Towards the end of her impassioned appeal calling for azaadi for Kashmir, Arundhati Roy, pauses to reflect on what might follow azadi in Kashmir, wondering what an independent Kashmir might mean, including what the independence demanded by the state's Muslim majority might mean for the state's religious or other minorities. She does well not to linger, because the thought experiment illustrates precisely what is most problematic about "national movements", namely that they are unable to think the political except through the prism of nation-states. National movements, that is to say, see themselves as nation-states-in-waiting, and do not see any political horizon beyond that of the nation-state. So was it with the Indian national movement, and its inability to think the difference that might have been capacious enough to house the country's Muslim-majority regions; so it definitely was with the Muslim League and its two-nation theory, even more wedded to the siren song of European-style nationalism transplanted to a colonial setting; and so it is with the "copycat" nationalisms that have followed, be it Kashmir, or Punjab, or Nagaland. The failure to imagine a nation-state different from the traditional European model, the shoe-horning of Indian communitarian identities, into models conceived with the likes of Germany and England in mind, paved the way for the catastrophes of partition. The "belated" nationalisms of the post-partition sub-continent demonstrate the truth of Marx's depressing observation, namely that we learn from history that we do not learn from history.
The point is worth making given Roy's trenchant critiques of the Indian state (in the context of Kashmir, but not only of Kashmir; her essay on the Indian state and dams, The Greater Common Good, is astonishingly powerful). That is, much of Roy's critique -- of the Indian state's indifference, its callousness, its inhumanity, its cruelty -- is (or certainly ought to be) animated not by her target's Indianness, but by the fact that it is a nation-state, and as such, does what nation-states do: in the final analysis, sacrifice humanity in the service of a larger political project. The distinction is an important one, because nothing in the Kashmiri independence movement suggests that it will throw up anything different; indeed given that the movement aims at a traditional nation-state just like all the others, I submit that it cannot yield a different result. Minority rights? Justice for different communities, and between genders? The outcomes will be better than they are now, we are told by the movement, not because the aims are different from those of the existing Indian state, but because the movement will simply do a better job.
I am skeptical, and not because of the identity (religious or otherwise) of those who comprise the Kashmiri independence movement; I am skeptical because the aim of that movement is congenitally incapable of producing a result that is "better" in some cosmic sense -- at most the identities of those disadvantaged will shift, as new disfavoured minorities, new "outsiders", new "insiders", and new identity policemen are created. Roy is too sophisticated not to see this, but doesn't bother to delve into it, pretending that this is merely a question of the Kashmiri separatists not having spelled out their agenda in greater detail as yet.
It is not: over half a century ago, Hannah Arendt wrote (in The Origins of Totalitarianism) of the masses of refugees and victims that seemed to accompany the birth of every new nation-state, and nothing has changed, not in the age of South Ossetia, Kosovo, Rwanda, ad nauseum. Certainly, those of us from the sub-continent should be especially wary of political projects that promise us clean solutions to intractable political problems: we live with the legacies of the bloodbaths of the 1940s, not to mention innumerable later, "lesser" massacres. By all accounts, the leaders of the new nation-states of India and Pakistan were caught by surprise by the scale of the violence in 1947; they had evidently internalized the logic of colonialism, pursuant to which communitarian difference presents a political "problem" that may be solved by means of creative cartography and judicious population transfers. Conceptual neatness is one of the hallmarks of the colonial mindset (thinking of Cyril Radcliffe, who could doubt it?).
Unfortunately, reality is anything but, and the sub-continent's leaders -- and, even more importantly, its people -- should have learned long ago that partitions are not the solution to people's inability to live together; rather, the mindset that vests its faith in drawing easily-policed borders is a mindset that demands enemies. It is a mindset that, in the final analysis, demands that facts on the ground correspond to the political project of the nation-state (and not the other way around). A nation-state for Muslims thus becomes a state virtually free of non-Muslims; a sub-national state where Hindu pride is honoured above all else becomes a state where non-Hindus must know their place.
Why would one ever hope for anything different from a nation-state for Kashmiris, as far as those who don't fit the bill are concerned? Certainly the region is not short of candidates for stigmatisation (some of this is because India is fantastically diverse; some of it is because nation-states are rather gifted at manufacturing "problematic" identities): Buddhists; Shiites; Gujjars; perhaps even Sunni Muslims who will be deemed insufficiently supportive of the independence movement (the last is hardly far-fetched, as even a casual glance at the history of Algeria or the Khalistan movement, or Kashmir itself during the 1990s, makes clear). Indeed, several hundred thousand Kashmiri Pandits have already been driven off, and it is hard not to see in them a harbinger of more to come.
The above might seem like an odd place from which to maintain a defense of India vis-à-vis Kashmir. It is, on the contrary, a natural vantage point: the idea of an independent Kashmir for Kashmiris must be resisted precisely because, as the experience of the once-colonised has amply illustrated, nation-states are appallingly inhuman. Equally, however, they are not all inhuman in precisely the same way; nor are they all equally inhuman, by which I simply mean that they are not all equally incapable of accommodating human difference, whether communitarian or otherwise. The Germany of 2008 is manifestly not the Germany of 1938; but nor does the Germany of 2008 accommodate ethnic minorities as comfortably as the United States does.
None of this relieves any state of moral responsibility for the horrors it perpetrates; but in order to agitate against horrors, one must first understand what they are. And within the range of nation-states on offer -- all of them problematic, all of them complicit in cruelty -- it is apparent to me that those premised on explicit notions of religion, language, ethnicity, blood in some sense, are more problematic, more complicit, than those with far more modest litmus tests. The contemporary United States, Brazil, South Africa, and, yes, India, are among the latter group of nation-states; Germany, Italy, Pakistan, and, based on the logic of the movements, the would-be nation-states of Kashmir or Khalistan, are not. Theoretically, one does not need to be other than "wholly Bengali", "wholly Tamil", or "wholly Muslim" in order to be utterly Indian; one cannot say the same of Pakistan and its Hindus citizens, and the religious colour of the Kashmiri movement means it is almost inconceivable that this won't be true of an independent Kashmir as well (even leaving aside the obvious ethnic dimension).
Indeed, even if one were to take the likes of Yasin Malik at their word, they promise no more than Jawaharlal Nehru did, that is to say a secular state where all who live in Kashmir, of whatever ethnicity or religious persuasion, will be equal in the eyes of the state; but why and how could such a project -- essentially the same Nehruvian show on a smaller stage -- yield a better result? On the contrary, all the signs are that an independent Kashmir would be more like Pakistan than India: not because both are Muslim majority (that is irrelevant to the point I am making), but because both movements are explicitly predicated on a favoured community that is less than everyone who lives within the state's borders.
Why does any of this matter? Because nation-states where "second-class" citizenship is merely implicit -- think the United States prior to de-segregation; I assume Roy would include India; but really one could argue some are always more equal than others in all nation-states -- can be called out on their failures. Such nation-states are guilty of hypocrisy, but hypocrisy is not the worst sin; indeed hypocrisy, by opening up a gap between theory and practice, between promise and reality, makes it possible to hold a mirror up to the state, to try and compel it to honour its own promise to itself; and enables us to argue that the nation-state is only imperfectly itself until it takes a good long look in that mirror.
The same does not hold true of nation-states where “second-class” citizenship is explicit, where it is part of the very logic of the state. The distinction may be illustrated by the point that while the Jim Crow South is unforgiveable, the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" moment are possible in a USA where actual practice had made a mockery of the nation-state's constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the laws; they would not be possible in the face of apartheid South Africa, which could not be reformed, simply destroyed. That is, it is far more difficult, perhaps insurmountably so, to call the nation-state to task where it has promised and can promise nothing different than what it offers (one can rebel and try and dismantle the state, but one can't make it see the problem): beyond a point, a "Pakistan for Pakistanis", that is to say for Pakistanis of all religious persuasions, would make no sense, and would undermine the national idea (substitute "ethnicities" for "religious communities" and the idea of Pakistan becomes more flexible; it should come as no surprise that the movement for ethnic justice, greater federalism, and rights for smaller provinces, has far more legs in Pakistan than any movement for the rights of religious minorities; ethnicity illustrates the potential flexibility, but also the limits, of the idea of Pakistan; and even with respect to ethnicity, the difference of even a Bengali Muslim identity that was deemed "too Hindu" by the Pakistani establishment could not be accommodated within the state).
A "Kashmir for Kashmiris" is far closer to the idea of Pakistan than to the Nehru's India, and perhaps closest of all to Bangladesh, seeking to compress both 1947 and 1971 in one secessionist moment. Roy would do well to remember the "Biharis" stranded in refugee camps in Bangladesh since 1971, in the final analysis Muslim but not Bangladeshi enough; not Bengali enough for their own purposes; and not the right kind of Muslim for Pakistan’s purposes. And Roy herself mentions the 1971 genocide of Bengalis by the Pakistani army. The promise of the Kashmiri movement combines both of these nightmares.
None of this is about the decency or lack thereof of Mirwaiz Farooq, or Yasin Malik, or anyone else. The question isn't whether these are or are not upstanding politicians who genuinely believe that Kashmir belongs to all Kashmiris, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or Sikh, or not; the more important question concerns the logic of what they let loose in the world (more accurately, the logic that they and would-be nationalists of all stripes have attempted to replicate for decades). The azadi demanded by the Kashmiri movement, and used by Roy as a rallying cry, is not the answer to that question; the freedom we need is azadi from the mindset that thinks of peoples and communities only in terms of nation-states; and equally, an azadi that demands that the Indian state honour its promise, to itself and to us.
The nation-state as political Alpha and Omega was problematic in its European birthplaces to begin with; to continue to cling to it as the last best hope of ethnic or religious minorities in milieus like India's (or Africa's, or the Balkans'; pick your poison), in the wake of the man-made disasters that have befallen us over the last century, is nothing short of bankrupt.
Saturday
Tuesday
White Mughals
I recently read William Dalrymple's White Mughals. The book surveys the lives of James Achilles Kirkpatrick, an officer in the East India Company, and Khair un-Nissa, a Hyderabadi Muslim princess.
In 1798, Kirkpatrick and Khair meet. Later they fall in love, marry, and have two children. And then the story becomes tragic: the children are sent (by their father) to England to be educated, Kirkpatrick dies of a tropical disease, and Khair is alone and broken-hearted.
The story of the two lovers illustrates an important point: in the early stages of British colonization, British-Indian marriages were relatively common and many British and Indians lived in a hybrid world. The first East India Company employees who came to the subcontinent knew that they had to stay in India for years, sometimes decades. They knew that there was a good chance that they would die in India. As a consequence, many of these Company men "became Indian." They learned the languages, wore Indian dress, and some of them converted to Islam and (less frequently) to Hinduism. As Dalyrymple writes:
[from 1770 to 1830], there was wholesale interracial sexual exploration and surprisingly widespread cultural assimilation and hybridity… Virtually all Englishmen in India at this period Indianized themselves to some extent. Those who went further and converted to Islam or Hinduism, or made really dramatic journeys across cultures, were certainly always a minority; but they were probably nothing like as small a minority as we have been accustomed to expect. (10)
Many of the Company employees did not fully "go native" but instead lived with Indian mistresses and fathered Anglo-Indian children. This was the norm, as there were few British women in India and many of the Company's workers preferred Indian women to European women.
One European who preferred Indian women to British was Major General Charles Stuart, better known as "Hindoo Stuart." Stuart, born in Ireland, came to India in his teenage years, and converted to Hinduism. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Stuart wrote articles in the Calcutta Telegraph in which he tried to convince European women in the city to wear the sari:
The majority of Hindoo [sic.] women are comparatively small, yet there is much voluptuousness of appearance: - a fulness [sic.] that delights the eye… a sleekness and purity of skin… For my own part, I already begin to think the dazzling brightness of a copper coloured face, infinitely preferable to the pallid and sickly hue of the European fair. (44)
Another member of this racially and culturally hybrid world was William Palmer, son of a British general and a Hyderabadi Muslim noblewoman. Palmer was baptized as a Christian but was raised as a Muslim. He was able to flawlessly switch between English, Persian, and Urdu, and was fully comfortable in British and Hyderabadi societies.
The hybrid world that Dalyrimple describes comes to a close after the Revolt of 1857. This world died for several reasons: first, racist ideology (in this case, anti-Indian racism) was gaining prominence in nineteenth century Britain - racially mixed children were not accepted as equal in England, and racially mixed marriages were discouraged; second, the memsahibs arrived in large numbers after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869; third, Crown rule created institutions that isolated British culture (and British people) from the Indians; fourth, military rule (to be backed by force) was extended to the entire subcontinent.
While I very much enjoyed learning about Khair un-Nissa and James Kirkpatrick, my favorite parts of the book were the tangents. In these tangents, Dalrymple examines the lifestyles of both common and courtly people in the Deccan of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
He quotes Edward Strachey, a British traveler and civil servant in India visiting the durbar of Nizam of Hyderabad. Strachey met Aristu Jah, the Nizam's prime minister:
When he began to speak, the [servant took the hookah] out again, stroked the whiskers with the mouthpiece and again put it to his master's mouth at the proper time. When the minister made a movement as if he was disposed to spit, one of his faithful attendants held out both hands and received a huge mouthful of spittle, with great care he then wiped it on a cloth which was by him and wrapped it up carefully, appearing then ready to receive in his hands any such deposit however precious, which his master might think fit to place there. (89)
In a particularly fascinating tangent, Dalrymple examines Islamic birth control methods practiced in eighteenth century India:
Birth control methods varied widely around the Islamic world, and there are a great number of texts suggesting a variety of techniques, ranging from coitus interruptus to more bizarre solutions such as suppositories containing rennet of rabbit, "broth of wall flower and honey" and "leaves of weeping willow in a flock of wool" (a popular option in medieval Persia). But birth control was not just the woman's business: male contraceptive techniques included "drinking juice of watermint at coitus," rubbing the juice of an onion or a solution of rock salt onto the end of the penis, or, more alarmingly, smearing the entire penis with tar. Other mysterious solutions to the problems of Islamic family planning included "fumigation with elephant's dung" and, stranger still, "jumping backwards." (233)
He ends the book on an optimistic note:
As the story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick and Khair un-Nissa shows, East and West are not irreconcilable, and never have been. Only bigotry, prejudice, racism and fear drive them apart. But they have met and mingled in the past; and they will do so again. (501)
While I agree with the author that "East and West are not irreconcilable," I think it's important to note that Kirkpatrick and Nissa were iconoclastic, and above all, bold.
In 1798, Kirkpatrick and Khair meet. Later they fall in love, marry, and have two children. And then the story becomes tragic: the children are sent (by their father) to England to be educated, Kirkpatrick dies of a tropical disease, and Khair is alone and broken-hearted.
The story of the two lovers illustrates an important point: in the early stages of British colonization, British-Indian marriages were relatively common and many British and Indians lived in a hybrid world. The first East India Company employees who came to the subcontinent knew that they had to stay in India for years, sometimes decades. They knew that there was a good chance that they would die in India. As a consequence, many of these Company men "became Indian." They learned the languages, wore Indian dress, and some of them converted to Islam and (less frequently) to Hinduism. As Dalyrymple writes:
[from 1770 to 1830], there was wholesale interracial sexual exploration and surprisingly widespread cultural assimilation and hybridity… Virtually all Englishmen in India at this period Indianized themselves to some extent. Those who went further and converted to Islam or Hinduism, or made really dramatic journeys across cultures, were certainly always a minority; but they were probably nothing like as small a minority as we have been accustomed to expect. (10)
Many of the Company employees did not fully "go native" but instead lived with Indian mistresses and fathered Anglo-Indian children. This was the norm, as there were few British women in India and many of the Company's workers preferred Indian women to European women.
One European who preferred Indian women to British was Major General Charles Stuart, better known as "Hindoo Stuart." Stuart, born in Ireland, came to India in his teenage years, and converted to Hinduism. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Stuart wrote articles in the Calcutta Telegraph in which he tried to convince European women in the city to wear the sari:
The majority of Hindoo [sic.] women are comparatively small, yet there is much voluptuousness of appearance: - a fulness [sic.] that delights the eye… a sleekness and purity of skin… For my own part, I already begin to think the dazzling brightness of a copper coloured face, infinitely preferable to the pallid and sickly hue of the European fair. (44)
Another member of this racially and culturally hybrid world was William Palmer, son of a British general and a Hyderabadi Muslim noblewoman. Palmer was baptized as a Christian but was raised as a Muslim. He was able to flawlessly switch between English, Persian, and Urdu, and was fully comfortable in British and Hyderabadi societies.
The hybrid world that Dalyrimple describes comes to a close after the Revolt of 1857. This world died for several reasons: first, racist ideology (in this case, anti-Indian racism) was gaining prominence in nineteenth century Britain - racially mixed children were not accepted as equal in England, and racially mixed marriages were discouraged; second, the memsahibs arrived in large numbers after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869; third, Crown rule created institutions that isolated British culture (and British people) from the Indians; fourth, military rule (to be backed by force) was extended to the entire subcontinent.
While I very much enjoyed learning about Khair un-Nissa and James Kirkpatrick, my favorite parts of the book were the tangents. In these tangents, Dalrymple examines the lifestyles of both common and courtly people in the Deccan of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
He quotes Edward Strachey, a British traveler and civil servant in India visiting the durbar of Nizam of Hyderabad. Strachey met Aristu Jah, the Nizam's prime minister:
When he began to speak, the [servant took the hookah] out again, stroked the whiskers with the mouthpiece and again put it to his master's mouth at the proper time. When the minister made a movement as if he was disposed to spit, one of his faithful attendants held out both hands and received a huge mouthful of spittle, with great care he then wiped it on a cloth which was by him and wrapped it up carefully, appearing then ready to receive in his hands any such deposit however precious, which his master might think fit to place there. (89)
In a particularly fascinating tangent, Dalrymple examines Islamic birth control methods practiced in eighteenth century India:
Birth control methods varied widely around the Islamic world, and there are a great number of texts suggesting a variety of techniques, ranging from coitus interruptus to more bizarre solutions such as suppositories containing rennet of rabbit, "broth of wall flower and honey" and "leaves of weeping willow in a flock of wool" (a popular option in medieval Persia). But birth control was not just the woman's business: male contraceptive techniques included "drinking juice of watermint at coitus," rubbing the juice of an onion or a solution of rock salt onto the end of the penis, or, more alarmingly, smearing the entire penis with tar. Other mysterious solutions to the problems of Islamic family planning included "fumigation with elephant's dung" and, stranger still, "jumping backwards." (233)
He ends the book on an optimistic note:
As the story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick and Khair un-Nissa shows, East and West are not irreconcilable, and never have been. Only bigotry, prejudice, racism and fear drive them apart. But they have met and mingled in the past; and they will do so again. (501)
While I agree with the author that "East and West are not irreconcilable," I think it's important to note that Kirkpatrick and Nissa were iconoclastic, and above all, bold.
Real Leaders Fire Underperformers
Leaders, when’s the last time you axed an underperforming manager?
Never? Really? Then you’re not leading.
Does this sound a little harsh? Like a chapter right out of “Tony Soprano on Management”?
I’m really not heartless, really. In fact, I’m talking about one of the most compassionate things you’ll ever do as a leader.
Let me explain. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before:
Charlie has worked for your company for a whole bunch of years. He’s loyal, a good guy, but he’s a terrible manager. He hasn’t done anything drastic enough to get fired; he’s just pretty much ineffective. What do you do with Charlie? You can’t just fire him, right? That would be too harsh, and disrespectful, and what kind of a message would that send to employees?
I don’t know about you, but this is a story I hear all the time. It will emerge during talent review meetings. Talking about high potentials and how we’re going to stretch, challenge, and development them is the fun part. But then I’ll suggest that we need to take a look at those managers in the “3C” box (lower left corner, the low performer, low potential group). The room goes silent – nothing but crickets chirping.
After a little more prodding we’ll talk about these underperforming managers, and in many cases, it turns out they’ve been in that same spot for years. I hear a lot of excuses – and sometimes genuine, although misdirected compassion, as to why we shouldn’t fire Charlie and his underperforming colleagues.
I’ll also hear the story of Charlie when I get a call for help. “Hey Dan, Charlie’s at it again, turnover is up, we’ve just lost another one of our star performers, our customers are irritated, etc…, can you have someone from your team give him some coaching? Is there another course we can send him to? How about a book?” And even worse, “How about if we do another round of team building with Charlie and his entire team?”
This is when I usually check my “banned managers” list – the ones who have already been given every developmental intervention we have to offer, and are coming back around for seconds or thirds.
Finally, there’s that heart to heart conversation with Charlie’s manager. The manager really wants to do the right thing, and is on the verge of pulling the trigger. He’s been given every opportunity to improve, and the manager feels terrible that he’s let Charlie down. But he just can’t do it. Isn’t there something else we can try?
In these cases, especially the last one, I’ll sometimes send managers an old, 2003 scanned copy of an article written by Geoff Colvin, a Fortune magazine writer, called “Make Sure You Chop the Dead Wood”. It’s the most convincing case I’ve ever heard to convince a manager to make a decision. Unfortunately, I Goggled and searched and can’t find an online copy, but here’s an excerpt that gets to the heart of it:
Let’s be clear about the corrosive effects of avoiding this problem (underperforming managers). A recent survey from McKinsey is fairly chilling: Keeping poor performers means that development opportunities for promising employees get blocked, so those subordinates don’t get developed, productivity and morale fall, good performers leave the company, the company attracts fewer A players, and the whole miserable cycle keeps turning.
It gets worse. Employees know who the underperformers are. They know that the top executives know who they are. So every day the top team fails to address the problem, it’s sending a message: We’re not up to managing this outfit. Refusing to deal with underperformers not only makes your best employees unhappy, but it also makes them think the company is run by bozos.
Why don’t companies act? Some fear it would lower morale, which is nonsense. Mckinsey asked thousands of employees whether they’d be “delighted” if their company got rid of underperformers, and 59% strongly agreed – yet only 7% believed their companies were actually doing it. Executives often say they leave poor performers in place because they want the company to be seen as humane. That’s just more evasion of reality, of course. As Ed Michaels of McKinsey says, “The attitude is, “Let’s be fair to Charlie. He’s been here 21 years.” But we say, “What about the eight people who work for Charlie? You’re not being fair to them”.
A senior executive at Hewlett-Packard, put it like this: “"I feel there is no greater disrespect you can do to a person than to let them hang out in a job where they are not respected by their peers, not viewed as successful, and probably losing their self-esteem. To do that under the guise of respect for people is, to me, ridiculous."
Sure, dealing with underperforming managers is hard work. There are often legal issues, and HR will insist on process and stacks of documentation. The path to firing someone is one of the emotionally hardest things a leader will ever have to do.
However, in today’s knowledge based economy and lean organizations, the performance of a single employees matters now more than ever. That’s the only competitive advantage most companies really have.
Managers, if you’re not developing employees and acting on poor performers, you’re not leading. And you’re doing a tremendous disservice to your company, your employees, your customers, and your community. And you’re not doing Charlie any favors.
Never? Really? Then you’re not leading.
Does this sound a little harsh? Like a chapter right out of “Tony Soprano on Management”?
I’m really not heartless, really. In fact, I’m talking about one of the most compassionate things you’ll ever do as a leader.
Let me explain. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before:
Charlie has worked for your company for a whole bunch of years. He’s loyal, a good guy, but he’s a terrible manager. He hasn’t done anything drastic enough to get fired; he’s just pretty much ineffective. What do you do with Charlie? You can’t just fire him, right? That would be too harsh, and disrespectful, and what kind of a message would that send to employees?
I don’t know about you, but this is a story I hear all the time. It will emerge during talent review meetings. Talking about high potentials and how we’re going to stretch, challenge, and development them is the fun part. But then I’ll suggest that we need to take a look at those managers in the “3C” box (lower left corner, the low performer, low potential group). The room goes silent – nothing but crickets chirping.
After a little more prodding we’ll talk about these underperforming managers, and in many cases, it turns out they’ve been in that same spot for years. I hear a lot of excuses – and sometimes genuine, although misdirected compassion, as to why we shouldn’t fire Charlie and his underperforming colleagues.
I’ll also hear the story of Charlie when I get a call for help. “Hey Dan, Charlie’s at it again, turnover is up, we’ve just lost another one of our star performers, our customers are irritated, etc…, can you have someone from your team give him some coaching? Is there another course we can send him to? How about a book?” And even worse, “How about if we do another round of team building with Charlie and his entire team?”
This is when I usually check my “banned managers” list – the ones who have already been given every developmental intervention we have to offer, and are coming back around for seconds or thirds.
Finally, there’s that heart to heart conversation with Charlie’s manager. The manager really wants to do the right thing, and is on the verge of pulling the trigger. He’s been given every opportunity to improve, and the manager feels terrible that he’s let Charlie down. But he just can’t do it. Isn’t there something else we can try?
In these cases, especially the last one, I’ll sometimes send managers an old, 2003 scanned copy of an article written by Geoff Colvin, a Fortune magazine writer, called “Make Sure You Chop the Dead Wood”. It’s the most convincing case I’ve ever heard to convince a manager to make a decision. Unfortunately, I Goggled and searched and can’t find an online copy, but here’s an excerpt that gets to the heart of it:
Let’s be clear about the corrosive effects of avoiding this problem (underperforming managers). A recent survey from McKinsey is fairly chilling: Keeping poor performers means that development opportunities for promising employees get blocked, so those subordinates don’t get developed, productivity and morale fall, good performers leave the company, the company attracts fewer A players, and the whole miserable cycle keeps turning.
It gets worse. Employees know who the underperformers are. They know that the top executives know who they are. So every day the top team fails to address the problem, it’s sending a message: We’re not up to managing this outfit. Refusing to deal with underperformers not only makes your best employees unhappy, but it also makes them think the company is run by bozos.
Why don’t companies act? Some fear it would lower morale, which is nonsense. Mckinsey asked thousands of employees whether they’d be “delighted” if their company got rid of underperformers, and 59% strongly agreed – yet only 7% believed their companies were actually doing it. Executives often say they leave poor performers in place because they want the company to be seen as humane. That’s just more evasion of reality, of course. As Ed Michaels of McKinsey says, “The attitude is, “Let’s be fair to Charlie. He’s been here 21 years.” But we say, “What about the eight people who work for Charlie? You’re not being fair to them”.
A senior executive at Hewlett-Packard, put it like this: “"I feel there is no greater disrespect you can do to a person than to let them hang out in a job where they are not respected by their peers, not viewed as successful, and probably losing their self-esteem. To do that under the guise of respect for people is, to me, ridiculous."
Sure, dealing with underperforming managers is hard work. There are often legal issues, and HR will insist on process and stacks of documentation. The path to firing someone is one of the emotionally hardest things a leader will ever have to do.
However, in today’s knowledge based economy and lean organizations, the performance of a single employees matters now more than ever. That’s the only competitive advantage most companies really have.
Managers, if you’re not developing employees and acting on poor performers, you’re not leading. And you’re doing a tremendous disservice to your company, your employees, your customers, and your community. And you’re not doing Charlie any favors.
Monday
Ways to Get Management to Listen to Your Ideas
One often hear disengaged employees complain that their management is close-mined, not open to change, stuck in their ways, and just not open to new ideas. “Why’s that?” I’ll ask? “Why would a perfectly reasonable person not be interested in a good idea?”
Sometimes, the person or group that has formed this belief works for a pointy-haired boss (PHB). Or maybe a BOSS (double SOB spelled backwards). This article isn’t about those managers, because frankly, I’ve never had much success getting idiot managers to listen to good ideas. In these cases, you’re better off looking for a new manager to work for or pitch your idea to.
The good news is, most managers are relatively intelligent, successful people who are working as hard if not harder than you to help your team and the company succeed. They’re always looking for good ideas. They also often have experience, know more, and are in a good position to evaluate the merits of an idea. When they reject your idea, chances are, your idea may not have been as good as you thought, or maybe you didn’t do a good job pitching it.
Another reality is that most ideas are never implemented. I’d compare it to baseball. A 300 average (3 ideas implemented out of 10) and you’re an all-star. However, if you never even step up to the plate, or take a swing, your batting average will always be 0. So start by having a realistic expectation of what success is when it comes to innovation.
What can you do to ensure your ideas at least get listened to? Managers are as different as people are different, so there’s no one way that will work for all. Knowing your manager’s style will help, so you can adapt your approach. For example, using a social styles model, a “Driver” will want you to get to the point and present the facts. With an “Amiable”, you’ll have a better chance if you’ve built a good relationship first.
However, for many managers, or least for me, consider the following tips:
1. Develop an inspiring vision of your idea. Describe it in a way that brings out your enthusiasm, your passion, and commitment. Most people have a hard time not listening to someone that’s genuinely fired up about something. And if YOU’RE not excited about it, how can you expect someone else to be interested?
2. Take the time to think it over, list the pros and cons, and come up with a plan. Check to see if it’s been thought of or tried before, and what were the results. In other words, don’t waste your manager’s time “thinking out loud” – do your thinking on your own time, then present a well developed idea.
3. Test your idea with a few trusted co-workers. See if it makes sense to them, ask them to be critical, and provide feedback. Check for their understanding to see how well you’re explaining it. While you shouldn’t let resistance squash your enthusiasm, be prepared to accept that if five people tell you it’s ugly, it just might be ugly.
4. While I can’t speak for all managers, here’s some ideas are more likely to get your manager’s attention:
- A way to reduce expenses
- A way to increase revenue
- A way to get more done with less people (improve efficiency)
- A solution to a problem your manager has been trying to solve
- An idea that will help your department achieve one or more of its goals
- An idea that will help one of your co-workers be more successful (rarely do we come up with these kind of ideas… that is, being an advocate for your peers, and not just yourself or your manager)
5. Here are a few ideas that are more likely to lose your manager’s interest in the first three minutes:
- Something obviously self-promoting, or blatant empire building
- A way to make your job easier, but at other people’s expense
- Something that has a great potential to embarrass your manager (and you)
- Something that’s going to cost a LOT of money in a tight economy
- An idea built on the assumption that 2+2=5
- Fluff
6. When you present your idea, answer your manager’s questions patiently and with respect. If you don’t know the answer, admit it, and commit to getting the answer.
7. If your manager starts making suggestions, then you’re there! That means he/she is starting to buy in, and taking some shared ownership. Don’t be rigid about the details – give a little, if anything just to get buy-in, and who knows, your manager’s suggestions just might improve your chances for success.
8. Be willing to let go of the notion that the idea is “yours”. The best ideas are the ones where multiple stakeholders have had a hand in shaping, and you’ve been able to build a broad base of ownership and support. Insisting that you get “credit” for “your” idea will be seen as immature and selfish. Don’t worry; enough people will become aware of your involvement, especially if you keep coming up with good ideas. Don’t expect your name and picture to be inscribed on the idea.
9. Decide on who else should be involved. Determine who the stakeholders are: who will be impacted the most, whose support do you need, and who else could contribute to refining the idea. Agree on who should talk to whom and by when.
10. If needed, follow-up with a more detailed, formal business case. Stay on it. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but execution is what separates the great from the average. This is not a “drop and run”. That is, drop your proposal or business case on your manager’s desk and sit back and wait. Step up and take personal responsibility for making sure the idea gets implemented. That’s a good way to get yourself heard the next time.
Sometimes, the person or group that has formed this belief works for a pointy-haired boss (PHB). Or maybe a BOSS (double SOB spelled backwards). This article isn’t about those managers, because frankly, I’ve never had much success getting idiot managers to listen to good ideas. In these cases, you’re better off looking for a new manager to work for or pitch your idea to.
The good news is, most managers are relatively intelligent, successful people who are working as hard if not harder than you to help your team and the company succeed. They’re always looking for good ideas. They also often have experience, know more, and are in a good position to evaluate the merits of an idea. When they reject your idea, chances are, your idea may not have been as good as you thought, or maybe you didn’t do a good job pitching it.
Another reality is that most ideas are never implemented. I’d compare it to baseball. A 300 average (3 ideas implemented out of 10) and you’re an all-star. However, if you never even step up to the plate, or take a swing, your batting average will always be 0. So start by having a realistic expectation of what success is when it comes to innovation.
What can you do to ensure your ideas at least get listened to? Managers are as different as people are different, so there’s no one way that will work for all. Knowing your manager’s style will help, so you can adapt your approach. For example, using a social styles model, a “Driver” will want you to get to the point and present the facts. With an “Amiable”, you’ll have a better chance if you’ve built a good relationship first.
However, for many managers, or least for me, consider the following tips:
1. Develop an inspiring vision of your idea. Describe it in a way that brings out your enthusiasm, your passion, and commitment. Most people have a hard time not listening to someone that’s genuinely fired up about something. And if YOU’RE not excited about it, how can you expect someone else to be interested?
2. Take the time to think it over, list the pros and cons, and come up with a plan. Check to see if it’s been thought of or tried before, and what were the results. In other words, don’t waste your manager’s time “thinking out loud” – do your thinking on your own time, then present a well developed idea.
3. Test your idea with a few trusted co-workers. See if it makes sense to them, ask them to be critical, and provide feedback. Check for their understanding to see how well you’re explaining it. While you shouldn’t let resistance squash your enthusiasm, be prepared to accept that if five people tell you it’s ugly, it just might be ugly.
4. While I can’t speak for all managers, here’s some ideas are more likely to get your manager’s attention:
- A way to reduce expenses
- A way to increase revenue
- A way to get more done with less people (improve efficiency)
- A solution to a problem your manager has been trying to solve
- An idea that will help your department achieve one or more of its goals
- An idea that will help one of your co-workers be more successful (rarely do we come up with these kind of ideas… that is, being an advocate for your peers, and not just yourself or your manager)
5. Here are a few ideas that are more likely to lose your manager’s interest in the first three minutes:
- Something obviously self-promoting, or blatant empire building
- A way to make your job easier, but at other people’s expense
- Something that has a great potential to embarrass your manager (and you)
- Something that’s going to cost a LOT of money in a tight economy
- An idea built on the assumption that 2+2=5
- Fluff
6. When you present your idea, answer your manager’s questions patiently and with respect. If you don’t know the answer, admit it, and commit to getting the answer.
7. If your manager starts making suggestions, then you’re there! That means he/she is starting to buy in, and taking some shared ownership. Don’t be rigid about the details – give a little, if anything just to get buy-in, and who knows, your manager’s suggestions just might improve your chances for success.
8. Be willing to let go of the notion that the idea is “yours”. The best ideas are the ones where multiple stakeholders have had a hand in shaping, and you’ve been able to build a broad base of ownership and support. Insisting that you get “credit” for “your” idea will be seen as immature and selfish. Don’t worry; enough people will become aware of your involvement, especially if you keep coming up with good ideas. Don’t expect your name and picture to be inscribed on the idea.
9. Decide on who else should be involved. Determine who the stakeholders are: who will be impacted the most, whose support do you need, and who else could contribute to refining the idea. Agree on who should talk to whom and by when.
10. If needed, follow-up with a more detailed, formal business case. Stay on it. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but execution is what separates the great from the average. This is not a “drop and run”. That is, drop your proposal or business case on your manager’s desk and sit back and wait. Step up and take personal responsibility for making sure the idea gets implemented. That’s a good way to get yourself heard the next time.
Resources
US Data
* Kaiser US State Health Facts: Menlo Park based non-profit, non-partisan foundation devoted to providing facts, and analysis about public health.
* FedStats: A comprehensive searchable gateway to Federal Statistics
* StateMaster: Comprehensive state by state statistics and comparisons.
* Government Printing Office: From text of congressional bills to budget related documents.
* Congressional Budget Office A repository of of budget related analyses and data
* Government Accountability Office Superb reports on how government spends money.
* Energy Information Agency
* Census Bureau The largest repository of county, city, state, level data relating to sociodemographics among other things.
International Data
* UN Statistics: A UN division devoted to providing basic economic, environmental, development, and demographic data on the member states. The data are not always presented well, but still a reliable source.
* World Bank Country Data: A larger more comprehensive initiative to bring you a host of data on countries around the world.
* BBC Country Profiles: Provides 500-1000 word snapshots of countries along with basic ‘facts’. A great way to learn about countries quick.
* Library of Congress - Country Profiles These are comprehensive profiles with reasonably well done historical section.
* CIA - World Factbook
* EU Statistics
* Kaiser US State Health Facts: Menlo Park based non-profit, non-partisan foundation devoted to providing facts, and analysis about public health.
* FedStats: A comprehensive searchable gateway to Federal Statistics
* StateMaster: Comprehensive state by state statistics and comparisons.
* Government Printing Office: From text of congressional bills to budget related documents.
* Congressional Budget Office A repository of of budget related analyses and data
* Government Accountability Office Superb reports on how government spends money.
* Energy Information Agency
* Census Bureau The largest repository of county, city, state, level data relating to sociodemographics among other things.
International Data
* UN Statistics: A UN division devoted to providing basic economic, environmental, development, and demographic data on the member states. The data are not always presented well, but still a reliable source.
* World Bank Country Data: A larger more comprehensive initiative to bring you a host of data on countries around the world.
* BBC Country Profiles: Provides 500-1000 word snapshots of countries along with basic ‘facts’. A great way to learn about countries quick.
* Library of Congress - Country Profiles These are comprehensive profiles with reasonably well done historical section.
* CIA - World Factbook
* EU Statistics
Quotes and Phrases
Anything but Quotidian: Quotes, phrases, and one poem
“To love means this:
to run
into the depths of a yard and,
till the rook-black night,
chop wood with a shining axe,
giving full play to one’s strength.” (Mayakovsky)
“We’ve died on the fields of the everyday’ – an echo of Mayakovsky’s suicide note of 1930 (‘The boat of love ran aground on the everyday’).” Daniil Kharms LRB
‘What we know is that, in an unclichéd way, nobody knows anything.’ Philip Roth (Human Stain)
On the House of Lords: “…a body of five hundred men chosen at random from amongst the unemployed” - David Llyod George, British PM from 1916 to 1922
“We seem to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.” (Sir John Seeley on Britain’s conquests)
‘The Ka‘bah is a cube because the world is a sphere’ - Islamica Magazine
Nation - “A group of people united by a common error about their ancestry and a common dislike of their neighbors” - J.E. Brown
Cracked pistachio green walls.. (Urvashi Butalia - describing her uncle’s house in Lahore in the story, Ranamama)
No stone unthrown, Encyclopedic viciousness (Joe Queenan accuses Kitty Kelley of those sins in his review of Kelley’s book on Nancy Reagan)
Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies? (Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing)
“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” said Jim Dunn. (NY Times article on Hedge Fund Managers or the new Robber Barons) Likewise - if you pay a lot, you pay a lot.
About as original as a Xerox machine (Hindustan Times)
John Stuart Mill to John Stewart; Madison to Madison Avenue (Dr. James Fishkin, on democracy)
If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly. (D.K. Chesterton)
It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics. (George Bernard Shaw)
…the primary risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease is age. (NY Times, Wikipedia)
“The American people live in a country where they can have almost anything they want. And my regret is that it seems that they don’t want much of anything at all.” (Nader quoting Eugene Debs in a conversation with Jeffrey Rosen)
“All models are wrong. Some models are useful.” George Box
“We might calll this the information age but I consider that complete bullshit. What is the information?” Keith Jarrett. (Full quote - Of what value is it if it doesn’t atttach itself to something? In the future, I can foresee an audience that literally thinks all music is equal, and there’s no such things as good or bad.)
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually produce a masterpiece. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
~ Eyler Coates
to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting
~ e e cummings
In three words i can sum up everything I've learned about life.
It goes on.
~ Robert Frost
Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack in everything;
That's how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
~ Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
I fell in love – that is the only expression I can think of – at once, and am still at the mercy of words, though sometimes now, knowing a little of their behavior very well, I think I can influence them slightly and have even learned to beat them now and then, which they appear to enjoy.
~ Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet, short-story writer, and playwright, "Poetic Manifesto" in the Texas Quarterly, Winter 1961
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
~Thomas Mann, novelist, Nobel laureate (1875-1955)
The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)
In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
~ Al Rogers
Assumptions are the termites of relationships.
~ Henry Winkler, actor (1945- )
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
~ George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)
Either you think - or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.
~ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, author (1689-1762)
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.
~ Satchel Paige
Fake it till you make it.
~ (Heard on West Wing)
“To love means this:
to run
into the depths of a yard and,
till the rook-black night,
chop wood with a shining axe,
giving full play to one’s strength.” (Mayakovsky)
“We’ve died on the fields of the everyday’ – an echo of Mayakovsky’s suicide note of 1930 (‘The boat of love ran aground on the everyday’).” Daniil Kharms LRB
‘What we know is that, in an unclichéd way, nobody knows anything.’ Philip Roth (Human Stain)
On the House of Lords: “…a body of five hundred men chosen at random from amongst the unemployed” - David Llyod George, British PM from 1916 to 1922
“We seem to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.” (Sir John Seeley on Britain’s conquests)
‘The Ka‘bah is a cube because the world is a sphere’ - Islamica Magazine
Nation - “A group of people united by a common error about their ancestry and a common dislike of their neighbors” - J.E. Brown
Cracked pistachio green walls.. (Urvashi Butalia - describing her uncle’s house in Lahore in the story, Ranamama)
No stone unthrown, Encyclopedic viciousness (Joe Queenan accuses Kitty Kelley of those sins in his review of Kelley’s book on Nancy Reagan)
Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies? (Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing)
“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” said Jim Dunn. (NY Times article on Hedge Fund Managers or the new Robber Barons) Likewise - if you pay a lot, you pay a lot.
About as original as a Xerox machine (Hindustan Times)
John Stuart Mill to John Stewart; Madison to Madison Avenue (Dr. James Fishkin, on democracy)
If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly. (D.K. Chesterton)
It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics. (George Bernard Shaw)
…the primary risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease is age. (NY Times, Wikipedia)
“The American people live in a country where they can have almost anything they want. And my regret is that it seems that they don’t want much of anything at all.” (Nader quoting Eugene Debs in a conversation with Jeffrey Rosen)
“All models are wrong. Some models are useful.” George Box
“We might calll this the information age but I consider that complete bullshit. What is the information?” Keith Jarrett. (Full quote - Of what value is it if it doesn’t atttach itself to something? In the future, I can foresee an audience that literally thinks all music is equal, and there’s no such things as good or bad.)
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually produce a masterpiece. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
~ Eyler Coates
to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting
~ e e cummings
In three words i can sum up everything I've learned about life.
It goes on.
~ Robert Frost
Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack in everything;
That's how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
~ Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
I fell in love – that is the only expression I can think of – at once, and am still at the mercy of words, though sometimes now, knowing a little of their behavior very well, I think I can influence them slightly and have even learned to beat them now and then, which they appear to enjoy.
~ Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet, short-story writer, and playwright, "Poetic Manifesto" in the Texas Quarterly, Winter 1961
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
~Thomas Mann, novelist, Nobel laureate (1875-1955)
The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)
In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
~ Al Rogers
Assumptions are the termites of relationships.
~ Henry Winkler, actor (1945- )
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
~ George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)
Either you think - or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.
~ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, author (1689-1762)
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.
~ Satchel Paige
Fake it till you make it.
~ (Heard on West Wing)
Some Personal Favourites...
Authors
New Lights: Gary Shteyngart, Akhil Sharma, Olga Grushin, Alexander Hemon, Haruki Murakami
UK: Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans), Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage), William Shakespeare, Bronte sisters, Alexander Mccall Smith, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling (Kim), George Bernard Shaw, Kazuo Ishiguro, Graham Greene, John le Carré, D. H. Lawrence, Rebecca West, V.S. Naipaul (only for Biswas and Guerrillas), William Dalrymple, E. M. Forster
Russian: Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nicholai Gogol, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vladimir Nabokov, Vladimir Mayakovsky
US: Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Theodore Dreiser, David Remnick, Henry James, Maya Angelou, John Cheever, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Charles Dickinson
Latin America: Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges
Indian: Salman Rushdie (now UK), Ved Mehta (now US), Rabindranath Tagore, R.K. Narayanan, Amartya Sen (now US), Khushwant Singh, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (now US), Anita Desai (In Custody), Mahadevi Varma
The rest: Naguib Mahfouz, Orhan Pamuk, Albert Camus, J.M. Coetzee, Doris Lessing, Henrik Ibsen, Sadat Hasan Manto, Abdelrahman Munif, Liam O’Flaherty, Thomas Mann, Johann Goethe, Gunter Grass, James Joyce (Dubliners), Camilo José Cela, Alice Munro, Franz Kafka
Non Fiction: Karl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jurgen Habermas, David Remnick, Robert Fisk, Michael Taussig, Ben Orlove, Noam Chomsky, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Michael Schudson, Anthony Lewis
Graphical Novel: Art Spiegelman (Maus)
Artists
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Claude Monet, Wassily Kandinsky, Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Francisco Goya, John Singer Sargent, Diego Velasquez, Edward Hopper, Tiziano Vecelli (Titian), Gustav Klimt, Paul Gauguin, Marc Chagall, Georgia O’Keeffe, Amrita Pritam, Andy Warhol, Edgar Degas, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock
Contemporary Artists: Saira Wasim, Brian Jungen, Ashok Sukumaran, Damien Hirst, Banksy, Gerhard Richter, Marcel Duchamp
Music:
Gotan Project, Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones, Ali Farka Toure, Cheb Khaled, Nusrat Fateh Ali, Bach, Kishori Amonkar, Mohammed Rafi, Celia Cruz, Lauren Hill, Fela Kuti, Gypsy Kings, Lynda Lymay, Alain Souchon, Wynton Marsalis, K.D. Lang
Movies:
Ikiru, Raise the Red Lantern, Raging Bull, Brazil, Reservoir Dogs, Lawrence of Arabia, ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!!, Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Gosford Park, 28 Days Later, Bourne Identity, Orfeu Negro, Station Agent, Ten, Before Sunset, Cidade de Deus, Apocalypse Now, In Custody, Shakespeare Wallah, A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, Little Miss Sunshine, The Battle of Algiers, Pan’s Labyrinth, Motorcycle Diaries, The Secret of the Grain, Chungking Express
Indian: Umrao Jaan(old), Shatranj Ke Khilari, Saraansh, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Golmaal(old), Bawarchi, Anand, Silsila, Gaman, Pyaasa, Ankur, Omkara, Maqbool
Naming Names: Directors and Producers Merchant-Ivory Productions, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Kar Wai Wong, Zhang Yimou, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Pedro Almodovar, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Naming Names: Actors Emma Thompson
New Lights: Gary Shteyngart, Akhil Sharma, Olga Grushin, Alexander Hemon, Haruki Murakami
UK: Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans), Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage), William Shakespeare, Bronte sisters, Alexander Mccall Smith, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling (Kim), George Bernard Shaw, Kazuo Ishiguro, Graham Greene, John le Carré, D. H. Lawrence, Rebecca West, V.S. Naipaul (only for Biswas and Guerrillas), William Dalrymple, E. M. Forster
Russian: Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nicholai Gogol, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vladimir Nabokov, Vladimir Mayakovsky
US: Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Theodore Dreiser, David Remnick, Henry James, Maya Angelou, John Cheever, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Charles Dickinson
Latin America: Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges
Indian: Salman Rushdie (now UK), Ved Mehta (now US), Rabindranath Tagore, R.K. Narayanan, Amartya Sen (now US), Khushwant Singh, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (now US), Anita Desai (In Custody), Mahadevi Varma
The rest: Naguib Mahfouz, Orhan Pamuk, Albert Camus, J.M. Coetzee, Doris Lessing, Henrik Ibsen, Sadat Hasan Manto, Abdelrahman Munif, Liam O’Flaherty, Thomas Mann, Johann Goethe, Gunter Grass, James Joyce (Dubliners), Camilo José Cela, Alice Munro, Franz Kafka
Non Fiction: Karl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jurgen Habermas, David Remnick, Robert Fisk, Michael Taussig, Ben Orlove, Noam Chomsky, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Michael Schudson, Anthony Lewis
Graphical Novel: Art Spiegelman (Maus)
Artists
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Claude Monet, Wassily Kandinsky, Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Francisco Goya, John Singer Sargent, Diego Velasquez, Edward Hopper, Tiziano Vecelli (Titian), Gustav Klimt, Paul Gauguin, Marc Chagall, Georgia O’Keeffe, Amrita Pritam, Andy Warhol, Edgar Degas, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock
Contemporary Artists: Saira Wasim, Brian Jungen, Ashok Sukumaran, Damien Hirst, Banksy, Gerhard Richter, Marcel Duchamp
Music:
Gotan Project, Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones, Ali Farka Toure, Cheb Khaled, Nusrat Fateh Ali, Bach, Kishori Amonkar, Mohammed Rafi, Celia Cruz, Lauren Hill, Fela Kuti, Gypsy Kings, Lynda Lymay, Alain Souchon, Wynton Marsalis, K.D. Lang
Movies:
Ikiru, Raise the Red Lantern, Raging Bull, Brazil, Reservoir Dogs, Lawrence of Arabia, ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!!, Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Gosford Park, 28 Days Later, Bourne Identity, Orfeu Negro, Station Agent, Ten, Before Sunset, Cidade de Deus, Apocalypse Now, In Custody, Shakespeare Wallah, A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, Little Miss Sunshine, The Battle of Algiers, Pan’s Labyrinth, Motorcycle Diaries, The Secret of the Grain, Chungking Express
Indian: Umrao Jaan(old), Shatranj Ke Khilari, Saraansh, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Golmaal(old), Bawarchi, Anand, Silsila, Gaman, Pyaasa, Ankur, Omkara, Maqbool
Naming Names: Directors and Producers Merchant-Ivory Productions, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Kar Wai Wong, Zhang Yimou, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Pedro Almodovar, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Naming Names: Actors Emma Thompson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
