Nagesh Belludi

Sometimes a Conflict is All About the Process

July 27, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

There’s a considerable difference between a “decision conflict” and a “process conflict,” and it’s necessary to disentangle the two.

A decision conflict is about a choice or another to be made. But a process conflict is about the approach, e.g., where making a choice has lacked rigorous deliberation (haste, a lack of participation from essential stakeholders, contempt for shared priorities, lack of attention to the tradeoffs, and so forth.) A sound decision has ensued from a meticulous-enough thought process, even if the decision emerges to be defective in the fullness of time.

Idea for Impact: Worry about bad decision processes. Make the “how” the anchor for your decision-making process. Improving the quality of decisions is developing better frameworks for making those decisions.

Thirst is a Late Indicator of Dehydration

July 26, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you’re feeling parched, if your mouth feels dry, your body has likely lost 1 to 2 percent of its water content already. That’s a late indicator of dehydration, particularly in older adults.

Idea for Impact: Amid the current record-breaking heat wave, don’t wait for thirst to set in. Monitor for early clues from your body telling you it needs fluids—darker-colored urine, reduced exercise performance, headache, exhaustion, wooziness, and hunger.

The Great Resignation, The Great Awakening

July 25, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Great Resignation hasn’t been just about burnout. It’s about a “Great Awakening,” notably for many folks in middle management.

Obliged to stay in their homes during COVID, they’ve reevaluated their lives while cherishing the extra time with their families and engaging in other interests. Discussions of work-life balance came into renewed focus.

As part of this great rethink, people are unwilling to sacrifice as much for a work-life balance. Some middle managers are increasingly disinclined to take the next step in their careers because “onward and upward” isn’t as appealing as it used to be, and the price to climb the corporate ladder is too high. These people are keener on setting career paths based on their own values and definitions of success.

Not that their ambitions have changed, though. But they aren’t driving for the same things they were driving for ten years ago. But they’re reconsidering how they can keep contributing to their organizations—on their own terms. They’re willing to come to terms with “career plateauing,” unhooking from the pressure to pursue an upward path someone else has set.

They may still derive a certain sense of identity from their jobs, but they’re seeking other ways to seek a more fulfilling life. They’re no longer pushing for the more prestigious title, the broader responsibility, the bigger raise, and a larger team. Instead, they’re taking energy that had been directed primarily on goals defined by the employer and focusing it elsewhere.

Idea for Impact: As part of this great rethink, reassess your options. Set clear boundaries on your willingness to sacrifice to strike a better work-life balance. Think strategically not only about the work you enjoy but also about the life you want to lead.

Inspirational Quotations #955

July 24, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi

Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation.
—C. Everett Koop (American Physician)

Hard as it may appear in individual cases, dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.
—Thomas Robert Malthus (English Political Economist)

Writing was like digging coal. I sweat blood. The spell is on me.
—Zane Grey (American Novelist)

To understand is to perceive patterns.
—Isaiah Berlin (British Philosopher, Historian)

Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of inexperience.
—A. J. Liebling (American Journalist)

One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is the assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind.
—Jean Kerr (Irish-American Writer)

Don’t believe that winning is really everything. It’s more important to stand for something. If you don’t stand for something, what do you win?
—Lane Kirkland (American Labor Leader)

Often regret is very false and displaced, and imagines the past to be totally other than it was.
—John O’Donohue (Irish Philosopher, Priest)

Is it not clear, however, that bliss and envy are the numerator and denominator of the fraction called happiness?
—Yevgeny Zamyatin (Russian Novelist)

If you’re not happy every morning when you get up, leave for work, or start to work at home—if you’re not enthusiastic about doing that, you’re not going to be successful.
—Donald M. Kendall (American Businessman)

All of life is a foreign country.
—Jack Kerouac (American Novelist, Poet)

Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.
—Fidel Castro (Cuban Political Leader)

It is better to be the widow of a hero than the wife of a coward.
—Dolores Ibarruri (Spanish Communist Leader)

The moment of enlightenment is when a person’s dreams of possibilities become images of probabilities.
—Vic Braden (American Sportsperson)

That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.
—Elizabeth Wurtzel (American Writer, Journalist)

Stop Stigmatizing All Cultural ‘Appropriation’

July 21, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

From The Telegraph over the weekend: a Leeds-based “woke dance school,” the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, “drops ballet from auditions as it is ‘white’ and ‘elitist'” as it “reviews ballet art form as part of a diversity drive.”

Many other performance arts are rooted in other cultural traditions, so should we expect that white folk refrains from performing those because that would be cultural appropriation? Shun yoga, not wear cornrow, and drop taco nights?

Should everyone else avoid trains, cars, computers, and much else because they’re white European originations?

Should people not be allowed to wear clothing, cultivate hobbies, or pursue careers that aren’t reflective of the culture they were raised in?

Look, works of art incorporating racist clichés and caricatural images (such as in The Nutcracker) should be reassessed with a different consciousness. Appropriation is elastic and ill-defined. Not all cultural appropriation is harmful or exploitative, certainly not innocuous cultural appreciation—where elements of other cultures could be used to pay reverence and highlight the historic oppressions of those cultures. Appropriation is but offensive when what’s being appropriated brings problems to the people to who the cultural artifact belongs.

On embargoing ballet, let’s stop denunciations of white pride where it doesn’t exist before. Let’s not fuel resentment with our shrill accusations and ill-thought overreactions and contribute to the rise of white supremacy.

Idea for Impact: Raise cultural hackles only for a good cause, i.e., when there’s real offense intended. Don’t stigmatize valuable cultural interchange. Delimiting features of cultures is contradictory to our goal of creating a diverse, melting-pot society. E pluribus unum.

Book Summary: No Filter & The Inside Story of Instagram

July 18, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram (2020) narrates the civil networking service’s ascendance from a Silicon Valley startup to a cultural phenomenon with an ever-present feature of everyday life and an advertising juggernaut.

The book’s author, Bloomberg journalist Sarah Frier, says, “On social media, the average user is scrolling passively, wanting to be entertained and updated on the latest. They are therefore even more susceptible to suggestions by the companies, and by the professional users on a platform who tailor their behavior to what works well on the site.”

Instagram evolved from Burbn, a mobile check-in app. The founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger refocused their app on photo-sharing, which had become a well-liked feature among Burbn’s users. Most cellphone cameras were pretty shoddy then, so Systrom and Krieger implemented filters to make the pictures prettier.

The founders didn’t, however, consider the downside of their innovation—reality-adjusting filters made not only users’ pictures but their lives, by extension, look more appealing. “Instagram’s early popularity was less about the technology and more about the psychology—about how it made people feel. The filters made reality look like art. And then, in cataloging that art, people would start to think about their lives differently, and themselves differently.”

No Filter author Frier shines in analyzing how Instagram rewired society and ushered far-reaching consequences for society, especially on young people’s mental health. Instagram and its ilk have stolen self-esteem and our attention span, leaving us with a needy dependency on strangers’ affirmation for a scripted-reality form of our lives. “The more you give up who you are to be liked by other people, it’s a formula for chipping away at your soul. You become a product of what everyone else wants, and not who you’re supposed to be.” The ability to rework photos to perfection has spread insecurity—even leading to a surge in filter-inspired plastic surgery.

No Filter also fixates on the battle for Instagram’s soul, following its purchase by Facebook for a then-absurd $1 billion, but seemingly a bargain today. There’s considerable corporate drama and cultural clash, but nothing like the co-founder infighting retold in Nick Bilton’s Hatching Twitter (2013; my summary.) Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg emerges controlling and rather callous. In seeking incessant growth, he continually thwarts the Instagram team. Paranoid that Instagram’s advance could “cannibalize” and replace Facebook in cultural relevance someday, Zuckerberg held them back. As Instagram grew bigger and cooler, Facebook acted “like the big sister that wants to dress you up for the party but does not want you to be prettier than she is.” In 2018, Systrom and Krieger left Facebook.

Recommendation: Quick read No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram (2020) for a compelling founding story and a relevant primer on the sweeping socio-cultural impacts ushered by the heavy use of social media.

Inspirational Quotations #954

July 17, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi

A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act, and generally a sad one.
—Queen Victoria (British Royal)

The inability of those in power to still the voices of their own consciences is the great force leading to change.
—Kenneth Kaunda (Zambian Statesman)

Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen.
—Mort Sahl (American Comedian)

Art is something that lies in the slender margin between the real and the unreal.
—Monzaemon Chikamatsu (Japanese Dramatist)

A leader has two important characteristics; first, he is going somewhere; second, he is able to persuade other people to go with him.
—Maximilien Robespierre (French Revolutionary)

A man big enough to be humble appears more confident than the insecure man who feels compelled to call attention to his accomplishments. A little modesty goes a long way.
—David J. Schwartz (American Self-help Author)

Never be so focused on what you’re looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.
—Ann Patchett (American Novelist)

The concentration and dedication- the intangibles are the deciding factors between who won and who lost.
—Tom Seaver (American Baseball Player)

It is faith among men that holds the moral elements of society together, as it is faith in God that binds the world to his throne.
—William M. Evarts (American Lawyer, Politician)

I look forward to being older, when what you look like becomes less and less an issue and what you are is the point.
—Susan Sarandon (American Actress)

Understanding brings control.
—Isaac Bonewits (American Neopagan)

If the existence of human beings leads to nothing, what is all this comedy about?
—Camille Flammarion (French Astronomer)

It is impossible to win the race unless you venture to run, impossible to win the victory unless you dare to battle.
—Richard DeVos (American Businessman, Philanthropist)

Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness.
—David Bohm (American Physicist)

Obstacles often are not personal attacks; they are muscle builders.
—Anne Wilson Schaef (American Clinical Psychologist)

Women love the lie that saves their pride, but never an unflattering truth.
—Gertrude Atherton (American Novelist)

Is The Customer Always Right?

July 14, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

No matter how finicky or rude a customer is, many businesses make employees treat bad customers with unquestioned respect or risk reprobation—even getting sacked.

Per the well-worn business adage, is “the customer is always right?” No, they’re not. Sometimes they’re wrong, and they need to be told so.

Your goal should be to do business with people that you enjoy doing business with. Some customers simply aren’t good customers. They don’t follow directions and complain irrationally. They have unreasonable expectations, and they treat your people rudely.

Idea for Impact: A prudent maxim is, “the customer is usually right.” Put the customer first, but don’t get mistreated by them. Putting the customer first doesn’t mean putting employees second. As a business, you must let customers be wrong with respect and dignity; but employees should be authorized to caution some customers, “After due consideration, we believe your actions are unacceptable. Persist, and we’d choose to lose your business.” Some bad customers are just bad for your business.

Almost always, though, unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning; they can especially offer an honest assessment of the expectations you’re setting. Customer satisfaction with a transaction depends on their expectations going into it.

The #1 Learning from Sun Tzu’s Art of War: Avoid Battle

July 11, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Art of War, Chinese strategist-philosopher Sun Tzu’s treatise on military strategy, is studied not so much for the advice it gives but for the state of mind it encourages. Developed in only six thousand Chinese characters and 25 pages of text, this way of thinking has held vast sway in such fields as military planning, strategic management, and negotiating. “Every battle is won or lost before it is fought.”

Something exceptional about the Art of War is the extent to which it’s devoted to methodically avoiding battle altogether. War isn’t something to be entered rashly or for petty reasons. “A sovereign should not start a war out of anger, nor should a general give battle out of rage. While anger can revert to happiness and rage to delight, a nation that has been destroyed cannot be restored, nor can the dead be brought back to life.”

Nor is war’s dominant purpose to cause physical destruction to an enemy. Instead, the pinnacle of military skill is to conquer one’s opponent strategically—by penetrating his alliances, rattling his plans, and coercing him diplomatically—without ever resorting to armed combat. “Why destroy,” Sun Tzu poses, “when you can win by stealth and cunning? To subdue the enemy’s forces without fighting is the summit of skill.”

Sun Tzu’s insistence that an enlightened strategist can attain victory without fighting echoes the foundational Taoist doctrine of “non-action (Wu-Wei.”) Armed conflict, therefore, is the last resort. War in itself represents a significant defeat. As a matter of course, Sun Tzu allocates a good chunk of the Art of War to the line of combat and attack. A savvy general must, however, take every accessible measure to gain victory swiftly, with minimal casualties and suffering for both sides. “The best approach is to attack the other side’s strategy; next best is to attack his alliances; next best is to attack his soldiers; the worst is to attack cities.”

Again and again, through implication, Sun-Tzu’s war document posits peace and restraint—the avoidance of battle—as the utmost victory. To fight at all, Sun-Tzu insists, is already a substantial loss, much worse than losing in war.

Idea for Impact: The Art of War is a worthy course on conflict management because avoiding confrontation requires more remarkable skill than winning on the battlefield.

Inspirational Quotations #953

July 10, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.
—Michael Palin (English Actor, Writer, Television Traveler)

Human it is to have compassion on the unhappy.
—Giovanni Boccaccio (Italian Writer, Poet)

In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.
—John of the Cross (Spanish Roman Catholic Mystic)

Real life seems to have no plots.
—Ivy Compton-Burnett (English Novelist)

Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.
—Anthony Hopkins (Welsh-American Actor)

If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death.
—Charles Sanders Peirce (American Philosopher)

A mind fallow becomes overgrown with the weeds of confusion and forgetfulness.
—Mick Burns (American Clergyman)

We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.
—Desmond Morris (English Ethologist, Writer)

I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.
—Alan Greenspan (American Economist)

If you want to know about a man you can find out an awful lot by looking at who he married.
—Kirk Douglas (American Actor)

Books – the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity.
—George Steiner (American Culture Critic)

Always give in charity to people of good conduct.
—The Jataka Tales (Genre of Buddhist Literature)

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.
—M. C. Escher (Dutch Artist)

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.
—Russell Baker (American Journalist, Humorist)

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