Unless you believe that future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so — Noam Chomsky

I’m a hardcore Performance-Based Management person. I call it PBM. As soon as I created this abbreviation I realized that P can also stand for Promise or Potential depending on the state of evolution, in which case PBM becomes Promise-Based Management or Potential-Based Management.

My roots in Performance-Based Management are from my years of Kaizen, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma and years of Public Company experience where every day, month, quarter and of course year counts. …

Let’s stay vigilant in our daily behavior and not let this Dragon Sickness take over us

Peter Jackson’s Hobbit is one of my favorite movies and JRR Tolkien is one of my favorite authors.

What I like the most about Hobbit is the concept about the Dragon Sickness. The Dwarf Kingdom — ”Erebor" the lonely mountain was filled with Gold that the dwarfs had mined out. Thror, the Dwarf King went crazy over the gold he has come to possess. It was not until when he found the Arkenstone that he was really drunk with wealth, the smell of gold…

Decluttering our mind of vines and pests on a daily basis reminds us of our true self/intentions

We grow a variety of Texas native flowers that attract butterflies (monarch, queen, swallowtail) and bees (mason and bumblebee) in our yard. We have cultivated about 11 monarch butterflies this year and about 20 more are on their way so far this summer.

I was in the garden this morning attending to the lawn, plants and flowers and I noticed the pests on the milkweed (butterfly bush). I Googled and found that they are called Aphids. …

“SHOW ME YOUR ORIGINAL FACE, WHAT WERE YOU BEFORE YOU WERE BORN” — HUINENG, THE SIXTH PATRIARCH OF ZEN BUDDHISM.

I’m not talking about avatars, the cycle of rebirth or about constantly changing your mind. I’m talking about how can you give your best in what you do, consciously die and take birth again. Can you be a new person with renewed intentions and energy?

My Guru said that the basis of all meditation is to develop awareness. He wasn’t asking me to develop superhero senses. He was instructing me to develop awareness of everything. He said that I have…

“Every act of normal folk that keeps the darkness at Bay” — JRR, The Hobbit.

“You have been dealt with a set of cards, don’t go looking for a joker," said Arjun Malhotra at a one of the IIT Alumni meets.

Back in 2001, I stumbled upon my Guru during my quest for understanding foundational philosophy. When I asked him what he thought the purpose of life is, he said, "The purpose of life is to be excellent at everything you do." When I asked him, how would I know what is excellent from my perspective, he said I would know it when I surrender myself. The force of achieving excellence (which is control-centric) and…

We often talk about how technology is disrupting business models. Beyond business models technology is truly disrupting and transforming human interactions.

If it didn’t happen on social the event didn’t happen, that’s the mantra we live with. Social platforms have tapped into the psyche and have created this urge to share our lives with the digital avatars of our family and friends. Be it a drinking a Dance3 at Black Hammering, an Allagash at Nola or the Madras Coffee at Saravana Bhavan with a bud or an introspective time with an awesome hot chocolate at Coupa Cafe. …

In a customer-centric world that we live in, I am always looking to learn to my improve my skills.

I initially started this blog thinking about why some of these are not dead yet and how some of these are pretty sensible. I quickly realized that these are lessons of good and bad customer experiences from which I can learn. On your vacation aren’t you supposed to take your mind off work, guess you can’t take your learning off work.

Irrelevance of Free printed maps in a world filled with map apps