People, the engagement ceremony of Chiranjeevi Satya Swaroop and Sowbagyavathi Shruti Purna Madani is happening on 1st Septemeber 2007. To us, it is a milestone and an achievement; to say the least. My limited vocabulary stops me from explaining how exactly I feel. Yet, let me go on record and say 'I am ecstatic', and in Shruti's words ' On Cloud 9'. I got the buzz on in my head. And it is all happening.
Done with initial set of shopping spree which lasted close to 2 weeks, Kanchi Patu sarees (light weight for engagement) and a Light weight delicate Vankee ring for the bride. I got 2 pairs of shirts and trousers for now. Need to buy other accessories too. Goossh...lots to do but a bt of laziness also has crept into me.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Paradigm Culture - My story
The other day in office I was reading an article on change management, and on breaking the norms by thinking out of the box. I had an interesting read on one experiment, related to primate influence on primal behavioural traits and the underlying traits in a controlled environment.
In the experiment a set of 5 monkeys where put in a cage, with a tall ladder placed in the middle with a tempting bunch of banana's on the top of the ladder. By natural instinct whenever the bunch was put at the top the monkeys would rush to get the bunch, the naturalist researchers switched on the water sprinklers for 5 minutes whenever the monkeys touched the bananas. This irritated the monkeys and ensured that they don't fall in for their temptations. Even if one of them was tempted, the others ensured that the one which rushed to the bananas was trashed enough. After a period of 3 months of the exercises, one monkey was replaced with a fresh subject, and this monkey without knowing would rush to the top of the ladder would be pulled down by the other members and bashed up thouroughly. Over a period the temptation was suppressed, the experimenters repeated the replacement over the period until the entire lot of monkeys where new, and never had an insight why they were being bashed when they attacked the bunch of bananas. So the ritual slowly set-in with the cause being lost.
You must be wondering what am I trying to relate to using the above example, earlier I was in a discussion with my fiance over the cultures and customs. In particular over dining habits and how particular some communities are. Later during the day as I was talking to my Aunt, and was discussing on the same lines, she did share a few more insights on similar customs in our families during our earlier days, and how things have changed in the recent times owing to the cosmopolitan and fast paced life. What I really felt funny was how we all followed these age old rituals without even realising the significance of the same, and how in the modern times everyone disregarded these rituals without even understanding the root causes and the logical reasons.
Things I learned today are
In the experiment a set of 5 monkeys where put in a cage, with a tall ladder placed in the middle with a tempting bunch of banana's on the top of the ladder. By natural instinct whenever the bunch was put at the top the monkeys would rush to get the bunch, the naturalist researchers switched on the water sprinklers for 5 minutes whenever the monkeys touched the bananas. This irritated the monkeys and ensured that they don't fall in for their temptations. Even if one of them was tempted, the others ensured that the one which rushed to the bananas was trashed enough. After a period of 3 months of the exercises, one monkey was replaced with a fresh subject, and this monkey without knowing would rush to the top of the ladder would be pulled down by the other members and bashed up thouroughly. Over a period the temptation was suppressed, the experimenters repeated the replacement over the period until the entire lot of monkeys where new, and never had an insight why they were being bashed when they attacked the bunch of bananas. So the ritual slowly set-in with the cause being lost.
You must be wondering what am I trying to relate to using the above example, earlier I was in a discussion with my fiance over the cultures and customs. In particular over dining habits and how particular some communities are. Later during the day as I was talking to my Aunt, and was discussing on the same lines, she did share a few more insights on similar customs in our families during our earlier days, and how things have changed in the recent times owing to the cosmopolitan and fast paced life. What I really felt funny was how we all followed these age old rituals without even realising the significance of the same, and how in the modern times everyone disregarded these rituals without even understanding the root causes and the logical reasons.
Things I learned today are
- Madi, madi well, maddi saree concept
- Pooja paat, vs maadi vs tulsi
- Maadi bath at lake and how the ladies use to keep the path in which they walked clean and wet by sprinkling water all along the pathway.
- Cleansing of the pooja area, space etc.
- Dining rituals - on the floor, sprinkling of water on the floor after food.
- Dining norms - hands, serving hand vs feeding hand.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Management Funda's for Real life - Selecting a life partner
Last week starting from 23rd of July I was into a week long training. I had to attend a compulsory 2 week D.M.A.I.C Six Sigma Black Belt training as a part of my job requirement, to enrich and dissipate the knowledge to the Operations, in addition to assisting teams in their quality initiatives.
I earlier attended the Week 1 BB training in Bangalore in Sep 2006. The faculty then was a BB called Pankaj, of ACOE who till date had only been taking GB trainings. Doubtless to say there wasn't much knowledge transfer happening at that time, and more so I had completely given up on me using the Six Sigma methodology, until my reinstatement into NBCU as a billable Black Belt. So this time around the training was in Hyderabad, with Sriram Cherukuvada, MBB GSS COE, an IIML alumnus as the facilitator. Needless to say the entire sessions where neatly done, and all the 23 in the class absolutely had a great time at the training. He was pool of knowledge to be tapped at every opportunity. Really impressed me a lot.
Anyways in one of the sessions one thing really touched me when he was taking us through the CAP training modules and QFD (Quality Function Deployment) tool in detail. He mentioned a real life situation where he had to take a decision on his wife's continuity of her profession. He said many of the the tools could be use in such circumstances and aid one in their decision making. Though the tools are not decision for making as such but they would prove of great use to support a decision making process by bringing in structured and organised approach and thought process.
This answered a long awaited, lingering thought or rather a confusion in my mind over the applicability of various theoretical leanings into real life situations, but surely as I matured in age, the thought process has come-off time. The last weekend of month, I was facing a similar kind of a situation where I am supposed to make one such decisions. The decisions might pertain to heart, and heart as they say is not bound by logic, and that the heart has it own rules and follows its own logic. Given this situation I badly wanted a way out, and going and contacting people is very subjective and biased by ones experiences, environmental influence so to say.Here where I thought of deciphering the code of heart, well did I achieve it?? That's a question you need to answer yourself, here are my workings and approach.One was to utilise the QFD approach where one tabulates the Big Y's in a column and all the vital X's on the different columns, and make a scorecard and then compute the final tallies under the house of quality. I wished to go beyond a scientific approach as stated, and wished to get into a marketeers shoes, and think how he would place himself in a consumers mind. The approach was how does a Branding professional create a image and brand. I heavily relied on David.Aakers approach on creating a brand has a section dedicated to how do you market a brand as a person (The brand identity system). I did my own bit of reverse engineering on this topic to arrive at my vital X's.
Heres a few steps to my approach, probably one might corealate at a much required time of life.
Firstly drill down to a set of questions on how a person's identity serves to provide direction, purpose and meaning for that person. Considered the following basis for questions...
What are my core values ?
What are the core values that am looking for which would compensate/compliment mine ?
What is that I stand for in life/family/career?
What is that the person am looking for stand for?
How do I want to be perceived by the other family and what I can offer them ?
How do my family perceive the other family and what do they look from the relation?
What personality traits are influential and how are they to be identified or projected ?
What are the important relationships in life and how to compensate the same over the current developments?
Based on this I arrived on the extended brand identity structure which has core and extended identity. The core identity as defined speaks of priority traits which are central, and a timeless essence of a person, which is most likely to remain or expected to remain unfaultered as the relation nurutures and blossoms. The extended identity includes identity elements, which are sublimal in a relationship and add on those variety and spice which is much requiered for a fun filled life, it would also speak of various smaller elements get gelled as organised cohesive and meanigful groupings, that provide texture and completeness.
I wish to incorporate of few of Management fundas I've learned lets see how well I can be successful on the same.
I earlier attended the Week 1 BB training in Bangalore in Sep 2006. The faculty then was a BB called Pankaj, of ACOE who till date had only been taking GB trainings. Doubtless to say there wasn't much knowledge transfer happening at that time, and more so I had completely given up on me using the Six Sigma methodology, until my reinstatement into NBCU as a billable Black Belt. So this time around the training was in Hyderabad, with Sriram Cherukuvada, MBB GSS COE, an IIML alumnus as the facilitator. Needless to say the entire sessions where neatly done, and all the 23 in the class absolutely had a great time at the training. He was pool of knowledge to be tapped at every opportunity. Really impressed me a lot.
Anyways in one of the sessions one thing really touched me when he was taking us through the CAP training modules and QFD (Quality Function Deployment) tool in detail. He mentioned a real life situation where he had to take a decision on his wife's continuity of her profession. He said many of the the tools could be use in such circumstances and aid one in their decision making. Though the tools are not decision for making as such but they would prove of great use to support a decision making process by bringing in structured and organised approach and thought process.
This answered a long awaited, lingering thought or rather a confusion in my mind over the applicability of various theoretical leanings into real life situations, but surely as I matured in age, the thought process has come-off time. The last weekend of month, I was facing a similar kind of a situation where I am supposed to make one such decisions. The decisions might pertain to heart, and heart as they say is not bound by logic, and that the heart has it own rules and follows its own logic. Given this situation I badly wanted a way out, and going and contacting people is very subjective and biased by ones experiences, environmental influence so to say.Here where I thought of deciphering the code of heart, well did I achieve it?? That's a question you need to answer yourself, here are my workings and approach.One was to utilise the QFD approach where one tabulates the Big Y's in a column and all the vital X's on the different columns, and make a scorecard and then compute the final tallies under the house of quality. I wished to go beyond a scientific approach as stated, and wished to get into a marketeers shoes, and think how he would place himself in a consumers mind. The approach was how does a Branding professional create a image and brand. I heavily relied on David.Aakers approach on creating a brand has a section dedicated to how do you market a brand as a person (The brand identity system). I did my own bit of reverse engineering on this topic to arrive at my vital X's.
Heres a few steps to my approach, probably one might corealate at a much required time of life.
Firstly drill down to a set of questions on how a person's identity serves to provide direction, purpose and meaning for that person. Considered the following basis for questions...
What are my core values ?
What are the core values that am looking for which would compensate/compliment mine ?
What is that I stand for in life/family/career?
What is that the person am looking for stand for?
How do I want to be perceived by the other family and what I can offer them ?
How do my family perceive the other family and what do they look from the relation?
What personality traits are influential and how are they to be identified or projected ?
What are the important relationships in life and how to compensate the same over the current developments?
Based on this I arrived on the extended brand identity structure which has core and extended identity. The core identity as defined speaks of priority traits which are central, and a timeless essence of a person, which is most likely to remain or expected to remain unfaultered as the relation nurutures and blossoms. The extended identity includes identity elements, which are sublimal in a relationship and add on those variety and spice which is much requiered for a fun filled life, it would also speak of various smaller elements get gelled as organised cohesive and meanigful groupings, that provide texture and completeness.
I wish to incorporate of few of Management fundas I've learned lets see how well I can be successful on the same.
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