Tuesday, August 31, 2010

“Are you the PRINCIPAL here?”.....

As I walked in the office with my daughter on a lazy Saturday morning, the security at the gate greeted with a smart salute…..my daughter was suitably impressed ….. I’ll be nothing but a hypocrite if I don’t admit being pleased at my own importance in front of my daughter. I guess I had a little swagger as I walked to my cabin…… We were there just to pick up some stuff that I had left there…. As we walked back, she asked me, “Is this your place?” looking at my puzzled expression she asked, “Are you the PRINCIPAL of this whole place?” and in a flash I suddenly realized what she meant…”Hmmm, not exactly sweetheart”…. I only wished…. “Then how come the security saluted you? Our security salutes only the PRINCIPAL of the school”…… I did not know how to explain her and did not have the heart to tell the kid that amidst all the crisis I get into every day, I generally don’t have the swagger as I walk to my cabin!

For some strange reason, my mind went back a few years back while I was still in my first job…… one of our peons, Dattu, one day came to me and said,” I need a little favour”…. I suddenly became alert – what would it be…job for someone, money, extended leave….as if reading my mind he clarified “I don’t need anything for myself but we run a school in our community. There is a batch of 10th standard students that is passing out. It will be nice if you can address them”. Honestly, I felt a little overwhelmed……. Being in my twenties myself, I hardly had an exposure to such an honour. When I reached the venue, I saw Dattu beaming as the head of reception committee…… all decked up, wearing spotless white like a local politician and of course with the mandatory “Gandhi Cap”. We shook hands and proceeded to the venue…it went off ok (honestly don’t remember much of it!) … at the end, I had tea at Dattu’s place…. We discussed everything including politics……usual stuff when two colleagues meet on a social occasion… Indeed I had a nice time…… As I walked away I remember having a few thoughts ringing in my head…. Dattu and I hit off really well ….. I could very clearly see that he was a community leader – a fact I hardly knew ….. for Dattu’s kids who were introduced to me, I was a colleague from their father’s office and I must confess that I had graciously responded to a peon’s invitation…. My idea of my social responsibility blah….blah…..

As a man (or of course the woman for that matter) walks to the office from home, he walks out as the boss of the house….. runs the family. As he leaves for the office he is easily the most important person in the house …. There is an image of the parent that the kids build up in their mind …. Irrespective of what happens at the office….. As we take decisions that impact people or for matter as we speak to them would it not be great if we just graciously accept the fact that we are talking to someone’s HERO…… I guess conflict management experts soon will go out of the jobs!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Some Stuff about Ideas....

The man who had given me an appointment obviously relished his food more than talking to me….Of course he had asked me about food albeit with a clear expectation that I should say no! ….. After all these years, I somehow vividly remember the menu of his lunchbox but do not remember a single word that we talked….. a few friends in the college told me that I draw great caricatures (which was a fact) and had liked the way I sometimes sketched on my T-shirts…… “Why don’t you approach some agency who can market your offerings if you make the T-shirts”…… Without a thought, I went to meet someone in South Mumbai behind Sterling Cinema…… when I look back, I realize that the appointment given to me was more out of respect for my father than anything to do with the idea of 19-year old…. I have no grudges for the man who loved his food better than my idea……

After a few years in the job, when I was still in my twenties, I almost became obsessed with a desire to be an entrepreneur …… As I decided to take a plunge into entrepreneurship, I decided to stick to something closer to my background and started a recruitment consultancy predominantly focused on overseas placements …….. I can still smell my first new letterhead…… first small office…. I was on a high and back then in nineties earned my first million rupees …… not bad for a boy in late twenties in the year 1998 with just one PC as an investment…. I remember spending year and half happily only to get stuck completely on way ahead…… not because lack of work or capabilities but it was clearly a stage where I had to invest to expand…… was it worth was the question….. Having started business to earn more money….. I just felt limitations on my own knowledge and exposure – not so much of a problem by itself but I myself lacked clarity on big picture…… I took one of the most emotionally difficult decisions of my career….. to close down what I had started with so much of pride… It was a decision that baffled a few as I by then had started earning some decent money (I could buy a brand new car out of the money made from my enterprise – an ultimate middle class test of success!)…. The year was 1999 …. Demand for my sort of business was at peak …… I was fed up with it and decided to move on……

Life has been generous….. my career has always given me a diverse exposure….. I have always been associated with great people…… When I look back I guess I learnt a few things about ideas…..

1. Idea is not an impulse which you casually walk into ….. my heart really goes for the man who listened to me patiently over his lunch
2. It is good to dream higher money and the good things that come along with it but that perhaps is not adequate to be an idea…… An idea itself should be strong enough to be a guiding force ….. strong enough to keep the desire burning
3. An idea can be big only if it can be built upon by many …. Only if there are multitudes of stakeholder who see something in it for them …. All the big stories are built this way!
4. The beauty about an idea is you can understand all the theory about an idea but that doesn’t help to create one…..it has to strike your heart!

As I go along thankful to my exposures and learning that life has to offer, deep somewhere in my mind, I hope and pray that my big idea is somewhere out there and waiting to strike my heart! …………..



Thursday, August 12, 2010

Information can be liability

I had just moved into Sales from my HR profession and we were discussing one of the possible deals. As we sat around to discuss our proposed solution, my enthusiastic sales person poured out information on competition…. Who is our competitor, who is the person involved from their side, his background, competitor’s strategy, solution…. Being novice to the sales function I was impressed! Next few hours we dissected the information received and finally shut our mouths and laptops to go home quite late into night…… As I drove back in the quiet of the night, something was troubling me……While trying to catch up sleep on reaching home, I realized what was it….. Yes, we had a great in-depth discussion on competitor solution and strategy, but we were no nearer to our own solution…. Next day as we met and resumed our discussion I had a simple question, “What’s our game?” As we slugged it out, we repeatedly came back to competitor’s strengths and our relative problems ….. We took a long time and in the end I still felt something missing…… not a very great feeling when you go out to win a deal…..

…. A few months down the line we were on another one… this time I was little more confident to lead the sales effort from the front…. As we sat around looking at the Request For Proposal (RFQ), we realized that we did not even have a clue about 3 of the 8 services required. This time I had declared –Lets first get together what we have and what we know….. I’ll do something about the 3 service lines that we don’t know…… I remember we had a great time and when we were ready with what we knew, the effort looked pretty good …. Almost a feeling an artist striking a right symphony…… “so what’s the plan for the other 3 service lines?” Someone asked me..... “I’ll present something on that”….. knowing my technical competency, everyone was bewildered! “What do you mean?” “Have we tied up with some partners?”…. “No” ….. “then what?” “We’ll tell them that we do not know” …. “Are you mad??” “No, look at it this way, you guys have almost created an artwork in your areas, I don’t want to stick some patchwork on that”….. One good part about that team was we trusted each other completely ….. As we stood for the presentation, I told our future prospects “Gentlemen, We are going to present only 5 service lines because even the spelling of other 3 service lines we know from your Request For Proposal document” they chuckled and said “Go ahead guys” …… Our guys did a fantastic job as they came into their elements in their respective areas for the balance of the presentation….. As the long drawn process concluded, we finally bagged one of the biggest deals for the region …. Later on as I talked to that CIO at his office, he told me “Look, I know perhaps you guys are not biggest or the best but you were the only ones who were candid right from the word go. We were doing Offshore work for the first time and the most important parameter was we wanted to work with someone we could trust. After all we are not asking to develop rocket science!” I confess …. That it was not a planned strategy or something ….. neither did we win only because of honesty …. Our technical guys did an outstanding job in presenting the solution but what I guessed worked in the retrospect was follows:
1. We focused on what we knew and came with our own solution based on our own strength ….. most importantly we believed in what we said
2. Other competitors were so big in size that the gap was just scary …. Even if we had stood on our heads we wouldn’t have come even close to their areas of strengths
3. We trusted each other and had a secret pact of flying under the radar lest someone from within organization should get alarmed at the stupid things we were doing on a big deal…. Rather than attracting all help and information, we picked and chose what we wanted or rather what we could process!

I am neither an expert on Sales or Strategy (or actually on anything for that matter!!) but I strongly feel that there is merit in taking a look at the philosophy that equates information with power. I don’t claim to have all right answers but sometimes focusing too much on information available like a competitor’s information makes you more reactive. I have always preferred to take stock of my resources and play by my strengths …. Information can be intoxicating …. Overdose of it can be quite confusing if you cannot process it all or influence any change based on it.

It is better to stay focused on your objective and seek relevant information rather than being led by information. Information is key to all decisions but overdose of information can be a liability……..