Vantage point

We do know cerebrally that all of life & all knowledge is interconnected. However, it is sometimes the silos which protect us from the vast stormy seas out there and we take refuge. A non-marketing person like me hears the word ‘positioning’ and decides to sleepwalk through the class because it is a marketing subject. I don’t need to know more than enough to answer my exam. Or do I?

Some random unconnected cells of my brain decided to talk to each other – so many things around were pushing them to make the awkward social contact. Some of those I am about to write about.

A certain company recruits some greenhorns and tells them that at the end of the one year long road, they will be sent away to the northern most populated country in the world. A few harmless jokes about the inexpressiveness of the people & the long dark winter are enough for those greenhorns to kick up a big fuss and not want to go there. Then the company wisens up and takes a different position for the next set. They are told that they will get to go to the land of a thousand lakes if & only if they drive along the one year road very well and arrive at its end successfully. It would be their reward for a job well done, to go to the magical land of Moomin and corporate Himalayas. This set is suddenly dreamy eyed about that very same land. It promised adventure & excitement, but more importantly, going there will be a symbol of success, of having met expectations, of having done well. It meant validation & confidence. It was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – it made them want to run towards it. It was a goal to strive for, not a bump in the road their predecessors thought they must brace for. Just changing the rhetoric and nothing else changed the meaning of the experience.

It’s the same reason I have always loved Tom Sawyer. The little kid understood the power of positioning & got his fence painted & managed to get paid by other people doing his work without lifting a finger himself.

It’s like society collectively positioning marriage to women. The ring, the party, the status. ‘You will never be an old maid’. The impact of marriage on an individual woman can be debated endlessly. But it is mere positioning that makes little girls dream about princes, white weddings & picket fences.

Positioning is an art for anyone who wants to sell – products, services, ideas, thoughts, ideologies… It is about knowing those who you sell to, knowing what it is that you are selling and knowing how to marry the two. It is to know which parts to light up and where to let the shadows fall. The simplistic & the pessimistic could call it manipulation. I think it is genius. If all of life is a jagged surface, then positioning is to find the smooth strip where to land your copter on.

This makes me think about something organizations do. Faulty & incomplete as it is, it’s common colloquial practice in organizations to segregate work/jobs as strategic or operational. Consciously, we do understand that planning & execution are too tightly linked & looped to have a real dividing line. But habit & ease have made it commonplace to use this distinction.
Ofcourse it’s true that operational work is as important to the success of an organization, but how many of us aspire to do it? Does it have the glamour of thinking ahead, thinking different, being pioneers in our own way? If operational means mechanical means routine means boring – is it sensible to allow the nomenclature to exist? What is the cost of inaction? If most of the employees will do operational jobs – can an organization allow them to think of their jobs as mundane & bring only part of their minds & hearts to work? If all employees are internal customers, is the faulty positioning cutting into customer delight or in this case employee engagement?
If work needs to be broken down to make it intelligible, divisible & doable, is the parameter of operational & strategic the optimal one? The work remaining the same, we need to find new eyes to look at it. So what is the solution? I think it is not merely about a cosmetic change of name. I don’t know what it is, but it will be one of those Eureka answers – simple & beautiful.

Conversation - Asking & answering life’s questions

Unlike many of my friends, I am not passionate about sports or music. Mildly interested maybe, but no passion there. Books, films, clothes, history- yes these are special. But what I enjoy the most is basic, intelligent conversation. Inside my own head, but better still, with another person. It fuels my thoughts, gets my mind whirring. It’s the one thing I crave for – genuine conversation. Not to be confused with chit chat or idle banter or sweet nothings or small talk. I mean genuine, wholesome conversation. Like a full bodied cup of coffee. Drenching your insides with something strong and fragrant and powerful. Filling your senses, waking you up. Reminding you – I think, therefore I am.

So, conversation… I look for it everywhere. Sometimes it’s one off. Someone who is randomly interesting, but not lastingly so. Sometimes I go back for more. Other times, I know I should not, because it will dilute the spur it gave to my mind, if followed by insipid, tired, dull talk. Sometimes I find it in the least expected places and people, and sometimes the sureshot ones disappoint me.

Conversations for me are soul food. I live for that moment when I can connect. I live so I can feel deeply and think clearly. It’s when I experience flow, that fleeting time, when hours seem like minutes; those moments that make life worth living. Conversation does not have to lead to anything or give me a definite ‘outcome’. It is pleasure for its own sake, not for what it can lead to.

Some interesting tidbits of recent conversations
“I don’t want to be 60 and realize I never lived”
Said so often, but practised so little. I want to prioritise. I want to learn. I want to be there for those who need me. I want to love and be loved. I want to build something big that outlasts me. I want to be useful for more than just me.

“What do you want to do with your life?”
One of those basic existential questions. Tough to answer, impossible to avoid. So life, my biggest resource, getting spent every second… how can I channelize it so I am happy? How can I channelize it so I can give back. I know I have so much, how can I use my life to actually say thank you to God. What should I do so it’s worth living?

“One half of the world doesn’t know how the other three quarters lives”
Beautiful. What a way to put it – not only do I not know how the other people live or think, I don’t even know who or how many there are. Just a reminder, that no matter how broad your horizon is, you are but one person. You have but two eyes. How very arrogant it would be to think you know all.

“Atypical at home, atypical abroad”
The story of any of us. The little bit of outsider inside each of us. Like me, I was the advocate of women’s education, of having a choice whether to and whom to get married to, remarriage for those who are no longer with their partners, relationships beyond hierarchy, respect for the individual and such other ‘avant garde’ ideas. Now that I am away from my own country, I am always thinking and sometimes talking about respect for elders, a ‘right’ age for marriage, the meaninglessness of relationships without commitment & respect, importance of social safety nets & even near vegetarianism. I am atypical everywhere. A part of society, but a little alone. That is why this sentence struck me. What a thought – atypical everywhere.
How perspicacious. How discerning. How ruthless. How true.

So conversation it is. Are you the next person who will set this mind in motion?