An eye for Talent

I read this story on the web and thought it to be cute,

It's a fine sunny day in the forest and a lion is sitting outside his cave, lying in the sun.

Along comes a fox, out on a walk.

Fox: "Do you know the time, because my watch is broken"

Lion: "Oh, I can easily fix the watch for you"

Fox: "Hmm... But it's a very complicated mechanism, and your big claws will only destroy it even more."

Lion: "Oh no, give it to me, and it will be fixed"

Fox: "That's ridiculous! Any fool knows that lazy lions with great claws cannot fix watches"

Lion: "Sure they do, give it to me and it will be fixed"

The lion disappears into his cave, and after a while he comes back with the watch which is running perfectly. The fox is impressed, and the lion continues to lie in the sun, looking very pleased with himself.

Soon a wolf comes along and stops by the lion.

Wolf: "Can I come and watch TV tonight with you, because mine is broken"

Lion: "Oh, I can easily fix your TV for you"

Wolf: "You don't expect me to believe such rubbish, do you? There is no way that a lion with big claws can fix a complicated TV.

Lion: "No problem. Do you want to try it?"

The lion goes into his cave, and after a while comes back with a perfectly fixed TV. The wolf goes away happily and amazed.

Now let us pan our camera to the scene inside the cave.

In one corner are half a dozen small and intelligent looking rabbits who are busily doing very complicated work with very detailed instruments. In the other corner lies a huge lion looking very pleased with himself.

The moral of the story is that we don't have to do everything on our own, as managers, to offer excellent services that satisfies both internal and external customers. All we have to do is to identify good, skillful subordinates and delegate the work to them. Never surround yourself with inferior subordinates. If you want to be a successful manager, you should have a discerning eye for talent.

'May be'

Most of the unhappiness come out of our inability to manage expectations. Also, we are exhilarated when we have success while feeling extremely disappointed at failure. Somehow, most people are not in a position to handle fame and tragedy with equanimity.

Bhagawad Geetha tries to address this by talking about doing one's 'Karma' or duty without expecting any returns. By exhorting people to not expect returns, Bhagawad Geetha protects them from the feelings associated with success or failure.

There is a nice Zen Story on this..................

Once upon a time, a farmer had a horse. One day the horse bolted. The farmer's friends came to him to commiserate with him on his bad luck. He listened to them but just said 'may be'

The horse returned a few days later with 6 wild horses in tow. Everyone congratulated him on his good luck now. He simple said, 'may be'

A few days later, his only son fell down one of these wild horses and broke his leg. When the farmers friends talked about his misfortune, he said 'may be'

There was a war going on. A few days later the Army came in to take away all the able bodied young men to fight, but they left the farmers son back as he had a broken foot. When his friends gathered to talk about the farmers son's luck, he again just said 'may be'

Some might argue that the farmer's behaviour borders on fatalism. But if you look deeply, you will find that this is not passivity. The farmer is not judging events. He is accepting them for what they are. Sometimes it pays not to brood over what has happened, but stoically accept it and move on in life. This will also ensure that we manage our expectations.

RBI mumbo jumbo

One of the tricks used by Economists, top Finance Ministry personnel and others like that is to do some top quality gymnastics with words that stringed together makes absolutely no sense to the reader. The average guy thinks that all this mumbo jumbo is intellectual stuff and beyond his scope of understanding. The latest press release by Reserve Bank of India on rising the interest rates is one such. It is bad enough that RBI raised the interest rate by0.25% but their subsequent explanation takes the cake. If any normal man speaks like that in his daily life, he will be tied up and taken to the nearest mental asylum.

It took me a good part of the day to get the real meaning of the press release by RBI. I am reproducing salient part of the release.

“it is critical at this juncture to demonstrate on a continuing basis a determination to act decisively, effectively and swiftly to curb any signs of adverse developments in regard to inflation expectations.”....................... (it means, whenever inflation figures go up, which anyway happens every friday, RBI will resort to hiking the interest rate because they don't know what else to do).

"annual policy statement for the year 2008-09 (April 29, 2008) had stated, inter alia, that the overall stance of monetary policy in 2008-09 will broadly be to ensure a monetary and interest rate environment that accords high priority to price stability, well-anchored inflation expectations and orderly conditions in financial markets while being conducive to continuation of the growth momentum."......................(well, well........very lofty goals!! anyway those are the goals which RBI has no intention of achieving)

'Further, it was proposed to respond swiftly on a continuing basis to the evolving constellation of adverse international developments and to the domestic situation impinging on inflation expectations, financial stability and growth momentum, with both conventional and unconventional measures, as appropriate.'............... (constellation of blah blah blah................. I give up! This is beyond my limited abilities)

'The annual policy statement for the year 2008-09 (April 29, 2008) had referred to the unprecedented uncertainties and dilemmas that exist and added "while monetary policy has to respond proactively to immediate concerns, it cannot afford to ignore considerations over a relatively longer term perspective of, say, one to two years, with respect to overall macroeconomic prospects.' ........................... ( it means, RBI doesn't have a foggiest of idea what managing economy is all about and someone in the RBI did a magnificent job of saying everything when it is actually nothing)

'At the same time, it is critical at this juncture to demonstrate on a continuing basis a determination to act decisively, effectively and swiftly to curb any signs of adverse developments in regard to inflation expectations.'................. (in fact economy will do much better if these idiots at RBI don't mess it up regularly)

'In light of the above, and on a review of the current macroeconomic and overall monetary conditions and with a view to containing inflation expectations, it is essential to take appropriate action on an urgent basis.' .................. (and RBI hikes the interest rates. simple as that)

We are supposed to be ruled allegedly by some of the best brains in the country..........Prime Minister Manmohan Singh- a self proclaimed economist, Finance Minister P Chidambaram - A Harvard Scholar and Dy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahulwalia - another economist. The honourable PM has expressed his helplessness in controlling inflation after promising to curb it in two weeks in April 2008 (we all know what happened since then), Finance Minister has suddenly found a thorough disliking for the press and the cameras, and the Dy Chairman of the Planning Commission in a TV interview expressed the hope that inflation will come down by September. Now, you might think and he might claim that if this happens, it will be because of the steps taken by the Government and RBI. No such thing. Any idiot knows that prices come down after a good kharif season.

Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary actions and out of the box thinking. Forget about out of the box thinking, the trio of PM, FM and DCPC can't even think. They are so obsessed with their neo liberal economic policies that they are oblivious to what is happening in the real world of the commmon man.

Implicit needs

We talk of explicit needs and implicit needs in marketing. More often than not, marketers and individuals react to explicit needs without taking the trouble to find out the implicit ones. What people say they want, and what they actually want could be totally different.

Once a professional working in the IT industry walked into a recruitment agent's office and when queried about his career objectives said,

“I’ve got to get out of the IT industry, the work hours are long, it is a sweat shop and the industry is killing me day by day”

The recruitment counsellor empathised with him and gave him a bunch of forms to be filled that will enable him to facilitate the search in a different industry.

When the candidate did not return for a week, the recruitment counsellor called him up and set up another meeting. The candidate turned up late but had not filled even a single form.

Again on listening to his story about how IT industry is taking the life out of him, the recruitment agent threw in a harmless question,

“What will happen if you don’t get out of the IT industry?”

“My wife will divorce me.”

“Do you want your wife to divorce you?”

The candidate couldn’t keep the smile off of his face.

It was clear to the recruitment counsellor then that he would never change his job until it had given him what he wanted: a divorce, with his wife taking the initiative — and the guilt.

This was his implicit or hidden need. One needs to understand this. And one can’t help people change or find their mission when they have a hidden agenda.

We can but cry!

China has been making incursions into Arunachal Pradesh for quite some time now, more than 150 incursions have occured during the last one year. Any Nation with self respect would have beaten the Chinese back with force. Such an action would not have started a third world war, but rather sent a strong message not to fool around with India. And, last heard, we do have a very strong army which consumes a large part of our GDP. But listen to our Defence Minister A K Antony, "To a maximum extent, we will try to avoid confrontation". Pray tell me Why Mr Antony?

Still worse is the case of tiny Bangladesh, a tiny little nuisance of a country which was created in the first place by India. This country (a fraction of the size of any major state in India) in a sudden and outrageous move in 2006, backed by their country's Army, have uprooted pillars demarcating the Indo-Bangla border along Dhubri and Karimganj districts of Assam, and forcibly grabbed at least500 acres (2.02 sq km) of Indian territory. And what have we done till 2008. Zilch, nothing. The land continues to be under occupation of Bangladesh. What would you do if your neighbour occupies one feet of your land by shifting the fence in the border between your houses? If you have an iota of self respect, you will teach him a lesson that he is not likely to forget for a life time. But our rulers (non-rulers) are generous. Passivity is the name of the game.

Less said about our response to terrorism the better.

When will we have a government that has some spine?

Till then we can but cry!

Can someone answer these?

Why is it that materials sent through a SHIP is called a CARGO and those sent through a CAR (well truck actually or rather over the road) called a SHIPMENT?

Why is it that a game like FOOTBALL where the goal post is so big produces a score line of 1-0 or 2-1 but BASKETBALL where the ball is bigger and the basket ridiculously small produces a scoreline of 100-87?

Why is it that a White man who turns pink when exposed to sun and turns blue when he is cold, calls a Negro who is black all the time coloured?

Michael Douglas and Yesudasan

I had the privilege of watching interviews of two successful people from different industries from across the world on TV today morning.

The first was Michael Douglas. The celebrity Hollywood actor was quite candid and very lucid. One thing that struck me was his mentioning " I try to have with me for my projects, the best possible actors, technicians and directors. There is no question of ego or insecurity here. The only objective is to make a very good movie. Other things are irrelevant "....................Quite correct. Group goals always takes precedence over individual goals.

On switching to a Malayalam Channel, the famous cartoonist Yesudasan was heard explaining how the famous cartoonist Shankar influenced him in his formative years. Most of the cartoonist have a habit of concentrating on the face (head) of the individual portrayed in the cartoon and would not pay much attention to the other aspects of the body like legs, hand, fingers, dress etc. Shankar advised him to be perfect, pay very close attention to even the slippers being worn and then caricature the individual. This quest for perfection was the hallmark of Shankar's cartoons and also of Yesudasan's.........Something to be learned from this too.

We can apply both to our daily life. Can't we? Will make us much better persons