Merry XMas and Happy New Year!

I was wondering whether I really wanted to do the usual stuff of wishing everybody, sending tons of emails knowing fully well that it will get lost in the crowd and then I came across this message sent by my friend Anil Sachdeva. I decided I had to share it for even if only a few of you read it, I'm sure it will make a difference just like it did for me this morning on a warm sunny XMas day. So here it is.....

Let us develop a sense of gratitude to the Lord by focusing our attention on what we have - Swami Chinmayananda

A saint was walking along a crowded road, when his eyes fell on a child begging by the wayside.

To each and every passer-by, the child called out, "Give me something in the name of God! My parents are blind! Help me feed them!"

The saint told the boy, "Why do you need to beg my child when you are so rich!"

The beggar boy was taken aback. "Alas sir, I am poor! My parents are blind and we live on the alms I get."

The saint thought for a while, and then said, "I shall give you Rs 10,000/ -. Will you cut your hands and give it to me?" The boy was horrified.

The saint persisted, "How about your legs? Take 10,000/-, but give both your legs." The boy shook his head, speechless with shock.

"All right then, give me those pretty eyes of yours for 10,000/-..."

"How cruel you are!" the boy burst out. "Will you have me disfigured, deformed and maimed for life?"

The saint smiled. Lovingly he said, "My dear child, God has blessed you with such strong and healthy limbs. Why don't you make use of them effectively? Why beg when you can work hard and live a life of self respect.! "

God blesses us every moment. But we are habituated in taking all His blessings for granted.. . . or we are busy comparing and proving that we got less. . . or we pay more attention to what is missing and thus miss out what is present. At the end of the day there is a thankless, discontented heart craving for more. No wonder why our hearts ever remain hard and dry, in spite of receiving so much in abundance.

The statement ''Man gets and forgets while God gives and forgives" makes the cause of our misery plain and clear.

True happiness lies not in gaining what we don't have, but in recognizing and appreciating what we already have. Soon we will discover that counting our blessings is the hardest arithmetic to master!

Once in a children's camp, the teacher asked the children to list down the 'seven wonders ofthe world'. While the grown up ones rushed in to present their standard stereotype answers, a small girl too, about five or six years of age, hesitatingly submitted her list of wonders. They were l To see 2.To hear 3.To smell 4.To feel 5.To taste 6.To love 7.To laugh.

How true! ! As has been rightly said, "We thank the one who gave us the wrist watch but forget the One who gave us the wrist!"

God's gifts are priceless and invaluable. Lose it, and it's lost for ever. In spite of all the modem technological advancements, they remain, even to this day, irreplaceable.

Someone has put it nicely, "I was sad that I didn't have shoes till I saw someone who didn't have legs!"

Noble sows find ample reasons to thank the Lord even in the most tragic situations.

Recently, in one of the reputed hospitals, a cancer patient, whose case was declared incurable by the expert doctors, was seen joyously chanting aloud Lord's name. An astonished visitor, seeing his blissful state asked him with curiosity, "Sir, how is it possible for you to thank God in spite of giving you such a painful end?"

The patient smiled and replied, "Sir, I am truly grateful to God. How lucky I am that I know the arrival of death long before I die! Now every moment has become precious for me. Facing the inevitable end, my mind now doesn't wander anymore. All relatives have left me and thus I clearly , perceive that God alone is my true companion. With His sweetest name on my lips, I weep and pray from the depth of my heart, which I was unable to do before. Thanks to this disease, I feel His consoling presence as never before."

Cheerfully accepting even the bitterest experience as prasadam from the Lord is the sign of a true devotee.

O Lord, next time when You answer our prayers, ensure that You have given us the most (and the only) important thing - a thankful heart filled with gratitude.

Messages of gratitude as the above article from the 'Vedanta Vani' magazine of Chinmaya Mission, help one to acknowledge and appreciate the gifts of life which we have long forgotten in today's mad pursuit. The surge of gratitude to God in one is a profound way of looking at life more positively.

Thanks for being a part of my life and making it better by supporting me in your own way. Happy Holidays!

Wanted: Tech Mahouts

As companies grapple with leadership issues, one of the most critical responsibilities of the board is to identify the rainmakers, unfettered by conventional wisdom

Remember the famous book by Lou Gerstner Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? that talked about how he turned around IBM? The book starts with IBM’s Board Member and Executive Search Committee Chairman, Jim Burke, pursuing Gerstner, who happened to be his neighbour, to interview for the big job. Gerstner was initially reluctant because he perceived himself to be unqualified given his 100 per cent non-technology background. But, thankfully, Burke persisted and the rest is history. IBM came back from the brink (it was very close to running out of cash in ’93 when Gerstner took over), to become what it is today – the second most valuable technology company, ahead of Microsoft. It seems the Board had considered John Sculley and many others before zeroing in on Gerstner. But IBM’s stars were aligned and it got what it needed.

What better time than now to reminisce, and marvel, at the sagacity of the IBM Board that moved boldly to make a very unconventional hire?! How did they get it right when we see so many technology companies struggling today, unable to fix their leadership issue? HP has tried Carly Fiorina, Mark Hurd , Leo Apothekar, and now, Meg Whitman – 4 CEOs in six years! Dell eased out Kevin Rollins,though he was groomed for the role by Michael Dell himself. Bringing back Michael Dell hasn’t exactly put the company on the right track either. Yahoo, another icon of the internet world has had an infamously revolving door with Terry Semel, Jerry Yang and Carol Bartz, all failing so miserably that today there is talk of Alibaba acquiring Yahoo! Right here in India, we have seen Wipro struggle with its leadership question ever since Vivek Paul quit the company six years ago. And there’s been the revolving door of founder CEOs at Infosys until the recent appointment of KV Kamath, even that only as its Chairman. The situation is grim, with even long lasting CEOs like Steve Ballmer at Microsoft and John chambers at CISCO feeling the heat. Something is definitely wrong with hiring when iconic, well-managed companies like HP are suffering from a leadership deficit. And it can surely be called a trend when we have not one but several of them going through similar woes. Is this a reflection of where the technology industry is today? Are we at yet another inflection point where the old companies are going to go the Digital, Compaq, Sun way?Or can they fight back to regain their place like IBM and Apple did with the right leader at the top? What are the big issues facing the HP’s, Dells and Yahoos today?

The last decade has been among the most exciting times in Silicon Valley and the global information world that it dominates. Several billion dollar enterprises like Google, Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, Amazon have sprung up even as the older companies like Microsoft, HP and Cisco are struggling to stay relevant. Apple has decisively changed the playing field by redefining the entire business model; it does not sell just devices, but the entire customer experience - whether it is listening to music,watching shows, or playing games. This has enabled Apple to take charge of the relationship with customers, and thereby reduced telecom companies like AT&T to mere bandwidth providers. Amazon is THE online mega super store. It has bankrupted electronic retailers like Circuit City, closed down Borders, and is marching forward to take on the likes of Walmart next. Electronic Arts, which looked unbeatable just a few years ago, has been blind-sided by tech upstarts like Zynga and Angry Birds. Looks like 2010 has finally delivered on the promise that we dreamt of in 2000 – the Internet has transformed technology companies to become mainstreambusinesses on their own. They are no longer just enablers. Skype and Vonage are the new telecom companies, Twitter is the new world’s newspaper, and Square is all set to become the payment gateway of the future. The new leaders who are redefining the business world, like a Larry Page, a Mark Zuckerberg, or a Jack Dorsey, are all technology geeks who also seem to “get” consumers, very much a la Steve Jobs– figuring what consumers need even before they know it! Is this the kind of leadership that is missing in the companies that are getting knocked off their pedestals?

Consumerisation of IT, as this trend is called, is clearly one issue that technology companies are grappling with, but it’s not the only one. Unfortunately, the enterprise market, that has been the gravy train for the older tech companies, has also been impacted by the economic downturn in the developed worldthat now seems to be worsening further. The emerging economies that are growing are highly price sensitive, and competitive, and in no way a ready substitute for the markets lost in US and Europe. The Banks and Financial Services companies, which form a large chunk of the enterprise market, are no longer willing to change hardware and software at the rate they did earlier. In fact, enterprises are widely expected to soon accelerate their move to the cloud, so that they can curtail their IT infrastructure investments and leverage the cloud’s “pay as you use” model. So at the same time that the PC market is slipping away, the enterprise market is also churning. The old enterprise-centric CXO’s are at a loss to deliver as they did before, by selling more of the same and slashing costs.

No wonder Boards are struggling to figure out the right answer, as to who they should pick to lead their companies at this time. Some are getting back founders and failing, as visionary founders do not always transform into leaders (see Jerry Yang). Well-planned successions, like Dell’s, have flopped because the environment turned hostile too fast. The net result is that several of these tech giants look so similar to what IBM was in the ‘90s - struggling to find their place in a changing world. Can they find their Lou Gerstner?

In many ways what Lou Gerstner did, as a complete outsider at IBM, was to provide classical leadership. He went in and realised soon that IBM had great people and great products. However, the sum of the parts was not adding up to a great whole, as the culture had become very individualistic and each division was pushing its own agenda. He did not try to convert IBM into a Compaq (which had just beaten it in PC sales), or into an HP or a SUN, companies which were taking away its market in other product lines and markets). He refused to bow to the conventional wisdom of the time and break up IBM into several smaller units, or abandon its mainframe computer business. He famously stated, “The last thing IBM needs is Vision”! Instead, he focused inwards to identify the true DNA of IBM, its value and identity that was responsible for making it the great, mighty, behemoth that the corporate world had learned to rely upon for over half a century. Gerstner realized that he needed to clearly articulate and reinforce what IBM stood for - the greatest solution provider to enterprises across the world. He didn’t import too many outside executives; instead he supported the people who were already there and keen to turn things around, to charge forward. He inspired his team by leading from the front. But as he himself asserts, the people themselves brought about the real change – they knew the answers and they had the passion to make it work. All he did was provide a clear direction and stand behind them.

Today as we watch HP trying to become an IBM, Dell trying to become an HP and Microsoft trying to become a Google, perhaps their leaders would do well to take a look at Gerstner’s legacy at IBM. Or what Steve Jobs did for Apple in the last ten years. It is easy to forget that often, the true genius of a company lies within it. It is that genius that helped a company fight mighty odds and succeed brilliantly in the past. The right leader is one who can appreciate this and knows how to find and re-ignite that inner genius of the company. He or She could be a rank outsider like Gerstner, an ousted founder like Jobs, or a passionate insider like Larry Page…there is clearly no one formula. Identifying such leaders from wherever they are, unfettered by conventional wisdom that ties them to a shortlist of usual suspects, and bringing them onboard, is among the most critical responsibilities that boards need to perform today.

Diamonds In The Rough

In order to build organisations which can be the models for an entire generation of businesses, one needs to discover the diamond in the rough

Last week, I suddenly got a call from one of my good friend who I had known for a long time, though LinkedIn was mainly how we kept in touch these days. He was calling to get my advice on a new opportunity he was considering and was excited about. I knew that he was doing some wonderful work in his current role and that he was a sought-after speaker at international forums that wanted him to share his experience. So I was surprised when I heard he was looking at a change. Even more surprising was the option he was looking at a large and successful Indian firm, but one that had a somewhat questionable reputation for its HR culture. My first reaction was “No, you are not going there. Period!” But he was not in a mood to give up that fast, or perhaps he had anticipated my reaction. He persisted. He said the company was wooing him because they wanted to transform their culture. The call to him had come from the CEO, the big man himself, with a clearly stated mandate  “come in and tell us what it would take to be a truly global company, and help us make it happen”. I understood why he was enamored - how often does one get a chance to lead change management at a Fortune 500 company in India?! He managed to move me from an outright “No” to a“let me do some research” tone at the end of the call. And why not? What if this was indeed the sign of Corporate India truly taking up the mantle of becoming ‘Global’? Perhaps the CEO, the visionary that he is, knows that the years ahead represent the golden opportunity for India and his company to succeed on the global stage; and he’s perhaps realized that he needs to transform his organisation and culture to be able to get there?

It is virtually a given today, that India is one of the hotspots for growth in the coming century. The events unfolding this week are, quite rightly,being interpreted by pundits to imply that the tipping point in the global economy has been reached. It is as if the World was waiting for that one decisive event that would signify the shift of gravity to the East, and the S&P downgrade of the US provided just that! India and China are undoubtedly the brightest spots in the horizon,with growth averaging 8 % plus and a huge middle class that has just embarked on a buying spree. Even more than China, India’s young demographics and low base puts it firmly on the top as the land of opportunity - what the US/Japan were in the last century. It means that capital from across the globe will find its way here. We are already seeing this with the increasing flow of FDI, and the burgeoning valuations in the start-up world. Cheap capitalis beginning to attract more entrepreneurs and more new businesses in all sectors of the economy. A very different place from where we have historically been, and no doubt a good place to be in!

However, the challenge starts here. Getting off the starting gate does not automatically mean that these entrepreneurs have won the race. From past experience, we know that many of them will disappear or get acquired by other firms, especially the ones coming from outside wanting to get a foothold in India. Organisations that know not just how to leverage market opportunity,but also build significant scale, will require consistent, predictable execution day in and day out. Flawless execution will determine the difference between success and failure in high-growth markets. And this is not an easy task that can be managed by throwing money at it, or by just having a charismatic leader at the top. It will require a high-performance team. It will require leaders in every function who come not with just a traditional bio-data, but with the experience and track record that demonstrates that they know how to challenge the status quo. These are the quintessential ‘transformational leaders’ who thrive in high growth, chaotic environments that throw up completely new problems to solve, and solve fast, every day. They are passionate about putting their head down to the task at hand, and doing what it takes to do the job to perfection; problem solvers whose commitment and zeal spreads infectiously to the team. What drives them is not fame and fortune as much as the desire to venture into unchartered waters and swim successfully to the shore.They are the kind of people who get their kicks from challenging established mores, by swimming against the tide - the kind that Steve Jobs brought in when he came back to revive Apple.

One of the first things Steve Jobs did after he rejoined as Apple’s CEO was to hire Tim Cook. Who was Time Cook in the late ‘90’s? Did everyone know him then? Hardly. I’m tempted to quote from Dweight Silverman’s blog on Tim Cook -“I was the tech beat reporter for the Chronicle(Houston) during that period, and don’t recall ever meeting Cook or hearing his name. He was not high profile on the northwest Harris County campus while he was there. Bob Stearns, who was chief technical and strategy officer for Compaq at the time, described Cook as ‘not very senior or visible’. He was ‘the guy who got laptops out of development and successfully into the manufacturing environment’, Stearns said.Specifically, Cook’s job was vice president of Corporate Materials, which means he was involved in manufacturing and supply chain management at Compaq. In the late 1990s, Compaq was locked in a fierce duel with Dell, which had pioneered selling computers directly to customers. Compaq was still largely reliant on resellers, and was struggling then to convert to a more direct business model. Cook would have been part of executing that effort.” Of course, Cook brought in more people like himself who lived by the same mantra of ‘execution’. So, while Jobs ideated and dreamt of changing customer experience, it was Tim Cook and his team who tightened the nuts and bolts. Thanks to people like Tim Cook, Apple today knows what it takes to put completely new products in the market, and supply them in mind-boggling numbers, consistently, without sacrificing their high standards of quality.

This seems to be a pattern with companies and leaders who achieve extraordinary results  which were invisible and undiscovered for the longest time. They are too busy executing and pushing the company in completely new directions. They are impervious to the outside world; the mainstream media and recruiters are equally impervious to them. But if we are serious about building the next Apple, the next GE, or the next anything from India, we need hordes of such leaders. Finding these people wherever they are, and empowering them,should top the agenda for Investors and CEOs, for that will determine whether they succeed big time or remain also-rans. Today’s India is very different from the past, and more-of-the-same will fail in this new paradigm. At stake is the opportunity to build organizations that could be role models for an entire generation of businesses. We can fritter it away, or we can seize the moment. The ability to execute will be the key determinant of which way we go. The right people, who understand and know what it takes, are there, but they are not going to knock at your doors. You need to discover the diamond in the rough.

Bring On The Failures

The Silicon Valley has a history of spectacular failures paving the way for cutting edge innovation; in India the trail is yet to be embarked upon

Last week, I met with someone who had been a part of the core start-up team of Asera,Inc. Asera, if anybody remembers, was identified by Forbes.com as the top Business-to-Business Company in 2001. The company was awarded the distinction of being a key technology enabler alongside Oracle, SAP and IBM. It was among the Top 10 companies to watch for in the same year, as per Network World. Asera was the brainchild of Vinod Khosla who is a highly respected thought leader in the technology space with Sun, Cerent, and Juniper to back his credentials. It raised $175 million and put together a stellar team of who-is-who in the web services/database space to build an e-business operating system. David Murphy who headed the Tivoli business for IBM was brought in as CEO. Virtually no stone was left unturned, as Vinod Khosla attempted to take on the biggies of the enterprise software world and create a new disruptive technology success with Asera.

Five years and millions of dollars later, Asera quietly wound down, selling its assets to SEEC which in turn was acquired by Polaris in 2008. But Asera is neither the only flame out from Silicon Valley nor is it the only big failure from Vinod Khosla’s stable. There was Ethnic Grocer, Centrata, Corio, Dynabook, 3DO, to name just a few; all large bets in different technology spaces backed by serious amount of capital, the very best talent and a great board of advisors. If any of them had succeeded, they would have gone on to upset the status quo in their space, like Juniper did in the networking world for the same Vinod Khosla. To quote Khosla “this ability to fail, this freedom to fail, is what has, in my view, given me the ability to succeed…it's given me the ability to explore ideas”.

Silicon Valley is replete with such spectacular failures in all cutting edge innovation spaces, including those like green energy, biotech, e-commerce, social networking, etc., where we still have miles to go before we get to a maturity point. Today’s wildly successful iPad had a precursor in GO Corp., which built a tablet computer running the Pen OS in 1987. GO Corp eventually folded up in 1994, but it left behind a stellar alumni cast of Bill Campbell, Chairman of Intuit, Omid Kordestani who became VP(Global Business) at Google, and Stratton Sclavos who took Verisign public as its CEO.

Then there was the highly famed chip company Transmeta that introduced the word “stealth” to the start-up world. It was conceived to take on Intel with its low-power, high-performance processor “Crusoe”, but failed to live up to its projections winding down in 2008. Transmeta raised $600M in its quest and had David Ditzel, the CTO of the sparc technology business at Sun, as one of its founders. Again, a huge bet with the best brains and serious capital, where success could have meant taking over the mantle from Intel! No half measures would work! Perhaps that is the reason they chose to fold up rather than continue as an “also ran”. It demonstrates the ability to walk away, to accept failure when it’s clear that the writing is on the wall. Max Levchin, founder of Slide, and ex co-founder of Paypal, puts it beautifully when he says, “Lots of companies that I don’t want to insult are fricking dead. Their user base is fluctuating. The employee base is fluctuating. They have adapted, but they have not gone from walking to flying.” The most successful entrepreneurs also have more failures than the less successful ones, for they know when to “fail”!

What do these failed entrepreneurs and executives do later? Do they wind up and go back to the safety of corporate jobs? Do they become gun shy, and stop taking these large bets? On the contrary, most go on to build successful companies eventually, leveraging their learnings from what did not work in the first instance. Bill Coleman, who founded BEA Systems, was a part of two failures - VisiCorp and Dest Systems - earlier on. He makes a point in one of his interviews that Silicon Valley's secret is "failure, massive amounts of failure". Says Mr. Coleman, "At BEA Systems, when I was putting together my senior staff I wanted people that were in at least one company that had failed. You learn not just about failure and how to make things work, you learn the psychology of failure and how you react to it".

The successful ones, too, are not afraid to take the risky path and perhaps end up in the failed heap. Elon Musk, who co-founded Paypal, is now running Tesla, the world’s first zero emission car manufacturer, and Space X, a space exploration technology company. Far removed from the world of Internet payments, neither of them can remotely be called anything but super high-risk ventures. They are the true moon shots – high risk, high potential reward.

This got me thinking – where are the Webvans, the Aseras, the Cuils, the Pay-by-Touchs, and the GO Corps of India? Where are our Vinod Khoslas and our Elon Musks? I couldn’t come up with any name, and neither could any of my close friends, so I decided to try crowd sourcing. Surely others would know a few? My query, tweeted a week back, got me just a single response — Capt Gopinath of Air Deccan! So I must conclude that our entrepreneurs have not failed big enough to become folklores like the ones in the valley. Why? Are we not taking those big “do-or-die” bets? Are our best people not stepping forward to put their weight behind new ideas that can be category killers? Do we have enough VCs who believe that they can build the next Cisco or Amazon from Bangalore? Are we ready to fail in full public glare and move on because we want to fly, not just walk? So far atleast we see a different pattern in India – A Raman Roy does one successful BPO and then starts yet another; Ashok Soota does Wipro, then MindTree and now Happiest Minds! Our VCs are not helping either. There was a time when most VCs would only fund IT services or BPO companies. Now the flavor is domestic e-commerce, or K-12 education! They want to back "successful" entrepreneurs. And, barring a few, most VCs want to see several million dollars in revenues before they are ready to dip their fingers! Perhaps the focus here is still on execution risks rather than on innovation risks.

The Silicon Valley mantra has been that it takes several moonshots before you can get one to land. The best and the brightest get together as different startups to solve big, challenging, problems. They know, right at the start, that only one will crack it but that it cannot happen without the many others trying different solutions. Google was preceded by Inktomi, Altavista, Overture, Lycos, all great companies in their own right. Each of them tried solving the problem of search, and monetizing it, in their own way. Eventually Google figured the right approach, and soon enough the others folded up, freeing the talent and knowledge that they had amassed to propel Google to bigger heights. The same scenario is unfolding in the social networking space. Facebook was built on the rubbles of MySpace, Friendster, Six Degrees, Hi5 and many more. Facebook’s valuation of $82b+ has happened because of the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been invested and written off in the other companies. Each new disruptive innovation, when it succeeds, invariably leaves behind a trail of spectacular failures. Here in India, we have not even started building this trail, to hope for future successes.

Paul Saffo a celebrated futurologist and Stanford Professor, who has been watching and participating in the Valley for decades now, says: "The absolute secret to Silicon Valley success is failure. This place reinvents itself because we know how to fail in the right way. Silicon Valley was not built on the spires of earlier successes but on the rubble of earlier failures…the companies that grew large and then collapsed in a spectacular way and then a bunch of little start-ups colonised their old offices. You see this again and again and again in the Valley. This place works because we know how to fail."

I rest my case.

Women 3.0 Or Women’s Lib 3.0

It is time women realise the need for fundamental transformations in the corporate environment to redefine their role in the power and knowledge economy.

March 8, 2011 marked the centenary of the very first International Women’s Day. So it has been a 100 years since women decided to do something about getting their share of power and glory in the world. They have had their share of success in taking on men on their turf, and succeeding, whether it was commanding a space shuttle or climbing Mt. Everest. Today you can see a sprinkling of women, at least a token presence, in all spheres; corporate board rooms, Parliaments, court rooms, manufacturing plants, why even in front line defence. We box, we wrestle, we do weights, we climb mountains, we swim, we row; what is it that we can’t do?


But all this has happened at a steep price. At the cost of us giving up a lot of who we are as women to adapt ourselves to the men’s world. If a man is willing to work 24x7, I will also do the same, we said. If he is willing to travel 5 days a week so will I, we said. We took the plunge to prove ourselves against odds that were stacked against us. We took mother/mother-in-law’s help to care for our kids. We steeled our hearts and missed out on our kids growing up because we did not want to take a break and lose out in the corporate race. I remember my early days as a front line sales executive in Wipro. My job required me to travel to Chandigarh in the height of terrorism, and to places like Jabalpur that hardly had a good train connection those days. My flight from Bangalore to Delhi used to land at 10.30-11pm at night and it was a nightmare just trying to figure the safest way to get home without getting into trouble. But I took all of these as par for the course, and stuck it out. No giving up, for it would mean that you were accepting their stereotype.

But somewhere along the line, I realised that this was going to be a never-ending struggle. I needed to hang around the office because my boss liked to start meetings at 7pm - so what if I had a one-year old baby at home? I needed to clock in at 8.30am because, as a manager, I was expected to set an example for others - so what if I had worked late into the night the previous day? I peered into the future and I could see endless hours at offices, airports and hotels, for that is often the first testament to sincerity and commitment in a man’s world. That is when I decided that enough is enough. It became clear to me that if I was serious about building a long term sustainable career for myself without losing everything that I valued and cherished in life, I needed to get out and set my own rules. And thus started my lifelong journey as my own boss. Yes, I have worked 24x7; yes, I have hardly taken vacations. But guess what? I have been able to come home for my children when they got back from school. I could work from home on days when they were sick, or during their vacations. So it’s worked out for me, and I’m glad that I had the courage to step out of the rat race and build my own business, at my pace and on my own terms. But most women of my generation have really not been that lucky. They have had to make a Hobson’s choice – give up a promising career or give up the joys of parenting altogether. The successful ones have had to do even more than the men, so nobody could point a finger at them and say they have limitations.

The factories and offices of yesterday thrived on bussing people to a central space, and then leveraging them to work the capital-intensive infrastructure to the hilt. The factory had the machines, the office had the super computer and the call center had the telephone system. This type of organisation required and demanded a regimented workforce that would turn up at a fixed hour and work a fixed 10-12 hours. This was perfectly fine with men as they were expected by the society to get out of the house and use their time to earn a living, unfettered by the need for taking care of home or children. When women started moving into the workforce in big numbers, the rules remained the same. Yes, over a period of time, they won a few concessions such as a childcare facility at the work place, maternity leave, etc., but the overall organization structure did not change much. It was designed by men for men, and any woman who wanted to play in that field had to become a “super woman” – somebody who would run as hard as the men, and still turn up for children’s PTA meetings. It’s no wonder that even in the western world where feminist movements are over a 160 years old, women are still struggling to reach the top. And even where they have reached the top, there is more discussion around their hairstyle than their professional achievements, a la Carly Fiorina!

But today’s world is so wonderfully different. The importance of physical space is disappearing as organizations become more virtual and distributed. Virtual travel, like video conferencing, is becoming more convenient, far cheaper and perhaps more secure and reliable than physical travel. Moving information to where you are has become cheaper and instantaneous. The iPad and the iPhone are becoming our “offices”. Amazon and iTunes are our new marketplaces. Google, Facebook and Twitter are the new communication media. What a far cry from the corporate world of the industrial era where critical mass and efficiency was achieved by creating large scale plants and townships!

Surely, the time has come for us women to leverage the fundamental transformation of the work place that’s happening in front of us. Today, information highways bring data at high speed to where you are and knowledge is power. What does it mean for women today and tomorrow? Can we redraw the corporate world to suit who we are? Can we create mixed work spaces? Can we take offices to where we want to be - in the kitchen or with the kids doing homework? Can we build skills and talent that would get employers to work with us at our terms? A super chip-designer or the ace analyst should be now able to define her work hours instead of getting driven by some archaic punch card machine. Today’s women have options that allow them to pursue a career and be financially independent, without having to compromise. That is the freedom that the knowledge world has given us. Capital has become secondary to ideas and innovation. The corporate organisation as we know is at an inflection point. And that is our opportunity. We can, and should, push our agenda of creating a work environment that allows us to live and work the way we like and not force us to choose.

Women – let us stop trying to wear pants. Happy Women’s day!

We The People?

28 Jan 2011  |  Business World 

Why is it that corruption has become such an intrinsic part of the Indian society and how we need to be honest and admit our role in the crime, as the people of this nation.

The name screamed at me from the pages of the newspaper, but I still could not believe my eyes! The most talked-about insider trading case in the US had claimed its latest victim in my good friend. Here was a person from one of the IITs who had done extremely well in the Bay Area, rising to an executive level position with a large tech company. I knew him, or so I thought! What would have made him risk all he's achieved, and do something like this? He, who could be described as a poster child of the great Indian Middle Class with his right education and right career breaks? What was his excuse for doing what he did? Why was he breaking the trust reposed by his colleagues, leaking out information for a few thousand dollars? But then, wait a minute! Why am I reacting like this, in a time and age when scams and sleaze have become daily news! What made me assume that I know how to spot the type of people who would, or would not, attempt to beat the system? Why did I demand and expect a different value system from a few? Did I really believe that the middle-class educated urban Indian was somehow not cut from the same cloth? Or was it a case of yet another myth getting demolished? The myth that people like you and me are not the ones who subvert the system for monetary gains! That it is always somebody else! It is always a different class, a different creed but not our types. Now the mirror was right in the front showing a very familiar face, making me come to terms with some very uncomfortable truths.



It is a fact that there is a lot of corruption in the private sector - something we are all loathe to talk about, because it belies all justifications. Just a few days back, one of my friends had told me about his first-hand experience of unearthing a scam in the BPO he was heading. The logistics manager had hired all the cabs from companies floated by his relatives at a higher-than-market rate. Then the other day I heard about how IS folks with large budgets were not averse to taking "gifts" for buying standard equipment from "chosen" dealers. Of course, the story of how the recruitment boom in IT industry spawned a whole host of shady recruitment firms, often run by the better halves of HR managers, is now old and done. Then there is the well-publicised case of auditors conniving with Raju at Satyam. These are our crème de la crème - the well-heeled, high-in-demand executives paid at the top end of the market by their employers.


Often enough we talk ad nauseam about corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. We curse the politicians but hardly have any hopes of them changing their ways, because we know that they need increasing amounts of cash to "buy" their votes. We secretly empathise with the bureaucrats saying that India pays its government servants very poorly when compared to, say, a Singapore. We accept that the cops on the road demand bribes because they had to pay money to get their jobs. But when it comes to well paid professionals who have got to where they have by leveraging the best education the country could provide at virtually zero cost, this argument breaks down. What would make them belie the trust that their employer place in them for monies, which most often they are perfectly capable of earning legitimately? Is it just greed? Or is it peer pressure? Is it the urgency to make it to the top? Or is it something else altogether?

Perhaps this is why the whole nation got shocked when the Niira Radia tapes came out. The country could not digest the fact that it was being fed fiction by some of its eminent TV and print journalists every morning. Was it for power or for money? Whatever it was, one more myth came crumbling down as we realised that the journalists were dancing to the same tune as our illustrious politicians, matching steps with them. And it doesn't end there. The judges are willing to play ball, and so are our defence officers, even Army Generals - the crown jewels of our nation. So, no class of professionals is now exempt from this scourge. It, today, encompasses the Madrasi as much as the Punjabi. The wives are teaming with husbands to rake in the moolah. It is well nigh impossible today to take ourselves out of the picture and act like we are holier than thou.

What does this all imply? Is it our Indian DNA? Are we born corrupt? Are we brought up to look the other way when deals are done under the table? I can't believe so. If anything, we are an older, and more morally inclined, civilisation than any other in the world. By the way, how do we define corruption? Is it taking bribes in cash and kind for out of turn favors? Is it insider trading - using information that you are privy to because of your position to reap unfair gains? Is using the services of an agent, knowing fully well that he is bribing to get your work done, okay? What about friends and families being rewarded with plum positions in public listed companies? How about Diwali gifts to the right people? Where do we draw the line? So here we are. Our thousands of years of civilisation and our treasure trove of ancient wisdom don't seem to have shown us the right path.

The biggest hit that we have taken is that most of our decision making, at a national level or at a personal level, are no longer driven by the best interests of those we serve, but by 'practical' considerations. We cannot enforce quality or demand SLAs when our contractor has paid us to give him work. We cannot demand that the builder give us what he has promised, when we have paid him a substantial part in black money. We do not trust our doctors any longer because we are not sure who has become a doctor through merit, and who has made it there by paying his way. We cannot expect retail investors to flock to the stock market when it is "owned" and "managed" by and for a few. In a multitude of ways, we see the "hidden agenda" playing out. Our small businesses will not use software because they do not want to disclose their number-2 accounts. Same reason the politician shuns e-Governance.

What is it that is ailing our society? We are intelligent enough to know the cost each one of us is paying but we are still refusing to put a stop to it. All of us know at least a handful of friends, acquaintances and relatives who are living beyond their means. But, secretly, we envy them for their street smartness. We do not condemn. Why? Can it be that we as a society do not believe that anybody can play straight and win? Is it a throwback to the years of servitude, that we do not know how to use our power and not abuse it? Is it insecurity, born out of scarce resources and severe competition from birth to death that drives us to grab what we can, means be damned? I'm truly at a loss and sometimes even wonder if my angst is more because I have not figured out how to play the game! What do you think? Why are we like this? Is it just a matter of putting fear in the hearts of people by policing more strictly? Or is it about all of us who are ready to pay, and/or look the other way?

Tell me what you think? Why are we doing this to ourselves? Can we be honest for a change, and admit that each one of us is a party to the crime?
 
It makes me wonder if this is the reason Gandhiji exhorted people to be the change they wanted to see.

Jump Off The Pyramid And Shoot For The Trampoline!

Why over 40 executives at the brink of career change should pursue their 'real' passion instead of looking for another job.


Last weekend, I happened to catch up with an old friend in the US who wanted my advice on landing his next job. Close to 40, he sounded lost and anxious. He had lost his job with a Fortune500 a year before, moved cities and joined another company in a similar role, which also lasted only a year. So here he was back to looking for a job in a bad market and the tiredness showed in his voice. This was a guy with the best credentials that one could ask for and a great performer in the right role. But today I could not hear the ring of confidence or enthusiasm that was his hallmark. Very sadly he had become yet another victim of the corporate pyramid which relentlessly throws out people in larger numbers at every stage.

A recent research article by Vivek Wadhwa talks about how even in the Silicon Valley, age bias is rampant. Bay area firms prefer young engineers and have no qualms about turning away the 40+ folks. They have their reasons - young engineers cost less and do more. New technologies and new business models are better understood by youngsters and so on… But where does it leave the oldies? Gone are the days when at 50, one could start preparing for retirement. It was okay in our parent's generation when life expectancy hovered in the 60s and most jobs paid a handsome pension to boot. We have grown up watching the older generation start winding down in their 50s. All they desired was to complete their pilgrimages and play the model caretaker role for grandkids. But today the reality is very different. Life expectancy is zooming past 75, and we see more and more people well into their 80s living a healthy life. What it means is that at 45 we still have more than half our career ahead of us, assuming that we started at 25. And in my opinion the 40s are truly the golden time for professionals. No worry of what parents would say about what you do with your career. No concern of having to buy the first house or car. Often enough, children are all set to move on and don't need your constant attention (in fact, they want you out of their life for sometime!). Added to all this, you have learnt a lot more and have a great Rolodex to tap in case you need help. Then, why is it that most of us, instead of looking to pursue our passion, still look for the next similar job in a familiar environment? Why do we try to hang on, unwilling to let go of the safety net of our comfort zone? Why do we pursue the corporate pyramid with a single-minded zeal without looking at other options knowing fully well that with the best effort we are still not guaranteed a spot at the top.

As and when we become the next victim of the eventuality, our reaction is to give up and hang up our boots with a feeling of resignation and martyrdom. What a loss! Today all around us we see people embarking on a new voyage when they are on the wrong side of the 50s, and making an even bigger success of it than the first time around. If Manmohan Singh had called it a day and taken to consulting roles like most of his peers did, he would never have realized what he would have missed! He embarked on a second career in the scary jungle of politics at age 59 in 1991. By then, he had build such a strong credential that nobody and no scandal could touch his reputation. He did not get in with a "let me try my luck" mind-set. He put his heart and soul in it, and pursued his second career with the same passion as his first one. Political wilderness after Congress lost, losing his Lok Sabha election, nothing deterred him. He has achieved what people who start and end their career in politics fail to get - the CEO's role for the country.


Perhaps Manmohan Singh was an outlier, skeptics would argue. But what about Nandan Nilekani, a poster child of our generation? Nandan at the ripe old age of 54, took it upon himself to move to New Delhi leaving family in Bangalore, to pursue his second career in Government. He could have taken an easy route like becoming an investor, or perhaps an armchair critique of how bad the country and its political class is. But he jumped in putting his name and neck on the block, looking every inch an entrepreneur with a new start-up!


All of us surely have hidden passions and forcefully subdued ideas. Otherwise, our country would never have produced the tons of engineers and MBAs that have become the envy of the world. I keep hearing people say that they would have loved to teach but for the salary. Our society has especially been harsh on creative folks. We have lost many a great painter, playwright and interior designer to the corporate world. Can they out themselves now and don a new Avatar? With their years of corporate experience, can they now think of creating a business out of directing and producing plays? Can they get enough friends to join them in it? And why not? The possibilities are endless and, believe it or not, so are the goodies for those who break out of their inertia. Following your heart and actually enjoying what you do can energize you like nothing can. Having fun while working would not be an oxymoron any more. Perhaps that is what makes the second career even more successful than the first one for most who venture out. Eric Schmidt stepped out of the comfort of being in large companies like Sun and Novell with thousands of customers, to join what was then a virtually unknown start-up, Google. That too as a part of the three-member management team with the founders who were actively involved in running the company with him. His compensation was $250K+bonus, far less than the $600K base he had at Novell and, perhaps, even Sun before that. But today, it is this decision that has defined him for posterity. In fact, the success rate seems to be favoring the 50's. Gurcharan Das is now known more widely for his penmanship than for his corporate career with P&G. Again somebody who voluntarily jumped off the corporate chakki to start afresh as a writer at 55.

So if you are wondering what advice I gave to my friend, you have the answers now. Don't look for another job, which will last till the next round of layoffs. Instead, pursue your real passion, unfettered by the concerns of youth. "Being 50 is the new 25" says a new research study commissioned by Benenden Healthcare, UK. How true! Ready to bounce off the Trampoline?