Wording the thoughts is no easy task. Choice of words and phrases and putting them together in a way that anyone who reads them gets the same feelings and interpretations as writer had meant, often requires couple of revisions. I hope my efforts in this direction are fruitful. These thoughts and views have emerged over the time from good/bad experiences I had myself in life and what I saw around.

Views on business

I haven't shared my views on business with many people and that too a little. After getting a glimpse, both Amit Shah and Sunil Beta, whom I met at Codito, suggested that I should read Maverick by Ricardo Semler. May be sometimes in future, I would do that. As of now, I have couple of other books to enjoy, one of these being "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig. I usually relish couple of pages at a time.

Fruitfulness of these views in implementation, depends on your faith in these, visions and the point of trial. Implementations might differ in exteriors, depending upon when/where/how/how much of trial, but essence could still remain same. Since my childhood I have seen my parents treating the workers and their juniors/coworkers in humane ways. At times few people have misused this goodwill, but most of the times things have worked fine with God's grace.

• I strongly believe, exploitation is not necessary for success in business. Organisation has to make profits but that doesn't mean that terms and conditions have to be biased towards employing agency. Every person is an organisation in itself, so organisation is a collection of smaller organisations interacting with each other and all are coworkers, working towards growth and welfare of organisation keeping them together. Organisations need each other both ways. Making big profits is the side effect of good business.
• No separate cabins for anyone, proper lighting and fresh air, ergonomic workspace layout to have healthy and productive work environment. Few silent areas should be there for holding meetings and to provide congenial atmosphere to people studying/thinking about some designs/solutions to problems at hand.
• Help develop sense of belongingness and responsibility towards organisation in workers. Encourage workers to be honest and be responsible for their actions. If they are connected with their work and are honest about it, it will help everyone and the organisation as well.
• Keep organisation structure as flat as possible. Cut down on formalities. Work towards making an informal yet professional and productive environment. Aim towards informal, harmonious yet professional work environment and better understanding between employees to reduce time wastage, wherever possible.
• Workers should be aware of financial ups and downs. Any worker interested int it, should be able to see the balancesheet of the organisation. This can help come up with better solutions for layoffs due to financial reasons, in tough times.
• Let workers share the vision of organisation and be part of it. It will help them direct their efforts accordingly. Realisation of visions requires coordination of efforts.
  Similarly clients/users also help organisation attain it's vision, in a sense they also share it. Don't ignore their suggestions/ideas and feedback.
• Each person working for organisation is an important asset. Remember that a person breathes, walks, talks, thinks. Suggestions and ideas for improvements and growth should be equally respected from every worker, irrespective of the designation.
• Help workers develop confidence in their own abilities wrt work at hand and otherwise too, and sharpen them. A good library of related and off-related technical and semi-technical materials would do good to organisation by improving horizon and abilities of workers.
• Encourage workers to participate in academic activities. This not only helps them learn something beyond routine work, thus improving their knowledge and skills but also helps organisation to come in touch with/ groom prospective future workers. Grooming young talents as interns not only helps you decide who, out of these, could fit your organisation, but also saves time on culturing them to your work environment when they join you in future.
• It doesn't matter much if a person doesn't have good overall percentages, but has good performance/understandings in/of areas that are of interest to organisation in short and long term, and has the ability to apply the learnings. Such a person can be quite useful to the organisation.
• When someone joins you, it's better to have exchanges of expectations before joining. Don't make promises that you know you can't fulfil. If things are uncertain, brief the joinee about those. That's better than a worker leaving you sooner or later on a bad note/ with a bad taste.
• Aim of the organisation is to produce quality output and sustain/grow it. If it requires giving more flexibility/relaxations in terms to workers, one should not hesitate from it.
• If your business, like software development, allows possibilities of working from home, not being physically there in office during all the working hours, go for it - especially in those cases where worker has to spend more than 30-45 minutes commuting one way to workplace. Afterall aim is to improve productivity with better quality.
• Enough (programming) crimes are done and justified in the name of improving the user friendlines and saving the time. This should be avoided as it can have impact on product quality and clientele. Never mistake that client/user can always be fooled by giving something that somehow works.
• Making conclusions without sufficient analysis/research/trials often leads to big apprehensions. That often results in organisation missing out a good opportunity or other organisation milking you financially. Workers should be encouraged to cut on their apprehensions.
• Carefully analysed approaches save time in long run, though they might take a little more time initially. Time saved is productivity gained, for me. For ex. isn't is better to fix a bug properly and spend time with it once rather than just patching it for time being and spending time on it again and again in future.
• Often (workalcoholic) workers get too engrossed in their work that taking care of their own health is forgotten, till it starts demanding attention. This takes toll on not only their health but performance. Depending upon what kind of work you deal in, arrange for required health checkups for workers every couple of months.
  If you are computers related organisation and finacially it is viable, have low radiation (flat pannel) screens for workers.
• Encourage workers to work at work, work in regular work hours, though have flexible work hours, so that they can enjoy things that life has to offer. Proper rest for body and healthy inner state is important for good performance.
• Have fair working hours and leave policies. In case you don't have overtime policies, give compensatory off to workers when they work beyond routine working hours and/or on non-working days for organisation's needs.
• It is not a good sign for mutual trust if workers are happy when employer leaves the office or is confined to his cabin/work unaware of their activities.
• Encourage workers to play outdoor games, participate in cultural activities. Organise informal gatherings time to time in year, where workers know each other as another person and develop better bonds and understandings fruitful for their work atmosphere.
• If there are female members in organisation, their presence should be respected, even at the level of infrastructural needs. In case financial state is not good enough to provide for these, better inform them before joining so that they can make their mind appropriately.
• Respect for elders should be maintained irrespective of the designations. Respect comes not from spoken tags but from feelings, in attitudes. Same way trust shown in coworkers should be in action, not in just words. An organisation is like a big joint family.
• In a small group, let responsibility of managing the team rotate between members. It not only infuses freshness because of changes but also prepares each member to understand and deal with the issues at every level.
• Have your paperwork done in time. It is ethically not right to ask workers sign papers in backdate as much as around three years. This brings disparity if many people have left the organisation in past, without this paperwork? In case you need to get your paperwork in place, after such long time, it would be better to give fresh appointments to existing workers with necessary paperwork. There could be many who might not have joined you with those terms and conditions in past. Oh! your fears about people choosing to move out and current work getting in doldrums. There is solution to doldrums part.
• Trust your workers and find out their views, what they have to say on the issue, reasons for their actions/behaviours, when some external agency raises some issue against them. Remember, trust breeds trust.
• Avoid for-sake-of-it applications of rules. For ex. N days notice period before leaving, is for ensuring projects are not hurt badly, but it is also loss for organisation if the person is not involved in any work/handover and for formal reasons comes to work and spends time in doing non-organisation work, having fun etc..
• Don't go for one-size-fits-all management approach, as it is likely to put off/ turn away savvy, creative, self-propelled & energetic workers. More or less all workers need stimulating work, opportunities for personal challenges and growth, and a contributing stake in the organisation, at their own levels. Remember that the people working for you are living entities.
• Experiment with revolutionary and innovative practices at work, if it helps to break the monotony of work demands and helps workers attain peace of heart and mind. A toxic job situation can take a huge toll on health at various levels.
• Have policies whereby contributing workers have some share in patents out of their innovative efforts. This can encourage more people to share their ideas for organisation's progress.
• It might be better to be self-contained, in the sense that have a team for each crucial work, so that you are not totally stuck in times of urgent need.
  For ex. it is useful for an embedded software development company to have a tools team, a team that can understand/fix hardware issues, apart from other usual applications, OS etc. teams.

Views on education

I had taught two KG/class-I kids in 1992-93, during that I explored couple of ways to help them learn and also confirmed some of my views then. Later I had some more experiences at PUCSD. Someday I shall share my views, experiments and experiences on this important issue also.

As far as kids are concerned, education system should first help them be aware of their surroundings/nature, let them feel/know what a flower is? how different flowers look? - before making them just mug the names of 5-10 flowers etc. So many books in bags at that early stage in life, what are we aiming them to be? Persons with bookish knowledge. Shouldn't we emphasize on getting the feel of practical aspects of life also, since an early age?

Understanding and application of knowledge need to be given due emphasis and attention in coursework. Just getting high marks does not make sense. Education is not something to be glamourised.

Contemporary marking system to judge the capability and knowledge of a person has not been satisfactory to me. May be, it is some criteria in higher classes, but how far does it make sense for little kids, and in subjects like art, dance etc.? Performing arts are an expression of person's feelings and every piece of art is a 10/10 performance. Do you really think that marking schemes really help kids with bettering their genuine expressions?