India's obsession with NRIs' achievements

Indian girl devised a charged to charge your mobile phone in less than 30 seconds and Indian media goes gaga over achievement. India born American citizen gets a seat in panel first time and the media is ecstatic. India born girl wins IQ competition and the country swells with proud.

Recently such news have been regulars in the media circles. However, instead of making me proud they are irritating for me. Not that I don’t enjoy someone else’s success but I do get irritated when people try to link someone else’s success to their own by some or the other link they could draw in between. Like in these cases, the India born executive or NRI girl has nothing to do with India anymore!! Is it so difficult to understand this? Yes, they were born in Indian geography few years or decades back, but isn’t it odd for the country to celebrate wildly on how intelligent or successful some people have become, who were once born or lived in this country? These people no more represent India. They are citizens of a different country. What does that mean? It means that these people have chosen the other land to be their home, over the home which they once had. It means that they have gotten over the fact that India was once their home. Can’t we get over this?

This desperate measure of looking for success stories from people who no more represents India is beyond just petty self-acclaim. What is more dangerous is the inherent message these stories pass by their very being. Unfortunately, this message is widely acknowledged. It is – “Indians become known to world and achieve success when they are not Indians anymore”. May sound unpleasing to many but beholds the truth. We so deliberately propagate the thought of success with a pre-requisite to it. The pre-requisite is that these people achieved success because they were not in India anymore. Yes, India may be a tough place to make a mark, but so is every other country in the world. The challenges differs though, not the sincerity of efforts.

It also gives excuses to many for being unsuccessful. “…I could not do it coz am stuck here in India..”. As pessimist as it may sound, the whole point of taking credits from people’s success and linking it to India is not going to lead us anywhere.

Some articles and news go further by digging out connections to some places or events in India which changed the way an achiever use to think or work. May or may not be true, makes us believe in some way that it may work for us as well. Giving this mumbo jumbo to people and making them believe in things rather than themselves and their potential can be dangerous for the real India’s growth.

Its time we put behind what NRIs are achieving in their new homes and rather take these stories as inspirations for their hard work and perseverance, instead of how being Indians or being associated to India made them achieve it.

Open your eyes and your mind to the reality and not to the fantasy stories served by people who are hell bound to make news that is interesting but not necessarily true.

Cheers,

No more home sweet home for work! say Yahoo!

Everyone seems to be mind boggled with the storm brought by Marissa Mayer last week when she banned the work from home policy at Yahoo!

I don’t see a reason for this after-madness.

I think there will always be people who will be for and against the motion about everything under the sun and what matters is what do you think is right to do and whether you have the authority to it. Not to forget the time to make a decision and the justification which you put across are dangerously important.

Justification, however is never going to be convincing enough for anyone who does not believ in something that is just imposed upon. Justifications are usually the aftermath of a decision which is nothing but – rationalizing an emotional decision.

Coming back to the point on whether or not Marissa Mayer is right in doing what she did. Well, I certainly think she atleast cannot be foolishly wrong with decision. The whole idea from work-from-home has been seriously abused by people in industries.

Before even jumping into passing opinions about the quality of the decision, we must first understand, work-from-home is not for all the industries and set-ups.

Work-from-home claims to brew creativity in people and hence not doing so, will be stifling the creative being in a person. Patrons also claimed that the idea of having a changed work-place is more often than not improved the productivity of employees. Not to mention the buttressing arguments of being comfortable, relaxed, secured etc which sounds like a terrific medicine to make people innovative.

Not that all of this is untrue. But to what extent it is true and in what circumstances it is true are two important questions to be asked.

The idea of work-from-home as mentioned earlier is one of the most abused working concepts of today’s workplace conundrum. The number of people who are genuinely opening their creative pores sitting in their shorts with their dog sitting next to them, is far lesser than what patrons claims for. Instead work-from-home has become more often a holiday that was not approved!

Yes, again, nothing is completely true and same can be applied to the above statement. But what must be looked upon as well are the rational arguments that justifies the fact that work-from-home definitely is not the best thing in recent times which has happened to workplace policies in organizations.

When people meet, they talk. When they talk in offices or workplace, more often than not, they will talk about work, peers, superiors etc. This helps the organization in number of ways –

There are common talking points between in peers making them not just tw computers sitting next to each other but people who mutually exists

Discussions in offices are one of the major reason why work-from-home must be abolished. It allows people to argue and counter argue. It allows people to filter and refine their thoughts at a much earlier stage, hence saving  a lot of productive time and possible resources

A common identity which is associated with the employees is the workplace which all of them visit every day and associate with. Taking that away from employees is pushing the people away from that single association point

Yes, we are in 2012 and yes, u have heard of e-mail, outlook, skype, twitter, fb etc but when you want to discuss an issue or an idea, nothing is more effective than a peer or a real team sitting together instead of 4 small video windows on your screens with your team looking and talking in different directions

Finally, it is important to trust your employees and give them the liberty to do their work, but can anyone deny that productivity always needs to be enhanced and to do that you must first know how to manage it. And how will you manage it, when you do not have enough and correct parameters to evaluate it? I mean the time spent, the efforts expensed, the results achieved(tangible and intangible) etc.

No wonder people are unhappy with this move by Yahoo! CEO, but is it surprising? A big chunk of people who were having time of their lives by working-from-home are suddenly questioned about their productivity. They have suddenly realized they are under radar too. And they have certainly realized that the party is over for them. And it is just to be seen , who all follow the suit.

I think Marissa Mayer did just the right thing. It is not more home sweet home for work! Now say Yahoo!

How actually creativity is stifled

We were studying how creativity is being stifled at workplace due to stringent rules and procedures which more often than not, does not do any good to anyone.

It was interesting to be part of a brainstorming session where almost everyone was chipping in with reasons why organizations are losing people with creative ideas. We started pointing reasons starting from how fear of failure causes people to keep comfortable in their own cocoon, or how it is the higher management and missing leadership qualities that are the reasons for bogging down creative ideas.

We also did not spare the family environment as a reason for the first place of stifling the creativity among individuals. Why not, it is actually true! How many times are we encouraged in our homes while we are very young to do things which are new to everyone? We are not. We are showed a path right from the childhood and asked to follow it. Every time when we try something new we are forcefully asked to retreat, and we oblige.

So we were getting all excited about how at one or other instances, we all faced situations where we wanted to discover a path which was beyond the expected and accepted protocol and how we were stopped from doing so.

Our teacher was especially very interested in bringing out most of all of us through our knowledge as well as experience on how the creative minds, like our (pun intended!) have been made to work like machines. She gave us a beautiful structure on how we need to overcome that. Try to do things which are not written in rulebook, try to do things differently than you would normally do, do things which are interesting for you rather than what you should be doing, open the brain to a new world and new things around to make it work in a more creative manner.

It was all going so well and I started to feel more creative than I was when I entered the class.(yeah!)

The class ended and ma’am started to give us feedback on the article reviews we had submitted in the last class. I was excited after listening such positive views from our teacher on being creative, treading the unusual and going out of the box for something which is interesting etc. I got my article review back with a note on it – “It is not an article from an academic journal but from a blog. Repeat with a penalty assignment”.

I was shocked! It was such an interesting topic that I really wanted to do a review on that. I knew it was not from an “academic journal” but how does it matter as far as the article is interesting enough to be dealt with. I even wanted to share my understanding of this very interesting article with the class. But here I am, forget about a positive feedback of the heart-ridden review I did for the article, I have actually got a repeat assignment. I told ma’am, this is such an interesting article and I did my review nicely, why should I be getting a repeat assignment. Ma’am replies – “ As per the instructions given, you should take an article only from an academic journal with these constraints and must analyze it only on the basis of analysis parameters I have given to you. Also the article must be attached only before the review. These rules must be followed strictly for the article review to be considered completely”. And I had nothing to say. This was happening within 10 minutes of a insightful discussion where we were trying to find out – how actually creativity is stifled?

Cheers,

The myth of perfect set-up (Reposted from : magisterspeaks.blogspot.com)

I reached well in time.

Something inside me said, it was going to be embarrassing. It was not what I set out for. But well, however cheesy it may sound I do take note of certain dialogs from bollywood movies and one which got me over this was from a relatively new flick on life of a salesman and his ambition to go beyond the sculpted way.”Every man has two qualities in him. One which take him up and the other which brings him down and the quality which ultimately wins, the man would live his life accordingly.

It was one of that moment where I thought of walking away without testing the metal of my enthusiasm and passion for what I wanted to. Simply, because the setting was not what I thought would be.

There are two problems the way B-school graduates are taught in one of the best B-schools in this country.

Firstly, the only businesses and only problems which we are taught to get into and deal with are the ones which are BIG.

Second point, majorly emerges from the first. Since we are taught to deal with big, we are habituated towards a particular setting where we have to exercise our so call managerial charm.

I am no exception to have fallen for these two myths of B-school learning experience. What leads to this, is a story I must take separately, but for now I try to flounder across my way out of this twin illusionistic way of b-school erudition towards a tatty building with no sign of welcome which we are conjured about and a bare minimum audience who frankly, does not care where you are from and what you plan to do. Quite a letdown, you see!

Well, I was very liberal about the audience strength in last paragraph. Actually, there was no one to listen to me there when I reached.

I called up my friend who set this up for me and he was kind enough to suggest that I was free to leave if I wanted to. All the brain-cells engaged in forging out plans of making my first workshop on personality development a grand success changed their course in trying to convince me on how this is a recipe for disaster and how quickly I must find my way out of the historic building.

Something stopped me from being a puppet to these few cells which might have already started celebrating when I started my bike with an idea of pulling up my stakes there.

So all of this for nothing? And who said it was going to be easy? It is all about experiences and nothing is going to be as fruitful as an on-field experience of being jeered upon field than being clapped on by friends about a brilliant idea discussed in classroom.

I will deal with it - was the last time I spoke to myself before the workshop started.

I spoke with the in-charge of this workshop and his optimism came as a positive surprise to me about the expected attendance. Encouragingly, a group of young kids came right up to the building, wished me (!) and went inside the room just to discuss how this will turn out.

In less than 30 minutes the room was full with audience. Well, it was a small room and e had the total audience of around 30 but it was good enough for me to start.

I wanted to have a 2 hour session for these kids but they never stopped surprising me with their energy levels, enthusiasm and creativity which was exemplary while we did exercises and group activities.

1 student left the group, I later found her in deep discussion with another guy(behind a tree!) and the discussion did look too serious to be avoided for a workshop. 5 new students joined who were called upon by their friends during the session. What I realized at the end of the session was that the session had run for three and a half hours, without a single break. Nobody went out for water or washroom.

There was sense of curiosity on their faces. They were jubilant and hungry for more. I learned multiple lessons that day. About me, about how important was what I was trying to do, What is the state of these kids lost in ‘India shining’ stories, and most importantly – I was so wrong about the set-up theory!

We will never have the perfect setting to do good work. We will have to own the setting and do good work.

My first workshop on personality development was an experience to cherish, which I will preserve as long as my grey cells allow me to.

Cheers

One step at a time... (Re-posted from - magisterspeaks.blogspot.in)

The writing is on the wall!

Whether we choose to accept it or not, the reality remains to its existence. The statement can be applied to a variety of situations and almost every time you do that, you can’t help but notice a brutal ignorance of people about the transformation of the very milieu they breath in.

An unfortunate success which I met with on my aforesaid conviction was with the state of higher education, as it unfolded before my bewildered eyes.

Having a reasonable understanding of how the higher education system in this part of the country works, I wasmerely disappointed than shocked on the grim situation.

An engineering college which is pushing itself rock-hard in order to have as less unfilled seats as possible. Atleast, not more than the seats which were lost last year. In this case, just like airlines and multiplexes, a seat lost once cannot be recovered ever again. Another one struggling  to get enough students to  run the show.

Just as you feel inception of an empathetic feeling for these institutes, another contrasting thought trickles down your brain. Isn’t it what they deserve?

The answer to this question is both, omnipresent and veiled (depending upon who just read that line!)

There are multiple reasons for the sorry state of alot engineering as well as management colleges in this country. Some people blame it on the regulatory slack for their over liberal rules in granting permission to these colleges during the last decade which has created more supply than demand in the market.

While there is another set who bestows a more pragmatic view on the situation. They opine that the imbalance of demand and supply will always be there in some or the other way. What is required, however, by the institutes is to remain competitive all the times in order to ensure that the correction does not lead to their debacle when the obliteration of this mushrooming sector takes place.

I try hard to take side but like almost every time, fail to do so. It is easier not to fall in the trap of having a stern opinion in this case due to very logical arguments made by the two groups.

What is more disheartening is not the state in which such  institutes are, but the sheer ignorance or denial they tend to indulge in, more often than not due to a conscious effort rather than a sincere mistake.

Encouragingly (surprisingly) however there are many endorsers to the idea of quality education in the same circuit(more surprisingly) who express such wishful desire and accept a need of a turn-around of a sort which will not only shift gears for the industry but for such ailing institute(extremely surprisingly, they don’t think their institute is one them!)

Denial is the first cousin of problem and interestingly, most of these institutes which have been dwelling the problem within, starts challenging it with its cousin as a tool. Not the ideal counter-attack!

Time has come when before finding reasons for the problem, solutions for problems (for others, coz we don’t have problems, right?) and then blaming someone for the problem, we – accept that there is a problem.

Time has come to take - one step at a time.

Indian Retail : Myth or Reality (Re-posted from my previous blog in 2011)

You go to your cousin’s place in a metro city or an urban town and he tells you, “Let me take you to a nice place, it has newly opened and attracts amazing crowd”. What do you guess this place to be at the first thought? Of course, the new shopping mall – claiming itself to be the biggest in the locality or the city or the state and may be in the whole country!

The reason why I started with this incident is because it’s quite easy to believe it. The reason why you believe it is, it is possible to have a big new mall to open anywhere in an urban town now.

And what lies beneath this belief is the fact that we are cognizant of the retail revolution happening right here right now. We are aware that with every passing day, the retail industry is growing BUT what is imperative to mention here is, it’s not the surging retail industry which is the talk of the town now. It’s the organized retail industry which holds the matinee show timings. The world, the retailers, the consumers and not to forget, the real estate honchos, are not excited about the retail revolution as a whole, but the organized retail revolution.

            Now, having seen how the retail revolution buzz has put up on our brains, lets unearth the real question behind this revolution to see where does it lead us to. The sector contributes 12 % of the GDP and is estimated to show 20% annual growth rate by the end of the decade as against the current growth rate of 8.5%. Total retail sales in India will grow from US$ 395.96 billion in 2011 to US$ 785.12 billion by 2015, according to the Business Monitor International (BMI) India Retail Report for the second-quarter of 2011. The Indian organized retail industry has a three-year compounded annual growth rate of 46.64 % and caters around 8% of the total employment. This data essentially means that there is a big market which is still waiting to be tapped in the organized retail sector. A CRISIL report says that the Indian retail market is the most fragmented in the world and that only 2% of the entire retailing business is in the organized sector. This suggests that the potential for growth is immense. There are about 300 new malls, 1500 supermarkets and 325 departmental stores currently being built in the cities across India. According to the Global Retail Development Index, India is positioned as the foremost destination for Retail investment and business development but 90% of the total retail chain outlets and shopping malls are only in the Tier-I and Tier-II cities. The organized retail real estate stock will grow from the existing 41 million sq ft to 95 million sq ft even when the current space is around 3sq ft per person as against 19 sq ft per person in US. It’s a bizarre combination of contrasts to such an extent that it can confuse us as to whether there is actually a revolution happening or it’s a made up! The truth is, whichever way you are thinking, you are right. It’s actually a blend of both.

                                    The Indian retail industry is actually revolutionizing. Its revolutionizing because the consumption power of Indians is growing. Its revolutionizing because consumer awareness and the living standards are rising. Its revolutionizing because a big segment of consumer is youth between 20-35 of age who spends on the choices and choose the way he want to spend. But, at the same time, it’s still budding because the organized retail is still less than 10%, because the organized retail is still far away from the 300 million population of middle class, because the organized retail is still in Tier-I and Tier-II cities, because the organized retail is still far away from real India. And no industry can revolutionize unless it has touched the real India, the actual middle class which earn 90,000 to 2.4 lac INR per annum, who still relies upon the local Kirana stores, who still does not enter the AC malls and extra luminous shelves stores.

And till that middle class accepts the organized retail, this revolution is not a revolution in full throttle, it’s still budding. Retail in India is a revolution in making but not a revolution as yet!!

Riding on phantom ;-)

There were a few things which you need to get right to be on the A-list of your college.I am taking you more than half a decade back when the gadgets collection wasn't that big a consideration.

I was doing my engineering then and it was still fine for me to be commuting to my college which was 7kms away, by bicycle since half the journey was done on bicycle and other half in a 13-seater vehicle which was called 'tempo' in local language.

                   So when i got admitted to second year and was strutting around cos i was senior and there were students around who looked scared, uncomfortable and submissive, my old bicycle started appearing a little too out of class.But i definitely was not in a position to buy a new bike.Then came the angel investor, my cousin.He lent me his scooter, which was a classic by all standards !
                                                                                                                 It didn't have its breaks working, horn was out of order and the headlight was broken.Not to forget it was always biased, i mean bent towards left :-P.Well, as they say beggars and borrowers have no choice i took it with ecstasy, looked at it and said to myself - That's my ride !!
                                      Well, there was one thing which i could not notice about it then. It had astonishing appetite for petrol!!! One ride to college and back uses to cost me 20 bucks. I must mention, 20 bucks a day was quite an amount for me to to spend then. I found a way out - Going college only 3 out of 6 days :-P

It went quite well between me and my 'ride' for some time time till an eventful night. The start of the day was not any good, i must admit. I didn't go to college and a lecture which was supposed to be free was taken by our principal. Quite finicky about the attendance, he took names of all absentees and matched them with overall attendance register. No wonder i was in defaulters, chronic defaulters rather ;-)
So my name honoring the warning list for suspension in afternoon, was a bad news. I thought of visiting my friends in the evening.
One of them didn't know how to ride. Three of us went to a local market and while my scooter was parked outside, this guy chose to satisfy his curiosity on that very day.
The nest thing i hear was a loud noise of somone bumping into a small shop. I came out of the shop and saw a massacre, well almost. He 'managed' to target 4 people in one go!! Thankfully , they let him go with just a little 'treatment'.
We were upset over the issue and decided to watch a movie in night show. Another bad decision!
The only movie playing was "Jani Dushman".
I really don't want to go into whose decision it was, but we went to the movie. Well, if remember correctly, this was the first time when i actually wanted to leave the movie in middle without caring of the expensive ticket we bought for the movie.

My ride had already cost me dear to have come so far to the hall, so adding that to the net outflow, the agony of watching the complete movie won and we watched the whole movie.

Three of us came out, nobody spoke.  Then at one moment we looked at each other and just laughed. We decided to ending this bad day as quickly as possible and set off for the ride back home.

It was just a few hundred meters from our destination that there was a bridge with a gutter. In complete carefree attitude to find another vehicle anywhere on road , it being past midnight, th e "phantom" was on full throttle.

Right at few meteres before the bridge i saw a trucke coming at me. Wrong side. I realized, i can take it from wrong side as well which i assumed would be clear, it was not. The first truck was actually overtaking the second one and there was no place for a third vehicle to pass through. It realized that i cannot apply breaks as there are no breaks.
And then few things in life which u can never forget coz its difficult to explain them.

Just before reaching to bridge, after which any trick would have been life threatening. I saw a ray of hope. Just before the bridge there was tin structure that someone might have come up with the same day coz it was never there before.

Something clicked. I adruptly changed the gear to bring the ride to lowest gear. It was quick but i was very fast with vehicle. Idea was to bump on a small 1 feet soft bump just before the tin structure to reduce speed and then collide with the structure. May sound stupid now, but was the best choice among the three options, other two being going down the gutter which we didnt know was how deep and getting crushed by one or both of the trucks.

Balance lost, bumping into the hump and then just falling a couple of feets before tin structure.
Minimum casualty, but for one of my friend, long lasting one.

He lost his tooth in the accident.

Next day i got the phantom repaired and returned it to my cousin.
I take a ride on it every time i visit my cousin's place and this incident comes alive in front of my eyes :-)