"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

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 !!

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 !!

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

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 !!

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 !!

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 !!

Generation Gap

Probably the new age term which every one wants to use is Generation Gap. Earlier there was a Generation Gap for every 10-15 years but now it seems there is a generation Gap for every 2-3 years and some interesting Observations I made which cause this gap show that this is so called Gap has nothing to do with Individuals but rather with the Economy and the society which has the ultimate influence on it. this i can say because

The factors which define a generation are more to do with the physical objects and things around which an individual has grown or got used to

1) The generation i grew up can be associated with things like Shaktimaan and the Landline phone

2) For earlier people it could be the commentary of cricket on radio of and so on...

What we can strangely observe is that after 1991 in India is that this Generation gap has been expanding faster than the universe in outer space. This i believe is mostly due to the economic reforms which were brought in like a steroid to boost up a flagging economy but what it did not consider was the human effects of it can do. This i say because after 1993 the people who have come look like they have been struck up in some vortex and this has been because by the time they reach maturity and start associating with certain products or individuals it may cease to exist.

With shorter product life cycles and high growth for innovation suddenly the parameters which was used to understand the individuals has slowly been fading. people are so curious to know about Gen Y because they have never been able to study them well.

One of the key components of Gen Y is Gratification and to an extent even attrition represents gratification to me.

The individuals are so pressed for Gratification that if your organization is not providing they don't mind going to another organization to get it. Which can explain the reason why there is a high exodus of top performers and that is because they feel the gratification which is long awaited won't come so being a go getter they move towards it.

The point of generation Gap fits in as we are confused under where we come. When i observe the "KID" next doors and the language he speaks am shocked as its only laced with profanity and he believes no one understands him in the whole world and this kid is barely 8. this kind of depressing things are a big concern as i may have to select and employ these people and its going to be a unique challenge. To sum it up this cartoon speaks volumes



Cheers

Arvind !!

The Ewing theory

I am gonna love this post as it mixes two of my favourite topics Sports and Human resources.

If we are talking on sportswriters there is one person who i always love for his honest opinion and straight from heart approach and for his Slapstick and sarcastic humor. It's none other than Bill Simmons. One of the top sports writers in USA.

A specific area of his writing which i was admired was his creation of the "Patrick Ewing theory"

On the outlay it looks it makes absolute no sense as it talks about the team morale after losing a star most of them should go down and depressed but it rather points out at how teams often perform better because there is no burden of a star and having to play with the star.

Its more so often when you have a star the team depends on him to perform and everyone may not come up with their true skills and may not perform to their max. potential but without a recognized star the following things can happen

1) All the players can consider themselves integral and have to step up their effort

2) There is a huge strength when playing without a Star as he he/she can draw the major spotlight and thus if the team feels dependent on one individual they can go down but here everyone play out of their skin thus it may not be easy to identify who will step up for the day

3) The team is motivated to fight as everyone has written them off

4) The fearlessness of every individual will make the team better on most of the occasions

I think the easiest example for us people to relate would be the T-20 world cup in South Africa where the team won the World Cup without it’s so called big stars led by a rookie captain and players who were on the fringes of the squad and people who were making comeback a package which proved unstoppable on its day.

The best part about this theory is that it speaks volume on how a team needs to be. In today's context when organizations prefer teams working on key projects this rule could shape up things.

There have been organizations which i know have tried to implement the normal grading system inside a team. In a hypothetical world this theory could put normal grading even in a team to find out the high performers and the non performers but if there is a team which is working on this level then there is a problem. The high performer of a team could be a relative high performer among other while if we compare the other high performers they may not be of that level. Thus this creates controversy for high performing teams

It’s a great topic for discussion!! And am waiting for eager responses for or against it :)

Cheers

Arvind !!

Is Pareto principle possible instead of normal ranking ?

Over the course of past couple of weeks there have been a lot of discussions on Performance appraisal systems in most of the organizations and how a Bell curve which is commonly used creates disparity and to make things clear let us first explain what is a bell curve



Example of Bell curve

Bell curve is a normal curve which believes that in any normal grouping that there is one extreme which is highly efficient and the other extreme is highly inefficient while the majority is rated as average. This system does not make sense to me as what is the great act when you want to term your employees as average and as there are extremes only some should get into it which becomes a source of power. But ultimately one thing which strikes me is the fact that nothing in the world is normal if it were then we would not need a performance appraisal! But we may not fall in the levels as expected and thus the fact of saying someone is average and poor does not seem good to me.

A strange idea occurred as I was reading "Fooled by Randomness" by Nicholas Nassim Taleb. Who suggested the Pareto principle as a much better option to the normal curve and seriously thinking how it can help in the performance appraisal process.

For starters Pareto's principle also known as 80-20 rule talks that 80 % of problems come from 20 % of causes or 80 % of sales come from 20 % of clients. How this can be applied to performance appraisal is in a simple way. Take the performance levels of all the employees of a certain cadre or level and find out the top 20 who have contributed the most and see if the rule does work over there if it does reward them as extraordinary and congratulate others for coming in the 80 % but make them strive heard to come to the 20 % group and as there is no negativity involved it will motivate the people to work harder.

Just an idea which I hope could decrease the use of normal curve

Cheers

Arvind

Save tiger ? But how

Save something is what people have begun to market themselves to show their social inclination and patriotism.

But this idea of spreading on “save the tiger” baffles me! This is because unlike paper or plastic or fuel which is used by everyone. According to 3rd standard textbooks and other wildlife experts Tigers live in jungle and into most of which we have no access (And if we are given an access most of the people would be scared by the mere thought of facing a tiger).

it is not something which we can save by reducing consumption ! Or even the promotion about saving them confuses me! In the same part of the world the poachers are also feeling bad that only 1411 are left but they won’t mind that they won’t even mind if only 14 of them are there.

It’s high time we realized that most of these tiger poaching goes off to China with whom our Govt does not want to have a dialogue and how rampant corruption and bureaucracy has killed our forest and the flora and fauna. It’s no use trying to protest online.

The forest ranger has no equipments, no technology, no weapons to thwart the poachers they are as vulnerable and as the animals and our environment minister will prefer addressing on Climate change and BT cotton and others rather than looking to help them.

The basic pay of a forest ranger is lesser than the pocket money of many of us and we are not even bothered about it such is the system they fall victims for corruption and before they can get out they are sucked in

If we want to help saving them then think small in terms of living area for yourselves, leave forests open for animals and do not promote your own interests which helps in mass clearing of forests as we have to remember its animals who came before us we have no right to take their place.

Pranav mistry a legend

A change in topic and i was checking my mails when i saw this amazing talk by this guy called Pranav Mistry on his invention called sixth sense please watch the video its for 13 mins and regardless if you are a tech guy or not u will applaud his work

Football and HR

During the last NHRD conference I heard this beautiful anecdote by Mr. Natarajan Sundar a man of great experience and great knowledge. He was started off with this question "Name the only activity in which all the people compete are not different" people came close with the answer but the answer was football where it is 11 vs. 11 and the intentions of both teams are same to put the ball in the back of the opposite team's net and winning the game and the job of a coach is to motivate them

He talked about using Welch curve while grading the players as indispensable the essential ones and the ones who could be replaced and it was the most interesting anecdote as it combined the two passions i shared in football and human resources
and one special person i remembered was a footballer called ole gunnar solskajer a person who sacrificed his personal choices for the team and helped the team to do personally an under rated player who is a legend

U rock Ole Gunnar Solskajaer, coz of the fact he was able to take a backseat and excel in the role he is given just like in any corporate world where a manager expects his subordinates do well in the job they are given and it was more special because when he came to Manchester united from Norway he was prolific scorer who averaged a goal per game which was so high and starting every game and then to come off the bench which was not a certainty as it was up to the manager to use a substitute so he could never play during a game if the coach felt if it was necessary but to be focused and do the job on the keen occasion was great work.

And this is even more admirable because if I was in his shoes I would have quit and moved on to another club but to see what sustained persistence can do is breathtaking.


Cheers

Arvind

The goal and the decision

There are days you get up and you just cannot wait for the activities to begin and there are days when u feel sandman has cheated on you and well it was the latter case when I had to go attend the soft skills class for this semester and as usual there were people talking on usual aspects of self confidence, goal setting and all stuff and I never had any expectations from these classes but today I had a really good class on decision making by a person called Mr.G.Ramasubramanian and the crucial thing I liked about his whole session was the way he finished it off, It was a great way to end of a session. He performed a small activity and told the essence behind it

The activity was simple. He called a person as the volunteer and asked them to collect six objects from the class and keep it on the table and then he asked the volunteer to first remove three objects and then two and finally the remaining object was a pen and he asked to lift his diary where there was a plain paper and on the reverse of the paper the word "PEN" was inscribed everyone was amazed how it was done and came up with long theories of attention, ignorance and blah blah!!! But he put it to us in a simple way and it was as follows

He had already written down the word pen on the paper and when he asked the person to volunteer he ensured if they took a pen from someone as a object if not he would offer it and then when it came down to eliminating he said that among the objects if the pen was when which the volunteer selected he would ask them to remove the non selected ones and so on to somehow ensure the pen comes and this he said is how we should be in our life with our goal should be firmly set and our decision process around it whatever be the target it is essential to ensure you have the goal and work to ensure the goal is reached

I personally felt so much attracted to his thoughts and just wanted to share it

Cheers

Arvind