Monday, November 24, 2014

The Difficulty of Being Good by Gurcharan Das


On the Subtle Art of Dharma
Why should we be good? 
How should we be good? 
And how might we more deeply understand the moral and ethical failings-splashed across today's headlines-that have not only destroyed individual lives but caused widespread calamity as well, bringing communities, nations, and indeed the global economy to the brink of collapse?
In The Difficulty of Being Good, Gurcharan Das seeks answers to these questions in an unlikely source: the 2,000 year-old Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata

A sprawling, witty, ironic, and delightful poem, the Mahabharata is obsessed with the elusive notion of dharma-in essence, doing the right thing.
 When a hero does something wrong in a Greek epic, he wastes little time on self-reflection; when a hero falters in the Mahabharata, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and often contradictory take on dharma. 
Each major character in the epic embodies a significant moral failing or virtue, and their struggles mirror with uncanny precision our own familiar emotions of anxiety, courage, despair, remorse, envy, compassion, vengefulness, and duty. 
Das explores the Mahabharata from many perspectives and compares the successes and failures of the poem's characters to those of contemporary individuals, many of them highly visible players in the world of economics, business, and politics.
In every case, he finds striking parallels that carry lessons for everyone faced with ethical and moral dilemmas in today's complex world.
Written with the flair and seemingly effortless erudition that have made Gurcharan Das a bestselling author around the world-and enlivened by Das's forthright discussion of his own personal search for a more meaningful life-The Difficulty of Being Good shines the light of an ancient poem on the most challenging moral ambiguities of modern life.

 [Source: www.amazon.com ]

The Mahabharata is a sweeping epic that chronicles different facets of human life, emotional and ethical conflicts. 
It has a huge number of characters and none of them are perfect. 
The negative characters have positive attributes too, and the heroes also have flaws. 
 In fact, they're all essentially human.
So it is not difficult for the author to study today’s moral questions in the context of the characters in the epic. 
Dharma, the moral code of behavior, has generally remained unchanged since those ancient times. 
In The Difficulty Of Being Good: On The Subtle Art Of Dharma, the author analyzes major characters like Duryodhana, Karna, Bhishma, Yudhishthira and Arjuna.
He looks at the character and behavior of these people in difficult situations, and their individual reactions.
He looks at Karna's status anxiety and Duryodhana's envy. 
He critically examines the methods used by both sides to win the war.
He also brings in current parallels to some of the situations and characters in the epic. 
For instance, he sees Duryodhana’s envy reflected in the Ambani brothers feud. 
He uses Karna’s anxiety over his status to debate the issue of reservation in modern India. 
The book analyzes the very basic question of why should a person be good, the motivations for living life according to a moral or ethical code.
 It also examines the ambiguities in the choices made by characters when faced with a dilemma, the hazy line that divides the good and the bad.
The Mahabharata focuses a lot on Dharma and whenever there is a transgression of an ethical code, the story pauses and the incident is thoroughly analyzed by various characters.
[Source: www.flipkart.com]



Goodreads Rating - 4.04 out of 5 (15522 Ratings; 150 Reviews)

My Review:
Liked the way the moral dilemmas faced by the Mahabharata characters are analyzed and their relevance in the modern context explained. 
A very well researched book. 
Guess it might have been the Ph.D dissertation of the author Gurcharan Das resulting from a sabbatical he took from the corporate world.
Not a very light read but nor too heavy either for the readers interested in this genre.



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Tuesday, November 18, 2014

The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring - Ilan Oshri, Julia Kotlarsky and Leslie P. Willcocks




The global outsourcing market for IT and business services exceeded $485 billion in 2011 and is set to grow at 8-10% per annum until 2015.
Of this, $65 billion was offshore outsourcing where some estimates suggest an annual growth rate of 15-20% over the next five years.
Furthermore, over 50 % of the Fortune Global 500 had offshored IT and business process activities through captive centers, representing $ 9 billion of business.
The expansion of outsourcing and offshoring and the emergence of new sourcing models are challenging existing management practices.
 It has become increasingly important to understand the phenomena, not least as a basis for suggesting what directions it will take, its impacts, how it has been conducted, and how its management can be better facilitated.

This book offers a broad perspective on various issues relating to the sourcing of IT and business processes and services in a company, national and global context. 

The authors examine both the client's and the vendor's involvement in sourcing relationships by putting the emphasis on the capabilities that each side should develop prior to entering a relationship but also that they should develop as a result of their interactions with each other.
 [Source: Inside Front Cover of the book ]


Goodreads Rating - 3.0 out of 5 (2 Ratings; 0 Reviews)

My Review:
A pretty useful book for organizations that are looking for outsourcing IT and business processes. It will guide them in getting the fundamentals of outsourcing right. Has some good case studies. Sort of dry read though.


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Thursday, November 13, 2014

Today We are Rich by Tim Sanders

Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence
Are you just hanging in there? 
Have life’s curveballs thrown you off balance? 
Do you feel as if your life is going sideways?

Best-selling author, leadership coach, and former Yahoo! executive Tim Sanders knows how you feel. 

His father’s unexpected death put him in a downward spiral for fifteen years—what he calls his “sideways years.” 
A photo of a dusty water tower in Texas finally woke him up in 1996. 
That’s when he realized he needed to go home to his rock—his grandmother Billye, who had taken him in as a child to raise as her own.

Rediscovering the lessons she taught him as a child turned his life around and, in less than four years, catapulted him to financial security and an officer-level role at an S&P 500 company at the center of the Internet revolution. 
Today, his promise to himself is, “I will never forget those lessons. The price is too high.” 
Join Tim as he rediscovers the classic principles of confident living that some of the most successful and joyful people you know live by:

1 – Feed Your Mind Good Stuff
2 – Move the Conversation Forward
3 – Exercise Your Gratitude Muscle
4 – Give to Be Rich
5 – Prepare Yourself
6 – Balance Your Confidence
7 – Promise Made, Promise Kept

In Today We Are Rich, Sanders updates Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale to tackle a new world, where social media and transparency present unique challenges to our sense of confidence, sanity, and faith.

[Source: www.goodreads.com ]


Goodreads Rating - 4.04 out of 5 (453 Ratings; 70 Reviews)

My Comments:
Principles of confident living described in this book are what we call as common sense (but which is actually not so commonly seen). 
Book is rather autobiographical in nature mainly extolling author's grandma who lived by these principles. 
Nice and quick read but you won't miss anything exceptional even if you don't read it.


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