Three months back I
attended a conference named 'Brain Storming ‘ sessions which included heady mix
of professionals with more than three decades of experience , not expertise,
top executives including the directors of a big public sector
corporation.
After the morning
session and one and half hours into the second session it was my turn to speak
up. I am recollecting the relevant points to the observation made in your mail.
I asked all the
participants [definitely I cannot call them delegates, rather a better way to
put that up would be to call them passive receivers] what sessions we have been
having from the morning? When my turn came up it was the fourth session. Much
to the irritation of the top bureaucrats I pointed my question to them and
they had to reply because I was representing the trade union. So they felt it
would be better to give a reply and silence me rather than allow me a longer
rope. The heads who led the three session said, ' Why any doubt sir? We had
very detailed brain storming sessions on bla bal bla etc' I thanked them and
continued like this,
“Respected sirs, well in my
opinion we had four and half hours of verbal
and theoretical masturbation and interrupted by menstruation of
tea breaks and lunch breaks. Kindly excuse me for using very harsh
terminologies but I believe in calling a spade a spade though this may not be
liked by all. However if at all we want to engage in any collective thinking to
effect any purposeful and meaningful change or improvement we must first desist
from duping ourselves with meaningless and useless exercise which in my humble
opinion is colossal waste of public money and meaningless drain of man hours,
especially of such high officials. Let me make it very clear. I may be
wrong. Please do correct me after I finish my quota of 25 minutes plus 5
minutes of question and answer session".
One executive
interrupted with a good joke, ' Sir, you have already used three minutes of
your question and answer session by asking us questions at the beginning of
your speech'. There was loud laughter all around.
I acknowledged the
humor and proceeded , "Well,
to me questioning is the process of learning, understanding and
unearthing wisdom and this is how all great discoveries and wisdom have come
about and being a wise man I prefer to continue to use that method. I know many
of you here may have felt shocked at my opening remark but I stand by that. We
have assembled here to decide about a specific purpose what we need to discuss
and focus must be the following things though this may not be the complete
list.
1. What are the relevant facts that we must take
into consideration regarding the main purpose?
2. What are the major factors either at the level
of individual employees, or our corporation or policy decisions of the
government etc which can have an impact on this issue either negatively or
positively?
3. How are we going to address those factors?
4. Is it necessary or essential at all in the
first place to entertain, much less give so much of importance to the main
purpose of this meeting as a matter of priority over many other pressing issues
that requires our attention on a priority basis for example bla bla bla…..?”
Then I proceeded with an example, “again turned to
the top officials on the dais if I say I want a cup of milk what will you do
now?”
One official who wanted to prick me said, “I would to get it
immediately and love to see you drink it rather than trouble us with more
questions”.
There was laughter
all around. This gave me the correct launching pad, I started off,
“ Sir, in fact I appreciate you for many things,
which includes your sense of humor, the top most I appreciate is your answer
now and this is precisely I want to do
about the purpose of the conference. The purpose of the conference was to get
milk. That is it. For four and half hours we discussed what milk whether cow’s,
camels, goats, donkey’s etc? Then we discussed about which breed of cow we must
buy? What feed we must give it? What must be size of the cow shed? Who or how
must we milk the cow, either manual or with machines? Under which head can we
account for all these expenses? How long will it take to get the first cup of
milk? How are we going to help their procreation? Can we cross breed? Are we
going to tie the cow with a rope or chain? Whether we must paint its horn? What
color is preferable? How many veterinary doctors we need? What must be their
emoluments and when can we get government approval for that? We discussed some
100 such wonderful and relevant facts throwing in our well chosen verbal jargon and pet theories
which we have studied in the management manuals, peppered with , in the
interest of bla bla bla….and many more such
load of irrelevant things when all that was asked was just a cup of milk and
considering the present climate we should have just replaced milk with lassi or
butter milk or if we feel that the industry needs to stay awake probably a
black tea or black coffee or any other alternative beverage of choice or
relevance. So sir, your immediate offer of milk to me is all that I want and
appreciate. Sitting in the front row for four and half hours I did use the
letter pad given to me. Now when I take a look at this I can see a sense of
renewed irritation to many presuming that I am going to attack on specific
points discussed. Sorry I always like to bowl googlies. I can show or mail to
those who are interested that I have noted down the types of logical fallacies
which wetted the issue during those four and half hours of verbal masturbation.
Thanking everyone for your patient listening.”
