I PUBLISH, THEREFORE I AM

To meditate, one needs pin-drop silence, or, one is advised to meditate (preferably, in an open space) in pin-drop silence. Why is that? With absolutely no online research on this question and  with just my understanding of the activity, I believe, it is advised so because quietness brings uniformity and uniformity imparts concentration. Now, why is uniformity required to balance our thoughts while meditation? Precisely and simply because it's easier to balance our thoughts in the calm and quiet. Now, for people living in the Indian cities , it's hard and sometimes impossible to find quiet-time in the regular waking hours, how are they going to meditate? For the first few days of meditation (assuming, you meditate in an open space), find uniformity in the traffic noise, as in, try to foresee what noise is expected every now and then. I can assure you that traffic noise is the permanent background score, and you can't avoid it, so, you will most certainly be able to...

The most excruciatingly painful or helpful realization is what you have in hindsight. Hindsight is great. I in hindsight have realized that the impact of most of the personal things I do can be realized, before I do them, by fast forwarding my thinking. Fast forewording your thinking is your thinking about what will happen 6 months from now if you did what you just did. It is a tool to help you take decisions and understand how much of a difference does it makes in a short to medium term. Also, when in doubt, this helps you understand if you should do whatever you plan on doing. Taking decisions that you think will be favorable to your hindsight might most likely, in hindsight, be good decisions. The Fast forward thinking also made me realize that most of the things I do today donot really have any impact on my life 6 months from now. Don't blame all the choices you make because even if you had chosen the alternatives, 6 months from now, you would not have substantially been a...

There are people who seem to know a lot of things. These guys usually have read a lot of books, there KNOWING is accredited to their scholarship. But the fact of the matter is that true knowledge comes from realization, not from reading. Religious text is read and understood and sometimes misunderstood. Why? Because people with different perspectives read the book and give their commentary. But when people with pure minds (say, yogis or pundits) read the text, they tend to understand what the author intended to convey. So, learned people are great at theorizing but realization is what really matters. Therefore, gain knowledge by realization and not by reading books. Also, understand that reading books leads to intellectual refinement not realization.

Yes! Yet another "that's it, I gotta get back" moment! Some of us hate routines, I wonder why? I always want back my routine because the routine is really-good and I like the structured way of living. Anyways, the point is, I always come back at my routine and I have realized that breaking the routine is a necessity as well as a requirement . The first few days of getting back at your routine are invariably pumpe-up, you can do two times more than you actually plan, it's coz you just relaxed yourself for a few days and following your routine feels like some pending work that you gotta get done quickly. So, break your routine and enjoy getting back at it. The energy levels are fantastic. So yeah, it is true, taking some time off from your routine (work) makes you more  effective ! Also, differentiating my realization, I believe taking quick-breaks every hour might actually be an effective "getting back" strategy.

We have quality measures in place to see if something faulty isn't shipped to our customers. As a lean management guy, I believe that the steps to measure quality in itself is a waste and that there is scope for improvement. The thing is that you want a process that generates the output without  producing any waste; by waste, I mean anything that doesn't contribute to the bottomline. So, clearly, quality checks are steps in the process that don't contribute to the bottomline , which makes them a waste. Well, talking about quality, I have seen that most teams that aren't performing to the best of their abilities fall under the following categories: Teams that produce faulty services by not having proper quality checks in place, and teams  that don't produce quality service on time because of excessive quality checks in the process. So, as an operations executive, you must create an operation that produces the maximum amount of deployable goods without produc...

I think, one of the best retail stores in Hyderabad, Ratandeep, needs to rethink product placement in their store. Kids were picking-up "durex play" because it's right on top of the hot-wheels section (refer to the visuals) and some kids were checking the condom packets to see if the girl-licking-that-strawberry is some kind of a game. Although, I understand that all the products in the shelf at last minute pick-ups, we can not have the existing combination at the shelf for obvious reasons, consumer behavior. No wonder, attention to details is very important for operations folks. On a second thought, I wonder if this is some kind of an experiment they are conducting (that would be something). 

It's really baffling how people take other people's words on face-value. It's a given that face-value is developed over-time and that certain things must be taken at face-value. But, let me tell you, shamelessly, that  many of these experienced people and subject matter experts are basically great guess artists. So, for anything subjective , it's better to listen to experienced people and take  their word on face-value, but for god's sake, facts need to be checked from the correct sources . So, shamelessly check facts in front of the subject matter experts, preferably, without their notice. You'll see how many times fact-checking proves the subject matter expects wrong. The point is, get the right information to make the right decision . Look up, don't take my word for it! PS : Being a subject matter expert. I am guilty.