Aham Bramhaasmi , I am the Bramhan the infinite reality , the ultimate which engulfs everything, encompasses everything and then entrench them to myself. The lines are from Upanishad but never been there any better line to enlighten yourself , empower or energise yourself. In mathematics infinite is the most powerful or should we say unlimited powerful number of all. It is the urge of everybody to touch that infinite , but infinite stays infinite for infinite time . So you never touch it , just keep on moving behind it, a moving target which ends nowhere and expands to everywhere and anywhere to surround you and then surpass you. It is this reality that makes us alive, keep us awaken and active. It is the same reality that never let us rest and sit. The infinity is simply the ultimate goal of the life to grow and greet this fullness of life, the complete being and still reaching nothingness a complete detachment from everything you do , you plan or perform. In our work, life or relationship , this is the same infinity which keeps us engaged , endeared and enamoured when we see both of its enormous exclusivity and inclusivity . While exclusivity speaks about our reach and richness of thought to every stakeholders around our being, its inclusivity just tell how all these events, happening and its impacts assimilate , amalgamate again with the same beings ie ourselves. And here we ourselves are the ultimate destination of our own journey which we will design and we will define nobody else so here we or I am the ultimate reality the infinite reality Aham Bramhaasmi …….. Let me make it clear , although the Upanishad explores much deeper connect of these two syllable ultimate reality mainly the body , mind and soul to be alligned and assimilated to oneslef , here my aim to introduce yourself to you , to recognise yourself to expedite and explore yourslef . It is all about yourself nobody else , just to unedesratnd the unlimited potentiality , the uneneding eneregy and unsurmountable expanse you are exposed to and you keep on painting your imagination ,ideation, innovation unappolologic and unflinching which can hardly be bound by these trivial words like success or failure. So here we will speak on the romancing the failure not ruing it because pattern of every failure is unique not the design of success which normally moves in standardised way , labour , luck and some lines of connection , success just has three ingredients which varies very less in proportion from one to another. Here we will speak about the infinite potential we have provided we understand our worth and undo all entropy i.e. wrongly channeling it. The stretch , the elasticity , the huge talent you are with just wait for a single stroke , the realisation , the close conversation with yourself and the single line dialogue with thyself is ahambrahmaasmi,I am the ultimate,I am the infinite , nobody else.
Last evening we listened to one of the most coveted heroes in ecl , mr js gil , the person who led the rescue of 65 trapped miners in mahabir colliery in 1989. It’s the well known fact that in coal companies, specially in all those hazardous old underground mines once some journalist said the terrainal death traps, chivalry, charisma and organised common sense prevail over technology or so called management theory. Mahabir saga of rescue operation was an amazing story line where teamwork got blended with individual excellence , where coordination get connected to commaradeership and where the leadership does not get brewed in corner room of closed door strategy formation meeting with pinned up , high brow management wizards rather its being exuded in the front line and if needed down underground . As repeatedly I explained although it’s in a very crudest form, but coal mines are real crucible of leadership, mr gill’s volunteering to go down though a claustrophobic capsule in its most raw form of shape through the narrow borehole down the mine to make the trapped miners for 70 long hours to reach the surface one by one was showcasing the intrinsic strength of the organisation on which it looms large for last three and half decades. The whole machinery was put into the work, the people down the hierarchy just assert to their best in the crisis and on top of that the same people who sometimes appeared to be addicted to chaos just put their brain together to work against all the odds in the crisis time. As I saw in different times of my stint in the fields, crisis just shows us how much we are united, how much we think concerted instead of least organisational training input , and lastly how much we feel dedicated for the cause of the human being which apparently not been detectable in normal hours. Mr Gill has brought the DVD with him to showcase the recorded rescue operation where at one stage the camera set the lens on the faces of our relieved workers getting out of the boreholes capsules one by one some in devastated and some in bit exhausted state of physic and mind. And amongst them suddenly one smile flashed in front of the camera, a worker who just moved out of the hole and grinned with a deep breath and thousand lumens smile just pervades over the crowd. And the same smile I can recollect I saw lots of time when our workers comes out of the super strenuous as well as risky ventures into those deep pits after long working hours. The sun rays just flickers on their otherwise pale eyes, tired with exhaustion but beaming with joy coming to the surface while pledging complete submission to our care and concern for them. These are the time I felt my deep attachment to these people for whom many a times I discovered my purpose of life there with them. In fact when I retrospect the long 18 years of work in the field, these smiles, these grins and this innocuous submission of those workers towards our execution and managing, I felt a very close bond with the organisation instead of its different woes and worries. My friends I realised so many times in my job in this tough-land of coal companies , we are here to keep these thousand lumen smiles keep wider.Whether safety or security , wealth or wisdom its our noble mission to warrant them to our employees all the time.
In mines we come across hundreds of hazards and meet different incidences which may sometimes turn to serious or fatal accident .The whole approach always on the line of regulatory compliance while taking precaution or damage control when accident already occurred. But if we just tweak the whole approach in another dimension ie to learn from this failure with systematic or event analysis then we will consider these incidence are the” gift of failure” where we can initiate a process to refine the operational or structural process(operational, organisational or mental) of working engaging all the stakeholders in more safer procedural framework. The whole process can be continuous iterated in three nodes of improvement event analysis , organisational learning and learning at different levels. In the system failure Normally after any disaster or accident with deep impact on safety it takes years to frame and incorporate the norms and regulation , laws and bye laws by the investigating agencies. But for the daily operation in different sector as mining where the hazards are more intense the approach of organisation learning at different level as well as event analysis will be always more result oriented. The event analysis not only prevents further problem but due to its cross functional analysis or perspective looking is concerned , there will be assured development of trust and relationship inter disciplinary and inter organisations(the machine suppliers , the operators and the regulators). Normally when there occurs an accident in mine , we more often get obsessed with finding the guilty , initiating the blame game by trying to procure data or information on ad-hoc basis which again inhibit the right ambience of learning. Here needs balancing the both one is reconstruction of events one by one peeling over the layer as well as system thinking. Now if we understand the event analysis is itself a learning experience , we will again miss the forest for the trees. So whether assigning liability, minimizing disruption, improving productivity, increasing safety all are the intent of investigation , still learning needs different sort of approach like documenting or capturing and retrieving when needed. Here we need empowerment of every level to speak up their mind , their thinking. It’s happened that sometimes just invoking pressure from the externalities like regulator or other stake holding agencies initiate the process of learning followed by will to change. Now normally we see in most of the investigation of the incident or accident in the mine , the mental model or the causal relation of different actors causing the incident which need to be handled with time and tool by the manager, regulator, other stakeholder. In any case by mismanaging or missing the feedback /mental model based on system thinking(may be due to fact they are too busy, over confident, with rigidity in mind, obsession, prejudice ) we will again miss the scope of learning from the incident. This type of approach will definitely help to pave the way for more learning and that too from small and distant incident if we pick up the right approach of system thinking . It will be more proactive and we need not be waiting for the gift of the failure ie one accident or incident to get ourselves rectified. Recently in mines we are deploying the automated systems like fleet management system or OITDS , different smart system as well as new machines with high sophistication electronically and operatively. With this system or IT application our vulnerability now being exposed to system failure to high degree which can put the operator or the employees as well as our other assets like machines etc at stake. It’s a way to push the envelope of safety more and more susceptibility induced by internal fault as well as error in design or externalities. So the need to understand and learn from failure gets multiplied more and more as we transform to process enabled organisation from discrete functioning.
It’s very interesting to see in any training or class room period what moves the people best is least available in the industry. As a result most of the faculty ends up any lecture as pure theoretical or academic discussion whenever touches upon any subject. The problem becomes more acute when the audiences are not any post graduate or undergraduate students, rather a group of adult, matured, and veteran from the filed. The whole style of teaching just fails to keep awake these adult pupils , while captivating or incepting is far away let alone making them hooked in the class for a while. So where is problem? Is it that the faculty does not have grasp over the subject? Most of the time not true , as usually any faculty is supposed to know his subject very much, even he might have researched on any particular topic, intellectually stimulates the topic and can put it on a theoretical framework, packaging it with lot of updates of statistics, facts and figures. Then is that failure to be blamed on the adult student who lacks the patience to be attentive enough to any lecture, or else lags the academic updates happened to any of the subject of their interest? No it may be partially true as there is very least people available who does not feel charged whenever any topic of their own domain of work been raised in any discussion or class room lecture because that contradicts the fact that they got up the social or organizational ladder by only excelling in those work to the highest of its pick. Then where is the problem lies , where is the mismatch? What is missing link between the above two i.e. the faculty’s authority on the theory and subject and the participants’ work experience on the same is the way the whole information being packaged in story telling skill with precision and perfection? In coal mines specially where the executives keeps always in charge of every unprecedented eventuality or incidence due to its intrinsic nature of jobs and mining process itself( remind those US Marine as close comparison) , lot of management cases are everyday getting created and documented(tacit or explicitly)in abandon. Now in the world people gets afraid of unseen , unpredictable , but people get dreaded for other things , its not for the thing not predicted but because of the predicted one which is not stoppable or controllable(the mortality or death is one of the most dreaded fact in the world). And here comes the struggle or survival for existence which lies in a story not in boring or banal statistics or yawning details of power point. So the basic fact of all stories lies in the dark side rather than brighter side of any fact or thing. The truth lies in articulation of any fact in the form of a story creates trust which breeds conviction and then confidence in somebody in charge. In glorifying , self aggrandizing presentation , lousy figures and rosy facts just appear to be too deceptive to the audience who either gets hooked to preoccupation or lateral thinking at the time of presentation or else keeps discounting the presenter’s projection as a half truth both of which just decouples the confidence from the whole picturisation. In a mine its so natural that most of the time a colliery manager or engineer keeps on toes to fight the adversity(by nature and the ruggedness of attitude of coal people) , he keeps his regiment appraised of harsh realty rather than rosy lies of go getting . And this keeps people alert to their full and more prepared for the situation which ultimately embeds the confidence in the leadership of their head. It’s like this instead of telling how complacent they should be with the way everything is moving you better challenge the status quo not invoking or inciting but painting the externalities which may impact the future, you keep their thinking challenged to unsettle the complacency and they will listen to you more attentively, with apt attention. For our coal companies talking about the uncertainty lies ahead due to the uprising of land activist , political complexity, the nay saying activists , environmentalist, regulatory juggernaut on the eco friendly process may be more absorbing for the listeners than the rosy picture how much we are profiting (suppressing the nature of market where we still can skim the price) , how much we are producing compared to the upcoming small coal companies( ignoring the comparative advantages we are enjoying on the long ownership of blocks, acquiring technology long back, owning high skilled workforce due to being earliest mining companies in coal in the nation). The former caveats (not the skepticism) are the small components of a story teller while later’s success stories are the rhetoric of a power point presenter. The former will keep the follower on a constant zeal and gasping for innovation and growth while the latter will make the listens a complacent, lethargic, self aggrandizing workforce too unprepared to take on any disruption or diversion of business environment. In Coal mines we can see these story telling skills in abandon. It’s the different stories of bravery, tough and decisive moments and some of the legend leadership exhibitions by the different executives in different crisis which are round the corner in every mine. In fact these are the most effective driving force to acclimatize any new comer or any new trainee in a mine as well as incumbent’s officials or workers who have been given any new assignment to tackle any impending hurdle. The best part of these stories are that all these have enough ingredients of its own (without any single improvisation) to captivate the audience with its emotional and contagious part too inspiring as well as heroic to be missed by any listener who normally emulates the hero of the story in his own way (keeping himself in a protagonist of the story) and design his activity accordingly onwards. Its very true in my two decades in field and subsidiary, I have hit upon hundreds of such stories enriched and accrued with my own experiences (and stories) as well. Now count on big regiments of CIL which keeps managing different projects , mines and machines , its huge databases of top stories of leadership, management , case history showcasing the mine managers’ natural instinct of delivering in crisis and chaos , their strong resilience to fight back any adversity(natural or organizational) as well as performing under high pressure. As any lead story teller, these protagonists are true to themselves while opening up his own contribution to the facts or figures. They are true to his audience(here of course his employees) sharing and allowing them to get engaged with their own innovation of tackling such situation , true to the moment as they never repeat or blow the story out of context or out of proportion while support them with true evidence. And lastly they are true to their mission as they are very much focused on their objective in the back of their mind where the job may be to lead the whole mine out of crisis or to control an unruly mob to get them back to their rhythm everywhere these story telling leadership exhibits their hard earned skill by putting the whole team on an emotional journey, a satisfying, inspiring bondage and togetherness to lead the team
Somewhere I read , its the unreasonable minds which obey no boundary of thinking , the dare dreamers crossing all limit of dreaming who never restrict their imagination by the fencing of limited knowledge , these are those people who push the world forward, give it an extra spin every time with their unsettling innovation. Sometimes I realised that life is always an emergency and tomorrow never comes. Its today and exclusive today which matters and where we can create and recreate the world we like to see as we like. Unreasonable mind , irrepressible determination ,untiring restlessness , unbridled confidence and the sheer arrogance(some called them narcissist innovator) , the magical intuition to understand what you need tomorrow or simply to stimulate the latent , sublime need itself with awesome entrepreneurship to cater to that need , these are those virtues what creates a legacy to be benchmarked being followed by lots of stalwarts in technology , the innovators , tech disruptors or just challenger of the status quo. A rock solid determination and resilience who could incredibly zoom in from biggest concept to smallest details, possessing unbelievable empathy for what customer wants he just relieved the technology from its confinement in the hard coded boundary of possibilities fenced by hi brow techies, the IT geeks. He liberated it for the common people with utter simplicity(although he never encourage open source rather control it from its own epicenter of innovation) yet filled up all those features which neither allow you to peep into (with full abstraction) nor to get rebuffed (as it’s so simple to operate). It was like the curse with eves apple bitten and prone to downfall gets reversed into blessing for human being. In the ill fated 2000s especially in USA (started with twin centre crash followed by internet bubble pricked to the abyss of double dip recession) Apple introduced a series of innovation from iPod in 2001 to iPod in 2010 under his camaraderie .An evangelist with design of thinking as well as managing he never felt stripped of his energy even when the terminal disease kept eating into his physique very fast.We the human being may survive without food for forty days, without water for four days and without air for four minutes but we can never survive a single minute without hope and here was the man who knew how to muster this hope and deliver beyond mere expectation, articulating that salvation of cold comfort for human being in detail, saving the human grace from downfall by eves apple bitten and cursed, reversed it as bliss of human kind ,gave the elegance and meaningfulness of life in detail. It is said that he never designed any product rather he designed an overwhelming experience with surgical precision from operative system to exhibiting shelves, from selecting his 100 handpicked designer commandoes to hundreds of retail owners he prevailed everywhere. Micromanaging ruthlessly, a never- say- die attitude he just elaborated his philosophy of innovation where today’s little boffins to tomorrow’s successful entrepreneur may relate their vision for future disruption. A life full of abstraction as (he suppressed his diagnosis of cancer for long), yet revealing a detail (when he took to podium while launching newer innovation like iPod 2 or iPhone 3) he is the person who kept the world enthralled with his unrelenting persuasion of newer way to live with cool comfort emancipating it from rigidity of proud possessiveness by techies, he embedded it in his newer products all along his life. Here is his commencement address in Stanford Campus when he first revealed the metastasis of malignant cells in his body while showcasinganother parallel mutation of his ideating grey cells which illuminated the world time and gain afterwards with lots of surprise gifts like iTunes , iPhone then iPad and lastly iCloud.“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become”Yes the death is the only change agent of life which keeps on catharsis at every phase of innovation. You never try to reconcile with it rather you recognise it as big opportunity to do whatever you want to do right now without waiting for tomorrow. Steve passed way but his legacy will linger as long as the humanity will keep enjoying the technology in its different avatars.
The difference between the word overcrowded and underutilized when applying to any place (country , company or community) is more on perception rather than the practicality depending on who is there to define it.
A myopic leadership whose vision is blurred with very narrow , uninformed blocks of feudalism, autarky sometimes inherited sometimes ingrained in the system where they operate always sees any crowd as a liability , a escalated cost, overbearing drag to the concept of growth( if at all they had any blueprint for any such growth). With no plan in hand , thought process for the future or power of new ideation or imagination they simply flex the default power (entitled by system) in punishing ,purging whoever comes in front sometimes randomly , sometimes rearing any old vendetta. The crowd to them is like a mass , a block , an inertia not the cluster of individual talents to cultivate and capitalize. They neither appreciate the individuality nor they respect the collective knowledge , the only thing they crave for unhinged power to prevail , gross entitlement to muzzle creativity or change and thus keep inflicting danger and doom for everything connected to his fiefdom.
Exactly opposite is true for the visionary leadership which comes with its foremost quality of mutual respect with other’s visions , work on past to promote the future not setting aside as everything before his tenure as unwarranted , uncalled for , unnecessary. Without being narcissist , he always values his predecessor’s action , try to explore the context or pretext of each and every decision taken before nullifying them as wrong or trashing them outright . To him any crowd is not just mass or number of persons inhabited by it be it company or community but a place of diversity , cluster of individuality , incubator of germination of talents provided they be explored delicately as well as diligently. He never judge any individual by some demographic values loaded with very generic overtures (as young , old , male, female , senior , junior and so on), he rather cultivates its underlying competence , use its charisma as it suits different situation or scenarios very much part of the organisation where he operates. To him the word overcrowded indicates a full reserve of talents poised to be first expedited then exploited by putting a robust layout to utilize optimally each of them. Exclusive plan for each of them comes off his bigger blue print of organization goals he envisioned(or setting forth ) filled up its share of excitement and embracement down the lane.
When The World pulls every stop to check the climate catastrophe Here is the Pond in Monikhola, Narayanpur, whose stake lies with nobody…..
The world is getting together in UN Climate Change Conference to be convened from 30 November to 12 December 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).to set forth with more resolve and resilience to make this world better and sustainable reinforcing stakeholdership (that is the theme this year). Its quite contextual to say the foci of discussion will be around mainly private(individual) and public (Govt)engagement to save the climate, save the earth and make it sustainable. And here is the story of one poor pond , water body, the aquatic prime source in the mainland Kolkata and how it is just put to an euthanasia(mercy killing) by such callous attitude of every stakeholders around it. It’s saga unheard of . When the whole world is at the brink of aquatic bankruptcy (when aquifer layer gets least charged but most discharged or drained out), we are here obliterating another beautiful big source very fast just not only disowning it but also destroying it very fast exploiting it’s a very precarious status of no-stake with anybody. And that cannot be better irony that when world is sitting together to emphasize on the stakeholders of a cohesive sustainable world , this pond , beautiful waterbody suddenly finds no stakeholder of it to protect it , preserve it.
And it is about a big Pond just near the SRM road at entry of Manikhola , Narendranagar ,Naraynpur . The Pond is surrounded by the Flat Ideal Aabson at one side , one road towards Manikhola in other side , a few houses ,one thatched bamboo ridden hut all these are immovable neighbors . But there are hundreds of passer by who commutes everyday on the road beside this big pond who might be its everyday movable cohabitants. Alas , nobody else just nobody else feels an iota of affinity towards the pond leave apart the ownership , literally and legally both which are equally true as well as tragic .
Legally because while investigating we came to know , the pond by deed/legal entity belongs to Ideal Abason Builder / Chakram Builders who while building up the flats were having the intention to fill it (!!) and erect another structure there . While in opposition of the locals , that could not be done , the builder just left it outside the campus isolating it by a side wall to be left to its own (without any drive for care and concern for its maintenance). And the locals who are not that defined or unified to make a well concerted effort to reform or refresh this waterbody which used to shelter fish, bird and a greenery surrounding it just exploit it all around the year intended , unintended both.
Literally because the same locals who braved not to allow it to get it filled and reclaimed by the greedy builder for commercialization now themselves exploiting the whole pond in their own ways either out of callousness or sheer apathy about it. The place of emersion and urination both , huge trash littered around it, most of the time becomes open dustbins of everybody who are passing by as well as who also resides by , once beautiful pond is just in its last breath anyway. Several persuasion yields no result as nobody , just nobody wants to take the ownership of it . The Ideal residents never looked to the pond as it is outside their wall and the commuters or local resident just look the other way because it is not their asset anyway. Stuck between such legal vacuum , the pond is simply driven to a mercy killing , a slow but sure death to its own out of sheer indifference and pollution cum destruction by all surrounding it. Whole pond is being littered with polyethene , theromcol , and everything non- biodegradable trash are floating on its deep black water not being reformed for years. The birds are just too reluctant to come back and so its inhabitant fishes which just brace for endemic of death being gagged by unbridled pollution yearlong.
As said there cannot be more ironic when the whole world is refocusing on stakeholders responsibility to save it from exploitation (whether its by climatic , or political , geographic or social ) how a live waterbody in mainland Kolkata(700136) which just helps our depleting aquifer layers getting recharged 24X7 being allowed to disappear and be destroyed as nobody have any stake in it!!!!.
In such a precarious situation , the last hope our Hon’ble Minister with other stakeholders to intervene as the last resort to save the Pond and take whatever initiative needed to reform and rear such a beautiful water resource before getting fully obliterated.
Skill of Learning is more important than the Learning any Skill itself . It follows the old adage , you want to feed the hungry or teach him to fish to feed himself. When you really want to get enlightened you need to connect every dot you picked up while in journey with what you are destined to see in resultant canvas. The back end exposure now gets connected with front end experimentation or exploration to enjoy the crux of any full scape knowledge. Just find out you are onboarding for a journey and you are crossing the road in very much comfort and coziness , the indulgence will simply not allow you to register the surrounding and thus end up with the half baked or should I say a piecemeal of enjoyment(which is destination) by depriving yourself for the prime part of it(ie journey). Promotion or post inspires somebody do execution with excellence but for expansion or new exploration he or she will look towards the leaders who actually keep expediting different paths by processing all those mistakes as well as critical success factors he picked up or learnt over the years. Performance always matter but more than that which matters how your frame your whole job and what are different pretext behind it to understand where you need to improvise or improve when it goes wrong. A good coders can excel in writing codes but an excellent coder is good at understanding philosophy behind any coding. The first one be very contemporarily skilled and the second one is skilled for present and future both.
So what are the nuances to learn the learning? First you learn to Respect your evolution , the journey through which you got to be one of the most advanced species in the earth ie Homo Sapiens Sapiens Second you learn to Regret your underachievement as you got most of your advancement/assets are unexplored and untapped. Your brain just works at the most suboptimal level. Third you learn to Rear the habit of reading (add others’ ideas), writing (articulate your ideas)and conversing(assimilate with others’ ideas) with surrounding.
You just keep deconstructing, reconstructing , and thus refine every thing you are doing to roll out a full proof implantation plan for it with its entrenched risk management and feedback system. It is applicable for individual activity , corporate projects and beyond and it applies in your life at every stage. So crux here is that you train yourself with skill of learning (so many layers are there ) and pick every lesson from your surrounding . You can find this itself is a skill on how to continuously prime an prepare yourself as best receptor or sensor while appreciating uniqueness in each and everything you come across or chance upon rather than pervert your inborn geniuses with commonness or any homogeneity .
