1 Billion - a liability or an asset

For decades and decades, India’s ballooning population has been credited with India’s sorry state. The Indian political machine shrewdly disassociated themselves with all the issues blaming our population for all the chaos and mayhem. Even for the general public, we had our population as our excuse for self pity and complacency.

Of course, our population is rising alarmingly. After all, more people we have, higher is the burden on economy for education, healthcare and infrastructure. With more people joining the workforce, more employment opportunities have to be created. With our badly administered population plan, we are adding one Australia every year to our population ranks. Some statistics for you – India occupies 2.23% of total land in the world, has 17.17% of world population and contributes 1.49% to the world GDP. Do you smell a shocking disparity between our economics and our population?

If I would be you, I would be very worried!!

This used to be the universal perception of India and its population “crisis”.

However, since economic reforms in 1991, there have been an astonishing "paradigm shift" across the world where our population is no longer considered a liability but now it’s branded as our largest asset.

The rationality behind it is –

The economy of a nation is driven by its workforce. This is how US‘s economy boomed through baby boomers era of 50s and 60s. This is how China has been growing for the last 30 years. And now it’s India’s turn. India already has an advantage over more advanced economies. The median age in India in 2000 was 24, compared to 30 in China, 38 in Europe and 41 in rusty Japan. The bottom line is - India will be the only young country in the ageing world.

While US will need to drain its crippling federal reserve on pensions & health care and China will need to equip itself with these issues in next 20 years, half of India’s population, which is under 25, will gives us a competitive edge over these economies. I personally believed that India doesn’t have any chance to compete with China economically. But I might be wrong as many economists around the world believe.

But things are not as rosy as it appears.
One major issue is creating enough job opportunities for these new entrants into the labor market. Unemployment looms large at 9.8% in India; that’s 40 million people. Huge amount of literature has written on unemployment and social disharmony in the society. India already has severe incumbency issues – right from Maoists to Naxals to ULFA to Bajrang Dal. These organizations have been capitalizing on the unemployed youth to increase its member strength. Unemployment also increases the economic gap between rich and poor which is another significant issue faced by India. 


Another issue is the quality of workforce entering the job market. If you look at the college graduates alone, due to low quality of education standards, 75% of 3.2 million Indian graduates are unemployable. Recently, I met a Masters in Economics degree holder from Delhi University who was working as a rickshaw driver in New Delhi. And guess what, he said he is lucky to be driving an auto rickshaw, several of his colleagues from college are completely unemployed. 


Lastly, the largest issue is our huge huge illiteracy rate. We have a illiteracy rate of 41% compared to 9% in China, 10% in Indonesia and 11.6% in Brazil. Every issue that Indian society faces is like links to a chain. Every issue is connected directly or indirectly to each other. The strongest link of Indian society is our staggering illiteracy rate. Illiteracy is the root to all issues as it gives rise to other issues like poverty, unemployment and child labor.

We need to overcome these key issues to leverage upon our human capital. For that we need Investment in education, health care and infrastructure.

Nandan Nilekani recently mentioned that we have a god gifted young population ( demographic dividend). If we don’t invest in this demographic dividend, the same demographic dividend can easily turn out into a demographic disaster.  
So let’s hope our politicians can stop worrying about securing their seats in the next elections and start working on these basic necessities for us – its future.

Mistakes - are they lessons

I recently was reading about Stan Shih – the ex-chairman of Acer. He said something which really clicked with me. He mentioned that life is about continuous learning and the hardships and misery we face during this learning is the tuition fee which we need to pay for this learning. Very simply put and very irrelevant in today’s fast food culture but his thought connected well with me.

After reading his brilliant philosophy of life, I took a step back and thought about my life and my learnings and of course the tuition fee I paid for it.

After a lot of contemplation and lots of “brainstorming”, I realized one thing for sure that regardless of what my mistakes were and the tuition fee I paid for it, “I must start loving the fool within me, the one who feel s too much, speaks too long, takes too many risks, seldom succeeds and fails often, have insufficient self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, laughs and cries”.

Most of us when we do something wrong, or we do something that makes us guilty or feel bad, we tend to get angry with ourselves. Most of us have this ghastly habit of beating ourselves mentally over and over again on the mistakes we do. We need to stop that and love ourselves for our mistakes. I ensure that I make 3 mistakes a day and ensure that I learn from them and don’t repeat them.              

We need to start believing that ‘there are no mistakes in life, there are only lessons’.

Bad things happen to everyone. After all life is like a bush of roses, with the beautiful roses, you need to face the thorns. Metaphorically speaking, thorns are the breakdowns we face during this journey of life- the bad judgement calls, the deceptions, the misinterpretations. What one needs to understand is that every thorn should be considered a cornerstone to ensure those mistakes are not repeated.

I try to consider mistakes souvenirs or rewards for taking risks in our daily to daily lives. Many of us don’t ever want to fail. We try to be picture perfect and completely error free. And how do we do that? We prevent ourselves from scouting unfamiliar territories, don’t experiment and try to be in our comfort zones.

I read about this concept where there are 3 sections of knowledge maps in us. They are –

1.       I know

2.       I know that I don’t know

3.       I don’t know that I don’t know

For example, we know that we know how to ride a bike. We also know that we don’t know how to fly a space shuttle but many people don't know that they don’t know that their colleagues hate them at work or that they smell bad.

The point is – many of us are so “risk averse” that we never try to venture out and seek the 3^rd section of our knowledge map. The significance of the third section can’t be ignored. If you consider knowledge map to be 100%, you might have section 1 as 1%, section2 as 3% and the remaining 96% belongs to section 3. The most successful people around the world have penetrated section 3 through enquiry and observation, and have developed insights which helped them to attain business, political and spiritual glory.

All I am trying to say is that venture out and take roads less travelled because who knows in one of those ‘road trips’ you’ll find your calling. And don’t care too much about the mistakes you make during those journeys, after all even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Robert Frost very aptly said “In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. -   “It goes on”. So remember that regardless of your mistakes, your life will go on. So go out and start making mistakes.

Key to Happiness

I sometimes become philosophical about stuff. Today seems to be one of those days.
Today I am trying to decipher the code behind unhappiness.
Let me try to list out possible things that “might” make me happy.
A sleek black Maserati will be the ultimate happiness tool, or maybe a penthouse in Stanley, definitely someone special in life, perhaps a leaner me, or at least a job at McKinsey or Google.
Well, I have many many more things which might make me happy. The list never ends.
However, there is only one thing which makes me “or to generalize - all of us” unhappy. That is when our expectations are not met. The pain caused by failed expectations can be very severe.
A failed expectation can be a deferred job promotion, a break up, the way your friends & family treat you or maybe getting an application rejection from Harvard.
Basically, an expectation says that “I want something to happen and if that doesn’t happen, then you will be unhappy”.
On so many occasions I hear disgruntled voices talking about expectations not met or things not happening the way people want it to happen. Managing your expectations can be very challenging and is an art one learns through trial-error and experience. 

Please don’t mistake me here. I don’t say expectations are wrong. We need to have expectations. They are the primary source of hope and aspirations. Life would be empty and meaningless without them. However, what I propose is that keep your mind flexible and adaptable to their outcome so that you can be more forthcoming and acceptable to the occurrence of any possible event.

Though I am writing on this topic, I kinda suck at managing my own expectations.
I personally try to have very little expectations. However, expectations naturally build up and when they fail they cause lot of pain and anguish.
For instance, when it comes to communication, I am very particular about both parties putting in equal effort to sustain a communication channel. In simple words, I will not be the one who will always start a conversation even if I want one. Now, this expectation does fail and when it does it tends to severe my relationships and friendships.
What I know but fail to implement is that one must liberate themselves from attaching themselves to any result caused by someone else's actions or inactions!

As humans, we all need expectations but what we also need is a realization that they can fail.
Sometimes, I ask myself a question- To be happy do we need to lower our expectations or to strive harder to improve our current situation"? What I realized is that accepting reality can be much more satisfying.
However I still don’t have an effective answer - If you have one, please comment on this blog.

The Answer my friend is blowing in the wind

Humans are inquisitive in nature and are always looking for answers to the several important questions of our lives. Some of the questions which we always ask ourselves are  - “ Why don’t they understand me” ? “ Why don’t they listen to me” ? “ Why is there a traffic Jam?“ “Why don’t they take me seriously? ” Or “ Why me? “

Every time, I think about these numerous questions which we ask to ourselves, I remember a song by Bob Dylan –“The Answer my friend is blowing in the wind!! The Answer is blowing in the wind !”

For the benefit of those who haven’t heard the song, link to the YouTube video is below.

Blowing in the Wind

We relentlessly look for the answers outside of us.

We seek these answers from others – from our colleagues, our life partner, our family, from our friends. In other words, we blame them for our troubles and confusions.

Sometimes, we try to find peace through spiritual enquiry, through personality development courses; sometimes we try Yoga & Hypnotism. But every time when we expect these external devices to answer our questions, we fail. Because we expect these methods to answer our questions. They can never answer our questions, they can just be the platform for us to find the answers.

Why don’t we understand that the answers are always so much within our grasp but we are just looking in the wrong places. What we fail to do is self evaluate ourselves and see if the answers are available within us?

Yes, all these answers of our lives “lies” within us!!!

Now, Lies has 2 meanings here– first, the answers lies within us and second, these answers can be uncovered by discovering the “lies” of our lives.

Most of us try to be so sure of ourselves when we are in the critical point of taking a personal decision. We very clearly think that our way of things is right and is the honorary way.

What I am trying to say here is that every time you are facing a dilemma and are almost on the verge of blaming the other party, remember that maybe the problem is in you. Maybe you are being too self righteous, with your past experiences molded you to believe that other’s outlook is always wrong. Maybe, we don’t want to leave our comfort zones to get into the other person’s shoes and see things from their perspective.

If you have read this whole painstakingly boring article, I hope that your only take away from it is to self evaluate yourselves very well before making a judgment or playing the blame game.  After all, there's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

(If you like this article, do comment on it. After all that's the blogger's only source of inspiration.)

MBA and Leadership: Do we need a Paradigm shift

Peter F. Drucker famously said “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

I was recently reading a book by Lee Iacocca called “Where Have All the Leaders Gone”. Iacocca's masterpiece approaches the issue of lack of leadership around the world. He identifies the lack of leadership skills in the current world and acknowledges that there is growing awareness of a need for greater focus on it. He also admits that the modern management talent has come from the numerous MBA schools around the globe. However, most of the MBA programmes have been snail-paced to address this leadership shortage and are clueless on how to move forward.
After reading the book and contemplating my MBA experience, I thought I would share some thoughts on Leadership and the paradigm shift required in MBA programmes.

Currently, most global corporations are severely over-administered and under-led. This issue exists in both established economies of the West and emerging economies of the East. Though emphasis is placed on leadership development in West, this initiative in severely lacking in the East. With micromanagement style, Eastern Leaders find it difficult to delegate tasks effectively paying a price on productivity and core leadership utility.
In this current environment, there is no surprise that media around the world have raised the important issue of the role of business schools in the creation of leaders in the 21st century knowledge economy. The anguishing fact is that despite this prevalent recognition of the need for leaders, MBA programmes are not adapting fast enough to fill this need. The key challenge faced by these MBA programmes is to evaluate whether Leadership is an inbuilt personal quality or is it something that can be inculcated in individuals through teaching. However, academics around the world are not on the right direction, they are still discussing the nature of leadership rather than its development. We recognize Cambridge & Oxford to be the academic pinnacles of the Europe, however funnily they list out all of the traditional MBA functional disciplines except leadership on their course curriculum website. With websites being the primary source of information, this fact strongly indicates that leadership education is not widespread among world’s leading B-schools and is not recognized as important as conventional business and management disciplines.
I was recently reading an article about how the Army and the Navy develop their leaders. It’s interesting because in my opinion, they develop much stronger and effective leaders than do business schools. Though Army & Navy are was different from business organizations in operations and management, credit needs to be given to them for their action centric approach to develop the future leaders.
Their action centric approach is a coalescent approach to management and leadership that involves three foundational management strategies – accomplishing the duty, managing the team and developing the individual. This approach strongly emphasizes on applying these principles throughout the training and potential leaders are assessed on their ability to apply the theoretical knowledge in practical scenarios. This approach is distinct from the MBA legacy of students being taught irrelevant business & management subjects which are not applicable in this modern world.
In the action centric approach, students are not taught about leadership, they are taught for it.

Traditionally, business schools have been good at developing managers. They are focused on developing traditional functional competences (accountancy, corporate strategy, marketing, operations management) that are required to manage large organizations. However, the students are not equipped with knowledge and capability to cope up and initiate CHANGE. Thus, in order for B schools to create not only managers but also leaders, management education processes will need to change.

This new MBA avatar (I had to use this Avatar word – the movie is coming soon) will involve:
1. Less Stress on conventional management subjects.
2. An integrated and foundational approach to management.
3. Emphasizing on personal effectiveness.
4. Moving Emphasis from knowledge acquisition and testing to capability development and demonstration.

Not only the MBA curriculum will need to change but also the entire process of learning and evaluation will need to go through a major overhaul.
I quote one of my favorite Bible citations which is very relevant to this discussion to end this article
“If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch”

Be Grateful to life - you dont know how lucky you are

I lost a very dear friend in a road accident lately.
A guy who was the absolute definition of the perfect human being. I tend to observe people and he was one of those people in whom I couldn't find a single flaw.
He was always smiling, always helpful, always nice , a person you just can't have a grudge against.

I hear this so often, " Man I am so unlucky", " God is Against me" , " Why doesn't anything good happen to me" !!!

What I learnt from the above mentioned unfortunate incident is that we all are so lucky to be alive, so lucky to be able to read this blog now (4.2 billion people in the world cant afford/ don't have a computer) ( 800 million can't read/ write )

As a person, its very convenient to take things you have in life for granted, and whine about the "not haves". But, do we ever realize what we have are mostly things which majority of the people in this world don't have. We were lucky to have got an opportunity to a first class education, we are so lucky to get 3 meals a day, we are lucky to have clothes to wear and we are lucky to have a family/ friend to fall back upon.
Friends, life is too short , it comes to you only once ( that's a cliche for me now, I say it so often ) - so live it to the MAX. and be content with what you have, because that's so much easier and will make you happier. After ALL, isn't that our ultimate goal in life !!!

Contention not contended

           As species, humans are not meant to be satisfied.  Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human beast, that however high we reach we are never content. What this trait does is makes us run wildly after the worldly goods of the world seeking artificial satisfaction failing to realize that true contention comes from within. We tend to get so blind by these worldly glories & the superficiality of our daily lives that we are lost amongst it and don’t see a route out.

          I am not some nirvana acquired hermit who doesn’t belong to the above genre. I am guilty as charged too and I keep looking for contention all around me and eventually give up though very well knowing that the source of that contention is in me.

My example can be well illuminated by my thought process in the last few years.  

When I was in high school, I only dreamt of going to undergraduate college. When I got into college, I was striving to get out of college. At workplace, we all use to get nostalgic thinking about college and 'those days'. At workplace, I aspired to be part of a top MBA program. Today, I am in one. But being human, I am way away from being content. Now, I keep looking at the calendar wishing the next 12 months end soon so that this dreaded program can get over. Fast forward to 2012, I am sure that I will be missing my MBA days.

I know that whoever is reading this, would chuckle and say that “Yups, Been there., done that” but will still not learn a lesson. I am trying to enjoy my last student life experience living it to the fullest. My recommendations for all – don’t get too affected by the small worries of life and enjoy this flow. Because later in life, when Nostalgia strikes, you will not get another opportunity. 

Be true to be yourself if not to the world !!

            I have always believed that “What’s on your mind should be on face”. I like to believe that I have always been someone who says what he feels. This is a personality trait which makes people unpopular & disliked at times, but again you want to be liked for being who you are rather than for what the other people want you to be.

            I have proudly believed in this notion and have lived happily & unhappily all my life. But, recently I made a friend who is in plain old words – a Charmer. He exactly knows what to say, when to say and whom to say. He delivers memorable one-liners like he has a factory running in his mind producing them each moment. A brilliant guy – a brilliant mind, but at times I get a feeling that he is just not being himself. Though his heart is in the right place, in his tendency to appease others, he changes his personality & perspective like a color changing chameleon.  What he doesn’t realize is that by doing something like this, he is losing his personal identity. 

I am confident that he makes great friends, people adore him, admire him. But my question boils down to one point that– do they admire him or do they admire his split personality? With these observations in my mind, I will like to share the insight -  

Be yourself – because Everyone else is already taken.  and take genuine interest in people - not because you want to be liked, because you genuinely care.

FAT – SHOULD IT BE TAXED?

For a long time, debates on taxing unhealthy and fatty food have been going on in parliaments across the world. Environmentalists, health specialists and economists have been perseveringly lobbying to impose a tax on unhealthy fattening foods.
Fatty food cause obesity and obesity is the most significant direct and indirect killer in the world.
      A little bit of statistics to signify the impact of obesity. There are over 1 Billion over-weight and 300 million clinically obese adults across the world – that is 15% and 4% of world population respectively. Over 20% children below the age of 5 are obese.
Globally, 400,000 people die each year due to ailments related to obesity.
As per World Health Organization, obesity and overweight pose major risks for chronic and fatal diseases such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart stroke and many forms of cancer. Some non-fatal but equally distressing health issues such as respiratory ailments, musculoskeletal problems, skin problems and infertility have been clinically linked with obesity.
      Economically, obesity has a severe impact on health costs and work productivity.
Studies have concluded that annually over USD 200 Billion are spent on obese related health issues. The true costs are significantly higher as not all obesity-related situations are included in the computations as much of the data is missing from developing countries.
Work productivity takes a toll as well. There is a high correlation between obesity and productivity loss. A study in the United States has indicated that obese workers with type 2 diabetes report lesser productivity on the job than their normal-weight co-workers. The analysis also found that obese people lose 11% to 15% of work time that is about 5.9 hours a week.
      Production of food that goes behind causing obesity in much people has an environmental hazard as well. Beef is the primary meat used in fast food like hamburgers. The United Nations has released a report which suggests that the world’s cattle population is the largest source of global warming. As per the report, approximately 18% of world greenhouse gases are emitted by cattle. That is larger than the total emission by all forms of transportation. When cows belch, they produce methane which warms the earth 20 times more than CO2. So, next time when you are relishing on a hamburger, you should consider the adverse impact of hamburger on the environment.
      It is observed that key causes in this growing obesity trend are increased consumption of energy-dense foods high in saturated fats and sugar carbohydrates, and reduced physical activity. According to the Census of Retail Trade, the per-capita number of fast-food restaurants in the United States doubled between 1972 and 1999 while the obesity rate climbed from 13.9% to 29.6%. The per-capita number of fast food restaurants and obesity rate are correlated and there exists a causal relationship between the two.
Legislators unanimously agree that Government intervention is perfectly just and rational when ramification of individual choices is imposed on others — this phenomenon in economics is termed as externalities. Economists globally are demanding levying Pigovian taxes on unhealthy and low-nutrition foods. According to Wikipedia, a Pigovian tax in economics terms is a tax levied on market activity to correct the market outcome if there are negative externalities associated with the market activity. In the presence of negative externalities the social cost of a market activity is not covered by the private cost of the activity. In such a case, the market outcome is not efficient and the market tends to over-supply the product. A Pigovian tax equal to the negative externality is thought to correct the market outcome to be efficient.
Pigovian taxes have been prevalent across the world for a long time. These taxes have successfully curbed demand for socially degenerating products like tobacco, alcohol and gambling. A calorie tax on unhealthy foods such as fast food, sugar sweetened beverages and chocolates should have a similar effect on demand for these products. 
      Calorie tax will raise the marginal costs for suppliers and will hence reduce supply. At the same time, costs to the consumer will increase resulting in reduction in quantity demanded. The new demand supply equilibrium will be set at higher cost and lower supply. The key to evaluate the benefits of this tax is to understand the demand elasticity of fast food. If the elasticity for fast food is small, then higher taxes will not reduce demand significantly. However, in general market conditions, price elasticity of fast food is reasonably high, and with the increase in prices due to taxes, there will be a fall in demand.
Substitute to fast food and sugar sweetened beverages are healthy foods like fruits and fresh juices. With increased prices for fatty foods, demand for healthy foods will go up.
Major fast food consumers in developed countries are populace with lower income levels. This population segment is price sensitive and the rise in prices of fast food will drive them to look for alternative foods. 
      Another advantage of calorie tax is the surge in tax revenue for the Government. It is estimated that US Federal Government can collect USD 500 Billion in tax revenue over 10 years. This huge tax corpus can be used to boost productivity and popularity of healthy foods. R&D initiatives should be taken to increase agricultural productivity. Mass media marketing can be used to create public awareness on advantages of healthy food consumption and repercussions of eating fatty foods.
      The fast food industry in USA clocked revenue of USD 130 billion in 2006 and this figure is rising by 7% annually. With the rise of middle class in developing countries like India and China, worldwide fast food revenues are increasing exponentially. For e.g., Yum Brands – owners of brands like KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell clocked USD 11 Billion revenues worldwide while McDonalds – the fast food giant made USD 24 Billion in revenue. 
Though the argument to tax fatty foods to reduce obesity seems convincing, there are some obvious flaws.
Firstly, Fast food cannot single handedly be attributed to this rise in obesity. One major factor in this rising obesity is the sedentary lifestyle of modern times. It is possible that one eats significant amount of fast foods and then exercises to maintain a healthy life.
Secondly, if fast food becomes expensive and less accessible, people will have to spend precious time to buy ingredients and cook. This will result in less available time for exercising and will again be instrumental in rising obesity. Finally, fast food generally tastes better and taste significantly affects consumer buying habits. 
      Policy makers across the world have to acknowledge that there is no single method to curb the fast food popularity trend. Multiple actions have to be taken.
Some of them can be –

1. Imposing additional excise duty or sales tax on foods with negligible nutrition value.
2. Similar to cigarettes, put visibly prominent graphics on fatty foods indicating their nutritional values.
3. Requiring restaurants to list nutrition information about each dish on the menu
4. Banning advertising and limiting the marketing of fattening food

So let’s hope that the decision makers realize and then act upon these plans to reduce obesity and make the world a healthier place to live.

Dissatisfied IT employee - A cliche

There is this trend I have been noticing in the Indian IT industry . A good percentage of young IT employees are focussing on higher studies. This is not very different from the US or Europe, but the startling difference is that in the Western economies, MBA aspirants are of average age 28 years when they look out for higher studies. In India this figure is 24.

Some facts for you ...
250,000 students appeared for CAT 2007. In 2008, the expected figure is 300,000. Thats a staggering 20 % rise.
Talking about Indians going abroad for MBA or MS, there is steep hike in those figures as well. Last year 16000 Indians took the GMAT, the flagship exam for access to MBA degree abroad. No of GRE ( standardized test for all other PG programs except MBA ) takers summed upto 31000.

These facts and figure and indeed astonishing. More over because many of these students are engaged in high paying jobs at multinational and private companies.

I worked for an IT company for the first 2 years of my professional life, and my observation was that many of these IT professional voluntarily/involuntarily joined a cult. A cult, whose members want to denounce an IT career. I hate to admit it, but I also belonged to this cult. Somehow, I feel that this is very unfair to the IT Industry in India.
On one side, Indian IT inc is facing severe talent crunch with majority of the Indian students passing out being unemployable, while on the other side, the brains of the industry are moving out.
If these professionals are discontent / dissatisfied/ unhappy in their IT professional lives, I would request those professionals to divert their attention to other verticals such as manufacturing or financial services or medical services or maybe entertainment. On a detailed analysis of these other careers, there will definitely be an enlightment for many.
IT industry has regularly been the highest spender on employee perks as compared with other industries. While the concept of HR is kind of abstract in other sectors, in IT and ITes, they are looked upon as vital component of the organisation. Talking about world travel, no sector offers the kind of opportunities which IT does.
and finally, the CTC aspect, IT industry is one of the highest salary payers in India leaving manufacturing, UG level sales, finance way behind.

So all those (not-so-cool) IT guys. You have a choice to make here. Think about it, Give up on this IT-hating cult and start loving what you do.. and trust me , you ll start enjoying ur work & life.

No Qualms in saying NO !!

It was a bright serene Sunday afternoon, just the right ambience to study for my upcoming CAT 2005 exams. Just as I was going to concentrate on the next set of geometry problems, my friends barged in spoiling the harmony in the room. They had planned for a movie, and they wanted me to join them. My continuous resisting didn’t have any effect in front of their pestering. Eventually I gave in, and tagged along.
No friends in case you think I m in IIM Bangalore, I couldn’t crack the CAT and one of the reasons behind it was my Qualms in saying NO. Yes, NO to my ever partying friends in their endeavors, No to my relatives for their ever occurring functions and no to numerous other such occasions.
This article is not about focusing on priorities or commitments but to elaborate on the fine art of saying NO so that you don’t have to compromise on your goals, but at the same time not hurt the feelings of your loved ones.
There are many occasions where to ensure that our family, friends or colleagues are not disappointed, we take involuntary actions. Appeasing others gives a lot of satisfaction & joy, but when these actions cost us personally, academically or professionally, they are just not worth it.
Swami Vivekananda before catering to any requests, would scale it with these 3 parameters
1. Is it benefiting me?
2. Is it benefiting someone else? OR
3. Is it a noble thing to do?
One should judge all such situations with these 3 constraints. The skill of saying no is not something which can be mouth fed at school or college or maybe corporate life but it’s an education which is acquired by experience. The significance of this ability can’t be explained, but has to be realized.
We Indians due to our politeness and the culture of Athithi Devasya ( Guest is god ) don’t have the heart to say no to our close ones or in that case even strangers. But beware this feebleness has to be disposed of, otherwise you will the victim of lack of concern of others. After all it’s your life and it’s you who will suffer and no one else.
I have learnt the lesson and hope would succeed in my missions in future.
But remember a thin line has to be drawn where one has to bear in mind that the zeal to achieve your aspirations cannot overpower the need to serve humanity.
So, next time someone comes to you with an unreasonable request/demand, GO AHEAD and say NO !!!

MBA - insecuritization

If you are part of any top MBA program class in the world, you will be joining a group of achievers who have mostly led and outshined any group they have been part of. These MBA students generally are the top speakers, top creative thinkers, have been the natural leaders, swayed the groups to their ideas- basically the white swan among ugly ducklings. When you are in a situation where you have always excelled and have led the way, you get accustomed to the adulation and the admiration. I have always been portrayed as someone who is an achiever, someone who will always excel at whatever he does. With this perception in mind, I joined the MBA program at University of Hong Kong. With ego of the size of a gigantic blue whale, I entered my first lecture in the program. The very same day, I realized what it is to be part of the herd. It reminds me of the movie Madagascar- 2 where Marty the Zebra reaches the forest and meets other zebras for the first time. Marty is depressed and perturbed by this self realization that he is not unique and there are many others who have stripes and can perform his famed water act. .
Relating this story to ours, my class has 53 students. Every student has a special story to tell. They all come to the MBA class from distinct backgrounds with some kind of accomplishments under their belts. They all excel at public speaking, creating lateral thought processes, articulately sharing their ideas - basically being fantastic at whatever they do. Someone who is used to being hailed as the MAN, being among such champions is like losing one's identity. In a moment, you realize that you are not the smartest, or the most hard working person in the world. And this self realization brings you to the brink of deep insecurity and emotional turbulence. That’s why I term doing a MBA as becoming insecure or the process of INSECURITIZATION
I am sure most of the 53 students in the class would have / will feel this emotion sometime during the course. I believe that in such a crisis situation, what you need is the support & cooperation of your fellow students. I guess this is what “teammanship” is.
This experience has also made me realize the MBA program should help students improve on their EQ ( emotional quotient ).

There are three types of quotients ( Qs ) in the modern world.
They are :-
1. Emotional Quotient ( EQ)
2. Spiritual Quotient (SQ)
3. Intelligent Quotient ( IQ )
Contrary to most, I believe EQ is the key behind living a content & balanced life. Don’t want to talk about EQ now but on a soft note, would advise everyone to live their life to the maximum. Stop thinking about what others in the class might be doing now. Do what you want to do because that’s what matters and nothing else.
Have a good weekend !!!

Indian way of doing Business

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House in
D.C. One from Bangladesh , another from India and the third, from China .

They go with a White House office to examine the fence.

The Bangladesh contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring,
then works some figures with a pencil. "Well", he says, "I figure the job will run about $900. ($400 for materials, $400 for my team and $100 profit for me)".

The Chinese contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700. ($300 for materials, $300 for my team and $100 profit for me)".

The Indian contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700."

The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"

The Indian contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we
hire the guy from China to fix the fence."

Follow your passion - because it's now or never

In the current times, life has become so mechanical and robotic that most of the masses have forgotten how to relate to their emotions and passions. One tends to lives a perfectly “normal” life where he performs the regular tasks of the day and eventually goes to sleep. The next day, again he repeats those tasks – The vicious cycle goes on.
What eventually lost in this mundane routine is - to follow your passion and zeal.

It’s very easy to get trapped in this materialistic world, where everyone is running after the Rolexes & the Porsches. These worldly goods bring you happiness but again that happiness is short lived and ultimately drives you to crave more. Maybe move to the next level – move to the Corums and the Maybachs !!
A successful life is one that is lived through understanding and pursuing one's own passions, not chasing after the dreams of others. In a culture like India, where everyone who “cares” for you and wants you to be successful; they symbolize success to be a high paying job or a successful business. What is lost here is contentment for the long term.
During this rat race for success, people are increasing forgetting to do things which they like to do. Ultimately, when a person twenty years down the line realizes the stuff he/she missed on doing, a void is created in his mind & being which is very difficult to fill.
Create interest in some kind of passion which is not work/worldly goods related. It could be traveling, philanthropy or the arts. Make sure to take a vacation every year. Make sure to derive your anti-stress pill out of it and the world would suddenly be a much better place to live in. For me - my stress buster is writing this blog. Because it gives me an avenue to vent out my frustation and anguish.

My suggestion to all is – Live your life to the fullest – drink the bottle of wine to its lees.
Because, now won’t come back. And it’s running away from you very rapidly …

great read for beginners who want to understand the basics of Economics

A good friend suggested me to read this

I am glad I took his suggestion -

There you go !!

www.baselinescenario.com

If you find the website informative, do comment on the post.
A writer needs the adulation to keep writing :-)

Google Translate - best functionality

Recently, I was in Beijing and I witnessed something really amusing and impressive.

I went to a street hawker who was selling computer junk and I tried communicating with him. Well, apparently - China is a Mandarin speaking country with people having limited knowledge of English. So communicating with them is a big issue. Many many times, we just give up on communicating with a local in Beijing.

Now, our street vendor turned out to be an intelligent & indigenous guy. He knows that if he doesn't communicate effectively with us, he will lose business and will ultimately lower his earnings.
So, How does he solve the problem?


He is selling technology, so simple - he uses technology to abridge the communication barrier. and how does he manage it - By using Google Translate. ( for those who don't know about Google translate, its a google online application which can be used to convert one language into another - This amazing tool can be used to translate between 42 most widely used languages in the world )
His method of using the tool.
He connects to a wi-fi network in one of the buildings in Haidian area. ( Haidian is the IT capital of Beijing and it houses majority of IT companies in China. )
Then, he goes to Google Translate (translate.google.com) and writes his message for us in Mandarin. He translates it into English. After reading the message, I can type my message in English in another browser window, which can be translated into Mandarin.
This is how we communicated and it was very lucrative for him. Our gang must have done over RMB 500 of shopping from him.

My learning from this incident is that - no matter how complex the problem is, if you want a solution badly enough, you will get it !!!

Another point I want to make is that Google is such an amazing company. I don't see any revenue avenues for Google from Google Translate. However, they are still maintaining the product and are investing the dollars into it. The ideology & passion of the company to make internet is a better place is mind boggling. HATS OFF folks !!

It happens only in Hong Kong

I have this amazing tale to tell about the sincerity and honesty of HK folks.

Couple of days back, I left behind my camera in the bus. It was a fancy Nikon camera with lot of great features.
Devastated, we tried several different things to get it back. We tried going to the bus depot, tried calling the HK tourist department, being desperate also thought of checking every bus in that route.

Nonetheless, we lodged an official complaint with the Bus Service in HK with no hope so ever and a deep sense of despair. They took down the details of the camera, phone number, name and other stuff.

Next day, we got a call from the Bus department and they gave me the holy news.
Some really nice citizen ( not getting the right word for it ) had deposited the camera to the bus driver and surprisingly the bus driver also deposited the camera to the Bus office. So they called me to the bus office the next day to collect the camera.

Next day, I went to the office and was courteously given the camera in one piece.

This kind of professionalism, sincerity & honesty was a pleasant surprise for me and now I realize why the oriental is more affluent & efficient than other economies.

China – what’s different there ?

Since 2000, China is the buzzword for every multinational company’s CEO. Everyday you would read about major multinational senior executives making the trip to the Oriental. After all, how many 1.3 billion consumer markets exist in the world. China’s rapid economic expansion has been the epicenter of discussion among the leading economists across the world. Many considered this rise unattainable, however for the last decade; China has continuously maintained this growth rate. And the icing on the cake was the Beijing Olympics; all the critics and the skepticals were silenced by the robotic efficiency with which China organized the games. No doubt, the mammoth Beijing 2008 Olympics are considered the grandest Olympics ever.
Gradually, China has replaced Japan as the Asian economic superpower and many feel this ascent will only bring to a halt after China reaches the numero uno economy position in the world.

Like everyone else, I was baffled by this sudden political & economical rise of China. After all India & China were considered 3rd world countries quarter a century back. We Indians took comfort in the myth that China & India despite our growth potentials were not evolving not because of our internal policies but because of the flaws in the economic system of the world. However, the rapid development in China in last decade has left India way behind of China economically & politically.

I am fortunate enough to visit Beijing for a month in 2009 and am excited at the prospect of uncovering the dragon and its secrets behind the success. Unlike many Indians who visit China for business, I was there to learn Mandarin, and was given
ample opportunities to learn the language and interact with the locals.
Interacting with them, I realized why China is doing so great and why are we so left behind. If you would want to describe the key differentiator between the 2 economies and people mindset in one word, it is DISCIPLINE. Yes, it sounds so simple and unambiguous but there is much more to it than just that. .
Lets not categorize discipline as something like “When a person is disciplined, he or she possesses the trait of being well-behaved. In this context, the word discipline is related to the words conduct, behaviour and deportment”.
I would rather place discipline as a way of being, a way of existence.
Regularity is their forte – I haven’t seen my teachers, bus drivers, guides, Chinese acquaintances- anybody being late even once. They consider being late an offence, a dishonor and I am astonished by the seriousness by which they follow this rule.
Another amazing quality among them is their simplicity. Regardless of their position in the society, I found all of them being very humble, graceful and courteous.
This reflects in their work culture. They consider their work sacred and are proud of it. This makes them more efficient and productive.
And the most important of all their qualities is their nationalism. Man, I am really impressed by their patriotism and pride for their country and the Government. They are very patriotic because this is what they learn to be. Lets not get into the aspect behind this nationalism (misinformation or rather lack of it), but nonetheless it’s a mind boggling attribute.
I compare Indian population’s perception and thought process with this kind of pride and I feel disheartened.
We have adopted the good as well as more of the bad from the western society. If the Indian companies are run the way American companies are managed, then why not the Indian Public Administration. I feel that Indian Civil Service is completely flawed. Not a single developed country has the civil administration system the way India has. Indian Bureaucracy is in shambles and their efficiency or lack of it is universally acclaimed.
If we could trust our Government and not question it for every action it performs, maybe for a refreshing change, the Government would focus more on doing their work than answering our questions, and hence be more efficient.

There have been several learnings for me in this trip and am confident there will be more.

Keep checking out this space for more.

China IT company Visit

Today, as part of the cultural & economy visibility program, BLCU ( Beijing Language & Cultural University ) planned a visit to a leading IT company in Beijing, China.
Pretty much formally attired ( a refreshing change from the shorts and tee culture which is quite prevalent here) , I boarded the bus with much anticipation and curiosity about working of the Chinese IT machinery.

After a 15 minute drive, we reached the company. They had a fancy conference room and the company President was part of the welcoming committee.
We felt honored to see the President taking out time from his busy schedule to greet us. We were quite impressed by their professionalism and were eagerly waiting to hear the President’s insights on IT and China. However, this is where the good part ended. After formal speeches from the company & our representative, we were driven through a mediocre PPT giving the overview of the company.
The PPT described the company locations, its core functions, technology partners, certifications and clients. The terms were so ambiguous and superficial that there was no lucidity in company operations and business model. At junctions, we felt the PPT was a forceful formality where they were trying to hide their core competencies and detailed business operation model. Nonetheless, once the presentation was over there was a Q&A session which the President himself addressed.

This seemed like a perfect opportunity for me unravel the mysteries behind the famed China IT business and I was all geared with my relevant questions.

This is where all our expectations crashed. The President apparently didn’t understand English and the translator seemed to be in a hallucination mode.
She translated our questions wrong and then later worse translated her President’s answers. One staunch example was when the President mentioned that management education in bachelors level is not very helpful and should be scrapped. What the translator end up saying is that MBA education is worthless and should be scrapped.
Imagine saying something like this is front on 30 wannabe MBAs.

Nonetheless, I am not sure who was at error. Was it the President or his translator? Ultimately, there was not much learning for us in the complete process. The president answered questions with the famed Chinese nationalism & pride, failing to address the key points while the translator failing to do her job miserably.
I understood that the company clocked revenues of RMB 220 M in 2008 and was suitably unimpressed. That’s like USD 30M.
The revenue of IT companies in every nook and corner of Bangalore. Particularly unimpressive because it employed over 1000 people and was one of the biggest IT companies in China. If you do the math, the company was billing (30M/1000) approx USD 30000 per employee per year. That’s peanuts compared to global IT standards.
After the Q&A session, we went for a floor walk across their office. The office was typical Chinese architecture- No frills, only functionality. One thing which was visibly impressive was the employee dedication. We must have crossed over 30-40 cubicles and not even once, an employee deviated from their work to look at us or at least beam us a smile.

The world talks about German straight faces. Guys – check out the Oriental. I was astonished & equally impressed by this dedication. Productivity levels in China are leagues ahead of India or Europe and this speaks volumes about China’s rapid economic rise in last few decades.

There was one important take away for me from this whole fiasco. China IT is way behind Indian IT and it will easily take another 15-20 years before they reach our levels.
Think of it, with 1000 able people the company couldn’t manage a decent English speaking translator.
But there seems to be an urgency among Chinese to learn English and with their perseverance & commitment, day is not far behind (15 -20 years) when they will be knocking Bangalore doors stealing clients and businesses.
IMHO, Lesson for Indian IT companies– Create Intellectual Property in the next 15 years. Look at the long term picture and try moving up the value chain. Make yourself indispensable for your clients. Indian IT companies should become the process instead being part of the process. This is the only way Indian IT can differentiate itself from the rest and withstand the inevitable Chinese onslaught.