Q & A

This is a long weekend. Tomorrow (26th Jan, Monday) is our republic day. I mean today only...it's already 12:31 Ante Meridiem.

Almost everybody is my friend circle is busy watching movies or on trips to unseen places or killing some quality time with their gf/bfs.

Well, I am confined in my 10'x10' room pondering over a question which I have to answer, but I am not able to find/recall any incident from my life that could provide me with the answer. May be I need to talk to Jamal Malik to know how to dig into memory pretty much effectively and probably become a millionaire.

Hoping that my unconscious mind may work out a nice algorithm and flash an answer, I am going to write the 'Q' here and discuss what it means.

"Describe an ethical dilemma you experience first-hand. How did you manage and resolve the situation?"

An ethical dilemma is defined by Wikipedia as
"An ethical dilemma is a situation that will often involve an apparent conflict between moral imperatives, in which to obey one would result in transgressing another."

So, you see, the conflict between two moral aspects is necessary. If one of them is not moral, then it is a dilemma not an ethical dilemma. You will ask "why"?

Good question...because assuming that you are an ethical person and were confronted by a situation that demanded you to exercise ethical leadership. You had two choices. Let's say, one of them was an ethical one and other not. Also you could manage with the ethical one. So obviously you'd go for ethical one. So that was not exactly an ethical dilemma. It was very well a dilemma.

However, if the situation is so demanding that you can not manage at all (some major risk, need, etc) with your ethical stand, then you are in a real dilemma. Consider a hypothetical but not so perfect situation as told to me by a nice friend.

You are working in a team. One particular day, you are not in a mood to work and ask a colleague to cover up for you. You don't inform your manager about it. He covers for you. No issues. After 2 years, you are leading two people. One of them does the same thing that you did 2 years back. You come to know about it. Now you want to tell him about the mistake he has done. But you are not getting the courage to do so as you know you had done similar mistake earlier. To make matters more complicated, let's say he also knows that you have also done the same once.
You also don't want to sour your relationship with your junior.
So you are in a ethical dilemma. Should you go and tell him his mistake and ask him not to repeat it again, you are going to feel guilty and your professional relation will get affected. However if you don't talk to him about this, it is going to affect your leadership. Moreover your junior might get used to such small mistakes. So you really want to correct him.

So what should you do? Neither of the two ways seems like a good option.

A possible way to resolve such a situation would be to have an open talk. Forgo your ego and follow an honest and sincere approach. Tell him that you have also skipped work like this without informing your manager. Also that you realize it is wrong and can have some repercussions later. So basically you'll advise him as a candid senior that he should not practice unethical practices.
Effectively, you have managed the situation very well. You had to undergo a decision making that was tough.

Well, this was in a professional setting. Much bigger and complex ethical dilemmas can happen in personal life also. But they are more on human moral values.
Here, I am generally expected to answer something related to professional ethics.

I have got some examples from my life, but they are more of dilemmas where I knew what was right and I did that. So I won't be able to show my difficult situation and the decision making my mind went through.

During this whole process of applying for MBA, I have certainly gained on intangible aspects (transferable skills, in MBA jargon). I do not know whether I am going to do an MBA this year or not, but this experience has already started having an impact on me. I have started becoming more watchful of my personality aspects. How do I work, how do I present some presentation, how do I carry myself in meetings, what kind of words do I use et al. Well, more on that, later.

For now, my thinking is not yet over and I need to finish this essay before India's 60th Republic day is over.

Wikipedia has some nice links for some practically possible and really tough Ethical Dilemmas. Check them out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_dilemma

Problem solving

I have already told in the introduction about myself, my blogs can be random...well, I mean, with a probability (P) of any topic being covered defined as
P = a rational number x where 0 <= x <= 1 ;)

So, let's solve a algorithmic problem, which I found on someone else' blog (http://my-experiments-with-it.blogspot.com) and liked it.

Here goes it:

You have an array of size 'n' with numbers from 1 to 'n'. You need to sort this array in the most optimal way.

HINT(Don't read the hint if you think you can do without it): The solution has a complexity of O(n). i.e. even less than the O(n.log(n)) which is given by the best sorting algorithms.

Find the answer in the comments section.

Whole world is congratulating me

Look at the video, whole world has congratulated me!!!

http://www.worldsgreatestbusinessmind.com/20090105-Anish-Goyal-create.html&WT.mc_id=WGBM|Create

SatyaM - a falsified truth

While I was in school, Physics was my favorite subject.
Nuclear physics even more so. Read about an interesting concept of particle and anti-particle.
That when a particle and its anti-particle join, they annihilate each other and a lot of energy is released. An anti particle is defined as something identical to and with equal mass and opposite charge to a particle.
I know it might sound boring. I apologize if you were not a Physics students and had to bear with me. But there is a reason why I mentioned this.
You all must be knowing about the story of Satyam trying to acquire Maytas and the whole story that unfolded later and which now threatens to vanish Satyam. Or annihilation...when Satyam tried to join with an entity promoted from same source (people) and having opposite name Maytas. Quite metaphorical...!

The whole Satyam saga can make for a very sensational thriller. Even John Grisham or Jeffery Archer probably would be stunned by how reality can probably be more strange than fiction.

I am in Hyderabad, the city of Nizam and one of the IT hubs of Modern India, and a city which a few weeks back was proud of being the epicenter of an Indian IT gem known as Satyam.
So I get to read and listen a lot about the Satyam fiasco. Hyderabad TOI covers every nerve related to the incident.

From what I have read, quite interesting though unfortunate repercussions are happening because of the Satyam fallout.
- Image of Hyderebad has been hit. (earlier also some corporate frauds) have taken place in the city.
- Satyam being India's Enron. PwC is also under the scanner. PwC may face the fate of Arthur Anderson, one time among big five auditors. Not complete fall, PwC might be at least banned in India.
- Satyamites are flooding job portals
- Some self-styled leaders in Satyam are volunteering for pay cuts. Obviously others are not happy about it.
- Some Satyam engineers are desparate to get into MBA despite not-so-good CAT percentiles.
- Infosys has said it won't hire Satyam employees. Bit harsh and unthoughtful decision. I wish NRN and team understand all Satyamites are not tainted. Moreover it is in the larger interest of India and IT industry if other capable leaders help rescue Satyam.
- Satyam clients want to exit. Companies like Patni and others are trying to make hay by offering to help those clients dissociate from Satyam and join other companies.
- IT stocks investors, other than those who probably liked the name Satyam, are making good money.

Some non-IT related effect
- Satyamites might not be preferred in marriage market. I guess grooms would be more effected than the brides.
- Restaurants are stopping serving Satyam employees on credit basis. 10% discount only on cash payments
- Hyderabad's highly-greedy and worthless houseowners are worrying that they can't milk money as much as they used to earlier from Satyamites. I wonder chances are they can probably start looting more from IT people in anticipation that when they can pay, extract the share of their salary.
- No more corporate discounts for Satyamites at Hyderabad's pearl and jewellery shops.
- People are shying of displaying their Satyam ID cards
- In an odd but a really shameful incident, a Satyam employee who used to give talks on management and team work in social circle is now being considered inappropriate for the purpose.

IT sector in India probably is viewed in same light as our cricket team. Both are talks of the drawing rooms. Both get revered in good times and criticized to the lows in bad times. During 2001 IT slowdown, I think almost everyone single person (unrelated to IT) in my parents social circle warned them of their son's wrong career choice!! A few years back, getting into Satyam, despite of it being not such a great company, was considered a great achievement in Hyderabad and AP state. Some families even criticized their children for not joining this company. Am sure, now the same people would look down upon and give career advice to those engineers who probably would not even have got the opportunity to see Mr Raju in their whole career!

I think the 'mystic' minds of Indians should also be part of Incredible India campaign.

Hope Indian IT and job market don't suffer because of the mistakes of a few!

Slumdog Millionare

I don't watch many hollywood movies. Agree they have terrific performances and complex plots that cannot erase themselves from your memories. But Slumdog Millionaire is much more than that. It is a movie about a guy's search for his love interest. However, the action he takes takes him down the complete memory lane and finding solutions to the questions that have the potential to change his materialistic life which he cares the least. An elder brother who is more business oriented, yet loves his brother but can almost kill him (probably for a revenge, am not sure) and a 3rd musketeer who has surrendered to the circumstances so many times that she does not know what to do next.
The answer to each question asked to the protagonist lies in various instances of his life. The instances that are plainly terrific probably highlight the lives of slum people in Mumbai. Each and every incident mirror the lives of common or below common man in modern day India...be it living in slums or communal riots or Indian BPO industry or the rackets of begging/prostitution or simple human emotions such as jealousy or love.
Slumdog millionaire is all about the survival and the numerous challenges that come in the way to live a life of almost no goals except one that is also not certain. But everything is "Written".