We have recorded the history of kings. I was searching for the history of Educationists/Teachers in India but could not find one. I collected a list of 15 names before 1200 AD. 1. Valmiki – 4th BC to 7th Century BC 2. Sushruta – 6th Century BC 3. Mahavira – 5th Century BC 4. Buddha – 5th Century BC 5. Chanakya – 375 BC to 283 BC 6. Uma swami – 2nd Century AD 7. Kalidas – 4th Century AD 8. Aryabhata – 476 to 550 AD, Bihar 9. Varaha Mihira – 505 to 587, Astrologer in Ujjain, Brihat Samhita – Trigonometry 10. Brahmagupta – Mathematician – 598 to 668, Gujarat 11. Bhaskara I – 600 to 680 AD, Saurashtra in Gujarat 12. Shankaracharya – 700 to 750 AD 13. Aryabhata II – 920 to 1000 AD, Geometry and Maha Siddhanta 14. Ramanujam – 1017 to 1137 AD 15. Bhaskara II – 1114 to 1185 AD, Maharashtra Ujjain Observatory, Calculus predates Newton
I need more names to complete this list. Please do suggest.
As we are celebrating Intellect Fest, a month-long celebration of our people, potential, passion, products, technologies and markets at Intellect, I have found myself wondering what the meaning of True Leadership is, and the following is an excerpt from my diary, on the purpose of a True Leadership Mind.
Each part of the body has a purpose; our legs are for mobility, eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, nose for smelling, lungs for breathing, heart for energy distribution, kidney for blood clean up, and liver for energy storage etc. But, what is the purpose of the mind?
It has many functions, but if we need to define the function of the human mind in less than 5 words, then it would be – to solve a problem. Our mind works as a problem solver, that solves problems one after the other with agility, from simple problems like what to eat, to problems that concern larger populations.
I realised that whenever Manju shared her problems with me, my mind was quick to suggest an immediate solution to the problem. Her purpose of sharing the problem was just to make me aware of what her mind was occupied with, but I would constantly perceive it as an opportunity to help her. With genuine care and intentions, this behaviour of giving unsolicited advice quite simply led to undesired conflicts.
I was watching the series ‘The Crown’, and I liked one of the Queen’s statements, where she said “Doing nothing is most difficult for an executive”. Our minds are hardwired to provide solutions 24*7, so trying to not come up with a solution when faced with a problem is not always easy.
In the journey of self-discovery and awareness, the key message is to stop thoughts, observe thoughts or spend time in shunya. Are these not similar to saying stop problem solving?
In the context of management, true leadership is about enabling teams to solve their problems. The problem that leaders must solve is to spot and choose the right problems for their teams to solve.
Today is Teacher’s day. It’s a day when we celebrate ‘learning’ and catalysts for ‘my learning’. A teacher is the primary person responsible for learning.
Sometimes we miss the teachers from our peer community where we learn the most.
Besides this we need to celebrate the ‘lifelong student within me’ – curiosity.
A teacher is a student first.
Gratitude to all my teachers and peers with who I am continuing my learning journey!
Guru Purnima and Intellect Day are coinciding on the same day. The purpose of Intellect is to drive the culture of continuous learning and make a small difference to humanity by applying design thinking holistically.
For my global friends, Guru Purnima means ‘celebrating teachers’ in your life on a full moon day.
A teacher is anyone who has helped you grow in your thinking by igniting curiosity and inspiration.
I enjoy the company of this august group of learners/teachers at Intellect and my customers who provide me continuous energy, joy and fulfilment.
This inner energy and joy gets transferred to our customers where we help them work with the best-in-class FinTech solutions with the passionate leaders of intellect. In this journey of partnership, we mutually play the role of teachers, sometimes co-creating the experience of a customer’s customer. In today’s era it’s called ‘Digital’ but to us it’s joy and fulfilment for the end customer.
We transfer this joy to the young achievers of Ullas by inspiring them with a similar curiosity and joy of learning. This process has the power of Positive Virality.
How many of you have read this book, ‘Meaning of Life’ by Victor Frankl. He is a survivor of the Concentration Camp and has founded the theory of Logo Therapy based on the Will of Purpose/Meaning vs. Will of Pleasure or Will of Power/Superiority.
Today I enjoyed a slow walk on Boat Club Road. I observed the majestic trees which I did not pay attention to for the last 20 years of walking on the same street. Each tree expresses itself uniquely through its solid trunks, strong branches and their direction, exotic leaves and then beautifully designed flowers. Some of the trees act as large ‘hotels’ for insects and birds. Some trees provide their shoulders to other weaker plant that have weaker trunks. The sleek and weaker creepers are able to climb up to 40 feet and are able to get their food from sun.
I touched 14 trees and tried to feel them. Some trees are over 100 years or 200 years old. They have seen and experienced more history than most of us and kept secrets within themselves.
I experience the power of a slow walk with no pressure on counting steps. I just sat down looking up to see the beauty of each tree. They have grown over 50 feet high. Some are growing upwards and some are growing horizontally to provide shade to humans. They just stand there without any expectation, contributing to humanity year after year.
This morning, I started with a cloudy day and we were enjoying our morning tea with rusks. The weather turned better and it started raining.
I was amazed to observe the cycle of rains resulting in great crops in the field. I admired the cycle of nature – sun’s energy along with water and the natural force of plants, produces so much for humanity.
The thoughts further created a question – What is wealth and how did it get created? 1. All wealth is created by nature. 2. Nature creates wealth through agriculture and minerals. There is no other way to create primary wealth. 3. Trading of this primary wealth by multiple transactions creates secondary wealth. 4. Secondary wealth surplus gets invested into building safety and home conveniences. 5. Secondary wealth surplus invested in education, research and innovation have created multiple technologies resulting in various professions and industries. Each profession and industry then started driving Tertiary wealth.
This means all the wealth in the world gets created by farming and mineral extraction from Mother Nature. The irony is that today a farmer is the most poor of this chain while all wealth is residing in the hands of ‘Value adders’.
A young man in his mid-twenties knocks on the door of a renowned Guru. He says: “I’ve come to you because I wish to study the Vedas.”
“Do you know Sanskrit?” the Guru asks.
“No,” replies the young man.
“Have you studied any Indian philosophy?”
“No. But don’t worry. I just finished my doctoral dissertation at Harvard on logic. So now, I would just like to round up my education with a little study of the Vedas.”
Article: Published on June 1, 2020 Amazing story of ‘what is the right problem?’
A young man in his mid-twenties knocks on the door of a renowned Guru. He says: “I’ve come to you because I wish to study Vedas.”
“Do you know Sanskrit?” the Guru asks.
“No,” replies the young man.
“Have you studied any Indian philosophy?”
“No. But don’t worry. I just finished my doctoral dissertation at Harvard on logic. So now, I would just like to round up my education with a little study of the Vedas.”
“I doubt,” the Guru says, “that you are ready to study the Vedas. It is the deepest knowledge ever known. If you wish, however, I am willing to examine you in logic, and if you pass that test I will teach you the Vedas.”
The young man agrees.
The Guru holds up two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face; the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
The young man stares at the Guru. “Is that really a test in logic?”
The Guru nods.
“The one with the dirty face washes his face,” he answers confidently.
“Wrong. The one with the clean face washes his face. Examine the logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So, the one with the clean face washes his face.”
“Very clever,” the young man says. “Give me another test.”
The Guru again holds up two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
“We have already established that. The one with the clean face washes his face.”
“Wrong. Each one washes his face. Examine the logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So, the one with the clean face washes his face. When the one with the dirty face sees the one with the clean face wash his face, he also washes his face. So, each one washes his face.”
“I didn’t think of that,” says the young man. It’s shocking to me that I could make an error in logic. Test me again.”
The Guru holds up two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face; the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
“Each one washes his face.”
“Wrong. Neither one washes his face. Examine the logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. But when the one with the clean face sees the one with the dirty face doesn’t wash his face, he also doesn’t wash his face. So, neither one washes his face.”
The young man is desperate. “I am qualified to study the Vedas. Please give me one more test.”
He groans, though, when the Guru lifts two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face; the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
“Neither one washes his face.”
*“Wrong. Do you now see why logic is an insufficient basis for studying the Vedas? Tell me, how is it possible for two men to come down the same chimney, and for one to come out with a clean face and the other with a dirty face? Don’t you see? The whole question is nonsense, foolishness, and if you spend your whole life trying to answer foolish questions, all your answers will be foolish, too.”*
That’s why having wisdom is more important than having logic…
During one of my Design Thinking sessions, someone asked me a question.
What is the algorithm for making an ordinary person perform extraordinary?
I was not ready for this difficult question. I have been struggling with this in our HR department and have been designing various frameworks like competency frameworks etc. Right now, we have heuristics patterns.
Then he asked me the next question, “How did you accomplish extraordinary results during 1993 to 2000 when Polaris grew at a CAGR of 115% consistently?”
Now, this question forced me to think and get into a reflective mood.
I acknowledged to him humbly that I don’t know the answer and that I will reflect and maybe come back to him with some patterns and anti-patterns later.
Now, I am posing a question to this august and experienced group to help me. I need help.
To me, being part of this group in itself qualifies for being in the extraordinary performance bracket.
I am looking forward to your responses in this group or my personal mail describing your personal moments of change from ordinary fresher to extraordinary performer. What changed in your thinking which accelerated your journey? It can be at any stage, when you were in your 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s.
You may narrate the incidence or the person who trusted you or the environment.
Yesterday, I questioned the fight scenes even in animated movies made for children on Facebook and LinkedIn. I received a lot of insights from your comments. I am documenting a few of the observations here.
1. Fight scenes train a child’s mind for better defence. 2. Fight scenes build ‘violence’ as a key method of resolving any difference of opinions/perspectives/expectations. 3. Violence sells better among audiences which means we as developed human being still love ‘animal’ instinct of physical force over logical conversations (dialogue) to resolve difference of opinions/perspectives.
Somewhere I am confused with our ‘expressed’ behaviour i.e. we must live with love as a key uniting force of humanity vs. ‘suppressed’ behaviour of liking physical dominance.
Please share your thoughts on this dichotomy of our behaviours.
Hello, my name is Arun Jain. I am a design thinker living in Chennai, India. This is my blog, where I post my thoughts, technology trends and tips about the fintech world and many more.
