Suresh Dinakaran's Blog

 

My colleagues at ISD Global have always been irked by the fact( and justifiably so) that I remain very open to sharing our ideas and concepts to the world. Their apprehension (not out of sync in any way) is that it will get copied or stolen without our getting any attribution or benefit. My take on that always has been: so be it! Guarded in the fact that our sense of individuality, mindset, execution abilities etc are NOT commoditsable.

In a world that is rapidly getting commoditised, also-rans and me too fill the universe. As humans, right from the hunter-gatherer stages, we always found safety and recluse in being part of a tribe. Doing our best to fit in, comply, adhere, conform.. but we need to recognise is the fact that a society that once used to reward people for fitting in is now seeking and saluting people who stand out.

So, there’s a great way to protect yourself from the umpteeen number of copycats. By making you as an integral part of your offering or service or solution. Inject what is unique about the way you think into what you sell. Decommoditise your product. Make it something that no one else can offer.

 

Look no further than Zappos.com, the online shoe retailer. On the face of it, the brand is no different from a FootLocker or any other aggregator platform. That said, the big difference that Zappos brings in is CEO Tony Hsieh‘s obsession with customer service into everything he does.

 

At Zappos, there are NO scripts that call centre executives are expected to parrot like the rest of the customer service world. They can talk to customers for as long as they want. Not just that, Zappos HQ and their call centre are in the same premises(not oceans apart like most of the rest). And all of Zappos employees(even ones not in customer service or fulfillment) are expected to work in the warehouse and answer telephone calls from customers. It is this devotion to customer service that differentiates Zappos from other online shoe retailers.

 

Pour yourself into your product and everything around your product too: how you sell it, how you support it, how you explain it, and how you deliver it. Competitors can never copy the you in your product.

 

 

 

Busyness isn’t importance. And turmoil isn’t progress.

 

And contrary to what we are hardwired to believe, burnout is NOT a badge of honour.  We are willing(or unwilling) victims of the stories we have been told and the narrative that we have been storing in our heads. We all have stories we live by that aren’t fixed truths. They’re just old scripts we’ve been following without realizing it.

 

Getting off the hustle treadmill isn’t easy. The treadmill of alienated insecurity that tells you that the moment you stop running for even an instant, you will be flung flat on your face. Burnout is when you are all the time overstimulated. Our culture glorifies burnout as a measure of success and self worth and that does not help in any way. The implicit message is that if we are not perpetually exhausted, we are not doing enough. As if the great things are reserved for those who bleed. For those who almost break.

 

Introspect and ask your self ‘ how complicit or a willing ally are you in creating the conditions(and preserving that status quo) that are causing you stress and overwhelm’ ? Is your GPS calibrated right? Does it have to guide you only towards Destination Struggle?  You don’t have to Google to find better Wayz!

 

Does your To-Do task list for the day occupy all of the entire A4 page?  And To-Do as a term itself sounds so intimidating and an admonishment, clearly that you are not going to enjoy.

 

The continuous talk of self-optimisation. BS- humans are not search engines.

For all those who flaunt their workaholic badges of honor and condescendingly accept the various neurotic flavors that comes with it, let’s come to terms with the fact that we have been conditioned to think that work in the laissez faire zeitgeist is about hyper vigilance. It’s about what happens to people when they are trapped in abusive circumstances and cannot escape. Psychologist Judith Herman observed that “the ultimate effect of [psychological domination] is to convince the victim that the perpetrator is omnipotent, that resistance is futile, and that her life depends upon winning his indulgence through absolute compliance.” We haven’t been able to shrug off the mega legacy of the Industrial Age: Compliance. Phew!

 

And since we are all birds of the same feather, we fall for the narrative that romanticizes struggle and that assumes only grueling work can produce worthy results.

 

The good thing is that you have a choice. Like nature, fly with the wind. Go with the flow, like water. Take the path of least resistance.

 

Because, clearly Working is NOT Productivity. RIP Productivity!

 

A couple of years back I was visiting England with family. And since renting a car was the best option to go around the south central, west Midlands, we did the obvious. The booking was done 25 days prior to our dates of travel and the car rental brand is perceived to be the best and the largest in the world. But, what we experienced was shoddy, sub-standard and far from even remotely enterprising. You get the drift by now.

 

There was an appointment made over a call(after holding on for a good 20 minutes listening to mindless, tasteless music on the IVR, dodging the robots to eventually get a human on the line) and me and family reached the car rental office at the appointed time. There were several customers waiting in that small office and all seeming more restless than the next. The wait was getting to them clearly.

 

What I notice about these car rental brands is that there is never enough to go around. Even though what they ALWAYS claim is their intent to go the ‘ extra mile ‘ (never mind the spiralling fuel costs)- I mean if the staff required to handle traffic at a certain time(where appointments have been given) is 3 or 4, there is barely one. And that individual is supposed to be, being honest and fair Hercules and Machiavelli combined. Checking the booking, handling telephone calls, collecting payment, driving the car to the delivery area, taking pictures of the vehicle before handing over the keys and briefing( in a well-trained cut and dry hard to understand manner) the customer on the do’s and don’ts. Not to mention looking askance at you based on the colour of your skin.

 

Since it didn’t seem like that I would be getting my car anytime soon, I decided to look around the dingy office (armed with dirty carpet, poor lighting, an unwelcome vibe) and what caught my attention was a well framed poster on the wall which screamed ‘ Mission Statement ‘. Without exaggerating any bit, here it is verbatim:

 

” Our mission is to fulfill the automotive and commercial truck rental, leasing, car rental and related needs of our customers and, in doing so, exceed their expectations for service, quality and value.

We will strive to earn our customers’ long-term loyalty by working to deliver more than promised, being honest and fair and ” going the extra mile ” to provide exceptional personalized service that creates a pleasing business experience.

We must motivate our employees to provide exceptional service to our customers by supporting their development, providing opportunities for their personal growth and fairly compensating them for their success and achievements..”

 

And it drones on..and you are there in full protein form and reading all this crap and wondering, ” what kind of idiot do they take me for?” The words on the paper are clearly disconnected from the reality of the experience. And this coming from one of the top global car rental brands in the world, at least perceivably. So much for mission statements!

 

After almost an hour of waiting the counter customer disservice executive comes up to me and barks ” sir the SUV that you booked is not available- you will have to make do with a scaled down version as that is the only one available “. With no hint of an apology or anything even resembling that remotely. And since the demand was more than supply, there was no discount or any other entitlement offered.

There was nothing that we could do at that stage since the motivation of getting to Oxford and also to see Shakespeare’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon was far more over-powering, we took the compromise choice.

 

Sum summarum, for all those brands who continue to behave like this, here’s a simple message: standing for something isn’t just about writing something down. It is about believing and living it. Unless the mission is to con and massively under-deliver.

 

 

Our zeitgeist will not have it any other way. Complete.

 

That is far from the reality and we remain tricked by the ‘ tyranny of completion ‘.

 

The reality though is vastly different. Human beings are rough drafts that continually mistake themselves for the final story, then gasp as the plot changes on the page of living. @Maria Popova!

 

Far from complete.

 

It is our ego, a benchmark that we have of ourselves, the stories that we tell ourselves and the world at large, a passive succumbing to facades of coherence and continuity, that leaves us moored to what is a static idealized self.

 

Without much effort we are willing captives of comfort in our thoughts or feelings ; victims of certainty- a supreme narrowing of the mind. But, “When nothing is sure, everything is possible “– Margaret Drabble

The assertion here, however, is that there really is no creativity without uncertainty. Put another way: dubito ergo creo. This is Latin for, I doubt therefore I create.

 

More here on Creativity & The Certainty of Uncertainty !

 

 

 

As a tribe, we are obsessed with the concept of more. More stuff, more food, more of this, more of that..even as we write, the default is how do we add more words to create impact and impression.

 

‘ Thank you so much’ is easily replaceable with ‘Thank you’. ‘ It is very good ‘ can find comfortable solace in ‘ It is good ‘. ‘ It is extremely hot ‘ can sound as cool when you say ‘ It is hot ‘.

 

By design and habit, we over index to more in the belief that it will drive home the point and enable engagement. In a culture obsessed with adding, less but better seems out of sync.

We, as people, ​systematically overlook subtractive changes, instead following ​our​ instincts to add. There is nothing inherently wrong with adding. In the culture of the day, people like us, do things like this. But if it becomes a default path to improvement, that may be failing to consider a whole class of other opportunities​. So, more is NOT equal to better, more often than not.

 

Don’t mind the contradiction- in a world where we are oversold the value of more and undersold the value of less, its time to stop missing the wood for the trees and soak in the abundance of less.

 

A syndrome fanned by our reluctance to look up from our ledger of lack as we seek perennial validation in this Republic of Not Enough.

 

 

 

“ Emotional choice theory posits that individual-level decision-making is shaped in significant ways by the interplay between people’s norms, emotions, and identities. While norms and identities are important long-term factors in the decision process, emotions function as short-term, essential motivators for change “.

 

The common perception is that we think that our decisions are guided purely by logic and rationality, but our emotions always play a role in our good decision making process. So, cherish your own emotions and never undervalue them.

 

You can access this link if you are keen to understand more about The Power of Emotions

 

This link offers a short clip on how to inject emotions into your marketing

 

A lot of us suffer from what we call the ‘ Hero Trap ‘- an over reliance on our ability to handle something that becomes infuriatingly urgent which could have easily been avoided had it not been the temptation of the short term hack. It is always the toss up between urgent or important.

 

One of the sought after items when you went to see a circus was the Juggler’s act. And you were always left wondering how she is managing the act of throwing and catching consistently without fail amidst all the audience excitement and bewilderment. It is about attitude preceding outcomes. An attitude of training is far more important than the desire to have six-pack abs. Likewise, the act of throwing is more vital than the act of catching. And that is the secret to the Juggler catching ball without fail, time after time.

 

Life has parallels from juggling. Disaster Management Teams are seized of this. It is said that emergency response is overrated compared to emergency avoidance. If one were to introspect, we will realise that we spend most of our life catching aka reacting. Attending meetings that have been called by someone else. In fire fighting. Distracted by people who are making the loudest noise.

The lesson we can learn from jugglers is not catching. But throwing. Initiating. Contributing. Caring. Showing up. Shipping out. And soon we will spend far less time worrying about catching in the first place.

 

A project gone sideways, the end of a rocky relationship, the loss of a crucial game etc all leads us to think about what happened at the last moment, which is where we miss the wood for the trees. Actually, what is overlooked is what happened in the beginning or the middle, where the patterns could have been picked up, where one could have distilled the signal from the noise, when you had a stronger chance to make things better.

 

“Life is a juggling act with your own emotions. The trick is to always keep something in your hand and something in the air.”

Chloe Thurlow, Katie in Love

 

 

 

 

 

Probably the blog caption runs counter to the perceived wisdom that is floating around a k a that growth and learning are Conjoined twins. And we are besieged by a culture that offers pride of place to addition– adding things to life which effectively means the default remains-once onboarded, it becomes identity, which you are not expected to edit, expand or update. There is nothing inherently wrong with adding. But if it becomes a default path to improvement, that may be failing to consider a whole class of other opportunities​.

 

The best films are exceptional NOT because of what we see but because of what we don’t see. More reading for those who might see relevance in this can be found at https://www.sureshdinakaran.com/blog/2024/08/20/wanted-editor-in-chief-for-life-3/

 

It is said that half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn.

 

“We are what we are because we have been what we have been.” “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” “To become what one is, one must not have the faintest idea what one is.” “Self-knowledge is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself.” These curated quotes from the likes of Sigmund Freud, Lao-Tzu, Friedrich Nietzsche & Simone De Beauvoir, in that order, beautifully summarises the strong co relation between deficiency and identity.

The deficiency=identity syndrome!

” I can never learn Spanish, I don’t have an ear for languages “.. ” Risk taking and number crunching is not my forte, I can never be an entrepreneur “. Because such thinking highlighting deficiencies is highly robust and powerfully self-reinforcing, they begin to become our identity. 

 

And because the belief is so deep rooted, you will do everything in your power to come in your own way and not learn and fail at learning the new language or embark on the journey of being a business person. Such self-sabotage acts as a virtual loop going back to strengthen the original belief. Time to realise that ‘ the obstacle is the way ‘.

 

The caveat here is that unlearning is not a walk in the park. Having a guide or a coach as a partner in rhyme who will help you wear a new lens and hoover out what has rigidly domiciled in the recesses of your mind will be handy.

 

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

 

Clint Eastwood: “What you put into life is what you get out of it”.

 

Maya Angelou: “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have” .

 

The body achieves what the mind believes. It’s the will, not the skill. So, keep going! No matter how hard things may get, it’s important to keep going – a skill takes time to achieve and nurture, the most important thing is to be consistent and the results will come.

 

Because personal growth is a long-term effort, you’re bound to encounter obstacles along the way. Whether you’re pursuing a new dream, working hard toward ongoing goals or making a plan to transform your life in some way, you’re bound to encounter challenges along the way. But those challenges could be a gateway to growth and new opportunities. As Ryan Holiday mentioned with a book by the name ” The Obstacle is the Way “, the path to your next and best is somewhere in those obstacles.

 

The law of attraction and manifestation is a two way street.

 

Want to have committed people around you? You stick to your commitment!

Expect reliability from others first by being reliable.

Earn trust first and then expect others to become trustworthy.

Attitude precedes outcomes. The desire for six-pack abs is far weaker than an attitude for training.

Be ready to die empty! There is always a tomorrow but all our tomorrows are finite. We will run out of them. Give all that it takes to do the things that brightens your day. Today. And day after day. The returns will surprise you. And pleasantly at that.

 

Abundance is a dance with reciprocity – what we can give, what we can share, and what we receive in the process- Terry Tempest Williams

 

Sometime back, during some random readings, I had come across a concept called ” pattern interrupt ” and the analogy used to explain the term was of the ‘ elevator pitch ‘. The typical elevator pitch is all about ‘ I, me, myself ‘ where one is doing one’s best to articulate an idea or thought to the person willing(or is it?) to give you an ear for the next 30-45 seconds. The pattern interrupt on that runs counter to what convention has established as an elevator pitch. It turns the concept on its head and crafts the elevator pitch being about the other person and not you. And potentially, leaving you with an open door to re-connect and re-engage with that person well after the elevator doors have closed, metaphorically speaking!

 

Humour is a pattern-switching process. A joke is funny because it causes ‘ insight switchover ‘ from a familiar pattern to a new, unexpected one. And it is this moment of surprise and delight that triggers laughter.

 

Sometime back a joke that launched an artistic revolution was Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. It went on to become one of the most influential works of the twentieth century. For a six dollar fee, any artist could submit their work to an exhibition held by the Society of Independent Artists. For a joke, Duchamp submitted a porcelain urinal that he’s bought from a New York plumbing supplier, signed it R MUTT 1917(the maker’s name) and titled it Fountain. Not surprisingly, the piece was never exhibited, the curator refused to display it- but its submission caused an uproar. Was it art or not? The Fountain was thrown away. Forgotten. A photograph was the only record of the original object. The key to its success was that the photo was reproduced in an avant-garde art magazine with an accompanying article that eloquently explained the concept of ‘ ready-made ‘. It started the ball rolling. The reputation of Fountain grew. It was repeatedly reproduced in art magazines and books. Collectors clamoured to buy it because of its fame, so Duchamp decided to remake it. There was a problem though: the manufacturer had stopped producing them. Duchamp had to hire craftsmen to make an exact replica from the photograph ‘ by hand ‘- a delicious irony!

( Marcel Duchamp Fountain, 1917, photograph by Alfred Stieglitz at 291 art gallery following the 1917 Society of Independent Artists exhibit, with entry tag visible. The backdrop is The Warriors by Marsden Hartley. )

 

The format of a conventional joke is that the listener is led down a familiar, ‘reasonable‘ pathway. While they are travelling down this familiar road, the punchline suddenly shifts them onto an unexpected, different sidetrack. Creativity is about producing the unexpected and seeing things from a new perspective. Humour can be instrumental in shifting that expectation.

It hardly helps that our society believes that if you’re having fun then you can’t be getting the job done. Rather than being weighed down by a serious mindset, what we really need is humour. Humour is a key that opens the door to subversive and counter-intuitive thinking.

 

” Only those who are capable of silliness can be called truly intelligent “- Christopher Isherwood