Business to the Buddha

Tag: Prof Harkant Mankad

  • Theory of constraints






    Prof Moradian taught us concept of the Theory of Constraint. He also suggested us to read a book by Eliyahu Goldratt – The Goal. In the novel, protagonist is struggling with the operational inefficiencies of his plant and therefore facing a constant fear of management decision to close the plant.

    Well, what is this theory of constraints (ToC)? In brief ToC states that “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link”. I was thinking that this concept is applicable to our society too. We are evolving, we are constantly developing some thing or the other, society is a sort of factory. And the concept of the ToC applies equally to our life. Look at it this way if rich becomes richer the poorer would become weaker link of the society. Have you heard that during recession crime rate increases? This is ToC for our society. Lately, lot of demonstrations are happening across world by the title Occupy Wall Street. This is where I think that ToC can be applied in the society.

    I thought about interdependent co-arising and the Theory of Constraints in conjunction. My understanding of interdependent co-arising is that – we are all dependent on each other and for growth of each individual other has to necessarily grows. In other words, if society wants to evolve, everyone in the society has to evolve. The weakest link of the society may hamper the growth of society in total. Here I see a solution to the constraint, perhaps a socialistic one. We as a society have to help each other to grow (strengthen the weakest link), otherwise we would see increasing “Occupy Wall Street” kind of movements or increasing crime rates in future.

    I shared these thoughts with Prof Moradian and he said the idea is good why don’t you think about throughput and operating expenses and develop this concept of ToC in society further? This made me dig deeper. It is said that ‘a stitch in time saves nine’. If we rewind to 2008, after months of searching for alternatives Mr Barnanke, Mr Paulson and others had to bail-out banks of USA. Why not we start doing something now and for future. I see the operating expenses of this approach as deferred expense of brand building (building society) exercise for future. The throughput of the exercise would be availability of competitive, capable and intelligent work force for companies. These capable people would be the spenders of tomorrow – moving the wheel of consumerism forward – effectively, the solution may not be as socialistic as I think.

    Related blog – Ideate – save the sinking ship

  • How long will we live in the world of $! from ‘Network’







    The following are few dialogs (curtsey – www.imdb.com)… It is interesting so sharing on my blog. ‘How long will we live in the world of $!’

    The concept of movie is based on how a news channel management and one of its anchor share relations and What happens in an apparent conflict. This movie was released in 1976 (after the oil crisis – perhaps ’70s- , before the economic crisis in US – early ’80s). So effectively, we have been like that and we will remain the same, provided we learn a lesson this time around. The time is here and now, to learn – we would have an economic crisis again in 3 years and I wonder how long it will take to get back to normalcy. This movie was made 30+ years back, world saw 1910’s (World war), 1920’s (Great depression), 1930’s-1940’s (world war and after effect) and then 1970’s (oil crisis) and 1980’s (economic slow down). When did we have a peaceful time? There has to be some sense in the world – we need to learn, we have to learn – how long will we live in the world of $? Life also exist beyond the turmoil of $.

    The dialogs are below –
    Arthur Jensen (owner of the channel): [bellowing] You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale (the anchor), and I won’t have it! Is that clear? … The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immense, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. (I wonder why we do not understand interdependent co-arising only in terms of dollar) It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU… WILL… ATONE!

    Arthur Jensen: [calmly] Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those *are* the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, (in my opinion – world is more than *JUST* business or in other words everything is a business) Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that… perfect world… in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

    Howard Beale: [ascending the stage] So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We’re in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth… Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that’s the only place you’re ever going to find any real truth.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sySuIXG_IM]

  • Syādvāda – The Doctrine of Postulation







    I had written about this earlier, however thought to revisit the same again. What is the meaning of system when it is not solving the required purpose? Let us take the same example again from my previous post Lost in translation. What is the meaning of grammar (System) if the language (Following the system) is not able to communicate the message using the grammer?

    To make my point further clear, let me take recent developments in India. In case of Anna Hazare, the Government was shouting about the SYSTEM in place, “THE SUPREME PARLIAMENTARY PROCESS” and therefore was not relenting to the rightful issue of sentiments of the common man of India. What is the use of such process which is not listening to the voices of people, and we call it DEMOCRACY! At the same time, Supreme court of India has kept death sentences (ruled in favor of High Court) for Killer of Mr Rajiv Gandhi and Afzal Guru (involved in parliament attack of 2003), let me repeat – Supreme Court of India. Yet for many years they are in jails of India. Now, the system of respecting the Supreme Court is not followed. What kind of SYSTEMS we are talking about?

    A man/woman – actually killer in some sense – is in jail not receiving the fruits of his/her crime, why because we can do away with some systems selectively to suit our benefits. At the same time a man (Anna) – who is fighting for a cause – is given rule-book and all sorts of stories of systems, stating what he is doing is not in favor of democracy. What nonsense! Are not these systems making us handicap rather than helping us? Is the system making us feel – in India, you can get away with murders too?

    Reiterating this from my earlier blog – …I am not arguing against systems. I am just trying to say that one has to answer the question – why at first place we designed systems?

    1. to facilitate operations of society (in case of religion, culture and laws)
    2. to facilitate operations of work (in case of businesses).

    Inputs from Prof Mankad on need of system –
    3. to facilitate understanding of the present and formulating vision for the future (in case of education)
    4. to facilitate orderly day to day living for people, ensure fairness in dealings, security and openness (in case of governance, transparency and judiciousness). At times, systems are inadequate too.

    And therefore my stand is no spiritual teacher advocated “create a religion in my name” …and do business on the same. They just showed the path, I recall Mahavir (one of the messengers of Jainism) used ‘Syādvāda’. What I understand about ‘Syādvāda’* is – this is true and that is also true. Everything is based on relativity. Systems are correct if they solve the basic purpose, if they do not – better to change them. Everything of 12th century (or Before Christ) may not be relevant today better abolish some of them, right? So, relevance is important and thus the doctrine of postulation… systems are correct but in context, be it democracy of India. Mahavir said that 500 years BC (Before Christ), we are still not listening/learning, are we?

    More on Syādvāda in future blogs.

    *Note – it is purely my understanding and please do your research for references

  • Irony!







    I remember an opening of Prof Mankad’s class. He asked ‘What is money?…’ and so on and so forth. Money is what is accepted as money. The trust of acceptance gives value to money. Irony is this TRUST. This concept e.g. money creates maximum MISTRUST. The concept which, I believe, we think gives power, empowers us, creates fear of losing it. Money which should give us some security creates insecurity. Is not it an irony?

    I heard someone (If I recalled correctly it was Osho) saying – opposites are always together, if opposites are not together their value is nothing. White is white and does not hold much value if Black does not exist. Lord Rama and his values were/are magnified by none other than the existence of Ravana. If Jesus were not crucified we might not even have found records of him or might not have bothered about his greatness. For safety and security of our ‘Nation’ we buy/make arsenals and prepare for wars, is not it an irony?

    We avoid

    WAR by aggrandizing weapons
    Trust on Money, which creates lots of, perhaps maximum, Mistrust
    Good people are good because their are bad one’s out there.

  • Euro! is it dead?







    For some time I did not write. I was considering writing either on “Utopia – the Dream world” (in Hindi – Ram Rajya) a type of communism in my opinion or on economics. A news item of yesterday made me select economics the later one. This news read “Deutsche Mark set for comeback instead of Euro in Germany”. I thought that Euro may die soon, so first thing I wrote to Prof Mankad (he is an expert of Macroeconomics) for his opinions on my fear of disintegration of European Union or dilution of the currency Euro.

    I believe that the concept of EU is very interesting and appreciating. However the question to ask is – who would tame the monkeys, those who are more interested in personal gains rather than collective wisdom? I read a book on similar concept of being individually wise and collectively dumb – “Games Indians Play“. The same is happening with different economies. Austerity measures – why there is so much of hue and cry? Because as per my understanding of austerity measures – “maximum of expenses to be controlled by austerity measures are on usage of tax payers money”.

    Earlier, when I read the Financial Times often I used to wonder about the crisis in EU. And I wrote about Germany as probable next super power. I had few reasons to think that way. However, later and now when I see economic crisis in EU (Greece, Spain, Iceland, Ireland and Portugal the list may become bigger in future) I changed my mind. Even further, when I read the news yesterday about ‘Deutsche Mark’ I felt more compelled to think of bigger consequences – could EU disintegrate? Is Euro dead?

    The other reason to dwell on my fear was another discussion with Prof Mankad some time back. He said UK has foreign debt in multiples of its GDP, what could happen to UK? UK has 400% of external debt to its GDP. So, are we seeing Euro as dead in future or Germany would have two currencies running in parallel – Euro and Mark? only time will tell us.

  • Fruit will arrive in its season…







    We talk about long term sustainability, but want to gain in short term. Shareholders want quick dividends as well as long term performance of the company. If reserves and surplus (R&S) are given in dividends where would company get money for growth. In such cases our actions and desires conflict. I initially thought about the Japanese currency crises in similar fashion (common cause Vs individual gain). Though later Prof Mankad told me that the reason of the appreciation of Japanese Yen could be the computer triggered buying/selling, the way people put stop loss trigger in share trading.

    In operations, different departments try to optimize their performance, what happens to the overall performance? It is synergy that matters rather than the individual performance. Thats where ‘Theory of Constraints’ plays an important role to achieve global optimum against the local optimum.

    I was thinking about the same for some time in a different fashion. What is long term goal of an organization and an individual? How do both the goals meet and how to build synergy between individual’s aspirations and organizations perpetuity? Why did the question arise at the first place? A branding expert told us that marketing managers want to start new brand building exercise (to gain in short term for writing on their resume – ‘I started this initiative’) and move to next level. New manager comes he/she too does the same. Short term gains are there for the marketing manager; yet for long term the brand is diluted perhaps no one knows what would the brand stand for in future. I believe, Sataym fiasco started similarly – to show the investors that Satyam is growing, numbers were made up.

    Effectively, the question to ask is – how many times we look at the bigger picture? The question goes back to Why are we doing what are we doing? I recall Prof Lopez digging deeper and probing us to the fundamental reasons and the importance of asking right questions. Where does the bug stop?

    In school we learnt couplets (termed as Doha in Hindi) of a mystic Kabir, one of them was –
    धीरे धीरे रे मना धीरे सब कुछ होय
    पानी सीचे रे घणा ऋतू आये फल होय
    Literal translation (courtesy) of the same is –
    O mind! everything happens at its own pace, slowly
    Gardner may water a hundred buckets, fruit arrives only in its season.

    I am hopeful that some day those questions would be answered and we individually and collectively would balance between the long term Vs the short term perspective. there would not be much (if not any) of opportunism. We as human beings will evolve. I am optimist, “…fruit will arrive in its season…” and we are nearing the season.

  • 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…

  • ‘Balancing act’







    This is one of the stories shared by Prof Mankad with me.

    Once on his tour, the Buddha was resting in the shade of a large pipal tree. Under a nearby tree a group of dancing girls was also resting. One of the apprentice musician girls asked the leader of the group, “How do I tune this string instrument?” The head of the group, a ravishing beauty of a dancing girl, obviously with limited virtue and ignominious fame said, “do not stretch it so much that it breaks and do not leave it so loose that it does not play”. Buddha hearing this went to her and bowed to her with respect. His disciples seeing him bow to a very infamous character were disturbed and intrigued. When they asked Buddha about his behavior, he said, she taught me a valuable lesson in life.

    This story tells us a very valuable lesson. The lesson of balancing act, I recalled the recent incident of Cricket test match between India and South Africa. In that match Indian player Sreesanth and South African player Graeme Smith had an altercation. For this incident Indian Cricket team captain M S Dhoni made a statement in press for Sreesanth – “…there is nothing called over aggression till you don’t cross the limit. There are guidelines which need to be followed. You need to be yourself but at the same time shouldn’t get into others’ space…”

    The balancing act also applies to businesses in terms of product portfolio, organizational behavior and a balance between business and social responsibility (triple bottom line). This also applies to individuals e.g. work-life balance.

    The other important lesson to learn from the story is – one can learn from wherever one wants to learn from and no one is old or young to learn from. This is what an earlier blog suggested – Learning… and possibility thinking.