IPL3 - Mumbai Indians cruising...

Mumbai Indians (MI) were no where in picture in last two IPLs. This time they seem to have all energy & enthusiasm to make it to Top-4. Compared to CSK & others, MI batting line up is pretty modest. Apart from Sachin & Jaysurya on top, rest are not-so-famous batsmen. Yet, they are continuously proving their mettle. And remember, Jaysurya so far has been completely out of form. Tiwary, Dhawan & Rayadu have played key roles in steering MI's victory along with Sachin. Sachin on the other hand, has been playing out-of-the-world & exceptional game of cricket. He just hit his first six yesterday against CSK(in his 5th match). Yet he has been the MOM thrice in 5 games where they have won 4. He has changed his approach from an attacking cricketeer to an intelligent cricketeer. He is using the pace of bowlers. He is reading the mind of bowlers so well. And all these tactics helping him to pace his innings well & keep his Strike Rate close to 150 in each game without taking big risks. Really amazing cricketer he is!!!

I think, if they continue the tempo, Sachin continues to play the sheet-anchor role & Jaysurya comes back to his form, then they might end up winning IPL-3. Good luck to Sachin & his team MI.

In Search of a Great Leader

How often do you see people getting inspired by their leaders? How often do you see people praising their leaders for their qualities? Well, in current setup of the IT Industry, it's a difficult proposition. You got to be lucky enough to get such people. If there are 100 managers, you would get to see only 2-3 really amazing leaders among them. Coffee Table Manager Gossips are more common these days. Well, the subordinates must not be blamed completely. I think it's the managers (who fail to become good leaders) are to be blamed equally.

Let's assume, more or less everybody is fair in this world. If a manager does good work, everybody likes him. He would still have some enemies. But at some corner of their heart, they carry some respect for whatever he is. It's more of jealousy that drives them to talk nasty about him. However, this population is often very less. In a team, if 90% of the people don't agree to the actions of a manager, then the manager needs to rethink. Well, 20% of the team can be wrong, but not 90%.

I want to see more leaders who can really inspire the average individuals to achieve impossible things. I feel, in our industry, leadership development has not yet matured. People get promoted to leadership positions just to fill in a vacancy or satisfy a business need or retain the talent, often untrained ones. I want to see a change in this space. I want the organizations to give a little more serious thought about leadership development programs. Otherwise, we all will be in a down-ward spiral.

I feel very strongly: "Inspiring leaders are like doctors, if you are ill they treat you, if you are healthy they make sure you stay healthy..." The goal of a great leader should be: "make the team win, not just individuals..."

Adding Value or Time to Act!!!

Is there a way to measure the contribution of every employee towards the revenue of a company? I know it's a very ideal thing & not really easy to achieve. At the same time, I feel if it can be done, it will be the best motivator for every employee. Imagine, at the end of every month, you get a report stating - "Company earned $1000 this month & your contribution is $10". I know, it's not as simple as I put here. If a company is relatively small, such things can be feasible. When companies grow, it really is a challenge to do such calculation. Moreover, in product companies, where the fruit is often realized few years after the actual work put in, it is in fact just next to impossible.

The reason why I am feeling the importance of this is as follows. Large companies add lots of fat over a period of time without realizing that those fats are actually making it difficult to move ahead. In large companies, you often find lot of teams who actually add very limited value to organization, yet they exist for ages. I am sure, if we can have a quantitaive measurement of employee's contribution, it will be easy to recognize the fat over a period of time & take necessary actions on time to keep the company lean & agile!!!

One piece of advice - Wherever you may be working, ask yourself this simple question - "How is your work adding value to the organization?". If you are not satisfied with the answer, it's probably !!!Time to ACT!!!

Sachin's dominance continues!!!

"Sachin Tendulkar" - It's a 2 letter word which is synonymous to "Celebration" in my life. I am quite thankful to God that, I get the opportunity to see him playing since he has joined Indian Cricket Team till date (a 20+ years of  continuous celebration). It's a privilege, that the new born babies will miss during their prime time. I am least hopeful that we are going to see another Sachin in next couple of decades or so.

24th February, 2010 will probably remain as one of the best days of my life. It's not something which you get to see very often. Thanks to cricketnirvana.com, I got to see a glimpse of his last shot which took him to 200. I felt quite ecstatic when Ravi Shastri said proudly "1st man in planet to reach 200 in the history of one-day cricket". For past 20 years, whenever Sachin comes to middle, I somehow forget other things in life & at least make an effort to know "how he fared in the game". So much so, during meetings/classes, I keep sending SMS hoping to see a * against his name. I know the end is nearing & nearing very fast. Irrespective of that, I am quite amazed by the determination of this genius. Who knows, that elusive Test - 300 may be somewhere round the corner!!!

Security & Success - Oxymorons!!!

"Job Security" - I know everybody loves to have a secured job, so that they can enjoy their life. I actually believe that the job security is probably one of the worst enemies a person can have, it's a huddle to become successful in life. I feel security brings complacence, makes a person defocused from the actual goal. Security brings lethargy & more importantly, it affects the quality of your work. After all, an average output won't take the job away from you, isn't it??? Then why toil so hard???

Hence I strongly feel the need of a new working model for the IT Industry. In IT services, people work like log to deliver "something" before the "deadline". In IT product companies, people enjoy a relatively flexible deadline, since they need to produce something "innovative".  Well, there is nothing wrong with either of these two mindsets as long as they are aware of the value provided to the customer. But, I get overwhelmed, when I see the extremes of these two approaches. What is even worse, at times, the management has no clue on what value they are adding to their customers thru the product/service. In my 8 years of work experience, I have seen many such cases. Come-on guys, isn't it very fundamental? Aren't we supposed to ask ourselves - why should the customer pay for this??? Most of the time, people don’t think about this since they feel it’s a “management level question”. Ahh, that hurts. But if you see their perspective, they are quite right. They are doing what they are asked to do.  It may or mayn’t be adding value. But, their salary is coming anyway.

If the management asks you – "unless the customer is benefited from your product/service, you guys will be fired in next 6 months..." Ahh, then it will be fun. Everybody will just focus on one thing. That’s creating a service/product which benefits the customer!!!. Their productivity will be at a crazy high level. I am sure the overall quality will be fantastic, people would give their best & you will have a company which is automatically customer focused - no need to spend on a special CRM program!!!

Bottom line is: Take job security away, And you will have a flurry of top-performers!!!

2nd Test - IND Vs SA - 3rd Day - ~Teatime

We have been discussing - when India should declare? Here is the status as of now:

Day 3 - Session 2
    * India RR 4.20
    * Last 10 ovs 44/0 RR 4.40
    * Min overs remaining 43.1

South Africa 296
India 525/6 (124.5 ov)

India lead by 229 runs with 4 wickets remaining in the 1st innings.Dhoni at 74 & Laxman at 86.

Points to be considered:
1. How the pitch is going to behave in next 2 days? If it is getting more batting friendly (which looks to me at this moment), then at least 1.5 days will be required to bowl SA out. This means, they will get to play ~140 overs. At an average of 3.5, they will score ~450.

2. How comfortable are we to bat in 4th innings? Well, we all know India's track record in 4th innings. Even a 100 run chase might look like a humongous task for them. So India will try it's best to avoid batting in 4th innings.

3. How important is it for India to win this match? Well, definitely they would like to level the series by winning & retain the no 1 position in ICC ranking.

Given all above circumstances, I feel India will look to achieve a lead of 400 before putting SA in!!!

Let's see.....

Sachin - 100 100s...No Big Deal

Do you know - How many times Sachin has scored 90+, but missed century? It's 18 in One Dayers & 7 in Test Matches. Well, currently his century count stands at 45 in One Dayers & 46 in Test Matches. Awesome cricketer, awesome figures!!! Hats off to Sachin. I wish him to score atleast 50 centuries in each version of the game. I know it's greed from my side, but I can't help it. He is a great cricketer & he deserves this.

My prediction is - Sachin will score 50 centuries in One Dayers & will retire immediately after 2011 world cup. At the same time, I feel, he will continue to play test cricket till 2013. And if that happens, I am sure he will score 55+ test centuries. I pity Ricky Ponting; so near, & yet so far :)

Interesting to figure out that - Ricky Ponting's presence will prolong Sachin's test career. And the best part is: he will be under pressure to perform every time for 2 key reasons. 1. Ricky is just there, it's a matter of time. 2. India doesn't get to play too many test matches. Recently you saw him scoring 2 centuries in as many matches against Bangladesh. The very next match, he scored yet another century against SA. I will not be very surprised if he does it again in the 2nd match against SA.

Keep watching Sachin, He is the Best!!!

Chai Time...

I was having a cup of tea with couple of my colleagues, when we saw an accident. 3 cars, crashing back-to-back, and the scene was quite horrifying. Thankfully, everybody escaped unhurt. What struck me at that point of time - "It could have been more devastating. People could have lost their lives. And anybody could have been a victim there - you, me, our friends". Oh boy, when you see such freaky things, you get a different kind of feeling. You feel thankful to God that no matter what the worries of life are, you are still alive. For a moment you forget your personal burdens, your professional desperation, & you wake up to a very refreshing thought - you are lucky to be here on this earth!!!

And hence, the bottom line is: Enjoy & more specifically Enjoy the very moment, the very today. Trash those worries, better keep them for tomorrow which is anyway uncertain :)

(Un)Reality Shows ???

Latest fad in the TV world is undoubtedly "Reality Shows" - be it Swayambar or Big-Boss or Dance Shows or MTV Roadies or Singing Competitions. Initially I was quite excited about this concept. Now after seeing so many of them over the last few years, I am utterly bored & dissapointed. Predictability & Dramatization have been two primary reasons. When I heard about "Rakhi's Swayambar", I was sure about the ultimate outcome. When I see the "war of words" between the judges in any of the reality shows, it puts me down since I know these guys are camouflaging. Even at times the scoring is artificially modified to bring more public attention. Watch "Amul Music Ka Maha Mukabla", you will get to understand what I am talking about. Ahhh, that's so much of stupidity. There is nothing wrong with the whole thing, apart from the fact that these are not truly reality shows. I am afraid these shows would loose the charm once the public also start realizing the fake/unreal part of these shows. Such shows force me to coin a new phrase - "Reality Quotient". And I calculate this as following:

Reality Quotient = Real/[Real + Drama] * 100

I am sure you would agree that most of these reality shows have a reality quotient which is far less from being 100%. At the same time, I do strongly believe that, Dramatizing is not necessarily the only way to make a reality show interesting. I am confident that the directors have more innovative ways to make these shows interesting, yet at the same time keeping them "truly real".......

Salary - A Hygiene Factor!!!

I still remember the day when I received my 1st salary. It was sometime way back in 1st week of July, 2002. I was quite excited. With a bunch of new friends, we decided to go out & party that evening. It was quite a different feeling. I spent that money on many things like gifts, apparels, movies etc etc. I didn't complain on not having more. As time went on, I saw people in other companies getting more. That instigated in me to think "I wish I get a little more". And that gave rise to the creation of a new entity in my life called as Greediness. And it went on growing without my notice. My needs started growing. I moved from bike to small car. I am sure it will change to a big car in future. I changed my mobile phones from basic ones to more stylish ones & the list went on increasing :) Every time there is a salary rise, I suddenly see a new need in my life & within months I start cribbing about my salary not being enough. And, BTW, I am not the only person in this situation. I guess 99% of those who are reading this blog would agree to me. I asked myself - "Money buys happiness, but that happiness is very short-lived, why so???". Recently I went for a training on Leadership and I learned a very good thing- "Salary is more of a Hygiene factor, if not a motivation factor". And that's so true, Believe me!!!

BTW, by writing this gyan, it doesn't mean that I have transformed to a lesser greedy person, I still remain the same. Hence I need a salary hike this time :)                                            

Dilli Ki Sardi.....

It's 2PM, on a sunday afternoon, and can you imagine! temperature outside is just 9 Degree Centigrade!!! And yes, it's no hill station, it's no Europe, it's our own Dilli :) Literally hogging whatever sunlight we get at times. This is my 3rd winter in Delhi, and so far I have enjoyed it a lot. This time, it feels like being in a Hill Station for quite long!!! And you know how boring it becomes to be in a hill station for longggg (unless you have variety of things to see/do).

Anyways, waiting to get a glimpse of sun, may be tomorrow or day-after :)

Gloomy 09 to Gleamy 10 & Decade Ahead....

Not sure how will 2010 turn out to be. But one thing for sure, it will be better than 2009. I am sure recession will be talked as a thing of past. I am confident, we will have a relatively stable stock market. Hopefully the food inflation will be brought down. The job market will shine unlike last year.

I wish, more than an eventful year, we will have a great decade ahead. This will be the decade to see how India fairs compared to China. It should be a decade of more action than planning if at all we wish to surpass China in terms of GDP growth. We might see revolution in Education Industry. Hopefully, we will see Institutions which are comparable to Wharton, Havard in terms of quality of education. As some analysts say, 30% plus growth will be a thing of past for Indian IT industry. Yet they will still remain in the 20% plus growth zone. Infrastructure will continue to shine as more companies will continue to come to India to setup their offices, more people moving to urban for a better lifestyle.Last but not the least, it will also be a decade of Green Revolution. I am sure we will see more of CopenHagen summits, more sustainability efforts at corporate levels, more awareness efforts by Government & NGOs.

Let's gear up for an exciting decade ahead!!! Wish you all a Happy Decade Ahead!!!

Can we hold this band wagon???

Yesterday I was reading the book "Chindia" which talks about how countries like China & India are changing the face of this world. Suddenly some thoughts struck my mind - Why is India so special? Have we worked hard to achieve this GDP growth so far OR is this because of the natural advantage that we already have (vast english speaking population available at low cost). Is there any other nation preparing to take on India next decade? Do we know our strengths & do we have a vision? Or are we going to see a US like situation down the line?

Well, honestly I have no clue!!! Neither do I feel that we have worked hard (Unlike Japan) to reach this state. Most of our success so far are primarily because of the natural advantages that we have. But how sustainable those advantages are? Are we not sailing a boat without bothering about it's fuel capacity? If that is the case, the boat is definitely going to stop sooner or later. And you know how difficult it is to survive when your boat stops in the middle of a ocean!!!

I feel no strength is sustainable unless we work on it & make it better than yesterday. If you talk about players like Schumi, Fedrer & Tendulkar; these guys definitely had some natural advantage in the begining over their counterparts. But they were intelligent to understand that it's easy for counterparts to replicate their techniques  and come to their level sooner or later. So they never stopped working on their strengths & weaknesses. They got rid of all possible weaknesses to remain successful over decades or so. My point is: Even a genius has to work hard to sustain his success.

So lessons for India & we Indians would be - work hard on weaknesses, strive to make our strengths non-replicable & remain innovative to maintain a substantial lead over our immediate counterparts!!!

Health Insurance Reform - Quite a Good Idea

I briefly watched the speech by Barack Obama on Health Insurance Reform. I liked the fundamentals that he is trying to address here. The vision is quite clear - "Let no American broke just because (s)he is sick". Fundamentally I found it to be quite a noble thought, yet execution of such a reform would remain quite a tough task. As he rightly said, insurance companies play a foul game when it comes to paying the bills/reimbursements. They come up with reasons which are beyond comprehension at times. There is a tendency to delay payments. They instead look out for one small mistake on the part of the customer so that they can be denied the reimbursement. So in such a scenario, the ideal thing to do would be to introduce competition where the competitor would provide easy insurance options & easy norms so that people get "really benefited". And that's exactly what he is trying to do. He is creating an entity which will be called as a "Insurance exchange" where every individual/ small business firms can get health insurance at a competitive & affordable price. These are still only on papers. We need to wait & watch the real success of this!!! Who knows, this might become a key propaganda for politicians in next election in India as well....

What will you do if...

One fine morning, I took the news paper, sipping a cup of tea & a question cropped up in my mind: What would I do to keep myself busy if all my materialistic requirements being taken care of? Will I leave my job? Will I go for playing golf? Will I go and watch all Cricket matches across the world? Will I travel to all places? 

Well, it's a tough one. I wish I had a clear answer to this question. At least few things are clear - Every year I will go for 2/3 exotic vacations with my wife and spend good time there...I will probably join a Golf Academy...I will pursue playing Tennis more regularly, I will create a modernized sports academy to train kids for future olympics....

Let's see :) 

Consulting in Education Space

This idea came to me while reading the book "Imagining India" by Nandan Nilekani. I was shocked to find that only ~20% of all graduates who pass every year are employable. This essentially means there is a huge opportunity to develop the quality of education. 

In an idealistic world the idea should be to develop the qualiy bottom-up, ie start from school. But by looking at the current situation where India is treated as a young nation compared to the developed economy, we can't afford to let go the opportunities that are coming our way. We need to make more and more people employable. And it has to be imminent. This essentially means the immediate focus should be to develop the quality in Engineering/MBA space and then go top-down. We can't afford to wait till the time government do something. That will probably be a fatalistic approach. 

Well at this moment, we can't afford to have a static curriculum in our system. To keep in pace with current economy, the current curriculum has to be dynamic and more practical in nature. It requires somebody to continuously keep track of recent developments and ensure that the curriculum reflects those changes atleast on a yearly basis. Secondly there has to be more autonomy given to the colleges so that they can choose their curriculum. I am essentially indicating at the idea of setting up a consulting team for educational space who will guide the instituions to design better curriculum year after year.

I am looking for more ideas in this space so that we can take this figure of 20% to atleast 60% in next 3-4 years!!!

Aren't banks opportunistic

If you are going for a new housing loan, you will be charged ~8.5%. But existing housing loan customers continue to pay ~11%. 

I appreciate the fact that banks are trying best to boost the economy by giving housing loans at a cheaper rate. Currently people are holding back to their cash under market apprehension. This hurts the economy. Fundamentally banks are doing a good thing by providing opportunity for movement of cash within the market. I hope this works and make more people to buy houses and there by helping GDP growth. 

But!!! what about the current housing loan holders? Shouldn't bank do something to ensure even such a set of people need to be taken care by the system. If bank lowers the interest rate for existing customers, that will mean customers have more money to spend and hence will help to boost the economy by utilising that money in some other space. Banks will anyway increase the interest rate when economy bounces back. So then why not reduce the interest rate on existing loan!!!

AR Rahman - Redefining Globalization

Truly, AR Rahman proved: "if you have passion for something, it's worth dreaming the best!!!". I heard a lot about him from people. If a person can lock himself up in a room for days to come up with a staisfying score, his dedication is definitely laudable. And there is hardly any possibility of such dedication going waste. 

With Oscar, AR Rahman has redefined the term “Globalisation”, giving Indian Music Industry a much needed impetus. A truly global image is just few miles away for Indian Music Industry. It’s always seen that the 1^st step is usually the toughest one, after that things fall into place. I am quite sure that in no time, we will get to see more Indians winning Oscars and more Indians playing Music for International movies. But one thing will not change soon, ie, People like Rahman, Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar will remain as rare breeds for generations to come!!!

All my wishes with Rahman. I am sure Oscar is just a stepping stone for him to achieve more in future!!! Good luck to him!!! 

Parking - Do we need Government Regulation

Yesterday, on 14th Feb, I had been to Metropolitan Mall and figured out that they were charging Rs 100 for parking. I was taken by surprise, but then started thinking is it right to charge exorbitant price for parking? Aren't we taking too much advantage of "free market economy"?

Well I got the following definition about "free market economy" from Wikipedia:

"A free market is a market that is free of government intervention and regulation, besides the minimal function of maintaining the legal system and protecting property rights"

In a free market, the price is primarily determined by demand-supply equilibrium. In the above case, the supply of parking area is limited in a place like Gurgaon. We also have the problem of limited public transport within Gurgaon. This forces people to take their own vehicles and give whatever price charged at parking. In some cases, people take the risk of parking on “Non-Parking Zone”. Well, I won’t put the complete blame on those people. We need to analyze the alternative as well to ensure that neither the parking charges are high, nor people go against the law to park at Non-Parking Zone.

1st Question: Do we have enough public transport in Gurgaon? The answer is NO. 2nd Question: Do we have enough parking facility provided by Government? ( I am sure they are intelligent enough to understand the fact that in the absence of Public Transport, more no of personal vehicles will be on road) Again, the answer is NO. In such a situation, I am a little uncomfortable to apply the concept of Free Economy in the case of infrastructure which is mostly influenced by Government. I think in the above case, parking charges should come under Government Regulation in the absense of sufficient alternative infrastructure.


My 2 cents. I would appreciate your comments on it!!!

Is your job protected against recession?

The word recession is common place now. People getting laid off is catching an upward trend in India, thanks to the recent global meltdown. Though this presents a lot of uncertainties around one's career, yet it gives you an opportunity to sit back and evaluate areas where you think you can add better values than others.

In India, most people take a career by force, not by choice. And situations like this create an opportunity for people to sit back and evaluate their options. If you are a software engineer working on some very low level activity where you feel there is very little value addition for the end customer, then you have all reasons to get worried. You need to sit back and ask yourself: are you working on something which is considered valuable by your customer? Is it a high priority item for your customer? Is customer deriving advantage from your work? If answer is NO, then you better re-evaluate and change your focus area as soon as possible.

Just go by one principle: "If there is no taker for your product/service, there is something wrong with your job. And such inefficiencies will be dealt by your company during such bad times."