The “Sathukudy” syndrome.
The movie “Chandralekha” in Malayalam brings out in a comic scene yet full of insights, the dangers of a man trained in one department trying to act a leadership role. I call it the “sathukudy” syndrome. The man is a fruit juice maker and vendor and is thrust on the hot seat of the CEO. When he confronts an issue, he can be but the fruit juice vendor. He demands a glass of the fruit juice and when presented spits it and scolds the one who brought it don’t you even know how to make the “sathukudy” juice? What he demands is only what he does and the only response is on the lines of don’t you know what I know?
However this is not as simple as it looks. This can happen elsewhere. Look at the man who is trained to be a medical Psychiatrist who becomes the head of a Management institute. What is he likely to see? He is trained to be a psychiatric social worker and naturally he sees psycho cases of various degrees after the principle of functional selectivity of perception. The functional selectivity of perception posits among other things that a man’s predisposition as in his training or immediate needs influence what he perceives.
The phenomena is obvious in the above case, one being the matrix of fruit juice and the other being the matrix of leadership. But what about those cases where the difference is not so apparent as when a Medical and Psychiatric Social Work trained one becomes the Leader of a Management Institute? The difference is not so glaringly apparent. Any serious discussion is in danger of being pulled down to the level of the medical psychiatric, defensive, pathological level. Thus when a boy is caught fighting with another and they try to patch up and one of them says why don’t you look into my eyes, there goes the Principal, ‘Are you gay/s?’ At other times the serious is brought down to the banal. When something is in error, it is not the effort to fix but rather to fix the responsibility on someone, blow out of proportion and go out of control. And so forth. That’s because everybody is a psychiatric patient to the Medical Psychiatrist who himself is not alert to the possibility of this syndrome. This applies to any specialist if he is not careful not to be influenced by his training.
I call this the “sathukudy” syndrome. It is all the more insidious in so far as since apparently the discussion is on the issue but actually the matter is dealt with at a level well below the issue. The leader becomes the culprit and goes scot free, the result being the deterioration of the institute with apparent growth but no actual development and missed opportunities.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
A son in retrospect
John’s story
My name is John. I was born to rather intelligent parents. My parents separated when I was seven and formally got divorced when I was 11. The initial days of separation were difficult for my dad and I am witness to that. As for my mother she was too busy with her work. In fact her work which paid her too well was one of the reasons for the divorce, the latest trigger for the final break. She figured if she can be financially independent she could be independent altogether. For her, life was for money and for my father work was for life.
My father taught in a local college. At the time of their marriage my father was working with a large Corporation in the northern parts of the country. I was conceived there but since my birth, my father was employed in the college. His job was different but in the larger sense it was a career change not entirely unrelated. He studied, practiced and taught the same subject Human Resource Management. For all his deficiencies I think he was consciously guiding me all the while even in the midst of his difficulties with my mother.
My mother is mostly loving. The emphasis is on ‘mostly’. She can be irrational at times and there is an air of inscrutability about her. She likes to receive love, but unlike other women love is not the centre of her life. At times I have felt that she has an incapacity to understand the most important part of life.
My father’s people were second generation employees. By this I mean that my great grandfather was most of the time an agriculturist and small time businessman, but never held any public office. My paternal grandfather was first with the Air Force and then with an Insurance Company. He had a closed mind by the standards that one expects from someone with exposure.
My father at first could not understand the meaning of the separation amidst all his other struggles. But soon he got back the threads. That is he never considered his family broken although mother was away. He went about his life as if nothing much had happened treating me with utmost care and admonitions necessary. In fact he was my father and mother in one. Later I came to understand that he had scars deep from early on in his life that gave him uncanny empathy for a kid that my mother never understood. He would never complain and had the ability to make the best of the circumstance.
I was happy to be with him and would say to myself ‘my own father’ whenever he took me around but I guess sometimes he heard me. He pretended he never heard it but knew what was best for the child. On his maternal side he had experience of bringing up motherless children which gave him extreme compassion. But his mostly inexpressive nature never let other people know this and he was misunderstood or not understood.
Those days when my mother was with us and when she was home and sleeping tiredly a concerned husband, my father would take care of me so that mother would sleep. As I understood this is atypical of males of my folks. At that time I too did not know why he would care that mother sleeps but now I know. But mother never knew. For how would a sleeping mother know of her husband’s love and affection for her?
On occasions when I would weep at my mother’s departure I would see him wipe his tears as well. He would take care of me all for the thing called family. But my mother never knew. I had a vague feeling that my mother would compensate me for all the absence but it turned out that when someone else professed more affection she forgot family, me and my father that she fell for it. My father’s love may not have been of the expressive type, but he did care. My father had not read Russel then who considered both the fulfillment of responsibilities and the expression of love as essential for the true flowering of marriage. But nevertheless I do feel that given time he would have been expressive to mother as he matured in age. By contrast, the other man who only professed love and had no intention of taking any responsibility is definitely a poor selfish specimen. I wonder why mother never knew to distinguish. Even if father was not expressive, destroying the only crucible, the marriage, was definitely not the solution for gaining more of father’s affection.
Father never married and spent all the time for me. His job and proximity to my school enabled him to devote entirely to me. For him the marriage may have been broken but the family was only disrupted temporarily.
The proof of this is that my father never spoke ill of my mother. In fact, he told only that I should pray for her and love her. And whenever I was to be with her, he sent me with utmost care and love as if I am on an excursion and he wished me well. In later years I understood that he was shrewd to ensure my love for her and hers for me for my all round development without trouble for anyone. Sure like any other true man he felt the loss only deep within and had no intention of showing to the outside world.
My name is John. I was born to rather intelligent parents. My parents separated when I was seven and formally got divorced when I was 11. The initial days of separation were difficult for my dad and I am witness to that. As for my mother she was too busy with her work. In fact her work which paid her too well was one of the reasons for the divorce, the latest trigger for the final break. She figured if she can be financially independent she could be independent altogether. For her, life was for money and for my father work was for life.
My father taught in a local college. At the time of their marriage my father was working with a large Corporation in the northern parts of the country. I was conceived there but since my birth, my father was employed in the college. His job was different but in the larger sense it was a career change not entirely unrelated. He studied, practiced and taught the same subject Human Resource Management. For all his deficiencies I think he was consciously guiding me all the while even in the midst of his difficulties with my mother.
My mother is mostly loving. The emphasis is on ‘mostly’. She can be irrational at times and there is an air of inscrutability about her. She likes to receive love, but unlike other women love is not the centre of her life. At times I have felt that she has an incapacity to understand the most important part of life.
My father’s people were second generation employees. By this I mean that my great grandfather was most of the time an agriculturist and small time businessman, but never held any public office. My paternal grandfather was first with the Air Force and then with an Insurance Company. He had a closed mind by the standards that one expects from someone with exposure.
My father at first could not understand the meaning of the separation amidst all his other struggles. But soon he got back the threads. That is he never considered his family broken although mother was away. He went about his life as if nothing much had happened treating me with utmost care and admonitions necessary. In fact he was my father and mother in one. Later I came to understand that he had scars deep from early on in his life that gave him uncanny empathy for a kid that my mother never understood. He would never complain and had the ability to make the best of the circumstance.
I was happy to be with him and would say to myself ‘my own father’ whenever he took me around but I guess sometimes he heard me. He pretended he never heard it but knew what was best for the child. On his maternal side he had experience of bringing up motherless children which gave him extreme compassion. But his mostly inexpressive nature never let other people know this and he was misunderstood or not understood.
Those days when my mother was with us and when she was home and sleeping tiredly a concerned husband, my father would take care of me so that mother would sleep. As I understood this is atypical of males of my folks. At that time I too did not know why he would care that mother sleeps but now I know. But mother never knew. For how would a sleeping mother know of her husband’s love and affection for her?
On occasions when I would weep at my mother’s departure I would see him wipe his tears as well. He would take care of me all for the thing called family. But my mother never knew. I had a vague feeling that my mother would compensate me for all the absence but it turned out that when someone else professed more affection she forgot family, me and my father that she fell for it. My father’s love may not have been of the expressive type, but he did care. My father had not read Russel then who considered both the fulfillment of responsibilities and the expression of love as essential for the true flowering of marriage. But nevertheless I do feel that given time he would have been expressive to mother as he matured in age. By contrast, the other man who only professed love and had no intention of taking any responsibility is definitely a poor selfish specimen. I wonder why mother never knew to distinguish. Even if father was not expressive, destroying the only crucible, the marriage, was definitely not the solution for gaining more of father’s affection.
Father never married and spent all the time for me. His job and proximity to my school enabled him to devote entirely to me. For him the marriage may have been broken but the family was only disrupted temporarily.
The proof of this is that my father never spoke ill of my mother. In fact, he told only that I should pray for her and love her. And whenever I was to be with her, he sent me with utmost care and love as if I am on an excursion and he wished me well. In later years I understood that he was shrewd to ensure my love for her and hers for me for my all round development without trouble for anyone. Sure like any other true man he felt the loss only deep within and had no intention of showing to the outside world.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Deconstruction in Office Life
Scene 1 The friendly Chief
When I joined IOCL, the Chief Personnel and Administration Manager (CPAM) was Mr. Laxman Upadhyay. He was from Patna, the capital city of Bihar. As a son of the soil, he had tremendous clout among the people and more significantly the trade union leaders all of them from Bihar.
My early remembrance was of a durbar; all the time from 9.30 am till 6.00 pm, his cabin was crowded with people, trade union leaders and others. There was none of the formality associated with the office of the Chief.
He retired almost six months after I joined IOC as a management trainee. In the meanwhile, Mr. Jamal Hussain was the Senior Personnel and Administration Manager being groomed for taking over as Head of the department.
Mr. Upadhyay had a friendly disposition to everyone including me. Mr. Jamal Hussain was also friendly yet one was left with the feeling that the suaveness concealed inner inadequacies and conmanship. He could not be said to be ineffective, but his impatience to studying the way in which the place worked left him superficial. He too left the place in a year or so.
Scene 2 Storm in a teacup
Nearly 5 years later, Mr. Upadhyay was in the refinery for a visit. The atmosphere was charged up for some other reason. The refinery guest house is a place where many govt. VIP passersby rested being a public sector undertaking. Because of the unavailability of proper lodgings and rest houses in the vicinity, the local police used to be favoured with the occasional hospitality from the side of the public sector IOC.
In the recent past an incident verged on the flammable. One of the police who accompanied a VIP asked for tea from the kitchen and the same was delayed. After a few impatient minutes the police called the Personnel officer in charge of the guest house and may be a few harsh words went by between them.
The officer in charge raised an issue and the officers’ association took up the cause and threatened immediate withdrawal of all facilities to all outsiders. They demanded that the refinery be left free to look after its affairs and not be used for the entertainment of the local police or any VIPs.
Scene 3 Deconstruction in action.
The situation was tense. The Director Refineries who was on a visit was to be appraised of the situation by the officers’ association. Mr. Upadhyay who was on a friendly chat with a few of us deconstructed the situation for us.
What was the problem about at the end of the day?
There was a delay in the arrival of a cup of tea , a sign of poor service from a guest house point of view.
What is at stake?
The Refinery is situated in a remote village of the poorest state in India. Outside the refinery and its township, the law and order situation is precarious. Electricity and running water are luxuries too. The local police had been helping with all sorts of cooperation with the refinery for a very long time. In Patna city there is a fifty - fifty chance of being robbed if you carry cash. The refinery and its people were living in relative abundance. What does a cup of tea mean to a refinery refining a through put of nearly 3.5 MMTPA?
-----
Mr. Upadhyay was earlier accused to be of running a coterie in Personnel matters. He was the one thought to have been behind the informal tie up with the local police authorities. Up until then I had also thought of him in poor light. With the deconstruction I developed better insights into the workings of a seemingly mundane relationship issue. Although Industrial relations was supposedly a matter of maintaining relations with the employees contingency demanded that it mean more than that .
Meanings are constructed around the situation. I can go on. But what does it mean to have experience? If not the above what is experience?
Thursday, February 17, 2011
What it means to be a man... Let the new generation listen please
How to be a man by Steve Pavlina
The link takes one to Steve Pavlina's page on How to be a man. There was no dearth of men in this part of the world. I am referring to Kerala, India. I have seen many of them. I remember the times when I was a child there were plenty of men. Men with their own time. Men with their own opinion. Men who were bold. Men who were not afraid of taking on. Men who were strong. Men who were not afraid to love.
Men who never bothered what others would think if he spoke his mind. Men who ran their own endeavours. Even if it was fishing on a free day. That was before the time when people got busy in their own life long jobs under an impersonal company that looted them of their spirit and gave them some money.
It is all the more difficult to tell the present generation that there were times such as were conducive for true men. Why do I say this? Men or the so called boys who grew up to became the so called men are now leading an instrumental life. By instrumental I mean a kind of existence as a tool for someone else. Someone or some company or business. These condition the men to live as the American in the movie 'OUTSOURCED' says 'you work your butts off for money'.
That is in reply to the Indian woman's comment that the American 'does not love his company, his boss, his work or the products that the company peddles'. Sadly our own men are becoming such who work for the money and waste their lives for it.
Why are people not even recognising the theft of their own lives?
That was
The link takes one to Steve Pavlina's page on How to be a man. There was no dearth of men in this part of the world. I am referring to Kerala, India. I have seen many of them. I remember the times when I was a child there were plenty of men. Men with their own time. Men with their own opinion. Men who were bold. Men who were not afraid of taking on. Men who were strong. Men who were not afraid to love.
Men who never bothered what others would think if he spoke his mind. Men who ran their own endeavours. Even if it was fishing on a free day. That was before the time when people got busy in their own life long jobs under an impersonal company that looted them of their spirit and gave them some money.
It is all the more difficult to tell the present generation that there were times such as were conducive for true men. Why do I say this? Men or the so called boys who grew up to became the so called men are now leading an instrumental life. By instrumental I mean a kind of existence as a tool for someone else. Someone or some company or business. These condition the men to live as the American in the movie 'OUTSOURCED' says 'you work your butts off for money'.
That is in reply to the Indian woman's comment that the American 'does not love his company, his boss, his work or the products that the company peddles'. Sadly our own men are becoming such who work for the money and waste their lives for it.
Why are people not even recognising the theft of their own lives?
That was
Saturday, January 22, 2011
What qualifies as a good theory?
The following is a brief idea of the features of a good theory as per Bacharach.
In order for a theory to be called a theory it should satisfy the rules of falsifiability and usability. Falsification means that it should be empirically disprovable or refutable. Usability means it should help examine and predict phenomena. In order that a theory is falsifiable and usable, it should containlawlike generalisations of if/then statements, have empirical content and exhibit nomic necessity. Nomic is the requirement to be associated and not be by chance.
In addition one could identify two modes in relation to the theory process 1. The theory testing and 2. theory forming. Theory testing is about assessing if accepted theories/conclusions are falsified by empirical facts and is called EMPIRICAL RESEARCH. Theory forming is about constructing new theories for those that are found inadequate to represent empirical facts and is generally called CONCEPTUAL RESEARCH.
The empirical research process is as follows:-
General reality by and large is explained by the existing knowledge, assumptions, axioms and principles. Observations of the existing reality largely in line with the above knowledge, assumptions , axioms and principles, leads to generalisations about phenomena or parts of phenomena. These generalisations take the form of a Theory model built of concepts, relationships and propositions. They form an abstracted reality OR a mental model. These abstractions are made obserable (conjectures) into Hypotheses.
Tools and Procedures for recording observation give the Measurement techniques
Actions for generating observations yield the research design. Observation, generation and recording give the observed reality. Comparisons of Patterns of observable abstraction and observed reality yield the data analysis. Conclusions about support or non support for hypotheses completes the research process.
In order for a theory to be called a theory it should satisfy the rules of falsifiability and usability. Falsification means that it should be empirically disprovable or refutable. Usability means it should help examine and predict phenomena. In order that a theory is falsifiable and usable, it should containlawlike generalisations of if/then statements, have empirical content and exhibit nomic necessity. Nomic is the requirement to be associated and not be by chance.
In addition one could identify two modes in relation to the theory process 1. The theory testing and 2. theory forming. Theory testing is about assessing if accepted theories/conclusions are falsified by empirical facts and is called EMPIRICAL RESEARCH. Theory forming is about constructing new theories for those that are found inadequate to represent empirical facts and is generally called CONCEPTUAL RESEARCH.
The empirical research process is as follows:-
General reality by and large is explained by the existing knowledge, assumptions, axioms and principles. Observations of the existing reality largely in line with the above knowledge, assumptions , axioms and principles, leads to generalisations about phenomena or parts of phenomena. These generalisations take the form of a Theory model built of concepts, relationships and propositions. They form an abstracted reality OR a mental model. These abstractions are made obserable (conjectures) into Hypotheses.
Tools and Procedures for recording observation give the Measurement techniques
Actions for generating observations yield the research design. Observation, generation and recording give the observed reality. Comparisons of Patterns of observable abstraction and observed reality yield the data analysis. Conclusions about support or non support for hypotheses completes the research process.
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