Crossing the line

There is a very thin line between expressing concern and trying to establish authority and more often than not, one is interpreted as the other, not just by the recipient of this concern/authority but at times, also by the proponent of it. There are things that one doesn't like about a situation and is concerned about, especially if the situation invloves one's own self or some one/thing one is very attached to. However, while expressing this concern, it is seldom that we realize how close it comes to assertively sitting in judgment and actually wanting things to be done in a particular manner without arguments and deviations.

At times however, it is purely concern and experiences related to similar situations that guide such behavior of the proponent. Depending upon how sensitive the recipient is to the assertion of someone else's authority on his/her way of life, all of it may incorrectly be treated as undue and unjust. Taking a call on who is right or wrong in such cases is never easy, especially if the words do not match intent (as is the case many times) or if the intent (and the words) crosses the line.

The next question, of course, is how does the problem get solved. One of the things that such a situation leads to, undoubtedly, is frustration all around. The proponent is frustrated because he/she is concerned about the way things are going on and wants to put across his/her point of view (albeit a bit too strongly in some cases) about how the situation can be changed. The recipient is frustrated becase he/she can not accept someone else taking over his/her life and feels suffocated with the entire undermining masquerading as advice (albeit being extra-sensitive and over-reacting in some cases).

It does require more than some ordinary common sense and maturity to solve this and unless both parties put their palms together, there is no clap that is going to be heard. While it becomes important for the recipient to don the forgiving hat and look benignly at the well-wishing intent behind the whole thing, it is equally, if not more, important for the proponent to realize that it is not just the intent that is important but the way things are communicated can completely change the context and make even a good thing appear bad in a space of minutes.

What this translates practically into is that the proponent, while expressing concern and wishing that things were done in a different manner, needs to exercise restraint and know when and how to put things forward based on how sensitive the recipient is. Similarly, the recipient needs to give out a longer rope than normal and yet communicate his/her take on the situation in very clear and unambiguos terms.

Unless such situations are treated in a mature manner (and I may be doing the mistake of wanting things to be done a certain way myself by saying this), emotional volatility can often take an exponential upswing and grievously reduce the chances of happy and peaceful co-existence for both the proponent and the recipient.

The Untold Saga

Growing up on Amitabh Bachchan movies has influenced a lot in my life, much of the way I am and much of the way I deal with situations has been derived from Amitabh's characters in some of his movies. He has always been the celebrated hero, of course but it is not the loud one-man-beating up-ten-villains heroism that one gets on to emulate, it is the other kind of heroism that impacted me...the untold stories of the silences, the steady, resolute look on the face, the determination that does not want itself to be sung about, the single-minded, super-achieving and yet humble outlook to any situation.

There was the other side to his heroism too, the one we all loved to admire but perhaps never thought of emulating because it simply seemed so out of reach...the one Sachin Tendulkar embodies, arguably flawless, unarguably bordering on the greatest ever. There are very few however, who dream to be Sachin Tendulkar for it appears to be only that, a dream. It is therefore, as in my case, the achievable side of the hero that we all strive towards achieving...the Rahul Dravid side of it. Achievement par excellence, no doubt...something that any and all would be proud of and yet all of it done in such unassuming a manner.

This does not mean that Sachin or those other characters essayed by Bachchan are arrogant or don't relate to the ground realities. It is just that their brand of success is too flamboyant, too Sehwag-ish to draw a pattern around. Dravid, on the other side, seems a lot like most of us. The hard worker who is super talented for sure but can perhaps not move mountains on the basis of talent alone...the one who has taken risks in his life but not out-and-out risks, only those risks that make sense and have a back-up plan along with them...the one who could not dare to give up a good education riding on nothing else but faith in his own talent...the one who built things up brick by brick with each brick joined to the other via sweat and blood, so to speak.

Dravid is the second highest run scorer in the world in Test cricket, someone who has hit more centuries than the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, someone who was requested back in the one-day team that was floundering without an anchor post his unceremonious exit from it, someone who went on to not just survive for five seasons (when other more celebrated contemporaries called it quits mid-way) but also captained two different sides in the most commercial and ruthless exhibition of cricket, and in a format that fits the least with his style of play. Dravid is all this and yet he is still the boy next door (despite, as per his own admission, being the oldest playing cricketer around in India, older even to Sachin by a few months). He is still the common man who has fought all odds to become special.

It almost gives one the goose bumps to realize the significance of what Dravid and people like him achieve in their lives and how they manage to contribute to the society in the process. Not just their achievements, but even the painstaking manner in which they have worked on to achieve the same become folklore, examples that parents give to their kids when they want them to follow the path to idealism. Dravid and his type would rate amongst the guys mothers (and fathers) would want their daughters to marry, CEOs would want to hire for the most complicated and critical jobs they have, army generals would want to trust with the post situated in the most difficult of terrains and marking the most amount of risk if it were to be compromised.

He is all that one would want to be...a clear thinker, erudite, well-read and logical, a class act at what he does, and someone who has a sense of humor good enough to crack jokes not just about others but at his own expense as well. An idol in the true sense of the word, Rahul "The Wall" Dravid shall remain an inspiration for me as much as Sachin "The Master" Tendulkar or Virender "The Nawaab" Sehwag would remain distant dreams I would want to keep striving for.

By the way, if you disagree with what I have said and insist on a different perspective, I respect that. I would only request you to read Dravid's address at the Bradman Oration in Canberra, the first time in the last 10 years that it has been happening that a non-Australian has been invited for it. The speech in video should be available on YouTube and it can be read in text at the ESPN Website

Touching...

The microcosm of existence that we have got accustomed to prevents any infiltration from events, people, and issues outside our domain of immediate concern. However, there still are certain things that touch you in a way different from others, perhaps this too because it puts your very survival under some sort of risk. Floods, earthquakes, famine and starvation, and in effect anything that adds to the misery of the human populace in general strikes an emotional chord somewhere. It probably does nothing more than that due to the high unpredictability associated with these events. We typically feel that since we do not have control over such an event happening, we are somehow less susceptible to being in the midst of something like this.

The reason why a Bhuj earthquake or a Tamil Nadu tsunami was just another newspaper front page for most of us was because it would have been a little far fetched to imagine that the same could happen to us sitting in Delhi or Mumbai the very next day. However, what is not so distant is what has been happening over the last few months in the name of religion and ethnicity. With things coming to such a pass that every Muslim colony, every bearded face, and every long kurta is being viewed with suspicion, it is difficult, nay impossible to stay aloof and not have an opinion or at least, a view.

Every weekend spent in a mall, a cinema, even an inconsequential market seems to be another weekend of survival. It is no longer the tsunami that can play havoc only with coastal towns, it is no longer the earthquake that can hit only geologically unstable areas, it is no longer the famine and floods that have been known to affect certain geographies of the country, it is something much more sinister and something much closer. It can happen to any city in the country, any day (even tomorrow or for that matter, an hour later) at any place (in the city center or for that matter, next to your home/office affecting you and your loved ones).

Real lives have been lost, hopes shattered and dreams brought to a cruel full stop in the face of these so called crude bombs that have plagued the metropolitan landscape of our country. Whether it is a Bangalore, a Delhi, or even a relatively less strategic Jaipur, the method behind this madness is very scary, to say the least. This method begets the question that what, if anything, has given rise to minds so focused on acts so shameful and denigrating, from the point of view of any religion that practices good over evil.

If you ask this question to the fundamentalist, the only answer you can expect to get is that the minority Muslim community never belonged. But what, pray, is the reason for this, you ask, and you remain unanswered because no one is bothered to go that deep. It is not that deep, either, if you come to look at it. It is the insecurity that has given rise to some people, whether belonging to the Muslim community or to any other downtrodden section of the society (the naxalites, the Tamil tigers, the ULFA, etc), to take up arms and do unto others what they do not want to be done unto them.

What makes them blow little children to pieces is, however unexplainable it may seem, the insecurity that their voices are not going to be heard, the insecurity that their families are not safe, the insecurity that they will be treated differently, the insecurity that they will always be biased against, the insecurity that has grown because of the general lack of means, education, and of course, by the fundamentalist politics that goes on in the name of reviving the mainstream.

Till the time such insecurity remains, till the time the light of welfare and more importantly, education reaches the darkest corners of each and every community, we can not hope to come out of this. Till the time such happens, all we can do is pray to the Almighty to soothe the hurt and those who have hurt and hopefully, there will be light. Even after we do see light, however, there may be a different problem, the problem of plenty leading to US style shootouts but hopefully, they would be more dispersed, subject to restrictions that our culture imposes on us, and most importantly, these once in a blue moon kind of events will probably shake the entire mechanism of Government and get handled in the course of maintenance of general law and order.

Private Banking: Emergence and Growth

The Private Banking industry started out with the Swiss bankers in their immaculate black suits suitcase carrying avatar purposefully striding towards their destination. The element of secrecy and privacy associated with Swiss bank accounts became popular worldwide and even got into places like Bollywood movies (imagine something as remote as that recognizing their existence). As time passed, the Private Banker changed to being more than just a secret hideaway for the moolah that you want to become invisible for all practical purposes.

The Private Banker was already a friend of the client owing to the secrecy, and as a result, trust involved in the entire transaction between the two. This trust, as it expanded its reach, was now used by the Private Banker to act as not just the store house but also the advisor for the clients' wealth and thus was added the role of Wealth Manager to a Private Banker's profile. The aim of Wealth Managers was to not just protect but also manage and enhance the wealth of clients who could not afford the time, effort, or competence required to do it themselves. As global commercial banks got wind of the enormous potential of this market segment, you could see the bursting on the scene of large private banks like UBS, Goldman, and Lehman who wanted to get their share of the pie.

It was, however, difficult to wean away the client from the stronghold of existing Private Bankers because of the years of relationship that they had cultivated with the client. This led the large banks resorting to what they knew best, spending money. They built the most sophisticated of systems, got in the latest of technology, gave away the most exclusive and expensive of freebies, hired the best of managers (often from the same community that their clients belonged to), and in total, elevated Private Banking to an elite platform not seen before. Private Bankers, already part of a distinguished tribe, started getting treated all the more with kid gloves, what with the talent required to mix with the rich and busy being very rare and cultivation of the same not that simple.

As the concept of Private Banking accompanied by Wealth Management gained credence worldwide, it was not without its share of hiccups and showstoppers. Educating the customer was the biggest hurdle that the business faced and with different countries managing money differently, it was not a single stick formula that could work. What, however, went to the advantage of the early Wealth Managers and Private Bankers was that their initial target audience in Western Europe and the USA had fabrics of a common culture. With inherited wealth being the most common source of the riches in these countries, it was easy to build your proposition around the same.

The difficult part came in when the new age professional who believed in the equivalent of the Great American dream came about on the global stage and started demanding much more than the frills that the Private Bankers had got accustomed to pacifying the clients with. They wanted research, they needed financial planning, they needed a focused investment process which was scientific, logical and aligned to what they wanted to do in life. Technology in Private Banking got a new lease of life, more and more MBAs started getting hired, and concepts of Financial Planning, Portfolio Management, and investment theory started getting due importance.

However, till the time it was manageable, such theory was used as sparingly as possible with more form than substance. This was because the Private Bankers themselves had been relying on their gut and instinct in doing things like judging the client's profile, the market's risks, and thus the decisions as to the management and deployment to investments of the clients' wealth was more intuitive than guided by any scientific process. However, with demand growing for something more than just guesswork, Private Banks moved swiftly to processes and research and theory...and then came the disillusionment. Was theory perfect...Wasn't there enough and more scope for the instinct in a market that is not completely efficient and was guided at times by the investor psychology and other forces external to the market. The final transformation, as I write these lines, goes on even today and even in the most developed of markets as debates continue on the efficacy of theories alone and possibilities of scientifically and systematically combining logic with intuition.

India was, as in many other things, a late starter in this field. The traditional method of protecting and preserving money was gold which was stashed away below the bed, under the backyard, beneath the banyan tree. As India became more aware of the use that money could be put to, people started using banks and post offices (enormous contributors to the emergence of savings in India) for fixed deposits typically timed to meet one or more of their life goals...financial planning in its immature infancy. Finally, as the late 80s and early 90s dawned and the Indian economy started opening up, people got their first flavor of the equity markets. As with anything new that comes in the hand of the uninformed, it was a mess to start with. Brokers and NBFCs and scams galore led to consolidation amongst market players and emergence of market regulators that hampered even legitimate activities that could have resulted in faster progress of the Indian financial services industry. Bad taste due to some intelligent scavengers led to tightening of the clamps to an extent that what got done in those unregulated days got done and whoever was slower off the trigger is still waiting.

Private Banks in India are few and far between particularly because the licenses were granted in the golden days for entities to act as Private Banks but as each broker and NBFC started advising the client to invest in each and every security without any bias except money that it made for the advisor, things started getting bad. The emergence of Private Banking in India, therefore, was restricted by not just the regulators but also the equity broking mindset that the Private Bankers started with. With exposure to other asset classes never considered to be under the purview, there was no comprehensive Wealth Management ever. What this did was to delay the arrival of the phase where theory could gain precedence over instinct and consequently the phase where a combination of the two could be sought.

In the current format, Private Bankers in India exist in many garbs, that of a Private Bank (very few), a commercial bank (most of them), equity brokers / portfolio managers (advising on some but not all additional assets apart from equity), or chartered accountants (preferred mostly by the typical lala running a small business that he knows the pulse of but hardly knows the spelling of finance). The advice that these Private Bankers provide their clients is guided by instinct and there is hardly any process that is followed to draw and implement any financial plan for the clients. Even the foreign players that have entered India in the recent past have drawn from Indian companies (essentially in the equity broking industry) and deal with Indian clients with locally doctored mindsets and have thus been unable to bring in the processes that they use with much success globally.

The Indian rich therefore is a poorly served customer today and the unfortunate part is that he does not understand the same and thus does not realize the need for change. The fortunate part, however, is that with global distances shrinking and the exposure that India's neo-entrepreneurs have achieved, they are demanding stuff that promises to expose a lot of frailties of the Indian Private Banks and drastically change a lot of others. New competencies are being sought of the employees of Private Banks with business schools adding courses on Wealth Management (I was just pointed out an advertisement for a chair in Wealth Management at ISB, the other day). Technology and processes are slowly finding their way into the psyche and operations of Private Bankers and they are moving to the retail format (as some of them like to call the introduction of "stifling" processes). With markets behaving the way they are and the customer getting more demanding, there does not seem to be any other recourse and the employees and management will understand it sooner rather than later if they are to survive in a market that is fast on tract to maturity.

India has traditionally seen things move with an extremely fast pace in recent times and in areas where we have lagged behind the developed world by decades, we have caught on and even gone a step ahead in a matter of years. So don't be surprised if Indian Private Banks not only get the systems in place but also find a solution to combining the same with pure gut before the rest of the world can realize what has happened. As India enters into the 61st year of its independence, let this be one more way in which our fantastically vibrant country proves itself to the world.

Professional Entrepreneurism

One of the activities that I have been involved in recently as a part of my work involves a major shift in strategy for the business that my company deals in. Although it is interesting to see how new things are unfolding and how life is going to change for all stakeholders of this new business sooner or later, what is more interesting is to observe the sheer inertia that governs the lives of people in any business. The resistance to change, in whatever format the change may be is so strong that it is difficult to envisage, forget execute something drastically different from what is already present.

This becomes all the more difficult for an organization that is process driven like the one that I was working for prior to my MBA. In such an organization, the resistance part probably comes in much later and it is actually the fact that everyone is so used to blindly following existing processes that creates the hurdle. This is where you need the element of entrepreneurship to get out of this situation and give a good shake-up to the existing setup.

Having said that, if you look at organizations that are truly entrepreneurial in nature, it still does not solve the problem at hand. This is where resistance to change comes in not because the process of doing things in a certain way is very well defined but because defining any process, even if it is another process to substitute the current one or even the process of change, is the difficult thing in its own right. The lack of processes and professionalism makes the task of change or setting up a new process appear insurmountable.

So what, you ask, is the solution? Professional entrepreneurism is the answer that the Vice Chairman of my company provides. He is bang on target as far as spelling the need for this attribute is concerned, whether that attribute is already there in his (and my) organization may be something completely different altogether. Not getting into anything politically complicated, let me just concentrate on this phrase that caught on with me during last evening's webcast organized post the quarterly results of the company.

The phrase Professional entrepreneurism is amazingly self-explanatory and simple but achieving this is equally difficult. In fact, I believe that an individual at his/her own level can never be a professional entrepreneur, he/she can either be professional or an entrepreneur. It is not that individuals do not understand the need for being both but it is right there in our internal psyche to take that much amount of risk, to attribute that much importance to going ahead at any cost, to be that much driven by routine and to be that much guided by gut or by science.

The point that I am trying to make here is that though individually very few of us (oh yes, there are exceptions that prove the rule!) are able to act professionally and yet be entrepreneurial in our beliefs and thoughts, it is with a higher degree of probability that this can be achieved collectively. The thought processes and actions that an organization is capable of getting into are very much different from what an individual can ever hope of achieving. Application of cold objectivity and rationalization comes much more easily to an organization than to an individual. An organization may decide to be nimble on its feet through the very nature of its non-maneuverability...as a firm, you can be rigid about being flexible and no one can question you on that.

This means that the answer does not lie in trying to change the employee into a professional entrepreneur but in making the organizational fabric very professional and very entrepreneurial. This can be done by making sure that there is a basic set of beliefs or guidelines that need to be followed whenever anything is to be done but these are just that, beliefs and guidelines, nothing very specific that can kill the thought process. There should be guidelines for everything, even to change guidelines but never any process that is deep frozen and does not provide any room to go out of the box. Personally, I don't know how much of it is easier said than done but what I am sure of is that the way to do it is only by attacking the collective core and that there is no way that you can change the basic human psyche and the way human mind is conditioned to think.

Myriad Reflections

Talking to Animesh (my friend working for Infy in the US) last night, I just discovered something I had been feeling for quite some time but had never really understood fully. This does not have anything to do with anything concrete but is more of an abstract reflection on the way we tend to react to things. By we, I mean people belonging to distinct geographies, including, for my own point of reference, Indian sub continent, Europe, and the Americas (primarily the States).

We were discussing the IIPM issue in particular and as he laughed it away like probably any other Indian would, unless he/she is personally involved in the issue, he also told me about how serious the issue would have been in sue-happy US where such things would never have been taken lying down. Living in Europe for the last one month, I started reflecting on what the typical European (or at least, the typical French) would have thought about the entire thing. I don't think that they will be as dispassionate about it all like an average Indian but at the same time, they will not be as active about it as an average American will be. They will discuss the issue to no end but in terms of actually doing something about it, they will be far behind their American counterparts.

This, in fact, is also visible in other activities and attributes of the French and the Europeans, at large, who do like to keep their distance from controversy but all the same, do not mind talking quite passionately about the same. Even in the classes, there is hardly any intiative in terms of class participation from the French students (or most of other Europeans) but once the topic is started off (mostly by Indians since other Asians, seem to be, if it is possible, even more shy) and there is a possibility of any sort of argument, they do jump in with enthusiasm.

So while we Indians, owing mostly to our growing proximity to and acceptance of the American way of life have become increasingly confident but cynical at the same time, the Europeans are left with the cynicism alone and the rest of the Asians who do not belong to the Indian sub continent seem to be too unsure of themselves to give voice to their cynicism. One of the main reasons, perhaps, is that they have not really ratified the American thinking in such a big way as India has.

As for the Americans, they still rule the roost but are increasingly getting too bored with the proceedings to offer any voice to their own critical comments. It is not the confidence that they seem to lack but it has more to do with the boredom (due to lack of sufficient competition, perhaps) that is making them do what the rabbit did before the tortoise took over in the race. Amen to India being that tortoise but as has been pointed out recently, we need to take care of another competitor called China, but more on that some other time...

In other news, some great stuff has been happening on campus as the PPOs have started crystallising into job positions and salaries, and all of the ones that have come up so far, have been amazing, to say the least. More information, of course, shall be available once the placement committee receives more updates (which are coming in pretty fast and are expected to keep raining down for quite some time) and makes them public.

Freedom, responsibility, and the IIPM controversy: My take

The controversy on the mention (expose?) on IIPM in the JAM Mag and subsequent discussions on the Indian blogosphere is the news of the moment with probably more than a fair share of limelight being given to the institute and its supporters and detractors alike. In my opinion (you can not sue me for libel/slander now, can you...well, I don't really care even if you can), the matter may not be as simple and straight forward as it looks. I certainly do not support (in fact, I strongly oppose) what has been done unto the chief protagonists of the story (primarily Rashmi and Gaurav) but the overtly simplistic assumption that all this speaks badly of a particular institute or all of its students is actually taking the matter a little too far.

Perhaps I am getting a little ahead of the story without giving the background. So for all those who are unaware of what has been happening, refer this blog entry for details on the entire episode. By now, you probably know what Rashmi Bansal and her JAM Mag team wrote about IIPM, and how Gaurav Sabnis, an IIM graduate and ex-IBM employee journeyed from linking to Rashmi's blog on the topic to getting a ridiculous legal notice, supposedly from IIPM to finally resigning from IBM in a gutsy and much admired move that reflects his character and strength of conviction.

If you have also gone to the trouble of reading the hundred odd comments on this entry at Rashmi's blog, you also know about the foul language that is being used by some bloggers who have mushroomed in recent past and have been writing good things about IIPM and some really rotten stuff about those who dare to think beyond the IIPM (oops, please excuse the cliche!).

To complete the picture, you would also have gone through the posts (at least, some of them...it is not possible to read through all those who support Rashmi and Gaurav on the blogosphere...btw, I particularly liked one blogger's humorous take on the issue). All the same, you must have read what the supporters of IIPM (those who appear a bit more sane and have not reverted to street talk) have to say about the thing in some of the comments on Rashmi's post. Of course, some people think that IIPM is justified in doing what it does, despite the expose on JAM Mag and thus, there is no moral ground for either the supporters or detractors of IIPM.

So much for what has been happening and it is high time I gave my take on my blog, for whatever it is worth (especially in terms of the mind boggling libel/slander lawsuit amounts)

• First things first, I am proud of my institute, IIM Kozhikode, and believe that the IIMs have given a lot to India and Indians over the ages, and they shall continue to do so for a long time to come.
• I absolutely detest the people who have been commenting on Rashmi's blog, allegedly trying to defend IIPM by personally attacking Rashmi and in the process, actually destroying whatever reputation IIPM has.
• More than them, I detest those who called up IBM, claiming to be from IIPM (which, though not proved, has been assumed to be true because of no one from IIPM refuting the same), and threatened to burn laptops and blah, due to which Gaurav was put in such a difficult situation.
• I really admire Gaurav for what he has done to uphold what he thinks is right and thus, not fall in his own eyes. I know that I have failed myself in a similar situation once and I know just how difficult it is to not fail in standing up to what one preaches and I also know how degrading this failure is.
• I also admire the business (perhaps I have chosen the wrong word but nothing more fitting comes to the mind right now) sense of Rashmi in leaving the comments on her blog open and visible to all and in the process, having the last laugh by professionally letting the impossibly naive commentors defeat their own purpose and die their own death.
• Right from the moment it appeared in JAM Mag and on Rashmi's blog, I have never really agreed to the nature of expose on IIPM carried out by JAM Mag in its entirety primarily because it seems that although there had been efforts (that seemed to have ended in no results) to contact the IIPM administration for clarifications/details, they have not been full-hearted and sufficient journalistic licence has been taken to write rather too assuredly (and bitingly) of something that may have been ascertained in a better manner.
• I am a little wary about the high moral ground taken by the IIM junta and/or most of the Indi bloggers in criticizing IIPM (or Amity or any other non IIM B-school, for that matter) because ultimately, it ends up in the same My-school-best or My-community-most sensible logic that is at the bottom of this entire episode. As far as my understanding goes, while solidarity is appreciable at such a juncture, bloated placement figures or absurd facts and figures are not stigmas attached to merely non-IIM business schools.
• At the same time, I fully understand and support their contention that it is no longer about the IIM vs IIPM thing or about the JAM Mag expose either, but it is about the basic right of expression and its blatant suppression through means as pathetically low and ridiculous as personal attacks to as dangerous as apparent use of money clout to force decisions.
• IIPM is certainly not all that it says it is but that does not mean that it has not played its role, whatever little it has been, in the Indian education sector. There may be reasons for the full page ads or the tall claims, not more than a few of them sensible I admit, but rubbishing the very existence of the institute or its students is taking it a little too far.
• Any personal attack on Arindam Chaudhuri is akin to what the blogosphere is up against at this moment. None of what has taken place so far can be reasonably proved without doubt to have been guided directly or indirectly by Mr. Chaudhuri and the fact that he may not have a degree from some big place does not take anything away from his success as a best selling author or a name known in management society (so what if his self-promotions are too commercial for our tastes)

Although this issue started with the IIPM and might do more harm to the institute's reputation than some of the practitioners of low standard antics would have dreamed of, some implications are going to be even larger. With the fourth estate having been relatively mute amidst the show of strength by bloggers who have come out in the open against the traditional press, accusing them to be under monetary and business considerations other than and contrary to honest reporting, things can only move in one direction for blogs and bloggers from here. Indian blog world seems to be ready to see an awakening of sorts and if I am not wrong, it shall do so sooner, rather than later.

Let us do something different this midnight hour

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.

Fifty eight years ago, as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru spoke these golden words, and declared India independent at the stroke of the midnight hour, he would not have even imagined that the very national borders that were sacred to him and his contemporaries will start to lose meaning only half a century later. But that is precisely what is happening and precisely what should be happening.

As I stood in the administrative block grounds staring proudly at the Tricolor and listening to Rohit speak of the wars we still need to fight before becoming truly independent, I realized that perhaps there is another basic thing that we are all ignoring in the blinding light of passion and nationalism that a National Festival like the Independence Day fills us with. Perhaps we choose to conveniently ignore on such occasions that it is no longer about your country and my country, it is no longer about your progress or our progress...it is our world, our progress now.

Perhaps it is not realistic to talk about the principles of Vasudhaev Kutumbakam right now, with the super power in US rearing its ugly head every now and then to dominate and crush those constrained by geographies that are not as powerful. Perhaps it does not make sense to talk about boundarylessness with wars being fought on the slightest of pretexts and tensions simmering between borders, including our own. Perhaps it is not wise to imagine a world where humans, as a specie, will rise together and pursue their collective dreams, fight their common demons.

However, this is what the reality is going to be like, pretty soon. With the enemies that we are fighting against making their real faces visible, the realization is slowly creeping in that Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest is not as simple as fighting against your fellow beings if you need to produce your offspring and ensure its and your survival. We have to fight much more...illiteracy, poverty, ignorance, sickness, diseases, terrorism, immorality, crime, and much more if we are to survive. There is little time on our hands with the threats of an energy-less, resource-constrained, hard-winged religious, communal, and regional, nuclear anarchy looming right ahead.

The only way we can fight all this, as most of us have already come to accept, and others will do in the years to come if Darwin's evolution theory is to hold any water, is to stop giving so much importance to national borders and work towards fighting these evils plaguing our future collectively. We need to build upon our dreams and not live in the past by fighting over strips of land, drops of oceans, and breathfuls of air.

We do appreciate what the freedom fighters did for us at that stroke of midnight hour when the whole world slept and India awoke to light and freedom. We do realize the contribution they made by getting us the right to be free but all the same, the time has come to not just redeem but redefine and then redeem the pledge that they made...to let the whole world awake to light and freedom together... let none sleep this midnight, let all get up, arise, fight and be counted.

Hmmm...

One of my friends writes,

Another problem with me, I want people to reciprocate things. And I move 5 steps backwards when some one doesnt. So be it, I am happy this way. If I take the first 2 steps, saamne wale ko bhi to mujhe kuch bhaav dena chahiye. And if they are caught in their own lives and dont feel I can do anything for them, why should I intrude ?

I agree, absolutely.

In transit

Can we postpone the movie for the next weekend please?

Now why would you want that? You were the one who asked us all for the movie...

Yes, I know but you see...there is this training thing starting on Monday and I don't want to start my first day at my first job without a good night's sleep behind me.

The first day at the first job. Like so many other firsts...first love, first kiss...the first job is the platform that so many of us have come across (and so many will) while making our transition...a transition from a carefree world where dreams know no end and reality hasn't sunk in yet to a world that is as clear as is opaque...as round as is straight. The stepping stone to the so-called and much-hyped corporate life, the first job prepares one for the days ahead...or does it?

In the very beginning, isn't it all about trying to maintain a straight face with head held high but all the while thinking about what the manager, the colleague, the fellow trainee, the trainer...or even the peon is thinking about one self? Am I dressed properly...is the tie the right length...have I combed my hair the dignified way or are there traces still of the last weekend's spikes...are my shoes shining...is there a smile on my face when I greet my boss...am I interacting sufficiently with my colleagues or becoming either a recluse or too garrulous??? There are so many questions but not as many answers as one bumbles from one formal relationship to another...from one errand to another, trying to find a balance.

The balance does come but a little late, late enough to make you realize that all you have thought of to be true may not be able to stand the test of time and experience. The ideals that your college life taught you, the dreams that you had of your hard work resulting in handsome returns are just those...dreams and ideals. The real life is so different, you feel. There is no one who is your friend in the real sense...all of them are professionals, waiting to bite your back the moment right after they have just scratched it. You start feeling that the veil has lifted and you know that efforts are all good to speak of but in reality, there is much more to progress...to success. You start getting the idea more than anything else, that your fortunes depend not solely on the amount of work that you put in or the nature of results that you have generated but more on how well you have been able to present yourself...how well you have been able to network, to suck up to the people who matter.

The above two stages are so very transitive and boundary-less that many-a-specimen of the first job population that I have been discussing are often left wondering. They don't know when they move on from the confused-and-scared stage to the cynical-and-rebel one. In some cases, the employees' prejudice makes them start off with the second stage itself and the first stage is lost in oblivion just because of the rather uncommon cockiness that might have come from peer advice or to resort to a cliche, general knowledge. However, in almost all other cases, there is this uncertain beginning that is to be invariably seen and following it may be a gradual or sudden movement to the second stage. The second stage is particularly seen to be harmful for the company and this is where the possibility of attrition looms large. In fact, if we take a careful look at the attrition details of most companies, we can quite easily realize that there is simply too much supporting data for the above observation.

Whether it be the attrition data or the employee surveys that the progressive companies undertake, the result is often seen to be the same. There are people belonging to a third class (apart from the above two) who are the most satisfied lot. Not that they do not have ambitions...not at all...in deed, they are much more focussed at what they want from life and are working the fastest towards it. In fact, if we look at the profile of people who hav reached this stage, we will soon realize the reason for their apparent satisfaction with their work place and at the same time, their contribution to what is often known in the corporate lingo as organizational inertia.

This third stage is reached when the winds of change have passed through and done the damage that they could have. It comes, but rarely, to those who let themselves be uprooted by the winds ever so often. It comes to everyone at some stage or the other but it comes earlier to the steadier of the lot, the more focused of the group, the more determined of the pool...people who have spent their work life not cribbing and complaining alone, people who have been at the top without thinking too much about it...people who work smart and not just hard (another cliche, yes but pretty much suited).

This is where the lateral entrants (people who are into their second, third or later jobs) and the experienced people come in. These people have already arrived...they are thinking of strategy (and not in the sense an MBA student thinks about it, if you please)...they plan to align themselves with their company...they wonder about the performance linked incentives with more than mere wonder or a sort of indifference...they either feel themselves to be a part of the family or are too unattached to let even anything else (like a probable increment offered by some other shark in the pond) cloud their actions.

A journey from uncertainty to rebellion to acceptance, the corporate life is not at all as simple and as appealing as it looks from the outside. Of course, there is the financial freedom to a certain extent but at what cost? Is it just a mirage, then, that we look at when we are burning the midnight oil for that entrance, for this interview? A lot depends, I would opine, on the mentality of the person if this question is to be answered. The first stage of hesistant exploration is for the most innocent of them all and honestly, the longer it lasts, the better for all concerned. The sceptic moves on pretty soon to the second questioning stage and if there is a lack of clear puprose, this stage gets prolonged for just a bit too long.

The step that shall benefit the employee as well as the company is to arrive at a mechanism by which the third stage becomes much more porous...where, just like the transition between the first and the second stages, there are ways in which smooth transfer may take place between the "oh wow!" and "oh ok!"...where the enthusiasm and first-timer's freshness contribute just that little bit more to the big picture.

On the upswing!

IIMK is on an upswing and it is not just because my blog says so. IIM Kozhikode, the fifth-to-be-set-up amongst the Indian Institutes of Management (or the IIMs, as they are popularly known) has had a brief but eventful history. About to complete a decade of operations, the institute is all poised to take over and reach up to the best in the business. However, it will be pointless to say that there have already been events that prove the forward march of this institute beyond doubt. In fact, seen from the realistic angle, there are miles to go before the institute can even count itself amongst the top few in this country.



But then again, the signals are all there. One strong signal was last night's talk by Dr. PJ Nayak, the CMD of UTI Bank. The kind of professional display and the quality of interaction that the students of the institute put up during this talk would have impressed even the most hardcore of cynics. The talk on Banking on Clutter: Marketing, Segementation, and Risk Mitigation was not really hard core fin. However, the sheer brilliance of Dr. Nayak's elocution combined with a receptive audience made the talk really interesting. The faculty's presence in the talk was another encouragement that, according to me, actually made the students participate more than they normally do.

In fact, for the past few seminars and talks that I have been witnessing on campus, there has not been much of quality participation from the audience (except probably for a part of the IT Seminar, due to widespread familiarity with the topic). This time, things were different partly on account of the short, simple, and yet meaningful nature of the talk by Dr. Nayak and partly due to his delivery which was, as I have already mentioned, impressive.

Dr. Nayak talked about how one of the oldest institutions that have survived in the market is commercial bank and how despite being written off by many as being liable to disintegrate into the asset side and the liability side, these banks have carved out a niche for themselves while at the same time, not letting go of the bundled service that they provide to their customers.

However, this ability of banks to survive, Dr. Nayak said, is not sufficient if they have to actually grow and flourish. Modern banks have to take care of customer relationships by moving towards more intimate relationships with their customers. At the same time, they have to look at another scale of completeness of service and make sure that they provide as comprehensive a package to their customers as possible and all this at reasonable costs.

As he pointed out and as came out in the questions later, this leads to a paradox. Banks try to provide comprehensive facilities like ATMs, internet banking, etc by which they remove the low value tasks from the branches but at the same time by doing so, they have fewer chances of talking to their customers face to face and establish a relationship with them to either up-sell or cross-sell products and services. To counter this, banks can go for mailing communication supported by data mining techniques to ensure that things continue to go on smoothly on both relationship and completeness scales.

An ethical question on such techniques, however, was well received by Dr. Nayak as he said that there has to be a balance and self-restraint that banks have to adopt because if not, it will result in prohibitive legislations in the long run. Personally, I believe that before tapping the small market that it already has, the banking sector should look at expanding the customer base which they do not seem to be busy doing. Calling up a person who has three credit cards with three different banks (which is what the data mining software is likely to recommend) and trying to convince him/her to change to/add on a new card is useless. Creating awareness about Indian banking and its modern face amongst those who are not current customers of the sector at all, is a more prudent strategy and in the long run, a more paying one.

That was what I thought about the topic. However, there were quite a few quesions to Dr. Nayak from the students about things different from the topic (varying from asking for his comments on as brow-raising topics as HSBC's interest in UTI Bank to as eye-raising as role of GFIs in the Indian scenario). I must say that this batch seems to be more of the Fin-Mark kind than any other. I am eagerly awaiting the Finance and Marketing Seminars and can just imagine all the action that is going to come.