"3 Idiots" and the other side of the coin

3 Idiots the movie has been termed an all time hit and its content has raised many a debate about the Indian education system. There is a soft sermon to parents too to provide the requisite freedom to their kids to choose the path that they are passionate about. Nothing wrong about the subject in general and it is indeed a trigger to many of us - parents to not be narrow in determining the choice our kids should make. There is a life and career beyond an engineering, medical or MBA degrees.

Having said the above, i believe it is human nature to make safe bets and as a parent (and a professionally educated one at that) it is an impulsive inclination to think about safe paths which have a proven history of employ ability. It is also not easy to determine a cut-off point when we feel our kids have the capability and sensibility to make the right career moves. There are times when we are pleasantly surprised by the depth to which our children can articulate what he or she wants but in the absence of it, it is but natural to choose a path for them and in all probability a safe one. A desire to be at one of the ivy league institutes is common thinking and it does have a visible guarantee to success.

I will not claim that i knew i wanted to be an Engineer and MBA from top notch colleges at the age of 14 (when i passed my tenth grade); to be honest, i don't think i had the maturity to think beyond for a radically different career path. In hind sight i feel i could have been a good musician or may be a good cook even but i have no regrets today with where i am and what i have accomplished (i am at the moment trying to give wings to some of my cherished dreams though).

Compared to a decade+ ago, the options available today are many. The proliferation of content / information in all shapes and sizes does make a child mature faster and gives him / her certain ideas on what he / she wants. They may be able to articulate better but yet, i will advise caution to evaluate any decision and check genuine interest or indicators before a go ahead is given.

While it is good to start early in a particular direction, it is never too late actually to start after securing a good employable / professional degree. Chetan Bhagat an IIT and IIM started writing much later in life and as on date has moved on from being an investment banker to a full fledged writer / columnist.....i know of a singer too who completed her professional degrees and later took to being a playback singer and i should add ...a successful one too.

Allow your children to follow their dreams....it is critical.......but understand there is nothing wrong in the common way of thinking that provides the children and the parents with a sense of security.

Relevance of content in B2B publications

"B2B publications.....well no one reads them" is an often heard statement.....more so from many of my colleagues who have worked with me through my 11 year stint in the B2B media industry. While B2B media commands only a fraction of the advertising pie in the industry in India, the cost economics works well in its favor to give a much lower break even point and higher margins compared to any B2C publication - primarily because one can do with a smaller team and lower circulation (as most of it is controlled). Most of the publications survive by re-hashing press releases some even creating lengthy stories (albeit boring and wholesomely irrelevant at times) just to catch a client's attention.....hoping he would see it as a favor to place advertisements in the publications. Many go to lengths to offer a red carpet to the client - you order and we can help you with it - interviews, company profiles, custom case studies and very often glorifying duds as well, all in the hope of making that extra buck. Very often, some clients with deep pockets wriggle out what they want - typical mafiadom as they wield great powers to influence their peers in the industry as well. The reason for their behavior is simple....they view publications more as an advertising catalogue that a reader would flip through in five minutes rather than making time to read through what is written. Ask yourself, would you spend time on anything that does not add value to your life or business?

While this route helps get in all the numbers without an iota of remorse - i still continue to question the very basis of these thoughts; more so as i am on the other side of the table today and have been scurrying to find good genuine data pertaining to the industry i am in. Here is my wish list that can actually help me in what i am doing and possibly make me a fan of any publication who can cater to my needs....

• In a cost intensive industry such as ours, every bit of analysis to reduce costs will buy my attention
• Sectoral research - done methodically and with rigor to provide me with key analysis, inference and a path forward will force me to spend time or even quote it in all my meetings to make my planning simpler
• Intensive study of changes in technology and its implication there of can help me gain a competitive advantage by being an early adoptor
• Analysing a particular issue by quoting from say ten case studies and studying the pattern in detail to draw conclusions

These are just a few to quote. The age old formula of stickiness of content is easily forgotten as it is the hard path to stand tall and be on your own. It takes immense effort to reach a pinnacle but alas only few follow the path to the top.

I wish to quote what many gurus in marketing have repeated a zillion times over.....it is important to create entry barriers by doing something that will take a competitor ages to catch up.

The Indian Cricket Captain - Punching Bag For A Billion Indians

When do a billion people trun critics, bowling experts, batting order analysers, field placement supervisors, pitch report scrutinizers .....all in one go? No one can answer this question better than the past and present captains of the Indian cricket team.

One can say that this is just a game and you can't win everyday and i believe every one in the crowd will admit to this but we are a nation which hasn't excelled in any other sport consistently other than cricket...at least in the recent past.

Every child born in India especially if he is a boy is gifted a bat and ball the day the he is able to grasp any object around him. He is constantly told tales of Sachin Tendulkar more than Birbal, Lord Ram or Tenali Raman. He is shown the nearby playing ground on a bright sunday morning with more people playing on the field than the cumulative grass visible there. It is definitely a good exercise ...which may take hours mind you.....to figure out who is bowling to whom and fielding for whom.

It is a factor of loads of hard work with an even higher degree of luck to make it to the cricket camp. The odds are such that it may seem easier or rather cake walk to win a lottery ticket with odds of 1:1.5 lac than to get a place in the team.

If you are one among the coveted team members....well...you better perform. You can't be popping out of news papers, television sets, internet and every bill board in sight constantly tell us to buy a certain brand of carbonated drink, shirt, fan, phone, bike, car and the works and come back to tell us that they forgot to polish themselves against short balls before the game.....this unfortunately is the most common perception among all of us.

It is also true that the Indian team has found one of the best strike combination that we have seen in a long time. There are days when the combination comes short of striking it well but it can happen any where and in any game. My faith in the team is immense and the day is not far when the same combination will be paraded in open top busses through the city after a spectacular win.

Strange Situations In Sales

I often question myself if sales is just a profession? I believe it is like a shadow that follows every human being till he or she relinquishes the world....well it is true. If any activity in life has an element of convincing required, peppered with reasoning and logic it is an act of selling. Yet very often i have noticed when a sales person calls in, the person who is hearing him / her out cringes almost like a natural instinct. Why, i wonder?

There is no definite answer to the instinctive behavior. There may be a need for the product, you may have internally decided to buy the product and the brand; yet you listen to the pitch and try to put forth all your questions and you may end up buying irrespective of a not so great pitch. Does this mean that sales person just connects or delivers what the person has already decided to buy?

Everybody negotiates; you may feel the price you are being asked to pay is right then why a discount? You may end up jumping with joy if you manage to reduce the price. It is a feeling of ecstasy that no pill can satisfy.

To err is human but a sales person cannot err. He can be crucified even if a mistake is not his direct contribution. I do admit that there are many who fondly remember good sales folks as well but why such extremities in reaction?

There have been many books written on the above observations - many theories and remedies to make that perfect call, to assess customers, go with the perfect pitch, learn the perfect art of negotiation and offer great service after sale. I know of many sales people who might have followed all of this rigorously but they will still admit that they continue to see and experience the above instances every day to this day.

I am sure there are more views, observations to second my thought or to contradict some of them.....would be glad to hear....

Employees - Asset or Cost?

'Employees are our biggest asset' is the most often heard phrase in corporate parlance and it is interestingly inserted to assert an enterprises' continued focus on building human / intellectual capital. It also becomes the focus when any cost cutting is discussed....the asset soon turns into a cost discussion.....this brings in the question....why are employees subjected to the perceived notion of a highly interchangeable component?

Exaggerated as it may sound at first sight.....it is a reality that dawns upon introspection. It is heart wrenching to hire the best possible talent and to let them go because of change in market forces, economic environment or improper business acumen. While the first two are not entirely controllable, the third is a serious human error which essentially derives information / indicators from the first two with a fair dose of fundamentals related to the business. The core (and this is my opinion) is to make HR a strategic part of growth than a mere support function.

The ground rules for hiring as set by HR will involve information gathering from all disciplines in a company - market opportunity, internal preparedness, budget availability, investment capability, competition scenario, leadership within the enterprise and the growth visibility for each individual who is hired. It is seldom an intensive practice to involve HR and assimilate all the above information to give a combined indicator for building intellectual / human capital.

The leadership can set a system to forewarn or possibly gauge the impending changes to the market environment.....mind you, this is easier said than done but a consistent process to review and assess builds in the immunity to withstand vagaries in the market dynamics. The leader can instill the sense of passion and motivation to achieve stretch targets......which helps contain the human numbers and possibly not be swayed by boom or be hit adversely by a crash.

In the end.....it is left to a leader, his vision and passion to retain the tag of an asset on his employees. It is his ability to demand and put to use various information at his disposal to make informed decisions. Well, this is my perspective.....am sure there are many other ways to look at it too.

Do We Respect Intellectual Capital?

I am sure it seems absurd and outrageous to ask this question, given the fact that every corporate wants to or at least tries to have the best intellectuals in its fold. It is a pride to flaunt the best of breed and the coveted achievers as a part of a company organisational structure....why then should the most sought after firms come crashing down and bring about a worldwide recession? Couldn't the combined strenght of the intellectuals predict a path to everlasting success and growth? Here is where the respect or the lack of it for intellectual capital comes to the fore.

It is often found in the corporate spectrum worldwide that an individual's success is given perpetuity......it is taken as a lifelong freedom to make decisions without hindrance......the reverance that he generates for himself stops others from questioning him or his authority.....if an individual does raise a question....it is considered sacrilege.....not because he was wrong ...it is more because the others have put their minds to rest and feel happy just following a laid out path in expectation of unhindered continuity.

This is where an inclusive leadership plays a role.....where decisions are not made in isolation for others to swallow......but decisions are sought to debate and in some places where a leader admits that he is a little clueless and wants another person to take a call this time. This may at first sight appear as a dumb move.....but it is my belief that it sets the intellectual capital in motion as every individual is made to think and bring in the best to help the company.

It may be a worthwhile exercise to check the success story of many successful enterprise....though it won't be an obvious result in the beginning but somewhere down the line it will come to the fore that the one who respected and nurtured intellectual capital comes out stronger and healthier. A worthwhile insulation from many corporate / economic calamities.

An Indian Government That I Aspire To See...

With elections over, a government formed and ministerial berths allocated....there is an increasing expectation from the people of India that the minsters will walk the talk. There have been some promises (literally weeding out those few out of all that was spoken in electoral rallies and those that can be truly classified as promises) made and targets set (the Indian electorate cannot be considered gullible any more)....it is truly a time for action. What then can possibly drive the ministers and their ministries to fulfill promises and hit targets?
Here is my wish list of what i would want to see....i classify myself as one among the ordinary citizen who is truly appreciative of hard work and will keenly observe progress as and when it becomes visible to the discerning eye.

1. Can targets be set for each minister which is made transparent over a public website and progress monitored on a quarterly basis
2. Can there be a report that is published at the end of each quarter on the work done so far with facts and figures which are audited by an independent agency?
3. Can there be a system where if a minister has not hit his targets for two consecutive quarters, he is taken off his post without worrying which alliance party he comes from?
4. Can there be a forum on how the MP's budget should be utilised? Can there be a priority set for each constituency to help the citizens in general understand how active is the concerned MP?

Just a few that i could think right away.....but a good bunch of these come out of the closet when there is an impending election......a good part of the development or the lack of it gets lost in the high decibel blame game that become part of every campaign. If a consistent reporting is undertaken, does anyone really have to shout from roof tops?....a point to ponder...