In Search of Excellence

Last week, I had lunch in New Jersey with Anjan Lahiri (President and Co-CEO, MindTree). We were talking about our families, how he has settled in Bangalore, the school his daughter goes to etc. He talked about how kids learn and how we learn many things from being around them. He narrated a funny story. One day Anjan was watching his wife tie his daughters shoe laces. He realized that the knot was a little different. When he tied the knot the same way, his shoe laces would stay tied. All of us (at least I do), face this problem of the shoe laces coming untied.

Although that was a very small part of our lunch conversation, the thought of tying shoe laces the right way stuck with me all day. I found a Wikipedia article on shoelaces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoelaces

It has a section on ‘Shoelace Tying’. I use the most common knot; ‘the bow’, which is basically two half knots. There are two kinds of half knots. Two consecutive right over left half knots (or two consecutive left over right half knots) is called a ‘Granny Knot’. A right over left half-knot followed by a left over right half knot (or vice versa) is called a ‘Square’ or ‘Reef Knot’. I (and I am sure; or hope most of you J ) have always used the ‘Granny Knot’. My shoe laces come untied every now and then (about once or twice a day). For the last 4 days I have used the ‘Square’ or ‘Reef Knot’. The shoe laces have not come untied even once.

All you have to change is if you put left side lace over right side lace for your first half knot, put right side lace over the left for your second knot (or vice versa). It is that simple.

Sure, thank me if you face this minor nuisance and I have helped you avoid it. But that’s not the point of this article. How many other minor irritants do we tolerate like this in our daily life; not only in our personal grooming but at our home or at work? How keenly do we observe people, events, and surroundings and learn from it?