Thought Leadership

Some Ideas Fade into Oblivion. Why ?  Some great Ideas faded into oblivion. Some ordinary Ideas took the centre stage. Why ? Sometimes the delivery mechanism of the idea is far more important than the idea itself The User Experience UX  We have seen that some Apps & Websites create waves of public recognition and admiration. But others of the same contents & value could not create the same buzz The reason lies in the “User Experience UX” Design In the “Leadership of Ideas” the UX is the communication style & mechanism adopted to catch the imagination Sometimes we over value the Matter & neglect the Phenomena which will sustain that Matter itself Create the Ease of Understanding the Ideas  Once an Idea is established twice the effort must be made to create its UX Design. Content is more likely to be accepted if the ease of accessing & understanding the content is flawless & entertaining Richard Feynman lectures on Physics is far more famous & understood than

Mind Sparkle Series MSS How To Start Career in Academics.. An Engaging Session by Prof Afroz Alam, HoD, MANNU Welcome to Mind Sparkle Series MSS where I am conducting a series of motivational and theme based lectures, Panel Discussions, Workshops etc on online platforms with expert individuals from all walks of life.  The idea of the program is to prepare the students, professionals etc for the future career and progress. This Mind Sparkle Series MSS is concieved and planned by Shahnawaz Qasim, IPS  The aim of Mind Sparkle Series MSS  is to provide inspiration, motivation and encouragement to uplift your life to a new level. The ideas, concepts and knowledge we would discuss will act as a catalyst for your change. We believe that positive changes are foundation stones towards societal change. It is the drop that ultimately create the sea. About the Speaker Prof Afroz Alam is presently working as Professor and Head, Department of Political Science at Maulana Azad National Urdu Universi

Do Not Sow in Parts   If you sow in parts you reap in parts. The harvest of the mind is always in doubt. This is the clarion call of the Wise At the elevated conciousness level, knowledge is a unified concept. Astronomy cannot not be separated from Mathematics, Mathematics from Philosophy, Philosophy from Medicine & so on All things are unified if seen from the perspective of Wisdom rather than mere Knowledge            picture credit : jean van der muellen from pexels  Leadership is Wisdom  A wise man is supposed to be the unifier of the knowledge. A solution provider The subject of leadership belongs more to the category of the Wisdom than to the Knowledge Wise leadership does not see problems only from the operational, technical, financial, resource, capacity etc perspective The Wisdom Deficit  They often visualize it at the Macro Level & try to find the “Wisdom Deficit” that led to the problem Wisdom to them is more than the proverbial Aesop fables aspects Leadership Wisdom

The Great Imbalance  Have you ever realised the great imbalance we have created in our Self Communication System . Though inadvertently developed but it has a profound & lasting impact on your leadership attributes Speaking, listening & writing are the core  Self Communication System   which connects your personality to the outer world. It's like the visa by which you enter the other people’s mind  But to avail the visa one has to first get the passport    Picture credit : Thought Catalog from Pexels  The Passport to Success  Reading is the passport of your personality. Without it your entire  Self Communication System    is an exercise in self deception  We must have read upteem articles about personalities & their reading lists. Their list is not so important. But the fact that they read is some pointer towards their success  Now the basic question is what to read. The answer is a simple formula which I have followed for myself over the years. It has worked for me &am

The Two Wings  Have you ever thought about the two philosophical concepts that lets your Thought Leadership soar high.  They are like the two proverbial wings which are interconnected & inter dependent for the high flight  The Metaphysics of Leadership  The metaphysics is the art of thinking, visualizing, contemplating & defining of aspects beyond the physical. The Metaphysics allows your mind to probe the abstract & the unknown. It makes your intellect question the beings & the things along with the truth of existence. It lets you search for things that even do not exist in the realms of words & ideas  The metaphysics tests the capacity & the limits of your thinking abilities. It is the most potent tonic for your unharvested mind  The Physicalism of Leadership The “Physicalism” conception brings your mind back to the world of the seen reality. Sometimes Physicalism is casually understood as Materialism. This makes your senses observe the observable so that th

The Much Debated Concepts  There are two diametrically opposite concepts in philosophy that have dominated the minds for ages  The “ Priori ” concept believes that the mind already has certain knowledge embedded in it much before it experiences the sensation of it  The “ Posteriori ” philosophy believes that the mind is like the blank slate on which knowledge is written only after it interacts with the sensation outside Ibn e Sina's influence on the western thought  Plato was to a certain extent a “Priori“ believer while Aristotle was for “Posteriori”  The West was influenced in favour of “Posteriori” by the work of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the father of modern medicine. His Magnum Opus “ The canons of medicine ” is the most celebrated book on medicine ever written. Ibn Sina’s philosophical outlook in favour of Posteriori settled the debate forever in Europe  Where does leadership belong to?  Now the question arises whether leadership belongs to the priori or Posteriori realms Propone

The Epic of Gilgamesh "If you want a new idea, read an old book" said a wise man onceThe earliest recorded epic is from the Sumerian Civilization called the "Epic of Gilgamesh"(3000 BC ). It is in the form of five surviving poems Gilgamesh was the ruler of Uruk. He wanted to go to war with the kingdom of Kish Gilgamesh knew that Ego has no place in leadership matters First he consulted the council of elders who always opposed him. As expected they opposed his ideas & plans Next he deliberated with another council of elders who supported his course of actions Now it was Gilgamesh turn to take decisions based on the different advices What Gilgamesh did afterward is another matter of debate Hear all the Sides  Leadership means hearing all the sides of the arguements including the one opposed to your vision, strategy & tactics Those who are convinced & have faith in their own vision have the confidence to hear all shades of the arguements Those who desist fr

The Rip Van Winkle Saga  Rip Van winkle was a farmer. One day in the forest he saw some mysterious men playing the game of nine pins The mysterious men called him & asked him to join the game. RVW joined the game & enjoyed the drink offered to him Slowly he felt drowsy and fell asleep RVW woke up and remembered those mysterious men. There was none to be found Life has changed He found his beard has grown very long. His musket has rusted. His dog was gone. His clothes has worn out. He found himself to have aged a lot He walked down to his town. He did not recognize anybody. Nobody recognized him too. The whole town has changed Luckily his daughter identified him & brought him home. RVW was missing for 20 years He came to know that all his friends have died. His wife too had died. He felt very sad RVW was at the crossroads of life. Whether to give up by cursing the past or rise up & reinvent himself again Humanity at the Crossroad  Humanity is also at the Rip Van Winkle C

But Why ?  Some of the Boeing 747 planes still use the 3.5 inch floppy disc to upload the softwares related to navigation, way routes, airport details etc. Every month the SW is loaded via the floppy disc by engineers otherwise the flight won't be in operations  But Why ?  The Comfort Zone  The possible reasons for not transitioning from the floppy disc era to the latest methods are not far to seek. The hardware mechanics of the plane are so rigidly built that it does not allow the upgrade. The other reason could be that since it is serving its intended purpose there is no need to upgrade it  The later reason seems quite possible as it is nearer to our human thinking behaviour  Is necessity necessary for change ?  Most of the time we also do not update, upgrade & change ourselves simply because we feel that there is no necessity for it. Everything is going fine & we feel blessed to be cocooned maintaining the status quo in our own comfort zones  But what we do not realise i

The Inter-Disciplinary & Cross Sectoral Knowledge Approach  The study of the history of knowledge reveals an interesting fact. It is the Inter-Disciplinary & Cross Sectoral Knowledge that propelled the advancement in human progressA mere glance at the history of knowledge reveals that great stalwarts did not belong to any particular field of study All the Greek thinkers were not domain experts but had inter disciplinary knowledge across mathematics, astronomy , medicine , philosophy etc They did not confine their intellect to a particular field of knowledge though they may have given more attention to a particular area History of Knowledge  is testimony to this fact  The same interdisciplinary approach is seen in the ancient Indian knowledge system The Arabic-Persian-Turkish knowledge world continued with the Greek system of Cross sectoral knowledge The modern world is obsessed with hardcore domain knowledge. But those who continued with the Inter-Disciplinary & Cross S

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Neccesity is the Mother of Inventions  The prehistoric humans had no written form of communication. Every communication was oral The earliest form of written communication was pictorial. But it could not serve the purpose The Sumerians developed the cuneiform writing. But it was no easy task to remember more than 300 different wedges & even more combinations of wedges Religion popularized the written style of communication  The Akkadians popularized  cuneiform writing  by creating religious hymns in this style The Assyrians refined  cuneiform writing  & the Babylonians shaped it to the point of Alphabets The Phoenicians created the Alphabet system of Writing. The Greeks borrowed the style & created Philosophers out of this A human Revolution in Communication has begun. Art, literature, philosophy, medicine, history, geography etc took birth from the womb of Alphabets No Ideas are Original No Ideas are Original per se. But Improvisations are mostly original  Every civilizati

The Godly Word in Economics  The world’s public policy is based on the concept of Utilitarianism (U) propounded by Bentham & Mill. The cardinal premise of U is “  the greatest happiness of the greatest number  ” The Idea of Utilitarianism can be achieved through three 3 actions  Absolute free play of market forces Free individual choices to operate in that market The state must ensure the above two through legislations The All Weather God  History & experience shows that absolute & uncontrolled market forces tends to favour more who are already entrenched socially, economically, politically etc in society Theoretically It seems that the absolute free play of market forces is creating free individual economic choices. But in reality it is weighed heavily against the lesser mortals The  Utilitarianism  dictum somehow seems overturned. It is now “ greatest happiness of the smallest number” The Thought Leadership Must Intervene  That is why Thought Leadership matters. It must

The Huge Debate  There was a huge debate regarding Quantum Physcis (QP) in the 1920's. The scientific world was split into two camp One favoured Neil Bohr's Idea on QP. The other was with Einstein refuting Bohr's idea Every confrence, meeting, journals etc ultimately became a showdown between the two camps Einsten, Podolsky & Rosen (EPR) wrote the most scatching critique of Bohr's idea of QP & challenged him to respond to it The Response  Bohr responded to the EPR paper. The whole Physics world read both the EPR & its response. It was the most widely read literature of that time But something went wrong in both the papers Einstein lamented that the Physics world did not understand what he asked in the EPR He wanted to raise certain questions but the world did not understand the queries he raised in their paper  Bohr admitted that he could not communicate fully in writing what he wanted to say. Bohr said he understood what he wanted to say but could not fully

Passion leads to Wisdom  Many say that passion for the domain leads to farsightedness in that field. Obviuosly it leads to leadership in that domain too. An outstanding example of anticipatory leadership comes to my mind from the field of Archaelogy. In the late 1840's one French archaelogist Victor Place was excavating Assyrian sites in Iraq. A great number of Assyrian historical antiquities were discovered which were priceless. The Anticipatory Leadership Everyone wanted the antiquities to be shipped immediately to Paris for further studies. But Victor wanted that the drawings, sketches & copies of every antiquity had to be done before shipping it. This obviously meant more delay in shipping it to Paris. Many objected and criticised his plans but Victor was adamant on following his protocol of business.  Victor requisitioned an artist who drew the sketches, drawings & made copies of all the artificats as per the protocol. It took many days & delayed the shipping. Ma

The five (5) great books that lets you understand Leadership  The subject of leadership is a vast area which requires an even broader vision to understand it. One way to create that broader insight is to read some great books Such books are those which go beyond providing domain expertise. It opens up your intellect to the wide horizons of knowledge & creates thinking processes by which you can link it with your domain area.  There may be many great books on leadership. But according to my understanding there are five (5) books which provide your intellect with wider horizons to understand the area of leadership.  Though some of those books may not directly talk about leadership but their essence would provide the readers with the foresight needed to understand, learn & practice leadership 1. The instructions of Ptah-Hotep This is the oldest wisdom book to survive & is written by the Egyptian Vizier around 2000 B.C. This book talks about ethics, state, administration &

The New Google Certificate Courses  Google announced recently that they would be offering 100,000 scholarships in three certificate courses. The certificate courses would be in the field of Data Analytics, Project Management & User Experience Design (UX). The courses would be taught through the online platform coursera.  Google has done this to create jobs for the coming generations. It is also said that google would treat this 3-6 month certificate courses on par with the 4- year-degree courses  A much broader perspective is required  All fine with this idea except that google should have thought much broader beyond this limited concept. What they are creating is domain experts who would be technicians & masters of their technical domain. They would create & in turn run future technologies But what about the aspect of human interactions with these future technologies in social, cultural, economic, political etc domains ?  The future technologies will have more interacti

Our Conception of Success may be Outdated  The way we look at success is outdated. We are searching for it through tactics, strategy and concepts in proportions which is not even required We pass through so many little milestones of happiness even without realizing it each day & night. For the obsession of the so called big eventful & glorious success we are blind to the success which are intertwined with our lifestyles Not all dreams require you to sleep  Not all dreams require you to sleep to visualize it. Not every time a sun lit day is essential to feel the brightness of the light. Sometimes the night is brighter than the days with the stars We need to understand that everything is in motion. Even the galaxy & the cosmos. Nothing is fixed & permanent. All creations are designed to be in a journey. So are we Nothing shines permanently, not even the brightest of the stars. It too will collapse, burn & fade away into the Black Hole one day The journey of life is fa

How Thought Leadership makes the difference The Egyptian, Assyrian & Babylonian civilizations were almost contemporaneous at some point of time in history. All three were glorious chapters in human progress. But there is a stark differences between the Egyptian & the other two civilizations The legacies, memories & the visible representations of Egyptian civilization has survived till now. We can see the pyramids, mummies, tombs, texts etc etc .But the other two have almost faded away in history. It took lots of efforts to trace out & join the dots of Assyrian & Babylonian Civilization. But for the Egyptian it was available in all its splendor  & glory from the first day  Why was it so ?  The Egyptians built their entire civilization with rocks, stones, indestructible materials while the Assyrians & Babylonians entirely with the clay. Same material was available to both. But it was the matter of choice. One Civilization thought about the long time legacy whi