വേദന

തലേന്ന് രാത്രി ഒന്നും രണ്ടും പറഞ്ഞ് ചെറിയൊരു സൗന്ദര്യ പിണക്കവുമായി പ്രിയതമയെ കെട്ടിപ്പിടിക്കാതെ കിടന്നുറങ്ങി. ഉറങ്ങാൻ കിടക്കുന്നത് വരെ ഒരു കുഴപ്പവും ഇല്ലായിരുന്നു. രാവിലെ എഴുന്നേറ്റപ്പോൾ മുതൽ, വലതുവശത്തെ കഴുത്ത് അനക്കാൻ വയ്യാത്ത വേദന. ഓഫീസിൽ പോകേണ്ട സാഹചര്യം ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നതുകൊണ്ട് മാത്രം, കുറച്ചു വിഷമിച്ച് ആണെങ്കിലും പോയി.

പിറ്റേന്ന് വേദന കലശലായി. ചില മരുന്നുകളും പൊടിക്കൈകളും പ്രയോഗിച്ചു നോക്കി. ചെറിയ മാറ്റം ഉണ്ടായെങ്കിലും വേദന തുടർന്നുകൊണ്ടേയിരുന്നു. അങ്ങനെയിരിക്കുമ്പോൾ വൈകുന്നേരത്തെ ചായ കുടിക്കുന്നതിന്റെ ഇടയ്ക്ക് സ്നേഹനിധിയായ എന്റെ മറുപാതി വന്ന് നല്ല ചൂടുള്ള ഉപ്പ് വെള്ളത്തിൽ തുണി മുക്കി ചൂട് പിടിച്ചുതന്നു. നല്ല വേദനയ്ക്കിടയ്ക്കും ഞാൻ ചോദിച്ചു അവിടെ എന്തെങ്കിലും പാടോ ചുവപ്പോ വല്ലതും കാണാനുണ്ടോ എന്ന്? അവൾ നോക്കിയിട്ട് പാട് ഒന്നുമില്ല എന്നു പറഞ്ഞു. ഉള്ളിൽ എവിടെയോ കലശലായ എന്തോ നീർക്കെട്ട് ആവാം എന്ന് ഞാനും മറുപടി പറഞ്ഞു. അപ്പോഴാണ് തൊട്ടപ്പുറത്തെ മുറിയിലെ ടിവിയിൽ നിന്ന് ഒരു മലയാള സിനിമയുടെ ഡയലോഗ് ഒഴുകി വന്നത്, "പുറമേ പാടൊന്നുമില്ലാതെ, ഉള്ള് ചതച്ചെടുക്കുന്ന വിദ്യ ഈ പോലീസുകാരന് മാത്രമേ അറിയുള്ളൂ".

ഞാനൊന്നു നടുങ്ങി! തിളച്ച വെള്ളത്തിൽ മുങ്ങി പൊങ്ങുന്ന തുണിയുടെ ശബ്ദം ആ മുറിയിൽ എങ്ങും അലയടിച്ചു കൊണ്ടേയിരുന്നു. ഞാനെന്റെ പ്രാണനാഥയുടെ മുഖത്തേക്ക് ഒന്ന് നോക്കി അവിടെ ഒരു ചെറിയ പുഞ്ചിരി കണ്ടോ എന്നൊരു സംശയം. വേദന കടിച്ചമർത്തി എന്റെ കഴുത്ത് അവളുടെ കൈകളിൽ ഞാൻ സമർപ്പിച്ചു.

ശുഭം.

Steam Inhalation & Staff Motivation

As summer started setting in, the Middle Eastern sun shifted gears to work overtime. With the change in weather, we had some visitors at home, in the form of cold and cough. One by one we started showing signs of being under the weather. As always, we reached out to an aluminium pot, our first resort during weather driven issues. This was the vessel in which we filled water and boiled it. Once ready, we dropped into the steaming water, a few leaves of holy basil and Indian borage, a brilliant combination when inhaled, worked wonders to our respiratory system!

Since my sweetheart had a bad cough, I invited her to inhale steam first. When she was done, I asked our darling daughter to inhale the less hot steam. After both were done, I was not sure if any steam was left. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a shot. Though the first few moments proved my thought, I realized that I could still get a considerable amount of steam if I breathed into the pot. Since the effect of the herbal medicines had lessened by then, I added a couple of additional leaves. As magical as it was, the steam from the pot felt as good as a fresh one made ready for inhalation! I happily consumed the steam and continued with my work, energized, and refreshed!

I could not help but reflect this experience on the motivation levels of staff in an organization over a period. A new joiner may display elevated levels of energy. This may slowly diminish over time, resulting in a reduced verve. If you are one who manage a team, you may find this pattern among your team members. This is where you could apply the learning I mentioned above. Put on your motivational hat which acts as those additional leaves of herbs in my story. On top of that, slightly nudge your team members who need some push, by giving them some challenging yet practical tasks. In most cases this will work well, akin to the breathing into the pot to generate more steam.

While the above is just a metaphor and the actions mentioned are mere examples, there could be many more motivational tactics one could apply. Try them out if you observe your team could make use of some support from you. You will be in for a surprise to see the outcome of these tiny changes resulting in bigger impact!

May the power of steam be with you… 

An Uplifting Story

It was a normal day as any other. Like some days, I picked up breakfast from our office cafe on the ground floor and headed back to the lift lobby. There were three elevators and my desk was on the fourth floor. 

As I swiped through the gunnebo gates to get to the lifts, I could see four people getting into the first lift that arrived. Two of them were my teammates. They offered to hold the lift for me. Since the lift was a bit crowded and I was holding my breakfast with a cup of tea as well, I requested them to go ahead without me. I did not want anything to spill on anyone in a crowded lift. I waited for the next lift while their lift door closed and they went up.

Soon, the next elevator came. I reached the fourth floor and got out of the lift. The lift which my teammates took was still on its way. I decided to wait for them and as soon as they stepped out, I told them the first thing that came to my mind. 

'Sometimes life makes you wait, but you may be surprised that you scale heights faster than the rest who started earlier than you'!

Good day folks...

PS: This is not always true in corporate world 😉

Murder in Sansville

A loud cry cut through the calm night of Sansville! Someone shouted, ‘Murder’! They found a dead body floating in the river which was the ultimate heart of peace in the small town of Sansville. The body was found at the same spot where during the daytime, scores of families with young children gathered to play. It was a town where nothing bad ever happened and was a picture-perfect place which boasted of peaceful days that you could scoop happiness out of the air.

The news spread like wildfire. The police swiftly arrived at the crime scene. Considering the seriousness of the situation the mayor was woken up in the middle of his sleep and was informed of the tragedy. He rushed to the place where the body still was floating on the river. Strange was the sight that it was hugging a clumsy bunch of other plants that were supporting the corpse.

This was the first ever such incident in the long history of Sansville. The mayor did not lose another moment and called for a meeting of his town committee. They were instructed to get into the depth of the matter and figure out the details. Questions were galore. Who died? Was that a man or a woman? Was it indeed a murder? If so, who was the murderer?

Even in the frosty night of November, people who gathered around started sweating. The palpitation among the team was quite evident. Some of them could not even manage the pressure and fainted! The mayor started losing his patience started thinking of calling the Home Guard or even military if required. Such was the frenzy in that tiny town which had never ever seen anything like this in the past.

All these were happening upstream the river and at the townhall. While the heads of the town where frantically jumping up and down, the town folks managed to get a few men to go down the river and figure out more about the dead body so that they can report back to the mayor. These were the brave souls of the town who dared to wade the freezing waters of the river and reached the corpse which was mangled with other plants and their branches.

The men tried to figure out the body among the contorted mix of things in the river. Since they were unable to do that, the whole bunch was brought to the river shore. With the help of others, they tried to untangle the mess and as they progressed reality hit them!

There was no dead body! It was just someone’s shirt which must have freed itself from a clothesline and ended up in the river. The shirt then got stuck in a branch of a small tree and ended up looking like a dead man floating on the river hugging a tree!

So much of noise, for nothing! The mayor was soon back at his bed. The townhall was locked till the time someone else finds another body. And the people of the town went back to their peaceful lives as usual.

But just when they were heading back, they noticed that someone made a slight correction to the name of their town. It now read, Sans-brain-ville!

Disclaimer: If the story reminded you of the meaningless escalations you see in your office, it must be merely incidental.

Product Market – A Model for Large Organizations

The other day, along with a colleague from operations, I was reviewing the requirements related to a module in the Flight Information product I manage. My colleague raised a question about enhancing a feature which could benefit another product used in operations to manage allocation of tasks for ground handling agents thereby optimizing the utilization of staff and an expensive set of equipment used in the airport.

Since both of us were familiar with both the products, we could discuss and debate on the pros and cons about the enhancement and eventually came up with a potentially feasible solution. We highlighted this to the respective operations heads and now the change is being pursued for viability and if approved will head towards implementation.

This simple incident reminded me of the power of product knowledge, especially across multiple products. This is important in large organizations where product managers tend to focus merely on their products and their roadmaps rather than having effective conversations with their colleagues to figure out the possibilities of making various products talk to each other and realize mutual benefits.

We live in a world where most product managers await the steer from business owners to state their need, get them documented as a new feature and get going with implementation. If integration with another system is identified as part of the change, converations start flowing in that direction. Rarely do we drive conversations the other way round.

Large organizations typically have hundreds or thousands of products across various operational areas. Each of these products boast of their own features and capabilities that support respective businesses. While it is impossible for a product manager to know every feature and data element available in all systems in the company, just imagine the possibilities if you have a clear visibility of the information set offered by all other products in your organisation.

The idea does not have to stop there. To support your thought process, visualize your fellow product managers sharing with you the features and data elements of their products and give you scenarios of how those data can be used in your product. These could potentially open endless doors of ideas for you leading to ways by which these products could talk to each other thereby adding tremendous value to the respective business teams.

I would love to think about this concept coming to fruition as a ‘Product Market’ in an organization. Product managers can ‘set up shop’ showcasing the features and data elements available from their products. They can also advise how the ‘potential customers’ who are fellow product managers, can use the data for their products. Use cases which were not identified earlier, could be the outcome of this Product Market directly leading to a ready list of ideas enriching the backlogs.

One bonus value a Product Market could bring in, is to identify products which have overlapping features and thereby plan for better optimization by eliminating duplicates. The cost savings for the organization could be quite high if we could remove such redundancies.

Here is a toast to the awesome product folks out there who could think beyond their products and add significant value to their users!

15 years and counting…

The first ever memory I could recall of planes, is of a young boy who rushed out of his home following the buzzing sound of an aircraft flying way above our tiny town called Changanacherry in Kerala. Since that day, to being associated with the wonderful world of aircrafts now close to two decades, if there is one thing that still drives me crazy is the love for aviation!

Among the countless moments of living in this passionate world of airports, airlines, and ground handlers, I still remember the excitement with which landed in this wonderful city of Dubai and walked through the doors of The Emirates Group, 15 years ago, this very same day!

It had been nothing short of a blessing to be associated with two of the greatest known brands in the world of aviation, Emirates and dnata along with being pampered by one of the youngest and most dynamic cities in the world, Dubai!

Thank God for everything till date. Looking forward to remaining committed to the city that added countless meaningful moments to our lives and adding even more value to the industry till the time I breathe the air filled with molecules on which it is written in big bold letters – AVIATION!

Tale of a Bridge

Once upon a time two large cities flourished on the valleys of two mountains. There was a vast lake that separated these mountains. The administration of these two cities decided to build a ten kilometres long bridge that was to connect these two cities. It was a mega project predicted to catapult both the cities to exceptional levels of progress.

Plans were drawn, preliminary work started and the dreams for two cities getting merged into one big city started taking shape. Esteemed members of city councils visited the location regularly. The top brass from the government bragged about their vision and the benefits, the bridge project was going to bring to the region.

As the calendar progressed, one day a junior-most engineer while going through the plans, noticed a significant anomaly. One of the many pillars of the proposed bridge was short by a few inches in height. That was at a critical point in the design of the bridge which could pose a grave threat to the very existence of the structure once built.

Now, the junior engineer was a simple and straightforward girl who promptly presented her finding to the top executives and even proposed an alternate course of action to correct such mistakes in future. 

As soon as the authorities, heard her out, all hell broke loose! The young girl was severely reprimanded for highlighting such a major mistake which put the whole project team in a bad light. She was even given an ultimatum to do only what was asked to do and nothing more. The backlash was so harsh that she even wondered why she even bothered to highlight the anomaly! 

Another sincere employee died a painful death that day.

The above story is a pure work of fiction. But if it did remind you of any experience, you had or heard in the corporate world, do not be alarmed. There will always be bridges that are built with design flaws. There will always be sincere junior engineers who highlight the anomalies. And there will always be corporate martyrs.

Learn from the mistakes of either yours or others. Diplomacy is an underrated skill, especially if you are unaware of the power of it.

Life goes on. So does the corporate world.