Boom or Bust?

In his presentation of the budget for 2010-11, the FM made a passing reference to the Port Sector and development of new ports. An allocation of about 16000 Crores has been made to fuel this endeavour.( http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100227/jsp/business/story_12157959.jsp )

One of the areas that our arm chair planners are looking at, to set up a new port is at Sagar,just short of where the Ganga ( Hoogly ), eventually melts into the Bay of Bengal.Should this happen, the river Hoogly, would then have three ports on her banks, at Kolkata, Haldia and now Sagar.

Kolkata and Haldia are in deep ( pun intended ) trouble because of the lack of navigable depth, caused due to rapid silting of the river, preventing large ships from sailing up/down the Hoogly. River maintenance is costly and time consuming.

The port at Sagar could preclude, this problem, but are there other issues.........

1. Sagar is an open sea area & would have little or no protection from storms & Tsunamis.
2. What would be the fate of Kolkata & Haldia, considering that crores of rupees ( of tax payers money) has been spent in setting up these ports.
3. Sagar Island is location for the famed Kumbhmela & considered holy by many Hindus.........would this be reconciled in the name of development.
4. What would be the ecological damage of port development, at a new site.

One such ambitious project has drained immense funds but failed to see completion is the 'Sethu Samudram Project', where a shipping channel is being created between Sri Lanka and India. The situation has turned into a political cesspool with a stand off between politicians in Delhi, Tamil Nadu & the BJP, on how a bridge constructed by Lord Ram, could be destroyed......................while many experts cry out in frustration that the project per se is not technically feasible & even if it does go on stream would require huge annual maintenance expenditure.In other words, a collosal waste of scarce national resources!

I hope the Sagar port project does not meet a similar fate, considering the shortsightedness that politicians can display......after all its my money as a tax payer, you see.

Death in Bengaluru!

Every time, the fire alarm sounded on my ship, in my twenty odd years as a seafarer, I groaned. Fire drills can be quite painful & show up weaknesses in your training and infrastructure. On a ship, one prepares, relentlessly, for maybe, that one occasion, when there is a fire on board, where you have to do the right things right to save your ship & crew, from death and destruction.

As a young Captain, I got my turn, while my ship was undergoing a massive repair. Welding on an upper deck, caused, a fire to break out. Unfortunately, following Murphy’s law the fire, broke at 2 AM in a fairly inaccessible compartment. As the temperature rose (literally) I marveled, at how efficient & composed my men were. The rather complicated & dangerous Fire Fighting operation was carried out with a minimal amount of fuss & the fire was put out in about two hours.
A de brief on the event showed that all our FF equipment worked very well, instructions were understood & followed and collateral damage was minimal. The key to our success- Great preparation due to the right processes and training, leading to the right steps being taken as a reflex action. Practice does that for you.
Cut to the fire which broke out in the third floor of the Carlton Towers here at Bangalore, a couple of days ago, leaving a great many people dead. Everything which could go wrong did- Fire Exits were locked, Fire Fighting equipment malfunctioned, Building staff were untrained & confused, Electrical plans were apparently not updated or organized, people who worked in the many offices had no clue, as to how to react to a fire! Three persons died due to fatal injuries after jumping from the top floors of the building while six lost their lives due to severe burns and asphyxiation. Most builders flout fire safety requirements because it saves money and improves their bottom line, but, at what cost? Death! The death of innocents, as we have seen at the Carlton Towers. The apathy & negligence is appalling………………………….As far as I'm concerned professional negligence is criminal and must be treated as such, with extended jail terms dished out to those who flout safety norms.OSHA guidelines could be a standard, for having a framework, in issues of safety.
Rescue workers who reached the building had little idea as to how to react as quite likely, they would not have had access to building plans. The irony is that, collective memory, is so short lived in this country, that, this issue would rest on the back burner, till the next fire in unsafe buildings, kills more people.


Watch the fire engulf, the Navigating Bridge, of the largest container ship, Emma Maersk'

Feelings get you killed!

A while, ago, one Saturday, afternoon, caught in a quagmire of doubt, regarding the movie to watch, over the weekend, Chandrashekar, the chap at the DVD rental, pushed 'Appaloosa' towards me. I viewed the said tape, with a little suspicion, because it smelt, of a slam bang western flick, a genre I've long grown out of. Since he insisted, I lugged it home & settled down to watch, over a cold 'Budweiser'. The beer, hops & all, grew warm as the movie captivated & how? The heroine ( Renee Zellweger), if she can be called that, is brilliant. A lone lady,she drifts into this one horse town ( Where two friends- Ed Harris & Viggo Mortensen- are hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a cattle rancher) & it is not clear if she is a widow, whore or wanderer. Allison, as she is called attaches ( after getting a lay of the land ) herself to the alpha male ( Virgil Cole/Harris) in town. Soon enough she makes a play for her boyfriends, friend ( Hitch/Viggo ), because she perceives him to be younger & a sounder bet.Viggo, will not have any of it & rather brusquely brushes the lady aside.............. Later, when Allison is abducted by a group of desperado's, she attaches herself to the gang leader...................& when rescued hitches up with Virgil again. What a lady, the quintessential, High Mach & High Self Monitor!!!!!!!!!!!!! on a veritable merry go round.( http://capnagaraj.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-pain.html ) The movie ends with the job done & two good friends parting ways, because as Viggo, knows, he does not stand a chance with Allison around and her super maneuvering skills.A mans logic! As he rides into the sunset he says, Virgil & Allison, need time to work things out...... As for Allison, her punchline is -Feelings get you killed! And she proves it by surviving every crisis that comes her way, in a cold, hard world, by reading the situation well and adapting. Who did better here? The HSM- Allison Cole or the LSM- Viggo? Your guess is as good as mine!
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Open to Experience?

I like folk from Calcutta ( oops Kolkata ), the youngster's at least.......

Why ? The do not have the cockiness of the Bangalorean, the worldly wisdom of the Mumbaikar or the bravado of the Delhite. What they seem to have is a veneer of wisdom & old world culture.You can see the 'simple living, high thinking shroud them like a coat of paint.

To cut to the chase, when a few days ago, I found myself interviewing kids of all hues, for admission to ABS, I was pleased to see that many of them were from the City of Joy!When the first Kolkatan sauntered in, looking wise beyond his years, peering at me from behind his spectacles, I wound myself up & tossed him, what I thought was a no brainer- 'What is the length, of the Hoogly?'. The guy, went pale, gulped a couple of times & replied hesitantly that he did not know. I was stymied! My next question- 'Had he heard about the Hoogly?'. He visibly brightened & said that he had. I was releived. As the day wore on, the curve ball was tossed to ladies & gents from Kolkata. The right answer never came my way & one gent testily told me that he had not measured the length.

A dinner that night, I asked my son, if he knew the length of the Hoogly, considering that he has sailed up/down the river on numerous occasions. Amidst watching 'Hanna Montana', he asked me why he should know & what difference would it make to anybody?

Good question & fortunately one that has an answer. Openness to experience is a trait that is much valued these days, not surprisingly because, there are tectonic shifts in technology, which occur at the speed of light and for an organization to survive they require alert,bright and well informed Human Resources.The more well informed you are as youngster, the better your chances of learning new skills as an adult, in the work place. Research has also shown that a major stressor, is the pace of change around us & the inability to cope, because we cannot unlearn & learn fast enough.

Some features of people with a strong 'Openness to Experience':

Rich vocabulary.
Very curious.
Vivid imagination.
Excellent ideas.
Appreciate art & beauty.
Reflect on things.
Use difficult words.

The other day, I asked Alexus Collette, CEO - Philips, Bangalore, on what kind of engineers he recruited & his answer- those with a strong OTE.
Recruiters these days do test you on this personality trait & many organizations judge this as the most important competence that they want their employees to have.

So is the length of the Hoogly important?

We are the way we are! But is that good?

Yesterday at lunch with friends and extended family I went through a bizarre five minutes. This lady, a geriatric, amidst the lunch, got into a loud & lively conversation with whom I perceived to be a family member of hers on the cell phone. The conversation meandered on & on and left many of us writhing in discomfort, unable to enjoy our meal.

This incident followed, my stop at a traffic signal, where a gentleman in a 'Corolla' quite nonchalantly threw a couple of biscuit wrappers on to the road. Out of curiosity, I maneuvered my car next to his & was surprised to see a well dressed gent of about 65!

Some people tend to speak with an increased volume when they want to demonstrate authority, make a point or simply show friendship. It is not unusual for a superior to raise his voice with his staff or for a group of buddies to be boisterous in an otherwise quiet restaurant. In some offices, employees talk about private matters so loudly on the phone that colleagues can overhear them. For them, a high pitch may convey strength, sincerity or warmth-- values that people cherish. In comparison, a soft voice may imply weaknesses or indecisiveness.

As such, when these people talk loudly in a restaurant, hotel or office, they may not be aware that they are creating noise that might invade other people's space. Some tourist guides have said that what annoys foreigners most is when Indian tourists speak loudly and make noises in public.

Respecting another person's personal or private space is anathema to most Indian's and what till recently was a well kept secret is quite common knowledge as India take centre stage as a nation of importance.Currently, uncouth behaviour including spitting, littering, jumping queues and talking loudly has already stigmatized Indian's both inside and outside of India.

So much so, that the United Kingdom, says that it is going to henceforth teach immigrants to stand in a 'Q'. Culturally, in the UK, people are taught to wait for their turn & they find it very disconcerting when ' a Johnny come lately' wanders in & takes a place ahead of him/her in a 'Q'.

A while ago, the government of China issued an etiquette guide asking Chinese travellers, who number in the millions, to heed common etiquette and hygiene standards while on holiday at home and abroad. There has been empirical evidence that Chinese overseas tourists have improved their behaviour, with less spitting and littering.

Personally, I believe spitting, littering and most other unhygienic habits can be effectively controlled in the next couple of years by government intervention and having public figures as well as schools, chipping in on this aspect.

It is also important that corporates brief their staff on country specific cultures before they send their employees abroad on projects or as long term expatriates.Improving one's Cultural intelligence & Cultural Quotient is very important when heading overseas.It could be the difference between expat failure & success and how your bottom line looks..........

Freedom & Responsibility!

The last month has been one of coincidences for the wrong reasons. First a young woman drives her Honda CRV through a bevy of policemen in Mumbia, then two young Iranian women, assault & bite a cop for good measure in Bengaluru & very recently, a group of youth, in a fit of rage, run over a law enforcer in the national capital region , NOIDA.

The coincidences- all were young, rich & very drunk, while speeding in their fancy cars!

In the incidents narrated above, except for the one at Bengaluru, the cops at the receiving end are either dead or battling for life, in Govt. Hospitals, where the rich kids would not even go within sniffing distance.

The police in Bangalore, on public demand, have taken a tough stand against drunken driving & have been shutting down pubs and bars at early hours.These measures have been termed retrograde and earned the wrath of many of my fellow Bangaloreans as draconian & harsh. I agree that the less we are policed the better it would be, but how would explain that to the families of the dead cops & those of the young kids who now are in jail, with the possibility of facing extended jail sentences and a tainted life.

Responsibility is the price of freedom, a fact that many of us seem to have conveniently forgotten & till the message sinks firmly home, I'm strongly rooting for tough laws against drunken driving & early closure of 'palces of entertainment' even if it make the city and people of Bengaluru look old fashioned!

What a pain?

A few days ago, I was at my dentist's to have a painful tooth attended to. Having a fairly low threshold of pain I was at my grumpiest. The drill started with a pretty lady Junior dentist first examining my teeth- molar to canine & amidst friendly banter passed me on to a guy with a crew cut & scowl on his face. This gent was brusque,cold & cut me short every time I wanted to say something.

I was pretty annoyed, in fact very annoyed & in order to vent my feelings found the junior lady doctor an appropriate target.I did not spare the male dentist & called him all sorts of names.I also reflected, as to how the guys wife could live with an idiot like that, all the while ignoring the feeble defense of my lady friend and frantic signals from the reception. Eventually satiated, I found a seat to park myself & retreated. After a while the receptionist informed me with a glint in her eye, that the pretty lady dentist & the painful guy were husband & wife. What a horror! The events that followed are too painful to relate here, but the point is that, how could I have been so abysmally low in intellect?

OB Theory will tell you that these kind of people ( me ) are what are called as 'low self monitors' & are notorious for gaffes. Self-monitoring refers to how individuals control and regulate their self-presentation in social situation. High self-monitoring individuals typically act in accordance with the demands of their social setting. They are attuned to the image they project to others, and they are particularly adept at regulating their self-presentation to fit these situational demands. As a result, their behavior may change from situation to situation. In contrast, low self-monitoring individuals rely on their attitudes, beliefs, and values to guide their behavior. Consequently, they are more likely than high self-monitoring individuals to show greater consistency in their behaviors from one situation to the next.

I had a very jovial captain, who could not resist cracking jokes & got demoted because he cracked a joke in a very serious situation!While high self monitors rise higher professionally, there is evidence suggesting that high self-monitors could have difficulty sustaining long-term relationships. With regard to jobs, high self-monitors have lower job commitment and are more likely to quit their jobs than are low self-monitors. In addition, high self-monitors are less committed to their dating relationships and more willing, than low self-monitors, to leave their current romantic partners for others . Finally, high self-monitors are more prone to divorce than are low self-monitors and experience more stress because they are very concious of the impression that they create.

So what are you?

The others & us!

What an engaging career teaching is.............it teaches you more about yourself and how you think, than maybe what you teach others. As I wind down a course on Cross Cultural Management, at the Alliance Business School, I like to belive, the students and I furthered our intellectual curiosity and knowledge.

Some topics of discussion in the class-

What cultural traits do German Mangers have?

They are punctual, hardworking & have a fetish for quality!

The English?

Great Ethics & character!

The French?

Efficient & Emotional!

Wonderful & the Indians?

Share similar characteristics to the English because we were occupied & Indian managers lack transparency & do not share information, easily.Very dismissive!

I'm going to change tack here & talk a little about a gent called James Mill......who wrote the bestseller of his time, two hundred years ago, which was the training manual for any Brit heading out to India.( The book is not too India friendly and is quite stupid in much of its sterotyping of Indian's)

The History of British India is a monumental work in which James Mill set out to display the history, character, religion, literature, arts, and laws of India, also explaining the influence of the Indian climate. He also aimed to locate the accumulated information on India within a wider theoretical framework.

The work begins with a preface in which Mill makes virtues of having never visited India and of knowing none of its native languages. To him, these are guarantees of his objectivity, and he says –

A duly qualified man can obtain more knowledge of India in one year in his closet in England than he could obtain during the course of the longest life, by the use of his eyes and ears in India.

However, Mill goes on in this preface to say that his work is a "critical, or judging history", encompassing singularly harsh judgements of Hindu customs and denouncements of a "backward" culture notable for superstition, ignorance, and the mistreatment of women.

I would have breathed a little easier had Mill set foot in India and experienced this country, before writing his magnum opus on India & the Indian's. The book, to boot, also influenced every Brit, who visited India, during the Raj.It's amazing how people can talk endlessly, about events or things that they have never seen or experienced or felt?

The last laugh- To add insult to injury, many of our Universities still use an abridged version of the book, to teach young Indian's, British Indian history!!!!!!!

It's time we jettissoned what I call a - Colonial Hangover and really understand culture before we stereotype!

Are you on song?

Many years ago, there was a sense of disquiet as I concluded a thriller from a favourite author of mine- Lawrence Sanders. The reason was that, the main protagonist, a female Sherlock Holmes, had been romancing two of her associates- a solid policeman and a flippant, frivolous, flirty & fun loving art assessor, and now has to choose, the lucky guy, that she is going to have a relationship with.
To my mind, at that point of time, I thought that the choice was a no brainer, but was surprised when, the lady zeroed in on the fun loving assessor. Her reason- he made her laugh! I was scandalized and felt sorry for the solid, no nonsense policeman, but with years of hindsight and experience, agree with our heroines reasoning- mere survival is boring, to live a life, the fun, is very important.The lady thought with her heart or maybe even her gut and not with her head.

When my young students, drop in at my cabin, at ABS, with a troubled look on their face, enquiring, which specialization, in their MBA course to select, my advise- follow your heart, always & every time.While the stakes are high, a career is in balance, I think living a life is more important.I follow this up, with, be selfish in looking at what is going to make you happy, rather than, those around you and you will do well in choosing a path for yourself.

Career Planning and Development, as I see it, has been reduced, to a cold and calculated process. A process without a heart & it is not surprising that we see increased levels of boredom, disconnect, stress and eventual burnout at the workplace.This, I attribute,to planning without a heart, where the immediate bottom line is valued more than the holistic big picture, which is to really live life.

A few days ago, a friend, told me that, my erstwhile colleague's, at Van Oord, received a hike of 25 %, in their wages. That is humongous!My head, says, look at the money,look at what you are missing out on, while my heart has never ceased to sing, after I got into academics.The world looks rosier.

As for now, my heart has won!Lucky me....................!

Food for thought!

A couple of days ago, I had the most exhilarating, ride to the southern suburb of Koramanagala, here in Bangalore, on the pillion of a friends bike.After transacting, the business, that we were there for, feeling ravenously hungry, I scouted around for a bite, and not finding anything appropriate, settled for a packet of Haldiram's Moong Dal.

Post quenching the fires in my belly, while attempting to dispose, the wrapper, the name Haldiram struck a chord.Why? Read on & you shall comprehend!

Haldiram Bhujiawala proprietor Prabhu Shankar Agarwal was sentenced to life imprisonment along with four others by a fast track court for conspiring to kill a tea stall owner, whose shop came in the way of a food plaza he was building, a few days ago.

Agarwal, owner of the multi-crore food and confectionery chain, which has outlets in many cities and also in London and elsewhere, had failed to persuade tea stall owner Satyanarayan Sharma in Burrabazar area of Kolkata to move out as the shop would spoil the facade of the food plaza he was constructing.

His hired goons who threatened the tea stall owner & had then raided the shop looking for Satyanarayan, but not finding him, shot his nephew Pramod Sharma, injuring him seriously on March 30, 2005. These acts followed attempts to reason with Sharma and as this cut no ice, Agarwal tried to buy him off.Sharma would not budge.
The rather bizarre behavior displayed by Agarwal, is not uncommon & in Psychological parlance termed as 'Escalation of Commitment'.

An example.......After a heated and aggressive bidding war, Robert Campeau ended up buying Bloomingdale's for an estimated 600 million dollars more than it was worth. The Wall Street Journal noted that "we're not dealing in price anymore but egos". Campeau was forced to declare bankruptcy soon afterwards.

Escalation of commitment, is a phenomenon where decision making turns seemingly irrational piggybacking on rational decisions, because you do not want to cut your losses & admit that you were wrong in the first place.The phenomenon of escalation can be described in the following fashion. First, a decision-maker performs a choice under conditions of uncertainty. Later, the decision-maker learns that another course of action is more advantageous (this different course may be as simple as the termination of the original project). At this stage the decision-maker has an option of altering the original decision. Having received the negative feedback, however, the decision-maker escalates the original commitment, thus becoming "locked in the losing course of action" (Staw, 1981).

As I finally managed to dispose the 'Moong Dal' wrapper, I wistfully thought- What if our friend Agarwal, had heard about escalation of commitment? In the managers world, it is imperative that we understand, EOC.

Banzai!

It’s clear by looking at the demographics of Japan’s population that diversity initiatives aren’t just a "nice to have" for Japanese companies. They are a strategy for survival. Right now we in India can bask in the refuge of knowing that we have the largest number of youth, waiting to take up jobs. ( Whether they are employable is yet another story )
Twenty-two percent of the population in Japan is over the age of 65, according to the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Fact Book. At the same time, Japan’s birthrate is only eight births per 1,000 people. "Companies don’t have anyone to replace the workers who are retiring," says Jan Combopiano, vice president and chief knowledge officer at Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit that focuses on workplace diversity issues. "What many of them are trying to do is make up for decades of not having women in the workforce.” Also, as Nissan has noticed, women in recent years have become a dominant force as consumers, Combopiano says.
While Japanese companies have gotten support from the government, which has declared gender equity as a goal for all employers in the country, the main challenges these firms face is changing the culture of their organizations, as well as addressing the Japanese culture of being very high on the Power Distance Index. Most Japanese men feel that a woman’s position is at home. Despite laws supporting gender equity, Japan still is a male-dominated culture. To address this, companies need to approach diversity initiatives as they would any type of change management program. Internal training needs to be part of these initiatives so that managers and employees throughout the organization understand why diversity is important and how it links to the company’s business results. And it’s not just the male managers who need the training, she says. Women employees often need help understanding their opportunities throughout the organization, since this is a new way of thinking for many of them, she says.
Unfortunately, to really get women employees understanding the potential for their careers at the company, firms need to have more female role models in top positions and this is really an issue after years of women facing the proverbial glass ceiling in terms of top managerial positions.
According to a 2007 white paper issued by the Japanese government, female managers make up only 10 percent of all managers at Japanese companies.The lack of role models means there are a lot of women who don’t see any possibility for them to be managers.
Japanese organizations are also facing the brunt of a generation of change, where, the younger generation, does not display the same sense of organization loyalty that their fathers did. Indeed job hopping is quite a common Japanese trait these days, compounding the issue. Japan has to choose between the devil & deep blue sea. Their untainted culture or business survival! As the situation worsens are we going to hear the battle cry- 'Banzai' from the Japs....................