"Steve Jobs" The Doubters mind

There Will be few people who would want to stand Toe to Toe against Steve Jobs If it came down to Marketing their products. Jobs was a master at getting attention and convince the fickle Minded American customer to switch regularly. Personally I have a lot of Respect for Jobs as a man who fought against adversities and troubles throughout his life. His Journey to the top is a sheer representation of his Grit which has also landed him in trouble. But once he got to the Top he never looked back or looked at the world. He looked to go forward but not help others get along. He was a great marketeer but not a great leader. I found a great article on DNA by Neeraj Thakur which captures many of my Thoughts

“ What makes you great to the world, so much so that you become the ‘greatest’ of your times? Is greatness the title for those who become successful in their respective fields? Or is it that everyone who appears on TV has the chance of attaining greatness? Steve Jobs, who died fighting pancreatic cancer, being showered with so much love and respect raises this question.

While any celebrity has a right to an obituary, posthumous encomiums by way of comparison with other greats should not happen just because of the bankruptcy of a particular age in producing truly great individuals.

What defines Steve Jobs? The fact that he could make people go crazy about his company’s products?

If marketing is what makes you great, then our Indian politicians are the greatest, because they market themselves so well that even after their failures in one term after another, we keep voting them back to power. If making a new product is what makes you great, then there are many new products being invented everywhere in the world. Yes, the claim to launching the first personal computer goes to Jobs, but he was not behind its invention; he was the chief of the company that invented it. Any man heading the company that has a product to sell can do what he did.

To those who think he revolutionised cell phones, the fact is he just re-packaged his products by mixing up what was already out there in the form of already available gadgets/software like Blackberry, Palm, Windows, etc. A man becomes truly great for humankind and his passing away deserves mass mourning only if he has done something to better the lives of his fellow beings, overcoming personal greed and lust for power.

While all of us take our newborn kids to have ‘Do boond zindagi ki’, to save our kids from the life-crippling polio virus, very few would know why those life drops come for free. There are many other diseases, medication for which does not come even at a reasonable cost, forget having it free.

The man who invented the polio vaccine, Jonas Edward Salk, decided not to patent his invention. After seven years of rigorous research, when he had the chance to become a billionaire, much like Jobs did, he refused to do so. When someone asked him ‘Who owns the patent of the vaccine, he replied, ‘Can anyone patent the sun?’ In civilisation’s history of one individual bettering the lives of fellow humans, can Jobs stand anywhere close to Salk?

Jobs did not even eradicate poverty with the immense wealth he accumulated by selling his so-called great products, invented by scientists who worked in his company. Instead, he rather stopped all philanthropist activity by Apple in 1997, saying philanthropy can ‘wait until we are profitable.’ Today, Apple is one of the world’s most valued companies (sitting on $40 billion cash) and ironically, it is perhaps the only one in its category that has no philanthropic contribution worth talking about.

I don’t own any Apple product, and most Apple aficionados would accuse me of commenting on something that I don’t use. I am not commenting on the products he sold; I am commenting on the tears that are being unjustifiably shed on the death of a rich man. I am not taking anything away from Jobs as an entrepreneur, and the fact is that he was an inspiration for his company. But I find it difficult to accept the belittling of the very notion of greatness by bestowing it on those who worked for themselves and promoted the noxious idea that ‘profit motivates humans’, a theory that would have never given us the polio vaccine.”

There Have been past accusations against apple that there are Underage Labours Working in the Factory In China. Which he merely acknowledged as a problem but never took steps to resolve it, At a time when companies where getting the Flack for not giving jobs to Americans, Jobs escaped the Perview Blame Roulette because people where so magnetized to his products.

Steve Jobs was the True Capitalist leader and thanks to his company we are connected across the world and his charisma captured audience across the world regardless of Age groups.

Cheers !!

Arvind

Soaking up the small pleasures of Life

We are at our pinnacle when we feel we have got a mountain of our back and have the feeling of being on top of the world by accomplishing something which is considered worthy by the world. But often we miss out on cherishing some of the small joys which we encounter daily and which makes a huge difference in the way look at the next day.

If we were able to understand a small joy joy of crossing a kid across the road or offering food to a hungry man/woman who blesses you. These small things we overlook on what could they matter to us and we get engrossed on a major work but if we give a minute's attention and enjoy that it would make a world of difference to what is happening around us

Cheers !!

Arvind

Magnanimous, Inspiring

I have always had the phase where i wondered if i got the best out of life, there were things which appealed to me but out of my reach and those desires which were unfulfilled and i grew bitter about life during that phase till something cheered me up.

I came across this video today about Dewey Bozella and for a man whom life has truly been harsh, it was amazing to see that he was not bitter about it. He fought for his Innocence and i felt i should share this with everyone.

While receiving the award he said a quote by Cus D'Amato "The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It's the same thing, fear, but it's what you do with it that matters."

You can never keep a good man Down.

Cheers !!

Arvind

Growing Social Media

The following article appeared in Economic times on 09/05/2011


"KOLKATA: Indians are increasingly depending on social media for job change . The latest findings of Ma Foi Randstad Workmonitor 2011 - Wave 1 reveal that 82% of Indian employees are confident in using social media in order to find a relevant job.

Statistically, 90% of Indians have individual accounts on facebook , twitter, etc of which 81% use it for professional purposes. Employees with higher income brackets are the largest users of social media websites.

"Social media has become a potent tool for both employers and employees and as a low cost - high return option, recruiting through Social Media will soon become a key differentiator in the current global recruitment market." says E Balaji, MD & CEO of Ma Foi Randstad.

Cities like Mumbai and Delhi has an alarming rate of 85% and 83% employees respectively, who are confident in using social networking sites in order to find a job.

The survey also says that employees of Bangalore and Mumbai are given maximum access to websites by employers at 97% and 96% respectively.

Though globally the social media activity is pretty low, the Indian workforce is much more active using social media, with 79% of the workforce who have updated their social medial profiles in the last month itself."


A quite a revealing survey which has proved out how technology has become essential in helping people to find out new openings and the fulcrum will be to find out how many companies have successfully leveraged it.

The case of employees is mentioned here i believe might be in the mid to junior level who have an avid interest in electronic media unlike the senior folks have not displayed a penchant for updating their linkedin and facebook profiles.

But it reinforces a fact to all the companies about the "f" word which is "Facebook" on how much they are losing if they are not on facebook

Cheers !!
Arvind

Talent Swallowing

With Shortage of talent and a booming It/ITES sector there is a major problem of Talent Swallowing leaving the R&D companies grasping at Thin Air for precious talents.

I believe in India we are facing a dynamic issue of anyone for any role and not the right person for the right role. This is happening because of

(i) Lack of time
(ii) Unclear view about roles
(iii) The desperation for a job

All these factors make a major problem and the accusations from most of the Brick & Mortar companies are that they do not have people for R&D work. We want to enjoy the best vehicles with the best technology but we do not have the adequate labour force to create that possibility which shows us a daunting challenge of increasing our systems o equip more people to graduate focusing on niche domains and places like R&D need to be given special impetus.

Till then its a war for talent and unfortunately like the jungle the big hunter leaves very little for the smaller ones.

Cheers !!

Arvind

My interaction with Exchange Students

Recently i had this wonderful chance of interacting with a group of very sweet ladies from Finland who had come to India as Exchange Students and it was wonderful to share ideas and thoughts which resonated and projected the problems faced by a Country with a population less than the City of Mumbai.

We discussed on issues ranging from Economic and Monetary Stability to Social and family relations

The major points i learnt from them were

* The ageing population of Finland is a challenge where Productivity is Slumping

*People like to follow rules and instructions and if they don't their neighbours care to inform the authorities ensuring they are forced to follow

*Quite like India there is a growing divide between the Rural and The urban or the City and the Country Side

*Unlike India which has Bollywood,Food varieties and IT as it's Soft power Finland only possessed Nokia but even that is taking a backseat incidentally

*The World is not looking towards them as they are not in news unlike India or China which is generating new news everyday

*The government is becoming more right wing which is making the rich happy while its making the poor Unhappy

*The social Subsistence scheme is one of the best and allows a person to cover all his needs

*The income for this Subsistence comes from taxes which is high on rich people and thus they want this rate to be decreased

*The students get an income for studying

*Social Problems in Finland thanks to the Rules Compliance

and Finally Indian Spicy food is India's Biggest draw to lure other country nationals


Cheers

Arvind !!

LPG of Today's generation

For the Generation X and to a large extent for our academic purpose LPG stood for Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization in Economic terms, Which has put India on the Global Map as a force to be Reckoned with.

For the New Generation i.e. Gen Y the LPG Concept is an internal and an integral component for their Career but here the LPG is Modifies and it stands for

L- Learning

P-Pay

G-Growth (Professionally)

This has become the Mantra for today's graduating generation who look at a job and see if it fulfill these three criteria's to the desirable extent and this has became the continuum in which any job is measured by assessing the

i) Learning opportunities in terms of working in variable locations and variable departments/operations,creation of a bigger role offering wider challenges and newer perspectives, Ability to work with varied teams and also the authority to lead a team could be the major factors of interests.

ii)Pay- While this may not be the most important factor it's vitality can never be underestimated and this is displayed in terms of the situations where people have stepped down a position to go for a bigger better paying organization and also the structure of pay in terms of the variable pay is it linked on Individual's performance or on Company's performance about which i had previously written about and finally the

iii) Growth - This is the most crucial aspect and i had once heard a veteran HR expert Mr. Ravishankar of Mahindra Group put forward a point of great notice. He said that "The majority number of people who switch organizations regularly are mostly from the tier 2 B-Schools who often feel that they don't get treated on par with the Tier-! colleagues and thus take the effort to get the recognition"

What he has said is absolutely true and i guess organizations may need to re look at the way they rate institutions and the profile they offer to students

Growth is the most important aspect everyone looks for and infact one of the often repeatedly asked question during Inductions is "How long will it take me to reach the Board"

long hierarchy do not help the cause and similarly organization with a Big workforce also thus these aspects need to be kept in Mind while the career planning process of young associates who join organizations

It is essential you have a proper career management plan which could be depicted to them if not it dents your organization's image

Cheers

Arvind !!

Choose your Boss

Often i have wondered about the term "Organizational Democracy" and people trying to change the structure of an organization so that it appeals to the newer generation.

I recently had a thought about the whole hierarchy based system followed in most organizations in which the Bosses can select their subordinates but why not vice-versa? It is most often said that "People join Organizations but leave because Bosses" and we are always discussing ways to curb attrition in a economically booming scenario. This is when the idea of Boss selection came into mind. This can work very well in a particular type of situation i.e.

When the team which is going to work under the person is set and works like a well oiled Machine knowing their roles and duties at that point if there is a need for a new boss for the team why not also bring them into the foray and allow them to be a part of the process giving critical inputs as ultimately they will be the people working under them regularly. And this will be a component which will enhance employee ownership as he has selected a person to work under this, Making him more accountable.

This is Inspired from democracy where we vote for our leader but the subtle difference being once we vote we forget them till next elections but that is not the case in an office. Though this may have grave repercussions and may not fit in all organizations i believe this will fit very well in conservative organizations because

(i) Concentration of senior employees at junior and Mid level Positions
(ii) They need to accept a young turk in their midsts
(iii) They cannot be forced into corners
(iv) They hold a huge reputation inside the organizations and they may be like Father figure to many new people.

Thus considering all this factors it could work well in a conservative traditional organization and the new entrant will also know the methods he needs to use to get the work efficiently done and not clash with them which happens in many cases as there is an Age difference


Cheers

Arvind !!

The Josh factor

On the outset my New year wishes to everyone hope this new year brings you success and happiness.

The first post of 2011 is on my favorite area of Employee morale and engagement and in particular to the ideas contributed by Ganapathi Subramanian of Britannia, One of my foremost Mentors and Gurus in HR, Interactions with him have widened my horizon and knowledge base and am deeply grateful to him for that

Over the past week we were discussing about employee engagement and i was a staunch supporter that the best way to raise the morale of an employee is through having proper office environment and good boss subordinate relationship and other concepts like family day-out and group trips din't make a great difference. But his thoughts cleared up the air and showed me how these extra acts do help in creating a morale which is in a primary stage called the "JOSH" which needs to be tapped on and it will ultimately increase the performance

The Josh and performance are like the science concepts of potential and Kinetic energy which are both inter-dependent and can transform into each other. The science connection can be seen with the help of a swing which has a highest potential energy when it is kept on a height and gains kinetic energy when it is dropped towards the ground as all the potential energy gets transferred into kinetic energy.

In the regard with an employee a simple act of wishing him on a birthday by the top boss or celebrating his achievement will increase his morale and thus his Josh which can be built up by similar activities. The key concept comes in on how this Josh can be converted into high performance and eventually into number crunching results when its possible.

Riding on the back of the Josh and keeping on emphasizing about good work will surely help in the conversion over a period of time. It is also essential that this Josh needs to be built up as the lack of it will be a Hara Kiri act.

Cheers

Arvind !!