We all know that politicians need to be accountable. The Intellingence units need to be able to gather the early warning signals and coordinate with the police or Anti Terror Squads to take preventive measures. The media too needs to avoid the temptation to sensationalize news and put innocent lives in danger. We have on many occasions watched the television channels trying to outdo each other in being insensitive. They televised live the rescue operations by the police, the NSG commandos trying to enter the Taj Mahal Hotel. Just by switching on the television the terrorists would have advance warning of what the commandos were desperately trying to do stealthily. The lack of accountability showed up big time during the terror attacks in Mumbai on the night of 26th November 2008 when terrorists held the country hostage.
It happens when you are a starting off your career at the bottom of the food chain. It again happens each time you change jobs. Heck, it happens when you get transferred to a new office/ branch of even the current employer. The newbies all have horror stories to share about how on day one they have been made to feel lost, angry and even humiliated in the office. If that happens to be the first day in a new organization, it leaves the employee wondering if it was indeed a smart decision to have left the previous employer in favor of the current monster. Having spent oodles of money wooing the hotshot talent from the competitor, we now leave them to stumble and fall till they find the roads in our neighborhood and learn how to find their way around. Sounds really convoluted you would say, but it happens everyday in most offices. Chances are that you have experienced it yourself.
I was recently invited by PepsiCo to join a dinner being hosted in view of the charismatic CEO Indra Nooyi's visit to India. She was voted the most powerful woman in business in US for the third year in a row by Fortune Magazine. Irene Rosenfeld who heads Kraft was the second most powerful. Irene is a PepsiCo alumni as well. Moral of the story: Food and beverages make people powerful. So eat well, I told myself.
Kolkata in the Eastern part of India is home to Tagore, Amartya Sen, Mother Teresa, Satyajit Ray and old school romance. Nostalgia is the best sauce to feed your imagination. Ask anyone who has seen Park Street in its heydays in the late '60s and '70s. Christmas and New Years eve meant dancing on Park Street, I am told. The greats of Rock, Jazz and Blues all performed live in the various restaurants and nightclubs of Park Street during those golden years. The Victoria Memorial, Soccer fever and Utpal Dutt's theatre all happened here. The long adda sessions at Coffee House is a thing of the past.
How many of us are really good at hiring great people? OK, I can see many hands up in the air. Chances are that you are wrong - unless you suffer from depression. Twenty odd years back two grad students from Univ of Pennsylvania found out that depressed people are better judges of how much skill they have. Others carry a widely inflated opinion about their skills. 90% of managers rate themselves to be among the top 10% performers. How do I know this? Claudio's book says so. Why do you think people get hysterical during appraisal discussions unless they have allowed to wear their personal halo and wings.
In a market where demand for talent far outstrips supply, the organizations continuously face the task of keeping the talent from being snared away by other employers. Over the last few years as India became the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) capital of the world, a new breed of employees started to step into the office cubicle. They were the millennials.
A Blog is like a baby - very easy to conceive but very hard to manage. And yet - people have them ( I mean blogs, not babies). Everytime someone is swelling up with the deep desire to educate or entertain the world, a blog is a great place to start. A blog is not just about self expression, but it is also about throwing your ideas up for scrutiny. You will get appreciative responses and they are easy to deal with. Blush and be coy. But are you also prepared to deal with a swift hurt on the anatomy (figuratively speaking) and ego (literally, not figuratively)?
Abhinav will be the favored name for all new born males in India for a while. Reality shows will invite him to pronounce judgment on bump and grind routines being done by 10 year olds. Mahesh Bhatt or somebody from Bollywood will announce a film that chronicles Abhinav’s life story – complete with a Rakhi Sawant doing an item number in the last scene when the hero wins a gold medal at the Olympics. And why not? Unlike countries like China, US, Japan, Korea and so many of the East European countries, we have it easy. After all we do not have 30 gold medal winners, 40 silver and 52 bronze medal winners in every Olympics to celebrate.
You flip through the set, smiling at your own cleverness. The trick is to choose something that everyone can be trained on. Finance for Non Finance comes to mind. Everyone needs to do it - including some of them in the Finance department itself. Didn't they all go for it last year? Fuggedit. Going through spreadsheets can be painful. How about Marketing for Non-Marketing or Human Resources for Non Humans... naah... they don't even offer these much needed training programs.