Cellphone corollaries - Evolution through formless circumstances in India

On an early morning sky, an elderly adult of 65 was pacing his available place on a cool morning near his ancestral home. He was holidaying among known relatives, taking a break from the Big Apple where his permanent residence is. Looking toward the two steady lights of the sky between clouds of rain and mist, he exclaimed that the two stars had been his companion of the mornings he was on tour. When I mentioned the redness of a planet that looked silvery through the atmosphere, he was all ears. Recognising that they were the planets Venus and Mars or Jupiter, he seemed dwarfed in time and space to acknowledge the need for a telescopic confirmation. In about the early 1980s, when he migrated, it was not an easy decision to meet with an alien culture, where his daughter now teaches math for a living, and his son is on the brink of a doctoral publication in neuroscience. Saged through experiences, he had the discernment to appreciate that it was a tad late to buy his first smartphone, as he expanded his source of information and was more knowledgeable on matters since his first purchase.

It was in 1989 or so, that I had read in a French publication – (le nouvel observatuer or the L’Express Internationale – I do not remember which) of a caption that featured India’s crossroads in time. It was a colour picture of a bovine on an Indian road. “une vache sacrée a la rue” tried to capture India’s contradictions at a time, when the liberalisation of the automobile sector was on the anvil. Today, two and a half decades later, the smartphone indeed has ruled and the automobile has displaced the bullock cart in most places. Why go far? The home care-taker of the resort I was at in Allepey, whose business is younger than the liberalisation of the Indian economy, says that none row their boats with effort now along the Manimala or the Pamba rivers, leave alone the Vembanad lake. All prefer the Japanese motor-powered boat. His attendant adds quickly, none know hunger here anymore.

This week, the Newsweek’s issue carries the burden of the Indian zeitgeist in similar language as the French press. “The French” our attendant proffered, “prefer blander food preparations, even if it is meat; than the British and the American tourists”. The experience of being on the ground was shining forth in just a decade and a half of such flourishing house-boat and holiday home business in Kerala. The holiday-home owner was more forthright in his assessment though. He wondered why the fuss when even the lower castes with whom local politicians were playing coy; would return to sanity after their tempting differentiation in identity. He was certain that they would be side-lined by the higher castes in communal politics. At the crossroads at which India is today, caste is still a potent killer within India, than cow slaughter is. Social psychology still knows no better wisdom of in-group and out-group phenomena, in that the French observed of India in 1989, as clearly and as early as did the Newsweek did of India’s social contradictions in 2015.

Evolutionary biology, history and even philosophy are enriched in interdisciplinary contributions than are religion and politics of everyday living in the age of the hand-held mobile smartphone. Learning at a societal scale is not only mediated through technology and access to information, it is also restricted by inept social learning; like, falling on naked eyes to ‘know’ the planet from the star; when more contemporary lens are available. Bias and overlearning part, activity – and almost any variety - is considered a strategy for life. So popularity is weighed against social media rankings, and political achievements through material manifestations – even at the cost of the earth and the air on its surface. Activity inhibition is considered as sloth, and not as a possibility for inner reflection and contemplative meaningfulness. So hours are lost as minutes are kept; and the fear of not doing anything has the whirr of the modern boat scare away fish and tear away livelihoods impacted by nature’s plunderers. Seldom has the radical nature of groups been so incendiary in grabbing our attention. 

In populous India, the smartphone presents both opportunity and challenge. Rabble-rousers speeden the reach of their dogma faster than the citizens’ capacity to develop their innate intelligence and express themselves in independent critique based on emerging truths that science methodically uncovers for us. Else, may the farce be with you, and the mercy of a timeless zone rescue us from ourselves. Until then, am hoping to embrace the effervescence of formless circumstances!

Bearings and straits away from the Sea

The Navy Foundation in Bengaluru is perhaps more unique than one may like to hear of at first instance. In the first place, Bengaluru is not a maritime location. However, the Admiral Pereira Lecture series that it has instituted is to do with alumni from the region. Kannur, came up severally in the Naval Chief’s welcoming address. Little did I imagine that Ronnie Pereira was from Kannur where India’s seamen are formally trained. Bengaluru by contrast seems more like the choice for naval officers’ retirement abodes. On asking uniformed men, I realised that not more than 70 officers had secondments or deputations across DRDO or Central Quality Assurance offices. Around 500 retired officers however resided in Bengaluru. This is the city the late Admiral Pereira breathed his last too.

 I was fortunate to be invited to the 2^nd Admiral Pereira lecture by the renowned scientist Prof. Paulraj. Paulraj is the pioneer of a breakthrough wireless technology known as MIMO (multiple input, multiple output). MIMO is now core technology in latest WiFi and LTE systems. The topic for the day on 11th January at the BEL auditorium was regarding security and technology in the new world order. 

Admiral Robin Dhowan, had already assured the audience of indigenous development of equipment for the navy. The speaker in Paulraj represented a continuity in an intellectual voyage for the modern soldier in an asymmetric warfare context. Having spent 25 years in the Navy, he went on to be a respectful academic in Stanford. What I was especially drawn to were the pattern in his laments. None had a technological challenge. They were either social, organisational or merely cognitive or attitudinal. Let me recount a few of his reflections.

1.     Bureaucracy in India needs reform. It currently arrests development.

2.     Narrating the travel embargo during his sonar development, and the ‘good’ men in Raja Ramanna’s time, he elaborated on the rigidity of the ‘system’. He labelled it as the need for organisational reform.

3.     Technology cannot be left merely to the private sector. The gaps in technology requires government support in the order of lakhs of crores of rupees. Indigenous technology does not have that backing even if private capital were to join hands.

4.     Emphasis on quality is missing in higher education. The Chinese government sends hundreds of thousands of students to USA on government grants to access better quality of education. He gets more than 200000 letters of interest from students of Chinese origin annually. India’s scene is desperate and despicable in this respect.

5.     Spectrum for common citizens is blocked by the services in the name of national security. Prof. Paulraj felt some of this spectrum could be freed simply by withholding it in times of national security, than to permanently disallow the spectrum to civilians.

Well, the above notwithstanding, some points I picked up beyond the BEL auditorium were noteworthy too. We took to a table where an elderly veteran sat alone for lunch. He was kind enough to accept our presence. Having introduced himself as a veteran pilot, he went on to share much from his heart. Here's a brief recall from his outpouring.

1.       Commanders in the Navy could ‘separate’ out to pursue intellectual dreams like Paulraj did, and the host Ray D’souza did. The air force and the army on the other hand were short of personnel. The air-force and could hardly recover investments in its pilots for example.

2.       It takes 12 signoffs before a fighter aircraft takes off.  Ground duties are no less. Civilians have no clue to the preparedness of airmen.

3.       He felt that the seeds of indifference came about because Nehru did not feel sovereignty needed technological investments, so much so that the 1962 war saw soldiers on foot and in khakhi braving the Himalayan heights who in their retreat were lucky to be airlifted.  

4.       Bengaluru has been refusing permission for a war memorial. It is symptomatic of the clash between the political class and service officers. Just one officer alone has spent Rs. 26 lakhs since 1986 to fight for this right up to the Supreme Court, so as to create mind-share in forthcoming generations regarding the role of servicemen.

5.       Admiral Ronnie Pereira was lucky to be picked up from the road outside the air-force hospital in Bengaluru. He was riding a scooter in one of the most inglorious deaths a service chief may've had in India. An admiral as he, lived such a simple life as to be riding a scooter in retirement. Imagine!

The worlds of service personnel are quite far from those of the ordinary civilian. Governance has been diluted by serving and retired bureaucrats. No profession however can proceed to excel without a cause. And braving the odds as Paulraj would do to stay on a problem long enough despite the odds placed on him by invested paradigms.

Emergence is to be welcomed with openness - it is an attitude of trusting vulnerability. Expertise is an outcome of devotion, a relentless sacrifice to focus on a few things to exclusion of all else. It is an attitude of 'can do'. Originality comes from an attitude of curiosity and a presence of spontaneous positivity - that is to be authentic - without guarantee or pretence. Naivete of course will come from irreverence, and disregard for others' learning.

I had the opportunity to shake hands with naval aviation specialists, Air Marshalls and Admiral Dhowan himself. Overall, this session experience left me with a profound question. 

What am I bringing forth to this world?

Triumph can overwhelm

Not sure yet which gender belongs to Mars. Venus is still light years off. The frugal engineering and parsimonious applied science that launched India as a nation through interplanetary space lifted human spirit like never before. 

It is no equation or alloy technology that I can identify with when marveling at ISRO scientists' collective accomplishments. I do not know how to feign such knowledge either. So here's what surrounds me as the overwhelming mood engulfs the nation.

1. It was a mission, like locusts movements. Locusts have no king, and yet they march in ranks. It was not a campaign where a kingly authority reigned. Yet, the nation willing to be swept beneath the apogee missed this distinction. I am hoping we glean this subtlety sooner than later.

2. Design trumps operations. No matter how marvelous project and program management can get with agile and scrum methods, MoM may not have delivered without a requisite specificity in design phases. Quality cannot be sacrificed even if expense control is a target.

3. Shared context is unconscious value base, and diversity binds it best. It is known that most of the scientific cadres on Indian government rolls come from aspirational histories. The lack of the silver spoon hardwired struggle and survival in resource constrained contexts. The distinguishing competence of these scientists may well be the temperament of method in enquiry, and not curiosity per se.  Both past hardwiring and cultivated scientific temperament fuse together best when language, creed and faith are transcended in long gestation. If removed even by a bit, you may experience jugaad, but not the elegance of robust science.

Well for starters, these are points that I choose over many others. They may seem simple on the surface. But they may well transcend the complexity of rocket science.

In sheer paradox, as a nation, we may have got this mix in serendipity than through science of social psychology or the procedures of conscripted ideology or manuals of leadership code. 

What do you think?

Technology and its meaning for HR managers

The Age of Surprise is precipitated by the simultaneity of factors that edge our moments in life. Nuclear war, chemical threats, designer famines and physical terror seem likely enough. Yet, the trigger for these could be in the hands of innocent perpetrators. Each time we query a search engine, we are as a civilisation consuming more energy than we expend on a hand-held device. Time Tech said  in 2011 that “One Google search is equal to turning on a 60W light bulb for 17 seconds.” Would it be then appropriate to say that we pay a price for ignorance when we consume what we do?

In order to survive, even human resource managers use technology. They have large data management needs for storing personnel records. They also have personal needs to store reminders, tasks to do and private computations that serve their social and professional interests. However, when swamped with information that software analyses provide; human judgment is called for. In order to practice judgment, one needs to

1)       be prepared to contextualise one’s decisions, irrespective of traditions, and yet mindful of precedents;

2)       be courageous to test the unknown and yet unwilling to be naïve; and

3)       be forthright with candour and yet endear the ones who are impacted.

It turns out that language has a crucial role in the way our frames for decisions inform our judgment. Let us consider the word ‘technology’ for example. Wikipedia quotes “The word technology refers to the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or perform a specific function.” And to think that Sony's Walkman and Apple's Mac or the Tata's Nano are the only marks of technology!

Further it states “The human species' use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools. The prehistorical discovery of the ability to control fire increased the available sources of food and the invention of the wheel helped humans in travelling in and controlling their environment. Recent technological developments, including the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet, have lessened physical barriers to communication and allowed humans to interact freely on a global scale.”

Hence, when a Human Resource Manager refers to the word ‘technology’ today, it is not surprising, that he / she may like to

1)       contextualise for economic impact, especially when the self is reduced to a denominator, where the numerator is revenue or profit,

2)       resign to rather than test the unknown oneself, for complexity has outpaced singular capacity to deal with variety

3)       bind others through technique, systems and craft than endear with one’s heart, as the toll on emotional energy is upped by the incessant demands of financial value-chains.

So does it help get some perspective of our species per se? It does. Few of us are willing to recognise that evidence points to the use of technology in human society as long back as 54,000 years ago! While the Mu civilisation did not reach as high a technology, supposedly, as other later civilizations, it is, nevertheless, said to have attained some advanced technology, particularly in the building of long-lasting megalithic buildings that were able to withstand earthquakes. However, it was the science of government that is said to have been Mu's greatest achievement. What can be said of our Human Resource Management systems in organisations today?

In the annals of time, some contemporary scholarly adjustments from a Euro-centric view of history to a more integrated one commence not earlier than 700 AD. (Arnold Pacey, Technology and World Civilization (MIT Press, 1991)).  While history itself will judge us on how HR managers use technology, I simply loved a case study posted on the city of Ur in Sumer.  The main idea in the case is that science and technology helped raise productivity, farm produce and the rise of civilization. Undoubtedly, we are in a different context. While current civilizations share some aspects in common with ancient ones, the level of specialization in our society has galloped without respite.

While People Process Capability measurements have popularized the word ‘ institutionalization’ – its inherent meaning is short of integration in organisations that assess themselves for maturity.  An institution could be considered as a long-lasting pattern of organization in a community. Complex institutions, such as government, religion, and the economy, are another characteristic of civilization.

In our times, when the short-term memories of people are heightened on an hourly basis, the moot question for me is this “What model of human being do we hold when we manage human resources?” That will surely influence technologies that enable or accompany HR managers. Let us for purposes of this reading, restrict ourselves to assessment technologies.  Says Alexander Panesh of Moscow’s Technical Univeristy “Assessment technology is a logical scheme of stage_by_stage and complex usage of all the existing approaches to HR assessment. Thus, in this form the best result can be reached. However, under these circumstances it is not always possible to follow an ideal scheme in practice.” Thus human judgment goes in tandem with choice of assessment technologies.

I would refer to a wise set of judgment criteria as laid out by Dr. Daniel Harrison as below

1.       Job Specificity : How controlled is the play of technology? Is it based on workplace performance theory, where success is heightened when the role holder enjoys performance? Besides, does the technology also predict performance success with related characteristics such as fit with supervisor, work environment preferences, task preferences, life-interests, beyond just personality aspects that indicate behaviour preferences? Context matters.

2.       Number of job related factors : Does the technology explain all known aspects of behaviour or just a handful of factors? Does the technology indicate criticality of factors to success on the job? Test the unknown too.

3.       Lie-detection : Does the technology contain measures of respondent consistency that screen out socially desirable responses? Does it indicate which factors are less reliable in the measurement? 

4.       Simplicity and Amenability : Does the tool ease up the process of assessment, than to make additional demands on the assessor? Can it involve the assessee only to the extent required and no more to produce reliable and accurate outcomes?

5.       Measurement Scale : Does the technology use scaling techniques that are at once amenable to comparison to a norm for the specified job as also for self-reflection and development? E.g. Is it merely a bipolar scale as opposed to an integration of paradox behaviours? Endear the assessee to success on the job.

Thus as we can see, just from the above scenario for technology in human resource assessments, the technology for discernment and judgment amongst HR practitioners need parallel development. The craft, art and use of science in HR practices may never be ideal, merely because we deal with phenomena of people who have volition beyond mere biological presence.

I am reminded more than ever that learning may come in the way of learning in our times. For evolution in human resource practices, we need to pay dynamic attention to the model of the human being at work. Maturity after all, is a marking against an ideal. If civilisation is developing, will it be because of human resources, or will it be in spite of them? Just as we need to be conscious in our use of energy on a google search, so should we be parsimonious in talent search. 

Technology is not just out there in disembodied virtual reality in the Age of Surprise, but within us as interactive human beings ourselves. Do we need to strike conversation on such? Comments and views welcome.