I read this deeply disturbing news of Prof. Stephen Hawking suffering mysterious injuries for the past few years. Here I don’t want to discuss the person behind his injuries, BUT the sheer act of audacity the attacker possesses.

We all know that Professor is one of the greatest surviving intellectuals on this earth. This severely disabled scientist is suffering from motor neuron disease, needs round-the-clock care and speaks with a computerized voice box. He can only move his few fingers. After taking stock of the nature of his illness everybody had given him few years on this earth to survive. But for the past forty years he was fooling the medical world by his sheer grit, determination, longevity and stubbornness. But till now he failed to fool his attacker, even refuses to identify him / her and is showing the same characteristic stubbornness.

What amazes me is the psychology of the attacker. For a normal human being, it will be difficult to speak harshly to him, he looks so frail. Before touching him, you will think seriously whether it will hurt him? Forget about leaving him stranded in the garden on the hottest day of the year without his voice box so he could not even call anyone for help.

While reading all this I was seething with impotent anger. We bow to the persons if we chance upon to know that he / she is an alumnus of Cambridge, Harvard, MIT or nearer home IIT. Though we know that every year thousands and thousands of them get selected in these institutes. But Stephen Hawking! We don’t know when someone like him will appear on this earth again. He is just like one of our humanity’s precious possessions. Once lost we will never ……….

I also remember one of the India’s great Mathematician Prof. Vashishtha Narayan. I think he is now in a Bangalore’s mental hospital. His greatest mistake in life? I think he chucked his lucrative research projects in America and decided to serve his motherland known as India. And that is what we have given to him. Confined him to a mental hospital. About him I will write later how he reached to that state. Though for the past few years I tried to keep a tab on him by searching the net. But among the trillions of net pages I could not find a single reference to him.

But right now, I am just hoping that Prof Hawking will leave his stubbornness and co-operate with authorities. If I would not have been an atheist I might have prayed for him. But right now all I have left is to hope that Prof would finally realize his self worth and don’t allow anyone to take such kind of liberties with him.

Warning: Long post. Read at your own risk

These days, I am reading a book “Maverick” by Ricardo
Semler.
A few samples……

===============================================================

Every Wednesday afternoon dozens of men and women file through the front gate on their way to a third floor meeting room at Semco, the company I lead in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The guard at the entrance has been expecting them. For years now, executives from some of the biggest and best known companies in the world, IBM, General Motors, Ford, Kodak, Bayer, Nestle, Goodyear, Firestone, Pirelli, Alcoa, BASF, Chase Manhattan, Siemens, Dow Chemical, Mercedes-Benz and Yashica among them, have been making an unlikely pilgrimage to our nondescript industrial complex on the outskirts of the city.

Semco manufactures an impressively varied roster of products, including pumps that can empty oil tanker in a night, dishwasher capable of scrubbing 4,100 plates an hour, cooling units for air conditioners that keep huge office towers comfortable during the most sweltering heat waves, mixers that blend everything from rocket fuel to bubble gum, and entire biscuit factories, with 6,000 separate components and 16 miles of wiring. But it is not what Semco makes that has executives and management experts the world over waiting months for a chance to tour our plants and offices. It is the way the people of Semco make it.

When I took over Semco from my father 12 years ago, it was a traditional company in every respect, with a pyramidal structure and a rule for every contingency. But today our factory workers sometimes set their own production quotas and even come in their time to meet them, without prodding from management or overtime pay. They help redesign the products they make and formulate the marketing plans. Their bosses, for their part, can run our business units with extraordinary freedom, determining business strategy without interference from the top brass. They even set their own salaries, with no strings. Then again, everyone will know what they are, since all financial – information at Semco is openly discussed.

Indeed our workers have unlimited access to our books ( and we keep one set). To show we are serious about this, Semco, with the labor unions that represent our workers, developed a course to teach everyone, even messengers and cleaning people, to read balance sheets and cash flow statements.

For truly big decisions, such as buying another company, everyone at Semco gets a vote. A few years ago, when we wanted to relocate a factory, we
closed down for a day and everyone piled into buses to inspect three possible new sites. Then the workers decided. Their choice hardly thrilled us, since it was
next to a company that was frequently on strike. But while no one in management wanted front row seats to labor-management strife, we moved in anyway. In the lobby of our headquarters, a standard-issue office building with four floors of steel and glass, there is a reception desk but receptionist. That’s the first clue that we are different.

We don’t have receptionists. We don’t think they are necessary, despite all our visitors. We don’t have secretaries either, or personal assistants. We don’t believe in cluttering the payroll with ungratifying, dead-end jobs. Everyone at Semco, even top managers, fetches guests, stands over photocopiers, send faxes, type letters, and dials the phone. We don’t have executive dining rooms and parking is strictly first-come, first-served. It’s all part of running a natural ‘business’.

At Semco we have stripped away the unnecessary perks and privileges that feed the ego but hurt the balance sheet and distract everyone from the crucial corporate tasks of making, selling, billing and collecting. Our offices don’t even have the usual number of walls. Instead, a forest of plans separates the desks, computers and drawing boards in our work areas. The mood is informal: some people wear suits and ties or dresses, others jeans and sneakers. It does not matter. If people want to emulate Thomas Watson and don white button-downs, that’s fine. But turtleneck and T-shirts are okay, too. And I want our people to feel free to put their feet on their desks, just like me.

I am pleased to report that more than once a group of Semco executes has been interrupted by people who wanted to use their conference room to hold a birthday party. They use my room in office to hold conferences. Sometimes when I enter in my room, someone was sitting in my chair, using my phone. I have to wait on visitors’ sofa for the meeting to get over.

We have a sales manager named Rubin Agater who sits there reading the newspaper hour after hour, not even making a pretence of looking busy. I am sure this mystifies some of our visitors. Most modern managers would not tolerate it. But when a Semco pump on an oil tanker on the other side of the world fails and millions of gallons of oil are about to spill into the sea, Rubin springs into action. He knows everything there is to know about our pumps and how to fix them. That’s when he earns his salary. No one cares if he
doesn’t look busy the rest of the time.

My office is on the fourth floor – at least it was the last time I looked, I don’t use it much as other proprietors. Most mornings I work at home. I
concentrate better there, despite two sheepdogs that like to bark when I am on the phone to important customers. I encourage other Semco managers to work at home, too. I also take at least two months off each year to travel, and I like to roam far.
There are pictures in my office from two recent expeditions, a balloon safari in Tanzania and a trek through the Khyber pass in Afghanistan. I never leave a number where I can be reached when I am away and I don’t call in. I want everyone at Semco to be self sufficient.

The company is organized – well, maybe that’s not quite the right word for us – not to depend too much on any individual, especially me. I take it as a
point of pride that twice on my return from long trips my office has been moved – and each time it got smaller. My role is that of a catalyst. I try to create an environment in which others make decisions. Success means not making them myself.

One of my first acts at Semco was to throw out the rules. All companies have procedural bibles. Some look like encyclopedia Britannica. Who needs all those rules? They discourage flexibility and comfort the complacent. At Semco, we stay away from formulas and try to keep our minds open. I knew our rule book was useless, when as a test, I once distributed some additional pages for it. I asked some managers to read the new sections and give me their reaction. Almost everyone said they were just fine. Trouble was, I had stapled the pages together so they could not be read without first prying them apart. Funny how no one mentioned that. All the new employee at Semco get today is a 20 page booklet we call The Survival Manual. It has lots of cartoons but few words. The basic message : Use your common sense. If you have not guessed by now, Semco’s standard policy is no policy.

Many companies have entire departments that generate mountains of paperwork trying to control their employees. Take travel. They have rules how much a person can spend in every possible situation. At Semco, we want our people to spend whatever they think they should, as if they were taking a trip on their own, with their own money.

There is no department, no rules, no audits. If we were afraid to let people decide in which section of the plane to sit, or how many stars their hotel
should have, we should not be sending them abroad to do business in our name, should we?

We have absolute trust in our employees. In fact, we are partners with them. On the assumption that a capitalist society must be capitalist for all, Semco has a profit sharing plan – but with a difference. Typically companies hand over these plans like god handed Moses the commandments. The owners decide who gets what, when. At Semco, profit-sharing is democratic. We negotiated with our workers over the basic percentage to be distributed – about a quarter of our corporate profits, as it turned out – and they hold assemblies to decide how to split it. It’s up to them. Profit sharing has worked so well that once during negotiation over a new labor contract, a union leader argued that too big a raise would overextend the company.

Some people have likened the Semco philosophy to socialism, in the old Eastern European sense. I think we are proving that worker involvement does not mean that bosses lose power. What we do strip away is the blind, irrational authoritarianism that diminishes productivity. We are thrilled that our workers are self-governing & self-managing. It means that they care about their jobs and about their company and that’s good for all of us.

In restructuring Semco, we’ve picked the best from many systems. From capitalism we take the ideals of personal freedom, individualism and competition. From the theory, not the practice, of socialism we have
learnt to control greed and share information and power. The Japanese have taught us the value of flexibility, although we shrink from their family-like ties to the company and their automatic veneration of elders. We want people to advance because of competence, not longevity or conformity.

When you eliminate rigid thought and hierarchical structure, things usually get messy, which is how our factories look. Instead of machines neatly aligned in long straight rows, the way Henry Ford wanted it, they are set at odd angles and in unexpected places. That’s because our workers typically work in clusters or teams, assembling a complete product, not just an isolated component. That gives them more control and responsibility, which makes them happier and our products better. Nearly all our workers have mastered seeral jobs. They even drive forklifts to keep teammates supplied with raw materials and spare parts, which they have been known to purchase themselves from suppliers.

We have also changed the way our departments do business with each other. If one does not want to buy services from each other, it is free to go outside the company and buy from someone else. The threat of competition keeps us all on our toes. Recently we have encouraged employees to start their own companies, leasing them Semco machinery at favorable rates. We buy from our former employees; of course, they are also free to sell to others, even Semco’s competitors.

This program has made us leaner and more agile, and given them ultimate control of their working lives. it makes entrepreneurs out of employees. We are not the only company to experiment with participative management. It’s become a fad. But so many efforts at workplace democracy are just so much hot air. Not that the intentions are bad, it is just that it’s much easier to talk about worker involvement than to implement it. We have been ripping apart Semco and putting it back together for a dozen years, and we are just 30% finished. Still the rewards have already been substantial.

We have taken a company that was moribund and made it thrive, chiefly by refusing to squander our greatest resource, our people. Semco has grown sixfold despite withering recessions, staggering inflation and chaotic national economic policy. Productivity has increased nearly sevenfold. Profits have risen fivefold.

Sending cards, instead of writing letters always saves time. Whenever need to write a letter arises, time always seems a precious commodity. What a high it is for me when I while away time in any card shop or hip and happening places. The feeling never leaves me that I have arrived! O yes, I belong to the group I always aspired for. I visited one particular Card ‘n’ Gift shop. The handsome hunk at the counter had just presented an item from the shelf to his girlfriend or rather one of his girlfriends. She was smile personified and her heart was brimming with love for the guy.

When that hunk packed off his female friend, while entering into the shop somewhere along the way he donned his business acumen. Perhaps shadow of Daddy Dear was lurking in the corner of his mind. He strengthened out his balance sheet. Of course, he charged more from us mere lambs for our items by levying “girlfriend tax”. It only cost us few rupees.
In such a swanky affluent shop how could we have protested for being charged extra personal tax?

The place was not far away from my home. Why not take a Rickshaw? No point in acquiring a tan, the Sun God was hell-bent upon giving each and everyone in that June afternoon. Getting a rickshaw was no problem. I was happy after my little shopping. The days always look bright and sky so blue after a little bit of shopping. I was jolted out of my happiness by rickshawallah. A thin line of sweat was underlining his left ear. Right ear was out of my view. His shirt was clinging to his back in this oppressive heat. I wanted to get away from the scorching sun as soon as possible.

“OK, how much?” No need to speak a full and proper sentence.
“Rs. _ _. __”
“How can you charge so much”?
“Madam, its very hot. And every one charges the same amount.”
“But I pay that amount from red signal.”
“Here take this, or I am going”. These cute little threats never cease to be effective.
“OK.” He simply resigned to his fate.

Wow! That was easier. This one turned out a lamb! Others were not so obliging. They kept on arguing till few interested neighbors peeked out of their balcony or window, from wherever they could grab the crumbs of this free show.

Entering into my room, I remembered that handsome hunk who charged me the same “extra” I saved from my rickshaw ride. I evened out my balance sheet too. I was happy with my smartness.

I was interviewing a maid for household work. She will look after my household for few hours.
I was questioning her.
Where does she live?
She belongs to? Ah Which state?
How many children she…..?
Who was her previous employer?
Can she give me the phone number of her ex-employer?
(I crossed checked her credentials immediately.)
I asked for her photograph.
I asked for her permanent address.
I enquired about her family.
I enquired about her health.

I went to a polling booth to elect those who look after this country.
Candidate’s credentials : Who’s got the time?
Candidate’s social work record: Who’s got the inclination to
crosscheck?
Candidate’s previous work as a legislature: O! Its all so
complicated!
Candidate’s educational background: How to FIND OUT about that?
Can Candidate sing the National Anthem?
O yes! I heard most of them can not. But who cares!
Do they care about the inflation rate and GDP?
You are such a BIG bore. Why are you inquiring intently about a mere member of a legislature? You need to chill out girl! Don’t ask such taxing questions and spoil the evening.
Come on, let’s have fun.

We have never had it better. We (read metros or some developed towns chicks) are being given the education on par with boys, our parents do not stop us from following any profession, in school and college we have a good time, select and drop boyfriends at our whims and fancy. While choosing boyfriends, we do not want slightest interference from parents, but if we run into trouble, of course, our wellbeing is pops’ responsibility. They must be there to clear the mess and hold the hands of their cute innocent daughters! We love running to mammas and papas if we are in our thirties!

Then deciding moment comes. Sorry not for us, but for our parents.
They search a “Mota Murga”, who stands the test of the most of the societal trials. Like a docile good daughters, we succumb to our parents’ choice. Our boyfriends get a tearjerker a lá Bollywood style as a parting gift. They never get over us in their entire lifetime. Disgusting fellows!

O! But watch us during our marriage. Whatever our moms buy for us, and spends on that occasion is not enough. Those langhas, lachas, or for whatever names they are known is welcome. This object will never be worn more than 2-3 occasions in our entire life. We poor things have these garish garments thrust upon us.

The jewelry, how we love these yellow and white objects. No! No! these things will not be suitable for office wear. But none can bet the good feeling of having it in the safe.

Who will ever understand how hard it is to strike a balance between modernity and traditionalism? Another irresistible thing is “Kanyadaan”. How can anybody defy the customs prevalent for thousands of years!

O! We poor delicate frail objects! Our shoulders are too fragile to bear the burden of responsibility of our parents. But when it comes to our rights ( read if our parents have purchased a substandard gift for our in-laws or husband) within minutes our shoulders are tougher than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s.
Its our Inherent right to extract gifts from parents on every possible occasion.

When someone goes for sex determination test, we still have the gall to lament the fact that it’s discriminatory in nature. And we neatly sidestep this “In life, there is no right without duty, and no privilege without obligation.”

For us, modern Indian girls, we are having our cake and eating it too. Though we are in micro minority, but we are setting the trends for other disguised Behenjis.

He is a bright teen. The problem is he won’t try to gel with others. He gives a damn to peer pressure. Forget about succumbing to belong to a group. Nobody, especially girls, leaves him with his peace. When you are one of the top scorers in the class, get selected into your district’s basketball and cricket team, play guitar and Casio, your frame crosses that six feet benchmark and you are reasonably good looking, you won’t have to try too hard for girls’ attention .

He doesn’t know why, but school’s most popular and smartest girl thinks she has the intellectual property right on him. He automatically belongs to her. This notion of hers is final and absolute. It’s unfathomable to her beautiful head, how can anyone be disinterested in her? She used all the tricks tucked under her slim belt on him. Finally she started sitting at the last most bench in the classroom. Behind him! This way she can always watch him without denting her fragile ego. She is enjoying this novelty in her life for the first time. Fierce interest is not solely responsible for her change in behavior, but right now he is posing a challenge. She has full faith in her charm and beauty.

Finally not trying to be intruding, I asked this young man (who happens to be my nephew too) why is he so immune to the most popular girl’s magic?
“O! She keeps on ridiculing Arun.”
“Is Arun your best friend?”
“No!”
“Then what irks you?”
“Arun has lost one of his ears in an accident and his shoulder blades are not straight. He slightly stoops. That does not mean everyone gets a license to tease him. Tomorrow this could happen to me too. ”
I know my boy will face hard time in future…….

Scene I

I remember talking to my childhood friend. Prashant works in the marketing department of a multinational firm. He was narrating me an incident. Like all young men, he was on high after visiting a hip and happening night club in Mumbai. The girls swinging to the music, danced with him too, though he did not entice them with money, as others were doing. What a personality boost for a young man? Utterly at peace with himself and world, he was roaming aimlessly with a friend. A man approached them,
“Good night sir! How are you?”
Of course they were fine. Nothing could go wrong with those two bachelors at those moments.
“We are fine. Thank you.” In generosity he extended his hand.
“Sir I have a good thing for you, if you care to have a look.”
What harm an inanimate thing could possibly do?
“OK, where is that thing? ”
“Sir, just take the right turn.”
They came across with a girl, still in her adolescence.
“Very fine thing sir! Just spare a glance in her direction!”
Those young men summoned whatever acting power they possess. They passed it off as everyday phenomenon of their executive life. Lest anybody caught them behaving like blushing schoolboys in their mid twenties!
“Yaar! Go and find some other customer……” He tried to percolate some coldness in his tone.
“Sir, just see her once!”
Without replying they walked away. He caught up with them.
“Just see her once, Sir!”
Both of them tried to turn tail and fled from the scene of action.

Scene II

Ashish is in USA right now, writing hundreds and hundreds of lines, termed as code, in front of a dumb PC. A gentleman wished to meet him, when he was in India. He did not have to use too much of his brain to sort out the purpose of the visit.

The gentleman kept inviting him to his house for tea / lunch / dinner/ breakfast, whatever Ashish could manage! Deadlines always rescue software guys! Deadlines seem too deadly. Ashish tried this for the sake of being polite.
But the closing date shield failed to ward off the gentleman.

Ashish is famous for his one liners. He don’t need any sharp Rampuri knife to cut anybody to size! But hats off to the gentleman’s persistence. He was made of sterner stuff.
Changing strategy, he talked about meeting on the neutral ground. In the end The Gentleman too revealed the trump card, to fix his daughter’s marriage to an eligible bachelor…
“Just see the girl once!”