you (assuming you are young enough!)

I find it fascinating to indulge in conversations with people who are elder to me.  There is much to learn, much to know.  I am friends with a couple who are elder to me by about 15 years or so.  Here are some of the beautiful things I feel when I am with them and I will share them with you.

Values:  Values develop our inner wealth.  People around us use values as a barometer for evaluating us and assessing their dealings with us.  A good elderly friend can be a great source of inspiration and knowledge as they have the experience of having tested the validity of our life long values.  They have the potential to shed more light about honesty, integrity etc even when we do know what these values mean.

Attitudes towards money:  The elders have had a fair share of their ups and downs in their life (Even if you have had them, they being elder have had more).  It is possible that they have a very good insight into what money means to us and how that definition can change over life stages and different periods of time.  I have developed a healthy and constructive attitude about money much due to my conversations with them

Peace:  Time and Experience mould us and invisibly guide us to what our heart really wants – Peace.  The experienced know how to extract their peace from all situations and it helps us to dip in to that ability and learn those habits, much earlier.  I find my peace there.

Will this matter a year from now: The elders help us develop our perspective on the events that are shaping our lives but which are something that they have been through.  The question here is simple enough – Will this matter a year from now?  But when an experienced person asks that question to you and backs the solution with his/her experience, the questions takes a whole new meaning.  I have found that I have moved towards an ideal state by virtue of these inputs.

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Your Broker As A Cheat (Part 1)

I happened to visit an acquaintance, who, incidentally is a broker. I saw him working furiously on his blog and his newsletter.  He was writing a song about some specific company and how there were bright prospects for its stock. During one of my earlier visits to his office, he has mentioned that he had some stinkers in his portfolio.   I questioned him as to why he was recommending a stock that he was sore about?


Well, he mentioned that he was still sitting on 80k+ shares of that stock and that he had to have the market buzzing with this stock so that he could get rid of it.  I was amazed at the total apathy with which brokers work.  I had extensive discussions with two other brokers the very same day.  I would like to share my views here...


a)  There are many reasons, other than the brokerage income, why a broker would recommend a stock to you.  Your broker could be helping out his superiors or any other broker friend by recommending a junk stock to his clients.  Your broker would have you own a small quantity of such junk stock and would later admit that 20% of his recommendations may go wrong.  Well, based on what I saw, nothing goes wrong.  In fact, the trap is set.


b)  All companies conducting inside operations, while SEBI is not looking (Does SEBI look?) put out a huge marketing and PR campaign just about when their stock is peaking or reaching life time highs.  This is the moment when the  market price is maintained by the company operators so that the stock is offloaded in the market to the retail investors.


c)  A brokerage earns much commission in recommending junk and penny stocks.  One of the brokers did try and explain me this mechanism, but it was too repulsive in terms or thought and intention, and so I cannot recollect the exact mechanism that he explained.


d)  Brokers here in Jamnagar, India (I have only met brokers from this city, but I am sure this rule applies to many) have piled on most of their clients with stocks like Resurgere Mines and Minerals, Future Capital Holdings, Karutari Global, Shree Precoated Steel Limited, Silver Spinning, Sturdy Industries etc.  


It is chilling to note that many of these companies had put out huge advertisements in financial newspapers (The economic times, I believe) while their stock prices had reached a  52 week high.  There is more than 95% erosion in the market price since the ads.  What is worse it that the Broker continues to recommend the stock WHILE IT IS LOOSING VALUE IN TERMS OF MARKET PRICE.


e)  The Brokers keep changing their team of people who sit at the trading terminals.  This practice ensures that the team cannot observe the game being played by the broker.


I was visibly jarred when I met these brokers here in Jamnagar.  There is nothing human about them or about the way they think.


Please don't get me wrong here.  There are many good brokers.  I have a very very dear friend who happens to be a broker.


However, it pays to know that a broker is rarely your friend or your well wisher.  In fact, the broker is one of the most dangerous "wolf in a sheep's clothing" immoral beast you may end up interacting with.


Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha

Have Fun At Work

Advertising Guru David Ogilvy once said “Make it fun to work at your organization.  When people are not having any fun, they seldom produce any goodwill”

Work ought to be fun; otherwise we may be wasting our lives.  Here are some rough guidelines to add some fun...

1.  Create a risk free environment:  People make errors at work.  However, people cannot be afraid of making errors, as that is worse than making errors. 

2.   Micromanaging – Steve Jobs was a micromanager.  He demanded total control.  However, we will never hold him to ransom as he was never the businessman.  More of an artist, I would assume.  Artists behave like that.  If you have hired people to do their job, let them do it.

3.   Passion – allow people to feel their passion at work.  Feedback need not be brutally honest.  Tactful and Barnum like statements can assist you in encouraging them to move on without feeling dishonest

4.   Perfection – We have to stop waiting for perfection.  Our potential as a leader depends on not just the team but the situation too.  We may never know when one of our subordinates may show leadership and in what situation.  However, having a fun work environment may be a prerequisite.

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Up In The Air (English)

Warning - Spoiler Alert!

The last weekend, my students and I saw the 2009 film "Up in the air" starring George Clooney and Vera Farmiga.

This is a funny and witty film which has you chuckling and grinning through out, but, in the end - in the end, the films sets you thinking.

Ryan has perfected the art of blunting his emotions and living a life that is "without attachments".  He does not feel the need to connect as he wonders how relationships can weigh one down.  All of us, at some point in time, have a fear of getting too close in a relationship, and then not being able to assert oneself.  Ryan has no relationships and it does not bother him.  Or so it seems.

Ryan ends up advising his to be brother-in-law about relationships and happy moments.  The apparently fake but persuasive advice hits back only to shake his ideas about relationships.

I would not like to ruin the plot for you but here is my take:

a)  Building trust and having nurturing relationships lie at the core of our heart.  All else is perfunctory and ephemeral.  The newly acquired independence, confidence and the powerful feeling of the teen years can carry over as a habit wherein we assume that our heart has no needs.  There is a phase where we outgrow our physical desires and needs and look for more meaningful relationships. What matters most is whether we find ourselves in a pleasant world or are surrounded by the debris of hurting relationships.

b)  Professional and financial success can cloud our vision of what is right or wrong.  We may get caught in what the Bhagvad Gita calls "the pairs of opposites" - pleasure and pain, love and hate, etc.  This "blindness", as it were, can strike a blow to what our heart may desire.

c)  A single word or a statement from anyone, known or unknown, has the potential to set us on the correct path.  It pays to listen and it pays to collect feedback.

The movie sets you thinking about your own life, your successes  and the relationships that you share.


Here is a link - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1193138/

Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha

Operation Smile

Last night, my daughter and I saw this wonderful documentary on BBC where in the people from Operation Smile visited India to cure children of their clefts - a congenital deformity caused by abnormal facial development during gestation.

It is really wonderful when you see how these people change lives.  The entire surgical procedure is not so involved in terms of time and complexity, but it is heart warming to see the impact that it has on the lives of children.

Please visit http://www.operationsmile.org/ and take a look at the wonderful work done by this organization.

You will smile...

Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha

On Finding Peace

There is this story of the small cat and the big cat.  The small cat was turning round and round while the big cat passed by.  The big cat enquired as to why the small cat was tossing around.  The small cat replied “I am trying to catch my tail”. “Ahh!” the big cat said.  “Let me tell you something from my experience about our funny tail.  The more you chase it, the more it gets away from you.  However, if you just keep doing your own thing, the tail has no choice but to follow you.”

I feel that finding peace has a similar situation.  We cannot find peace.  PEACE COMES.  How does it come?  Well, it comes when we stop doing the things that block peace from our lives.

Take satisfaction, for instance.  We have an eternal struggle about wanting much and still not being happy with what we have got.  Parents can take a long time before they realize that their narrow view of what constitutes satisfaction has been transferred by way of a personality to their children.

The ability to forgive lies at the core of allowing peace to enter our lives.  The inability to forgive creates much of the exhaustion that we have.  The mental chatter can take away whatever opportunities the surrounding environment may offer us for an alpha state.

I feel we can choose to work on the basis of the above observations and see where it takes us.

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha

Truth does not have versions

Vedic Philosophy suggests "ekam sat viprah buddha" meaning that there is only one truth, but wise men communicate it differently".  I feel that this would explain to us the reasons for different faiths across our globe.  If I were to suggest that wisdom never contradicts itself and relate it to the vedic concept above, the piety inherent in all the different faiths becomes obvious.  We may be able to overlook the external aspects between them and finally see that all at their core is as holy as holy can be.


Limiting our thoughts based on our intellect and intellectual/popular interpretations may not allow us to accept all of humanity with out heart.  This idea is expressed beautifully by the Sikhs through the lines "Ek Onkar Sat Naam" - There is one God and that is Truth.


Copyright - Nitesh Kotecha