Higher the intelligence, the greater is boredom ?

Happen to read couple of Rajaneesh's (aka Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh )article and pasting few.

The higher the intelligence, the greater is boredom. The lower intelligence is not bored so much. That's why primitives are happier. You will find people in the primitive societies are happier than those in civilized ones. Bertrand Russell became jealous when for the first time;, he came into contact with some primitive tribes. Higher the level of intelligence and civilization, the greater the boredom.

The more you can think, the more you will be bored; because through thinking you can compare time as past, future and present. Through thinking you can hope.Through thinking you can ask for the meaning of it all.

Man feels bored. And laughter is the antidote. You cannot live without laughter; because you can negate your boredom only through laughter. You cannot find a single joke in primitive societies. They don't have any jokes.

There are three types of laughter.

The first is when you laugh at someone else. This is the meanest, the lowest, the most ordinary and vulgar when you laugh at the expense of somebody else. This is the violent, the aggressive, & the insulting type. Deep down this laughter there is always a feeling of revenge.

The second type of laughter is when you laugh at yourself. This is worth achieving. This is cultured.

"And the third is the last – the highest. This is not about anybody – neither the other nor oneself. The third is just Cosmic.

If you can learn the second, then the third will not be far ahead. Soon you will reach the third. But leave the first type. That laughter is degrading. But almost ninety-nine percent of your laughter is of the first type. Much courage is needed to laugh at oneself. Much confidence is needed to laugh at oneself.

"Books I Have Loved" by Osho Rajaneesh; in the following order.

THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA

THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

THE BOOK OF MIRDAD.

JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL.

TAO TE CHING by Lao Tzu.

THE PARABLES OF CHUANG TZU.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT (Bible)

BHAGAVADGITA

GITANJALI.

THE ONE THOUSAND SONGS OF MILAREPA

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK

I am not sure, who wrote this one; but interesting one.

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK


Once upon a time . . . a farmer and his son went to market to sell a donkey. However, they loaded the beast into the wheelbarrow, so that it would not reach market tired and worn out, and pushed it along the road. When people saw such a peculiar sight, they loudly remarked: "That man is mad! Whoever saw a donkey being taken to market in a wheelbarrow!"

The poor farmer became more and more confused, for the farther he went, the louder the comments became and the more people gossiped. It was the last straw when, as they passed the blacksmith's forge, the smith jeeringly asked the farmer if he wanted shoeing, since he was doing the donkey work! So the farmer stopped, heaved the animal out of the wheelbarrow and climbed onto its back, while his son walked behind.

But that made matters even worse!

A group of women going home from market instantly complained: "You cruel man! Fancy a great lump like you riding a donkey, while your poor little boy runs along behind! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

People heaped insult upon insult, till the unhappy farmer slid off the donkey . He simply did not know what to do next. He took off his cap and mopped his brow.
"Whew!" he exclaimed. "I never imagined it could be so difficult to take a donkey to market."

Then he hoisted his little boy onto the donkey and walked along behind. This time, a cluster of men began to protest.

"Look at that! There's a young lad sitting pretty as you please , on top of a donkey, while his weary old father has to go on foot!" "It's a disgrace."

Once again, father and son came to a halt. How on earth could they stop people from criticizing everything they did? Well, in the end, they both got on the donkey.

"What heartless folk!" exclaimed the passers-by. "Two riders on one little donkey!" But by now the farmer had lost his patience. He gave the donkey a terrible kick, saying:

"Giddy up! From now on, I'll do things my way, and pay no attention to what other people think!".

Tx n Rd
Varghese Thomas

Beyond code – distinguish you from the crowd

Beyond code – Rajesh Setty


Another wonderful book, I read recently. Frankly speaking, I read cover-to-cover in a single stretch.

I really felt that he is talking about my world and me; esp. considering his background as a consultant in his previous life.

Mention 9 single steps to differentiate & distinguish you from the crowd. His blog shows numerous steps for the same.

http://www.squidoo.com/distinguishyourself

I also added his recommend books in my reading list :)

Managing Oneself

Managing Oneself

Happened to read Peter R Drucker’s famous article named as the subject title. I strongly recommend you to read it.
This article is one of the ‘Best of HBR’ as well.


Following from the above article.
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....What should I contribute? They were told what to contribute, and their tasks were dictated either by the work itself as it was for the peasant or artisan - or by a master or a mistress - as it was for domestic servants. And until very recently, it was taken for granted that most people were subordinates who did as they were told. Even in the 1950s and 1960s, the new knowledge workers (the so-called organization men) looked to their company's personnel department to plan their careers.

....Then in the late 1960s, no one wanted to be told what to do any longer. Young men and women began to ask. What do / want to do? And what they heard was that the way to contribute was to "do your own thing."

....Bosses are neither a title on the organization chart nor a "function”. They are individuals and are entitled to do their work in the way they do it best; it is incumbent on the people who work with them to observe them, to find out how they work, and to adapt themselves to what makes their bosses most effective.

This, in fact, is the secret of "managing" the boss.

....In effect, managing oneself demands that each knowledge worker think and behave like a chief executive officer. Knowledge workers outlive organizations, and they are mobile. The need to manage oneself is therefore creating a revolution in human affairs.

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The Trusted Advisor

Got a chance to read - the Trusted advisor by David H. Maister et team. Attended Mandel's instructor led course on the same theme, but this book really covers the complexity of being a TA.

Following from Bill Gates: It's important to have someone who you totally trust, who is totally committed, who shares your vision, and yet who has a little bit different set of skills and who also acts as something of a check on you. Some of the ideas you run by him, you know he's going to say 'hey, wait a minute, have you thought about this and that'. The benefit of sparking off somebody who's got that kind of brilliance is that it not only makes business more fun, but it really leads to a lot of success.

The golden rule of TA is 'we should treat others as we wish to be treated'.

There are three basic skills to be a TA - earning trust, giving advice effectively and building relationship.

Some of traits that TA should have are:

1. Seems to understand us, effortlessly and like us
2. Are consistent
3. Always help us see things from fresh prospectives
4. Don't try to force things on us
5. Help us think and separate our logic from our emotions
6. Openness and reliable
7. Active listener
8. Ask hard Q
9. Understanding
10. Respect
11. Responsiveness
12. Access and availability
13. Sense of control

Earning Trust:

The key point is that trust must be earned and deserved. TA should have empathy towards customer and should share the pain points of the customer.

Trust grows and it does rarely develop instantly. Trust is both rational and emotional and it is a two-way relationship.

Giving advice:

This is like a teacher training his students; he should make them understand all aspects of the topic and query them hard questions to know, how much they understood and at the same time, it helps them to come out their silos.

This is termed as Socratic teaching and it is mostly accomplished through questions such as

1. Why do you think we have this issue
2. What options do we have doing things differently
3. What advantages do you foresee for the different options
4. What benefits might come if we tried the following approach

A good process for a TA to follow

1. Give them their options
2. Educate them on these options
3. Give them recommendations
4. Let them choose.

Building relationship:

following are the key principles

Go or do first
Show them without telling them
Listen for what's different, not for what is familiar
Be sure your advice is being sought.
Earn the right to offer advice
Keep asking
Say what do you mean
Show interest in the person/customer
Use compliments
Show appreciations

Mindset:

Apart from those above three skills, TA should have the attitude/mindset for the following

Ability to focus on the other person
Self-confidence
Ego strength
Curiosity
Inclusive professionalism

Trust Equation:

T=(c+r+i)/s
T=trustworthiness, C=credibility, R=reliability, I=intimacy, S=Self-orientation

Credibility - Words (eg. I can trust what he says..)
Reliability - Actions (eg. I can trust him to..)
Intimacy - Emotions (eg. I feel confortable discussing this ...)
Self-orientation - Motives (eg. I can trust thet he cares about ...)

Development of trust:

There are 5 steps in the development of a TA

1. Engage
2. Listen actively
3. Frame
4. Envision
5. Commit

This book provides ample illustration and examples of some of the hard questions which works in many situations.

It is important both in your personal and professional life to be a Trusted Advisor which add value in your relationships. This book is a good reference to reach that goal.

Wikinomics -Mass collaboration

It is indeed a nice book on mass collaboration and how it changes everything. Written by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

Interestingly John praised this book as well. The other book John praised is 'The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman. If you get a chance, do read both.

The success of the LAMP stack ( the open source web platform consisting of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) is pretty much due to mass collaboration effort and considering its huge potential, IBM selected most of them in their high-end products. OS/2 was a flop and hence it was much cheaper to go with Linux.

In order to succeed in 21st century world, product has to be opened for participation. One of the example was SAP who recently went through the process of opening up 30,000 APIs to its market-leading enterprise software platforms.

MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, free and openly available to anyone, anywhere- ocw.mit.edu.

Another interesting incident was GoldCorp shared its secret mine excavation reports to Internet and asked experts to provide professional advise on where is the most probable spot for gold mining. The expert exchange helped this firm to survive. Same thing followed in similar path by BMW, Boeing,and Procter and Gamble for seeking expert opinions from anywhere globally. P&G uses http://www.innocentive.com/ for 50% of their new product's R&D.

Google Eric mentions" When you say collaboration, the average 45-year old thinks they know that you are talking about - teams sitting down, having a nice conversation with nice objectives and a nice attitude. That is what collaboration means to most people".

However 21Th century collaboration is radically different. It is peer production where human skill, ingenuity, and intelligence more efficiently and effectively than anything we have witnessed previously. And in the years to come, this new mode of peer production will displace traditional corporation hierarchies as they key engine of wealth creation in the economy.

Web 2.0 - the new web is not a noun, but a verb - living web.
Conventional wisdom says combines innovate, differentiate and compete by doing certain things right; by having superior human capital; protecting their intellectual property fiercely; focusing on customers; thinking globally but acting locally; and examining well.

The new art and science of new economy is based on four powerful ideas - openness, peering, sharing and acting globally.

7 new models of mass collaboration listed in the book, that challenged traditional business paradox.

1.Peer pioneers - the people who brought you open source software and Wikipedia

2. Ideagoras - explains how an emerging marketplace for ideas and inventions.

3. Prosumers - takes you increasingly dynamic world of customer innovation

4. New Alexandrians - who bring you to speed with a new science of sharing. Sharing for science and the science of sharing.


5. Platform for participation - explains how smart companies are opening up their products and technology to create an open stage where large communities of partners can create value and in many cases, create new business. All the world is a stage and you are the star.

6. Global plant floor show how even manufacturing-intensive industries are giving rise to planetary ecosystems for seizing and building physical goods, marking a new phase in the evolution of mass collaboration

7. Wiki Workplace - wraps up the journey with a look at how mass collaboration in taking root in the workplace. Unleashing the power of Us. Collaborative minds - the power of thinking differently.

20th century firms brought innovation within their boundaries for good reasons - R&D was closely aligned with the firms' existing proprietary product and process technologies, its strategy for staying ahead and its market opportunity as it saw them.

Wikinomics design principles:

Taking cues from your lead users
Building critical mass
Supplying an infrastructure for collaboration
Take your time to get the structures and governess right.
Make sure all participating can harvest some value
Abide by community norms
Let the process evolve
Hone your collaboration mind

Few good sites mentioned in the book:

Visit del.icio.us at any point during the day and you get a snapshot of what web surfers find interesting at that moment.

Technorati.com which monitors registered blogs.

Recent book I read - Deepak Chopra's The Book of Secrets

From Deepak Chopra's The book of secrets

Accident or Intelligence

1. Desert birds living by the Grand Canyon bury thousands of pine nuts in widely scattered locations along the canyon rim. They retrieve this stored food during the winter, returning precisely to the nuts each one buried and finding them under a deep layer of snow.

2. Salmon born in a small stream that feeds the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest swim out to sea. After several years spent roaming vast distances of ocean, they return to span at the precise place where they were born, never winding up in the wrong stream

3. Identical twins hundreds of thousands of miles apart have immediately sensed the moment when their sibling died in an accident.

4. Fireflies in Indonesia numbering in the millions are able to synchronize their flashes over an area of several square miles.

5. In Africa certain trees that are being over foraged can signal other trees miles away to increase the tannin in their leaves, a chemical that makes them inedible to foraging animals. The distant trees receive the message and alter their chemistry accordingly.

6. Mother albatrosses returning to a nesting site with food in their beaks immediately locate their chicks among hundreds of thousands of identical offspring on a crowded beach.

7. Once a year at the full moon several million horseshow crabs emerge together on one beach to mate. They have answered the same call, from depths of the ocean where no light ever penetrates.

8. On their own, sodium and chlorine are deadly poisons. When they combine as salt, form the most basic chemical in support of life.

To read the above sentence, several million neurons in your cerebral cortex had to form an instantaneous pattern that is completely original and never appeared before in your life.

Wisdom you are already living (Internal) and the Wisdom that I wish to exhibit(external):

Higher Purpose:

(I) - Every cell in your body agrees to work for the welfare of the whole; its individual welfare comes second
(E) - I am here to serve. I am here to inspire. I am here to love. I am here to live my truth.

Communion:
(I) - A cell keeps in touch with every other call.
(E) - I will appreciate someone who does not know that I feel that way.

Awareness:
(I) - Cells adapt from moment to moment.
(E) - I will spend 10 minutes observing instead of speaking

Acceptance:
(I) - Cells recognize each other as equally important.
(E) - I will spend 5 minutes thinking about the best qualities of someone I really dislike.

Creativity:(I) - Although every cell has a set of unique functions(liver cells, for e.g), these combine in creative ways
(E) - I will imagine 5 things I could that my family would never expect - and then I will do at least one of them.

Being
(I) - Cells obey the universal cycles of rest and activity
(E) - I will spend 30 minutes in a peaceful place doing nothing except feeling what it is like to exist.

Efficiency
(I) - Cell function with the smallest possible expenditure of energy.
(E) - I will let at least two things out of my control and see what happens

Bonding
(I) - Due to their common genetic inheritance, cells know that they are fundamentally the same.
(E) When I catch myself looking away from someone, I will remember to look into the person's eyes.

Giving:
(I) - The primary activity of cells is giving, which maintains the integrity of all other cells.
(E) - I will buy lunch and give it to someone in need on the street

Immortality:
(I) - Cell reproduces in order to pass on their knowledge, experience and talents, withholding nothing from their offspring.
(E) - I will read a scripture about the soul and the promise of life after death.