Math Paranoia and life lessons...

"Sir, you have to appreciate that we are not as good at Math as the Engineers", said Abhinandan

Back in the late 1990s, I used to teach Operations and Quantitative analysis in a Business Management School in Bangalore. The student profile in the class comprised of few Engineers and quite a number of Non-engineers.

As things have it, both the above subjects are heavy on Math. I used to take my role as a faculty very seriously and was quite demanding on the students when it comes to the unit tests and class exams. The engineers, by virtue of their training, used to complete the sums quicker than most of the non-engineering students. 

Once I was asking the students to complete sums quickly, and Abhinandan, one of the sharper students in my class, responded thus.

"Sir, you have to appreciate that we are not as good at Math as Engineers". 

I could not understand this logic. What is the relationship between being Engineer and doing Math quickly/? Granted that engineers have had to do more Math during their graduate classes, but that is just the nature of the beast. I used to feel that the problem in this case was in the mind than anything else. 

"You are confusing cause and effect," I remember telling the students, "what happens is this. Unfortunately in India engineering is given too much of importance. For most of us, there is only one window of opportunity to get into Engineering and that is by doing well in Class 12."

"If we don't study well in class 12, we don't get into engineering, and that is where the problem starts.", I said.

"If, after class 12, you do not get into engineering, the society will give you a lot of negative feedback in the form of comments and sympathetic expressions and even expressions of dismay and horror (What happened to you? Why you got poor marks? What are you going to do now? !!). At that young and impressionable age, especially when you are emotionally vulnerable, you tend to internalize these comments and decide that you are not good. Since it hurts you to admit that you are not good, you tend to rationalize it by saying that you are not good at Math and you strive to make sure that that is the case. You run away from Math." I paused.

"If you analyse the sequence of activities, you will find that the first link in the chain is that you did not study well in class 12. So how are you going to handle it?" I asked

"You have two options." I continued without waiting for an answer. "One, you can continue running away from Math. That will be a terrible choice since you will become a better manager if you know your math. The other option is to cut out all the clutter and realize that the root cause was that you did not study will in class 12. Once you study well not, you will start doing well.", I waited for some reaction to see if I was getting through. 

The students were listening with rapt attention. I thought I was making progress.

"No one is born disliking math, the dislike is a assumption. If can be assumed, it can be changed by changing your assumptions" I said.

"Likewise, there are many assumptions that we carry from childhood, which can hold back our performance. These are instilled in you by the verbal and non-verbal communications of the adults around you, like your parents, your teachers etc. You are careless, you are naughty, you are dumb, you are not worth anything...Since these are all comments from the 'All knowing' adults, you assumed that their comments are true, and you strived to prove them correct. Now that you are an adult, you need to validate if these stereotypes about you are correct. If they are correct, you must take action to change them. If they are not (correct), you must simply ignore them"

"That is called 'Growing Up' ", I concluded.

My First Shave...

The other day my son was asking me to help him shave for the first time in his life..

When I heard this, I remembered the first time I shaved.

Well, I don't remember the first time I shaved per se. But I remember the incidents leading up to and after my first shaving. 

I was in class 8 at that time. Normally, kids do not start shaving in class 8, they wait till they are in class 9 or Class 10, may be even in plus One to start shaving. You could say I matured early when it came to my first shaving.

There was this kid named John in my class 8. My aspiration to shave started when John suddenly announced one day that he has started shaving. 

I looked longingly and adoringly at the trimmed mustache of John. He was my hero. If he can start shaving in Class 8, so can I. 

I used to stand in front of the mirror, affectionately caressing my almost invisible beard and mustache. I dreamed of my heroic looks after my first shave. 

I spent considerable amount of time planning for my first shave. How do I get my shaving razor and shaving gel? Buying them was out of question. My parents will never give me money to buy my shaving kit. Only option was to use my father's shaving material. My father will never allow me to use his shaving kit. 

So what do I do? WHAT DO I DO?

I got the opportunity when my parents were out on one sunday. I surreptitiously sneaked into the bathroom, closed the door and....

I applied lather. I took the razor. I started shaving. I shaved. I cut myself. Badly.

When my parents came, I tried to play cool. "Appa, Amma, how was the function?", I asked casually. Situation all normal, you know. There is an 'unshaven' kid in front of you.

"What is on your cheek? Did you cut yourself? How? Were you trying to shave?", the questions came in torrents. 

My father flipped out. "What does the boy think of himself? Does he think he has become an adult? By the time he is in Class 10, he is going to look grown up. He will spend all his time shaving. He shouldn't be shaving now. This is not the age. What is his problem? Why can't he wait like other normal kids?"

My father has a very colourful vocabulary when he is angry. On that day, VIBGYOR was literally in our house. He was alternating between red, green, blue, yellow and colours in between. As his anger grew, his language also attained a sort of vitality. The window's in our neighbour's house opened unobtrusively. Crows and birds flew to distant locations to escape my father's wrath.

You know, my father flipped out.

I did not have the courage to tell him of John. I fled.

Later on, I was telling my friend about my shaving experience. In a weird sort of way, I had become his hero, because I had shaved, something which he wanted to do but was scared of. I told him that if John can shave, what is the problem if I do too? After all both of us are in Class 8, aren't we? 

"Don't you know?" informed my friend, "John has already repeated his Class 5 and Class 7. Ideally he should be in Class 10 by now."

The Ultimate Compliment...

"We have a major problem in XYZ" informed my project manager.

It was in the year 2001

In the early 2000's, I was working as an ERP Consultant implementing a ERP product called SCALA. This was a Swedish Product and my employer was the only SCALA Partner in India. This product was widely sought after by European companies who had set up shop in India

My company did a lot of SCALA Business.

I had joined my employer in December 2000 and after about a month of training, was assigned to implement SCALA in XYZ India Limited, a manufacturing company based out of Hosur in Tamil Nadu.

I implemented SCALA in XYZ from January 2001 thorough November 2001. The implementation was a success and company was very happy with the implementation. I still  have the testimonials and the leather bag that the company gave as a memento after the successful implementation.

In the early 2002, I was assigned to implement SCALA for ABC Pumps Limited, a leading pump manufacturer based out of Chennai. Every weekend I used to travel to my home town of Bangalore. 

During one such visit to Bangalore, I went to my base office and met my PM. 

"We  have a major problem in XYZ", said my PM

Being my first ERP implementation, XYZ was always close to my heart. I was concerned about issues in what I thought was a very good and stable implementation. 

I waited for my PM to continue.

"As you might know", continued my PM, "XYZ was bought over by World's leading manufacturing company. The new company has KPMG as the auditors. When KPMG auditors audited the books, they found that the Inventory is not tallying with General Ledger (GL, the accounting book of the company). When they analyzed deeper, they found that the fluctuation was random and they are not able to detect a pattern. Due to the seriousness of the issue, they have recommended that XYZ move out of SCALA and migrate to SAP immediately. The MD of XYZ, Mr.Mukherjee, is furious because he just implemented SCALA at a considerable cost and has informed us that Inventory issue is related to SCALA and has asked us to prove that SCALA works correctly, else, he  has threatened to sue us" informed my worried PM.

"What has been our stance?" I asked

"We have told him that SCALA work fine in many organizations and the product is stable. But MD is not convinced. We are handicapped because we are not able to find the root cause of the issue" answered my PM. 

The issue was serious enough. In any company, Inventory, also called Stock in India, is the most difficult to control and most prone to misuse. A decrease in inventory could mean anything from lack of tracking all the way up to theft. An ERP Application like SCALA brings in tighter control and integration within the organization by providing strict process control in the way the organization processes and consumes the inventory. In this case, it appeared that this control had been violated.

"Does it happen in case of all the items?" I asked. The objective was to see if any pattern existed.

"No, not for all items. It appears that this issue is happening only in cases where there is at least one purchase in a period", replied my PM.

That was a clue. Either the system was failing during the purchase process or there was some other explanation. It was for me to find out.

"How did they find out that there was an issue?" I queried

"This was identified when the audit team was comparing the value of Inventory in GL (General Ledger, the account book of a company) Trial Balance with Stock Valuation Report. This report was developed for the customer by our consultant HPC." replied my PM wearily. 

HPC was another colleague of mine. He was known to be very competent and thorough in his work and was trusted by all in the team. 

I had one final question.

"What have we done so far?"

"We have made multiple visits to XYZ. I have gone and analysed the issue myself. I also sent HPC twice to check. Everything seems to be in order and system is working fine as far as we can see", answered my PM.

Any yet, we have a major issue in our hands, I thought to myself as I took leave of my PM.

****************************************************************************

Almost immediately I called Dennis, the Finance Manager of XYZ, and fixed up an appointment with him for the the next day morning. The poor chap was under such a tremendous pressure from both the auditors and his CFO that he seemed very happy to hear my voice.

On my way home, I reviewed the issue in my mind. The issue, as I understood, was that the inventory value in GL Trial Balance was different from the Inventory value as shown in the Inventory Valuation Report. This issue, usually called 'reconciliation issue' is one that normally keeps many a consultant awake for months. There could be many reasons for this to happen, but I felt that in this case there were mainly three possibilities.

1. Someone has created a direct entry in General Ledger without reflecting this transaction in the Stock Ledger (Inventory Valuation)

2. Some transactions entered in Stock Ledger are not transferred to General Ledger

3. Some other indeterminate issue.

I somehow felt that the root cause of the issue was lying in point 2 or 3 above.

*********************************************************************************

Upon reaching my home, I started my analysis. The first step was to define the problem correctly. I knew that the problem definition was as follows.

1. User checks the Inventory value in the GL

2. User checks the Inventory value from the 'Inventory valuation report' developed by HPC

3. User finds a difference between these values

One external element in the above process was the custom report. To run the custom report, you need the reporting tool. Since I did not have the tool, I created another report to get the Inventory Valuation.

I started analysing the problem methodically. First I checked if all the stock transactions were accounted correctly.

They were.

Then I checked if all the accounting entries were transferred to General Ledger.

They were.

If everything is OK, then stock value from my report and the Trial Balance should tally. I noted the inventory value from the Trial balance. Then I ran the Inventory Valuation Report (developed by me) and noted the value. 

Both values were matching exactly !!!

I couldn't believe what I saw. I seemed to have resolved the issue in my first attempt itself. To ensure that there was no mistake, I tried it multiple times, always with the same result. The values were matching in all the cases.

Armed with this information, I went to XYZ the next day. Before meeting Dennis, I had a meeting with Mr.Mukherjee, CEO of XYZ. He was also very worried and was under a lot of pressure. He wanted to have my explanation.

"These kind of mismatches cannot happen in SCALA", I told him, "this is an accounting application and only thing that we do here is comparing two views of the same information. The values have to match"

He had already heard this spiel from my PM. He was skeptical.

"What if they don't match, as it appears in this case?" he asked me.

"In that case, I  have to say that there is some problem with SCALA", I replied

This is what he wanted to hear from us. If I do not resolve this problem, then I just committed to him that the problem was with SCALA. And being the SCALA partner in India, my company will have to take the responsibility for all the damages that XYZ has incurred, and will incur, due to this issue.

I was not even sure if I was authorized to make this commitment.

Anyways, I took leave of Mr.Mukherjee and sat down with Dennis in his office. I quickly explained the process to him and got his buy in. Having done that I demonstrated him the two reports. 

They showed a difference of Rupees 125. It seems that Dennis had created a transaction the previous day. He quickly reversed the above transaction and the values matched exactly. 

The problem was solved. It was almost too easy.

Fifteen minutes after we left him, we were back in Mr.Mukherjee's office. I told him that the issue was resolved. He couldn't believe his ears. He asked Dennis for confirmation.

Dennis confirmed.

I explained to him that the issue was related to the Inventory Valuation Report developed by HPC. It appeared that this report, instead of picking a single aspect of the purchase transaction, was picking two aspects of the same transaction and effectively doubling the purchase value. Since the items being purchased and the value of the purchases were different in different months, the Inventory value was behaving randomly and haphazardly. 

I did not face this issue since I did not use the above report. Instead I had developed a separate report of my own where this mismatch was not reflected.

I left XYZ office after some time and went back to my office. I went to meet my PM. He was ecstatic.

"I looks as if you have resolved the issue?" asked my PM

I confirmed that that was the case.

"Mr.Mukherjee was on the phone just now. He paid you the ultimate compliment." informed my PM.

"What did he say?", I was curious.

"He told me that 'Ramaswamy knows my business better than my people'"

That my friends, is the ultimate compliment that an ERP consultant can get from a customer.

The Shreesant Saga...

I am very disturbed by Shreesant 'Spot Fixing' episode.

You know the one that I am talking about, don't you? During the recent IPL T20 Matches, in one of the matches involving his team, Shreesant bowled an over that cost him 15 runs. It later turned out that he was paid approximately 60 Lakhs to bowl that one bad over. Unfortunately for him, the entire communication was caught on tape and Shree, as he is called, was arrested by Delhi Police. He is currently out on bail. 

Mind you, I am not a fan of Cricket. I think that it is a very silly game, a game in which two teams play for entire five days with the result being a draw !!. How can one like this game?

Despite my antipathy to cricket, I am totally affected by Shreesant episode, that it is almost weird. I don't know Shreesant, I don't care much for Cricket and I don't care for Spot Fixing. But I have been eerily fascinated by l'affair Shreesant. 

Why?

My wife says that I am feeling bad because Shreesant is from Kerala, my home state. As a malayali, I am affected by what is happening to another of my ilk, according to her.

I don't think so. 

I think I am affected because I see a talent getting wasted. Anyone who has seen Shreesant bowling in South Africa will attest to the talent. That Seam Bowling !!. That Swing Bowling !!. Awesome...It is terrible to watch this exceptional talent being wasted.

You have my reason #1 right there.

But I don't think that is the main reason.

Do you watch channels like NatGeo, Discovery, Animal Planet etc? If you do, you know that one of the most common scenes in these channels are those of big cats praying on unsuspecting pray. The pray like deer, gazelle etc Will be playing around, prancing around like nobody's business, generally enjoying themselves, oblivious to the cold, calculating, steely eyes of the hunters, unaware that at any moment, they are going to become the food for the big cats. 

These hunters has the ability to spot the weakest animal out of hordes of animals. Their expert eyes can spot the weak, the young and the lame among thousands of wilder beast. 

This is what I was thinking of res 'Shresant Saga'. Remember the 'Slap Gate' where Shreesant got slapped by Harbhajan Singh? I think Shree had got 'Bajji' out or something (remember, I don't like or follow cricket) and was prancing around and 'Bajji Slapped him.

At that moment, the wicked eyes of the betting mafia had fallen on Shreesant. They espied his weak spot. 

From then on he was marked.

Lions, when they catch a young pray, allow them to try to escape. They fully well know that the pray can't escape. Like a puppeteer who plays puppets on a string, the big cat hunter plays with the pray till it feels hungry. 

Having marked Shreesant, this is what the betting mafia did. They allowed Shreesant to 'Play around'. They allowed him to let himself go, to enjoy himself, to dance is parties, to sing and freak out, play a bit of cricket sometime....

They allowed Shreesant to prance around, knowing that he is always under their control. The mafia was building him up, increasing his value, preparing him for the slaughter, as it were, which they did during the recent IPL.

That is why I am feeling sad. I am feeling for Shreesant, the same sadness that I feel for the young deer about to be hunted down by the king of the jungle. 

That is reason # 2.

I also feel bad for Shreesant's parents. If reports are to be believed, he was an irresponsible child, dotted by his parents and elder sister. Probably the parents failed to instill the required values in him during his childhood. 

I am sure that they are regretting now. Putting myself in their shoes, I feel bad for them. 

That is the third reason I am feeling bad and sad about the whole unsavory episode.

'Hole in the Wall' Redux

In one of his articles, Mr.Shekhar Kapur, noted film director, talks about his experience of finding a 'Hole in the Wall', in the by-lanes of Juhu in Mumbai, which specialized in repairing high-end mobile phones including Blackberries and iPhone.

He sites this as an example of the thriving grassroots enterprise in India. You can read the article here.

In the article, Mr.Kapur mentioned about how his blackberry had conked off and how he was searching around for a Blackberry Dealer to either repair his phone and  if the repair was not possible, to purchase a new phone at a cost of about 40000 rupees. While roaming around in the bylanes of Juhu market in Mumbai, he came across a small shop named 'Cellphoon reapars' where a boy, who seemed all of 10 years, informed Mr.Kapur that he, the boy, can repair his Blackberry Phone.

While a curious and amused Mr.Kapur was talking to this small boy (without handing over his precious phone to the boy, of course), an older boy appeared. The older boy, claiming to be 19 years old (and looked to be about 16 years old) identified himself as the elder brother of the other boy and claimed that  he can repair the phone.

Before Mr.Kapur could say anything, this elder boy, took the phone from Mr.Kapur, gave it an expert look and announced that the 'Rollerball'  has jammed and it needed repair.

'Can you do it?' Mr.Kapur wanted to know.

'Yes, I can. Shall I go ahead?' asked the boy.

By now Mr.Kapur was beholden by curiosity. He wanted to know where this will end. He gave a go ahead.

In all of 6 minutes or so, this boy dismantled the phone, replaced the ball and fitted the phone again and handed it back to Mr.Kapur. It was impressive.

'What should I do to ensure that this works fine?', asked Mr.Kapur

'Keep your hands clean', came the answer.

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Mr.Kapur wraps up his article by praising the 'Indian Innovation' where many similar 'Holes in the Wall' exist and that we should try and tap this huge potential of innovation and entrepreneurship that exist in the lanes and by-lanes that crisscross the vast country that is India.

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I was telling this story to my cousin who works in Mumbai.

My cousin works as an Electrical Engineer in a Public Sector Company in Mumbai. One of his many responsibilities is to ensure the smooth running of the many air conditioners, refrigerators and freezers in his company.

Once in a while some machine or the other conks off. Any time a machine conks off, he calls Rajen.

Rajen owns one of those 'holes in the wall' kind of shop that dots the lanes of India. His shop is in one of those lanes in Dadar, in Mumbai. He services Air Conditioners, Refrigerators, Washing Machines and other kinds of electro-mechanical equipments used for both industrial and domestic purposes.

Any time a machine needed repair, my cousin will call Rajen. Rajen will come to his office, dismantle the machine and will transport the same to his workshop.

Once the machine is repaired, Rajen will personally transport the same to my cousin's office, install it, get it tested and hand it over to my cousin.

Normal time taken in this whole exercise was 3 days. Rajen used to charge only for his labour. No charges for the technician's visit, no charges for dismantling and analysing the problem and no transportation charges for transporting the machine from my cousin's office to his workshop and back.

Only the repairing charges were charged.

Over a period of time, Rajen became familiar with each and every equipment in my Cousin's office.

Things changed at my cousin's office. He had a new boss.

One day a Blue Star Air conditioner in the office conked off. As usual, my cousin was about to call Rajen, but his boss had other ideas.

"Since the machine belongs to Blue Star, it is better to call the company technician for repairing the machine. The quality of work done by these company technicians will be much better. These 'holes in the wall' kind of guys are unreliable", the boss opined.

Blue Star technician was called. He came, he saw, he charged...

Rupees 250 technician visiting charges

Rupees 500 machine dismantling and inspection charges

Rupees 500 transportation charges to take the machine to the work shop. (Another 500 to transfer it back to the office)

The mechanic took away the machine. The company technician informed that it will take about 10 days to repair the machine (will try to do it faster, sir. Definitely. But you know how these repairing mechanics are.  No work ethics...)

After about three days of Blue Star Technician taking away the machine, my cousin got a call from Rajen.

"Sir, did you give your Air Conditioner to Blue Star Technician for repair?" queried Rajen

"Yes. Why? How did you know?", my cousin asked.

"Blue Star guys have handed it over to me for repair." came the response.

Simply Complex....

Those were the days when chappals were chappals and shoes were shoes...

Life was simple those days. My father would get an annual allowance for buying footwear and we, the whole family, will troop to the neighbourhood Carona or Bata and then...

'What do you want?' my father will ask

'One chappal and one school shoes', we will parrot.

Chappals covered the sole and part of the feet. Shoes covered the whole feet. You have to wear them with socks.

You either wear shoes, or chappal or walk barefoot.

Life was simple.

Then came Slippers.

These were like chappals, only more hip. Still only the sole was covered, but it was done more flamboyantly.

I could live with slippers, though I still stuck to my chappals and shoes.

Then came 'Hawai' Chappals. They were neither chappals, nor they were from 'Hawai'. More likely they got the name from 'Hawa' which is the hindi word for Air. Because they were airy, they got the name 'Hawai'.(Air + y = Airy, Hawa + i = Hawai, we could have added 'Y' and made it 'Haway', with none the wiser. I think the guy who coined Hawai wanted to mess around with Americans, if you know your Geography...)

Then there was a lull for a few years.

The other day, I went to the neighbourhood shoe shop for buying a pair of Chappals.

'What do you want?' asks he

What a stupid question, think I. Do I look like I am here in a shoe shop to buy a refrigerator or something?

'What do you have?', I ask. I want to mess around with this omniscient shoe seller. I already know the answer to the Q.

'We have Chappals, slippers...',says he

I smile an internal smile. We are on familiar territory. I am waiting for him to add 'Shoes' and stop sheepishly. Fancy stupid he will look, when after asking me what I want, he can only respond with Chappals, Slippers and Shoes.

Not even 'Hawai' slippers? I mean what...

A silly smart alec shoe vendor. All talk and no footwear, I mean.

It is like Amitab Bacchan can't come up with 4 options for a question that he asked in KBC.

I mean...

"'....Hawai' slippers, Sneakers, Keds, Moccasins, Floaters, Loafers, Blackies, Brownies, Baby Shoes, Baby Chappals...', he paused for breath..

'What do you want?', asks he

I have no idea what I want. I have heard, in one minute, more types of Shoes than I have ever known in my life.

And I have seen my Class 12 and Engineering and MBA and Durgapur and Kolkata and what not.

I wanted to buy one of those foot wear which cover my sole. I did not have the confidence to ask the name. I was scared of his coming out with another set of jargons.

I did the next best thing.

'Can you show me these?', I asked, kind of confidently, you know. I don't want him to know that I am a novice and am still living in the 'Chappals and Shoes' era.

He has got a grip on me by now, I think.

"There is mocasins, Over there you have floaters, and there you have loafers', he points to an area teeming with a few (how can a place 'Teem' with a 'Few' people?) oddball guys as he mentioned 'loafers'

That is the kind of shoe that I can relate to...

Is Money Important as a goal?

I still remember my response to Rajumohan's question, like it is today. 

Why do I remember that respose? Because one comment that I innocuously made that day set my career back by a few years.

The year was 2001. We, me and Rajumohan, were driving down to Kanthal office in Hosur for a review of the ERP Implementation that I was implementing as a consultant.

Rajumohan, being my Project Manager, was on his way to review my work.

Kanthal Industries Limited was my first customer (or 'Client' as they say in IT Industry). I was implementiong Scala, an ERP Application, for this company. Hosur, where the company is located, is about 40 Kilometers from Bangalore, where I was staying. 

We were in Rajumohan's car, with him driving. We were chatting this and that and then Rajumohan asked, "What do you think? Is money important? Should you target money as a goal?"

I was like, kinda naive and kinda bombastic. I answered (feeling self-important), "I don't think money should be a goal. It is a result. Our goals should be achievements. The more we achieve, the more the money will follow."

The moment I said that statement, I started believing in that. I started believing that money was not a goal, it should be a result. With that belief, I blocked my mind to any further ideas, any further discussion, on this very important topic.

From then on, I started chasing 'Achievements'.

How do you do that? How do you add to your list of 'Achievements'? 

As per experts, the classic path is to identify your strengths, and keep doing what you are good at, and it will result in more and more achievements.

And hope the money will follow. 

I decided that my strength was ERP Consulting and I started trying to 'Achieve'. I went and did more and more implementations, for different customers, I filled my CV with successful ERP Implementations. I piled up an impressive list of ERP Achievements. I collected testimonials from customers. I got comments from customers like 'Ramaswamy knows about my company more than my people do'. 

I was happy. I was doing work that I liked and enjoyed. 

But...

money did not come in proportion to my achievements. 

Money followed its own path. As I kept on doing ERP Implementations, money followed the path of 'Diminishing Marginal Utility'. The incremental money from my next achievement was lower than that from my previous achievement. Also, as I was becoming more expensive as a consultant, there was mismatch of expectations regarding my work between me and my employer. The employer was not ready to 'Play my game', he was not ready to allow me to continue my skill of ERP Implementation and pay me commensurately for my experience. As far as he was concerned, the net marginal benefit that I was bringing to the table due to my experience was significantly lower than the cost benefit that he will gain by getting the same work done by a consultant of lower experience. 

This went on for a few years. Me chasing 'Achievements' hoping that money will follow. In fact it went on for about 8 years. 

Suddenly, one day, I woke up and saw the light, as it were.

I realized that by putting money in terms of 'Goal' vs. 'Outcome', I was missing an important aspect of the role of money. Money can also act as a 'Criteria for measurement' of my achievements. By measuring my achievements in terms of 'Monetary Value', I was still focusing on Achievements, but using a different yardstick of 'Economic worth of my achievements' rather than the 'Quantity of my achievements' as my goal. 

This changed the way I looked at my work. The moment I started looking at economic worth, the gaps in my skill set became painfully apparent. By focusing on ERP Implementation, I was missing the structural changes that were happening around me. The world was no longer looking for an ERP Consultant, it was looking for a manager and a solution provider. Solutioning was where the money was. In my quest for achieving 'Numbers', I had forgotten to develop my team skills, my management skills and my 'Solutioning and Packaging' skills. 

And what about my employer? While my customers were expecting these skills, and were ready to pay more for management and solutioning skills, my employer(s) was ready to pay for my business development skills. For example, they expected me to own proposals and win businesses and I had not developed skills in that area. I still remember that in my 'Achievement' focussed days (with the narrow definition of 'Achievement'), I was asked to make a proposal and I had included all the anticipated and unanticipated risks in the proposal and inflated my prices by almost 50% more than our nearest competitor and lost that deal which was mine for the taking. 

In my new, 'Money as a measurement criteria' days, I started learning new skills. I got certified in Project management from PMI, I implemented a few projects as a PM, I worked for a global retail giant as a 'Solution Architect' and started working on preparing better proposals. I also started learning more skills.

The change in perspective to 'Money as a measurement criteria' made me to learn new skills and look for new opportunity whereby I can apply my knowledge.

The change in outlook from 'Money as a result' to 'Money as a measurement criteria' has brought in sea change in the way I look at life and its opportunities.

I am sure that with my changed perspective, I will still achieve stuff and also earn money. Hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later. 

Thats it. I am done. 

I know of many people who are still in the 'achievement' focussed phase and belittle 'Money' as goal. By taking such 'Yes / No' positions, they are blinding themselves to options that exist in between. 

And that is where most of the possibilities exist.

'Wood for the trees' Syndrome...

In English Language, the phrase 'Missing Wood for the Trees' means to miss the important events that happen around as you live your life focusing on your immediate surroundings. For example, a person who follows a specific ritual as he goes about living his life to suddenly find that his kids have grown up is 'Missing the wood for the trees'.

So is a person who selfishly focuses on his troubles without understanding the impact that it has on his family and friends and who fails to observe that his friends are staying away from him is 'missing the wood for the trees'. 

I was thinking about this the other day. 

If you follow my other blog, you will know that I work in the area of ERP. Currently I work as the Head - IT in a leading manufacturing and exporting firm. 

As a Head - IT, I recently signed an order to procure some services from a Vendor.

I did not think much about it. It was one of those normal transactions that I was supposed perform in my role. The whole process was very normal. I prepared the order, I took a printout, I signed it and send it to the Vendor.

Then it hit me.

This was the first time that I was signing a purchase order in my life. Ever.

And I was not signing the PO as another Signatory. I was the sole Signatory. I was the procuror. 

In my 25 year career, I had never signed a purchase order till now. This was the first time. 

Slowly, the impact of this hit me. Someone has trusted me to procure stuff on their behalf. They trusted my ability, my knowledge and my experience. They trusted me to exert best judgment in making this Purchase...

This was a big deal in my life.

Getting up every morning, going  to office, coming back, sleeping, getting up every....

I was going through life as a ritual. 

During this process, I was missing the fact that I was professionally growing and personally evolving. I missed the fact that each and every day, I was changing, improving, learning new stuff, and becoming a different person.

Greek philosopher 'Heracletus' mentions that 'Sun is new every day'. What he means that even though Sun rises every day, the world receiving the Sun has changed and evolved and hence, for the world of today, Sun is new. 

Similarly, as we go through our life, every day we are different person. The person who gets up from the bed today is different from the person who got up from the bed yesterday. We have changed and the world around us have changed, the people around us have changed. 

If we do not perceive these changes, we will be guilty of 'missing wood for the trees'. 

We will end up waking up one day and realizing that 'Things are not the same any more'. 

They never were. 

Father's day ensemble...

Today is the father's day.
On this occasion, I have collated some of the posts that I had made about my interactions with my son, Aditya.
Check it out...
http://manofallseasons.blogspot.in/search/label/Father-Son

The kidnapped Bachelor of Bihar...

I love this story. This was told to me by a Bihari friend of mine....

These are the kind of stories that make India, India. This is why India is so different from the rest of the world. 

For those of you, my dear readers, who are reading this from outside India (every time I told this story to a non-Indian friend of mine, this story has evoked emotions ranging from laughter to incredulity, like 'It is not possible', to dubiousness 'How can this happen' etc), Bihar is one of the States of India and the people of Bihar are called 'Biharis'. The state lies in the northern part of our country and over a period of time, has come to be known as one of our poorer states with a workforce with extra-ordinary capability to work (and that is the conundrum that is India, people have extra-ordinary capability to work, but the state is one of the poorest. That is us)

Kidnapping is (used to be, at least) a big business in Bihar. Rich people and their kids used to get kidnapped for ransom, people used to get kidnapped for revenge etc..

One key form of kidnapping that parts of Bihar specialized in was to kidnap young eligible male bachelors to get married to the daughters of the kidnappers. These kidnappers will kidnap these boys and get them to marry their daughters at gun point. It is expected that once married, the couple will live happily ever after !!!

And they do live happily ever after. That is the beauty of the system.

My friend told me the story of one  such kidnapping where a smart boy was kidnapped to be married to the daughter of the kidnapper.

In this specific case of kidnapping, the kidnapper himself was a rich person (normally the kidnappers are lower or equal in status to the family of the kidnappee  (I use my artistic privilege to create this new word). a kidnapper of higher social strata kidnapping a boy who belongs to lower social strata is unthinkable), with lots of land and cash and he had a daughter of marriageable age. This boy was tall, fair and was studying in the final year of Chemical Engineering in a local Engineering College. With good looks and good education, this boy was a prime catch.

And he was kidnapped one fine afternoon, from in front of his hostel.

Usually once the kidnapping event is complete, the rest happens very quickly. The boy is taken to the Kidnapper's place, the family are all waiting and ready (This is all planned well in advance. You see, the marriage ceremony has to happen at an auspicious time on a specific day, so the planning of all activities, including kidnapping has to be perfect). And by evening the marriage ceremony is over.

So the boy was taken to the kidnapper's home. Having known the culture of kidnapping, he knew and was reconciled to the fact that he was going to be married that day. During the day, while he was in captivity, the boy had got an opportunity to interact with the whole Cabal. He had opportunity to see his would be bride and her cousin, the daughter of the younger brother of the kidnapper. He saw that the cousin of the same age as his would be bride,  was much more prettier. 

By evening the priest, the family and the whole gang was present and the boy was brought to the altar. There was the family of the proud Kidnapper - his wife, his daughter who was to be married that evening, his parents,  his gun totting henchmen, the kidnapper's younger brother and his wife, daughter, son, his gun-totting henchmen....

The ceremony was under way and the auspicious time had arrived. Now was the time to apply 'Sindhoor' on the 'Maang' of the bride...

The boy took the 'Sindhoor' in his hand...

In a flash of an eye, he jumped up, and applied the Sindhoor, not on the girl whom he was to marry, but on the forehead of the Cousin...

All happened in a flash. The cousin, having been applied 'Sindhoor' on the 'Maang' by the boy, had become his wife.

(As you know, we in India have what is known as 'arranged' marriage. The families of boys and girls will decide that the couple will get married, and they marry, thats it. Marriage is solemnized when the boy applies vermilion on the forehead of the girl at an auspicious time. It is called 'Maang (forehead) main Sindhoor (Vermillion) dalna (Apply)'.

You get the drift. The families decide who the boy and girl will marry, the boy applies vermillion on girl's forehead and boom....they are married.

'Maang main Sindoor dalna' is a big deal in India..)

As you can expect, commotion and chaos...

The guns were out. The enraged kidnapper, who had put in all the efforts in kidnapping the boy to get married to his daughter, took out his gun...

But, there were wheels within wheels...

By applying the Sindhoor on the Maang of his daughter, the boy has now become a key member of the family of the kidnapper's brother. So the henchmen of the brother took the guns against the henchmen of the kidnapper...

Things were getting ugly...

The seniors took over. They agreed that on an auspicious day and auspicious time, the boy had applied Sindhoor on the Maang of the cousin and by the definition of marriage that existed, she was the rightful wife of the boy. 

The dust settled, the ceremony went on with a sulking kidnapper and his family having to watch a hard fought  catch slipping out of their hands...

The boy was married to the girl...

And they lived happily ever after...

This is India.

The three biases ...

All the people and Organizations (After all, companies are made of people) go through three biases. They are 'Status Quo Bias', which can also be called as Inertia Bias, Action Bias and Closure Bias.

What are these?

Inertia Bias or Status Quo Bias is the tendency to stick to the Current situation, however bad it may be. Despite knowing that Inertia bias always hurts (without exceptions), people are content to maintain Status Quo. A smoker, who knows he has to quit, but continue to smoke, is a victim of Status Quo Bias. So is a person who hates the job that he is doing, but is doing nothing to change the environment, a victim of Status Quo Bias. 

A company, which knows that the current processes are hurting, but is not doing anything to change is a victim of Status Quo Bias. For example is company which, after having implemented technology solutions, still continues with the paper based approval systems. 

There are many other examples.

People who suffer from Status Quo bias is living life like a dream. In a dream, you see and feel things that need to change, but you don't (or Can't) change anything. Or it may be that you are a superman doing exceptional things in a dream, and wake up and realize that nothing has changed and nothing was done. Similarly people with Status Quo bias might continue to go on as if they are doing stuff. They go through life as if it is a ritual. They get up in the morning, go to office, come back, watch TV, eat dinner, go to sleep, get up in the morning and so on. Just like in a dream, they are taking action but nothing has changed. They have not become better individuals, they have not learned anything new, they have not quit a bad habit, nothing. The whole thing was a dream. That is why, when people who suddenly realize the impact of Status Quo Bias tell you that they 'Woke Up'..
Status Quo Bias is illustrated by the famous story of Rip Van Winkle. He slept for 20 years when all around him the American Revolution was going on. When he woke up,, he found the the world has moved on while he was in his sleep. 

Some people realize that they are in a status quo bias and need to take action. So they move to the next bias, the action bias.

The action bias, is a tendency to take action and continue taking action without a focus on closure. A software engineer who keeps modifying his code adding bells and whistles to the code is a victim of action bias. People who are victims of action bias think that taking action is all that they have to do. So just like Forrest Gump, who kept running without any aim or objective, these people are always busy, always working. Still nothing seems to happen.

They will provide temporary solutions to the problems without going for a long term solution. They will not spend the time in doing the 'Root Cause Analysis'. They will not spend time in training and education. They are like 'Problem Magnets'. All the problems come to them. They are flooded with problems. They are always busy solving multiple problems at the same time.

There is no time to step back and reflect on what is happening. Why are all these problems coming up? How do I resolve them permanently?

That thought process leads me to the third bias, the 'Closure Bias'. 

This is where you should be. One can only grow if one develops 'Closure Bias'. One should be able to identify problems, identify why they are happening and take action to close the problems completely. People tend to confuse 'Action Bias' with 'Closure Bias'. "I regularly go to Gym", they will say, "But my weight is remaining the same". It is possible that while they go to Gym and do exercises regularly, they are not scientifically following a weight reduction regimen. Probably they do not control their diet. Probably they only do one kind of exercise and the body has got adjusted to the regimen. People with Closure Bias will clinically analyse the issue, seek help if necessary and take a structured approach to close the issue.

So there we are. What type of biases do you have?
If you have a status quo bias, at least move on to the action bias. And then strive to move to Closure Bias. That is how you grow.

The Success Paradigms...

Friends, life is funny. 

In some cases, it continuously changes the environment and expect you to be nimble and flexible. It expect you to look out for the changes in environment, keep yourself updated to the needs of the changing environment and then take quick and sometimes tough decisions...

Life expects you to take action if you want to succeed.

In the other case, life takes action, as it were.

The environment changes itself to accommodate your experience and expertise. You continue doing what you do best and environment will keep changing so that your knowledge and expertise will have new avenues to explore and succeed.

Take the case of one of my friends Saji.

Saji, a.k.a Saji Mathew was my colleague in Engineering College. He graduated in Production Engineering.

In college days one rarely heard anything special about Saji. Nothing special. Just some of the goofy stuff that he did sometimes.

Normal Goofy Stuff, without doing which they don't give you an engineering degree. Nothing exceptional.

After our graduation, we went out into the wide world looking for jobs. Graduating in those were not like what it is today, where, while you are in your final semester you have an Infy offer in your left hand and a TCS offer in your right hand, with an HCL offer on its way to you. Those days jobs were scarce, economy was growing at Hindu rate of growth, no IT, no Private sector employer, especially, for those engineers who come out of engineering colleges in Kerala.

Saji got a job as an engineer with Alind, a Electrical Tower EPC company in Kerala, at a paltry sum of Rs.1200.00 (Approximately USD 25) per month. This company was into the business of erecting and commissioning Transmission towers for State Electricity Boards. Those days, the only new towers that got erected were in the Jungles of Bihar, Jharkhand (of course it was part of Bihar then), Chattisgarh, Andhra, MP and North East.

Saji's first project was to erect a tower in a god forsaken village in the Jungles of Bihar. The nearest civilization was about 60 Kilometers away.

"It was tough", Saji told me over a beer, "We, a group of 4 engineers, stayed in the town and every morning we will take this morning train to the work site which was about 60 odd Kilometers away. There is a small tea stall  in the railway station and we used to eat Puri and Rasagolla in the morning and used to pack it and eat the same thing for lunch. On our way back, we had our evening tea and snacks in the same railway station, and come home and prepare something and eat"

"It was tough", reiterated Saji thoughtfully.

"Didn't you have other opportunities?", after all some of our classmates had joined very reputed private sector companies by then. Didn't Saji try that?

That was a silly question. In those days of job scarcity, one tried everything. Only that one did not get everything.

Or anything for that matter.

"I had one or two offers for Marriage from Nurses in US and Gulf", Saji said

That is not exactly the kind of opportunities I was asking about, if you see what I mean. It was almost like I was asking him about 'Rain' and he was talking to me about 'Pain' ( Or Main. Or Gain. Or whatever. Not the point)

The point is this. If you are an engineer from Kerala, you will get many offers of marriage from the families of Girls who work as Nurses (that is one job that Kerala exports abundantly). They are looking for educated grooms from their own state. The offer is usually very attractive. You will get wife, and a Visa to go to the new country, which is usually US or Gulf. Once you are there, you can make it.

Wife and Visa. What more can you ask for?

This is an easy option for many boys and many take it.

Unless someone is bullheaded.

Like Saji

"Why you did not take up the offer?" I asked him. I already knew the answer. Because he was bullheaded.

"I was bullheaded" said Saji, as if on cue, "I had this romantic notion that if I go anywhere or do something, it will be on my own efforts and not by coat tailing on my wife. So I rejected the offers"

"And continued to struggle", I murmured inaudibly.

"And continued to struggle", continued Saji reading my mind, "Once I finished Bihar, I was assigned to Madhya Pradesh and then to AP. "

"I kept moving on from one Jungle to another, erecting and commissioning HT towers."

"I did this for nine years", said Saji thoughtfully

"Life of an engineer erecting a HT tower for a State Electricity Board is very tough. You have to travel in Sultry weather, in the hot sun, in rainy days, in the bus, in the rikshaws, in the sleeper class and general class in trains, get bitten by mosquitoes..."

"Life was tough" said Saji.

But he soldiered on.

"But I soldiered on for about 9 years like this."

"Then in 1996, I was offered a job with Motorola." informed Saji.

"How did you land a job with the hottest MNC around?, that too while working in the Jungles" I was curious

"Motorola was big way into its project called Irridium, where they had this idea of connecting the whole world with Satellite Phones. They had their own satellites in the GSO, and they erected these tall towers to transmit signals to the satellite and also to receive signals from Satellite. They had big plans in India and they wanted to erect many towers and they were looking for Tower professionals. Fortunately I saw the ad and applied for the job and got it."

See, I told you. The environment was slowly changing to accommodate Saji's expertise.

"I was posted in Kolkata and my brief was to erect towers in the east and the northeast", reminisced Saji

"Life in Motorola was the exact opposite of what I had experienced in Alind. I had high expense budgets. I used to fly to various states, stay in five star accommodation, take taxis for local travel, had good bata (Daily allowance). While in Motorola,  I spent some years in Kolkata and some years in Bangalore."

"Didn't the Irridium project of Motorola fail?" I asked, showing off my General Awareness.

"Yes, it did", replied Saji, "but by that time, the telecom revolution in India had begun and MNC telecom companies started setting shop in India and they needed Telecom Towers. So there was a lot of demand for Engineers with expertise in erection of Telecom Towers. And I was one of the few with that expertise"

I told you. Environment is working overtime to accommodate Saji's expertise. First it was Motarola, now it was Telecom revolution. Everyone needed Towers to be erected and Saji was there erecting 'em.

It was not as if Saji was not taking tough calls. While in Bangalore, he got an offer from Ericcson for their offices in Chandigarh. Saji relocated to Chandigarh.

He spent about two years in Chandigarh. Then he again moved, this time to Mumbai as some top honcho with Tata Teleservices Limited, in their Tower division.

The rest is an ongoing story as I write. Saji is still with TTSL. He is still in Mumbai. He has purchased an awesome 19th floor apartment overlooking Vashi Creek. (I went there once. The view is amazing and the beauty is that in front of his house is a Mangrove forest [Protected] and beyond that is the water. Nothing is going to come between his house and the creek.) "Purchased at 95 Lakhs", Saji told me, "now it should be about 3.5 Crores".

He has grown through the ranks and is currently working as Vice President at TTSL.

All the while the environment is continuing to change. 2G is gone and now 3G is coming and then 4G. Big companies like Reliance are majorly entering into Telecom. So many things are happening in the Telecom Industry.

In tune with that, the Tower Industry is changing and consolidating. New players are entering the fray. They will continue to grow and will continue to demand top talent.

All this while, while the industry is changing, the environment is in chaos, Saji will continue to erect towers. And the environment will continue to adjust and accommodate to his expertise.

I anticipate that Saji will be the second CEO of our batch. I look forward to his speech at Kerala Engineers Association Meeting in Bangalore some time.

Wrong Justice?...

This time I am going for a pure blog post. I am just attaching two stories from various places in India and let you judge for yourself.

"A man and woman if left alone will always go for sexual intercourse". This is what one Judge in Kancheepuram in Tamilnadu had to say about man woman relationship.

And here is the full comment...

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"A man and woman, if left alone, will always go for sexual intercourse. In this case, the accused and the deceased might have been left alone. At that time, the accused would have advanced sexual overtures towards the deceased. She might have refused. Still there might have been sexual intercourse between them. Again, the accused would have invited her for sexual intercourse, which she would have refused. This would have resulted in an ill-feeling." 

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(Before you go all negative on the judge, the judge had booked a Watchman of murdering a female colleague. He made these comments while delivering the sentence of life imprisonment for the watchman. 

For those who are interested, the Madras HC acquitted the watchman. )

Here is another story from elsewhere in India. 

Woman is more dangerous, says the Judge, this time from a Judge in Delhi, I think. 

Like I said, U be the judges...

These two incidents show how deep rooted and widespread the negative perception about women are. India shows its 'Unity in diversity' when it comes to negative perceptions about women. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, women regularly get raped and no one gives a hoot. From Mumbai to Kolkata, women are routinely killed for dowry, and we continue to move on. 

Unless the attitudes like the ones above change, women will continue to suffer.

Of course, negative perceptions against women is not limited to India. Even in those cradle of democracies, the US, one reads about rape, domestic violence and crimes against women.

Of course, that is no justification...

+2 Preparation Redux...My competitive brother...

Readers, being a blog on Personal Growth, the lesson that I want to take from the article below is about how to set extra-ordinary goals, put extra-ordinary efforts and and reach their goals. The lesson that there is not substitute for planned hard work. Don't take the message of why my bro was hyper-competitive. That message is a 'side show' and peripheral.

You know, I had written an article on my +2 Preparation in this blog three days back. I had discussed, in that article, about how my ability to day-dream helped me to do very well in my +2 exams.

This article is about another type of +2 Preparation. 

This is the story of maniacal determination, exceptional effort and extra-ordinary achievement.

This is the story of the +2 Preparation of my brother.

My brother and me are polar opposites. I am a dreamer, he is the most practical guy, I know of. I am soft, he is tough, I take life as it happens, he decides what he wants and gets it, I think world is good and helpful, he, on the other hand, thinks that the world is helpful and all that, fine, but one has to be demanding of the world..

Polar opposites, my bro and I.

My mother attributes it to the fact that I was born on a full moon day, while my bro was born on a new moon day. 

May be...

May be it is because of the fact that being the eldest son, I had stuff given to me in platter, while he being the second child had to seize the privileges.

We were competitors right from childhood. Let me put it this way, he was always competing with me. I don't think I had a sense of competition, remember, I take life as it happens. But he was highly competitive. 

He had to do everything that I did, and better. We used to go to play competitive Table Tennis. I always used to lose, he always used to win. In times of stress, he used to become tougher. At one point in time, I think he was State ranked 6 in TT, while I? well....

In my class 10 exam, I scored 454, he scored 438.

He took it quite hard. He wanted, so badly, to score more than I did.

Since I was one year older to him, he was closely following my heals, if you see what I mean.

As you know, I scored about 94% score in my Class 12 (also known as 'Plus 2' exam). He was determined that he will do better than I did in his Plus 2 exam.

Being the hard as nails, practical guy that hie is, he decided to approach this challenge the old fashioned way, by putting in solid hard work.

Unlike me, he did not need any dreams or such nonsense to motivate him. I, his elder brother had got 94%, he had to get more than that, and he set about it in the most methodical manner possible.

Since my results had come just before his first year exam, he knew exactly how much he needed to score. He was going to have none of those inspired performances. He was not going to wait for any motivation to hit him. He was going to go about it methodically. He was going to slog, day in and day out.

As a first step, he calculated the number of hours he had till the examination. Then he noted down the subjects that he needed to focus on and prioritized them. Languages were low priority, he just needed to pass them. However, he needed to get very good scores in Maths, Physics and Chemistry so he allocated more hours to them.

Next he calculated how many hours he had to attend each class to ensure that he has just enough attendance. Then he went and negotiated with each of his Professors and informed them of his plan to get 100% marks in the first year exam and that he would not be attending the classes once he has enough attendance. Since this was a college where students came to while away their time, the professors were more than happy to let my brother have whatever he wanted.

Then he went about studying.

In the story of my experience, I had mentioned that I used to study about 18 hours a day for about 2 months. In my brothers case it was like, studying 18 hours a day till...like... eternity. Remember, he was only in his first year and I think that he studied for at least 10-12 hours a day for almost more than a year. Through spring, summer, the rains....he went about studying.

All of us know that if you need to score marks, you have to study. There is not shortcut. All of us theoretically know what we need to do to get grades. We need to identify our weak  areas, identify our targets, schedule our time, take notes, read widely not just your books, do past question papers, discuss with peers, discuss with those who had 'been there, done that'....

etc.

All of this knowledge is good. But the key ingredient is to get your ass out there, take the books, read, review and revise.

The point is unless you put the requisite efforts, you are not going to get there, you aren't gonna get it.

And my brother knew it. And he put it (effort) spadesfull.

I was not at home in his second year since I had already joined Engineering college. But on my visits home, his friend used to tell me how hard my brother was working. By then I had reached a level of maturity to realize that while his action of studying hard was good and correct, his motivation to beat me was not the correct reason. But I did not tell him that. Having seen the maniacal determination in his eyes, I did not have enough maturity to tell him what I thought about his motive.

His Plus 2 results more than justified his efforts. He scored 438 / 450 marks in his exam.

Finally, he had met his objective. He had done better than me in the exam.

What do you think of his effort? Do you think that his motivation was justified? Do you think that his ends justified the means? Have you ever been in such situation?

To his credit, my brother identified the futility of his goal. He realized that challenging oneself against ones own potential is a much better approach that focusing and external, peripheral objective. Later he told me that one of the things that scare him even now is, what would have happened if he had not met with his objective of overtaking me. Probably he would  have moved into a depression.

That would have been scary. Even if he had got less marks that me in Plus 2, still he would have been one of the few in Kerala who had got marks high enough to get into Engineering and he would not have felt satisfied because he did not meet with his objective.

Fortunately, he met with his objective. Later in life he had the perspective to show the futility of focusing on any goal other than striving to actualize his potential.

Having ridden achieved the primary goal, he relaxed. Once he relaxed, he went on to enjoy his engineering college days and is currently in the US, working for a multi-national.

+2 Preparation...

I did my schooling in Kerala. State Board.

When we were studying, there was no concept of Higher Secondary, also known as +2. The student completes class 10 or the Secondary School. The Secondary School exam, also known as SSLC exam (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) is the first Public Exam that the student will face. Once a student complete SSLC, she will go to Pre-degree, also known Higher Secondary or  as +2 in some places.

In Kerala, your School education ends with SSLC and then you move to College / University for Pre-degree. 

You have to spend two years in Pre-degree. We called it Pre-degree first year and Pre-degree second year. We had University exam in both the years. The sum of the marks that you received in both the years will be your Pre-degree marks.

Admission to graduate colleges start after the completion of Pre-degree. In those days, admission to graduate classes were based only on the marks obtained in the Pre-degree exam. There were no entrance exam like these days. So getting a good score in Pre-degree had a kind of 'Lasting Impression' on your life.

So you can imagine how important are marks in Pre-degree were for a Student.

For Pre-degree, I took the Maths-Physics-Chemistry group, also known as Ist Group in our parlance. In the first year, each subject had a maximum of 60 marks. In the second year, each subject had a maximum of 90 Marks. Maximum marks for all the subjects put together in both years was 450.

In the first year, I was one of the worst performers in our college. I got, I think, 37 / 60 in Maths,  about 20 / 60 in both Physics and Chemistry. I did not do well in Languages either. I was the only student to fail in Hindi (our national language!!). I remember our class teacher regretfully telling me, "I expected more from you". 

The Pre-degree first year results are announced sometime in January and it is immediately followed by Pre-degree second year exam in middle of March. So effectively we had about three months between First Year results and Second year exam. 

In Kerala, we had a facility to repeat the first year exam along with the second year exam. If you are not happy with your score in First Year exam, you can repeat the same along with the Second Year exam. The marks of the later exam will be considered for Pre-degree. 

With my first year marks being pathetic as they were, I decided to repeat MPC. I also had to repeat Hindi since I had failed it in the first year. 

So you can see that I had to write 4+5 = 9 (My math is good!!), including 6 subject papers and 3 language papers (Hindi Y1 and Y2 and English Y2). And I had only 3 months to prepare !!!

Still I was not serious. I did not do my studies. 

While I was in the second year, the Pre-degree marks of our senior batch was announced. One student in our college, George Joseph I think was his name, had scored 448 / 450 in the Pre-degree exam and he was the college hero. 

So this is the background to what I am about to tell you. 

I used to go to college and back in our Company bus. On our return, the bus passed in front of a famous Woman's college. In the year, it was 1980, the felicitation ceremony for the Rank Holders of the various exams in the University was held in this Woman's college.

While passing the college everyday, I used to dream that in the current year also, the felicitation was to be held in the same woman's college, and I was on the stage accepting the award for the University Topper. I had scored 450 / 450 in the Pre-degree exam and as I was accepting the award in front of all those wildly cheering girls !!

That was right. I had fared miserably in the first year and here I was dreaming that I became the University topper and I had scored 450 / 450 (100% marks) !!.

That was some day dream.

This happened every day. Every evening I will be sitting in the front seat and watch as the woman's college approached. As it approached, I visualized myself receiving the award for the University Topper from the Vice Chancellor.

I have a knack of day dreaming. And here, I was at my best.

In between I also used to dream my professor telling me, "After George, we never thought that anyone could break that record. And in the very next year, you have done that. After last year's performance, I had almost given up on you. But you proved all of us wrong"

I also visualized the next year students of my college looking at me with admiration. "This is Ram", they say in my dreams, "he scored 450 / 450 in the Pre-degree exam"

I was spending most of my days dreaming !.

And the second year exam was catching up fast. I had not started studying at all.

Then one day, while our bus was right in front of the bus stop and I was in the midst of my dreams, I suddenly woke up, as it were.

There was no way that my dreams will come true, if I did not study.

That thought was very, very powerful. In a moment, I saw my dreams shattering as I realized that I had so much to catch up and that if I didn't do well my career was doomed and that I hadn't started studying at all !!

How was I going to achieve my dreams?

I remember that that evening, as soon as I reached home, I threw my bags on the table, took out my book and started studying.

That is it. At 4.30 PM that day, I started studying.

Once I started, like Forrest Gump, I couldn't stop. I did not go out at all. I studied in the day, I studied in the night, I used to go to sleep at about 1.00 AM, get up at 6.30 and even without brushing my teeth, started studying. I learned pages after pages by heart. One of my heroes was an IIT guy, who, if you tell the page number and paragraph number, would recite the paragraph by heart. I wanted to be like him.

I read my Chemistry book of Y1 and Y2 by heart, I read the physics text book of Y1 and Y2 by heart, I read my Hindi text book by heart, I did all the sums in my Maths text book (Literally, I mean it, there was not a single sum in those text books that I did not do on my own !!) of Y1 and Y2.

I studied like a maniac. I studied almost 18-19 hours a day. I wanted that 450/450. I wanted it so desperately.

After some time, the study itself became the motivation. I forgot that I wanted to be in front of adulatory girls.  I wanted to achieve my potential.

Since I had done all the question papers of the previous 10 years of all subjects, the exam turned out to be cool. I was so damn relaxed that I committed some very silly errors.

I was over-prepared.

I knew I had done well. I knew that I won't get my 450.

When the results came, I got 147/150 in Maths (60/60 in Y1 and 87/90 in Y2), I don't remember my exact marks in Chemistry and Physics (they were somewhere near 140). I got a total of 424/450.

And I topped my college in Hindi !!.

I easily topped the first group. I was second in the college, the topper being a girl who went on to become a doctor.

I went on to join Mechanical Engineering in an Engineering College in Kerala.

In that year, the University conducted the felicitation in a Men's college (That's right, they have them in Kerala even now !!). So I did not miss much, I suppose.

So what are the lessons that one can learn from my story?

1. Having a dream is very important. The more big it is, the better.
2. Power of visualization is very important. I visualized that I had got 450/450, that I was the topper and I was being felicitated in the midst of all the cheering girls. I visualized myself as a University Topper.
3. Hard work, almost monomaniacal and focused hard work is very important. No amount of dream could have got me that result if it were not for extra-ordinary amount of effort that I put in.

So there you have, my recipe for success. Dream, Visualize and Work Hard. And Succeed.

All the best.

There are only four jobs in the world !!!

Source: This article was published in Linkedin. Written by Lou Adler (@LouA) is the Amazon best-selling author of Hire With Your Head (Wiley, 2007) and the award-winning Nightingale-Conant audio program, Talent Rules! His latest book, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired, is now available on Amazon.

There are only four different jobs in the whole world.

Everything starts with an idea. This is the first of the four jobs – the Thinkers. Builders convert these ideas into reality. This the second job. Improvers make this reality better. This is the third job. Producers do the work over and over again, delivering quality goods and services to the company’s customers in a repeatable manner. This is the fourth job. And then the process begins again with new ideas and new ways of doing business being developed as the old ones become stale.

As a company grows and reaches maturity, more of the work gets done by the Producers and Improvers. However, without a culture of consistent improvement, the Producers soon take over and implementing change becomes slower and slower until it stops. Long before this the Thinkers and Builders have left for some new venture. Improvers soon follow to join their former co-workers and hire new Producers to add some order to the newly created chaos. The old Producers who aren’t continually evolving, learning new skills and processes, are left behind to fend for themselves. Maintaining balance across all four work types is a constant, but a necessary, struggle for a company to continue to grow, adapt, and survive.

Every job has a mix of all four work types dependent on the actual work involved, the scope and scale of the role, and the company’s growth rate. To ensure balance and flexibility, all of these four work types should be taken into account when preparing any new performance-based job description. Here’s how:

Producers: these people execute or maintain a repeatable process. This can range from simple things like working on an inbound help desk and handling some transactional process, to more complex, like auditing the performance of a big system, writing code, or producing the monthly financial reports. Producers typically require training or advanced skills to be in a position to execute the process. To determine the appropriate Producer performance objectives, ask the hiring manager to define how any required skill is used on the job and how its success would be measured, e.g., “contact 15 new customers per week and have five agree to an onsite demonstration.“ This is a lot better than saying “the person must have 3-5 years of sales experience selling to sophisticated buyers of electro-mechanical control valves.”

Improvers: these people upgrade, change or make a repeatable process better. Managers are generally required to continually monitor and improve a process under their responsibility. Building, training and developing the team to implement a process is part of an Improver’s role. Improvers can be individual contributors or managers of teams and projects, the key is the focus on improving a existing system, business or process. A performance objective for an Improver could be “conduct a comprehensive process review of the wafer fab process to determine what it would take to improve end-to-end yield by 10%.”

Builders: these people take an idea from scratch and convert it into something tangible. This could be creating a new business, designing a complex new product, or developing a new process. Entrepreneurs, inventors, turn-around executives, those in R&D, and project managers are typical jobs that emphasize the Builder component. Ask the hiring manager what big changes, new developments, big problems or major projects the person in the new job would need to address to determine the Builder component. An example might be, “lead the implementation of the new SAP supply change system over every business unit including international.” This is a lot better than saying “must have five years international logistics background and strong expertise in SAP."

Thinkers: these people are the visionaries, strategists, intellects, and creators of the world, and every new idea starts with them. Their work covers new products, new business ideas, and different ways of doing everyday things. Ask hiring managers where the job requires thinking out-of-the-box or major problems to solve to develop the Thinker performance objectives. “Develop a totally new approach for reducing water usage by 50%,” is a lot better than saying “Must have 5-10 years of environmental engineering background including 3-5 years of wastewater management with a knack for creative solutions."

Recognize that every job requires some mix of each work type. As you select people for new roles it’s important to understand the full requirements of the position, who else is on the team, and the primary objective of the department, group or company. In the rush to get work done, it’s easy to lose sight of this bigger picture, emphasizing skills and experience over performance. This is how Builders get hired instead of Improvers and Thinkers get hired when Producers are required. While there are only four work types, hiring the wrong one is often how the wrong work gets done.