Khalish

 

Kisi Patjhar ke Mausam mein

Kisi Sehmi hui Shab mein

kisi Anjaan Basti mein

Kisi Be-Zauq Mehfil mein

 

Khalish si Dil mein hoti hai

 

Kisi Dushnam Taane se

Kisi Dildoz Qisse se

Kisi Pursoz Naghme se

Kisi Nazr-e-Tanaffur se

 

Khalish si Dil mein hoti hai

 

Kisi Khwabe-e-Parishan se

Kisi Fikr-e-Fareeza se

Kabhi Raste ki Zahmat se

Kisi Thokar ki Shiddat se

 

Khalish si Dil mein hoti hai

 

Kisi ki Sard-Mehrii se 

Kisi ki Badgumani se

Kisi Dereena Rishte ki,

Marg-e-Nagahani se

 

Khalish si Dil mein hoti hai

 

Khalish kyon hai, Khafi kya hai

Kahein kya, Ibn-e-Aadam se

Gile,Shikwe, Malal-o-Marg

Haqeeqat hain Hamesha se

 

Yeh khwahish to nahi Mumkin

Safar mein sirf Gul Barse

Sada-e-Marhaba aaye,

Raah-e-Zindgani se

Gar yeh Raaz Khul Jayein

 

Sochta hoon main Hardam, gar yeh Raaz khul jayein

 

Sirr-e-Zindagi kiya hai, Ramz kiya hai Hasti ka

Gum hoon in Khyalon mein,Anbane Sawalon mein

Khwab kaise bante hain, Kaise woh Bikhrate hain

Bekali hai kiyon Raqsan, Shauq-e- Janfashani mein

 

Taqdeer ka Fusoon kya hai, Tadbeer ki Haqeeqat kya

Bakht Be-badal kab hai, gar Yaqeen Iradon mein

Shikwa’e Nawishta bhi bewajah nahi shayad

Dhoondoon in Jawabon ko kaunsi Kitabon mein

 

khud ki inteha kya hai, Khudi* ka Marhala kya hai

Muqam-e-Maarifat  kya hai Khuda key Raazdanon mein

Suna hai Noor-e-Yazdan hai khudi ke Aabgeenon mein

Karoon kaise Magar Roshan Khudi ko apne Seene mein

 

Tilism-e-Aakhrat kya hai, Barzakh ka hai kya Alam

Khuda ke samne hoga, Sukhanwar Roz-e-Mehshar mein

Qayamat ka Saman  hoga, Yaqeen hai Faisla hoga

Magar kya Faisla hoga ,Yehi Khauf-e-Khuda dil mein

 

Faqr kya hai, Fana Kya hai, Adae-e- Rahibana Kya

Na Jane kiya Manazil hain Talash-e-Haq ke raste mein

Nayee Duniya, Naye Manzar,  Taqaze Aab-o-Gil ke bhi

Karein kaise  Dil-e-Nashad ko Razi Ibaadat mein

 

Sochta hoon main Hardam, gar yeh Raaz khul jayein

 

 

* Allama Iqbal's philosphy of Khudi

Ajab yeh saal hai hamadam

 

Ajab yeh saal hai hamadam,

Anokhe iske manzar hain,

  

Ummeedon ki yeh bikhri kirchiyan,

Yeh, khwab ke sookhe hue patte

Tazabzub ka, koi jhonka,

Yaqeen ke kaanpte tinkay

 

Dhake Chehron mein poshida,*

Khirad ki tah-ba-tah partein   

Ayan aankhen sunati hain,

Dilon ke sokhta qisse

 

Milana haath rasman bhi hai mushkil,**

Khulein kaise dilon ke, khardar raste

Quyood-o-band, ke is khel mein ab,

kahin simti hai duri,kahin bikhre hain rishte

 

Hakeem-e-Waqt ki annkhein hain giryan,

Farae’z se  magar kab haath thakte

Ameer-e-Waqt shayad,  bekhabar hai,

Sadayein so gayee hain, madad ki rah takte

 

Masajid dhoondti hain, Nemazi ab kahan hain

Shivaley bhi hain soone, Kaleesa bhi tadpate         

Na woh qadmon ki halchal Haram ke aastan pe

Sitam hai waqt ka sab, Aashiq kab hain rukte

 

Ajab yeh saal hai hamadam,

Anokhe iske manzar hain,

 

 

 

*     Masked faces

**   Handshake not allowed

 

The Culture of Excellence – An elixir of growth for Start-ups

  Almost 70,000 years ago, homo sapiens started their march of progress and triumph conquering the species of all sizes inhabiting the planet Earth. The unprecedented accomplishments and successes are largely ascribed to the miraculous changes in their cognitive abilities due to unique genetic mutations invoked by the unknown forces for the strange reasons during the period between 70,000 BCE and 30,0000 BCE. Yuval Noah Harari* observed, that during their transformation journey from “Animal of no Significance” to  “Master of the world” , homo sapiens stumbled upon  a bizarre elaborate structure,while adapting to newly found cognitive skill, the weird structure was described as CULTURE by the philosophers many years later.

The modern term CULTURE originated from the phrase “Cultura Animi (Cultivation of the Soul)” mentioned by the Roman philosopher Cierco  in his series of books “Tusculanae Disputationes” around 45 BC. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines the CULTURE as  way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time

 

Organisation Culture

   Organisation Culture is defined as a pattern of behaviour developed by an organisation to address the challenges of external adaptation and internal integration. These collective behaviours  and shared assumptions  are taught to new members of the organisation as the correct way to perceive, think, feel and function.

   Dr. Elliott Jaques first introduced the notion  of culture in the organizational context in his book “The Changing Culture of a Factory” in 1951.After almost four vibrant decades, modern corporate organisations realised the relevance of organisation culture in shaping the destiny of the organisations in the volatile business environment. The seamless integration of organisation culture with growth strategy  became the point of discussion and deliberation  in the corporate meeting rooms and corridors in the early 1990s. 

 

Evolution of Organisation Culture in Start-ups

   A vibrant organisation culture is vital for the Start-ups to survive , sustain and surmount the challenges of growth against the strong wind of fierce competition and market uncertainties. The newly minted organisations may not have interminable resources and robust policy framework to cultivate and enrich the organisation culture on continuous basis. On contrary, start-up culture blossoms on the fertile soil of fluid structure, flat hierarchy, unapologetic ideation and unbridled passion and motivation  of the workforce. This culture of fearlessness, innovation, continuous learning and a perennial determination to succeed through spirited performance creates value for customers leading to quick wins.

As the organisation stands up on its feet and starts negotiating the blind turns of the corporate world, many new companions join in, old confidants lose faith in the organisation success story and drift away towards their own dream destinations, policy framework starts taking shape, hierarchy seeps in, best practices from outside world are adopted  and attuned.  This continuous evolution driven by internal and external forces shakes the cauldron of organisation culture.There is a reasonable  likelihood of losing the elixir of organisations’ existence  during the inevitable cultural disruption.

 

An entangled dilemma

   The structuring and re-structuring of the organisations is imminent for managing the organisations’ sustenance and growth. The SOPs and guidelines are essential to provide direction for necessary organisational actions,  even if it occasionally interferes with the agility and flexibility of the employees. The start-up organisations’ culture requires a delicate balance between robust process orientation and speed of doing business. The start-ups cannot succeed without a bit of madness to break new ground, it is imperative for the organisation leadership to promote and strengthen  the  culture of excellence  and innovation in the organisation.

    The organisations of all sizes implement myriad talent management strategies varying in scope to motivate and energise the work force to unleash the innovation and sustain excellence. In my humble view, the impact of these strategies are ephemeral from an individual’s perspective, as a matter of the fact, the strategy requires a continuous supply of hormone of increasing rewards to work effectively. The fledgling organisations  may not have the luxury of boundless resources and umpteen career options  for experienced employees to keep them motivated and in good humour for long. The problem is compounded by the irony of non-linear growth between accumulated experience and required competency level – in actuality, for most employees addition of an additional year  in their work experience does not lead to the proportional enhancement in their  skill set.

    The inclusion of fresh, energetic, self-motivated and self-driven employees into the work force is critical component of the larger organisation strategy to infuse  positive energy  in the work environment to offset the dampened spirit induced by a few jaded souls. The dilemma for the organisations lie in finding the equitable mix of fresh and experienced employees to keep up the momentum of growth without tinkering with DNA of the organisation.  Organisations need to explore the ways and means to foster the culture of excellence and innovation to stay ahead of the curve. Perhaps, there is no perfect answer to deal with this dilemma.

 

“Corporate culture is the only sustainable competitive 

advantage that iscompletely within the control of the entrepreneur.”

.

 

 

*Yuval Noah Harari- Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli public intellectual, historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of the popular science bestsellers Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

In search of Happiness

   

Happiness and Pursuit of Happiness

“Happiness is the end and aim of life”. He stated that it is  product of  two states human being are subject to -ataraxia (tranquility and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of bodily pain

(Greek philosopher Epicureus)

 

The happiness is not a fundamental right bestowed to its citizens by any benevolent emperor or a gracious governing council. The governing agencies cannot regulate the gush of happiness or  an outpouring of sadness in a human heart through a gate valve of advisories and guidelines. For the common people, happiness is the flickering bright streak in the continuum of emotions, that tickles an intrigued heart to radiate positive energy all around.

      Unlike happiness, the  “Pursuit of happiness” is an unalienable right of all citizens as promulgated in the US Declaration of Independence. In 2012, recognizing the relevance of happiness and well-being of all people, United Nations adopted the resolution proclaiming the “pursuit of happiness’ as a fundamental human goal. As a part of the same resolution, United Nations General Assembly declared 20^th March as the International Day of Happiness to promote sustainable development.

 

Science of  Happiness 

 

“Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so” (John Stuart Mill)

 

The philosophers and scientists are working relentlessly to unravel the layered mysteries of human happiness. The quest for the holy grail of lasting happiness is going on for a good number of years.The unprecedented economic progress, spectacular rise in the life expectancy and unparalleled technological innovations has transformed the life style of human race in the last century, though  it failed to make the proportional change in the happiness level of the individuals. There is no evidence to suggest that a poor farmer living in the backwater of Bihar in1900 was less happy than a farmer ploughing his land in the shining modern India of  2020.

 

The average of happiness level remains nearly constant, every event of success triggers a  mercurial rise in the  happiness level that slides back to almost same level over a period of time. The salary increment makes an employee happy for a few fleeting days but does not generate enough euphoria that could sustain a full appraisal cycle. The unhappy employees leave the old organisation and join their dream organisation with great elation and excitement, the enthusiasm about the new opportunities  may sustain but the  happiness hormone dips back to original level before the season changes.

 

According to Yuval Noah Harari, this glass ceiling of  happiness is held in place by two stout pillars – Pyscholgical and Biological. He further expounded that from the perspective of psychology, happiness is a correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations. An individual’s expectation multiplies many fold with the minor positive change in the condition, leading to a perennial imbalance between the mentioned variables. 

The biologists believe that that happiness is determined by the complex biochemical system of nerves, neurons, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. This mindless pursuit of happiness by tinkering the bio chemical system has already become a major cause of crime in the modern world.

 

Measuring Happiness

 

“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.”(Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

 

International agencies organisations are working to measure the happiness and well being of the people globally. In the recent years, the happiness factor has managed to grab the attention of the policy makers globally, a few of them have chosen to respond to the elephant in room

their own different ways.

    Bhutan became the first country to measure the economic progress in terms Gross National Happiness Index (GNH) as compared to the globally accepted measure of GDP. Some countries such as UAE have established the Ministry of Happiness with the emphasis on social good for fellow citizens. The few innovative corporate enterprises have also jumped on the wagon and have started gauging the employee happiness as they walk in their offices or start their day.

    The World Happiness Report published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network is a great initiative towards measuring the perceived happiness level of the people spread across the continets. The report ranks  the countries on the basis of national happiness and provides great insight about the various factors contributing to Happiness Index. The report is created on the basis comprehensive data collected about the lives of the people which is corelated with other factors such as Human Development Index (HDI), Index of Economic Freedom (IEF), Global Peace Index (GPI), Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), Environmental Protection Index (EPI), and GDP per capita and SDG Index (Sustainable Development Index). The World Happiness Report -2020 has ranked Finland at the top of the happiness report, US, the most powerful country on the plant earth has been granted 26^th Rank much lower than the small Nordic Countries. India has grabbed 144^th Rank marginally above Afghanistan with the last rank of 153.

 

Epilogue

 

“If you want to be happy, be.”( Leo Tolstoy)

 

In this fast paced, dog-eat-dog world, discovering happiness in mundane events is the mantra for an accomplished and beautiful journey of life. We share stories of glory and triumph, we explain the relevance of career milestones to our kids to prepare them the for a fiercely competitive world, albeit the significance of happiness is missing from our day to day conversations. The happiness is transient for obvious reasons, to create a sustainable happiness  we need to invest more efforts in finding and cherishing the moments of joy in the experience and exposure of a journey even if the destination never comes.

Technology – Shaping the future workforce

“We are being afflicted with a new disease of which somereaders may not yet have heard the name, but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come—namely, technological unemployment. This means unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.”

                                  (John Maynard Keynes, 1930)

       A few months ago,  on a lazy sultry evening while glancing through American talk show videos, I found  an old video of “To Night Show” by Jimmy Fallon. I have never been an avid admirer of Jimmy Fallon and would have preferred to watch Jimmy Kimmel or David Letterman talk show on any given day, albeit my eyes remained glued to the screen thanks to the fascinating guest on the show and her astonishing musical performance. The esteemed guest Sophia, a social humanoid robot developed by Hanson and a proud first non-human citizen of Saudi Arabia (or any country of the modern world) is unique and unrivalled  in many different ways. Since 2016, Sophia has travelled across the globe participating in high profile interviews, discussion forums and chat shows. Her fluttering long eye lashes, facial expressions, demeanour , social mannerism, creative and computing abilities has already bedazzled the corporate world.

The musical performance lasted for a few minutes, yet it left me with a compelling thought to explore the potential impact of disruptive technical innovations on the future workforce and work environment. I was wondering if Sophia is ever employed by any business enterprise, how would she deal with every day issues, faults and foibles of her direct reports and ambiguous stress inducing directions of seniors. Many science fiction movies provide a sneak peek into the dystopian future world inhabited by human beings and their robotic counterparts.

Heralding a new age

In a world that is changing faster than we think,  it is indeed an onerous task to prognosticate the gamut of changes that would shape the contours of the future workforce. It stands to reason, to believe that the technology would play a pivotal role to advance, augment and alter future workforce, work place and work culture. The economic and social environment are continuously evolving and will have its own share of influence on the corporate work environment and work force. In this article, we will limit our discussion to the role of technology in preparing  tomorrow’s work force  and its potential consequences.

The next decade would be watershed for the process automation, robotic interventions and AI (Artificial Intelligence) enabled decision making in the business organisations. The trend is strikingly visible on the corporate horizon – CIOs and CHROs are racing against time to deploy artificial intelligence  enabled tools to automate the repetitive and  transactional works. The journey that started long back with robotic assembly lines in manufacturing industries and for carrying out specific dangerous operations in defence sector has already forayed into the unchartered territory of services automation, creative world of editorial writings and robotic surgeries among many other specialised areas.

AI & RPA Software - Statistics

With the rapid advancement of technology, the mundane roles performed by the mere mortals will continue to be replaced by the machines and applications. The data shown in the table substantiates the degree and direction of the proposed and potential changes vis-à-vis Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation(RPA).

In the coming decade, the corporate honchos would be happy to experiment and examine the possibility of having the humanoid robots in decision making roles. Let us keep our fingers crossed – it would be really worth waiting for the intriguing results and actionable insights before we usher into a new era of human machine collaboration. The success would enhance the extent and scope of automation considerably, unlocking the doors to new vistas of opportunities.

Automation – Impact on Employment 

Almost a century ago, British economist John Maynard Keynes made some predictions about the technological unemployment in his research paper “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”. Keynes seems to have misjudged the impact, nevertheless, this unprecedented new age of automation and innovation is also a period of great challenges and uncertainty pertaining to employment and skill gap vis-à-vis organisation job requirements. In 2017, Forrester estimated that automation would result in a net loss of about 7% of jobs in the US by 2027, replacing 17% of jobs while creating new jobs equivalent to 10% of the workforce. According to report published by the McKinsey Global Institute, 400 - 800 million jobs could be lost due to robotic automation by 2030. It estimated that jobs are at more risk in developed countries than developing countries due to a greater availability of capital to invest in automation. There are experts who oppose the theory of job losses,  they believe that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will create more jobs than it displaces by boosting economic growth. The impact of automation on employment is indeed real, however its scope and scale will vary based on the country, industry sector and worker education and skill profile. 

Humanoid Robots and Organisation Behaviour 

The introduction and adoption of AI enabled humanoid robots  in our offices will redefine the organisation work culture and core values. It will require a lot of study and researches to understand the spectrum of changes in Organisational Behaviour.  Julia Carpenter, has published a book, “Culture and Human-Robot Interaction in Militarized Spaces: A War Story (Emerging Technologies, Ethics and International Affairs”  on the  mentioned subject. The book critically examines the contexts that influence or constrain everyday human-robot interactions, what human factors are shaping the (robotic) technology and how people and culture are being changed by these interactions. It seems to me a Chinese puzzle to comprehend - if the humanoid robots would align with organisation culture and its nuances or perhaps organisations culture will be tweaked to provide much needed exception to the revered machines. What is wondering me most is the fate of  ubiquitous corporate gossips in a futuristic work environment. Perhaps, humanoids robots deployed in the corporate organisations will have “Behaviour Settings” feature to culturally amalgamate with fellow human colleagues, very similar to Humour and Honesty settings capability  of TARS robot in the Hollywood science fiction film Interstellar.

Bottom Line

The automation will provide long term cost benefits and  operational efficiency to the business enterprises. AI enabled tools and humanoid robots will enable organisations to make accurate and faster decisions. Under the increasing pressure from investors and shareholders, companies will strive to maximise profit and minimise cost using the cutting technologies of the modern times. The automation with all gains and losses is an inevitable reality for the organisations to march ahead in the post Covid world. We must gear ourselves up to remain competitive and relevant to the ever changing market.