MONDAY MUSINGS SEASON 2 - Episode 69 - GRANDMA IN THE BOARD ROOM

MONDAY MUSINGS SEASON 2 – EPISODE 69

#GRANDMA_IN_THE_BOARD_ROOM

31st August 2020

Previous two episodes of Monday Musings were dedicated to my upcoming book ‘Grandma In The Board Room’. We will complete the coverage of GIBR with this episode and get back to further stories from the next episode.

Last episode of GIBR covered how the new CEO of EmergePro Krishna Prasad handled a WAR ROOM meeting which was getting into real war between the Sales Head Maduram and Services Head Ananth Ram. Let us continue the instance ‘Happiness is a state of mind’ from GIBR, from where we ended our last episode.

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Past is Past. My idea is to make it clear that all implementation must be managed as per Project Management principles. Nobody takes it seriously when I teach about Project Management. I am sure Ashok will never forget now.

“Ashok. Nothing is lost now. You can turn around everything in just matter of days. All you need is `cool thinking’ and concerted action.”

“No Sir. This customer is very tough and demanding. They corner me for all their issues. I am very stressed. Please put me in some other project”. Ashok sounded really stressed. Unfortunately, his boss could not respond. That could be adding to his stress.

“How is that possible? You cannot drop the project after messing it up” Maduram tried to boss around. He should not have

“Listen Ashok. I am sure you can handle this project. Anybody can handle an easy customer. Greatness is in handling such tough customers and complex projects. Don’t get tensed. I will help you. Have you heard of this great subashitam in Sanskrit”.

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“Meaning  - Weak-minded people do not begin anything at all thinking about the fear of difficulties. Mediocre people begin work but abandon it when an obstacle comes their way, but strong-minded people though repeatedly hindered by difficulties do not give up what they have once begun” I explained

I could sense that Ashok was little bit more relaxed now.

“Let us prepare an Issue List now immediately after this meeting. I will work with you for the Issue List. Prepare a proper Project Plan considering the current situation and issues. I will show you how to prepare a Project Plan. Document the work requirement from each stakeholder and ask for a meeting of all the stakeholders along with the management team. Let us get a signoff from all the stakeholders. Send me an email of whatever support you need from EmergePro before the end of the day today. I will get them organized. I will check if you can get additional resources for your project. We need to somehow get this turned around. We will do everything possible from our end to get this closed “

“Please start the work on war footing. Don’t worry. You are not alone. EmergePro stands behind you in making this happen. Half the battle is won when you make the customer convinced about our seriousness to find the solutions.  I have practically seen this in my long experience”

Ashok nodded his head, but I did not see any change in his body language. He was still looking tensed and nervous.

“Why are you sounding and looking as if everything is lost? Customer will not get convinced if you are tensed. Cheer Up. I told you we will make it happen”

“It is easy to say `cheer up’. I am going through this trauma for the past 3 months. Everything I do is being questioned. Customer shouts at me. Our leaders shout at me, I am under tremendous pressure. How can I be cheerful”?

“Do you think happiness is in the circumstances? Why do you think one cannot be happy handling a challenging work? Happiness is a state of mind. You can be happy at any circumstance. I shall narrate you the story of `Super Cool and Happy Monkey”

Ashok smiled for the first time today and changed his stance for one last time to listen to my new story.

STORY OF SUPER COOL MONKEY AND GREEDY CROCODILE

This story came up already in Monday Musings and hence I am skipping the story here for want of space.

I could see smile for the first time on that day. “Very nice story Sir” Ashok beamed.

“Primary learning from the story as conceived by Pandit Vishnu Sharma is the `Ability to face adversities by remaining cool’” I concluded. Grandma Stories have to end with a moral.

“How does one acquire this? This is not an attitude which can be achieved just by deciding to be COOL”. This time it is Ananth. I could see that Ananth was also getting interested. 

“There is a strong connection between `the ability to handle crisis situations’ and ‘the ability to remain COOL in adverse situations. Only those who remain `Calm and Cool’ and does not get tensed will be able to handle the crisis effectively. Similarly, there is a strong link between `Cool thinking’ and ‘Happy living’. You would recollect that our story of the COOL MONKEY started with the statement that ‘Raktamukha lived happily jumping on the trees and eating jamun fruits’. Raktamukha lived happily and hence developed the capability to think COOL”.

“How to live Happily like Raktamukha?” Ananth continued. I could sense that it is quite a revelation for Ananth that one could live happily always. I have seen Ananth being moody and tensed for most of the time. I remember Rengaraj’s briefing that Ananth had to face lot of family problems.

“Where do we get our happiness from? From wealth, satisfying job, good family, nice outing? Is living cozy gives happiness? A runner overwhelms his body’s ability to run few extra miles. Every part of his body hurts. He/She ignores the pleas by the body to stop running and achieves the target. Will the runner feel agonized by the pain? No, He/She feels ecstatic on achieving the target. A soccer player feels very happy at the end of a grueling match unmindful of the pain and bruises sustained during the match. Pain here does not result in misery. A Mother feels thrilled seeing her newborn baby unmindful of the excruciating labor pain endured by her. Her pain here translates into joy. So, sufferings need not be the source of our worries. Can we not equate our stressful worries as `temporary pain being encountered by a sportsman’? Yes, We can”. I realized that it is a very long explanation. Not sure if the group understood.  

#HappinessAndEnjoyment

“We generally get confused between HAPPINESS and ENJOYMENT. Knowing the difference between the two can help us to live happily. Enjoyment is "the state or process of taking pleasure in something" whereas happiness is "the feeling of peace and contentment." Enjoyment depends on our circumstance whereas happiness depends only on ourselves. Enjoyment is temporary and goes away once the circumstance changes whereas happiness is long lasting”. 

“True happiness is an inner quality. It is a state of mind. If your mind is at peace, you can be happy even if you don’t have any material satisfaction. If you have everything the world can give - pleasure, possessions, power - but lack peace of mind, you can never be happy”.

“You must first decide to be happy before searching for happiness outside. If you decide to remain happy, no circumstance can derail your happiness. Search for happiness stops the moment you decide to be happy and grateful for what you already have.”. I wanted to wrap up this discussion but could not. I was worried that WAR ROOM discussion should not become a preaching session. But internally my mind asked me to continue as I could see the discussion about happiness is helping to relax the tensions for everyone.

HAPPINESS IS A STATE OF MIND, HENCE THE REAL SOURCE OF HAPPYNESS LIES WITHIN THE MIND AND NOT IN EXTERNAL CONDITIONS.

Get up every day with a promise to yourself that you will enjoy every moment of the day.

“I get flabbergasted when some people respond with a big laundry list of their miseries and misfortunes all the time. ‘How are you doing’ is a customary greeting! It is our responsibility to manage our miseries. Why spoil someone else’s day with our miseries? Practice to smile and answer `Rocking.. Superb.. You can uplift your mood as well as that of those around you”

“This meeting is a Superb Rocking meeting” Ananth laughed. I was not sure if it is a genuine try or ridicule. I did not bother. I dont get tensed. 

 “I have come across people who have gone through struggles in their personal life but continue to remain cheerful in their outlook. They earn my respect just for this attitude irrespective of their other follies”

“Are you saying it is possible to remain happy always? What is the formula” Ashok could not believe?

“Well, there is no fixed formula. There are no shortcuts either. I prefer to quote Eleanor Roosevelt’s formula for the secret of leading happy life”.

"Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others."

You can prepare your own formula for happy living. What is important is that you have to feel happy.

“It is easy to say to remain happy always. You have been lucky in your life. There are people who suffer a lot of difficulties in their life. How can you go and tell them to be happy?” I could sympathize with Ananth as he suffered a lot in his personal life as per my information. Ananth opened out his mind for the first time to me.

“Possible. Everything is in our mind. Do you want to listen to the story of a great man who enjoyed when his lifetime effort was going up in flames?” I got ready for my next story.

Story of Thomas Alva Edison and the fire in his factory:

This story was also already covered in Monday Musings…..

“Amazing story. I know Edison as a genius, but I never knew this side of his excellence” Maduram commented.

“What is even more amazing is the footnote to this story. Edison had finalized the design for a portable searchlight whose three million candlepower beams would be visible for miles. Amidst the catastrophe, Edison had noticed how the firefighters were hampered by the loss of power and light when he was lamenting the fire that ravaged his factory. He puzzled over the problem and came up with the idea of a battery driven light source and completed the design within 2 years. The American-La France Fire Engine Company commercialized the useful product.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Change your attitude to look for the `Silver Lining’.

There was complete silence in the room for some time.

“What are we deciding? WAR ROOM discussions should have some decisions and Action Plan” I brought back the attention to the issue at hand.

“We should go back to the customer and ask for more money. Otherwise it does not make sense for us”. I did not understand why Ananth was making such statements after 45 minutes long discussion. 

I intervened. “Ananth, we will discuss that later. Yes, it is important. All our efforts must be charged. Customer must pay for the risk and delays from their side. I would like you to cost that separately. Let us first work out the solutions”.

I said to myself “Ananth like people could never possibly be transformed easily. I will do it. It will take time.” I smiled at Ananth. He may not understand but smiled back.

“Take it from me that this customer will come to us for all new purchases. You cannot look at money always. These are probably investments to retain customers and look for future orders”

I rubbed the diagrams in the whiteboard and wrote the Action Plan. Ashok captured the plan in his mobile phone and promised me to send the list by email. WAR ROOM meeting ended with an agreement with all the stakeholders on the Action Plan. This is how a WAR MEETING should end.

 We prepared mandatory documents like Issue List, Revised Project Plan and met the customer the next day. Customer got convinced but gave us the final warning that the project should now go as per the revised plan. Single deviation in Time as well as Cost will result in cancelation of the contract. 

I asked for a daily coordination meeting with all the stakeholders in Scrum7 format.

I told Ashok he should chair the daily coordination meetings and send daily update to the steering committee. Weekly meetings have been scheduled for full review and I chaired the first few weekly review meetings. Ashok quickly learnt and took over the weekly review meetings confidently after the first 2 meetings.

I participated in the next 2 meetings silently observing Ashok in control and excused myself from the weekly meetings once I understood that Ashok was in complete control.

I could see dramatic improvement within one week of starting daily Scrum meetings. Third party vendors started collaborating with us and started delivering as required.

I need not mention explicitly that the project went live well before the revised `go live’ date. But I need to mention here that the Sanjeev Joshi, CIO took me out for a lunch after the project went `live’ and took my hands and thanked me profusely “I don’t know how to thank you. You saved my day. I was under tremendous pressure from my CEO. I was worried that I might lose my job as the stakes were very high. That is the problem of handling big and complex projects. How do you manage to keep your composure under extreme tough situations? I noticed you chairing the first coordination meeting. One of the vendor infosol was very tough and was literally fighting for everything. He was upset that we did not give this ERP order to them. You handled the situation very well”

“I seldom get tensed thanks to my Grandma’s stories, Sanjeevji. The most composed person in Kurushetra was Krishna, always with his smile. He had to drive the chariot with many horses, trying to pull in their own directions. I had my teams, your Teams, Vendors you had engaged. Ultimately, he preached Bagavad Gita to Arjuna who was tensed, confused and full of emotions.” I laughed and said. “My name is also Krishna”. Sanjeev smiled. I got my first big victory in EmergePro.

 “I have seen you lightening any tense situation. How do you keep your cool and remain happy always” Sanjeev was curious

“Do you know Sanjeevji that Bhagwan Krishna told us to feel happy within ourselves? For the sin of my parents naming me Krishna, I must follow Lord Krishna’s words” I smiled.

“This is what I like.” Sanjeev also laughed to his heart’s content. “Tell me where Krishna talked about happiness. My grandmother never told me about this” I understood that the feeling of happiness is infectious.

“In Bhagwad Gita. Yes. Bhagawad Gita talks about happiness also. Surprised?”

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Transliteration - yo 'nta?-sukho 'ntar-ārāmas tathāntar-jyotir eva ya?

sa yogī brahma-nirvā?a? brahma-bhūto 'dhigachchhati

Meaning of the above sloka - Those who are happy within themselves and enjoy self as well as guided by inner light are yogis, such yogis certainly attain liberation from material existence.

 anta?-sukha? means ‘remaining happy within self’ and anta?-ārāma? means ‘enjoying the self’ and  anta?-jyoti? means `guided by inner knowledge’.

We are the cause for our happiness and not our circumstances. Pleasure is in enjoying ourselves and not material comforts. `Self Esteem’ is very important for eternal happiness.

“True happiness comes when you can look at yourself and like what you see”

Lord Krishna further explains 3 different types of happiness in Bhagavad Gita slokas 36 to 39 in Chapter 18. These 3 types of happiness as explained in Gita are:

1.    First type of happiness is `sattvic happiness’. Good and permanent happiness is in `self-knowledge’. This seems like poison at first but tastes like nectar in the end. Permanent happiness is enjoying in our mind and not enjoying our senses. Our circumstances do not impact this happiness. (18.37)

2.    Second type of happiness is `Rajasic Happiness’. Happiness derived from our senses is `Happiness by passion’. This is temporary and is like nectar at first but turns out to be poison in the end. This goes away once the situation changes. (18.38)

3.    Third type of happiness is ‘tamasic happiness’. Lord Krishna says this is illusionary and hence was never there from the beginning till the end. This is the happiness derived from Sleep, Laziness and Carelessness (18.39)

What a beautiful explanation for `Happiness is in our mind and not in the situation’! Many of us at times think that sleeping and idling on holidays is actual happiness. Lord Krishna nicely explained in Bhagavad Gita that such happiness is illusionary and is never actually happiness.

Sanjeevji became a good friend after this incident. He called me for advice couple of times after this incident.

This project became an eye opener for EmergePro as well. 

I still remember Ananth’s accusation “You bother only about Sales, You do weekly review of Sales funnel but don’t bother about Service to customers”. I did not get hurt with Ananth’s accusation as it was a fact.

I learnt from Rangarajan in the previous interaction that accepting one’s mistakes is part of Humility. You need to remember and implement sage advice.  I took it as a learning and implemented changes at EmergePro.

To start with, I identified an experienced Project Manager, Pawan Kaushal, and designated him as Project Office. His responsibility would be to coordinate, facilitate and track all the projects at EmergePro.

He became the Project Management champion in EmergePro. Pawan created a dashboard and shared the dashboard with all function heads and project managers. Dashboard gave a ringside view of the status of all the ongoing projects handled by EmergePro. Process mapping rewritten such that all POs should be whetted by Pawan so that he can assign Project Managers for each project based on skill requirement and resource availability and initiate the welcome note for the clients.

I personally sat with the development team member Yashika and designed the Dashboard. She is very shrewd and understood my ideas without having to write and agree on Scope Of Work!!. I should upgrade her level in this appraisal. Early warnings, Audible Alarms on Mouse over, Critical Success Factors and Weak links in the implementation chain that are likely to break were clearly shown in Bold and Red in the Dashboard.

There is one downside to the changes. Ananth felt bad that I was usurping his power and authority. Every change will face some resistance naturally. I anticipated that Ananth would feel dejected, But I could not help. He cribbed about the changes in front of his employees.

I overheard some canteen talk about friction between me and Ananth and who will win eventually. It went so much so that some staff started talking about cold war between me and Ananth and started guessing their bets on who would be the eventual winner. One group thought that I am smarter but the other group thought that Ananth has the strong backing of Rangaraj and hence anyone could win and started taking sides as per their guestimate of the eventual winner. All of these sounded funny to me.

I came to know that Ananth complained to Rangaraj as well. Rangaraj made a casual reference about this in a discussion. Rangaraj is a thorough gentleman. He did not offer any advice neither he demanded details from me. He just mentioned in a casual discussion.

I did not take it as an ego issue. That is the mistake many do in corporate world and I am always careful not to do that. I remember a very nice quote from Mahatria

"When ego comes, everything else goes. When ego goes, everything comes in. - Mahatria

I introspected if I made any mistake in my interaction with Ananth. Did I overreact during the WAR ROOM discussion? Whatever may be his shortcomings, Ananth is a very nice guy. Would be very useful as well for EmergePro.

I started spending more time with Ananth, not talking about projects, more about my family and enquiring about his family. I invited him home also over a weekend. We stay not far away to each other. I could strike proximity.

Visible divide should not be felt in the senior management team. That is the starting point for the collapse of the organization. 

I could experience visible transformation in EmergePro after this incident, not only in the area of Project Management but every other sphere as well.

Rangaraj might have stayed away from people in the last few years and didn’t notice the distance he had inadvertently created between himself and senior management and between the senior managers themselves.

I have a big task ahead in resurrecting EmergePro to emerge strongly in the market. There should first be an internal emergence before emerging to the top in the marketplace.

My priority now is to transform this place into a Phoenix to jump out from the ashes.

*****End of this chapter in GRANDMA IN THE BOARD ROOM ***

1Cathedral Thinking

2RACI Chart – RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted & Informed. Methodology to define the involvement of various resources for set of activities.

3DBA – Database Administrator

4Data Flow Diagram - A data flow diagram (DFD) maps out the flow of information for any process or system

5Critical Path – List of activities in a project which do not have any slack and hence the project will get delayed if any these activities get delayed

6PMI – Project Management Institute

7PMBOK – Project Management Book Of Knowledge

8SCRUM - Scrum is a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value (www.scrum.org)

 +COVID19 was not known at the time of this discussion. Happened much later during November-2019