Leadership is a Personal Choice

At age 70 I decided to go back to college.

In this episode, I talk about my return to formal education – an 8-week immersion Arabic course at Middlebury Language Schools.

I quote from something a dear friend sent me. “In Ernest Hemingway’s famous novel, The Sun Also Rises, a character is asked how he went bankrupt. “In two ways,” he answers. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

A famous sentence, one that aptly describes how businesses go down. We get fixated on the sudden events that occur at the end of the trajectory—banks calling in their loans, creditors going to court, unpaid salaries, and the like. It all feels dramatic and sudden, and we look for answers in the here and now.

But those answers can only be found way back.

Businesses are not the only things that go wrong following this gradually-then-suddenly trajectory. Many other human endeavours follow the same path. There is much anxiety and hand-wringing when we suffer an avoidable medical event, for example, but our lifestyle choices over many years prior often go unremarked.

When human constructs like bridges or dams fail, or cities are flooded, it is not just because of sudden and unusual rain events. There is a gradual negligence afoot—years and years of wear and tear, maintenance failures, or unattended corrosion.

Because we looked away from that work, we are forced to look on in horror when the final collapse happens.” End of quote

In Systems Theory we speak about the Causal and Compensating Loops. When you start an initiative, no matter what and no matter how well intentioned it may be, a process that works to neutralize it also starts. Usually, it goes undetected until it gains sufficient momentum to reverse the initiative that had been started. These are the Causal and Compensating Loops. Therefore, if you want any initiative to succeed you must keep an eye open for the Compensating Loop and act early to deal with it. Acting early means that what you need to do will be easier and less painful and so more likely to succeed. All change is painful. But if you detect the need to change early and act quickly, you can minimize the pain and give the initiative you started, a chance to succeed.

Early in my consulting career in 1983/4, I was part of a consultant group hired to design and conduct an Orientation Workshop for a large engineering manufacturing company in South India which had a strong traditional Tamil Brahmin culture with an all-male population. Thanks to the inception of a powerful lady promoter director into their Board, they decided to hire women engineers to address the gender imbalance. They hired fifty young women engineers from the premier engineering colleges in India, the IITs and RECs. Mercifully someone had the idea that before letting these young, highly energetic, and powerful women into the all-male organization, it may be a good idea to help the women understand the challenges that they were likely to face in working with older male colleagues. We did a 5-day residential program in Whitefield, Bangalore. The program went off very well and all seemed right with the world. Five years later, on a hunch, I decided to check what had happened to these women. To my horror, I discovered that 90% of them had left the company. That is when the theory of Causal and Compensating Loops hit home to me most vividly. The danger of gradual change which remains undetected until it is too late.

That’s also the theory of Seneca’s Cliff… it takes a long time to get to the top of the cliff and then comes the sudden drop to destruction. The problem is that after a certain point is crossed, reversal is almost impossible and going off the top is inevitable. That’s where I fear we have reached, in several countries that I am familiar with and globally.

As you work towards a great goal you will become restless, irritated, and impatient and inclined to take shortcuts and cut corners – all for the excellent reason that you want to see the project up and started as soon as possible. But in this urgency, there will be the tendency to accept compromises. I am writing this to warn you of the biggest danger to success. The C word. Compromise. For to compromise is to die a death without honor.

Accompanying Video: https://youtu.be/rxcdLVicuEw

In 1968, Hyderabad was in a state of pandemonium. The city was the bedrock of the infamous Telangana agitation and witnessed both frenzy and fire as a multitude of students demanded statehood for Telangana. As one would expect, it effected the lives of people living in Hyderabad, regardless of their age, profession and residence. People lost jobs, students lost an year of their education and businesses had to be shut down.

Fast-forward to 2020 and those who remember 1968, remember it as just another year. Listen to Mirza Yawar Baig narrate his story of living through 1968 and how the lessons he learned can be applied to our post pandemic world in 2020.

Listen to Mirza Yawar Baig narrate his story of securing a job at the plantation estate after returning from Guyuna and the lessons he learned along the way.

A lot of people seek out mentor-ship but very few consider actually becoming a mentor. What does it take to be a mentor? How do you convey your knowledge to your protegee? What are some things to do and not to do? Listen to Mirza Yawar Baig answer all your questions about being a successful mentor.

Team building while being critical to any organisation, is all about the individual. Listen to Mirza Yawar Baig explain the three major things you as an individual can do to bolster your team’s overall functioning: Learning from your mistakes, encouraging new ideas and sharing experiences.

Based off the BBC4 “Desert Island Discs” podcast, college student Omar Abdelaal sits down and asks Leadership Consultant Mr. Mirza Yawar Baig to select 8 music titles most connected to his life experiences. Interviewing in the outdoors, a natural habitat for the interviewee, childhood memories and stories are shared with us through laughs and tears. A podcast special you could say features all, (some wind disturbances and Mr. Baig’s music selection). We ask you to live the environment Mr. Yawar Baig loves so much by going on a brisk morning walk and enjoy!

Moving forward, please let us know what you think, ask any questions, and if you would like to see more of podcasts like these. Thank you and be well!

A good plan with graded steps plays the role of bringing the stars within reach. It also indicates that enough thoughtshare has happened in the genesis of the plan. Potential supporters look for this consciously or unconsciously. For example, when venture capitalists are listening to a business plan, more than looking at the numbers, they look to see if there is enough passion behind the idea, if enough due diligence has been done, and if enough alternatives have been generated and answered.