Avinash had recently got his new PDA phone. He wished it had a better keyboard and could open multiple browser windows. And if it could some how ‘unfold’ itself into a projector – like a recent advertisement he had seen – he would have it all. Avinash smiled to himself. ‘I am a simple man,’ he said to himself, ‘just basic stuff in life.’ It could even have MP3 as ring tones, but Avinash preferred that a phone rang like a phone; the standard Tring-Tring tone.
Tring-tring
Avinash attempted visualising a handset being pressed to an ear as he heard the familiar, unconventional beginning of a phone conversation. Salim loathed mobile phones; Avinash had wanted to suggest that Salim become a model for land-line phone companies.
“How’s the skyscraper?”
“Fine, how’s earth”
“Oh, as human as ever; amidst all the hurt, pain, anger, and sadness – happiness and joy seems to stand a good chance of winning.”
“That’s nice – there seems to be hope.”
“Yes, I am taking decisions, you know, so are Sanjay and Rahul. The ultimate salvation, however, is still a distant dream.”
“But we are getting there, aren’t we?” Avinash relaxed. He closed the files on his laptop and relaxed and looked out at the blue sky. The weather bureau had promised an overcast sky with heavy showers. Avinash wondered why they talked about how his day would be, rather than really telling how the weather in the city would be.
“Right,” Salim chuckled, “what matters, however, is that everyone else also understands, isn’t it? I don’t think everyone is thinking the way we are or even the way you would! It’s just a few of us holding it all together.”
It was Pareto who coined the 80-20 rule. Avinash didn’t recall what the origins of that rule were, but knew that the rule was used to describe how most work happened in most organisations. 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people or 20% of the products get 80% of the revenue, and the examples even become recursive. It seemed so applicable – everywhere. Salim didn’t want to talk about Pareto; Avinash didn’t bring up Pareto. Salim seemed to be relaxed and have time on his otherwise busy hands. A good conversation might just stimulate him to finalise the change management programme, Avinash thought. “Maybe I should just come back,” he said.
“Too politically correct! Are you on a speaker phone; are there others in the room?”
Avinash realised that his new phone had a speaker phone; he didn’t need to carry his shrunk computer-in-a-phone all over the room. Avinash switched on the speaker phone and said, “I am now on speaker phone and no one else is in the room and it is as sound proof as it gets.”
“OK, I heard about your new toy from Javed. Anyways, I thought you’d have a better answer than that.” Salim’s aversion to gadgets was making its way through the radio waves.
As Avinash sifted through the radio waves – he wondered whether it was the aversion to gadgets or disappointment at his answer. He concluded it was probably his response. “What were you expecting as a better answer?”
“It’s all right, I understand,” Salim acknowledged, the rhetoric taken as rhetoric. He crisply told Avinash what was going on back there without any of it sounding like a complaint. Very analytical, just like the consultant he had trained to be.
“It’s a problem of expression you know,” Avinash said, thinking hard at the way the problem was presented and talked about. “You and a couple of others think so well, yet are so lacking in expression. I wonder how you do your consultant reports.”
“No point in expressing if no one is going to listen or change behaviour.” Avinash loosened his tie. This promised to be a long one. And for once Salim’s head had bobbed up from the ocean of assignments that he was working on; Avinash didn’t want to miss out the opportunity. It was even selfish in a way. He missed these people. He missed these times. His new challenge was challenging enough and had its own romance – but like Javed often quoted some management guru – we are always attached to the job that we grew out of.
“That’s not the purpose of expressing an analytical thought. That’s what differentiates a philosopher and a radical. Better to have thoughts that allow others to reflect on what they do,” Avinash suggested.
“I agree because you are saying it – but I didn’t understand what you just said.” That was Salim for you, as honest as a white sheet of paper. This is what Avinash liked about thinkers. They didn’t agree to things because they sounded good. Thinkers like Salim and Maddy. Maddy was another omnipresent team member often attributed to magical powers. It was even suspected that he was the Reluctant Messiah who wrote the other handbooks about solving problems, which Richard Bach didn’t publish.
“Let’s see. The purpose of getting your thoughts out is not to transform how people work. When you express your thought, you offer them a perspective. Offer a perspective that they can’t have or may not ever have.
“This is beginning to make sense; I agree.”
“When an expression is “imposed” on people – without offering them the chance to think for themselves – it is the purpose of a thinker who uses expression for personal or narrow motives. In my opinion, the radical thinks like this. It may be right – in a context – however it is still imposed. It doesn’t offer any chance to a person to use that perspective and see if it makes sense. Think of most fundamentalist groups and most philosophers you know. They do “nearly” the same thing. They offer a “manner of thinking”. The philosophers however, offer a “manner of thinking” in a more subtle way. They allow you to be free to disagree and form your own opinion and even allow you to build on their thoughts. They enable you to think for yourself. The purpose of getting your thoughts out is not to ‘change’ people. It is to help them think right and think for themselves.”
Avinash sensed a complete silence on the side from where the radio waves were emanating. “Getting simpler or even more complicated?”
“Much better, go on.”
“The objective of the expression is not a deterministic goal – like bringing about change in people. The expression is the objective itself! That – is the purpose”
“You are drinking in the office?” Avinash guessed that Salim had understood all that Avinash wanted to say. He just wished that others understood too.
“Nope. I am saving that time for when I am with you guys.”
“Hope you are coming back soon, fun is long pending and behind schedule.”
The sky was still bright and clear. Slits of sunshine escaped through the blinds in his cabin.
