The Hindu Business Line : Great men walked the earth

THE author of eleven-volume The Story of Civilisation, Will Durant, died more than two decades ago. His passion was to bring philosophy out of the ivory towers of academia into the lives of laypeople. The Story of Philosophy that he wrote in 1926 launched Simon & Schuster as a major publishing force. Now, John Little has compiled Durant's select thoughts into The Greatest Minds and Ideas of all Time — containing `the absolute best of our heritage'. A sampler:

Copernicus had reduced the earth to a speck among melting clouds; Darwin reduced man to an animal fighting for his transient mastery of the globe. (The Ten Greatest Thinkers)

Shakespeare wrote in haste, and never found leisure to repent. He never erased a line or read a proof. No man had ever mastered language, or used it with such lordly abandon. (The Ten Greatest Poets)

Can you spare an hour a day? Let me have seven hours a week, and I will make a scholar and a philosopher out of you; in four years you shall be as well educated as any new-fledged Doctor of Philosophy in the land. (The One Hundred Best Books for an Education)

There is less brutality between men and women, between parents and children, between teachers and pupils, than in any recorded generation of the past. (The Ten Peaks of Human Progress)

Buddha means India, for the spirit of India lies in religion rather than in science, in contemplation rather than in action, in a fraternal gentleness rather than in the application of mathematics to artillery, or of chemistry to bombs. (Twelve Vital Dates in World History)

Don't be disappointed if your name doesn't figure among the `greatest minds' as yet.

Atomic truths

THERE could be no better time to study about India's atomic energy programme with so much of sabre-rattling going on in the border. And M. R. Srinivasan's book From Fission to Fusion gives an insider's view of the developments — of how a team comprising top physicists, chemists, engineers, metallurgists and other scientists worked on an important mission. And the blurb explains that their "contribution to the pride of an independent nation goes well beyond the equations of science." More:

A swimming-pool type reactor, such as Apsara, is so named because the core where the uranium chain reaction takes place is suspended in a pool of normal (or light) water. Apsara itself was conceived as a multi-purpose reactor for experiments in neutron physics, the production of radioisotopes and studies in shielding of nuclear radiation.

Today anyone visiting Trombay is struck by the hill's lush tree cover facing BARC. Unseen, on the other side of the hill, are the scars of quarrying and deforestation.

If the heavy water that escapes in the liquid or vapour phase is not collected and reused, there is a heavy economic penalty as heavy water is an expensive material. At the plant level, the challenge was to ensure that all pumps, valves, and other components were leak tight to a very high degree, even when unattended for long periods of time.

Our engineers and technicians go about their tasks with quiet competence. Some of them are veterans of two or three nuclear power station start-ups and commissionings. They are also the heroes of India, just as much as those in the infotech business. The contributors to the atomic energy programme are carrying out their tasks in relative obscurity because our media does not publicise their work.

One cannot conclude that nuclear power is securely established in India. Only when we have a programme of some 10,000 MW can we expect it to be self-sustaining. Until then, it can only be a demonstration activity.

Add a nuke dimension to your knowledge.

From E to A

EXPERTS are specialists; advisors are deep generalists. Experts are for hire; advisors have selfless independence. Experts have professional credibility; advisors develop deep personal trust. Experts analyse; advisors synthesise and bring big-picture thinking to the table. Experts supply expertise and information; advisors are educators who provide insight and wisdom. These are the bullet points on the back cover of Clients for Life, a book by Jagdish Sheth and Andrew Sobel, which is about `evolving from an expert for hire to an extraordinary advisor'. A few picks:

The genesis of this book lay in a simple observation: the telephones of some professions we knew never stopped ringing — clients called them, rather than vice versa. At the same time, we saw others treated like vendors by their clients; these professionals were constantly challenged on price, and they often struggled to get new business through laborious RFPs (requests for proposal) that eliminate practically all human contact during the client's decision-making process.

Professionals who excel at developing broad-gauge relationships are skilled in a third type of empathy, called contextual empathy, or the ability to understand and appreciate the context in which a client operates. Being ignorant of the context is a common mistake of young professionals.

In a wider zone of learning, many experts drop out. How many attorneys are familiar with the latest thinking in corporate strategy? How many information technology consultants have a grasp of behavioural psychology or marketing?

Big-picture thinking is sometimes referred to as pattern thinking. If you can identify the constellations of significance in the otherwise chaotic flow of information, you are well on your way to synthesis.

The right client is the individual who owns the problem at hand, can act on your recommendations, and can authorise your fees or payments. Often, professionals end up with the wrong client during the sales process.

Smart, well-educated professionals feel that they ought to have something intelligent to say about everything.

The really smart ones, though, know when not to give advice, and they admit when there is a mismatch between their expertise and experience and the client's problem.

Do you still need my advice to read the book?

(Books courtesy: Fountainhead, Chennai. E-mail: fhbooks@satyam.net.in)

Tailpiece

"We did a research and found out... "

"What?"

"That research results are not too reliable."

hindubusinessline@hotmail.com

D. Murali

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Great men walked the earth