Sunday Posts

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This is David Allen's Self Management Matrix, which I found very interesting and apparently usable . If you are struggling a bit at this time like me, it may be worthwhile for you to have a look. Let me explain the two parameters Control and Perspective. There is a great example in the article I picked the matrix up from. [ Read it here ] It is about an organized kitchen and a great dinner to cook. The control is about having an organized kitchen, with all ingredients in the right boxes and clean utensils ready to be used. The perspective is about knowing what to cook and how to present it. As you can, it is nice to have both. Only then we can cook a great meal for our guests which will Wow them. However, without one or the other, that won't be possible. As I looked, I gave these various quadrants names. For example, the optimal one on the Top-Right, which combines great control with abundant perspective, I labelled Leadership quadrant. That's where every great man wants t...

I picked this up from CNN. The Barack Obama soundbites, Jonathan Mann noted, are changing from 'Yes We Can' to 'We Have To, Or Else'. Can't blame Obama too much, as the economy looks dire and the President-Elect knows that his honeymoon will not last too long. He has, at best, three months to reverse the biggest economic downturn in generations. People seems to expect Presidents hold a magic button to bomb away the problems. On a second thought, they can't be blamed too. I heard bits of Obama speeches too. He sounds wary, and he ought to be. The picture looks worse every day. There is no light at the end of the tunnel and the New Year feeling is fading away fast. 2.6 million unemployed isn't a joke too far: It is staring in the face of every policy maker in the United States. But one wonders whether the Keynesian stimulus Obama is pushing will work. I confess - don't know the details of the plans. But, generally speaking, those measures are bound to have...

I have spent an inordinate amount of time in my working life developing Education franchise networks. And, still doing the same boring thing :) But as it happens, I had little time to pause and think [and breathe], and put on record what I thought. Recently, however, I was mightily flattered when I was approached by an organization planning to pursue the franchising route. They thought I was an expert and offered board seat. I had to decline, of course, because this company is in Dubai and my visits to the Emirates are infrequent and always fairly busy. Instead, I volunteered to coach his team and share my experiences in franchising. I have now put the notes I prepared for this session. I shall share this here, just to claim the hallo of expertise that I enjoyed for a brief period of time. This is Part I, or Session I, of what we did. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Expect no theory here, because I have none to offer. The...

I am on my way back to England, after spending the Christmas at home. This has been first time I was off work and at home for a few days continuously since I left Kolkata in 2001. My intent to return to India at some stage in my life remains strong, and I spent the time renovating the house and revisiting some of my options in India [though not necessarily in Kolkata ] if and when I choose to go back. As I sit in Dubai airport now [this is becoming my favourite blog-writing ambiance ], I feel no t much wiser, but more determined to return, sooner than later. This is a strange feeling, an yawning to be home, to be in a place which belongs to me and where I belong. True, there is an element of tiredness that comes from living in rented apartments in last nine years. Particularly so, as I almost always lived out of suitcase and never knew whether I shall be staying in the same place for more than six months in the future. This uncertainty, my friends would point out, is part of my cha...

Satyam is imploding. Should I have written it has imploded already? I haven't done so, in deference to the 53,000 highly talented and qualified individuals who are still working there, as hard and as honestly as they can. Saying it will be an insult to their persistence and efforts. However, the truth is that the company is fast sinking. This was the poster boy of IT boom, a company which came from nowhere, and dominated the IT / Outsourcing scenario in India in last 10 years. This is the fourth largest IT software company [or is it, as all figures reported by Satyan is now suspect], which employs, as I said, 53,000 people. Satyam , as we all know, means truth. The absolute truth, by implication. While newspapers played on this and reported - Satyam a Lie - the day after its founder and chairman admitted the biggest corporate fraud in Indian history, this is also the moment of truth for the India: Not just for the IT companies, but for the country as a whole. The media is taking...

A month back, I wrote about Baby Moshe and why terrorism can not succeed. I owe it to everyone who read it a statement why it does. Baby Moshe is a symbol to me. An innocent child who lost his mom unnecessarily, unjustifiably. He signified why we should always stand against the use of force against the unarmed and the innocent. Ironically, by the same coin, we must condemn, in strongest possible words, the actions of Israel in Gaza. Rockets have been fired in Israel from Gaza, killing one of its citizens and wounding several. But Israel's response, as in many occasions previously, disproportionate and cruel. It bombed the territory indiscriminately and continuously, killing hundreds, including the children in schools, and an unaccounted for number of Baby Moshe-s. This is exactly why terrorism succeeds, to win even a single heart as it does. While one must stand for the human decency and rights for unarmed civilians facing hooded gunmen, we should spare no effort to stop organize...

A friend of mine, who is from Dubai and was holidaying in India, complimented me when I called her to postpone a social visit I committed, because I was interviewing people and it was going well into evening as we had a longer-than-expected queue. She said she was disappointed that we would not meet, but was happy to know we are recruiting. We are recruiting because we are expanding, one step at a time, but we shall have four outlets trading at the end of January, up from a solitary one as of today. And, in fact, I find this recruitment exercise particularly rewarding, as the number and quality of candidates are better than I expected. This is the good thing about recruiting in recession. You get good candidates to come to you. Plus, you send out a rare positive message, which attracts the ambitious and the aspiring. Besides, as I know from experience, recession is largely a matter of collective psychology, and one can transcend recession if he starts feeling good about his prospects. ...

I remarked, on an earlier post, that Indian education is designed to 'disengage' rather than connect one to the community. I did realize that it was indeed right, and deserves more deliberation. Indian education system has grown out of the colonial education system and never gone through a root-and-branch reform since Macaulay's days. The system was developed to prepare a ruling class. The underlying promise of education was social mobility and differentiation, a better future than everyone else. After Independence, the same system was broad-based and spread out, but have not gone through a critical review. This is because our new rulers were too steeped into 'ruling' class values to see the problem in the first place. The message that the educated got is that they are to 'rule', not serve. They were taught the idea of India, as a geographic and historical entity. The education comes mostly in classrooms, and there is not much space for outside activities a...

My role, in this new year, will change significantly. By definition, what I do is international business development for my company, a B2B affair involving building partnerships with and offering franchise to other business people. However, as a part of our ongoing commitment to our content partners, it seems that I shall have to focus, even if for a limited time, on how to sell our services to the Indian consumer. This is quite different in scope and focus, but I must admit that I am going to enjoy it - doing something what I did before, but with the advantage of hindsight. No doubt, Indian consumers have changed a lot, since I left the country in 2004. Or, has it? The change that we see today - in physical evidence in sprouting shopping malls in every city and availability of global brands. The psychological proof is in the changing habits, of eating takeaway food, of eating out, of sending one's children to expensive schools etc. Five years ago, I used to say that all the invest...