The ancient flavors of death and defeat

Not a book I have read but have merely found it via a review.

House of Meetings by the widely talented British author, Martin Amis.

The book, which is about the grim days of Russia under Stalin... but I won't get into the horrors that be*. Instead, I want to merely highlight this paragraph, that I found in its entirety at this blog post..

“There is a Western phenomenon called the male midlife crisis. Very often it is heralded by divorce. What history might have done to you, you bring about on purpose: separation from woman and child. Don’t tell me that such men aren’t tasting the ancient flavors of death and defeat.

In America, with divorce achieved, the midlifer can expect to be more recreational, more discretionary. He can almost design the sort of crisis he is going to have: motorbike, teenage girlfriend, vegetarianism, jogging, sports car, mature boyfriend, cocaine, crash diet, powerboat, new baby, religion, hair transplant.

Over here, now, there’s no angling around for your male midlife crisis. It is brought to you and it is always the same thing. It is death.”

* I own copies of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 and Gulag Archipelago Volume 2 but have never had the heart to read them! Some day I will stop getting books from the library and read the ones I already own - which for the most part sit in boxes in the basement!

Stephen King, the vandal

I cannot make up my mind about what is more precious in this story...that King decides to randomly start signing his own books at a book-store without permission or the part about who bought one of the signed books :)

Of the six books that King signed, five would be given to community groups for fund-raising auctions, she said. The sixth was bought by the customer who mistook King for a vandal.

International Man of Mystery

Read an interesting article in Fortune magazine today while at the eye doctor..

The strange existence of Ram Charan

Fast Company had a similar article some years back titled, Man of Mystery. Might as well as have titled it International Man of Mystery, considering his global travels (see below.)

For those that do not know, Ram Charan is a business consultant, speaker, and writer. He has been called the guru of business by CEOs around the globe, including CEOs of Citicorp, Verizon, Dupont, and even the legendary Jack Welch of GE. (Apparently, this is his 37th year consulting for GE, his 33rd for DuPont!)

The Fortune article talks about how Dr. Charan, 67 and never married, recently purchased his first apartment in Dallas. He still continues to spend most nights in hotel rooms around the globe or at an associate's residence. He has assistants in Dallas courier him new clothes three days a week, which he turns around as dirty laundry in a few days to keep the cycle going. He doesn't own a car because he never learned how to drive, and besides, where would he keep it? And apparently, he has no goals. Ok.. I can be a business consultant! ;) Ok... it is not that simple. Taken out of context, it trivializes all that he has accomplished. What he did say is:

Charan's weird and wonderful life is an unintended byproduct of dedication, he insists. Dedication to learning and teaching and service, to the whole set of Hindu virtues embodied by one of Charan's favorite phrases, "Purpose before self." "People used to ask me, What is your ambition?" says Charan, who turned 67 this past Christmas. "I say I have none. My dedication is going to take me where I'm going to be."

And THE lesson for all leaders.. that, I think, most leaders miss:

"A leader who does not produce leaders is not a great leader."

Tapping into the 3 "natural talents" or "God's gifts" of people is a necessary part of leadership. Interesting to read what he says about Steve Jobs's 3 natural talents.

... first thing, this human being has a talent to figure out what the consumer really wants. This is a very valuable thing! No. 2, he has the will and the talent to find - no matter where it is! - the right technology that will deliver what they want. Nobody said he invented one! And third, he has the talent to create demand at the right time.

Another gem a little later in the article:

He knew from Sanskrit teachings that "fear, anger, laziness - these are the downfalls of human beings"; that peace of mind alone is worth striving for; that dedication and mastery are their own rewards.

Almost sounds like a self-help guru... not a business guru!

Also, if you want some idea of his travel schedule...here is an illustration, as mentioned in the above article.

"I go to India on the Friday of the week before Thanksgiving. I am Sunday morning in Bombay. Monday morning I am in Delhi. Wednesday I'm in Bombay. Thursday I'm in Bangalore. Saturday I'm in Trivandrum. Wednesday I'm in Johannesburg. Friday morning, at seven, I am in New York. I have a two-hour meeting with a CEO who has flown in to see me. I have two more meetings and I fly out that night to Dubai. I am in Dubai on Sunday and Monday, then I come back here. On Thursday night I fly out to Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Then I come back here. Tuesday morning I have a whole-day schedule in New York. Tuesday night I go to Milwaukee. I came from Milwaukee last night. They diverted my plane so I had to stay in Pittsburgh. I had a meeting this morning in Philadelphia. I had three meetings here in the afternoon. And I'm here tomorrow, with GE. Then an hour-and-a-half phone call. Then I'm going out tomorrow night to West Palm Beach. Monday morning I have a breakfast meeting in New York. And then I'm flying out to Perth, Australia." At least he flies first-class.

Amazing how he can sustain such a lifestyle, especially having had triple-bypass heart surgery in 1999. Amazing how much he has achieved, considering where he started from. Which is....

His family (he is the sixth of seven children) lived on the second floor of a two-story house they shared with his uncle's family (in a small city outside Delhi in UP). Together they were 17 people under one roof. "And then a portion to keep the cows," says Charan. "I personally took the cow dung and made patties out of that for burning in Mother's stove. We cut the fodder in the fodder machine for the cows. My brothers and my uncle did the milking." While they had everything they needed to survive, they had no more than that. No plumbing, no electricity, no luxuries of any kind. The children pumped water from a well. They did their nightly homework on the floor in a flickering circle of light from a mustard-oil lamp.

--
Some of his recent articles can be read through Yahoo! Finance. And though it is difficult to discuss any of his books here (as I have read none!), here is a good short summary of the 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't -- from his recent book, Know-How.

The eight fundamental skills needed for success in the twenty-first century:

• Positioning (and when necessary, repositioning) your business by zeroing in on the central idea that meets customer needs and makes money
• Connecting the dots by pinpointing patterns of external change ahead of others
• Shaping the way people work together by leading the social system of your business
• Judging people by getting to the truth of a person
• Molding high-energy, high-powered, high-ego people into a working team of leaders in which they equal more than the sum of their parts
• Knowing the destination where you want to take your business by developing goals that balance what the business can become with what it can realistically achieve
• Setting laser-sharp priorities that become the road map for meeting your goals
• Dealing creatively and positively with societal pressures that go beyond the economic value creation activities of your business

Related: Another article in the same Fortune issue, that I did not read, was an interview with the legendary Lee Iacocca, who at a spritely 82, is hoping (though he avoids saying it explicitly) 90-year old Kirk Kerkorian can somehow succeed in his attempt to turn things around for Chrysler. I mention this here since Iacocca, a legendary leader in his time (and even today, perhaps), has a book out this year - Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Celebrating the imperfect

Interesting excerpt from this 2003 article about the author, Amit Chaudhuri...(emphasis mine):

"..it is the imperfect, the flawed, that Chaudhuri celebrates as allowing not only great creativity but the possibility of a truly liberal, open society. Talking not of Lawrence, but of Indian society today, he laments the fact that nowadays there is no place for daydreamers, for those that "yearn for the irresponsible", for what he calls "the cult of failure": "When I was growing up (in Kolkata), if you were sensitive and intelligent, basically, you must be a misfit. I used to laugh at the cult of failure, but now I do believe that there has to be a place for the misfit, for the outsider. The person who lacks ambition or is an outsider is seen to mount an implicit critique of the value systems which people live by, and is therefore looked upon with great intolerance in this society."

Also later in the article...this phrase: "a heady cocktail of outrage and despair." Now I know how to describe how I feel about India sometimes. Having said that... Jai Hind... Happy Independence Day (whatever that means!)

David & Goliath

California ground squirrels have learned to intimidate rattlesnakes by heating their tails and shaking them aggressively. Because the snakes, which are ambush hunters, can sense infrared radiation from heat, the warming makes the tails more conspicuous to them — signaling that they have been discovered and that the squirrels may come and harass them.

Earlier this year, a "psycho-squirrel" assaulted three people before being killed by a pensioner. No.. I am NOT making that up. Go read the details.

Elsewhere, a panda joins outrage over quality of Chinese pet food :) Speaking of pandas, what's this about a sexually suspect panda giving birth! Also, Panda-monium reigns as 4 pandas are born on the same day!

Since I am on the topic of animals, see this report about rare Persian leopard triplets at a Budapest zoo!

More about wildlife conservation at my compilation thread here. For the most part, it is not funny but a sad depressing story.

Endurance

Some years ago I had read The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander and later even seen a documentary about this amazing story. While the latter was so-so (I never like documentaries where they re-create scenarios using actors), Caroline Alexander's book was a great retelling and left me breathless and in awe for many days after the reading. I was totally consumed by the story - as if, I myself were on a great expedition - and the story stayed with me long after the book was returned to the library.

Seems there are other books & documentaries that also cover this expedition

- Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
- Shackleton - The Greatest Survival Story of All Time (3-Disc Collector's Edition)

Shackleton's bravery in a real tough situation seems to have spawned a few business/leadership books also:

- Leading at the edge - Leadership Lessons from the Extraordinary Saga of Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition - by Dennis N. T. Perkins, Margaret P. Holtman, Paul R. Kessler, & Catherine McCarthy

- Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer by Margot Morrell

A nation of mediocrity

Following up on my previous post that referred to the "Republic of apathy", comes another article that talks about how India (and Indians) has become a nation that has learned to live with lowered expectations and mediocrity.

Our nation is awash with mediocrity; we need a national campaign to induce excellence in all fields, writes Ramesh Ramanathan.

My comment in response to the article is below. (I am Sanjeev, not the Sanjiv, who coincidentally posted a comment right below mine!). I could have written a lot more - it was not thought out to cover everything I would have liked to say but was a spontaneous outpouring.

A nation of mediocrity indeed - we have learned to live with "average expectations and even poorer delivery" despite all the "progress" made in the last 2 decades. Traveling with a western colleague of mine, I was asked why everything was so dirty. I made some lame excuse about poverty and such. He immediately cut me short - rightly making the argument that cleanliness is not related to how much money we have. It is a matter of culture. It does not take any major effort (or a nation-wide campaign or rhetoric & hollow sloganeering like "Garibi Hatao" or "India Shining") for people to use a dust-bin to throw trash. And yet, not just trash, but spit and even human waste plague many of the nation's top cities. Agreed that I have not traveled to many of the world's poorest nations but I think one will find it very difficult to find people answering nature's call on the sides of many major metropolitan cities, as one sees on Eastern Express highway (near Sion/Kurla/Chembur) in Mumbai. Does this not shame us? Have we lost all sense of shame and decency? Why do we live with this? There are many other examples one could quote to reflect this malaise that inflicts Indian society but I shall desist since merely discussing them in forums like this is as good as the suggested "national campaign" for excellence!