Barefoot: Worlds apart
Sometimes just a thin red brick wall can seem like the distance between two different planets... A red brick wall encloses the sprawling, shaded campus of India's finest business school, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. On the pavement just on the other side of this wall live a large cluster of homeless families — rag pickers, construction workers and beggars. One of my students, Manish Verma, remarks on the irony that ‘a mere 100 meters separate the lives of those who wage a battle with hunger each day, and those who wage a battle for securing a high-paying job out of the best business school in India'. The chasm that separates life on the two sides of this brick wall seems the distance between two planets, separated by light years.
I accepted an invitation three years ago to teach a semester course every year on poverty and governance to the MBA students in this business school. The challenge of speaking about hunger, homelessness, want and discrimination to a classroom of some of the brightest achievers in the country — who, within months of my course, would be recruited to jobs which would easily place them in the top one per cent income bracket in the country — was daunting. But I found my students intelligent, engaged and caring, as young people anywhere are. A different exercise instead of an examination at the end of the course, I asked my students every year to each find one impoverished person, in Ahmedabad or elsewhere, and try to learn about their lives, write their stories, and share these with their classmates. Their first reaction was usually one of understandable panic: how could they cross distances imposed by history, class, power, language and so much else; they were convinced that these were insurmountable.
I assured them that what was required was no more than one human being reaching out to another, and if they could approach them with true respect and empathy, the people they were trying to learn from would, in all probability, reciprocate. For each hesitant young woman and man in my classroom, this became a personal adventure of reaching out and beyond, into places of the heart and mind they had never explored. Each came back to recount the wonder of unsuspected lives, of the struggles, dreams, triumphs and the spirit behind every humble, begrimed face. The words of student Pooja Jayaraman, after her moving encounter with Jyoti, a single, widowed construction worker on the new IIM campus, echoed in many student accounts: ‘As I walked away that day I asked myself if I had been in the same situation, would I have shown as much courage as she did?' They learnt not pity but respect. Many also were astonished by how hospitable and welcoming these dispossessed persons were to the students who visited them.At the time the students entered my classroom, they had spent nearly two years living in the IIM campus. On the pavements outside the campus, interspersed between the homeless residents — what one student aptly called homeless homes — are innumerable stalls selling street food, cigarettes, DVDs, magazines, newspapers. It is here that the students gather long hours most evenings, to ‘chill and hang out'. They would have passed their homeless neighbours literally several hundred times these two years. But they never before thought of them as people with worthy stories.A homeless rag-picker Anand Bhai lives with his family on the pavement adjacent to the walls of IIM Ahmedabad. He shows Manish Verma his part of the footpath, which houses about 50 such families of rag-pickers, and says, ‘Whatever you see within the enclosure of this part of the footpath is mine'. Manish describes what he sees on those 10 feet of pavement, which ‘houses his family, a wooden cart used for collecting scrap, four steel utensils, a couple of jute bags stitched together and a small tent.
That is all Anand Bhai can claim to own under the sun'.A typical day in his life ‘consists of waking up every morning at 6 a.m. and leaving with his fellow rag pickers for a day of work that includes picking up bits of paper, plastic bags, empty mineral water bottles and pretty much anything that can be exchanged for money'. His children are uneducated and beg for money during the day, typically collecting about Rs. 10 or 20 each after a day's hard work. Describing the uncertainty of what the family can eat at the end of each day, Manish uses a metaphor for hunger which only a business student could: ‘The food itself is as unpredictable as the movements of the BSE Sensex.
If the day goes well and Anand Bhai is able to pocket a hundred rupee note, he comes to the part of the footpath he calls home with a piece of chicken, a few tomatoes, onions and coriander to relish what he calls a grand feast. On gloomy days when the earnings are restricted to about fifty rupees, the dinner consists of boiled potatoes and onions with chappatis'.Before parting, his unusual visitor asks him one last question: ‘What are your ambitions for your children; what do you want them to be when they grow up?' He replies: ‘They are the children of a rag picker and will become rag pickers'.Bleak prospectsA similar matter-of-fact absence of hope marks the life of another homeless rag-picker, Abhishek Gopal and Sougata Basu discovers that he was born on the streets of Ahmedabad, and lived all 30 years of his life on the same stretch of road. Sanjay Bhai's family consists of his mother, his wife and two children, a boy and a girl. He sets out with his entire family early every morning with a hired wooden cart to collect rags, separating them into different categories like iron, bottles, glass and so on, and selling them to a nearby dealer in exchange for money. He too believes that nothing will change in their lives, and his son will grow up to be a rag-picker like him.Spaces called homeMegha Jain evocatively describes the ‘home' of another homeless rag-picker. ‘On the pavement, Kanti has carved out a small space that he calls home.
They have a thin cotton mattress and a couple of old blankets. Some utensils and a large shiny radio-cum-cassette player make up the rest of his movable possessions. The home is defined by a tiny earthen chullah on the edge of the road and a string hung along the wall with some clothes on it. In the mornings they defecate in the open field about 300 metres away. When they leave for work, they roll up all their possessions and dump them behind a wall or some bushes. They aren't really worth stealing, so they have no fear'.Marly Diallo, an overseas Exchange Student, writes about Sabina, a young mother about 30, who recently gave birth to her fourth boy. She ‘lives on a pavement, in front of a road that I take almost every day, without really asking myself how these people live there. Sabina has been living just behind the walls of IIMA for years'. She adds, ‘Sabina keeps their belongings on a ground protected by a fence; all the families can keep their valuables in plastic bags stocked in this area. Otherwise, she keeps her stuff on the pavement. At night or when it rains, the family gathers under a thin plastic tarpaulin, just like everybody does in this street'. She adds, ‘We asked them if they benefited from the presence of IIMA in terms of security or help? The answer was clear and sad... there is no interaction with IIMA, just as if these two worlds co-existed without seeing each other'.
As they say, once upon a time in a jungle in the distant land of Timbaktu, a dog lost his way to hide out. While trying to figure out different trails, he saw a fiery lion coming towards him. "Screwed up like a bolt", he said to self. Suddenly, he noticed few pieces of bones disposed near a tree. He applied his grey matter and reclined on the tree trunk. As the lion came closer, he released a big burp and sighed, "one lion is never enough for lunch. Wish I can get another one."
The lion heard this and was shocked to the core. Even in his vague dreams, he never envisaged that a dog can hunt down a predator. Escape route was the one he arrived upon and he traced them back. A monkey saw everything. He realized that if he tells the lion about the dog's game, he will earn life-time loyalty of the beast. This will ensure that he will be safe and respected in the jungle. He ran behind the lion.
Dog noticed this. He saw the rot and realized that monkey is up to something that will not help him. He started thinking.
On the other hand, lion roared when he learnt the truth. He was angry because his stupidity was on display and reputation was on sale. "He is a dead meat now," lion muttered and slowly started walking. Monkey smiled on his little triumph. He started fancying his dominance over other animals and little treats from the king. Can you imagine what dog would have did by then?
Prepared for the worst, dog was waiting for the lion. As he noticed him to be in audible distance, he took a deep breath and barked, "I should never trust a stupid monkey. How much time he needs to trap a dimwit lion and bring him here? Aah... Like I have whole day to wait for that moron." Well, as they say... rest is history. The lion listened the utterance and ran like cat. What happened to monkey... well, he jumped onto tree and never set foot on land.
Moral of the story - There are many such monkeys around us, try to identify them and do not get worry in bad circumstances, keep your presence of mind always active.
Little Things Makes a Big Difference
There was a man taking a morning walk at or the beach. He saw that along with the morning tide came hundreds of starfish and when the tide receded, they were left behind and with the morning sun rays, they would die. The tide was fresh and the starfish were alive. The man took a few steps, picked one and threw it into the water. He did that repeatedly.
Right behind him there was another person who couldn't understand what this man was doing. He caught up with him and asked, "What are you doing? There are hundreds of starfish. How many can you help? What difference does it make?" This man did not reply, took two more steps, picked up another one, threw it into the water, and said, "It makes a difference to this one."
Moral: Little things makes Big Differences....
What to do when you are angry
Once an old Master was travelling with his student, and they passed by a small lake. The Master was feeling thirsty so he told his Student to get some water from the lake. The student walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that right at that moment, a herd of cattle had just crossed through the lake. As a result, the water became very muddy. The student thought, “How can I give this muddy water to my Master to drink!” So he came back and told his Master, “The water in there is very muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink.” After about half an hour, again the Master asked his student to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The student obediently went back to the lake. This time too he found that the lake was muddy. He returned and informed the Master about the same. After sometime, again the Master asked his student to go back. The student reached the lake to find the lake absolutely clean and clear with pure water in it. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit for drinking. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to his Master. The Master looked at the water and then he looked up at the disciple and said, “See what you did to make the water clean. You waited long and the mud settled down on its own and you got clear water. Your mind is also like that! When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless”.
Moral: Whenever you are angry, just give yourself some time. You will gradually calm down, and then you will be able to take the right decisions.
The CEO of one company was determined that his employees understand the issues surrounding the company’s recent poor results and become fully engaged to help turn the company around. Here’s how he accomplished this.
The company held four brown bag lunch meetings over four weeks where employees could attend for free for one hour and hear from an outside professional about how to invest in the share market. Importantly, there was no obvious link between the meeting topic and the organization the employees worked for. At week three, they were analyzing annual reports and generally deciding whether they would invest in a particular company based on the information contained in the report. By the fourth week they were given another annual report and asked the same question, “would you invest in this company?” The answer was overwhelmingly no. And of course this last company was the one they all worked for, which brought them to the “Aha!” moment. Now the organization’s employees understood and were engaged and ready to become involved in turning the company around through teamwork and new initiatives.
The Importance of Self-Discipline.
During the 1960s, psychologist Walter Mischel conducted “the marshmallow test” with four- year-olds in the preschool at Stanford University, to assess each preschooler’s ability to delay gratification. Each four-year-old was given one marshmallow. They were told that they could eat it immediately or, if they waited until the researcher returned in 20 minutes, they could have two marshmallows.
Some kids in the group just couldn’t wait. They gobbled down the marshmallow immediately. The rest struggled hard to resist eating it. They covered their eyes, talked to themselves, sang, played games, and even tried to go to sleep. The preschoolers who were able to wait were rewarded with two marshmallows when the researcher returned. Twelve to fourteen years later these same kids were reevaluated as teenagers.
The differences were astonishing. Those who had been able to control their impulses and delay gratification as four-year-olds, were more effective socially and personally. They had higher levels of assertiveness, self-confidence, trustworthiness, dependability, and ability to control stress. Their Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores were 210 points higher than the “instant gratification” group!
A key difference between successful people — leaders — and those who struggle to get by, is self-discipline. As Confucius wrote, “The nature of people is always the same; it is their habits that separate them.”
Management Lesson
One fine day, a bus driver went to the bus depot, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops - a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.
At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a Pathan got on. Six feet four, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground.. He glared at the conductor and said, "Pathan doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back.
Conductor didn't argue with Pathan, but he wasn't happy about it. The next day the same thing happened - Pathan got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the next..
This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way the Pathan was taking advantage of the poor conductor. Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for body building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what's more, he felt really good about himself.
So, on the next Monday, when the Pathan once again got on the bus and said, "Pathan doesn't pay!"
The driver stood up, glared back at the Pathan, and screamed, "And why not?"
With a surprised look on his face, the Pathan replied, "Pathan has a bus pass."
Management Lesson: Be sure there is a problem in the first place before working hard to solve one.
When one’s hands get dirty - The mind remains clean!!
One of Mr. Ratan N Tata's (RNT) first assignments was the stewardship of the ailing electronics company in the Tata portfolio - Nelco. Story goes that a team of senior managers from Nelco was driving to Nasik along with RNT. Halfway into the journey, the car had a flat tyre, and as the driver pulled up, the occupants - including Mr. Tata - got off for a comfort break, leaving the driver to replace the tyre. Some of the managers welcomed the forced break, as it allowed them a much-needed chance to light up a cigarette. Some used the opportunity to stretch, and smile, and share a joke. And then, one of them suddenly noticed that Mr. Tata was not to be seen, and wondered aloud where Ratan Tata might have vanished! Was he behind some bush? Had he wandered off inside the roadside dhaba for a quick cup of tea? Or was he mingling with some passer-bys, listening to their stories? None of these, in fact, while his colleagues were taking a break, Ratan Tata was busy helping the driver change tyres. Sleeves rolled up, tie swatted away over the shoulder, the hands expertly working the jack and the spanner, bouncing the spare tyre to check if the tyre pressure was ok. Droplets of sweat on the brow, and a smile on the face. At that moment, the managers accompanying Ratan Tata got a master class in Leadership they haven't forgotten. And that's a moment that the driver of that car probably hasn't forgotten either!
Though Process to start:
When was the last time I rolled up my sleeves to do a task much below my hierarchy?
Do I wait for the big opportunity to showcase my leadership?
Is that big opportunity ever going to come?
Am I trying to manage upwards so much that I've lost the feel of the field? Ideas for action:
Humility is the essence of success. Be humble and even teach your children to be so.
To reach the top and remain there, always start from the bottom, else your days at the Top will not last long.
• Practice leadership in small things instead of waiting for the big crisis or a major Product launch.
• Seek to find opportunities to lead in everyday moments.
• Build your leadership skills one baby step at a time.
I have been made aware of some events that have occurred which were reported completely differently by two different course attendees. Here are the stories:-
Manager’s story - “I sat down with my engineer and chatted to him about the course and his homework. It was good crack, it’s nice to be able to chat about non-work related things with my people.”
The engineer’s story - “My boss came over to me the other day and gave me a bollocking for doing my coursework in the office.” Moral to the story - One manager’s crack is another person’s bollocking.
Director’s story - “I’ve just completed our road-shows around the business, we presented for 2 hours letting everyone know the company business plan, what the future holds, it was really invigorating. There was no dissension whatsoever, I’m really fired up.”
Worker’s story - “We had to down tools last week to sit and listen to a load of company bullshit. It took two hours and we lost our bonus for the day, thanks a lot!” Moral to the story - What’s interesting to Directors might not be interesting to the workforce.
Team leader’s story - “I got the team together in the office today in order to thank them for their great work over the last couple of months during these difficult times.”
Team member’s story - “We got our usual pep talk today, you’re all doing really well but you cannot let up, there can be no slacking, blah, blah, blah, nag, nag, nag.”
Moral to the story - If you are going to thank people then just do that and nothing else.
GIFT
Some time ago, a man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he was furious when the child tried to decorate a box.
Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy." He was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found the box was empty.
He yelled at her,"Don't you know when you give someone a present, there's supposed to be something inside it? The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, Daddy, it's not empty, I blew kisses into the box. All for you, Daddy."
The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.
An accident took the life of the child only a short time later and it is told that the man kept that gold box by his bed for many years and whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.
In a very real sense, each of us as humans have been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, students, friends, family, teachers or God. Even our pets!
There is no more precious possession anyone could hold than love.
SUDDEN, SCREECHING HALT
I duly and dutifully dropped my daughter at school. I then rushed to the railway station. The train was scheduled to leave the station at 9-30 a.m. The train started moving with a loud hoot, at 9-30 sharp. “Please, sir!” It was such a loud and desperate plea.
I saw a short, portly man, maybe 40 years of age, with a duffle bag on one arm, a backpack on his back and the other arm flailing. He was running after the train. Without a doubt, he was out of breath. On his left, running a bit ahead of him was a small boy. The boy was carrying a bag too. The train was clearly ahead of them. Clearly, there was absolutely no way they could get on to the train now.
I thought about the way we manage time at our home. I never wake up at one call in the morning. It takes a lot of coaxing, and then mother have to lift me off the bed and lead me to the washroom.
So, as I watched the portly man and his son, I could well imagine how they would have rushed today morning: the man getting his son ready for travel, the bags packed, the last minute rush, the traffic jams, their arrival in front of the railway station, the dash. And then the devastating miss.
Then, the train stopped, with a screech! I couldn’t believe my eyes initially. Something fantastic had happened. The man and his boy stopped running. They could now regain their breath and get inside. One of my friends said the guard at the rear end, hearing the plea, must have alerted the driver.
“Where else in the world, other than India, would you see a running train stop for a passenger like that?”
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