Business to the Buddha

Category: Misc

  • I will only show you the path…







    (A correction, in the title ‘I’ stands for ‘the teachers’ and ‘you’ stands for me or ‘the students’.)

    I have had privilege of meeting Prof Mankad recently, it is always a pleasant experience meeting him. I realized he always has something very meaningful to share and his opinion are always very well thought off, I have a lot to learn from him. While talking to him I realized that many good teachers have given a message – ‘I will only show you the path; YOU have to walk through the road.’ When the Buddha told the story ‘Finger is not the moon’ the message was –

    1. Do not stick to the finger e.g. me, because this (finger) is only a way to show you the path
    2. Get directions and pave your path. It was a message for Ananda – app dipo bhava (in Pali language) Meaning ‘Be a light unto yourself’ when you are done with identification of path
    3. Walk through the path

    Prof. Mankad taught us Macroeconomics, gave us an Financial Times in the exam to write about any current affair why? To make us start reading FT. Prof Moradian made a statement in a class ‘I will only show you the path, you have to walk through it’ (which is the title of the blog). Prof. Lopez gave us inputs on life beyond books and ‘learn to see’, e.g. did you go to Vivocity (a mall in Singapore)? Did you see this or that? What can you infer from that? Prof Ram Kumar gave us assignments wherein we had to go to market and see the performances of brands on ground. Prof Sohan Shah, gave us sleepless nights (believe me we all enjoyed the grind) while giving us assignments on marketing communication, I am pretty sure that each student of the class (perhaps some non marketing students too Ankit Jain and Rahul Krishnan) can independently workout a plan on integrated marketing communication. They have showed us the path, its our responsibility to walk through the road.

    *What I understand is the Buddha was not in favor of a religion; even it happened in case of many more spiritual masters. Why? Because as time passes the directions become rituals, systems you see! When rituals become the ONLY path to be followed it creates conflicts in individuals mind and actions. Therefore the best thing is – to learn the lessons critically and walk through the road towards the goal keeping lessons in mind rather than the literal content of the message.

    I thought to write about four noble truths and eight fold path, then I asked myself, does it make sense to connect everything of Buddhism to Business or literal Buddhism to Business? Is not it important to concentrate on messages and see whether it fits in the business context?

    * Apologies, if I hurt someone’s belief, though I didn’t intend to do anything like that.

  • Learn Non Stop, continued…







    In continuation of my earlier blog on the mistakes I made in my MBA and what I learnt, I received responses from my friends specially would want to mention two here – Sanjan and Prof Subba Iyer. Thank you both for taking time and responding to me. I talked to Sanjan and here is what he wrote to me (I liked it and asked if I can post that on my blog?), so here is what he write – …I have always believed that every mistake you make in your life is like a beacon which guides you constantly on to the right path; the only condition being you got to interpret that beacon in a correct way and bingo! There comes into play your prudence and judiciousness.

    Thank you Sanjan for the kind words. So here are next few mistakes and what I learnt from them.

    7. In management nothing is black and white (especially in marketing, the engineering mind with numbers always thinks in binary); learn to differentiate between gray and grayer (Prof Lopez, had a tough time teaching me – an engineer – this thing)

    8. Try to do the most challenging thing. I always thought since I didn’t watch TV for many years now, I cannot help making good advertisements. In the class of Prof Sohan Shah (Marketing Communication) making advertisement concept used to be a challenge and I used to shirk by doing other team assignments. The very next week of the end of Marketing Communication course our team (Ankit Jain, Kaushik Deb, Sandeep Shukla and I) was adjudged second-runner in Ad Mad competition.

    The reason I believe is, there was just one thought in our mind, we have to do this no matter what. We saw other teams making far better videos and we knew our team does not stand a chance in terms of videos, yet there was only one thought in our mind – we will stand there and present what we have in our mind. Thanks to the Branding Club (Swyl Saksena, Sahil Lihala and Neha Saini) you helped me imbibe a lesson.

    9. Consistency, this was the reason for being judged as the second runners in the event. Consistency matters in day-to-day life too. It does not mean that one has to be consistent wherever he/she is, consistency means improving consistently

    10. However small is the idea, stay with it, nurture it and try to explore possibilities. Our team (Neha Om, Murtaza Bakir, Shafaat, Tarun Kushwaha and I) worked on a business plan which prima-facie was “hum!”, “ok”, “yes we can think of this” at last won best business plan in an open competition

    11. Whenever something goes wrong; review, review and review what went wrong? Mistakes are the best tools to learn.

  • Journey itself is the destination, so learn non-stop…







    As a ritual which every B-school aspirant has to perform, I also wrote B-school essays before joining my MBA program. I remember one of the phrases of one essay the most – “…making mistakes that will cost nothing in a classroom environment…”. I knew I will learn from the mistakes as well. I feel, a failure teaches long lasting lesson then a success. I have learnt a lot from the mistakes during last couple of months. I am sure, I am going to live with and implement these learning in coming time.

    With a lot of disappointment I started writing this blog after my exam of Pricing Strategy. Then I realized thank god I did not commit the mistake in business; one incorrect pricing and revenues and profits take a beating. I started writing my mistakes and learning, so that I can revisit what I should not do and what I learnt. This would remind me that the Journey itself is the destination, so learn non-stop. Here are few of the lessons –

    1. Never believe in the forecasts, forecasts are correct hardly 15-20% of the times. I bet Murtaza and Avanii would agree with me 100% on this.

    2. Start early (in B-School simulation too), starting early and keeping the momentum going; it helps

    3. Always have a “to do list” and prioritize work – for this I wrote funny statement which only a few could understand “Tomorrow is your exam (sense of urgency), day after tomorrow you will die (prioritize your work, before dying what would you do?)”. I used to do this but here in my MBA this has been reinforced to an even greater extent

    4. Failing to score well in exams is alright, but failing to learn a concept and missing to use concept is a punishable offence – “a crime”. I learnt pricing strategies concept, explained the same to my friends and yet in the exam forgot to apply that. There is no ifs and buts for this crime

    5. I always write my blog on one concept ‘collaboration’, I observed this in outside world, I used it a lot in my MBA and that is the way for the future of businesses

    6. Ask questions, better to be stupid for some time. I have been stupid in some classes (recently, in class of Prof Lopez and Prof Ram Kumar) but that is better than assuming something incorrect

    To be continued in next blog…

  • No judgement – its all about perception







    I heard a story – a farmer owned a very good horse, he loved the horse as his son and it reciprocated. Even the king of that kingdom was envious of the horse. He sent his messengers to the farmer stating that farmer can exchange the horse for as much as half of his state. Farmer responded – ‘I will not, does anyone sell his son/daughter?’ People told him that he did a mistake, he responded – no judgement.

    In some days, the horse somehow ran away and could not be traced. People come back to the farmer and told him, you did a grave mistake by not giving it to the king, at least you could have got something in return. Now you don’t even have the horse let alone part of the kingdom. He again responded – no judgement.

    In few days, neighboring kingdom waged a war on the kingdoms where the farmer lived. It resulted in a very tough situation for the kingdom (of the farmer) and king asked for all the support from his people, confiscating even cattle for supporting his army, stating there is no guarantee of returning of those materials/cattle. People again came to the farmer and told him – ‘Thank god at least your horse is not in that trouble, trust wherever it is, it is fine.’ He again responded – no judgement.

    Within few days both the fighting parties announced ceasefire. Some people got their possessions back others didn’t. One fine day morning the horse came back to the farmer with an equally beautiful mare. People came to the farmer praising the horse and saying – “Thank god horse was not here during the war it would have been a problem for you as well as for the horse.” Again he responded in his trademark style – no judgement.

    So, situations change and therefore our decisions could be called as right or wrong, good or bad, but in the end the frame of reference causes the concerns. Something good today could be bad tomorrow. So, judgemental thinking may result in issues. My brother told me once – no decision is right or wrong, it is how we perceive and the frame of reference makes us think whether the decision is right or wrong.

  • Why are you doing what are you doing?







    In an interview with FT a renowned entrepreneur and hotelier Ian Schrager said that ‘…prison gave me time to think’. He was imprisoned for evading taxes.

    JailWhile reading this I started asking myself – Are not we so busy with our work that the best place to sit and think could be a place where we do not want to be. Is not it an irony?

    The biggest difference between animals and humans is the ability to think. However, we are so busy with our ‘work’ (daily chore) that we do not have time to think, we do not pause. How many times have you sat in a coffee shop and thought for your actions? How many times have you sat in balcony of your apartment with a cup of tea just doing nothing? ‘We are very busy for that’, right?

    What we can expect a person to do in a prison? (On a lighter side – when verdict is not ‘rigorous imprisonment’). Think for yourself – when you are sitting in a place where you do not have anything to do, no TV, no Internet, and no mobile you are all by yourself. It is difficult to pass time like that. And so when we hear a statement ‘…prison gave me time to think’ it seems to make perfect sense?

    Long back I read a book by Steven Covey – Seven habits of highly effective people. In that book there was an example for habit 1 – being proactive. The example was of Victor Frankl a Jewish German psychiatrist who was interned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He realized that he has the power to respond to the situation he was in. He could think of this in a very adverse condition, we occasionally thing about it even after receiving forward mails regarding the same (I received a mail forward which says – …life is 90% how we respond to situation).

    How many times have we thought – why am I doing what am I doing? What do I want to do in life? What is the purpose of my life? Do we question ourselves for reason of our existence? This is what the Buddha also thought when he left his family…

    Effectively, I had a question to myself and to all of us in general, what does it take to stop and sit down and think. Do we need to go to jails to have time for ourselves to think? When are we taking a leave from our chore for at least few hours in a week, get out of our rut and think something beyond the daily chore?

  • Change is the only constant!







    Long back, I was thinking about the common wealth games (CWG), the news around that and what can I learn from that. I generally don’t want to comment on politics; nevertheless I learnt from these events and therefore I am trying to put my opinion on the same.

    When the news of corruption in CWG preparation started surfacing the Prime minister’s office (PMO) took control of the situation. The following events taught me few lessons such as be patient and do what makes most sense.

    The decision of the PMO was to tackle the core issue at a later stage, and therefore the management of CWG was not changed immediately. Delaying the decision is the best way of tackling certain situations. Therefore the business was moved from incapable hands to those hands which could complete the project on war footing basis. This transition was smooth and the event was successful. This was the best example of change of management, in recent past, in a dire situation.

    I was talking to my friend Romit Gupta and he suddenly made a statement – “Change cannot be given to you every time. You have to bring your own change”. This statement made perfect sense to me. Yes! If you need change, YOU have to be the catalyst for the same. In business either you change the rules of the game or the competitor changes it, better you change it before anyone does.

    The statement was made by a BEST bus conductor in a bus in which Romit was travelling long time back. Romit heard it passively yet he could not forget. He restated the same verbatim almost 6 years later. Why, because if someone is willing to learn he/she can learn from anywhere and anytime. My learning from this blog has been multi-fold – I am seeing dots being connected and changes being made. The dots are my earlier post on – ‘game changers’ and ‘Learning… and possibility thinking’. I took these cues and have decided to change the design of my blog. You see! Change is the only constant.

  • Balancing act… continued!







    Recently, I wrote about the ‘balancing act’ based on the story of the Buddha. I started observing the concept of balance to a greater detail when I received the story from Prof Mankad, and here are few pointers in this continued blog.

    What I have realized in my studies lately is, the “engineerish thinking” (numbers all the time all the way) is not the end in itself. Marketing has long been a function requiring creative thinking. Long time back – before my joining my MBA – someone (talking to me) made a remark – ‘marketing is a bottomless pit, you do not know the return on investment etc etc. Now in the era of result orientation everything is being measured and therefore the results are key for marketing departments too’. Here again creativity should not take toll on numbers. Thus, a balance has to be made between being creative and being critical for return on investment.

    Second thing what came to my mind with reference to marketing, and in general to all of us, was perceptions. While communicating to outside world e.g. marketing companies try to play on ’emotional’ hot button of target audience yet want to be analytical of the effect of the marketing efforts. Again the balancing act comes into play based on the perspective inside out Vs outside in.

    In case of say leading teams, one needs to balance. Leader needs to involve and empower his team at the same time guide when anyone needs help (I wrote about this earlier in blog Growing and becoming leaders). Thus, a balance has to be made between giving power to take decision and taking control of situations when required. I had few things in my mind regarding the same in the language of TRIZ. In TRIZ there is a principle called separation on condition (giving control and taking control based on condition) for such cases. I would write more on application of TRIZ in marketing and sales in some other blog.

    Changing gears, in personal life we manage relationships. At times these relationships come to such a point that we need to act as a funambulist (tightrope walker) to sail through the rough patch of managing the relation. So, balancing act continues throughout the life.

  • My New Year wish!







    In the first month of reaching Dubai, we friends went to Barasti bar in required party wear e.g. shoes, jeans shirts and T-shirts, shaven etc etc. Doorman said “only for pairs”. We said ‘our girlfriends are already in’; we were told call them out and then you can enter. We called them and were waiting outside. The wait outside was the trigger for this wish. [On a lighter note – I do not have a ‘girlfriend’ but yes ‘friends those who are girls’]

    I critically observed the operation of the doorman. By the time our friends came out I observed few things. One, roughly four groups of people went inside. Each group had average four members. Few were in their car, parked their car somewhere and walked toward the Barasti gate. Those were coming from a nearby residence (this is my guess, owning a car and their outfits).

    The teasing and striking part is this. Those groups going in were wearing – floaters [instead of shoes], 3/4th [instead of jeans or pants] and sleeveless [instead of T-shirt or shirts], all were male (perhaps male pairs in the language of the Doorman of Barasti). There was only one group which was 3 males and 1 female. Why were they allowed, I asked myself and to my friends. The only possible reason to let them enter was – skin color. They were European or American ‘white’. We waiting outside were brown skin [on ‘von Luschan scale’ 21-28].
    I decided not going to Barasti in future, my friends are liberal they are giving a chance to Barasti to be ‘racially neutral’ for a better tomorrow. My friends are celebrating New Year at Barasti. I wish for the year 2011, organizations, places and societies become more liberal. I am not saying all are as Barasti – discriminating. There are a few who may still be functioning such that the term – ‘Racist’ still exist in the English Dictionary.

    It was my maiden experience to go to a bar or night club. Oh yes! Eventually we went inside as our ‘girlfriends’ came out.

    I wrote my experience with due respect to all of us and our skin colors, trust you would not mind it. I showed a mirror to myself, trust we also saw ourselves. The thoughts presented in the blog are based on my experience; I am not on one side or the other. In my opinion, in the battle of mind and opinions we – human beings – are on the same side. We need to face the mindset and move towards a direction wherein equality is the name of the game. At times I feel we all are on the same side, still we fight.

    My wish for the year, organizations, places and societies become more liberal and racially neutral.

  • Ideate – Save the sinking ship







    Prof Mankad said in our class ‘there seems to be possibility of double dip’ while teaching us macroeconomics. I have written on this in my blog at times. At times question comes in mind, why not using concepts of one field to the other the way we do it in TRIZ (The theory of inventive problem solving). I recalled a news shown on NDTV (it was shown in 2008 somewhere in Aug-Nov). I remember this news because it was unique and I rarely watch TV(:)). So, here comes use of TRIZ to tackle the economic crisis in a non conventional way. I am sharing the idea with a hypothetical scenario.

    As an everyday ritual Vijay logged on to his mail box, amongst others the mail from HR stared back at him. Feeling the heat of economic crisis the company was in process of layoffs. How many Vijays have the same stories to recount? How this time can bring us together and make us more innovative to reckon with the challenge – this challenge is not questioning us only on one front of economics but also on cultural and creative fronts?

    Employee-employer relations are unlike marriage where a pair takes an oath to live together, and share all the grief and joy. In this tough time each should support other for survival and future growth and say – “yes! We are for each other”. It has been proved important and useful in the Japan after the World War II. Lately, a group of ex-workers of a mill bid to revive a dead mill; Garware Nylons Ahmednagar. All the workers joined hand for revival of the mill. In this successful bid the sense of belonging was such that the families of ex-employees even-handed over their jewelery and large sums from their provident fund. Way back in 1996 instead of shutting the mill down, if the management and the workers had come together and decided to make a plan to save the mill on a model of a marriage by surviving in the tough time, they might have come up winning and everyone might have lived happily.

    In recent week there was news in FT that EU is considering bailout in some forms. Bailout is a ‘self-mutually exclusive’ option that is – bailout is needed in the toughest time but it is ill-advised as it is ‘passing-the-buck to taxpayers’. Government needs to bail out various industries; however, the companies may misuse the amount. In such case questions are asked that – How to make companies accountable for the same? When to loan, how to loan and how to gauge the performance of the waived organization?

    Bailout can be tackled when government separate this option of bailing-out upon condition of time and space i.e. conditional separation of amount of money offered, accountability of use of money, time-to-time checks and balances. Separation of assets and liabilities can be one more initiative and offering incentives other than monetary could be other.

    Additionally, if we attentively look around we can learn from nature too. Birds fly in flocks, why? Because flocking helps conserve energy, defends against predators and facilitates orientation and communication. Energy is everything involved in the business – various resources, money and time – it needs to be conserved. Instead of salary cut and layoffs companies can take loans from employees, offer shares or bonds to the employees to generate money. This not only can engender trust in teams but also can invigorate teams to work for their own company. Are you keeping those many Vijays in your team? Are you willing to take on the challenge by sticking together, being creative and innovative to carve success over the slump to ply in the present to fly in the future?

  • Next super power?







    Germany? Is that… few days back President Obama was in India, he supported India’s candidature for permanent seat in UN. Germany and Japan the other contenders raised their voices on that. Germany is one of the two elected countries to serve as member of Security Council for two-year terms that begin Jan 1. Germany is also the protagonist for Unified Europe e.g. European Union (EU). Germany is the strongest economy of EU. And the trouble starts here – Germany being the protagonist and the strongest economy faces challenge of saving the EU and the cost could be cases against Government of Germany. Reason? German people were promised two things –
    1. Euro would be as strong as Deutschemark
    2. There would be a “no bail out clause”

    These clauses seem to fail. Euro is struggling because of exposure to stupidity of investment banks and naivety of European countries for example Iceland. Next to show domino effect was Greece in first half of the year, Ireland now and perhaps –Spain, Portugal next to face economic doldrums. “With Great power comes great responsibility” said Uncle Parker [to Peter Parker – Spiderman]. Germany needs to understand it, they need to change their promises or the spiral of over exposure and unified economy [not only of EU but also the whole world] would eat half of our generation.

    Balancing this would make Germany either very strong worldwide or make it pauper.

    China, is that? According to the recent FT news by 2014 China would roughly touch 20% of world manufacturing production and has already equaled US. As I earlier wrote [reference Macroeconomics class of Prof Mankad] China is replicating Japan on many fronts and is doing it phenomenally well. China hold Treasury bonds of US in effect it can twist arms of USA any time. Yet it faces a few challenges –
    1. for a strong economy of China, US and other nations importing Chinese products should be economically strong or China needs to increase consumption of its produce in China itself
    2. growing % of population in old age e.g. less working population.

    There could be many ways to tackle this issue –
    1. Work Visas to people of different nationalities
    2. Automation
    3. A least unlikely one is mildness on communism to attract foreign nationals

    India, is it? Perhaps, yes! I may be biased yet the economic, demographic and intellectual capital it posses, this country seems the contender for coming 10-20 years. The secret lies in the leadership, current duo of Dr Singh and Mr Chidambaram is a good combination. However, India needs to be cautious building next leadership line is the need of the hour.

    Coming back to the troubles in EU, I strongly see a solution in applying TRIZ (the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) for the situation. As far as the super power is concerned, only time will tell us who the super power is, I would bet on India and China, more on India ten years from now. Cast your vote…