Poetry in the life of Social Media - Maiden Attempt

I thought I should slowly distinguish personal writing from professional scripts in blogosphere. I was particularly impressed when I read Deepa Bhalerao's poetry that she proficiently pens on Facebook. While that is not flattery, I am putting up a piece I wrote over the weekend to give a different complexion to my blogposts. Will also like to write blogs of professional nature on our upcoming company website - more when that comes up..

In the meanwhile let me know how this reads...

The narcissist pervades the media

In search of an adoration sublime

The realist scrambles in wanton hysteria

Both creatures numbed in their climes

This world has its chasers of fantastic dreams

Market-worship, shaman-rituals all yearning for eternity

Then the unexpected surrender in delirious screams

Like refugees - to love they turn, awash in hope of serenity

The mist of cold and the gasps of dust twitch the skin in between

Seasons of moods, and tears and laughter intervene

Remote from the awakening unseen

The insight that emerges in awareness within

Prayers sung for a patch of wieldy sanity

Are drowned out by acts of untamed futility

The poet’s eye scans for the pen of verity

That will ink upon the pad of reality

Frivolous nerves renting its moments

Snatching away at shards of Eternity

Meaning it seems will make its advent

And simply emerge in resilient profundity

  

Spiritual Intelligence - Makings of a newer consciousness for emerging leadership

George Kunnath and I finally presented our views at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. The homocentric nature of our developmental paradigms alienates us from our own selves. The over-emphasis on cognitive dimensions of life has resulted in skewed development. Restoring the equilibrium can be attempted if we recognize the integration of multiple intelligences. In the cosmos centric paradigm, the key to transformation is in the inner journey of the leader. Attributes of a spiritually intelligent leader are outlined as the Warrior’s Way. 

 Here are some glimpses, assuming as we are the components of a spiritual intelligence.

1.      Compassionate pursuit – A distinct motivation to a cause helps the equanimity with which to regard success and failure. It does not regulate outcomes as much as guides learning on a journey to the purpose oriented direction. The essential centering in the spiritually oriented leader is from the depth of the ‘heart’, where compassionate endearment and enforcement of conduct ensues.

2.      Conquering fears – In psycho-analytic traditions of diagnosis, irrational fears are often the blind spot in awareness for the client. For the mindful leader though, fear is about opportunity for emboldening the self. Confronting one’s fears is therefore about drawing more from one’s reservoir of energy. The leader is alerted to the possibility of an ‘amygdala hijack’ and recovers with a heightened awareness to befriend the unknown.

3.      Conviction in solitude – The spiritual leader has the sense of devotion to one’s cause in that he or she is willing to go it alone, even if nobody is likely to approve of the contribution being conceived. This is akin to what Gandhi quoted and Bunker Roy endorsed of his experience at the bare-foot college “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

4.      Deep connectedness and meaning – Being centred in the self, the leader’s spiritual intelligence integrates with everything around the self. There is a deep connectedness with the environment, peace within oneself and others; and a self-concept that emanates from the sense that one is worthy of love.

5.      Spontaneity in expression – Emotionally intelligent leaders gracefully express themselves and exude a fluency in interacting with a variety of others. Moreover, the spiritually intelligent leader responds with authenticity. Such expression often reflects the leader’s depth of creativity.

6.      Vulnerability – Awareness of one’s own capability does not prevent the spiritually intelligent leader from being aware of one’s limitations. Demonstrating vulnerability is the evolution of transformative experience. It is confronting the primal fears that surface blockages or rigidities in our defense systems. Thus vulnerability is a state of being, a mind-set. In the deepest vulnerability the leader finds the deepest strength.

7.      Resilience – The spiritually intelligent leader bounces back to a steadfast journey by recovering quickly from interim setbacks. To suffer the throes of crises is only a welcome challenge for the spiritually intelligent leader.  

8.      Endurance – The spiritually intelligent leader exudes a staying power to go the distance even in the face of adversity and unforeseen challenges. In going the distance, however, the spiritually intelligent leader is mindful of a paramount power that the self is only part of, and yet willingly serves. 

We invite research suggestions and experiences in light of the above propositioning.

Time to Reflect - December's embers

December has often given me reflective time. Last night, as we stood to mark the birth of Christ outside an overcrowded church, it would have looked like devotion spilled over. The year that has gone by presented scenes that would mimic mass movements – or tend towards one – Morrocco, Libya, Egypt and Syria are graphic reminders. The scenes and visuals on media these days would look like anti-corruption crusaders have billowed from sparks of angry protest. What are people in search of? Can they find it together?

The song Kolaveri di has a followership in subtlety in India, where as eminent psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar put through long ago – there’s a mighty projection through collective cooperation. We Indians foist upon singular entities a power that makes them do things we would not dare to do ourselves. The series of Occupy Protests in USA are a departure from consumerist numbness there. These eclipse the birth of a new country in South Sudan, altogether.  Economic machinations of the West, Europe and war-torn nations hold up a fragile situation on the other hand. The pressure on civil society to find new answers or rediscover old ones is increasing.

So here is the insight. The scientific approach has led to a belief that humans are at the centre of the universe and he/she can conquer and control the universe. Rapid material progress and reckless consumption have created an alienation and emptiness within.  The means to assert individual will have also made it a complex and a futile journey for many. The wherewithal for the present and the future include a self-leadership and a personal journey.

Manmade and natural calamities challenge us. However, in recent decades there is an awakening unfolding that humans are part of a larger Whole. More and more people have begun a search for meaning and purpose. The quest for meaning and purpose is inescapably an inward journey. Through constant awareness, the discerning seeker comes across a reservoir of  inner potential. In the course of the inward journey the traveller discovers new dimensions of human and universal existence.

Such a discovery process awakens spiritual intelligence in the voyager with a sensibility infused with warrior like qualities. These warrior like qualities enable the leader to go over the edge to venture out into the unknown. New frontiers open up new perspectives to face the challenges, tempered by compassion.

The future for human civilization is a shift towards the cosmos as a whole. This approach brings about a balance between we humans and our environment. Our corporations, communities, cultures and science will learn a new way of living and relating. The new way of living, leading and relating can pave the way for a mindful future that may enable sustainable life.

Spiritual Intelligence - Explorations with George Kunnath

I've had some fascinating moments exploring the aspects of a Spiritual Intelligence conceptualization, thanks to the sharing from George Kunnath. Like a babe on the shores this vast ocean of awakening waiting to be known, I wade through a water that ensnares, endangers and yet comforts. Non-rational at it's core, it is a force from which we may have arrived in material form, and yet, our forms of knowing inadequate to explain phenomena we experience in this respect.

Here's a glimpse of that exploration. Posted here for your reflections and comments please.


The Material and the Spiritual

The Newtonian scientific model challenged this understanding of unity and overemphasized empirical verifiability as a prerequisite for any existence. The overemphasis of the Newtonian paradigm eclipsed indigenous wisdoms of the heart and idealised everything that is cerebral.  What we now witness is an intractable reductionism of essentially phenomenological experience into measurement, and look-alike frameworks of an extrinsic measurement paradigm. This has led to the propagation of ‘indices’ for phenomena such as customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and learnability. Every facet of human life has been driven by the cerebral rather than the visceral.

The rapid material progress in the West at the cost of all other dimensions of human existence created a vacuum. Many Westerners began to look eastward to find meaning. The feudalistic rituals of the institutionalized religions became redundant for the true seeker of the spirit and meaning.  The inner quest for greater meaning beyond material existence gave rise to many gurus and spiritual practitioners outside the religious structures. Western seekers came to India in search of peace and enlightenment.  Many found the solace they sought as they traversed through the chaos and immersed deep into the ancient spiritual practices.

Since, the treatise on Spiritual, Emotional and Analytical is an on-going one with a respectable legacy already available in literature, we wish to stress on a transformative space that leaders could act from. As the saying goes, it is better to cover one’s feet with slippers than to carpet one’s path on this world laden with thorns and stones.

“ ... everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.” - Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Albert Einstein - The Human Side, Princeton University Press, 1979.

Albert Einstein, probably the personification of fundamental inquiry in the pure sciences, acknowledged the existence of a greater power that makes us humble and surrender before it. Spiritual intelligence is a higher intelligence governing the universe.  Looking at the way the universe operates, it is a great marvel. Every event, every process in the universe is governed by a principle or a set of principles.  The manifestations of the governing principles can be observed in the operation of the universe. The planets orbit through their paths and the birds fly in the sky with no super highway crashes or mid-air collisions. There is a particular principle governing every species on earth unique and yet different. Seeds sprout, grow bloom, bear fruit and perish. Mammals are born, they grow, they reproduce, and they decline and die. The cycle of life continues; irrespective of the host habitat – the tectonic plates of Iceland, the fold mountains of the Himalayas or the Great Australian outback.

Every invention of man is a poor imitation of nature. Perhaps Nature does not make the effort to communicate its bemusement of our flattery for Her. The most sophisticated computer is no match for the human brain. No technology can match the marvel of the universe. The World Wide Web which is one of the greatest inventions of the 20^th century, it would appear, is modelled on the planets and stars and the interconnected nature of things in the universe. For the design of the most sophisticated fighter planes, extensive studies are done on eagles in flight with cameras attached to their body to capture the angle of their flights.  Whatever it may be called, a superior intelligence governs the entire universe including the humans. However, often we think that man can conquer and control the universe. In this quest for mastery and control of the universe we have forgotten that humans too are governed by the same higher intelligence that governs the entire universe.

Spiritual intelligence is not separate from the higher principle that governs the operation of the universe. In the Indian spiritual tradition any human soul (atman) has the potential to take the inner journey and be one with the whole (Brahman) universe. In this oneness the duality disappears, humans and the universe are not separate, they are one whole. When connected with one’s core we are connected to the whole. Being whole is our fundamental nature. When we experience separation form the whole due to karmic effects (akin to the collective consciousness of Carl Jung) we are unable to access the higher intelligence. Being one with the whole gives us purpose and meaning. We become clear about our true calling and we live out our true destiny. When we are one with the whole we constantly tap into the infinite resources of the higher intelligence. Our connection with the higher intelligence guides us to live our lives for something greater than ourselves. We respect other people and everything in the universe.

In the universe we humans are the only ones who kill for pleasure. The animals kill only for self-preservation – either to defend against an aggressor or for food. Human conquests are for greed, power and control. Human greed has depleted the natural resources, threatening the equilibrium of the planet..

Going back to nature to learn our basics again seems inevitable and precarious in our moments of choice. What if we were to remodel our corporations on the basis of the laws that govern the universe? Would that be a design choice? Individuals and organizations are taking to adventure and nature exploration. Some organizations are experimenting with workplace spirituality. While many such initiatives appear as attempts to be current with developmental practices, some leaders are undertaking an inner journey to explore intangibles that gives them meaning and anchor. Such a journey leads one to the inner core from where one learns to connect with the whole. 

The communion with the Whole brings about a transformation in the leader. A leader thus transformed allows oneself to be guided by the higher intelligence. These leaders help transform their groups, corporations, communities and nations. When the duality between self and others dissolves we merge into the interconnectedness of the Whole.

Spiritual Intelligence flows from personal authenticity, integrity and congruence. Every creative process at work is indicative of Spiritual Intelligence at work. When Spiritual Intelligence is at work, questions of purpose and meaning are at rest for they are continuously unfolded by the constant interplay of Spiritual Intelligence with everything in the universe. The interconnectedness of the universe ever manifests the spiritual intelligence at play. The incessant flow of energy through all animate and inanimate life forms in their various stages of creation is spiritual intelligence incarnate. The ever present natural order amidst apparent chaos reinforces the presence of the superior intelligence that governs the universe of which humans are a tiny spec. This realization makes humans to surrender to the greater power in the act of letting go. In this apparent loss of control we learn to accept the supremacy of the higher power that guides the destiny of the universe.  A new natural order emerges and we learn a new way of living, leading and managing our lives and the surroundings. The new way is sustainable for the present, future of our planet and future generations. 

The noise about Research in Human Resources in India

The noise about Research in Human Resources

The recent NHRDN Conference featured a session devoted to research in Human Resources. The presentations made indicated a curiosity in areas that needs sincere inquiry. However, I had some observations about 'research’ as a student of such disciplines. I was pained that attendance at these sessions dropped merely because it was placed for the last day of the conference.

After serving as a reviewer on journals, I have now a few jarring noises to make on the way research enterprise is brazenly unchecked. In fact, my gut for the notes here is agitated further by the collusion of academia in the 2008 financial collapse that shook the world. (http://www.theotherschoolofeconomics.org/?p=2499). That is a 2 hour documentary, and not a scientific treatise in itself. Yet, the evidence it makes inspires me to write as below.

1.       A report does not research make. Method in inquiry does. Not any kind of method – but those that observe the canons of science.

2.       Print and electronic media like to splash opinion, given the mediocrity in discernment of science. Such a market of opinion is not the method, but merely the yearning for a voice. An opinion is a fact of opinion, not always the fact of methodical enquiry. Verifiable science too is generalizable under the certainty of specified conditions. Human Resources Development is more akin to a social science, where the laws of generalisation and universality are more circumspect. Moreover, the level of abstraction and inter-subjectivity in social sciences require a community of practice to safeguard research standards as also to promote relevant enquiry.

3.       A presentation does not make a research, and it is in fact impoverished by a lack of curiosity. Similarly, a book of collection of procedures from organisational practices does not make for a construct of scientific reality, howsoever symptomatic of a phenomenon or two they may be. Testing of constructs requires a temperament of methodical experimentation.

4.       The authority of an office is not to be confused for the authority of a subject matter. Social hierarchy often denigrates the merit of fact, especially if the conviction of enquiry and the method of communication do not help the cause of research. Scientific endeavour is no cakewalk. The art of enquiry is only eased with the practice of rigor. If you are a knowledge worker in a service industry, you may even experience the obfuscation of organisational truths when irrational procedures are foisted down the hierarchy in the name of standardisation.

5.       Several consulting brands claim to have a research focus. They also do not always acknowledge the bias of commerce in the choice of research and methods that drive research towards commerce. Practices in such commercial research would often be unconscious of compromise in research designs. Slavish to a numerical algorithm, or a framework, issues of collinearity and discriminant validity hardly matter to the ‘consultant’. Worse still, the research design gets less and less innovative and stuck between the fulcrum extremes of quantitative and qualitative planes. Contextual maps for coherent enquiry are required to make meaning of evidence in ways the subjects experience phenomena. So calls for indigenous research for example do not find takers, if science cannot be framed in service of that idea.

6.       If you intend to do a Doctoral Program in India, be aware that the quality of your investment in inquiry is not just dependent on the standards of the University or academic institution, but also on the larger ecosystem. A data-shy corporation, an oversensitive field guide or a weakly tempered supervisor can jeopardise your motivation for science itself. Research in educational institutions is hardly encouraged.  Be more prepared for the program than you care to for a job interview, for a cross examination from your side helps.

So much for now, I would think. A noise that cancels out another will not make music, I assume. If there’s a way in which educational institutions wish to up their research capabilities, I would like to learn of it. 

Key Principles of Employee Development

I owe the following to Dr. Dan Harrison. While his points are succinct and distilled, I've tried to make the narration of development sportive. Indians follow cricket so furiously, that some popular characters may bring home the points. Hope you will enjoy these points stated as principles of employee development.

1. Ensure the right placement for the one who wishes to develop for performance at work. This makes development of the incumbent in the role practical. No point taking the gloves off Dhoni's hands to deliver dot balls as bowler in the slog overs. Inspire the incumbent in roles that offer what he or she enjoys doing.
2. Consider both technical and behavioral competencies. Without either, performance post-development will falter. It is not enough for Sreeshanth to tear down the green and pound the leather into the pitch. He should carry himself in ways that his conduct is deemed appropriate to the requirements of the game and that such be acceptable in his own conscious mind.
3. Consider all relevant job suitability factors. This reveals all behavioral factors that affect job performance, work satisfaction and retention. So to get Laxman to very very specially be special at all formats of the game would be risking a lot of his special talents.
4. Discover, acknowledge and utilize strengths. This provides encouragement and the motivation to develop. Dhoni could do more to discover young talent like Jadeja, Raina and Kohli as part-time bowlers. They will be thrilled to contribute to performance in inspired ways.
5. Work on Self-Awareness before working on others' development if you can. It helps to use the self as working model of development for others to value their own development seriously. Besides, experience is a humbling touchstone. Self-realization makes contribution or service more likely without having to quote one's own effort in development! One quotes one's efforts only when a committed learner asks for it.

In summary, whether performance or development, man likes to have the pleasure of engaging in activity he chooses to. Development is a future oriented effort for the employee. It is an investment if and only if the above principles are held together in the development decision. Focus on the developing employee's needs.

Secure her or his learning in a non-threatening  and enabling work environment. When an employee asks for development, listen to the intent in the ask. Distinguish a curious question from an internal commitment question. When an employee intends to develop to make impact (and not impression), the commitment to perform is assured. A curious question lacks the emotive tonality that accompanies a committed intent.

Am sure you can tell me more from your own experiences of the millions of dollars spent wastefully from developmental budgets, when unwilling, confused, disinterested or disoriented employees enter a learning situation!

Mind the medium for the body too

Mind the medium for the body too

The mind-body- emotive balance is a way of expressing the analytical, the emotional and the physical parts of ourselves. We are all of these. Are we only these?

I’ve heard often of the Structures of the Mind. I’ve also known that the structure is changed only when – am willing to die to my past. Every cell in me would get reorganised.  In working on the Time-line with Dr. McHugh, SJ, the glimpses seemed more than a possibility. In that structure of experience, though, the consciousness was that the responsibility for self is an awareness of ecological sensitivity. It was then a consent to experience the emerging, without persuasion. Unlike cynical interpretations of NLP, the 'Mind with a Heart' paradigm shone through.

Yesterday, when with George Kunnath, I was awakened to a point of assemblage. Accessing it as a episode of memory is a mere menti-fact. Rejecting any part of its wholesome encoding is robbing myself of the resonance I  need to tune into. Fears of uncertainty and similarly disposed emotions shut us from ourselves. Just yesterday, a distilled sensation got expressed by a colleague as this “Peer in organisations work against each other in the hope of advancing themselves. They look up, and they hardly look around for what they should look at within themselves…” The territory of the self as Prof. Ramnath Narayanswamy of the Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore) mentions is an enormously neglected one.  Emotionality that is blocked is shut out to the self. Not resonant with the context around us, we stumble in pursuit of the illusory apogee of self-aggrandizement.

Retrospective repentance is posturing as if authenticity can be negotiated. Even the image of it is obscuring, as it hides the pain that is not dealt with. A lady with cancer once, took it on herself to reflect deeply. She traced the dolor to her decision to force herself to go childless. She dealt with it, and the pending treatment for her tumor annulled as she came to terms with herself. That bodily pain was gone.
As with individuals,  every organization forgets its ‘charism’ – it forgets the very purpose for which the institution was founded. As with individuals, organisations too need to take care of their health. As with individuals, institutions are more than economic identities. Imbalances in health – emotion, spirituality, are attended to with temporary curing. As with individuals, the world view of an organisation is a mediated sense of identity. Not to forget the confused reduction of ourselves to material yardsticks.

As with individuals, groups and organisations are sentient systems. As the self senses, it connects with the body's parts. As the body informs, the self becomes aware through the mind that is conscious in attention. Groups and organisations have their own sub-systems for communication. The collective therein is ‘sacrificed’ for the few ‘individuals’ at the top, if at all a semblance of unity in the system prevails. Apparitions of conformance are not essentially a team based unit, as what lies hidden from perception often is the pain of expressing what needs to be heard. “Sacrifice’’ is a suffering born of bondage. Giving is a release seeped in joy.  When each subsystem gives as part of being itself, the resonance is harmony in the context of the group. The mind is indeed the medium to the body.  What did you do to tend to your body today? What did you die to today, that you are renewed in this moment? As you sensed for yourself, what would make for sensation about your community?