You Choose Yourself !!!

There is one great dialogue which fascinated me alot from the movie "READY" starring Salman Khan where the actor says "Never Underestimate 3 things - I, ME, MYSELF". The dialogue have been quite popular among the youngsters since the movie was released. But today I relate this dialogue to something that is happening and would continue to happen and change the whole corporate scenario. Gone are the days when a below average employee was payed more than average for the job executed. In today's era of cut throat competition, if you are below average then the employer may find some one working for him equally like you at a cheaper salary than you were paid. Today only one things works out "I, ME and MYSELF is responsible for my living and also my Job, if am Performing I will be on Job or else I am perished". The corporate scenario is changing very drastically, the only thing appreciated and preserved in corporate is PERFORMANCE more than the PAY you get. There for if you are below average worker and want to get above average salary, then you must better be sleeping and watching a dream.

Moreover as a cherry in the cream, Recession is on our head and according to Mr.Seth Godin, renowned Marketing Guru, "Recession is Recession, its the end of industrial age and the end of average worker/performer". If you're different somehow and have made yourself unique, people will find you and pay you more, Godin says.

Therefore you choose yourself, be the best of you can and the world will be yours.

Don't forget that the cheerleaders are not going to win it for you

The title I gave to my writing today may sound insane to few and probably very funny to the other few. But I feel this is what I have learnt through my experiences through out the day. My day started as regular one like waking up, getting ready, moving to college to attend few sessions which were important to attend and so on. But today something different was there unplanned on my plate. Evening when I got back home after the whole some parade of tiring work at the college, I was frustrated to hear my mom instructing me to attend a social gathering kind of function organised by one of my relative for which my family was invited.

I had no other option than to attend that function as it was organised by one of very close relative of ours. Initially I was not feeling happy to attend the function but a great experience was awaiting its door open for me in the mean time. In the function I encountered and interacted with one of very old person who was debating with his friends of his age about the superiority of Mahatma Gandhi. I poked my nose in between and joined their discussion. He said - You all happen to know very little about Gandhiji, but there are lot more many things to learn from what he did. Remember Churchill and his comment on Gandhi - "It is insane to see Mr.Gandhi striding half naked up to the steps of viceregal palace, to talk on equal terms with the representative of the king emperor". The old wise man said that Mr. Churchill called Mahatma as a half naked man. He added what ever Churchill said the Mahatma never bothered and he only focused on his work and we all know that how the story ended. The story ended with Britishers Leaving India just because of the courage and focus of the Half Naked Man.

This story made me think and analyse what could be the learning out come out of this. And finally while returning back to home, I realized that many of us start our life's journey (personal, professional, spiritual etc) but we loose our focus because of small petite issues. And most of us loose our focus and eye upon our goal just because we are demotivated by few others who doesnot believe in our vision and dream. If you achieve single-minded focus, then not only you will achieve your dream but all those demotivating factors gets inspired by you and starts following you.

As the Americans put it "keeping your eyes on the ball is the only way to win the game. Don't forget that the cheerleaders are not going to win it for you". From now I have decided to focus on my dream, my career, my life and would not bother about who demotivates me. Will you?

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Ethical and Extra-Ethical, there is nothing called Unethical

The two words “Ethical” and “Unethical” are the most commonly bombarded words in the corporate world today. There is no universal definition or the scope to these two words. If strategy “A” for accomplishing some work means ethical to someone the same becomes unethical in other persons point of view. The absolute difference between these two distinct words remains impossible to define.

My debate today remains is there anything called as unethical in business scenario today? Is there anything which is completely ethical in the business world today? Are we a part of a business environment wherein everyone follows ethics?

The answer or conclusion to this debate is nowhere. No one in this world I guess can conclude this debate even after using our infinite capacity hard disk located in the top section of the human body. And this remains impossible because if something is unethical for someone, the same becomes ethical for someone and this leads us to nowhere.

I was baffling around several books and web browsing on understanding what could be the major difference between ethical and unethical, but I could not find something that made me 100% confident about the difference. Then I came across something in the writings of Mr.CK Prahlad, where he says there is mile and extra mile in removing poverty and I compared the same to ethics.

I have got one of the best answers to this dilemma of ethics and non ethics. I correlated the same with what I read in the writings of Mr. CK Prahlad and processed this. According to me there is nothing like being Unethical, there remains ethics and extra ethics. I believed this to be opt because, if one company opt for something against the policy in order to be in competition, it would not be termed as unethical because the company did it to sustain competition, therefore according to me that is not unethical that actually can be termed as Ethical and if the company would not have opted for such strategy and still worked on it own then that according to me should be termed as Extra-Ethical.

So in my context, I have changed the word Unethical to Ethical and Ethical to Extra Ethical.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

India: The Land of Snake Charmers or the Outsourcing Hub of the World?

India: The Land of Snake Charmers or the Outsourcing Hub of the World?

Steven Spielberg the great Hollywood Veteran Director/ Producer of the famous Movie “Indiana Jones” portrayed India as a land of Poverty, Diseases and famously projected it as a land of snake charmers. India for more than century long has been viewed in the same fashion by majority of Westerners who looked at India from the narrated stories and visuals point of view. The most common perception about India is that it is a country comprising of a large number of chronic diseases, a large portion of the slums and poor people, a backward society with poor political system and so on.

But if we truly investigate into reality and carefully analyse what India is and what it poses as potential to be in future, we would see an India which is quite opposite of the old perception which people from west poses still today. Let me take you through few examples of What India was, is and what India would be in near future.

To Start with let me take you to the history of Yale University (One of the most reputed University in the World). Today the Westerners feel proud about their Universities and Education system, but if we keenly analyse the History of Yale University, we may find that there wouldn’t have been something called as Yale University if a country like India wouldn’t exist. Elihu Yale – one of the first founder members of the Yale University was for 20 long years the Governor of the “British East India Company”. When Cotton Mather, who represented a small institution, the Collegiate School of Connecticut approached Mr.Yale for funds for buying a new building for setting up an institution in New Haven, Yale provided him with a carton of goods produced in India which Mather sold for huge amount in his country and set up an University and Named it after Elihu Yale, today called as “Yale University”. Thus British-India Trade facilitated launching of Yale University.

That was the century old example of the greatness of India and what the west owe to India in the form of respect. If we look at the power of India today, then a lot such examples flash in front of the world. I was going through a book titled “Billions of Entrepreneurs” written by Tarun Khanna where one small story about how Mahindra and Mahindra Tractors ruled out John Deere in America in terms of sales. John Deere world’s leading manufacturer of agriculture equipments lost its market share in its native country after the advent of M&M India Tractors in the United States. The sales of M&M shoot up and scared the giant “John Deere”. The Giant tried all the ways possible to stop this growth of an Indian company and came up with an advertisement offering people “if you buy John Deere in place of M&M we give you $1500 rebate”. The offer captured 3% of existing users of M&M and 97% said they are happy with the service of M&M Tractors. In counter M&M came up with a more sophisticated advertisement portraying a girl riding a tractor (Majority of clients of M&M Tractors were females): “Deere John, I have found someone new”. That the power of Indian intellect and commitment today.

Thus in my overall belief India is no more a land of snake charmers, it has gone far from this by becoming one of the world’s largest economy and in race to become 3^rd largest soon.

"WE"- the prisoners of our own SOCIALIZATION

Today I was just wondering why the thinking pattern of an individual differs from the thinking of a corporate as a whole which again differs from the value based thinking of the society as a whole and many more. And after a brain storm conversation which lasted for an hour with one of my friend followed by reading few books to get the answer to the question popping up in my less filled brain, I came across few writings of Swamy Vivekananda which enlightened me about why there is so much difference in thinking of an individual, corporate and the society.

After going through the writings of Vivekananda, I observed that: All of us are the prisoners of our own Socialization which tends to make us think and behave in different manner from others. The eyes through which an individual, corporate and society view the world are colored by their own ideology, values, principles and many such attributes.

Therefore it is necessary in today's world of super competence and diverse atmosphere to view the situation and world by fitting into other persons shoe. If the organisation, individuals and the society start understanding situations from the other side of the coin before executing anything, it will benefit the society and the world as a whole.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

"Perform or Perish" - Is it enough to do the work or we need Excellent work?

Andrew Groove has once popularly quoted : "Only Undertake what you can do in excellent fashion. There are no prizes for average performance"

My discussion today is based mostly upon this quote. We often tend to undertake what ever is assigned to us by our parents when we are kids, by our teachers when we start our education life, by our boss while we are employed, by our own children when we become parents and so on. But never we stop for a while and start thinking about why we should do this? Is it just because we have to abide by what they say or feel? Is it because they hold a position which has an impact on our employ-ability or career? Is it because we are emotionally attached to do what our family members ask us to do? and so on. Majority of us never ever try and think about this questions as to why we are doing the assigned work when we know that we cannot do it at the best.

If we consider the corporate atmosphere, then I think we tend to do what ever work is assigned to us because our Boss and Corporate Jungle believes in one straight sentence : "Perform or Perish". If you cannot perform the assigned task in an corporate atmosphere then you are shown the door out. But never we ourselves or the corporate culture never understand that the work should be done or alloted to or by a person who can perform it to the best of his ability. Finally what we need is an excellent outcome but we always get satisfied with work merely accomplished.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari