First the aspect of impact of AI as a fledging technology on Ethics and Morality. This becomes important as the influence could span across various aspects of human life, society and a ‘code of conduct’ for responding to situations. Another impact could be certain unintended moral consequences arising out of AI, such as enhancing of social inequalities and taking away of human jobs.
Secondly, the aspect of AI’s impact, or shall we say, its interrelationship with the concepts of Epistemology and Ontology. Epistemology is all about how our mind perceives reality. Our sense making of a situation provides us knowledge. AI algorithms are all about sense making and predictions. Deep Learning and neural networks might make a prediction, without any underlying explanations, which may be contrary to what we might be thinking. Ontology is the science of ‘Being’, of being something. As AI’s capability advances, it would show up as an entity with complex behaviours and responses. This prompts ontological questions about the nature of these behaviours and responses—how should we conceptualize AI’s ability to learn, reason, and interact with the world?
So, how do we determine the impact of AI on fundamental issues relating to Ethics and Morality? This aspect becomes particularly important because at the core of AI and its capabilities lies the requirement of enormous data streams. Since most of AI algorithm predictions relates to likely human behaviour and response, the data relates to humans. And this is where the fault line between usage of harvested data and the ethics and morality of using such data for AI based predictions, emerges. This is even beyond the realm of privacy laws. Fundamental questions about the consent, transparency, and control individuals have over their personal information remain.
AI, being a general-purpose technology, its use and spread is increasing exponentially in terms of organisations, individuals, and domains. This interaction of human-AI relationships is evolving rapidly, as AI technology evolves. These relationships are raising profound questions about our sense of self and identity. This becomes important aspects to deliberate upon.
Privacy Concerns: How AI systems handle personal data and influence decision-making processes can affect the consent, transparency, and control individuals have over their personal information.
Bias and Fairness: AI algorithms can perpetuate or amplify biases present in the data they are trained on, leading to unfair outcomes. Addressing bias in AI systems is crucial for upholding principles of fairness and equity, which are fundamental to moral frameworks.
Human jobs & Processes: AI technologies can disrupt job markets, potentially displacing human workers. Socio-economic considerations include ensuring a just transition for affected workers and promoting AI-driven benefits equitably.
Moral Principles & Decision Making: AI systems are increasingly being tasked with making decisions that have ethical implications, such as in healthcare (e.g., medical diagnostics and treatment recommendations) and autonomous vehicles (e.g., decisions in potentially fatal situations). Questions arise about their moral agency and whether they should be held responsible for their actions.
Epistemology and how knowledge shows up : As has been mentioned above, AI systems increasingly play a role in decision-making processes across various domains, from medical diagnostics to legal judgments. This challenges traditional notions of epistemic authority—who or what can be considered a reliable source of knowledge and expertise.
AI’s form of existence: As AI technologies evolve, they exhibit increasingly complex behaviors and capabilities. This prompts ontological questions about AI’s nature of being —how should we conceptualize AI’s ability to learn, reason, and interact with the world?
In the above context, Executive Coach Frank Marinko and I discussed the pressing issues on the development of AI and what that means for society at large.
Does AI possess moral agency?
How can you design AI systems to make ethical decisions?
Are there concepts such as moral reasoning and ethical behaviour in machines?
Frank Marinko and myself, both international Executive Coaches and Facilitators, grappled with this question using the critical thinking methodology, in a joint podcast. You might enjoy the discourse and the podcast link is given at the end.
If we are to deliberate on this question, we need to get to the essence of two aspects mentioned. First, AI or Artificial Intelligence as we call it. Second, ‘to lead’ which is all about Leading or Leadership.
So, what really is the essence of AI? That lies in its ability to mimic and augment human intelligence and decision-making processes using computational algorithms and data. At its core, AI systems can analyze vast amounts of data, recognize patterns, infer relationships, and make predictions or recommendations.
The important aspect to be kept in mind is AI’s ability to ‘learn’, its adaptability and the ability to improve over time. Machine learning algorithms, for example, can automatically adjust their behavior based on new data, allowing AI systems to become more accurate and effective with experience.
And when we think of the essence of Leadership, it is really all about envisioning a future which speaks to all stakeholders by addressing their concerns or satisfying some needs. Leadership thus involves directing and coordinating the efforts so that the full potential and collective success can be realised.
With the dawn of computers seven decades back, Alan Turing had considered the question, ‘Can a machine think like a human?’ and came up with a test now known as the Turing Test. With the advent of AI, several Artificial Intelligence programs have already passed the test. The purpose of this question seems to be a deep-down threat to our unique ‘leadership ability’ that we see emanating from AI. There are concerns that AI will not only start doing complex and decision-making tasks replacing humans but in the long run go beyond human controls and frameworks.
This idea of technological obsolescence where technology renders humans obsolete, and takes over most of human jobs and work, is a concern that has been raised in discussions about AI and automation. However, we humans have creativity, empathy, intuition, adaptability, and the capacity for complex moral reasoning, which are integral to many aspects of work and life. These qualities enable humans to excel in areas such as innovation, problem-solving, interpersonal relationships, and above all Leadership.
The idea of AI achieving consciousness is another topic of much speculation and debate. Consciousness is a complex and still poorly understood phenomenon, and whether AI can truly achieve it is uncertain. Even if AI were to achieve consciousness, the process of its development would likely still involve human input and guidance. AI systems, as they exist today, are created, and trained by humans, and any future developments in AI consciousness would likely follow a similar path.
However, it is worth noting that AI can already exhibit forms of “thinking” and problem-solving that are quite different from human cognition. Machine learning algorithms, for example, can process vast amounts of data and recognize complex patterns in ways that humans cannot.
Whether AI should create its own thinking framework independent of human influence is a philosophical question with no easy answer. It raises issues of autonomy, control, and ethics. If AI were to develop its own thinking framework, it would still need to start and remain ‘biased’ by frameworks that align with human values and approach. It thus seems that in the foreseeable future, Humans would continue to lead AI, leaving aside the esoteric visions of the Matrix and Terminator movies.
To effectively lead AI development which would synergise with human development, adherence to principles such as transparency, fairness, accountability, and human-centered design would be needed. We would then be able to harness the full potential of AI while minimizing harm. These principles should serve as guardrails rather than roadblocks, helping to steer AI development in a direction that aligns with human values and promotes the common good.
The bomb exploded 600 meters above the city. A blinding flash of light, a thumping boom and more than 50,000 people were dead. Those who survived were destined to suffer from the horrendous effects of radiation linked diseases and mental trauma over months and years.
I was at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, watching the recreation of 6th August 1945, that fateful day when ‘fat boy’, the first Atomic Bomb, was dropped and detonated over the city of Hiroshima.
A detailed cinematic view of how Hiroshima would have looked on that day was being projected from the ceiling on a large circular surface. It was akin to looking at the city from above. I could see the city scape with cars, vehicles and streetcars moving on the roads, boats sailing on the river channels and the concentration of buildings in the city Centre. A city like any other, with people going about their daily chores. Doing what they should, thinking of tomorrow, aspiring for a better future.
Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 morning Street cars on Hiroshima streets on 6th Aug. 1945 morning
Then the bomb comes into view. Pirouetting and gyrating as it falls in slow motion. If I had not known what it was, it did not look menacing at all. And then it explodes. A writhing, swirling engulfment by crimson flames, smoke and a mushrooming cloud blocks out everything. When visibility returns, I can see nothing on the ground except a few building structures standing; everything else had been obliterated.
Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 after the Bomb
As I meandered through the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, looking at the exhibits, the graphic visuals and reading the quotes of unknown people of eighty years back, little did I realise the mind-altering experience it was having for me.
A visit to Japan and Hiroshima had been on my bucket list for a long time. My dad used to frequently tell me stories about his trip to Japan in the nineteen fifties. Japan was barely a few years beyond the great war when all its cities had been devastated by American bombing. But as per my dad, it’s veritable phoenix like ‘rise from the ashes’ was a testimony to the Japanese indomitable spirit.
Moving out of the Museum, I strolled through the Hiroshima Peace Memorial gardens. I could see the skeletal remains of the Atom Bomb dome, now a UNESCO heritage site. Interestingly, it was the only building close to the nuclear blast which remained standing. Today, it remains a mute reminder to an event which should never have happened.
The Atomic Dome buiding after the bombing
In between the Museum and the Atomic Dome is the memorial cenotaph, a saddle shaped monument in remembrance of all those whose life got so suddenly snuffed out by the atomic bomb.
A view of the memorial cenotaph
The park, nestled as it is between the gently flowing waters of two river canals, has a tear shaped outline. Does it signify the tear drops of the holocaust survivors as they went about looking for their near and dear ones all those years ago? I wondered………
Peace memorial garden- the river canalHiroshima Peace Memorial garden
As I walked under the afternoon sun, the images and the writings in the museum danced and coalesced in my mind. The perceptions of the victor and the vanquished. How those perceptions led to differing narratives and actions. Those contrasting threads of recorded history about what led to what happened and how what happened showed up for the unaware Hiroshima dwellers on that fateful day. Yes, there was a victor and a vanquished. But no winners, only losers all round ……….
@ Hiroshima Castle which was completely destroyed by the bomb, reconstructed a few years later
**
With the surrender of Germany, the Allies focus had shifted to Japan which continued to fight. The Potsdam declaration of end July 1945 threatened ‘utter destruction’ and sought an unconditional surrender of Japan, a demand that got rejected by the Japanese armed forces.
US War publicity poster
“My mother and I, aged 6, went grocery shopping. Every- one was out on their verandas, enjoying the absence of piercing warning signals. Suddenly, an old man yelled ‘Plane!’ Everyone scurried into their homemade bomb shelters. My mother and I escaped into a nearby shop. As the ground began to rumble, she quickly tore off the tatami flooring, tucked me under it and hovered over me on all fours.
Everything turned white. We were too stunned to move, for about 10 minutes. When we finally crawled out from under the tatami mat, there was glass everywhere, and tiny bits of dust and debris floating in the air. The once clear blue sky had turned into an inky shade of purple and grey…….”
-Takato Michishita, Atomic Bomb survivor
Despite brutal firebombing of more than a hundred Japanese cities and towns which led to near destruction of infrastructure and large civilian casualties, the American high command remained unconvinced about its efficacy to end the war. The firebombing of Tokyo, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, killed an estimated hundred thousand and destroyed forty square kilometers and more than two hundred and fifty thousand buildings in a single night.
“I was three years old at the time of the bombing. I don’t remember much, but I do recall that my surroundings turned blindingly white, like a million camera flashes going off at once. Then, pitch darkness. I was buried alive under the house, I’ve been told. When my uncle finally found me and pulled my tiny three-year-old body out from under the debris, I was unconscious. My face was misshapen. He was certain that I was dead.
Thankfully, I survived. But since that day, mysterious scabs began to form all over my body. I lost hearing in my left ear, probably due to the air blast. My younger sister suffers from chronic muscle cramps to this day, on top of kidney issues that has her on dialysis three times a week. ‘What did I do to the Americans?’ she would often say, ‘Why did they do this to me?”
-Yasujiro Tanaka, Atomic bomb survivor
As a full-fledged Allied invasion and ground offensive into Japan was being planned, U.S. President Truman and his war cabinet were getting increasingly alarmed by the estimates of American casualty that would occur from such an invasion. The estimates ranged between two to four million casualties and more than half a million dead. A nation and its citizens were increasingly war fatigued. The President and his cabinet came round to the view that it would be better to use Atomic Bombs to end the war quickly and save American lives. But can such an arithmetic tradeoff justify taking the lives of innocent citizens? I wondered……
“I was eight when the bomb dropped. My older sister was 12. She left early that morning to work on a tatemono sokai (building demolition) site and never came home. My parents searched for her for months and months. They never found her remains. My parents refused to send an obituary notice until the day that they died, in hopes that she was healthy and alive somewhere, somehow.
I too was affected by the radiation and vomited profusely after the bomb attack. My hair fell out, my gums bled, and I was too ill to attend school………”
-Emiko Okada, Atomic Bomb survivor
A month before that fateful day when the Atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the highly secretive Manhattan project in the US had produced two distinctive types of atomic weapons. The first was code named ‘Little Boy,’ a Uranium based fission chain reaction type bomb. The other was called the ‘Fat Man,’ a more sophisticated and powerful plutonium-based implosion type weapon. Nuclear Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, now made famous by the Oscar winning movie of the same name, oversaw the research into the calculation of the fissile material critical mass and detonation.
“Then the sky turned bright white. My siblings and I were knocked off our feet and violently slammed back into the bomb shelter. We had no idea what had happened.
As we sat there shell-shocked and confused, heavily injured burn victims came stumbling into the bomb shelter en masse. Their skin had peeled off their bodies and faces and hung limply down on the ground, in ribbons. Their hair was burnt down to a few measly centimeters from the scalp. Many of the victims collapsed as soon as they reached the bomb shelter entrance, forming a massive pile of contorted bodies. The stench and heat were unbearable.”
-Shigeko Matsumoto, Atomic Bomb survivor
In the aftermath of the bomb
As the Atomic Bombs were being assembled for eventual use, simultaneously, pilots of the U.S. Air Force were getting trained on the long-distance B-29 Super fortress aircrafts which would be used to deliver the bombs.
“As my mother and I were eating breakfast, I heard the deep rumble of engines overhead. Our ears were trained back then; I knew it was a B-29 immediately. I stepped out into the field out front but saw no planes. Bewildered, I glanced to the northeast. I saw a black dot in the sky. Suddenly, it ‘burst’ into a ball of blinding light that filled my surroundings. A gust of hot wind hit my face; I instantly closed my eyes and knelt to the ground. As I tried to gain footing, another gust of wind lifted me up and I hit something hard. I do not remember what happened after that.
When I finally came to, I was passed out in front of a bouka suisou (stone water container used to extinguish fires back then). Suddenly, I felt an intense burning sensation on my face and arms, and tried to dunk my body into the bouka suisou. The water made it worse. I heard my mother’s voice in the distance. ‘Fujio! Fujio!’ I clung to her desperately as she scooped me up in her arms. ‘It burns, mama! It burns!’
I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few days. My face swelled up so badly that I could not open my eyes. I was treated briefly at an air raid shelter and later at a hospital in Hatsukaichi, and was eventually brought home wrapped in bandages all over my body.”
-Fujio Torikoshi, Atomic Bomb survivor
In the adtermath of the bomb
Just after 2 am on 6th August 1945, three B-29s took off from the island of Tinian and proceeded on their six-hour flight to Japan. One of them, the Enola Gay, carried the Little Boy atomic bomb. The bomb was released and detonated over Hiroshima just after eight in the morning. The radius of destruction was two kilometers with fires raging over eleven square kilometers.
“One incident I will never forget is cremating my father. My brothers and I gently laid his blackened, swollen body atop a burnt beam in front of the factory where we found him dead and set him alight. His ankles jutted out awkwardly as the rest of his body was engulfed in flames. My oldest brother suggested that we take a piece of his skull – based on a common practice in Japanese funerals in which family members pass around a tiny piece of the skull with chopsticks after cremation – and leave him be.
As soon as our chopsticks touched the surface, however, the skull cracked open like plaster and his half-cremated brain spilled out. My brothers and I screamed and ran away, leaving our father behind. We abandoned him, in the worst state possible.”
-Yoshiro Yamawaki, Atomic Bomb survivor.
Melted statue of Buddha
From the Enola Gay, the crew saw “a giant purple mushroom” that was boiling upward and had reached much above the aircraft altitude. At the base of the cloud, fires were springing up everywhere amid a turbulent mass of smoke that had the appearance of bubbling hot tar. The city that had been clearly visible in the sunlight a few minutes ago, had completely disappeared under smoke and fire. Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot of Enola Gay, wrote in his log, “My God! What have we done?”
“The injured were sprawled out over the railroad tracks, scorched and black. When I walked by, they moaned in agony. ‘Water… water…’. I heard a man in passing announce that giving water to the burn victims would kill them. I was torn. I knew that these people had hours, if not minutes, to live. These burn victims – they were no longer of this world.
‘Water… water…’
I decided to look for a water source. Luckily, I found a futon nearby engulfed in flames. I tore a piece of it off, dipped it in the rice paddy nearby, and wrang it over the burn victims’ mouths. There were about 40 of them. I went back and forth, from the rice paddy to the railroad tracks. They drank the muddy water eagerly. Among them was my dear friend Yamada. ‘Yama- da! Yamada!’ I exclaimed, giddy to see a familiar face. I placed my hand on his chest. His skin slid right off, exposing his flesh. I was mortified. ‘Water…’ he murmured. I wrang the water over his mouth. Five minutes later, he was dead.
In fact, most of the people I tended to were dead…….”
-Inosuke Hayasaki, Atomic Bomb survivor
**
Epilogue: The final death toll in Hiroshima from the bomb was close to 150,000 people, mostly civilians. An event which led to Japan surrendering nine days later, effectively ending the great war.
Despite heightened awareness of the ‘end of Humanity’ risk posed by nuclear weapons, the cold war between the U.S. and the erstwhile U.S.S.R. ensured continued stockpiling of these very weapons.
In Remembrance…… Shakti Ghosal
Acknowledgements:
Time Magazine ‘After the Bomb’, 1985.
Wikipedia: ‘Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’
Several of the photos used are from the exhibits in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
From missionaries’ prayers to steel’s fiery glare.
Through seasons of change, the city stands tall,
A testament to history, embraced by all.
On an invitation from a close friend, we decided to take a weekend trip to Bethlehem in the state of Pennsylvania. The road travel was a pleasurable one on the I-78 highway and it took just under one and a half hours even though there was a drizzle.
We exited the highway to find ourself in a quaint town with its residential suburb. Directions by the Google map was impeccable and we were soon at my friend’s place nursing a glass of wine and some welcoming starters in front of a brightly decorated Christmas tree.
The conversation soon veered to the fascinating aspect of how the New World has used so many names from the Old World for its own towns and places. So, it seems to have happened for Bethlehem. And therein hang a couple of tales.
Driving through Bethlehem town, one cannot fail to notice the Victorian architecture, presumably from colonial times. The historic part of the town looks just that, with gabled sidewalks and stairways going down to different levels. This dates back to the mid eighteenth century when Bethlehem was founded as a missionary community by a small group of Moravians. The location chosen was where two rivers join, the Monocacy and Lehigh. What is less known is that this was also the time when wars with the original Indian settlers were being fought in the region. In the book ‘Snow over Bethlehem’ chronicling events recorded in old Moravian diaries, author Katherine Milhous writes about a group of children taking refuge in the strong stone buildings of Bethlehem to escape from the ongoing Indian wars. As Christmas approaches, the town of Bethlehem and the children are saved from an Indian attack by a miraculous event.
In Bethlehem’s embrace, a tale unfolds,
A legacy scripted, in stories untold.
Moravian missionaries, with purpose divine,
Founded a haven, where faith did entwine.
During the American War of independence, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, many continental force veterans fled to Bethlehem as the British army advanced from the east. Amongst them was the French aristocrat Marquis De Lafayette who enjoyed a father-son relationship with Commander in Chief George Washington. The Marquis is arguably one of the most fascinating individuals in the pages of history. He was instrumental in trapping British General Lord Charles Cornwallis (future Governor General of India) and his troops in Yorktown which led to the British surrender and losing the war. Subsequently, during the French revolution, as the commander of the National Guard in Paris, the Marquis saved King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette from the fury of a crowd in Versailles and escorted them back to Paris. He subsequently supported the transfer of power from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie. In remembrance, Lafayette was granted honorary citizenship of the US in 2002.
Bethlehem has a nice downtown and we drove through a nice medley of restaurants, storefronts and pleasingly architectured buildings. The centre of attraction, visible from a distance, were the five rusted blast furnaces of the erstwhile Bethlehem steel company. Now known as the steel stacks, they serve as a dramatic backdrop to a newly created art and entertainment district.
Bethlehem steel, a symbol of the American industrial revolution, came into being at the turn of the twentieth century. The steel plant supplied steel for many of the famed structures like the Empire state building, the Rockefeller centre and Chrysler Building on Manhattan to name a few. However, it achieved iconic status during the second world war when the corporation President promised Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Mr. President, we remain fully committed to your war effort and will build and handover one warship a day”. The company kept its promise and exceeded that by fifteen ships!
Smokestacks whispered tales of industry’s might,
Yet, in Bethlehem’s heart, shone a guiding light.
Amidst the clangour of progress, a spirit remained,
Of community, resilience, and dreams unrestrained.
Sadly, the company could not keep pace with evolving technologies and competition in the second half of the century and filed for bankruptcy a hundred years after it came into being. The steel stacks stand in mute testimony to a glorious industrial past.
Bethlehem is known as the Christmas City of US. As one drives through the suburbs and downtown, this becomes apparent with every building joining the festive mood with wondrous lighting and decorations. We decided to visit the Christkindlmarkt, the annual Christmas market. The market had been set-up in the steel stacks area and consisted of three massive tents full of traditional artisans displaying their craft, delicious food, knick-knacks and even ice sculptures. The German look and feel were overwhelming.
Even though a huge area had been designated for car parking, it was difficult to find a slot because of surging visitors.
As the embers of industry began to cool,
Bethlehem’s spirit endured, an eternal jewel.
From furnaces to festivals, the city transformed,
A Christmas market, where magic is performed.
My host mentioned about the star of Bethlehem in passing. I amusingly thought to myself, if Bethlehem is here, can the star be far behind. Sadly, we didn’t get the chance to spot the star of Bethlehem; we came to know that it is a cluster of LEDs installed at a place called the south mountain (we did not go there). Seems there has been a star on the south mountain since the 1930s.
As we drove back, the Star of Bethlehem continued to be in my thoughts. How the three Magi from the East were guided by the star to Jesus’ birthplace in Bethlehem. How on that wintry night, some shepherds were in the adjoining fields guarding their flocks of sheep. And the depth of the parallel between the sheep being taken to Bethlehem to be sacrificed on Sabbath (Friday) and years later, Jesus Christ being led to Bethlehem and crucified on Sabbath. Did the star of Bethlehem see it all?
In musing……. Shakti Ghosal
Acknowledgement: Snow over Bethlehem by Katherine Milhous. Publisher: Charles Scribner’s Sons; First Edition (January 1, 1945)
It was an economic downturn period with the attendant business concerns. In a management strategy meeting, team members were called upon to offer suggestions about how they would wish to ring fence one’s customer accounts, sustain revenues and margins, bring down expenses and so on. I got the sense that the participants were merely sticking to the safety of what we had been doing in the past; no creative suggestions were forthcoming. It seemed to me that in a perceived environment of insecurity, no one was willing to stick his / her neck out. All were hesitating, waiting to do what they would be told.
This set me thinking. Could it be that my seeking suggestions of what each team member plans to do in an adverse situation was being viewed as appraising and judgmental? Could it be that my stance smacked of arrogance, that I was putting others in a spot but was not willing to commit myself?
In a follow-up meeting, I decided to orient the conversation differently. Prior to the meeting, I sent a note to all participants inviting them to come into the meeting with an answer to a simple statement and a question:
You would like to ask me about _______________
What suggestion do you have about what I need to do?
The response was surprisingly overwhelming this time. Everyone chipped in with their frank assessment and the feedback I received were ‘I needed to be more of a team player, needed to be more accountable for team efforts’ and so on. Moreover, one could sense a renewed level of energy and vigour in the team’s declarations.
I thanked all for their frank inputs and avoided giving any explanations.
When later I thought about what had happened, I sensed that it all came down to my practicing humility in the meeting with vulnerability and the willingness to listen and learn. Without knowing it, I had shown up as a ‘Servant Leader’.
In ‘What Is Servant Leadership? A Philosophy for People-First Leadership’, author Sarah K. White, CIO says, ‘Servant leadership is a leadership style that prioritizes the growth, well-being, and empowerment of employees. It aims to foster an inclusive environment that enables everyone in the organization to thrive as their authentic self. it helps create a “psychological ethical climate” that allows employees to be authentic and not fear judgment from leadership for being themselves.’
Humility begins with authenticity. And the pathway to the practice of authenticity begins with ‘being authentic to your own self about your own inauthenticities’. This pathway has no end, it is the journey that we need to enjoy.
If we are not careful, a leadership role has this nasty tendency of making us arrogant. “I am a leader because I am better. I know what is good for the team, so it needs to be my way or highway” is the kind of thought that can sometimes circle inside us. And such thoughts manifest in our conversations and actions.
“Long Island, where every whisper of the wind carries the echoes of its legend, every tale spun weaves into its lore, and every horizon unveils the tapestry of its landscape.”
I had been fascinated with Long Island since the time I had read F. Scott Fitzerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’. The place symbolised for me the American dream, the roaring economy, the hedonism and a fast evolving, couldn’t-care- less society of a hundred years ago. I recall this line about Jay Gatsby’s extravagant parties, “There was music from my neighbour’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars”.
More recently, Long Island again came back to mind as I watched that disturbing apocalyptic movie ‘Leave the world behind’. The story played out in a luxurious Long Island home with menacing deer herds symbolising a world and its technology coming apart.
So recently, when we got the opportunity of a longish break to take a vacation on Long Island, I was excited.
We drove through Manhattan and the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens on our way to Riverhead where we planned to stay. The place turned out to be a quaint town with some excellent Mexican eateries.
Riverhead is at the fork from where the East and the West fingers of the island branch out. Our room had a view onto a lake which had a surreal lustre under moonlight. As we relaxed in the evening, the conversation took a supernatural turn as it is wont to do at such times.
There is the tale of ‘Curse of The Lady of the lake’ which does the rounds in these parts. Legend has it that a Native American princess takes the life of one boy every year by drowning them in the lake, as she looks for her lost love. It is about a beautiful Indian princess who fell in love with a settler named Hugh Birdsall. Birdsall lived in a log hut and the princess was not permitted to meet him. For seven years she sent messages to him on bits of bark that floated underground from the lake to his hut. After seven years of waiting, she paddled out to the middle of the lake in her canoe. The next day the canoe carrying her dead body floated down to her lover. He leaped into the canoe and together they were swept out to sea.
Prior to the seventeenth century, Long Island had been inhabited by several Indian tribes before the European colonisers arrived. First it was the Dutch who started settling on the west side. They were soon followed by the English who initially came in on the east side but eventually took over the entire island. The English presence became so strong on the island that even during the American Revolution, while the British troops were losing ground to the American army elsewhere, they won the crucial Battle of Long Island and continued to hold sway on the island till the end of the war.
As an interesting aside, General George Washington, the Commander in Chief of the American continental army, having gained the upper hand over the British at Boston, moved his army to defend New York because of its strategic port. However, he was outmanoeuvred by the British when his troops were attacked from two sides and had to hastily retreat with his men back to Manhattan. Part of the victorious British troops was led by Charles Cornwallis. Years later though, General Cornwallis with the entire British troops surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, marking the beginning of the end of British colonisation in America. He subsequently took over as Governor General of the Indian colony. The American war experience may have influenced Cornwallis in terms of his approach to governance in India and perhaps a desire to avoid the mistakes made in the American colonies.
As we travelled on the western finger towards the tip, the landscape transformed into vineyards and undulating woods. We took a Wine Tasting break at one of the Wineries near Peconic bay. We sat sipping some of the excellent Reserve Merlots, Chardonnays and Cabernet Sauvignons served with cheese and ham.
Looking out at the rolling vineyards and woods, we seemed to have indeed left the world behind. In our mind’s eye, we could see the herd of antlered deer looking back at us.
The next day we motored down on the east branch of Long Island. This is the part where the Rich and Famous have homes. The Hampton suburbs are dotted with colonial era and extravagant mansions. One is quite likely to come face to face with glamorous looking folks inside super markets and get tempted to pop the question, “Are you famous?” With luck, one might bump into Sarah Jessica Parker or Matthew Broderick!
Driving onwards through picture perfect suburbs, we finally reached Land’s End, the farthest point of Long Island jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Montauk, named after the original Indian tribe which lived in these parts, has wonderful viewing points of the ocean apart from desolate beaches and the Montauk lighthouse. A veritable treat of a 360-degree view of the Atlantic awaited us.
Standing there, my thoughts went to The Great Gatsby’s East Egg and West Egg neighbourhoods and the lighthouse light which flashed across the bay.
Having explored Long Island and its two branches, it was time for us to get back. I was happy to have seen and experienced all that Long Island had to offer. Or so I thought!
Driving back, we noticed an exit to Amityville. The memory jangled.
The Amityville story became known across the globe with the publication of the book ‘The Amityville Horror- A True story’ half a century back, subsequently made into several movies over decades. The infamous house in Amityville is where an individual murdered six members of his family in their sleep. The Lutz family purchased and moved into the house a year later. That is when the terror began and the family had to literally run away in twenty-eight days. The Lutzs could never give details about what they faced in the house but alluded to evil spirits and demons. A priest who had been invited to bless the house was forced to leave by a deep voice telling him to ‘get out!’; later he developed high fever and blisters on his hand.
As we continued on our way back to New York city, Long Island held sway on me with the legend, lore and landscapes it had spawned.
In musing……. Shakti Ghosal
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In our work life, all of us have come across bosses who are control freaks. These are folks with hardened mindsets about what got them to their positions of power. Under uncertain and ambiguous situations ( and today’s environment is becoming increasingly that), they are most prone to risk-aversion, look for scapegoats or black and white solutions and doubtful decision making.
Before we start forming strong opinions about others, we need to hold the thought we too exhibit ‘control freak’ characteristics at certain times; we are genetically wired with an intrinsic need for control.
In a past assignment, I was reporting to a ‘control freak’ in the corporate office. He lacked domain knowledge relating to our area of business and made up for this lack through demanding total transparency of all operational aspects from our side but with an opaque Blackbox approach from his end. In meetings, he would ask all the questions and then attempt to put one manager against another in a classic divide and rule tactic, to elicit the ‘correct answer’. At times he would deploy the ruse of ‘letting go’ when he would shift to a ‘looking over the shoulder’ kind of control.
What the ‘control freak’ boss ended up achieving was disrespecting and devaluing people, demotivating me and creating stress all round.
The way I managed to handle the situation was to shift from my preoccupation and anxiety about what the boss was saying and thinking to a more inward looking focus. I started thinking about myself, my ‘own battles’ and what I could do in a situation. Every time I felt mistreated, I tried to hold the thought that it was really ‘not about me’; this allowed me to shift from reactiveness and choose a better response. Over time I knew that if I was not careful, my ‘response’ might easily get tainted with bitterness, fear or thoughts of revenge.
In my work life, I was also lucky to have worked with a boss at the other end of the spectrum. He was the ‘hands off’ type but at the same time objective driven. He shied away from taking credit but was always available for discussions and guidance relating to decision making. The team under his watch successfully handled one of the most technically challenging and largest HVAC projects in the country.
So, how might we support others impacted by excessive control in the work place?
Coach how to ‘let go’ when perceiving to have been wronged. Such ‘looking inward’ practise needs dollops of courage, humility and self-compassion.
Listen to frustrations. Acknowledge that it’s awful to feel disrespected by one’s boss.
After listening, turn the conversation to the following:(a)How might you be a better team player as a result of working for a controlling boss? (b)How might you motivate yourself to perform even though your boss is disappointing?
Wishing all Readers merry Christmas and a great and purposeful 2024!
1938
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was staying in his favoured Hyde Park home. An early riser, he was standing by the window allowing the early aura to caress him. The low hung clouds, changing hues from the morning sun, glistened shades of orange as they floated by.
The rather modest Springwood estate had been home to President Roosevelt since birth. As he looked out at the estate’s trees and greenery, in his mind’s eye he was grappling with more weightier subjects. Coming at the helm of affairs five years back during the great depression, he had steered this vast land through the New Deal and 3 R’s reforms which he believed had allowed for people to regain faith in themselves, leading to employment rising and recoveries in Agriculture, Industry and Banking. However, once again, the country was facing production and profit declines coupled with rising unemployment. Arrayed with this threat of depression rearing its head, was the larger danger of the ongoing European conflict escalating out of control and engulfing the United States too. Roosevelt’s preferred policy to keep the US neutral was coming under increasing strain with both France and Britain pleading for US involvement against Adolf Hitler and Germany.
With an effort, the President shifted his mind from the above grim thoughts. He loved to look at the trees flourishing all around, now grown from the saplings he had been painstakingly planting for over a quarter of a century. Just a few days back, he had come to know that Mrs. Margaret Van Allen, the owner of the estate in the north, was hobnobbing with land developers to sell off the property. Having witnessed the birth of the Vanderbilt estate in his teens, he had a certain attachment to it.
President Roosevelt asked for his specially designed Ford Phaeton to be brought onto the driveway; he loved driving the car around Hyde Park. Followed by his security in a separate vehicle, he was soon on his way to the Vanderbilt mansion a few miles to the north.
“Mr. President, this is indeed an honour”, gushed Margaret Van Allen. “I just got a call an hour back about your visit, so do pardon any lack of…….”
“Mrs. Allen, it is I who needs to apologise for this unwarranted and sudden intrusion”, President Roosevelt responded with his usual grace. “I will come to the point. I understand you want to sell the estate. Your beautiful home has always held a special place in my heart. It is not only the magnificence of this mansion which I saw built as a teenager, I knew your aunt Louise and uncle Frederick well. They were so passionate and proud of their home. The Vanderbilt estate is the soul of Hyde Park. If it gets divided and sold off in parts, the casualty would not only be Hyde Park but the wonderful collection of trees. I would hate to see that happen….”
The President’s voice seemed to trail off as if coalescing with some deeper thoughts.
“I dream of Hyde Park the way it has been since my childhood. I plan to will my own estate at Springwood in its entirety to the American people. That way it’s past heritage would be preserved for future generations. May I also request you to do the same. That way the entire Hyde Park area would remain preserved”.
Margaret Van Allen felt elated at being asked by the President of the United States to join him in such a noble cause. She promised to consider the proposal seriously.
As President Roosevelt was leaving on the expansive circular driveway, he could not but help admire the beautiful array of trees and plants which Frederick Vanderbilt had so lovingly nurtured over decades.
**
Present
We could not help but admire the trees and the gardens as we drove on the circular driveway to the car parking area.
We were visiting the Vanderbilt mansion, the national historic site in the Hyde Park area on the banks of the Hudson River. We had heard impressive accounts about the place and were curious to know more. Parking our car, we strolled to the small chalet like building which housed the National Park Service (NPS) office, the mansion was visible at some distance. From the French windows in the rear, one got the first views of the flowing Hudson; the in between park area was a golden abundance of fallen leaves, glistening in the autumn sun.
Hudson river banks in the autumn
How the NPS got into the place is an interesting story. More than eight decades back, Margaret Allen, the niece of Frederick Vanderbilt, moved by President Roosevelt’s vision, decided to handover the estate to the Government. The US Congress approved the acquisition and the expansive park with the mansion was purchased by the NPS against a consideration of one dollar!
The rise of the Vanderbilts forms the basis of the book ‘The First Tycoon: The epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt’. Author T. J. Stiles provides an engrossing perspective of the American capitalism’s original sinner, the man who inspired the term ‘robber baron’.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, the family founder, was the individual who essentially invented the modern corporation through his purchase and consolidation of New York’s major railroads, and brought the American professional and managerial middle class into being. His influence remains so great as to be almost intangible. As the author writes: ‘He may have left his most lasting mark in the invisible world, by creating an unseen corporate architecture which later generations of Americans would take for granted.’
According to the author, Cornelius Vanderbilt’s greatest coup was buying up New York’s major railroad lines, using every trick in his arsenal, including the manipulation of stock prices. His wealth became enormous. He writes that Vanderbilt ‘exacerbated problems that would never be fully solved: a huge disparity in wealth between rich and poor; the concentration of great power in private hands; the fraud and self-serving deception that thrives in an unregulated environment.’
Cornelius’ grandson Frederick had a personality quite contrary to that of his grandfather’s flamboyance and bluster. Quiet and reserved by nature, Frederick Vanderbilt nevertheless possessed great investment skill to rapidly increase the inheritance he had received. He with his wife Louise purchased the Hyde Park estate and built a palatial country home for themselves which came to be known as the Vanderbilt mansion.
The Vanderbilt mansion was inspired by the Italian renaissance styles. It really showcased Frederick and Louise’s obsession to flaunt their taste of refinement. Money in itself would never give the status of Western Europe’s blue-blooded aristocracy which the couple hankered for; what was needed was to assume the tastes and behaviour. Stepping into the entrance hall of the mansion and looking at the opulence and object d’arts, one gets the sense that the owners wanted to leave an indelible impact in the minds of visitors.
Entrance lobby
Each of the mansion rooms, be it the guest entertainment area, formal dining room, the study and boudoirs, seem to be telling a story of their own. Standing there, one could almost see Frederick retiring with his guests post dinner for a brandy and a fireplace chat.
Guest seating
Dining room
The mansion remained the preferred home of Frederick Vanderbilt and his wife Louise for several decades. It incorporated a number of modern innovations of the day, including plush bathrooms and the couple lived a life of incredible luxury with sixty employees at their beck and call.
Bedroom
Bathroom of early twentieth century
Looking at the extensive kitchen, staff dining areas in the basement with separate stairways and bedrooms, one gets reminded of Downton Abbey and the life of the retinue of servants attached to the British aristocratic Crawley family in the series.
After Louise Vanderbilt’s death in 1926, Frederick lived a largely reclusive life in the mansion till he passed away twelve years later. Prior to his death, he bequeathed the estate to Louise’s niece Margearet Van Allen.
As we left the Vanderbilt estate at the end of our visit, the beauty of the surroundings seemed juxtaposed with visions of the Robber Baron family and the manner in which they contributed to the American way, the disparity in wealth, the aggrandisement of power and the unregulated environment it had spawned.
The American way……
In musing……… Shakti Ghosal
Acknowledgement:
The NPS Guide services @ the Vanderbilt Mansion
‘The First Tycoon: The Epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt’, by T.J. Stiles, April, 2010. Winner of National Book Award.
Disclosure: The conversations in the first section are fictional constructs based on historical incidents.
In today’s fast changing world, we are almost always confronted by situations about which we lack past experience to engage or resolve. We try to force fit some past learning and end up either failing to get an outcome, or if lucky, achieving part success.
In a past assignment, I was managing a Travel & Destination services management company. One of our major customer accounts was the national petroleum development organisation and because of the large business quantum, we had an implant operation with a dedicated team. Our service and response levels were appreciated by the client.
In line with the commercial norms, as our contract period was coming to an end, the company released a tender for a subsequent period. Believing the client was happy with us, we submitted our competitive offer in line with what we had done during our last successful bid. When the tender was finalised, we were shocked to know that we had lost. When we asked the client company’s commercial team, we were informed that we had not complied with the technical terms of the bid. Going back to the drawing board, so to say, our analysis of the tender document revealed that there had been a small section requiring development and implementation of a Travel management Services (TMS in short) software as part of the client’s intranet, which we had not responded to.
Soon, we had the opportunity to bid against a tender released by the National Gas Company. We noticed that in this tender document too, there was a requirement of implementing a TMS software. This time we were careful enough to comply with the requirement by indicating our willingness to develop. But we again lost the tender! The winner was a competitor who already possessed a fully developed TMS module and had provided a live demonstration of the same to the client.
We had been disrupted. By a new technology, a new competitor, which together had disrupted our traditional business model. The world had shifted, the business need in the environment had changed and the earlier alignment of the latter with the competence set of our company had been lost.
A situation like the above can create a quandary for each one of us. Should we stretch our own competence and experience profile to paper over the gaps that exist because of the changed requirement? This usually is the easy and the quickest option, and thus gets chosen by most leaders and Managers. But the more sustainable and resilient pathway, a much tougher and thus rarely taken option, is to continually equip oneself with the needed competences so that the alignment between us and a world that is shifting, is not lost.
What I have frequently noticed is leadership folks, rather than confronting, resort to whining and complaining. Of how no one could have foreseen what happened, how they had planned and were equipped to handle what did not happen, and so on.
If we are not careful, we can end up in a downward spiral of negativity. I have seen leaders ending as black holes. With a huge gap between their original intention and final impact. This is largely because of a human psychology quirk. The more we talk of something we failed to do, the more important it becomes. As Noble Prize winner Daniel Kahneman said, ‘Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it’.
Ways to avoid the Black Hole:
Ask, “What can we do to resolve?” Wait for a positive response. We are conditioned to put effort once we commit.
Envision a future that was not going to happen anyway. Ask, “If things were going flawlessly, what would that look like?”
To get commitment from one’s team towards achieving a common objective is a Leadership fundamental.
Recently, I was anchoring a Management Development program (MDP) for Senior Managers of National Hydroelectric Power Corporation. The program was designed to endow the participants with Leadership and Performance skills. An experiential aspect of the program required each participant to articulate a Leadership and / or Performance challenge which he is presently facing at the workplace. This challenge would then become the central aspect of learning and application as the participant would be required to apply the various Leadership contextual elements to discover a ‘move forward’ pathway for resolving the challenge.
All the participants could identify such a challenge except one individual. Noticing that the person was looking lost, I asked him as to what the issue was. The response was surprising; the participant after some probing said that he could not think of any challenge at his workplace!
I though persevered and asked, “You surely would have faced some challenge at your workplace in the past, have you not?”
The participant still hesitated and with some reluctance started writing about a past challenge. To me it seemed the gentleman was fearful of recognizing and then committing about the situation at his workplace.
What is that which blocks many of us from recognizing an issue and then making a commitment to resolve it? Even when we might realize that the said commitment is something which works in our favour.
Commitment for many of us is like walking a tightrope. It carries with it the fear of failing, being ridiculed, getting our vulnerabilities exposed. Some of our past life experiences lead us to instinctively ‘avoid’ when it comes to making a commitment; we get conditioned to equate the latter to a danger of failing and losing our ‘status’.
When I think back about the participant and his reluctance to even identify a challenge, I can sense his avoidance mindset. In his mind, he would have been linking recognition of a workplace challenge to a commitment that he might need to make to resolve. If one avoids looking at an issue, one avoids getting involved. Like the protagonist Neo in the movie Matrix, one can cozily sleep walk in one’s make-believe world without the need to accept the harsh realities that exist.
So, what else could I have done to make it easy for that reluctant participant to identify and commit?
I could have tried to empathise about the stress he might have been feeling. I could have said, “Confronting your challenge must be stressful for you”. I could have made a commitment to him that I would work with him to ensure that his challenge is resolved.
***
At the work place, we often wonder, “How can I get my team to do what I want them to do?” Commitment cannot be force fitted and that paradoxically remains a leadership tool which can disempower. The answer is people do what THEY want to do. This remains at the core of how we could Invite effective commitment.
At the core of effective commitment:
Leadership which is unselfish; one which is willing to make unsolicited commitment to and investments in people.
Working from a perspective that commitment is a two-sided street.
Information sharing with all team members who have committed. Keeping information away weakens commitment.
Transparent and open-hearted conversations build connections which empowers two way commitments.
Moving on the commitment pathway addresses a deep-seated concern of each team member
Lasting goal achievement success requires commitment, not coercion.
As a leader, how might you establish shared commitments?
A New Beginning 