Gods Must Be Crazy

It is that time of the year when one reminisces about the year gone by and takes stock of what has happened. Children have been born, marriages have happened, people have got divorced, people have passed away, new jobs, new courses, new careers, new friends, falling in love, breakups, good fortune, bad fortune everything has happened. Each one of you would have had some or more of the above. Some of you would have made huge progress; some would have had a roller-coaster year and for some the year would have been largely uneventful.

When I look back at what has transpired with me in the last twelve months, I think it I need to share it with the world. Twelve months ago, I was headed towards a simple uneventful year. Good job, decent money, lovely family, a cute four year rascal, some great friends, playing golf two days a week... life looked simple.

If any fortune teller had told me that by end of 2015, I would have quit my job, be on the verge of publishing my first book, be a regular blogger, preparing a digital media strategy for launch of the book, interacting with PR professionals to arrange media publicity, be consulting with a manufacturing company on production, playing golf on weekdays, lost some money, earning a fraction of what I was earning, commenced entrepreneurship, fallen in love once again, and still be happy, I would have laughed. I would have checked what the fortune teller was drinking or smoking. I would have said, even God can’t write such a script.

But it turns I would have been wrong. 2015, has really been an exciting year. Truth is stranger than fiction and the script could not have been written by anyone else other than God. In August 2014, I trekked to Tungnath, the highest Shiva temple in the world with my mother and a cousin. Lord Shiva is one who is said to smoke opium and drink bhang. By the time I reached the temple it was one in the afternoon. I am sure he must have had his lunch and whatever else, and must have been high, when I met him, which is when he blessed me by deciding to write my script. 

It all began with a life changing event. A friend from college passed away in February. This was the second such person passing away in the last six months. That’s when the fickle nature of life struck me. Everything that one works for, all aspirations which one postpones can come to a naught in a jiffy. I realised life is so uncertain, it is no point postponing the pursuit of your dreams. What is the point sacrificing today, for a better future, if there may not be any future? Carpe Diem has always been my motto, and seize the moment I did. I decided to quit my job to aim to play golf professionally. I am sure everyone in office and my family would have felt I have had a knock on my head. My family would have very easily sent me to a mental asylum, but then there was one catch, I am the sole breadwinner, so they put up with this.

I am sure when Lord Shiva was writing my script, he showed it to Goddess Parvati to approve. And like all wives, she made her presence felt, by adding Angels in there. After all, no script is exciting enough without the presence of Angels, other than the spouse. So the Lord agreed and has been sending Angels time and again to add twists and to bless me.

A lot of people ask me, how we plan our careers. My experience, over the last 20 years tells me, that it is very difficult to plan your careers. You have no clue what destiny has in store for you. There was no way that I could have planned what I have been doing. Many times opportunities knock at our doors, and we don’t open them, think too much about the risks, whether it is the right thing do, what if it doesn’t work out etc. I was telling a friend that I have been extremely lucky. He disagreed. He said that over and above luck, what I have done is I have been open to opportunity. I have taken risks. I still don’t know whether I have taken the right decision; one is right or wrong only in hindsight. So my advice to all you people out there is, take some risk, laugh a lot, dance to your heart’s content, have a few drinks, live life, follow your heart, spend time with your near and dear one and don’t take money and work too seriously. Keep that child in you alive and count your blessings.

Gods only know what script they have written for me in 2016. One thing is sure – it is not going to be an uneventful year. I will end this blog with the following words:

Aansoo hain jo sone nahin dete .....(Tears not letting me sleep)

Aur Sapne hain jo rone nahin dete.....(And Dreams not letting me weep)

Happy New Year and see you all in 2016

Coffee with Fat Fingers

“Mobile-only makes sense for Flipkart” , says Sachin Bansal of Flipkart (Times of India 8^th December 2015).

1986 was my first tryst with computers. Since then it has been a love hate relationship with technology. I love technology, but not sure that the feeling is mutual. Or maybe technology loves me so much, that it gets tongue tied in my presence.. the way I do in the presence of the women I have a crush on. Everybody who has fallen in love in their teens and early twenties, will understand what I mean.

In the 90s when I was young, I wished damsels fell in love with me.. but computers and printers did. My mere presence was enough to hang desktops and jam printers. Once I even made a great impression on a foreign damsel. I was at my client’s office and his son had just got an inkjet printer from the US which was a novelty in India at that time. The moment I entered the room, the damsel swooned and started crooning. It spewed out junk characters.... I understood the message, but my client was at wits end. It was only when I was out of the room, that normalcy returned.

 On another occasion, I was conducting an audit in a small village town called Kudal, on the southern border of Maharashtra. The moment I entered the computer room, the line printer got tongue tied and stalled. I could only laugh at my fan following.

With age the fan following has gone down, and my charm has diminished. Last week, I was invited for a dinner in Pune with my spouse, but unfortunately she could not join me. The host mentioned that I should have got my girlfriend. I joked that at this age and with this paunch, having a girlfriend is not possible. He said, don’t give up hope, you will be surprised. His words were prophetic, only this time, I fell in love and this blog is about my newest girlfriend.

Well she is young, beautiful, slim and desired by many. In the last twelve months, she has had hundreds of marriage proposals, but she is an eternal flirt. Some people have managed to go on a date with her, while she has dumped quite a few. She is so amazing, I am head over heels in love with her. If you have not guessed by now, it is... the app on my smartphone.

Today evening, I was a bit lazy to get up and switch on the computer. I wanted to know the movie timings in the nearby cinema hall, so picked the mobile phone and accessed the movie booking app. Last week we were in Nasik for a week and had accessed the app from there, so it returned movie timings for Nasik, while I wanted them for Mumbai.

I scanned the screen for the button which would help me change the location. She was looking back at me, smiling. Her smile was sunshine and enchanting.

 I was as tongue tied as I was twenty five years ago, when I went out with my first crush for the first coffee. Both of them said the same thing. “I know what your intentions are, but I won’t help you. I will play along with you and watch the fun. Let’s see if you can make me fall in love with you.” Flirting at its best.

 I was looking at her as I would look at all my crushes, tongue tied and not knowing what to say or in this case do. But the conversation had to begin. I could not spend my entire date gazing at her with stars in my eyes. If she had to be mine, I had to say something.

 On my first date, I asked her what will you have and she had said, “Juice.” I had to ask for the menu card.  Suddenly an idea struck me and I put my finger on that part which showed me my current location – Nasik. The menu and a list of cities appeared.

Chivalry demanded that I make the choice from the menu. Also the attempt to impress her means I have the same juice that she has. Only if our tastes match, is there a chance of taking this relationship ahead. I suggested pineapple and she wanted watermelon. I clicked on Mumbai, but she returned the search result for Bengaluru. Disaster - History repeats itself after twenty five years.

I did not want watermelon, and she was insisting on the same. Three times, I put my finger on Mumbai, only to return results for Bengaluru. Clearly the conversation was not going on desired lines. I tried to remember, what I did twenty five years ago. Yes, I told her that I did not want watermelon, and asked her to pick a flavour she liked.

I looked for a search box and found one. I put my finger in the box so that the keypad would get activated. Instead of activating the key pad, it returned search results for National Capital Region. After repeated tries, I gave up, got up and switched on my faithful computer.

I have since shared many coffees, but haven’t progressed beyond that for some reason. I seem to be incapable of succeeding in the art of wooing a woman. When I shared my predicament with an agony aunt, she told me, that I have fat fingers. Well, I can use a nail file to chisel my nails, but how does one chisel fat fingers without bleeding?

Thank God for the concept of arranged marriages in India, else I would have remained a bachelor. Spouses may not be glamorous, the technology may be old, but they are willing to live with fat fingers.

I am no longer willing to spend money in this pursuit (other than a few coffees). If a woman wants to fall in love with me, it has to be on the basis of my intelligence and accept my fat fingers.

However, hope is eternal, and I will continue in my pursuit of pretty young women. Yesterdays’s newspaper carried articles of Celebrities in Hollywood getting married to younger women, with the age difference being more than fifteen years.  It is time to upgrade my smartphone and explore newer apps. After all, Men will be men!!!

Decoding Aamir

Aamir Khan has put his foot in his mouth. Going by the traffic on media – social, print or television –  his statement has generated enough comments. As per him, his wife feels there is a state of despondency in this country and fears for their child. One can’t argue with maternal instincts.

But why is it that I do not feel the intolerance and am not suffocated and fear for my children? The pattern that arises in this country over the last so many years is that intolerance, threat of existence, fear etc. are only felt by some minority communities. Is it because they are in the minority and fear the majority community?  68 years of independence has shown that all communities can co-exist with each other.

I interact on a daily basis with all minorities – at work, in a cab, at the marketplace. I do not see the fear in their eyes. I have a lot of friends from minority communities, and nowhere have I got an impression that they live in fear in this country. It is not that when the minority and majority communities come in contact with each other on a daily basis, they are on a state of high alert, ready to thwart off any attack from the other.

Maybe, my inability to feel the intolerance arises from my being a non- celebrity. Celebrities live in a cocoon. In a fan crazy country they love the adulation. They also live a tough life. They and their children cannot live a simple life like we do. It is very difficult for them to go to a movie, or take a hit in the park. They live in their exclusivity and continue to weave that web around themselves. They do not travel by public transport. They do not have to visit the supermarket to shop for groceries. In a literal sense, “Unhe daal aate ka bhaav pata nahin.”

They also have another problem- they need to be in the limelight. The warmth of the focus on them is what gives life to the cocoon. They fear that if the focus on them dwindles, their cocoon will fade. Let us look at Aamir Khan’s story. He does one movie at a time and focuses his energy on the same. His last movie was PK which was released in December 2014. Now we are closer to December 2015. There is a general impression that this statement of his is a publicity stunt, a lead in to the marketing campaign for Dangal.

There are enough Aamir Khans in corporate life. As you grow senior, your year - end appraisal depends upon, among many things, your ‘visibility’. It is important to make your point felt, ask questions in cross functional meetings, so people notice you. There is a pressing need to constantly raise points, issues, questions, irrespective of whether they are relevant.

It does not matter whether these questions are actioned upon. You need to ask a question just to stay in the limelight. And if you go three such meetings without a question, people wonder whether you have lost your touch.

A few things can happen when you ask these questions. One, they can be brilliant questions, which can shape policy or strategy. Cheers to that. Secondly they can be disruptive. Your question might be relevant and very close to the truth, which unfortunately the person chairing the meeting does not want to be asked. It is at that time when the response you get is of sarcasm. This is exactly the way people have reacted to Aamir Khan. Thirdly the question or point you raise can actually go against you. It could be nonsensical but you never intended to make sense. You just wanted to make your presence felt.

I believe Aamir Khan clearly wanted to increase his visibility. The noise against intolerance, which had died down after the Bihar elections, lent credibility to the fact that the entire noise including ‘award wapsi’ was a manufactured debate with a political intention. There would not have been a better vehicle to flog and Aamir did the same. Like the corporate analyst, the objective was to ask a question, and increase his visibility.

This statement has created a lot of negative visibility for Aamir. Is the statement irresponsible? Definitely. Has he overplayed his hand? I don’t think so. Given the short public memory, the issue will die down after two months. His objective was to return to the limelight, which he has achieved. The tolerant and forgiving country that India is, the issue will be forgotten at the release of Dangal, which will be a superhit, and Aamir will laugh all the way to the bank.

It is sad that a great story about two women wrestlers (Geeta and Babita Phogat who to me are bigger heroes than Aamir) and their father has got mired in this controversy.

Every person creates a personal image or a brand within the organisation or society. It takes years to create an impression and one bad statement to shatter that image. I wonder what is more important, visibility or cultivation of a personal brand. Wonder what pays off in the long run.

Murphy’s Angel

Last couple of weeks have been extremely interesting. I was on my way to Bandra (a suburb in Mumbai), and on SV road, a big dumper fell in love with my car. And in a spontaneous public display of affection, it kissed my car. It was more than a kiss, it was a passionate smooch. Like every damsel, who has been smooched by an unwanted stranger, I was angry and the scars were huge. I don’t know about my car, but I definitely did not enjoy the smooch.

It required some physical healing, and the mental scars on me were huge in terms of the cash outflow. A great start to the festive season. Another day, I was travelling to go on an official visit to a beautiful campus in a business school, nestled in the hills. The management had been kind enough to invite my family and we were all set to go... when my four year kid got viral fever. Very nice, family plan aborted, I decided to go on my own.

And then my friend Murphy visited me. For the uninitiated, there is a Murphy’s law which says “If anything can go wrong, it will.” Little did I know that Murphy had decided to engulf me in a bear hug.

Having not played golf for nearly two weeks as the car was in a spa undergoing healing, I planned to practice at the course on the way to Pune. On my way, I was stuck in traffic at the most unexpected of places. As a result, I reached the course ten minutes late and the course had closed. Murphy had just started playing his tricks. I decided to drive directly to Pune for my engagement with the business school.

On the way, in the ghats, the car was struggling to accelerate. I realised there is something wrong. Somehow, I managed to complete the stretch of the expressway and parked it at the garage. The clutch plate had burned and on the verge of collapse and I had to leave the car. My destination was still fifteen miles away. Somehow I reached my destination, in a foul mood, cursing my luck.

Out of the blue, I received a call from an angel. I consider myself to be blessed as I have a lot of angels hovering around my life who hold my hand from time to time. This angel was calling me after a few years. The mood was already foul and just needed an outlet, somebody to speak to. I narrated my entire sob story to her and she in turn congratulated me and said, “Congratulations, you are one extremely lucky man.”

I was aghast, here I have destiny working against me, my son is not well, my vacation with family has to be aborted, my car had an accident and a break down within two weeks, stuck in the middle of nowhere and this lady was congratulating me!! She was passing off my bad luck as good luck!!! How preposterous!!

And then she explained. In the accident where the dumper decided to kiss my car, I was unscathed and unscratched. Every few thousand kilometres, we are destined to meet with an accident. Even Sachin Tendulkar gets out on zero. I got my turn of the accident and was lucky to escape without a scratch. Amazing, I never thought of it in this fashion.

I still wasn’t a full convert. I asked her to explain my road trip incident. She said, firstly count yourself lucky that your son developed fever, else they would have been in the car, when the engine began stalling. Imagine being stranded in the middle of nowhere with your four year old and wife. She also said, you were lucky, that you drove your car till the garage. Imagine if the car had been stuck in the middle of the Mumbai – Pune expressway, middle of nowhere and not a garage in sight.

Still not completely convinced, I asked , “What about the traffic and not being able to play golf?” She replied, “If you had played golf, you would have wasted an hour and a half and maybe reached the garage after dark. Was there a guarantee that the garage would be open?”

Each sentence was a thunderbolt, destroying my negative thoughts. What an amazing deduction!! All along I had been cursing my bad luck for the multiple mishaps in my life. When I think of ‘What else could have gone wrong?’, I get scared. Looking back at the incidents in a dispassionate manner, I realise I have been extremely lucky!!

Being alone in campus at night, had me reflecting on various incidents in my career, which I attributed to ‘bad luck’. When I had people in my team leaving, my statements being misinterpreted, not getting that promotion when I wanted it, even one bad training session, were all attributed to bad luck. Looking back I realise that I had to work extremely hard, to surpass these setbacks. I always used to say, that I have never got things easy. But in hindsight, it is this hard work that has taught me so many things. I would today like to think that all these have been learning experiences rather than tests by fire.

And then suddenly a thought struck me. Why did this angel call me today after so many years? She had no agenda; it was just a courtesy call. The hand of God is clearly evident. The angel is just the messenger. The beauty is, I was travelling to a business school to impart knowledge, and it is here sitting on campus, that my perspective has changed.

It’s time to start counting my blessings... and I need to go back to school!!!

Fear is the Key

Sunday 25^th March 2015. South Africa hammered India for 438 runs in 50 overs. This is like breaking the 10 second barrier in 100 meters running. Just imagine a time trial, where your competitor runs 100 meters in less than 10 seconds, and throws you the gauntlet – try and beat that. In 90% of the cases, you will be beaten even before you start. Mentally.

I guess that’s what happened to the Indian cricket team. We fell 200+ runs short. It is like we took more than 11 seconds to run 100 meters when we had to do it in ten.

I have read a lot of sports writers saying that every game is played in the space which is six inches between your ears. You win or lose in your mind. They say that it is important to inculcate a winning habit. A side which is accustomed to winning finds ways to bounce back from desperate situations. While a side which is accustomed to lose, chokes. It invariably loses its way from a winning situation. Many a times, the underdogs, start well, because they have nothing to lose. They suddenly find themselves in a winning situation which they don’t know how to handle and suddenly start losing their way. There are enough and more examples of teams gifting away winning situations.

Circa 1995, World Chess Championship, Anand vs. Kasparov. Kasparov was the undisputed champion, while Anand was the Challenger. Anand was talented, very fast, known as the whiz kid and Kasparov’s equal. All chess champions came from Russia. The only champion from outside the iron curtain was Bobby Fischer of USA.

In that sense Anand was always the challenger, the pretender, the commoner who aspired to overthrow the king. At that time, it was clear that if anyone could dethrone Kasparov, it would be Anand, but not many were hopeful. World Chess Champion from India? Preposterous.

A match scheduled over twenty games, began with eight consecutive draws. The challenger was hanging in there. Game 9 – Anand won. The challenger was mounting a serious challenge. There was joy in India. Would the king be dethroned?

And then Kasparov won four of the next five games, two playing with black pieces. After fourteen games, Kasparov was leading by three points, massive. The deficit could be surmounted with 6 games left. But my guess is by that point, Anand was mentally defeated. The match did not even last the distance, it got over after 18 games..

Anand learned from this experience and went on to become World Champion, multiple times.

I distinctly remember two hockey matches, which amplify this mental aspect

1985 Champions Trophy – India vs. Germany. Germany leading 5-1 with 10 minutes to go. That is when Pargat Singh a defender, decided he will not lose. He started with solo runs along the flanks slammed one goal and created a few more. It was one of India’s greatest comebacks and we drew the match 5-5

2000 Olympics. A combination of results, meant that India needed to defeat Poland the lowest ranked team to qualify for the semi finals. India had not won an Olympic medal in hockey for 20 years. Here was a chance. The enormity of the situation got to the India hockey team. They could not score till three minutes were left. Two minutes to go, they let in a goal. Poland got away with a 1-1 draw and India’s Olympic medal chances went up in smoke

Let me now go back to another cricket match in March 2006. Australia scored 434 in 50 overs against South Africa. The 400 barrier had never been breached. It would have been natural for the South African players to get dejected. In the break they were sitting with their faces sullen. Suddenly Jacques Kallis said, “They are 15 runs short, its a 450 wicket.” Motivational? Yes. I personally think this was a masterstroke from Kallis. He just insisted that they can win it. As a result South Africa won with one ball to spare.

Looking back at work, there are many such stretch situations.  When we look at the targets, it looks like we need to squeeze blood out of a rock. So many times we dismiss the challenge as not doable. We attribute it to experience and give up even before starting the chase. We are destined to fail.

We see organisations handing over new market / new product roles to young executives. The reason is they have no fear of failure. Experienced people will approach the task saying why it will fail. Young people will approach it with an attitude of “How can we make it work?”

This is because youth knows no fear. They don’t have the experience and hence don’t have any baggage. They don’t understand the word failure and are only driven by the hope to succeed. There are enough and more examples of stretch targets being overshot.

Experience counts, but it also brings fear and baggage. Give me the person, who knows no fear. I would love to have Jacques Kallis in my team.

Preempting Competition

A trip to Udaipur is incomplete without a visit to the City Palace. Against the advice of my better half (Statutory warning: Going against the advice of your spouse, can be injurious to health), I decided to engage a guide for the tour of the palace. These guides can speak Hindi (obviously), English, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, French and a few other languages. The guides charge a differentiated rate for each language, with charges for Hindi being the lowest.

Since we are not from South of the Vindhyas, we preferred Hindi. I have heard that now even in Chennai, the auto drivers speak Hindi, which was unthinkable, fifteen years ago. The IT enabled services industry has managed to unite the country in more ways than we can think of.

The guide led us through the narrow corridors of the palace. The rulers of Udaipur were called Maharanas as they have been undefeated. The most famous of the Maharanas is Rana Pratap. Apparently, Rana Pratap never enjoyed the comforts of the palace and spent his life fighting the Mughals.

The palace has paintings of the famous battle of Haldighati.   It took a cranky four year old to point out a detail in the painting which sowed the seed for this blog. “Dad, the horse looks like an elephant!” As an ‘educated’ parent I dismissed the observation, “Beta, it is a horse not an elephant!” The kids insistence, forced me to look closely, and behind me the guide was smiling. “Look properly sir, it is a horse with an elephant’s trunk!!”

 “Sir, what you are seeing is the famous battle of Haldighati, fought between Maharana Pratap and the Mughals, led by Raja Mansing of Jaipur. Maharana Pratap’s army consisted of horses, while the Mughal army had elephants. The horses are no match for elephants. Hence their faces were covered with elephant trunk masks. In the battlefield, the elephant, seeing the horse with the trunk, will think it is a baby elephant and not attack the same.”

No wonder, the Ranas of Udaipur are undefeated. They have been one step ahead in their game, and pre-empted the competition. Similarly the auto drivers of Chennai have realised that with ITES coming in, there is going to be an influx of non-Tamilians, and they need to be catered to. If they remain stubborn, somebody is going to come in and capture their space.

This leads me to ponder over how we think about our careers. In an extremely competitive and hardworking environment, I have always focussed on getting a good rating and the next promotion. I have always defined my competition, as my peers within the organisation. As long as I am with them or one step ahead of them, it is fine.

The battle of Haldighati, has changed my perspective. I now need to look at competition from the perspective of survival. In response to Mandira Bedi hosting the 2003 ICC Cricket World Cup on TV, Harsha Bhogle once mentioned, “We always thought competition would come from ex-cricketers, we never thought it would come from noodle straps, necklines and hemlines!!” My question today, is where is competition coming from?

To answer this question, I need to change the way I look at competition. My competition is no longer my peers. I need to look at my work and check, whether my skills will be relevant five (maybe three) years from now. I need not bother about the promotion or the increment.

The key word is ‘survival’. I am sure the horses were uncomfortable galloping with the elephant mask on. I am sure they practised hard enough, so they were ready for the battle. They were out of their comfort zone, I need to be out of mine. I need to look at what mask I have to wear, to survive the next five years.

Just yesterday, I read that the ex-CFO of Infosys, in his early 40s is joining Ola. Does he know something, that I don’t? Wonder if it is time to sell my Infy and TCS stock holding, and invest in Ola, Flipkart, Snapdeal etc.

The auto drivers of Chennai, the tourist guides of Udaipur and the battle of Haldighati have clearly signalled that re-inventing yourself is the name of the game. If the skills are not relevant, the horse will be trampled by the elephant.

Taming Virendra Sehwag

Virendra Sehwag needs no introduction. He is an opening batsman, who threw cricketing logic to the winds. Day One of Test match, historical wisdom was you give session one to the bowlers. “Says who? ”,  asked Virendra Sehwag. Hitting on the up, meeting aggression with aggression, he suddenly confused the hell out of bowlers.  It was not unnatural to see a perfectly pitched ball outside the off-stump to be driven to the cover boundary. The angry bowler would then pitch it short, and Sehwag would just upper-cut it to the third man boundary.

Aggression was his forte. However if you think it was blind aggression, you are mistaken. He had a superb defensive technique, and fantastic hand-eye co-ordination. His motto was simple, see ball – hit ball. In 2008, he was picked out of the blue for the tour of Australia and he was a success.

There are many Virendra Sehwags at the workplace. The brashness of youth knows no fear. They come with bright ideas, don’t fear failure, and are aggressive. They are the ones who speak out, without fear of authority or rebuke. Many times their comments are met with sarcastic replies by seniors, even public humiliation. And why does this happen? Simply because they are right, and the seniors have the weight of their ego behind these comments.

These people are go getters and succeed, till they get into the performance management cycle. One of the biggest aspects on the performance management cycle is 'areas of improvement.' Here these people are told, “You are too aggressive. You need to tone down.” Unfortunately these people don’t realise their own value. They rely too much on seniors for advice and try and mould themselves.

Imagining telling Sehwag, you need to curb your aggressive instincts. You would have killed the natural player and I am sure he would have been a failure very soon.

One innings of Virendra Sehwag stands out. January  28^th 2008, Adelaide. One day to go and India were starting their innings 37 runs behind. Early morning on 28^th January, India’s most dependable batsman who could save a test match, had retired hurt. Virendra Sehwag batted close to six hours and scored 151 runs in 236 balls to save the match for India. He played defensively according to the need of the situation. Important thing, is Sehwag had  a test debut in 2001 and this innings came in 2008. The tiger had matured over time, but not lost its claws.

Unfortunately, we expect maturity from young, 23 year kids, with fire in the belly. In the process of building the maturity, we kill the fire. My advice is let them be, these kids will mellow over time. Trying to curb their attacking instincts is trying to destroy the batsman in them.

Team management is not about constructing clones of what is an ideal employee. It is actually, recognising the competencies of an employee and exploiting his / her strengths. Their areas of improvement, can be filled by hiring somebody who is complementary. Teamwork is about hiring different people with different competencies, and ensuring they work together.

After all, you don’t convert Messi into a defender, and don’t ask Michael Schumacher to drive slowly. It is time the corporate world moved from “Areas of Improvement” to “Capitalizing on Strengths.”

Despair and Hope

Early morning flights are not very pleasant. Especially when you are returning from a vacation and have a four year old in tow. We noticed a big black car waiting to drop us to the airport. I looked at the tyres to see if it was a BMW. It was not. In the dim light at 5 am, I could not recognise the logo. My wife suspected something and hence walked around the car. While the driver was loading the car, she told me it is a.... Jaguar!!!

A casual conversation with the driver, clearly impressed me. I should call him a chauffeur. He was courteous, well behaved, spoke impeccable English, and regaled us with tales of local history. Interestingly, he was in his late 50s. Even on an early morning 5 am road, he was driving reasonably and not like Michael Schumacher. Restraint, Discipline, the ability to reinvent, excel within the profession... so many qualities that I learnt from a small thirty minute driving experience.

As a matter of fact, not only this chauffeur, but all of them I met in this visit impressed me. I learnt a very important lesson in life. People who want to excel will do so irrespective of the professions or the circumstances.

On the way back from the Mumbai airport, got into another taxi. The driver’s mobile phone was on speaker, and heard a few conversations. While you have organised aggregators doing business online, these were a group of offline taxi drivers, forming their own group. If they are not able to service their clients, they don’t decline them. They just pass on the lead to their friends. And all of this, using technology. I was simply amazed. The real innovation doesn’t lie in corporate offices, it exists in the streets.

This brought my thoughts back to something I tried to introduce in my work place six months back. I worked for the back office of an multi- national Investment bank. People know their process very well and work extremely hard. However one of the deficiencies expressed frequently, was the lack of business acumen and an understanding of world economic events

We have a whatsapp group, comprising of people in the same team. We use it for communicating and sharing jokes, photos and quotes. I floated an idea, can we use the group for discussing on world economic events and their implications.  Six months down, the idea was a non-starter. There was no traffic on the group.

When I compare these two events, I am amazed that semi literate people are harnessing technology to utilise its potential, while educated highly paid people ignore the same. The events of the day compared with what happened over the last six months, give me a paradoxical feeling. While there is despair over what could have been...there is also hope in people at the bottom rungs of the pyramid.

I am convinced it is nothing but the hunger and the will to succeed. Which has led me to rethink about the way I want to bring up my son. Maybe the vacation was a mistake.