'Head fake' by John Wood !

I just finished reading the book 'Leaving Microsoft to change the world' by John Wood. John was the Director of Marketing at Microsoft handling the Asia-pac region & used to report to Steve Ballmer. The book his about his life story of leaving Microsoft to create 'Room to read' , a 'not for profit' institution which builds libraries, schools & computer/language labs in countries like Nepal,India,Cambodia,Sri lanka etc. A classic book for anyone who nurtures an ambition of creating some change in the world.

John , a Kellogg grad, had the typical high flying life at MS and travelling across the world marketing it's software products. It all seemed to start when he took a conscious break to hike in the Himalayas to get out of his routine. A chance visit to a school library while in Nepal changes his life forever. He saw that a school with almost 400 kids didn't have proper books to read , leave alone a decent library. As he was leaving , the headmaster of the school left him with the words 'Perhaps sir, someday you will return with books' . What follows is an amazing story about how he built 'Room to read' from scratch and how it today stands tall with thousands of schools & libraries across the world to it's credit.

If you have read Randy pausch's 'The last lecture' (Another must read in a lifetime, be prepared to break down into tears towards the end ) or listened to his lecture, you would know what an 'Head fake' is . John has perfected the art intentionally or by pure coincidence through his book. Though it's his own life story, it takes you through by teaching business management, leadership skills, start-up gyaan & tons of fund raising techniques for non profits.

Two instances from the book that I liked the most : The first one is about Ballmer. John used to report to Ballmer and he casually mentions about running for the Boston marathon to him during an early morning jog together in Sydney. Several weeks later , during a conference Ballmer stops by him to congratulate him on his timing in the run .Better , Ballmer remembers the exact time that he clocked. A gem of wisdom for leaders there I felt . If you forget the people who work for you , sooner or later you would be going nowhere . And if you honestly care about them & let them know that you do in instances like these , you have already built the first few blocks of a successful team.

Another beautiful example amongst the several fund raising methods he mentions (that he came across throughout the world) is about some school kids in UK who raised money for his organisation during the 2004 tsunami. The kids were supposedly too small to do anything on their own and so devised a real cute plan with the help of their teachers. They went home and told their parents that they wanted to help out tsunami victims and for fundraising they would be giving their parents a deal. Parents can buy 1 hour of their silence @ home for 10 pounds ! No prizes for guessing how much money the kids roped in :)

Hodo-hodo zoku !

Couple of weeks back, the Wall street journal had a very interesting report on a new pattern emerging in Japan - that of employees refusing career growth/promotions.  They are called the so-so folks or 'Hodo-hodo zoku'. The larger issue at hand is that it's not a section of the Japanese youth who display this symptom, but an entire generation. The article even describes instances wherein bosses were afraid to break promotion news to their reportees. 

Nothing to be too surprised though. Perhaps just signs of a well developed nation. Japan has obviously passed the initial phase in the development of a nation in which India finds itself today. Long work hours, a strong work ethic, growth ambitions etc are of course the hallmark of a society which wants to get out of the state it currently is in. But once it achieves these goals, it's but human to think about a more emotionally fulfilling lifestyle. 

If you tell this story to anyone in India today, it might as well elicit a strong giggle. But what exactly is the holy grail of work life. Once into the rat race , one is not going to get out anyways, the system has taken care of that. Only people with real strong drive and determination have managed to exit the vicious circle and attain 'nirvana' if I could loosely use the word. 

So perhaps the young Japanese are finally discovering the 'right' & 'easy' way to live life. Spending a good amount of time with family & loved ones (which would obviously come at a cost to money & career) would of course  be more fulfilling way to live , at least for a good amount of the generation. Their forefathers have sweated it out, built a great nation. Let the current generation cherish it ! There's always the next generation to sweat it out again in case things get too much out of hand ...but then life won't go uncherished ! 

The joy of NOT seeing money !

No, if you are expecting the good news that I have been laid off..Ah well, not yet ! 

This is all about a small experiment that I carried out recently to check how many days pass from in my life without seeing a currency note physically. Money, I agree is important in life and it's not everybody who gets real good at making tons of it. As for me,  I have somehow always hated the currency form of money.It has always symbolized hatred & greed whenever I look at it, the inspiring pic of Mahatma on Indian notes not withstanding. Hence I decided to try out this experiment in the US to see how many days go without a meeting with the 'note'. I had also decided that I would make no voluntary effort from my side to avoid 'the note'. 

And the answer is 33 ! Yep, I sailed through 33 days in the US without getting to have a look at a currency note ! And believe me , the stint could have been far longer had not it been for my friend who decided to return some borrowed money in cash avoiding the usual cheque route. 

That also shows the penetration of plastic money in the US. There are very very few places which insist on cash these days & most of the encounters needing cash would have been actually aided by a broken card swipe machine. Another aspect which I came about is that I feel a lot less stressed/concerned about money when I transact the electronic route. It's strange but true. When you don't see the actually currency going from your hand, the inherent sadness/stress associated with parting with our money seems to get reduced. 

Added to this is another aspect of an higher valued currency. You get a meal for 5 $ , a good amount of daily utility stuff is priced between 2-5 $ . Though the absolute value of the good remains the same,again I feel the stress associated with spending is getting reduced due to the value of the currency. 

There are two things to be noted in this observation. The actual feeling might also reflect the character of the person. I might actually be stingy to think about the inherent sadness associated with spending money. On the other hand, for someone else, spending 5 lakhs and acquring a car might be far more empowering than buying a car for 10,000 $ . Absolute value being the same in both cases. The second aspect is that this rule might apply only to people who criss-cross international boundaries and transact off and on in different currencies.