The tier II challenges

The world's attention is On India thanks to our demographic advantage and the young population. It also brings its fair share of challenges which needs to be addressed by the HR community.

A major change is going to be the number of first generation population graduating from colleges who may need peer support and guidances on handling various office relationships and moving to new urban areas.The y may need people to hand hold and lead them through some tough personal and official relationships.

Another curious but important challenge would be curious parents, a problem that has often propped was the case of parents visiting to their children in office regularly and another strange case was narrated by Shahikanth Jayaraman who was addressing us.

This was the case of a curious parent in the Interior part of Karnataka where his company was conducting an induction program for new joinees in the sales positions and there was a parent who was insisting that he would sit through the induction at any cost while the company's policy dint allow that and thus the parent had to be forcibly removed which would have disturbed the individual and his impression about the company.

Another challenge is that many of the are simple and honest who could be easily tricked by others and thus may not be get the due attention they want thus laying key emphasis on the Line Managers to notice about individual performances and the effort and not just the ratio of work which gets completed.

A key piece of advice which was shared was that it is essential regardless of whatever transpires in the office if there has been an bad moment for thge individual would be calling and encouraging the individual "Before he hits the sack" as a person who takes grudge to sleep never has a good opinion about the person.

A very interesting thought to ponder on

Cheers

Arvind !!

The long awaited C-Suite

"Yasho Verma was the head of HR, who also oversaw the product diversification strategy at LG Electronics. Recently , he moved into the role of the company’s chief operating officer (COO). Santrupt Misra , in addition to being director of group HR at Aditya Birla group, was also recently given the reins of the group’s Carbon Black business as a CEO.

Just two of the many stories in executive hiring which are pointing to a growing trend of HR people being picked for key CXO roles like CEO and COO, a role till now reserved for chief technology officers or the number crunching chief financial officers.

During the mid-nineties to early 2000s period, technology was perceived to be the main driver and technology personnel dominated the higher management . Techies like Steve Jobs of Apple, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google and closer home, S Ramadorai of TCS, were in the saddle.

Recently, during the economic slowdown, companies were forced to cut back and this marked the emergence of chief financial officers (CFOs) as the commanders-in-chief . Lean and mean were the buzzwords and the CFOs made every dollar count.

But with Indian companies growing bigger and going global , people management and leadership skills are much in demand. So Pranesh Anthapur, who had earlier served as vicepresident (Global HR) and more recently vice-president (International HR and M&A ) for Yahoo Inc, was made the COO of Yahoo India R&D in 2006.

In some other places, even though the official designation might not represent it, HR managers are increasingly playing a more dominant role in the running of the company.

It all started with large public sector undertakings (PSUs). S K Chaturvedi, who served in senior HR functions in companies like SAIL, NTPC and PowerGrid among others, was made the chairman and managing director of PowerGrid in 2008. Arun Balakrishnan, who was earlier the director (HR) at Hindustan Petroleum, took over as the CMD in 2007.
“Unlike earlier, HR is no longer just a human resources function but a business function that affects bottomlines,” says Deepak Kaistha, director and managing partner of Planman HR , an HR consulting firm. “HR managers are now getting a chance to lead organisations because they spend a lot of time in the organisation and understand the business and its processes very well, know the employees and their ways of working from the grassroots level.”
And it’s not only just attrition that organisations are looking to reduce. Companies are paying greater attention to overall organisational culture and employee engagement which can have a big impact on productivity.

“Around 70% of a CEO’s role relates to people management . So companies look for either someone with an HR background or a strong HR talent ,” says J K Agrawal, consulting director and head of BTI Consultants , an executive hiring firm. “Today, no CEO takes a major decision without consulting the HR.”

But this trend also depends on the work culture at companies . “An HR manager should also be aware of other departments ’ function to make a good CXO. So, only companies which have a good functional rotation policy can go for such changes,” says D Rajiv Krishnan , managing director of Development Dimensions International (DDI), an executive hiring firm."


Though there have been past instance of people like Bhaskar das of Sutherland who have oved from an HR to the Management team it is important to note that even in sectors which were considered core industries and not knowledge oriented. The only thing which has elevated them is their desire to go outside of the function and focus on the organization to be more efficient.

Hope this adds fuel to the dreams of HR student

Cheers !!

Arvind

Employee Branding = HR's work ?

It;s always nice to meet and discuss opinions on varied subjects and one of the persons i ran into at the ISTD/SHRM Conference was Vinod from Carpediem who looked as much to learn from others and share as much as spread information about his organization and it was wonderful learning many things from him. One of the key things on which we started chatting up was the story of Zappos.com and how Jeff Bezos ratified his buy by saying "He had bought a culture and not a company" but later we went on to a crucial topic of Employer branding about which everyone seems to talk about so much. the craze of a Google or HCL and what creates it.

There is a subtle way in which the organization promotes itself about being a good employer and that is not by excessive promotion but more through word of mouth and through the right meetings like Summits. The most essential fact i realized is that the concept of HR people trying to create a brand is pure falsehood and the fact is it can only facilitate the process but for the process to take off it needs immense support from the Top Management and from all the departments involved

Take the example of HCL

*They have a system of an internal Social media which needs support from IT
*The manager can decide the increase to be given to each employee instead of rating and Blaming HR which needs support from Finance
*People performing skills they are good in like Music and Dance which needs support from the various teams

With all these people involved in as Stakeholders can we pinpoint HR for creating a brand ? HR needs to be involved as a partner and driver of implementation but not as the only one.

There are examples of organization who take great pride in creating Seminars sponsoring and promoting about it which acts as a salesman and its a simple Mantra "Organization wants to show its the best the, commitment must come from the rest"

Cheers

Arvind !!

Social Media is a Pied Piper

As a part of the ISTD conference the last session of the first day was conducted by Rajiv Dhingra the founder of WAT media. Who spoke about Social Media and how it has really taken off and gave us a critical insight and rubbished the myth that Gen Y grew up with social media at all time.

The social Media revolution took off only in 2004-05 when Hi-5 began to operate and people could start reaching out to their friends, peers through a digital platform and the people who took up to it were between the age of 18-22. Why you ask ? Blame it on the hormones is what I would say ! Social needs started to grow and individuals needed to be a part of it as it was the coolest thing around. Imagine what it is like for an Eighteen year old to have the latest edition of A Ray Ban Glasses or Levi jeans. It morphed into a type of craving which people have and it gave them a second chance of virtual existence as the Digital friends you have may have never met you and you can talk about your positives to them and start boasting but no one will recognize. Then like a Blitzkrieg “Orkut” Emerged and it quashed Hi-5 and it was a rage because it was not open to public and you had to be invited by someone who was already a member to be a part of it !! What more would you need to add to the Ego than being invited to the newest thing on the planet and it was drawing a huge crowd in India and it gave us a global platform to connect and collaborate with Global friends.

For eg: I had friends in orkut who were from brazil and they were friends with me because they wanted to sharpen their English skills and I networked with them to get access to the latest Music and coolest downloads which led to a symbiotic association but soon the darker side of orkut emerged and there were issues about privacy and profile hacking which triggered women to move out and slowly but conformingly emerged Facebook with improved privacy and security and soon the women folks moved out to that and the men soon followed facebook offered more than Orkut as it allowed you to post notes, tag people, Update what you were doing and play games like Farmville and the best you just showed it to people who you want not to everyone. But as you have noticed a trend emerged and soon came Twitter but unlike its predecessors Twitter was a real time people to celebrities interaction and something which Rajeev Mentioned and I was in total line with it “Twitter is an Exhibitionist and submissive platform” people follow you to be in touch with you appears over the top.. But it has not only been social networks business networks like LinkedIn have also been growing rapidly and In India. LinkedIn has added 2-5 million members in the past Six Months and the number does not seem to go down this all just point to one direction that people need connectivity people need an appearance be it physically or digitally

Gen Y are we scared of Thy ?

The hottest topic around the HR and HR scene is about Gen Y and how in the next 3-5 years they are going to enter into the workforce and change the organization, How to work with Gen Y is the Million dollar question and the ISTD student convention is aptly titled “Leading in Gen Y”

As One of the speakers Usha Devaguptatu rightly said Gen Y are like the the David Ogilvy quote “The consumer is not a moron,she is your wife” The employee is also not a moron but neither is he a threat.

The Convention has been very good in the fact that it has thrown light into the areas what are required to “collaborate” with Gen Y. This is essential as the recent Harvard Business Review talks about these crunch issues

• One out of every three high performers is not engaged
• One in every four high performers feels their aspirations are not met
• One out of every five high performers is doing a job which does not interest them
• Four out every ten high performers are not in sync with the vision and value of the company they are a part of


These sort of issues need a top down solving approach and it cannot be solved overnight and other key area where Indian Organizations miss out is a strong Induction system so that the people can relate themselves to the organization

And as a member of Gen Y I can strongly relate to the facts like “Work to live not live to work”. I look at the value I can add to the organization and what the organization can do for me, If they cannot reward me instantly I would try to find out someone who will reward me. I want learn things by doing it and not reading about it, But that does not mean am standalone I need a team I need a coach I need support I need a peer section together with me I need to be looked after I need my personal life.

We all have wants and immediate gratification and Gen Y looks at ways to fulfill and not have the “chalega” attitude. We want the horse to drink water and gulp it down.

I wanted to blog about this fantastic event event and am doing it right now :)

Jai ho Gen Y

Bajaj's Branding Chaos

Quote often i love to introspect on marketing and Branding strategies of organizations as they ultimately seek to reach prospective customers and also employees sure people love to say "I am an IBMer" and so on.

The last few years have witnessed the upswing in the two wheeler automobile sector and Hero Honda faced great competition mainly from Bajaj and to a lesser effect from TVS and Yamaha.

Bajaj Revolutionized the Bike world with the launch of its Iconic bike "Pulsar" and apt with catch lines like "Definitely Male" which took on the Section of 150cc and later in 180cc 200cc and 220cc. Simultaneously it launched Discover which packed style and substance meant for the middle class as it had style and then Platina which rocked the 100cc market thanks to its low price and high mileage.

Thinks looked all right till they launched Bajaj Xcd in the 135 sector and it also proved a success but then they made a catastrophic error they pulled out of 100cc market and made platina also 125 cc and discover as 135cc and Xcd was dropped

2009-10 was the ultimate chaos where i was personally baffled by what Bajaj was upto

They released Pulsar in 135cc version and released Platina in 125cc and discover in 100 cc and 150cc and finally platina in 125cc which is unlike its competitors like Hero Honda which has kept clear names to distinguish its product lines this kind of mixing creates chaos and confusion if i were a customer. The iconic Bajaj Chetak and Bajaj 150 was the Hallmark of this company which grew by 1000% in the 1980's. Lots of money and creative energy is spent on creating these brands and a brand lines but this melange creates ruffles on the product.

This shows the company's inability to drive home a message or a policy of exiting from the 100cc or also of having a premium 150+ segment. Hope Bajaj Sorts this mess out or it could lead them into a lot of chaos and dilemma

Employees are ....... Resources ? Capital ? Talent ?

Since the revamp of personnel department into the current forms there has always been a question which has been irking me ? Thanks to Neeyamo for reviving it up and this asks about the basic question of how do organizations look at their employees.

There are the Organizations who look at their employees as resources and the term human resource for those who help the organization in optimum use of this resources who like any other are not abundant


There are the second type of organizations and are emerging more in number who like to look at the people as capital and an investment for the organization and like any investment they want the capital managers to identify unprofitable investments and sort them out or sell them off


Finally the new set which looks at employees as talent and has clear distinctions as
talent Acquisition,talent management,talent development and try to ensure that their organization can have the best talent and enhance them and retain them.

These varied approaches on viewing the people of an organization baffle me. Branding may not make a huge impact on the type of people the organization is employing or its views towards them.

What needs to change is the way the organization looks at the value add from the individual and how it can share its passion of success with its people.

In this regard i would like to bring up about the open Book Management system made famous by Jack Stack where all the employees were stakeholders and dint do a firefighting job but enjoyed their work. That is where i wish people would give optimum performance

Flexicurity

The recent NHRD session was held at Hotel Savera on 30th and the speaker for the day was Saundarya Rajesh who spoke on the Broad areas of

(i) Diversity

(ii) Flexible working culture in Indian organizations

In terms of Cohorts classification India is almost same on the west but with few differences which are

Generation X in India grew up with a socialist Mindset but has adopted capitalism and Delayed Capitalism is not hindering them. They often rue about chances

E-Gen: This is the generation born between 1970 to 1980 which is very specific to India only. A very unique set which has had the best of both sides of culture. Contributes the highest number to attrition data. Very homogeneous in the desire to be heterogeneous i.e. in terms of career planning and orientation

Gen y: Who are aggressive consumers and are self motivated to be rewarded

An interesting fact which was shared was that annual attrition rate of Indian organizations is 17%

Diversity can be used to combat this type of attrition as has been used by companies like IBM and Accenture who have a seperate Diversity and Inclusion criteria.

In these organization Diversity and Inclusiveness becomes one of the KPI for the top management and has to be followed. The main criteria of diversity are

i) Gender

ii) Age

iii) Religion

iv) Experience

this helps a lot in organizations as it was explained because to grow in an organization you need the so called "Tribal Knowledge" which can be realized only by direct interaction with individuals and also in creating innovation which was explained with products like "Kurkure" which were developed by a diverese work team
and it also helps in battling attrition which was demonstrated by an example of an ITES sector where the average age of employees was 23 and it resembled a college locker room which was not pleasing the guests and management.

They were asked for solution and they came up with a diversity pattern of employing older men and women who brought in some calmness to the organization and thus helping the culture issue

The major topic was flexibility of work and work from home which was mostly themed on the Indian Working women and how on implementation it could help organization following which they moved on to talk about their organization's I-WIN product.

A crucial thing which struck my notice was the fact that while hiring people who have taken a break it is not the cost of recruitment which will trouble but rather the cost of re-skilling them to take on tougher challenges and that will only help people to help climb up to the top


Cheers

Arvind !!

Business is in the family

The month of July and August has transformed Wall Street into overtime working office thanks to the number of mergers and buyouts which are happening. McAfee, Hewitt Associates, 3Par have all become fully owned subsidies of Intel, Aon and Dell and more deals are in the offering which could see the merging of big names. The recent acquisition of CAIRN India by Vedanta also made the global headlines.
I was struck by the amazing pattern of mergers and was curious to find mergers or acquisition news between Indian companies and found that the only approved major merger was between Bank Of Rajasthan and ICICI bank and nothing else which is clear indication of our conservatism


It struck to me the essence of a business to an individual or an organization is much more than an entity to an Indian context there have been very few investors who have sold their company when it was making profits and was doing well. Mostly company sell of the loss making arm or the non profit one. Rarely has there been a breed of entrepreneurs who have dreamed about being a serial entrepreneur like H Ross Perot who created Successful enterprises like EDS and Perot systems which were later sold off to HP and DELL. Somewhere we romanticize about our organizations as a part of us and our social system and dream of the generations to follow be associated with it and that is why we have family run businesses which may not always look at profit maximization but more for social existence and the pride associated with it.


The day India will progress is when it starts treating business like an entity and not as an extension of themselves and their Identity. We may grow more if we could find serious innovators who could become serial entrepreneurs

Deutsche Bank's Fix

The search for the successor to Ratan Tata has just got heated and the rise of Noel Tata just adds fuel to the fire and creates an immense speculation on who may succeed the modern day legend but that search seems to be a far more liberal one than the problems faced at Deutsche Bank.


“ With speculation reviving over who will succeed Josef Ackermann as chief executive officer (CEO) of Deutsche Bank AG, the company will have to decide how German the leader of Germany’s biggest bank must be.
The answer may reveal whether the 140-year-old Frankfurt-based institution embraces its role as a global investment bank that makes most of its money trading securities on international markets, or whether long-standing business and political ties to Germany remain paramount.


The rise of Anshu Jain, 47, to sole head of the investment bank last month put him in charge of more than 80% of Deutsche Bank’s profit and reinforced his position as a frontrunner to become the CEO. One catch: he was born in India and doesn’t speak German, a potential handicap for an executive who must negotiate the corridors of political power as well as global markets.

“Based on performance, Jain is the crown prince,” said Lutz Roehmeyer, who helps manage about $15 billion (`70,050 crore) at Landesbank Berlin Investment GmbH in the German capital. “But Deutsche Bank has a split personality—a global investment bank being run out of London and a German lender with a very political role. Any successor’s key challenge will be bridging these two worlds.”
Deutsche Bank ducked the issue last year by extending Ackermann’s tenure for three years after the board failed to agree on a replacement.

The Swiss-born Ackermann, 62, rekindled speculation about succession in May when he told shareholders that he’s been holding “intensive” talks on the topic with supervisory board chairman Clemens Boersig for months.”


The Tata’s search looks much simpler considering the fix Deutsche bank has gotten itself into and ducking the problem has increased its magnitude with Global coverage, Speculation, Rumours and even Betting.


The clash of Past Present and future and the organization caught in a whirlpool realizing it has a danger if it ducks any of these issues.

Anshu Jain represents the best person to take over as the CEO but it has a risk attached of not being in line with the values and tradition of the company especially considering the political links in Germany.

But if the company wants to have its local image and does not want to change it then it could go for a local CEO it may well lose its best employee and the person who heads the cash cow division considering upto 80% of the revenues are coming from the Investment bank division to which they cannot turn a blind eye.

The suitors for Anshu Jain won’t be low. He would expect anything but the CEO and anything less than that may cause an issue as he would realize that this weakness over the language would encourage him to defect

The future is compromised because without the man who has increased the profits exponentially the company could stutter in the short run and may concede ground to its rivals and it will also project a bad image for any potential Non-German speaking employee realizing that they could never ascend till the top.”
The company is at cross roads and on the verge of sacrifice and damage reduction.

Authority Is what we crave for ?

"I want to be the most powerful man/woman on earth"

Except immortal Souls and Barrack Obama who doesn't share this dream ! this is what we aim for when we watch Super heroes and also at a later stage, Suddenly we grow older we become less sheepish and then realize that we should have been born in USA to be eligible, now the maximum we can hope for is be the most powerful person in India but 99.9% of us are not born into political families thus it is again ruled out and finally at least in the organization ? much more realistic needs lesser effort ! EUREKA we could finally be what we want and that is necessary that means i can wield power and control people and do whatever i want put all the travel bills in company names. Recently i was interacting with one of my friends (An aspiring journalist
) who explained a bizarre situation

"Boss on the other day on NDTV i saw Prannoy Roy reporting and not hosting a show"
to which i said he is a Journalist who can handle all facets of reporting to which he replied "But if he wanted to report he could have just remained a journalist why did he have to start NDTV and create so many things. If he has started these things then he should not be a reporter" i was amazed i believed people create something by choice and they love it but this statement took me off guard

if authority is what we crave for then i think we should all become entrepreneurs there would be no love to what we do

and there outlays the change which we need to initiate. Make people happy and proud about what they do. One of my favorite books on Human relations and employee motivation has to be the "Great Game of Business" by Jack Stack and he motivated all his employees by a single tactic. His organization was into re-manufacturing and auto components and he made them proud by creating open days where families came and realized the work done by them which created a pride in them.

But ultimately the winning and authoritative desire is needed if we need to have entrepreneurs

Chief Bullying Officer

The primary inspiration of this post is Sidin Vadukut and Cubiclenama

His satirical writing style has fascinated me and so is his desire to criticize the HR department. But in all honesty most of the situations portrayed by him come up true because of shortcomings of HR.

Based on reading his articles and interning with 4 organizations i was able to come up with this unique character of "Chief bullying officer" they are spotted commonly in most offices and found in abundance in government offices. As their name suggests they are mostly in the top strata of the company and which gives them the right to bully officially also. Some of the characteristics of this creature is

#Belongs to the top rung of corporate ladder

#Loves to impose rules but does not apply to themselves

#May very well be your boss

#Short tempered. His anger is unpredictable just like him

#Will never say no to his/her boss and will go to any extent to keep them happy

#great communication skills which they show off and have often used to climb up the corporate ladder

#Might forcefully add you as a friend on Facebook

#Will love to disturb you in the weekends

#Will love to comment on your twitter updates while you are enjoying food

#Will love to insult you and make others laugh over it if possible

#Everybody in the office are scared of him and respect him because they don't want to pick up a squabble with him/her

#Wants you to take everything in good spirit without even consulting you

If your boss satisfies any 5 criteria's congratulations you have the apathy of working under "Chief Bullying Officer" and they only way to escape is wait for him to jump to another company so that you can take over as the "Chief Bullying Officer"

Cheers

Arvind !!

office secrets

A confession ! the first article i love to read on a Sunday newspaper is "Water-Cooler Moment" in the Sunday Times to listen to the office Gossip or the way in which it is portrayed.

Ramblings by employees are crazy, few of them are

# "My Boss is GOD - Good Old Donkey"

# "This HR dude at my office has zipper on the side pockets of his trousers. God knows what he can pull out"

#"There are 25 people working in my process, out of which 11 are resigning tomorrow!"

#"I see dumb people."

#"Sadly my boss is bullied by a bunch of females in my team…(they) threaten to quit or act pissed off.. (just) like GFs!…boss ain’t the boss here!"

#"I hate everyone in my department!"

#"Boss is out today, which means I am checking out mentally. Will continue job search until he returns"

#"I just wanna run away from my office – well actually I am but, still cant feel the same"

#"My neighbour is always on call!!! Don’t know whom he calls!!!"

#"I was in a meeting and this lady started fanning herself and took off her sweater b/c of menopause!"

#"Her pen clicking is driving me crazy. STFU!"

#"I swear my colleague is wearing a wedding dress"

#"I hate female bosses"

#"Why does the CEO always come late to the office"

#The canteen food Smells awesome"

# "No one in your family is allowed to work if you are working except if you are the owners or CEO ! Hypocrites "
Office Secrets

A site about which i learnt after my brushing's with Cubiclenama. The anonymity and the
forum gives anyone who is frustrated at work and 90% od the comments are aimed at the boss and colleagues mostly because they may not find it apt to tell them directly.

Somewhere this represents an extension of our educational system where we like to say pleasing words about our teachers and professors but on forums where they cannot access or where we would be anonymous.

But for the moment enjoy the ramblings

Cheers

Arvind !

The Boom of HR

The evolution of HR has taken a steep curve,

Deeply entrenched in the manufacturing mayhem it was compliance driven and required people

#Who were authoritative and could force their way

#Who knew the legal system

#Finally who could handle the unions and make sure the compliances are done and if strikes occur then to solve it

This was mostly the scenario till 1990's till the IT revolution and service sector boom happened in India. Suddenly people were operating from a higher level they were not shopfloor workmen or they had union to resort to when they felt unhappy they just had one technique "Leave The Organization" and there was huge gap which we as HR could not fulfill.

We started drawing the Ire of people and we were concerned from being the most important people to now being support function a lot of ego's got trampled and got crushed under the weight of expectation which people have.

I think its time we realized that the Boom in services sector ask for a drastic measure of the Hr systems

HR should not totally be the sympathetic character but the one who rewards the best and drains out the worst. No organization wants leftovers thus it has moved from centralized to an extent outsourced.

More and more organizations have started developing a shared services center where the transactional work is done. thus the bottom line is clear unless we improve ourselves it doom time.

Cheers !!

Arvind !!

HR as a strategic business partner

The recent session in NHRD was about Hr the business strategic partner and it was a thoroughly insightful session as people have all been saying about being a strategic partner but how do you bring in the change. The case study of Standard Chartered was shown and which showed how it can be done. The speakers for the session were William Paul and David Nallathambi from Scope international (Standard chartered )

Some key points were

#HR as an SBP (Strategic Business Partner) should focus on creating and delivering strategic people agenda and ensure business goals are achieved

#We need to move out of transactional HR and into transitional HR though there is a doubt on what work will be done if transactional part is taken out

#Crucial to ensure that people can add value to the business and how they can be a business partner

#Any change should be Simple Scalable and Sustainable which will make light of the work

#To transform the HR you need to add responsibility to the Line Managers and give them a part of the work

#To excel in services sector you need to be ahead of the curve and assess what business needs

#Look at areas of Engagement Retention and Talent Management

#When this process of transformation is complete HR will be more efficient and manage cost growth

#A shared service center expertise in other areas cannot be matched by Managers

# To deliver bottom line performance and increase bottomline by changing people in it

#Time to be a Coach, Consultant and an internal business advisor

#proactively manage attrition and last be ahead of the curve

#important factor only if you have people and right system initiate change orelse do not try for a drastic change

The final comments were given By Dr PVR Murthy who concluded Change is like movement of an Orbit to move to a higher level you need to drop mass

Viva la Espana

The biggest spectacle of the year is over and what an event it was ! The world cup promised Surprise and it dint let down.

The world cup started slowly with the Jabulani looking more like Jackie shroff not ready to move at all , But as the tournament progressed it was the referee who looked like the scapegoats with glaring errors. Some suggested "karma of 1966" during the England - Germany game. But due credits to the winners Spain who proved that playing Good quality and attractive style can actually win you games. But what i more loved about the Spaniards were the way they lined up and how they clicked as a team outsmarting other tacticians.

The important aspect they had is the backbone of the Squad plays the club football together thus the understanding was very high and the Defence was rock solid which allowed them eke out 1-0 wins in all of their knock out matches and then the skill of the players they had a squad which had multi talented players who could play in various positions and change them which fooled the opposition's strategies and this is what any organization needs to beat competition the joker who can help you perform well.

The crucial part is that they did not over rely on any part i.e. unlike others either going out all attacking or going out too defensive they had the skill to handle any situations and finally they had match winners, Its often said you win a game by playing to your strengths and when you have people who can work under extreme conditions and delver the best can you ask for more and that is what this team had in abundance creating a winning mark. They may not have looked the best every time they took to the field but they made it counted when it mattered



Cheers !!

Arvind !!

Softer competencies

Competency Mapping based recruitment was the summer project of one my Good buddies and this is the area where i have to thank Web2.0 for giving a chance to interact with fellow students who share similar interests. He was talking about developing a system in which based on the skill set of current employees and by taking the Job description requirements he was creating a Mapping system for talents which could be recruited soon.

The idea seemed and fantastic and really well and it was implemented for a manufacturing plant at the workmen level proving an immense success but suddenly when it was taken over by an FMCG company to replicate the similar model it failed causing him to wonder what went wrong and during the analysis we found the following things

1) The higher your pay and rank the work is more planning than execution and people are different when it comes down to planning.

2) Values are inbuilt within us and comes down to our basics thus the value system of one individual cannot be replicated and thus becomes irreplaceable.

3) With organizations looking at efficiency Multi skilled Multi lingual people are the need of the hour and they are not easily available and if they become available they are sure to burn a hole in your pocket

4) It ultimately also plans to work out on how is the relationship with the immediate superior and subordinate and that may not be replicated

With these thoughts in Mind i was wondering how could we create a model with which we can work and am still waiting for that answer

Cheers

Arvind !!

True India

The best part about a train journey is when you meet new people and have a conversation with them on wide ranging topics. This time i made blunder which helped me in finding a voice to interact with during the onwards journey. We were all tired when we boarded the train from Mumbai it was 2 in the morning and were vaguely sleeping on some seats when some one woke me up at 5.30 and claimed it as their seat. I was half dazed and trying to find what happened and sooner i realized my mistake and started a conversation with him on various issues ranging from SIFE topics and what we can do to the society and agriculture and so on and so forth when he mentioned one point which was something we have rarely observed.

When we go in a train travelling for 24 or 30 hours we observe that only signs of modernization and growth seems to be for about 5-6 kms surrounding a station other than that there is only barren land or agricultural land. Only during 10% of the trip you see modernization and urbanization orelse it is all rural and still agriculture contributes so low to our economy in comparison so all the people who wants agri to flourish at the expense of industries should suggest ways and ideas in which it can be improved if not let us industrialize we have abundant resources which are being wasted by infighting amongst ourselves.

For all my life i have been travelling long distances in train and i suddenly was able to relate to him and what he was saying. A country like Israel which has Desert soil is able to export foods after having surplus and barely has lands we have so much resources invested and we wait for transgenic foods? Time agri experts golden words are listened


Cheers !!

Arvind

SIFE Story

Last week was the most fulfilling week in my journey as a student of Madras School Of Social work When i was a part of the team which reached the National Semifinals of SIFE.

A brief Introduction about SIFE : SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) is an international network of students, academics and business leaders.
Working in partnership with business and higher education, SIFE "mobilizes university students around the world to use the knowledge gained in the classroom to address real world business and economic issues in their communities. SIFE students form teams on their university campuses and perform community service projects that teach market economics, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, personal success skills, business ethics, and environmental sustainability."

The team was selected in Nov.2009 and it was an honor to be a part of the team considering the Mark set by our predecessors who were national finalists and along with the other core team of Hadeeja, Madhumitha Sowndararajan, Prashanthi, Adline Sophia, Sowmya Mathews, Harish, RakeshKumar Patil, Tanvir Ahmed we identified and tried to find out various communities with which we could work in creating our projects and after a month of searching we narrowed down to two communities

*Tsunami Affected women community near Thiruvanmiyur

*Tsunami affected Women community who were involved in Making of office stationery made out of recycled paper

Personally the icing on the cake was the fact that the second community was identified by me thanks to my association with the Theosophical Society which through its sister body the Theosophical order Of Service helped in setting up the recycling plant

In essence we worked with totally about 55 women affecting the lives of about 165 people. The experience was full of rich memories like Boating Trips and Travel and also the testing times of trying to find a community and working with them.

We were selected as Winners of the regional Competition and we finished just short of National Finals which was our aim leaving us disappointed. But in the end when we question ourselves on the fact whether this was worth burning our weekends and free days ? the answer would be an Emphatic "YES" the experience of setting up a business model for them has surely revived the entrepreneurial spirit in me and coupled with the chances in the wings the dream is not far away !! Thanks SIFE !!

Cheers

Arvind !!

The Waterfall

For the first time in my life i was happy with politicians of my state because they announced holidays for 3 days which coupled with the weekend suddenly reminded us of 2009 which was full of extended weekends which allowed us to attend the wedding of our classmate and then we went to this tourist place called Suruli waterfalls and it was in this waterfalls where the first scenes of Raavan were shot ! My god it was breathtaking place. The climb up to the top of the hill scared me as it was a pure forest and it was steeping at about 80 degrees straight up. But we settled for a falls lower which was not at all crowded and was covered with boulders and the river water flowing. nothing but picturesque and we moved around till the source to enjoy it. The best part was travelling up and it was exhilarating because were we thought we would spend an hour being there we spent close to four hours and many of them on empty stomach. When we were crossing a lot of people influenced my thoughts and ideas which i could relate to HR and Visualize it, Some of them are


(i) When in trouble wait for help - When mostly we are in trouble we refuse to ask for help believing they may not help or they would rather ask more questions and compound the problems but the issue will be that when we itself have no ideas there is nothing wrong in waiting for help to arrive. This was an incident where i was caught confused between taking two paths and ultimately decided for others to come who already gone through it once and then i went via that path which could actually help me get out of that sticky situation.

(ii) Rush but don't hurry: We often realize that when the time is short we rush up things randomly but we ultimately do it in a bad way which would require further sweeping up from us. Most of the times we do not realize that there is more time than we think, if we sequentially follow an order of doing we would very well end up doing the work.

(iii) Do not attract distractions : in a forest its crucial to be silent and be focused on your goals unnecessary attention will create trouble which happened when Monkeys invaded our area and we were scrambling for place with them fearing them.

(iv) Showboating is necessary : It may not be wrong to showboat and take pictures when you have enjoyed something fully and the picture is worth cherishing for but a picture at every instant and every place might make you happy but could put off others similarly its best to celebrate an achievement and not any incident but do celebrate.


A lot more great things but mostly on which i have already written

Cheers

Arvind Srikantan

Extending HR

"Recently i had a strange encounter in the offices of one of India's leading ITES organization which baffled me. In the waiting lounge while reading the paper i noticed a north Indian woman barely about 25 or 26 with a toddler and she looked poised and focussed waiting for someone. When the HR executives of the organization came to meet her there was an obvious sense of fear when they were walking towards her and later listening to their dialogue i was able to configure out that her husband was working for the organization and was absconding she was not willing to move and was creating a scene which was making a huge blemish they were explaining that he was in another city and even made her converse with him through mobile but she was not buying any of it and stood firm demanding him to come to office or asking for his new address"


Well when these kind of awkward situations arise in an office its tough to ignore them and stop rumors. And here is where am wondering are fresh graduates trained to handle this kind of a crisis situation ? A hysterically possessed woman threatening and there is pile of work lying inside to be completed like recruitments to be done, shortlisting candidates is left, calls to business partners to be made, forms pending, mails stacking up.

And you have someone who is not ready to listen to you what do we do and am intrigued by the fact i could be in the position of HR folks in a year, The time has come with work from home and other ideas where the line between office and home is vanishing in Thin air which could leave people gasping for breath if they are not trained to handle these kind of scenarios.

Stressed out employees are a huge factor which could affect the organization many people believe if an employee is ready to work overtime or holidays it might be that he is committed to their work which could be very true but also there is a high chance that he is using office as a solace to escape from home where the situations are not good and thus it is essential to identify the stressed ones out and it is good if people are not workaholics then they are done with all the jobs and at the end they might be ready to move on.

Tiger Conservation

When the whole campaign of 1411 tigers and save the tigers was started i was very cynical towards it and I had blogged about it that there was nothing which i could do.

But thanks to my association with the Vasantha Youth Lodge of Theosophical society i had the privilege of watching a special screening of "Truth about Tigers" a movie by Shekar Dattatri the eminent wild life photographer which focussed on how important it is to conserve the tigers.

The essence of it we have to understand is that the Tigers have existed on Earth even before Humans came, if we believe the Evolutionary theory and its a shame that our national animal needs to depend on our intervention for its survival.

The fact remains that when we are bloating of being an emerging economic superpower it will be a huge vacuum if we become cynical and throw our hands saying we are hopeless in saving our national animal. The tiger has been pushed from the free roaming forests all out India to just 1% land and even here we humans still fight for space with the tigers which for a fact can live in any sort of forests. The current forest coverage is low but research experts its still enough for close 10,000 tigers to survive in the wild.

The truth which should astound environmental conservatives is that a healthy tiger population is a clear indication of a healthy vegetation this is because the tiger is the apex hunter and thus when there is healthy tiger population it shows that there are good herbivores and thus a good vegetation which will help in fighting global warming. With illegal demand of tiger products to China never seems to decrease every part of it is wanted including the Whiskers which are used for tooth ache.

The reality is that Tigers die when they do not have proper food, a tiger needs approximately a prey per week and thus for every 5o deers that are hunted we lose a tiger as it starves without food. We have celebrities going on dear hunting escapades and mostly even the courts let off people saying its only a dear and charges them a meager amount of fine but this compounds and has put this grave situation. We can replicate a good system which was used in the Bhadra forests of Karnataka where the government offered 1 million Indian rupees to any family which is ready to move out of the forest and thus the tiger count in that forest has remained steady unlike the famed forests of Sariska, Panna and Ranthambore where we have lost the tigers because of

(i) Faulty methods to count them
(ii) Poorly trained rangers
(iii) Denying gtruths given by experts
(iv) The greed of the poachers

The major activity which we as common people could do is press the issue a call to all lawyers please if you can take up cases of NGO's and fight as the ratio of poachers caught to sentenced for crimes is less than 5 % thanks to lack of good legal support. An urge to use recycled paper which will save forests and finally let us stop living in Ignorance that government will do anything we need another revival like project tiger or else we could better start looking for a new national animal


And please visit this link if you are interested about tiger conservation and feel something should be done for the national animal

"The Truth About Tigers"
Cheers

Arvind !!

"Redefining HR"

Any person should consider themselves lucky if they were able to attend the event on 11/06/10 organized by one of the legends of HR in Chennai Mr.GD Sharma. The chief guest of the day was Mr. HN Srinivas Senior Vice President (Human Resources) of Taj Hotels who spoke about the redefining parameters or changes in HR.

The key aspect he focussed on was that HR was not limited to the office space or office premises as it earlier was. He pointed out to the fact close to 60% of Employees in US software firms work from home, Thus the physical role of HR is decreasing and then he spoke about what can be done in this world where every one seems to be threatened by the offset of Gen Y who present a huge challenge as the Job Security factor for them rates very low in their needs list and recognition is the most desired one.

He spoke with certain instances of the bravery of the staff of Taj Mahal Hotel during the Cowardly Terrorist act of 26/11 and special was the story of a 23 year old executive named Mallika who was in charge of a event which consisted of Global CEO's of Unilever. This young lady took charge when she got a message from the security department about miscreants and locked the door for protection and took care of the whole event including risking her life to get a proper Wine glass for the guests and later arranging car at 3 am

He gave another instance of a young waiter in one of the restaurants who understood the plan of the terrorists and helped the guests escape by guiding them in an alternate pathway but ultimately sacrificed his life in saving theirs.

These instances were shown to say about the importance of company value which gets embedded in every employee and it is the base which should never be compromised on and also on which only further additions can be done.

The event was loaded with the facts on what TATA's did after 26/11

A small note of it from the Asian correspondent


The Taj Hotel in Mumbai is a Tata property and one notes that the property is largely restored. Lives too were shattered by Islamic terrorism. What did the Tata's do? I didn't hear about it until I came across the following forwarded account. (HT Raj Iyer)

The author is one Dileep Ranjekar. [I have a few comments in parenthesis.] (Pardon the horrid formatting. The interface makes it difficult to do much about it.)

October 10, 2009

Meeting with H N Srinivas - Senior Executive Vice President, Taj Group of Hotels




A. Terrorist entry



1. They entered from the Leopold Colaba hotel entrance and also from the northern entrance - spraying indiscriminate bullets on the Taj security personnel and guests in general.

2. Though Taj had a reasonable security - they were surely not equipped to deal with terrorists who were spraying 6 bullets per trigger.

3. The strategy of the terrorists was to throw chunks of RDX in an open area that will explode and burn - creating chaos so that the guests and staff run helter skelter so that the terrorists could kill them. The idea was to create maximum casualties.

4. There were several critical gatherings and functions happening in the hotel on that day - a Bohra wedding, global meet of Unilever CEOs and Board members and 2 other corporate meetings were being held in the hotel - besides the usual crowd.

5. The firing and chaos began at about 8.30 p.m. and the staff including employees on casual and contract basis displayed exemplary presence of mind, courage and sacrifice to protect the guests who were in various halls and conference rooms.

B. Stories of Staff Heroics
1. A young lady guest relation executive with the HLL gathering stopped any of the members going out and volunteered 3 times to go out and get stuff such as ice cubes for whiskey of the guests when the situation outside the hall was very explosives and she could have been easily the target of the bullets [That's not heroic -- that's stupidity. AD]
2. Thomas George a captain escorted 54 guests from a backdoor staircase and when he was going down last he was shot by the terrorists

3. There were 500 emails from various guests narrating heroics of the staff and thanking them for saving their lives

4. In a subsequent function, Ratan Tata broke down in full public view and sobbed saying - "the company belongs to these people". The wife of Thomas George who laid his life saving others said, she and the kids were proud of the man and that she did not know that for 25 years she lived with a man who was so courageous and brave

5. The episode happened on 26th November, a significant part of the hotel was burnt down and destroyed - the hotel was re-opened on 21st December and all the employees of the hotel were paraded in front of the guests [What's this supposed to mean? AD]

6. It was clearly a saga of extra-ordinary heroics by ordinary people for their organisation and in a way for their country. The sense of duty and service was unprecedented

7. The young lady who protected and looked after the HLL guests was a management trainee and we often speak of juniority and seniority in the organisation. She had no instructions from any supervisor to do what she did
a. She took just 3 minutes to rescue the entire team through the kitchen
b. Cars were organised outside the hotel as per seniority of the members
c. In the peak of the crisis, she stepped out and got the right wine glass for the guest [They were elegantly drinking wine at the peak of the crisis? AD]
8. People who exhibited courage included janitors, waiters, directors, artisans and captains - all level of people



C. The Tata Gesture

1. All category of employees including those who had completed even 1 day as casuals were treated on duty during the time the hotel was closed

2. Relief and assistance to all those who were injured and killed
3. The relief and assistance was extended to all those who died at the railway station, surroundings including the "Pav-Bhaji" vendor and the pan shop owners
4. During the time the hotel was closed, the salaries were sent my money order
5. A psychiatric cell was established in collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences to counsel those who needed such help
6. The thoughts and anxieties going on people's mind was constantly tracked and where needed psychological help provided
7. Employee outreach centres were opened where all help, food, water, sanitation, first aid and counselling was provided. 1600 employees were covered by this facility
8. Every employee was assigned to one mentor and it was that person's responsibility to act as a "single window" clearance for any help that the person required

9. Ratan Tata personally visited the families of all the 80 employees who in some manner - either through injury or getting killed - were affected.

10. The dependents of the employees were flown from outside Mumbai to Mumbai and taken care off in terms of ensuring mental assurance and peace. They were all accommodated in Hotel President for 3 weeks

11. Ratan Tata himself asked the families and dependents - as to what they wanted him to do.
12. In a record time of 20 days, a new trust was created by the Tatas for the purpose of relief of employees.Tatas were covered by compensation. Each one of them was provided subsistence allowance of Rs. 10K per month for all these people for 6 months.
14. A 4 year old granddaughter of a vendor got 4 bullets in her and only one was removed in the Government hospital. She was taken to Bombay hospital and several lacs were spent by the Tatas on her to fully recover her
15. New hand carts were provided to several vendors who lost their carts
16. Tata will take responsibility of life education of 46 children of the victims of the terror
17. This was the most trying period in the life of the organisation. Senior managers including Ratan Tata were visiting funeral to funeral over the 3 days that were most horrible
18. The settlement for every deceased member ranged from Rs. 36 to 85 lacs in addition to the following benefits:
a. Full last salary for life for the family and dependents

b. Complete responsibility of education of children and dependents - anywhere in the world

c. Full Medical facility for the whole family and dependents for rest of their life

d. All loans and advances were waived off - irrespective of the amount

e. Counsellor for life for each person

D. Epilogue

1. How was such passion created among the employees? How and why did they behave the way they did?

2. The organisation is clear that it is not something that someone can take credit for. It is not some training and development that created such behaviour. If someone suggests that - everyone laughs

3. It has to do with the DNA of the organisation, with the way Tata culture exists and above all with the situation that prevailed that time. The organisation has always been telling that customers and guests are #1 priority

4.The hotel business was started by Jamshedji Tata when he was insulted in one of the British hotels and not allowed to stay there.

5. He created several institutions which later became icons of progress, culture and modernity. IISc is one such institute. He was told by the rulers that time that he can acquire land for IISc to the extent he could fence the same. He could afford fencing only 400 acres.

6. When the HR function hesitatingly made a very rich proposal to Ratan - he said - do you think we are doing enough?

7. The whole approach was that the organisation would spend several hundred crore in re-building the property - why not spend equally on the employees who gave their life?

Pyramid of Success !

The words of a great Sports leader














Cheers !!

Arvind !!

Quotes from John Wooden

John Wooden is an all time legend in Basketball and a great coach. He passed away on June 4th. He was popular off the field thanks to his widely used quotes some of them are


"Be prepared and be honest".

"Ability is a poor man's wealth".

"A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment."

"Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then."

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. "

"Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights. "

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability. "

"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."

"I'd rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent. "

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? "

"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes. "

"It isn't what you do, but how you do it"

"It's not so important who starts the game but who finishes it."

"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen."

"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

"Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters."

"Never mistake activity for achievement."

"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

"Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts. "

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming. "

"Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."

"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out."

"Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character. "

"You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one."

"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. "



The final quote is a truly awe-inspiring and something which every individual should ponder upon. The secret to these wisdoms lie in a closely followed creed which are


1) Be true to yourself.
2) Make each day your masterpiece.
3) Help others.
4) Drink deeply from good books.
5) Make friendship a fine art.
6) Build a shelter against a rainy day.
7) Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.


Rest in Peace John Wooden and hope the world learns from his teachings


Cheers !!

Arvind !!

Underplaying ourselves

It's quite often when we say about best practices it’s either

a) Japanese when it comes to quality

b) Americans when it people practices

But more often than not I have felt us as Indians as managers could do a better job of man management if a little bit of free reign is given. We often are proud of the fact that Indira Nooyi and Shantanu Narayen and Sanjay jha are CEO's of top organizations.

But when Mr. Ravikant retired from Tata Motors we had to wait for Carl-peter Forester to take over and adding a global perspective which baffles me. With due respect to Mr. Forester and his achievements are we trying to say we do not have adequate talented individuals when warren buffet looks for his successors in India we in India are wondering if Arun Sarin will replace Ratan Tata.

Why are we painting a picture ourselves deficit of talent when the world is looking out to India for talents?

I basically believe we have some of the best man management skills because you look at indian kid the roles it has to play right from school are

I) Diligent Student

ii) Multi talented Individual

The weight of expectations is very high, and these roles keep growing to a stage of an adult where he has to juggle multiple roles simultaneously and most of them succeed.

I believe the reasons why Indians appear less People oriented compared to Americans because

i) We have never enjoyed work or life It has always been cut throat

ii) The fear of failure

iii) The burden of expectations

iv) We always measure performance by the outcome and not the effort

v) We are never convinced and tend to be pessimistic

vi) Very low gestation time for an Individual to settle.

It is not easy to remove these hurdles overnight and will take years but what we need to understand is that by following Japanese styles of Pokayoke or American methods is not going to pull us up because we vary from them it is time we accepted the change and created a system for our fellow Individuals to flourish and help Indian Organizations to grow

Cheers!!

Arvind!

Performance appraisal

The above cartoon kind of portrays the image which an employee shares about the performance appraisal process. At the recent SHRM India Chennai forum on 22/05/10. An enthusiastic bunch of professionals, consultants, Academicians and students tried to address the burning questions of Performance Management systems which often become the base for most Dilbert lampoons. We wanted to probe these questions

# What are the key expectations of a PMS system

# What are the major roadblocks in implementing an effective HR system

# How do we remove the roadblocks and what are the techniques which we can follow

# What will be the effects after removing the roadblocks and some effects which we can see

The members sat around tables trying to find out the various ways of answering this issue and finally we reached on this conclusion

*The system will be effective only when it is credible and for that we need to cut down on the subjectivity part of it

*Time we had a change and looked at a performance appraisal process as handing out report cards but more as a Talent Management with a view of finding the best employees and keeping them.

*To analyze if there are avenues of a co-creation of a PMS system

And finally we were deliberating on the issues of change in the system and how can we facilitate the change but that is where sometimes i felt out of sync we often look at changing the system but what we should rather realize that change is not something which can happen overnight it may take months or even years to convince the top management and then the employees about a new system which can come in place till that time we need to find some "Jugaad" to ensure the system runs effectively.

There was one nice point which was intriguing was the question of in how many sectors is pay liked with performance and in most of the manufacturing sectors which is like the backbone of our country it is not and the second one was if there are any punitive actions which are taken against any appraiser for not completing the process of appraisal. We give them warnings and memos but do we penalize them ? if we may what will be the effects but does this kind of policing approach bring out best results or does it cause hatred towards HR.

The happiest part was that i got a chance to document a case on the real time change in PMS and I believe once it is done i can share it with all


Cheers

Arvind !!

The most challenging profession ?

It is common amongst us people to normally boast on the level of toughness of our work/projects and everyone wants to be brag about proving their mettle.

In that i list i was trying to find out the most challenging profession in today's context and based out of personal experience i thought it would be a door to door salesman or an Industrial relation officer or the Chennai Bus driver (during peak summer months) and then i found an unexpected answer it was a "DENTIST"

Being under the knife of a dentist for three hours made me realize how difficult their work was. Mouth along with eyes can be considered the gateways to a person's mind in terms of to smile, to talk, to eat and so on and so forth and to imagine the prospective of an alien third man meddling with our mouth seems like Frankenstein playing Ludo with you and there is outrage but that's just what a dentist exactly does.

Something i was able to realize is that his job demands extra ordinary patience because most of the clients you have to deal with are kids who are scared of a dentist or old aged people who realize they dint achieve their dream and want to talk,talk, talk and even more talk based with these two types as customers to be a professional is tough and to be an extraordinary professional it is a great attitude and amazing talent.

Normally people visit a dentist only when they have an issue with their tooth or gums rarely do people go for a regular visit and in a lot of cases the state of these may not be pretty and let us not imagine the odour.

He has to work with the most uncontrollable organ "The Tongue" which cannot stop whirling skidding rushing amongst other things and then comes the tough part when they have to work on your teeth. It is not that hard to work with your lower teeth but imagine when they have to work with your upper sets of teeth there is no clear mage and then based on instincts and limited vision they have to repair that which is very tough.

His negotiation skills are way of the mark and so is his perseverance and commitment.
You can always hear its going to be over from him very frequently to comfort the patient

The crucial aspect where you as a dentist have to realize that is that if they botch up anything this man will be vehemently angry and they have destroyed the Appearance of a person

Cheers

Arvind !!

Quotes from alchemist

When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream

Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. You've got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense.

Don't think about what you've left behind.

Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.

To die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day. Every day was there to be lived or to mark one's departure from this world.

For the eternal dreamer in me there is nothing more satisfying than reading the alchemist by Paulo Coelho which every person should read not just as a book but rather step into the shoes of the protagonist Santiago and feel the vibe which you can get from the book. The first quote is something which truly sends a chill down my spine whenever i think about it the more i start believing in what i can do. this is very much like our Indian Epics but it does not have that larger than life reel feeling to it.

In many times we are like Santiago caught between choices afraid of failure afraid of the world and we look for the push to propel us forward and we look outside for it than realize it within us on how much it is in us.

As it was famously said by Aerosmith "Dream on Dream On Dream On Dream on till your dream comes true .


Cheers

Arvind

The professional: In brief

Everyone around us wants us to act professionally at every stage from where life takes a reckoning. In the western world it’s from school when you start working part time.
When it comes India m mostly it is in college but sadly we ignore the fact that being professional is something internal and has a deep effect on and not a coat which you can acquire.

A big thanks to Venkatnarayanan sir for suggesting me this book and I owe you a lot for this sir.

The book is the third in the series after "High performing Entrepreneur" and "Go kiss he world" by Subroto Bagchi the Gardner of Mindtree ltd.

The book is divided into Seven parts

i) Integrity

ii) Self Awareness: Where competence ends and professionalism takes over

iii)Professional qualities

iv)Managing volumes

v) Managing complexity

vi) The new world imperatives

vii) The professional's professional

Each part is carefully divided and is to be read in the sequenced order and with its blend of current incidents and everyday problems this book reaches straight to the heart hopefully to make sense for the head

The first part integrity speaks about the story of a young man in Bangalore who is forced to take up doing last rituals of unknown bodies as a source of lively hood and rather taking a hate in it he shows so much dignity and respect towards his job that people appreciate him and even reward him.

He also speaks about how integrity is a very personal thing which cannot be taught and there are certainly areas where i feel some striking similarities in the people from whom we have learnt Integrity. My father is very much like Mr. Bagchi's father who even though was a government servant took pride in their job and strictly separated professional and personal things which are the view young men and women should develop.

The second part speaks on understanding who you are and to stop false comparisons which are mostly done in monetary terms and could lead to breach of ethics. It’s time we looked beyond money and see that money does not define us it also speaks a lot on humility an area where the hospitality sector is where the GM of a hotel acts as the gatekeeper or shoe polish man which shows the humility they have and also on taking charge most of them I see people around me crying that things are not right and things are bad but they do nothing to change the situation sometimes you could be the best in talent but if you can't take charge you fail. He cites an example of a situation in which he takes the top brass of the company out for training and puts them in a real time cliché situation where two young men ahead of all the others take charge which earns them special respect.

The third parts speaks on qualities which define a true professional areas like time spent on required areas and saying no as well as the comparison of a job into marriage where you ensure when you leave it you don't cause a behind.

There is some inspiration from tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell when he talks about Mavens Connectors and evangelists

The fourth part touches on asking pertinent questions and realizing the fact that we are Humans and everybody should be treated Humanely and the great rewards of transparency

The fifth and sixth part talk about critical questioning and the pain of personal life with the example of Anu Aga. and also on new world lust like IPR and also on gender and cultural diversity

The final part is the yen for professionalism where he recalls about incidents in Japan where professionalism comes ahead of everything else he narrates the example of a bellboy in a hotel who took offense when he was offered a tip.

The book concludes with a quoting about an incident from death where an unclaimed body is sold off to signify what starts with death should end with death.

Personally a book I loved and should be made a must read for all budding professionals. The concept of part time jobs when young can induce a steep culture of professionalism at least Internships from where students learn how to be PROFESSIONAL

"Mumbai. After having observed increased level of happiness and satisfaction among the employees in the past few weeks, the HR team of Hindustan Companies Limited (HCL) met today to discuss innovative ways of reducing employee pleasure to bring it down to the acceptable levels. The three member top level team is expected to finish its brainstorming session by 5.30 PM sharp and submit its recommendations to the top management tomorrow.
“We had received specific information from our sources that employees were seen generally happy and jovial in the past few weeks. No important announcement or managerial decisions were taken in the concerned duration that could have logically added to the overall well-being of the employees. At best, the development could be termed an aberration.” Hari Sadu, HR head of HCL said.

After having personally witnessed the increased happiness among the employees yesterday, when he saw a group of employees laughing and cracking jokes during the lunch break, a puzzled and concerned Hari Sadu called for an emergency meeting today morning, which continued till reports last came in.
“I too have seen these guys spending too much time in cafeteria, near coffee-vending machines or in the smoking corners and being jolly for almost no apparent reason.” Nitya Udaas, senior HR manager, shared the concern, further adding, “Maybe the workload has reduced of late. We have to check with the sales department if we are getting enough business.”
“I have noticed that even the toilets are occupied for longer duration these days.” quipped Anand Anjaan, third member of the top-level team, wondering what was going on in the office.
After discussing various problems and irregularities in employee behavior, the HR team also discussed employing some innovative techniques to control employee pleasure.
“We could make the coffee-vending machine operative only after swiping it with the identity cards. We can get data on which employee is spending maximum time drinking coffee and accordingly deal with the problem.” proposed Hari Sadu, directing Anand to find out how much will such a swapping machine cost and to send a proposal to the Finance department.
“Also find out the cost of that toilet-timer that switches off the lights in toilets after ten minutes. This will make sure that no employee spends too much time over there, while we would project it as an electricity saving initiative towards making HCL green.” interjected Nitya, which was well appreciated by Hari and Anand.
HR team was still in the board room when this report was filed, with smiles returning to their faces as they discussed and analyzed the problem at hand in detail.


The above article is taken from the Fakingnews.com and for someone who is passionate about HR this article looked superb but what really caught my eye were the comments made by the people who said most of things like measuring time in coffee joints were being measured and it irked them.

This brings me a scenario which we are facing now

(i) DO we feel that if people spend too much time having coffee or in the rest room then rather than looking at it as decreased productivity, did we have an interaction with them on if some issue is affecting them and how probably we can assist them.

(ii) Do we need to spy on our colleagues to find out what they are doing and what they should do? Rather than that shouldn’t we be creating plans of making them involved in work if the work. Even after that if the nature of work is making them restless, we ought to find out if they are suited for it. If not change them to an area which they prefer

and finally guess the anger and hatred towards HR is probably the fact that steeped in tradition are the basic aspects of moral policing, compliances and regulation maintenance which are not for the taking of the new generation at work, Its time we should adapt our way of working rather talking what is written we should find out more and add value to the business not just maintain the values.

These will ultimately make the HR more respected it’s a fact that in the best organizations people working prefer to call themselves as the employees first and then as their department staff or people that is all down to how the organization values their people which will ultimately make the difference we always like to point out on great plans of futuristic looking proactive organizations but that far outweigh the conservative personnel organization and changing that would mean a show of success for the HR fraternity


Cheers

Arvind !!

When traditions collide with

More often than not we look at business from a financial perspective and on jargons like EBDIT's and cost sheets we somewhere miss that it is people who start a business its people who are employed in a business and finally people who buy the products of a business directly or indirectly.

A sector in which India has seen rapid growth other than politics is the outsouricing industry especially Voice based Call centers who take care of customer support and feedback and answering Questions to people who they cannot even imagine what runs their world.

most of us have always painted the picture of foreigner in our mind as the firanga rich white guy who comes to look at the Taj mahal and the spicy indian food. Movies dint help they showed the same description and even James Bond movies wanted to show India as a land of snakes and tigers. Perceptions changed and suddenly India became an outsourcing focal point and also in the area of web 2.0.

Recently i had an interaction with my erstwhile junior from college a very successful entrepreneur Ashwin Ramesh and he recounted a fact that one of his clients in USA asked him if there were a lot of snakes India to which he said i have been living here for 20 years and i have never seen a snake.

Why was i making that point to put in the bigger picture with outsourcing how long do organizations think they can exist with it. I had a friend who worked in a call center doing work for major London Tabloids and his work involved calling people and asking the routine questions of if they got the papers and all but he had to wear an identity and cover himself up with an accent

1) Will this help him in working ? No he is creating a personality and
2) Will it help the customer ? Maybe but in many cases they start to yell realizing its a youth from India (and nowadays south east Asia)

so what is the satisfactory outcome for the organization other than profit. Guess what will happen when a guy from Scotland with a heavy Scottish accent calls up a Sholapur kid who wont be able to breakdown what is he even trying to say or it will take a lot of time and will they have the patience it depends. People sometimes face even more racial barrage on revealing their religious beliefs which is not helping them

To wrap up am questioning the concept of outsourcing where people who have no idea with softwares explain on how to use them makes no sense it complicates life for everyone because its a major culture shock in an environment which is not matured to take it

CSR ! not by chance but rather by choice

It’s been time since I wrote a post and i think this deserves the space

I had a chance to attend a great seminar thanks to my friend Priyanka KS on CSR 2.0 by
Dr. Wayne Visser and was fascinated by his vision and expertise into the subject (He holds a PhD in CSR) and how CSR is just considered an additional activity. A lot of people want to help the society but wander off in this thought frame " Ah... first let me earn money then let me help the society by giving it to some organization"

He spoke on a concept called CSR 2.0 which is very much based like web 2.0

Web 1.0 was for a few and select and included things like shell objects and coding and thus people did not take it up but as Thomas Friedman said "the arrival of Netscape had a whole new effect suddenly web changed"

Web 2.0 where we are sharing and reading all this is pull driven there is freedom, connectivity with projects like one laptop per child web 2.0 is gaining power it has empowered people. Social media has shown its true strength weighing in to campaign and helping people.

CSR 2.0 should also empower people and not should be based on the shiny annual social report if small things which can help the society and can help the business be integrated that helps the business and community at large.

One of the common examples was mobile phones the average life span of a mobile phone in UK is 9 months and thus there was no idea what to do with these old phones which had heavy metals like Nickel and Cadmium. An organization called "Fonebak" gave free shipping and got these phones and recycled them. Same was the case with a US carpet organization which made artificial carpets and once it got old they gave them a free replacement and used the old materials to make a new one. This made absolute business sense because

1) You are giving a customer a free upgrade and no one feels sorry for freebies

2) Your loyal customer base will spread good word about you and finally

3) You have raw material which with a little bit of work can work into a new carpet.

Unfortunately organizations do not realize that another example was with Wal-Mart which started selling Cotton and Fish based on some regulations and only when these were cleared they were kept on the Shelves for viewing which made sense as customers did not look at the norms they were happy with what is available.

There were ten essentials for CSR 2.0

1. Inclusiveness – involving stakeholders directly from beginning to end

2. Market driven – no longer expert driven

3. Innovation – smart companies turn market pressure into stakeholder led innovation

4. Sincerity – you can no longer uphold an image that is not real

5. Co-ownership – a truly embedded value-based culture requires involvement

6. Dynamics – standards and annual audits replaced by 24/7 engagement

7. Quality – CSR as immersive business strategy

8. Personal – It’s about you, not your sector! What are your own ethics?

9. Pluralism – number and nature of CSR projects will expand dramatically

10. Proximity – local impact is global

Hope that organizations realize that its not about growth its about how you grow

Cheers

Arvind !!