It’s dirt everywhere!

Corporate practices, professional propriety, political conduct, sporting spirit, seems nothing is sacred in India, anymore.


From political corruption, nepotism, corporate malpractices, spot-fixing, to sexual misconduct at work place, India is making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Ranbaxy & the Singh Brothers

THE SCANDAL: Ranbaxy has been held accountable for falsifying drug data, dangerous manufacturing practices and compromised drug safety. Former promoter Malvinder Singh dismisses the claims of whistleblower Dinesh Thakur as sensational.

Bansal, his Kin & his Fiefdom

THE SCANDAL: Former railway minister PK Bansal had to resign after his nephew was allegedly caught accepting a bribe. Ministry of Corporate Affairs has ordered a probe into the 105 companies Bansal and his extended family are alleged to own.

Phaneesh Murthy & iGate

THE SCANDAL: IT services firm iGate terminated its CEO Murthy's contract for not reporting a relationship with Araceli Roiz, a former head of investor relations. Her lawyers say Roiz is pregnant with his child and that when she refused to have an abortion, he attempted to get her to leave the company. Murthy's defense is that the charge is an attempt at extortion and he denies sexual harassment charges.

S Sreesanth & the Dirty Money Trail

THE SCANDAL: Delhi Police pick up India fast bowler Sreesanth and two of his colleagues from Rajasthan Royals for alleged spot-fixing in IPL-6. The trail gets murkier with the arrest of Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of BCCI president N Srinivasan who also owns Chennai Super Kings.

At global front India is standing at number 90 in ‘World’s least corrupt countries’. [Denmark, Finland, New Zealand at number 1; Sweden at 4, Singapore is at 5; Norway 7, USA 12].

Though we claim India is shining and it’s on path of growth and next decade belongs to India etc; this corruption is certainly pulling us down. It’s like accelerating your car with hands brake on! First question is why this is happening?

This is a tough question to answer and to prevent.

Still, even if the likes of Sreesanth, Murthy and Bansal and the Singhs are forgotten, you can bet your bottom rupee that there will be another sportsperson, corporate executive, politician and business promoter who will be under the arclight of corruption in the days ahead

Do Your Part

Via Robin Sharma:

Big question for you: “what are you doing to help build a new and better world?” Don’t blame the politicians. Don’t blame those around you. Don’t blame your parents or your background. Doing so is playing the victim and this world has far too many people playing the victim when they could be shining and making a profound difference. Mother Teresa said it so much better than I ever could: “if each of us would only sweep their own doorstep, the whole world would be clean.” Nice.


Blaming others is excusing yourself. Telling yourself that you – as an army of one – cannot have an impact is giving away your power. A couple of college kids got their hands on empty school buses and drove them into New Orleans when everybody else said the city was unapproachable. A little man in a loincloth named Mohandas Gandhi freed an entire nation. A college student named Richard Branson took some initiative to start a record label on a shoestring that has since morphed into the Virgin empire. You are no different from them. We are all flesh and bones – cut from the same cloth.

In a recent issue of Vanity Fair, Jennifer Aniston said that she gives herself one day to play victim after a challenging event. After that day of feeling sorry for herself and powerless, she wakes up and takes ownership over the way her life looks. And if she doesn’t like a piece of it she sets about to change it. That’s personal leadership.

What don’t you like about your life or the organization you work for or the country you live in? Make a list. Write it down. Shout it out. And then do something to improve things. Anything. Start small or go big. Just do something. Today. Now. The world will be better for it.

Books to Read

A list of books to read compiled by Robin Sharma: great list and will transform lives for sure...

1.Jonathan Livingston Seagull. By Richard Bach.

With lines like: “Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation,” this book will move you deeply. I re-read it in Thailand. Still amazingly good.

2.Think and Grow Rich. By Napoleon Hill.
Fantastic book. Not so much about financial wealth as it is about the making of a rich life. You’ll learn how important it is to have a burning desire (this galvanizes your focus and causes the release of your creativity) + the imperative of setting clear goals + the value of “a mastermind alliance”. This book truly changed my life when I was starting out as a self-published author with nothing but a dream in my hands. Times were tough. This book got me through.

3.The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. By–well, Marcus Aurelius.
Marcus Aurelius was a warrior—who then became a Roman emperor. He wrote his lessons on greatness and a life well lived during a multi-year military campaign. Someone got his notes. And put it into this book. I go back to this book often. It strengthens my character. And resolve to help more people.

4.Steve Jobs. By Walter Isaacson.
One of the best books I’ve ever read. Period.

5.Long Walk To Freedom. By Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela’s one of my heroes. Noble. Courageous. Focused. A visionary. If I could be 1/100 of who he is, I’d be overjoyed. This is his autobiography. You’ll walk with him through his days as a lawyer, his time as a disruptor, his prison years and his period as the positional leader of South Africa.

6.Stop Acting Rich. By Thomas Stanley.
Thomas Stanley became famous for “The Millionaire Next Door”. But this book–not so well known–is exceptional. He explains the concept of “The Glittering Rich”, shares how too many of us live beyond our means and how to create true financial freedom. Like most of the books I read, I listened to it.

7.As You Think. By James Allen.
Maybe 10 times. That’s at least how many times I’ve read this book. And like all great books, it seems better+wiser and deeper every time I read it. Of course, the book hasn’t changed. Just my ability to grasp the information. And understand the concepts. This book is all about the power of your daily thinking. And how it drives your life’s behavior. As you know so well: your behavior shows us your beliefs. And this awesome book will inspire you to build new ones.

8.The Magic of Thinking Big. By David Schwartz.
Uber-practical. Tons of value. Great concepts, like “Go Through Life First-Class.” Every student, teammate and human being should read this book (along with “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie–that work should also be on my list. True.).

9.Talent is Overrated. By Geoff Colvin.
Read this one a few years ago. Changed the way I viewed Genius. Confirms a lot of the work of exceptional performance researchers like the famed Anders Ericsson that talent is less about natural gifts and far more about devotion to a skill, relentless practice and patience. Another superb audiobook.

10.Spark. By John Ratey.
One of the best books I’ve read in years. I’m on my 3rd reading. Shares the latest (and so fascinating) research on how exercise transforms the brain, our performance, our productivity and even builds a new type of brain that is excellent at resisting stress. Please do your life a giant favor. And read this book. Today!

Lessons of Life

One Kannada song has caught me up since last two days, and it is so beautifully written. It has great meaning and lesson for life. Trying to translate it…


Learning can come from any corner!!

enagali munde saagu nee,
bayasiddella sigadu baaLali
nannaaNe nanna maatu suLLalla
----------

whatever happens, you need to go on with this strife
whatever you wish for, seldom you get in life
Swear on me, my words are not mere lies…
----------

[chalisuva kaalavu, kalisuva paaTava
mareyabEDa nee, tumbiko manadali]
[indigo naLego, mundina baaLali
gelluvanta spoorthi daari deepa
ninage aa anubhava]
ninage aa anubhava
--------------

time that moves on and on, and teaches lessons beyond
you don't forget those, fill it in your mind
for today or tomorrow, later on in your life
let the winning spirit be the guiding light
for your experience
---------------

‘Insanely Great’!!

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted

Mr. Isaacson takes his readers back to the time when laptops, desktops and windows were metaphors, not everyday realities. His book ticks off how each of the Apple innovations that we now take for granted first occurred to Mr. Jobs or his creative team. “Steve Jobs” means to be the authoritative book about those achievements, and it also follows Mr. Jobs into the wilderness (and to NeXT and Pixar) after his first stint at Apple, which ended in 1985.

In that respect, Jobs the man is consistent throughout, expressing little regret or dissatisfaction with himself, except for his repeated wish that he had spent more time with his children, who, he says, were his main motivation for cooperating with and encouraging that a biography be written at all. In a world where people and media will pay actual money for one glimpse of a dying and frail CEO, Steve Jobs will not be the final book on the man, but it will be the only one told largely in his words, and the only one in which he had the final say on its cover.

Eleven Minutes: A book review

An international bestseller by the author of The Alchemist tells the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never find true love, instead believing that "Love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer ..." A chance meeting in Rio takes her to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune. Instead, she ends up working as a prostitute.

In Geneva, Maria drifts further and further away from love as she develops a fascination with sex. Eventually, Maria's despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In this odyssey of self-discovery, Maria has to choose between pursuing a path of darkness, sexual pleasure for its own sake, or risking everything to find her own "inner light" and the possibility of sacred sex, sex in the context of love.

In this gripping and daring novel, Paulo Coelho sensitively explores the sacred nature of sex and love and invites us to confront our own prejudices and demons and embrace our own "inner light."

Coelho elevates his readers to a passionate realm of love, sex and divinity. Through the interaction between Ralf and Maria, the readers are made part of the furious, furtive passion of these young lovers. We are taken on a spiritual journey on the route of love and through the realization of our central characters; Coelho elaborates his ideas of sacred love. He challenges us to question everything that we know about love and life and makes us see something from an alternate perspective.

He adopts an almost fable like approach to tell a story about love and passion. He uses deft brushstrokes like an artist and colors every tiny speck of space on this canvas with myriad hues from his imagination. This is what makes his style of writing so unique and the taste or the essence of his books linger in the reader’s minds. He catapults you to the height of your own imagination and where you will go from there is left to you.

Among the many ideas that I gained from this book, the most poignant of them all was the realization that one must lose oneself completely in order to be found.

So, on this note, I ask myself: do you prefer a life mapped with reason to guide each and every step of your journey or would you rather take a leap of faith into the unknown with nothing but a dash of hope to take you there?

Without so much as blinking

(From Paulo Coelho)

During the civil war in Korea, a certain general and his troops were advancing implacably, taking province after province, destroying everything in their path. The people in one city, hearing that the general was approaching and knowing his cruel reputation, fled to a nearby mountain.


The troops found the houses empty. After much searching, though, they found one Zen monk who had stayed behind. The general ordered that he be brought before him, but the monk refused to go.

Furious, the general went to him instead.

‘You obviously don’t know who I am!’ he bawled. ‘I am capable of stabbing you in the chest with my sword without so much as blinking.’

The Zen master turned and replied calmly:

‘You obviously don’t know who I am either. I am capable of letting myself be stabbed in the chest by a sword without so much as blinking.’

On hearing this, the general bowed low and left.

The concept of work and being proactive

There were two friends who worked for a marketing company. Both of them were hard working smart young guys. Their boss had lot of confidence on them and hence enjoyed working with both of them.

Like in any corporate company, both of them got to work with multiple positions and both of them got opportunities to work with new initiatives.

While all this is happening, John got promotion among both of them. So Pran decided to reach out to boss and asked him directly that both of us were working equally hard and why only John got promotion? Pran simply believes that John is among many ordinary team members.

Rather than answering his question directly, boss told him ‘go to the other side of the market and check if Mango fruit has come to market’.

Pran rushed to the market and came back with an answer yes. Boss then asked about the price, Pran went again to check the price. After return boss asked about what is the quantity of the supply, for which Pran has to return back to market. After 5-6 trips boss got all the answers he was looking for.

Now boss called John and asked him the same question.

John went to the market and came back with the analysis. ‘There are 4 tons of supply of mangoes in the market, there are three vendors selling them. There seems to be a tough competition between them. One of them is selling at competitive price but the quality is not so good. If you want to buy the fruits then we need to buy it from one particular vendor because though the price is high the quality of fruits is good. And since the market is expecting more fruits from other vendors the price is expected to fall down further”.

Pran got his answer.

This is what being proactive means!

The game of chess

Recently I downloaded an app on my phone and started playing it and started drawing parallel to business. I thought there are many lessons we can learn from game of chess.


When building strategy for an organization at any level, a business, and its competition, can be viewed from an outside perspective like a game of chess. Business strategy flows much like strategy in a game of chess, where each piece has its purpose, distinct movement, and anyone can play.

What if a CEO were playing chess and the pieces started to move themselves uncontrollably? What if the competition could start adding new pieces that did not exist on the other side of the board? This is what happens in business, and this is how many organizations operate. In addition, this is how several businesses miss the path to adaptation, and take the fast track to extinction.

It also teaches how to take a step backwards, analyse the risks and prepare the mitigation plan. This is precisely how you start thinking when your opponent makes her/his move. You start thinking about potential threats and you make a move to counter that risk. This is exactly how business needs to run, constantly keep inventing the model.

There are some parallels between chess and business and following are few of them which I can think of,

1) Business warfare. Definitely true. Many companies act as predators and use many of the same tactics and strategies seen in chess. Killing the competition is always a favourite statement. In bid management we tend to build differentiators such that our business looks appealing.

2) Planning. With the acceleration of the business cycle and the abundance of information managers’ face, predicting future trends is becoming much harder to do. It may be more practical to think only one move ahead. This appears more accurate than thinking 20 moves in the wrong direction.
3) Time. In a war game like chess, each side is given resources, both material (army) and immaterial (time) in which to accomplish a strategic end. Of course, in business the playing field is not level and companies may enter a market with all types of advantages and disadvantages. However, managing time may be one of the most important factors in business success. Timing of market entry or withdrawal; timing of international expansion, timing of supply chain; timing of cash flows. In business, time is everything
4) Initiative. There is a classic connection since time is a major factor. However, what also matters is what you do with that time. A company cannot sit on its advantage as if time is unlimited. In chess, some schools of thought state that initiative may be more important than material. This means that the company on the initiative has the advantage of determining the direction of the market. There have been many cases where industry leaders have lost the edge because they failed to maintain the initiative. Some reacted too late to market changes and thus lost any advantage that they may have had. A few examples are: Ford, IBM, Microsoft, Kodak and of late, Yahoo!

Chandigarh Marathon-2013

Two weekends back, I ran my first ever 21 kms Chandigarh marathon. Though I took three hours and five minutes to complete it; perhaps no way near the international standards; but the whole experience and the feeling and most importantly the lessons learnt are most valuable for me.


Every marathoner has their first marathon story. If they've run a lot, they might forget the details of other races, but the first marathon lives in their mind - each and every kilometer. And most find that marathoning is like eating a bag of potato chips - it's nearly impossible to stop after just one.

Around same time last year, while traveling to Oslo, I watched a documentary on Boston marathon, where there was a story on how participants prepared, practiced and executed. The effort and planning went in to it and most importantly the sheer feeling of completion made me think, why can’t I run one?

It was a great motivating and I kept on practicing long walks and some efforts of building stamina through biking and hiking etc. I will be honest; all these efforts were not keeping the marathon in mind, but wanted to stretch myself.

I never thought, I will finish 21 kilometers. I had my self doubt on my stamina.

The first 7 kms very simple, it felt like I am doing my normal walk. I kept mixing walking and jogging; to conserve my energy and more ever I don’t think I am good in running. The environment and encouragement from my daughter kept me on second stretch. While I completed 14 kms, it was pretty evident that I will complete the last stretch as well. The sugar cubes or may be the energy building music or the just enthusiasm of finishing the race kept me going. By this time all the professional runners completed their run.

The last 3-4 kms were very tough; with pain in my ankle and knee. It was fantastic feeling to complete the race, it was a great test of my stamina and I enjoyed every step of that distance.

In reflection:

• I felt, this is more of psychological than physical: After a while, I felt the body strain gets out, it’s more psychological, what all it needs thereafter is mental toughness. It’s a great learning for me, for all these years I thought it needs physical strength.

• What it needs is to start, it ends by itself. The very process of running marathon takes care of finishing it. I really mean it. The energy you get in after initial 10 kms takes care of pushing you through the rest of the race, unless you want to quit.

• The feeling of completion: this is fantastic feeling. You feel light, you feel like full o energy and off course lots of pain.

I know I am crazy; but I am looking forward for my next race! Preparing to build my stamina and determined to complete the distance in less time.

‘This nation wants to know’

It may sound flippant but if I was to name the Indian of the Year for 2012, my choice would be Arnab Goswami of Times Now. The reason has nothing to do with the fact that I am a regular follower of his prime-time debates.


Nor is it connected with his hectoring style which I find enthralling at times and quite energetic all the times. Arnab's foremost contribution to the public is his unending search for what "the nation" wants to know.

In projecting the "nation" as the theme Arnab has succeeded in doing something quite remarkable: he has successfully made "nationalism" the core attribute for assessing public life. In positing the "nation" as the ultimate arbiter of the larger "national good" and doing so with passion, verve and eloquence, Arnab managed to create a constituency of people who refused to be patronized by the superior assumptions of a handful of the "enlightened".

On issues relating to Pakistan, he refused to be cowed down by the sentimentalism of the Aman ki asha pseuds and on China he ruthlessly questioned the "nuanced" sophistry of the professional ‘knowledgeable’ in South Block. On corruption, he was single-minded in his determination to cut through this core issue. And on mundane political fights, he was both skeptical and irreverent, asking right set of questions all the times.

There was an additional feature to Arnab's discourses each week night that I find both amusing and encouraging: his polite insolence and his high energy. You feel he is talking for you and your nation. His questions look very honest.

Arnab, is "reasonable" only off camera. On air he becomes a voice of indignation, anger and even insolence. He wants to kick the errant netas. Since we can't, we are happy for Arnab to do it for us.

New Business Model: Story of Airtel

Airtel altered the economics of industries not by developing state-of-the-art technologies or great product but by creating new business models. Airtel set inexpensive price-performance points and changed the way consumers could access offerings. It is a clear example of innovation that changed the business dynamics. Innovation need not to be a great product all the time!


When Airtel got license to operate the mobile telecommunication in Delhi circle to begin with; the company has to pay huge amount as license fee and in addition to that the investment was made in towers, telecom networks and support systems such as billing systems and customer case support centers. And obviously the subscribers had to pay for all this cost and soon competition started catching up; thus Airtel has to cut operating expenses in order to grow.

Airtel at this point of time started thinking of itself as a factory that produced wireless minutes.

Firstly management starting focusing on three elements; gross revenue and profits; the ratio of operating expenses to gross revenues and ratio of revenue to capital expenditure. This was drastically different from what the telecom industry is measuring across the world; ‘Average Revenue Per User’. The moment company started thinking on gross revenue they stopped thinking about how many new subscribers they have enrolled, but started thinking on how to expand more in to other areas. This number of new customers is very confusing in India as Indian consumers are known to purchase the SIM but just use it for just incoming calls, or keep it as making calls to with-in the network. They don’t use that SIM for multiple purposes like data, games, voice or money.

Bharati Airtel also had to find a way to grow without worrying about financial resources. One way to do that is to have a sense of expenditure on its non-core operations. Only way to do that was to outsource all non-core operations. Airtel outsourced all their IT support to IBM in 2004, promising to pay the provider a percentage of monthly revenue and guaranteeing a minimum monthly payment. By typing IBM revenues to its own growth, Indian company got supplier’s skin in the game.

Similarly Airtel chose to pay its telecom network equipment vendors, Ericson and Nokia; as pay-per-use model. Thus, the company decided when there will be additional capacity required while suppliers ‘installed, operated and maintained’ the network equipments. It measured network quality in terms of calls dropped, blocked calls and voice quality. It thus converted fixed costs and capital expenditures into variable operating expenses, greatly reducing its dependency on expenses.

Although the company recognized that distribution would be critical for future growth, it didn’t have time to create their own channels. It decided to piggyback on distributors for consumer product companies like Godrej and Uniliver. This is when we started seeing the Airtel services being distributed by Kirana shops. To enter the rural market, Airtel started working with fertilizer manufacturer like IFFCO.

Bharati Airtel even collaborated with competition in order to save capital. As it expanded in to Rural India, putting up passive infrastructure such as towers, air-conditioning, and generators became a large expense. In 2007 Airtel, Vodofone and Idea had struck a deal to set up Indus tower, in which Bharati Airtel and Vodofone own each 42% of equity and Idea owns remaining 16%. This structure allows the three companies to share the cost of setting up passive infrastructure and reduces the investments.

This is a very unique business model which all telecom companies of the world are trying to simulate. Where Airtel reduces the cost per call to around 50 paise, which is lowest in the world!

We need to take a stand

Pakistani army’s atrocity across LoC yet again demonstrates the disadvantages India has imposed on itself.


A soldier falling to enemy bullets is part of the tragic reality of conflict. Mutilating a soldier’s body, beheading it, is unacceptable, because at that point it crosses over in to the realm of barbaric terrorism. Even our normally inarticulate defense minister acknowledged it as ‘the turning point’ in the latest corss-LoC conflict between India and Pakistan.

When Pakistani soldier crossed over in dense fog to attack Indian soldiers, it also exposed the fragility of the Indian government’s insistence on peace at all the costs with Pakistan.

As a normal citizen of India, I failed to understand why we can’t take a firm stand and decide on what kind of relationship we need with our neighbor?

Just imagine, if this has happened to countries like US or Israel, they would have counter-attacked and would have made a big international issue. We have examples in Afghanistan, Iraq etc. These countries don’t hesitate to attack even the foreign land in order to take revenge.

I failed to understand why only India needs peace with Pakistan? Why don’t they also reciprocate? And why we need to beg for peace? Why can’t we send a strong message across the border stating we don’t accept this kind of duel-stand, where on one hand you talk about peace and on the other hand you try to unsettle the entire process? What is the use of bus journeys, train journeys, cricket series, and music and trade exchange?

Fundamentally we need to honor our countries pride before anything else.

Look what has happened in case of Mumbai terrorism case? We made big statements in media, in spite of having the proof we choose to sit and talk about peace. This gives a message that whatever we do on India soil there will be a noise to begin with later on everything gets settled. Again imagine how USA would have reacted in such cases. Each time we tend to think what would be Pakistan’s reaction if we take some action.

India, it seems, doesn’t have a clear Pakistan policy; the strategic way with which we can stand up and say, this is enough guys and anything more than this will cost you much. Get rid of this peace and double standard policies. Country’s honor comes first.

Are we afraid of trade? Go and develop new markets. Are we afraid of attacks? With such a strong military we can take the enemy on their land.

Go and take a stand and make every citizen a proud citizen.

Jai Hind!

Change Yourself

Once upon a time, there was a king who ruled a prosperous country. One day, he went for a trip to some distant areas of his country.


When he was back to his palace, he complained that his feet were very painful, because it was the first time that he went for such a long trip, and the road that he went for through was very rough and stony. He then ordered his people to cover every road of the entire country with leather.

Definitely, this would need thousands of animal’s skin, and would cost a huge amount of money.

Then one of his wise servant dared himself to tell the king, ‘’ Why do you have to spend that unnecessary amount of money? Why don’t you just cut a little piece of leather to cover your feet?’’

The king was surprised, but he later agreed to his suggestion, to make a’ shoe ’’ for himself

There is actually a valuable lesson of life in the story: ‘To make this word a happy place to live, you better change yourself –your heart; and not the word.’’

Change yourself first

(PS: This blog was typed by Arpita)

New Year Resolutions

I am making these resolutions because its trend to make one, it’s because I fulfilled all of my last year’s resolutions so I am motivated to make a new one :)
• Stay fit and lean

• Read more, explore more and reciprocate more with life

• Develop the ability to see a bigger picture and long term view of business

• Play a mentor role to my daughter

Happy New Year!

Time flies so fast; it’s yet another year end and it gives lovely feeling if I reflect on how this year has been.


At national level; it’s incredible as how the entire nation has become more aware on the social issues like black-money, corruption and safety of individuals. It gives a clear message that the limit of tolerance has reached and this, in my opinion, is truly an amazing change in the social fabric of India. The evolution of social media as an instrument in bringing this change is worth noticing. The nationwide response to such issues makes me feel that India is changing and youth are becoming more decisive and expressive, which is a very good sign from political standpoint.

Another great thing is India’s performance in Olympics, which was best so far. With no visible support to sports and when the facilities are of not world class, the achievement done in the sports arena makes one feel proud. I am hopeful that this gives a lot of hope to the thousands of dreams which are being nourished some part of the country.

Politically this year saw many new and young leaders coming up in the country. Not many changes in the state heads, but good governance made the headlines. Though there were few low points in terms of series of ill-timed and ill-intentioned statements and barbaric acts of few individual.

Internationally we saw Obama re-electing as president of USA amidst the gloomy economy and uncertain future. The healthcare reforms of the western world are the new thing which is being seen by the entire world.

Rivalry on the technology ground has been elevated with Samsung and Apple fighting it out on smart phone and tablet market. Google and Microsoft saw different innovative products and Facebook being questioned on its business model.

News of Europe slipping in to recession (Or recession like) situation made most of the headlines this year. Though Nordic market evolving much better. Asia did a decent job with China leading in economic front. India saw new wave of reforms through series of new pushes from government though India Inc felt it’s not good enough.

IT and Automobile were growing from Indian economy perspective, with companies in these segments unleashing much bigger dreams of becoming more global. Real-estate was much stable (Low?).

Personally specking had much better year, with great growth in business, new paths of journey, much more agile and more sense of accomplishment. Got inspired by few individuals, felt great by reading few books, got enriched by just exploring or interacting with life. Took some steps which I never thought I would, explored many things which so far seemed as strange to me; finally no regrets. I am thankful to god for all has been provided to me in 2012.

A happy and prosperous new year 2013 to you and your families; may all your dreams come true.

One day cricket will not be same without him

After 22 years of glories years at field, Sachin has declared his retirement from one day cricket. His contribution to Indian cricket has been remarkable; in terms of making tons of runs, pulling out victories, making India look better on the field and more importantly carrying hopes of one billion+ people, year after year; whenever he went to bat.


A fitting career glorified with World Cup win and holding record for almost all aspects of the game; talks about Sachin and his contribution. He has all the qualities to be able to successful in the sports career; just to name few;

Desire to Dominate: He has such a strong mind that no matter what reputation the bowler might have; he wants to dominate. This was evident in many ways, the manner in which he went after bowlers and won matches for India. He raised his bar so high that if he gets out not scoring hundred; we started feeling he didn’t play at all. This desire along with his cricketing brain has put him on one of the great cricketers of the world. He could sense the situation of the game and adjust to that.

Ability to improvise: He has greatest ability to improve his skills, game after game, for many years. It is very common practice to see him practice for long times at nets and he would study the video tapes of the matches as how he got out and improve on that. This ability to learn made him so relevant even today as other talents have gone dusting. His discipline has been one of his trademarks; where he would come prepared with which bowler to attack, where to hit the bowl and what should be the chasing strategy. He adjusted to the playing conditions really well and changed his gear from fast scoring to anchor or visa-versa. He is said to be one of the players who would study the pitch early morning of the match day and do his own analysis of his opponents on this pitch conditions. How about his physical fitness level even after 22 years of international career?

Humility: The greatest asset we all can learn from him is his humility, staying simple and grounded. We have seen many players who could not able to manage the success. His near emotionless approach when he bats tell about his stability of mind. We can see a boy within him when he talks. Have you ever seen his responding to any media criticism?

There are many stories about his greatness and how he conducted his game all these years. Statistics say it all. Can we forget his desert storm of Sharja? Can we forget a little boy who picked up the ball from his caption and bowled that final over in Hero Cup? Can we forget his match saving innings?

Thanks Sachin, for carrying our hopes all these years, for making us to watch cricket, for making us feel if you are batting means India is in game still, for fulfilling our expectation from you, for being an Indian such that we can proudly say Sachin is from India.

Cricket will not be same without you; we will miss you.

What they don’t teach you at school

It’s rather obvious that the most important lessons of life cannot be learnt within the classrooms. It’s obvious that the life teaches you more than what you learnt during your school days. But the question I am asking is what our best of the schools doesn’t teach us?


I started thinking about these recently and I wish someone would have told me about these points back then!

Grades are not everything: Grades do not really matter, if it is 70.2% or 79.9% there is not much of difference. I was told, you need to get good grades to get a better company in placement; true. But most successful people of the class are not really the nerds. I wish; I could have understood this fact back then and taken my student life a bit relaxed, focused on complete personality building rather than just being tensed.

Ability to build Relationship: Corporate life or in general just the life is all about building or managing the relationships. With the new global village concept, one probably needs to build a global network and have a global perspective.

Power of Perspective: I think one should get some insights on how the world can be seen with different perspectives and why it’s important to have clear thought process about any matter of life. All successful people have a clear perspective of what is right and wrong in life. It’s also important to respect other perspective and how to balance. This is a great quality in corporate life.

Life is journey: Education is all about having a goal and figuring out how to get there, be its internal exam, or an entrance exam; we have cut-off and we want better numbers. But, today I realize life is a journey and is not a destination itself. The more we reciprocate with life, we learn from it.

Follow your heart: Heart is at your left but it’s always right. I wish I was told back than to follow your heart and do something which you truly, really love doing. I wish I was told to find something which interests me and start following that dream. Life is not all about the books, magazines, research papers or internal exams!

Money: One major goal of life while we were in college is to make money and more money. But, life’s satisfaction is somewhere else. Some colleagues, some different perspectives of people made me to realize, money will just follow if someone is capable enough. Money is a by-product but back then money was the only goal!

Global Perspective: How important to have this global perspective? About how people have evolved, what global history might teach us? What students in another country are doing research on? Or just, having a wide perspective about life?

To sum it up, I was just fighting for the placement process to get a ‘dream job’. But it looks like a mirage now. I might have done well in exam by memorizing few things or might not have understood anything in one of the subject; finally I got degree. What stayed with me is the confidence that I can solve any problem that comes my way.

And that is the ultimate gift of any education.

Need for Change

Everyone in corporate world has to go through constant changes, all the times. It could be change in profile, change in team members and sometimes change in complete set of environment (If you are changing the job)


The change I am talking about is the one which we need to go through all the life, irrespective of companies we work for, boss we report to, or colleagues we are surrounded with.

For example, let me assume that I am working as a team lead at some point of my career. Where I will be much involved in the details and completely hands on. My small module forms my world to me and I will probably want to make all the decisions related to this module.

Let us assume, I got promoted to project manager, where 5-6 team leads report to me. Now, I need to unlearn the way I was dealing with the work, and start thinking about the whole project. I need to understand that I can no more be completely hands-on to the work I am responsible for and I need to get the work done from others.

Cut few more years, I am a business leader now. This is a different ball game now. I need to have vision, and a plan to build a business. I need to have an operational blueprint and means of measuring the success of a project. I need to be an influential leader who can abstract the work from my team members, while connecting with my customers to provide value to them.

If I am a CEO of any company, I need to look my profile in to a completely different way.

I need to move from tactician to strategist: shift fluidly between the details and the larger picture, perceive important patterns in complex environments and anticipate and influence the reactions of key external players.

I need to move from being specialist to generalist: understand the business models, tools and terms used in key business functions and develop templates for evaluating the leaders of those functions.

I need to move from being supporting cast member to lead role: where I exhibit the right behavior as a role model for the organization and learn to communicate with and inspire large groups of people both directly and increasingly indirectly.

Imagine, if I fail to change my mindset as I move up in the organization? Imagine being involved in all the details like project manager when I am a CEO? It will create issues among the team members as they can’t understand the role I am playing and more importantly I need to spend time to strategize the things.

I have seen some examples where compromising this clarity led to complete breaking down of the business operation.

What The CEO Really Wants From You: Book Review

This book is a classic for young managers who need guidance and directions on how to charter a successful career


The author uses the frame work of “Four A’s” to describe the competency set and behaviors required of a successful manager. These A’s are Accomplishment, Affability, Advocacy and Authenticity. Briefly here is what he has to say of the four A’s.

Accomplishment: While this seems simple enough most managers make the mistake of thinking that all the doing is at the executive levels and their role is to be the thinkers. Coordinating and enabling execution is something that they miss out on. Also getting results needs influencing other interdependent departments which requires skills that a manager may not adequately possess.

Affability: Managers need to convince, cajole, coerce and even crucify people in the course of striving for results. It is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced to perfection. The affable manager knows how to disagree without being disagreeable; how to separate rivals views from his feelings or opinion about the rival and how to listen carefully with an open mind and yet be focused and single minded.

Advocacy: In the words of the author, “In the early stages of one’s career, you are the recipient of instructions and the effects of power. You accept them by adapting. You realize that the boss expects you to exercise your leadership on the people who report to you and make sure that things get done. In the middle management phase, you find the need to influence people without their directly reporting to you. In the senior and leadership roles, you may exercise no control over people you need to influence. This is the manner in which your skills of advocacy develop.

Authenticity: Once again in the words of the author “It is the perception of who you are and what you stand for that produces followership. Followership is used here not in a hierarchical sense but in an egalitarian sense. It is the voluntary desire or inclination among followers to follow a person, emotionally and physically.”

A must read