Responsibility = Ability to Respond

Friday, April 8, 2016

A couple days back a friends post had me thinking about 'Responsibility'. It was about the paradoxical concept of how 'Taking Responsibility grows Freedom'.

It completely resonated, not as paradox, but as a given.

Yet it had left questions in my mind on where the boundaries for this responsibility were, and how they overlap.

And right this evening, at the Isha Yoga course, this was the concept discussed. 

Responsibility s.t.r.e.t.c.h.e.d. Responsibility as equated to 'Ability to Respond'. It's what  you could (should) 'Feel' for everything. Like something you wear as an attitude.

Responsibility does not mean holding responsible or putting blame ........it basically means you care. And it does not mean you need to act and do for everything. Actionability has several dependencies.... situation, access, time, distance, capability, tools......and such.

Can you just 'feel'.

'Responsibility is what you are using to draw boundaries. Limited responsibility is the source of all evil on this planet. Why do we restrict our feeling of responsibility to just ourselves and our people....people who are attached to us. Excesses of any kind comes out of this. Why limit it.... you are restricting and suffocating yourself by limiting it.

If you want to be an unlimited human being, those boundaries will need to break.

You don't have unlimited capability. The action can get limited by capability, but the living needs to be in unlimited responsibility.

The sense of belonging and ease and joy you feel for the walls of your home, they come because you limit your responsibility within. If you can feel that outside the walls as well it would break down a lot of the boundaries. Can you not help the whole atmosphere by just taking responsibility and feeling at home anywhere. A joyless face is the worst crime on the planet. Can you create happiness wherever you are by just being joyous.'

In fact, he goes to the extent of saying that if you can drop these barriers and stretch that responsibility, people around you will become worshipful of you, it will unknowingly happen. He says that's what people like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mahavira did. Just took responsibility for everything.

"And this is what enables total Freedom.....and Freedom is the highest goal "

Repost 3 - Levels of Communication

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Five Levels of Communication

An incisive model of human interaction.

Richard Francisco, of the Stanford School of Business and a psychologist at San José University talks of  "ways in which we communicate"  by mapping out  " five levels" that represent increasing degrees of difficulty, risk, and potential learning in our interactions. 

Level 1: Ritual

We begin with the most basic and fleeting form of communication, the "ritual." In this context, a ritual is a simple interaction that "allows two people to acknowledge each other as human beings."

Most of our greetings and goodbyes, particularly in passing, take the form of ritual communication. They are heavily influenced by the setting and the respective roles , and they tend toward the predictable and formulaic.

Typical forms of ritual include acknowledging an employee or manager when we pass them in the office, or beginning the conversation with a client as we sit down, or making small talk with a barista as we wait for our coffee.

Level 2: Extended Ritual

Ritual communication can be extended in several ways. We can have an ongoing, iterative relationship with someone we see repeatedly, and the basic ritual form within that relationship can evolve over time, or we can have a longer, more comprehensive interaction, in which we exhaust the most basic ritual forms and begin to explore new territory, while still staying within certain conversational limits.

Typical forms of extended ritual include the more variegated interactions we have with colleagues we bump into regularly, or the longer conversations we have with a neighbor. It's still "small talk," but it changes from day to day  as we move through a range of unofficially sanctioned topics.

While there is more depth to the level of communication in extended ritual than in ritual, it is nevertheless a very safe level of communication.

Level 3: Content (or Surface)

This is the level on which most of our professional interactions take place. "These involve giving and receiving information, analyzing projects...problem-solving...sharing and talking about tasks, and sharing information about ourselves," albeit in limited and safe forms of self-disclosure.

The distinctions between trivial small talk and more meaningful content are relative, and they may change from one setting to the next.

What's clear is what's missing from these first three levels:  feelings.

Level 4: Feelings About Content

Not talking about our feelings doesn't mean we're not having feelings during those conversations--we're just not talking about them. And because emotions are essential inputs in our decision-making and reasoning processes, not talking about them means that many Level 3 conversations get stuck, with issues going unresolved or being resolved in only a superficial way.

Level 5: Feelings About Each Other

This is where it gets really challenging--these conversations involve how I feel about you, and how you feel about me, one of the most direct forms of interpersonal conversations.

These conversations are the most difficult--because they can be extremely stressful--and the riskiest--because we often lack the practice that's critical to develop the necessary skills at this level, leading to inevitable missteps and misunderstandings.

When we are able to disclose how we feel about the issue at hand but still find ourselves stuck and unable to reach resolution, it's often because we have feelings about the other people involved (and vice versa) that are not being expressed.

Moving beyond Level 4 and sharing our feelings about each other can allow us to break out of these seemingly endless loops and achieve a deeper sense of mutual trust and understanding. 

By their very nature, Level 5 conversations carry the risk of embarrassment or threat--so we tend to avoid them, and so we don't develop the skills necessary to have them effectively, and the cycle perpetuates itself. But, when something feels risky to say, that's because saying it carries a short-term cost--and NOT saying it carries a long-term cost that will inevitably grow over time. We need to confront the risk of embarrassment or threat--prudently, not rashly--and break the cycle that keeps us silent.

So when we find ourselves struggling to communicate effectively in a given relationship or interaction, we should ask... 

• What level are we communicating at right now? Are we stuck on a more superficial level and avoiding a deeper conversation? 

• If we're not communicating at the level that best suits our needs at the moment, how might we shift the conversation up or down? Are we able to move fluidly to different levels, or are there certain levels we never  employ? 

• Are we able to talk about our feelings in the framework that defines this relationship or group?  

Why?

Because these conversations are also among the most powerful we can have, with the greatest potential for learning and growth. 

Repost 2 - CANI

CANI – Constant and Never Ending Improvement. One of those mantras that I picked up in Google, one that stayed to become a part of life. While it came to me from Google, it's apparently a Japanese concept called 'Kaizen'. Sounds rather simplistic, but you imbibe it, and it can have a mind blowing impact on life. 

Saturday, January 3, 2015

CANI - In Greater Detail

This is for those who kind of got used to longer posts, and came back on CANI with…What was that?  Didn’t understand only….Need elucidation... so here it is.

                                       

                                          The picture's a sidetrack...more as a cute 'Can I?'

To go back to the CANI, Constant and Never Ending Improvement, I read somewhere this analogy of a Movie vs a Speech, which might fit here.

Producers spend crores or millions on a production, create a movie, then put it out, and then wait for public reaction, the outcome...be it success or failure. There's not much they can do once the movie's completed and out there. With a movie, you have one chance to get it right. You either make your money or you lose it.

A speaker, in contrast, gets ample opportunity to improve a speech. With each new speech, you get to try out new ideas or methods, watch the reaction, make changes, test them, and then repeat the process until you have a nicely finished product. In fact, that's not even true. With a speech, you never have a finished product. With each new delivery, you're provided one more opportunity to make improvements.

In life, we somehow seem to develop this life-is-a-movie attitude, maybe because of school. We work on our projects or exam papers, hand it in, and pray for a good grade. It’s about grades at every point, and then we’re moving onto the next project, the next class. There’s no time or opportunity to polish anything done.

Unfortunately, when it comes to producing a noteworthy product, polishing is everything. Just ask professional writers and they'll eagerly tell you, 'Writing is rewriting'

Now, Life is like a speech, not a movie. We're almost always given a chance to rework our projects. A chance to continuously improve on what we've learnt and what we do. It just takes the awareness and guts and humility to do so.

Apparently, before Woody Allen did his most popular stand up routine on TV,  he had put together ten jokes and tried them out at a local club. One joke survived. Then he tried out ten more and then another ten until he had the 'effortless' set he had before he did TV. Allen understood that he wasn't producing a movie, he was giving a speech—and a speech can be easily tested and improved until the finished product looks effortless.

Understanding this idea gives us perspective, and hope. It frees us from the frightening challenge of 'getting it right the first time', or for that matter even the second or the third. We learn that there's always scope to learn and improve.

In Google I've seen this done with everything, within the Org and also with products. A product is launched in beta version to faithful users for a good while and then built on, and even after launch, iteration and improvement is a constant. I learnt to do that even with regular presentations or project summaries. The first one would always go out as version 1, and from then on its about building on it.

Now this applies not just in what we do, but in how we are too.

We seem to have fairly rigid images of ourselves. Especially when we find ourselves in sticky situations, we like to justify it saying, well, that’s the way I am…Main Aisa Hi Hoon.  What we typically do is.....'that's how I'm made'.... 'that’s the way it is'..... 'that’s how everyone lives'.....Like finished product kinds. But is it?

I'll say it one more time: life is a speech, not a movie. 

Repost 1 - Mastani Mahal

I'm happy to start with this. Reason being, it is a post that shows up with a nice regularity on my 'read posts' list and what's more, is to date my maximum read post. And needless to say, one of my most dear experiences too. Also, through the comments, it has created connection with folks I know not, and with who I connected merely through fascination with 'mastani mahal'.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Mastani Mahal

While I didn't even know Mastani before I saw the movie Bajirao Mastani, since the movie, I think I totally love her.

The moment I knew I was going to Pune, visiting Mastani Mahal got added into my To Do's for the trip. Once the work part of trip was accomplished, we ( Sagari and me) set off to Shaniwar Wada, as I somehow presumed that Mastani Mahal was either within or close to Shaniwar Wada.

As we get there, we realize through talking to the cab driver that it wasn't in Shaniwar Wada. Well, we searched Google and we read on some site that it was in Kothrud, so we head there. And as we get close, we're still frantically reading because there is no specific location and Sagari's like, 'this is nuts, Kothrud is a big area, how are we going to find it' 

We split some sites between us and read on our phones and realize that the entire Mastani Mahal had been dismantled in the sixties and shifted to a museum called Kelkar museum.

Finding Kelkar museum again was tough because of so many one ways and the narrow streets of old Pune, but finally when it's almost closing time we get there. The guy at the counter is like...bandh hone wala hai. But we still buy our tickets and are finally in.

Within minutes, we're wondering......has the Mastani Mahal been converted into museum or is it 'in ' the Museum? So I'm back at the ticket counter and asking the ticket guy.... when there's this gentleman someway in behind the counter, with his back to me who turns and says...come in here at the back. Very mysterious. I go and tell Sagari that he's asked us to come peeche. And she's like, 'jeez, kya hua? Did we do something? What did you say? He said nicely or weirdly? '

We go in and find that he's the Director of the museum and when he realized we were really interested he took us to his office.......and he told us the story of Mastani Mahal. And was it fascinating. To him Mastani Mahal is real, part of life and he knows the story in real time. He hasn't even seen the movie, the only reference he made to the movie was to say that Sanjay Leela Bhansali had visited the Mastani Mahal.

And the wonderful part of it was that the story he told us was almost the same as the one from the movie, except maybe the first meeting which was dramatized, but the rest of the love story was as deep and as intense.

And then came the coup. He's like...the Mastani Mahal is under restoration, and not open to public. Would you still like to see? Imagine our joy...I was like, Yes please, if needed we can even come back tomorrow. He took us right then......and just the feeling of being there.

Here's the rest in pictures:

This is Rekha Hari Ranade

She is the daughter of Dr.Kelkar, who founded the Kelkar museum. Mr.Sudhanva Ranade Kelkar, the Director, was nice enough to not just show us Mastani Mahal, yet under restoration, but also introduce us to his mother.

He said, my grandfather who was an optician (Dr Kelkar) founded the museum, and he went about with such focus that people called him paagal aadmi (madman), and my grandmother and mother ( in picture) have devoted their entire lives to the museum.

It felt like such an honor meeting her, as well as him. As he said himself, it was not just coincidence, he said it was intended, and it sure felt that way too.

Portraits of Dr.Kelkar and his wife that greet you at the entrance of the museum

 

Sudhanva Kelkar Ranade, Director of the Kelkar Museum, and Rekha Hari Ranade

Restoration work on in the Mastani Mahal

On the way back, we happened to pass the Shaniwar Wada, and though it was closed, I got off to get a nice picture of the Peshwa...... well, the statue of the Peshwa.

An interesting outcome of the long conversation with Sudhanva,......we're now working along with him on a project on the Mastani Mahal. Starting the evening not even knowing where Mastani Mahal was, to finding it..... and then ending the evening with a commitment to a project on it. Well, life does have it's ways.

A month of reposts

This was an idea that I picked up from one of my favourite newsletters......brainpickings by Maria Popova. It's a weekly newsletter, of just three articles, that I've been receiving for years now.

When Maria Popova got into the thick of writing a book, she chose to repost articles from her website archives to keep the momentum going.......and while I initially found myself disappointed......I grew to love the idea, as they were write ups I'd either missed, or even more significantly..... write ups that were worth rereading.

Hello, Smitha Devara! This is the Brain Pickings midweek pick-me-up: Once a week, I plunge into my 13-year archive and choose something worth resurfacing and resavoring as timeless nourishment for heart, mind, and spirit.

While I don't have a reason as lofty as 'writing a book', I do have a month ahead where I have enough on my plate, to make me concerned about not dropping the ball on any one of those pieces. And I'm going one up on it, I'm going to pick a post which has been picked by someone somewhere that day......after all six years of archives does give you a fairly nice treasure of posts.

For those not aware, blogger analytics shows you your top ten posts read each day, not the who or where, but just the post titles. And that's what I'm going to do for this next one month. Repost stuff that's worth a reread.

It's an interesting experiment, as it's yet one way of enabling one to stay connected to the blog......and likely with parts and facets of one that have gone by :)

Looks like the prelude was long enough....actual start tomorrow.