Deception Point, by Dan Brown

It has been quite a while, since I have picked up a book, dived into it like the world ceased to exist around me and not lift my head up until I finished it. It was Dan Brown's 'Deception Point' that kept me glued to my chair (the floor rather, the comfort of which, I feel, is far more than any chair or sofa!) all of yesterday amidst a couple of tasty meals and some tasteless comedy strips and business news on television.

The author's uncanny knack of squeezing a few hours of storyline into 500 pages of text just bowls me over. The previous book that I read of Brown was ‘Angels & Demons’, where the entire story from start to finish spanned a countdown of just six hours. This time it was slightly longer – a day! The basis of the book was far away from Christianity this time, a change from the previous two books that I have read (the first being the bestseller, ‘The Da Vinci Code’), but the tone and the pulse of the book were quite similar. It had Dan Brown written on it all over!

The book is about a meteorite discovered by NASA on the top of the world (literally) and the impending political ramifications on the credibility of the NASA and the presidential elections in the United States. With civilian scientists and a celebrity television anchor brought on to authenticate NASA’s claims, a special task force, which keeps killing people right from page one (the epilogue actually!) at the commands of a mysterious ‘controller’ and the scandals of the presidential candidate, Dan Brown has enough threads to sometimes confuse the reader. There are of course some Hollywood touches to the book. Some of escapes of the protagonists are somewhat unbelievable. Yet, overall, he does a great job intertwining the different threads, unraveling plots one by one and adding new twists to the story.

Although the final twist is typical Dan Brown again, it is not evident until a couple of chapters before he actually reveals it. Even at that point, it is easy guesswork only for someone who has been through the other two books. If you have not, the author will surprise you even more.

An Interview is not an Exam!

There are several important differences between an interview and an exam. First, an exam usually signifies the final stage of a process of learning. An interview, in contrast, signifies the beginning of a similar process of learning in a different setting. Secondly, preparing for an exam usually involves learning and remembering purely technical concepts, but preparing for an interview warrants much more attention to other aspects as well.

The people interviewing you are, at the end of the day, employees of the company. Therefore, in any company, the interview process is usually a mini demonstration of how the workplace is going to look like once you join, conceptually as well as contextually. The interview often brings to the table the overall management culture, the amount of creativity encouraged by the managers, the approach to problem solving, etc.

This is extremely helpful to you as a candidate for two reasons. Firstly, if you are in a position to decide between two ore more job offers, your comfort level in the interview would be a clear indication and one of the most important factors of consideration when you make your choice. Secondly, and as you may not always be in a position to choose between job offers, the mood in the interview helps to prepare yourself psychologically for the work environment you will experience once you are selected for the job.

Thus, the third key difference between an exam and an interview is that the former is usually an assessment of how much you know and remember, while the latter is a simulation to check if there would be a three-way fit between you as a future employee, the interviewer as your future manager and the company as your future employer. So remember that the creative genius in you, your systematic approach to problem solving or your personality itself could score higher in the mind of your interviewer than mere technical knowledge that you may possess!

Niranjan Srinivasan
(as written for eccgetsetgo)

Involvement levels & Observational biases

Any organizational change process has to start with an analysis and evaluation stage, where the resources and capabilities of the organization, or in other words the ‘system’, are analyzed and the barriers to change are identified. According to practitioners of the ‘systemic’ approach to organizational development, the analysis should not be limited to just directly focusing on areas of improvement. It involves understanding the fundamental strengths of the system and identifying opportunities to develop them and then use them to overcome the weaknesses. After evaluating the success factors, other organizational patterns and dynamics, the hypotheses are formulated. Based on these hypotheses, the key focus areas for development are identified.

A hypothesis is only a proposed explanation of an observable phenomenon. These hypotheses can be used to interpret certain dynamics, patterns and behavior of an individual, team or organization and can support the manager and consultant in his analysis. However, hypotheses are often confused with the objective truth or the reality itself. However, social reality cannot be seen in an objective way but is always constructed by the observer. The observers thus play a crucial role in formulating the hypotheses since what they express is only their own perspective. Since the formulation of hypotheses forms a vital stage in the change process, it becomes important to reduce the biases to the extent possible.

People are often biased in their observations due to a high level of involvement in issues and situations that are relatively more important to them. In other words, if two people look at the same landscape they both might see different things depending on their focus, current mood, personal situation, experience etc. A person´s position in the company, for instance, can be an influential factor on one´s social reality. A CFO might have a different focus and perception on the status of his organization than an employee or the owner of the company. Thus, in order to find the most promising solution to a problem it is useful to understand the internal models of the observers, reflect on them and build hypothesis before acting.

The relationship can be best illustrated using the figure, with the Involvement level of the observer on the vertical axis and the Extent of Biases on the horizontal axis. It is useful to understand the internal models of the observers, reflect on them and then build the hypotheses. Here we define three types of observers:

1. Primary or Resident Observers: These observers are usually the leaders, managers and employees in the organization. In general, they can be defined as those who are a direct part of the system. They have a high level of involvement in the system and largely present their own perspective of the organization, since they are directly affected by the various aspects of the system.

2. Transient Observers: This category usually represents consultants, who observe the organization and interact with the primary observers to gather their insights and perspectives about the system. They also observe aspects of the organization that are not mentioned explicitly by the primary observers and examine why these aspects are neglected. However, as they build relationships with people in the system, there is a strong tendency for the transient observers to become integrated into the system, leading to formation of perspectives. Their views and observations however are biased to a lesser extent compared to those of the primary observers due to a comparatively lower extent of involvement.

3. Remote or Distant Observers: Remote observers are those who analyze the various factors that lead to potential biases in the system and bring in a fresh perspective to the observations. The difference between a distant and transient observer is that the latter gathers information from people within the organization, i.e. the primary observers, and analyzes it. The former on the other hand is a complete outsider to the system, and ‘observes the observer’. Distant observers can help sharpen the entire process of hypotheses development.

In practice however, the three levels of observations could be done by one person or by a team by merely acknowledging the diverse perspectives that stem from different levels of involvement in the system.

It is natural for people to have diverse perspectives. We need to bear in mind that the goal in this case is not to single out the best among the different perspectives but rather to disclose the hidden and most important aspects in the organization, which require attention. We must treasure the perspectives of all three categories of observers and actively use them to formulate better hypotheses and hence focus on the right areas for organizational development.

Niranjan Srinivasan (along with Mag. Christine Wawra begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting)

The authors are practicing consultants at Doujak Corporate Development - www.doujak.eu - dealing with Change Management & Strategy Implementation

For more details, feel free to contact me at ninja.srini@gmail.com

The P-R Framework for Teams

The PR framework shows Academic Performance of teams on the vertical axis and Professional Relationship among team members on the horizontal axis. The four-quadrant framework is represented in the figure.

Quadrant 1 – High-High: Teams in this quadrant score high on both academic performance and professional relationship. These teams are effective in weeding out minor differences in view of the main driver of unity, which is the final goal (36% of respondents). This is the ideal quadrant for a team to be located in. Teams in this category would require minimum training spend and can be assigned more complex projects to enhance the overall productivity and profitability of the organization. Some members from these teams could be redistributed to teams in other quadrants to enhance their performance.

Quadrant 2 – Low-High: In this quadrant, the team members have a good understanding between each other, but score very low on academic performance. One of the main drivers of unity in such teams is homogeneity (36%); the presence of sub-groups is negligible, since the team members gel well with each other. The team here is seen as an immediate support system almost 60% of the time. However, the issue is that the team may not be technically sound to deal with complex problems. The team could potentially operate in a “zeal too often” mode, where the members are having fun but performance levels drop considerably. This could also lead to a lack of motivation to deliver the best results. This makes this quadrant the trickiest to deal with, since the team members are in harmony with each other and would resist any form change. Creating sub-groups or restructuring these teams with technical experts or swaps could lead to a lack of fit and may hence worsen the situation. The ideal way to enhance productivity and performance would be by improving specific skill-sets of existing members of the team through technical training.

Quadrant 3 – Low-Low: Almost sure-shot candidates for relationship discord and performance failure, teams in this quadrant need immediate attention and a complete revamp. There is a high incidence of Unconscious Sub-groupism in such teams (77%). The main reason for this is that members in the team may not be in the best of terms with each other, leading to selective avoidance of certain members in the team, resulting in an unconscious formation of sub-groups. It has also been observed that the main driver for unity in such teams is the presence of external competition (50%). The team is never the first support system (~28% of the time). Team members often look outside the teams for support and motivation to perform. The challenge is to try to move these teams to either of the adjacent quadrants – improve professional relationship or academic performance. This would involve get the members to understand each others’ differences, subordinate their goals to the team goal, thereby arriving at a ‘common’. Improving one may often be easier than the other depending on the environment and the composition of the team. In a professional environment, it may sometimes become necessary to restructure the team to counter its weakness – include a technical expert or swap members from another team to improve dynamics.

Quadrant 4 – High-Low: Teams in this quadrant score high in academic performance, but low in professional relationship. These teams show high levels of capability and end up performing against odds, coping with bad team member dynamics and hence high levels of unconscious subgroupism. As in teams in the 3rd quadrant, the main driver of unity in these teams is also external competition (56%) and the team is seldom the first support system. In such teams, it may be alright to maintain the status quo for short-term projects. In the long term, there may be two approaches depending on the degree of discord in terms of the professional relationship between the members. In situations where it may be difficult to bring the team members together to arrive at a ‘common’, it may make more sense to introduce some level of conscious sub-groupism – where the team is split explicitly into smaller groups with sufficient functional expertise, but people who can work better with each other.

This framework works best when conducted at an ex-post, i.e. after the teams have worked on projects for a couple of months. Suggesting the most optimum team composition ex-ante is highly dependent on the nature of the projects and the environment in which the teams operate. This could be done based on personality analysis & psychometric tests conducted on the team members before they are allocated to a team. Further research is being conducted to extend the framework to help address the bigger issue of resource allocation in companies.

Niranjan Srinivasan (along with Ashish Khushal Dharamshi, Indian School of Business, Class of '10)
For more details, please contact me at ninja.srini@gmail.com

Interest in gold??

Interesting new way of hedging currency risk!!

Original article from The Hindu.
TTD makes 1,000 kg gold deal with SBI
A. D. Rangarajan
Tirupati, May 16, 2010

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/states/andhra-pradesh/article431746.ece?homepage=true

The precious metal would be deposited with SBI which will pay interest. Interestingly, the interest will be paid in the form of gold, and not as cash.

Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), the custodian of the world's richest Hindu temple, has signed a pact with State Bank of India (SBI) for deposit of huge quantity of the surplus yellow metal lying in its treasury. The TTD has agreed, in the first phase, to deposit a whopping 1000 kg of gold with SBI, which is said to be the single largest ‘gold deal', both in terms of value and volume, in the history of the TTD, though it has deposited 1750 kg of gold so far in various banks.

The scheme, which is expected to be a win-win situation for both the stakeholders, is also unique in the sense that a bank is coming to the doorsteps of Tirumala to receive the gold deposits and pay interest in the form of gold.

SBI Chairman O.P. Bhat will be arriving here this week to formally receive the ‘opulent' deposit from the temple management.

While the TTD used to pay Rs.80 lakh in the past as charges towards transportation, insurance and melting (at the mint), the same will now be taken care of by the bank, thus saving a lot for the temple management. Similarly, against the paltry 0.75 p.c. previously, the TTD will now be getting 1.6 p.c. cumulative rate of interest for the five-year deposit.

Interestingly, the interest will be paid in the form of gold, and not as cash.

Though the RBI officials insist that interest shall not be paid in gold, the TTD, as a ‘privileged customer', is expected to walk away with more gold!

Curse of Kingship - a corollary

I site Devdutt Pattanaik’s excellent Corporate Dossier article titled "Curse of Kingship" (23rd April 2010). [http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/corporate-dossier/Curse-of-kingship-It-is-the-boss-who-created-yes-man/articleshow/5846762.cms] Devdutt has hit nails on their heads while describing aptly, situations in organizations where the head of the company or even middle level managers face similar issues of their direct reports smudging information to suit the mutual perspective between them and the managers. There have been several personal experiences where employees extracted unnecessary piles of data or conducted meaningless analysis which added little value to the actual investigation, just because their managers needed to see a particular data point that they were familiar with.

As Devdutt has rightly mentioned, leaders often forget that they are responsible for the image they portray to their subordinates. Reading about kings employing disguise to investigate the reality, I am reminded of another story from mythology. There was once a sculptor who presented a sculpture of the king in the king’s court. The king looked at it and commented about it being a bad replica. The king’s courtiers immediately criticized several aspects of the sculpture and put down the sculptor. After several weeks, the sculptor returned with the exact same sculpture and secretly requested the king to praise it. The courtiers followed suit in saying how magnificent the sculpture was. The sculptor then admitted that he had not done a single change in the sculpture, thus exposing the “yes-man” attitude of the courtiers. Another classical example of how a king or a leader, by employing the right kind of checks and balances, can challenge the analysis of their subordinates and rationalize them in order to prevent reports and analysis from being too much in agreement or in disagreement as the perceived norm may be.

I believe that most of these analyses & reports lead to decision making and hence to company profitability (or the lack thereof). Although results are sometimes unpredictable, long-term and untraceable, in an industry like investment banking, incentives for decision-makers are often linked to the decisions they take. However, the fundamental issue in a fast-paced corporate scenario is the lack of time for a king to don a disguise or for the company to wait for results. Thus, in a world of increasing accountability and traceability, the essential factor that could prevent the curse of kingship is the building of trust.

One could look at trust in two different paradigms. First and more obvious is looking at the trust that a leader should have in his subordinates and vice versa. However the other and the less obvious paradigm is the perception of trust in the organization. What Devdutt had described in the article is merely a perception issue, where leaders want to be perceived in a certain manner, but are perceived differently by their subordinates. Although a presentation is often a tool to convince a leader of a certain course of action, the course of action would eventually impact the company and every individual therein.

Once this aspect of mutual trust is perceived uniformly by every individual in the company, once every individual understands that his perspective of the market and his analysis eventually impacts himself, he becomes his own king. Once this perception of trust penetrates every level in the company, a leader is reduced to a mere intermediary or a facilitator. Once this happens, decision making becomes rooted in trust and the curse of kingship can be very much reduced, if not completely eradicated.

Niranjan Srinivasan

North Spain / France Day 2: San Sebastian – Biarritz – Bilbao

North Spain / France Day 2: San Sebastian – Biarritz – Bilbao

Day 2 of our trip started with a few showers and a walk along the Bay of Biscay and the La Concha. It was amazing to see the waves crashing against the peculiarly shaped rocks along the coast. We then walked through a flower market, a vegetable market and visited a bakery where the sizes and shapes of the breads amazed me. Among the main attractions was the Santa Maria Basilica, with a huge statue of Jesus with several arrows pierced into his body (see pic). Another feature which I saw in various places in Spain was that streets in hilly areas sometimes ended in a flight of stairs (see pic)! The entrance to the Santa Monica was spectacular, with several sculptures of babies, and faces of children and a statue of Mary (see pic).

Directly opposite to the Basilica, several streets away into the newer part of the city was the San Sebastian Cathedral. From the distance, it looked as if the church was under restoration. Upon approaching it, I realized that the architecture was peculiar – the spire of the church was made of a mesh (see pic).

We then left for Biarritz, a small French coastal town near Bayonne, east of San Sebastian. We took a smaller highway to avoid the toll, and we saw on one side the beautiful coast of the Bay of Biscay and on the other side, the Pyrenees, which forms a natural border between the two countries. The road winded up and down the slopes of the Pyrenees and the town Biarritz, which would probably exhibit a very lively atmosphere in summer wore a deserted look.

We then drove to our next destination further west of San Sebastian – Bilbao. This town was similar to San Sebastian in many ways. However, the main reason for our visit was to see the Gugenheim Museum, famous for its modern architectural beauty. The streets of the old city of Bilbao were filled with people eating, drinking and making merry, watching the football match with enthusiasm… well, enthusiasm is a gross understatement. The town seemed completely alive and ‘kicking’ well after midnight!