Manager v/s Leader

Heard about butterfly effect?

I quote the definition from Wikipedia for you – “The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. So this is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.”

It was originated from the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. While the butterfly does not cause the tornado, the flap of its wings is an essential part of the initial conditions resulting in a tornado.

So how do you react to the Satyam fiasco? Shocked? Shattered? Angry?

I am not. I see it as the tornado which has resulted from the flapping of the wings of some butterflies, years ago. Butterflies those were small, insignificant in their individual capacity when flapped their wings wrongly, led to this. The only difference here is these butterflies knew what possible consequence their one wrong flap could produce. It was ignorance to that tornado, or may be a short-sightedness to visualize it. An attitude to manage the present somehow without envisioning the effect in the future is, I guess, today’s manager’s strength. Most of them manage only their positions and not the work. As in Satyam’s case, Mr. CEO and his team of expert managers managed the whole fraud for years somehow.

In all my experience of IT industry, I somehow have found that manager is sad person. But sadly most of the IT professionals aspire to become one. Well there may by many facades to the problem but I shall be discussing only one – The personal and professional ethics, a sense of responsibility towards our job functions and more importantly a mind to rightly identify the right functions to provide the right service to our identified customer.

I have used the word ‘right’ at many places. Because I personally feel it’s very important to know what is right and what is not when it comes to action. When we act against our acquired or inherent intelligence, just to please and get away with our seniors (or anyone whom we see as source of our benefit), that’s were we get wrong. And think of a situation where the person doesn’t have either an acquired or inherent intelligence and is placed in a position of decision making? What will be the quality of his decisions? Will he ever be taking one or getting it done from someone else? Now that’s some food for thought.

Any organization, group or team functions well if it has a right leader not a manager. When I say ‘leader’, I talk for its literal meaning and not some positions that many companies have today. A leader, who has the acquired and inherent intelligence, is gutsy and can take decisions and stands by it. A person, who can fight anyone for doing things in the right way and leads his/her team by example.

At times I feel blessed to be lucky enough to have a leader in the start of my career who was the perfect example of a leader. She was one person we all looked up to in the team. She was the one who taught us, how a team should be led. She took her decisions, which were transparent to the team, and stood by them. She was one person who fought anyone and everyone who stood on her way to do things right. She never managed things somehow. She knew what she was doing, always. She was one butterfly who knew the right way to flap her wings and never flapped it wrong to someone else’s tunes if she knew it will have an ill effect, and she bore all the pain for doing it so.

I understand that’s what a solid team which takes its performance to unknown heights and stands straight even in tough times should be composed of – A set of people who have brain and some ethics in it and a right leader.

In all the chaos around me, I still miss my leader from Rave Tech (my first company). Miss you Luanne.

कभी कभी...

कभी कभी कुछ सपने

यूँ हावी हो जाते हैं  

कि वे लगने लगते हैं… ख़ुद ज़िन्दगी !

फ़िर परवाह किसे कि वो जीवन 

है एक सपना,

छणभँगुर, नश्वर |

कभी कभी के वे कुछ लम्हे,

जिनमे होता है एहसास 

कई सदियाँ जी लेने का,

जब बीतते हैं 

तब पाते हैं हम ख़ुद को 

कई कोसों दूर उस हकीकत से –

जिससे निकाल कर ख़ुद को 

चलाया था इस ख्याब में | 

कभी कभी ये आँखे 

यूँ ही बह जाती है,

अलग – थलग सी पड़ी पड़ी,

एक दूसरे से छुप छुप कर |

पहली को है ये दुःख कि ख्वाब वो प्यारा 

टूट रहा है ह्यिदय के भीतर

और पश्च्याताप करे दूजी ये 

ख्वाब सजाया ही क्यों था ?

कभी कभी कुछ सपने

बस यूँही हावी हो जाते हैं |

For the change that we seek...and why?

(In response to the comments recieved on "For the change that we seek..." on http://citizensfightback.blogspot.com/ blog)

The cases mentioned (cleanliness and mannerism) in the blog, For the change that we seek..., posted on Dec 3rd, are used for symbolic purposes. And they definitely stand for our negligence to more serious issues such as security.

May be people who are dirty and rude deserve security. But being dirty is one’s personal choice which by no means offers you the right to keep his/her city dirty, the city/country being a public property (I appreciate Swetha’s efforts to take care that our team doesn’t litter, by carrying every piece of waste paper in her handbag until she found a dustbin). And here, when I say cleanliness I don’t only mean dirty roads, I also mean a society which has gone morally and psychologically corrupt. I talk about some of our corrupt practices (We tailgate. We don’t like our bags to be checked at security checks neither do our security personnel, who again are a part of this Aam Janta, care to check them properly) which eventually lead to what happened on 26/11.

We call these things small but tell me whether these small things are not the stepping stone for the big casualties? We say cleaning up our city is a minor thing, but do we understand what kind of diseases the dirt can bring in? Don’t people die of it? And if we killing people by not keeping our city clean, are we not terrorists in our own small way? So shall I say we can afford to be selecting about the measures of security? Shall I say that we choose to kill people by forcing them to fall ill but we can’t allow them to be killed by bullets? It might sound too theoretical but every crisis before it takes shape is theory.

I don’t question the questioning of Aam Janta to the people who are responsible for this exact issue. That has to be done. What I question is the motivation for this. I question the manner of execution of the questioning and its correctness. I definitely agree that there were some groups who were there in the march with right kind of motivation for I personally believe that we can’t be motivated by fear and frustration, it only instigates. A real motivation comes only from courage, and whosoever joined the march with that sense of courage, I respect them.

Can there be a bigger irony than this – Most of us don’t care even to participate in process to choose our government whom we are questioning today.

What would be a better question to ask to government/Security systems– “I am responsible to my duties but how could you lack to be responsible to yours?” OR “Don’t bother what I do but why don’t you be responsible for your duties?” You choose.


In short, I ask the same question that our banners in the protest march read– Why do we not be the answer rather than asking the questions?

Please accept my apologies if I sound blunt in my writing...

For the change that we seek...

I attended a protest march in response to the Mumbai attack and its repercussions today at the Gateway of India. And I must say I was not impressed; not impressed by the fact that we are still not ready for what we are asking for – The change. And now my belief, that whatever happened was what we deserve, has been reinforced.

 I wasn’t angry till now. I was not angry to know that my city has been so ruthlessly attacked because I understood that it’s a system’s failure and I and quite a lot of people I know were doing our bit to correct it.

 But I am angry now when I know the fact that my fellow citizens are as useless as those politicians they were seeking answers from.

 Tell me what kind of responsible behavior we expect from our politicians when we don’t feel the responsibility, as small as to keep our city clean ourselves? One should have seen the Gateway and the places around for how badly they had been littered with papers, pamphlets, plastic cups, paper plates and what not. People had gathered with big banners and posters to ask for a change and this and that. But I ask all these people, why the do you not look into yourself and see what kind of change is required in you to bring about it in the whole society? Why don’t you initiate the change in yourself rather than asking questions to everybody else? What kind of responsible behavior it was to throw out hardcore abuses at people/politicians/country in public where we had our women, our children?

 It’s sheer cowardice.

 First of all, you have never been proactive enough to take care of your city, of your country. And now when you react to a particular failure, that too you do because you fear – fear about your own safety? All right, agreed that this safety is your fundamental right. But when you easily forget your fundamental duties of being correct in your own actions, with what rights do you talk about your fundamental rights?

 Any change that has to be brought in a sustainable way has to done because you are motivated by courage and not fear. We need to understand that we are part of the system which has failed and brought upon this terrible moment in Mumbai’s history. We can’t sit outside and ask for change. We have to bring about this change from a holistic view and this change to happen has to start from ourselves… Think about it before you go for your next demonstration, protest march or whatever.