Enigma Solution

My family and I built up a rather large and highly reputed automotive components manufacturing business. In the early years our dependence on the domestic market and a few key customers made us vulnerable to cyclic demand which had bad consequences for our organisation. So we began to explore export markets. One day in 1984, thanks to the Chamber of Commerce, we hosted a small delegation of prospective American buyers. At dinner that evening, me a very young man, tried rather too hard to impress a very senior, highly experienced delegate, Ms. Helen about our capabilities as an organisation and me as an individual. We chatted for quite a while about a wide range of matters, and I sprinkled our conversation with American business jargon.  After about an hour, Helen who was a senior executive in her organisation, asked me. "Apparently you are well informed GS, from where are you getting all this information and these perspectives?" With my chest puffed up , I rep...

Work never ends, especially if you are looking for it. There is always something new to be planned, and executed, or something that needs to be attended to. Such people who are obsessed with work are known as workaholics. If one is focussed, result oriented and fortunate, success is bound to come. The danger is workaholics become magnets for more work and challenges, especially if one commands  necessary resources and authority. The danger for workaholics is that they grown distant from family, friends, and even they themselves. When one is young, one possesses boundless energy and enthusiasm and one can cope with this pleasing burden. However with passage, of time one can easily get overwhelmed, as I was. To cope, workaholics recruit more people into the team. Instead of productivity and output improving, it actually decreases. This is because new recruits learn quickly that 'upward delegation' can free them from much work and responsibility. This is not on...

Upward delegation I belong to a family of workaholics. Not necessarily something to be proud of. We worked very hard but not always smartly. I could rarely get home before midnight. My brothers and I slogged it out. We enjoyed this feeling of stretching ourselves to the maximum of our potential. Come to think of it, It's not a bad thing to work hard, but it's got to have meaning. It is also quite irrelevant if the quality of life is missing. The way I was working and managing felt like I was on a nonstop treadmill. With each passing day, I experienced ever increasing workloads. It felt akin to living in a kind of happy prison where I actually enjoyed the hard labour. I have since discovered that my situation was not unique. I knew I should find a better way. What could that be? Could there not be abetter way to grow the company and ourselves without being so frustrated. When you are young you have boundless energy. I was far from tired but kept asking, should there not be more ...