Cogent approach for Decision Making– Valluvan Way!

What is meant by decision making? What are the things to be given proper weightage before making a right decision? And what must be done mandate after making a right decision?
I have pointed out three Kurals (a small drop from an ocean of examples) in order to answer the above questions.

• Vital role of Planning:

Think, and then dare the deed! Who cry,
'Deed dared, we'll think,' disgraced shall be. [Kural - 467]

Hundreds of decades before the Kaizen is introduced, Valluvar has given the steps for making a right decision. A good manager must give foremost importance to planning. As the adage goes, a well-planned activity is always half-done. Starting point of planning is analysing the situation and the end point is prescribing the action to be performed on a step-by-step basis. In this Kural, Valluvar describes a person as disgraced, he who has undertaken action without proper ground planning.

• Ill-consequence of ‘Non-action’:

'Tis ruin if man do an unbefitting thing;
Fit things to leave undone will equal ruin bring. [Kural - 466]

Consider a person who has taken a wrong decision. Obviously, he will end up being guilty for his erroneous judgment. Now, consider another person who has taken the right decision after careful planning; but, he fails to put his ground-plan to action. Valluvar regards the latter as the guiltiest than the previous one. Famous management Guru Peter Drucker also stressed the same point in his books. ‘Greatness never lies with TAKING the right decision. In contrast, it always lies with DOING the right action based on those right decisions.’

• A blunder called ‘Delay after decisions’:

Resolve is counsel's end, If resolutions halt
In weak delays, still unfulfilled, 'tis grievous fault. [Kural – 671]

This is one of my favourites.
My suggestion is to make this Kural a legal act, make it compulsory to all the bureaucrats of our nation. If our politicians and the planning commission members are forced to act as per this Kural, then half of the underdevelopment in our country will be rooted up. People tend to put a lot of effort in the process of decision-making so that they eventually forget the main aim of decision-making, which is to perform the right action! You can take all the time in the world to make a decision. But once it is done, you must act. Any delays after that will depict fallacy in our integrity. No wonder about the integrity of our Government since, more than 72% of development plans are under pipeline for a long long time.

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To follow in the footsteps of Valluvan…

Thirukkural is THE best thought-book ever written in human history. It is not a statement. It is a time-tested fact.
If u haven’t read Bhagavat Gita or other spiritual books, nothing is lost; unless, you read the Arathupaal of Thirukkural. If u haven’t read Chanakya’s Artha Sasthram or the writings of Bismarck, nothing is lost; unless you read the Porutpaal of Thirukkural. If you haven’t read the techniques for maintaining good-relationship with your partner, nothing is lost; unless you read the Inbathupaal of Thirukkural. But, if you haven’t read Thirukkural, then everything is lost.
Hereafter, you will see quite a number of posts regarding this greatest book. For those who would like to read the book, they can surf through the following link.
http://kural.muthu.org/

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The Legend in the name of ‘MidaS Dhoni’

It has taken 156 players for the Indian ODI Cricket to produce a player like Mahendra Singh Dhoni. As everyone recognizes, he is a special player, one of a unique kind. The famous 1983 World Cup is considered cornerstone for the Cricket saga in India. Though we had several gems of cricket ,who are exemplary at their technical batting and bowling skills, it is not the exact thing we needed to explore our entire potential.

Most of the Indian victories of 1990s and early 2000s is the direct resultant of the ‘Individual performances’ from the all-time greats such as Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble etc. But, the need of the hour is a good player who is adept at decision making and leadership skills. Sourav Ganguly is the one who started the process of leadership transformation in Indian Cricket. World Cup, 2003 will speak volumes about the leadership qualities of Sourav. But, once Sourav lost his form, he left a huge hole to be filled in the team. Successors of Sourav has shown little improvements in the resource management. As a result, we lost our 2007 World Cup chase in the initial stages.

The emergence of Mahendra Singh Dhoni has made such a miraculous impact, which completed the missing piece for making the Indian Team victorious. The batting style of MS Dhoni has been under criticism for a long-time. Even, some of his decisions has been under scanner. But, always,  he overcame all the odds against him and proved his worth at every other occasion. One must not forget the fact that he is the first Indian Cricketer to be awarded the ‘ICC ODI Player of the year’. He has the record of holding the most dismissals in ODI. His score of 183* against Sri Lanka is the highest score by an individual in a 2nd innings. It is also the highest score by a Wicket-keeper batsman. But, it is the leadership acumen of MSD, which made him to the list of one of the legends of cricket which included Sachin, Lara, Ponting and Kallis. He might not be consistent with his batting efforts in the recent past, but he is still the best captain we ever had. With the advent of MSD era, India started winning matches due to the sheer advantage of right decisions in field setup and bowling changes. He is remarkably cool and is able to handle extreme pressure situations. The best scale to measure a captain’s ability is Pascals and Dhoni stoop up to the occasions with strong nerves almost every-time.

Well suited, Sachin and Sourav named him the best captain India has got so far.

There is no achievement left for him to be achieved in the Cricket World. Under his captaincy, India won the T20 World Cup 2007, became the No.1 Test playing nation, won the ICC ODI World Cup 2011. As a captain, he led the Chennai Super Kings to win the IPL and Champions League 2010. The way he lead the team members, the way he cultivated friendship inside the team, the way he accomplished huge feats without pressure, the way he made Sachin to cherish the moment when he hit 200*, the way he stepped aside from the players after winning the World Cup and finally the way he finished the 2011 World Cup final with his helicopter shot will be remembered forever after him.

MS Dhoni – The Man with the Midas touch!

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Nadunisi Naaygal - A brave attempt gone haywire!

Fact is that, if a movie tests your patience, it doesn't mean that it is not a quality flick. A thriller movie is one, which brings the audience to the verge of their seats, not to the exit door! Nadunisi Naaygal places itself in the latter category.

Ironically, the film posted itself with some quality technical work. Thanks to Manoj Paramahamsa and Anthony. People used to assimilate any pictorial narrative with the help of music. Even at the times of speechless movies, it is the music which compensated the dialogues. Hats off to Gautham to come up with such an idea to make a film lack of music. It is indeed a brave attempt! It is one of the riskiest moves made by the ace film-maker. When you take such an Himalayan risk, you should concentrate on the script with utmost perfection. But, this is the place where Gautham fails to make his count.

Nadunisi Naaygal is an attempt to compensate the music with visuals. Performance by Veera as the protagonist hunter and Sameera as the hunted are mind-blowing! Gautham once again proves that he is one of the rare directors who can make a boulder to act. Gautham brought the best out of Simbhu and Trisha in VTV, Jyothika as an antagonist in Pachai Kili Muthucharam, Surya in VA, Jeevan in Kaka Kaka, Daniel Balaji in Vetaiyadu Vilayadu. Similarly, he stands out as a great director, when he brings such an incredible performance from Veera Bhahu(Veera/Samar) and Sameera (Sukanya). But, as a script writer, he fails to make an impression.

Nadunisi Naaygal is a void without Manoj Paramahamsa. Such an wonderful piece of work he has done for this movie! He tried his best to make the visuals as claustrophobic as it can be and he succeeds. Most part of the script could be seen as an inspiration got from Silence of the Lambs and Sigappu Rojjakal. One who watched these two flicks can draw parallels in number of occasions with Nadunisi Naaygal. The house, dogs, brutal murders, sexual urge, childhood sexual abuse are derivations from Sigappu Rojakkal whereas, the character-map of the psychopath is a derivation from Silence of the Lambs and Fight Club.

Though I salute Gautham for coming with such an idea, the irreplaceable fact remains that 'Music is like Mother! Nothing can replace or compensate it'.

My rating will be 2.5/5.

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Additive Manufacturing

The manufacturing processes we use today is the general term used to denote the technical process of ‘Subtractive Manufacturing’. Sculpturing is the best example to understand the process of ‘Subtractive Manufacturing’. A huge boulder will sacrifice its layers of stone in order to shape up the sculpture as per the design. Henceforth, it is named as Subtractive Manufacturing. Even though this process is quite simple, it is associated with several disadvantages. Wastage of the raw material is the most notable disadvantage associated with Subtractive Manufacturing.

In order to overcome such cons, scientists and engineers in Britain have coined a new technical process – Additive Manufacturing, also known as 3D printing.

A print well (so it is called) is used for ‘printing’ the designed products with the raw materials as the ‘ink’. A sample diagram of such a print well is shown below.

 

Plastic, resins and metals have passed the input ink test for this print well.  3D printer is also termed as a ‘Fabber’ or ‘Fabricator’.

Researchers of Filton in Britain have disclosed the technology behind their manufacturing of Concorde super-sonic planes. Can you believe that more than 40% of the aircraft parts are made using 3D printing?  Another research student at MIT, USA has succeeded in printing clocks! Additive engineering has been used for almost a decade now. But, it is used for building prototypes alone. Now, it is time for us to print the entire product using the raw materials.

Pros of Additive Manufacturing:

1.          Software-driven. (design becomes easy with all those enhanced preview shots)

2.         Requires less raw material.

3.         Consumers can alter the design as per their own wish.

4.         Can be used to build artificial bones, which are extensively used in bone-replacement surgeries.

5.         All the plastic items can be printed using the technology – ‘Plastic Injection-Molding’.

6.         Can be helpful in meeting the rapid design changes.

7.         Feasibility of Mass-production and Mass-customization of products.

Cons of Additive Manufacturing:

1.          It will reduce the industrialization in rural and urban areas. (Even a common man can manufacture anything if he gets raw material, fabricator and design software)

2.         Due to the fact that it needs less labor, job-generating capacity will be reduced.

3.         Since it is easy to blue-print the entire product, piracy issues will raise.

4.         Piracy issues will lead to the legal implications of Intellectual Property rights (IP).

Whatever may be the pros and cons, there is no doubt that we are on the verge of another industrial revolution, this time led by 3D printing!

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