Hot showers in chilly seasons

Have you ever experienced this? Its very early on a cold winter morning and you are in a hurry to get to some place important. You have planned things Just-In-Time so that you dont get late. Among other things, you also turn on the geyser at the right time so you get nice, warm shower before you move out too.

You enter the shower and you turn it on; adjust the knobs half each to so you can take a lukewarm shower. The water hits your back and its ice-cold, probably the remanants of water inside the pipe. You pull back, shocked and simultaneously, almost instinctively turn up the 'Hot' water knob real hard. This time, you feel the water wait for it to get a comfortable warm and come under the shower again. The water gets warmer and more comforting. Your body adjusts to the growing warmth. You almost dont want to get out from under the warm flow.

Just then, the water suddenly turns hot. Hot but bearable. You can still stay under it. Then, in just a moment, its scalding.

You jump out of the shower. Get the 'Cold' knob on the go; re-adjust the 'Hot' knob to make it lower simultaneously. A couple of seconds pass and you test with finger under the shower. Feels right and you take your position under the shower again.

It gets comfortable. Then a little colder, till its absolutely ice-cold (reflecting a northern winter). You jump out again.

Cold. Jump in. Comfortable. Scald. Jump out. Turn up cold. Test. Jump in. Comfortable. Ice-cold. Jump out and so on...

The cycle could continue forever. In the case of the shower, luckily we get out fast enough. Though we are bound to repeat this cycle the next day.

Why does this happen? Cant we get to the comfort quicker?

Actually this is the typical logic that any feedback loop uses. The lag in the system inherently makes it difficult to reach the desired level quickly and effectively.

Imagine the above system when a turn of the knob instantaneously changes the temperature of the water hitting your back. Here, since the cause and effect are without lag, stability is reached immediately too. In this situation, you would come to a preferred shower temperature within moments without having to go through the agony of hide-and-seek under the shower.

However, unfortunately for us, life is akin to the former situation. There are intrinsic delays between action and result; cause and effect. Also, in life, these delays are almost impossible to guage and judge, further eliminating chances of logically connecting the cause and effect directly. Then there is the multitude of factors which impact the same outcome and therefore it is tough to find the primary reason(s) for the result.

If the above is true, how does one ensure you are not facing the 'Hot-Shower-in-Chilly-Season' syndrome every day of your life? Is there a solution to this conundrum?

The solution lies in Acting with a vision of the end result of the action. We must also estimate all the major factors which impact the outcome and then enter the 'system' with complete knowledge. (In the case of the shower, a simple understanding that water is already very cold will be the third input needed). The last and important understanding is to be able to estimate the delay in one or two important components of the system which will affect the end result.

Cause and effect have a lag and often, in life, it is not easy for us to recognize all these lags. Also, the subtle impacts that many things have on the outcome are also not recognized and understood easily. Therefore perhaps the ancient wisdom that says, 'Do your karma without expectations of results'. A reflection that the doer is only one component in the system - he/she does not achieve the result alone.

Recognize this one key thing and you will see the outcomes of your life changing by just this mindset change.

Update on 16th May 2012: This article became a part of a chapter in my forthcoming book Decoding Communication. 

Ten things for 2009 (picked up from a forwarded mail...)

1. Do not go into next year without a worst-case-scenario plan. I am not trying to scare you. Just the opposite. I just want to make sure that if you get a few bad phone calls from clients in the first quarter, then you simply execute the plan that you already thought through at the end of 2008.

2. Do not panic. Doing nothing only leads to failure. This is a moment that will test your leadership. Go out there, and face it head-on. Promote your agency more aggressively than ever. Stir up new business leads. Re-negotiate costs with vendors, utilities, IT providers and your landlord. Bring even more business-building ideas to your existing clients. Doing so will reinvigorate you and your agency. And it will make you a better leader down the road.

3. Do not forget about The Work. In your efforts to navigate your agency through 2009, be sure your agency's work is as smart as it can be. Ask yourself: Is the message (on behalf of your client's product or service) as relevant today as it was six months ago? If not, perhaps it should be re-visited. Is it as inspired as it used to be? Or does it look like fear has set in? Maintain the integrity of your agency's work throughout these times, and you will earn the respect of your client's customer.

4. Do not take your eyes off of your P&L. Slow-paying clients that promise to get current will only eat away at your agency's cash flow and profits. Keep your overhead as lean as possible, your staff as agile as it can be, your finger on the pulse of every client (especially ones that you suspect may be most vulnerable in this downturn), and your agency in the black every month.

5. Do not manage by hope. If you sit back and wait for the next new-business win to avoid making tough budget and staffing decisions, the hole you dig may be too deep to climb out of.

6. Do not take your clients for granted even for one day. When was the last time you visited every one of your clients in the same month? Now would be a good time to start. I can't think of another time that clients were searching for answers to kick-start sales, and if their agency's leadership is right alongside of them in battle, helping to invent new solutions, they will likely never forget you when good times roll again.

7. Do not become safe. Slow client spending is not an excuse to go conservative with your work. If you think you are going to hold on to your clients by being extra safe with your work, you've just given your clients an excuse to get an agency that will continue to take smart risks -- especially in an environment that needs to motivate consumers more than ever. Recessions are the best time to innovate. So consider, for example, breaking new ground with your agency's public relations' expertise -- perhaps experimenting more online with blogs, social media and viral video campaigns.

8. Do not stay holed up in your office. Get out there with your staff and let them know what's going on with the agency. Better internal communication can only make your team stronger.

9. Do not stop looking for the best talent. This economic downturn has put a lot of really good people on the street. Now may be a rare window to upgrade your bench and sign a star free agent or two.

10. Do not veer off course. Just because times are tough, this is no time for your agency to steer away from the strategic course you set when the economy was strong. Remaining consistent with what will make your agency grow—be it a plan to differentiate your agency brand, expand into new services, or buy another agency, stay true to it. Even if it takes a little longer to execute. When the economy turns around, you'll have the wind at your back.

Conscience

A few days ago I wrote the following post on PositiveBloc.

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.- Voltaire

And the first step would be to listen to what our conscience has to say...

And right below it, there is another article titled 'Tightroping life with 'Conscious Balance' which has a part that talks about life’s situations and our reactions to them based on
* our knowledge and our interpretation of it and
* life’s experiences and how they mould our thinking and our reactions

..and that got me thinking..

Is conscience universally the same? When I quoted Voltaire and said that the first step would be to listen to what our conscience says.. did I know what I was talking about? Does everyone’s conscience tell them the same thing? Is there a universal right? A terrorist has no fear of death. Does that mean that he has been following his conscience?

I have no answers to these questions but they are extensions, in some way, of a question that I have always wondered about… do we all see the same things? As a child, I used to wonder that we all have eyes but when we look, do we see the same object, the same colour, the same distance.. and even if it is the same, do we perceive it as being the same.. as in does blue look the same to everyone..

It’s the same question I have with regard to conscience. I say very casually that we must follow our conscience but what is the conscience telling us? Is this inner voice for different people not conditioned differently by life’s experiences? The incidents in our life must mould us all in a unique manner.

I think that conscience is the absolute, pure, unadulterated emotion we feel in response to anything just before the intellect takes over. It’s that split second reaction which cannot be controlled. Does this split-second reaction vary for everyone or is it the same?

Does everyone feel the same anguish when a terror attack happens?
- Or when a tree is cut?
- Or when a dog is kicked?
- Or when we hear about the NSG soldiers who died fighting for the country?
- Or about global warming and the destruction of the rain forests?
- Or about the inhuman living conditions in Africa?
- Or shopkeepers being threatened?
- Or when innocent people were attacked during the railway examinations?
- Or when the Taj mahal is threatened by factory emissions?
- Or when we see the glory of the rising sun?
- Or the splendour of nature?

Will the reactions of every person reading the above questions be the same? I don’t know the answer but I’m quite sure it’s in the negative. If these things affected everyone the same way, we would have no terrorists; we would have no hunger in the world, nor any injustice.

So what’s the solution? What is it that we can change to make it such?

I think that since these are all reactions based on perceptions of the world, the one thing we can do is to ensure that everyone’s perception of the world is good.

It’s a vicious circle that we are all stuck in. Perceptions are based on experiences and experiences are further created by our reactions which are based on our perceptions.

Change, therefore, is hidden within us. We have to rethink our world-view and our aspirations. We have to modify our reactions to make sure that we are creating positive experiences for ourselves and people around us. That is the only way to break the cycle and begin afresh.

My mum says that the split-second reaction of the conscience is the same in everyone and the first time the conscience does insist that we do what is right.. but then, we stop the voice of the conscience and do what we want and that’s what kills it.

If that is true, let us not do that any more. Let us listen to the first voice within us and follow it. Let us allow the positive influence of the conscience to guide our reactions. Once the new cycle of positive thought and action is started, it will influence experiences and reactions within and around us, for the better, and hopefully we will be able to build up a new, positive, universal conscience.

So finally, after much thought, I return to the words of Voltaire:

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

.. and these words make so much more sense to me now.