The Grand Design: A Review

In the spirit of summarizing on books I read (see last blog post), here's my review on Stephen Hawking's 'The Grand Design'.

For the scientist or mathematician in us, this book is a work of art. It reminded me of why I loved these topics back in school. The book tries to answer in a scientific way the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. And no, the answer is not simply 42! Stephen Hawking goes into great detail on the history of man trying to make sense of the Universe around us. From the Mayans to Plato to to scriptures and psalms from the Bible to Newton and Galileo to Einstein and Feynman; Hawking takes us through a remarkable journey of how science evolved and built on these 'shoulders of Giants', each time getting closer and closer to answering that one elusive question.

But what really struck me about this book was that although Hawking makes an attempt to theorize a set of scientific laws that can explain how our Universe operates, these laws end up generating an infinite possible answers for how the Universe works. In other words, the laws cannot explain why any one set of events happen instead of any one of a set of infinite other possibilities. And when the sheer vastness and complexity of the question we are trying to answer dawns upon us in the last few pages, the realization dawns that the Mayans, the Greeks, the Hindus, the Bible and other centuries old scriptures were right all along in believing in a superior being responsible for the workings of our world. Even Einstein in his last few years famously admitted that God does play dice with the world! Maybe that's what Hawkings wanted to tell us all along in his book...

Talking the talk

One of the many feedback I had got in the past on how I could improve was on being more concise. I have a tendency to belabor on a point even though the listener has already got the point. For many a listeners, this comes across as I being either unprepared, unorganized or inarticulate.

To work on this weakness, I am planning on two action items. Firstly, I plan to read a lot. I feel reading a diverse set of book will help my vocabulary and help me get the right words that I need to use in my conversations. Secondly, I plan to summarize every book or article that I read with the key takeaways that I got. this would force me to summarize in a short paragraph what a book of hundreds of pages had to say. This practice should help me be more concise. Whether these actions will help me remains to be seen.

Too big to fail?

A reminder to self that no matter how big you get, things can and will go wrong!

Have You Grown Up Lately?

When I was interviewing with McKinsey, I got the opportunity to talk to many consultants at the firm. When I would ask them what they aspired to be 5 to 10 years down the line, they would invariably start off with, “what I want to be when I grow up is…” . I found this amusing at first. 30+ year olds saying what they want to be when they grow up? Next thing I know, they’ll be asking me for a lollipop!

But on hindsight, maybe there is something to that statement. What do you do when you grow up? You are expected to be mature. You can’t say foolish things anymore. Grown-ups don’t make mistakes. Grownups are serious…. Grownups never fail! And while we aspire to be this ‘grown-up’ person, the best part is in growING up. You get to try new things. You are allowed to be stupid, to ask questions, to fumble, to fall, to fail… in short, you are allowed to try out a different you.

So, try that new idea you were excited about, jump at the exciting but risky job you always wanted to do, say your seemingly naive opinion at the meeting, fall in love. And never stop growing up!

(Image Courtesy: Megha Shenoy. Location: Googleplex)

Little Things

Here's a poem I wrote back in the Fall of 2000. I somehow happened to dig it up in the tons of mail that has accumulated since then. Mom keeps asking me to write more. Whaddya think?

"Little Things"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If Life should be a joyous song
with moments that you'd want to sing,
I'd pick not wealth, not joy nor woe,
what'd matter most are those "little things"

Little joys of a 4 year old
snuggling up to his parent's side,
that little blush on the young girl's face
as the groom first meets the bride

Those little wrinkles round the old man's eyes
(They've been there since my life began)
that concealed pride in a mother's heart
watch her son be a man

that little wonder of a new born bird,
on "Why do I have these tiny wings?"
Such are the wonders I live for,
a life of wonderful little things.

Those little fallen Autumn leaves,
That dusty crooked village road
as Sunset makes the the world blush red
as birds fly by a day grown old

That little tear on a young girl's cheek
knowing not to stay or fall
That summer tree where lovers met
unkept vows on old brick walls

That unseen smile on the teachers's lips
watch her class learn to think
Those little flirts in the college hall
those unheard laughs, those unseen winks

Those silent words that old friends say
that old playground, that broken swing,
This is the life I live for,
A life of just.... well, little things!

-Milind

(Image Courtesy: Ankita Sawani. Costa Rica, 2010)

What is your 30 seconds?

In my first class on Management Communications, Professor Vancamp highlighted the importance of good communication through an interesting experiment. She showed us a video of a guy, probably a computer scientist, describe his startup and idea and persuade people to join his team.It was a 10 minutes video. At the end of it, she asked us whether we would join the person's company. None of us raised our hands. Then she asked how long through the video did it take us to arrive at our decision. Interestingly, almost all of us took less than 30 seconds to arrive at that decision. The most impulsive amongst us in fact made a decision within the first 5 seconds of the guy talking! We all agreed that the guy was clearly not very convincing and went on this whole diatribe about what he should have done right.

But then, after hearing us tear him apart, Professor Vancamp asked an interesting question. "If it took you less than 30 seconds to decide that you did not want to join this recruiter's company, how long do you think it takes a recruiter to decide whether he wants you to join his company?".

The only sound we heard was of the lump in our throats....

(Image courtesy: Movie: Jerry McGuire. from AMCTV.com)

Peer Feedback

After the end of last quarter, I had asked my fellow class-mates for my 'Peer Feedback'. This is a fairly new system at Kellogg where students are encouraged to constructively critique each other on how they could improve on their leadership qualities. Unfortunately, it has not been taken as widely as it should. And I can see why. All our life we work on building our reputation. Now asking the world to find out what we lack goes against what we have been hardwired to do.

And I wish I could say that after getting the feedback, you feel much better. Far from it. You feel cheated! You wish your classmates had told you earlier that this is what bothered them. You feel you were misunderstood.... you feel humbled.

And yet, I feel this exercise is absolutely necessary. Better to know how you are perceived now rather than when you get out of school and in the workforce. If you are already in the workforce, better to know yourself now rather than after many years when you miss out on promotions because no one told you that you could have improved way back when you were up for promotions.

Another argument against getting feedback is that you are fine with getting feedback from only certain people. Getting feedback from just about everyone you work/study with will not be fair because these people don't really know the real you. If you ask me, it is the people who don't know you whose feedback you should be really getting. Even if you feel you are surrounded by morons, the fact is that these 'morons' are the ones you will be interacting with on a daily basis. Knowing how they perceive you is just as important as knowing that that perception is wrong.

So suck it up. Ask for that feedback. And once you get it, work on it. For if not now, then when?