What is sharing? What is privacy? What is independence? As an architect, I keep encountering these questions when designing spaces. I have worked with people like Hafeez Contractor and E Sreedharan and now in Pune with the CEO of a very large IT company. All of them are very effective individuals. These individuals surely do stand out from the crowd. I think all of them are very well known for their unique individuality and how they made contributions to their respective domains. Yet, all of them break the popularly held opinions on these questions. If you are truly independent and an individual in your own rights, you do not always need to express it by defining a fiercely guarded, closed spatial territory. In fact, I think that all truly effective leaders graciously allow others to come inside their inner confines. Hafeez never sits in a cabin. I was an associate for him when there were just 8 people there. He never had a cabin. His office is now 400+ He still does not use a cabin. I have never seen the CEO of the IT company shutting his cabin door. E Sreedharan did use a cabin. He had a traffic signal installed outside his door. Green means walk in without knocking. It was green many times. In fact every cabin at Konkan Railway headquarters had a tiny set of such cute traffic lights. I have used the green signal to walk directly into those cabins when I was working with them on various designs. And such an approach on managing physical spaces have deeper repercussions too. Not just for designing spaces and territories, but even for life. I have often been given well-meaning advice NOT to reveal too much. NOT to expose my vulnerabilities to the world and so on. All such advice to keep me safe; from being hurt and/or losing myself in the crowd. I find most of such advice either too trivial or patently wrong. I agree that we all need to stay inside a safe boundary. Sure. Your soul should not get hurt. Of course not. You need to start with yourself and then move outwards. We all want to express our care and empathise with the world. But we also want to return back to our safe haven to rejuvenate. However, in the hurry to do so (I.e return back) one should not confuse your own alone time to be same as stop sharing with the world. One should not be so closed that you draw up the curtains of your soul and stop any light from coming in. Humans need two kind of soothing: self soothing and be soothed by others. Both are required to be healthy. Some unfortunate souls who had deeply troubling childhoods often learn to self-soothe themselves. They are afraid of sharing. Even in those situations where they need to soothe themselves using the intelligence of others, they would not do so. They almost can never been given advice. Not being subject to useful criticism, I know some individuals totally warped in the way they work with the world. They are inside locked doors full of secrets ...and lash out at those who want to come in and help in their soothing. Both the kinds of soothing are to be done with as much transparency as possible so that others do not mistake your self soothing to be selfishness. Or your soothing along with others as clever manipulation. Working through complex problems by bouncing off your thoughts across to an empathetic sounding board, a friend, is a wonderful way to be both productive and still be your own independent person I often give the same advice to my students who are starting their family: Your partner and children need to see you both with all the moles and warts along with all your goodness. Invite your near ones gracefully inside. They need to see both your joys and sorrows. That makes you a human. That will sow belief. With that comes trust. Trust is simply the act of believing that you will behave the same way across time. Trust is easily achieved when everything is transparent. So everyone is sure there is no duplicity. If you share your grief they get halved. If you share your joy they get doubled. Some confuse alone time with being independent. One can easily be independent and still be able to share. In fact those who claim independence by locking themselves away from harm are often fighting battles of their own, battles that could have been won if they trusted their near ones . No wonder, many leaders are effective because they are so clearly communicating trust to their respective organizations. Lot of unnecessary battles are avoided. Giving the opportunity and time for the true individual to surface up
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 19:36:46 +0000
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