Captive Adaptations

For the past few months here in Bangalore, I have been meeting many people from non IT background. The art of building a good business almost from scratch brings with its territory, the obligations and excitements of meeting people from various walks of life. Most often, I get along well with savvy business people even if they have pop-and-mom kind of operations without any touch of professionalism what-so-ever, IT for such people is a far cry.

Street smart business people are always easy to network with, and the same is also true for experts as well as novices in any business. The problem is with the psuedo-intellectuals who have little or no clue of the basics of business. No amount of MBA training or book literature, or even past experiences can teach you simple thumb rules of business, if you are not willing to involve yourself and learn the basics, as I have blogged before.

Today, I happened to meet a group of people in Real Estate business, who failed to understand the first and simple rule of business engagement Negotiation. Here let me define negotiation

An exploratory or bargaining process (planning, reviewing, analyzing, compromising) involving a buyer and seller, each with their own viewpoints and objectives, seeking to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement on all phases of a procurement transaction — including price, specifications, technical and quality requirements and payment terms.

As far as the phases / steps in a Negotiation is concerned, here is how I would formalize it.

• Quantifying all scenarios and options (which we did from our side)
• Identifying common ground (which we were ready provided the negotiation reached this phase)
• Defining mutual success
• Debriefing about future possibilities.
• Documentation (the last step to seal the terms and conditions of the deal)

How far can a negotiation proceed if people can’t even respect the other’s viewpoints. Should I say more of how soon the conversation with these Real Estate guys ended ?

Four days have gone by, since my birthday and the dreaded question, was the most frequently asked. In this entry I have tried to find an answer as to why this question is the most FAQ ?

A few years ago, I used to get agitated & annoyed when friends, relatives and even my parents used good intentions to arrive at this question. But with each passing year, discretion has outmoded valor, and has indeed proved to be a well suited response than valor. And its also a coincidence that I happened to be reading Chapter 11 of the selfish gene since I purchased the book.

Here is a very valid reason for people to be asking the most dreaded question, and an equally compelling answer, for me to be more sensitive towards all people asking me this question. The idea is simple. Celibacy and Marriage are both memes that have been passed to us for generations. And it so happens that during the years between 25-35 the “Clash of these memes” is bound to happen pretty frequently.

The success of survival of a particular meme depends critically on how much time people spend in actively transmitting it to other people. And if celibacy weakened the power-of-people to influence and enforce the idea of marriage, its no wonder people feel threatened with the “Meme of Celibacy” as its sure to outlive the “Meme of marriage” for the very reason that it would have recieved more time and attention. Statistics easily show that with each passing generation people are waiting longer to get married, and at the same time are also producing lesser number of off-springs indicating the fact that Celibacy seems to have been winning over the idea of marriage.

Its very interesting to note that Dawkins himself wrote about this clash of marriage and celibacy although for totally different reasons than the one I have stated here. For more you can read it here.

Yes, tomorrow will be the 29th anniversary of my second birthday. Hmm.., the years seem to roll over awfully quickly. It feels just yesterday when I had dreams like the ones below. Boy was I dreaming big even when I was just two ?

I sure was a Happy Baby, wasn’t I ? Remind me again, pleeeeaj. When do I turn into an adult?

Bangalore witnessed behavior that was uncalled for, the past week, I will not join the mainstream media on disecting “Mob Mentality” and the likes of it. But on a deeper level, I always wondered how such violent and barbaric behavior is exhibited by people who were otherwise known for their nonchallant and mellow nature.

While munching on these thoughts I recollected Adam Smiths Impartial Spectator theory, from one of his book, which I had briefly skimmed a few years ago. As I began my explorations on this, as always I discovered an amazing treasure trove on human behavior. Adam Smith, believed that much of human behavior was under the influence of “passions”—emotions such as fear and anger, and drives such as hunger and sex—but these passions were moderated by an internal “voice of reason,” which he called an “impartial spectator.”

According to Smith, Conscience, in turn, is the “internalized impartial spectator”. However, conscience itself is susceptible to confusion, for it comes from “Morality or Social Ethics”, which cannot be unbiased, as Social Morality is heavily inclined/biased with what is good/true for a larger audience, which to a large extent explains religious, cultural or lingual fanaticism.

The most interesting pieces of my learning regarding the Impartial Spectator is however the application of this theory in Corporate Ethics, and Behavioural Economics.

Smith believed that there were certain virtues, such as trust and a concern for fairness, that were vital for the functioning of a market economy. He wrote about “Trust and reciprocity” as leading to trade. One might think that the need for trustworthiness diminishes as a market develops, the kind which cut-throat capitalism has lead us to belive, but if anything the opposite is true.

And the advise to business leaders would likely be that they should weigh carefully the costs of breaking trust and risking reputation. Should I say more regarding the beating that Bangalore’s reputation must have taken?

I join most Kannadigas today, to salute this man, who passed away today.

Rajkumar has meant many things to many people, in his legendary career, and its no surprise that I was influenced with his larger-than-life image at an early age. During my adolescense the biggest attraction of this man was his power to stir the emotions of around 4 crore people with his gifted-voice. I remember our teachers citing him as a role model for not just his gigantic accomplishments/excellence in his field, but for being simplicity personified and for being a true, genuine and humble Kannadiga inspite of his achivements.

With age and wisdom however, I realized how difficult it is to truly capture-maintain-enhance the love, affection & imagination of so many people. Its about choices. I think Rajkumar’s biggest asset was his thinking soul, like all legends he managed to see through the clutter of superficial/ephemeral fame, and was able to make reasoned decisions when it mattered.

Everybody have the right to use their fame/name/charm when presented with an opportunity. But very few, have the reason to exercise-such-rights or not-to-exercise them. And to me Rajkumar leaves behind this simple idea. Reason precedes all rights, and if one makes an effort to think harder, the reason-to-exercise a particular right will always enable people to make the best choice.

Thank you sir, and may your soul rest in peace.

This is a follow up to one of my previously blogged article on March 1st. Make no mistakes, this is no April fool post. Its necessary that we have a heightened awareness of what is actually about to hit us. True to some apprehensions that I expressed in that post, some of the major organisations around the world have confirmed the start of a crisis.

In mid march the LEAP/E2020 public communication confirmed the Global Systemic Crisis. They have published the nine indicators that prove the unfolding of this crisis. To corroborate their statements the Federal Reserve has also ceased publication of the M3 Monetary aggregates, see here and here. To understand the repurcussions of this move in a lucid style, follow this article.

We have heard of the Great Depression, are we about to witness the Great Economic Tsunami ? If some analysts are to be believed, be scared, be really scared! Darna Zaroori Hai !

A couple of days ago I strolled around MG road with my friend, we were hoping to spend some time at Crossword, one of the good book stores on Residency road (near old Galaxy theatre). As luck would have it, we missed our usual parking garage, and ended up on Church Street, even as we managed to squeeze some space close to Amoeba (The favourite Bowling Alley of Bangalore), we noticed Blossom - the house of used books, right across the street.

As both or us are impulsive book buyers, we decided to check it out. Its an interesting place, where you can not only trade in your old used books for a decent price, but can also buy good books at a great prize, and as I heard from the store owner, it was started around 2 months ago.

I picked up a couple of goodies - one is this, and the other is the one book, that has somehow eluded my grasp, but about which I wrote sometime back. I managed to finally pick it up for dirt cheap price, so I have some good reading to do now. What’s more, once I am finished with this, I have the option of trading the book back with the store for 50% of the amount. That reminded me of the vintage “Engineering Days” were this form of trading-and-reading was the norm for all books!.

Sweet Nostalgia, so if you land up on Church street the next time, remember to check out Blossom, and if you need some pointers to interesting books I think this new book of Amartya Sen - Identity & Violence, which I noticed in the same book store, might provide some good fodder for an intense social conversation with like-minded argumentative friends!.