The Futile Rant About Stress and Work-life Balance

Every Sunday newspaper supplement invariably carries an interview of some CEO or a leader with an opinion on work-life balance and how the same has become so vital in today's busy industrious metro 'something' lifestyles. 

Advice is freely available that ranges from ideas such as 'Ways of switching off from work', 'The power of saying no', 'Taking regular holiday breaks' to 'Finding specific time out for hobbies' and 'stress management'. 

The misanthropist in me gets amused. Work-life balance is not a verb or a task that's actionable. It's a state of mind. 

Any conscientious manager who has a sense of responsibility to achieve something for his employer (read the one who signs cheques that feeds your family), for his own comforts, for his family, his community - for the desire to make a difference to the society, and for all those who look up to him - how can work and life require a mentionable balancing act? 

For any well meaning person, work should be life and life should be work. 

While I do come across people who work strictly by the watch all their life, there is a certain breed of these people who can cause a traffic jam at the office exit gate at 17:29:55 hours if the official time is 0900 to 1730 hours. I wonder how can tasks-for-the-day suddenly be completed with such alarming precision. 

Ratan Tata during a Jaguar and Land Rover meeting in the UK expressed his disgust about the attitude of UK managers in the garb of work life balance and their intent to work by the watch. The itch to leave and switch off from work on Friday afternoon at 1500 hrs through Monday morning, almost everywhere westwards of India is surprising. 

If a senior manager was made the owner of his company (where he is employed) overnight, would he switch off or allow anyone to switch off or even fathom switching off for two and a half days? 

And then there are people who can plan their holidays months and sometimes years in advance. Again I wonder - how can there be a guarantee that the organisation wouldn't require you at a future moment or a project may not require your attention. How can one plan a committed holiday ahead of time? 

If you need to travel with your family you just plan and travel whenever you feel that you can be away from work. If there is a family compulsion just inform your team and leave without any question or doubt.

But if you don't NEED leave why do you want to be away from work - that used to be allegedly 'Worship' in our childhood books - just because you have a few leaves pending?! 

I am inspired by Netflix and the culture that company has managed to implement. Amongst many game changing initiatives, one amongst them is that there is no leave policy at all. And the study proved that liberty to take a need based leave actually improved the efficiency and profitability of Netflix. And employees were happier even though they were taking 30% lesser leaves.

'Act in Netflix's best interest' - That's it. Culture cannot be simpler. 

Stress is another topic of discussion thats commonplace these days. Everyone is seemingly stressed. Everyone is talking about stress management. So does that mean that life is giving you stress? But yes stress is a way of life - if stress is an issue at all. 

But why should your work, your family, your job, your children, your time commitments give you stress? You need to manage all this, smilingly - if you love all of the above. Anything that you don't love or don't respect will give you stress. 

....and if God wanted the need for human beings to switch off, he would have designed a switch in the body....

I believe, no balance or stress management is required for efficient managers. God gave you a body with a mind and a heart that never switches off. And if God wanted the need for human beings to switch off, he would have designed a switch in the body. 

If a person has the ability to think - how can a person switch off and what's the need to switch off. An average person sleeps for 8 hours , has an average 2-hour commute, works for 10 hours and does everything else in the remaining 4 hours including eating, socialising, family time etc. Being alive is a balance in itself. 

So what's the point......! 

We allow our mind and body to be shackled in the assumed burden of work and then seek balance. If you love what you do, why do u need unshackling. If you are responsible enough to hold the position that you are holding why do you need to switch off. 

Even though you are away from work, you are still thinking about it all the time. But can thinking kill anyone? After all, psychologists ask you to regularly play Sudoku to prevent Alzheimer's. Why can't people consider their work - a game of Sudoku? 

Work is life. Work is party.... 

Evolved beings are always partying and enjoying and working simultaneously. There can be no distinction between work, party and life. 

Clichedly enough, if you love what you do and consider your work as a hobby, you will think about that hobby all the time. For instance, I don't find it strange that sometimes in the middle of the night when I think of a new idea or thought, I instantly WhatsApp it to the leaders of my team so that that flash of idea is not lost and sparks imagination in my team who will translate the vision to organisational reality. In my opinion, no hour or place is odd. You could be having an absolutely unproductive day at work with only lacklustre ideas and yet while lying down at home think of an idea that may make a huge difference to the organisation. 

I think about my work all the time. I love golf, economics and stock markets and I think about them all the time as well. Thats how I find my balance. 

Anyone who is seeking work-life balance or feels that it can be sought or achieved won't ever find it and anyone who needs to switch off - isn't switched on enough and won't ever be either. 

L. P. Jacks beautifully cites, "The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both".

manu also writes on Huffington Post 

Martians, Modi and A Challenge for The PM

For the fear of being left behind I thought it imperative to opine on my Prime Minister for whom I voted and also wanted to write a non economic, easily comprehensible, data-free article that anyone can understand especially my international audience.

I haven’t been as amused lately as I am now, looking at the various marketing machineries for Modi who has been creating an aura of invincibility and humbling the achievements of Mangalyaan in comparison of what the Ironman has achieved in the last 1 year.

Let’s ignore the following few things in the credit of Modi and imagine that aliens from Mars are responsible for these and not the government:

• Rate of increase of farmer suicides
• Slowdown in industrial production
• Lack of tolerance towards the Christian and Muslim communities that has exacerbated in the last 1 year
• Real Interest rates still high because of a high spread retained by the banks and government having no real control over anything
• Unemployment rates going up by a few hundred basis points
• And not a single big infrastructure project having taken off the ground with hundreds of billions of dollars stuck in stalled projects

Now let’s safely assume that a few of these amazing global tailwinds were all because of Modi’s charm that he spread, during his global sojourns:

• Crude oil prices dropping from $110 to $55
• Inflation is well within the comfort levels of the Central Bank
• Dollar inflows into India that took our forex reserves to USD 350 Billion
• Easing of tensions with Iran thereby making the Middle East a bit more stable.

While the captains of the industry aren’t getting enough opportunity to praise Modi for what he has done for the country or its economy, since no one dare displease him, my report card for my Prime Minister is as follows.

I am a common man – very middle class –  simple things matter to me.

Each day, as I read about the plan for 100 smart cities in India, I only look towards the skies and musingly ask God – "Are you kidding me?!".

I keep looking for the ‘acchhe din’ or good days that were to come with Modi.

So much talk about a corruption free country. But just recently a policeman in Bangalore fined me in cash and even gave me a discount upon negotiation. Was fined because I went on the wrong side of the road. A pertinent point to be mentioned here - Bangalore is the only city where, on a few roads, one must drive on the right side instead of left and those new to the city are supposed to know this by birth!

It's all a big sham!

Governments have only marginal utility.

For a commoner, it's like selecting an outsourced security guard for your premises at minimum wages with minimum expectations and hoping that when one day the real need arises – this fellow isn’t sleeping.  Otherwise most of the time – he's just half dead - although he's still there.

While a lot of columnists and senior journalists are busy writing the government’s scorecard, discussing his performance in incomprehensible semantics, I want to give Modi a simple task –

India approximately has an area of 3.2 million sq kilometres. Mr. Modi, please pick up any 100 only hundred sq kilometre (.03%) area of your choice anywhere across the length or the breadth of this country and convert it into a place where:

1. An hour of rain doesn’t inundate the area and choke it
2. Where an innocent pedestrian can walk without tripping over
3. Where a person on a wheelchair can roam about without cursing every single day of his existence
4. Where a tourist can drag his suitcase without a hassle, between roads and footpaths
5. Where traffic lights work and roads have adequate lane markers
6. Where a pedestrian has more respect (like everywhere else in the world) than the speed defying typical Indian driver on wheels
7. Where a lady can walk without feeling uneasy or being visually stripped naked by passerbys
8. Where someone who must be punished, is punished without blaming the 10 million pending cases in Indian judicial system 

Just maintain it for one year for the world and your voter to see.

And then we will do the swachh bharat and talk of 100 smart cities – please.

In the meanwhile it would help to spend some time in your country rather than making innumerable  trips abroad unless you want to cover it all before the oil prices start going up.

You are a good man Mr. Modi – and I think you've got the vision right. But vision must be followed by strategy, which must be followed by execution and metrics – and my Report Card says – you still have a very very long way to go. In the reportcard, at best, you get a Minus B.

BlackBerry And The Art Of Becoming Irrelevant in the Business World

Around the time when Mark Zuckerberg was floating around in the dorms of Kirkland House figuring out Facebook (FB) or allegedly plagiarising the Winklevoss brothers' ideas, the market cap of BlackBerry (BB) was about US$64 billion.

Fast forward to 2015, the market cap of FB is at about US$225 billion while BB is less than US$6 billion.

There was a time when owning a BB was associated with busy high-level corporate executives who always felt the need to be connected and have uninterrupted access to their e-mails while on the move. The BB Messenger also known as BBM -- an Internet-based instant messenger -- was a really clever innovation, a sort of wonder that allowed people to remain connected without paying exorbitant prices on GSM texts.

The BB was seen as a well-guarded bastion when it came to security. The best of the hackers around the world could not break the encryption codes of BB. Some pockets of US government including the White House still completely rely on BB since there isn't a platform as secure as this. BB owns some 44,000 patents that form the bedrock of its intellectual property.

But when Android was taking over and becoming a preferred platform for mobile software, BB couldn't see the train coming head on and made three fundamental mistakes that have rendered it irrelevant forever.

These mistakes are similar to those that many companies make in today's business scenario.

1. Overconfidence in one's ideas and existing business models

The clichéd saying "change is the biggest constant" is more conversational than truly understood by the majority. Polaroid, Kodak, Xerox have all become irrelevant and BB had ample opportunity and intellectual capital to correct its course at the right time. But hubris isn't only personal and human, it's organisational as well. And hubris can do you in. Resistance to change and resistance to new ideas and new paradigms can be suicidal.

BB was an amazingly evolved tech company and was at the zenith of its popularity. But its pride and its belief in its supremacy didn't allow it to evolve and open the platform for creation of apps and allow developers to use that platform for creativity; Google's Android did. When BB's market cap was about US$64 billion, Google's was about US$35 billion USD

On most occasions I disagree with Michael Porter but here I vehemently agree. BB had created an amazing barrier to new entrant and it just scuttled it away.

2. Delay to act in the face of an approaching train

Imagine you get stuck on the tracks of an oncoming train while you are with a group of people who are only going to follow you and listen to you (read CEO). You are supposed to shout at the top of your

voice and get your followers (team members) out of harm's way. And yes you have to

scream on the top of your voice. You cannot say,Excuse me - there appears to be a moving object that vaguely looks like a speeding train and if I ain't incorrect it is seemingly moving in our direction and for our safety, we must just step aside, please. What you need to say is Get the *&^% out of the way.

Strategy strategy and (oh my God!) strategy. This word has consumed more than 80% of the educated world especially the folks from business schools. And there is less action and more strategy in the corporate world today. Parkinson's Law.

Someone within BB needed to see the onslaught of WhatsApp. By the time BB figured out that their BBM messenger had to be on an open platform, and WhatsApp had to be BB compatible - it was too late. WhatsApp spread like an unstoppable virus and before you could say Jack Robinson, WhatsApp was a 300 million strong community. Jan Koum started WhatsApp as a small initiative to circumvent the inflated GSM texting costs and that became the nemesis for BB.

3. Failing to protect the consumer's interest / pocket

I love the phrase ceteris paribus. All other things remaining constant, the cost to the consumer must be the lowest in an efficient market. You cannot have a product that's pricey, not-so-good looking, expensive to use and still running on technology that's at the end of its product lifecycle.

BB hasn't thought of introducing a dual SIM mobile phone till date. In fact, until they launched their OS10 about 24 months ago, consumers had to subscribe to a BB plan with a fixed minimum monthly cost of Rs 300 (approx US$5) in a country where average revenue per user (ARPU) is Rs 95 or about US$1.5. Frequent travellers, price-conscious consumers figured out the virtues of carrying two SIM cards for various purposes and taking full advantage of various talk-time plans. Samsung with its duos range at the right time of "need lifecycle" launched dual SIM phones and changed the game forever. Almost all manufacturers now make dual SIM phones but Samsung is far, far ahead of the curve and BB still hasn't figured it out.

BB wrote its own obituary way too soon due to inaction or absence of speedy action at the right time.

Don't let that happen to your company.

Manu also writes in Huffington Post

License to Corruption

Research and data can throw rather interesting theories and a recent one by Uma Karmakar, a Harvard Professor and Bryan Bollinger of Fuqua threw up an interesting argument.

Their research drew a correlation that shoppers who brought their own bags to recycle would tend to buy more organic versions of food. One green action led to another. But the same people were most likely to buy ice cream, chips candy bars and cookies. These shoppers weren’t replacing green items with junk. They were just adding junk to the cart.

Uma’s research says:

You do good and you give yourself a cookie

If I behave well in one situation, I give myself license to misbehave in another.

I get a diet coke – I get myself a hamburger.

If I have carried my recyclable bag, I have helped the environment – so I have earned the icecream.

In consumer psychology ‘licensing is the key’

License to indulge or licence to be corrupt

Corrupt?

Corruption isn’t only in financial parlance. Corruption is a simple word that means questionable intent wherein individuals don’t do what they are supposed to do or they do what they aren’t supposed to do.

‘Corruption in my most simplified connotation is diluted intent’

A simplified parallel can be drawn between the research above and over zealous and tom tomming ceos and executives in positions of authority and also between politicians who pretend to be paragons of virtue. And if you look around you there will be ample to locate.

People who are loud and brash and are over confident of their performance and cannot stop tom tomming are the people that boards and top leaders must watch out for. As corporations grow, more than often we would come across executives who are always on the right side of everything, who would always be too good to be true, whose integrity would always be seemingly unquestionable, who would always get loud in tricky situations to create a facade of invincibility. These could be the very people who would have hidden traits of Jeffery Skilling of Enron, Martha Stewart or Carly Fiorina who would put their businesses and its reputation in harm’s way.

Politicians aren’t terribly different either. The most corrupt politicians are the ones who indulge maximum in public service. India has a huge concept of farm and gas subsidies paid by the combination of fiscal deficit and tax payers money. But a fraction reaches the end user and yet the powers that be seldom show a real intent to weed out this structural flaw in public distribution because this money in some form or the other finds its way back into the politicians personal coffer.

The more money is allocated for infrastructure, the more we hear of people vanishing in open gutters during rains in India, the farmer suicides is now a global debate and yet no serious intent has been shown by the polity - for how else, but through corruption, would the elections be financed in India which is really the root cause and forms the bedrock of all corruption.

Bertrand Russel rightly quipped – Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts.

And next time be on a watch when someone tries to take the recycling of grocery bags to a level of obsession or talks too loud about ones virtues of honesty and righteousness.

Is Life and Commerce - a Casino?

GMAT is a popular exam that most MBA aspirants appear for. And the sample tests available online throw up a very interesting food for thought. If one is just hovering around being an average or just

above average (Joe Bloggs) in academics he/she would score about 550-570 out of a total of 800 ie 65 percentile (approx) if that person were to mark the entire exam randomly as per ones gut, the score would still be still 550-570

This i figured out when i was preparing for my GMAT in 2007. The trick is to achieve 99 percentile.

The business world

MBA to me is seemingly the most irrelevant education one can ever acquire because it makes you aware of your surroundings a bit more than everyone else. The case studies based on thousands of successes and failures over the last 100 years makes you terribly aware of too many things and you lose your chance to take that risk. Because we fail to forget that its an efficient marketplace.

The more i deal with educated and allegedly experienced professionals the more sceptical i get. Analysis analysis and more analysis. The sum total of all monetary risk is as follows. Every fund every source of money could be parked in AAA rated securities (absolute safety), and as businessmen start taking risks and start leveraging the base equity, the returns start rising. (Risk reward ratio – directly proportional)

In India you can easily park money at 11-12% in almost AAA rated securities or bonds and Warren Buffet’s life performance is about 21% CAGR (and i consider him the epitome of financial performance), so put it simply - the entire economic activity on this planet, the entire analysis, the entire risk reward, the entire funding of start-ups, etc etc is to inch from 12 % CAGR to 21% CAGR.

And yet

Statistically only 8-10% companies have survived beyond 33 years of existence

Only 8-10% of start-ups ever make any money

Only 8-10% of return is guaranteed over a long period of time

And in a casino if one analyses the top 4 games that are played 95% of the time, you have a fairly good 8% chance of winning.

If Ambani (india’s leading businessman) had analysed his pro and cons even an iota more, his children would still be filling fuel in the petrol bunks of Yemen. Thank Goodness he didn’t know what IRR was.

If Bill Gates or Jobs had calculated their IRR on their investment what would they be doing today is anyone’s guess.

Life is about the leap of faith and an uncanny and a very scarce ability to go with ones gut to invest/start/embark on the journies of life. After all you only have an 8 % chance over short to medium term and we are all dead in the long term.

The business of life

Life sucks – I know a dear friend who courted for 9 yrs before getting married and the marriage lasted just a little over nine months. And there are people who didn’t see their potential spouses, went thru an arranged married ( 2/3^rd s of the world doesn’t even know what an arranged marriage is) and they have been married for ages some for decades and many I know for over half a century.

Carrying your heart on your sleeve is the best virtue a human being can have. You win some. You lose some. Whether its life, love, casino or business.

Go by your gut and pursue your dreams. If you win you become rich, if you lose you become wiser.

There is no failure in life – only feedback

And life is just one big casino.

The Hero who moved me

More than often our lives get crowded by motivations that we draw from the super achievers, the great scientists, the billionaires, the inventors, the business leaders who have made an amazing difference to the planet and to the mankind. Mine does too.

But a few days back my wife and I visited Mallaya Hospital Bangalore, for a general health checkup and while waiting for my reports that were seemingly taking an infinite time I was just observing the Bangalore life and traffic go by when i heard an ambulance siren at a distance and this security guard, approx 40 yrs of age wearing the cleanest and most well ironed uniform, emerged from somewhere and immediately, with the agility of a soccer player, readied a wheelchair and a stretcher and an oxygen cylinder.

Within this time an auto driver (tuk tuk) screeched and brought in a very sick woman and this guard pulled the wheelchair got this lady into it and shouted at 2 nurses to whisk away this lady into the hospital’s care.

The ambulance arrived in the meanwhile and this man was ready to open the door and get the patient in emergency out of the ambulance and pushed the stretcher up the ramp to handover to the nurses who were just emerging from the hospital.

All this happened within a 2 min time frame and over the next 15 minutes that i observed this man tirelessly and relentlessly made a difference to the life of every single person who crossed or arrived at the hospital porch spread over no more than 80 sq mts. To a few passerbys he simply enquired about the health of their near and dear ones. I just assumed that this must be the guards first day at a new job/assignment.

I collected my reports and left for the day but somewhere the memory of my 20 mins there lingered on and i asked my chauffeur to go by the hospital next day and stopped my car 50 mts short of the porch and again saw this man, the security guard, at it with same enthusiasm, same speed and same smile.

Couldnt resist the temptation to ask this man what his exact job is – and he said he is ideally supposed to just stand there to ensure a simple law and order at the hospital entrance. I felt a sense of pride shaking hands with K.M. Nathan and felt his infectious energy and enthusiasm. He told me that he has been doing this right here at this spot the same thing for 22 years. And he is 50 now. I have not been so moved by anyones commitment ever in my life. Since 22 years Nathan was performing at 200% of his efficiency, every single day, as if that was the first day of his job.

In an era where billions of dollars are being spent to do research on how to break mission fatigue (repetitive job syndrome) and on office ergonomics where legal rights of employees make them sue their employers just if the shape of the chair isn’t correct, Nathan is a definite outlier and a fine example of what commitment means.

Commitment is really the most important dynamic of strategy and success. A committed team that collectively moves towards common organisational goals can make any company or a project successful. It cannot be taught in business schools, it cannot be developed externally.

The trick is to find Nathans in your midst and nurture them. Nathan is made of an element that doesn’t exist in the corporate world anymore. More than often our myopic corporate visions fail to recognise the Nathans around us. Mallaya hospital did and maybe Nathan is their best brand ambassador.

You are my hero Nathan and you have taught me a new connotation of commitment. 

How Boards expedite the demise of some of the best Companies

We were in absolute-absolute awe of TESCO during my days in the UK, during the hey days of TESCO. The retailer had established itself as the most efficient company, churning out QOQ of phenomenal growth, managing its working capital cycle so beautifully that 3 months of working capital cash (zero debtors and 3 months creditors) allowed it to become the most wealthy real estate company as well. Sir Terry Leahy was regarded as a business icon par excellence and no business management class / case study would go by without the mention of TESCO, its success, its strategy, its leadership and its growth. The customer reward program “clubcard” has been revered as one of the most successful reward/research programs in global retail.

Established in 1977 it spewed a whopping net profit of 3.8 billion in 2011 and attained a market cap of some 100 billion Pounds at its peak.

Circa 2014 overstating of profits, accounting scandal, CEO resigns, Market Cap eroded by 70% and the stakeholders – vendors, employees and most importantly customers lose confidence in one of the best and most talked about companies in British history.

These stories and case studies provide an immense opportunity for CEOs and the Boards to analyse in depth the real causal factors of such mistakes/fiascos and learn fast. And i have come to believe that a greater opportunity lies in failures, bad bosses, bad companies, frauds around oneself as that teaches you what not to do and what not to be. Because the world is full of advisors and teachers who tell you what to do – but not ‘what not to do’.

In the era of ever increasing hierarchies and over paid board members with chip on each of their shoulders, it becomes a compulsion on each and everyone to allegedly perform, review and justify one’s presence in that chain –

And thats where the problem starts. Lets reconstruct what might have actually happened at Tesco.

1    A mom and pop store tries to make it big by focussing on its customer, employees and concentrating on providing value while cutting costs and aiming for superior sales and a respectable growth. (by and large this is the crux of millions of mission and vision statements round the world).

The CEO, a maverick and a confident fellow expands the chain over the next 2 decades to a stratospheric level and achieves some amazing benchmarks in the history of business growth and performance.

After a few good consistent quarters and a few consistent years, the board expands and so do reviewers of the business, each one of them having some success in their pocket in some domain but little or no expertise in retail but having an unbelievable ability and capacity to opine and advise the CEO

From an annual review format, and a distant oversight on the business the board now wants a quarterly review of sales, costs and profitability.

The operational team expands and a reporting division is set up at TESCO to sate the board’s appetite for reams and reams of numbers, data, analysis.

The CEO begins to get a bit edgy as some of his time is now spent in ensuring timely quarterly reporting, new formats of reporting, each of these formats of reporting arising out of each of the reviewers imagination/past-experience and his belief in the effectiveness of these formats.

CEO (ambitious, growth hungry – both personal and organisational, conscientious and diligent) now begins to work harder and smarter than ever before and maintains the pace of growth, trying to outbeat the reasonable industry parameters and ensuring that that the board is happy with reporting and growth and numbers etc.

The board begins to feel that every target, every goalpost that the CEO had been given was seemingly easily achieved, every retail industry benchmark was easily surpassed – so perhaps the CEO needs to run even faster, better and more efficiently and the CEO could do something more and something better than what he has done all this while.

The board members analyse the data even more and come to a conclusion that retail industry needs a greater scrutiny and the company needs to move from a quarterly reporting and review to a monthly review.

CEO by now a bit bewildered and stretched, begins to wonder where to get the next alpha in growth because by now he is concentrating less on the till management, external customer’s sensitivities, he has lesser time for his vendors, he has lesser time for his employees (the greatest asset) and by the time one monthly reporting gets over only to be told by the board that the business could have performed better -  it is time for the next monthly review.

Now the board has become the most important customer, the internal customer and the poor CEO is spending his max time on the internal customer and least on the external. The poor fellow – TESCO’s customer who isn’t now getting the best bang for his buck on the till, who feels that ASDA is doing a better job with customers, who feels that TESCO is losing the grip on the most important stakeholder – its paying customer.

The numbers begin to wane and market metrics begin to flounder and CEO is working the hardest than ever before because he has just been advised by the board that he needs to have a better grip on his numbers and he isn’t reviewing his business closely enough and the board passes a resolution for a weekly review after relying upon a battery of very smart analysts who are now asking questions such as –

Why is Friday sale less than Saturday because UK has historically been a Friday shoppers market.
What marketing initiatives have been implemented between 1600 hrs and 1800 hrs on Friday to ensure that sales are at their expected highest.
Why cant we delay the poor dairy farmers payments from 30 days to 60 days, squeeze the vendor a bit more and improve our working capital cycle.
Why, why, why not???

By now the CEO and the CFO are doing everything else but running the simple grocery chain and looking after their external cash paying customer.

Having lost his own ability and confidence to run his business that he once ran like the king of the jungle the CEO is only making reports, doing number crunching and absorbing advice and suggestions from the all powerful board who are now behaving like  the Sam Waltons of the world.

The CEO and CFO are now on the edge because while they have used their entire competence to do the best that they can possibly do, they can still perform better – as per the board, they aren’t doing enough – as per the board, they are just not analysing the numbers enough – as per the board.

Finally the reporting format of every month every quarter every week becomes so important to pass by that the hapless duo of CEO and CFO having exhausted every arrow in their quiver decide that after all ‘we do get consistent customers’ week on week and month on month and they decide to account future anticipated sales (by a small sum of a quarter of a billion Pounds) in this reporting period (because it has become so bloody important to make the numbers look good for this report – as if this was the last)  and reduce the payables to show higher periodic profits. After all this is the only way that the board will be happy and the share price will reflect the boards effectiveness.

This isn’t only the TESCO story. Every single company that’s over reviewed and over scrutinised is going thru some similar point in its lifecycle and will meet the same fate. And collectively everyone will work and unite to find a fall guy and blame it all on him.

-Subprime crisis of 2008 was a result of greedy executives wanting to perform even better to earn even better bonuses and underwriting junk paper.

-Enron was a result of greed where weather was being bet upon and derivative trades were being exchanged on prediction of weather.

Warren buffet had invested in TESCO and called it his biggest mistake in life (did he not know the TESCO board well enough?)

Buffet meets his CEOs only once a year and sets reasonable and achievable expectations and creates an environment for them to perform.

He allows his rockstars (CEOs) to make mistakes and learn and believes in them as long as he believes that their intentions are correct.

And above all Buffet believes that businesses aren’t built over weeks and quarters but over a lifetime.

No one has had the courage till date to follow his management style and understandably no one on this planet has been able to replicate his success.

Moral:

The world can only grow as much and so can the size of the global economy - only the capitalists will beat the world growth (Thomas Pikkety)

Businesses will go thru spurts and troughs of their lifecycles. Do not view them WoW (week on week), MoM (month on month), QoQ (quarter on quarter)

Build brands that make a difference and last a lifetime. Stop Boards from over scrutiny and from orchestrating the corporation’s demise.

Allow effective CEO s to operate businesses as if it were their own. Dont kill them with specious recommendations and hollow experiences from unrelated industries.

And above all for the success and peace of the planet and suatainable profit of the corporations.........

‘Search for the intrinsically motivated purpose of life rather than extrinsically motivated mindless pursuit of profit’

The great Indian election tamasha and the 6 lessons for the CEOs in corporate world

The recent Indian elections have been interesting for more than a few reasons and the resounding victory with which the ‘allegedly fundamentalist and polarising’ BJP came to power has some deep rooted lessons for the senior management in the corporate world. 10 years was a real long time for ‘the messiah of youth’ Rahul to grab this opportunity and redeem the vouchers of confidence that were secured with the grandson of Nehru. But alas this opportunity was skittled away with surgical precision by the Congress.

On the contrary Modi’s BJP showcased the trophies of growth in Gujarat in the successive years of his Chief-Minister-ship, whether utilizing the various propaganda vehicles including smart mobilization of social media and digital technology or conventional ‘marketing’ through unit offices, and made it unavoidably visible for the masses, the brightness of all his achievements in governance and economic growth, often drawing into oblivion his alleged hands in the communal violence that Gujarat became notorious for….

2004 - At the hilt of India Shining and a great progress in preceding years by BJP, it unexpectedly loses. Even exit polls couldn’t predict this rout

Lesson No 1

Performance and success are relative and always subject to criticism. Even at the crest of your career and performance someone else’s expectation from you could be starkly different which can spell doom for your career. Never be sated with your achievements, no matter how big they are. Remain agile and have your ear to the ground viz a viz the expectations of the people observing you (read the board and your bosses).

Manmohan Singh becomes the 14^th PM of India when Sonia relinquishes her opportunity. But what follows is a decade of muted and sub optimal performance

Manmohan sigh had etched his position as an honest technocrat and economist but was a failure as a prime minister. Each time the country looked up to him to act / speak he came across as an epitome of non performance and a mute.

Lesson No 2

Have the courage to refuse a position of authority if in the heart of hearts you don’t feel capable enough to deliver. The onus of delivery will always lie with you the CEO. And do not hesitate to stand up in the face of adversity to uphold the morals and abilities that you are expected to demonstrate. Only perceived intelligence is of no consequence – ability, gut and courage to take action to perform is of utmost importance.

66% of India’s voters are below 35 yrs of age and a majority of them first time voters. Congress and Rahul and his coterie of colleagues had everything going for them. Agatha Sanghma with a Masters Degree from Nottingham University in UK, Sachin Pilot – a management graduate from Wharton Business School- University of Pennsylvania, Jyothiraditya Scindya with a Masters Degree from Stanford College in US, Naveen Jindal who has an MBA from University of Texas, Milind Deora – an alumnus of Boston University and Rahul Gandhi – the grandson of the very own Indira Gandhi are only a few to name who had opportunities to influence strategies one or other way to swing the pendulum towards growth and governance. They failed, miserably in every responsibility that was entrusted with them.

Lesson No 3

Remain connected with your customers and remember that you are being judged every minute and all the time. Never bask in the glory of present power or past laurels. It can all vanish in a jiffy. You are only as good as your company s last quarter results and your future is only as good as your last customer’s experience.

‘Acche din aane waale hain’ – made its connect and did its job. Modi had a twitter handle that was reaching out to majority of 150 million young voters. He obscured his age camouflaged in the vehicles available through technology that remained close to the young hearts, and spoke their language, showed them what they liked to see – whether beautifully scripted through the Ogilvy’s of the world or designed by the media moguls – it nonetheless reached their hearts, and remained there. In the vacuum of young leaders, they were willing to be contented with the youthfulness of the aged Modi. In his spirit and confidence, the vote bank believed that India will grow young and vibrant. Their patience is not one that’s tested, but their power has been tested again and again through the movements India witnessed on Nirbhaya case (the girl who was raped and murdered in Delhi) no less powerful than the Arab Spring!

Lesson No 4

Embrace technology as fast as you can while remaining genuine. Keep the leadership messages simple and powerful for your teams. Demonstrate good intent – for good and noble intent can neither be faked nor remains hidden.

Rampant corruption marred the Commonwealth games. It was in the face. Substandard execution of contracts, falling ceiling panels, collapsing foot bridges – the list is infinite. It is believed that billions of dollars were siphoned off by phony companies owned by friends and relatives of people in the managing committee including the chief minister of Delhi and that too under the watch of Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi.

Lesson No 5

Take action and punish the guilty fast enough before its too late. The country expected Rahul and Manmohan singh to publicly ostracise the corrupt and come clean. They failed. In the corporate world you are expected to keep a close watch on the team leaders who have been entrusted with big responsibilities. Any sign of irrecoverable failure should be immediately addressed and bad fish (read lazy and underperforming executives) should be immediately removed with surgical precision. Such team members can take you down and are like cancer who will make organisations hollow. Have the tenacity to accept losses emanating out of genuine mistakes but have zero tolerance towards corruption and mediocrity,

Lesson No 6

Corruption isn’t only defined by financial in-appropriation. Lack of appropriate action at appropriate time despite promises made to the electorate is corruption enough. On those accounts I find Manmohan sigh corrupt. When he came to power he said in his first initial days, “I will commit only what i can deliver” and i still remember those lines. He committed and delivered nothing. The result is there to be seen. A decade of opportunity lost due to policy paralysis. If he was a remote control in the hands of Sonia Gandhi he should have demonstrated the courage as the PM to implement his vision, stand upto his past laurels of being the father of reforms in 1991 or resign publicly for not getting a free hand.

Have the courage to say no if you cannot deliver or aren’t confident of delivering on a responsibility and commit only what you can deliver. The problem arises in ones career when you bite more than you can chew and then falter. As a CEO once you have made a commitment, have the courage to give your life to stand upto it.

Speed of the Boss is the speed of the team. Keep sprinters who can run along-with you and can give you Gatorade at the right time. If team members don’t share your vision, speed and passion – they will only slow you down and destroy the company and eventually You. 

Negligible marginal utility of Governments

Circa May 2004. I was holidaying in Binagudi (a remote village in West Bengal) when the India Shining Campaign of the incumbent BJP government was almost set to get them back to power and they lost. Congress put up a good show and Sonia Gandhi / Manmohan Singh was set to become the PM. I had intermittent access to television but saw AB Bardhan (Of Communist party that was to be a key ally of Congress in the Government) come on camera and say “Bhaar mein gaya divestment and Bhaar mein gaya reform” (To hell with privatisation/divestment and to hell with economic reforms).

The nation expected BJP to come back to power and allow the alleged stock market party to continue.

And within minutes all stock markets crashed by over 20% thereby eroding a couple of hundred billion dollars in market cap and trading had to be halted. I wish i had some internet access to invest whatever little money i had because this reaction of the markets was irrational.

Circa May 2009. I was in Warwick a little away from the consciousness of Indian politics and was immersed in the theory of marginal utility and realised that for 2 straight days the stock markets were in an upper circuit, up by 40%, because Congress came back to power and Manmohan sigh was destined to become the PM again. Again irrational exuberance demonstrated by naive citizens of this nation.

The nation suddenly believed that return of congress / Manmohan Singh will be magical. The less said the better about the rout that India saw wrt corruption and inefficiency in years (2009-2014).

Circa May 2014. It is likely that Narendra Modi led BJP might win and Modi becomes the next PM and again irrational exuberance has taken over sound logic and stock markets are re rating every stock - for they expect Modi to do the Houdini and open all hidden treasures leading to unimaginable growth for the nation and for the individuals.

So what’s the point?.....

Human memory is terribly short and so inconsequential that citizens vote based on emotion and a false sense of belief and hope that new governments will weave magic.

Obama’s “Yes we can” reverberated across this planet and US of A expected a change like never before but it has all been slightly above or below average on all issues. Even i thought - that as an Indian, it would affect me positively.

No magic. No earth shattering reform. Business as usual in Obama’s 5^th year of Presidency.

No government, no individual, no nation can outpace the general averages of growth and global development. Nations find their own spectrum/range of growth and development that is closely interlinked with the overall global economic scenario.

Just about anyone can be the Prez of the US of A or The PM of a large country like India – Individuals can barely make negligible incremental difference to the momentum of this planet.

Will revisit this blog post in 2019. In the meanwhile expect a below average performance (just because the expectation is so bloody high) and sell your stock if you have any that has already discounted a Houdini like performance from Narendra Modi.

Case for appointing Google as the Central Banker

5 years after the worst economic meltdown (US housing et al) as i watch the indices erode shareholders wealth and the Indian currency plummet, i cannot help but muse over the underlying cause of economic crises in different parts of the world.

I have read of more than a handful of well known economists (Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Raghuram Rajan etc etc) who claim to have predicted the housing bubble and almost all of them have something or someone to blame it on. These are people with considerable influence at a global scale. Yet nothing could be averted.

Housing bubble happened

US/Global deficits are at an all time high

Eurozone is terribly stressed. Greece Spain and Portugal are almost bankrupt

The Ver2. of Asian crisis is in the offing

Excessive liquidity flowed into Emerging Markets

Talks of stimulus-tapering have created a new crisis in Asia

My argument is that if so many Economists had the power and the intelligence to opine and take credit, why are we staring at such a dismal global scenario?

Human beings are driven by emotion of greed and fear (cognitive biases) and no one has the ability to take the most rational decision at the right time. (Thats God’s job really). So our central bankers all over the world have failed consistently. Since the time I developed a bit of understanding of economics, I have come across only 2-3 actions that central bankers take. Reduce/Increase interest rates by a few bps, Issue inconsequential - dovish or hawkish statements, give a dubious sense of calm to the citizens and opine liberally. Because that’s the easiest thing to do.

But has the world economics been sorted?

No! Actually its worse off than what it was 30 years ago.

But there is a counter opinion. Decisions taken by central bankers should be based on big data of cause and action and consequences. Only then can a global equilibrium be maintained. It is not humanly possible for the likes of Ben Bernanke, Mervyn King and Mario Draghi to analyse and act in absolute harmony that prevents future crisis and regulates overspending and irrational exuberance.

Between 2005-2008 maybe US interest rates should have risen far more.

Maybe Global salaries / benefits should have been drastically slashed to maintain export and industry competitiveness and reduced dependence on China that played havoc across the world with an artificially cheap Renminbi.

I believe that today no one can write algorithms and collect/analyse data better than Google. Why don’t we reduce our dependence on our central bankers and outsource this job to Google.

Google can analyse a 200 yr action history of central banks of over 150 economies on the planet and chart the action and consequence graph and effects thereof and create a perfect model for each and every nation and define the interest rates and all economic actions that have a bearing on our lives. Algorithms will take harsh decisions which humans fear to take. Algorithms will become perceptive and computers will develop intelligence to take rational decisions.

This is seemingly the only way out and we won’t get a chance to blame a banker or an economist because the world and nations would be in a state of equilibrium.

No one can deny that all of our economists and central bankers have failed miserably till date.

Warmth - An essential leadership tool

One of the most important tools of leadership is warmth. That’s something, which can neither be taught to a leader nor can it be acquired.

The gait of true leaders can be recognised from miles away. Their warmth, way of interaction with their colleagues, a gentle pat on the shoulder, a smile or a greeting (without expecting one in return) are powerful conduits of influence that align organisations in the directions of common compelling goals.

I have personally met many alleged leaders in life for whom giving a smile or an involuntary handshake tantamounts to parting away with a family heirloom. But there are no awards for guessing what the future of such companies is. And I have met leaders who exude warmth that can move mountains and instill hope and promise within anyone / any team.

Warmth creates an environment of trust and allows communication of ideas. Ideas make an organisation. Companies that allow ideas to thrive and propagate are the companies that become great.

Warmth also helps you to connect immediately. Connections and interactions based on the bedrock of warmth and on being a genuine human being last a lifetime.

I recently watched ‘The Great Gatsby’ who I thought was an epitome of warmth, love and hope. He was betrayed at the end. But then the world would be bereft of trust if we fear betrayal.