One of the confounding terms in the business world is value. Outside the business world the term poses difficult questions to philosophers, economists, religious thinkers in the sense it matters to them. One of the main challenges is to define whether the value of an object/service is absolute or relative. For example, neoclassical economists perceive value as relative while classical folks try to measure it as innate worth, and an objectivist acknowledges the worth, but play it down with reason.

In a world, where value seems to be driven by perceptions of individuals, it is difficult to assess the true value of anything - that too, only if a true value exists for one! And, we often come to the table negotiating our perceptions of value. We have created processes, methodologies and systems to minimize the negotiations; especially to save the carps from negotiation sharks. But these systems are not foolproof, and loopholes are easily exploited.

In most of our day-to-day transactions value of a substance/service is often understood by its objective and subjective elements. It helps if we separate objective and subjective elements and their contributions to the assessed value, with the context of subjectivity well understood. There could be some delicate interdependencies between these elements, which may need to be dealt with care and tact.

When the systems fail, processes become inadequate, value tilts out of balance. At that point negotiation starts and fairness of the deal depends a lot on the parties involved. A good and principled negotiation helps in establishing value in a realistic manner. It is also good to remember that there is value in building relationships as well, through healthy negotiations.

What prompts a person to learn? I have been trying to find an answer, especially in the context of work. For many, once out of educational system, learning becomes almost a matter of choice. The highest hurdle in making this choice is the refusal to accept ignorance. We have built a culture around us where ignorance is considered a shame.

Look around! Many of us are trying to convince ourselves that we know, especially in the areas of our specialty or work. Seldom we realize that those confidence-boosters become obstacles in our learning process. The first step in learning is to learn of our ignorance, and to accept it. That’s when we beat the hurdle and choose to learn.

I wonder whether Sir Isaac Newton realized it when he remarked, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me”!

A few years back, when the book Who Moved My Cheese? was in the list of top-sellers, everyone talked about change frequently and daringly. Change is inevitable in the universe and life, that we all must be prepared to deal with. But all changes need not bring desirable results. Success of a change depends on the current situation, our knowledge on it, and the acceptation of it’s results.

Along with change comes the restraint to change - which is good. In life, the restraint to change is often a mental block, or a fear that the change may not work, or some emotional ties. While many ask us to suppress these restraints, I would say, these can be used wisely to evaluate the situation objectively, to analyze the new or changed situation.

Another aspect of change is the courage to change. First it requires courage to accept the situation, conquer the fear and destroy the barriers. Then it requires courage to accept the change and live with it. I guess this is where all the inspirational books and speakers concentrate - threatening us to make the move, preparing us to face the unknown. Just remember only this - courage is different from daring!

Everything flows, nothing stands still. Change is inevitable. If you know your restraints well, if you have the courage to accept the change, you can always remain “Say Cheese”.

Since I joined the Orkut community, I have been noticing a lot of hits coming to this site from Orkut. I couldn’t help, but thinking and searching about Orkut.

Orkut is a social networking site designed by Orkut Büyükkökten - a turkish software engineer - as a personal project in Google. It has grown into a phenomenon with the help of netizens, dedicating their time and “relationships”. But I was particularly intrigued by one of the most important aspect of any social network. Privacy!

Reading through the fine-print, I understand the privacy of our personal information (date of birth, address, phone etc.) is safe with Google (unless we choose to publish it - then there is no question of ‘privacy’). After going through many articles, and spending some time in Orkut, my opinion is that privacy in Orkut depends on one of the basic elements of social networks - trust.

There is a new feature in Orkut - mutual friends - which is something worth looking at. It creates inexplicit communities. You can traverse through this ‘mutual friends’ to get a complete picture of the community you are interested in. I am reminded of the efforts we spent in ‘customer grouping’, ‘householding’ activities in many Customer Relations Management (CRM) projects. Again, this feature works only in our friend circles, and that’s good.

For these reasons, whenever I logon to Orkut, I imagine the O as a circle, a circle of trust, and that it comes first.

I saw the movie “Coach Carter” and am pretty impressed. The coach kept asking the tough rookie - “Cruz, what’s your deepest fear?”. At one point Cruz finds the answer:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

That’s something too philosophical to come out from the character. It’s a quote from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson. May be coach Carter taught him on that eventful night. Anyway!

Talented people are hard to find. They are hard to manage as well. But the biggest problem with the talented lot is to make them one with a team. In the height of their abilities, the biggest fear they face is that they are “powerful beyond measure” and they should not “shrink” in front of others. As their team-mates catch up with them, they start building a fortress around themselves or start building insecurity in others. They just can’t afford to lose the top spot.

Once Cruz realized that his fear is in not being able to let go, he was able to work on it and identify himself better with the team. He was okay to abide with the contracts and the rules.

Are you talented and take pride in your abilities and do you tend to bend the rules? Well, think twice. What’s your deepest fear?

In a recent newsletter, Jim Womack from Lean.Org has mentioned the hunters/farmers concept in sales, and encouraged the farmers in a lean organization. For the people who have not heard about hunters & farmers, hunters are the aggressive sales people who’s interest is in getting sales higher and faster for the moment. While farmers can be quite future-minded, nurturing the customers, slowly building them up to a long term relationship.

These days organizations prefer hunters (we call head-hunters, not head-farmers; isn’t it?) and that helps them meet the short-term targets very well. When the hunters get worn out, they get new hunters! When the customer is not happy being hunted ruthlessly, the hunters go and find new customers and hunt them down! I guess that is why Jim Womack preferred farmers than hunters.

But, farming is not very attractive. And nobody has patience. What do we do now? ‘Hunters who occasionally farm’ does not sound nice! Shall we encourage farmers, who hunt occasionally?

I was preparing some notes on “stewardship of time” and came across this poem.

Just a tiny little minute,
Only sixty seconds in it,
Forced upon me, can’t refuse it,
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,
But it’s up to me to use it,
Give account if I abuse it.
Just a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.
- Author Unknown

I sat there for a moment and wondered how much meaning it conveyed to me. May be the entire message on “stewardship of time” is in it.

It is astonishing if you look at the orderliness in physics and in the applicability of the laws of physics. Order and discipline are also considered as a desirable quality in human life.

It is interesting to note the relation of order and predictability. Predictability helps better ordering and orderliness makes the results more predictable. This is the key for many of the modern process improvement techniques such as Lean.

Lean processes first aims for an order in the system. This first step is one of the most difficult steps as the change needs to be from within. If the change is not from one’s self, it becomes an imposition - a trigger for disorder. The immediate and surprising savings come from ordering the systems. From my experience, it is always a challenge to bring order and uniformity in a team unless it is demonstrated and the team is motivated. Much more efforts will be spent on follow up and maintenance of order until a steady state is reached.

It costs to bring order into a system. It costs time and money to keep our rooms clean and tidy. As a child, I was not much orderly in life. Those days my father used to tell me - “it saves an hour, if only we take a minute to keep things right, at the first place”. Lean implementations prove that the cost of order and discipline is recoverable. However, orderliness by itself may not bring huge savings. The savings will depend on how effective the arrangement is. It is important to study the usability of an ordered system to decide the effectiveness. In a team, it matters how members perceive the system and how they are able to adapt to it. Most of the times, it makes sense to limit the ‘degree of orderliness’ at a medium so that it is acceptable to everyone.

While order and discipline are much desirable, chaos is unavoidable. Deterministic laws of physics are classical. In modern days, quantum mechanics adds a dash of randomness and unpredictability to the rigidity of physics laws. It is then also important to relate to the chaos of the system, and to learn to limit it in allowable limits. In physics too, the randomness affects small particles, not the larger systems.

Order or chaos? It is difficult to say which is fundamental. Human nature is unpredictable and random and chaos seems to be the answer. It requires commitment and dedication to adopt orderliness into our nature and practice it in everyday life. Everyday I need to take many conscious decisions to maintain order in my environment. Still, I am striving & straining, for a better order in my life. It is an unending journey, a journey to perfection!