A serious lapse in judgement....

The other day Dr.Sumramanium Swamy startled a TV anchor by saying that folk in the media need to be investigated too for what he called owning 'large farm' houses and possessing disproportionate wealth. Well the anchor, ducked that one fairly easily but Indian media will find it very difficult to duck the one on Tarun Tejpal the founder and Founder Editor at Tehelka. Tejpal has been in the news for various reasons, with a sting operation on the BJP where he exposed the wheeling and dealing of politicians to his incisive writing and novels. However, now he has raised hackles due to his alleged unsolicited advances towards a young woman staffer working at his newspaper. The young lady resisted and has since protested. Apparently the newspaper in question did not have the mandatory committee to deal with sexual harassment and her grievances were not given due consideration. Something which the Tehalka management, under siege, finds itself at a loss to explain to a nation that is upset and annoyed. To add insult to injury, Tejpal claims that it was a bad lapse of judgement and that it was a serious misreading of the situation. Here the case gets murky because Tejpal seems to be insinuating that he was not entirely at fault and at worst he made a mistake as he misread the situation. He has offered to step down from his position for a period of six months! India today is at the proverbial crossroads. As the demographic dividend plays out and young women join the organized work force, it is going to be very difficult for predatory men to understand that there is a definite line between flirting and harassment. Tejpal indeed made some serious lapses in judgement, more, so that the laws of the land cannot be trifled with, however drunk with power one is. The Goa government, where this alleged incident occurred has since taken suo sponte cognizance of this act and might investigate further. And they should, not because of the earlier skirmishes that the BJP and Tehalka have had, but because a clear message needs to be sent out to macho men who cannot keep their hands to themselves. A few hours before the news broke I was discussing a case of sexual harassment at Mitsubishi and Tarun Tejpal provided an interesting coincidence. Workplaces are not arenas for power play and projection of dominance over what one considers to be a weaker person. Bullying and harassment are the pastime of the uncivilized and those who do not understand that need to be pursued and punished with all speed.

Indian English

A few days ago Mulayam Singh Yadav, the erstwhile Chief Minister of India's biggest state Uttar Pradesh, dropped a veritable bombshell when he said that English needs to be banned from Parliament in order to promote Hindi.Now Yadav was gently reminded that India is a multicultural diverse nation, where different languages are spoken and understood, he responded that Indian languages could be allowed in Parliament but not English. This stand, former and latter, has left most sensible people flummoxed.Indian English is as Indian as is say Hindi, Marathi or Kannada and is the language in which most business gets done.In villages in Karnataka there has been a steady rise of children enrolling in private English medium schools. How come they see something that Yadav has missed? Companies that I have seen transact their business in English and hence select through an English interview process and there is no escaping that fact. The interesting point is, why revive old ghosts? The Hindi bogey was considered dead and buried and most non Hindi speakers muddled their way through a Bollywood movie and listened in rapt attention to Lata Mangeshkar or Kishore Kumar ( both incidentally are not from the Hindi heartland )without understanding a word. English in India is still considered the language of the elite and rich and politicians can hobnob with the rich but cannot be seen to be doing so.Both SM Krishna in Karnataka and Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh lost elections as they were considered to be pro rich/anti poor and pro urbanization. The Hindi debate was settled long ago and we need to navigate around it rather than running aground on a non- issue. India has greater things to contend with in both the near and far terms and we do not need another language row.

The Tendulkar of field hockey

The called him the Bradman of hockey, when India ruled the hockey world and was unbeaten at the Olympic Games from 1928 to 1956. Major Dhyan Chand was a wizard and it is said that Adolf Hitler offered to buy his hockey stick at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Incidentally India thrashed the German national team in the final, witnessed by the Fuhrer.

The Germans were expecting an easy win, not because they had a better team but simply because they considered themselves to be racially superior to the Indian's.Apparently Adolf Hitler left the stadium in the midst of his team getting slaughtered.On the morning of the final, the entire team was nervous since they had been defeated the last time they had faced Germany. In the locker room, a Congress tricolour was produced. Reverently the team saluted it, prayed and marched onto the field. The German team was successful in restricting the India side to a single goal until the first interval. After the interval, the Indian team launched an all-out attack, easily defeating Germany 8-1, incidentally the only goal scored against India in that Olympic tournament. At the end of the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics which India won the Gold Medal a reporter said: 'This is not a game of hockey, but magic. Dhyan Chand is in fact the magician of hockey'. India was a nation fighting for her independence and desperately searched for heroes, that were not brushed aside as mythical. The Indian team's feat in Germany must stand out as a landmark event in our history where a nation believed that the white man could be beaten at his game on his turf. Dhyan Chand scored 400 goals in his international career.Nobody has come even within sniffing distance. His stick was tested in many countries, to check if it concealed a strange magnet, as that was Dhyan Chand's superb ball control and wizardry. In celebrating Sachin Tendulkar, let's not forget great sportsmen of the past.I understand that in a world that lives in the fast forward mode, the past is fuzzy and forgettable.Nations forget their history at their peril. Call him the Tendulkar of hockey, but give the man his due.Major Dhyan Chand was a torch bearer of Indian sport and Indian's for that matter when we were desperately seeking heroes.

Cricket

Amidst the breast beating surrounding the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar, I sat through a sad piece of interviewing by one Boria Majumdar, a sports journalist. The gent was interviewing a galaxy of stars; Brian Lara, Rameez Raja, Gautam Gambhir and the bad boy of Pakistan cricket S.Akhtar. Well the drift was as follows: Sachin was the greatest to have graced the cricket field and stands above the rest. While I love Sachin, Boria's stand is a bit rich. How can one compare, Sir Gary Sobers, Viv Richards, Brian Lara,Sachin Tendulkar and the great Don Bradman. All of them batted their way to history in different era's and demolished the best of their time. Bradman of course stands tall with his average of 99.94. An awesome feat which has since not been matched.

Boria's stand is that Sachin is greater than the Don, simply because the latter did not play in India. Well, he did play against India in Australia and literally nailed every Indian bolwler. Importantly the Don missed five years of cricket due to one Adolf Hitler jack booting through Europe and WW2, while in his prime. Sachin tendulkar is our pride and a great cricketer but to place him on a pedestal is robbing cricket of that place. The game deserves better.Sachin was a child prodigy who fulfilled that promise.

Rahul Dravid's count of 8 series-defining performances in Test cricket is not just the highest for any Indian Test cricketer, it is the highest by any batsman in all of Test cricket history. This is what makes Rahul Dravid such a giant even in international cricket. How does he compare with Sachin? The game of cricket is a great one and can we leave it at that please?

Sardar

The hoopla surrounding the raising of the so to be worlds tallest statue in Gujarat honoring the original Iron Man of India is not only quixotic but downright bizzare with two of of India's main political parties in a messy scarp as to who owns him. To be fair the Congress movement ( not party ) which was at the fore front of India's freedom struggle had Vallabhbhai Patel as its foremost leader next only to the Mahatma alongside Nehru. Patel was India's home minister and integrated a nation that many in the West thought would fall apart, as the natives were too naive to govern themselves. One such advocate of this idea was Winston Churchill the former war time Prime Minister of Britain who tried his utmost to deny India her freedom from a repressive and suffocating English rule. Well, Sir Winston was disappointed on both counts - India got her freedom and held together as a nation, thanks to the man that we are discussing, Patel. Patel took charge of the task to forge a united India from the British colonial provinces allocated to India and more than five hundred self-governing princely states, released from British colonial rule by the Indian Independence Act 1947. Using staunch diplomacy, backed with the option and use of military force, Patel's quiet leadership persuaded almost every princely state to join India.A remarkable feat by any stretch of imagination. Patel died soon after independence and Gandhi but not before he had persuaded a reluctant Junagadh and Hyderabad to integrate with India. Hyderabad needed some small persuasion from the Indian Army which rolled into the state and occupied it in all of four days despite the bravado of the Nizam's army which was hoping that the Saudi's and the Iranian's would bomb the Indian Army to smithereens.The Saudi's and Iranian's if they had harbored such thoughts, wisely refrained and Hyderabad was taken with remarkable ease on completion of Operation Polo, as the armed forces action was labelled.This was a precursor to India driving the Portugese out of Goa. The operation galvanized a nation - occupied for a thousand years, it gave a young India something to cheer about, a huge psychological boost. The man responsible for this was Patel with his decisive leadership. As the years rolled on and we had a dynasty replacing the Brit's in New Delhi, Sardar Patel was jettisoned to the side lanes of history and was a passing reference in our history books. Now as a statue which is to be the tallest one in the world is being raised in the heartland of the BJP, Gujarat, by a man who the Congress party fears and loves to hate, Patel is up for grabs.The Congress's charge is that a non secular Narendra Modi is raising the statue. Well, Sardar Patel was a true blue secular who was not deterred from rebuilding the Somnath Temple, much to the chagrin of the then Prime Minister of India J.L.Nehru. The Somnath Temple was a temple repeatedly sacked and eventually destroyed by Islamic zealots from Afghanistan and then later Indian Islamic rulers. Sardar Patel initiated the process of reconstruction and today's Somnath temple is a legacy of the Indian's stubborn resistance towards religious intolerance and the will to hang in there against all odd's. Patel was an icon, a towering figure who needs the respect of a grateful nation and that his statue is being raised in the land from which he hailed is a tribute that he deserves. Two negatives can make a positive and I'm glad that the BJP and Congress have managed just that! Results do matter, never mind the reason.

Street Smart

As I mentor young MBA students for life after college the question arises as to what it takes to be a great and even successful manager in a world that throws up new challenges at the rate of knots. Many of my young friends feel that one needs to be street smart, another claims that he would like autonomy at work and would like to be micro-managed. I dislike the words. What does street smart mean? It could get you just that far and no more. Street smartness, indeed - balderdash!I always felt that it was a way for the shirker to say that academic excellence was not required and could be replaced by a notion that one could work his way to the upper echelons of an organization by just being smart, whatever that would mean. Micro management is another word that is loosely bandied about by people with little experience at work. Too much of autonomy to those with little work experience and even less cognitive skills can only end in disaster for the manager who empowers those who cannot handle responsibility with understanding. However on reflection I concede that there could be elements that differentiate a great manager from an average one. My laundry list would be: 1. Be culturally sensitive: India is without doubt the most diverse country on earth and it is imperative that one is culturally sensitive as work takes us across different cities.Carlos Ghosn, of Renault Nissan says says that he owes his success in Japan simply because he immersed himself in the Japanese culture and way of life.While it is important to be rooted and proud of one's own culture, being parochial is stupid in today's flat flat world. 2. Network: Network furiously is the mantra for successful managers. Networking and communication are key competencies that cannot be ignored. The use of social media may have destroyed intimacy but has improved reach. Reach out to as many people that you can and stay connected. 3. Multitask: This is surprising. The west thinks sequentially and so getting the brain to do do multiple tasks is a tad difficult. In today's world you just can't stay on one ball at a time but need to juggle many with finesse. The above three would be that X - factor that seperate's the men from the boy's along with the long list of competencies that a person needs to have in terms of hard work, domain skills and the like. If these constitute street smartness, then you have me in your corner.

The young at work

Over the last few days I have been subjected to long lectures from friends and acquaintances on the quality of fresh graduates entering the work force and the time required in getting them up to speed. While complaints abound, solutions offered are few and far between and there is smug undertone that we ( my generation ) were better than the current crop. Considering the volume being written on the current youngsters one would assume that we are facing an epidemic of sorts and that India has missed the bus or about to miss the one on demographic dividend. What's the real truth? Well, here is my spiel: 1. We tend to reflect on the past through rose tinted glasses and with fond nostalgia. In short - we had our share of gaffes and were as much as clowns! 2. Our managers were a lot more patient with us than we are with the current breed of graduates. I had pretty good bosses's and wince at what they had to put up from me. 3. Today a larger volume enters the professional workforce and there are bound to be hits and misses.We had ours too. So are things hunky dory and are we being paranoid ? No, on the contrary, I think serious problems do exist. At the start of any career a youngster needs to be able to manage oneself and his/her environment. There seems to be a serious problem here. A young career professional never seems to grow up and is unable to deal with a changed environment.The mind set simply does not exist to accept that serious adulthood has begun!It's like if SRK can prance around trees at 50, why can't I? Simple things cannot be grasped, even to the point where the youngster can answer as to why exactly he/she is in a job? Some obvious areas of concern 1. Arriving to the office on time 2. Being civil to others at the work place 3. Distinguishing between work time and personal time 4.The work place is not a country club and point for socialization but is one where serious work gets done 5. Work gets done in teams and the individual is just a cog in the giant wheel 6. Learning never stops but needs to be accelerated at work 7. A career is like running a marathon and not a 100 yards sprint. One needs focus,discipline and the the good sense to look after one's health rather than indulge in wild partying and drinking binges. Not all of us are Superman! The great Indian middle class taught many of these values to their children at home, but that seems to have been lost, so many of the young are buffeted by conflicting pulls at the workplace and fail to focus. When the inevitable pink slip arrives it leaves many shattered and bitter. While I envy today's young for many things that I missed, I also feel extremely sad at their inability to come to terms with a complex, complicated and ruthless world of work.

Western Practice & Indian Thought!

A little while ago, I reconnected with an ex student of mine on a business trip to another city. The young man, took time off from what was apparently a busy work schedule to touch base with me.We decided that there was much catching up to do, so we headed off to a nearby pub and downed a couple of mugs of draft beer. The evening was great fun amidst loud English pop music. The youngster obviously was very proud of his work and the progress that he had made. I was glad that he was doing well and his career was on an upward curve since on an earlier occasion at college he had looked despondent and very very low. Well to cut a long story short, we go-sipped about Bangalore and his class fellows and common friends that we had. Since I had a packed day ahead, we decided to wind up early, even while the evening was still young and he offered to drop me off at my hotel. This done, while leaving he bent down to touch my feet, the quintessential Indian manner of showing respect to an older person who one respected. It is called Power Distance ! I was touched and very very proud. I have told this story to many of my older friends and most laugh it off asking if we had drunk anything stronger than beer? The answer is no, it was beer and we were not tipsy. I believe that whatever we might like to think, the denim clad Indian youngster is still very Indian and not culturally adrift.In a confused, over sexed world, youngsters are buffeted by conflicting thoughts and emotions but at the end of the day their Indianess remains and they have not abrogated their value systems. As for me, I was very pleased that students that I had taught still remembered me with some affection in a world where permanence is in serious short supply!

What's hiring got to do with self esteem?

A while ago I ran a training program on hiring practice for senior managers of a large PSU here in Bangalore. One of the role plays involved interviewing skills and therein interviewing a recruit. The interviewee so chosen was a youngster who seemed to be full of vim and pleased as a punch. In fact his behavior bordered on the cocky. The prospective candidate did extremely well in navigating the technical questions that were thrown at him by the panel. At the end of the interview round, much to my surprise, the unanimous verdict was that that particular candidate would not make the list of selected candidates as he was 'arrogant'. I responded by saying that the candidate looked confident and not arrogant and that the organizations needed confident people who were technically very sound and that the candidate should be chosen. The panel was not very convinced. What's the point here? An issue that most lends bias to a recruiting process is lack of confidence or self esteem in recruiters.Recruiters with low self esteem abhor confident candidates and will not select them. Unfortunate but very true. How does one mitigate this rather unfortunate state of affairs? A route may be to have a panel of interviewers, where hopefully biases will cancel themselves out and more importantly training recruiters to recognize and deal with biases. Hiring a poor candidate is bad, rejecting a great one is even worse and in a competitive world, organizations recognize that this is workplace harakiri. While many do recognize that hiring is a very important HR activity, few spend enough of money in training their recruiters and developing staffing metrics which would give an early warning of poor practice.

Celebrating Mediocrity

The other day I was at a HR Seminar at the Leela Palace, where the lead moderator, threw this curve ball at us: How many of you believe that academic excellence is important to success in work life? My hand shot up, a midst deafening silence and as I looked around I was the only bloke with my hand in the air, looking a little like Billy Bowden signalling something. Even as my hand descended, I was a tad perplexed by this seeming lack of respect for academic success. Does it mean that academic success is not important at all and does it also mean that we can wander our way through school and suddenly turn to be a top performer at the workplace. Don't you think it is a little simplistic to assume so? Most people swear by academic credentials simple because it goes to show a certain level of rigor, discipline and focus to suffer which are extremely important for latter day jobs. It may be assumed that somebody who showed this at a young age can replicate it at a later one.This is not to say that people who did poorly at some point of time. cannot or should not be successful. The chances though are slim and for want of a better system, we look at academic excellence to forecast future performance. In India, we suffer the pangs of envy and like to pull down anything or anybody that is successful. It makes good business sense to study successful people and learn a trick or two from them rather than saying that success itself and best practices are bunkum.Very rarely have successful people got to their rarefied position out of luck - more often than not it is something special that they have done or maybe not done wrong. As we grow as a nation, it is important to celebrate success and successful people and make winning a habit. Losers and whiners perpetuate a losing cycle which if it has uses has eluded me.We need winners as role models, to encourage others to do well and excel. Let us not celebrate mediocrity - it might look fashionable, but has limited use in a competitive world!