Being Early - Live Example

Today, I went for an haircut which was long due. The last night, I planned to have my haircut in Naturals and I called them few times in the morning but no one was there to answer. I wanted to try my luck by directly going to their salon. I went there to only see the shop not yet opened. There is a Green Trends salon very near to Naturals and I thought I could make an appointment with them at 8.30 am. I went there and asked whether I had any free slot in the morning.

To my surprise, they said they had free slot immediately. At 8 a.m. I had my haircut and never even looked back Naturals. In Green Trends, I found at least 10 customers. If these 10 customers visit them 10 times a year, they easily make 100 more sales than Naturals. If they work on their net margin, they are more profitable than Naturals. While I was having haircut, I was deeply thinking about being early and how it helps in business. Both the salons deal with people in the higher income range. Green Trends seems to understand the importance of being early (everyday) and Naturals needs to learn a lot in being early.

This is again an example on how being early helps in business. This example can be extrapolated to any industry. Being early always has an edge over being late. It was a good learning experience today.

Giving Back - Company Should be a Community

Almost of all Indian IT companies have enjoyed tax incentives in the name of IT export and creating high end technology jobs in India. We continue to enjoy monetary benefits in the name of tax incentives. These tax incentives in no way are less. IT industry have been enjoying these and it is fair to say that this has become one of the key strategies to make money (or at very least to increase profit). Whenever the government says its plan to cut the incentives, the industry voices and makes sure that they get some form of incentives.

If we look at the other side, are we fair enough. We simply forget the fact that we get incentive on tax which otherwise will go to welfare of the people (well some part to welfare of people and some part to welfare for politicians). Most of the IT companies fail to remember that they have to "give back". The companies have to give back to people in terms of money, time, efforts. Apart from transforming their businesses, the customer businesses, employees, we must "give back" to the country. Unless we give back, we will not get back. Simple logic.

When I traveled back to India from US, I happen to meet Mr Jayen Desai, Head Business Excellence, Applied Electronics. He talked about the role of an industry in national development. Particularly, with the technology expertise that IT industry possesses, we can do a lot to our nation. Will we get time to do it? Can each company become a community?

PS: The few minutes discussion with Mr Jayen Desai in Super Shuttle (from San Jose to SFO airport) is one of the defining moment and one of the most productive time in my professional career.

Indian IT Industry - Be Responsible

Indian IT industry doesn't seem to understand the importance of quality of resource. Most of them make offers out of which many are bad offers. If we think that "bad offers" is an exception that can be discounted as it is negligible, we are dead wrong. Anyone with an Engineering degree (with few days of reading a programming language) can get into IT and get six digit salary. I hear interviewers saying, he is good in concepts, struggles a bit in programming but trainable. Neither the mediocre create value for the organization nor the organization creates any value to its clients. Together, we create mess.

The quality of people that get into the organization not only affects the performance or morale that exist in the team. It also creates a devastating effects to the culture of the organization. As more mediocre people get in, they deliver mediocre results and they make everyone around them mediocre. The only reason why I find we are happy in hiring mediocre people is to fill the positions and to get that "extra" bucks (and bugs). Indian IT, please be responsible. If we are not responsible, we have to pay heavy prize. China is no longer non English speaking country. So, is that the reason why most of top Indian IT opened up shops in China.

I' m back - Burning Fat

First of all, my hearty new year wishes to the readers.

It is going to be more than two months since I blogged. Work is overwhelming and never gives me time to take break for blogging. Let me not talk too much about my work. I m back in action and hope that I continue to blog. Today, I feel so happy that I m consistent for the past two weeks in jogging. Started to job again with a kilometer run and over a period of two weeks, today I jogged little over 12 kilometers. Yes, it is 12 kilometers. This is the first time I jogged that distance with my heavy body. I could feel that my fat was burning when I ran. Before I started to run today, I thought to run 15 kilometers but gave up as my knees started to give pain. So, I called it for the day and came to my room in train (BTW, I m San Jose, USA for a short trip).

It is very funny that for the first time (in US and in my life), I went to office by jogging (around 4 miles) and on my return I covered almost three quarters of distance. Overall, I jogged little more than 12 kilometers. Of course, I covered the distance in two hours.

As usual, I saw few great human beings who cheered me up on the way - a man in cycle, a lady with her son, a couple with their kid, an old lady cheered me up with a lot of smile on their face and words of greetings.

Leadership 101 - Anticipate Failures

The world is a physical balance. It has good and bad, ups and downs, successes and failures. Often people get carried by Positive Mental Attitude and they feel that being over optimistic is PMA. There is a difference. When we approach work, it is right to be optimistic. But when you are planning, you have to plan for failures. The success is not the outcome but it is your ability to out think failures. When you anticipate failures, you will know what to do when you are about to fail.

Each outcome, irrespective of success or failure, needs to follow a general pattern. There is a success pattern and failure pattern. When you anticipate failure, you will be more attuned to recognize the red flags and hence you will try to make corrective action. When you do that, there is a great chance for you to get away from failure. One of the key things needed to be successful is the ability to anticipate failures due to your action and correct your action recognizing the red flags. Great leaders anticipate failures. It doesn't mean that they are pessimist. It means that they are even prepared for the worst. So, anticipate failures.

Leadership 101 - Truth Travels with Great Speed

One of the thing that I often wonder is "truth". In my lifetime, I have lied for many things and went against truth many times but yet surrendered to the truth "always". The more I think of being "untruth", the more fierce it becomes. So, it left a deep impact and I learned the importance of being truthful. The truth travels with great speed. If you are truthful, it helps us to steer through the tight corner and if you are untruthful it grills us. If you are untruthful, clear submission to the truth is the only option.

Today, I happened to meet a person who was very poor in something. The impact that he is going to cause me is very little but yet I sat with him and told him the "hard truth". Then, his perception about life/work changed and within few minutes he understood his true state. His confidence grew and he promised that I would see him differently next time when we meet. In the whole of situation, my contribution is very little but the contribution of truth is immense. Today, yet another time in my life, I learned the importance of being truthful. It was a wonderful day.

Retaining People – Human Resource is Abundance yet Scarce

The economy is recovering and we see organizations investing again with a lot of hope. Job market too has recovered due to people movement and creation of fresh positions. If you are leading a team and for next one year, you will be facing enough challenges in terms of retaining people. During this period if we keep up the basics and control things that we can control, firefighting will give decent results. Here are some of the things that you have to do. BTW, the following things should be done “always” irrespective of job market.

Connect with the team. Make them understand about the organization. Give authentic information and suggestions.

Challenge them quite well. Give assignments that make them think and always little bit tough to achieve with ordinary efforts. Appreciate openly and celebrate them when they make big mistakes trying big things they never tried.

Recognize both efforts and results. If you are dealing with less experienced people, sit with them and hear how they solved the problems. You can see their eyes go bright.

Give a feeling that you won’t let them fail. Authentically work on their growth. If they don’t have enough skills, sit with them and draw plan.

Motivate people and celebrate successes. Most importantly respect them. If you turn their suggestions down, do it respectfully.

Keep a close watch on overall performance. Understand the language of performance and never compromise on it. It is lifeline. You don't need non performance even if they have niche skills.

Understand their concerns. Empathize. If their concerns are not valid or reasonable, tell them up front that you cannot fulfill them. Let they also know why it is not reasonable. Set the expectations right.

Don’t negotiate money. If they want to exit because of money, let them do it. If it is more ownership and challenges, give them opportunity that gives them new experience. Don’t negotiate money. It doesn’t work.

Anticipate bad things and work on contingency plans. It is highly important that you deliver even when you don’t have super stars. Have “Plan B”. Start to work on contingency plans.

Always speak the truth. Don’t woo them.

I have been practicing above things past two years and so far it worked. I strongly believe, it will work in future too.

Are You Restless With Things Around You?

The external environment affects us so much and we just fall as victim to the environment. We feel so bad for falling as victim and often feel that we are not able to solve some problems. For example, we agitate a lot when we see child labor, misuse of power, corruption, someone not performing their duties and the list can be endless. The main problem is that we want this world to think exactly like us. If you are over pragmatic, you will know that is not possible and you certainly fall on the other spectrum which is not caring too much about you and the world around you. This post is for people who agitate, agitate a lot. Agitation or becoming restless is a wonderful thing. That shows that you have awareness and you are so concerned about the environment.

When will you become restless? You become restless when you are aware that you are wasting your energy not producing any work or little. This is exactly how the external environment affects us. We react to the happenings to the environment. We fail to understand that we cannot react at the pace of the environment. If you think so, you will have time only to context switch. You need to understand the purpose of life and diligently move towards it by channelizing energy. If you channelize the energy, you will not become restless. You will understand the purpose and feel satisfied with the path you have chose.n If you are restless, it is great thing. You need little introspection, little bit of self talking and little effort to connect with yourself in perfect synchrony.

The key to add value to this world is to become restless and then to move towards the purpose of life without forgetting the environment. The solutions to all problems lies in our head. We just need to channelize energy and think.

I have read few of self help books. I can say most of them did not apply to me because I feel that I am unique and I am special case. But all those books gave me little thought to do a deep introspection and all those books helped me to move out of "restlessness" and be focused on the "purpose".

Think Twice Before Acting on Others Decision

It has been quite an experience these days. Every year, I tend to work with great minds as my teammates and this gives me immense experience. When I started my career, I was weak and numb. But over a period of time, my confidence grew by just looking others. This experience has taught me "think before you act, think twice before you act on others words".

The above sentence has two parts. The first part "think before you act" is obvious. The second part "think twice before you act on others' words" is not so normal. It is abnormal. When you are acting on others' words, you are acting in conventional way. Most of the times, the conventional way is the way that is traveled more. It does give you experience but it doesn't give you different experience. You are going to be in a box.

But when you think deeply (that think twice), you need to understand the hidden meaning and things will start to appear differently. This is like you read a classical book for the second time - the gets into the clearly. So, when you act on others' words, you need to think twice. It is an opportunity to go creative. It is the way that is less traveled and you go out of box. Do it, you will be happier :-)

This is highly important because in this world we are always conditioned and it requires a strong will and mindset to think deeply. The entire world will conspire against you to condition you.

Difference between Guru and the Student

It was a gurukula, all the students were gathered for the graduation of a student. The student was excited and wanted to test his Guru in front of all the other students. Guru sensed that and simply smiled. In front of others, the student asked the Guru, "I now know whatever you know and I learned all you know when I am quite young". The student went on to ask Guru, "How long did you take". Guru said, "I m still a student and I don't think that I will complete by learning in my lifetime". The student now realized what it takes to be a Guru.

We always get carried away with the things we know. We stuff our mind with a lot of "I" and literally leaving little space for other important things. It is not a great deal to know all the information in this world. With this technology advancement there is no wonder if we come up with a device that stores most of the useful information in this world. It takes a great deal to understand how a thing affects the other. It takes a great deal to understand how things affects us when we change them. Any person with limited lifetime will have limited capabilities and it is practically impossible to have infinite lifetime or infinite processing speed. A lifelong student is aware of this limitation.

The difference between a Guru and a Student is that the Guru understand His limitations and continue to march towards excellence but a student thinks that he has already reached excellence by focusing too much on his merits. The difference between Guru and the student is "Awareness".

Where is Humanity? Painfully Inhumane

It should be more than 15 years and it was early January. I was climbing the mountains of Sabarimala as a kanni swami. We were group of 20 people and segregated into three groups. The youngsters in the group will march fast to identify the best place to rest and fetch water/refreshments for others. There will be thousands of such groups marching towards Sabarimala. I still remember many instances where irrespective of the group we belong to there will numerous helping hands. People all over India will be on pilgrimage and on the way to worship Lord Ayyappa they will offer service. I still remember a 80 year old swami massaging my legs. Now, I feel that it is Lord Ayyappa who massaged my leg. It is such a pleasant experience and a rejoice to see a man serving a man without expecting anything. But we also have people who never feel that it is their duty to help mankind needing desperate help.

Yesterday it was so painful to hear a driver was suffering from a massive cardiac arrest while driving his car. The bosses in the car were supposed to meet a top shot businessman for a party or meeting. As soon as they saw the driver uncomfortable and stopped the car, the three men helped him to find a nice place in a roadside pavement for a fresh air. One of them drove the car and went to the meeting. These three gentlemen can be a big business magnets, how the hell they will ensure that their customers, employees and the environment is peaceful if they can't help a person who drove them. Isn't this driver played a key role by driving them safely throughout their life? Why are they equating everything to balance sheets? What rights they have to claim that they are human beings? It is very pathetic that we have given the economy to private companies who have people like this.

Another ordinary person you just walked by saw the driver and hospitalized him. He also informed his family and currently the driver is recuperating. As usual, the doctors said that had he been hospitalized five minutes late, he would have been no more. BTW, the driver is in his mid fifties and the incident happened a couple of days before in Mumbai.

Many activists are now trying using RTI to know who are those three and who is their boss, their company. I am also eagerly looking forward and join the activists. More story can be read from the following like - Mid Day. Will Mid Day disclose the information they have and help us to stop such cruelty.