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I haven’t seen Satyamev Jayate. Don’t intend to. Not until the hype and emperor’s new clothes syndrome wears off.

The subject I hear he touched upon isn’t new… or have you been living on mars without cable and internet?!

Indians are great with talk and tamasha. Poor on action. Remember someone called Anna Hazare and all the related status/posts/comments/tweets online..??

While I admire Aamir as an actor, and I welcome every new initiative to improve the hell we live in, pardon me for being cynical about people’s knowledge or intent behind the hype.

That’s the unfortunate truth that prevails inside me. And perhaps inside more like me.

Would love to be proven wrong though… until then, have a nice day!

ps. seen the official website? now this is why i say people don’t think this through…

1. Do you think anyone will SMS No, to a fast track court to address the sting ops?
2. The Poll asking who’s responsible – Doctors – Inlaws – Lawmakers – whoa! is the answer that simple? how about the father, and often the mothers who are party to it themselves?
3. Serious issues? You need Playboy flip flops from Jabong at a flat 30% off!

In its defense, I would like to add this post I just read about the show. He makes some good points – 10 to be precise.

Continue reading »]]> In his column in the Mint yesterday, Niranjan Rajadhyaksha writes about the fall of Nokia in the context of the Schumpeter warning on competition – that it comes not from price, or other players, but from a company’s own inability to keep up with the times and change.

Change, Schumpeter pointed out, will come in the form of new technologies, new processes, and new organisation realities… which if a company, even in a monopolistic or market leader position like Nokia was in, fails to embrace, will eventually not just lead to loss of market-share, credibility and profits, but strike at the very foundation of their existence and hence future.

Basis this theory, and its interpretation of what’s been happening with Nokia over the past couple of years, the Finnish company should be scared, very scared. Unless it suddenly develops new flexibility of strategy, thinking, and reaction to the changing environment, and dramatically breaks free from its own history and past glory.

Really large and successful firms are more likely to be challenged thus, as the “not invented here” syndrome often makes them loath to change.

Of course, Nokia is not alone in this situation, just most prominent today and hence used as an example in the article. Microsoft too is in some ways in the same (Apple) flavored soup with open source side-orders.

Niranjan further points out that Schumpeter drew an important distinction between monopoly and big businesses saying they are not interchangeable.

“…big firms could rarely protect monopoly profits in the long term. Big companies survive because of innovation and organizational agility rather than monopoly status.”

In summary I would like to point out, as one who has bought many Nokia handsets in the past (but not in the past 5 years), and as one who has friends working in senior positions at Nokia worldwide, I would like to see the company wake up and reinvent itself now. Not just in terms of products, but also in its approach to markets and marketing, and of course. I would love to see it break free of the templates of success that brought it this far. And hopefully be another example for us to read about in the future. Albeit a very successful and shining example of change.

Read the full article online here

Related Articles

• The Real Cause of Nokia’s Crisis (blogs.hbr.org)
• Microsoft and Nokia’s partnership poses challenges, say agency chiefs (prweek.com)
• Why Nokia Fell From Grace (customerthink.com)

Continue reading »]]> Today, I’d like to pay a tribute to the people of Egypt – on both sides of the walls we saw coming up in the preceding weeks.

I pay tribute to the men and women who protested peacefully, without violence, yet stood firm behind their convictions. And I pay tribute to the Egyptian Army and other Egyptian law enforcement agencies that maintained their dignity and respected human rights while in the face of uncontrollable masses.

Not only have you all shown the world it is possible to have a revolution without the use of force, you gave a shot in the arm of democracy and the power of the common man to drive change.

The world wishes you all the best, and hope to see a newer, happier, more energised, and more economically successful Egypt in the years ahead!

Related Articles

• Egypt’s next step: a human rights revolution | Kate Allen (guardian.co.uk)
• Egypt: What’s Next? (newsy.com)
• Mubarak resignation prompts celebrations, some silence (cnn.com)

Continue reading »]]> For all you social media evangelists and digital marketing professionals, here’s a great example of branded content with great viral potential.

It’s a joke going around on SMS and BBM:

Neil Armstrong lands on the moon, only to find two Indians already there!

“Who the F*** are you??!” he asks in dismay.

Pat comes the reply from one of the guys “Cameraman Santosh ke saath, Deepak Chourasia – Aaj Tak”

Related Articles

• And that’s how you make branded content that doesn’t make folk’s eyes bleed (community.prweek.com)
• 7 Stellar Examples of Branded Content from the Fashion Industry (mashable.com)
• Branded Content, Top Tool for Most Marketers (pamil-visions.net)

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Admittedly this is not exactly new, but I was going through my books this morning and came across “New Thinking For The New Millennium” by Edward De Bono. As I read the synopsis and the first page, it hit me ~ this is so relevant today, actually more so today than it was at the start of this millennium when this book was first written.

So here they are, the words that caught my attention. I hope they spark something in your mind and add value to your thinking in the year ahead.

“The thinking of the last millennium has been concerned with ‘what is’ – the thinking of analysis, criticism and argument.

We need to concentrate with ‘what-can-be’. This is thinking that is creative and constructive and seeks to solve problems and conflicts by designing a way forward.

The emphasis is on design, not judgement.”

“It is time we moved forward from the constipated, judgemental thinking of the last millennium and all the strife it caused, to thinking which is more concerned with design and value creation.

You can analyse the past, but you need to focus on designing the future”. This is my learning (and goal) verbatim, for the new year 2011, and the decade ahead. Thank you Edward De Bono!

Let the designing begin!

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I’ve often debated the merits of being an assertive, lead-from-the-front, the-boss-is-always-right kind of leader, versus being a nurturing, i-am-right-behind-you, what-do-you-think kind of leader. And for me, the latter has always won the debate.

However, I hear plenty of arguments in favor of the former school of thought, and also see great merits in it. Today I read a feature article by Knowledge@Wharton, in CD from The Economic Times. Titled “Perfect Pairing” it talks about how effective leadership is determined less by leadership and more by the personalities of the people they’re managing!

“Effective leadership is determined less by leadership and more by the personalities of the people they’re managing”

This of course fits with my thinking, and challenges conventional wisdom that tells us that leaders are the men and women who stand up, speak out, give orders, make plans and are generally the most dominant, outgoing people in a group… the extraverts.

This feature points out that introverted leaders are more effective in circumstances where there is a strong second-line of command, and where you want to enhance employee proactiveness.

This belief is supported in a soon to be published paper titled “Reversing the Extraverted Leadership Advantage: The Role of Employee Proactivity”. The paper is co-authored by management professor at Wharton – Adam Gant, Francesca Gino of Harvard Business Schoool, and David Hofmann of Kenan-Flagler Business Schooo, and will appear in the Academy of Management Journal.

The paper points out while assertiveness or extraversion is a strong predictor (and even common evaluation) of  who becomes a leader, it is not necessarily the best way to be a leader.

Extraverted leaders are less receptive to others and their ideas, and can respond in a way that’s discouraging for employees and makes them less willing to work hard and share ideas. Grant further points out that Introverted leaders on the other hand, are more likely to listen carefully to suggestions and support employees actions that make them more proactive.

But point is not about which type is better, but the point here is that you have to choose whether to be extraverted or introverted depending on the kind of people you work with. Because a mismatch of personalities is what leads to leadership-employee conflict and attrition.

Some employees need vision and hand-holding, prodding even… while others simply need vision, a platform, and the space to think, act, and grow. You have to decide which type they are, and then act accordingly.

On a personal note, I have benefited greatly from introverted bosses who nurtured and pushed me to do my best. Of course, being brilliant also helps

No seriously, I have been fortunate to work with and under leaders who have been secure and confident about themselves and hence not challenged by my ideas or work style or anything! They’ve listened, questioned, waited, supported, and done whatever it took to make me apply myself. These are the same people, who on the other hand have given others no rope, except the kind they could hang themselves with!

I myself tend to be more introverted than extraverted. I recognise, like the paper points out, you don’t have to be loud and commanding all the time to lead all the time. Sometimes and with some people, you have to just hand over the wheel, and let them know where you want to be led. And I’ve been fortunate to have been with some really great drivers!

ps. now coming to the relevance of the image above, what I am talking about here. While the Porsche 911 Carrera GTS is a thing of beauty overall – the most powerful incredible thing about it is the engine – which incidentally, powers this beauty from the back

Continue reading »]]> I don’t always agree with him, nor do I like his blatant style of pushing his own agenda, but for once I agree with Mahesh Murthy in this tweet of his. All those years of building up credibility, threatened (not dashed to the ground) by keeping bad company!

I will add, this is true in both our professional and personal lives. You have to know who the people you hang out with, hang out with. Because their reputation and what they do, can imply you do the same. And more importantly, your secrets with them are at risk, if they share secrets and secret dealings with others as well.

Related Articles

• Twitter Has A (Secret) Reputation Score For Every User (techcrunch.com)

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Cover of The Art of Choosing

Life is all about choices. And the ones we make, and the ones we don’t define who we are, and define our lives. Choice itself has many interpretations and applications – from basic choices we make in our daily lives, to choice as an expression of free will, and a million things in between.

Choice is good, and choice is bad, depending on who you are, and on what you apply your choices. And the impact of choice itself depends upon the degrees with which you apply it.

Then there are informed choices and there are misplaced ones. Choices based on articulated life goals and beliefs are a very powerful thing, but Choices driven by hollow ‘freedom to choose whatever one wants’, or worse, out of rebellion, is sure-pure destructive in the long run, as much as it may seem to be ‘the brilliant light of hope and success’ in in the eyes of the beholder.

I am currently reading a fascinating book called The Art of Choosing, by Sheena Iyengar, and would like to share some interesting, thought-provoking passages from it – starting with the first essential of Choice – a goal. Because this seems to be the biggest stumbling block in society today, when it comes to making choices. What are we making them for? What’s the end to which Choice is a means?

“So we return to this question: If we don’t even know our own minds, how do we figure out what will make us happy? We can temper the automatic system with the reflective system, and vice versa, but we still make mistakes. Perhaps, instead of looking for answers only within ourselves, we should examine what others have done in similar situations.”

The irony about making “My Choice”, is that it often forces people to make a choice different from what others have made. Because very often accepting “another’s choice” is seen as conforming, as in the opposite of making your own choice, hence the need to be/state/do it differently, in order to express your “own choice”, albeit without clarity of the reality.

Professor Daniel Gilbert, an expert on happiness research, writes in his book Stumbling Upon Happiness

“What’s so ironic about this predicament is that the information we need to make accurate predictions of our emotional futures is right under our noses, but we don’t seem to recognize its aroma”. We tend to think that the experiences of others are mostly irrelevant because our circumstances and our personalities have no equivalents. “[We] think of ourselves as unique entities – minds unlike any others, and thus we often reject the lessons that the emotional experience of others has to teach us.”

“We tend to have a knee-jerk negative response to anything that seems to want or have control over us. We worry that if we give up any control, we may eventually become nothing more than robots. Our anxiety is not always unwarranted, but too much of it is counterproductive. The problem may lie in the fact that we tend to put choice on a pedestal, so much so that we expect to be able to bend everything to our will. We would serve ourselves better by separating the influences that conflict with our values from the influences that are basically harmless. We can then consciously examine our reasoning process to combat some of the covert effects of the negative influences…

…by focusing on things that really matter, we avoid running ourselves ragged over decisions that are simply not important in the long run.”

Now the truth is, given emancipation of society (regardless of education and responsibility levels), and emergence of empowered individuality (irrespective of whether or not the individuality is well thought out or intentioned), the world and our lives have today become an incredible, dazzling, “supermarket of choices” where you can walk down any aisle of life, and be faced with rows and rows of choices. From the love section, to the friends and family department, to the work and professional aisle – the choices go beyond the wildest Starbucks customisation fantasy.

In the book, Iyengar points us to Alexis de Tocqueville, the French thinker who keenly chronicled American society, and described as follows, the consequences of ever-increasing choice, starting 170 years ago:

“In America I have seen the freest and best educated of men in circumstances the happiest to be found in the world; yet it seemed to me that a cloud habitually hung on their brow, and they seemed serious and almost sad even in their pleasures… They clutch onto everything, but hold nothing fast, and so lose their grip as they hurry after some new delight.”

At the end of the day, I am a huge fan of Choice. And the ability to choose ones friends, work, relationships and the nature of it all. The point is, Choice, like a loaded gun, is a potent weapon. Wield  it well, and it will protect you for life, fool around with it, and you could end up shooting yourself in the foot!

“Choosing helps us create our lives. We make choices, and are in turn made by them. Science can assist us in becoming more skillful choosers, but at its core, choice remains an art. To gain most from it, we must embrace uncertainty and contradiction. It does not look the same to all our eyes, nor can everyone agree on its purpose. Sometimes choice pulls us to itself, other times it repels us. We use it without exhausting it, and the more we uncover, the more we find still hidden. We cannot take full measure of it. Therein lies its power, its mystery, and its singular beauty”

Possibly Related Articles (automatically generated)

• Risk and Choice [Terry Daniel] (ecademy.com)
• Saturday Morning Reads: With Great Choice, Comes Great Marketing Responsibility (theharteofmarketing.com)

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I read this piece by Sumeet Vaid, Founder CEO of Freedom Financial Planners, in the Economic Times today on how it is important to cut back on expenses today, in order to build a sound financial future tomorrow.

I have always personally derided this perspective, saying its not relevant to people who have a steady career path and the confidence that their income will only rise over the years. Which means, what may seem beyond your reach today, will be something well within, tomorrow.

But this is a different take, which has its merits and logic, given the unpredictable world of today, and the fact that the best laid plans can also fall flat. And this is true, not just for individuals, but for corporates and companies as well. Take what’s happened in the US, for example – its a classic case of collective instant gratification backfiring in epic proportions!

A couple of excerpts from the article, and then a link to the complete opinion online.

“Usually, when we spend on buying things, we end up borrowing. You may think, “How can I borrow when I am spending from my own pocket?” What you don’t realise at that moment is that every penny you spend on buying something that is more of a want than a need, you are borrowing money from yourself. You may think that you don’t have to pay yourself back, but this tendency pulls you away from your life dreams and goals since you do not have the money to save or invest… “

“…An important fact put forth was that individuals forgo long term goals for instant gratification. Most of us just get a certain “high” while buying a particular product for e.g. a new pair of shoes, or going to the best restaurant in town. This habit increases borrowings.

A way to break this pattern is by making a clear demarcation between what you want and need. They are always two separate things. Though instant gratification is fun for the moment, on a long-term basis, it might not be what you need. Commit yourself towards creating reserves for your future, instead of just thoughtlessly spending money…”

Read the whole opinion here.

Related Articles

• Delayed Gratification and the Secret to Will Power (wisebread.com)
• Budget Rehab: Prioritize Your Purchases (money.usnews.com)
• THE END OF INSTANT GRATIFICATION: It’s Time For America To Stop Eating And Spending And Get Into Shape (businessinsider.com)
• In tough times, financial planners say their business is in demand (cnn.com)