A human resource

The sort of things which make people happy leave me stumped. Especially when it comes to the corporate world. No wonder my managers found me impossible to manage.

Like, take this 'Human Resources' for example. Employees of an organisation were dealt with by what used to be called the 'Personnel Department'. I never had realized that to consider people as 'Personnel' made them inferior to the machinery or raw materials or finances. (I should have, perhaps, going by Bollywood movies where the rich boss would find a worker had lost his hand in an accident and would scream about the damage caused to the machine.)

Till, one day, someone realized that such was indeed the case and decided to redress it - by renaming it as the 'Human Resources Department'. I suppose there were celebrations and parties for days on end with all the erstwhile 'personnel' dancing in the streets exclaiming, 'At last! I am the equal of the water cooler and the diesel genset! Yippeee!"

Now, I really could not see that I had great reason for joy to be considered at par with, say, a bank loan or a bale of cotton. As a 'resource', in short, instead of a person. Which explains why I never really fit into the corporate structure with any degree of comfort.

As in, the managers of human resources were the ones who had to 'oil the squeaking wheels'. The problem, though, was that it could well be that the resource is a 'square peg in a round hole', which is why the friction was causing it to squeal. So, they either chose to 'oil' or chose to switch it around or, if they thought it was faulty, chuck it out with that kiss of death - 'You are not a team-player'. As an employee I was sort of like Hamlet, always wondering 'To squeak or not to squeak, that is the question' because a quest for oil may get me the oil, get me tossed around or even tossed out.

You see, I just could not see how to be seen as a sort of motor which had to finds its right function for the greater purpose of turning out more potato chips, say, was such an elevation from being considered mere 'personnel'. You could be a wonderful party companion ('Employee has great PR skills') or a great father ('Employee could make a good mentor') but, as far as the company was concerned, you are a resource to be used for improving the bottom-line. (What was that? As far as children went you were only an animated ATM machine, with the disadvantage that, when they swiped the card, you first spouted advice before spouting the money? That is as may be. I wouldn't know about that.)

Yeah, I know, a company is not a club or a group of friends, it is a commercial organization and, so, your ability to do card tricks or mimic Amitabh Bacchan is irrelevant to them. The point is that I could not see how calling me a resource makes me happier than calling me 'personnel'. It made me feel that all the difference between me and the coffee vending machine was the same as the difference between an android and a robot - I was biological, the machine was electro-mechanical and that was all the difference there was. (Yeah, yeah, you also consider that the coffee vending machine was far more useful than I could ever be. So?)

Anyway, given that I never could fathom human beings, it is no wonder that the esoteric joys and sorrow of Genus Corporatis evade me totally. It was with a great sigh of relief that I quit the world and, I am sure, that the sigh was echoed by a storm of relief from my organization.

Seemed to me like I had reclaimed being a person. Human, even if not a resource, at last.

Old Fables New Morals - The Goatherd and the Wild Goats

You know, there are these times from Aesop got quite the wrong moral from his own fables. Yeah, I know that I did say once earlier that adults makes a mess of learning morals from stories but for the very guy, who is messing up with children's minds by telling stories with morals, to get it wrong...

Take this one, for example, about the goatherd and the wild goats. This chappie, apparently, went out with his goats and a snowstorm hit the place. Finding some wild goats also in trouble, he drove them also to his place. Intending to entice them to stay with him, he fed them better than his own goats for as long as the snowstorm lasted. When the snowstorm stopped storming, the wild goats scampered away. Hearing the goatherd fuming about their ingratitude, when he had taken better care than his own goats, they said, "That is why we are leaving. If we stay, the next time you find some new goats, you will neglect us and take care of them." AND Aesop thinks that the moral of that story is, "Old friends cannot be neglected with impunity for new ones."

To be honest, I thought so too. Till I used that fable once with a bunch of management guys from different areas of specialization. They opened my eyes to the reality of the moral of the tale.

"So, you think that fable tells me I should not offer attractive schemes only to new customers? Nonsense. As usual, you have got the moral all wrong."

"What? What have I..."

"See, does the tale tell anything about any of his old goats scampering away? So, exactly how has he lost? His old friends are still with him. AND, if even one of the new lot had stayed with him, he is better off by one more goat. I think the moral should be more of 'Change is difficult for people. You may not get the new, but you will not lose the old.'"

"Yeah, Right!" chimed in the HR guy. "We entice people from other companies with better pay and perks. That does not cause an exodus of our own people. Pity! There are some we would happily give a farewell party to..."

"You mean, you do not lose any old customers...or employees..."

"Don't go wholesale like that. It is alright for fables to talk in either-or. Whether it applies to wild goats or no, when it comes to people, some 'wild goats' will stick to us...and some of our own 'goats' may leave. The point is, we generally gain in the process."

Hmmm! Either Aesop got it wrong or human beings are a whole lot more stupid than wild goats!

Old Fables New Morals - Hercules and the Wagoner

So, there was this wagoner driving his cart on a rainy day when his wheels sank down in the slush and the cart would not move. The poor chap goes down on his knees and prays to Hercules to help him by lifting the cart out of the slush where it was stuck. Hercules appears and says, "Put your shoulder to the wheel and push it yourself. You will find your prayers fruitless if you do not first try to help yourself first."

The moral, apparently, was that 'Self-help is the best help' according to Aesop. But, then, the Wagoner probably had not done an MBA. Now, if you can conceive of an MBA actually doing things like driving carts on rainy days, instead of making reports about the logistics problems caused by rains, the story would have not ended with Hercules' statement.

"How may a mere mortal accomplish a task that is beyond the strength of mighty Hercules?"

(Note that he would not say, "I bet you cannot lift this cart off, you bum!" That MAY have had the cart off the mud but would leave the wagoner buried in the ground.)

"Lifting this puny cart is beyond my strength? What makes you say so?"

"Else why would kindhearted Hercules decline to help a mortal in distress? If he does, it must be because the task is beyond him."

And that would have the cart off the slush, Hercules' ears ringing with praises and apologies.

The moral of the story would really have been, "IF stroking the ego does not work, try wounding it."

Old Fables New Morals - The wind and the sun

This comparison thing that I was talking of some time back seems to have infected everything. Like, there is this fable by a laddie called Aesop (who seemed to believe that no child should ever listen to a story without being burdened by a moral at the end). And, you know what, even the wind and the sun apparently indulged in this comparison game.

So, apparently the wind and the sun were arguing about which of them was the strongest. Like all big-shots, they did not want to fight each other and risk being injured themselves. So they decided to try their strength on a poor traveler who was wearing a cloak. The deal was that whichever of them made the traveler take off the cloak was to be considered the mightier entity.

The wind had the first shot at it, with the sun retreating behind a cloud and allowing a free hand. The wind huffed and puffed, blew and gusted, buffeted and pummeled the poor chap, causing him to hold on to his cloak all the tighter. At last, the wind retreated in defeat.

Now the sun came out and shone on the traveler. He started getting hot under the collar...err...cloak, and removed it.

AND Aesop wants you to learn that gentleness serves you better than force. But, then, we can forgive the poor chap because, in his time, performance appraisal was not invented yet. As you know, this decision of who was the more useful, mighty, whatever of the two can hardly be left to them to decide. It has to be decided by HR professionals after a due process of appraising the performance.

So, the wind goes in first for this performance appraisal interview.

"What do you think of your performance?"

A shamefaced wind says, "I tried my best with all my strength. Despite my best efforts, I could not make the man remove his cloak."

"Yes, we know! We saw how much effort and dedication you brought to the task. You are a good team-player."

And then comes the Sun, confident that this time he would get a great rating.

"So what do you have to say for yourself?"

Nonplussed by a certain coldness in the query (That passive-aggressive thingy people talk about? Who do you think are the best experts at that?), the Sun said, "I successfully accomplished the mission."

"Nonsense! You were just hanging around, grinning all over your face, doing nothing. Just because the traveler chose to take off his cloak then, you claim you made him do it?"

That, dear friends, is the real moral of the story. "It is better to make visible efforts, even without results, than to get results without making your efforts visible."

My humor book - A dog eat dog-food world

Once upon a time, I was content writing blog posts and waiting forlornly for readers to come around and read them. Then comes a short story competition and I, the bachelor, get one story into a romance anthology (Really!) called "Uff Ye Emotions". Being sort of unaccustomed to the modern world and its ways, I was embarrassed about calling it 'my book' since mine was but one story out of twelve.

Then I get wilder notions and participate with Karthik and Radha to put out a ebook anthology of crime called "Sirens Spell Danger" on Amazon. I suppose I could have called that 'my book', even by my fossilized standards, since it was, at least, edited by me but it seemed too selfish to lay claims to all the stories in the book.

Now, at last, I have a book all to myself. My humor novella, which parodies marketing management and satirizes some aspects of the world of commerce, is being published by Fablery. Advance copies are available at a 10% discount currently and the book is expected to be out by Oct 20.

A short introduction to what is in the book is here

A hilarious pseudo-history of marketing management, which explicitly denies resemblance to any actual history, and which will be horrified if some semblance be found. The story of a man who discovered that the path of life is strewn with treadmills and, if you get on one by mistake, you could keep running all your life to stay in the same place. The story of how a businessman may just be minding his…err…business and the ‘Invisible Hand’ can cause unexpected consequences to arise out of his innocent actions. There is no point blaming the tale for being exaggerated because that is precisely what it seeks to be – an ‘exaggeratio ad absurdum’ of some facets of the world. Anything you learn from the book – be it the basics of marketing management or a satirical view of Society – you do at your own risk.

The tale only dogs the doings of

Spike Fortune who only sought to feed dogs and, later, sought more dogs to feed.

Jerry Fortune who, being fortuneless, gets dragged helter-skelter behind his uncle Spike in the latter’s careening pursuit of commercial success and gets sandwiched between Spike and

Tyke who was Spike’s resident genius on enticing dogs with their wares. He also has to help Spike in his rivalry with

Tom Rich, who is unwillingly dragged into upstaging Spike and tries to do it by teasing the palates of cats, helped by the bumbling efforts of

Jasper Rich who would rather be partying than chasing cats with cat-foods.

The pre-order link where you can place your orders (if you feel so inclined) is

http://www.amazon.in/dog-eat-dogfood-world/dp/9384315036

What has not changed, though, is the fact that - as for the other books - I am trundling my hand-cart through the streets crying, "My books for sale". An ironical thing to be doing - marketing a book that spoofs marketing management!

The other thing is that, as with the blog posts, I am waiting for readers to come and read this book!

Manage-Men-T

"Manage-Men-T"

It was my first day at IIM-Bangalore and the first thing that the Prof, who was giving the orientation lecture, wrote on the Board was this. To clarify, this was in 1988 and blackboards were still in use, even in the IIMs. AND, yes, because it WAS still the eighties, one could sort of work around a conversation about even the weather to how you are now a student at IIM, with the audience only smiling indulgently, as they would when they heard anyone being proud of any achievement (like getting a story published, say). It helped, I suppose, that the salaries of IIM guys were still somewhere around comparable levels and, thus, this simple pride did not get any connotations of someone boasting of being royalty.

"Management means to Manage Men and T(ime)"

I stiffened with fear. Did I hear that right? Managing Men and Time? (Ah! To clarify again, technology had not yet laid its claim on that 'T' of management, nor indeed had information technology usurped and ousted all other contenders to the word 'technology') Managing men? A trickle of sweat ran down my spine and my mouth went dry. Ever seen a wee lamb stray into a den of lions. The poor thing wants just to run away, bleating pathetically, but is frozen in fear with mouth too dry to even utter the smallest 'baa'. THAT was how I felt. Managing men? What had I got myself into?

If ever there was an inherently unmanageable, outright cussed species it must be Homo Sapiens. God must have had an off-day when He created mankind. And, here I was, in this institution which wanted to make me a manager of men? Eeeps! I had applied and joined the place only because of what I would get as a salary once I had passed out. I should have spared a thought to what I would have to do to earn that salary. (Yeah, I know, it has always vexed me that people thought that I needed to actually DO something to earn a salary, but this is not a post about that).

Imagine a bus careening down the mountainside about to fall off the click into the ravine below, because the driver has had a heart attack. Imagine a busload of passengers, screaming in fear and imagine that I am to manage these people (I know! It will really STRETCH your imagination to do it but TRY, will you?) into working together at stopping the bus before we flew into the wide blue yonder.

"You always pick on me to do the heavy lifting. Why should I shift the driver? Why not your blue-eyed boy there?"

"I think that we should form a committee to determine how this driver was allowed to drive today. There is something seriously wrong with the procedure to check on the fitness of drivers."

"Do you really think that, even if the driver is shifted, the brakes will work? Who knows what is the condition of the bus, when the travel agency has not even checked on the condition of the driver?"

"I really think that these winding roads are a hazard. The government should never permit winding roads in such terrain and put people in danger. This NDA government..."

"This road was put up in the UPA..."

"Say, how do you have a straight road on a mountain?"

"Do not digress from the point. Why did the NDA government not set it right? AAP is...."

And, soon, it would evolve into a highly spiritual discussion of whether at all there is a mountain, or a road or a bus or what we could call 'We'. THAT last, of course, would prove right - for soon, there would be no 'We'!

Exaggeration? Perhaps. But when death or disaster is much less imminent - say a day later, for example - what are the odds of this happening? You have any doubts about it, you can always take recourse to Donald Trump and his wisdom on climate change.

So, that was managing men for me. (You say that I am inept at managing men and that is why I say all this? What, then, do you think I was trying to establish all this while?)

As for managing Time, I had always thought that it got along pretty well without my supervision. I mean the seconds ticked and the minutes tocked whether or not I had an eagle eye on the clock. So, what's the big deal about managing Time? You go your way and Time goes its way without either interfering with the other.

Soon, though, I realized that the problem was NOT Time. The problem was all about those who tried to manage YOUR time. As in, people who wanted you to do this; others who wanted you to do that; and yet others who wanted you to do the third thing. Effectively, Manage men meant that you had to ensure that you made it a problem for them to manage THEIR time and managing Time meant that you had to manage the people who were trying to manage what you did with YOUR time. Of course, we are all very good at giving names to things and, so, the former is called 'leadership' and the latter is called 'work-life balance'. (And THAT proves my point. THAT phrase effectively says that work is NOT life, so the time you take out for working is the time you have not lived!)

It was all too confusing and scaring for me. And, then, a happy thought struck me. The trick was to stay where I was more the managed than the manager. Then, ALL I had to be was what Homo Sapiens was programmed to be - unmanageable.

Panchatantra with a twist: The Bird and the Monkeys

When winter came to the mountain, the gang of monkeys were unable to bear the cold. They collected the wild red berries, thinking they were embers, and blew air at them to make a fire that would warm them. A bird, Suchimukha, told them that they were foolishly blowing air at berries and should, instead, look for shelter in a cave. The monkeys rudely asked him not to interfere in their affairs. The bird persisted in trying to get them to take his advice. Incensed, the monkeys bashed him against a rock and killed him.

* * *

You see, there are instances where the lack of a management experience really shows. Most people tend to see this story as a warning against giving unsolicited advice but, to me, it shines through as a story that tells you that, sometimes, management experience can, literally, be a life-saver.

Let us see how this would have panned out if Suchimukha had management experience. To be sure, if he really had management experience, he would never give out advice gratis. In the current circumstances, of his being the outsider, he would necessarily have to be a management consultant being paid a hefty fee for his advice and with the mandate to deliver this gang of monkeys alive and kicking at the end of winter. (Why would anyone WANT an alive and kicking gang of monkeys, you ask? Check with any management consultant and you will find that they have been heftily paid to deliver more useless things than a live gang of monkeys)

"What are you guys doing, may I ask?" Suchimukha asked.

"What is it to you? That is none of your business." snapped the elderly head of the gang of monkeys.

"You are a bunch of wise people. This winter is really killing and I need to survive it somehow. I just thought that, maybe, you could give me a few tips on surviving it."

"You stupid fool! Just pick a few of those embers, there and blow on it. You will have a fire to keep yourself warm."

"Embers? What.."

"Are you blind? These red things, here. Don't touch them. You get your own from over there."

Suchimukha looks and sees wild red berries. A mocking look almost rises to his face but he curbs it. He was not a management consultant for nothing. If the client calls a berry an ember, it HAD to be an ember throughout the interaction. Polonius had nothing on him when it came to agreeing with clients.

"Yes! I see. What a great idea. Thank you."

"That's alright. Now go get them for yourself." said the monkey grudgingly.

"You are very wise. This idea with embers is really fantastic. May I share something which may make this even better? I have traveled to various places and have seen how humans handle embers."

"So, what is it?"

Behind the grudging growl, Suchimukha heard keen interest. THAT was always a good hook. Tell the client that it is your idea and he would look you up and down, and tell you to stuff it where it was anatomically painful, if not impossible, to do so. Tell the client that you have some inside knowledge of how people, whom he respects, work and it was bound to evoke interest.

"Well! They use these embers inside houses or caves. Possibly the wind does not allow the embers to flame up outside. Inside, they seem to, at least, make you warm even if they do not create a fire."

"I think, maybe, we should try it in that cave yonder." said the head monkey to the rest.

Suchimukha flew away, laughing to himself at the sight of the monkeys industriously blowing on the berries inside the cave. The only way to get people to do what YOU want them to do is to make them think that they are doing what THEY want to do.

Mission accomplished!

Words of Importance - Team-Player

This word (Phrase?) 'Not a Team-player' is actually one of the well-meaning words in the management lexicon. It was originally intended to denote a person like a soccer player who, instead of passing the ball to a team-mate ideally positioned to score the goal, tries to do it himself in order to get the glory. You know the sort I mean. The chap who can count all the warts on your idea - even if he has to invent them himself - merely because he does not want you to get the credit. And if, perchance, your idea is chosen for implementation, ensures that he does everything to sabotage it so that he can have the pleasure of saying, "I told you so" to your manager afterwards.

So far, so good. The problem, though, is that the word is so ambiguous, so delightfully malleable that it is a wonder that it ever gets used properly, since it offers such boundless opportunities for misuse. I mean, it is not like you can put an employee on some scale and get a result like 93.7% Team Player. (Though, I am sure, the Internet will throw up some online quiz which will do exactly that in the course of eight easy questions). Nor can you say exactly how many errors happened in decisions or in implementation, thanks to the fact that someone decided to sit out the game OR sabotaged it from within. (If you tried, you would end up being asked why you did not stop it WHEN it was happening instead of moaning about it afterwards).

Judgment call - that is what they call it. Which, in personal interactions, ends up being more a roll-call of likes and dislikes. Of course, in addition, it does offer you a more palatable way of saying things.

Like, when you are on a 'downsizing' exercise, it is better to tell the guy, "You know. You are not a very good Team-Player. So, we had to let you go." Since, in human interactions, almost no person is  fully confident of his capabilities, it is a cinch that THAT guy may well feel that you are right, even if he verbally opposes the judgment. Just try telling him, "I had to pick ten people to let go and I closed my eyes and stuck the pin ten times in the employee roster. Bad luck to you." You will get sued.

On more mundane days, you still have this issue of giving raises within a limited budget. So, how do you explain why the guy in front of you is getting the minimum possible when it is not easily identifiable on the basis of technical performance? Can you tell him, "I have a low budget and, of the lot, I thought you were the guy least likely to complain if your raise was low"? Just say that and he will belie his reputation as the guy least likely to complain. So, obviously, he is not such a great team-player after all, while the others would be snapped up by KKR, if you would only allow them.

There are other - even more important, perhaps - instances where it can come of use. In interviews, where you have to select your wife's uncle's cousin's son over the others; in promotions, where you want the guy, who is impressed by your scintillating genius, over the others who dare think that even you can make mistakes sometimes; instances like that. The absolute delight of this term is that the respect, nay, veneration that it is given matches its ambiguity.

Of course, you are team-player enough to ensure that you do not use this 'Not a good team-player' argument against someone who is demonstrably very good at it. Sometimes that is the ONLY thing he may be good at and, thus, the one thing he is absolutely certain about. Rara avis such people but still...it may be your cursed bad luck to run into one of them.

I have only one request for you. IF you are delighted by the ambiguity of this term, please do not invite me to play in your team!

Panchatantra with a twist : The Turtle and the swans

It was a drought year and the water in the pond was disappearing. Two swans, Sankat and Vikat, were worried about their friend - the turtle, Kambugriva - who lived in the pond. The turtle suggested that the two of them could hold opposite ends of a stick, while he held on to the middle of it with his mouth, and ferry him to safety. The swans agreed and the plan was carried out. When they were flying, people saw the sight and commended the cleverness of the birds. The turtle opened his mouth to respond to them, fell to the ground and was killed by the people.

* * *

So, you thought that it was all about keeping your mouth shut, when speech is dangerous? That's because you do not know the real story.

"Look, bro! There is a turtle in that drying pond. If we capture that, my cook can make a delightful dish of it."

"Listen! The turtle is saying something to those swans."

"Get a stick and you two hold opposite ends of it. I will hold on to the middle with my mouth and you can carry me to safety."

"Hey Bro! Let us rush in before the swans carry the turtle away."

By the time the duo reach the pond, the birds had started flying.

"Let's follow them in the jeep, bro! I have an idea."

"What?"

"Remember Ravi? That idea for the ad campaign for the new deodorant?"

"Yeah! He screwed himself up royally, didn't he? The boss was telling HIS boss how he always knew that Soumya was a great talent, and she had proved herself with the idea for the campaign when Ravi pipes up and says that it was HIS idea."

"It WAS his idea. BUT the idiot should have known that telling it then would screw him up with the boss. YET, he could not keep quiet."

"Yeah, but why are you telling this now?"

"Some people cannot keep quiet when someone else is given the credit for their ideas. Even if it kills them."

"So...? Ah! I get what you mean."

The two of them yelled loudly, "Ah! How clever of the birds to have thought up this idea to save the turtle."

The turtle could not bear to see the birds praised for what was, after all, HIS idea. Even if they were helping him. He opened his mouth to say that it was HIS genius; fell to the earth and ended up becoming turtle stew by the night.

Yes, getting due credit can be real hazardous!

Words of Importance - Downsizing

The importance of jargon, in any science or social science, is normally to serve as a shorthand for concepts that would consume too many words to put across. In the nature of things, jargon also comes in handy to make things palatable - nay, scientific, logical and even inevitable - when saying it in common words could raise a storm of protest and vilification. As far as I know, there is no area of human endeavor that mostly uses jargon for the latter purpose - or, merely, to make things sound more important than they really are - as management.

If one were to start hunting for jargon of this sort, one need not go far beyond 'down-sizing' for an example. The simplest set of words for 'down-sizing' would be 'chucking out employees' and, you will certainly agree, that the latter does not sound very palatable, leave alone half as important. The HR guy, who is handed out the job, would probably feel like the public hangman if he had to say that he was 'chucking out employees'. Why, his family may hold their noses and step aside when he came by. On the other hand, he can say that he is busy with 'down-sizing' and everyone will be proud of how he is contributing to the company's efficiency.

What, then of the top management? Could they really say, "We made a mistake in assessing our employee requirement and every mistake has to be paid for. So, now, you will have to pay for our mistakes"? Easier by far to say, "In the interests of more efficient performance, we are down-sizing the company." Even better if you can pay a chunk of the scarce money that you have to get a management consultant to say so. It is always easier when you get an outsider for a hangman.

What, then, if the top management has changed and NOW they are 'down-sizing'? Well, really, you are pretty naive if you expect this lot of guys to say, "My incentive depends on improving the performance of this company. It is easier for me to do it by reducing the salary bill, than by increasing the scale of performance of the company to utilize its employees optimally." Naturally, 'down-sizing' comes in handy, indeed.

Then, of course, if someone takes this company over, he is not likely to say, "The other guys made the mistake of over-staffing this place. Why should I carry the can for it?" You guessed it - downsizing.

This word, though, is one of the few that has got caught in the political correctness thing that plagues a lot of words. It has acquired such unsavory connotations that people have had to invent a more politically correct term for it - "Right-sizing". Like all those politically correct terms, it is only the bottle that is new. The wine is the same old, same old.

Some time soon, someone is going to catch on to the fact that saying "Right-sizing" would automatically mean that the organization was 'wrong-sized' before and THAT would directly mean that the management was wrong - not a very palatable thing if it is the same management doing the 'right-sizing'. Soon, they will be inventing another term for it.

Or, have they already?

Panchatantra with a twist - The Blue Jackal

A jackal, Chandaraka, driven to seek food in a town by hunger is chased by a group of mongrels and hides in a vat of blue dye and ends up getting dyed blue. Later, when he returns to the jungle, he finds all the animals - including the large predators like lions, tigers, panthers and wolves - fleeing from him in fear, since they had never encountered a blue jackal. Seizing the opportunity, he claims to be a special creation of God sent down to rule them. He is duly accepted as King and appoints various animals to various posts. He banishes all the jackals from the jungle. One day, a distant pack of jackals start howling and Chandaraka joins the howling. Recognizing that he was but a jackal and not a special creation of God, the other animals pounce on him and tear him to pieces.

* * *

Actually, you know what, there is an inside story to this tale. Or did you really think that a jackal, no matter how blue it was dyed, could think on the spot and make use of its color to become the King of the Jungle? This is how it really happened.

Chandaraka poked his head out of the vat and peered around fearfully. The mongrels were gone. Before they could come back, he jumped out of the vat and raced out of town. The jungle lay invitingly in front of him but...

"Hey! You look kind of different. What are you?"

Chandaraka turned in a flash to see a human clad in what they called a three-piece suit. Considering that it was forty degrees celsius in the shade, there was only one species of human who would walk around in such hot apparel - and it was most certainly not hunters. And that thing hanging in front - tie, humans called it. They must be ashamed of having lost their tails and were trying to do it artificially, but why hang it in front, instead of back and lower where it belonged, Chandaraka had never understood.

Feeling less fearful than he had felt with the mongrels, Chandaraka turned to the human who he was sure was some sort of management chap.

"I am just a jackal. I jumped into a vat of dye and now I am this color. The mongrels chased me out of town and, now, I am sure that I will be torn to pieces by the animals of the jungle. You know how it is - we beasts do not tolerate anything different. Can you suggest a way to remove this dye?"

"Are you mad? Here you have a Unique Selling proposition (USP) and you want to get rid of it?"

"I don't have any Un..Uni...whatever. I only have this useless dye on me."

"THAT shows you have no sense of marketing. It does not matter if it is useless. All we have to do is to use it to create Brand Equity for yourself."

"Bra..Brand what?"

"Look! What is the issue, here? You are blue and look like no animal ever seen in the Jungle, right?"

"Y..yes!" said Chandaraka doubtfully, not knowing where this was leading.

"Well...instead of thinking of it as a flaw, think of it as a unique attribute."

"AND I will be uniquely dead", said Chandaraka, showing a dash of humor.

"Stop being pessimistic. All you have to do is to make it SEEM special. How would it be if...hmmm...ah! You can just claim that God made you specially this way and sent you down."

"Uh! Sent me down for what?"

"For the salvation of beast-kind, maybe? No...no...that sort of thing sells only with humans. Sometimes I think that THAT is the sixth sense we guys keep talking about...say, why not to rule the jungle?"

"Uh! You will just get me slaughtered by the lion"

"Hush! You are too pessimistic. You just do not know the advantage of adding the word SPECIAL to anything that is unique to a product...huh...person...uh...beast. We marketing guys have made people believe that someone who wears the right clothes is fit to run a company, so why cannot a jackal dyed blue rule the jungle?"

"And sold yourself, too, on the idea, going by how you dress" thought Chandaraka. "No wonder the human race is going to pot, if they are really being run by clothes dummies"

Aloud he said, "What if the beasts do not think like humans?"

"What have you got to lose? You will only get slaughtered, then. But that is what will happen if you try nothing."

THAT was convincing logic. Chandaraka started trotting to the jungle, when the management chap gave some parting advice.

"Don't ever let on that you are only a jackal. Nothing kills the magic of the USP faster than it being considered ordinary."

AND you know the success of the marketing strategy. Alas, that Chandaraka failed to remember the parting advice and destroyed his USP by displaying his ordinariness.

Words of Importance - Synergy

I have been lax in just assuming that the meaning I know for words IS the correct meaning for those words ('HOW could you? When was the last time you were right about anything?' you exclaim? Well, I see no reason why I should not assume - even wrongly - the essential correctness of my position, when it is such a widely practiced pastime for the rest of the world). This once, though, I shall redress that error and take recourse to dictionary meanings. This word - synergy - apparently means 'the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.'

Of course it stands to reason, does it not? Take a man and a woman, for example. They are one individual each and, if they get together, they should tot up only to two. If they really did add up to only two forever, there would be no population explosion, would there? Synergy, that is what it is. (Oh! And, by the way, if they just added up to two, everyone around them would be pestering them about this lack of synergy, in the Indian context). Or, take any three people in some parts of India. When they get together, you end up having six political parties. Synergy, again!

How I do digress! The point was about how important a word synergy was to management. (Oh! You did not realize that THAT was the point? It's Ok. NOW you know). In the management context, though, this word synergy has acquired a lot more nuances. The way it is used makes you think of the employees like Russian Ballet dancers - each doing his own steps to the same tune and creating a lovely choreographed scene. Harmony - that is the word I was looking for! Synergy, when used by managers, somehow gives an impression of a harmonious whole.

Wait a minute! Harmony? In organizations? Where the marketing guys are convinced that the production guys insist on producing saris, when the whole world is clamoring for jeans AND the finance guys get in the way of bagging huge order with piffling objections about not selling at Rs. 80/= things that cost Rs. 100/= to produce? Where the production guys feel that the marketing guys create unnecessary difficulties about selling slippers made ONLY for the left leg, thus messing up production efficiency, instead of finding a market of one-legged people hopping around on their left legs; AND the finance people get in the way of production efficiency raising stupid questions about inventory pile-ups? Where the Finance guys are convinced that the rest of the organization was in a fierce competition to see which of them could bankrupt the organization first? Harmony, indeed!

See, all of us tend to underestimate the management chaps. Do you really think that they do not know about lack of harmony within their own organizations? So, they rarely use the word for issues within the organization, whether to mean the dictionary meaning or with the additional embellishment of harmony. No! Synergy was a word most lovingly used when management people talked of "Mergers and Acquisitions". In other words, when they were joining another organization and creating a melded whole in a marriage of equals (Mergers) or where they were swallowing up another organization whole (Acquisitions), this word synergy is scattered around throughout the process like confetti.

In these situations, this thing of synergy is used as though the guys are sitting around fitting a jigsaw puzzle. "This organization has strong engineering; that one has a great reputation for after-sales service. This one has a strong marketing presence in the North; that one is the tops in the South." and, thus, with all these 'synergies' fitted properly in, there is the assumption that the assemblage will work as a harmonious whole and yield returns in excess of the sum of their individual returns. So there - first putting together a 'whole'; then 'harmony' and then the 'whole being greater than the sum of the parts'. What more can you want from synergy?

The problem, as usual, is, as the poet says, that every prospect pleases and only man is vile. In other words, it is rather like the arranged marriage in India. All the synergy exercise is done to check the fit of the two families and it is expected that the two people getting married to each other will live harmoniously together. The failure of synergy exercises is always the people who have to make it work, of course, and never the fault of the people who decided on the synergies. (The poor chaps do not know that the one great talent given to humans is the ability to pull against each other, especially when they are in different groups)

AND, as in arranged marriages, the result is, more often than not, a total lack of synergy. At least in arranged marriages, the whole ends up, more often than not, greater than the sum of the parts in the strictly numerical sense, if THAT is any consolation. (It is, indeed, to the families. The individuals involved, though, may not share that idea.)

In Organizations, too, the whole will certainly be different from the sum of the parts, if there IS a whole for long enough to make an assessment. If THAT is any consolation!

Words of importance - Strategy

I really do not know what we management types would do if we did not have this word 'strategy'. Without it, we would feel much less important, unenthusiastic about our work and may even end up having to deal with a lot more domestic strife. Whoever it was who invented the word, he deserves to be praised, morning, noon and night.

What? You feel that I am, as usual, overstating the case? That no one word can be of such great importance? Let me ask you one question. How would YOU react if your boss said this to you?

"Guys! We need to find a way to diddle our customers into thinking that our new soap is better than any other soap in the market"

Adrenaline pumps up in your heart? Your mind is bright and sparking with ideas? You are willing to forego that cricket match and sit at your laptop working up a jazzy presentation? Fat chance. The only thing you are thinking of is about how to diddle your boss into thinking that you have done a great job, while you goof off and cheer Virat Kohli's batting.

AND, after a late night on the presentation (if your boss is too shrewd to be diddled), you hit home and tell your spouse, "We were working on selling our new soap." Your spouse is all sympathy and says, "Poor baby! You must be so tired." and kneads your shoulders? Fat Chance again! You will probably get a wrinkled nose and a sarcastic, "Yeah! I suppose that explains that scent which I smell all over you." AND a cold shoulder at night.

Now, just consider

"Guys! We need to put in place a marketing strategy for our new soap."

There! Does not the blood sing in your veins at the thought of doing important things? Does not your mind rev up to maximum rpms at the thought of shaping the future of your company? Does not Virat Kohli's batting pale in comparison with the idea of getting applauded for your important contribution to your company's strategies? Absolutely!

And, when you hit home and say, "Sorry honey! That strategy meeting took too long", do you get the Ah-my-conquering-hero look? The poor-chap-holding-up-the-company-all-by-himself treatment? The coffee, the special dinner and the rest of the works? You bet! (Well! All THAT is assuming it is early days in the marital arena! By the time she has heard 'strategy meeting' from you for the zillionth time, it will be "Ho! Hum! Dinner is in the fridge". IF you are lucky, that is.)

Seminal importance, that is the phrase I was looking for. This word is really of seminal importance.

The problem with management is that, by and large, we have to make do with English. The doctors and even the economists are much better off. THEIR jargon gets picked from Latin and, thus, not very susceptible to be hijacked by the hoi polloi. The management guys, though, constantly keep finding their best jargon hijacked. Like for example

"It's been a while since we partied."

"So, what's the strategy?"

Yeah! Right! Like they had to produce a 500 page project report, replete with financial analysis and PERT/CPM charts to get their father to fund the party for them!

Hmmm! Maybe the guys have invented something else to take the place of 'strategy'. One has to somehow stay ahead of the crowd!

If you guys know the replacement word, please inform me in the comments. I'd hate not to be taken for a management guy because of my ignorance of the appropriate jargon.

Words of Importance - Scenario

"We are planning to increase our production in anticipation of higher demand for our products."

"If people do not actually buy more, we may lose a lot of money. Our product is perishable and if we cannot sell it, we will have to junk it."

Those pearls of wisdom uttered in the second half were, obviously, mine. Needless to say, half the people did not even deign to listen and the other half sneered at what appeared to be a school-boy trying desperately to act like a manager. Very difficult to digest, since I was in my mid-thirties and could not exactly fit into my school uniform.

The thing is, I had no-one else to blame for it but myself. My parents and teachers too, maybe, since it was they who taught me that what was said was more important than the way it is said. But, then, if an education in IIM had not rubbed THAT piece of nonsense out of my head, how could I claim to have learned anything in IIM? So, it was only myself I could blame, after all.

You do not get the point? Well, let us rephrase that answer the management way and you will.

"If you consider the scenario where the sales rise only by 0%, the net profits will dip by 100% since our product is perishable and we cannot recover the variable costs."

There...you see! The moment managers hear the word 'scenario', they realize that what I am saying is a result of scientific analysis and not just hot air. (YOU consider the word 'scenario' IS hot air? Who asked you, anyway, we are talking of managers here) I have a sneaking suspicion that things like this happen at managers' houses.

Wife: It may rain today. Take an umbrella.

Husband: I don't think so. It has been cloudy the last two days but has not rained a drop.

Wife: Consider the scenario that it rains today. There is a 85% probability that you will get drenched and a 60% probability of your getting a cold.

Husband: Where is the umbrella? I can't take a chance.

Come to think of it, there is probably a great deal of marital discord in manager's houses merely because their spouses do not know the importance of the word 'scenario'. I mean 'Consider the scenario that your children may grow up rebellious. You need to go to that PTA meeting today."; 'Consider the scenario that I may blow up our retirement funds in shopping. You really need to come shopping with me." etc.etc. could well get results. But...I digress.

To get back to what I was saying, I truly deserved to be considered a school-kid playing at work, since I never really knew the right words to use. If only I had learned the seminal importance of the word 'scenario', for one, I might have been a wise and respected manager,scorching up the corporate ladder in unseemly haste.

It pays, of course, to elaborate on 'scenario'. I mean, it is hardly a help to just say, "In the scenario of low growth in sales, we will make losses" though it certainly is far better than saying "If sales do not grow, we make losses." You should never forget the fact that numbers, no matter which hat you picked them from, give a semblance of not only accuracy but also great diligence. So, learn to extend the 'scenario' thing by saying, "I think there is a 35% probability of sales remaining stagnant and, in that scenario, the top-line will remain the same. (Any idiot can say that, since if sales quantity is the same and price is the same, then the multiple of the two WILL be the same. BUT, still, it is more impressive to say it - it gives the impression of a dedicated employee who leaves nothing to chance, not even the possibility of mathematics deceiving you from time to time.) We would have incurred additional costs of about 20% of the top-line, due to the increased production and, since our bottom-line is just 10% of the top-line, we will make a 10% loss."

There, now, does that not sound more impressive, more...managerial? Yes, you said, in effect, the same thing - if you produce more and do not sell more, you make losses. BUT - if you speak the same way as you used to at school, how can one consider you a manager? Why did your parents pay those humongous sums of money to get you an MBA?

There is such a thing as going overboard with extending the 'scenario'. For example, you should not go on to say, "If that happens and we make losses, the CEO and CFO will give their coats to the Board of Directors to hold, while they grabbed you by the scruff of your necks and the seat of your pants, and chucked you out on the pavement." If you do extend things that far, you have veered off from scenario 'analysis' and gone on to wishful thinking. YOUR wishful thinking. If you forget yourself and go on like this, you may well find that this part of the scenario gets enacted - with YOU in the central role and YOUR nose rubbed on the pavement.

Ah! No! No! No! THAT's not what happened to me. THAT's not why I am retired. Really, believe me!

The BIG Picture

"I am afraid you are not seeing the big picture here. Your suggestion is all right from your standpoint but does not fit into the big picture."

There was a time in childhood when you graduated from seeing pictures and moved on to reading. THAT change, I thought, was permanent but was soon disabused of the notion once I joined office. Apparently, reading is an exercise that is enforced by the teaching profession and, the moment you got free of their hegemony, you reverted back to pictures. What else can explain the fact that you cannot explain that your profits have doubled, in words, but, the moment you put up a bar chart with one bar twice the size of the other, the bulbs in the heads of your top brass light up with realization as they exclaim, "Ah! The profits have doubled" with all the enthusiasm of a Buddha who has realized the path to Nirvana?

Be that as it may, I do not think that this was precisely what my boss meant when he said the first sentence to me - simply because what I HAD suggested was not a means to color the bar chart nor would it have lent itself to pictorial depiction. Of course, it is the bane of the boss that not everything can be readily put in as pictures in a slide presentation, though Power-point is probably working to solve that issue.

If my boss did not mean that the suggestion was worthless merely because it could not be put in a picture - BIG or otherwise - what exactly did he mean? Maybe what he meant was that in a Creation probably full of millions of universes; in a Universe full of millions of galaxies; in a galaxy full of millions of stars; in a planet full of millions of beings, a suggestion that would add a few lakhs to the bottom-line of a company was not really fitting? Unlikely, because this is the man who, just yesterday, harangued me for half an hour because my computations had a error of .01 in a figure, that we would have rounded off to the nearest rupee anyway, AND it would round off to the same amount with or without the error. That does not argue for a person seeing the insignificance of human endeavor in the big picture.

Maybe, he was taking the point of view that the ultimate purpose of being born human was to purify one's soul and all these attempts at corporate achievement were mere vanity? That one, too, did not seem to fit, considering that his secretary was still in tears after the shellacking she got over the fact that she had failed to print his designation in bold in a letter. 

Waiting for him to explain the big picture was a waste of time. I have invariably found that the boss who throws the big picture at you to trash your suggestion seldom bothers to elucidate exactly what it was and why your suggestion does not fit. The ones, who give reasons for why your suggestion does not fit, seldom invoke any picture - big or otherwise. Seemed to me that the usage of 'Big Picture' normally meant, "I am BIG (bigger than you at least). Better get THAT picture clear in your mind and behave accordingly". I worked with this as a first step approximation to the meaning of that phrase and it never let me down.

I came back home and my nephew had his complaints.

"Just because I have exams does not mean that I should not see TV at all."

"You need to see the big picture here"

"Uncle! I would love to. The problem is that my dad will just not turn in this piddly little 22" TV for something 40+ or 50+"

Now THAT was the sort of big picture that made sense to me!

Monkey see monkey do

(I am off on a wilderness trip from tomorrow and shall be back only on 18th. Please read this piece before you start your joyous dancing!)

I have never let the fact that I have not succeeded in doing something stop me from handing out advice about how to do it. In that, if in nothing else, I suppose I am in sync with the rest of humanity. (I am not? Well, then, one of us is certainly lying!) So, why should I let the fact, that I never managed to make my subordinates behave the way I would have liked them to, stop me from advising bosses on how to manage it?

You could well want your subordinates to stand at attention when you pass by them; to laugh at all your jokes as though they thought that the world lost the best stand-up comedian ever when you chose to become a manager; to listen respectfully when you spout your (interminable?) pearls of wisdom; and to say "How high?" when you ask them to jump. (Well! That last may be a bit too much to seek. They may only jump on your supine body with spiked boots even if they do not go so far as to shop for the sharpest spikes in order to do so)

As I was saying you may want all that but it is not possible to tell them so, is it? (You think it IS possible? Wake up - this is not the time for Mungerilal ke haseen sapne OR, in western terms, this is not the time for pipe dreams. Try it and you will finally learn what a horse's laugh means.) So, how then do you get them to do it if you cannot even tell them to do it?

I have one simple mantra for you - Monkey see, monkey do! You act with your bosses in the manner in which you want your subordinates to act with you. When your boss calls you for a meeting, you put on your utmost serious expression and walk in with deferential alacrity. When you convey to your subordinates what he said you say it with all the devoted respect with which Arjuna would have talked of Krishna telling him the Bhagavd Gita. In short, you behave as though, if your boss has not actually been deified, it is because there has been some serious oversight in Heaven in the matter of promotions.

Actually, you may find that this is not foolproof but it does work. I mean all your subordinates may not pick up those cues and act with you the way you act with your boss but most will to a greater or lesser degree. To be sure, acting and speaking of your boss as the world's greatest fool works far better on the 'Monkey see Monkey do' principle. Your subordinates take to acting with you the same way with greater ease. But, even the other way round, the principle does work with most people.

There are limits though. If you get a phone call from your boss; shoot up to attention barking your knee on the table and upsetting your tea in the process; slam one hand on your forehead and clutch the phone to the ear as though you were trying to glue it in permanently; and utter staccato bursts of "Sir! Yes Sir! At Once Sir!", I am afraid that the principle may not quite work the way you may want it to. Your subordinates are more likely to curl up in fetal positions; hold their bellies with both hands and rock on the floor; open their mouths wide as though they wanted you to look at their tonsils; and utter staccato bursts of laughter. Like the Buddha said, avoid excesses. Moderation is the key.

To be sure, this is only for bosses whose bosses are really their bosses. If your boss is Mukesh Ambani's offspring, say, then it is obvious that you will be deferential with him no matter how cavalier he is with his boss. In fact it is likely that his boss would be deferential to him as well. So, this advice is meant only for those in the unfortunate position of really being their boss' subordinates.

It strikes me that this post may be read by some subordinates for cues about understanding how their bosses may prefer them to act. I daresay you may be safe enough to be deferential to him if he is deferential to his bosses. But if he is not, please do not think that he also likes you being rude to him. After all, not every boss has had the benefit of my advice and the poor chap may not understand that "Monkey see, Monkey do" is the best way to communicate the behavior he expects of his subordinates.

How successful was I in applying my own principle? Ah! You did not read the opening paragraph with attention. I can forgive that but not the fact that you have not even heard of the saying "Those who can do; those who cannot teach!" It may not be true of most people in the teaching profession but is most certainly true of me!

On Presentations

A presentation is something that is neither blessed to give nor to receive. Maybe that is just me because I am the chap who misplaces his tongue and can only make gurgling noises every time I get up on stage and loses his consciousness every time I sit in front of it. Going by the popularity of Presentations I must be in a minority (of one, perhaps!)

Hey! Now! Wait a minute! What are you thinking of? This is not the twentieth ugly painting or the eighty-fifth bouquet that you get on the day of your wedding that I am talking about, you know – those are presents and anyone who mistakes this one for that one must really hate presents or, maybe again that is just me.

Things were not bad too far back when these abominations were being made on thin films of plastic – apparently you only got a shellacking for a botched job but you really did not have to redo it due to paucity of time. Bill Gates messed it up for all of us with his noseyparker ways – I mean, who was really begging him to go and create that abomination – Power point? Now PPTs are all the rage and if the combined curses of all those who actually had to work on it really took effect, there would be a new version of Hell created especially to cater to the just desserts of Mr. Gates.

Thankfully, I did not suffer the misfortune of having to work on it because of my handwriting. What had my hand-writing got to do with it? You see, I started corporate life in the era of the so-called transparencies and presentations were hand-written on them with marker pens. Now, blessed with a hand-writing which even God would have needed a Rosetta stone to decipher, I was the last choice for making those presentations. When Mr. Gates popped in with his Power point, it did not strike my bosses – unlike you – that my handwriting had been rendered irrelevant to the decision and, thus, I escaped unscathed.

That meant that I was in the wonderful position of neither having to make a Presentation nor to give it and could truly enjoy the process of a Presentation being reviewed and modified. Ah! For an observer, that is truly fun.

CEO: Let us get on with the review of the PPT of our Annual Budget.

My Boss: Yes, Sir!

(First slide with the mandatory Company logo, second slide proudly proclaiming “Annual Budget….” go by unscathed. Third slide on production performance shows up)

CTO : I don’t think that this pie-chart looks great. Why don’t you shift to a bar-graph.

My Boss: Sir! A bar graph shows up the decline in production in three of our five units.

CTO : Don’t argue on irrelevancies. I think this pie-chart looks ugly. A bar chart will give a more pleasing effect.

CFO : (trying to support his section) Maybe you should change those colors on the pie-chart. For example, that purple there can be changed to sky-blue and…

CEO: I think a bar-chart is best. (trying to keep the CFO happy) Yes! You can dispense with the purple and use a sky-blue. Also, change the font to Arial. Now next slide.

And on and on and on! For three hours, it is great fun to see grown-ups wrangling about shapes, colors and fonts of texts till you are completely convinced that the actual facts and figures presented in the slides are the least relevant things in the whole PPT. The only time I actually regret having made a premature exit from the corporate world is when I think of all the fun I could have had out of the background image selection from the vast resources of the Internet.

By now, you may possibly have got the erroneous impression that making a PPT is dead easy. All that you need to do is to think of your prospective audience as a group of children playing with crayons and it is a piece of cake? You know scant little about children and how fickle their likes are.

The next time you bring in the PPT for a review, the CTO finds that pie-charts look better after all, Orange has acquired appeal in excess of the sky-blue and Calibri is the font of the millennium. Back to the drawing board, guys, and drown your sorrows by inventing a new curse for Mr.Gates!

What do you mean that, as the audience, you are not a child playing with crayons? If not, why do you have your eyes glued on the corporate equivalent of the idiot box instead of paying attention to that inviting snacks tray in front of you?

If you liked this you may like to check out the index of other posts of this genre or read a selection of similar posts.

Pre-placement Talks

It seems to me that premier educational institutions of the country form great grounds for fiction-writing, if nothing else (and most may say ‘but nothing else’ but we are not concerned with their prejudices here). I see no reason why they should not also contribute to some smiles every now and then.

Having revealed – and reveled – in the revelation (Ah! I knew I would get a hang of alliteration some day) that I graced the portals of IIM-Bangalore (a fact that IIMB would have been happy to bury in the depths of Tartarus if it could have had its way), I must present one of the most entertaining episodes that I ever enjoyed there – the Pre-placement talks. For those who are happily ignorant of what these are, I must dispel their happiness now – these are the talks that companies give to interested prospective employees from that institution to interest them in applying for jobs with them.

Depending upon the state of mind with which the companies approach the prospective candidates, they may be classified into four broad types – each of which have a specific approach to what they say in the pre-placement talk.

The You-are-lucky-that-we-are-here type:

“We are looking for confident and articulate people

(That needed saying since IIMs specialize in selecting nervous, silent shy violets)

with a good grasp of the fundamentals of their area

(Of course normally companies prefer people whose knowledge of fundamentals is slippery as an eel, so they needed to mention that they were more demanding)

willing to put in the necessary effort and take up responsibility proactively

(Yes! Yes! Get on with it guys! I am sure that you are not alone in not liking lazy and irresponsible people like me)

We are looking for go-getters and people who make things happen.

(Hmm! Go get what? Make what things happen? Would making a fire happen in the canteen or making the water-cooler go kaput count?)

For the right candidate with the right attitude the sky is the limit

(Does it mean “We have a nice suite of offices in a High rise building conveniently located close to the terrace(and the sky, of course) from where you can take a swan-dive into eternity when the latest derivatives product you engineered brings down half the world’s economy”?)

The underlying message here is, “We are not here to market ourselves. You guys need to market yourselves to us failing which we will go over to Harvard or Stanford and let the students there peddle their wares to us”.

The We-are-both-lucky-that-we-are-here type:

“We are sure our company needs no introduction to you. We are the leading blah-blah-blah

(The second lot, of course! The first lot is so sure that they do not even bother to talk about their company)

We are looking for competent people who can fit in with our organizational culture

(Now what is organizational culture? Folk dances on Founder’s day and Rangoli in the reception? Not exactly! All it means is that they prefer people not to rock the boat)

We are a strongly process-driven company with compensations ranking with the best in the business

(Ah! So no brash young MBA getting catapulted to Vice-President overnight – Dick Whittingtonish ambitions to be whittled down? And no eye-popping headline-making pay packages)

We try to maximize job satisfaction for all our employees. We are sure that those of you lucky enough to join us will enjoy your tenure with us.

(Maximize job satisfaction to all employees? Sort of sounds like the father-son-donkey conundrum – trying to satisfy everyone!)

The underlying message here is “If you want a decent job with prospects and if you suit us, we will have you. You may find other suitable jobs but so can we find other suitable candidates”

The We-are-lucky-that-you-are-here type:

“We are a company that offers great prospects for stellar growth for the right candidate.

(Hmm! Long on prospects! Short on cash! More stock options than cash-in-hand)

We need people who have the ability to take risks, are decisive and can grow into leadership positions soon.

(Well! If someone does join them, they need to be risk-takers so that is one criterion taken care of! And if you cannot pay enough to hire leaders from outside, what choice do you have anyway but to grow your hothouse plants fast?)

The right candidate will find an exciting career with a spectacular rise in career unmatched by any other company.

(Of course! Living on the edge of disaster can be very exciting. If the company succeeds, then the rise will indeed be spectacular and the chap can boast about taking calculated risks. If it fails and the chap stays on too long, others will talk of him on the lines of ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’)

The underlying message here is, “Wow! There are actually a few people here to listen to us! Maybe we will find a competent guy or two with enough risk-taking ability to take a chance with a newbie company but not enough to start one of his own”

The We-are-both-unlucky-that-we-are-here type:

“We are a 50-year old company manufacturing blah-blah-blah

(Hmm! So ‘we got along very well without you MBAs for this long. God (alias the new broom CMD) knows why we are here and only you guys know why you are here)

Our payscales and allowances are comparable to the industry standards

(That means not equal to but a measurable fraction of the industry standards!)

We have 10 vacancies in finance and six in marketing

(If ten of your finance guys and six of your marketing guys apply, we shall perforce have to select them. God help their bosses! They will have to put up with all your nonsense of ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’ and all such new-fangled notions which we have gotten along fine without for this long)

We have a standard policy for promotions though we do have a special fast-track for deserving candidates

(You will be promoted only when it is due and there is a vacancy. We shall fast-track all means to ensure that there are no deserving candidates)

The underlying message here is, “We rue the day that this new CMD took over and pushed all sorts of new-fangled notions. If you choose to join us it will be you who will be ruing this day for as long as you are with us”

That, I think, should have been illuminating enough for you to read the company from their pre-placement talks. After all, all of you are confident, articulate people with a good grasp of the fundamentals of your area and are go-getters who can make things happen!

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On Busybodies - Part II

(How wonderful for me that I located my wall magazine posts of 1986-88 while at IIM just as my creative juices were running as dry as the Bangalore borewells! Here is one more of them. Considering that patience to read is a lot lesser than it used to be, I have split it in two)

Businessmen seem incapable of remaining content with what they have.They have to keep expanding their business – maybe to keep pace with their expanding waistlines. Initially, they used to select projects somewhat like this “Hey! I like the smell of cotton. Let us get into textiles.” For some quaint reason, this scientific approach to selecting projects did not find favor with the academicians. So, they developed something called project appraisal criteria. You know how it is. If you give a couple of academicians a line segment AB they can argue at length, in symposia and articles, about whether it starts at A and ends in B or the other way round. So, before you could say NPV (or IRR, for I am broadminded and do not differentiate between swear words), a plethora of models had arrived on the scene to constitute a new subject – Project Appraisal.

Let us turn our attention to the finance division of Cosa Nostra Inc. The GM of this division [Capo(loansharking)], when faced with a working capital problem calls on his subordinates and says, “Luigi! Carlos! We have a working capital problem! Expedite collections from our accounts receivables.” Luigi and Carlos go out and duly collect the money by the judicious expedient of breaking the arms of a few accounts receivables. Ergo, no working capital problem! (It is true that you cannot keep a good idea down. This one saw a recent revival here before the courts played spoilsport!)

If receivables are not sufficient, the Capo(Loansharking) sends them out to get a bank loan. Any bank is only too willing to give an indefinite zero interest term loan to Luigi and Carlos once they display their soft-wear and hardware – stocking masks and guns. Again the working capital problem disappears. You will agree that this is a simple straightforward way of doing business. Naturally, the busybodies are dead against it as they are against anything being simple. First they create something called legal systems to get in the way of honest businessmen. Having created the problem they then put forth the need to understand working capital management as well!

Someone must have thought that it would appease people sweltering in power cuts to know exactly why there are power cuts. Ergo – Energy management! In a bid to pacify irate pedestrians as well as grid-locked vehicle-users, they thought it best to educate them about how little the city designers cared for their needs. So, Transport management! Innumerable such instances can be quoted to prove the pernicious influence of busybodies.

To actually indulge in listing out the comprehensive impact of busybodies would be to reveal all the secrets of my path-breaking research project. That is something I am unwilling to do right away, so you will have to be satisfied with this much now. (Snoring does not help you. I will be done only when I am good and ready!) As of know I hope it has become amply clear that the major impact of Management education is on the management students’ salaries. (Only impact, did you say? I did not say that – not in so many words, anyway!)

With that illuminating thought, I bid you Au Revoir!

On Busybodies - Part I

(How wonderful for me that I located my wall magazine posts of 1986-88 while at IIM just as my creative juices were running as dry as the Bangalore borewells! Here is one more of them. Considering that patience to read is a lot lesser than it used to be, I have split it in two)

If this society has come to such a sad pass, it is entirely thanks to busybodies. What would a normal person do if an apple fell on his head? He would probably rub the sore spot, curse fluently and, then, munch the apple in peace. Did Newton do that? No! He had to think about why the apple fell down instead of floating about in the air and, thus, plague all future generations of school-children, who couldn’t care less about whether of not gravitation exists.

There are such busybodies in every field. Sane people used to toss a coin to decide who was going to pay for the next drink or whether the girl he was infatuated with loved him or not or whether to jump off the building or lie down on the railway tracks. Does this satisfy the busybodies? You are right, of course it does not. They keep tossing a coin till it wears out in order to prove that this coin would fall about fifty percent of the time with heads up and the other fifty percent with tails up. One only wishes that the coin they chose was the Sholay one, with heads on both sides! Had it been we would not have to understand the habits and lifestyle of this mysterious animal called probabilities!

If only the International symposium of unsuccessful artists had not met, life would have been much less miserable. Having learnt that they cannot go beyond drawing lines and curves they would probably have given up art as a bad job and gone into other lines (or curves) of work. Some may have spent a little time in writing articles in excruciating detail about how useless art was for the rest of humanity. It is, as usual, the busybodies who set out to prove that lines and curves were of seminal importance to humanity. (Ah! Well! All men know about the curves that are of seminal importance to them but they were not talking of that!). One chap suddenly pops up with a rush of excitement and says, “Eureka! Supply and Demand curves!” The others chorus back, ‘The what and what curves?” He sets about explaining himself and before you could say ‘uncle’ (or ‘aunt’! I do not want the women on my neck!), Economics was born. Thus it is you now have a set of people who make their living by telling you why things were bad yesterday or why their predictions were prevented from coming true by various external and extenuating circumstances (Maybe the ‘Foreign Hand’, which was such a favorite of our yester-year politicos, was borrowed from the economists!). They also have a penchant for ‘On the one hand and on the other hand’ and bemoan the lack of more hands so that they could create more options. Thank God, economists are not Ravans – we would be going dizzy listening to them juggling twenty possibilities!

Where was I? Ah! Busybodies! You know even Cocktail parties can prove to be really dangerous. Initially, it starts out with a few businessmen unwinding with a couple of drinks. One guy says languidly, “My Company made a whopping profit” with a smug smile on his face. Another businessman, not to be upstaged, says “Well! Mine made a bigger profit!” To which the first one says, “Says you!” in un-parliamentary and rude language.

The affected businessman could have merely spent the day in thinking of the-twenty-different-retorts-that-I-could-have-used-but-did-not. Instead, he calls up a subordinate and says, “Look! Figure out a way to prove that we made a better profit than that dirty so-and-so!” The subordinate gets to work and look at what you have – Accounting, especially the creative version, finance and associated pains-in-the-you-know-where. Now you know the supreme importance of accountancy. Without it what would happen to the bragging rights of the top management at cocktail parties – particularly the ones that go by the name of Board Meetings, Annual General Meetings and the like.

Let us have the rest of it later!