Thought Leadership

  In Leadership Journey Never Forget These 3 Three Engagements    Click the Link Below to Read 👇   https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shahnawaz-qasim-ips-16583110_humanityleadershipseries-leadership-activity-6748241352338812928-mXiv Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

Advices are  game changers   Sometimes some advice can be a game changer. It can establish as well as ruin the entire future prospects of the heeder more so particularly in the professional field  Generally such important advice is sought from experienced & professional people who have spent years in that profession. We do not seek such seasoned advice from a teenager more so if he has no knowledge of that field  Nizami took the Risk  But this is exactly what Nizami Ganjavi the 12th century AD Persian poet did when he was offered a professional literary task. Nizami was an accomplished literary figure  He was offered the project to write the famous Arabic love story of Laila-Majnu for the Persian readers. His advisors bluntly told him that a sad love story of a commoner would not attract readers. Further this would besmirch his philosophical poet image  Nizami was confused. He sought the final advice from his wife & his teenage son. They bo...

Your Some Truths will get demolished someday  Suppose truths which we have been born believing into suddenly get questioned. How do we react ? Our responses to our own credible doubts are our first test of impartiality It is a commonly held belief that the Greeks taught the world the finer elements of Mathematics including Trigonometry. Hipparchus (100 B.C) is regarded as father of Trigonometry Plimpton 322 But the Babylonian Tablet Plimpton 322 recently decoded tells a different story altogether. This Tablet precedes Hipparchus by over 1500 years  Plimpton 322 reveals that the Babylonian were already using Trigonometry based on the sexagesimal system unlike the decimal system later used by the Greeks  Then who is the father of Trigonometry ?  Learn the Lessons  There are many lessons to learn from this factual observations.  Our worldly truths are like the truths of the Cosmos. Always changing & perpetually surprising  Never ever fixate your mi...

The Uniformity in Digital World  The European Union(EU) wants to create a common charger for all the phones. It wants complete uniformity in electronic accessories The EU wants to reduce the electronic waste due to diversity in the phone chargers The similar efforts in 2009 failed due to interoperability between devices But in Technology the uniformity ultimately gets achieved for the ease of doing business Diversity is Humanity  But imagine creating similar controlled uniformity in human thoughts, ideas, ideology, perceptions etc in our existence It would be a Herculean disaster in the leadership of Ideas What looks as absolute necessity when we deal with Natural Sciences looks totally unscientific when we interact with the Social Sciences We as the people must know that there are worlds existing within the world. There are mini universes being born & breathing within the same universe Let me tell you the greatest Thumb Rule of human existence “ Uniformity is a blessing ...

Translations laid the foundation of civilization  Every year 30th September is celebrated as the International Translation Day.  The art of translation actually laid the foundation of human civilization & its subsequent progress The Sumerians were the first to translate thoughts into pictorial languages The Akadians, Assyrians, Egyptians & the Babylonians improved upon it The civilization also improved along with it Translation is the transfer of Ideas & Vision  If the Greeks would not have borrowed Alphabets from the Phoenicians & then translated the Mesopotamian knowledge, there would have been no philosophy If the Arab-Persian-Turkish system would not have translated the Greek, Indian & Chinese knowledge, there would have been no Medieval civilization If the West would not have translated the Indian & the Arab- Persian- Turkish knowledge there would have been no Renaissance & the modern civilization Translation is the transmission of leaders...

Name is not Everything  The greek word from which their identity emerged means Wise, Wisdom etc. They were people who excelled in knowledge of philosophy, Mathematics, Astronomy, Administration etc just like any renowned scholars of their day.  They even wrote books, taught students and excelled in discussions, debates, lectures etc. They were also famous & liked by the public just like any other scholars of those days  Yet they are never considered Philosophers or Intellectuals even till date. Many even do not consider them as Scholars, Teachers, Wise men etc The mainstream Philosophy has more contempt & disregard for them than any schools of thought Add caption What was Wrong with the Sophists ? The Central Question is what went wrong with the Sophists & Why the word itself came to mean a Pejorative term ?  Similarly it is even important to know why Sophism came to signify a derogatory ideology ?  The answer lies in their non-conviction & non-...

Madness and civilization Michel Foucault, the french philosopher wrote the famous book Madness and civilization. His views changed the perception of Deviance from individualistic to collective in the social framework. No worldwide intellectual circles of that time remained untouched from his book  Look at things  differently  There was also one scholar who read this book. But his attention got fixated on a passing small paragraph which read “ ‘ In the universality of the Western ratio, there is a division which is the Orient … The Orient is for the Occident everything that it is not ”  This small paragraph evoked sea of thoughts in the mind of Edward Said & the rest is history in the field of Post colonial intellectualism  Influenced by the paragraph, Edward Said wrote “ Orientalism” which is considered one of the most influential books of the 20th century. From this book was born the concept of Orientalism which changed our perception forever  Ironi...

Newtonian or Quantum Leaders  Some physicists say that there are two worlds. The World of Big Objects (WBO) & the World of Small Objects (WSO) The WBO is the Newtonian world. The WSO is the Quantum world. The WSO does not follow Newtonian laws The WBO is visible, observable & measurable The WSO is not Yet Both of them exists & are the real worlds But for many only WBO is the real world Mostly both the world do not follow each other’s laws, trajectory, motions, styles etc The Leadership Styles Similar is the case of the two distinct worlds of leadership One has a big aura, personality, is eloquent, has presence, always visible & seen in the action The other is quiet, recluse, non domineering, believes mostly in delegation & is non glamorous The first may be casually referred to as the "Leaders of the Newtonian world" The other are the "Leaders of the Quantum world" Both of them provide leadership to organisations they lead But just because WSO is ...

The talk on You tube  A talk on " How to reinvent yourself in the post pandemic world" The topic of the current times A thought process of what we need to do A perspective on what we can do Ideas to deliberate upon

Perspective is everything  When we talk about the Greek Civilization, we are generally talking about the Athenians. We are seeing history from the POV of the Athenians. We are not witnessing history from the perspective of the Corinthians, Spartans,Thebans or anyone else The celebrated intellectual E. H. Carr says that we must find the missing POVs of everybody to understand the real history behind any history Everybody's perspective is essential in understanding the completeness of any issue. Those who seemingly matter less actually matters more in the real facts The complete perspective  This is equally true for leadership. The completeness of the perspective is essential to the success of the leader. A leader must have eyes & ears to find & listen to all the unheard voices in the organisation Unrepresented, unheard & silenced voices are graveyards of leadership Those who represent more, shout more & have more access to leadership necessarily does not me...

He needs no introduction  Einstein needs no introduction. We expect everything new & fascinating from him. We hardly doubt him on his theories. In fact his every theory is regarded as "scientific gospel" Such is his reputation of imminence But he made the biggest mistake of his life  But he made the biggest mistake in astrophysics by telling the world that the universe is constant. He even introduced his now infamous “Cosmological Constant” into his equation in 1917 But when in 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is not static but expanding, the Astrophysics world was stunned The Brilliant Blunder  Einstein accepted his mistake & in 1931 disowned his own Cosmological Constant. A full 14 years after its creation Einstein himself is said to have observed that this was his Biggest Blunder. Some called it the “Brilliant Blunder” Ethical leadership  Here it shows the highest attribute of any leadership. That is to accept their mistakes & not th...

The couplet  "Bas-ki dushvar hai har kaam ka aasan hona //  Aadmi ko bhi mayassar nahi insaan hona" It is difficult that every goal be easily complete // Even for Human it is not easy to be humane Ghalib  The above couplet of the great urdu poet Ghalib indicates that certain qualities are to be fulfilled before biological human becomes truly a human. There are four basic qualities which every human must possess to be called human. 1. A man must believe in the equality of all men 2. A man must be kind, compassionate and full of empathy in his behaviors 3. A man must be willing to repent on his mistakes 4. A man must be just, impartial and do justice What do you say ? 

Albert Camus & the plague period  One of the few good books to read during this period is " The Plague " written by Albert Camus. Albert Camus is one of the few brilliant philosophical minds of the 20th century.  The Plague  In the book " The Plague" , he philosophizes that the human's collective fight for existence against the common threat is an ongoing process. The book philosophizes about human destiny and freedom of choice. Through the book Albert Camus is also trying to refer to all forms of organised injustices via the metaphor of the plague.  The sample passage  Sample below a passage from the book.. Thus week by week the prisoners of plague put up what fight they could. Some, like Rambert, even contrived to fancy they were still behaving as free men and had the power of choice. But actually it would have been truer to say that by this time, mid-August, the plague had swallowed up everything and everyone. No longer were there individual destinies; on...

The earliest book on plague  One of the finest books to read on Pandemics or Epidemics is “ A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe”. This book is basically a journal which details about the bubonic plague which devastated London in the 17th century.  It is same today  Some of the incidents and social circumstances described in this book are no different from what is happening today in corona crisis worldwide. Sample one paragraph from the book. The sample Reading  “This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and as it was a sight which I could not but look on from morning to night, for indeed there was nothing else of moment to be seen, it filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city, and the unhappy condition of those that would be left in it. This hurry of the people was such for some weeks that there was no getting at the Lord Mayor’s door without exceeding difficulty ; there template was such pressing and crowdi...

Father of History Nobody can claim to know history without knowing 𝓗𝓔𝓡𝓞𝓓𝓞𝓣𝓤𝓢. Herodotus is regarded as the father of history. The 9 volumes  He wrote his 9 volumes of books called Histories. This book deals extensively on the history of the Greco-Persian wars fought in the 5th century BC. Herodotus is believed to have written his voluminous book around 440 BC. Though the book is not what we know as academic history today. But definitely it is the first and most successful endeavor to write history comprehensively. Most of our knowledge about the Persian Empire of that time comes from this book.  The Greek POV The book is not impartial in its observations as it is written from the point of view POV of the Greeks. Nevertheless the Style, Geography, Events, Descriptions of war etc dealt in the books are matters worth going through. If you love history you will love Herodotus. The sample below is the history from his book. "My history hence proceeds to inquire who Cyrus w...

Leadership & Society  I𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝗻, 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝗺 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆, 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 . COVID 19 & the society  With the grave threat of COVID19 , all societies have seen reduction in their social and economic powers. There is scarcity of capital, infrastructure, equipment, medicines, doctors, leadership etc. This is the loss of power of any society. Now is the time to see and observe which society shows unity, resilience, compassion and farsightedness in the fight against the pandemic.  The compassionate societies  Only those societies which have qualities bereft of hubris hubris in abundance would be able to cope with the aftermath. Those who lack those qualities would carry the scars much longer and may collapse one day. It is not only about material things that keeps any society away from t...

Truth too needs symbols  Truth, even though it is truth, still requires symbolism to highlight itself. One of the most iconic examples that can be cited is of Socrates, the Great Greek philosopher. Bertrand Russell writes " Oracle of Delphi was once asked if there were any man wiser than Socrates, and the oracle replied that there was not". Socrates the philosopher  Socrates was put to trial and condemned to death by the Athenian establishment. The charge against Socrates was that he was corrupting the minds of the people specially the young generations. Most of what we know about Socrates comes from the writing of his two pupils Plato and Xenophon. Plato, himself a great philosopher, was present in the court during the trial of Socrates and he wrote the entire dialogues of Socrates in the form of the book called “𝗔𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆" The Apology  At the end of the trial Socrates addresses the unjust court and remarks “ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶...

Rumi Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi, popularly known as Rumi, is one of the greatest and most widely read mystic poet. He lived around the region of present day Turkey in the 13th century AD.  Shams Tabrez  He wrote mostly in Persian.. Shams –i- Tabrizi was the wandering Sufi who ignited the fire of mysticism and love in Rumi. It is said that Shams –i- Tabrizi shaped the entire intellectual consciousness of Rumi. Rumi says about him 𝙁𝙧𝙪𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙮 𝙚𝙭𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙚: 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙧𝙖𝙬, 𝙄 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙙, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙄 𝙗𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙩 Maqalat –e- shams-i-Tabrizi Shams and Rumi had intellectual discussions and these were noted by Rumi’s students. The notes were compiled by an Iranian scholar into a book “Maqalat –e- shams-i-Tabrizi, The Discourses of Shams –i- Tabrizi. This book gives us the best insight into the mystic genius of both the great souls. Rumi’s Mathnawai is regarded as the one of greatest poetry book ever written. After translation into ...

Xenophanes  ‘If horses could draw, they would draw their Gods like horses’ Thus spoke Xenophanes, earliest Greek philosophers of 6 th century B.C. This statement of Xenophanes is actually against the dominant and aggressive Homerian culture of that time. Homerian view  He says that Homerian view their Gods and culture in human form and look down upon the other ways of life and culture. But if Horses could speak and draw they would view their Gods and culture in horses form and not in human form.  Cultural Relativism This was the beginning of the concept of Cultural Relativism(CR ) and Xenophanes is the first to talk about it. Due to his liberalism, free thinking and intellectualism Xenophanes was exiled by the authorities. “Cultural relativism is the ability to understand a culture on its own terms and not to make judgments using the standards of one’s own culture” · Every culture & way of life is relative and unique · No culture is good or bad per se · No cultur...

Ibn Khaldun-Father of sociology  𝐈𝐛𝐧 𝐊𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐝𝐮𝐧 was a towering intellectual figure of the 14th century AD and one of the few great minds of the world. A Historian cum philosopher who founded a new science in Humanities called "𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲(𝘈𝘭 𝘐𝘫𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢 𝘈𝘭 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘢𝘢𝘯).This branch of historical studies is also called 𝙃𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙊𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 which ultimately became what we call as "Sociology" today. That is the reason many regard Ibn Khaldun as the Father of Sociology. Historical Materialism  Scholars agree that his study of history through scientific methods was the first attempt at "𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦. Before him history was a mere narrative and fiction exercise. He changed History writing forever. 𝐌𝐮𝐪𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐦𝐚"(𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐧) His most celebrated book is 𝐌𝐮𝐪𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐦𝐚"(𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐧). In this book he lists out reasons wh...