Bonjour Bonjour Avalanche (Wk #04)

Hmm, seems like deadlines ought to be instituted and made sacrosanct for my blog posts. Going forward, 12 midnight Sunday it is!

@Random

'The progress of the nation at the perils of its politicians. And it's unfortunate that most of them are corrupt, dishonest, incapable & selfish' - the easy way Indians pass the bucks for any problem. Not to deny that, I thought 'Chuck the politicians, what's wrong with our Government officers?' - To that end, this post is dedicated to some thoughts on Public Service (PS)

Have you ever seen people preparing for IAS? The hard work, the commitment, the intelligence! They are some of the best brains in India. Not just IAS, but the officers working in departments such as Education, Infrastructure & City management, People welfare, Finance, Economic Development etc. If PS is not working well, there is something wrong in the system. I tried drawing the parallel with private organizations. The overarching root cause I felt for the problem is that Indian Government as a HR organization is failing miserably (I know you would complain that HR in your pvt organization is inefficient & dumb as well! But after working in a public service for a week, you would say your current HR is far more efficient and beautiful!). To get to the specifics:  

1. Poor Leadership

In public service (PS), if a leader is honest, predominantly his subordinates tend to be honest as well. So, there is this great china wall between honest and dishonest crowd in PS. Then there is capable vs incapable category. It doesn't take an IAS officer to come up with the following 2x2 matrix. 

(I know some people will have reservations reg. the choice of animals with claims such as the mosquitoes at their home is very intelligent and very very honest. Ok, assume a dishonest mosquito which doesn't repay for the blood it sucks and a creature incapable to escape even the blow of a hand or the one rupee coil. And for the animal activists, the post is not to demean any animal - I love / fear a mosquito as much as a lion - Both bite and suck your blood! Oh, enough of justification, let me get to the post!)

So, when the head of the department is a lion, the entire department behaves like lions. Some people hate to be led by lions or cows, as these animals expect their subordinates to be kempt as well. 

Ideally we want the PS to be an Utopian world full of lions - Neither the lord Brahmma who is touted as the creator nor the Indian Govt HR which recruited them made it possible. So, we need to be put up with other animals as well. 

One might think fox is the most dangerous of all, but contradictory to popular belief, it's the mosquito! A fox takes his share, but gets the job done partly. Irrespective of his cunning behavior, he has some stuff which makes progress possible. The cow wants to keep its hand clean oblivious of getting things done - could lead to possible exploitation of public resources. So, foxes could turn out to be better than cows. Actually, mosquitoes are differently capable - capable of making negative-development with all the public resources. So, the primary objective should be to get rid of them. As my consultant friend says, you can either kill them or move them from quadrant one to another. Morphing a mosquito to a lion may not be possible overnight. But moving them towards lion via fox or cow is not impossible.

2. Recruitment & Training Process is weak

Inefficiency, favoritism, unfairness, bribery and reservation are widespread in PS recruitment process. Yes, there are some reliable and rigorous selection process such as IAS / IPS. But the cadre below it have issues. The entire process need to be revamped. How about forming a forum / regulatory agency / industry body like SEBI, TRAI, CII to take care of the recruitment and training process in a fair and transparent manner.

Unused brain or bicycle, both will start rusting - need to be used and overhauled periodically. So,we need to make their jobs interesting, engaging and periodically provide training 

3. Lack of Performance Management

Oh, this is the most important reason for the very poor performance of PS. If my age matters more than the results I produced, I will snore at my office chair the whole day gulping the aging tablets. There needs to be handsome rewards for excellent performance. The PMS should separate the weed from the pulse. There should be pressure on the under-performers. There should be severe punishment for preaching the code of conduct. The HR department should act like the watchdog with which the mosquitoes and foxes dare to survive. I know what you are asking - how can this PMS be without politics and bureaucracy - we can't uproot them even in private organizations easily - Yes, it's going to be difficult, but instituting a PMS is lesser of the evils compared to not having it.

To summarize, our PS officers are not born mosquitoes, but more because of the systems and processes, which when revamped can go a long way in ensuring the next generation of growth for India.

@Regular

The dance in the beat Prabhudeva

The beat in song is DSP

The girl in the groove Nayanthara

And to rock the floor Ilayathalapathy

Feel like dancing? I felt so when I watched the tamil movie Villu. But my Mom felt like sleeping. In night shows of action movies, she sleeps happily in the last 1 hour. But Villu was far more efficient in making her sleep in the first half itself. While returning from the movie, I asked 'Ma, do you remember what happened in the movie?' To my surprise, she told me the entire story. I asked 'I saw you sleeping. But how?' She replied with her usual smile, 'I was awake for the last 10 mins. The villain gives the executive summary of the movie!' I continued 'The movie was so noisy, how did you manage to sleep?' She replied 'The movie is no different from others - 5 sequences of dance followed by fight followed by heroic dialogues. It feels more heavenly to sleep than being awake in the hell' Oh, too much to tell these to a Ilayathalapathy fan! I quite liked the dance sequences. Vijay's foot never seemed to be in ground - be it dance or fight sequences. A 100% vijay movie. Give it a miss if you ever hated him or his movies.

Got to visit City of Sentamizh and God's own country. Hey Kerela, you always mesmerize me with your lush forests, winding roads, cool backwaters and the beautiful women. Kochin was no different. Quite an interesting place! Got to see a different marine drive.

Oh, how can I miss telling about the book I read - The Great Indian Novel - Shashi Tharoor's intellingent and funny blind of Mahabharata with modern Indian history. Absolutely brilliant! Not that it's a page turner (esp. for people who hated 'social science' subject in school days), but was quite exciting, humorous and thoughtful. A definitely recommended reading! Now curious to read the original version of Mahabharata by Rajaji. Also, picked up the novel 'Critical' by Robin Cook.

Individually Poor, Collectively Rich (Wk #03)

@ReelNReal

The book "We are like that only" was quite an exciting read. It gave some simple but unconventional & wow insights about Consumer India. The author Mrs. Rama Bijapurkar, gives two compelling take-aways

1. Develop 'Made for India' strategy. Dont try to replicate your global strategy here. Reasons being (a) India is a bundle of contradictions - Any truism about India is negated by another, (b) Schizophrenic India: The pattern of many Indias becoming many more Indias will continue, (c) DNA of Indian society is "This as well as that"
2. Dont ignore Consumer India just because it's complex to understand and difficult to execute in. She is affirmative that Consumption in India is certain, even if people are abysmally poor. She calls it "The Great Indian Number Trick" - i.e. Individually poor, but collectively rich. Couple of humorous quotes, "Consumption is like maternity, a certainity. Income is like paternity, merely a matter of inference."; "Consumer India is like a drunken man - 2 steps forward, 1 step sideways, 1 backwards. But eventually, he will be back home"

This blog is not just to give you the summary of the book. Nor is to recommend you to read the book [Though given a chance, I would do so ;)] - The catchy phrases "Individually poor, collectively rich" & "This as well as that" just stuck me. I tried to recollect any personal experiences. Here it goes:

• Share Auto* - People wanted the convenience of getting dropped near their home and probably the convenience of sitting while traveling. Public transport is less frequent and have limited stops, but private auto-rickshaws are way too expensive. Came the Share Auto Service! Frequent. Convenient. Affordable.
• Self Help Groups - The successful emergence of women SHGs and Micro-finance is a clear case in point. Banks and organizations which once ignored them have started taking notice. Yes, not as strong as a lion, but garner strength through the group of cattle
  
• Amman Pongal - This is prominent in Tamil Nadu, if not everywhere, definitely in villages and semi-urban areas. For the less-informed, it's a yearly celebration for the small Goddess idol kept in every street - residents pool in money (as small as 10 or 20 rupees) for the festival and get a sense of it being THEIR function. One can't imagine such a fanfare from that kind of population. True indeed, collective richness!
• Surf + Wheel - I remember when I was a kid, the product Surf Excel was considered very expensive but works well with washing machines. My parents used to use 1 spoon of Surf Excel and another spoon Wheel in the washing machine. Yes, innovations started happening in Indian households before the R&D labs of Unilever.
• Chota pack - The miniature version of everything! From shampoo to coke to vodfone. The packaging innovation helped mineral water, which was considered only to be served for the rich, reached poor through 'Water packet'. Indian housewives buy vegetables on a daily basis. Everything is cut, sliced and made affordable. An interesting piece here is the triangular coconut slice (It's a different story that its size get reduced when the moms send their sons to the shop ;))
• Organized Retail - Who said organized retail is untested, unworkable with Indian poor. The famous Saravana Stores in T.Nagar, Chennai is on par and at times ahead of Wal-marts of the world when it comes to operational efficiency. Quite true that Kishore Biyani himself acknowledges it for being inspiration to Big Bazar.

Yes, Indian mass wants choice, quality at affordable prices! Perplexed at how everything is possible? Yes, possible - Where there is Will, Skill and Brill! And if Rama and CKP are to be believed, the Thrill is guaranteed!

--
*Share Auto - Bigger size autos used in cities like Chennai - it allows people to board or alight at their desired location. Fares are marginally higher than public transport.

@Regular

I thanked the Almighty for being 30 mins late to the movie Chandni Chowk to China! Expected it to be a laughter-coaster, rather it was a crying-coaster - The poor Sidhu of the movie gets sentimental with every damn thing - from potatos to his step-father to his girlfriend to her dad to Liu Cheng (if you are curious to know who this is, watch the movie!). I am sure the Cricket Siddhu would have made us laugh a lot better than CC2C's!

The Ferry ride @ the Gateway of India, the reopened Taj Palace & Towers and the bustling streets of Colaba, InOrbit mall - Yes, finally.. I have spent time in these much-talked about places after being in Mumbai for 6 months. The queues and the crowd really made me think are we really in a slowdown.

I think the thread and the theme continues - another book on India. 'The Great Indian Novel' by Shashi Tharoor is next on cards!

Have a colour-full life (Wk #02)

@ReelNReal

Was wondering why the side walls of the railway tracks (of Mumbai locals) are painted in maroon. Similarly the lower portion of train coaches. Came the answer when I saw the lower portion of a bridge being coloured naturally in maroon color thanks to the beings called human. Yes, welcome to India, the land of Pan-lovers.

Colours! Some people claim content is more important the colour. Yes, absolutely! What matters is how good the tea is than the colour of the cup. Still, one can't defy the importance of colours in our life - Many a times, colours become the content. As we know, colours have 2 angle to it - scientific and emotional.

The science of colours is really amazing. Different colours have different properties (such as frequency) that helped scientists to make many discoveries - e.g. to guess the composition of a galaxy or planet by analyzing the missing colour (which ought to be absorbed its atmosphere) of the spectrum. The reason why an object is red is a bit counter-intuitive: It's red because it contains all colours except red (To be scientifically right: It absorbs ALL the other colours and reflects red) - So, next time when a person reflects "good deeds", don't just blindly go by that :P. The industry which has benefited hugely from the scientific improvements of colours is entertainment - from B&W movies to stunning colourful movies - makes one believe that it's worth spending 250 bucks for a single movie.

But what makes colours more appealing to everyone is the emotional angle. We know of wars in the past due to skin colour and still the differences are not completely rooted out. Colours have the power to emote different feelings in us. It could be different for different people - age, sex and culture could play major role. A kid chooses jazzy colours - lemon yellow frocks, pink gowns, bright blue pants - I have seen Moms telling to kids "no, it's not a nice colour" - who defines 'Nice', I would say. Men get embarrassed when associated with pink. Some people have a strong preference / liking for a colour that they would invariably use it for everything - Blue shirt, blue bag, blue desktop theme etc. Some people go with what general public likes - what others feel beautiful, stylish and appealing. A mix of the 2 extremes would be good.

Different colours stand for different purposes. "Go Green" is the mantra for environmentalists. White stands for peace. Black stands for expressing opposition / condolences. Red stands for passion. Yellow stands for New/bright. Blue stands for cool. This reflects in how people want to paint their houses, offices and commercial complexes.

Another interesting area where colours are heavily analyzed is products and branding. Marketers ask this question frequently 'Shall I change the colour my product to improve sales?' Advertisers want to register in consumers' mind through colours. Red is coke and Blue is pepsi - marketers have succeeded in registering this in people's mind. You and I won't believe how much companies are spending on getting the colours right for their logo and branding.

With so much beauty being evoked through colours, it's definitely worth to wish a person "Have a colourful life!" I wish you the same!

But are colours just meant for eyes? What would different colours mean for say, a blind person. I think his higher perception capabilities of other senses might help distinguish colours - Just that he might not know what we call as red is red. I am sure he would have a colourful life as well, probably not in the literal sense of ours!

@Regular

• Saw: Madagascar 2 - Complete fun for 89 mins that we didn't realize that the movie got over. Man, I should tell you, the penguins are way too awesome!
• Read(ing): We are like that Only, the book by Rama Bijapurkar, saying Indian consumers are not about logic, rather magic!
  
• Visited: (a) Kyber @ Khar - L^2, the infamous drink, dance and chit-chat night of IIMB was replicated at Mumbai - We couldn't replicate the campus atmosphere, neverthless it was good fun. (b) Noodle Bar - Good place for people fond of Chinese - You gotta make the noodle of your choice - You can't blame the restaurant for it not coming out well (c) The 'Croma' @ High Street Phoenix - Made us wonder when they are going to break even!
  
• Met: The other day when I was getting back home, saw the posters "Remember Hanuman, Vote for Monkey", "You like Milk? Vote for Buffalo", "For Auspcious prosperity, vote for Elephant"- I couldn't look at the details of the poster - I just thought that the college elections have gone innovative and felt like laughing for the moron who chose Buffalo and Monkey. Last week I realized that it was the new and interesting campaign to save tiger. What I missed in the posters is the tag-line that follows the voting request - "Vote as the NEW NATIONAL Animal" - Last I heard, this has created quite some buzz in colleges and malls. You can check out the website of the 2 energetic brains behind this - http://www.sproutsenvttrust.org/ and if you want to vote, follow this link. What I quite liked about their idea is the whole angle of positiveness to their programs. Also, met a lot of old friends this week.
  
• Quote of the week: A leader sees a leader in everyone
  

Never give unsolicited advice (Wk #01)

Mr. X said cheerfully, 'Happy New Year!'
I replied 'Thanks! Wishing you the same. Have a great year ahead!'
X continued 'So, what are your new year resolutions?'
I replied 'Nope, I didn't make any'
X immediately said, as if he is Columbus' Akka Purushan (Bro-in-law), "Yeah, right. What's the point? People eventually break all resolutions!"

World full of 'X'es! ;)

I have inherited a bit of do-it-when-people-say-you-can't attitude from my dear friend P. Yes, I am going to make a resolution! Weekly blog! (that's why the title "Wk #01"!) - The resolution is to get an unbeaten half-century i.e. "Wk #50" by end of 2009.

It's a resolution trying to prove wrong that resolutions are invariably broken. I wanted concrete answers for the 'What If I ..' questions viz: (1) Am not in a mood to blog (2) Am really busy (3) Run of topics (4) Feel that it is completely useless to blog (to me and others) (5) End up in an eventuality like getting ill

Out of the above four, personally, I found #1 is the most difficult to handle - Just reminded of what my friend K says "Be committed to your word, not mood". The answer to solve #2 & #3 came as: Have 2 sections in every post - @ReelNReal (like the current posts - any Random topic under sun), @Regular - very brief update on what/whom Saw, Read, Visited, Met during the week. #4 is ensured, since I resolve to write only interesting / useful / funny stuff. The regularity helps me to be more disciplined and do more of meaningful things. No point discussing #5 - Make-up posts if required.

Ok, time to get into the post..
----------------------
@ReelNReal

Lets get to the topic of the post: Advice! Something people find it easy to give, tough to listen to, tougher to accept and toughest to practise. But it's absolutely interesting to read what advices inspired the most successful people, the words of wisdom which made them keep going irrespective of all odds. Business Today (Jan 11 issue) has a nice cover story titled 'The Best Advice I ever Got' for 60 successful Indians (mostly business-men). Here is a summary of the most interesting advices:

1. Son, One of every 10 men who are born in this world, 9 men work for the tenth. Prepare yourself to be the tenth - Jamshed Irani, Tata Sons
2. Reach for the stars, but always keep one on the ground - L N Mittal, ArcelorMittal
3. Whichever decision that will give you peace of mind and help you to go to sleep peacefully in the night is the right decision. Listen to your conscience - Seshasayee, Ashok Leyland
4. Results matter, efforts don't - Jignesh Shah, MCX
5. Shreya Marg & Preya Marg (Beautiful & Difficult path) - Choose the difficult path, since it leads to your desiny, while beautiful path is a destiny in itself; Believe in the present and do justice to it - Prasoon Joshi, McCann
6. Follow Your heart. It's better to go wrong on your instincts than on someone's else's - Aamir Khan
   
7. Never take more than 1 risk at a time - Venu Srinivasan, TVS
8. Take your work seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously - Piyush Pandey, O&M
9. Ultimately, management is common sense - N Sankar, Sanmar
10. Invest in people, empower them - Harsh Mariwala, Marico
11. Every problem can be traced back to failure of Management & Leadership - Akhil Gupta, Blackstone
12. The most important principle in life is humility and conservatism - Uday Kotak, Kotak Mahindra
    
13. Understand your true strength - M V Subbiah, Murugappa
14. Poor know a lot more than us - Vikram Akula, SKS Microfinance
15. Live and Let Live - Venugopal Dhoot, Videocon
    
16. Go with your Gut - Malvinder Singh, Ranbaxy
17. Be fair in life, work and relationships - Deepak Puri, Moser Baer
    
18. When you allow yourself no choices and risk everything, the survival instinct in you will bulid up an obsessive passion. It'll give you the courage to be successful - Dilip Chabbria, DC Design
19. Share the credit for success, take responsibilty for trouble - Madhavan Nair, ISRO
20. First know what you really want from life - Aditya Puri, HDFC
21. Every failure opens up a new Vista. Learn to fight failure with a spirit of challenge that will make you stronger - Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Biocon
22. Have total Shraddha (involvement, devotion) - Gopinath, KingFisher / Deccan
23. Do what you really love doing, and nothing less than 200% - Chetan Maini, Reva
24. You have the right to the actions, not the fruits of it (from Gita) - Harsha Goenka, RPG
25. Trust your intuition - Gautam Adani, Adani
26. Reinvent the wheel - Sivakumar, ITC
27. Remain focussed in times of crisis and use it as an opportunity to become stronger - Shantanu Prakash, Educomp
28. Surround yourself with the best people and set them free - Raghav Bahl, Network 18
29. And finally, the title quote - Vinita Bali, Britannia
    

I tried to group these. The winning categories are 'Facing Reality' and 'Knowing & Following your heart'


Ultimately what makes the difference is not knowing, rather practicing. :)

@Regular

• Saw: Ghajini, Slumdog Millionaire - Both are must-watches
  
• Read(ing): The Theory of Everything, Stephen Hawking - Collection of his lectures on the orgin and probably the fate of Universe - Good for anyone interested even a bit in Physics / Astronomy
  
• Visited: (a) Newyorker Restaurant in Chowpaty, Mumbai - Isn't my personal favorite, but good for people who love pizzas but getting bored of Dominos and Pizza Hut (b) Kurla, Mumbai - Got to witness some of what I saw in Slumdog
  
• Met: 2 New people, each with an interesting conversation

Bye, Have a good week ahead! See you next week.

The Theory of Convergence

Frequently, I stumble up on the question "Is there an Ultimate Truth?" - I am sure I'm not alone here.

Few schools of thought on this rather intriguing question:

1. There is ultimate truth (UT). With our limited comprehension in various fields, we come up with infinite theories, beliefs & hallucinations. We claim what we think of as UT is indeed the UT. The spectrum of this interpreted UT is wide: Love, Music, God, Selflessness, Family, Friends, Work, Fun, Work, Booze, Joy, Pain, Awareness, Service, Sex, Money, Inventions, Making-a-difference, Death, Sleep, Universe, Being, Self, Commitment, Integrity, Power, Happiness, Success, Patriotism, Peace and 'I, me and myself' - to name a few. People have freedom - they choose their UT, which in turn gives some sense of meaning to their life.
2. There is nothing ultimate or truth about 'Ultimate Truth'. This is simpler of the two thoughts since (a) it's too common that people of first category shift from one UT to another in the passage of their life, which in principle, defeats the definition of 'Ultimate' in UT (b) It's always simpler to deny something and ask for proof than proving.
3. The third and last group would say that we really don't know.. May be that UT is intentionally left unanswered, since answering would end the struggle and joy of living. It's like a thriller - who would be interested in watching if the story including the twists, plots and the end is known? Out of the 3, this is the safest and simplest.

Like many of you, I had (am having) been through all the 3 schools at different times. Only the third state makes it possible for one to be through the 3 possibilities. Though it's the simplest, human beings never stop and settle for simple things. We always ask "What Next?" We would like to explore, seek, know and eat the apple.

I started thinking of the pillar areas, we human beings analyzed, tried to understand, have shown interest so far. Through our reading, listening, thinking and experiences, we lived and believed in all these areas through out our life - not just our generation, but millions of them. That made me feel that we can find out the Ultimate Truth based on, what I would call, the Theory of Convergence - If there is something that all the pillar areas could converge to, that would be the UT. Yes, the convergence of Science, Business, Spirituality, Arts and Society. Pictorially, something like this [Ok, excuse me - This's definitely not an insightful piece of venn diagram - Just decided to include a picture for the first time in my blog ;)]


Yes, it's not that easy to find the convergence, given billions of population with trillions of ideologies under each area and zillions of conflicts and battles among these areas. Yes, traditionally there been more fights and incongruities than convergence among these pillars - E.g. the fierce fight between science and religion, the incompatibility between society and business. So, is it possible at all to find the one that binds all these areas? Can we get a genius who discovers the deepest insights that could potentially connect all the dots?

Let's HOPE we find. Let's HOPE we get.