Sample interview questions for H-1B visa

The following are some questions you should be prepared to answer irrespective of whether you are going to the consulate for a fresh H-1B visa or an H-1B renewal.  These are suggestive and not all-inclusive.

1)      What does your US Company do?
2)      What will be your job duties in the US Company?
3)      How many employees does the US Company have?
4)      What is the annual turnover of the US Company?
5)      Show US company brochure and photographs, if you have
6)      Where will you be working in the US?
7)      What computer languages do you know? (Information Technology professionals are often asked this question)
8)      What computer languages are you currently using in your company?
9)      How long have you worked with your current employer?
10)  What is your current salary?
11)  Have you ever been in a 'no-job no-salary' kind of situation?
12)  What is your role in the current company?
13)  Which university in the US did you study in? (This is in case you have a degree from the US)
14)  What is your highest degree?
15)  Where will you be staying in the US?
16)  How long do you plan to stay in the US?
17)  Which state do you live in the US? What's your opinion about the state?
18)  Have you paid for your H-1B visa?

Dealing with changes in job location
 
Roving H-1B employees require special attention and analysis. If an employer sends an H-1B worker to a new worksite, not listed on the Labor Condition Application (LCA), the employer must act to maintain compliance with the regulations.  The regulations include a detailed definition of 'place of employment' which governs what an employer must do to maintain LCA compliance.

The definition creates several exceptions that are not considered new places of employment, such as places where an H-1B may travel temporarily for developmental activity or to receive training. If there is no new 'place of employment,' then the employer's LCA obligations remain fixed at the home base.

The first question to ask is whether the roving H-1B employee is going to a new 'place of employment' or 'worksite'. If the answer is 'yes', then the employer must do one of the following: 

~ Re-post (if the new worksite is within the area of intended employment). In this case, the employer must re-post notice of the LCA at the new worksite before the H-1B begins work there;
~ Use the short-term placement rules; or
~ File a new LCA for the new worksite

The regulations define a new type of H-1B employee whose work is 'peripatetic' or roaming in nature in that the normal duties of the occupation require frequent travel. Peripatetic workers may travel constantly, but may not spend more than five days in one place. For such peripatetic workers, a new location is not considered a new 'worksite', and therefore does not require a new LCA.

Similarly, H-1B workers who travel occasionally on a casual short-term basis (not exceeding ten days) to a new location are not considered to have a new worksite with new LCA requirements. Although in these cases, the employer is not required to take one of the three steps above to maintain compliance, the employer is required to pay travel expenses for each day the H-1B is traveling (both weekdays and weekends).

The short-term placement rules permit an H-1B to travel up to 30 or 60 days per year to another 'place of employment'. However, the employer may not use the short-term placement rules in any area of employment for which the employer has a certified LCA for the occupational classification. If the employer has such a certified LCA with an open slot, then the employer must use that and add a copy of that LCA to the employee's public access file. If the employer has a certified LCA, but it doesn't have any open slots, then the employer must file a new LCA. The regulations specifically prohibit employers from continuously rotating H-1B employees to short-term placements in a manner that would defeat the stated purpose of these rules. The rules are designed to give employers flexibility.

H-1 visas issued by US Embassy/Consulates to Indians in India

US Fiscal Year	No. of H-1B issued
2001  2002       2003       2004       2005       2006	46,020 25,247 28,730 37,041 39,521 43,167

Future scenario of H-1B visa

The US Department of Labor predicts 130,000 new information technology jobs each year for the next decade. Yet American colleges are producing only 25,000 graduates in computer science a year, 40 per cent fewer than in the 1980s, and only 20,000 electrical engineering graduates, one-third fewer than a decade ago.

Although many high-tech jobs do not require such degrees, the decline in computer and engineering degrees can only aggravate whatever shortage exists.

Estimates put the number of information technology jobs going unfilled in the United States at more than 350,000, and rising fast. The Department of Labor projects that the demand for computer systems' analysts, engineers, and scientists will double in less than a decade, from 1.5 million to more than 3 million. 

Many of the skilled trades are currently facing a shortage of workers and the number of people needed to fill these jobs is expected to increase dramatically over the next several years. Construction laborers, operating engineers, carpenters, iron workers, cement masons, bricklayers, truck drivers and many other construction related crafts are among the trades expected to see the greatest demand in workers over the next 6 years.

While immigrants are less than 10 per cent of the US population, they comprise 30 per cent of research and development scientists and engineers with PhDs. More than one-third of the engineers in Silicon Valley are foreign born.

Anti-immigrant groups in the US have so far, successfully disallowed reforms proposed by Pro-immigrant lobby consisting of US high-tech industry and several senators and congressmen.  The reforms related to increase in quota for H-1B and decrease on restrictions on H-1B visas.  

Though the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill has failed in the US Senate, certain stand-alone issues such as H-1B visa may get attention in future months as hoped by pro-immigrant groups and US business which is keen to ensure competitive edge of American in world economy.

(http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/dec/05abr.htm)

H-1B visas: Are you qualified?

Every year the H-1B application filing date opens on April 1. This is the time that US employers can file H-1B applications for foreign workers that they have interviewed and selected to employ.

~ Individuals cannot file their own H-1B visa applications - only the employer company (known as the "sponsor" can file the application.

~ With only a few months left before the start of H-1B filing period, it is important forworkers and students who want to obtain an H-1B visa, to start their H-1B job search as soon as possible.

How do you qualify for the H-1B visa?

The education requirements for the H-1B visa are the equivalency of a US bachelor's degree, or four years of post secondary (college/university level) study.  If you do not have a four year degree or if you have an incomplete degree, you can combine with a post secondary diploma from a government recognised institution or you can use work experience.

USCIS uses the three to one rule. Every three years of progressive work experience in the field is equivalent to one year of post secondary study. For example, three years of university study plus three years of progressive work experience in the field is equivalent to four years of study or a US bachelor's degree.

If you have no post secondary study, you can show 12 years of work experience as equivalent to a US bachelor's degree. Two associates degrees may NOT be combined, but an associates degree (two years and six years of work experience may be combined to be equivalent to a US bachelor's degree).

For the USCIS to accept your work experience you need employer's letters stating your dates of employment, designation and job duties. This must be on the employer's letterhead and signed. You will still have to provide USCIS with verification of the work experience which has to be submitted with the original documents or it will cause a delay in fulfilling your evaluation.

Market your skills

Having identified potential employer/s and/or H-1B solution provider, you must market your skills with effective presentation of yourself through your resume/CV

Employers rely heavily on the resumes they receive to 'screen' for the best potential candidates. Given the choice of two candidates of equal ability, hiring managers will always prefer to interview the one with the most professionally constructed and attractive resume. For this reason, candidates with superb qualifications are often overlooked, and companies end up hiring from a pool of talent made up of those candidates whose experience is represented by powerfully written, visually appealing resumes.

Many aspiring candidates send their resumes to immigration lawyers and visa consultants.  This does not help, as professionals assisting in visa services cannot find a job for you or locate employer for you.  Resumes should be given only to prospective employers and web sites offering services to locate jobs.

Documents required for H-1B visa

Mandatory documents

• Photocopies of the first page, address page and last page of your current Passport.
• One photograph.
• Original DS-156, nonimmigrant visa application form.
• Original DS-157, supplemental nonimmigrant visa application form.
• Original, valid HDFC Bank Visa Fee receipt.
• Copy of Notice of Action (Form I-797).
• For US consulate in Mumbai only: Additional questionnaire.

Supporting documents

• Original Passport
• Interview appointment letter.
   
• Form I-797 - the original Notice of Action.
• Form I-129 and letter from employer that describes your proposed duties.
• Letters verifying your employment history and specific work skills.
• Original degree certificates along with mark sheets. (Secondary school information is not required)
• Relevant diplomas or certificates, e.g. computer certification.

First time applicants are also requested to bring the following items:

• Names and current phone numbers of the personnel managers at the applicant's present and past jobs.
• Photographs of the inside and outside of current or most recent employer's place of business.
• Names and contact information of two co-workers from your current or most recent place of employment.
• Names and contact information of two co-workers from past jobs.
• A complete resume and cover letter describing current job duties in detail.
• Personal bank records for the last six months.
• US company information: photographs of the inside and outside of the company's offices, prospectus, brochures, and annual report.

The US consulate will not accept documents received directly from the company by mail or fax. All documents should be brought by the applicant to the interview. The consulate will not make this information available to anyone and will destroy the documents after review.

If you are currently working in the US on an H-1B visa, submit your pay slips for the current calendar year and your federal tax returns (IRS Form 1040 and W-2) for all years in which you were employed in the US.

All H-1B applicants are recommended to bring one extra photocopy of any original documents they presented with their application package that they wish to be returned.

Applicable to US Consulate in Mumbai only:

Submit all the documents listed above as 'Mandatory documents' at least 5 days before the interview.
Carry rest of the documents at the interview.

For all other consulates, carry all the documents to the interview. Do not send anything anywhere before the interview.

(http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/dec/04abr.htm)

How and when to apply for H-1B visa to the US

There is a misconception many aspiring Indians have that one can apply for an H-1B visa directly and get to the US for a job. 

You cannot apply for an H-1B visa yourself. 

US Immigration law is vague about the definition of the word profession (relevant to H-1B visa) stating only that the meaning includes such occupations as architects, lawyers, physicians, engineers and teachers. Other occupations, not specifically mentioned in the law, but routinely recognised as professional include, accountants, computer systems analysts, physical therapists, chemists, pharmacists, medical technologists, hotel managers and upper-level business managers.

You must hold the educational equivalent to a US bachelor's degree to qualify for an H-1B visa. Also, the job duties must require education equivalent to a US bachelor's degree in the occupation for which you are hired.

If you were not educated in America, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), as part of judging your H-1B eligibility, will often ask for an academic credential evaluation from an approved consulting service to determine the American equivalent of your educational level.

Before sending your academic documents to a Credential Evaluation Service, you may want to telephone in advance to discuss your prospects. Usually, you can get some idea of the likelihood of receiving good results. If your prospects are bleak, you may decide not to order the evaluation and to save the service charges. For details, contact:

Credentials Evaluation Service, AVAP Credential Evaluation Service
International Education Research Foundation Inc
Suite 19, 5053 Ocean Building, P.O. Box 3665
Sarasota, FL 3242

            or

Culver City, California 90231-3665
Tel: (1)-941-346 -1427 or Tel.: 310-258-9451
Fax: (1)- 941- 349-4370 or Fax: 310-342-7086
Email: eval@auap.com or  info@ierf.org

Present

Under the existing law, 65,000 H-1B visas are issued for each fiscal year (October 1 through September 30).  Of these, 6,800 visas are kept exclusively for Chile and Singapore according to a Free Trade Agreement with the US. 

In other words, only 58,200 visas are actually available annually.  The visas are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Accompanying relatives of H1-B visa holders are not counted in this total.  

Under the "L-1 Visa and H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004", effective March 8, 2005, up to 20,000 additional H-1B slots are available to graduates of US masters degree (or higher) programs.

There are some types of jobs that are exempt from the H-1B cap.  Not every H-1B applicant is subject to the cap. Visas will still be available for applicants filing for amendments, extensions, and transfers. The cap also does not apply to applicants filing H-1B visas through institutions of higher education, nonprofit research organisations and government research organisations. Physicians taking jobs under State 30 or federal government agency waivers based on serving underserved communities are exempt from the H-1B cap.

One of the highlights that makes this visa so desirable is that, unlike many other nonimmigrant visa categories, it is a "dual intent" visa. This means that a visa will not be denied simply because an individual has intentions to become a permanent resident.  The applicant does not have to show his liquid and fixed assets as justification to return to India.  The assumption is that if for some reason the permanent residency petition in future is denied, the person would still have the intention to return home.

Thus, assuming the applicant meets all of the statutory requirements for the H-1B visa, the main reason it would be denied is if the consular officer feels there is good reason to believe the applicant will not comply with the terms of the visa or the employer's credentials are in doubt. 

Numerous cases have been reported where fraudulent employers presenting themselves as consultants and promising jobs in the US prepare 'artificial' jobs and attempt to convince Visa Officers through the applicant about 'so called' genuine job.  Such situations have often resulted in application going in for long or unending administrative processing under Section 221(g) and the applicant lose precious time and money in the process. 

Another advantage to the H-1B category is that the employer does not need to demonstrate that there is a shortage of qualified US workers and, consequently, a labor certification process can be avoided. Aside from documenting that the position offered is in a specialty occupation and that the employee has the appropriate credentials for the job, the employer need only verify that the H-1B worker is being paid the prevailing wage for the work being performed and that employment of a foreign worker is not harming conditions for US workers.

Non-graduates may be employed on an H1B visa where they can claim to be 'graduate equivalent' by virtue of twelve or more years' experience in the occupation. Positions that are not 'specialty occupation', or for which the candidate lacks the qualifications/experience for an H-1B visa, may be filled using an H-2B visa. The disadvantage of the H-2B visa is that it requires 'labor certification' - an expensive and time consuming process that involves extensive advertising of the position, and satisfying the authorities that there are no US-workers available to do the job.

New H-1B legislation requires certain employers, called 'H-1B dependent employers' to advertise positions in the USA before petitioning to employ H-1B workers for those positions. H-1B dependent employers are defined as those having more than 15% of their employees in H-1B status (for firms with over 50 employees - small firms are allowed a higher percentage of H1B employees before becoming 'dependent').

Step one for H-1B visa thus is to locate a good genuine employer.  This could be done in various ways.  Explore international placement bureaus, recruitment agents, your own friends/contacts/relatives in the US who could help locate one and the World Wide Web which is the biggest source of information on employers. 

Web sites such as http://www.nostops.org/; http://www.h1bsponsors.com/; http://www.h1base.com/ are some of the web sites where you register yourself by paying certain fees and use their sources to communicate with possible employers in the US by placing your resume.  Nostops.org is an Indian website operated from India and could be a better bet to start with whereas the others would want remittance for registration in US dollars.     

You have to be aware and beware of body shoppers or scamsters who give false hopes, charge advanced hefty fees when there is no guarantee of a job.

Procedure 

The procedure of filing for an H-1B visa petition is a three-step process and this is usually done by the attorney of the visa sponsoring company:

~ Verification and approval of the company by the Dept of Labor to file an H-1B petition on behalf of the candidate. (Qualify to be paying the Prevailing Wage Requirements, that they won't displace any domestic workers, show good faith in hiring practices, etc) 

~ Verification and approval of the candidate by getting the transcripts of the candidate from overseas evaluated as per the minimum standards required to do the particular job for which the H-1B petition is filed. (Educational evaluation based on the applicant's education and work experience, awards, performance letters, etc) - This is done by the World Evaluation Services, which evaluates the foreign degrees as per the US standards.

~ Actual filing of the petition, which includes collecting documentation of both above and including the full non-refundable fees for filing the H-1B petition (which has to be paid in full). The company pays the entire amount of the H-1B petition filing fees upfront to the USCIS to receive grant of an H-1B petition approval for the H-1B aspirant.

Interaction with Customers - Some useful tips

1. Do not write "the same" in an email - it makes little sense to them.
Example - I will try to organize the project artifacts and inform you of
the same when it is done. This is somewhat an Indian construct.
It is better written simply as: I will try to organize the project
artifacts and inform you when that is done

2. Do not write or say, "I have some doubts on this issue"
The term "Doubt" is used in the sense of doubting someone - we use this
term because in Indian languages (such as Tamil), the word for a "doubt"
and a "question" is the same.
The correct usage (for clients) is: I have a few questions on this issue

3. The term "regard" is not used much in American English. They usually
do not say "regarding this issue" or "with regard to this".
Simply use: "about this issue".

4. Do not say "Pardon" when you want someone to repeat what they said.
The word "Pardon" is unusual for them and is somewhat formal.

5. Americans do not understand most of the Indian accent immediately -
They only understand 75% of what we speak and then interpret the rest.
Therefore try not to use shortcut terms such as "Can't" or "Don't". Use
the
expanded "Cannot" or "Do not".

6. Do not use the term "screwed up" liberally. If a situation is not
good, it is better to say, "The situation is messed up". Do not use
words such as "shucks", or "pissed off".

7. As a general matter of form, Indians interrupt each other constantly
in meetings - DO NOT interrupt a client when they are speaking over the
phone, there could be delays - but wait for a short time before
responding.

8. When explaining some complex issue, stop occasionally and ask "Does
that make sense?". This is preferrable than "Do you understand me?"

9. In email communications, use proper punctuation. To explain
something, without breaking your flow, use semicolons, hyphens or
parenthesis.
As an example: You have entered a new bug (the popup not showing up) in
the defect tracking system; we could not reproduce it - although, a
screenshot would help.
Notice that a reference to the actual bug is added in parenthesis so
that the sentence flow is not broken. Break a long sentence using such
punctuation.

10. In American English, a mail is a posted letter. An email is
electronic mail. When you say "I mailed the information to you", it
means you sent an actual letter or package through the postal system.
The correct usage is: "I emailed the information to you"

11. To "prepone" an appointment is an Indian usage. There is no actual
word called prepone.
You can "advance" an appointment.

12. In the term "N-tier Architecture" or "3-tier Architecture", the word
"tier" is NOT pronounced as "Tire". I have seen many people pronounce it
this way.
The correct pronunciation is "tea-yar". The "ti" is pronounced as "tea".

13. The usages "September End", "Month End", "Day End" are not
understood well by Americans. They use these as "End of September", "End
of Month" or "End of Day".

14. Americans have weird conventions for time - when they say the time
is "Quarter Of One", they mean the time is 1:15. Better to ask them the
exact time.

15. Indians commonly use the terms "Today Evening", "Today Night". These
are not correct; "Today" means "This Day" where the Day stands for
Daytime. Therefore "Today Night" is confusing. The correct usages are:
"This Evening", "Tonight". That applies for "Yesterday Night" and
"Yesterday Evening". The correct usages are: "Last Night" and "Last
Evening".

16. When Americans want to know the time, it is usual for them to say,
"Do you have the time?" Which makes no sense to an Indian.

17. There is no word called "Updation". You update somebody. You wait
for updates to happen to the database. Avoid saying "Updation".

18. When you talk with someone for the first time, refer to them as they
refer to you - in America, the first conversation usually starts by
using the first name. Therefore you can use the first name of a client.
Do not say "Sir". Do not call women "Madam".

19. It is usual convention in initial emails (particularly technical) to
expand abbreviations, this way: We are planning to use the Java API for
Registry (JAXR). After mentioning the expanded form once, subsequently
you can use the abbreviation.

20. Make sure you always have a subject in your emails and that the
subject is relevant. Do not use a subject line such as HI.

21. Avoid using "Back". Instead of "Back" Use "ago". Back is the worst
word for American. (For Days use "Ago", for hours use "before")

22. Avoid using "but" instead of "But" Use "However".

23. Avoid using "Yesterday" hereafter use "Last day".

24. Avoid using "Tomorrow" hereafter use "Next day".

Effective Teamwork

Smart managers don't repeat mistakes

There was a very famous guy called 'T'. Wilson, who really was the eminence grise of the Boeing airplane company for many years. In fact, he was the guy who, in the postwar period, built up the Boeing airplane company.

When I got to know T Wilson -- he was a lot older than I was -- I was lucky enough one day to be having a drink with him. He was the guy who brought the Boeing 707 to the marketplace, which was really the first highly successful commercial jet airplane. Like a lot of other things, the Brits got there first but simply never turned it into a serious business venture. These guys in Boeing did it. But as a result, the demand for the aircraft rose so quickly that they were buying immense volumes of aluminum, which was a major piece of the material for the construction of the aircraft.

I was asking him, when he looked back over his career, what were the most difficult times he'd had in dealing with the investment communities and the analysts of the New York markets. He reminded me of a situation that I'd heard about briefly but didn't really understand.

They were buying such big volumes of aluminum at the time, and the lead time on taking an order and delivering an aircraft was three to four years - depending on the market supply and demand - so prices fluctuated violently. It's very similar to the oil situation today, actually. So you could sell an aircraft and assume a price for aluminum of X dollars per kilo, but by the time you actually came to buy it, it could have changed dramatically, either upward or downward.

T Wilson said to me, "We just had to find a way of managing this risk and getting it under control." He said, "I called the guy who was the chief buyer and said, 'Look, for these reasons, we have to find a way of stabilizing the risks in this program, and we think we need to look at some form of hedging policy.'"

Well, this was in the 1960s. Today, hedging policies are perfectly normal events. We hedge currencies, we hedge material prices, we hedge oil prices; but at that time it was pretty revolutionary. Anyway, this guy understood the basis of it, went out, and was effectively buying aluminum ahead of rates. The market suddenly turned against [Boeing], they lost a ton of money, and they had to go to the market and announce an exceptional loss.

T Wilson, as the chief executive of the company, had to go to all the big institutional investors in New York and explain what had happened. You start off with the investors, then you go to the analysts, and then eventually - because the analysts talk to the press - you have to talk to the press about it.

Eventually, this guy finished talking to the press. He was having lunch with a journalist, and the first thing this journalist said to him was, "I sure was sorry to hear about the loss on your hedging book on aluminum, but I sure as hell hope you fired the son of a bitch who was responsible for it." There was a bit of a pause, and I said to T. Wilson, "Well, what did you say to him?" He said, "I looked this guy straight in the eye and I said to him, `You what? And learn that lesson all over again? For sure as hell I didn't fire the guy.'"

That's a great story that tells you about how management interacts with the guys that have to do the job. It's also a lesson that tells you, in management terms, that you only have to be right 51 percent of the time to be on the right side of the curve. Here was a guy who had stood up and defended a guy who had cost the shareholders and the company an immense amount of money and kept the guy on in the belief that the guy would never, ever make that mistake again.

That always stuck in my mind, when I've had guys working for me who've made some seriously big mistakes. It's very unusual for a high-quality person - and hopefully when you put guys in these positions they are high-quality people-to make the mistake a second time around. That was another big lesson for me in this business.

TAKEAWAYS

• Everyone make mistakes, regardless of career experience, length of service or seniority. Firing someone for making a mistake maybe an error on your part. Once that person has made a mistake and realized the reasons behind it, they are highly unlikely to ever repeat their actions.
  
• Trying something new and untested can lead to mistakes, which should be accepted as part of the learning curve and used as a foundation for future projects. You may find you learn best from your failures.

(Excerpted from: Leading By Example, Lessons Learned Series.)

Tips to become a successful entrepreneur

Indian entrepreneur? These two words no more ring a surprise. While entrepreneurs are blooming across small and big towns in India the people who support them convert their dreams into reality are inceasing as well.

The Indian Angel Network is one such organisation that invests in early stage businesses of entrepreneurs who can create immense value. The members of this network have prior entrepreneurial and/or operational experience that they bring to help nurture and grow early stage businesses.

Ranjit Shastri is one such influential member of the Indian Angel Network. He co-founded PSi, Inc, an investment advisory firm incorporated in New York with an associated company in India. PSi has assisted a wide range of international investors in India, including both strategic investors and private equity firms, in identifying opportunities in India.

In the first of a series where members of the Indian Angel Network offer their tips to entrepreneurs in India, Ranjit Shastri discusses his experience and what he has learnt from it. A Get Ahead Special.

Over the past couple of decades I've observed many entrepreneurs in India and abroad, and have seen some of them achieve great success and others stagnate or sink into oblivion. I've been asked to share some of these experiences, and can also share some more recent experiences that I've had through the Indian Angel Network, India's largest and only-pan India network of individual early stage investors, which has been instrumental in kick-starting a number of ventures in India.

The tips that I've listed below are not based on anything that I've read -- in fact, numerous books have been written on the subject -- but on real experiences with people that I've met and done business with over the years. This is not a scientific or exhaustive list, but the thoughts that have come immediately to mind. I'm sure my entrepreneurial friends will add many more ideas in articles that will follow in the future.

There are three sets of issues that one must consider when thinking about how to become an entrepreneur, particularly if you are born into a middle-class family of professionals (one or more of your parents work for a large company).

The first involves getting started, leaving a safe job or career prospects and jumping into the entrepreneurial fray.

The second issue has to do with maintaining and building a viable business, successfully scaling up so that one has not just managed to 'survive' but also to grow the business and create great value for investors.

Finally, there's the issue of knowing when to move on, either by selling the business or handing over to someone who can bring new energy, skills and ideas to bear. Let's take each of these issues in turn, and examine some of the things you can do to address them.

Getting started

Tip #1: Don't worry about not being courageous enough for the uncertainty of the business world, as being an entrepreneur has nothing to do with courage. People who observe entrepreneurs leaving a secure job and taking the plunge into the unknown sometimes marvel at their courage (or foolhardiness).

Most successful entrepreneurs that I've met, however, don't see themselves as particularly brave. In fact, they do a lot of homework and make contingency plans that take into account the possibility of failure.

I've met a number of entrepreneurs who have left McKinsey & Co., my first employer after business school, because they recognised that becoming a director at McKinsey is not guaranteed for even some of the hardest working, smartest people that you come across in the business world.

Becoming a director at any large organisation has much to do with factors that are not in your control, including personal relationships and the economic cycle that the company happens to be in when promotion decisions are made. While organisations try to be fair, they operate in a world that isn't, and if you recognise that staying put is not necessarily safe you are more likely to get over the fear of venturing out.

Tip #2: Look for a big idea, and be rational.

There's no point taking a big risk if you have a small idea, and from an economic perspective, it's logical to concentrate on expected value, which means the potential value creation times the probability of actually achieving it. So if your job is 100% secure, and the chances of entrepreneurial success are only 10%, then compare your future salary against the expected future value of your venture (the 'payoff') times 10%. 

If the expected value (payoff times 10%) is more than your salary, then logically you should give it a try. However, most people are irrationally risk averse, so if the expected value is not vastly higher than their salary, they would opt for the more certain outcome.

On the other hand, people who are destined to become entrepreneurs are more likely to be sceptical about the security of their job, so they wouldn't assign a 100% probability to the so-called safe option.

Tip #3: Start small.

In Tip #2, I said it's important to think big, but for most entrepreneurs it's also important to start small. A good example is SchoolTrainer, which was started by a Delhi-based Hindi and Math tutor. He has a big idea, but has started out small (just himself).

He currently has less than 100 teachers on his panel, but expects to scale up to a thousand over the next few years. Starting small enables you to experiment, work out the bugs in your systems, and prove your idea. The discipline of a tight budget also forces small companies to do what customers ask them to do. Companies that start operations with a lot of resources often scale up too quickly, waste money and enjoy the luxury of not having to listen to customers.

Tip #4: When faced with the fear of giving up a secure job, concentrate on the equally frightening possibility of someday looking back with regret.

In other words, if you think the risk of entrepreneurship is high, consider the risk of losing a fortune by letting an opportunity slip out of your hands. Of course, explaining this to conservative family members (usually a parent or spouse) may be difficult. For some people, even a 10% chance of failure is too high to contemplate, no matter how big the potential payoff is.

A 90% chance of failure is out of the question. Conservative family members will only be convinced if you have an airtight back up plan, which leads to Tip #5.

Tip #5: Have a backup plan.

One entrepreneur I know asked his employer, a very prestigious professional services firm, for a leave of absence. This gave him time to verify that his idea had merit. He knew that if he failed (which he assumed was likely), he could always return to the relative safety of a conventional career. His friends and acquaintances thought he was gutsy, but he knew he had a safety net.

In the end, he was able to prove his idea during his leave of absence and was able confidently to convert his leave of absence into a separation. He was shrewd, not brave.

(http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/nov/07ranjit.htm)

How Vineet Nayar transformed HCL Tech

In 2004, when HCL founder Shiv Nadar approached Vineet Nayar, then HCL Comnet chief, to take over the reins at the floundering infotech major, Nayar refused. A year later, he accepted the offer.

But it was a tough initiation: HCL lost three valuable clients during Nayar's first week as president. HCL had ranked among India's most successful hardware companies during the 1970s and 1980s, but slipped when software services came on the ascendant.

Over the next 18 months, HCL transformed itself from a company that had been all but written-off, to an enterprise that delivered the fastest organic growth among Indian IT companies. Nayar's change management initiative was closely watched by management experts everywhere - it even appears as a case study in a recent issue of Harvard Business Review.

In conversation with Prasad Sangameshwaran, Nayar explained his strategy, emphasising that CEOs need to become servant leaders who enable change. Excerpts:

Why did you turn down the top job at HCL Technologies when it was first offered to you in 2004?

Big, bold companies do not drive innovation. I fell in love with small organisations. At HCL Comnet (the company he founded), we were able to re-engineer ourselves every two years. In a large set-up there was the danger of becoming an administration manager of a larger number of people.

Then, I was worried about not living up to the expectations of the job. Large companies are usually slow on innovation and speed. I was afraid of facing the challenge of bringing innovation and speed in a big enterprise that was very much in need of it.

So why did you take it on the next year?

I had no option. HCLites were proud of its heritage and felt bad that the company had lost its sheen and was not getting its due for what it had achieved in 30 years in the IT space. There were several talented employees with a hunger to transform HCL and there were many like me who thought it would be interesting to build upon this large opportunity.

Was there any resistance while you took over the company?

I don't think so. I was, and continue to be, one of the 45,000 HCLites. There was some scepticism, though, on the success of such radical thoughts of transformation.

How did you combat the sceptics?

Scepticism is a given with anything you do. We decided to communicate directly with all employees. It was important to meet all employees, not electronically but face-to-face, pumping the flesh.

We also communicated trust, transparency and flexibility. Whether it was communication about the current status - "this is us" - to the employees and letting them decide whether they wanted to do something about it, or communicating the early successes - all were equally important.

We needed to communicate success in 90 days. Command and control does not work when you are guiding a couple of thousand individuals. I told them that I would work as an enabler, as a servant leader. My job is defined as not a master strategist, but as a master enabler. Almost always, employees had more answers to the problems than I had.

The other most critical part was to listen. Most CEOs have talking skills and not enough listening skills. I am used to listening, perhaps because I married young (laughs). But I had the advantage of not knowing enough about the industry. So I did not preach, but listened. Younger employees' thoughts are brighter: all we needed to do was unleash their potential and channelise their energy in the right direction. A hands-off approach worked the best for the organisation.

What were some of the early concerns and challenges?

They fell in three buckets. One was with reference to our own capabilities. The challenge was about transformation and we needed significant energy and speed to transform. Second, investors, customers and the market in general had a fixed image of HCL as a company that would be difficult to change. Then, while the passionate majority in the organisation were capable of delivering at high levels, there were a critical few who were not ready to change.

Since HCL is a public, listed company, the challenge was to ensure business continuity and simultaneously transform on the run. We had to ensure that quarter-on-quarter results and the profit and revenue stories were not compromised.

That is why we funded new investments from reserves. We wanted to prove to the market that our organic business model would grow faster and that we could become the fastest growing company in the IT sector without an acquisition and we would use those proof points as a benchmark.

Now, one of our biggest achievements is that in this transformation journey, we have been the fastest growing IT company among our peers. Without compromising the year-on-year growth, we successfully launched disruptive and innovative initiatives like Employee First, 360-degree, Service + Thinking IT framework and so on.

What was the biggest problem you faced in the transformation process?

The biggest problem was that nobody took us seriously. Our investors, customers and even employees took some time to understand and believe that we as an organisation could change. We had to be disruptive in our thinking. Instead of waiting and watching their reactions, we increased communication with our employees to make them involved.

We had to make many changes internally, including in the organisational structure and the way we used to operate until then. And that could happen only with the acceptance of the people who were to implement these changes.

You had lost three clients in your first week as chief. At that stage, what prompted the decision to chase big deals?

We had to ensure that our vision was on track in 90 days. The biggest deals involving Indian IT companies then were around $10 million. Blue Ocean thinking  [competing in uncontested market space] meant we had to chase bigger deals. We pulled the best and brightest out of their current jobs and asked them to chase the top four or five big deals. The motivating factor for them was that if we won those deals, HCL would never be the same again.

Fortunately, we won three out of those five deals. When we won a project worth $330 million, the world sat up and took notice. Soon everybody in the organisation believed that the transformation could happen.

What lessons from Comnet did you implement at the parent company?

Comnet always demonstrated that the only way to do business is by swimming in blue oceans. At Comnet we reengineered our business four times in eight years so that we were often considered the pioneers offering a unique value in services. If you are not unique, no one will notice you.

The other learning I picked up was disruptive thinking. When I put my 360-degree evaluation on the Intranet within the first 90 days of taking charge at HCL Technologies, it showed that the CEO was willing to put his neck on the line. It is a simple gesture that galvanises others into thinking on similar lines. We claim to be the world's largest democracy, but while running our businesses we are dictatorial towards our employees.

Then we stretched the envelope, with me personally answering queries on our web forum called "U & I". We used a trouble ticket in our Intranet where employees could raise issues and be assured they would be addressed within a certain time frame.

Also, there were service-level agreements for solving issues, which transformed them from being citizens of an autocratic company to citizens who had a voice. Huge energy was unleashed through this initiative.

You said Comnet had reengineered itself every two years. Is it possible to do the same with a large organisation?

We aim to transform HCL Technologies three times over a five-year period. The first transformation was to demonstrate that we would be the fastest in growth with an organic growth strategy.

Then we introduced a pricing model where clients would pay us based on the effectiveness of the transaction. Now, by 2010 we target to get 50 per cent of our revenues from businesses that never existed in 2005.

If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently? Why?

Well, there is one thing I would have done differently, or additionally. That is to measure the value being created during this transformation in the interface between the employee and the customer.

We are now creating a value portal for our customers to measure the same, but if possible, I would have liked to have done this from Day One of the transformation.

(http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/nov/07inter.htm)

10 secrets for everyday writing success

During my 25 year career in a variety of professional positions in both the private and public sectors, I have written literally thousands of letters and memos and hundreds of reports. If I had to boil down everything I've learned about practical day-to-day writing for both personal and business purposes into 10 key points, this would be my 'Top 10' list.

1. Preparation is the key

Do all of your research first, before you start to write. Even a letter normally requires some minor research such as making some phone calls or reviewing a file. It's also very important to prepare yourself mentally before writing. So don't sit down to write too soon. Mull it over for a while, sometimes a day or two, sometimes an hour or two, depending on the complexity of the job at hand. It's amazing how the sub-conscious mind will work on the problem 'behind the scenes' and when you finally do start writing, it will flow.

2. Always use a sample

For me, this is critical. No matter what I write, it helps tremendously if I have some visual stimulation. If I'm writing a letter I post a copy of a similar letter, or the one I'm responding to, somewhere in my direct line-of-sight. It helps me focus and keeps my mind on the subject at hand, minimising the tendency for my mind to wander. No matter what it is, I always make a point to find some previous work or a sample of work similar to what I'm doing. It really stimulates the creative writing process and increases productivity significantly.

 

3. Shorter is always better

Whether you're writing a report or a letter, look for ways to cut it down in length. Concentrate on conveying the essential message. If something you've written does not enhance the core message, or doesn't add value, consider cutting it. These days, you have to be 'short and to the point' to get your message read.

4. Use concise and appropriate language

Your letter or report should use simple, straightforward language, for clarity and precision. Use short sentences and don't let paragraphs exceed three or four sentences. As much as possible, use language and terminology familiar to the intended recipient. Do not use technical terms and acronyms without explaining them, unless you are certain that the addressee is familiar with them.

5. 'Be' your addressee

A key technique to use when writing anything is to clearly 'visualise' your audience. As you write, try to imagine in your mind's eye the specific person(s) to whom your written product is directed. I often imagine that I am sitting across the boardroom table from my addressee, trying to explain my points in person. Make an effort to see the situation from the other person's perspective. What would you be looking to see if you were the recipient of the letter or report?

6. Do the outline first

Even if it's a one-page letter, it doesn't hurt to jot down a few quick notes on the main points that you want to cover. This process forces you to think logically about exactly what you want to cover and it helps you decide in which order you will approach your subject. For a letter this is helpful. For a report, this is absolutely essential. In fact, I believe that you should force yourself to go through the entire thinking process that is required to develop a complete draft Table of Contents, before you start to write any report.

7. Write and then rewrite

No matter how much preparation I do, I always find that I can improve on the first draft. That's partly because when I'm writing that first version, my main focus is to get the essence of my thoughts down on paper. At that stage I don't worry about perfect phrasing, grammar or logic. My main mission the first time through is to make sure that I capture the critical words and phrases that form the core meaning of what I want to communicate.

8. Format is important

Whatever you are writing, make sure it looks professional. This is where proper formatting comes in. Your credibility and/or that of your organisation is on the line, with your report or letter serving as your representative. If it is not professionally formatted, it will reflect negatively on you, even if the content is good and it is well-written. Rightly or wrongly, the value of your work will diminish in people's eyes if the formatting of your document is shoddy or amateurish looking.

 

9. Read it out loud

Some people who haven't tried it may laugh when they read this, but it really works. At any point during the drafting process, but definitely at the draft final stage, read your report or letter to yourself 'out loud'. It's amazing what one picks up when they actually 'hear' their words as if they were being spoken to them as the addressee. I find this helps me the most in picking up awkward phrasing and unnecessary repetition of words or terms.

10. Check spelling and grammar

Last, but far from least, make sure you double check the spelling and grammar in your document. These days, with spell-checkers built into word processing programs there's really no excuse not to do this. Once again your document is a direct reflection of you and/or your organisation. If it is riddled with spelling mistakes and obvious grammatical errors, it will appear unprofessional and your credibility will suffer. Watch out for the words that sound the same but have completely different meanings that a spell-checker won't pick up. Words such as 'four' and 'fore', for example. Your final read-through out loud should catch any of these.

Whether you're writing a letter, a memorandum, a report or an essay, follow the above tips and you won't go wrong.

 

(http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2007/nov/02writing.htm, Shaun Fawcett is webmaster of the popular www.WritingHelp-Central.com. He is also the author of several best selling 'writing toolkit' eBooks. All of his eBooks and his world famous f-r-e-e Writing Success Course are available at www.WritingHelpTools.com.)

Decision Making: The chassis that holds

The Whole Together

A decision is a judgment. It is a choice between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is often a choice between two courses of action, neither of which is provably more nearly right than the other.

-- Peter F Drucker

It takes smart decisions and execution to traverse the new landscape, even with a strategy or map. And by that I mean the right colleagues, and the right collaborators, and strong customer connections -- everything that helps spur innovative thinking. When Peter and I spoke, we referred to this as the chassis -- the organization's ability to make well-informed decisions about what needs to be done and its resolve to get it done.

Peter was passionate about management effectiveness -- setting priorities, managing time, and making effective decisions. His internationally best-selling book The Effective Executive is very much about getting the right thing done. In the Lego world, with knowledge workers and a vast array of collaborators playing important roles in the enterprise, people cannot be loosely supervised. They can only be helped and supported in their ability as managers to make effective decisions. The days of the gray-suited micromanager hovering over his or her employees' desks are over.

Managing in this amorphous environment is a delicate balancing act between preserving what makes the enterprise strong and channeling innovation to go beyond past successes. Peter used a circus analogy: The company must constantly be on a strategic tightrope toward the future, finding this balance even as the safety net below is shrinking.

Logic suggests that decision making and decision execution, which define this narrow and demanding path, are made easier by today's vast amounts of information and knowledge. This is not true. Rather, the broad base of accessible information is rendered somewhat dense, difficult, and shifting by both the blurred boundaries between parties in the value chain and the speed of change in the market-these distinguish today from earlier periods in business history. As Peter put it, today's manager faces a fast-moving barrage of apparent knowledge, some relevant and reliable, some not. Because events shift so quickly, a decision can be obsolete before it even gets put in motion.

So, ironically, in the age of information, intuition and judgment play an even greater role in effective decision-making and well-placed strategic bets than ever before. Don't get me wrong. There is no substitute for fact-based decision making, and no excuse for managing from the gut. But with unprecedented rates of change everywhere, setting the right assortment of reliable facts can be impossible within the time window available to take action.

Sometimes we have to be able to see around the corners, and intuition and judgement play a valuable role in choosing which facts or feedback to trust. When store-based data began pouring in as Nivea for Men was introduced, the head of US marketing had a gut feel that the large discrepancies between stores had something to do with the surrounding demographics and Latino concentration. He asked that the facts be checked store by store. As it happened, the stores selling the most Nivea to men where in neighborhoods with very high Latino populations. From there the company began a targeted marketing campaign.

Although access to information was more limited in the past, the landscape was less volatile and managers could rely on certain assumptions or facts to inform decision-making in a reasonable period of time. Today, management's challenges are exacerbated by the increasingly bewildering transformation of the economic and social landscape. Forget predictability. Forest longevity. To make things happen, management has to step up and have the stomach to take risks. Beyond that, the culture of the organization has to support judicious risk taking.

Decision Making: The Right Risks

Certainly, risk taking has always been in the nature of business. Companies that took greater risks made it harder or riskier for their competitors to keep up with them. And they often have been the winners. Today's greater uncertainty along with the smaller room for error mean that decision makers confront even more risk. Managers need to move forward while taking the right risks, not necessarily the least risk. This involves making decisions at the right level of the organization, and having a disciplined, fact-based process for evaluating alternatives, making decisions, and acting upon those decisions.

Whether it has to do with customers, employees, corporate organization, innovation, or something else, decision making is uniquely and distinctly a management responsibility. Only management has the broad context needed to take into consideration factors inside the company and beyond such as market conditions or energy costs. However, as Peter liked to say, senior executives should not spend the bulk of their time making decisions - on the contrary, they should spend very little time doing so.

Their emphasis should be on making sure they have the time, information, and concentration to make the right decisions about the relatively few things that demand senior-level decision making and then making sure that the words are translated into action. That's not all. Management must stay on top of the results of the action, and know when to abandon a decision. Aside from this very focused decision-making, they should encourage appropriate levels of the organization to make decisions.

The amount of time spent in decision-making is a much less meaningful metric than the effectiveness and relevance of the decisions themselves - the results. In fact, as Peter said, the more time spent, the more likely that the decision maker is "too busy with the little to take the time to see the big."

The Linux Group is a twenty-first-century firm that keeps its "in-house" decision making focused on the big picture. Linux Torvalds established the group's purpose - to design and make a free operating system first for the PC and later on for powerful servers. At Linux, only a few people decide which of the many "outside-in" flows of suggested changes to include in new releases of the system.

All other decisions are the responsibility of volunteer programmers, who choose which takes to undertake, when and how to undertake them, and whether to work solo or in conjunction with someone else. Even this seemingly flexible and agile model is being challenged. Some long-term volunteers confide to me that Torvalds has become the bottleneck-too much is going on, and his control is limiting the ability of Linux to adapt as rapidly as users would like.

Decision Making: Four Drucker Questions

Management has a stark challenge: It must create a climate with the best chance that everyone in the organization is making the right decisions about the right issues at the right time. There is no prescription for doing that, but there are questions that will bring clarity, guidance, and focus to this amorphous area:

Have you built in time to focus on the critical decisions-have you lightened your load?

Does your culture and organization support making the right decision, with ready contingency plans?

Is the organization willing to commit to the decision once it is made?

As decisions are made, are resources allocated to "degenerate into work?"

Successful decision making begins with the recognition that making good decisions is one of management's most critical responsibilities. The organization and your management team can offer invaluable support, but you need to take the time and set aside the mental space to engage in study and problem solving, to try different alternatives, to think about the issue on the exercise bike, or to sleep on it.

Although the quality of your decision does not depend on the amount of time you spend arriving at it, it does require that decision making be a priority and a commitment to spending the time needed. To be bale to do this while running an organization, you need to lighten your load-to cut through the fog in order to see clearly what situations really demand action and to find the appropriate decision maker. You can then concentrate on the relatively few important decisions that are yours to make.

Is Action Required?

For reasons that go beyond the obvious waste of precious time and resources, unnecessary decisions bring unjustifiable risk and repercussion. As Peter put it, no matter how innocuous the decision may seem, "Every decision is like surgery. It is an intervention into a system and therefore carries with it the risk of shock. One does not make unnecessary decisions any more than a good surgeon does unnecessary surgery."

In judging whether a given situation or opportunity warrants action or not, several rules can be applied.

Applying these guidelines helps draw a distinction between the truly important and the seemingly important situations that are, in fact, simply nuisances. The latter can correct themselves -- they don't require major action. These rules will lighten the decision-making load by eliminating the situations that don't require intervention.

Excerpted from:

The Definitive Drucker by Elizabeth Haas Edersheim. Copyright 2007 by Elizabeth Haas Edersheim. Price: Rs 475. Reprinted by permission of Tata McGraw Hill Publishing Company Limited. All rights reserved.

(Elizabeth Haas Edersheim is a strategic consultant who works both with Fortune 500 companies and private equity investors. - http://us.rediff.com/money/2007/oct/25book.htm)

Dream big and achieve it

Dreaming big is important. So remove the barriers that will stop you dream.

Every great accomplishment begins with a seed of belief. Today, the sounds of classical guitar are both familiar and popular. But early in the 20th century, the style of music didn't even exist. In fact, the classical guitar was practically invented by one man. His name was Andres Segovia. A native of southern Spain, he began playing the guitar at a young age and was taught that its use was limited to that of a folk instrument. But Segovia believed it could be more. He believed that he could take the classical compositions of masters like Bach and learn to play them on his guitar, which he did. Before long he was studying the techniques of other classical instruments such as the cello and violin, and adapting his own techniques on the guitar, playing current classical pieces as well as composing his own. Thus was born the sounds and style of classical guitar.

As a result of Andres Segovia's belief that his abilities on guitar could transcend the current musical spectrum, the classical guitar has become a staple in the world of classical music and is currently one of the most popular types of music that young musicians aspire to learn. A testimony that the status quo is never the limit of possibility in your field of endeavor.

"Always remember there are only two kinds of people in this world," said Robert Orben, "the realists and the dreamers. The realists know where they're going. The dreamers have already been there." What stands in the way of dreaming big in your own life? The following are three of the most significant barriers to dreaming big dreams. As you review them, ask yourself whether one or more are keeping you from really going after what you truly long for.

1. Fear. Vincent van Gogh said, "The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore." Is there a particular fear that is keeping you from venturing out to the big sea of possibility? Fear of failure? Fear of success? Fear of insufficiency? Whatever the case may be, before you pack up ship ask yourself: What's the worst that could happen by trying to achieve my dream? If the best that could happen outweighs the worst that could happen, move forward in confidence.

2. Lack of knowledge. "Where there is an unknowable," said Thornton Wilder, "there is a promise." Just because you don't know all the details, that's no reason to keep from dreaming big. History is strewn with great discoveries that came as a result of an adventurous soul simply venturing into the unknown with a dream to make a difference. If you're using lack of knowledge as an excuse for not pursuing your truest dreams, ask yourself: What is the least I need to know in order to go for it? Seek to gain that knowledge, and then move forward.

3. Negative associations. "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions," said Mark Twain. "Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great." What type of people do you associate yourself with? Are they people who are as excited as you are to see you achieve all that you desire? Will they hold you accountable for doing the things you need to, to get where you want? "Show me who you frequent," reads a French proverb, "and I will tell you who you are." To ensure that those you associate with aren't keeping you from your dreams, ask yourself: Do I spend more time with dream makers or dream breakers?

So in order to dream well one should be able to throw away and shed the negative effects in one's life and be able to take care of that so that he can dream and fulfill it accordingly and be satisfied at the end of the day.

(by Debasmita Chanda, http://living.oneindia.in/expressions/dream-big.html)

Go Kiss the World!

(Welcome Address by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 on July 2, 2004 at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India on defining success)

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 can imagine. 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 do.

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 enamored 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 flew back to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach 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 attending 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 mimetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a 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!!

Stop the Gossip, Save Your Career!

Getting ahead at work may hinge on resisting the urge to spread the latest news about your coworkers.

"You may think gossip is harmless, but you might just be shooting yourself in the foot as far as your credibility goes," said Rachel Weingarten, author of "Career and Corporate Cool: How to Look, Dress and Act the Part at Every Stage of Your Career." She continues, "Let your work speak for itself. You don't need to be the one making yourself look better by talking down someone else."

Consider the Damage

Sure, gossip can be almost too enticing to keep to ignore -- but consider these consequences:

You lose your reputation. "My reputation is my business," said Weingarten. "If someone says something bad about me, or I become known as a gossip, that could affect my entire career."

Coworkers avoid you. "If people view you as a gossip, they may stop sharing information with you," said April Callis, president of Gossip Stoppers, a program designed to create positive workplaces. "Then instead of being the one with all the power and information, you're out of the loop because no one trusts you."

Your work suffers. The negativity spread by gossip makes people hate their jobs. "They miss work, they get less done while they're there, and they feel unappreciated," says Callis. Suddenly, you're not giving your best, and your boss may notice.

There's a better way to deal with water cooler talk. First, and perhaps most obvious: Keep the information to yourself.

It's one thing to learn the office scoop -- it's another to share it. Even asking someone else at work to verify what you've just heard counts as gossip, said Callis. If it's something criminal, tell your boss. If not, let it drop.

Resist the Urge

Next, teach your coworkers not to gossip with you. Use these techniques:

Replace gossip. Sometimes gossip is the only thing you have in common with coworkers, said Weingarten. So find something to replace it. Do you both knit? Are you both sports fans? If you must gossip, do it about movie stars or soap operas, she said. Just leave the office out of it.

Set a timer. If a coworker or employee comes to you determined to gossip, set a timer for five minutes, and let the person spew. When the time's up, so is the gossip. You don't have to respond, said Callis. You can just listen.

Write it down. When a coworker runs to your desk with the latest juicy gossip, get out a pad and pen. Writing down the facts serves two purposes: It shows the gossip that everything she says is being documented. And it helps you focus on facts instead of feelings.

What you may find is that you and those around you feel happier as they gossip less, says Callis.

"When I walk into a positive workplace, people are engaged and they feel valued," she says. "They stay."

Sensex: 1,00,000 mark in our lifetime?

Sometime in mid-August, at the height of the sub-prime crisis in the US, Tata Mutual Fund MD Ved Prakash Chaturvedi predicted that we might see the 1,00,000 mark for the Sensex index in our lifetime.

 

It sounded outlandish as the markets were then battling the fast FII outflows in July and the Sensex fell below the 14,000 mark), but Chaturvedi said he is on record on his forecast.

Morgan Stanley, in a report released early this year, forecast 50,000 for Sensex by 2020.

First Global Securities head Shankar Sharma, early this month, said he will not be surprised if the index touches 25,000 to 30,000 in the next 12 months or so.

All the three predictions look quite possible now (and perhaps, in much quicker time), going by the frenzied pace at which stock prices are rising here.

Are we getting into the euphoria territory? After all, in all bull markets, the stocks rise faster and steeper in the last stage - before the end. Be it the Harshad Mehta-period, or the Ketan Parekh-cum-dotcom period. But experts say the party has just begun (take it as half-way stage).

One reason they cite is that companies are growing at 20 per cent-plus rate, and that Indian markets perhaps are getting re-rated; meaning investors are ready to pay higher multiple for profits.

Historically, Indian stocks trade at earnings multiple of 17-18 times. At current prices, the earnings multiple for the Sensex is 26 times.

A re-rating would mean investors would be willing to buy stocks at earnings multiple to 20-25 times, according to Seshadri Bharatan of Dawnay Day.

During the Harshad Mehta-bull run (which eventually ended in scam in early 1990s), the prices rose to a dizzying 41 times earnings.

This week, which marks the 20th anniversary of the Black Monday (when stock prices crashed in the US), FIIs are flocking to the market, as if there's no tomorrow.

In India, after the four-year bull run, when stocks rose by an average of nearly 45 per cent-plus every year, new and new investors (both foreign, and even domestic) are coming in, in the belief that stocks will give positive returns, over longer periods.

"At every dip, new investors, who have missed the bus, will enter. So, we see the Indian markets, like any other markets abroad, may give positive returns," says Bharatan.

There are only a few exceptions, across the globe. For instance, Japan's Nikkei is at 17,300 levels, less than half of its peak of 38,915 during 1980-end.

Experts say India is different. Fundamentals, and of course, liquidity, will continue to pull up the markets further, at least for another couple of years.

(http://in.rediff.com/money/2007/oct/16mkt.htm)

Motivation Secrets

(An excerpt from John Baldoni's book Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders (McGraw Hill 2005), published by GovLeaders.org.)

By all rights, they were done. Deep inside enemy territory, their putative leader dead, they should all have been slaughtered. But it didn't work out that way because their nominal leader, Cyrus the Younger, a Persian prince, was not their real leader. Their genuine leader, Xenophon, a Greek general, was one of their own, respected, trusted, and elected.

The Greeks were superior fighters, both tactically and technologically. They knew how to fight as a team, and their swords and shields were uniquely adapted for their phalanx warfare. They also possessed the most salient edge of all: leadership. Xenophon, like all Greek commanders, led from the front; he was seen in the thick of combat, never flinching, always seeming to do the right thing. Amazingly, Xenophon returned with the majority of the Ten Thousand, incurring few casualties in war, but losing some to weather and treacherous terrain in the mountains. Historian Victor Davis Hanson attributes Xenophon's success to the superior Greek culture-not superior in a racial sense, but superior in the sense of what we today would call shared values, common purpose, and genuine leadership.

Two millennia and four hundred years later, another disaster morphed into rebirth. Malden Mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, caught fire and burned to the ground. The smart business decision for the owner would have been to take the nearly $300 million in insurance money and retire; he was in his seventies, after all, and the few textile manufacturers remaining in his area were looking for any excuse to leave New England, not to stay. But not Aaron Feuerstein. Immediately after the fire, he pledged to rebuild the plant that made the popular Polartec fleece. In addition, he said that he would keep all employees on the payroll during the reconstruction. Feuerstein was hailed as a hero and received acclaim far and wide. He took this in stride, saying that he had just done the right thing. It was not the right thing financially; the costs of meeting the payroll and reconstruction exceeded the insurance settlement.

A few years later, Feuerstein found himself in financial straits, and this time the employees returned the favor. They foreswore overtime and settled for lower wages in an effort to keep the plant running. It was a classic example of leadership begetting leadership. In October 2003, Malden Mills emerged from bankruptcy.

Motivation is one of those topics about which much is preached with little result. The reason is simple: Leaders do not motivate-not directly, anyway. They do it indirectly. Motivation is an intrinsic response; it comes from inside and cannot be imposed from the outside. Motivation comes from wanting to do something of one's own free will. If you are free, you can choose to do something. Take the Greeks under Xenophon. They chose him as their general. Why? Because they believed that he had the right combination of skills and talents to lead them into battle and, as circumstances would have it, out of battle, too. The same holds for the employees at Malden Mills. While they had no say in the choice of Feuerstein as CEO, they did have a choice when it came to negotiating for a pay raise. They chose to accept lower wages because they perceived that it was in the company's best interests, as well as their own, to make a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain.

Both the Greeks and the employees were motivated to do what they did. To turn the situation on its head, Xenophon could have compelled the soldiers to follow him through force-after all, that was the way things were done in the Persian army and in the army of Alexander the Great a century later-but it is doubtful that compulsion of this sort would have led so many men to safety; instead, one by one, they would have drifted away to fend for themselves. Likewise, at Malden Mills, Feuerstein could have insisted on getting a better wage deal, but he did not; the union members accepted lower wages of their own accord, thereby avoiding acrimony and building upon the loyalty Feuerstein had shown them earlier when he rebuilt the burned-out facility.

The short answer is leadership. Leadership is about getting things done the right way; to do that, you need people. To get people to follow you, you need to have them trust you. And if you want them to trust you and do things for you and the organization, they need to be motivated. Motivation is purely and simply a leadership behavior. It stems from wanting to do what is right for people as well as for the organization. If we consider leadership to be an action, motivation, too, is an active process. And if you go deep enough, motivation itself is driven by a series of actions grouped under three headings: energize, encourage and exhort.

Energize

Energize is what leaders do when they set the right example, communicate clearly, and challenge appropriately.

Exemplify. Motivation starts with a good example. Leaders who hope to motivate must reflect the vision, mission, and culture of the organization they lead. What they do says more about who they are as leaders than what they say. The example they set will be the one that others follow. The leader who preaches the value of teamwork and volunteers to help out teams in need is demonstrating the right example.

Communicate. Communication is central to leadership; it includes how the leader speaks, listens, and learns. The leader who wishes to motivate must communicate a vision and a mission and follow up to check for understanding. People need to know what to do, but they also need to know that their leaders are listening. Motivation can occur only if two-way communications occur.

Challenge. People like to be challenged. Leaders who tap into this need can achieve powerful goals because they will be linking those goals with the fulfillment of desires. The hard part of crafting a challenge is to focus on what is attainable in ways that are energizing and exciting and play upon people's imagination and creativity.

Encourage

Encourage is what leaders do to support the process of motivation through empowerment, coaching, and recognition.

Empower. Leaders soon learn that their real power comes from others. It is by unleashing the individual talents and skills of other people that they can achieve their intended results. The release of this collective energy can occur only if the leader grants people the responsibility and authority to act. Empowerment becomes a powerful motivational tool because it puts people in control of their own destinies.

Coach. It is a leader's responsibility to provide people with the right support to do their job. The bedrock of that support can be found in the relationship between manager and employee. The best way to nurture that relationship is through frequent and regular one-on-one coaching sessions. Coaching provides the opportunity for the leader to get to know the employee as a person and how she can help the employee achieve personal and organizational goals. Coaching also begins the process of creating the next generation of leaders.

Recognize. The need for recognition is paramount. Recognition may be the single most powerful reason that people work, aside from income. It is fundamental to our humanity that we want people to recognize what we do and how we do it. When people are recognized, they become motivated; they want to do the work, and they want to do it well.

Exhort

Exhorting is how leaders create an experience based on sacrifice and inspiration that prepares the ground upon which motivation can flourish.

Sacrifice. The truest measure of service is sacrifice, putting the needs of others ahead of your own. When employees see their leaders put other people first and do it by putting aside their own ambitions, they learn to trust their leaders. Sacrifice is a form of commitment to others.

Inspire. Motivation really comes down to inspiration. Since motivation comes from within, it is a form of self-inspiration.

The Facts on Motivation

The need for motivation is very real. In his book The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida describes those who use their knowledge to create something new and different as members of the "creative class," a group that includes some 38 million people. Using survey data gathered in 2001 by an IT newsweekly, Florida identified a number of factors that influence motivation at work for IT professionals. Money was a factor, but it ranked fourth, behind challenge, flexibility, and stability. Of the respondents, 67 percent said that they wanted "challenge and responsibility" in the workplace, 53 percent sought flexibility, 43.5 percent wanted stability, and 38.5 percent said that base pay was important. Other key factors noted by more than 20 percent of the respondents were job atmosphere, casual attire, training, contribution to success, and recognition.

While Florida's research pertains to IT professionals, and by extension to other creatives, the lessons from it pertain to anyone who manages bright, knowledgeable, and talented employees. You need to develop a work environment that offers challenges, grants responsibility, and offers a degree of flexibility as well as an opportunity for growth and development and recognition. All of these factors are in addition to pay. When these factors are not present, workers become dissatisfied, and their interest and subsequent productivity decline. They also will look for opportunities to leave, thereby wasting the organization's investment in their training and development.

Has there ever been a greater need for managers to create a desirable, hospitable, productive work environment in which employees can find challenges and be rewarded financially, emotionally, and psychically? Motivation is not something that's nice to do. It's a must-do, but it's a must-do that pays dividends for all who participate.

Motivation Planner

Motivation, to paraphrase General Dwight Eisenhower, is about getting other people to do something because they want to do it. Use the following questions to assess your situation and how you might begin to create conditions in which people would feel more motivated.

Think about where you work and the people who work there. As you think, consider the following:

1. Why do people come to work? For a paycheck? For recognition?
2. Do people feel motivated-that is, do they like to be at work because it is an enriching experience? If not, what is missing?
3. Consider the motivation model-energize, encourage and exhort-then think about the people in your organization.
   
   Are the leaders setting the right example?
   Are the leaders communicating?
   Are the leaders challenging their people?
   Are the leaders empowering others?
   Are the leaders coaching?
   Are the leaders recognizing?
   Are the leaders sacrificing?
   Are the leaders inspiring?
4. What could you do to improve the climate for motivation?