Reservations

I always had an open mind to reservations. It has been my belief that it takes at least a couple of generations for the Social Engineering policies to generate the benefits.

But I am not sure anymore. The main purpose of Reservations is to give better opportunities for the socially underprivileged so that they come on par with the mainstream.

60 years of reservations is a sufficiently long period to evaluate the benefits of reservation. By now, if the reservations were really effective, we should have had an eglatarian society.

Instead, what we have is more and more communities like Gujjars, not satisfied with OBC reservation which they have, clamouring to be included in the Scheduled Tribe list. It tells a lot about the state of our social engineering.

When will our policy makers look beyond their noses and think about our country?

The current game played by all the political parties on reservation issue is a zero sum game. Earlier we scrap the reservation system, the better for our country.

What is that again?

In the era of Globalization, more and more companies create a standard slogan and translate them to the local language when they plan to geographically expand. This can lead to hilarious situations. Read on,

Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave", in Chinese

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el papa), the shirts read "I saw the potato" (la papa).

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."

The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-la", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in the mouth."

When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." Instead, the company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

Drop Error

There are two types of errors in New Product Development. A Go error occurs when there is a failure at any stage (but especially at the screening stage) in the new product development process when a decision is made to proceed with a product which, in hindsight, should have been abandoned. This is quite common and much publicised. In fact, the major cause for 90% rate in New product failure is due to a Go Error. Classic cases are Ford Edsel, Segway....

What is not so common, for reasons that these doesn't get into the public domain, is the Drop Error. A Drop error is when a mistake made by a company in deciding to abandon a new product idea that, in hindsight, might have been successful if developed. The opportunity lost more often than not resulted in altering the fortunes of the Company.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”, opined Ken Olson in 1977. Ken was the founder, chairman and president of Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) that had originally developed and fabricated 64-bit RISC microprocessor, Alpha AXP. For an acute entrepreneur, he was way of the mark. He missed the bus and his company was taken over by Compaq and subsequently sold out to Intel.

Similarly, IBM, who were the market leaders in main frame computing, refused to accept the potential of desktop computing, whereby losing out on grabbing the market leadership. Though they reacted late, they were never the force in desktop computing as they would have been if they had the first mover advantage.

In the early 1920s, D. W. Griffith, the premier pioneering American film director had declared, “Speaking movies are impossible. When a century has passed, all thoughts of so-called speaking movies will have been abandoned. It will never be possible to synchronise the voice with the picture.” History was to prove him wrong.

The year was 1896. The acclaimed Irish mathematical physicist and engineer, Lord Kelvin, (after whom the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature measurement is named) was serving as the president of the Royal Society. With full conviction he opined, “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation [flying] other than by ballooning.” Well, the Wright brothers first flew in 1905 making a mockery of Kelvin's prediction.

“Its only a toy”, reacted Gardiner Green Hubbard, the founder of the National Geographic Society on seeing Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1876. Gardiner happened to be the inventor’s father in law. Even Bell did not realize the commercial potential of his invention.

Rex Lambert, founding editor of the Listener (established by BBC) mentioned—“Television won’t matter in your lifetime or mine” in his weekly magazine in 1936.

The Beatles were rejected by The Decca Recording Company in 1962 saying, “We don’t like their sound too much like the Shadows, and guitar music is on the way out.” We know how much they lost out.

So, next time you come across a wild idea, evaluate it carefully

Dwell on the track record before you condemn

People's memory is short. We tend to condemn even the smallest mistake without taking into account the larger picture. All the good work done in the past is quickly forgotten.

One day Standard Oil chief John D. Rockefeller learned that one of his senior executives had made a decision which had cost the company more than $2 million. Fearful of Rockefeller's wrath, most of the firm's other executives studiously avoided him. One notable exception was Edward T. Bedford.

Scheduled to meet with Rockefeller, Bedford arrived prepared for a long diatribe against the wayward executive. When he entered Rockefeller's office, the boss was bent over his desk busily scribbling on a pad of paper. Not wishing to interrupt, Bedford stood silently until Rockefeller finally looked up.

"Oh, it's you, Bedford," he remarked. "I suppose you've heard about our loss?" Bedford admitted that he had. "I've been thinking it over," Rockefeller said, "and before I ask the man in to discuss the matter, I've been making some notes."

Bedford later recalled: "Across the top of the page was written, 'Points in favor of Mr. ____.' There followed a long list of the man's virtues, including a brief description of how he had helped the company make the right decision on three separate occasions that had earned many times the cost of his recent error."

It was a lesson, Bedford later noted, which he never forgot.

Disconnect between rulers and masses

We have a strange situation in India at the Government level.

We have a Prime Minister, Mr.Manmohan Singh, who has the responsibility, but do not have the Authority.

We have a Super Prime Minister, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, who has the Authority but has no responsibility and is not accountable to anyone.

This goes against the fundamental principles of Management that Authority and Responsibility go hand in glove. Is it any wonder then that the Governance is in a comatose situation?

We take pride in the fact that we are the largest democracy. But for the elections, we are hardly democratic in anything we do. None of the political parties follow democracy. They have had no internal elections for donkeys years. All positions are filled through nominations. Government too hides behind official secrets act and with the judicial system being so painfully slow, they get away with murder.

We had the classical case of MPs holding the Office of Profit. This matter is sub judice and nearly 1/3rd of our MP's would have been disqualified for holding the office of profit. And we are nearing the end of the term of the current Parliament. It means that ANY LAW passed by the Government is illegal as it is being voted by 1/3rd of the MPs who have no business to be there in the first place.

Unlike their western counterparts, our leaders dont believe in giving any detailed interviews articulating their philosophy of governance. We dont know what is the political and economical outlook of Sonia Gandhi, leader of the ruling party. She has never given a single interview nor has she held a press conference. For that matter pray tell me when was the last time our PM gave a press conference?

There is a total disconnect between those who rule and the masses. There lies the tragedy of our Country

Deliberate

According to Herodotas, the ancient Persians met before every major battle to strategize. After comparing troop numbers, leadership, and equipment, and studying battlefield terrain and many other factors, they would reach a sober decision. Before acting, however, they would discuss their plans again - this time while completely sotted. If they reached the same decision as they had when they were sober, they would adopt their plan and march with confidence into battle. Using this two-tiered decision-making technique, the Persians dominated most of the known world for many decades.


There is an anecdote pertaining to group decision,

"Gentlemen, I take it that we are all in complete agreement on the decision here," General Motors chief Alfred P. Sloan declared during a meeting one day.

"Then, I propose that we postpone further discussion," he continued, "to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about."

Any decision made of consensus quickly may not be the right decision. Do deliberate threadbare.

Dont vote for these self serving *!@#

Another terrorist attack............another set of platitudes from the Government....................something for the 24 hour channels and newspapers to fill space during the next 3 days......................and then what....................nothing..........................till the next terrorist attack.

Let us accept. We are a soft state. We have absolutely no value for human life. Contrast this with US or UK. Post 9/11 and 7/7, both these countries tightened their security aparatus and intelligence gathering so much that no major incidents have occured since then. Look at little Isreal. The target of every single Islamic Jehadist. Have you ever heard of a single terrorist attack inside Israel- barring one recently?

We live on fear everyday. Government is apathetic. The guy who was instrumental in attacking the seat of our democracy, Afsal Guru, has become a cause celebrity for the so called liberals and this wimp of a government is dragging its feet on presidential reference of his request for pardon. A swift punishment would have sent the right signals.

I shall tell you why the Government is not concerned. Our bunch of politicians are bothered only if it affects them. As long as Arjun Singh was spoiling the higher education, no one bothered. But the moment he raised his feeble voice against Sonia and Rahul, they became threatened and the knives were out. Terroism doesnt concern them as they, sitting under black cat protection, have nothing to fear. It is the common man who is suffering and who cares for him anyway.

There is only one way to make politicians take terrorism seriously. Pull out their security personnel. Let them move around in an ordinary car and walk amongst the people. Let them be exposed to terrorist strikes like everyone else. Then and only then will they do something.

And we still vote for these self serving *!@#

Fix

Do you know what is a 'Fix'?

When you notice that there is a problem, it means that there is a non confirmance to the performance requirement, leading to loss and waste. 'Fix' is a temporary solution to arrest this non confirmance and to reduce the loss till a permanent solution is found out. Once a 'Fix' is in place, follow up action like finding the root cause, identifying a permanent solution, implementing the solution, following it up and removing the 'Fix' has to be done.

Unfortunately, people and organizations are short sighted. They tend to forget about the problem once the 'Fix' is in place, till it snowballs into a major crisis later.

Let me give you some examples,

Most of the middle class houses in India have wash basins. The tap invariably is of poor quality and starts malfunctioning leading to water dripping. As a 'Fix', the residents close the gate valve under the wash basin which is kept for an emergency. This is fine. But then they are expected to rectify the defect in the main tap or replace it. This is never done,leading to the 'Fix' of controlling the water flow using the gate valve becoming a permanent solution.

At a macro level, let us look at the plight of farmers who are driven to suicide by wrong governmental policies. Government, typical of its ostrich like approach, has applied a 'Fix' by announcing a 60000 crores rupees loan waiver. This is fine. But have we heard a peep from the Government regarding analyzing the root cause of the problems faced by the Agricultural sector and finding long term solutions for it. The answer is a resounding 'No'. It has been found that 72% of the fruits produced in the country goes waste.

Another case is applying a 'Fix' to tackle inflation. Inflation is not something that cropped up one fine day morning. Everyone saw it coming but did nothing till it started shaking the foundation of the Government. Then the 'Fix'ing started. First it was the raising of Interest rates, then banning of exports and then increase in CRR of Banks. These don't constitute permanent solutions. The root cause is more structural in nature. We do not have a long term inflation managment policy. But who cares? The RBI Governor and Finance Ministry says inflation will be down to 6.5% in 3 months as if that is a relief. Contrary to what many think, food is not the cause for inflation. Government slept through when Steel producers and Cement producers formed cartels and started raising the prices. The Government hardly raised a finger when it knew there was a wheat shortage, and that it had to import wheat to make up for the shortfall. It didn't do anything to procure wheat when the prices were low in international markets, but placed orders when the prices had hit the roof. Even allowing that food consumption is on the higher side, Government should have seen it coming as people don't just start eating more overnight. Now they have come up with another ingenious 'Fix' - let people change their food habits. Is there anything more ridiculous than this?

Whenever you apply a 'Fix', please ensure that you go back to the problem, analyze it carefully, identify the root causes, find solutions, implement them diligently - and................don't forget to remove the 'Fix'

Icarus Paradox

In ancient Greek mythology, Icarus had wings of feathers held together by wax which enabled him to fly. Entranced with his newfound ability, Icarus ignored his father's warnings and soared ever higher. His wings eventually melted and he fell into the sea and drowned.

This is called Icarus Paradox in Management. Many successful companies, quite confident of their market dominance or their own exceptional core competencies, develop a sense of invincibility which leads to a fall sooner or later.

Let us see how this happens. Companies which enjoy high levels of success are often unable to sustain the processes and qualities that brought them success in the first place. More often than not they get so obsessed with the factors that brought them success in the first place that they show strong resistance to change and the evolving market conditions. For example, a company which built its success on a commitment to quality at the smallest level can become enmeshed in too much attention to detail and lose their ability to understand and react to macro level changes. A classic case is that of process driven Japanes automobile industry. In their quest to make cost efficient cars, they have missed the bus regarding R&D and need to build vehicles for the future. Some of the Companies and key individuals, once successful because of their ability to be flexible become increasingly rigid in their internal structure and decision making process, leading to loss of entrepreneurial spirit and ending up showing a marked unwillingness to expand into new markets away from their core business.

In today's dynamic market environment, it is essential that both organizations and individuals do not carry baggages from the past and embrace change wholeheartedly

Soft Skills

Apart from hard technical skills, the employees require quite a few soft skills. They are applicable to any field of work, and are the "personal traits and skills that employers state are the most important when selecting employees for jobs of any type.

Courtesy
Honesty and Integrity
Reliability
Flexibility and adaptability
Team skills and cooperation
Cooperation.
Self-directed
Good attitude
Writing skills
Dependability
Personal energy
Positive work ethic
Interpersonal skills.
Motivational skills
Willingness to learn
Common sense
Critical thinking skills
Punctuality
Perfection in work
Ability to follow rules
Willingness to be accountable
A feel for the job
Staying on the job until it is finished.
Caring about seeing the company succee
Understanding what the world is all about
Willingness to take instruction and responsibility
Innovation
Mentoring skills
Tenacity
Commitment
Computer literacy
Presentation skills
Leadership


How many soft skills do you possess?

"Innum paramugam eno?"

The best examples pertaining to various strategic management and marketing tactics can be seen in Indian pre-marriage activities. You have slick marketing, product augmentation, strategic alliance, horizontal diversification, pricing........well the list is endless.

And these are being followed since time immemorial. One such made an indirect contribution to my being here to write this blog.

The year was 1953. My father, a 23 year old fresh Engineer then from rural Kerala and hailed from a very poor family. As was won't those days, educated poor Brahmin boys were in demand in the marriage market as the girls parents looked out for well educated boys as a way of securing the future of their wards.

Mother was a second generation Bombay born girl, eldest daughter of a family 5, her father having migrated to Bombay in 1930's from Kerala in search of opportunities in the private sector in the big metro. Mother was not very attractive to look at, - 17, thin, very dark and a possessing a reserved demeanour. Father was not impressed when he went to meet my mother at her house, though his poor parents didn't mind the least since mothers family was relatively affluent.

Father had almost decided to refuse the alliance, when someone remarked that my mother sings classical music well and asked her to sing.

Mother sat on the floor opposite to father and started singing. She had studied music for 6 years and had a nice voice. You can call this her USP.

The first song was a small one invoking Lord Ganapathy, as was the norm. Father was impressed with the singing but was firm that he was not marrying this girl.

But little did he know that he was no match for the slick marketing and entrepreneurship of the Bombayites.

Mother started the second song,

'Easane intha ezhaikku iranga innum thamadama...........' This song in the beautiful ragam of Chakravakam loosely translated meant 'Lord, why the delay in condescending to this poor girl'.

It touched an emotional chord as father felt the pangs of guilt as a young girl was asking him (begging) him to marry her through a melodious song. Remember the setting. He was sitting amidst a high pressure crowd of 10-15 relatives of hers, and was already mellowed with high quality sweets and savouries. You also need to remember that for a Palghat born boy, Bombay in 1953 was a whole new world. It was the land of opportunities, like US of today.

Father started wavering a bit. Then came the next song,

'Innum paramugam eno...........................' meaning 'Why are you still diffident? and why don't you take a favourable decision'.............................

Bang!........Poor father fell for it. He thought the songs were suggestions from God directing him to take a positive decision. He consented to the marriage little knowing that all of this was a smart marketing plan implemented to perfection by mother's family.

To the day she died, mother vowed that she never knew the meaning of the songs she sang and that she was asked to sing these songs in the specific order by the elderly ladies (marketing veterans) in the family. And till he died, my father never forgave my mothers family for conning him into the marriage.

We are all naive as compared to those marketing geniuses.

Update

I have not been commenting on current issues. Let me make up.........

Women's Reservation Bill introduced on the last day of the Parliament Session amidst chaos..............yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnn..........this is an Ekta Kapoor mega serial episode that is enacted again and again at the end of the Government's term. Whom are our lawmakers trying to fool? They had the whole of last 5 years to pass this. This is nothing by an election gimmick.

Bhajji slapgate...........IPL conducted the enquiry in a couple of days and banned Harbhajan quickly. BCCI is in its typical fashion is taking its own sweet time to conduct the enquiry. And I thought the process followed was the same. Anyway, if reports are correct, things look bleak for Harbhajan, and rightly so.

Indo-US nuclear deal is virtually dead. Well, did it ever have a chance of succeeding when the Government refused to build a national consensus? Especially when the major ruling party is a minority in the Parliament. One should know one's strength before venturing out to attempt something.

Another Parliament session is over with hardly any meaningful work done. Every minute of the functioning (dysfunctioning) costs the exchequer Rs 26000. And most of the time is spent on boycotting, shouting and blocking proceedings. Remember it is your and my money that is being spent. Will any company allow its employees to get away scotfree if they are wasting Rs 26000 per minute?

At last one Governor tried to be different by switching off the lights to empathise with the power cut faced by the common man - Gopalakrishna Gandhi of Bengal. And promptly, the communist government is up in arms asking for the post of Governor to be scrapped. And I thought the communists were more close to the common man than any other party. Well things change.

US accuses Indians and Chinese of eating more that has led to the current food crisis. They have also put the blame on us for the spiralling oil prices. What did they expect us to do? Starve to death and remain in the bullock cart era? For years, they preached the virtue of growth, development , privatization, liberalization and globalization. Now when they feel the pinch, they blame all these things for the ills of the world. Damned if you do, damned it you don't!

Destruction for Construction

In 1914 Thomas Edison’s factory in West Orange, New Jersey, was virtually destroyed by fire. Although the damage exceeded $2 million, the buildings were insured for only $238,000 because they were made of concrete and were thought to be fireproof. Much of Edison’s life work went up in smoke and flames that December night.

At the height of the fire, Edison’s 24-year-old son, Charles, searched frantically for his father. He finally found him, calmly watching the fire, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind.

“My heart ached for him,” said Charles.

Edison was then 67 — no longer a young man — and everything was going up in flames.

However, when he saw me, he shouted, “Charles, where’s your mother?” When I told him I didn’t know, he said, "Find her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives."’

The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and said, “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.”

Three weeks after the fire, Edison managed to deliver the first phonograph. - adapted from web


One of the motto that has always interested me was the one I saw in Coimbatore. It was that of the Late G D Naidu, Industrialist, inventor, entrepreneur and educationalist. The motto read 'Destruction for Construction'. Somehow it has always stayed in my mind.

There is an eternal truth in it. Anything that has to be constructed has to face destruction, and from the ruins will arise new ideas like a phoenix. It says a lot about the resilience of the humans and his never say die spirit.

Understanding others

We always make the mistake of seeing things only from our perspective. Our interpersonal skills will improve many fold if only we were to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and view the problem through their eyes.......well lens for a fact as this incident illustrates,

Like many photographers before him, Richard Zaltman was visiting remote areas of the world to capture images of people living lives far removed from those in the United States. He always used to view the world through his eyes or more correctly through his camera lens.

One morning, while walking through an isolated village in Bhutan, he suddenly got the idea of turning his camera over to the locals to see what they would consider significant enough to show others about themselves.

Later, when he looked at all their pictures, he noticed that most of the photos cut off people’s feet.

“At first, I thought the villagers had just aimed wrong,” Zaltman says. “But it turns out that being barefoot is a sign of poverty. Even though everyone was barefoot, people wanted to hide that - -which is an important message to see.”

You never really know someone until you see the choices he or she makes.

40 years for 30 seconds

"A woman approached Picasso in a restaurant, asked him to scribble something on a napkin, and said she would be happy to pay whatever he felt it was worth.

Picasso complied and then said, “That will be $10,000.”

“But you did that in thirty seconds,” the astonished woman replied.

“No,” Picasso said. “It has taken me forty years to do that.”

Skills are not mastered overnight. You need to work on it consistently

Secretiveness

One disturbing trend I have noticed of late is that people tend to be secretive and not transparent. Maybe it has got something to do with the break up of the joint family system. Or maybe the absurd behaviour of the government which revels on putting a lid on any transaction under the official secrets act has percolated down to the individuals in the society.

India is one of the few countries which has put every single scrap of information under the category of classified information thereby denying it to the public at large. Most of the developed countries declassify almost everything after a reasonable period of say 25 years by which time it has lost its value and the protagonists are long dead. This way, the average citizen gets to know the logic or lack of it behind the crucial decisions taken a while ago that had profound impact on the society at large. There is a past in present. Hence it is important for the Government of the day to come out in the open and be transparent on all aspects barring those of critical national importance. We live in an era of information explosion. Since the percolation of information, secrets or not, through blogs and other tools on the Internet is so fast, it is absurd to hold back anything as it shall lead to more gossips.

Take the case of the much publicized visit of Priyanka Gandhi with one of the convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi case, Nalini. The news media had a field day with someone even quoting Priyanka having said that she has come to terms now with her grief. I have no complaints on Priyanka meeting Nalini and getting some mileage out of it. The twist in the tail comes a month later, when the Jail Superintendant where Nalini is interned has given a written submission on a query filed under the RTI act that the meeting never took place and that the jail records did not show Priyanka having ever visited Nalini. Now this is strange. It can mean only two things, either Priyanka is lying or the Vellore Jail allowed Priyanka to visit a life term convict without any records and thereby violating all the rules. I suspect it is the later, in which case both Priyanka and the Jail authorities have a lot to explain. Why should be make a mess of such a simple issue?

Five minutes

While at the park one day, a woman sat down next to a man on a bench near a playground.

“That’s my son over there,” she said, pointing to a little boy in a red sweater who was gliding down the slide.

“He’s a fine looking boy,” the man said. “That’s my son on the swing in the blue sweater.”

Then, looking at his watch, he called to his son. “What do you say we go, son?”

Son pleaded, “Just five more minutes, Father. Please? Just five more minutes.”

The man nodded and the son continued to swing to his heart’s content. Minutes passed and the father stood and called again to his son. “Time to go now?” Again son pleaded, “Five more minutes. Just five more minutes.”

The man smiled and said, “O.K.”

“My, you certainly are a patient father,” the woman responded.

The man smiled and then said, “My older son was killed by a drunk driver last year while he was riding his bike near here. I never spent much time with him and now I ‘d give anything for just five more minutes with him. I’ve vowed not to make the same mistake with the younger one. He thinks he has five more minutes to swing. The truth is, I get Five more minutes to watch him play.” - adapted from web

Savour those precious minutes. They are more important than anything else in the world