Re imagine IT - continually!

We received a complaint from my 5 year old boy's Montessori saying the kid who seems to be busy with his activity one minute suddenly springs up to enact a super hero (Bahubali, Captain America) the next minute. Despite the downside of the child not being able to focus for an extended time period, it actually brought a distinct cheer to my wife and me. He is able to imagine some other world in his mind and transport himself there while forgetting his physical surroundings. While we are helping him with his focus, we do encourage him to speak his mind about his imagination - they are the most crazy stories and we love it and I'm sure the world will take notice too - one day!

This incident lead to other thoughts. What is so great about imagination and why is it embedded right within the purpose of Novartis (Reimagining Medicine) ?

Think about it, how would the world around us change unless someone is actually imagining its end state ? "Be solution oriented" is not a new phrase to any of us, but the orientation can only start by first imagining a so called ideal state. We often ignore imagination or even downplay it because it does not feel achievable or plausible.

 

Our purpose here in Novartis is to reimagine medicine and from an IT standpoint where I come from, I stronly believe it should convert to reimagining the IT system, solution, process for our business. Delivering a project or service is not only about meeting timelines/budget, documentation and quality compliance (which we anyways strive) it is also about driving true and undisputed value, it is being able to see that spark in the eyes of our customer. So, let us ask ourselves...

• Are we imagining/reimagining the way a project can be done with an open mind and absolutely no pre conceived notions of what is possible vs impossible ?
• Are we earning the wrath (in a positive way) of our vendors by challenging the boundaries of technology ?
• Are we nudging our team mates when they are frustrated and showing them the beautiful rainbow which we are trying to paint ?
• Are we constantly upping our game by throwing out an idea when there is a better one ?

Imagination though very hazy is actually the light that illuminates a path towards a greater goal. It is the hope that something big is possible in our world. And yes, our orientation towards it is the true value driver.

I read this rather popular quote on the Internet. "If I do a job in 30 minutes, it's because I spent 10 years learning how to do that in 30 minutes. You owe me for the years, not the minutes"

It is very narrow to assume that we are getting paid for the years behind us, we are paid for the value we bring in. And to bring value, let us start by visualizing the goal and continue to reimagine it.

 

All the best for 2020!​

The First 100

Henry David Thoreau was a hero to me in high school, we had his story in our English text book. One of his famous quotes runs like this "The very basic core of man's living spirit is his passion for adventure". I never did attempt an adventure anywhere close to the great philosopher himself, but I can safely say my spirit was rekindled during these first 100 days at Novartis akin to an adventure.

Here is what I learnt...

1.     Great culture is the cornerstone of success: You cannot ignore the difference once you step into a Novartis campus. The respect employees carry for each other, the energy they bring along, the deep sense of time consciousness and many such. It is great to see the company is steadily moving towards realizing its vision and attempts to do it un-bossed. For an outsider, it may sound impossible but these 100 days in Novartis taught me that it is actually the only way! The genesis of my learning and what I say later in this blog has its seed in Novartis's invigorating culture.

2.     Your job isn't the most important thing: Quite contradictory right ? In popular Telugu culture there is a saying - "Inta gelichi raccha geluvu" meaning - "Win at home first and then attempt outside". True to its sense, my attempts at improving life at home with my wife and kid has had a progressive influence on the way I performed at work. It gave me a great deal of satisfaction, energy and zeal to bring value in office. In every way, it was during the time in Novartis and because of its employee centric policies that has opened up the avenues for me to attain a balance.

3.     Always make yourself uncomfortable: Remember the scene from Mission Impossible II (2000), Tom Cruise climbing the Rockies slips and then precariously hangs by the cliff at which point he does something totally unexpected - HE SMILES! As a teenager it appealed to me back then in a different way, but I started watching this over and over again the past few months and realized there is absolutely no learning without the feelings of 'out of place', 'I don't know a thing about this', 'this is overwhelming', 'this is intimidating'. Some examples of how I put myself in these feelings in the last 100 days

• I started mentoring students on Statistics and Business Analytics, I have given close to 10 sessions till now and my feedback rating grew exponentially.
• I nominated myself for a standup comedy act at the Open Mic Gig at Novartis Hyderabad, something I never did in my life. I prepared hard with a script that I painstakingly put together, but it was a disaster in the end. I was disappointed but I spent many hours afterward improving my act and learnt a lot about humor.
• I started posting on Yammer - never used the official social network prior to Novartis and I'm only enjoying it.
• Attended a session on Google Cloud and subsequently read and learnt quite a bit about the ways cloud technologies can benefit business.

Novartis is indeed shaping me up into a risk (however small) taking individual.

4.     The skills you possess are far less important: Yes, they are far less important than the attitude you bring to work. During a visit to the NASA space center in 1962, President JFK, noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said, "Hi, I'm Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?" "Well, Mr. President," the janitor responded, "I'm helping put a man on the moon." I too witness this elderly lady from the facilities department in Novartis Hyderabad who smiles and greets everyone every single day, while joyously performing her duties. Such is the atmosphere here, that when I look around I see employees with a smile on their face and their head held high, the positive energy I feel here electrifies me.

 

5.     The person at the helm need not be someone in a 3 piece suit. After his election to Presidency, Barack Obama traveled the world meeting dignitaries on behalf of the United States and what a great example he set! I get the same feeling when our CEO pops up in a new country every other week with his power packed message to our colleagues - of course without the 3 piece :-).





I'm eagerly looking forward to what is in store and my guns are all loaded to take every opportunity head on.



Do you think I missed something ? Feel free to comment and share.

Technology - Wow Factor!

In the movie Steve Jobs (2015), the protagonist played by the super talented Michael Fassbender says to his marketing head "If I want to tell you there is a spot on the shirt, I point to the spot, I don't say there is a spot 14cm down from the collar, 3cm to the right of the second button while I try to remember what the command is for club soda. That's not how a person's mind works".

As I watched that scene, I remarked that the Operating System experience from DOS to Windows (Steve Jobs was referring to the Mac obviously) was indeed a great Wow moment for me back in 1996 when I was only a kid.

My first job was in the IT industry and I have been affiliated to it for more than a decade now. However, I always kept technology at least a few feet away to not embrace it. I only thought of it as a means for me to earn my living.

My true yearning was always in art, history and the like. To give a few examples, when a historian like William Darlymple releases a new book, I had to buy and read it and then explore the same places explained in the book in the cities of Delhi and Hyderabad - on foot. When Amit Trivedi comes up with a new set of soulful music numbers, I had to listen and get lost in them for days. When a trailer of Dennis Villeneuve's latest film is out, I had to watch it several hundred times and get into the mood before eventually watching the film and then spend days critically analyzing it. These are only but a few examples where I splendor-ed and experienced art right into my DNA.

In the same spirit, I never did ponder over my experiences of technology. Beyond the office environment, the friends I made, the ups on downs in the life, I realized I always had this constant companion but I had a rather detached - indifferent feeling about it. So, without waiting further I start inking down some of my Wow! moments in using technology.

1. When using a personal computer for the first time - 1994
2. When using the first Windows machine - 1996
3. When using Yahoo Messenger to voice chat with my cousins in the US - 2000
4. When writing a C program to arrange a set of numbers in the shape of a triangle - In 2002
5. When I analyzed the forces on all the load bearing elements of one of the buildings in our college using STAAD.Pro software - 2004
6. When listening to music on an IPod - 2007
7. Using Pandora to help me with music recommendations - 2009
8. When I used to continuously bother my friends to Shazam any interesting music that we hear to know the track name, artist, album etc. Then go back home and download the same - 2010
9. When using Bluetooth to transfer a music track from one device to another - 2010. I vividly remember one of my friends saying "Is the file moving in thin air?"
10. When I ordered a taxi on Uber on my first smart phone in 2017 (Yes, I purposely stayed away from smart phones until that long!!)
11. When creating a new Virtual Machine on the Google Cloud - I created a new virtual machine with 2CPUs, 75 GB RAM and a 64 TB persistent disk, installed NGINX web server in less than 5 minutes!! - 2019

None of the above are out of the world, yet they are simple, sweet and innocent.  As I started analyzing the list further, I came to understand that the real reason for my affinity towards them were

• Finesse
• Simplicity
• Empathy

Finesse by means of brining in great skill and expertise, Simplicity to be able to convey the meaning and purpose in an easy to understand way; Empathy in a way to establish a deep connection with the human element.

Now the funny thing here is, all these are the same reasons I love any piece of art as well!​