Happy Place

‘Richmond upon Thames had just been named the happiest place to live in Britain…’, Simon turned, opened his eyes and lifted his head up a bit when he overheard this remark. Two middle-aged men - probably in their late fifties - were walking past him. Their aristocratic look, in heavy, oversized black coats and dark-chocolate-coloured mufflers, was not lost in the morning’s foggy visibility. The overnight biting cold, on the other hand, had turned Simon pale. His cardboard bed and patched-up blanket had only enough warmth to keep him alive. Having been awake most of the night, unable to sleep for lack of warmth, Simon’s fatigue got the better of him in the early hours. His precious sleep had been interrupted by the audible voices of these gentlemen. It had been about a year since Simon had been made redundant at a large warehouse of a global e-commerce company. Robots had replaced people like him, and ever since, things have been tough for him. After losing his job, he lost his rented one-bed apartment, unable to afford the rent. Since then, he had been forced to move out onto the street and has been rough sleeping. He neither found employment nor any help. All he could get every day were random acts of kindness from random strangers, which would provide some food, just enough to scrape past the day. Every day for the past 6 months, he would spend the day hours searching for employment, only to end the day on a disappointing note and find refuge in a ‘safe’ corner of a street. He had no fixed place to sleep. It depended on where his day’s search would end, but for the past couple of months he had been mostly returning to his present place. Much of that had to do with the fact that some school-going kids would leave him some bread every morning. That was the only bright spot in his otherwise dark life.

‘What a coincidence’… he thought; his temporary abode happened to be in the happiest place in the city. 

Simon’s morning parcel had arrived: a few slices of bread wrapped in a piece of the daily newspaper. As he unwrapped his ‘breakfast’, the bold headline on the crumpled newspaper didn’t escape his eyes. It screamed of the same news as the announcement, that which had broken his sleep. Though only part of the article was left in the torn paper, it seemed that this conclusion had been drawn based on a survey conducted by an online home rental agency. 

Being in the same area for months makes you familiar to residents who live in the area, most of whom don’t pay any attention to him. Hence, they would pass by, him lost in their conversation. Unwillingly and without any effort, some of those words would fall into his ears. When this occurs consistently over months with the same set of people, one starts to understand some of the things going on in their lives. 

Like the Holmes couple, for example - both of whom were facing redundancy risk in their respective organisations- or the Smiths, who were going through a nasty divorce; or the young man Jamal, who was jobless like him despite having a university degree; or the old Martha, who had been living alone after her husband recently passed away. They were all happy and unhappy in their own ways. Simon wondered how such surveys were done - maybe they were talking about the big parks in the area where most people didn’t find time to walk every day; they walked busily past it, or the beautiful houses that people used to sleep in at night while spending their lives paying the mortgage or it may be about the riverside areas, a river whose water was becoming dearer by the day.  Simon didn’t have much time to spend contemplating such matters - after all, he had more urgent matters to deal with. 

But his health had been failing lately. He had developed a bad cough - maybe because of being constantly out in the cold. At times, he would cough incessantly for hours, spitting blood occasionally. He had somehow been holding on to a fading hope and his cardboard bed.

Last night was one of the harshest this winter. Temperatures had been sub-freezing. Simon was still asleep, covered from head to toe in this patchy blanket. The school kids left the bread pieces without waking him, as they did every day. The day went on as everyone walked busily past him without noticing him. It was past midday; Simon was still asleep. When the same school kids walked past him after the school day ended, they noticed that, unlike every day, the bread slices wrapped in newspaper were still untouched and Simon was still asleep. They didn’t know his name, but they were the only ones who noticed him. They went and alerted the policeman standing at the corner of the street. Emergency services arrived and tried to wake up Simon. But he lay unfazed, motionless.

They checked his pulse and his vitals. There was no sign of him being alive as they shifted his ‘frozen’ body onto the ambulance. A small crowd had gathered around him… Simon had never before gotten so much attention, and somebody from the crowd exclaimed, “Finally, he is in a happy place!”

Indeed…

Dog in a Porsche

Tom, Dick and Harry’s car closed in on a white Porsche. As the traffic signal turned red, Tom’s eye caught a dog’s head popping over the beauty's rear windscreen. Tom, who was behind the wheel of a 2001 model truck that made visits to the garage every month, remarked, ‘O, wow!! How lucky is the dog that it gets to travel in a Porsche! To that, Dick remarked, “You don’t get it… this is all karma. This dog must have been a rich man in his past life who must have done some bad karma to be born as a dog, but some really good deeds as well to be still driven around in a Porsche.” Harry became visibly upset over Dick’s comment: ‘How dare you be condescending towards dogs! Are you suggesting that dogs are inferior to humans, that you are linking their birth as dogs to bad karma?”

Harry’s angry reaction triggered Dick as well, and a heated exchange between them ensued. Tom continued to drive, trying not to get distracted by the loud altercations between Dick and Harry. But it was becoming increasingly difficult for Tom to drive, as the intensity of the altercation between Dick and Harry continually intensified. So, he decided to take a detour off the motorway, and as he hit the muddy track, a pack of street dogs started chasing the car, barking angrily with a visible frown. The scene inside and outside the car didn’t feel much different to Tom. His thoughts were rudely jolted by the sudden sound of a tyre bursting - and obviously, the car came to a screeching halt. 

The sudden noise and halt silenced both Dick and Harry, both of whom were understandably shocked. The detour had proved to be costly, and both the front tyres had met their match. Tom called up a mobile tyre repair company, and help was on the way. Meanwhile, after a brief pause,  Dick and Harry resumed their heated arguments - this time in a more animated fashion than before. Tom interrupted this very important argument and asked Dick how his Karma theory explained the street dogs. This added salt to Harry’s wound,  and now he started shouting expletives at Tom as well. Tom retreated quietly and turned to the tyres, which needed to be replaced. 

Meanwhile, the mobile van of ‘Patchwork Tire Repairs’ arrived - “What a fitting name”, thought Tom. Bob arrived with his two assistants, Rob and Job. Bob watched over Job while he got the work done and Rob collected the money. 

Meanwhile, the continued battle between Dick and Harry reached their ears, and they asked what the hullabaloo was all about. After knowing what had ensued, Bob remarked, “You guys have got it all wrong, it not about the dog, it’s about the owner of the dog. He may seem like a dog lover but he actually uses the dog and the Porsche as his trophies - an emblem of his success. Rob, his assistant, quipped, “ A cat would have been better!” Job was not one to remain silent. He added philosophically, “I feel all of you are overthinking it; it’s just a dog and a Porsche and nothing more.” 

Bob wasn’t happy to see his assistants expressing divergent opinions and asked them to find their own transport options back to the city. Meanwhile, Dick and Harry, disillusioned with each other as much as with Tom, left on their own as well. Tom, watching his ‘friends’ depart, drove off, not sure whether the dog and the Porsche owner would ever know how much commotion they had caused unknowingly.

Sadly, all of them chose their beliefs and respective narratives over each other. I guess our beliefs and intentions shape our narratives, and narratives in turn shape our beliefs and actions. That then becomes our ‘construction’ of reality. In the modern world, Tom, Dick, Harry, Bob, Rob and Job all represent the AI algorithms who are ‘motivated’, ‘trained ’, and on a mission to spread their narrative to grow their tribe of like-minded individuals. Did you meet any of them?

Angel’s Share Engagement Strategy

The radio never stops buzzing, does it? Listening to the radio has become synonymous with my car journeys. And no matter what time you tune in, someone is always speaking, or the day’s news is being played for the nth time until you have practically memorised the headlines.

On this occasion, however, the gentleman on the radio was talking about the ‘angel’s share’. Interestingly, when whisky is being aged, a small portion evaporates. This lost portion is referred to as the angel’s share, implying that angels secretly ‘steal’ their share of whisky. I was both amused and amazed by this imaginative metaphor.

This fact reminded me of my childhood.

Whenever something special was being cooked at home, my mum would look for someone to taste it while it was still in the pot, so that necessary adjustments could be made and the final dish would be perfect by the time it reached the dining table.

This tasting process was a little tricky, because a misjudgment could mean the dish ended up less than perfect, spoiling the culinary experience for others and limiting the accolades for my mum. But the tasting process also meant an extra piece of meat or fish — the angel’s share.

As I grew up, I perfected this art of tasting and gradually became the most dependable set of taste buds at home. I have retained this reputation to this day, including when I cook. More than the joy of getting that extra piece of meat or fish, it was the thrill of being the first to experience something special and of making a small but important contribution to perfecting the final product. Developing such discerning taste buds has also helped me build reasonably good gourmet cooking skills, largely through my understanding of taste and spices.

What if organisations offered employees a similar privilege — the opportunity to experience something first and play a meaningful role in making it better?

A similar angel’s share approach has been used by some companies, especially technology companies, which give their employees early access to new products and encourage them to use them before a wider launch. This soft internal launch plays a key role not only in perfecting the product but also in understanding it from a customer’s perspective.

Feedback received from employees helps improve the product’s features and value proposition. Indirectly, it can also make employees more empathetic towards customers’ needs and what they look for in a product or service, thereby encouraging a customer-focused rather than purely engineering-focused mindset.

This practice is commonly known as ‘dogfooding’ — employees use their organisation’s own products, often before their public release, to identify problems and suggest improvements. Personally, I think ‘dogfooding’ is a horrible way of describing something that can have such a profound impact on a company and its community.

I call this the ‘Angel’s Share Engagement Strategy’ — an approach that engages employees internally while bringing organisations closer to customers externally, simultaneously fostering skill development, innovation and organisational competitiveness.

What makes this strategy particularly compelling is its potential to resonate with Gen Z and Millennials, for whom opportunities to make meaningful contributions can be powerful drivers of engagement.

Interestingly, Deloitte’s 2025 Gen Z andMillennial Survey found that 89% of Gen Z respondents and 92% of Millennials considered having a sense of purpose important to their job satisfaction and well-being. This reinforces the importance of creating opportunities for employees to feel that their contributions genuinely matter.

The strategy can also strengthen customer engagement by drawing on insights and feedback from employees who belong to the same generational cohorts as the target customers, helping organisations develop offerings that resonate more strongly with their end users.

Give the angels their share and be blessed! 🙂 Have you?

Between Rumblings & Grumblings – The Journey of Life, What We Hear, What We Become

It was early morning, and the usually busy platform of the tube station bore a deserted look. Besides me, there were 1 or 2 more souls waiting on the platform for their train. I glanced for the nth time at the digital display board; my train was 4^th in the queue. The last train had just left the underground station, and I could hear its rumbling sound for much longer in the morning silence before it grew fainter and ultimately died out. This rumbling will again start as the next train approaches the station. Between these rumblings of the trains, there was a strange blanket of silence that wrapped the whole environment in its shroud. At some point, this whole place will be filled with people and will be drowned in a cacophony of sounds that in itself would make no sense, yet will be filled with hundreds of small and big conversations, each one of which would have a story and a past.  

Life feels so much like this tube platform. We are all waiting to board our trains, either starting a new journey or continuing an old one. And even though sometimes we might be on the same train as others, our compartments are different; and even if we happen to be in the same compartment, our seats and situations aren’t the same. Each one is a passenger, each with their own joys, sorrows, resentments and anger.  Some who haven’t been able to find themselves a seat, or know that their journey is going to end or change very soon, choose to stand. Some are carrying their heavy baggage, others choose to travel light. Each one is in a different level of comfort and strife, each fighting their own struggles in life. Some can afford the luxury of first class, while others make their way to the general compartment. Some have a companion, some are lonely, while others choose to be alone. Some are chasing dreams, while others are ruing on missed chances. Some are too busy to talk; others are busy talking. Some are taking a chance; others are waiting for one. Some are curious about the possibilities; others are anxious about the impossible. Some have ear to the ground; others are floating above it. Some pay attention, while others go through the motions. Some get down too soon, while others go right up to the terminus. Some journeys turn out to be memorable and others forgettable. In the end, all journeys will end, and nothing will remain except those dying rumblings and grumblings. What then will matter is not the journeys as much as we carry what they have made of us; did we find our music in the rumble or lost our minds in endless grumble,  did we touch a soul, did we bring a smile, did we create a hope, did we reflect for a while, did we stop to support a stick, did we lend hand to one who is weak, did we wait for someone and did someone wait for us.

It’s less of how it started, more of how it ends, and what we do between the start and the end. And this is why some journeys are remembered while others are forgotten too soon, some inspire, while others feel like a helium balloon.

My solitude was broken once again by the thunderous roar of the approaching train, the 4^th train, my train. I have to leave now and begin another journey…

AI will replace humans is finally proving to be a myth!!!

 So, the fear that AI will replace humans is finally proving to be a myth!!!

Two recent developments are disconfirming the fear that has been dreading most working professionals since AI has gathered speed and agility.

First incident refers to a company called Klarna, which is inviting its 700 employees back into the company’s fold after it had laid off after AI takeover last year. The company did a 360⁰ turnaround on its decision after reportedly facing a backlash from its customers who complained of basically AI lacked empathy.

The second incident refers to a company called Duolingo, whose CEO Luis von Ahn has gone back on his AI First memo issued sometime back and in his recent post not only accepted that he did not do well with the memo issued earlier, but also made it clear that AI will not be replacing employees in his company, and that his company is going big on hiring.

Both these instances are not mere incidents, but key events that indicate that AI and humans are going to co-exist in the future. The key will be whether you are AI literate or not, because if you are not, you are likely to get replaced, no matter what you do as a professional. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that ‘AI will not replace you, but someone who knows AI will’. I cannot agree more.

Few countries, like China and US, are already making AI literacy compulsory in their schools. Other nations need to follow suit.

So, it’s time to stop fearing AI and panicking that AI will replace you. Instead, look at AI as a big enabler and learn AI, no matter what you do or study. Remember, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and HI (Human Intelligence) together can create a better world.

 

 

‘I will lose my job, if I let you use the toilet’

That’s what the hostess of this upscale restaurant near the Piccadilly car park told me when I requested her if I could use the toilet to pee as it was a sort of emergency.

We had just dropped a close friend visiting London at the Buckingham Palace and I was trying to park my car. My wife was accompanying me. Finally, I found this car park, immensely costly, but at least somewhere to station my car for a short while. It had been a long day and having this habit of drinking lots of water meant that my bladder was full, and I urgently needed to pee.

This upscale area does not have a close by public toilet and I did not have time or patience to search for one. I entered this close-by Pret-a-Manger whose cashier told me that they did not have toilets. I walked to the opposite side of the eatery and found this upscale restaurant. I cannot remember its name. Anyways, I walked in, told him my ‘emergency’ and requested the man on the counter if I could please use the toilet. He hesitated, half-willing to help me but then directing me to this lady who looked like a hostess-cum-manager of the restaurant. This man was clearly not the decision-maker.

I repeated my request to this lady and she replied rather curtly - ‘I am sorry Sir; toilet is only for customers. I will lose my job if I let you use the toilet’.

And as she said this, she also showed us out of the door and said – ‘Let me show you where you can find one…’ And she pointed to the Pret-a-manger outlet, where I had been just told that they didn’t have a toilet.

Clearly, no one wanted to help.

My wife who was with me said why don’t we buy something from this restaurant (we could afford at least the salad, I guess) and then we become her customers. Then she will let you use the toilet.

Technically, I could have done that, but frankly speaking I did not want to, even though my bladder had reached its maximum stretch. Something within me said that I don’t want to do this. You can call this self-esteem, but I felt that now I never want to be their customers ever in my life. The disengagement was permanent.

Contrast this with my experience when I visited for this international food festival at Portsmouth (about two and a half hours drive from London) in July. This time we were with friends, some of whom had young kids. The kids needed to use the toilet and once again we were not able to find a close-by public toilet. I walked into this beach side amusement centre for kids and requested the people at the counter. I even offered to pay for use. But they were so kind that they let all of use the toilet. We did not buy any service from them that day but believe me if I must recommend someone a place like this, I will definitely recommend them. Their random act of kindness assured me that they would serve well.

In defence of that lady and that man at the Pret-the-manger counter, what if they started allowing anyone to use the toilet. Would that not offend their customers? That’s a hypothetical situation though. In all likelihood this would never happen. It’s always a judgement call when you are presented with a genuine request (you can always know if it is one). And there is something about character and ‘smell of the place’ that comes across depending on how people react or respond to these situations.

What actually struck me was the second statement of the lady. Something must be broken in a place where one would fire their employees for helping someone in dire need, if what the lady was saying was true. I remember once a Chief Human Resource Officer of a watch and accessories company recounted an incident wherein their store manager went beyond the call of the duty to help a walk-in customer to one of their stores and had a cardiac arrest. The store manager himself took the person to the hospital, phoned his family and waited until the family members reached the hospital. By this time the treatment had already started and the person could be saved. Had any time been lost, the man would not have survived. And, mind you, the man had not purchased anything from the store. Nothing of this sort was in the job description of the manager, but he did what he thought he should do and knew his organization would back him up for the same. He left the store at a busy time and could have been easily penalized. Instead, the company rewarded him for his magnanimous act. And guess what, he very unintentionally created an army of loyal customers as the news spread in the city. So, even if we talk business, then remember customers may not always walk-in as customers first time.

I still wish well for the lady and for all those who turned me away that day. I hope they meet kinder people when they are in need. 

(Photo credits: Photo by Ericson Fernandes)

Can Companies Arm-Twist Employees to Work-from-Office?

 Around 14 years back, at a time when millennials had started entering the workforce in large number, an IT major in India, let’s call it ‘I’ well-known for its progressive HR policies, made a huge blunder that led to not only poor publicity of the company, but also damaged employee engagement and tarnished its reputation and employer brand. In the subsequent best employer surveys, the company dropped sharply from being the number one company to 5^th or 6^th rank. One of the prime reasons that came out of these surveys as the cause of this drop was poor internal communication and decisions of leaders that did not reflect contextual realities.

Cut to 2024, is it once again on the path to commit similar blunder again? Have they and their contemporaries not learnt lessons from their past mistakes? Let’s see.

It all started for this company around 2010 when they started receiving lots of complaints about poor resolution client problems. The company in turn hired an independent consultant to investigate into the matter. The investigation revealed that many employees in client-facing role had been promoted out of retention pressures, rather than merit and hence may not be well-prepared to meet the demands of the role. Owing to this, their ability to understand client needs and resolve their problems was not as efficient as it should be. To resolve this issue the consultant developed a role-based assessment that would reassess the competency of every member of the company in client-facing roles. The implementation of this new role assessment led to around 5000 demotions in the company.

The employees were angered by this approach of the company and their anger burst on social media where they started venting their frustration. The company fearing a serious backlash gave a knee-jerk response to such protests and attempted to clamp-down the same by introducing a strict social media policy. The obvious attempt to gag the employee voice led to such expressions going ballistic on social media. Many employees created anonymous accounts and started posting abusive content about the company on social media. In short, it became bad to worse!

This also drew serious public criticism about the company. Clearly the internal communication had not remained as efficient as it used to when the company was smaller. The internal communication strategy had not been able to keep-up the pace of its growth. Result, many leadership decisions had not been communicated well down the ranks, resulting in misconstrued perceptions and strong emptions against the company among the employees. The leadership decisions, their response when faced with criticism and then backstepping revealed that they had a poor understanding of the new generation, their life and their media. Finally, after much damage had been done, sense seemed to prevail in the company when they decided to introduce a Facebook equivalent within the company (like an internal Facebook) for the employees to freely express their opinions. They also introduced a company radio service for the employees to communicate important decisions and the rationale behind those decisions.

Déjà vu Moment?

14 years later, at a time when now Gen Z entering the workforce in hordes and are set to dominate workforce, along with younger millennials, in years to come, the company’s leadership seems to be in similar conundrum. Recently, it has started introducing policies to force employees to work-from-office for most days of the week. Employees who choose to work remotely would face repercussions if they do not work from office. This is seen mostly as an arm-twisting technique by the Gen Z employees and younger millennials who would like to have greater autonomy in choosing their work approach – remote, in-person or hybrid, depending on their choice, rather then being forced to come to office for work. As long as the work gets done and the productivity is maintained they see no reason why companies must arm-twist them into physically attending work. The Covid era has clearly thrashed-out the myths propagated about remote working. Besides, high rental cost, higher commute cost and time considering the clogged roads of most metros, have encouraged younger generation employees to work remotely more often than not.

                                    Image Credit: Microsoft Designer via LinkedIn

Other contemporary company have followed suit. Another IT company let’s call it ‘W’ has reportedly sent emails to their employees giving them an ultimatum that if they fail to report physically in the office for a minimum of 3 days in a week, they will lose their paid leaves. Another company let’s call it ‘T’ has linked variable pay to presence of employees in office. If their attendance in office falls below a particular percentage, they would lose all of their variable pay and as their attendance in office would improve, so would their chances of getting a higher variable pay. And all these years we thought variable pay was linked to performance, but now it seems it is linked to attendance!!!

The logic behind such arm-twisting seems hazy and not linked to their performance. It’s either poor HR or poor leadership thinking who continue to poorly understand the Gen Zs and younger millennial generations and impose irrational arbitrary policies on them. Such decisions are once again reflective that the leaders of these companies have poor understanding of new generation’s life realties and expectation from work. Gen Z employees who value work but value life equally, flexibility at work goes a long way in engaging them. Rather than losing 3 hours in commute every day, Gen Z would rather prefer to use that time to finish their work early and get on with their life. Work-from-office cannot be simply imposed if there is no evidence that it leads to better performance or productivity.

The signs of growing opposition from the employees are already evident. For instance, ‘Coffee Badging’ is becoming commonplace thing where employees are coming to work to show their faces and then leaving after they have a coffee. This rise in tokenism to thwart the forced office attendance will only erode productivity, lead to higher loss of work time, poor engagement and in the medium run might lead to rise in attrition and losses.

Are these companies committing the same mistake that ‘I’ committed 14 years back? Have they and their contemporaries learnt from those mistakes? Is it time for leadership to reflect on their decisions and accept the new direction in which the future of work is heading?

Learning from mistakes is wise, progressive and need of the hour. Lest they risk losing reputation and relevance.