Thursday, December 29, 2005

Change Your Life - Conceive it and achieve it

Once again we are beginning a new year. For many of us this signals an opportunity for making new beginnings in our lives. Unfortunately, although most of us start out full of resolve and determination, we end up falling short of our goals. We know we can benefit from change in our lives, but how do we make those changes become lasting ones? Try these tips to increase your chances of success.

Conceive it...

You've got to want it

Ever say something like, "I really need to get in shape" and have everybody around you nod in emphatic agreement? So why aren't you doing something about it? Chances are something else is more important to you than your goal. That might be watching TV, playing computer games or eating fatty foods, but you're making a decision that something is more important to you. Next time you make one of these statements, ask yourself how badly do you really want to achieve this goal? Do you want it badly enough to make some sacrifices in your current lifestyle? Then go for it!

Make realistic resolutions

If you've been sedentary and overweight for several years then resolving to win the Ms. Olympia title this year may be a bit unrealistic. Instead, resolve to eat more healthily and become more active. In other words, set a goal that you know you can realistically achieve and you won't be disappointed. Once you achieve that goal, you will be in a better position to move on to even higher goals.

Have a plan

It's great to have a goal, but you also have to have a plan for accomplishing this goal. Having a plan allows you to see in an organized way how you will you achieve your goals. Rather than just saying, "I wish I could be more assertive at work", investigate ways to learn this new skill. You might decide you are going to take a course at your local college, read a self-help book or work with your therapist on exercises to help you. The point is to determine what steps are necessary to turn your idea into reality.

Achieve it...

Don't procrastinate

Janet has all sorts of plans for weight loss. She has diet books, exercise equipment and even a gym membership. She also has plenty of reasons why she can't start right now. Procrastinating until things are just right is the surest way to failure. If you have a goal to accomplish, start now. No more excuses.

Learn from your failures

Rather than beating yourself up over past failures, learn from them. Did your diet fail because you gave into emotional eating? Next time use this knowledge to help you vent your frustrations in a healthier way.

Acknowledge that you will slip and forgive yourself

Even the strongest of us will occasionally slip. The important thing is not let this signal the end of your efforts. Dust yourself off and get right back in the saddle as soon as you can.

Don't let other's fear of change stop you

Change can be frightening, not just for you but for those around you who have become accustomed to you being a certain way. You may find that your friends and loved ones will try in subtle ways to sabotage your efforts. Over the past year Laura had lost a large amount of weight and taken up exercising. She was very proud of her accomplishments, but nervous about facing the temptations of holiday sweets. On the surface it seemed that her mother was very supportive of her, yet when she packed up to return home her mother handed her a large package of fudge to take with her. Be aware that those around you may feel threatened by change. It's not that they want you to fail. They just don't know how to adjust to the changes in their own lives resulting from your success.

Get support

Sharing success, setbacks, and tips with other people who have your same goals is a terrific way to keep yourself motivated and on track. When you are feeling disappointed they can offer you a helping hand. When you are feeling like giving up, they can help you remember why it is you wanted to embark on your journey of change in the first place.

The best way to keep your resolution is to plan ahead.

Chances are, at some time in your life you've made a New Year's Resolution - and then broken it. This year, stop the cycle of resolving to make change, but not following through. Here are 10 tips to help get you started.

  1. Be realistic: The surest way to fall short of your goal is to make your goal unattainable. For instance, resolving to never eat your favorite desserts again could be a bad choice. Strive for a goal that is attainable.

  2. Plan ahead: Don't make your resolution on New Year's Eve. If you wait until the last minute, it will be based on your mind-set that particular day. Instead it should be well planned before December 31 arrives.

  3. Outline your plan: Decide how you will deal with the temptation to skip the exercise class, or just have one more cigarette. This could include calling on a friend for help, or practicing positive thinking and self-talk.

  4. Make a "pro" and "con" list: It may help to see a list of items on paper to keep your motivation strong. Develop this list over time, and ask others to contribute to it. Keep your list with you and refer to it when you need help keeping your resolve.

  5. Talk about it: Don't keep your resolution a secret. Tell friends and family members who will be there to support your resolve to change yourself for the better. The best case scenario is to find yourself a buddy who shares your New Year's Resolution and motivate each other.

  6. Reward Yourself: This doesn't mean that if your resolution is to diet you can eat an entire box of chocolates. Instead, celebrate your success by treating yourself to something that you enjoy.

  7. Track your progress: Keep track of each small success you make toward reaching your larger goal. Short-term goals are easier to keep, and small accomplishments will help keep you motivated.

  8. Don't Beat Yourself Up: Obsessing over the occasional slip won't help you achieve your goal. Do the best you can each day, and take them one at a time.

  9. Stick to it: Experts say it takes about 21 days for a new activity, such as exercising, to become a habit, and 6 months for it to become part of your personality.

  10. Keep trying: If your resolution has totally run out of steam by mid-February, don't despair. Start over again! There's no reason you can't make a "New Year's Resolution" any time of year.

Fast Facts About New Year's Resolutions
  • 63% of people are keeping their resolutions after two months.

  • 67% of people make three or more resolutions.

  • Top four resolutions:

    1. Increase exercise

    2. Be more conscientious about work or school

    3. Develop better eating habits

    4. Stop smoking, drinking, or using drugs (including caffeine)

  • People make more resolutions to start a new habit, than to break an old one.

6 Steps to a Job Search Action Plan

Not sure where to begin your job search? Here are six steps to guide your efforts.

Has it been a while since you planned a job search? Or maybe it’s your first time? At the outset, looking for a new job can seem like an enormous task. But if you break the job search down into simple steps, you’ll be signing that employment offer in no time.

Use this helpful six-step framework to guide your job search action plan:

1. Assess yourself.
The start of any good job search begins with a thorough self-assessment. Looking for a new job is a great opportunity to realign your goals—and it’s up to you to articulate exactly what those goals are.

Start by asking yourself these questions and spend some time reflecting on the answers:

  1. What are my values? Deep down, what guides me as I make my decisions? Is it a need to make a difference or make big bucks, be the center of attention or help others?

  2. What are my priorities and objectives for the next few years? What about five years from now?

  3. What are my core strengths?

  4. What provides meaning in my life? What is my purpose?

  5. Where does work fit into my vision of life?
For help with your soul-searching, take advantage of your career center’s self-assessment resources, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or look for self-assessment resources online. Participate in career center workshops or read some career-planning books, such as my book, The Ultimate Guide to Getting the Career You Want and What To Do Once You Have It, which includes self-assessment exercises.

2. Research your career goals.
Now that you’ve established your sense of purpose, you’ll need to do some research to keep your career dreams aligned with reality. Broadly explore industries, jobs, and organizations to generate your job options wish list.

Consider these questions as you research careers and industries:

  1. What product or service does this industry actually offer?

  2. Who are the major players and up-and-comers?

  3. What are the critical success factors for a company in the industry?

  4. What is the outlook and hiring potential for this industry?

  5. What type of talent does the industry attract, hire, and need?
While researching companies, ask yourself:

  1. What differentiates this company from others in the industry?

  2. What are this company’s culture, values, and priorities?

  3. Who are its leaders (CEO, CFO, and COO), and what do they seem to stand for?

  4. How does this company treat its employees?

  5. What is the company’s reputation?

  6. What would it be like to work there?
Websites are a great resource. Since there are more than 2,500 job- and career-related websites online, you’ll need to be selective about which ones you use. Sites with huge databases of company and industry profiles, like WetFeet, net the best return on your time investment. Also visit individual company websites to get more specific info. Major publications like Business Week, Fortune, Working Mother, and Forbes often rank top companies by industry.
Networking is another great way to learn about the functions, fields, companies, and geographic locations that interest you—not to mention make future job connections. Your circle of friends is a great place to begin building (or reviving) your network. Other valuable contacts include former and current co-workers, career services professionals, and alumni from your high school, undergraduate, or graduate programs. See what events your career services office, student clubs, and alumni groups are planning that might provide valuable contacts or learning experiences.

3. Lay out your plan.
Narrow your job options wish list based on a realistic assessment of how you fit into the industries, organizations, and roles that interest you (now possible with all the research you’ve been doing). Determine your top priorities along with those you’ll pursue for a backup plan. As a rule of thumb, focus on a maximum of two or three industries and ten to 20 organizations. Choose another ten organizations for your backup plan.

Sketch out the general timing of your job search based on when your top-choice industries tend to recruit. If you’re in school, expect to dedicate as much time to your job search as you would to an entire course. Graduates and mid-career job seekers should expect to spend one to two months searching for every $10,000 of their targeted salary. For example, a job paying $100,000, could take 10 to 20 months to find.

4. Develop a self-marketing strategy.
Now the real fun begins. It’s time to market your number-one product … you! To help plan your marketing strategy, think of yourself in terms of the classic marketing 5Ps:

Product: What do you have to offer? What key skills and attributes can you offer your “customers” (i.e., potential employers)?

Price: What is your value in the marketplace? Do your educational background, experience, and professional strengths qualify you as a premium product—something elite—or will you need to start “discounted” to get your foot in the door of your targeted industry?

Promotion: What themes or messages convey what you have to offer professionally?

Place (distribution): How will you distribute yourself on the market? Consider using multiple means of “delivering” yourself to potential employers. This could include on-campus recruiting events, job ads, career fairs, company websites, executive recruiters, and referrals from your network.

Positioning: What differentiates you from other candidates? What is unique about your skills, background, or interests?

Resumes, cover letters, and your network are your marketing tools. For help on developing a winning resume, including handling common problems like gaps in employment, dealing with unknown schools and companies, or making a career change, refer to "Resume Makeovers: How to Stand Out from the Crowd". For guidance on writing cover letters, refer to "Get Results with Your Cover Letter".

Informational interviewing is a great research and networking tool. After all, how can people help you find that great job if they don’t know what your career goals are? You need to get out there and start talking to people. My book includes an in-depth discussion of networking and informational interviews. Also check out WetFeet’s networking advice.Use these sample questions to kick off your informational interviews:

  1. Can you tell me a bit about your background?

  2. How did you get started in this industry?

  3. What’s the company culture really like?

  4. Can you describe a typical day or week?

  5. What advice would you offer to someone trying to break into this industry?

  6. What do you like the most and least about the industry? About the job? About the company?

  7. How would you approach a job search for this organization or industry?

  8. Could you recommend other colleagues with whom I can speak? Is it OK to use your name when I contact them?
5. Prepare for job interviews.
Informational interviewing is also good practice for the real thing. Performing mock interviews and videotaping them is another way to practice and get feedback.

For more information on interviewing, refer to "Surviving and Thriving in a Tough Job Market: Acing the Interviews," "Decoding the Interview and Evaluation Process," and "Ten Executives Discuss What They’re Looking for When They Interview Candidates".

Develop at least three questions for each interview. For help, refer to "What to Say When It’s Your Turn to Ask Questions in an Interview."

It’s also a good idea to begin thinking about your compensation strategy now. Understand the components of compensation (what can be negotiated), the tangibles and intangibles, the must-haves of your compensation package, minimum take-home pay, and how to create a win-win situation between you and your prospective employer. For more detailed help, refer to "Seven Tips for Smarter Compensation Negotiation" and The WetFeet Insider Guide to Negotiating Your Salary and Perks.

6. Implement your plan, making adjustments along the way.
Now it’s time to put your well-laid plans into action. Work your network to spread the news of your job search. Continue asking for more contacts. Conduct informational interviews. Research job postings, write cover letters, and send out those resumes.

As you move your action plan forward, try to get feedback whenever possible to make midcourse corrections and improve your results. Ask for feedback from your career services advisors, colleagues who review your resume, your informational interview contacts, and those who have interviewed you for a job. Incorporate the constructive lessons you take from them to improve your approach.

And don’t forget to self-evaluate by asking:

  1. What is and isn’t working?

  2. Where can I improve?

  3. What help or advice do I need?

  4. Where can I go for help, resources, and expertise?

  5. Are there gaps in my performance that need filling in?

  6. How do I stay motivated to keep up my momentum? (Refer to "Keeping Up Your Job Search Momentum" for ideas.)
Having a plan is an enormous benefit to guide and inspire the success of your job search. And broken down into steps, a seemingly insurmountable task is suddenly rendered manageable. Best of luck on your job search!

(Sherrie Gong Taguchi is a leading expert on recruiting and career management. Her book, The Ultimate Guide to Getting the Career You Want and What To Do Once You Have It (McGraw Hill, 2003) is available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com.)

How Credit Card System Works

Priya: I want to buy a Sony digital camera costing Rs.20,000, but I don’t have any cash right now.

Raj: Why don’t you use your ICICI Bank credit card? Never heard them say ‘Hum Hain Na’?

Priya: I am quite skeptic about using these cards. I pay using the card; get a bill after 30 days and pay after another 20 days. This is a maximum of 50 days interest free loan. Why does any bank do it?

If I borrow Rs.20,000 on personal loan at 11%,
Interest to be paid for 50 days = Rs. 20,000 * 11% * (50/365) = Rs. 301.40.

Here the bank is giving me a loan without interest when I use the credit card. Something is wrong somewhere!

Raj: Well, let me tell you how it works when you use your card to pay for the camera.

  • You present your ICICI Bank credit card, a VISA card.

  • Sony World swipes your card on a machine provided by Citibank. Let’s call Citibank, the acquirer bank and the process of Sony World swiping the card on that machine, requesting authorization.

  • Citibank communicates with the card issuer, ICICI Bank through VISA Network to check if the card is valid and has the required credit limit.

  • ICICI Bank reviews and approves / declines which is communicated back to Sony World.

  • You sign a receipt called Sales Draft given by Citibank. This is the obligation on your part to pay the money to ICICI Bank. Data on this receipt can be captured electronically and transmitted.
At the end of day or at the end of some period Sony World chooses Sony World submits the receipt you signed to Citibank who pays Sony World the money.

  • Sony World pays Citibank a fee called Merchant Discount. Let us say this is 6% of the sale value = 6% * 20,000 = Rs. 1200

  • Citibank sends the receipt electronically to a Visa data center which in turn sends it to ICICI Bank.

  • ICICI Bank transfers the money to a settlement bank which in turn transfers the funds to Citibank.

  • Citibank pays ICICI Bank an Interchange Fee of 4% of the sale value = 4% * 20,000 = Rs. 800

  • 20 to 50 days later ICICI Bank gets the money from you, and you don’t pay the interest!!
Priya: Interesting! So Sony World pays more than the interest that I should have paid for the loan that I take. I, as a cardholder have the following benefits

1. Convenience of not having to carry cash.
2. Credit availability, free of interest.

However what benefits does Sony World get for paying so much money, Isn’t it more profitable for them to take cash? They can save as much as Rs.1200.

Raj: Certainly. Some retail outlets offer you discounts if you pay by cash, don’t they?

However when you don’t count the money that you are spending, you tend to buy more! Cards encourage this is called impulse purchase.

If you did not have access to credit, you would not have bought the camera this month, or may be not any time soon either. By accepting cards, the merchant is actually extending you credit at the risk of the card issuer. He pays money to the banks to carry that risk.

Priya: So ICICI Bank uses this money to pay back to us when they announce 5% cash back. They insist that the Sales draft that I sign at the retailer should also be from ICICI Bank. This means they are saving on the Interchange Fee and also pay me a part of the Merchant Discount that they get.

Raj: Exactly! If you have noticed, ICICI Bank gives you the cash back in the next credit card statement. They keep the cash back money for a maximum of 60 days before passing on a part to you. This accrues them interest too.

Say if ICICI Bank earns an interest of 6% per annum for the cash they carry, they get Rs.1000 * 6% * (60/365) = Rs. 10.

That is not huge, but money nevertheless. And when you consider that almost everyone in this city shops with a credit card these days, it is a big sum.

Priya: And that also explains why banks tie up with petrol pumps, like ICICI Bank has tied up with HPCL and I could re-fuel there without having to pay the fuel surcharge of 2.5%. The card issuer and the acquiring bank is the same and that saves interchange fees.

Raj: Good! You seem to have figured out how it all works! Let me summarize:


Priya: Super! Toh ab shopping chalein?? Lets not miss the Namma Bengaluru Shopping Festival!

All the numbers used to explain concepts in this article must be treated only as an example. Merchant Discounts may vary from bank to bank. Interchange Fee is regulated by VISA and MasterCard.

(This article is contributed by Madhusudan N Sunkara. Vitality Hire from IIM Ahmedabad, Madhusudan comes in with over 2 years of experience telecom. Madhusudan has previously worked with Hughes Software Systems. He joined IGSI in May 2005 and is currently working as a Business Analyst in the Global Function Point Delivery Center at FSS.)

The biggest economic events in 2005

Now that we are drawing a close to 2005, it normally makes sense to sit back and reflect on the year gone by, the surprises and disappointments of fascinating 12 months.

In that sense 2005 was an important year with its share of milestones and firsts as it marked a year wherein we saw a coming of age and maturing of the Indian capital markets. Read on...

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

How to love the job you hate

You know the feeling: Getting out of bed Monday morning is a struggle, followed by five long, bleak days.

You're not alone. About a million people a day phone in sick – and it's not the bird flu. Some surveys have found that 87% of Americans don't like their jobs.

"We spend our highest-energy hours working, and families get what's left," says Jane Boucher, author of How to Love the Job You Hate: Job Satisfaction for the 21st Century. "Most of us can't just quit our jobs."

The problem of being stuck in a lousy job is compounded by the feeling that we are what we do. This attitude is prevalent among men and becoming more common as more women earn professional degrees and climb the corporate ladder higher. If you hate what you do, your self-worth is likely to take a hit.

It's just part of our culture. When you meet someone new, one of the first questions asked is "What do you do?"

Job loathing is more than just a punch in the gut. Boucher says it costs the nation an estimated $150 billion per year in treatment for stress-related problems, absenteeism, reduced productivity and employee turnover.

"There are three basic motivators for employees, and money isn't No. 1," says Boucher, who is also an adjunct professor at the McGregor Graduate School of Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and a professional speaker.

"Workers are motivated by people they like and respect. A happy employee needs to feel that work is important. There has to be a sense of empowerment and independence -- people don't like to be micromanaged, because it chokes creativity."

The question is simple: How do you make things better in a job that doesn't rouse your interest when the alarm clock goes off? Boucher offers ten tips:

1. Communicate: Let the boss know your achievements and problems. Don't boast and don't gripe. Create a sense of teamwork. Define the problem at hand and offer ways to solve it.

2. Do Something for Yourself: Take on a project that's dear to your heart or set aside time for what you do best. For example, if you got into medicine because you wanted to be a caregiver but find yourself buried in paperwork, find the time to be with your patients. Make an effort to connect with each patient and his or her family.

3. Improve a Bad Relationship: Some people are born grumpy and simply won't like you. Instead of fretting about it and thinking it's something you did, simply ask the person each day, "Is there anything I can do for you?" This will ease the tension and, over time, may win over the person who has the long knives out for no apparent reason.

4. Delegate: Never allow process to trump the result. Remember that you can't do everything all the time. Pass off some of the grunt work to a hungry young staffer who needs to learn the basics and a fundamental lesson in life: You don't start at the top, and you earn plumb assignments by working hard in the trenches.

If you create a clear path of advancement, the smart employee won't kick when asked to handle routine stuff.

5. Seek Feedback: Ask your boss and co-workers, "How am I doing?" Make it clear that you seek feedback to improve your performance -- not because you crave praise. Show others how feedback can increase their productivity and boost their career choices.

6. Tackle Tough Assignments First: Get the difficult or unpleasant work out of the way first, because it doesn't improve with age and will look truly hideous after lunch. This also allows you to finish the day with something you find challenging and enjoy.

7. Have A Little Fun: Work isn't play, but it doesn't have to be mind-numbingly serious all the time. A few quips will boost everyone's morale. If you're not the office wag, encourage the lighthearted goofball in the corner to share his take on why the Yankees are baseball's best team.

It beats grinding your teeth for eight hours a day and is likely to boost morale and productivity.

8. Encourage Teamwork: Doing more with less demands increased productivity. Teamwork is a good way to achieve this goal. Working in teams is a learned skill. If you don't know the basics, learn them and share your insights with others.

9. Body and Soul: Pay attention to your physical and mental health. Stick to the basics: Eat right, exercise and get enough sleep. If you feel crummy, your job performance will suffer. You don't have to be a corporate guru to figure that out.

10. Get a Life: People who have interests outside work make better employees, friends, parents and spouses. Take the time to do whatever it is that you're passionate about. No one on his deathbed ever said, "I wish I'd spent more time at the office."

These basic steps will work at mom-and-pop businesses and across all industries, including semiconductor companies such as Intel, banks such as Wells Fargo, food processors such as Tyson Foods, software companies such as Microsoft or cutting-edge researchers such as Genentech -- you name it.

"Don't let your job become just a paycheck," Boucher says. "At its best, your job can be an expression of creativity."

(How to love the job you hate, Scott Reeves, Forbes | December 07, 2005)

Monday, November 07, 2005

Defining Success

Welcome Address by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore on Defining Success. (July 2nd 2004)

I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa.

It was and remains as back of Beyond as you canimagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled.

My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep - so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father.

My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today.

As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government - he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep'
but the government's jeep.
Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep -we could sit in it only when it was stationary.

That was our early childhood lesson in governance - a lesson that corporate Managers learn the hard way, some never does.

The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed - I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe.

To me, the lesson was significant - you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.

Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha - an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition - delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading.

But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine.
After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly.

Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it".

That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.

Being small children, we were always enamoured with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios - we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one.

Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios - alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house Of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant.

Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.

Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes.
The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed.

At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom.

She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited".

That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.

My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small.
At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in Homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script.

So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper - end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe.

In it, we became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness.

Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination.

Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.

Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair". I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date.

Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes.

To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.

Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places - I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the, world.

In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flewback to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroac infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst.

One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the tending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself.
In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self.

There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create.

My father died the next day.

He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts - the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the memetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of an ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world.

My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions.

In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.

Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity - was telling me to go and kiss the world!

Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.

Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Job Hopping

The grass isn't always greener on the other side!!

Move from one job to another, but only for the right reasons.

It's yet another day at office.

As I logged on to the marketing and advertising sites for the latest updates, as usual, I found the headlines dominated by 'who's moving from one company to another after a short stint', and I wondered, why are so many people leaving one job for another? Is it passe now to work with just one company for a sufficiently long period?

Whenever I ask this question to people who leave a company, the answers
I get are: "Oh, I am getting a 200% hike in salary" "Well, I am jumping three levels in my designation" "Well, they are going to send me abroad in six months".

Then, I look around at all the people who are considered successful today and who have reached the top - be it a media agency, an advertising agency or a company. I find that most of these people are the ones who have stuck to the company, ground their heels and worked their way to the top. And, as I look around for people who changed their jobs constantly, I find they have stagnated at some level, in obscurity!

In this absolutely ruthless, dynamic and competitive environment, there are still no short-cuts to success or to making money. The only thing that continues to pay, as earlier, is loyalty and hard work. Yes, it pays!

Sometimes, immediately, sometimes after a lot of time. But, it does pay. Does this mean that one should stick to an organisation and wait for that golden moment? Of course not. After a long stint, there always comes a time for moving in most organisations, but it is important to move for the right reasons, rather than superficial ones, like money, designation or an overseas trip.

Remember, no company recruits for charity.

More often than not, when you are offered an unseemly hike in salary or designation that is disproportionate to what that company offers it current employees, there is always an unseen bait attached.

The result? You will, in the long-term, have reached exactly the same levels or maybe lower levels than what you would have in your current company.

A lot of people leave an organisation because they are "unhappy". What is this so-called-unhappiness? I have been working for donkey's years and there has never been a day when I am not unhappy about something in my work environment-boss, rude colleague, fussy clients etc.

Unhappiness in a workplace, to a large extent, is transient.

If you look hard enough, there is always something to be unhappy about.But, more importantly, do I come to work to be "happy" in the truest sense?

If I think hard, the answer is "No". Happiness is something you find with family & friends.

What you come to work for is to earn, build a reputation, satisfy your ambitions, be appreciated for your work ethics, face challenges and get the job done.

So, the next time you are tempted to move, ask yourself why are you moving and what are you moving into?

Some questions are:

* Am I ready and capable of handling the new responsibility? If yes, what could be the possible reasons my current company has not offered me the same responsibility?

* Who are the people who currently handle this responsibility in the current and new company? Am I as good as the best among them?

* As the new job offer has a different profile, why have I not given the current company the option to offer me this profile?

* Why is the new company offering me the job? Do they want me for my skills, or is there an ulterior motive?

An honest answer to these will eventually decide where you go in your career – to the top of the pile in the long term (at the cost of short-term blips) or to become another average employee who gets lost with time in the wilderness?

DESERVE BEFORE YOU DESIRE.

(Article by Dr.Gopalkrisnan, Chairman Tata Sons)

Friday, September 02, 2005

Techies to managers: ready to shift gears?

From workplace to news to matrimonials - the technology professionals are the talk of the town in more ways than one. They can solve the trickiest of problems with utmost ease. They have the skills and the world is ready to pay for it.

Going by these standards all the companies should have been ruled by the techies. All of us know that is not the case. Techies don't want to be managers. Programming and being in touch with technology is what gives them the most satisfaction.

But there's a flip side to it. What about Bill Gates, Nandan Nilekani and Azim Premji? These are the names people swear by when it comes to technology.

They have all the problem solving and trouble shooting skills needed to be an ace manager. But, do techies really want to be managers? Or being hands-on with technology the sole aim of their lives?

We have tried to deal with the problem objectively. Read on for both the perspectives...

Once a techie, always a techie

"I miss being a complete techie", this is what Ravi Rajav had to say when asked about his new profile as a senior manager in a tech company. Rajav has over eight years of experience, in which he had various roles within the tech arena.

Anu Chawla is yet another example of the geeky types, who would like to stick to her role as a senior software developer, despite being offered a larger role as a senior manager.

Like these two, most of the techies prefer to be close to technology and not switch to senior management levels. She was recently offered a job at a BPO to head the technology team which would involve people management. Despite an attractive salary she declined the job offer.

So do techies hate to be managers? Let's deal with the issue objectively like any techie will do!

Trained to be geeks

Techies come to this profession with a frame of mind. They are programmed to outdo even themselves when it comes to knowing or creating new technologies. So strong is the urge to stay close to technology that many from the new tech brigade get into freelance. The freedom to choose what they want to do is unbeatable.

Managerial controls

Management roles as the name suggests involve management from top to bottom. The goals and the roles flow from the top. Hierarchy at times is so tight that creativity is stifled in following the channels. Geeks want to be left on there own when it comes to decision or let a senior geek take the decisions for them and not a manager.

Job satisfaction

Many people can differ on this one. But don't we all know that technical jobs give more satisfaction. "The feeling of knowing something first, which will change the future for the world, gives you a great high", says Rakesh Luthra a senior software developer at a Gurgaon-based firm.

With all due respect, techies are more in demand as far as today's scenario is concerned. Because of the increasing demand, technically qualified people can move around more and work on different projects. You can move around and work on more interesting projects, suffer less on bad ones and make more money to boot. For a manager it's difficult to move to a new project or a firm for which they would really need to sell themselves.

"I wouldn't have been able to go back to my tech role if I had assumed the senior manager position in my company," Luthra adds. "One can assume a manager's role at any point of time. But after moving out of technology it's very difficult to go back to the techie role."

From the ace techies

"I think geeks should stick to more geeky roles. Even if you move to higher position one should make it a point to stay hands-on with technology. Technology is what will make all the difference at end of the day", says Rajul Garg, COO, Induslogic.

"In my 18-year long career I have moved in all the divisions of the organisation. I was trained in computer science and that is what I came back to. Creating a product according to your clients needs gives me a lots of satisfaction," says Radha Shelat, CTO, Veritas.

"I could have got the position of a project manager in my previous company. My parents got a shock when I left that well-established company to join this start up. My answer was simple - once a geek always a geek," says Alen Fernandes who left a Gurgaon-based software firm to join a start-up in Bangalore.

HR perspective

Though most of us will agree that a company needs both great managers and technical expertise, techies swear by the latter. "When we are looking at a candidate to head a technology company, we do expect some amount of technological skills," says Anuradha Chowdhary, a senior HR consultant.

To take strategic decisions for an organisation, where technology is both the end and the means, even a manager has to have some technological orientation. This is important to realise the scope and limitations of what technology can do for the company and the users at the end of the day.

Moreover, most of the companies in India need to communicate with foreign clients. A techie CEO will always be better placed to take the global perspective.

The bottom line is the world today needs unbeatable technical skills and is ready to pay for it too. And the tech brigade today is very well aware of this fact and is ready to make the most of it.

Tech, people, jobs: Geeks manage it all too well!

Problem solving comes easy to Shantanu Mitra. While the rest of his peers in office spend hours in a huddle trying to come up with solutions, this geek manager applies logical thinking to solve complex problems. And that is what sets apart Mitra and his ilk from the rest of the bunch.

"Since software pros are naturally blessed with a scientific bent of mind, it helps in looking at problems and arriving at solutions from a different angle," say Mitra, who works for a leading software company in Gurgaon.

Intelligent, sharp and having a tremendous alacrity to soak in knowledge - God's own army of geeks have successfully combined effective management skills and tech knowledge to emerge as good managers.

Coupled with an ability to rationalise and hunt for simple and logical solutions to complex problems, tech CEOs like Naryana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, Azim Premji, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, (to name only a few), have helped obliterate the stereotype that techies are better off coding and decoding in their technology hub.

Instead, moving away from their wired domain, tech professionals have proved that they make good managers. Thanks to their inherent ability to connect better with processes at the technological and logistical level, geeks make good trouble-shooters.

Add to that an ability to pre-empt difficult situations and take preventive action in time, and geek managers are heavily recommended to lend an iota of sanity in Scott Adams' Dilbertish office space!

Don't let trouble trouble you...

"Most geeks are able to save a huge effort that would go into troubleshooting issues because they could foresee them at the beginning of the project and plan resolutions well in advance," Yogesh Jagal, associate project leader, Perot Systems, says.

"What sets apart a tech manager from the rest is the fact that he works from a solution perspective. German scientists had spent thousands of dollars to discover a writing instrument that astronauts could use in space, since a pen does not work there. The US scientists simply went ahead and gave pencils to their astronauts! Similarly, tech professionals also function with the solution approach in mind, and this is what helps them score over regular B-school managers," Sujit Singh, country manager, Dax Networks, says.

Solutions approach is not the only quality that makes our geek gods perfect manager material. The ability to stick to deadlines (burning the midnight modem in this case!) comes naturally to tech professionals and it is this innate goodness that helps them score over others.

However, sticking to deadlines does not mean any compromise on quality. And innovative and out-of-the-box thinking ensures that geek managers are ahead of their non-geeky counterparts.

As competition gets tighter, it is the survival of the fittest. And for most geeks, aspiring to be in the manager's seat is a natural extension of their mindset and skill set.

"In order to survive in the rat race, techies, who usually aspire to head the technology division in a given organisation, are learning to club tech and administrative skills. It is this lethal combo that makes them good managers," Singh, who has been in the IT industry for the last 17 years, says.

Being in control

Delhi-based Jeevan S Bisht, location manager, Wipro Infotech feels that techies have a natural penchant for being in charge of situations and devising solutions.

"Techies like to be in control and that is what makes them good managers. Although a tech professional's first love is his line of action, adapting administrative skills is not an issue for them," he adds.

Although Mitra feels that making the transition from technical skills and focussing on outcomes and interpersonal skills become difficult when techies crossover to becoming managers, Jagal, of Perot Systems, feels that "geeks make excellent managers as they have a better understanding of their work, people (subordinate techies) involved and their needs and demands".

"Geeks are better at troubleshooting than regular managers, whether it's a technical project problem or a people problem within the team," Jagal says.

Like any other creative souls, our geek gods are also a sensitive lot, especially towards their work. And it is this sensitivity that makes them better managers, as they strike a perfect balance between working 24/7 in shifts, trouble shooting problems and maintaining deadlines.

What say, Dilbert?

(Source: Techies to managers: ready to shift gears?)

Monday, August 22, 2005

10 rules to manage your boss

The relationship with your boss is probably the most important relationship you have at work.

Boss management can stimulate better performance; improve your working life, job satisfaction, and workload. Give your boss a hand and reap the rewards.

When we think of managing someone, we usually think of managing our team members or subordinates. The above title appeared for the first time a few years ago in a Harvard Business Review article written by two well known socio-psychologists.

Their argument was that in modern companies, subordinates are not solely dependent on their bosses, but that today's complexity requires interdependence: the boss needs her team as well.

I have the vantage point of being an adviser to top management, a CEO, and now as Co-Director of the PED program at IMD. In addition, I have been involved in the restructuring of a major international company, which involves some 12,000 people and 12 hierarchical levels.

In order to unleash the energies and get closer to customers, we divided the group into 250 'small companies' of some 50 people each and of three hierarchical levels. To change the mindset, we organised a 20-day management seminar, during which we discussed the challenge of how to deal with bosses, who in the old structure, tended to hamper change.

The whole process forced me to crystallize my observations and previous experience and test them with the 250 managers. I have grouped the results into ten rules that try to answer some common questions asked by managers with respect to managing their bosses, with the aim of helping the relationship become more effective, foster faster decisions, better decisions and more trust.

1. Decisions: If you do not want a 'no' or procrastination, give him/her a hand

Your boss has other subordinates, other decisions to make. Thus, her (for simplicity, we use 'her' from now on in this article) best bet, if she is pressed for a decision, will be to say no. No, it is too risky; no, we do not have enough evidence; no, it is the wrong timing; no, it is off strategy, et cetera.

  • To avoid the 'no' that will ruin your and your team's enthusiasm, give her a hand. Remind her of where you left it last time you met;

  • Remind her of the objective rather than rushing to the 'what' and 'how';

  • Remind her of past problems encountered because a decision was not made;

  • Quickly summarize the options considered, your criteria for selecting one option -- the one you are presenting;

  • Tell her what you expect from her: simply to inform, to decide jointly, to share the risk, to add one criterion, to re-examine the option;

  • Focus on the points where you need her help;

  • Be prepared with facts/data for potential disagreements. Help her out with graphics and visuals so that the situation is grasped faster;

  • After your meeting, summarize for her the decision in writing to make sure of the understanding;

  • And finally, once a decision has been made, your way, her way or no way, do not criticize it externally. You have become the best defender; the best ambassador of what was decided.
2. Manage her time: You may represent only 1% of her problems, don't make it as if it is 100%.

Yes, you have preoccupations, problems to solve and issues to tackle. However, while your time is entirely devoted to them, do not expect your boss's time to be also.
  • The more simple the problem or issue at hand is, the less time you should have her spend on it: prepare, summarize, and synthesize information and options. Do not confuse your more frequent problems with the most important ones.

  • Book her for several meetings in advance. Nothing is more frustrating than to have to wait days, weeks or months for that extra new meeting needed in order to finalize a decision or a project.
3. An opinion: If you ask for her opinion, she will always have one.

Rare are the bosses who, when asked for their advice or their decision, will use the psychological ping-pong approach of retuning the question to the person who asked.
And their opinion may not always be that of a genius or a visionary. However, once given, the opinion becomes a constraint: was it an order? So, if you don't want your boss's opinion to thwart your achievements, to slow the speed of decision-making, or cloud the viewpoint, then don't ask for it. Best of all, don't ask if you don't need her opinion.

  • Choose the right moment to avoid procrastination: not only save her time by focusing on big issues, but choose the right moment to do so. If you present an issue at the wrong moment, the chances are she will procrastinate.

  • Prepare for your meeting: first because the advantage is to the one who is prepared, second because the preparation helps you reduce the time taken to come to the central issue.

  • Show the forest before the trees in a discussion: if you want to avoid spending a lot of time on going back to basics before she is at full speed with you, start with the basics yourself. Remind her of the objective, where you stand today, and what you want her opinion on.
4. Information: It is not data.

Turn grapes into wine: you are supposed to analyze the results of a market survey, and not be the mailman who passes the thick document full of statistics to your boss. So be selective; be visual; group the data; bring out what is essential. Data overload creates stress, which in turn can create denial, rejection, and numbness. As a manager, you are paid to collect the grapes (data), and turn them into wine, i.e. useful information.

  • Don't give her only the bad news: give her also the good news. If you keep bringing only bad news, little by little you become the bad news yourself. Don't minimize good news, because you want to focus on the problems. By doing that you contribute to creating a bad atmosphere.

  • Make sure she does not get the information from others too often: sometimes by being shy about what we should give or because we think it is not relevant, we don't feed our boss with key elements. However, other people could do it before you. And then the hassle starts. "I heard that…", "Why didn't you tell me that…"

  • And then you need to justify yourself; you may need to modify incorrect information. The trade off is between too little information leading to starvation, frustration, and/or restlessness vs too much information leading to overload.

  • Round off: what helps more to give sense to an amount or a size: 886,262.11 or 890K? What makes the decision-making process faster: 79.27% vs 21.73% or simply 80% vs 20%. Look back at all the tables you sent to your boss in the last twelve months.

  • Participate in and contribute to her informal network: every manager, hopefully, does not rely solely for managing on formal information given in internal documents and reports. Some people use internal informal networks. Some others also have an informal outside network of experts, friends, business connections that help them shape their vision of the world and how to act. You have yours; your boss has too. Why not volunteer part of yours, so that you do not always have to react and be defensive about information fed by people you do not necessarily think are the best sources?
5. Problems: Don't just come with problems, come also with solutions.

Good bosses hate two kinds of behavior. The courtesan who always comes to tell you how great you are and the pyromaniac/fireman who comes to tell you "There is a huge problem" and then says "but don't worry, I will solve it!"

There is also a third kind, the monkey transferor. She has a problem and she puts it on your shoulders, rather than bringing a solution or at least some options.

Problems usually have several aspects. It is usually a gap between an objective and the result; there are options to close the gap; there is a choice of one option to be made; key tasks, dates, people and resources needed must be defined.

On which of those steps in problem solving do you want your boss's input? Just be clear on what input you want rather than come with the stressful -- "I have a problem…" and throw the monkey.

6. Assumptions: Do not assume she knows as much as you do, but assume she can understand; so educate her. Please help, you are the expert. You spend all of your time and that of your team on the issue. You live with data, pressure points and levers; your boss does not. She does not know more than you do.

Most senior executives are even dangerous when they get involved in making micro-decisions, as their point of reference is often not the current one but rather the situation they knew when they were junior managers.

If you need her perspective, it is because it is broader; she has a better sense for inter-relationships with other parts of the organisation. You have two options.
  • You inundate her with technical stuff she does not understand, hoping that the amount of technical jargon will knock her down and force her to agree with you. It may work, but it may become a barrier in communication leading to lack of trust.

  • You educate him by simplifying, using easy to understand language, feeding him with articles, examples, best practices, summaries that help him see a perspective. By creating understanding, you relieve tensions; create trust that can lead to better decision-making.
7. Delegations: Constantly test the waters.

It is not always easy to define ex ante what is delegated to a person. Some companies prefer to use the principle of subsidiary rather than the principle of delegation: the principle of subsidiary stipulates that you can do everything except the following list, whereas in the principle of delegation you stipulate, "you cannot do anything except…"

Whichever is used, there will always be some doubt whether you have or do not have the delegation. You have two options: either you play it safe by always asking your boss's opinion. This can lead to paralysis, bottlenecks and your own demise, as your boss will think you are unable to take responsibility.

Or you assume too much, take decisions and learn after the fact that it was not yours to decide. In between, there is the 'test the waters' strategy especially for things or areas, domains or steps that are unprecedented.

8. Promises: Do not promise what you cannot deliver, and avoid surprises, trust is at stake.

Trust does not develop overnight and depends a lot on the predictability of the other person: what she says and does, how often she is living up to or not living up to her statements. In the same way, you will not fully trust your boss if she changes her mind too often or says things contrary to what you were told the last time.

You also want to avoid being seen as unreliable by not delivering on what you promise or surprising her with bad news without forewarning.
Do not promise dates for finishing projects you cannot handle. If you see that too much is asked of you, sit down and re-discuss priorities before proceeding, rather than becoming yourself a bottleneck. Involve your boss in the process, so it becomes a common priority.

Avoid bad surprises. If your job is to be in charge of a particular area, then it is also to be in charge of bad results and improving them.

Involve your boss in discussing and evaluating the risks, agreeing on key lead indicators that you will both share, so that neither you nor he will be surprised. For instance, whereas sales are not a good lead indicator, future orders or bookings can be. Cash in the bank is not, whereas good cash flow three months in advance is.

9. Differences: Manage differences in culture.

Sometimes at IMD we use a questionnaire called the Power Map to help participants identify their own culture (i.e. values they cherish, leading to certain behaviors), to identify other executives' profiles and discuss consequences on communication and leadership in a team.

To simplify, the four main types of profiles that our survey identified are:
  • People who like to 'control things' and introduce processes, develop more the 'now';

  • People who are more concerned with people, develop more the impact on people;

  • People who are more concerned with getting things done, start with key actions;

  • People who are more concerned with ideas, frame proposals in concepts.

Of course, in managing your boss you should know her personal inclination, as well as your personal bias. If you are process oriented, you will tend to present issues in a systematic and orderly fashion, with pros and cons, chronology of tasks, etc.
If your boss is the action type, she could be bored. So in that case an executive summary, emphasizing the key actions and results would be a handy starting point.

10. Trust: Don't be sloppy in your documentation. It undermines trust.

By making the assumption that she will check what we write or say anyway, and that she will make changes, we sometimes tend to be sloppy in our writing. Tables are not finished, text is not re-read, places we are going to are not visited beforehand, spelling is not checked, and information is missing...

By not finalizing your facts, arguments, memos, spelling, supporting documents, etc., you can be sure some things will get changed, mistakes corrected. And soon you will be asked to show more facts and figures, and you will see more changes, more amendments. Soon all the delegation you had will be gone.

Conclusion

Better work between a boss and his subordinate is not just a matter of leadership. It also has to do with boss 'management', which can stimulate better performance, faster decision making and accomplishment of more … by both parties.

(Jacques Horovitz is Professor of Service Strategy, Service Marketing & Service Management at IMD, one of the world's leading business schools. Source: 10 rules to manage your boss)

Monday, June 20, 2005

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

(Source: 'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says)

Thursday, April 21, 2005

What motivates an entrepreneur?

Subodh Bhat & Richard McCline |
April 19, 2005


Since the 1990s, there has been a phenomenal growth in the number of high-tech enterprises started in India.

To understand the reasons behind this phenomenon, Subodh Bhat and Richard McCline of San Francisco State University studied the motivations, resources, networks, attitudes and behaviours of these new entrepreneurs with both in-depth interviews with a dozen entrepreneurs and a survey that netted 33 usable responses.

What was the sample like? An overwhelming majority (93 per cent) was male, with close to two-thirds in the 26- to 39-year range. A quarter had just undergraduate degrees, while 69 per cent had master's degrees.

More than 63 per cent of the respondents' businesses had been in existence for three to six years and the median annual revenue of the businesses was Rs 1.5 crore (Rs 15 million) with 85 per cent having annual revenues of Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) or below.

The median number of employees was 15, with 84 per cent having less than 100 employees. Parents or close relatives of 28 per cent of the respondents owned their own businesses and the average number of people whom the respondents could call for help was 10.

The respondents had been employed for five to eight years before starting their first business. They were members of an average of three business or professional association and attended five seminars and trade fairs every year.

Entrepreneur motivation

The respondent entrepreneurs were motivated primarily by the desire to create something new, the desire for autonomy, wealth and financial independence, the achievement of personal objectives and the propensity for action ('doing').

The excitement of entrepreneurship was another major motivator -- this was nicely captured by one comment: "We are not sure what's coming down the curve but it is a thrill." Importantly, most entrepreneurs stressed that the objective was never money for its own sake.

They wanted to leave a legacy in the form of a profitable long-lasting business.

The driving force: what motivates Indian entrepreneurs
Motivator

% mentioning

Rewards of entrepreneurship
Autonomy57
Making money/financial independence43
Saw business opportunity/impact on industry27
Recognition of self and/or organisation23
Desire to create something new/innovate20
Build something important/make a difference17
Grow a business from scratch17
Desire to be entrepreneur/excitement of entrepreneurship3
Personal qualities
Intellectual challenge/achieve potential27
Instinct10
Others10
Career
Career growth/diversification/satisfaction13
Others3
Experience
Utilise previous experience6
Had technology/industry vision3
Non-monetary factors
Help India in various ways23
Non-monetary success/personal satisfaction7
Create value/jobs/wealth in society3

Support systems

Indian entrepreneurs rely on friends and family for help in starting the business, with the quality of help from friends, former co-workers and university mates in the startup and management stages being rated the best.

Assistance in terms of manpower was mainly from former co-workers. Help in marketing and access to markets was mainly from friends, former co-workers and university mates.

Finance was obtained from relatives and friends but not from former co-workers. One surprise was that few in the sample received much in the way of technological help from others.

Only 16 per cent received help from a government institution and 41 per cent from consultants. Several interviewees lamented the lack of a visible venture capital presence in India.

Success attributions

The respondents rated their success in business as quite high on various measures. They also reported that their businesses were quite profitable with median percentage annual growth in revenues, customers, and profits in the past three years of 25, 20 and 13 respectively.

They judged their success not only on the basis of business barometers like revenues, profits, growth and business reputation and monetary rewards, but also on personal factors like satisfaction and goal-achievement.

Most entrepreneurs felt their success was tied to creating something new and durable ('create a world-class company based on intellectual property') and to leaving a legacy ('leaving an indelible mark on the sands of time').

A few viewed success as being able to prove themselves and several emphasised the importance of the contribution of their business to the nation.

The respondents attributed their success mainly to hard work and focus or drive. Other factors were technical knowledge/experience and access to resources.

Emotional or mental strength, resilience ('I can't be kept too down for too long'), perfectionism and patience were other frequently mentioned qualities.

Leadership skills, particularly communication skills and good employee management, were highlighted as contributors to success.

Several entrepreneurs suggested that professional bodies play a more active role in encouraging entrepreneurship and representing the high tech industry and in educating the government and others in India on issues facing entrepreneurs and the high-tech industry.

Such organisations can develop programs to help entrepreneurs translate concepts into reality and to create role models. Another recommendation is to have schools play a more active role in encouraging entrepreneurship as a career by among other things, establishing training programs.

Surprisingly, our respondents did not report much networking and did not view it as very crucial to success.

Lessons learnt

What were the lessons the respondents learnt in the entrepreneurial process?

  • Do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary
  • Retain strong customer focus
  • Invest for the long-term
  • Invest in quality
  • Be hands-on
  • Multi-tasking is important
  • The need for the ability to tolerate ambiguity
  • Share profits with employees
  • Government's relative univolvement in the high tech industry is a blessing

    And what hampers the entrepreneurial process?

  • Financial struggle -- lack of money in the business as well as personally was the most cited negative factor
  • No government support -- however, a few entrepreneurs disagreed, saying that the government has been supportive and has given lots of concessions to the high tech industry
  • Dearth of sophisticated local investors and angel investors
  • Lack of a forum for discussing entrepreneurial issues
  • Difficulty in finding top-notch resources (for instance, recruiting from good schools)
  • Poor infrastructure
  • Corruption and bureaucracy


  • Source: http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/apr/19spec.htm

    Friday, January 21, 2005

    India a giant economy? Yes, by 2035!

    For over a century the United States has been the largest economy in the world. Major shifts have, however, been under way since then.

    During the last 30 years the weight of the world economy has shifted from the US and the rich countries of Europe to China and India.

    These trends will continue in the 21st century, bringing about a historic transformation of the world economy. The global economy will change from a uni-polar to a bi-polar one with the emergence of China.

    This will be followed a decade and a half later by the emergence of India, converting the world economy into a tri-polar one.

    The rich countries of Europe have seen the greatest decline in global GDP share by 4.9 percentage points, followed by the US and Japan with a decline of about 1 percentage point each.

    Within Asia the declining global share of Japan since 1990 has been more than made up by the rising share of China and India.

    During the seventies and the eighties, ASEAN countries and during the eighties South Korea, along with China and India, contributed to the rising share of Asia in world GDP.

    Between 1975 and 2002, Japan's share of world GDP fell by 1 percentage point while that of South Korea, ASEAN, India and China rose by 1 percentage point, 1.2 percentage points, 2.2 percentage points and 9.2 percentage points, respectively.

    Thus, India's gains since 1980 have been much larger than ASEAN's and South Korea's but much less than those of China (Arvind Virmani, 'Economic Performance, Power Potential and Global Governance: Towards a New International Order,' ICRIER Working Paper No. 150, December 2005).

    Uni-polar Global Economy: 2002

    At the start of the new millennium, the US -- the largest economy -- is almost twice the size of the next largest economy, China, and about three times the third largest economy, Japan.

    Thus, the size of the US economy is larger than the next two economies combined, revealing clearly the uni-polar nature of the global economy.

    The fourth largest economy, India, is a little over one-quarter the size of the US economy.

    The next five positions are taken by the big four of Europe: Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy. Brazil and Russia bring up the rear with their joint size less than that of India.

    In turn, the size of these three economies together is less than that of China.

    Bi-pole China

    Within 10 years, the global economy will be transformed from a uni-polar to a bi-polar one. China is projected by us to become the largest economy in the world within 15 years.

    Though India, like the rest of the world, has been falling behind China, its share in world GDP will continue to grow. Before the end of the current decade, India's economy will become larger than that of Japan, thus taking it to the third place, behind the US and China.

    We measure the incremental impact of an economy on the rest of the world through trade and financial flow by change in GDP at the current exchange rate.

    By the end of the decade, China will become a larger driver of global growth than the European Union's six largest economies. Similarly, India will be a larger growth driver than the United Kingdom, the most significant growth pole in the EU.

    At this time the combined impact of the three Asian giants (including Japan) will exceed that of the US.

    The global impact of other emerging economies is relatively small. In 2015, Canada and Russia are ranked 11th and 12th in terms of impact, which is less than a third of that of India at that time.

    The South Korean economy in contrast comes in at the 7th rank with an impact that is half that of India's. Brazil's impact is projected to be much lower than that of Mexico.

    India: 3rd Pole & Growth Driver

    As the share of the US in world GDP falls (from 21 per cent to 18 per cent) and that of India rises (from 6 per cent to 11 per cent in 2025), the latter emerges as the third pole in the global economy.

    By 2025 the Indian economy is projected to be about 60 per cent the size of the US economy. The transformation into a tri-polar economy will be complete by 2035, with the Indian economy only a little smaller than the US economy but larger than that of Western Europe.

    China's economy is projected to become 50 per cent larger than the US economy by 2025, and almost double that of the US by 2035. At this point, China's share in the world economy will be equal to the share of the US and Indian economies taken together.

    All the other countries that are either currently members of the Security Council or aspire to become so will therefore have relatively small shares.

    Japan, the largest among them, will have a share of about 5 per cent while the others (including Russia) will each have 2.5 per cent.

    This scenario assumes that China will be able to sustain the "FDI-export" cum "zero capital cost" model of fast growth. The "FDI-export" model transformed ASEAN countries into "miracle" growth economies, but the Asian crises showed that it was heavily dependent on creating and sustaining optimistic expectations.

    China's risk is heightened by it combining with "zero capital cost" to producers inputs including infrastructure that bury inefficiencies in the government banking system (implicit fiscal subsidies).

    It is however hard to predict what kind of exogenous shock will knock such an economy off the high-growth knife-edge path to more normal sustainable growth rates.

    By around 2025, China's impact (in terms of GDP at prevailing exchange rates) on world growth is likely to be larger than that of the US and India's impact larger than that of Japan.

    By 2035, India is likely to be a larger growth driver than the six largest countries in the EU, though its impact will be a little over half that of the US.

    China's impact will, however, be about 40 per cent more than that of the US.

    Conclusion

    The projected changes in the relative size of economies will have profound implications for global governance, the global balance of power, and the stability of Asia.

    This phenomenal change in relative power poses a major challenge to the economies of Europe, North America, and Asia that very few seem to fully understand or appreciate.

    (Source: Guest Column by Arvind Virmani. The author is director and chief executive, ICRIER. The views expressed are personal.)