Zen and the Art of Strategy

Ufff! It has been one boring week at work here... All I have had to do is to wait for people to meet me so that I can get my project going once more. Here the people are willing to talk to me, but only when they get time, which is rarer than my getting my full 8 hours of sleep at IIMA. In the meanwhile I keep thinking of ways to pass time.

One common way of doing that is introspection. I have learnt many new things during my summer stint here and the free time I get allows me the opportunity to reflect on my experiences here. I want to put them down, but am unable to assemble a cogent paragraph now. Maybe my philosopher's block will be removed soon in another entry.

Another excellent way of passing time is for me to read books once I get back to the hostel. I am currently reading a book called "Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy" by Partha Bose (formerly of McKinsey and Co.)... a very interesting read...however the author does sort of spoil the excellent historical parallels he draws and the effect he creates by summarising key learnings from each chapter towards its end. Overall, though, It is well researched, well written and offers some memorable and interesting insights into the minds of various characters from history and politics. As always, the foundation of a good strategy is a clarity in terms of goals and the key to good execution of a strategy lies in thinking through the pros and cons of the decisions and, like a good chess player, playing out the consequences of each decision under various circumstances in order to achieve the desired effect during execution.

Talking about decisions, if there is one thing that is absolutely critical for arriving at an 'informed' decision, it is the avaiability of relevant and reliable information. Often we are faced with either an overload or a sickening lack of information. But in today's world, the former case is more common. This is where a clarity of goals helps bring clarity of thought, which is so crucial to separate the chaff of data from the wheat of useful information. I have mentioned clarity of thought in some earlier posts as well, I guess, but probably this context is different. There are interesting parallels between the strategies of Alexander and Lord Hanuman in the Ramayana-Sundara Kanda. Both people had admirable clarity of thought. Both had amazing presence of mind and the ability to convert thought into action and the enviable ability to foresee what exactly the enemy would do/feel. A difference, however, lies in the fact that Alexander had to communicate his ideas to his army and commanders whereas Lord Hanuman had no such requirement. hmmm...this has set in train an interesting line of thought. Maybe there can be more on this topic soon.

Another thing with the information that floats around so freely is that very few people actually bother to assimiliate it and use it to their advantage. The differing abilities to assimilate leads to what is now famously known as "asymmetry of information". Often, exploiting asymmetry of information is often the very basis of modern commercial existence. Joseph Stiglitz's pioneering work in this area has often led me to ponder on the dynamics of information flows. Not that I have read his works directly (yet), but I have come across his references in so many contexts that I have come to form a deep admiration for his work. Information asymmetry crops up in the oddest of places and converts life into one eternal search for more information. More importantly, the communication process of humans is often so inefficient that it is one hell of a fight to extract information through conversation/questioning.

Take the role of a consultant, for instance. He has to approach the client with an open mind and needs to figure out what the client wants purely through skilful questioning. The problem arises when the client is not able to assess the extent of knowledge possessed by the client and vice versa. Each party sets out with a set of assumptions about the other's state of knowledge. Often, overcoming the barrier created by the initial assumptions is the key to a successful engagement. There are probably millions of instances of such assumptions caused due to asymmetry of information, but I can think of only one now... be sure that I will blog my next interesting instance of information asymmetry faithfully :-).

Enough for now, rest in next

Ranga

Sunny days...

Back to blogging after a looooooooooong time now... I have been having a very interesting time in Mumbai, both in and outside of work.

First the travel experience...yours truly got into his first tussle with an over-enterprising autowallah as soon as he landed in Mumbai; not bad though...managed to escape unscathed. Otherwise travel in the Mumbai suburbs has generally been a breeze ( I travel against the direction of the rush (in trains)). On one occasion however, I managed to get myself into a squeeze (literally) in a Dadar-Sion train - OH MY GOD! That experience showed me the limits to which a given confine could be crammed with tons and tons of human mass. As individuals, we lost our identity into that throbbing mass and were probably crammed tighter than the proverbial sardines. But then, what is Mumbai without its crowded trains?
If there is one thing to be said of Mumbai's public transport, it is its unparallelled efficiency. Distance here is measured not in kilometres or miles, but in minutes. This is a tribute to the train system which has made large distances seemingly inconsequential...believe me, if I had to travel these distances in my home town, I would have spent at least 4 hours travelling each day.

Now for the accomodation here...we have landed ourselves in one of the best pieces of real estate in Mumbai. We are staying in Wilson College across the road from Chowpatty "beach" at one end of the Marine drive. Note the usage of quotes for the word 'beach'. Chowpatty is one of the dirtiest, shallowest and most feeble beaches (in terms of waves) I have ever come across. However, there is at least a semblance of a breeze to keep us nightwalkers happy. In addition we get a lovely view of the queens necklace in the night (For the uninitiated, the queen's necklace does not refer to a museum piece, but to the lights lining Marine Drive).
As far as the infrastucture goes, the accomodation is pretty decent. But it cannot hold a candle to the awesome infra we have at IIMA. Like one of my friends, I will be a lot happier to go back to IIMA this time round. We never realise how much of a good thing we are getting unless we see something worse :-).

Coming to the all important topic... FOOD! (yes, you saw it right...Food IS the most important thing, especially for thin people like me). There are a few places which we haunt on a regular basis...one of them is called Crystal. It is a small, dingy looking restaurant overlooking the beach. The food they serve is very good though and there is always a queue lined up at the entrance. The crowd that we get outside is pretty much our age as well. It is unbelievably hot inside, especially if you are unfortunate enough to get a seat on the mezzanine...once, after dinner, I came out knowing exactly how it feels like to be a tandoori roti. Despite this , we enjoy the food there. I wish I could be like Sidin and embark on an enthralling narrative of my gastronomic adventures, but words fail me. Ahhh! If only I could describe how it was to have cold kheer trickling down my throat when it was around 45 degrees Celsius inside that hell-hole, or how it was like to roll delicious aam-ras around in my mouth before letting it sink into one satisfied stomach.
Lunch is generally had at office itself and it is nothing to write home about. But we interns generally have a lot of fun chatting with each other and generally forget about the food. I was out of office for a while during which I had to hunt out some decent eateries. Fortunately, it was not long before I found an Udipi Hotel serving some edible south Indian food. That gave salvation to my wandering gastronomic soul.
My adventures with food have been as interesting as they have been varied...I guess I can write more about this in another blog.

Let me now turn to the company I work for. My project is a forward looking strategic project, which was the last thing I expected in a Corporate Banking Division of the world's largest financial services provider. But, having been here for a while I realise that there is a lot to be learnt from doing such projects. The interactions with people and the relationships you develop form the basis for successful networking in the future. More importantly, there is a lot more information stored in the minds of people than you can google for in a lifetime. Talking to people gives one varied perspectives on the business, the industry, the job and much much more... it has been a thoroughly enjoyable time so far and a lot of credit must go to IIMA for the way it refines our social skills... (some may disagree with this statement, but to my mind, IIMA and its courses have taught me to guard my tongue, which I feel is the most essential part of social behaviour).

This blog has become quite long already...so rest in next. Expect some musings on friendships, physical exercise and movies there.

Blogging off
Ranga

PS: Btw, the title just refers to the "Summers" project I am doing...the weather is typically humid and not all that sunny here :-)