Intoxicated

Words cannot completely describe this heady elevated feeling that I am currently engulfed by. Before you start thinking that I am feeling drunk after a weekend of revelry, I’d like you to pause. My stimulation for this intoxication is of a different kind and the best that the world has to offer. The last weekend has been one of the most soul stirring immersions in my favorite form of classical dance, Bharatanatyam.  All three dancers of the recently concluded dance festival, the Divinity series (27^th-29^th September 2013 at Chinmaya Mission, Delhi) have left me moved.

Rama Vaidyanathan inaugurated the festival with her graceful mayuri allaripu. I marveled at the sheer skill with which she captured the subtle movements of a peacock to recreate its magnificence through dance. So real was her depiction, that if she were to perform this in a garden, the national bird would be easily fooled and begin to court her! In another composition, Lord Ram discloses to his wife, Sita that he has been banished from the kingdom and would proceed all by himself. How can you even dream of leaving without me, she implores. Consumed by hurt she asks him how she would live the life of luxury within the palace precincts while her husband roamed the jungles surrounded by wild animals. Rama’s depiction of shock, bewilderment and deep pain that Sita experiences was so authentic and tears welled up almost instantly. And then she takes a jab at the male ego by saying, “If you are planning to leave your wife, what kind of a man are you?” Sita, the quintessential Indian woman- the power of her love and dedication for her husband was so palpable. And she spares no opportunity to strike back when her love is under attack. It made me wonder if such utter devotion exists among women of today or did this only exist among the women of yore? All three artistes of the festival chose to depict the sacred and the indomitable feminine shakti, symbolized by their unending fortitude, passion and surrender. 

 Rama’s last piece, Shivoham transported me to another world. As she slowed down to the repetitive notes of ‘Jeevah Shivah, Shivo Jeevah,’ I found myself slipping into the inner depths of my being. Just when I had moved to that space of silence, she moved into a speedy teermanam. It made me sit up and be dazzled by the brilliance of her nritta on stage. Her sudden break seemed to suggest the reality of a fast paced life that we call maya. Dive deep into your divine self to source the soothing silence into our world of illusion is what I took away. With her captivating abhinaya she is able to hold the attention of the audience for a substantial period of time enabling one to completely absorb the sentiments of the nayika. What I think she is a master of is her ability to get under the skin of the characters she portrays. So whether it’s a graceful bird, the jilted nayika or the elephant like gait of the nayak, her ability to bring it alive for the audience is unparalleled. In another padam, Radha is trying to silence her lover, Krishna by asking him to stop playing the flute. A playful Krishna continues to trouble her. While she tells him to go away lest the neighborhood would wake up, one can see a part of her also enjoying the attention she has been getting.  The brilliance of the dancer is seen in the way she balances the nayika’s annoyance with a coy expression of her delight.    

I watched Meenakshi Srinivasan, on stage for the first time and I had goosebumps all through her performance. I loved the way she held her space. For Shakespeare, all the world’s a stage but Meenakshi commanded the stage like it was her world and played the many roles with effortless grace and perfection. Sheer honey flowed from her lips when she introduced her compositions. She drew in the viewer by her stylized narration, almost like lyrical poetry. Her heavily emphasized syllables in ‘Andaal’ and ‘Vrindavan’ are still ringing in my ears. So soothing are her words that even a person disinterested in dance, would sit up and take notice. While each composition was breathtakingly beautiful, her padam on Radha and Krishna stayed with me.  This was by far the most sensual Bharatanatyam composition I have seen and one that was depicted with poignant charm. Radha urges Krishna to re apply the kohl in her eyes that have been smudged during a night of passion. She is not ashamed of the love marks on her body and asks the Lord to soothe them with sandalwood and musk. With no nritta at all, the beauty of this piece could be appreciated only by the dancer’s evocative abhinaya. A slow and soft and composition that explored the depths of the feminine persona--unabashed in love, bold in her requests, yet shy and graceful in her demeanor. The ambience created by her was so potent that one could completely relate to Radha’s mood. Having interacted with Meenakshi, I am also completely taken in by her humility. The fact that she remains unaffected and possibly unaware of her phenomenal expertise and beauty makes her persona even more appealing.

On the final day, the dance enthusiasts of Delhi were treated to a delightful performance by a U.S based dancer, Mythili Prakash. My jaw dropped in awe and wonder when she performed her racy nritta with accuracy that would shame a Swiss watch. In the ashtapadi, Radha’s sakhi shares her pain of separation from her beloved Krishna. The theme of separation is not an uncommon subject and has been depicted very often through dance and drama. Yet it continues to tug at your heartstrings. Mythili’s ability to express this deep anguish left a lump in my throat.  In the hour and a half of her performance, I was transported to another world- one where I could touch the depths of the rasa and be one with the bhav of the nayika. Her concluding piece was a befitting closure to the festival on divinity. Tarana in Rag Natabhairavi, composed by Maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar was a prayer for Inner Awakening. ‘He Nath, hum par kripa keejiye’- she urges the Lord to help us find the space within that transcends the physical realm to reach out to our higher purpose.

Not one with a fascination for Carnatic music, this time round the music of the performances also touched a chord in me. Not to mention the Gandharva choir which set the mood for the scintillating dance performances that was to follow. 

The vision of the organizers, Deepak and Jyotsna Shourie was beautifully captured in the Divinity series. I share their dream in making art and culture the very essence of our existence. May the movement towards our inner self that our arts can trigger, become infectious amongst India’s burgeoning youth. May this be that space where they find an anchor, a peace within that can arm them suitably to face the challenges of a big bad world out there.  

https://www.facebook.com/JyotsnaShourieDanceCentre?ref=hl

Ruminatively: A Reason to Lie

Ruminatively: A Reason to Lie

A Reason to Lie

As a child I was in awe of my parents and I would say a wee bit petrified too. There was no way one could get away with misconduct of any kind. A round of spanking and punishment was always in order. Given how strict they were I had no option but to become creative in cooking up lies and excuses--- homework not done, money stolen, spilled milk, a poor report card, scribbling on the walls were all good enough reasons to blatantly lie. Both, my parents and my moral science teachers drilled into my little head the dire consequences of lying . But who cares, if it saves your skin then it is the right thing to do! As I grew up these well embedded seeds of values had taken sprout. Lying was hardly an exercised option. I was proud to be upholding my morals, more so on occasions where one could have easily got out of a sticky situation by a harmless white lie. So ingrained was this value, that I if my parents defaulted inadvertently, I wouldn’t hesitate to wield the moral stick. This morning I caught myself lying to my father albeit with a little bit of hesitation. A tinge of regret was followed by a clear rationale –that of saving my parent from the unnecessary hassles of life. I've moved from lying to protect myself to being righteous to now lying to protect my parent!!!As they say life comes a full circle.

Time to upgrade our software

Over the last few years, the world has witnessed unprecedented crises at multiple levels--- financially, environmentally, politically and socially. Many a finger has been pointed to the collective failure of leadership in institutions, particularly organizations and business schools across the globe. Over the years greed for profits and benefits at any cost has clearly compounded to result in the recent financial meltdown. With rapid strides in technology and communication, the world has not only become flatter but also woven into an intricate interdependent web. So organizations today can ill afford to be blind to other stake holders while fulfilling their purpose of business. There is an urgent need to shift one’s focus from being purely shareholder and investor driven to a multi stakeholder one, in which the society ranks foremost. The book, ‘Firms of Endearment: How world class companies profit from passion and purpose, 2007, Sisodia, Sheth, and Wolfe’ details how companies that followed the latter outperformed the ‘Good to Great’ (Jack Collins) companies, 3:1 over a 10 year period. Quite interestingly these companies were even able to deliver consistently over a 3 year period, indicating their propensity to deliver on long term sustainable success.

So while there is a critical need for organizations to relook at their ways of doing business, a shift in thinking also needs to happen at business schools. Are they doing enough in shaping management graduates with a mindset of seeing the larger integrated picture while sourcing from sterling qualities of authenticity and humility? American business schools trained many of the people who had their hands on the tiller when the nation's economic ship ran aground. Having plunged the world into a crisis of several ramifications; heads of top business schools were found asking themselves the degree of responsibility they bear. “That basic model — the fundamental model, which really made up the fabric of contemporary business education, has to be revisited," says Rakesh Khurana, a professor at Harvard. He believes that “business schools have drifted away from their original mission: to create a true management profession for the benefit of society, rather than churn out consultants and hedge-fund hot shots.”

The crises caused by gaps in leadership ability leads one to wonder whether our existing approach to developing our leaders be it at business schools or organizations; is adequate? For disasters of such nature to be pre empted one needs to adopt a new paradigm altogether. It’s not as if organizations and business schools have not been on a soul searching mode to find a fix. When the dot-com bubble burst schools were quick to add a course on business ethics. Organizations too have invested considerably and continue to do so, in training programs on values and attitudes. However none of these did help to avoid the economic fallout in 2008-09! 

So while an effort to shift mindsets and behavior patterns in being made, it hasn’t really shifted the human capacity (and therefore leadership effectiveness) to a higher order. They have merely scratched the surface without making a deep and sustainable impact.

The challenges of the outside world is compelling us to look within—our inner space of who we are. It calls for an alignment of our inner thoughts and feelings associated with it. The more we understand and expand this part of ourselves the greater will be the adeptness with which we respond to our circumstances. There seems to be a direct and a potent connection between who we are on the inside and what we do on the outside. In effect our state of ‘being’ has a direct bearing on our state of ‘doing.’ Our inability to respond effectively to the world around us implies that somewhere we are not sourcing completely from this part of ourselves. It’s important to question if courses on ethics and trainings on values have truly triggered the change in thought, feeling and action that we have been seeking? Is a mere intellectual understanding of “the right thing to do” enough to warrant a meaningful change in an individual?

Nebulous as it may sound; our inner world is like the powerful ‘Intel processor’ waiting for an upgrade to be able to run those snazzy applications and packages that are subsequently loaded on it.

The journey of understanding the ‘inner self’ may be a slow one requiring sustained effort and will.

The questions we need to ask ourselves are—

·         Are we willing to traverse this path of self discovery?

·         Are organizations and business schools ready to invest in nurturing this part of ourselves?

Adding more punch to Assessment Centres

Since its introduction in the 1950s by AT & T, the assessment centre (AC) method has classically been used to assess an individual’s potential with respect to behavioural competencies. Its results have been used for the purpose of recruitment, internal mobility, promotions and succession planning. As a process that is based on empirical data, it brings objectivity and a rigor to assessment. All assessors use the same set of criteria to rate a candidate’s potential based on pre defined behavioural indicators, thereby minimizing the element of assessor bias and/or error. Its use of different formats (e.g. interview, role play, presentation, questionnaire) to assess a common set of competencies also adds to its robustness.

While I appreciate its basis on researched fundamentals, I am also concerned about its heavy skew towards objectivity for something as complex as human behavior. Given that people respond differently to various situations, how fair is it to use an objective process alone?

Over a period of time, assessors too tend to get more clinical and judgmental in their analysis –a complete antithesis for an assessment of a subjective quality such as leadership potential. Are we as assessors even mindful of our slip into a critical, fact oriented process that impairs our discerning, intuitive ability to go beyond what meets the eye? An artificially created situation where a person is being judged by several hawk eyes can put undue pressure on the candidate.  It’s only natural for candidates to falter in such a scenario.  Many a times strong discrepancies are observed in the person’s performance at work when compared with that of the assessment centre. What then is the rationale for dismissing someone’s competence as a leader when he has demonstrated it amply at the workplace? In such a scenario, the relevance of the data thrown up in the AC becomes suspect.

What I am alluding to is a certain balance of a fact cum intuition led approach in assessments. As HR practitioners, we must constantly strive to enhance our perceptive abilities in spotting potential rather than be led by a ‘one size fits all’ process. Subsequently our developmental initiatives should also focus on drawing out the best in an individual. Adopting a set approach alone; in the interest of time and scale can be counterproductive in our efforts to tap potentially bright candidates. In addition the scores of an AC should be corroborated with other tools such as the 360 degree feedback and performance rating for a more accurate assessment of an individual’s potential to move up the leadership curve.

Since the world of managing talent cannot be driven by a set of frameworks and data alone, losing our deeper sensing abilities can be quite detrimental in the long run. Like I said, we carry an even higher responsibility of harnessing the latter in ourselves and in the people we are responsible for.  It may be a good idea to step back from time to readjust the fulcrum of assessment and development to a balance of an objective and subjective approach.

Poinsettia – a poignant expression

While in a cab on my last visit to Singapore, my driver in a bid to engage me in conversation said, “You from India but which part?” When I said Delhi, he quipped that it was the city with four seasons. Despite spending a better part of my life in the capital, this thought was never in my conscious mind. All of a sudden I was consumed with a sense of privilege and pride.

Moving from one season to another, an average Delhi ite experiences a see saw of highs and lows. From a change of wardrobe to rising levels of pollution, to pest infestation, water and electricity issues-the changing weather has its ways of making its presence felt. The common cold and flu is probably the commonest problem that the common man faces with even a slight change in temperature! For a better part of the year, the unbearable summer heat forces people to move into a ‘hibernation’ of sorts. With the onset of autumn and winter, one can sense a palpable shift in the joi de vivre of city dwellers. The cooler temperatures, the radiant colors of the flora, the string of festivities do wonders to boost the morale and enthusiasm in people.

I celebrate my favourite seasons by adding colour to my otherwise frugal garden. For close to nine months I try desperately to ensure that the spirit of the greens does not sag through the rising temperatures. I feel like a supervisor in an organization trying to motivate their team to keep working with a lure of getting them a bonus at the end of the year! So come November, I make a beeline for the nursery to buy chrysanthemums, roses, dahlias and poinsettias. Like the bonus that gets used up in no time, the survival time for these gorgeous plants is only a month or two, but it still makes the effort and expense worthwhile.

One such poinsettia that I picked last December has completely outdone itself. It seems to possess an unusual but heartening self multiplier plan! It’s been close to 5 months now and my Christmas plant (as it is commonly known) has been fighting to stand tall as the only dash of color in a sea of greens. Not only has it survived its expected life span, it also continues to sprout tiny green leaves every now and then as if to flaunt its unfailing spirit. It is indeed a miracle plant!!! While the other green plants are already feeling the heat and finding it difficult to manifest their full potential, this tiny Poinsettia seems to be doing quite well in comparison. I’m sure the greens must look down at him in complete awe and wonder of what makes him tick against the odds. I can almost hear them say, “Your time is up, what you are waiting for? Christmas??J” Every time I get pensive of what lies ahead, this one foot red top wonder peers at me to fill me with a renewed sense of hope and optimism. It makes me marvel of the countless ways in which the forces of life and the universe are able to communicate to us.

Being like Rajini

At a staggering 375 crores, 2010 saw one of the biggest blockbusters of Indian cinema- Rajinikanth’s Endhiran. Frenzied followers of the Rajini cult queued up at theatres in Chennai for a 4am show. In the history of film screening this level of adulation for one star alone has been unheard of. Cutting effortlessly across all kinds of demographics, psychographics and geographies, one wonders what really makes him the rage that he is. Adding further to the enigma, is that he seems to be defying all conventional norms of stardom; almost as if it were with a vengeance! As a columnist who was trying to decipher the Rajinikanth phenomenon remarked, “if you are middle aged, don’t have great looks, or a 6 pack to flaunt, you could aspire to be Rajinikanth!”

My own state of bewilderment shifted to respect and admiration when I heard him speak at an award ceremony that bestowed upon him the ‘NDTV Entertainer of the decade’ title. His demeanor spoke volumes of his humility that one has often heard of. The excitement in the voices of Vidya Balan and Katrina Kaif on sharing the stage with him, didn’t affect him in the least. When asked by Prannoy Roy on how he feels to be such a mega star, his response floored the crowd, “What can I say. I am just doing my work. It is the act of God being played through me.” A ring of deep conviction in what he’d said was palpable.

What struck one instantly was how rare such a quality is among people, in particular those who have achieved success or for that matter are in positions of authority. What one sees in great measure is the sense of “I” or “me” factor that is so predominant that they have somewhere lost themselves behind this fabricated veneer. The ability to live in this illusory world and yet see oneself as separate from it is to my mind indicative of high strength of character. One sees very few people who portray this sense of attached yet detached state of being. Come to think of it, it is not that difficult to see ourselves as a microcosm of a larger macrocosm; yet the ability to be in constant awareness of it as we carry on with our lives seems to be difficult. The dilution of this belief, is leading us away from the manifestation of humility and other such sterling qualities that the human being is capable of. Fighting to protect a false sense of the “I” there is a greater tendency to resort to tactics that are more fear and greed based rather than those of humility and gratitude. A dearth of such qualities in our leadership, clearly explains the spate of corrupt practices that we see in our institutions and society today. When the mind is obsessed with materialistic benefits then it’s bound to adopt devious measures in amassing more for the self. Strangely enough, capital seems to be directly proportional to success and power. To make matters worse, society adds to a compounding cycle of high respect for people with wealth and power; with absolutely no regard to the substance of their being.

Rajini’s rise to stardom from that of a bus conductor is akin to rags to riches story. Yet his ability to remain in touch with that reality hasn’t diminished over the years. A conversation with any Rajini fan will get them to recount instances where the star has made an effort to mingle and be just like them. The fact that he brushes off his shoulder; his star status is what further increases his appeal factor. At no point in time is there an effort to minimize Rajini’s talent. His ability to expand the world of possibility in the most comical manner makes him the most sought after entertainer. Any child will tell you that there is nothing in the world that ‘Rajini can’t’ do! It’s very clearly the potent combination of onscreen hungama and off screen persona that has thrust him to the ‘Boss’ status.

We need more Rajinikanths in our society today and in leadership roles, to help people shift the way they think and act. Imagine the world of politics, bureaucracy, social and corporate bodies replete with Rajinikanths. It was easy to make clones of him in the movie Robot; can we do the same in real life too? J