What A Story !

One of India's brilliant CEOS no one knows about - from rediff.com

The unknown architect of Balrampur Chini, Meenakshi Saraogi's biggest achievement lay in inspiring farmers to grow more cane.

Every discussion of India's successful women entrepreneurs usually overlooks one name. A name that could be heading the list.

Meenakshi Saraogi, architect of Balrampur Chini Mills, the country's premier sugar company.

Until the late 1970s, she was an affluent Kolkata homemaker.

The locations of Balrampur Chini Mills factories. Map: Kind courtesy Balrampur Chini Mills

Saraogi might have continued to so remain, but for an unexpected development: A division of family assets could have divested the family's sugar mill.

With her immediate male family members unable to commit to active day-to-day management, Saraogi ventured to assume direct control of this mill in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

The implications were varied. Saraogi would not be the absentee maalik (owner) who would abdicate the company for munims (clerks) to run.

She would manage on-site and hands-on, nine months a year.

She would be up until 5 am daily through the sugar season, to counter a probable decline in night-time cane-crushing recovery.

She would live within the factory premises, the overriding molasses odour notwithstanding.

IMAGE: Sugar production at one of the Balrampur Chini Mills, Uttar Pradesh. 

A red light in her bedroom blinked, accompanied by a siren in the background, as soon as the crushing machine malfunctioned.

Every babu would have descended on the shop floor within six minutes (some in pajamas), as Madam would have already got there, demanding an explanation.

On the one occasion I sought an interview with her, she agreed to meet at 3.30 am.

On being asked whether it was true that executives often wet their pants when she yelled at them for performance under-delivery, she kept a straight face and said "Yes".

And yet, Saraogi's biggest achievement was not in-plant surveillance. It lay in inspiring farmers to grow more cane.

She created a '14-day rule', within which farmers would need to be paid irrespective of corporate profit or loss.

The receipt (parchi) became virtual legal tender within Balrampur's command area (a number of farmers not encashing for fear that the proceeds would be frittered).

She consistently invested in equipment higher than the available cane throughout only because this would enable the unit's crushing to be completed earlier than usual, at relatively high recoveries, leaving the farmer's plot vacant for a shorter crop.

Her ground-level understanding made it possible to accurately forecast cane output from her command area 9.5 times out of 10.

Her operational paranoia reflected in the deputation of executives to the shop floor of capital equipment suppliers, if only to report ke apna kaam ho raha hai ki nahi (to see if her work was getting done).

Her team was equipped with walkie-talkies before the days of mobile phones, to apprehend cane-carrying truckers who might have dozed on the highway.

A farmer removes dried grass from her sugarcane field in Shamli, Uttar Pradesh. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters

Even as she never went to business school, her distinctive passion graduated the flagship unit of Balrampur Chini Mills from 800 tcd (tonnes of cane per day) to 12,000 tcd capacity (within a shrinking command area).

As an extension, it grew the company from 800 tcd to 76,500 tcd across 30 years, and created an index by which every single UP sugar company came to be appraised.

The irony is that at a time when it is possible to know what any corporate captain has had for lunch, there is almost no mention of this outstanding business leader in any business paper, magazine or Web site.

Mudar Patherya is a stock market writer, tracking corporate earnings and investor psychology to gauge where markets are not headed.

Emotionally Intelligent Friendships

I've recently read two write ups of Eric Barker on Emotional Intelligence, and she's like an EI 101. A level of detail that seems to literally spell it out. Here's another one......longish, but clear, straight and simple one from her:

Eric Barker - Emotionally Intelligent Friendships

"So what part of emotional intelligence is critical for friendships? 

Emotional intimacy.

So what is emotional intimacy?

Emotional intimacy is the experience of being deeply connected to another person who knows and understands your most important feelings and who shares his or her own with you.

Yeah, that sounds nice, but it's still at Hallmark Card levels of pleasant vagueness. So we can probably recognize the concept better by looking at its opposite.

If there were a label for this problem in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it might read something like “Emotional Intimacy Deficiency—a problem characterized by a sense of shallowness in one’s relationships with others, associated with a failure to recognize or express feelings, to reveal personal details about oneself, to be vulnerable or let anyone help you, to comfortably share attention, or let go of control, and to listen without having to solve a problem.

This won't shock you at all, but research shows men are far worse at this than women. Both sexes certainly struggle, but this is a department where men really lag behind.

And that causes a lot of problems for men. Serious problems. Not just unfulfilling relationships -- it's more akin to a chronic emotional illness that affects every area of life.

That said, women's friendships aren't perfect either. We're going to dive into the research and see the most common ways both sexes struggle with friendship, what they can do about it, and how they can learn from each other to improve.

So how do you increase emotional intimacy and build emotionally intelligent friendships? It comes down to six steps. Let's get to it...

1) “Know Thyself”

The thing everybody skips. Knowing yourself means you know what you want and need, and this is critical for both picking new friends, and strengthening existing relationships.

How many friends would you optimally have? What level of closeness do you need? How frequently do you want to communicate? You want to ask yourself, "What features of a friendship will be most fulfilling to me in the long run?"

So take some time to think about what you want and need. (No, that 2 seconds between sentences doesn't count. Really sit down and take a half hour and think. And write stuff down.)

Time to be a little more deliberate.

So before we go to work on developing emotional intimacy, let's find out what's been getting in the way of it. In the modern world, what's the biggest obstacle to adult friendships?

2) Make The Time

Actually, you can't "make time." We all have 24 hours in a day. The more accurate thing to say is "make time with your friends a priority." What friendships need to grow intimate and strong is hours.

Spending time with someone is a sure indicator that you value him; no one likes to feel undervalued.

Unsurprisingly, in adulthood the biggest thing that takes away friend-time is family-time. And while no blogger in his right mind would ever type, "You should spend less time with your family," he might be able to get away with saying something like the far more acceptable, "Balance is critical."

Okay, so you know what you want and you're making pals a priority. But which of your friends do you need to focus on building emotional intimacy with?

3) Must, Trust, Rust, And Just

Looking at the research, the types of friends that men and women have fall into the same four categories: must, trust, rust and just.

"Must" friends: The inner circle. The closest of the close.

"Trust" friends: Not inner circle, but people you trust, share confidences with and know are there for you.

"Rust" friends: They're pals simply because you've known them a long time. (If it had more than that, they'd be "must" or "trust.")

"Just" friends: Closer than acquaintances and you may see them regularly with a group, but you're not tight with them.

What's critical here when it comes to emotional intimacy is those "must" friends. And "trust" friends are important because they can, with work, be promoted to "must" friends.

First and foremost, you want to work on strengthening those "must" friendships and devoting more time to them. And you want to evaluate which of your "trust" friends meet with your "know thyself" criteria and might be worthy of elevation. "Rust" and "just" friends are good for rounding out your social circle but should receive less attention and investment.

What's the first step in strengthening those "must" and "trust" friends -- or finding totally new ones?

4) Be Proactive

You're going to need to do some legwork. You need to be proactive and initiate contact.

And you need to make concrete plans. I live in Los Angeles and in this city saying, "We should get together sometime" is pretty much synonymous with, "I have no intention of ever seeing you again."

Specify places and times or your friendships will be determined by serendipity, which is the euphemism lazy people use for "dumb luck."

The optimistic angle here is that if you're being passive you can pretty much be certain other people are being passive too. So if you lead, some will follow.

And what should you look for when meeting new folks who might become future "must" or "trust" friends? All the research agrees: similarity is key. Not only does it draw us to people, it also makes friendships more likely to last.

Similarities also occur when tastes and interests match up, and similarities make friendships easier to maintain. And, unless you are interested in hanging out with people who make you feel bad about yourself (not a good interest to have), finding someone who conveys that you are likeable to them will be very reinforcing to your self-esteem.

Beyond similarity, you should also look for people you want to learn something from. Since you took the time to sit down and "know thyself," think about the person you want to be. Your best self.

Who do you want to rub off on you? To make you a better spouse, parent, worker or human being?

Okay, you know what you want, you're making time, and you're proactive. So what's the real key to developing emotional intimacy with your friends?

5) Communication

Yeah, you hear "communicating is vital" constantly from experts but few ever break it down so you know how to actually do it. 

You want to focus on four primary elements: creating safety, vulnerability, emotional expressiveness, and active listening.

Creating safety: Is my friend going to feel comfortable opening up to me? Am I being too judgmental? Or, at the opposite extreme, too nosy and pushy?

Vulnerability: Are you sharing personal thoughts and feelings with them? Reciprocity is powerful and this is vital to helping both of you. Quick litmus test: are you scared to talk about the subject? Then you're being vulnerable.

Emotional expressiveness: Don't just talk thoughts. Talk feelings. Yours and theirs. (Guys, if you're recoiling at this, you're proving the point that you need to work on it.)

Active listening: Good listeners don't just hear; they make the other person feel heard. Nod, acknowledge, and summarize what your friend said for confirmation. As former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss advises, if they respond "Exactly" -- you're doing it right.

So you have the tools to build emotional intimacy. But once you have it, how do you keep a solid friendship alive?

6) Upkeep

Friendships require upkeep, like a plant. Yes, some friends are succulents that require little watering but you’re probably forgetting all the ones that turned brown and ended up in the trash.

Women maintain friendships largely through communication and staying in frequent contact… In contrast, only 10% of the men maintained friendships through frequent contact...

But ladies face problems as well. Due to the amount of communication and openness, women are more likely to damage their friendships than men. Survey results show women were more likely to say they lost a friend because of something they said or did.

That said, women are more likely to make efforts to repair damaged friendships, while men are more likely to let the relationship dissolve.

So women might want to put more effort in to not getting offended. And given how difficult it can be for men to make "must" friends, they should learn from the ladies and make more attempts to fix a troubled friendship rather than just moving on.

(To learn how neuroscience can teach you to be more emotionally intelligent, click here.)

Alright, we've learned a lot. Time to round it all up and see how all this leads to a more meaningful life..."

A Magical Moment

While it gave me a 'magic moment', the context is a bit awkward....... anyways, here goes:

Couple days back, I walk up to Diksha who's in the middle of something, stand to attention and say "deech, look up.....there's times when I look in the mirror, and feel that one side of my face is wider than the other... tell no"

She looks, and she's looking keenly at my face.  I start to laugh, and then to smile.... uncontrollably, the nervous kind. And she's just continuing to stare. And I'm like "wait, it's making me nervous, and you can't make out when I'm smiling"

She's like "Then it's okay no amma, you're anyways always smiling".

It was like magic, what it did to me inside.

Not because I believe I'm always smiling, no...... but because it was a space so worth touching. 

A Curious Mind....

Sunday morning walk to my parents' place includes taking idli and wada for breakfast.

Coffee and chit chat done, I walk into the kitchen to find mom seriously straightening out the wada wrapper, oiled newspaper wrapping notwithstanding....and she's looking at it so keenly. She kept reading even as I stood there waiting, getting curiouser and curiouser.

And then she looks up with "do you know what saabudana is made from?"

I didn't.

And funnily enough I've also wondered about it in the past, just never got till knowing

Now I knew. This is what the paper had...even if you don't read telugu, just the pictures tell. And more than that, a reiteration of how 'learning happens just about anywhere'.

All it needs is a curious and open mind :)

What Do You See?

From Seth

A better question might be, "what do you choose to see?"

If I take four professionals to the Whitney:

The architect sees the building, the sight lines, the way the people and the light flow.

The framer notices the craftsmanship and taste in the way the paintings are framed and hung.

The lighting designer can't help but comment on the new LEDs.

And the art dealer sees the names of each artist and marvels over career arcs.

When you read a blog post, or see a successful project or read about an innovation, what do you see?

Do you see the emotions and the fear and the grit of the people behind it?

Do you see the strategy and high-level analysis that went into it?

Or do you see the execution and technique?

Some people are willingly blind to metaphor, viewing each example as a special case. Others manage to connect the dots and find what they need just about anywhere.

You might not need more exposure to the new. Instead, it might pay to re-see what's already around you.

Astrophysics For People In A Hurry

A podcast from Big Think

Big Think calls itself an  'online think tank,with big ideas from some of the most creative thinkers on the planet'

Hosted by Jason Gots, he says 'we visit these ideas in new and different ways'. This is in conversation with Neil Tyson, Astrophysicist, and spiritual heir to Carl Sagan, who got us all involved, and worked up about the cosmos. Neil is the author of several books, with his latest being 'Astrophysics for people in a hurry'.

Jason Gots introduces the book, saying it is a succinct and wryly funny book, with the informational density of a black hole. I've just touched three of the concepts covered, but there's a link at the end for those interested.

They start with how there is a long history of conflict between Science and Religion, and give as example a case from the 1920's which protested evolution being taught in schools, as at that point, the beginning was only biblical creation.

Jason starts by asking Neil to describe 'the beginning, like from the big bang to say planets' and the talk starts there...about 14 billion years ago...

Jason:  At a very early point is 'the planck era', where stuff formed.  Can we dig a little bit into that"

Neil: If a photon, which is a particle of light gets hot enough it will spontaneously become matter and anti matter and they will pair and completely annihilate, and there's no matter left....and as it cools, the photon can no longer make matter anti matter pairs..... its in one in a hundred million that will actually make a particle, without the antimatter. "

Jason: Why?

Neil: Just happened, we don't know what caused it, but we know that it happened

Jason: And this is governed by the theory of relativity, E = mc² ?

Neil: Yes. It's when the symmetry breaks that creation happens. Had the symmetry not broken, this universe would have been filled with just photons and nothing else.

Jason: Is the 'why' an investigative space in Astrophysics?

Neil: Yes, there are phases when this symmetry breaks occur, and its called phased transitions, and it's not a mysterious term, we experience it in life all the time. Think about it. When a guy in the deserts of Africa is given a glass of water, and by some chance you bring the temperature down, the water would freeze and if he's never seen that happen, it would be like magic. He'll completely freak out. Where is my water?

Phased transition means everything that is going on completely reorganizes itself into something else. The transitions happened when the forces governing the universe split.

Jason: So the first one is Gravity?

Neil: Yes, Gravity would have been the first to split. Prevailing philosophical bias tells us that early in the universe there was only one force, one coherent force, and as the universe expands and cools, this force splits. So Gravity splits off first. And then the others....the four familiar forces we have today: Gravity, The strong force, Electro Magnetism and the Weak Force

Jason: Ok. And the other thing I simply do not understand, So we all know nothing can go faster than the speed of light....and I wanted to ask,  And we know the universe is expanding, and at the fringes, it's accelerating, and the galaxies are moving, and from our perspective they are going faster than the speed of light, so they disappear, and we can't see them anymore....and that's not a problem under Einstein? though we say nothing can go faster than the speed of light?

Neil: No, not a problem. 

Jason: Please. Why? How? I don't get it, how?

Neil: "in 1905 Einstein advances what we now call the 'Special Theory of Relativity', he describes phenomena wholly unfamiliar to our senses and our research apparatus. He describes what happens to Time, Mass and Length, and the odd things that happen when you are in motion. 

In the Special theory of Relativity you cannot go past the speed of light, you cannot accelerate beyond the speed of light.

The General theory of relativity, that is quantum mechanics, says, I can explain to you the fabric of the universe, and in the expanding universe it is not the galaxies moving through space, it's the very fabric of space , the fabric in which these galaxies are embedded that is stretching.

So if something is moving through space at any given speed, nothing is moving through space, it is space itself that is expanding and you can expand space faster than the speed of light.

Jason: So space can do that?

Neil: Space can do whatever it wants.  It can bend, stretch, twist, stretch, and it can stretch faster than light, and that's what happened at one phase in the universe. It expanded faster than light"

Jason: You could trip on that. It's tricky. How? It's a little hard to wrap your mind around the universe itself expanding. What even is that?  Is that what we call dark matter, energy, what? 

Neil: That's why we have Math. 

Our brain have evolved for thinking about the lion in the brush, but is not equipped for thinking about the space time continuum.

So the Math enables us to represent what is going on, and math is very logically constructed,  and then when you manipulate the Math, it is tantamount to manipulating your understanding of the universe..... in a way that you don't drift, making things up, and math can contain all those explorations.

If this post sparks a sense of wonder, here's link to the conversation: http://bigthink.com/think-again-podcast/neil-degrasse-tyson-nil-the-only-ist-i-am-nil-think-again-podcast-100

Nibbles & Sticky

Another one of Diksha's adventures, or should I say 'rescues' of doggies. This time round, it was a little overwhelming (atleast for me it was)

There were eight. Eight little puppies abandoned by the mother. And she's not only doing the looking after since a couple of weeks, where she goes and feeds them everyday, but actually brought two of them home for three days. This was between their vaccinations, as part of the process of readying them for adoption.

The two straggly puppies

Cleaning them up for their three day stint here

They seem to be enjoying their shower. 

 We know why she called that one 'nibbles'.

The havoc they caused.....slippers and bean bag visibly chewed beyond use

 Them leaving (can't deny I breathed a sigh of relief)

Sticky, all dolled up for the adoption drive at Puppy Cafe

Deech, I'm all over again amazed....your level of commitment to what you do with stray animals is quite something else. I tried full support for three days and all, but I know just how tough it was, and to see you stick it out....not just in terms of effort, but the way more difficult space of letting them go. 

Take a bow (and a hug) girl !