Laudable ability?

As I have had reason to say, various human abilities are given pole position in different contexts by philosophers, especially if they are also poets. And, so, here we are with the most laudable ability of them all in today's post. Whether or not you agree is left to you.

Ah, no, no, no, I am NOT the poet-philosopher that I am referring to. Tiru is.

Enaiththitpam eidhiyak kannum vinaiththitpam vendaarai vendaadhu ulagu - Tirukkural

No matter what abilities you possess, the world shall not praise you if you do not seek determination in action - Loose Translation

I think I may have mentioned this before. That I read somewhere that 'Vision without execution is mere hallucination'. Yay! Tiru implied it way before. What is the point of having abilities if you will not apply them? And applying them would mean something only when you'll do the job to completion. You are the greatest engineer in the world, the greatest doctor or whatever not because you have the most degrees but because you put your knowledge to use AND you successfully complete the jobs you take up. THAT's when the world lauds you.

AND, again as I have had reason to say before, any job will come with its set of obstacles. You need to have the determination to forge ahead with your execution and complete the job satisfactorily. It is not just your intellectual capabilities that will take you to success. It is also your character. AND for THAT, you need to place that determination at par, if not above, the other abilities. Without that, you could always make the best plans on paper but the world will not appreciate you. A man with lesser intellectual abilities but with that determination to see through the execution will always earn more fame than the genius who will not leave his drawing board.

THAT is the difference between 'Mungerilal ke haseen sapne' and success. Determination in Execution.

Get good consultants?

There is no dearth of advisers in the world. Get onto social media and ask ANY question and you will find scores of people ready with advice. People never let pesky little things like lack of knowledge get in the way of giving advice to other people. There is, therefore, this difficulty in knowing whose advice to take.

Tiru has this to say...

Utra noi neekki uraa-amai murkaakkum petriyaar penikkolal - Tirukkural

Cherish the closeness of those who cure the present ill and ensure that you are defended from future ills - Loose Translation

You know, though, how it goes in organisations. You can only become a hero by putting out raging fires; whoever made a hero out of the guy whot put in place fire protection systems? In other words, you need to SAVE people from current danger. It's not much use, personally to you, to safeguard people from future danger. What sort of people, then, do you, as the leader, keep around yourself - the ones who wait for a fire to start before acting or the ones who anticipate fires and put in place safeguards to avoid them?

Tiru, of course, gives credit to he who solves current problems. But he also says that the same chappie, if he is also capable of anticipating and safeguarding against future problems, is worth keeping close to you and be respected for his advice.

Now THAT is a tough ask for most 'leaders'. I mean, if someone puts in place measures today and some six months down the line a problem is avoided, only HE will be saying that it was because of his precautions. Everyone else would have conveniently forgotten all about his efforts or will take the view that the problem would not have occured even without his efforts. You need to SEE the fire AND the chappie heroically putting it out in order to understand the value of his efforts. I mean, come on, if there is NO fire because of fire-retardant systems, how do you even know that there could have been one?

And THAT is why good leaders are very rare. For they have to have that ability.

HR cannot be always right?

Assembly lines may come and mess up the tenets of production; Computers may come and kill the need for arithmetic abilities; AI may come and muck up things for all and sundry; but, for as long as man management exists, the basic principles of man management may probably not change. (What if ALL you employ is AI? Well, then, would the need for man management still exist?)

And so it proves with Tiru saying something like this which will echo with the HR guys of today...

Enaivagaiyaan thaeriyak kannum vinaivagaiyaan veraagum maandhar palar - Tirukkural

No matter how detailed your assessment before you select a person, there will always be those who change once they are on the job - Loose Translation

I'm sure that Tiru does not mean technical capabilities here. Like, it is not likely that the chap who was an expert at coding is suddenly going to turn around and ask you, "What is Java?" THAT is not the sort of thing that Tiru expects to happen. It could well happen that the chap who talks well of coding is, in actual fact, incapable to writing a single line of code...but THAT would mean that you had only interviewed him and not tested his coding skills otherwise. (NOT detailed assessment, no?)

But, yeah, you could find that he is pathetic at working with people in a team. Now THAT is the sort of thing that shows up over a period of time; it is not like he is going to break his laptop over the head of the team lead in the first meeting. But THAT still does not count as 'changing'; it's merely a character trait that manifests only when on the job and not under test conditions when people are trying to put their best foot forward.

Some changes do happen. Like, when someone is hungry for a job, all the conditions of the employer seem fine. ONCE on the job, comparisons creep in - about how peers in the company are treated; how peers in the industry are treated, yada yada. The person may well be perfectly honest when he agrees to take up the job; and equally as honest when he goes up in arms against the compay later.

People will change on the job. Their sense of their own value, their sense of the fairness of their own treatment, their sense of the burdens of the job and the sacrifices demanded - all of that will change once they are on the job.

Which is why managing people is way different from managing machines. THAT, after all, is one of the primary attractions of AI!

Society's foundation?

There is this general opinion that India has been the society of mystics and monks; a place where renunciation has been set at such a pinnacle that there is no respect for work. In a way it is true, since the ultimate goal of life is seen to be to renunciation. But that is not the whole truth, is it?

After all, this IS the society that splits life into four parts - Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sanyasa i.e Bachelorhood/ a period of learning, Family Life, Withdrawal from Society and Renunciation in THAT order. So, one was not pushed into renouncing right at the start. At least (and alas, in my opinion) you  were not given the license to renounce work.

So, yes, when Tiru says this it is not surprising...

Thurandhaarkkum thuvvaadhavarkkum irandhaarkkum ilvaazhvaan enbaan thunai - Tirukkural

The family man is the sole support of the monks, the mendicants and the helpless - Loose Translation

This Grihastha/ilvaazhvaan is not exactly just a family man. As in, I used to say I need all those around me to marry so that I can be a bachelor and still get good home-cooked food. THAT is neither the sense of Brahmacharya or Grishastha, really - that the former is a bachelor and the latter is married. A Brahmachari is one who is a learner and has not started contributing to society in any meaningful manner. A Grihastha is not just a married man; he is a productive member of society. He is indulging in some activity - like agriculture, commerce, whatever - that adds value to Society.

So, essentially, what Tiru is saying is that those who  do economic activity are the mainstay of everyone else in Society. And THAT is probably the basic lesson of economics (What do you think this demographic dividend is? The increasing number of infants and super-senior citizens?) Which also teaches you that if all of Society become renunciates, THAT Society will probably starve to death.

Does that mean, that Indian philosophers preach one thing and practice another? Not really. This wholesale attitude - that, if something is good, it is good for all people at all times - is idiocy. You do not expect the child to work in the fields; why then should the youth necessarily become a renunciate? There is a time to work and a time to withdraw from society. (I mean, after retirement, it is graceful for you to not haunt the office every day, no? Vanaprastha!) And THEN there is a time to renounce your attachment to everything and everyone, and set your mind on the divine. Sanyasa! You are being taught to mature and change with age and not cling on to the attitudes that you ought to out-grow.

So, there! While Tiru is giving credit to the householder for HIS invaluable contribution to Society, he is also setting the yardstick for what constitutes a good householder...that he be someone who succours the monks, the mendicants and the helpless and not someone who pillages the weak and hoards his wealth.

C'est la Tiru! He can never even praise without laying a burden on you! But then is that not the very rationale for praise?