Ram or Krishna whom to follow?

23 MAR, 2012, 11.34AM IST, DEVDUTT PATTANAIK,
Management Mythos: What Krishna tells us about not being wrong in
breaking rules, if dharma is upheld

Narada had the power to travel through space and time. One day, he
decided to pay a visit to Ayodhya , the city of the rule-following Ram
and to Vrindavan, the village of the rule-breaking Krishna. At
Ayodhya, he told the story of Krishna; the residents did not
appreciate the rakish, mischievous cowherd at all.

He is not serious at all, they said. At Vrindavan, he told the story
of Ram; the residents did not appreciate the upright and rather
serious king at all. He is no fun, they said. Narada then went to
Hanuman, the mighty monkey, and asked him who he preferred : Ram or
Krishna? And Hanuman said, "What is the difference? Both are Vishnu to
me; Lakshmi follows him, whether he is Ram or Krishna."

So what is the difference between Ram and Krishna? Both belong to two
different contexts: Ram lives in Treta yuga and Krishna in Dvapara
yuga. One context demands Vishnu to be the upright rule-following Ram
and the other context demands Vishnu to be the lovable rule-breaking
Krishna. Both are same, but different. Both are upholding social
order, dharma; one by keeping the rules and the other by breaking
them!

In corporations, we seek people who comply and frown upon people who
do not. But people love breaking rules. Often being in a senior
position is an excuse to break rules. Being in the creative profession
is seen as a chance to be undisciplined. But being Ram or Krishna is
not about whether rules are upheld or broken; it is about the reason
why rules are upheld or broken. Few pay attention to that.

Ankita is the chief operating officer of a large design studio. She
has a staff of designers , colourists, architects and painters. It
annoys her a great deal that they never come to office on time, never
keep deadlines , never stick to timelines, and plan things only when
compelled to. How can she run the company like this? The staff argued
, they are all creative artists who cannot function with rigid rules.
It hampers their innovative spirit.

One day, the following month, salaries did not reach people on time.
Ankita took a vacation that day and was not reachable on phone. When
she returned to office on the following Monday, after a long weekend,
she saw an angry mob of employees demanding an explanation . "Surely ,
I have the right to be creative too and not keep deadlines and
commitments," she said. The staff was not amused, but the message was
passed loud and clear. It was a risk Ankita took and it paid off.

We all want to be Krishnas and want others to be like Ram, without
really understanding what it means to be either. To be Ram or Krishna,
we have to be Vishnu and to be Vishnu, we have to ensure there is
social order that brings Lakshmi our way.

The author is the Chief Belief Officer of the Future Group.



As appeared in the Economic Times.
--
Ravi M. Sahu
Asst. Prof. - MBA
Cell:- 727 681 0490,
        937 000 1214 

the way we look at things..

- The rose within- So Very true !

A certain man planted a rose and watered it faithfully and before it blossomed, he examined it. He saw the bud that would soon blossom, but noticed thorns upon the stem and he thought, "How can any beautiful flower come from a plant burdened with so many sharp thorns? Saddened by this thought, he neglected to water the rose, and just before it was ready to bloom... it died. So it is with many people. Within every soul there is a rose. The God-like qualities planted in us at birth, grow amid the thorns of our faults. Many of us look at ourselves and see only the thorns, the defects. We despair, thinking that nothing good can possibly come from us. We neglect to water the good within us, and eventually it dies. We never realize our potential. Some people do not see the rose within themselves; someone else must show it to them. One of the greatest gifts a person can possess is to be able to reach past the thorns of another, and find the rose within them. This is one of the characteristic of love... to look at a person, know their true faults and accepting that person into your life... all the while recognizing the nobility in their soul. Help others to realize they can overcome their faults. If we show them the "rose" within themselves, they will conquer their thorns. Only then will they blossom many times over.

Great Questions you can ask on a Job-Interview

Great Questions you can ask on a Job-Interview

Who's in charge?  - Ask who you'd be reporting to and how success will be measured, suggests executive coach Meg Montford. "It tells them that you are ambitious and not just a time-clock puncher." If you're hired, knowing how achievement is measured will help you get off on the right foot.

What's your management style? -  If you determine that the interviewer is also your potential manager, try to get a feel for what he or she might be like on the job by asking, "How would you define or describe your own management style?" advises Ford Myers, author of Get The Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring. Doing basic research on the company is great, but you need to figure out what daily life would be like in the trenches. 

What's your biggest problem right now?  - "This question tells the company that you're already processing how you may contribute value to them," Montford says. Showing that you're already thinking about the job's challenges makes it easier for hiring managers to picture you in that position. Listen closely, and mention some possible solutions on the spot or in a follow up "thank you" note. On the other hand, if the problem seems like something you can't or have no interest in solving, the job might not be a great fit.

Why are YOU here?  - Asking why this person has joined the company and why they've stayed will give you instant insight into its corporate culture, Myers says. If their reasons align with your own motives for wanting to come aboard, that may bode well for your happiness at the organization. If they have trouble coming up with anything better than, "hey, it's a job," that may be a red flag.

Why is this position open?  - It's important to determine if the job is new or if it already existed. Did the previous person leave, and is there an internal candidate? "If it's a new position, then you may have some input into how the job is defined, if you're hired," Montford says. "If there's an internal candidate, then that opens up many more questions in your mind, such as will the internal person have an edge among the competition."

What next?  - Two helpful questions at the end of an interview are "where are you in the hiring process?" and "when and how should I follow up?" Myers says. These show that you're genuinely interested in the job, while also providing essential information for your job search plan.

Source: http://articlesandreports.blogspot.in/2012/03/6-great-questions-to-ask-on-job.html, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57386747/6-great-questions-to-ask-on-a-job-interview/ and Mr. Rajendra Deshpande - Aurangabad

Thanks & Regards

hey young man....you missing somethings ???

To Those of Us Born during
1940 - 1979

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE

1940's, 50's, 

60's and 70's!!

We were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cots covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no child proof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no caps or helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and some times no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cup cakes and other sweets made with Butter & white sugar but were not over weight.

WHY?

Because we were always outside playing....that's why!
We would leave home in the morning, go to school mostly on foot and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on..

No one was able to reach us all day.There were no cell phones, not even land lines and, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps
and then ride them down the hill,
only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's,
no surround-sound or CD's,
no cell phones,
no personal computers,
no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We would get punishments like caning, spankings with sticks, or just a bare hands and no one would call child services to report abuse.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best Managers
risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. What can kids today do besides push buttons..

We had freedom, failures, successes and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our livesfor our own good.

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.

This what you call generation gap.
(Shared by:- Mr. Rajendra Deshpande - Aurangabad)

Rgds. 

FDI in retail and policy making in India

Today’s ET editorial guest column featured Prof. Arvind Pangariya - Columbia Univ. taking on Indian policy making clubbing social goals. Like the current FDI policy change of allowing 100% in single brand retail but with 30% sourcing from Indian small and village industries.

He had a point in asking to make separate policies for separate objectives but then I say where is the harm in uplifting the small and village industry in this manner. Ultimately businesses around the world talk about giving back to the society via philanthropy then why not do it this way. ‘Ikea’ deciding otherwise on investment plans into India could rather help the small scale local entrepreneurs to upgrade to the desired quality standards, I m sure there will be many takers and investors. But then there is no business sense to this, after all it’s not their core competency. Likewise even the Indian multinationals want the government to provide the basic infrastructure in place first and then they do the project feasibility adding sops and exemptions. I agree the government is liable to do it but is it really easy in a country of 1.2 billion.

If the real problem is of poverty and redistribution of income the industry can lend a helping hand in their own way. In the last 60 odd years the clubbing of policy making and social goals have produced Heros like Dhirubhai, Aditya Birla, Narayan Murthy and more. I m sure bright Indian brains making those policy decisions will successfully help make hero’s like Mohd. Yunus in the future as well.

Learn Sales from a real salesman !!

Could not resist sharing this....must read!

7 Reasons why you MUST know SALES!

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Rodinhood

When I was 17 years old, a real estate agent – M.M Goyal of Jaico Real Estates in Mumbai told me a Hindi dialog. He said ‘Vyaapari woh, Jo Bechta bhala’.

Translated, it means “The businessman who knows how to ‘Sell’ is truly successful”.

25 years later, I couldn’t agree with him more.

No matter which profession or job you are in, you have to know how to sell if you want an accelerated career.

Here are seven compelling reasons I have learnt personally:

1. Sales make you believe in yourself.

When I started an unheard concept of creating online contests (contests2win) in 1998, I couldn’t even explain the idea to people because the online world was alien to them.

In a famous meeting I had with Gunender Kapur (GK) of Hindustan Lever (that lasted for one hour), in which I pounded the idea of online promotions for the Annapurna Brand that he headed. He finally exclaimed, “I like you, I like the idea of ‘contesting’, but pray tell me what is ‘online?’ GK did not know what the Internet really was!

I did hundreds of meetings like those during 98-99, only to face rejection, doubts and outright bewilderment.  But each meeting made me hone my skill of explaining my idea in more detail; it forced me to add so many more dimensions to my concept in more ways than I had even envisaged. It made me learn my business better and reinforced my conviction in it!

Thirteen years later, how much I thank those painful years for teaching me the hardest lesson that an Entrepreneur sometimes finds most difficult to learn – to continue to BELIEVE in her idea when the world says ‘Huh?’

Just the sheer passion in your eyes and speech will make people like you, notice you and even believe in you instantly. Even though they may not understand your idea.

Yup. It ain’t ever easy! Pictured here – Raj Menon – 2win founding team trying to explain a concept to an MBA Class of De Paul University from Chicago who visited us.

2. Sales trains you ‘Patience’.

A gentleman called Gareth Thomas who was a management trainee at Channel V in 1998 liked the concept of online contests.

Channel V had a popular ‘Viewers Choice’ awards on their channel and they were keen to convert the same into online contests.

The only problem was that Gareth liked calling me from my office in South Mumbai to meet his boss Vivek Paul usually at 2 pm to their Lakdawala office in Khar, and after making me wait till 5 pm, he would send a message via the receptionist (or come down himself) to tell me that Vivek could not meet me.

Both Vivek and he repeated this ‘ditch’ game three times with me. On my fifth visit, after the usual 3 hour wait, Vivek did finally meet me and gave me the business of hosting the Channel V Viewers’ Choice Awards on my website.

Despite the bitter anger and frustration of wasting time ‘waiting’, I learnt the hard lesson of being patient.

Sofas, secretaries and guards in offices became my best friends.

Waiting became my meditation.

Waiting is meditation. This is the Tenrikyo (Japanese) religious service I went to for 10 years; in the end I learnt the basics..

Today, if I have to wait for a day, a month, a year or even a decade to achieve what I really want, it’s cool with me.

The religion of Sales has taught me that the fruit of penance is very sweet.

3. Sales makes you meet like minded people.

The most like minded people I have met! First c2w group photo – Circa 2000

I met Rajiv Hiranadani (another ACE Salesman) when we used to both wait for 3 hours (minimum) to meet N.P. Thirukode of Shaw Wallace at Ballard Estate.

As salespeople, we clicked despite the fact that while sitting on that sofa we were arch competitors. Rajiv used to sell Yahoo and I used to represent MSN  (Microsoft) as a sales partner.

By 2002, we had become good friends and I invited Rajiv to start up Mobile2win in India. By meeting him constantly, I understood what he was about.

More importantly, if he could wait with a smile for 3 hours to close a small deal, he was my clone. He was my kind of CEO.

Today, 10 years later Rajiv is still running that business. (Read this story of my exit from mobile2win)

When I last counted, I had 5199 visiting cards that I have collected as an online entrepreneur.

Yup. I’ve met and interacted with over 5000 people. All thanks to SALES

Each and every one of them has a Sales Contact.

You have to go out there, SELL and  in the process meet the most interesting people in the world. For all you know, your business soul mate could be one of them!

4. Sales teaches you how to ‘read’ People.

My 2win founding team member Raj Menon (Ace salesman again) and I had gone to Sony India (in their Faridabad office) in June 2003 to pitch a brand new format of contesting that we had conceptualized in collaboration with Jet Airways.

At the Sony office, we met a gentleman called Dinesh Chandra.

I began presenting the pitch. It was a 12-slide deck. The pitch price was on slide 12.

Raj and I have trained each other to watch and observe the client as a pitch progresses. As I crossed slide 9. I saw Raj reach for his phone. That was a subtle signal for me. I slowly finished slide 10. Just as slide 11 came up, I saw Raj’s sms message on my phone. It said ‘Do not go to 12. End now’.

After slide 11, I declared that we had reached the end of the PPT and thanked Dinesh Chandra for listening.

Just then Raj pretended to get a phone call, and in a couple of minutes, Raj looked at Dinesh Chandra and asked him ‘Sir, do you mind if Alok and I step out? I have an urgent business matter to discuss with him’.

Dinesh said “Sure.”

Raj took me out and said ‘Alok, Dinesh loves it. I saw his expression. We have asked for 7.5 lacs on slide 12. He will pay 15 lacs’.

I came back and sat down. Dinesh asked me ‘So, what does the Jet proposal cost?

I gently said ‘Sir, it costs Rs. 15 lacs’.

Dinesh said “Done”. “Send me the purchase order.” That was the fastest sale I have ever done in my life.

Both Raj and I left stunned and ecstatic.

Only a week later did we find out who really read whom!

It turned out that  Dinesh Chandra was launching the  Sony WEGA range in India for the first time and an interactive contest in Jet Airways that collected a live database for him was the most effective marketing he could have achieved.

He had actually ‘read’ Raj and Alok better than we thought we had read him.

In retrospect, we think he could have paid 30 lacs if we had known what he was planning to use the campaign for.

Sales makes you understand people – it trains you to see their invisible smile even when they maintain a poker face, it shows you the twinkle in their eyes even though they may be wearing sunglasses.

Can you read Gaurav Sharma? (One of 2win’s best Sales people clowning away to glory at the 2011 annual party)

5. VCs love SALES people!

I have been involved in raising Venture Capital (10+ transactions) for my own companies and for the companies I have mentored over the past 13 years.  I have a fair idea of what VCs like in Entrepreneurs and their businesses.

One of the things they expect is the fact that the entrepreneur should be able to SELL.

And here I mean Sales that are not necessarily revenue centric but also the ability to sell the idea, the concept or the service to potential customers and clients as proof of validation of the business.

Take what happened to me for the first time when I raised venture capital for Contests2win.com.

In June of 1999, I walked into the Khaitan Bhavan offices of  Acqauvit (what became E-Ventures in India) for the first time. There I met Neeraj Bhargava and Rajesh Jog.

The first question Neeraj asked me was “So, how many brands have used contests2win? What’s your proof of concept in the real world?”

Simply said, he was asking me ‘Boss, have you sold this idea to real brands or is it a concept on paper?”

I answered and said “Neeraj, seventy five of the Fortune 500 brands have already worked with us. Of them, fifteen have become repeat clients.”

Some of the Brands c2w has worked with

Neeraj could not believe me. He was a McKinsey veteran and knew how difficult it was to get even a single Fortune 500 brand to sign on.

I showed him the roster of clients and the campaigns they had done.

In that conversation, I volunteered and said “Neeraj, but you must know that all these brands have worked with me for free. I have not charged them anything”.

I still remember Neeraj’s reply so clearly. He said, “Alok, if you have got 75 brands to work with you, I will get them to pay. That’s the easy bit”.

E-Ventures funded me because I had shown proof of sales of a concept that did not exist in the world before – and none other than the biggest brands in the world being customers of that concept.

Today, when I sit in competitions in which real entrepreneurs compete for Money, I reflexively ask “So, who all have bought this?” Ever so often I have seen VCs politely asking entrepreneurs to come back to pitch to them AFTER they have had their first sale.

If you want to raise Capital, be sure you have proof of SALES in your pitch.

Some of the Best Sales People I have ever met in my life –  who became Founders of the 2win Companies. From left to right –  Mahesh (games2win), Rajiv (mobile2win India), GK (c2w), KK in white (media2win), Alok, Raj (c2w), Dinesh (c2w)

6. Sales teaches you the business models of the world.

I have sold over 2000 campaigns to over 1000 brands that belong to almost all the Fortune 500 companies in the world.

In the process, I have been exposed to the business models and insights of industries as diverse as telecom to trucks, airlines to antacids.

While selling my wares, I have been exposed to the sales problems of my partners, because after all, what they buy from me in terms of advertising solutions or games is only to help them sell better!

There is no MBA in the world that can teach you or expose you to live case studies, management issues, problems and solutions of the world’s biggest and best companies. Going into their offices to SELL them something is the best MBA program a person can attend.

Sales is the best education you get PAID to receive!

Just let me get a feel of it. I will figure it out. I’m a sales guy! Pictured – Alok being tutored how to ride a horse carriage in Budapest

7. Sales helps you Sell ‘yourself’.

What happens in a Job Interview?

The candidate ‘sells’ his personality, abilities and his experience to a potential employer. A resume is the sales pitch in a word format, while the interview thereafter is a meeting to close that sales pitch.

In today’s hyper competitive world I see the best bred, most outstanding professionals fast becoming extinct in the corporate world – because they don’t know how to sell themselves.

Today, it’s not good enough to be very good at your job or to have an expertise in your domain – you have to know how to sell yourself.

Take Steve Jobs for instance. He was not just brilliant in his vision and execution. He was a superlative salesman too – every keynote of his is a salesman’s Bible.  When he would go up on stage to present Apple products, the crowds would go crazy. He reinvented the concept of creating an explosive cocktail of emotion, innovation and sheer stage magic to capture the imagination of consumers; as if he was a rock star performing with his instruments, in front of his fans.

In the years to come, you will have to become a Rockstar yourself.

Think of what happens when people search for your name on google. What do they see? A list of linkedin, facebook and twitter links? I say that they need to see more. If you want to create an impact, you should be blogging, presenting a point of view, saying something compelling. They should be ‘pre-sold’ on you.

I’m relevant. Even on page 33 of a Google Search result on my name.

In February of 2010, Harvard Business School sent me an invite to speak to its students as part of an India Week. Their mail said, ‘We like what you write on rodinhood.com and wish you can present the ideas to our students’.

I think I had achieved a very rare and honorable ‘personal’ sale!

MicroFinance Institutions....For Profit v/s Non-Profit "a comparison"

16 Feb, 2012, 04.28AM IST, Krishnamurthy Subramanian - "The Economic Times"

Commercial MFIs can make markets work for the poor
(Also check the attached photo)

Commercial microfinance institutions (MFIs) are an exemplification of
making markets work for the poor. Are they indeed? A recent piece of
research, comparing the lending performance of for-profit MFIs with
not-for-profit MFIs, shows that though for-profit MFIs serve close to
three-quarters of the market, the evidence does not seem to indicate
that these MFIs lend indiscriminately when compared to their peers.

Supporters and critics of microfinance agree that the demand for
reliable financial services is huge. However, the role of
fully-commercial, profit-seeking institutions in providing such
microfinance loans remains controversial. Critics argue that MFIs are
nothing but brute moneylenders, the very beast that microfinance was
built to root out. Supporters, however, argue that several hundreds of
thousands of poor customers that such MFIs serve would otherwise have
had even worse financial options. Would not serving them be a better
social outcome?

Since the for-profit MFIs would be expected to pursue profit
maximisation disproportionately more than the non-profit ones, in a
recent piece of research, I compare these two categories of MFIs to
examine whether profit maximisation by an MFI compromises on its
social objectives.

The following are the results. First, as seen in Figure 1 for the
number of active borrowers and the number of loans outstanding, the
for-profit MFIs in India serve more than three-quarters of the
microfinance clientele. Second, contrary to the fears that profit
maximisation by a microfinance institution would impel it to lend
indiscriminately, we find no difference between the for-profit MFIs
and the non-profit ones with respect to (i) the average number of
loans outstanding and per borrower, and (ii) the outstanding loan
balance per borrower.

If the for-profit MFIs were providing further loans to already
indebted consumers and the not-for-profit MFIs were not, then we
should have seen a difference between the for-profit and
not-for-profit MFIs in these two variables.

Third, as seen in Figure 3 with respect to the revenue performance,
the for-profit enterprises charge higher interest rates when compared
to their non-profit counterparts. However, as seen in Figure 4, close
to 97% of the for-profit MFIs in our sample lend at nominal interest
rates lower than 30%.

Fifth, as seen in Figures 4 and 5, we find the operating costs and
expenses for for-profit MFIs to be on average significantly higher
than that for non-profit microfinance institutions. This may possibly
be because the for-profit MFIs have to pay market-based compensation
to their employees, which the non-profit MFIs may not. The for-profit
MFIs pass on about two-thirds of these higher costs to their
borrowers, which are reflected in the higher interest rates they
charge when compared to their non-profit counterparts.

Using statistical methods that control for other differences between
for-profit and non-profit MFIs, the for-profit MFIs in India are no
more profitable on average than their non-profit counterparts. Last
but not the least, the lending portfolios of the for-profit MFIs in
India are no more riskier on average than those of their non-profit
counterparts.

These findings indicate the apprehensions that profit-seeking
objectives of MFIs led them to (i) charge usurious interest rates
and/or (ii) push loans indiscriminately to their borrowers
irrespective of the borrower's debt capacity may be exaggerated.

The close linkage between the costs and expenses faced by MFIs and the
interest rate they charge their clients suggest that policy measures
that increase the costs and operating expenses of MFIs will have
detrimental consequences either in the form of increased interest
rates charged or through credit rationing if a ceiling is imposed on
the interest rates.