koolhead17
Each one of us carries a world within. How we talk, respond, act, reciprocate creates a unique aura about us in our circle.
We get liked, disliked, or attracted by our subscribers. The world sees us via their own lens and most of it comes down to our aura.
As a leader it becomes more challenging to not carry a positive aura, because the subordinates, staff other members will start subscribing and aping you.
Carry your aura with responsibility.
I remember Karthik suggesting a dozen autobiographies last year and, Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, was one of them. Since I had seen the movie on Netflix, so skipped reading it. Last week I was bedridden due to cough/cold, that is when I picked up few books, this was one of them.
Ray Kroc is a legendary founder and, much has spoken about his sales magnetism. He started McDonald’s at the age of 52 when most prepare for retirement. But the preparation of building McDonald’s was on his cards long back.
Finding the purpose in life is the root teachings of the most school of philosophy. It’s like magic that alters our life for good. That must have been the case with Ray Kroc. Even after giving up an active role, he was still contributing to the growth of McDonald’s.
In the book, he talks about everything from the love of his life to dozen odd jobs. He worked as a salesperson during the day and a piano player at night. Like every other successful entrepreneur, he attributed to luck, hard work, and confidence.
Ray bought a football club, established a few medical research labs along with donating millions to charity.
The franchise model, the knick of finding the right people for the job: A few key elements worked out best for building a billion-dollar empire.
I have liked Tim Wu’s writing. The master switch is the second book I finally got to read. The book talks about various monopolies and technological advancements in the information age. The book starts with the early days of innovation from the telephone and stopping at google’s mega empire. I had the 2011 published book; I wonder if he has added recent Facebook emergence and its societal impact in the updated version.
I was surprised to read about AT&T’s innovation, monopoly, and hand-in-glove approach in killing its competitors and how technology like FM had to wait for a decade before going mainstream.
A later section book also takes us to the Hollywood cartel and how few studies with end-to-end integration owned everyone in the industry and ran the show as they wished by creating and destroying anyone.
Anyone who likes little history on our technological advancement should buy/read this book.
It was one of those yearly team outings, where the entire organization heads for a retreat. The management talks about the roadmap, growth plans over lots of alcohol and food. For Vishal, the senior analyst, it was a special occasion. He wanted to propose to Rajni for marriage. They both have been at the firm for over three years.
While Rajani hails from Bihar, Vishal is a local boy from Ghaziabad. Although working together for all these years, talking, working side by side, none dared to express themselves. Other office mates would make fun of Vishal that he needs a robot to express his feelings to Rajni. Some of them wondered if it was Vishal’s appearance that was making him feel inferior. Vishal is in his late 30’s, pot-bellied and 4.7 ft in height, and wrinkles on his face. Rajani is a wheatish, tall, and charming lady with an athletic built. Many confused her as Punjabi because of her eating habits and appearance. There was over a 10+ year age difference between them. Most of Vishal’s friends told him not to worry as age is just a number.
Rajani liked Vishal for who he was as a person, sober, helpful, and super intelligent. He was the go-to person for most of his confidants for advice and help. But Vishal knew it was his age, failures, and learning through the process giving him an edge over the rest. You start finding patterns from your actions and guide others.
Post breakfast after a late-night party, most were sitting lazily near the pool and watching other guests swimming. It was then Vishal expressed his feelings to Rajani. Everyone around cheered for them both. Rajani threw an unexpected challenge, call it syambar, with only Vihal participating. She challenged him to win her over 30 mins swimming challenge. It was a shock for everyone as no one knew if either of them could swim. Poor Vishal happily agreed to the challenge. He had no other option: as everything is fair in love and there are no challenges.
The challenge would begin at 9 am. Vishal had 2 hours to watch the youtube video and get coaching from some of his friends. It was like a penguin in water huffing and puffing, some observed. Others celebrated jubilantly for his courage. He was out there to win over his love. Nobody knew if Rajani knew swimming because it was only Vishal in the pool doing pre-challenge practice.
At nine, the race started. Over 50 people were cheering for them both. Many anticipated that Rajani will, close the chapter of Vishal today by defeating him. After all, they were hardly a match together. But the reality was something else; she was conceding the race to Vishal. Was she testing his courage? She was just in the waters while Vishal was competing fiercely and was ahead of hers. Everyone was hooting, shouting and some of them were dancing.
At 3ed lap, Vishal seemed uneasy but determined to finish 30 minutes swim and win the race and heart of Rajani. But God had some other plans; the next minute, he went unconscious and, his body was floating on water. The ambulance came and took him to the hospital with Rajani accompanying him. She was speechless, numb, and crying while holding Vishal’s hand. He died in Rajni’s arm with a smile on his face, on his way to the hospital. The autopsy report mentioned many other reasons like diabetes and over-stress leading to the severe stroke and causing his death.
Its’ been over 4 years since Vishal’s death. Rajani is in a mental hospital in Ranchi. She has not spoken a word all this while.
The positives and negatives of the Internet are known to us all. This generation is under pressure to show and share. Social media is the go-to destination for all announcements and achievements.
In the 90’s most of us mostly lived reading comics, watching MTV, and fighting over batting in the cricket field.
I feel the amount of pressure this generation is going through is enormous. Last evening I met my neighbor’s friend, a 17 years old kid, crying. On inquiry, I got to know about the breakup and, Instagram was the tool for the announcement.
I am not sure how society, parents will be able to take care of them. I feel scared to be growing up with smartphones and Instagram around me. I think parents have to do a lot for their kids growing in this era.
Ji lo kuch pal he sai, khud ki marzi se, aazaad, beparwaah. Itna kuch karna baaki hai abhi, itne bhi kya zindgi bachi hai abhi? Kal ke liye khud me kitna aaz? Kal ko kisi ne dekha hai kya bhala?
Kal ke liye hum aise armaan saza lete hai, ki aaz me jina he bhool zate hai. Kyun nahi je sakte hum apni zindgi ko aaz mae, abhi ke liye? Aisa bhi kya hone wala hai kal?
Kitne aaye, kitne mil gaye mitti me, kuch ne jiya zindgi ko zindadili se, aaz me. Kitno ne ache kal ke moh me aaz ji li bebasi, mayusi aur dard me.
Zindgi hai tumhari, sochna hai tumhe, zina aaz abhi ke liye hai ya mar zana hai kabhi na aane wale kal ke liye.
A broken team blames individuals for failures but garners appreciation together. As a leader, what is right? Finding a scapegoat to offload failures or creating a culture where everyone is radically honest with ownership and acceptance: be it success or failure. In the end, the belief: we are all in it together, whatever keeps the rocketship sailing. Something we should aspire to.
A founder is not just a captain of the ship but the person responsible for bad decisions. Knowing what not to do to fail takes us towards being a success.
Try not to be a leader sticking your face on all the PR, news announcements. But be there to act, own responsibility during fuck ups.
I have not been keeping well for the past few days. It is a common cold, as a result of rain walking last week. On one side, the screen time has reduced; on another, I have been able to spend many hours reading hard copy.
I feel like it’s a nature’s reset. I have not been sick in the past many years. A few friends are asking me to take precautions, visit a physician. Whatever happens, I am sure of recovering in the coming week.
I see it more like a recovery rather than falling sick.
Working in an organization where I, Me, and You come before Us can be painful for everyone. In a way, everyone has a sword and is fighting battle among each other. Instead of working together, we are all fighting to prove ourselves corrected.
An organization is about working together and solving pain points for stakeholders. With in-fighting and divide, an organization is a dysfunctional system in itself.
The responsibility of building an organization is not only with the HR head but the founders, leaders. It is a full-time role like fundraising, marketing, and sales. With the modern era of build, fast-break things come with their own curse.
What is culture for any organization? I am asking it because, with my limited knowledge, it distinguishes between a winner and a loser. Most importantly, it’s learned by doing and, leaders need to lead it. It is an ever-evolving process.
With growth-driven entrepreneurship, hiring gets uttermost importance next to fundraising. The team has become a commodity or merely a resource. We need to ship new features for fundraising. Let’s hire a dozen resources for the same. In these environments only incentive that works is money. Some of us fall for the quick bucks and work without asking anything like a robot following instructions.
Some of us do care about the team, company, and its culture. We like to have our career growth defined along with the organization. Most importantly, we want to be part of the rocketship as co-creator. Monitory benefits come after it on the priority of picking or sticking to a job.
In a broken, corrupt organization, a leader says something and does another thing. Or the company is run by their yes men or family. What culture will it have?
In most cases: with rapid growth, culture takes a back seat. The company becomes mediocre from maverick. Guarding an organisation’s culture with scale is a true mantra and, only a handful have aced it.