Today, January
15 is Makara Sankranthi (also called Pongal), a farm and rural oriented
festival that is celebrated in an inclusive manner by all sections of the Hindu
society in all regions of India. It is also one of the few Hindu festivals that
falls on either January 14 or 15 each year consistently. It is a harvest
festival celebrated with great gusto and many expectations of good times in the
traditionally agrarian Indian economy. The day, celebrated as Solar festival,
also marks the transition of Sun into Makara Rasi (Zodiac sign of Capricon),
marking the beginning of Uttarayana punya kaalam (or good, holy period). It is
actually the second day of a three (in some regions, four) day festival, which
connotes the much hoped for transition of families into a better period, most
of the expectations being boosted by agricultural harvest starting to come to
hand.
Like most Hindu
festivals, Sankranthi is a socially and economically inclusive festival
knitting together rural and urban communities, bringing respect to livestock
especially bulls and cows, the rural storytellers (Haridasulu), spreading joys
to children through new clothes, bringing out kolam skills of womenfolk with a
unique focus on ‘gobbillu’, and bringing
a truly festive and feasting ambience into the families. The making of Pongal
is a particular highlight of Sankranthi. The festival is also marked by a
variety of games and sports, some of them controversial and are not necessarily
respectful of livestock or people safety. Amongst these, kite flying is a
particularly favourite pastime for the festival, and the season. No wonder that
Amitabh Bachchan, the brand ambassador of the State of Gujarat is seen
participating in the kite festival. Kites, however, have many lessons to teach
us as this blog post seeks to analyze.
From fun to fear
Kites are some
of the simplest of manmade inventions that are designed and manufactured to fly
in appropriate wind conditions. Originally small hard papers or card boards of square
or triangular shapes, reinforced and ribbed by slim, flexible wooden reapers on
all sides and across, with a paper tail and controlled by an attached spool of
thread, modern day kites have assumed multiple shapes, colours and styles. From
a fun pastime, kite flying has now become a competitive community pastime, with
seasons like Sankranthi making skies an awesome mosaic of flying kites of all
shapes and hues. As with most competitive pastimes, kite flying also has become
a victim of aggressive behaviour. Flying kites in residential areas has become
a threat to individual and bird safety while flying kites with maanza (threads
covered with ground glass) has become real and imminent danger to human and
bird life, in any area.
The first
lesson of kite flying is that when competitive modernity overwhelms cautious
tradition, the result is an unbridled stoking of competitive intensity and
aggressive ruthlessness in a society. Be it work or exercise, sport or game,
moderation is the key to universal joy out of routine activities. Resources can
buy us more sophisticated kites and longer, stronger threads for kites;
however, somewhere along the line one loses the basic togetherness of the
pastime which is obliterated by a ‘win at any cost’ drive. Professional and personal life needs to be
lived joyously despite the competitiveness of various ‘career flying tools’
like marque institutions, custom degrees and choice specializations that money
and efforts can secure. Who wins in the New India with individual career kites
is of lesser relevance than painting the global sky with the India Tricolour in
a fun-filled manner, collectively.
Nature as ally
One may design
a beautiful or aerodynamic kite but without wind a kite cannot just fly! Yet
when winds are gusty and turbulent, the design does play a part in the kite
sustaining itself and even riding over the storms. There are clearly some
natural conditions that make kite flying a joy, for example, open grounds, vast
parks, long beaches etc. A windy day is a must but a light breeze may also be
helped by appropriate kite-friendly hill terrains. Design and nature make
perfect allies but one should never forget that without supporting nature a
kite would never fly. It is, of course, for the designs to make the kites as
the tethered flying objects with appropriate aerodynamic lift, leveraging
various materials and shapes.
Design as a
long term sustainable endeavour has to ally with, rather than fight the nature.
From the movement of allopathic medicine from chemically derived synthetic
drugs to protein derived biologics, and from genetically guided personalized
medicine to stem cell based regenerative medicine, it is clear that allying
with nature provides more sustainable solutions. Exploitation of natural
resources or impacting beach fronts and hillsides with constructions even if
they are calamity resistant are known to have caused profound ecological
imbalances. Careers, likewise, get established in the right way when set up to
meet appropriate environmental/business conditions. The careers take flight
with beneficial organizational lift. Design of careers, at the same time, has
to be robust enough to withstand or take advantage of the turbulence. A savvy
finance executive knows how to garner fund inflows as much as how to hedge
outflows, for example.
Launchers and flyers
While there can
be kite flying by just a single person, kite flying becomes optimal when a
‘launcher’ and ‘flyer’ join together to determine the right distance between
the kite (in the hands of the launcher) and the spool (in the hands of the
flyer), and also the right angle and the right glide with which the kite can be
launched. The launcher and flyer are collaborators in the game of kite flying
with the shared objective of acting as per the wind direction. They are willing
to reimagine themselves in each other’s position if the wind reverses its
direction. They join and enjoy the fun of running with kite, lowering and
re-launching the kite as required. They support each other in the ups and downs
of kite’s trajectory using their resilience to supplement the ups and downs of
wind energy.
Ideally in life,
just as kites require launchers and flyers, all careers also require launchers
and flyers. The recruiting panel, more specifically the human resources
experts, are the launchers while the managers are the flyers. Sharp
identification of talent, right placement and right launch of a career with the
right glide path are essential components of a right launch pad for a
successful and sustainable career. The flyer who holds the threaded spool needs
to understand the kite (the aspiring employee) as much as the wind (the
business environment). The kite may be (and need to be) designed and made with
the best of design tools, material composition and manufacturing aids but the
operating skills of the launchers and flyers determine the heights to which a
kite can fly.
Thread of accountability
The kite is
flown with a very fine balance of freedom and control. If the individual were
to let go of the kite, it may fly higher initially but will quickly drift to
hostile terrains (trees or hills, for example) and eventually destroy itself.
On the other hand, a kite which is held always tightly will never soar to the
heights which it can rightfully soar to. In some case, tight handling of thread
may damage the hands of the flyer himself! The thread and the holder are the
enabler in wind conditions that are right, and also are the protector in wind
conditions that are hostile. The one who runs with the kite, constantly
assessing the winds and the heights and the topography, enjoys kite flying with
safety and fulfillment. In fact, under
certain circumstances like wind not being there, the holder himself feels
accountable and responsible to generate wind flow for the kite by running
vigorously, and keep the kite flying.
The thread of
accountability and empowerment in organizations and career development has a
lot to benefit by mimicking the above analogy. The manager (the flyer) should
have a fine understanding of the individual and his or her competencies (the
kite and its design), the business conditions (the atmospheric conditions) and
the flexibility the organization provides for career progression (the length
and strength of the thread). The strategic skill of the manager lies in
understanding all the dynamics and providing the employee with the right
balance of empowerment and accountability. Like with kites that fly to greater
heights, mutual ownership and timely readjustments are an essential part of
careers soaring to greater highs.
Kites don’t fly; no ‘kite-flying’!
One of the
principal features of successful flying of kites is a readiness to quickly
judge the relative wind velocity and letting the kite fly. Hesitant and
repetitive testing of winds perpetuates a low level kite flight as the
conditions tend to be ever-dynamic. From high winds to no-breeze through mild
breeze, there is both challenge and opportunity to keep a kite flying.
Organizational kite-flying of a different nature, of testing the waters through
speculative intent and expression, can never let careers fly. In fact, ‘kite-flying’
which also connotes testing a thought for response based on which it is
executed or disavowed is probably a legitimate practice in political discourses
challenged by extreme plurality. Kite-flying of that nature in purposeful organizations can, however, render them, and the team members political and
disoriented.
Kites are great
to experience, simple to make, easy to fly and attractive to watch. Likewise,
employee careers in organizations are a joy to individuals and beneficial to
organizations. But like kites, careers cannot fly by themselves. As this blog
post proposes, careers need to be seen as vehicles for joy and fulfillment in life
but with needed appreciation and competencies. Careers need to be competitive
for business growth but should not be supportive of self-destructive
aggression. Careers, like kites, are enabled to fly by a host of natural
considerations, design aspects, collaborative skills and managerial skills. The
key for managers and employees is to appreciate the fulfillment that could
accrue from a fine operating skill marked by a judicious balance of
accountability and empowerment. Indian business like the Indian environment has
lot of natural energy and business drift that can help careers fly, and firms
scale greater heights.
Posted by Dr CB
Rao on January 15, 2015
1 comment:
Dear Dr.CB Rao,
Absolutely a fantastic article, in a simple act of kite flying, there is so much things which we can co-relate in our professional and personal life.
thx
raj
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