Take off your hat to a good plan

'Plan is integrated and it can't be developed without
effort and dedication' - Dr V V Rao

 The Pearl Harbor assault was a planned event for more than a year and the mastermind behind the attack on Pearl Harbor was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet.

Yamamoto had two sources of inspiration for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

·        The first was the destruction of the Pacific Fleet and a Japanese invasion of the Philippines and Guam.

·        The second source was the November 1940 RAF strikes at Taranto, Italy, in which torpedoes heavily damaged two Italian battleships.

The event impressed Yamamoto because it was the first practical attack by aircraft on battleships. In January 1941, Yamamoto instructed Rear Admiral Takijiro Onishi, a renowned naval aviator, to prepare a preliminary study on the feasibility of an attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. The plan was completed in April and called for Japan to make a surprise air and submarine attack on Pearl Harbor.

The site was selected because it was a major United States military installation and a close enough for Japanese forces to approach with little risk of detection.

Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, director of the air attack, spent the next several months developing the tactics and equipment necessary to fly to Hawaii and take out the ships along Battleship Row.

In November, after the Japanese government approved the attack, it became known as the ‘Hawaiian Operation.’ On November 30, the Japanese cabinet set December 7 as the date Japan would declare war on the United States. On December 1, Yamamoto's flagship in Japan's Inland Sea sent out a prearranged coded message — ‘Climb Mount Niitaka’ which was the signal to attack Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7. [The Great Pacific War by Hector Bywater, 1925]

A plan is a formal statement of a set of strategic goals, the reasons they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the dream or concept attempting to reach those goals.

A plan can typically any diagram or list of steps with timing and resources, used to achieve a goal. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a strategic goal.

What to plan?

1. A comprehensive, integrated, dedicated and committed efforts

2. Best resource utilization

3. A detailed and able to monitor, measure and continually improve

As such, planning is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans; that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of how to react to them.

Example: The 2003 Invasion of Iraq (19 March – 1 May 2003), was the start of the conflict known as ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’, in which combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations.

In both Pearl Harbor and Invasion of Iraq, the detailing was on the tactics, efforts, resources, timing and with supreme aim the victories were achieved.

Mind it - Powering your future

Leadership is not just holding positions
it is about leading position. Dr V V Rao

‘It is critical to spot any challenge to drive personal efficiency early, which in turn can lead to miracles.’ – Dr. V. V. Rao

• ·        Dreaming with freedom
• ·        Thinking with freedom
• ·        Doing with freedom
• ·        Sharing with freedom
• ·        Learning with freedom
• ·        Winning with freedom
• ·        Celebrating with freedom

The above are KEYS to success then, how one can do it? I found SIX useful methods and/or tools through which one can win great battles of life.

1.     Making your own Mind Maps

The Mind map is an expression of innovative thinking and is therefore a natural function of the human mind. It is powerful graphic technique which provides a universal key to unlocking the potential of the brain. Mind map can be applied to every aspect of life and clearer thinking will enhance human performance. Mind map is your mental volcano a devise for accessing intelligence.

Example: The note by Leonardo da Vinci, demonstrate the point. He used words, symbols, sequence, listing, linearity, analysis, association, visual rhythm, numbers, imagery, dimension and wholesomeness. Also found same comprehensive note making by legendary Picasso.

With these Mind maps you simply allow your brain to incubate an idea. In other words, having completed your decision making mind map, you allow your brain to relax.

2.   Creating your own Yellow Pages

One must ensure to have and know the information needed to accomplish a specific objective. We need to make our expertise available to us at every instant. One of the straightforward ways to accomplish this is to create your own electronic personal Yellow pages those points you to all specific information when it is most required and it is required on that moment.

Today’s social and networked world we face challenges while finding information on intranets, internet, social feeds there is too much, and searches can yield as much nonsense as helpful material.

How to create such type of Yellow pages?  Lay the ground work means asking basic, but very important questions:

What type of knowledge does the objective need to be completed?

What are the key decisions that will impact success?

What type of information is needed to support these decisions?

What are the knowledge sources? (People, documents, links, media)

What are the key competencies that will lead to success?

Example: The British ran the Indian subcontinent for about 200 years, from the middle of the eighteenth century through World War II, without making any fundamental changes in organization structure or administrative policy. The Indian Civil Service never had more than 1000 members to administer the vast densely populated subcontinent. Most British were quite young a 30 year old was a survivor, especially in the early years and the first 100 years there was no telegraph or railroad. Organization structure was totally flat. Each district officer reported directly to the Provincial political secretary. The system worked remarkably well, because it was designed to ensure that each of its members had the information he needed to do the job.

3.   Building Concept Stories

Storytelling can be adaptive for all ages Storytelling can be used as a method to teach ethics, values, and cultural norms, success stories, scenarios, lessons learned, key success factors and differences. Learning is most effective when it takes place in social environments that provide authentic social cues about how knowledge is to be applied.

Stories provide a tool to transfer knowledge and preserve knowledge. Stories mirror human thought as humans think in narrative structures and most often remember facts in story form. Facts can be understood as smaller versions of a larger story. Stories are effective educational tools because listeners become engaged and therefore remember. While the story listener is engaged, they are able to imagine new perspectives, inviting a transformation and empathetic experience.

Example: In the Quechua community of Highland Peru, there is no separation between adults and children. This allows for children to learn storytelling through their own interruptions of the given story. Therefore, children in the Quechua community are encouraged to listen to the story that is being told in order to learn about their identity and culture. Sometimes, children are expected to sit quietly and listen actively. This enables them to engage in activities as independent learners. [http://en.wikipedia.org]

This process of storytelling is empowering as the teller effectively conveys ideas and, with practice, is able to demonstrate the potential of human accomplishment. Story taps into existing knowledge and creates bridges both culturally and motivated toward a solution.

4.   Drawing Flow Charts

Flowcharts are useful to create process documentation, regulatory and quality requirements, customer needs and many non-regulated businesses. These can range in form from high-level procedures to low-level, detailed instructions and steps. You may think that this applies mainly to organizations, but my view is one can greatly benefit from flow-charting their dream, growth, problem solving and progressive processes as well.

Example: Training materials are often created using flowcharts because they're visually stimulating and easy to understand. A nicely laid out flowchart will gain and hold your attention when a block of text will often fail. Swim lanes are visual channels (rows or columns) in a flowchart that identify the resources used in a process. Swim lanes are useful for displaying the flow of information or materials between resources at a glance.

5.    Utilizing the principle of Knowledge Management

KM comprises a range of strategies and practices used to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals as experiences in the form of explicit and tacit knowledge. We all must put an effort to convert the tacit knowledge to explicit. By the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination, and utilization of knowledge. We agree that many of our decisions and actions have profound and long lasting effects. It makes sense to recognize and understand the processes that effect our actions and decision. Take steps to improve the quality these processes and in turn improve the quality of those actions and decisions for which we are aiming to complete.

6.   Developing Linear Lists

One can do by sentence style consists of simply writing out whatever is to be communicated in a narrative form. One can also include noting down the ideas as they occur to our thoughts and memory. The outline can be numerical or alphabetical style consists of major categories and sub-categories.

Concluding remarks:

Review your Mind maps, Yellow pages, Concept stories, Flow charts, Knowledge management and Linear lists. All of these SIX methods/tools once made must be reviewed immediately after 30 minutes, after a day, after a week, after a month, after three months and after six months then this knowledge will become part of your ongoing long term memory.

Through yourself away from the rigmarole of your tough duty for few days, throw in some fun and you are like a school big school boy/girl on a school trip. This will lead you to make your Knowledge sharper & focused.

Elephants can’t bite. Ants do bite!

'Elephants can't bite but Ants do bite' - Dr V V Rao

These little things will lead us to a BIG failure they are very SIMPLE to practice if you start them as and when they come in your way with immediate effect.

1. When we neglect the path of highest enjoyment ‘Let me do this job for three years and I will listen to my HEART’

2. When you are incapable to decide vital ones and you say ‘Let me try all options together and I think EVERYTHING is important’

3. Simply when you are not tracking your progress and say ‘Why I need to TRACK my progress anyway I know it’

4. When you do excessive planning and say ‘Let’s plan to revise THE PLAN’

5. Every time before you are about to act and say ‘Let me do it later with little more PERFECTION’

6. Overdose of Electron-microscopic trails & trails and no ‘REAL ACTION’

7. No sense of agility and when you say ‘Let me do it next two to three days’ OR ‘Let’s do it in NEXT 3 to 4 weeks’  

8. When you hate someone too much and say ‘I HATE that fellow if that person is not here I would have done wonders’

9. When you feel you know all and say ‘I know that and I am the BEST’

10. When you feel that the status-quo is OK and say ‘No one can change this is ULTIMATE’

11. When you feel you are ignored and say ‘No one is CARING me’

12. When you don’t celebrate what you have done so far and say

‘Once I am retired I will give big a PARTY’ OR

‘Once I get married I will be free CELEBRATE’ OR

‘Once get that promotion I will be fine to CHILL’ OR

‘Once my kids get settled I will go for a big VACATION’ OR

‘Once I am free from all responsibilities and I will do GAGA’

13. And no shoddy short cuts please! Those who resort to stealing or robbing to make some quick cash will eventually end up in jail, injured, got stuck in caves of isolation or dead.

14. When your mind say ‘I will do it TOMORROW’

A firm foundation is built on little steps and growth. Growth, whether plant growth, muscle growth, or mind growth is governed by the natural laws. It cannot be forced. Each day’s simple growth prepares for the next day’s further growth. We can never break nature’s laws.

How strong is your ‘mind-set’?

You need to show - 'You are the LEADER'

A tiny story of ‘Leadership’

‘I hadn't met a man so ignorant that I hadn't learnt anything from him’, said Galileo centuries back.

Childhood memories, sometimes are so cherish able, some are not  but nevertheless, they make the basis for the following life.This quote when I remember, rear or reread it connects me to my childhood days.

Those were the days of India approximately 20 years after independence. India was still struggling with poverty and too economically backward status than the state we are now. While the situation was little better in urban areas, the villages used to have more illiteracy and more struggle. In addition to this my village ‘Chinna Kakani’ had extra menace from plenty of street dogs wandering around. And there was no control either from Panchayat (Indian Village Committee) or from people with the fear they may bite. The menace was increasing day by day.

At those times there used to live a man looking wild with long undisciplined beard and scruffy hair, giving a dreadful look especially children of my age at that time.  Around 6.30 pm almost every day, he used to walk on the road where we used to play. Might be that was the time he used to come out from hibernation. A deep stare from him, all the tots used to run so far from him in search of location to hide ourselves. While we had this type of fear, the dogs used to have a quite different approach.  They used to go very near to this dreadful man and used to bark and bark loudly. That used to be a puzzle for me for days. While that was the situation of mine, the villagers used to go inside of their homes quietly, closing their doors.

That day-

As usual, the ignorant man, the escaping, the dog’s barks – the routine story continued just only for minutes. We, hiding behind a big tree watching the same-old sequence like a movie.

For a fraction a second, the man stopped walking and stood silently. He stared at the dogs barking wild. The next very second, he caught the front legs of a big dog, spun the dog around him several times and dropped him on the road. Suddenly the remaining pack of dogs got puzzled and literally became silent and quite with squeeze groans.

He showed the dogs and also the villagers who the LEADER is.

There has been too much prominence debate on ‘leaders as equals among equals’. This debate is misleading and treacherous. Actually, leaders demonstrate the way to others.

1. You being a leader facilitate, articulate and influence others in the attention to the key success factors after a clear diagnoses and big picture that must be “nailed” to ensure execution.

2. The higher you go as leader, the more you must expect to “Champion” and to deal with ambiguity.

3. Your failures and results will be more visible to others. More and more, the people whom you want to influence may not be under your control.

4. You may be required to mobilize a group of strangers to work effectively on a non-routine goal.

5. You may have to lead a team whose members are spread over several countries.

6. You may encounter situations where you cannot depend on your boss’s judgment.

7. You need to bring purpose, direction and focus where these qualities do not already exist.

8. Your leadership quality is an intangible asset that usually cannot be show cased as aesthetic talent can.

9. You must focus on methods to keep yourself managing crisis.

10. You maintain, perhaps increase, your intellectual freshness, of your emotional flexibility.

11. You must be progressively more equipped to act with “guts and wisdom” when the big risks, conflicts and challenges have to be confronted.

12. Part of your job as a leader is to put out fires and maintain the team morale.

13. Mind-it, your team will take cues from you.

14. It is your job to keep spirits up, and that begins with an appreciation for the hard work.

15. You being a leader show your leadership prowess by getting your hands dirty. Instead of just delegating tasks and relying on subordinates to do all the work.

16. Seize leadership opportunities, no matter how small they are.

17. Make sure your “let me do that” attitude extends beyond your horizon with your peers, boss and subordinates. 

Top 15 Symptoms of Dwindling Enterprises

'Symptoms are early reflections of vital facts
one must not neglect' - Dr V V Rao. 

1. Growth taken over by greed
2. Empowerment encroached
3. Performance pathetic and tolerant
4. Margins being cooked-up
5. Deep pockets shrinking with negative cash flow
6. Teams dysfunctional
7. Phantom synergy between top and employees
8. Relationships too much transactional
9. Constructive tension missing in totality
10. No room to Think and thinking
11. Not allowed to 'Speak your mind'
12. Dramatic 'Walking the talks'
13. Cell phones and gadgets dominant - Meetings
14. Too many Consultants around
15. CEO's snack served alone in Business reviews

Unwieldy complexity often results from business expansions, complex delegation authority or bureaucracies that unnecessarily complicate an enterprise’s operating model, leading to sluggish growth, higher costs and poor returns.

By understanding and eliminating on the symptoms cited above list(15) CEO and Enterprises will be able to simplify enterprise strategy, product lines, organization’s structures, reporting relations, and decision making to serve their core customers better. Reduction in any of these symptoms opens up opportunities for simplification in others shall lead to revive the dwindling enterprises sooner and faster.

Start loving your steps, talent, actions and your dream

Start loving your steps, talent, actions and your dream  - you will be free from the fear of failure. Dr V V Rao

If you really want to know how to live, associate with children.

If you have none of your own, borrow some.

In Indian families we give preference to girls to marry them even though we are elder as a ritual to sacrifice our yesteryear for their future years. In our family also we did the same and we found a groom who can be the best for my sister ‘Lakshmi’. When my sister gave birth to her first child a baby-boy we nicknamed him ‘Resh’ whereas his actual name is Suresh. I am always afraid of touching small babies thinking that they were so very tiny and I may probably hurt them with my rough touch.

Now I know that they are not as delicate, if handled correctly. I found great pleasure in tossing ‘Resh’ up in the air so far that I could catch him, and he always seemed to enjoy the act. As I threw him up, he would laugh, take a deep breath, and then came down, snuggle into my arms and laugh like a giggling squeezed breeze, and in fact wait in anticipation of the next throw till I got tired. At times I used to feel it was like a big workout to bring back my rhythmic heart to a controlled beat.

I was amazed with the fact that he apparently had no fear, nor my sister any fear in her mind and heart and thus never stopped me from doing that. I think it was because she instinctively knew that I loved him; therefore she trusted me. Start loving your steps, talent, actions and your dream - you will be free from the fear of failure.

Have you ever been afraid of failing at something that you decided not to even give it a try? Or has a fear of failure meant that, subconsciously, you are undermining your own efforts to avoid the possibility of a larger failure?

All of us have experienced this at one time or many times in our lives. The fear of failing can be immobilizing – it can result in our doing nothing, and thereby resist moving forward.

Each one has a different description of what stoppage is, simply because we all have different benchmarks, values, and belief systems. A failure to one person might simply be a great learning experience for someone else.

For example, say that several years ago you gave an important report to CEO of a large group of companies, and you did very poorly. The experience might have been so terrible that you carried that fear of failure to other aspects of your life and thinking. And you carry that fear even now.

Every one of us prepares to prevent failures, for that we need to read a lot, we must listen to mentors and preachers, we study the core competent subjects in depth and we interact with people who are successful in their life so that we can reduce the fear factor.

Most of us will stumble and fall in life. Doors will get slammed on our faces, and we might make some bad decisions. But imagine if Tiger Woods had given up on his dream to play golf when he was going through difficult times in his personal life.

Start by setting a few small goals. These should be goals that are slightly, but not overwhelmingly, challenging. Think of these goals as ‘early wins’ that are designed to help boost your confidence.

For example, if you have been too afraid to talk to the new department head (who has the power to give you the promotion you want), then make that your first goal. Plan to stop by his/her office during the next week to introduce your-self.

Or 

Imagine that you have dreamed of returning to school to get your MBA, but you are convinced that you are not smart enough to be accepted into business school. Set a goal to talk with a school counselor or admissions officer to see what is required for admission.

Start loving your steps, talent, actions and your dream - you will be free from the fear of failure.

How one can ‘Stay hungry and Stay foolish’ ?

Things to do, habits to fix, dreams to achieve and peace 

to discover; A life to live - Dr V V Rao

Even if you have to fail, attempt something big so that you fail spectacularly.

‘Stay hungry, Stay foolish’ is what Steve jobs advised the graduating class of Stanford University in his commencement address to the class of 2005. And that is the spirit by which all the great dream chasers have lived.

A surgeon’s goal is clear: fix what is broken.

The feedback is immediate and continual: check heart beat monitor. The intense challenge is recurring, though no surgery is the same.

The operating room itself is designed to block out distractions. And because the risk is so great, a surgeon is in a state of concentration “so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant or to worry about problems. Self-consciousness disappears, and the sense of time becomes distorted.” All of these features create an emotional rush for surgeon. The only time a surgeon loses that level of engagement is when he or she gets into a position of rote repetition and game becomes predictable.

Flow and status-quo is the state in which we are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that we will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it. Three steps of managing flow:

1. Collect things that command our attention
2. Process what they mean and to do about them
3. Organize the results and review as options for what we choose to and implement

Lakshmi Mittal: CEO of Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel making company, Mittal is one of the richest men in the world and owns some of the planet’s most expensive homes. He started out working for his father’s business, but when “family differences” got in the way, he wasn't afraid to spread his wings and set up shop on his own. When India took home just one medal, a bronze, in the 2000 summer Olympics, this Indian tycoon made it his mission to support sport in his country, and pledged US$9 million to support 10 world-class Indian athletes. More recently, he invested £19.6 million in the Olympic Park Tower, the UK’s tallest sculpture. 

The triple beauty is that our mind keeps reminding us of things when we can’t do anything about them.

Effectiveness and execution is after all, not a subject but a self discipline. Dream chasers solve problems once. People, ‘Stay Hungry & Stay Foolish’ look at problems as generic to begin with, and try to solve them with rules that will be simple and easy to follow everyone, not just involved in the current issue.

Fujio Mitarai: Longtime CEO of Japanese camera giant Canon, a company whose fortunes were steadily declining until Mitarai took to the helm in the '90s. Concerned about retirement law and policies in Japan, he stepped up as chairman of Japan's powerful Keidanren business lobby, pushing the government to overhaul the tax system and social security, in order to "eliminate my own concerns over when I'm old." This is one unstoppable 75-year-old.

People, ‘Stay Hungry & Stay Foolish’ always rather than doing things right we must be doing right things right.

How to be a star at work: Feat without selling your soul to the gods of hubris. Stars are made, not born and they practice rigor of

• Initiative
• Networking
• Self management
• Perspective
• Follower
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Entrepreneurial Savvy
• Show-and-tell

Wale Tinubu: Dubbed, “The King of African Oil”, Tinubu is Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Nigerian Oil and Gas giant Oando Plc. He is an outspoken advocate for investment in the Niger Delta and improving basic education in Nigeria. An ambitious entrepreneur who started out with just one leaky second-hand oil tanker, Tinubu is now the driving force behind a multi-million dollar enterprise that is one of Africa's largest energy companies.

Stephen R Covey studied 200 years’ worth of self help, popular psychology, and self-improvement writings. He believes that “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” People who are Hungry & Foolish they bring excellence through

• Being proactive
• Begin with the End in mind
• Put first things first
• Always think win/win scenarios
• Seek first to understand then to be understood
• Synergise
• Sharpen the saw (As my earlier post)

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.

Jim Sinegal: Founder and CEO of Costco, the third-largest U.S. retailer, Sinegal has proven year after year that his recipe for selling high volumes of a small variety of goods to members only is an unbeatable one. Sinegal has a habit of treating his employees extremely well, and stated many times that customer satisfaction is more important to him than pleasing shareholders. He spends 40 weeks of the year on the road, checking up on Costco's 582 stores around the world, wandering the aisles and making sure shoppers are happy and employees are not going anywhere.

Harvey Mackay has always been a “can-do” guy. After college, Mackay took an entry level job at a local envelope company and worked up into sales. Three years later, he bought a different small envelop company and turned into a $100 million business. His best selling business book sold over 4 million copies and in 35 languages.

He says people who ‘Stay Hungry & Stay Foolish’ may spend their most productive time staring at the walls: “if you discover one of your executives looking at the wall instead filling out a report, go over and congratulate him or her… they are thinking. It’s the hardest, most valuable task any person performs.

People, ‘Stay Hungry & Stay Foolish’ follow their intuition and you can define intuition as the way we translate our experience into action. Intuition is not some magical power or extraordinary mental attribute that some have and others don’t. Improved intuition comes from recognition of this unconscious routine and accumulation of real-world experience.

Seventeen Years-old Phoenix boy, who receives a letter from Dalai Lama, who instructs the teenager to go to India and fulfill his destiny as the reincarnation of an ancient Tibetan Warrior.   The boy agrees and begins a twelve year journey to becoming a monk. This decision is not expected guided by an internal compass. Many times we make decisions to change the course of our lives by following a hunch stemming only from passion, a direction not based in real-world experience but one satisfies some unfulfilled need.

Each of the stories may be different but at another level they are all same. The dream chasers took a leap of faith. Then struggled and strive for years.

The following is another dream chaser who ‘Stay Hungry & Stay Foolish’.

Tim Cook: When Steve Jobs resigned last year, he left some very big shoes to fill, but Tim Cook had had practice. Filling in for Jobs when he was at his most ill, Cook’s 14 years at Apple came to fruition when he was officially named CEO in August 2011. He may not have the charisma of his predecessor, but this soft-spoken Alabama boy works like a dog. He is said to begin sending emails before his morning jog at 4:30 a.m., and flew to China with no return ticket to sort out manufacturing issues.