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26/02/2020

On Grammar

We hear two extreme views about grammar. One view is that grammar is not important as long as communication is established. The other view is elitist and condescending perspective, probably from people who repel us and thus keep students away from grammar.

This is similar to the question - is education important? There are so many individuals who have succeeded despite a lack of education! There are questions to be asked here. One - would these people do better if they received a good education? Two- would education be useful if it triggered sensemaking instead of information transfer?

Let us specifically address the grammar question. Grammar helps in seeing patterns in language and thus processes information better, faster and easier. For instance, one may analyze adjectives and interpret the kind of thinking the speaker engages in.

Contrary to the popular notion of language education through reading and vocabulary, there is a lot more to it. Meaning emerges from words - it is a nonlinear sum total of the words. So the connectors- interjunctions, conjunctions, prepositions become important. "pen with ink", "pen on ink", " pen for ink"- the same words are connected differently.

What sets humans apart from other sentient beings? Cognition? Ability to communicate experiences? Language? Linguistic faculties are extremely essential. Can you imagine your dog or a vulture seeing electromagnetism or machine learning algorithms to solve problems?

People who go through language in the normal, natural, organic approach, miss out on a few critical and analytical aspects of a text. For instance, if I say "ontogeny replicates phylogeny" - what creative (Literature) and critical (Philosophical) perspectives can I draw from this?

Why would the author create a character out of ontogeny? Why is this like a person X copying a person Y? Are abstracting a lot of experiences into a concept called ontogeny? Into phylogeny? Are we then personifying both the notions?

We tend to use a lot of metaphorical extensions in language. We extend the usual use cases of words into new scenarios by using metaphors. For instance, we say "don't leave me in the dark" or "he is with you". Why would we extend the meaning to new scenarios?

Can we say that we are reusing words? Why would we do that? We could also call it " abuse of notation" as we do, in Mathematics. Wouldn't this confuse readers, when they have to deal with ambiguity - more than one meaning per word? But does this offer convenience of remembering fewer words? Does this make language compact?

These arguments trespass across Literature and Philosophy, Grammar and Interpretation, Linguistics and Aesthetics, but these critical and creative perspectives help us get more out of language.

As George Bernard Shaw states "the saddest thing about communication is the illusion that it happened". So can we let students experience the bliss associated with this illusion? Can we change the current authoritarian paradigm of grammar education and language education?

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10/02/2020

Evolution of Leadership

Are you modern enough? Using internet explorer? How would a modern tech savvy accountant look at a pen paper type? How would a Prezi user look at a PowerPoint presentation? Do we use tools even after they are obsolete? Why do some tools never become archaic?

The above arguments are intuitive when you talk of tangible tools and material machines, but do they apply to leadership and ideas? Can ideas be outdated? Why do leaders follow outdated leadership styles? I was reading John Doerr's "Measure what matters" and I was humbled, I felt like a caveman. I guess that's what history and evolution of technology does to a keen reader practitioner!

Taylor and Ford had developed authoritarian model of leadership, which they called scientific management (v1.0) - crisp and hierarchical. Peter Drucker then comes up with a rather humanistic approach, 50 years later. Drucker says that a corporation should be a community "built on trust and respect for workers - not just a profit machine ". He suggested that worked be consulted on company goals. He suggested balance of short term and long term planning, instead of crisis management, informed by data and enriched by regular conversations. When people choose a course of action, they are more likely to see through it.

If this v2.0 update came up in 1954, why are people still following v1.0? I guess we all have a lesson from the partnership of Patel and Nehru. Patel was amazing at ex*****on, but he knew that he wasn't as forward looking or modern as Nehru was. Patel came from a conservative background and was a bit patriarchal. He was humble enough to collaborate with Nehru and learn from him. Likewise Nehru knew his flaws and was happy to let Patel run the show in critical areas. We have a Patel in us - very good executor, but lost in style of the most. We have a Nehru in us - soft, sensitive, charismatic but weak in ex*****on. How do we juggle between both probably decides how we embrace the new version! So the Patel in me was keenly reading the Nehru in John Doerr!

Peter Drucker called this " management by objectives" or MBOs. This is also called the HP Way now. A meta-analysis of several studies showed 56% productivity gains due to high commitment to MBOs and 6% when commitment was low.

However, MBOs were centrally planned, sluggishly trickled down the hierarchy. They were often reduced to KPIs, without soul and context. When tied to salaries, they killed risk appetite. Drucker realized that this was failing, he said, MBOs were just a tool and not the great cure for management inefficiency.

Drucker was exploring a model which create a environment that values and emphasizes output without falling into what he called "activity trap" - output is the key to increasing productivity while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.

And yes you guessed it right! Then, arrived the version 3.0 at Intel, courtesy their visionary COO and later CEO Andy Grove. He called it iMBO (Intel's MBO) in honor of Drucker. Andy rarely referred to objectives without talking of key results. While objective was the goal post, the key results (OKRs) were the measurable milestones - with What, How, by When.

MBOs-What
OKRs -What, How.

MBOs- Annual
OKRs- Quarterly/Monthly

MBOs- Private and Siloed
OKRs- Public and Transparent

MBOs- Top down
OKRs- Bottom up or sideways (50%)

MBOs- Tied to compensation
OKRs- mostly divorced from compensation

MBOs- risk averse
OKRs- aggressive and aspirational

This new approach was the backbone of Operation Crush, launched by Intel against Motorola whose Motorola 68000 posed a serious threat to Intel 8086. Intel launched a massive program which included a multimillion dollar adspend for the first time. Motorola was well run, with agility, they posed a challenge and within two weeks Intel responded. Somebody joked that he could a plane ticket from Chicago to Arizona approved, in the time Intel took to launch the campaign.

And of course there is v4.0 which John Doerr developed and coached several companies including Google. Sundar Pichai talks the OKR language if you observe. I'm wondering how I could evolve my way from v1.0 to a whole new v5.0, as my team is excited about our M&A system which would be kick started today!

Andy Grove the pioneer of OKRs (v3.0) was an avid reader and kept in touch with latest developments in cognitive science, technology and diverse areas. He didn't publish enough papers like Drucker, nor did he come up with a theory like Gordon Moore, but his ideas lead one of the most impossible tech revolution in human history.

Andy Grove said that bad companies are destroyed by crisis, good companies survive crisis, while great companies are improved by them! The Intel story and their dominance in microprocessor segment stands as a testimony. So how do we talk to the Patel and the Nehru, the liberal and the authoritarian, the conservative and the modern, the doer and the thinker, within us to gestate a new model of leadership. People can complement each other, but can do we an Anniyan or Aparichutudu (a movie about split personality disorder) to be that super awesome leader!

Happy morning, hope this addresses my early morning messages OKRs- educate the reader, empower the thinker, energize the champion! Have a super awesome day ahead 😁

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05/02/2020

Argument as a positive word

02-02-2020 was a palindrome date and Facebook was lit up with statuses. However, my training in Mathematics encourages me to dig this up further and ask some questions. My intuition plus some small calculations tell me that last palindrome date was 12-02-2012

Can I argue that my statement is correct? Does one believe in my statement because they think I'm good at Mathematics, because of my credentials or does one search for logic?

Does the source of the claim even matter if you can see a proof? Well, if G.H.Hardy, didn't think so, he would have just dismissed the clerk who went on to become legend - Srinivasa Ramanujan. It is merit or proof and not the person or degrees/medals which matter in Mathematics.

So how do I prove this? Well, a palindrome date has to look like ab-cd-dcba. What were the possibilities of dcba? Before 2020, they were all starting with 20 and ending with 11,12,13....
So, dc is 20 and ba can be anything in between 12 and 19. But ab cannot be 13 or more (if ab=13 and as we said dc=20, date is 31-02-2013, but 31 Feb doesn't exist, if ab=41, cd=02, date is 41-02-2014 )

These arguments prove that 12-02-2012 was the last palindrome date. The proof is so simple, the arguments used are so basic, a middle school student can be taught to construct a proof and argue that the claim is indeed true.

How to write a proof is another topic of its own and I believe CBSE has one chapter in 10th class, which is optional, and thus largely ignored by parents, teachers and thus students. So it is important to see why we need proofs, because the how part is sorted already once somebody decides to try them.

Proofs are seen as boring part of maths, there are so called subject matter experts who claim that. Well, if you're trying to memorize and reproduce proofs in verbatim, from your textbook they're boring. But if you're trying to construct a proof, it is so much fun.

Writing a proof is like writing a punch dialogue for a movie, like trolling someone, like writing a meme, like a very good counter to somebody, it requires your gray cells and it gives you enough dopamine once you manage to do so. Well, I'd say proof writing exercise in Maths is like a brain gym and helps you in being a better debator.

Proof helps in revising so many concepts at once, proof helps in connecting the dots than passively consuming information, proof helps you get a birds eye view of the whole process, proof helps you imbibe a rational and objective outlook, there are so many good qualities which proofs can induce.

So let's start writing little little proofs and make ourselves a little more smarter, like a Tenali Ramakrishna or a Birbal!

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01/02/2020

Teaching Tenses

I can teach tenses any number of times, but I will remain confused after each class, although students have fun and solve their worksheets with confidence. Why does this happen to me? I remember the first question I asked, as an undergraduate student, at IISER Pune - "Sir, can you explain me what is time". The professor said " don't ask me such complicated questions and smiled".

Does tense come first or does time come first? Why is tense so very universal? Why do most human beings eat three meals a day, why is this not a cultural thing? Even though some eat roti, some eat idly, some eat bread, everyone eats three meals, why? Likewise, why do most languages have tenses?

If something is so universal, does it indicate a basic functionality? Is it possible to communicate events without time oriented information? So we're tenses born to communicate temporal information?

So, tense concept comes from time concept? But why is it that my school teacher taught me to deduce time through tense? Why did my teacher assume that I know the concept of time already?

This goes back to a very fundamental question in pedagogy - how does concept acquistion take place? We do not just take in information, our mind connects the dots and synthesizes meaning. The nature of teaching can change the nature of conceptual construction within.

There seems to be a deep rooted misconception within subject matter experts and teachers alike, that these concepts are acquired through practice and that rules suffice. However if one were to look at the research studies in AI and NLP, machines probably understand tenses better than human, because even humans are being taught with rules.

I tried this out in a classroom, I gave different examples - a puppy becoming a dog, seed transforming into a plant and then a tree. The kids then confused concept of time with growth. Then we saw counterexamples, they came up with pencil, eraser, notebook (tearing pages) as things which shrink with time.

Language came, then came grammar. Things were probably constructed adhoc and then organized into rules. Now how do we go about it? You're entering a house which is already organized, how do you explore it? Do you remember all locations or do you find patterns so you don't have to remember too many things? Doesn't our brain WinRAR(compress) all information?

So, instead of accepting grammatical rules as such, can we ask ourselves - if I were a Grammarian, like Panini, how would I construct a rule for this?

Would I want to see a kid as a slave for the establishment or a thought leader who construct new meaning out of the intellectual stimulus in the form of the textbook. The curriculum, textbooks are all fantastic, it is probably our mindset which can embrace Socrates - I can't teach anyone, I can only make them think!

So let me make you think, let me leave you with a question - why are habits, universal truth considered simple present, if you were a Grammarian and if you were creating a new language like kilkil(Baahubali movie) would you classify them in simple present?

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22/01/2020

Train your brain..... Control the Controller.....

11/01/2020

Social Response Capitalism Theory

Do we work for maximizing profits or do we work for social good? Are these both at loggerheads with each other? Why do we see "ethics" as a grandma tale in BSchools? How can you pursue your wallet and your soul parallely? Is this the direction of 21st century. I'm reading a fantastic book written by an environmentalist on this new paradigm of business, which parallels the thoughts of Gandhi (and Kumarappa) and Philip Kotler (Marketing 3.0) in the sustainability era. Here are my reflections.

1- Knowledge created in companies is of four levels - depth, floors, endurance and dependence. You start with deep knowledge, you then connect the dots to bring platforms rather than products so R&D can feed into each other, you then leverage this to respond to market forces and constraints. The pinnacle is getting the industry, especially the competition to depend on your knowledge - you're not exclusive, possessive, creating entry barriers, but you're inclusive and driving the world.

2- Every business is like a mansion. Whenever you talk to people you describe your house, your house goes wherever you do. A business leader needn't be confined to the house, but can explore other houses to see good practices in action. This confluence of ideas helps in better social positioning. So one can learn not just from same industry, but from social leaders across industries.

3- Business leaders have this ability to seek lots of information, be receptive and yet ignore facts when required. They know when to play by the rules and when to break them. They know when to listen and when to influence, they lead by grace, force and fascination.

4- Leadership is about managing perception. Shaping how others think about us is crucial and demands communication and articulation. This ensures lasting social and investment appeal for an orhanization. This requires knowledge, communication, timing, openness to questions and discipline/practice.

5- In a leaders life, time is too short. They marshal their resources to make a better world. Lincoln thus considered writing to be humanity's best invention, enabling him to make friends with some long dead. Lincoln writes that a drop of honey attracts more flies than a gallon of gall. A leader can draw the heart of a person with honey, convince that you're a sincere friend, win with reason and show justice in your cause. This trust and leadership of Lincoln was rewarded by his general Grant who won multiple battles and helped uniting US, the crisis which Lincolon faced immediately after occupying office - half of America wanting to exit the country.

6- Tom Chappel, founder of Maine, a toothpaste company acquired by Colgate, says that imagination is too sacred to lose, few big companies can innovate, which is why they acquire small innovative companies. It was lot easier for his company with 179 employees to think of ways to not use cancer causing chemicals in toothpaste and get the world to think beyond greedy money making and see balanced/sustainable growth.

7- There is a difference between public brand and company brand. Public brand gives you the social capital of trust. Like people, even companies reciprocate when treated with love, rather than selfishness and vendettas. Trust easily becomes tit for tat in the business world.

8- You can sister innovation - two companies can innovate together to manage risks better. Toyota and Honda did that, with hybrid cars.

9- One can learn from social champions - best place to work, best public brand, best capital retention etc. Virginia hospital in US learnt from Toyota to cut down waste in processes and reduced the amount of treatment time of a cancer patient, to reduce fatigue. They saved/avoided 6 million in new invetsements, freed 13000sft space, cut inventory cost by 360,000$, reduced staff walking by 34miles/day, shortened bill collection time, slashed inflection rates. Different industry, but same problem, little thought can connect the dots and drive amazing results.

10- Many leaders consider excellence to be a sacrifice or even worse not viable. People think an education company can't make kids think, it does it it is a sacrifice. But Marguerite Wildenhain writes in invisible core that "the artistic and ethical pressure that permeates his or her whole life, in work and leisure, in joy and sorrow, will give his or her work the valid human quality that is the sign of the work of art and out a technician a creative first will have developed"

People talk of making mistakes in weak moments, when compromises are made, but I think a true artist experience wonderful strong moments of bliss which enforce these values and stubbornness within. This probably explains the excellence, perfection and affection of great business leaders.

From the book World Inc by Bruce Piasecki.

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09/01/2020

L&T - Builders to Nations

1- Two Danish National Larsen and Toubro, who refused to go back due to second world war and N**i Germany, would change the future of India, construction industry and business at large. How serendipitous can adversity be! L&T built HITEC city, TIDEL park, most stadia, ISB, IIT, Hyd and they've literally built nations.

2- They started in the pre independence era, saw the opportunity to build a free country, providing infrastructure, building relationships and they knew their suppliers so well. In one case, a steel plant says "Hariharan saab, we don't roll steel plates of that size" and the EVP KG Hariharan says "don't tell me that what width you roll, .., I was the one who built this plant for you". So you create and leverage your creation for further creation!

3- L&T is known for speed of construction. In 1999 AP government wants water pipelines to reach Tirumala after a water shortage forecast. They commit to doing it in 90days, while their initial estimate was 1year, which would initially become a 72 day wonder, by interacting with suppliers and building on their concept of Material, Men, Machinery, Money and Management. L&T pioneered a change of deadlines from years to months to days. This was on the backbone of strong personal relationships with suppliers who shared their vision.

4- India had 10 of top 20 polluted cities in the world, with construction industry playing a big role. L&T pioneered green practices which bring in quality, alternatives to soil, reduced water requirement. Though the industry operates on cost minimisation, L&T focussed on setting an example and inspired the industry.

5- L&T was about to be taken over multiple times due to low market capitalization. CMD Naik made employees their shareholders, so they looked at the share prices every day, since they have say 500 shares. The employees now worked towards value creation, it was not just about revenue, but shareholder returns as well, increasing the share price and mitigating the threat of takeover. L&T made sure that no family business would take over - Dhirubhai (saved L&T from a middle east investor trying to take over) and KM Birla came close.

6- L&T had 13.9% attrition in 2015, below 14% average in India, withstanding the competition from high paying IT services industry where margins are 30% unlike 10% in construction. This was due to proper growth trajectory, mentorship within. Proper e-learning was created and used to train people, in the absence of mentors - pioneering skill initiative in India. They set up employee housing, basic amenities, even provided infra for people to start schools for everyone in the locality, so employee welfare was taken care of, while their folks hop a lot between locations, due to work.

7- They inspect customers sites even several years after deployments. Plants set up in 1993 are also visited and assistance is provided to ensure customer delight, nurture relationships and secure projects. In 1990s, they moved from marketing intensive approach to quality, on time delivery and customer relationships - as predicted by Philip Kotler (Marketing 2.0). The cliched but evergreen win win strategy.

8- Mc Kinsey report - L&Ts best practices - design and engineering capabilities, building long term supplier relationships, adopting lean construction, institutionalized risk management, providing lump sum Engineering Procurement Contracts. The company grew 24 times in market cap from 1992 to 2015. Employees say that once Naik became CMD, the company started talking the language of finance and economics.

9- The impossible probably becomes possible once you start asking how, rather than can I. L&T picked up ambitious project with crushing deadlines and got their stakeholders to believe and excel in ex*****on. Doesn't this make our processes more effective, cut costs and make construction more sustainable - minimizing damage to the planet.

10- L&T survived so many years as they kept reinventing themselves, understanding the change in shareholder expectations. When the expatriats had left in 1974 the PSU mentality of Indian management was hurting talent management as merit was taken over by experience. CEO Naik convinced the seniors to change the system which was " working". Yes, the elephant can be toppled, a large organization can ensure that merit and excellence wins over status-quo and inertia. Recruitment, Renumeration, Recognition, Retention and Recreation was their formula for managing top talent for high end projects.

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05/01/2020

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04/01/2020

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25/12/2019

So called gifted students

We use the phrases "'slow learners'" and "'gifted students"', but are they stereotypes and biases? Are they really gifted? Or is it a scope for improvement in our system, to cater to all children, differently, in a better manner? Through this post I would like to take on some misconceptions in education.

We may or may not have neurobiological account of how some people think better than the others. But I definitely believe the genetic narrative is lot overrated and so much of this can be nurtured, rather than expecting it from nature.

This goes back to "purity versus parity" argument. Are some people purer than the others or is everybody equal? It isn't surprising that many people still believe in purity, due to our feudal roots, caste history and deep-rooted assumptions which get passed on through generations.

However several great educators have considered "'genius"' to be something which can be coached. Although I'm extending their ideas to get into the idea of "'genius"'. Do we see method or do we magic? If we can dissect the method, we can emulate and replicate best of achievers, in our own way, pushing the human race forward.

Some kids manage to pick up openness in thinking and the ambition to do more. They need proper mentoring, to adapt in a society which can pull people down. This is why I take time to identify such kids and tell them not to care about those people who discourage them. I try to channelize their energy with a goal which I make them discover and also by getting them to explain their thoughts and ideas to more people, so they have clarity in their thinking and others can get inspired by their ambition .

If we can break anything down into its simplest part, we can perform an inception of the idea in our mind, as articulated by Chris Nolan, while describing his motivation behind a movie with the same name.

There are so many fantastic philosophers and thinkers out there, we just need to go out there fishing, to pick up all their ideas. This helps us in seeing higher aims of education, higher aims of life. This isn't genius, this is just human, this is what we are all equally capable of. If we see process, we see potential, if we see product, we see genius. Its up to us!

Let us believe that we are all geniuses, we are all capable of going beyond the thinking of an Einstein, Shakespeare or Gandhi. It is very important for all educators to believe this, because the next generation draws inspiration from us.

As a school/college student, I got exposed to mindset reformers like Feynman, Raghuram Rajan, Socrates, Amartya Sen, Steve Jobs and this helped me in overcoming the conditioning which society puts us through. I was often perceived to be rude or elitist , but may that was a defense mechanism. But can we nurture a system wherein kids are all ambitious, with humble roots, learn from great journeys of reformers. I believe that these courageous stories can propel many ambitious journeys.

Every body is gifted, everybody can create a lot of value to peoplekind, but how can we as educators enable that? Questions to ask!

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23/12/2019

Language, Vocabulary and Thinking

If we have a word for a phenomenon, does it change our thinking? Is a word like a software which triggers certain processes? Is the word software triggering a thought here?

In 2018, Cambridge dictionary introduced a new word called "nomophobia" - peoples fear of staying without devices. Would this word help in calling out the phenomenon and hopefully tackling it?

Would the simplicity of one single word help? Would the concise form lead to better ex*****on? Would you be more likely to chop onions if you are given one proper knife or if it is a three step process involving three different knives?

Likewise, in Silicon Valley, they talk about one weakness of English language - the absence of a word for a failure but a problem which was worth exploring. We as humans will have to explore a lot, some will succeed , some won't, but every explorer pushes humanity forward. So how do we get a positive word which honors the exploratory contribution.

Likewise, the word debate, argument are considered negative in Indian classrooms, so they are replaced by dialogue, logic. Having a word with the right idea in the right connotation is important. Otherwise, people may just carried away with some other thought.

Words shape the way we think, at a very implicit level. Which is becomes important to be conscious of our articulation. It has socio-psychological ramifications. If your language has more of "how do I" rather than "Can I", you're probably more likely to do something.

This is why I'm a word-N**i and I question the choice of words or out of context usage. In education space, words like skills/practical/apply are used out of context. This creates a slip between the intent and the content, so people are not on the same page. What's in a word? Well lack of coherence and consistency can hurt clarity of thought.

One last story - a word called equiparate has been declared obsolete by Oxford English dictionary. It originated from equi and parare (make ready) - meaning look at two things as equal.

How nice would our education space be if our stakeholders used the word equiparate in place of compare, on most occassions? Would this make us less judgmental?

Vocabulary isn't a show off of ones linguistic prowess, but reflects clarity of ones thinking. Words shape our thinking, our readers thinking.

Go ahead, dig up articles all over once again, to find the Easter eggs - the subtle meaning within. A different way to look at vocabulary and vocabulary acquisition.

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