Author Archive for KR Ravi

Years of conditioning and training can lead to a freezing of frames. These frames help us to simplify the world but the danger lies in oversimplification and holding on to frames after they are no longer relevant. Albert Einstein admonished his colleagues, “Make it as simple as possible but no simpler.”

An oft repeated fault in many organisations, is to automatically attribute success to the brilliance of the manager concerned or the team. Failure conversely is attributed rather automatically to incompetence. This is a serious flaw. In the above instance the CEO could have requested the ‘star’ performer to make a presentation to all the sales staff and share his insights into the strategy and tactics that in fact led to his grand ‘success’.

One of the most brilliant displays of paradoxical thinking is by scientist Faraday in the 1830’s. He had observed that a current of electricity passingthrough a wire could have the effect of causing the magnetized needle of a compass to deflect, that is, move in a rotational direction when a compass was located close to the wire. This was the basis of his invention of the electric motor.

I was talking to my cabbie in New York who happened to be an emigrant from Hungary. I asked him how life was these days in his home country. I was taken aback when he stated rather casually that the ‘oligarchs’ were enjoying themselves while the public suffered privation.

dinosaurI still recall with laughter my first day at B school. Students introduced themselves dutifully and solemnly till one guy said that he was working for Hindustan Motors, makers of the Ambassador car. Later we ribbed him on this, telling him that his department had an entire year to decide on the shape of the headlights — this being the only innovation in what has been billed as the world’s only vintage car under active production and use. A living dinosaur.

One of the wonders of the world is that obviously intelligent people make elementary but serious errors in thinking. I happened to meet a friend of mine, a successful banker in California who had migrated from India to the US more than a decade ago. He was talking about violence in India and gave that as one reason for his disappointment with his home country.

That the U.S or for that matter many other countries are in recession is well known. The question is how does one measure recession? In the US the main yardstick is the shrinking of the GDP for two successive quarters. There are also many other indices that are closely monitored as indicating the health of the economy like retail sales, new house purchases and real estate prices, motor car sales, and so on.

What many people may not know is that to lead a rich and satisfying life we ought to devote about 70% of our time and effort on our long-term developmental goals. We are so caught up in day-to-day issues which in the final analysis turn out to be of small significance to our lives. We lose sight of our main and meaningful goals.

The CEO of a large company asked me to meet with his HR manager to discuss the possibility of conducting workshops on Lateral Thinking for his colleagues. I sought an appointment with the HR manager only to find the man was not interested in meeting me. I suspected that he did not like the idea of being told whom to meet.

Meta decision should take place before you frame the issue. ‘Plunging’ into
the various stages of decision making can lead to disastrous consequences.
Not devoting sufficient time and effort to this phase may lead to you solving
the wrong problem thereby exacerbating the actual problem.

There is one issue never dies out in India. Just when I thought that it was settled — not by any serious thinking by our netas — but by the collective wisdom of our people, the controversy has resurfaced. By sheer coincidence events have indicated the solution that no policy maker can devise in his head. I refer to the language issue.

A young man went to Gautama Buddha and sought the Master’s guidance on how to achieve Enlightenment. The conversation, which in my opinion must be required reading for anyone, went roughly as follows: Young Man (YM): Master, how long will it take for me to achieve enlightenment? Gautama Buddha (GB): It all depends on you. [...]

It is eerie how disparate news items are related to each other in a manner that provides interesting insights if you look at them closely. First came the news about how iconic athlete PT Usha was ill treated at Bhopal where she was present as the manager of an athletics team. It was sad to [...]

An incident took place recently when the US President Barack Obama addressed Congress that needs to be discussed seriously in India for its many ramifications. It occurred when President Obama was addressing both the Houses — Representatives and Senators — the Indian equivalent of which is a joint session of Parliament. This is where the [...]

Unlike Archimedes it is unlikely that I will be remembered even minutes after I have my tryst with my Maker. That kind of destiny is reserved for the best among us and I cannot certify that I belong to that elite group. But I had my Eureka moment when I discovered answers to two questions [...]

My friend Asha works at the National Institute of Health in Washington, DC. Her boss had asked her to find out why India’s most powerful people had not been affected by swine flu, known here as H1N1. She asked me for my views on this interesting subject. I said that the reasons are obvious. She [...]

In recent weeks a couple of incidents told the true story of India in a manner that nothing else can. The Delhi metro bridge crashed killing some poor people one early morning a few weeks ago. When my quality control friend of Indian origin in the US saw the photographs of the accident scene he [...]

The birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi that fell on 2nd October, was also a time when we recalled the 3 monkeys that we have always associated with him. But the symbolism has changed. They now stand for: See No Criticism Hear No Criticism Speak No Criticism Let me explain. The character of a people can [...]

A friend remarked to me that what defines America is its veneration of entrepreneurship. The French, he added, most admired style and elegance. What defines India? That was the challenge my American friend posed. Before I could speak a word, he admonished me, “Don’t give me the clichéd answer that anything one says about India [...]

I am often accosted by NRI’s in the US who ask me why is India unable to solve its myriad problems. I usually ask them to name one specific problem and tell me how India could solve that problem. It becomes obvious in most cases that the NRI has not thought through any problem with [...]

I thought I was lucky to get a front row seat at a musical evening in Washington DC where a top Bollywood singer was scheduled to sing — an event that Indians abroad await with excitement. My excitement quickly turned into disappointment as the singer began to belt out in very high decibels, ‘adhunik’ songs [...]

When Jaswant Singh wrote something about Mohammed Ali Jinnah the ensuing brouhaha in the BJP told a tale about India that needs to be analysed. I suggest that we as a nation are prisoners of the past in many of our activities in daily life. In other words we are like the car driver who [...]

A few of us were drinking beer and discussing movies when the conversation veered round to Bollywood screen villains. Milind, a film fanatic felt that yesteryear villain Pran, was the finest bad man ever. His evidence? AFTER PRAN’S ADVENT NO PARENT IN INDIA DARED TO NAME THEIR NEW BORN ‘PRAN’! The implication was that no [...]

An internationally acclaimed management guru writes that Harvard Business school is like a doorway through which if a bright youngster passes he or she will emerge a bright person anyway! The point he was making was that there is no great value addition at Harvard! I recall writing a letter to a newspaper in response [...]

Two events in recent times brought to my mind a  characteristic of human thinking that needs examination. The media hype and mass hysteria surrounding the death of Michael Jackson was, to put it mildly, a case of overdose. It was said  that MJ was an ‘icon’, a world class performer and had a magnetic stage [...]

Most of us, if not all of us, would like a  casteless Indian society. An egalitarian society is our  dream. There are some who assert that our forms for admission to educational institutions, our job application blanks etc should not ask for ‘caste’. Right ? Wrong if you were to think against the grain. There [...]

My two and a half year old Boston-born grand nephew was taken on his first visit to India. At Chennai, the highlight of the day for him was the evening at the beaches of the city He clearly enjoyed the sand, the water and the relief from the summer heat. This boy was curious to [...]

Here is the headline from a newspaper, the sort of headline that has us wringing our hands in despair: THREATS TO JUDGES, GOVERNMENT LAWYERS SOARING! The report then says that threats to the nation’s judges and government lawyers have sharply increased prompting hundreds to get 24 hour protection from armed guards. Judges are now altering [...]

For several decades, scholars and researchers have been telling us that the structure of languages shapes human thought. Language habits contribute to conflict, misunderstanding and even psychological maladjustment. Alfred Korzybski is one such scholar. He asserted that there is no ‘universal truth’ or ‘universal knowledge’ and believed that the structure and psychology of language made [...]

“Racism is conditioned by economic imperatives, but negotiated through culture: religion, literature, art, science and the media… Once, they demonised the blacks to justify slavery. Then they demonised the “coloureds” to justify colonialism. Today, they demonise asylum seekers to justify the ways of globalism. And, in the age of the media… demonisation sets out the [...]

A friend of mine is an auditor whose job it is to audit the accounts of government departments and companies. She complains that her audit reports are consigned to dusty cupboards a minute after she has handed them and left the office building. I asked her what really transpired at her final meeting with the [...]

I recently saw the following newspaper headline: MAHAKUMBABHISHEKHAM OF MADURAI MEENAKSHI TEMPLE. The report indicated that the golden tower of the goddess Sri Meenakshi was plated with 30 kilograms of gold. A Hundred and eight pots containing sacred waters from the holy rivers in were brought to the temple towers. Now let me introduce you [...]

My friend Megha, a lifelong Delhi-ite, remarked that the Pavadai Melaku worn by some Tamil girls was a most unattractive attire. “How unfashionable,” she fumed. Some countries have banned yoga since this is considered a Hindu, or worse still, a pagan practice. Some girls object to sporting the bindi on their forehead for the same [...]

Many years ago, when foreign travel was very rare in India, a friend of mine asked me what he could get me from Singapore, the country to which he was traveling. I told him that I really did not want anything at all and would be happy if he were to enjoy his visit. But [...]

Sometime in the 1960’s a cricket test match was in progress at the Eden Gardens in Kolkatta. At a very tense moment in the match the umpire gave an LBW decision against an Indian batsman. With this decision, the match went out of India’s hands. The crowd which was obviously rooting for India erupted in [...]

There is a joke going around on the web. An American went visiting India. On his return, his NRI friend asks him how he found the Indians.The American replies laconically that everywhere he went he met Tamilians, Punjabis, Sindhis. Telugus, Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Sikhs etc. “I did not meet any Indians,” he said. There is [...]

My friend Katyal says that he had flown from the US to Jaipur just to see a cricket match between India and Pakistan. He checked into a five star hotel in Jaipur, refreshed himself and took the lift to the bar. He was both shocked and amazed to see that the bar was full of [...]

Do we value knowledge and learning? Do we accept charity with grace? Do we have our priorities straight? These questions flashed in my mind when at a party in Washington DC, an NRI who is a reputed medical practitioner told me this story. He happened to meet the Indian ambassador in the US some years [...]

In the week after the Mumbai massacre I asked two politician friends of mine the following question: Which scourge affecting India is a bigger killer – terrorism or kids dying of starvation? They both replied, “It is obviously terrorism. Look at the way almost 170 people have been killed just last week….and we cannot forget [...]

When I  began  my career as a corporate trainer I conducted  workshops on public speaking for which  I was paid a modest  remuneration.  Subsequently I offered workshops on a high value  added subject of Lateral Thinking. I found myself running into  high resistance in respect of my fees which were   much higher than what [...]

Based on an experiment that was carried out in the US, I tried this with my trainees, relatives and friends – all Indians. Here is the experiment. Find out the odd one out in the following: A cow, a stack of hay and a pig. Most people point out that the pig is the odd [...]

I practice a kind of thinking called multiple order thinking. This means that I try to go beyond the obvious and the apparent. At first I try and get into the second order thinking where one can grasp what lies beneath. In the third order I try to get at the underlying concepts of deeper [...]

There was an animated discussion when I had hosted a party at my home in the US yesterday. Most of the guests were Indians. These were successful people in diverse professions but all united in their love for India with deep regret that they could not use their talents in their home country. At one [...]

Beyond the film itself and beyond the awards that the film has received, there is a dimension that might have escaped your attention. This movie has brought into sharper focus India and its development experience. A correspondent for the Financial Times of London wrote about the movie and how it had brought India into the [...]

In my lateral thinking sessions I like to entertain and educate trainees with this small exercise: “Write down the rule that generates the series of numbers 2, 4, 6…”  I would then ask each trainees to tell me another three number series based on the rule he had identified. I would merely nod ‘yes’ or [...]

Try this experiment when in India. Walk past a cobbler and notice where his eyes are focused. I can guarantee his eyes will be riveted on your footwear. He, being an expert on footwear repair, cannot but focus on his area of expertise which leads his eyes towards your feet even if you were a [...]

About two decades ago a CEO faced an existential crisis. His company was in a very bad shape and his career was in danger. As he and his deputy sat in his office late into the night they asked themselves one final question – what would a new CEO do to transform the company?  They [...]

It was barely a week after I wrote a blog on the tendency of some Tamilians in Tamilnadu  to commit self  immolation I read that a youngster  committed the act in a fit of emotion over the developments in Sri Lanka. I believe the matter is no longer to be brushed aside with derision. It   [...]

Traffic authorities in a city faced a problem typical of any busy city – a street choc-a-bloc with vehicles, bumper-to-bumper in ordinary parlance. It is evening time and harried office goers are returning home. Suddenly a pedestrian darts across the road, a car driver instantly swerves to the adjacent lane upsetting the car in that [...]

The film Slumdog Millionaire has aroused strong emotions in both India and the U.S. Let me start with India. Amitabh started it all with his blog in which he despaired at the film showing the dark underbelly of India, a tradition  that goes back to Satyajit Ray. The star said that in contrast to this [...]