Small Town Hero

India underwent a revolution led by its favorite sports cricket. Talented youngsters from small towns and villages made it to National team which earlier was reserved only for players from big cities.

This revolution led to same story in many different sectors, people seriously started believing that if MS Dhoni who was a railway ticket conductor from small town Ranchi can make to become India Team Captain, why can't I?

India is blessed with having majority of its population in mid twenty's, age where in you believe you can change and rule the world. Britishers also did some good before leaving; making sure everyone is educated in English. Indian Youth with their English skills find it easier to get jobs compared to their western counterparts.

2015 & 2016 have been remarkable years for India with so many firsts, Narendra Modi who once was working in a Tea stall is prime minister of the country, IT Giants like Microsoft. Google and Adobe are headed by Indian CEO and Virat Kohli's boys have shown the stuff champions are made of.

After inspiring so many youngsters MS Dhoni has given up captaincy thus giving an important leadership lesson to generations to follow that you should know when to quit, position is not forever but foundation you laid stays for eternity.

Will India now go back to country of only big cities or these leaders have changed the country forever, next couple of decades will tell a lot about India's place in the world!!!

Founding Fathers !!!!

One fine day I was wondering how much rich I should be to enjoy the best luxuries in the world like having a home in Santa Monica or Palm Beach, driving a Ferrari and able to dine in world's most expensive restaurants. Then something in me reminded is that what you want truly or you want to be able to be in a position where in you can improve the life of at least 10 people, a thought shared by my Founding Fathers!

We all are brought up with different values, ideologies, habits and in experience different life styles. For some food is served in silver spoon, others make it through a day with just one course of proper meal. Some dress in Armani, some in grandmother’s woven clothes and some are not fortunate to have any proper clothes. Though in all the cases their fathers want the best for kids, be sheltered, believing that when grown up their kids would take care of them.

We all work towards building better societies through working for companies, paying taxes to government, defending our country by working for armed forces or motivating generations by representing country or team in sports. Though we still can’t see how does other's contributions help you.

Founding fathers of great countries have laid solid foundations, be it George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt for USA or Lal Bahadur Shastri and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel for India and so many other great leaders for all great civilizations. They would have really been very disheartened to see how non-united today's societies are, this is not what they wished in providing nations freedom.

Nation's should be united for them to prosper, societies should be successful communities solving local issues and people should be hard working to have happy and successful families. Unfortunately, we follow the reverse approach, myself first and nation last. 

Founding fathers wanted united civilization not just for trade but for societies to keep evolving and if the day comes when we do find life on some other planet, we can send a strong message that Every Earthling has an equal role in society doing something which he wishes and his capable of.

Good Values do not just come from parents, but from teachers, friends, peers, family and every one person you interact in society. Next time some negative thing / thought happens to you remember the vision my founding fathers shared " You need to be in a position where in you can help at least 10 people, and ask yourself staying down would it help achieving it, never !!! Keep rising, till you cannot see horizon anymore, just a flat and equal society”!!!!!

Redesigning Work Models

In today's rapid changing world we require new working models for organizations:

•  Make organizations flatter & remove structures aligned vertically. In today's world we need to provide responsibilities to people and track based on performance rather than be dependent on person's position in company.
• Remove Horizontals and Verticals rather deal as projects / accounts. Once we break up the horizontals and verticals we bring in lot of leverage to utilize resources at required places rather      than depend on resources to be available.
• Redesign work places from cube based places to life style related places. Facebook & google are already doing it. If a resource is more effective in a Garden or at home let him or her work that way, we require performance not regulatory rules.
• Let people choose their financial plans, for example certain employee might require more salary in a particular financial year rather than later, so why not put him in  a higher salary grade and reduce it when he thinks he can manage with less pay.
• Designations require serious revamp. We are building to many managers and leads in companies when sufficient work is not there. We need to look at market and see which kind of work is in demand. HR syllabuses in MBA colleges also need to be revamped to bring in this kind of revolutionary change.
• Award employees based on performance and ideas. For example a crucial employee in manufacturing industry should be awarded given good incentive so that he feels empowered more to improve companies’ performance further.
• Provide service to retail customers as we provide to enterprises. Customer service can’t be limited based on his ability to spend.
• Allow people to test products before they buy, just displaying in glassed and brightly lighted doors does not provide all required confidence and also testing avoids bad experience to customer after he or she has bought the product.

This post shares some of my thoughts I have in building modern organizations and moving away from stereo type organizations.

Building Bridges !!!

One of the most difficult challenges we face in our lives is restoring broken relationships. The reasons could be many though looking at the way Obama and Modi have restored India - USA partnership is remarkable :

• Its important to look over cultural differences and embrace other's cultures which could bring people closer to you very quickly.
• Its important to hear other people's opinion , If you can other's hear opinion your opinion also would be valued .
• Its important to give them time, if you cant give time to other's there is no way a relationship can be restored.
• Understand other person needs and see what is that you can offer. Great relationships are those where things are done even without being said.
• Give and take always matters. If you have an attitude that always people should come to you, your are actually moving away from others without your own realization.
• There is nothing as a wrong attitude or incorrect approach. A person behaves according to what he or she has experienced in life, if you can understand this simple fact then you would always be happy.
• Do not look for perfection, this is the biggest mistake most of us do in dealing with people. There is no need for perfection, neither your god was ever perfect !!!
• Learn from mistakes and put it back into your learning. Re evaluate yourself every 2-3 yrs, more you learn from life more you should become better person for society.

Building relationships is not a big task as building ships, though people simply do not want to put effort. Remember your living among society not in Himalayas so having great relationships is the only way for a successful life !!!

Idea of an Institution

After series of blogs I wrote on different ideas that could change my home country and world issues, its time to share my thoughts on how can I contribute to the change .

Just launching a company cant be a solution it needs to be AN INSTITUTION !!!.

Institution is a big word and how do you go about creating such an Institution with a sole purpose to make this world a better place to live, some of the fundamentals should be :

• The vision should be clear and felt by each member of the institution, We see in our daily life , employees of any organization have nothing to do with Vision. This needs to be addressed.
• Values should be part of daily life similar to habits and an institution which has a strong value system can survive many generations and not just a lifetime.
• Innovation should be a a constant process and just not a requirement for delivery excellence. History shows innovative companies have survived different technology swifts through decades.
• Any solution should be for end customer or intended people and not just try to sell a solution which might not be needed by the end customer. Very few companies have been able to sell solutions nationwide since most of the surveys done so far across the country was not intended to look frim customer's point of view rather was limited to Company's goals.
• Employees should be rewarded for their efforts and make them part of the success story.
• An Institution should be self sustaining thus constantly innovating into unknown territory, i guess true spirit of capitalism with a socialist approach!!!
• Just do not sell products rather create life long relationships with customers.

Some of the ideologies I have back of mind areshared , though there is much more in my mind and hope I can put all this into practice some day!!!

Its time for Social Revolution !!!

The world is going through major Transition. Europe is on the brink of social revolution, middle east is in a ideological war. South East Asian countries are developing at a faster pace due to result oriented government changes and America is emerging as a major oil producing nation due to new developments in oil production.

Can we do things differently to have a better world :

• Need to create trust building initiatives between groups in countries fighting on ideological differences.
• Youth needs to participate more in building countries not shutting them down.
• Education Needs to be revamped to include more aspects of life , for example why not give good values from all religions thus truly proving we are a secular society.
• People should be encouraged to travel across the globe to have more global perspective on real life issues.
• Women should be given equal opportunity to excel in all fields.
• Career should not be based on qualifications rather on interests and hobbies.

The differences are not as big as they look, if you look at most of them are simple issues made complex for example :

• None of the wars between countries is representing people's needs of respective countries rather only representing political views and this are heavily influenced by corporate world.
• There is no religion which preaches hatred rather it is again a business model to start generating revenue in different ways.
• Money is only circulated between certain section of society thus showing a country as poor which is basically not giving a chance to everyone to prosper at same pace.
• Oil prices are controlled by select countries thus creating a monopoly and leaving major economic decisions in very few hands.
• Individualism is triumphing over social obligations.

I truly believe most of the problems can been solved with simple ideas , we just require few bright minds to join hands in changing the world.

As global citizens we should make this planet a better place to Live and each living being's contribution is as important as others. !!!

From my next blog  I would be talking about ideas which I would implement if I have to start a company tomorrow and this ideas would become better as i gain more experience in life and people share their ideas and recommendations.

This could very well be a start of the Journey...

R companies focused enough ??

In my eight plus years of experience , working with various companies I somehow feel leadership within companies is very focused but that's not the case with lower level management.

• There are lot of resources in companies which either have not been given sufficient work by managers or are not motivated themselves enough to give 100% at work.
• People want to become millionaires overnight but do not have vision or a path laid out with which they can achieve their dreams.
• Projects are only managed statistically and very little effort is put in by service providers to help client run differently.
• Mismatch in work versus skill set is abundant in companies and in crisis situations their respective staff can hardly solve without vendor / partner support.
• Too many managers and very few niche skilled people. This leads to advice from many but very few to execute as per expectations.
• Mediocre performance is common still it seems work - life - balance takes a toll. I have not seen any service provider who exceeds client expectations though somehow they find themselves over occupied in reporting and not in providing innovative ways to work.
• Leadership lacks ability to motivate next generation leaders or are over occupied so hardly have time for knowledge sharing sessions.
• Too much concentration on profits thus employee benefits is not given serious thought which leaves employee hardly loyal to any company.

If companies have to survive more than 30 years and be remembered as a great company and not just not another company they need to focus internally more than externally. Provide service which exceeds client expectations and makes client wonder why didn't we think about this solution !!!