Lessons for a father - Listening to the unsaid

There are events in all our lives that make us stop dead on our tracks with all the capacity to do anything, even move, taken away from us. I was blessed with such a moment last week.

The story is of an Autistic girl that proved a lot of "experts" wrong. And I say that with all the respect for the medical and research community. I think sometimes we forget that our expertise in fields of research is almost always based on our definition of the problem. In other words, we assume what the problem is and base our solution on the assumption(s) that we started out with. Here is the problem: There is nothing to corroborate our assumptions against, till the time that we are proven wrong (or right, which is definitely true in some cases).


With all the Science and Mathematics that is taken into account to while we create our professional growth chart, we almost always lose out on not being taught the very basis of all good communication: our ability to Listen.

So what are the components of listening? In my opinion, it would definitely comprise of:

1. Going into a conversation with an intent to listen.
2. Not speaking (let the other person talk) - this does not mean not saying anything at all, but not interrupting.
3. Patience (and sometimes a lot of it). The person that we are communicating with might be at a different level on the subject but that does not take away their right to express their opinion on the topic.
4. Removal of all preconceived notions and prejudices - we should never enter a conversation or a dialog with our mind already made up.
5. Listen and watch for the unsaid: This is, I think, the most important component of the exercise. Things like tone, gestures, facial expressions et al should never be ignored.

As leaders, professional, social or otherwise, and as parents, listening is an art-form that should, in all earnest, be present in our arsenal for sure. I just hope that this learning experience with our son can help me keep my ears and mind open.

Lessons for a father - Something new. Something old

I have realized over the years that my best teachers have been like good psychologists. They have always encouraged me to think and come up with answers myself. I have had the good luck of being asked the right questions and just-about-enough intelligence to realize that the answers were not going to be simple or straightforward. It seems that our son has decided to join that group of people who have taken it upon themselves to teach me a thing or two. His attitude towards my tuition is a bit different though. His instructions are not passed to me in a conventional way, i.e. no word that requires consonants are used.

Over the years, people who I have looked up to, have all shared one trait in common. They have been able to communicate in a way, both through the said and the unsaid word, that has resonated with me. Understanding of all that I did pick up came with time. In management parlance, it is called the "ah ha moment". It is a moment in time when realization strikes and things start making sense.

In the past few months our son has, through a needs-based-system (something that all infants and parents go through, I am sure), taught us the importance of starting a day early. His definition of early keeps changing on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis but it mostly remains pretty consistent. It is only by starting the day early, with or without an adequate amount of sleep, that we are able to get everything taken care of before leaving for work. This may or may not be a lesson for many, or most, but yours truly has always been a habitual "late to bed and later to rise" kind of a person.That habit has served me well in the past. The idea of getting up with enough time to get to work made perfect sense. Times are a-changing now.

Parenting, I think, is less about following a path laid out in front of you (however there are some elements of that as well) and more about adapting to an ever changing and very dynamic system. I would argue that a good parent is one that adapts most efficiently to their child's needs but also has the strength to follow and teach convention whenever necessary. This power to be accepting and responsive to a changing time or culture or need or environment is what makes a parent, and in turn a leader, successful.

Adapting translates more to how we respond to situations and issues at hand rather than a change in our core value system. That system should remain mostly intact.

What am I picking up from our son then?

What we are learning is that raising him is definitely giving us a chance to adapt to a different culture than the one we grew up in. It would also require us to deal with a whole host of situations that we might not even deem possible right now. The real test is going to be to see how we translate this learning into something that will help us grow as parents and as professionals.

Like the commentator of the Cricket match said just now, "the quality of the batsman is measured by how well they bat in situations where the bounce of the ball is uneven". Ah ha!

Lessons for a father - T.G.I.F

Did you have a great weekend?

That was the question that waited for us, and greeted us, on Monday. Gone were the smiles and laughters that accompanied last week's "Happy Friday" and "T.G.I.F". Wonder why?

We got home today - wife, son and me - and realized that it was a great day! We were together. We have a home. We have good jobs and all that allows us to do what we like doing most. Why, then, would we not like today?

The question forced me to commit myself to research to gain insight into the cause of this deep-rooted hatred for the first day of the week. So that is exactly what I did. I switched on the electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program that I possess, made sure the device was connected to the global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols, got myself a hot drink made from the roasted and ground bean-like seeds of a tropical shrub and started my research.

Basically, I "googled" the question "Why do people not like Mondays" with a cup of coffee.

The results that the wonderful friend of research threw back were as varying as they were entertaining. Some blame the hatred on our cavemen like need to be in a tribal setting (read: hanging out with friends and family), others on the wonderful sense of dynamism that consumes us over a weekend and yet others blamed the amount of work that waits for them in the week that ensues.

Our son, however, seems to have a different opinion about Mondays.

It really does not matter to him what day of the week it is. He continues, relentlessly, doing what he does everyday (as his t-shirt says "Eat, Sleep, Burp, Repeat"). Can people, like me, learn a lesson from our infants on the subject?

I did.

If I am passionate about what I do, Mondays will be as much fun as Fridays are touted to be. So let us start a new trend. I want to call it: "Thank God it is another day to be great!". I am still working on a suitable acronym...

Lessons for a father - Suggestions from a General

There is a very distinct difference between leadership and management. Succinctly put, one enables us to follow a particular path and the other makes sure that we do not waver from that path. In an attempt (no matter what we try and call it, it is an attempt at best) to raise a child and make sure that they follow a path of goodness and righteousness, we all try and become examples that can help them in their lives. This learning opportunity, in essence, is almost a life-long class in leadership.

I visited TED again today. It is a very energizing and motivating enterprise to say the least. The credit for today's experience goes to Stanley McChrystal. He is a four-star General and shares what he learned about leadership over his decades in the military. He is the former commander of U.S. and International forces in Afghanistan and is credited for creating a revolution in warfare that fuses intelligence and operations (Watch Video By Clicking Here).

"Intelligence and operations" caught my attention. Isn't that what all us parents do?

We utilize intelligence and knowledge gained over a period of time to create, what we think is, an efficient "operating system" that enables our kids to grow in an environment where mediocrity is shunned and life-long learning is encouraged (the last part is our house-hold; it may not hold true in all cases, sometimes justifiably so).

One of the things that I truly liked about the very motivating speech was that the General opened himself to learning even when he did not have to (I am sure he had people that could do his bidding). He made friends with technology to reach out to his team that was spread all over. He did not shy away from leaving behind conventional behavior that might have worked historically. He also did not hesitate to accept new ways that have to be practiced to adapt to an ever-changing, and shrinking, world. He is another example of  the fact that adapting to changing demands forms a major part of the core of modern leadership, whatever be the nature of the organization that we are a part of (familial, cultural, capital, social or otherwise).

If we do not change, as parents and professionals, we will become outdated in a flash and it will affect our capacity as providers - both in providing a service to our organization and clients and as providers to our children.

I am pretty sure that in the long run my son will teach me a lot more than the other way round. Till that time though, I find it mandatory, for all of us to, as the General says, "listen, learn...then lead" with the hope that our sons and daughters will follow suit when their times come.

Lessons for a father - The Algorithm

We were blessed with a beautiful son a few months ago. Like many parents, our intention was to be able to create a process and enable our new-born to follow it. Diaper change at 8:15 pm, milk at 8:25 pm and so on and so forth. Like almost all parents, we realized, soon enough, that our best laid plans are usually answered with smiles, tears or sleep. The sense of randomness finds it hard to get accepted in a household being run by two über-geeks. Then it hit us. We were being taught a very important lesson.

No matter how hard we tried to maintain balance and control change, there will always be a case of "the unknown". Being a good parent (or being anything really) is more about dealing with what you do not know or expect rather that what you are good at. Our toddler may or may not wake up in the middle of the night; he may or may not find it easy to adjust at daycare; we would have to make and implement decisions based on the outcome of such situations.

As an extension, we also realized that the same holds true for just about anything in our professional lives as well. That particular server (or database or switch) that we are so dependent on may or may not work as expected tomorrow. The network that allows us the freedom to be virtually anywhere in the world (and allow me to write this) may be down. Our behavior is determined, more often than not, by situations that, as scary as it sounds, are a bit out of our control.

What do we do then?

How do, solution and structure obsessed people like us, deal with a variable in an equation that almost always craves to be balanced?

We did what we do best. We created an algorithm. Here is our way of doing it:

1. Be ready for a random and unexpected event.
2. Stop wishing for complete control. You will never get it.
3. Involve ONLY those people that can offer tangible help.
4. Keep the communication going, maybe even go over the top with keeping people in the loop.
5. Create a backup structure (in our case, if I am too tired to be potentially awake during the entire night, we make sure my wife goes to bed earlier than usual to be available during the wee hours of the morning so I can sleep for a few hours before going to work with her).
6. Whatever you do, do NOT panic! That never helps and will probably make the situation worse.
7. This is the hardest of it all: A part of the solution will be based on 2 words: Hope and Conviction.