Office politics

Getting fed up with office politics, please look in to the mirror, you also play politics but you think you are not. First is to accept that, to play politics is human, everyone do. So don't take it more personally, just accept it, its common. Second the one who start politics are the one who is affected the most or fear the most. So you are in right track, keep going. Third, if you want to give it back, think, what kind of person are you, Do you enjoy fighting or you enjoy forgiving, choose the one which you love the most. I have seen many people who enjoy fighting, do it, if you are left only with that option and forgive if you love that the most. you are not going to lose anything, i can assure you, you will gain the most..

How strong is your team?

We always weaken our team by taking control of things, keeping important responsibilities & approvals at our end. The more we weaken our team, the more weak we become. Things get escalated to us very often and we become the front end team member. Make your team much more stronger by giving more controls and responsibilities, the more strong we will become.

Exercise & Energy

How much energy do we waste on exercise, one we dissipate energy while doing exercise, two we consume electricity for exercising by means of equipment, Air conditioning, lights etc. What if we give back that same energy to planet everyday morning. Today we planted 100 trees in our community, around 50 people spent their energy, it was fun and a very good exercise too. And we can do normal domestic chores, cleaning, car wash as part of our exercise, imagine a billion people doing this everyday as part of their exercise. What if running on a mat or cycling generates & stores electricity, there are already equipment of that kind. How much energy can be generated from those who don't exercise, forget about the energy cost involved in medical problems for those who don't exercise.

We may not be able to do this all the time but even 10% useful energy dissipation can give lot more to this planet..

Imposter Syndrome

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome) is a term coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes referring to high-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud" Despite external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. Some studies suggest that impostor syndrome is particularly common among high-achieving women.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

My thoughts:

1. Its because the person get things done from others

2. His expectation is so high that he doesnt value what he has done

Compliance vs contribution

Seth godin says, we value compliance more than contribution but should actually be the other way round. Making someone complying is easier than that of contribution. People prefer the one who say "yes boss" rather than the one who contributes. And the one who really contributes will not comply with everything. We want compliance to keep things under our control and push for contribution.

What happens if we promote more of contribution rather than compliance. We can get things done and the only fear is losing control, losing the authority. But the authority is only to get the contribution and it is not required if contribution happens on its own. That means the job is done quickly, then move on to get another contribution.

we need to encourage contribution over compliance and compliance to be adhered only to the extent of not affecting the contribution.

Breaking the wall

How often do we face a wall on our path and get struck for years together, its not necessary that we need to break the wall all the time, at times we need to jump over the wall, take a left or right turn and sometimes we can take a U turn to take a different route. Sticking on to the idea of breaking the wall may not work if you couldn't break it for a pretty long time.

Wall is just a metaphor for the barrier that we face to achieve our goals, checkout other new ways of reaching your goal and even your goals itself can be rechecked. Goals are not the destiny, a careful analysis of your destiny can change the goals itself and you can take a different route, you will be surprised, there could be no walls. We waste lot of time in trying to break the wall, worst preparing ourselves to break the wall, think again, you may just have to take a turn..

Do the extreme

You are what you are and will always be and hence its very important that you do what you are not, to get used to things which you are not comfortable, which you feel is very messy, difficult, frustrating.. And when we are used to what we are not, we can face the world much more boldly, with lot of confidence. We don't get bogged down by those messy things, instead we get the courage to face it head on..

So what's your fear, what you don't like, what you think is messy, frustrating. Do the extreme for sometime, say you don't like confronting anyone, select one group and go head on. You don't like mingling with groups, take up something which you love where you need to meet lot of people, say social service. Do you find it difficult to keep your house clean, go for community cleaning, am sure things will change for ever. Are you afraid of heights, go trekking on a mountain.

We can live in fear for ever but do the extreme of the one which you wish to get rid of, say for a period of three months, am sure life will be lot better..

Give Freedom, Lose control

Give them the direction & freedom, lose your control, grow their confidence, get things done, make yourself irrelevant, move on to the next role, what next.. Repeat!..

Invasion

Assuming you have different kingdoms surrounding your country and you want to invade some territory, how do you choose the kingdom.

1. Area which can benefit you
2. Area with least resistance

Least resistance need not necessarily from small or weak player, it could be from large player who has become weak. Choose the right area before invasion, it will make your progress easy.

Well, its not so easy, what if all areas are of strong resistance and you are about to lose your area from invasion!

1. Defend what you have
2. Gain strength
3. Invade the weak among the strong

Same holds good in Marketing, at times we forget the basics and we remind ourselves on that..

Colors

Colors of planets are thrilling, the beauty is the Jupiter, the milk, light & strong coffee mixture! Most of the natural objects are multi colored or different shades of the same color, time we bring in that into the objects that we use in our day to day life. Imagine a car painted like a Jupiter, there could be issues in repainting, but sure we can find solutions for those petty issues. Next time you see a sports utility vehicle, imagine if it looks like Mars, wont you feel that as Mars Rover! What about Neptune, Venus colored Laptops, Mobile phones, bedspread, pillow covers, cub boards, doors!!

Jupiter

Mars

Neptune

Venus

Do what you wish

Read a HBR article about the missed opportunities, people repent so much before they die for what they have missed rather than what they have done, tried, suffered, failed. Very True, what's your wish, Do that today, no, ll do it by next month, next year!!..

Penny wise Pound foolish

This is a very old saying and everyone knows about it but still some organisations doesn't pay attention to this. There are various cost saving initiatives followed by an organisation and each of the initiative should be vetted by a senior management team before implementing the same.  Decentralizing this decision making will force the employees to look for short term gains and will cost a lot for the organisation. Check who is in charge of cost saving initiatives and put some control measures to really save the cost.

A Donkey is a donkey is a donkey

How many times you relaunch,  rebrand, renovate, recycle, redesign, once perceived as donkey, it will remain so for ever. Nano will go the same way, however painful it is, Nano Twist earlier, Nano Electric tomorrow.

All of us have so many donkeys, accept the same as donkey, use it as donkey or dump the donkey. Do not try to make it a horse, it ll never be..

Folding the universe

If you fold a paper into half 100 times, the thickness of the paper will cover the entire observable universe. Of course the reverse is also true!. If you cut the universe into half 100 times, its thickness will become just a piece of paper. And it has taken 13.7 billion years to have this size, roughly around 137 million years to double itself, painfully slow, isn't it..

Who said universe is so big, its just a piece of paper folded 100 times!!!

And thrilled with the power of doubling, just double what you want to do in a fixed interval. Double, the time of reading, blogging, Jogging, earnings, turnover, assets, happiness, sex!, over a fixed period of time, it can become as big as the universe!!

Getting it done

We need people who get things done, people who focus on getting it done doesn't worry about what is in store for them and when someone come out of his personal bias he can get things done easily, sometimes giving credit to others and at times sacrificing themselves. We need more of them now!

Flipped Kart

There are various theories told about declining sales & valuation of Flipkart but one reason I could see is that they failed to enable the customers to choose the right products. In e commerce sites, the biggest challenge is to ensure quality & pricing of products where third party is producing/selling the products. Amazon overcome this challenge by forcing the customers to rate all the products they bought. It puts pressure on the seller to ensure quality & also it helps the customers to choose the right products based on customer feedback.

The last time I bought items in Flipkart is when I returned 3 of the 5 items I ordered and I am happy with all the products that I bought in Amazon based on customer rating. E commerce is here to stay, will become big and will create the organisation of the future, Flipkart need to just look for ways to serve the customers better, rest all just noise which they can ignore..

A Man of Principles

You don't take, don't give, don't allow anyone surrounding you to take, the biggest menace of this society, the Bribe.. That's the man of principles whom I know, died recently at the age of 66. Life was not so easy for him, he lived with all the repercussions of being honest but never compromised on his principles. He refused to pay Rs. 300 bribe for name transfer of his property and he filed a case which he won 23 years later, just 15 days before his death. This is what we call, somewhere someone, they live & die but their legacy, the principles inspire so many and will live in this world forever..

Have Fun!

Its not so easy for many, for them the happiness is always in pursuit.. If you are one of those, please identify the persons who have lot of fun, just join them for a day or two. You will understand how they make merry in small things like grand buffet lunch with full team, gossip chat on Tea break, having favourite food at popular restaurant for dinner. All this doesn't consume much of your time, even otherwise, it can be clubbed with your official discussion and certainly it doesn't destroy your work or goals, rather it brings sense of satisfaction in day to day life, not just for you but for your entire team. Still finding it difficult, schedule fun for the day and complete it as a work!

One hell of vulnerability

Today is hell, worst day, couple of incidents made me highly vulnerable. I could have chosen to be silent as usual and the day would have been normal as any other day. I broke that silence, reacted strongly, felt very bad for the day, was afraid of repercussions but still did what is right. And the results are good, that's the power of vulnerability..

Two important things for peace in Life..

One, you should do the work which you love

Two, you should keep your wife happy!..

I am not enough!

Why Charles Darwin who came out with the great evolution theory delayed publishing it (if not thinking about it!) it for more than 20 yrs. Mona Lisa painting was work in progress even 12 years after the technical completion of the painting. Why they felt not enough.. Is it the feeling of not enough, drives them to the pursuit of perfection.. Is that being hidden gives them the creative freedom, Is it that not being enough brings out the best in the world but evades them the connection with people. when you have a feeling i am not enough, pursue your curiosity, put in the best you can, you are here to bring the best in the world.

But what if Darwin theory & Mona Lisa painting was hidden for ever, there could be so many artists whose theories/painting/novels are hidden forever, who are not known to this world, who have lost their life thinking that they are not enough. Certainly your creation is not enough for you, sky is your limit, but it is more than enough for the rest of the world, better than the creation of others. As Susan Cain puts it..

“You probably have the impulse to guard very carefully what’s inside your own suitcase. And that’s okay. But occasionally . . . I hope you will open up your suitcases for other people to see, because the world needs you and it needs the things you carry.”

So you are not enough but good enough to show the world what you have! please show before it is too late..

Grow or Go!

Heard that few organisations follow this model "Grow or Go" for their employees, either you grow in the organisation or go out.. Most of the organisation doesn't follow this model, they accept the mediocrity and let their people to stay in a position for long time. Big organisations are slightly better, they create a support role and move these people but small organisations live with it for ever. The effects are huge, the individuals who are struck will slow down the entire organisation because they can't move forward or go out. Imagine 20 people in a middle management level struck like this, they can slow down their entire team, around 500 people working under them and when 500 people slow down, the entire organisation slows down because the internal benchmarks are so bad that the rest of the team is not pushed enough.

Now if you are an individual who is passionate enough to grow in life, work for a company which promotes "Grow or Go" and if you are not fortunate enough, then tell yourself "Grow or Go". One, you are not slowing down the organisation, two, you will find ways & means to grow wherever you are.. 

Studipidy of Market share

How stupid are we in chasing market share.. Market share should be one of the measure of performance rather it has become the only measure of performance. Market share is becoming the basis for strategy rather it should be value creation for customers or shareholders. We should find constructive ways of achieving the desired market volume rather than working out various permutation & combinations to gain market share. 

So you wanna find a easy way to beat the competition, lay them a trap of market share growth, they will fall prey!  

Get Exposed!

Nothing gives you more confidence than getting exposed, you may not be enough, you may not be perfect but that's how everyone is. You have nothing to be ashamed about it, get exposed again & again, you will get better..

Let it go!

The famous phrase of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith "Let it go!" has major significance in marketing, How long we stick to some products rather than letting it go..

There are very few products in Automobile Industry in India, which failed in the initial launch and then went on to become a successful product in relaunch. There could be many reasons and one could be the stigma attached to a failed product where brand image plays a major role. But when 9 out of 10 products go this way why people stick to their failed products rather than letting it go! There could be huge loss associated with it, it may not be possible for a sudden exit but one should be prepared for a phased exit otherwise the opportunity loss of not letting it go will be on the higher side.

There are lot of products which are nowhere near that of competition and still try to fix the issues by leaps and bounds and by the time they fix those issues the competition is way ahead and we settle down for a meager market share. If that is what you are looking for, fair enough, but if it is not, Let it go!..

   

Curiousity

Recently read a book of Brian Grazer "A Curious Mind", it talks about how he used his curiosity in having conversation with great people, learning from those conversations and becoming a successful movie producer. 

He is not a researcher and one can write one more book on the same subject covering a broader outlook.. Curiosity is not patented only by those who are intelligent or who asks great questions, in fact everyone in this world is curious (the strong desire to learn) about something. For some it could be thinking & writing, for someone else it could be playing football, meeting people, travelling, cooking, singing etc. we are curious about something which gives us the satisfaction of doing the very same thing rather than the outcome of it. For some writing a blog gives the utmost satisfaction rather than the outcome, same is true with one curious about playing football.. Its important one understands his curiosity and make use of the same in his area of interest. Ask this question, what are you curious about and do more of it.. 

How many times you have failed..

How many times we have failed, write it down and read it again, behind every failure there was a big aspiration & dream without which we wouldn't have failed, without which we wouldn't have come to this level.. So if you are so successful for long time, ask yourself, something wrong with what you have aspired for..

And every time you fail, pat your back, failure is a relative term, its warped with your aspirations & dreams and be happy that your aspirations are as high as to make you fail. Keep moving, you are in the right direction, after all we have seen so many failures in the past..

 

The moral dilemma

It's about Karna & Vibhishana, there are few articles written about who has taken the right stand and one of the blogger has given this perfect topic but there is no convincing answer. My views..

Those who know about these two great characters can skip the next two paragraphs.. Karna, the great warrior in Mahabharat, stood by his friend Duryodhana in the war against pandava. Knowing very well, that it is against Dharma* and would be killed, Karna sacrificed his life in the war and been credited for his loyalty for friendship.

Vibhishana, a character in Ramayana, didn't support his Brother Ravana who kidnapped the wife of Rama, joined Rama and helped him in defeating & killing Ravana. Later he became the king of Ravana's kingdom..

We sometimes get caught in such circumstances, what is the stand do we take?

Let's explore the options available for Karna..

# Convince duryodhana not to fight with pandava and avoid the war

# If not able to convince move out of duryodhana and stay neutral

# Stay with duryodhana but don't participate in the war

# Fight for duryodhana for the support he got and sacrifice his life
# Join pandava and fight for dharma against duryodhana

The fourth one is what Karna did and the last one is what vibhishana did, which one you do?

If you are a person of principles, stay away from working against Dharma but the best is to fight for Dharma, favors that you receive in the past or future should be irrelevant.. Even sacrifice of one's own life doesn't justify working against Dharma, so the stand of Vibhishana is the right one and history has proved that the person who followed Adharma got killed and the one who followed Dharma got the kingdom..

Notes:

* Dharma Meaning: (In Indian religion) the eternal law of the cosmos, inherent in the very nature of things. Antonym is Adharma.

In Hinduism, dharma is seen as the cosmic law both upheld by the gods and expressed in right behaviour by humans, including adherence to the social order.

Status quo

Decision has three answers yes, no, status quo.. We sometimes confuse "No" with status quo, when we say "No" to a decision, the decision is taken, status quo is when a decision is not taken.. If we are maintaining status quo for very Long time, this is how it looks! If you are maintaining status quo for Long time, say yes or no quickly, the graph & life will be much better than this one!!

Nothing is better than something!

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith says "if someone gives you a feedback, say Thank you".. Its very difficult to judge/assess ourselves completely and feedback is one of the best way to understand oneself and make course corrections..

And one more thing, never give unsolicited feedback to anyone, Although the intention is to help the other individual, it will not be taken at all and conceived in a wrong way.. Sometimes nothing is better than something..

Folding a Paper

Folding of paper teaches us a lot, lets explore and try to make a simple theory..

1. This is known fact, If you fold a paper 100 times, the thickness of the paper will almost cover the entire observable universe..

Folding a paper 100 times, the thickness is T (100) = t * 2^100 = t * 1.268 * 10^30
                                                                               =0.05 mm * 1.268* 10^30
                                                                               = 6.34 * 10^22 kms
t is the thickness of the paper which is 0.05 mm
and T is thickness of paper after 100 folds

Observable Universe Diameter is 91 billion light years
Diameter in Kms = 91 billion * 9.461* 10^12 kms = 8.61* 10^23 kms

2. You cant fold a normal paper beyond 7/8 times, because the ratio of length to thickness will become less than two and further folding is difficult.. So what should be the optimum length of a paper to fold as many times as possible? There are formula available, here is a simple formula..

Assumptions,
# Folding of a paper is limited to normal human ability
# Folding can only be done in breath and length -wise, it cannot be done on the thickness side, because it will cause damage to the paper itself
# Paper can be comfortably folded when the length to thickness ratio is more than than two.. Optimum length of a paper required to fold should have a length to thickness ratio of 2:1

Folding only on the length of the paper:

Optimal Length for folding n times L(n) = t * 2^n * 2^(n-1)

So if a paper need to be folded 13 times the paper length should be, L(13) = t * 2^13 * 2^12

Assuming paper thickness of 0.05 mm, the optimum length required to fold a paper 13 times on its length is L (13) = 0.05 *  2^13 * 2^12 = 1677 metres = 1.67 kms long Paper!!!

And the thickness of the paper after 13 folds is T (13) = t * 2^13 = 0.05 * 2^13 = 0.409 metres

Folding on Breadth and Length:

Assuming folding on breading first and then on length,

B (n) = t * 2^n * 2^(n-1)
Where t thickness, n is no. of folds done breath-wise

L (n) = T * 2^n * 2^(n-1)
where T is the thickness after the n folds Breadth-wise which is t*2^n and n is the no. of folds done length-wise

The Turning point

What is your Turning point in life.. We can always relate this with the games and in biography of great leaders, ask again what is that point in your life, we had few in the past but the game is long way to go, what is the turning point that you look forward in future and what are we doing about it..

Combo offers

How often did we get confused with the multiple combo offers and still grudge on not having the right combo.. What should be the objective of a combo offer? 

# To provide right combination of products and make it easy to choose for the customers. At times, the customers are not aware of the right combinations and will be delighted when they see a good one

# provide good value for money when customers buy multiple things, could be of the same product

The first one can be achieved by understanding the customer insights and not by just picking few combination of products for the sake of it and the second one by providing value discount on the right combination. But this doesn't satisfy all the customers, for those who still grudge on the right combinations, you don't need to worry on the right combination, give them satisfaction of value for money, they will choose their right combination. Say, choose any three and get a 5% discount!!

There are lot of companies try to make an ineffective combo by clubbing non moving products and try to show better value for money, those combo's are selling in spite of the bad combinations and not because of those combinations..

Thinking in Graphs and Pictures

When Is the last time we took a pen & paper/ ipad notes and try to draw something.. The effects are surprising, we are able to think better in graphs & pictures rather than words and its brings multidimensional ideas.. So next time you are free, just take a pen & a paper, you could be Creative however elementary it is.. You can try in three/ four axis, a picture, a flow chart, I am sure it would be surprising.. I just tried and this came up.. 

What's your contribution to this world, forget the past, what can you do for the rest of your life.. The first one represents significant contribution and it goes well beyond one's life, the second one is the typical life that most of us live in this world.. However evident this looks like, still we choose the second one, because the first one looks risky, tough, uncertain and needs sacrifices.. Worth it, give it a try, after all it's just one life..

What's your take on Age Vs Learning, Learning Vs Contribution to the world, Is your contribution starts from the day you start doing things or when it's known to the world, what if Charles Darwin who hidden his thesis for years, was hidden for ever..  For an artist being hidden is the Creative freedom, nevertheless the contribution to the world starts from the day he starts doing things.. Remember Vincent Van Gogh, his painting is known to the world only 10 years after his death and still inspires so many even after 100 years..

Creativity and Procrastination

Creativity is born out of love of things and procrastination allows the creative person to love those things which he truly enjoys.. Its so natural.. So next time you procrastinate some thing for love of things, don't worry you could be creative and this blog is a proof for that..

Now i am done, let me do the important thing that i have procrastinated for quite sometime!..

Share Taxi - The next big opportunity

Share Taxi, Uber has done it in west and the players who does this effectively in India is going to revolutionize the transportation in this country. This brings in huge productivity improvement not just the stakeholders but to the whole society.. Its as good as travelling in your own car economically and still having the luxury of having a driver. Imagine 10% of car travelers start using the Shared Taxi, it can bring huge benefits to the society..

Customers - Increases the productivity, effective use of the time of driving down

Taxi Drivers & the Operator- More people transported in given time and more money

Society - Less Traffic and all its associated benefits

Economy - Less Fuel consumption, lesser imports

Environment - Less Pollution

Ola, the biggest player in this country has started this and this is the way they can kill it.. Actually its very difficult for a big operator to kill this idea!!

1. Put more people in the car particularly during peak hours, drop/ pick up people in heavy traffic areas so that even a slight turn from the actual route will take hours, send communication to drivers after they crossed the place of pick up, take U turns to pick up people, take more time to cover the distance by picking up people from different directions & kill the customers productivity, frustrate the customers and make them stay away from this option.

2. Ensure the early adopters are not satisfied and not propagate on this concept, Ensure few people use this option, few cars using this service, frustrate the travelers more and make it unsustainable

3. Focus only on small set of customers who don't mind spending more time for their travel and ignore the whole gamut of office goers

4. Force them to pay as Prepaid so that they will not run away without paying after travelling, Don't allow the customers to give feedback on the ride for making any process improvements

5. Focus on making profits on this from the first journey, short term profits are more important for sustainable operation!!!

6. And then say India is not yet ready for such a revolutionized idea..

Maladies of Organisation 2

In the "Lack of Awareness" in Organisation, the biggest problem is Understating the needs of the customer.. The problem is much bigger than anyone can imagine..

The Longer the time to make a product, the larger the sale of the product, the bigger the issue is.. We don't know what's the customer requirement so we make 10 models with 3 varieties with 3 combinations and then struggle with 90 products inventory and their complexity and worse still not satisfying the exact needs of the customer..

This is more evident but why do companies struggle.. In lot of Organisation, people with good execution capability grow fast until they reach the Top management levels and most of them lack this expertise. One more reason is not getting the right team for the product function, even if it is, probably they get lost.. We need a more intuitive team for this role who not just go by the data they analyse but also understand the nuances of the customer requirement and they should stand above all, including the so called strong sales guys in the organisation.. Understand why Apple Inc Chief Design officer Jonathan Ive directly reported to Steve Jobs and was kept above all..

The product team need to remember these key things..

1. Do we know where & how to get the effective information on customer requirement

2. Where  the market goes and what it is now

3. Doing what is right for the customer rather than what does customer want. Customers are not aware what is good for them until they experience, sometimes even after experiencing.. what is right will pay off in long run if properly communicated to the market.. Snacks are bad but zero trans fat snack is comparatively better for the customer even with a small compromise on the taste. The dilemma is much stronger in situations like safety of an Automobile Vs fuel efficiency, Quality of the product Vs pricing.

4. What are the most valuable functions of a product in your customer segment? Is it the fuel efficiency or Driving comfort of a Truck, Versatility of a Tractor or Application specific, Image of a car brand or pricing..

5. Listen. Listen to your employees, partners, channels, customers, competition.

6. Organisation capability, Aspirations should match with the current capability of the Organisation, one cannot produce a quality product if there are inherent weakness in R&D and Quality functions, so prepare yourself for trial and error launch, until the capability issues are fixed.

Today lot of companies waste their time in bringing the wrong product, then pushing their sales team, worst increase the sales team size, not satisfying the customers then give deep discounts for selling that product, absolute waste of resources and time..

The need of the hour is that there should be simple models which can capture the needs of the customer to a greater degree of accuracy and also the adoption of the same across Organisations, It will benefit the customers, will raise the bar for the competition and bring in greater revolution in satisfying the customer needs..

When you Dream big!

When you dream big in an organisation, when you aim to do 10x, its natural that the people surrounding you, who will get affected, will get the going tough for you.. The important things to take care are
1. Conviction, keep moving forward rather than doubting your goals & effort
2. Give credit to everyone around you, Top, Bottom, peers
3. Perseverance, How long you can withstand
4. Speed, Vary the speed, to keep it on rails..

A Leader

Enough has been written about leadership, can we make it simple? here is my thoughts..

Who is a leader? What does she do? A leader is one who makes/facilitates significant contribution to the work that she undertakes..

Everyone wants to be a leader, but the real leader doesn't really want to be the one, she just focusses on getting things done.. The work takes the center stage and everything else goes backstage.

At times the real leader will not be seen, her contribution may not be visible, but she gets things done..

Blame it on Execution!

Most of the management team believes that they have a perfect strategy but a poor execution and they blame it on their team..

Possibly true, But if their execution is bad what should be their strategy? What is the role of management team in execution?

First on strategy, its a continuous process and should take shape according to the response from time to time.. A good strategy focusses on what is right, what is possible for the organisation and adjusts itself to their executional capabilities..

A good execution is based on the team belief in the strategy, their engagement level and their capability. The management team has a major role to play in all this..

So next time you wanna blame it on execution, think twice..

Short & Simple 2

Books are one area where the technological revolution is happening after long time but still long way to go.. Books particularly non fiction need to be short & simple, gone are the days where people can read hundreds of pages.. Today we have TED talks which explains the content of a whole book in just 20 mins.. And we are seeing summaries of books being published, podcast and live TED video shows..

The future is going to be book summary written by Author himself, Summary Podcast, Book video shows, movies on books.. How good it will be if we can watch a video for one hr or so, the author explaining his book..

Books educates and transforms the world, the responsibility is more on the authors to make it short, simple and attractive..

Short and simple is beautiful

How big should be our mail communication, we receive hundreds of mails each day and will spend maximum two to three minutes for each of the mail.. So the ideal way of communication is to ensure the mail message is restricted to two or three sentences, simple, precise and clear..

What if the message goes higher than three sentences? Break into pieces and communicate periodically..

Recently seen a Aon Hewitt communication, they wanted to communicate the importance of taking Employee Engagement Survey and it was beautifully communicated in a picture representation in pieces.. Everyday short sequence of dialogue is sent by mail followed by a question which gets answered the next day.. The message was Simple, precise and creates curiosity to read the mail next day..

And the same is true for any mode of communication, the attention span is very small across audience and its important that we ask this question, how do we keep our message short and simple?

Maladies of an Organisation

As i look around and talk to my colleagues and friends, i am really shocked to see lot of wrong decisions, poor strategy and execution across organizations.. The main reasons are

1. Lack of awareness

2. Short term goals

3. Personal Benefits

And those wrong decisions are taken by strong guys in the organisation and no one can question them and worst is that, this takes the company in the reverse direction and a point of no return..

The first one can be managed by continuous learning, listening to your employees and having trusted advisors.. Even the most intuitive and successful leaders listened to their employees, not adamant on their belief.. The concept of advisors is underestimated in today's organisation and i am sure one day we will have a vertical called Advisors in every organisation.. Today atleast we can have it for the top brass..

The second one is by setting clear long term goals for the organisation, rewarding the employees on long term performance and not succumbing to the short term pressure.. Remember, focussing more on short term benefits takes the company to a dead end.. So the ability to convince the management on long term benefits, proven track record and perseverance are most important for leaders..

The third one is the most pervasive, everyone asks what is in it for me rather than what is right for the organisation.. This Peter Trucker principle need to be communicated clearly to all the employees and should stand above all personal benefits.. Easier said than done but leaders can walk the talk, rest will follow..

Management theories

The main difference between Einstein and typical management theories are, the former leaves it to the world to prove his theories experimentally, could be proved hundred years later and the later wants to prove it with statistical analysis however biased or inaccurate it could be..

Management professionals should not waste their time in trying to prove their theories with statistics, they should believe in their intuition and leave it to the world to test it out.. Right theories doesn't need any statistics and the readers will connect it with their own examples & statistics..

Peter Trucker's "Principles of effective executive" doesn't need any statistics and any reader can connect and relate the same easily to their lives..

So the next time someone ask you to prove your theories, tell them the readers will do it..

The Next Big War

The next big war is not going to be fought between two strong nations but between the weak & the strong.. The world is well connected than ever before and provides a platform for the weak to join hands, and the weak in large numbers is not a weaker force. History has proved that the weak can be destroyed or controlled by strong irrespective of their moral grounds until the weak is out numbered.. The weak is not always right but a weak will become stronger than ever before.. What we are seeing in the world today are the smaller versions of this war..

Its time the strong understand the strength of the weak, focus on taking a stand on moral grounds rather than their ability to control the weaker forces, understand the plurality of this society and relinquish the need to dominate one another..

Its only in this way the weak can be held small and less destructive force.. But to me, looking at the intolerance in this world today, we have a long way to go..

Feeling Insecure

If you feel insecure in your job, you are not learning & growing and if people around you are insecure, you are learning and growing.. In the first case you are to be blamed, start working hard and in the later you don't need to worry about, just continue what you do..

Live and let die

http://scroll.in/article/804186/live-and-let-die-did-michel-foucault-predict-europes-refugee-crisis

India is a State-Nation, Not a Nation-State: Yogendra Yadav

The Article that was written three years back by the renowned Political Scientist Yogendra Yadav when BJP came to power, time that we remind ourselves of this again..

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/india-is-a-state-nation-not-a-nation-state-yogendra-yadav-634632.html

Perfection

Who said perfection is bad.. Who said perfection is to impress others? Who said excellence is better than perfection? Here is perfection, the pursuit of perfection doesn't come by being imperfect but by uncompromise, It doesn't come by being mediocre but due to one's intense love for simplicity and beauty, It's not about impressing others but being true to yourself, it's not about what best you can do, but about being the best in what you do..

A Beautiful Phrase

"We are merely explorers of infinity in the pursuit to absolute perfection" the phrase from the movie "The man who knew infinity"..

Nationality

I have never tried a blog on political affairs but the recent events in India and more so the misunderstanding of the general public forced me to write this.. The idea is not to prove my point but to educate the people of my country..

Nationality is a virtual reality like Money, Religion, Corporation etc unlike the Objective realities like Plants, Animals, Humans, Water, Air, Mountains etc.. It is the belief in these Virtual reality that made the growth of Humans through flexible cooperation in large nos.. No Animals will believe in virtual reality like money or Nationality and a chimpanzee will not give you Bananas for money writes Yuval Noah Harari in his book Sapiens - A brief History of Human kind..

And slowly with the evolution of humans the virtual reality has taken over the objective reality, money has become more important than the fellow species, Nationality has become more important than the welfare of the entire society, corporation have become more important than the very people it employs..

Its important that we often remind ourselves of these virtual realities else we will destroy the entire objective realities like fellow species, Air, water, mountains and will also destroy each other.. To put it again, Nationality is one such Virtual reality and welfare of the entire society is more important than the nationhood.

Nationality is the virtual reality which holds the people in the entire nation to live together and it will exist as long as majority of the people of nation has a trust in that.. Oppressing dissenting voices in large No's will damage the trust and the  very unity of the nation. Nationality is invoked by the totalitarian regimes to garner support to their atrocities and more its used for crushing the General Public, minority & Marginalised the more will be the dissent and the loss of trust on the very concept of the nation.. Time we understand, acknowledge the dissenting voices and hold the solidarity of this nation..