Archives for November 2019

A Great Email Time-Saver

November 29, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

When you’re trying to schedule a meeting with someone, make it easier for them to respond by proposing one or two choices in your initial email: “How about 9:00 AM on Tuesday?” or “Are you available on Tuesday at 10:00 AM or on Wednesday at 3:00 PM?”

Don’t give them many options (“any time next week”) or, worse yet, don’t ask them to leaf through their calendar and suggest a time (“I know you’re busy. Let me know when you want to meet.”)

Keeping it brief and specific maximizes the chance that one of your suggested times will work out, and they’ll quickly say “yes” without further iteration.

How to Reduce Thanksgiving Stress

November 26, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Getting everything organized in your kitchen for this week’s annual celebration—one that nonetheless marks the Anglo-Saxon incursion of someone else’s country—is challenging enough, but hosting Thanksgiving gets even more stressful as soon as guests start arriving. You’re obliged to talk to them, entertain them, and keep them busy and occupied, all the while prepping and oven-coordinating.

One way to reduce your festive stress is to assign each guest a simple responsibility. Get aunt Mary to set the table, uncle Roger to get all the wine and the champagne ready, and the children to prepare the place cards. Somebody else can organize simple Thanksgiving games for the restless kids.

Give them all specific goals; don’t dictate perfection. Make sure the jobs are easy enough, short, and, preferably centered away from the kitchen, allowing you to focus on getting the food ready.

Appoint one dependable person to operate as your right-hand person—this person can coordinate with everybody else.

Your guests will feel satisfied that they’ve helped, and you’ll get some valuable space to get everything ready and have a fun time with your family.

Reduce Thanksgiving stress further by not partaking in that ritualized consumer orgy called Black Friday. Join the Buy Nothing Day movement in protest against excessive consumerism.

Addendum: When multiple families assemble for large gatherings, there’s a tendency for entire families to sit together. That’s a shame; if people could scatter around the dining table, there’d be more interactions and a livelier event. Bear this in mind while you decide on seating arrangements.

Inspirational Quotations #816

November 24, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi

I realize that advice is worth what it costs–that is, nothing.
—Douglas MacArthur (American Military Leader)

No such thing as a man willing to be honest—that would be like a blind man willing to see.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (American Novelist)

Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American Humanitarian)

Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie… a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.
—George Orwell (English Novelist, Essayist, Journalist)

The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.
—Omar Bradley (American Military Leader)

I learned that you can’t truly own anything, that true ownership comes only in the moment of giving.
—Mia Farrow (American Actress, Activist)

It is not moral to lie, but you don’t always have to tell the truth.
—Ignaz Bernstein (Russian-Jewish Bibliophile, Philanthropist)

If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of troubles.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

The person who runs away exposes himself to that very danger more than a person who sits quietly.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (Austrian-born British Philosopher)

The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (American Writer, Aphorist)

A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

To understand the world one must not be worrying about one’s self.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

We can never be certain of our courage until we have faced danger.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (French Writer)

It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Some Lessons Can Only Be Learned in the School of Life

November 19, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

How Anil Ambani Learned the Ropes of Doing Business in India

In the Fall of 1982, Anil Ambani, scion of one of India’s wealthiest family, returned home to Mumbai, then Bombay, after attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Anil had fast-tracked through his two-year MBA program in less than 15 months.

He met up with his father Dhirubhai Ambani and announced, “Look, Dad, I’ve become an MBA, and I’m going to take a break since I worked hard. I will see you in the New Year.”

Dhirubhai asked, “I am very happy and delighted that you accomplished this. Since I did not go to any formal school or college, I do not have any degree, why don’t you tell me, from your learning at Wharton, what does an MBA stand for?”

Smug and self-satisfied, Anil replied, “That’s simple. Master of Business Administration.”

Dhirubhai countered, “An MBA represents Manē Badhā Āvō che,” (Gujarati for “I am know all.”) He explained,

You are entering India, and you need to Indianize your MBA … at Wharton School, did they teach you about customs duties, excise duties, income tax, sales tax, Parliament?

Do you know about a zero-hour question, a call-attention motion, and the difference between a starred question and an unstarred question in the Indian Parliament?

If you don’t get to know all these things, let me assure you, all your formal education is not going to help you. You need your practical Indian MBA. And I am going to create that learning environment for you so that you can get the exposure.

A formal education doesn’t necessarily teach you everything about how to navigate the real world

Dhirubhai Ambani, the prototypical crony capitalist that he was, was highlighting the importance of learning the ways and means of doing business in pre-liberalization India.

One must note that Ambani’s extraordinary rags-to-riches story was a blend of cunning, street smartness, audacious risk-taking, and an unparalleled knack for bending the rules through powerful politicians and bureaucrats. As controversial as he was, Ambani must be understood in the socio-political context of India’s post-Independence industrial milieu. He artfully exploited the opportunities those times offered.

Idea for Impact: Formal education cannot complete the kind of real-world operative skills that you need

If you’re truly serious in your desire to get ahead in business, you will need a broader grasp of your chosen discipline than you can get from formal education.

Look, listen, learn. Every industry, company, organization, and team has its own culture. Spend time observing the winners: what does success look like? Who holds power, and how are they persuaded? What are the traits of people who get ahead? Emphasize developing skills in line with the winners.
Develop a network of people who can potentially lend a hand or bail you out of a jam. Invest in the people who will listen to your ideas and support your ambitions. Get to know peers at all levels to build a support base. Any person may have the knowledge and the allegiances that they can put to work for you if they’re so inclined.
Discover how to make the most of the circumstances you’re dealt with. Don’t manipulate others for your own devices in a Machiavellian sense—although, occasionally, you may need to use duplicity for respectable purposes, i.e. where certain ends can justify certain means.

Remember, the political payoff for fostering and nurturing relationships, and for developing a vast reservoir of skills and experiences, may take months, years, or even decades.

Inspirational Quotations #815

November 17, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi

The ablest man I ever met is the man you think you are.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

There’s no way that you can live an adequate life without many mistakes. In fact, one trick in life is to get so you can handle mistakes. Failure to handle psychological denial is a common way for people to go broke.
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

We gain strength from other people. We give strength to each other.
—Rudy Giuliani (American Politician)

Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
—Maya Angelou (American Poet)

Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Essayist)

No effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of the few: and number not voices, but weigh them.
—Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

A name is a kind of face whereby one is known; wherefore taking a false name is a kind of visard whereby men disguise themselves.
—Thomas Fuller (English Cleric, Historian)

He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.
—Leon Trotsky (Russian Revolutionary)

Inspirational Quotations #814

November 10, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi

A man is known by the company he avoids.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

Do to others as you would have others do to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness a great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful: Do good to yourself with as little prejudice as you can to others.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French Philosopher)

Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity. Knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. We can simply be ourselves.
—Sam Harris (American Neuroscientist, Atheist, Author)

Curiosity in children, is but an appetite for knowledge.
—John Locke (English Philosopher)

The secret to humor is surprise.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.
—W. H. Auden (British-born American Poet)

I’d rather regret the things I have done than the things that I haven’t.
—Lucille Ball (American Actor)

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.
—Paul Gauguin (French Painter)

Man while he loves is never quite depraved.
—Charles Lamb (British Essayist, Poet)

Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.
—Virginia Woolf (English Novelist)

Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands; in unskillful, the most mischievous.
—Alexander Pope (English Poet)

Emulation is a noble and just passion, full of appreciation.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Satisfaction linked with dishonor or with harm to others is a prison for the seeker.
—Zoroaster (Persian Religious Leader, Prophet)

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

Lessons from the World’s Worst Aviation Disaster // Book Summary of ‘The Collision on Tenerife’

November 5, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Jon Ziomek’s nonfiction history book Collision on Tenerife (2018) is the result of years of analysis into the world’s worst aviation disaster on Tenerife Island in the Canary Islands of Spain.

Distinct Small Errors Can Become Linked and Amplified into a Big Tragedy

On 27-March-1977, two fully loaded Boeing 747 passenger jets operated by Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines collided on the runway, killing 583 passengers and crew on the two airplanes. Only 61 survived—all from the Pan Am jet, including its pilot.

These two flights, and a few others, were diverted to Tenerife after a bomb went off at the Gran Canaria Airport in Las Palmas, their original destination. Tenerife was not a major airport—it had a single runway, and taxi and parking space were limited. After the Las Palmas airport reopened, flights were cleared for takeoff from Tenerife, but the fog rolled in over Tenerife reducing visibility to less than 300 feet. Several airplanes that had been diverted to Tenerife had blocked the taxiway and the parking ramp. Therefore, the KLM and Pan Am jets taxied down the single runway in preparation for takeoff, the Pan Am behind the KLM.

At one end of the runway, the KLM jet turned 180 degrees into position for takeoff. In the meantime, the Pan Am jet was still taxiing on the runway, having missed its taxiway turnoff in the fog. The KLM pilot jumped the gun and started his take-off roll before he got clearance from traffic control.

When the pilots of the two jets caught sight of each other’s airplanes through the fog, it was too late for the Pan Am jet to clear out of the runway into the grass and for KLM jet to abort the takeoff. The KLM pilot lifted his airplane off the runway prematurely, but could not avoid barreling into the Pan Am’s fuselage at 240 kmph. Both the jets exploded into flames.

The accident was blamed on miscommunication—breakdown of coordinated action, vague language from the control tower, the KLM pilot’s impatience to takeoff without clearance, and the distorted cross-talk of the KLM and Pan Am pilots and the controllers on a common radio channel.

Breakdown of Coordination Under Stress

Sweeping changes were made to international airline regulations following the accident: cockpit procedures were changed, standard phrases were introduced, and English was emphasized as a common working language.

In Collision on Tenerife, Jon Ziomek, a journalism professor at Northwestern University, gives a well-written, detailed account of all the mistakes leading up to the crash and its aftermath.

The surviving passengers’ first- and second-hand accounts recall the horror of those passengers on the right side of the Pan Am jet who saw the lights of the speeding KLM 747, just as the Pan Am pilot was hastily turning his airplane onto the grass to avoid the collision.

Ziomek describes how passengers escaped. Some had to make the difficult choice of leaving loved ones or friends and strangers behind.

Dorothy Kelly … then spotted Captain Grubbs lying near the fuselage. Badly burned and shaken by his jump from the plane, he could not move. “What have I done to these people?” he yelled, pounding the ground in anguish. Kelly grabbed him under his shoulders and urged “Crawl, Captain, crawl!”

Recommendation: Read Jon Ziomek’s Collision on Tenerife

Some of the bewildering details make for difficult reading—especially the psychological effects (post-traumatic stress syndrome) on the surviving passengers. But Jon Ziomek’s Collision on Tenerife is important reading, providing a comprehensive picture of the extensive coordination required in aviation, the importance of safety and protocols, and how some humans can freeze in shock while others spring into action.

The key takeaway is the recognition of how small errors and problems (an “error chain”) can quickly become linked and amplified into disastrous outcomes.

Inspirational Quotations #813

November 3, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi

Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.
—Thomas Hardy (English Novelist, Poet)

Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (American Jurist, Author)

Better know nothing than half-know many things.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Five things are requisite to a good officer—ability, clean hands, despatch, patience, and impartiality.
—William Penn (American Entrepreneur)

Let’s not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The great end of life is not knowledge, but action.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don’t want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.
—Alfred Hitchcock (British-born American Film Director)

It may be long before the law of love will be recognized in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Any kind of lasting success is rooted in honesty.
—Russell Simmons (American Music Promoter)

What morality requires, true statesmanship should accept.
—Edmund Burke (British Philosopher, Statesman )

Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion.
—Martha Graham (American Choreographer)

It didn’t occur to me until later that there’s another truth, very simple: greed in a good cause is still greed.
—Stephen King (American Novelist)

This loving person is a person who abhors waste—waste of time, waste of human potential. How much time we waste. As if we were going to live forever.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

Archives for November 2019

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

How Anil Ambani Learned the Ropes of Doing Business in India

A formal education doesn’t necessarily teach you everything about how to navigate the real world

Idea for Impact: Formal education cannot complete the kind of real-world operative skills that you need

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Distinct Small Errors Can Become Linked and Amplified into a Big Tragedy

Breakdown of Coordination Under Stress

Recommendation: Read Jon Ziomek’s Collision on Tenerife

Wondering what to read next?