Straight Talk With Arch

Office:Office – Going digital

2016-09-26T17:20:00.002+05:30

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/en/digital-marketing-online-marketing-1527799/

That’s the latest keyword in the Indian marketing circles. It’s almost touted as a panacea to all problems that currently exist in getting customers to be loyal. Listed below are the top 5 reasons why companies feel they should adopt digital.

1. All it needs is a website and a twitter account – Isn’t that what Amazon started with when they came to India?, asked one CXO with more ‘experience’ than hair on Jeff Bezos’ head. ‘Look at them now’, he said. Well. Yes. They have a bigger website and more followers on twitter? Erm. They have multiple twitter handles if one has to be accurate. But then, what?

2. If Amazon can do it, so can we – Do what precisely? Sell online, when even face to face meetings with customers doesn’t get them to buy our service/ product? ‘If Amazon is a dukaan, we are no less. Agarwal nahi hai to kya hua, hum bhi bania hai!”, said one South Indian CXO who had lived most of his life in Delhi. Ok, so we will display our products online and put out brochures? Then what? “we will wait for customers to buy, what else?” said the new recruit, who has no clue of any of our services. While, this was being discussed, word got around to the finance team that orders would be accepted only via online purchase route, resulting in a cry of objection. New payment method means, new procedures, new training and firing of the Babu who had spent 20 years just collecting cheques from customer offices.

3. We can fire our salesforce and court customers in their inbox – “Says who?”, popped up the Sales Head. “Please note your databases don’t have any customer contacts. We knew a day would come when you would think of making us redundant. And do you know how many of our customers even use email?” Oh! Then you can send the mails out to these customers yourself, pleads the CXO. “And diminish our position from sales to data entry,” challenges the sales Head. This is when the marketing head pops up saying , ”the sales team can keep its customers to itself, considering how rarely they buy our products/ services. We will get you new customers. Savvy. Sophisticated and with loose purse strings. Inbox kya, we will flood their postbox too and stalk them on SMS, and mobile App.”

4. It relies on Analytics, not hearsay – Oh! Says the sales head puzzled. But then quickly recovering asks, “what will it tell you? How much revenue we got? Those numbers are managed by my team and you are all getting regular updates.” No, laughs the marketing team. Details like who is targeted, how many pieces of communication goes out to him/her, what is the response, what more can be done, etc can all be tracked if we go digital, says the newbie who is fresh out of B-School and sharing this gyaan.

5. It will listen, not question – Clearly a jab at the sales team, the CXO makes it a point to bring up the last disagreement between teams. “No such nuisance with digital. You feed information, the system does its job quietly. No opposition.” “But”, says the sales head. Before he can continue, he is cut short by the CXO, “See you started again! Is Amazon hearing so many ifs and buts? No! that is why they are selling so much.”

6 months after going digital, this is the conversation in the board room.

Sales Head – Are you folks happy now? You’ve cut my team size by half and made the other half send emails to unknown people who never bought anything.

Marketing Head – Yes, and they are passing comments on Twitter. I don’t know how to respond. You guys shouldn’t have the sent the mails. Even your email IDs are boring. Why would I want to buy from Magan Lal? Couldn’t you at least change the ID to Meghan L?

Finance Head – How long will this continue? We spent a lot on training and Mr. Babu was forced into retirement early. That has not gone down well with the Founder. He feels we have thrown money and projected that we are lavish and are now attracting criticism. We run the risk of The Bania Unlimited Bank cutting our credit.

Sales Head – Arrey, how can I answer that question? I didn’t want to go digital. These folks (pointing to everyone else in the team) were keen.

Marketing head – We were short changed by the IT folks who said they would give us good candidates for analytics. They gave us interns who knew how to use Microsoft Excel. These chaps gave us a whole bunch of permutations and combinations without really telling us anything concrete.

(The IT team is not present to defend themselves)

CXO – What does Amazon do once they have the website and twitter account?

For a more serious piece on whether digital marketing is customer centric, read this.

Office:Office – 40-hours-a-week

2016-09-13T15:37:00.000+05:30

There can be only five possible reactions to this headline.

One raised eyebrow – Really? Which world do you live in Dude? By the time I get my act together half the day is spent.
Two raised eyebrows – Really? There are people who work only 8 hours a day? Why don’t I know any of them?
Both eyebrows joined together in a frown – You are gnashing your teeth in anger not knowing what words to utter first. You probably need some water followed by a shot of morphine.
Both eye brows in their place - You could be in deep concentration/ meditation to distract yourself from the reality of your 16 hour work day. Or you could have just gone to sleep (having mastered this position a long time ago)
One eye brow lowered in a wink – Hehehe. You finally found out how I work eh? Just keep the secret to yourself and I’ll refer you to a similar opening.

Statistically only 20% of people manage to work 40 hours a week (see points above). The rest work way longer – some because they don’t have a choice and others because they don’t have the discipline. So when I read that Amazon had declared it will pilot a 30 hour-work-week, I was gob smacked. I hoped it was a prank. I checked the date and realized it wasn’t April 1. Several deep breaths and google searches later, I decided this was at best a publicity gimmick.

Amazon employees work an average of 80 hours a week. Scaling that to 30 hours is like challenging an elephant to run the 100m in 5 seconds. Who wouldn’t pay to watch that? And the corporate world is now watching Amazon with mixed emotions. I am looking for the tiny asterisk that says ‘conditions apply’ and even tinier font size that explains if this gimmick will be implemented if it succeeds in giving rise to a new corporate culture. Even though that will be called something cute (and unimportant) like Mini-Week or petite-week.

(I know the Beetle is an iconic car, but who in their right mind buys one unless they have got a fleet of more robust machines in the garage? Either that or you are plain cuckoo, in my humble view). Those who have already made their moolah elsewhere will want to adopt the Mini-week and flaunt it like a badly created overpriced tattoo. This might soon become aspirational and restricted to the upper echelons of Amazon, dangled as a proverbial carrot to fuel career progression.

In conclusion, the 30 hour work week would be like the pretty girl/ handsome man who looks great until she begins to talk.

For a serious take on the 30 –hour-work-week, read this piece.

Office: Office – Maternity mindset

2016-08-18T14:39:00.000+05:30

(Image courtesy www.thenextweb.com )

The Government of India recently passed the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The Labour Ministry says the Bill is intended to encourage women to join back work as the number of women dropping out of the workforce is on a rise. This is like saying I will deposit Rs 10,000 in your bank account by extorting the bank because you are poor. But you won’t be given a debit card or an online transaction facility. That, depends on your relationship with the bank. If the bank is benevolent, it will let you withdraw all the money at one go.

The Women and Child Ministry has said women are ‘very stressed’ post the delivery of a child (really? More stressed than managing a man child husband and ever-so-juvenile in laws? You have got to be kidding). Senior women leaders, beyond their prime child bearing age, are wistful about missing the extended maternity leave bus by a decade. After all, it’s hard to say ‘Good for you’ to the pretty young things you privately envy at work. Grandmas are scoffing, as usual - ‘hmpf! We managed everything with nothing. The shenanigans of these modern women. Trust the men also to give in!’ The men, of course are experiencing myriad feelings – anger, jealously, satisfaction, helplessness, hurt.

And what of the corporate honchos who are to honor this Bill by implementing it at the aam employee level?

The HR team (in private): This is great! Now we will all get promoted because we have successfully implemented a good employee engagement practice. All we need to do is just send an email once the lady delivers the baby and one a few days before she is due to return. In any case she will be too busy with the baby to respond.

The Finance team (in private): How much more money will we write off? What is the certainty these ladies will even come back? What? 12 of them are due for promotion! We can’t afford to pay a hike for someone who has been productive only for 6 months in a year.

Project Management Team (in private): This is a great opportunity to blame the woman for the shoddy work the rest of the team has done for this client. You know hormones and all during pregnancy. Better than admitting the team got piss drunk during the long weekend and forgot the deliverable. We will adjust the hours billed. Should we charge a higher rate for the pregnant candidate? After all she is working under extra ordinary physical conditions and we have had to cope with that at our end. You know, having anti-slip mats in the bathroom and Bisleri water and granola bars in the cafeteria.

The Sales team (in private): Who is pregnant? As long as it’s not in my territory I am safe. Guys, are any of your pregnant?

The CIO organization (in private): Seize the computers of these ladies before they go on leave. We can format the data and hand them over to those who are exiting the company. This way we meet the dual goals of data security as well as laptop utilization. In any case we don’t want baby drool all over the key board. We haven’t paid the vendor bills and he has cut out ‘service and repairs’ from the laptops contract.

The CEO organization (in private): How should we milk this opportunity? The CEO needs to be seen as the man who made it all happen. Of course, he knows nothing about kids or maternity, having left those insignificant duties to the wife. Maybe he can have a coffee with all the pregnant ladies for 20 mins and end with a group photo? His paunch won’t be visible that way. His speech has to be solid though. We need to draft a 40 slide PPT to help him get by. The more baby pictures, the better.

The marketing team (in private): Let us do something different folks. No point towing the HR line. Let us make this client focused and run a campaign called ‘Are you sensitive to pregnancy?’. The client can share instances of how they have made their offices and working practices conducive to pregnant ladies and mothers. And because we should show people how occupied we are, we should also design 5 standard pregnancy templates – Word document, PPT, E-signature, e-Card and Email – titled ‘Proud mom / mom-to-be.’

Junior management folks (in private): This is wonderful. I think my spouse and I will also try for a child soon to avail this policy. Arey! Don’t we invest in LIC schemes just because they are tax exempt? My father told me never to miss any government scheme. I haven’t even taken my name off the gas subsidy. This is like a bonus – no work, only pay.

All teams in public: This is a very progressive move by the government and our company welcomes it with open arms.

Tailpiece: For a serious discussion on this Act, you may read my LinkedIn piece.

Office: Office – Salary negotiation

2015-05-07T20:13:00.001+05:30

Office: Office – Salary negotiation

After close to five months of a self- imposed sabbatical (it sounds cooler that way, though the truth is I had blogger’s block combined with several moments of introspection..erm.. laziness, actually), I was finally rankled enough by what I experienced recently while interviewing candidates for a role on my team. Salary negotiation.

I am aware that typing “salary negotiation” on Google can give you 50 Lakh + results (in 0.26 seconds). But no matter how many articles one reads, one will inevitably end up having a mind numbing moment when they experience any of the below tactics.

1. I am wallowing in deep shit but a rope to pull me out won’t do. I need a Jacuzzi of a life saver: An ex-colleague I knew for 3 years was desperately (at least, that’s the impression I got when she called me every few days yielding me to accelerate the hiring process) looking to move out of her current role. She fit my team’s requirement and would have received a 20% hike over her current salary, until she called to say, “You know I am 30 and don’t have a house yet. Unless I get at least 60% hike, I wont be able to buy one. I know you will consider that when you make the offer.” I was left muttering “You don’t know me very well then”.

2. I don’t care about money or designation. I only care about quality work. Of course, it will take a quality ‘me’ to produce quality work: After asking this candidates 6 timesfor her salary expectations upfront (once bitten, twice shy) and receiving the same answer, I did make an offer, only for her to reject on the grounds that it wasn’t ‘quality enough’. I discovered that quality referred to 30 paid leaves a year, free grooming sessions at a parlor, discount arrangements with five start hotels, and work related travel by business class. The pitfalls of hiring someone high maintenance haven’t been clearer.

3. I don’t know how much I want, but this doesn’t seem enough: I paused for 2 minutes when I heard this answer. And then said “Ok. I’ll come back to you,” and never did.

4. What will give me more money?: For the first time (in my 9 years of working life) I encountered a candidate who was disinterested in the role he was being offered. Instead he wanted to know what more he could do to get a ‘batter package’. “My friend does BD, Sales, HR and at times Marketing. He makes like XX Lakh. If you can offer me more than the current role and a batter package to go with it, I will close my eyes and accept.” Even if I closed my eyes, I couldn’t make such an offer.

5. Show me the money: The person in consideration went out of the consideration set, when he insisted on me depositing a part of his joining bonus, PRIOR to his taking up the offer. “I get crank calls all the time you know. How do I know this is for a genuine position?” It explained why he got only crank calls.

For those taking inspiration from these tactics. STOP. Right now. You don’t want to get featured on a blog like this.

Office: Office - Client relationship

2014-12-02T09:34:00.000+05:30

It is no secret that all relationships have an ulterior motive. You love your siblings because they come in handy when you need to pin the blame or poach that nice T-shirt. You love your parents for the lifestyle they provide you (even though you wonder several times “Hell! Why am I putting up in this shack?”). We all love friends for the unlimited freeloading (and the private free-loathing). We even love our enemies because they make us look cool (fake swagger and all)!

There is only one motive behind the existence of a client relationship. Money. But so few people will admit it openly. And like all relationships, it’s not a pact between equals. Something, even fewer people will admit, that too while enjoying free time in the loo. Kotler categorized clients into 4 types – price oriented, solution oriented, gold standard, and strategic value. In my limited working experience, I have seen some new types that can best be described taking help from the animal kingdom.

(Image courtesy: www.dilbert.com)

1) The wild boar: You will often receive a call that goes like this: “I have a photo that shows one of your employees rudely cut across our employee while driving on the road. Do you realize you have damaged our brand and relationship? I am escalating this matter to our Board. You better be prepared to answer.” You may have proof that the so-called employee doesn’t work for you (coincidentally neither does the so-called victim work for your client). But it doesn’t matter. You better prepare a real good answer and also practice touching your toes. You never know what will come in handy.

2) The cat: This relationship is best summarized as “beauty and the beast.” You wonder what you’ve done to bag such a client. So does the client, and what’s worse ensure he/she makes it evident to you. This variety accepts meeting invites but doesn’t show up and doesn’t apologize. While you come prepared to talk of pricing models, he/she talks of user experience and shows no interest in pricing. You want to build the relationship, he/she isn’t holding out the hand.

3) The Elephant: Asks questions. And answers them. “What is your position on the Right to Information Act? I know most companies don’t have one. I am sure you haven’t thought of one for now. So does that bother you or your clients? I mean, think of a scenario where someone does business with you basis some understanding and half way into the project the requirements change. Does that happen with you? And who initiates the change? And Before I forget, how do you manage it? As in, you follow the Six Sigma Black or the Green method?”……Still want to build a relationship?

4) The Shark: “You know, we have a right to audit your processes as part of the long term agreement. We noticed that you haven’t rounded off the decimals for all the numbers, as requested. So, we are suing you for negligence and waste of business time.” Oh! But we have a 5 year relationship. Let’s talk and fix this. “Oooh! That would be non-compliance with the process. You shouldn’t drag relationship into this.”

Personally, I would get rid of any of these ‘clients’. Pity business leaders don’t feel that way.

Office-Office: Diversity

2014-07-21T10:30:00.000+05:30

The whole world has turned pink and red. It’s not valentine’s day and I don’t have conjunctivitis. Did the office finally develop a soul and decide to support breast cancer? I wonder. (It’s funny how the world loves talking about breasts but no one bothers when they are in trouble).

Turns out it’s Happy Woman’s Day. What the? Why the pink and red? Because women love these colors no, says a new joinee eager to be pro-feminist. Correction some girls do. Women would rather wear red and not bump into a colleague. Some generous managers organize for Dairy Milk bought in bulk and get the peon to distribute it to all the “ladies”. Most get cake from Iyengar bakery (now fashionably called Aishwarya Bakery, Aishwarya being Iyengar’s daughter). Others take the women out for buffet lunches at three star hotels (like men pretend to be color-blind, women have to pretend to be quality/ class/ menu/ junta/ cutlery/ toilet hygiene unconscious).

Everyone gets to hear a badly prepared speech rife with political, social and other insensitivities (my favourite – being referred to as “Maadam”). And then, it’s over.

(Image courtesy: Dilbert.com)

The boss waits for the next day to begin before he can turn down the female staff’s request to work from home due to morning sickness. Project pressures, staff shortage, professionalism all form part of the rejection response. Reporting a leak in the office toilet is met with “You have a ladies toilet no? What more do you want?.” God forbid you ask for a cab to take you back home late at night from work. It is made very clear that

The company will not be “responsible” for anything that happens to you (although they are soley responsible for empanelling the cab company to transport you).
There is a waiting time of 1 hour before you can board the cab. Why? Traffic. What with your boss taking umpteen chai, samosa, cigarette and soo-soo breaks, forget calling a cab, you are better off sleeping in office. One problem though. The AC will be switched off and so will the lights.
The cab charges will not be covered fully because you live too far away as per the office policy on cab reimbursements.

While you can wear what you want (flowers in the hair, chappal with trousers, or loud makeup), you better not ask for a raise or a promotion. You aren’t the primary bread winner no? See if I pay the man more, a whole family gets benefited. If I pay you more, you will only spend it on clothes, jewelry and makeup, explained one HR manager with 20+ years of experience spearheading the diversity initiative at a large firm.

What about alcohol, cars, shoes, and gadgets that the man will spend the bulk of his salary on, while generously handing over Sodexo coupons to the wife for grocery shopping?

Can having a female CXO or Board member change this? Less than 30% of the top 100 listed Indian firms have female representation at the top. That is a painfully small proportion of all companies in this country. Among those that do, most have inducted family members – that way business goes on and the “ladies” can continue to go clothes and jewelry shopping.

Maybe we should rephrase the question – Can having a female senior manager change this? Only 4% of senior managers are women in this country! Looks like the rest have either given up trying to change the male workplace in exchange for changing the male dominated home or simply started out on their own – yes, most likely in clothes and jewelry and other associated trinket-y business.

So much for encouraging diversity.

Office: Office – Employee engagement

2014-04-09T13:30:00.000+05:30

When was the last time you felt ‘engaged’ at work? Umm? Ahem…Hmmm. (Is that even possible when its more engaging to follow social media and converge with your friends online? Well, let us momentarily put that aside). Maybe when your internship came to a close and you wanted to ensure they wouldn’t shut the door in your face when you came back seeking a full time job?

(Image courtesy - www.dilbert.com)

How do you think the HR and Management feels when they realize everyone is pretending to be engaged? Pretty worried. Because someone is going to be fired over that sooner or later. So the naïve HR professionals will attempt several things – launching an internal survey whose results are ‘inconclusive’ (meaning you aren’t sure if the employee is pretending to be disengaged or is really disengaged), creating an action plan to drive conclusions (the one who shouts the loudest during these meetings is given the honor of driving the plan), and ensuring that the action plan is implemented (meaning, next time the survey is launched we will know for sure if employees are genuinely disengaged or pretending to be disengaged).

The smart HR professionals will admit that ‘we’ indeed have a problem (never mind the fact that they hired such employees in the first place). And so, ‘we’ need to solve it. So, why don’t you start and we follow? What help do you want?

Eager to prove a point, the naïve management leader (the one who got to this position by piling on the years doing the same job) will ask for funding and get it. One month of sitting around with it and receiving two ‘gentle reminders’ from the HR about ‘outcomes’, he gets jittery and forms an employee engagement committee with 80% men and 20% women (you will know why very soon). The men debate about roles, responsibilities, ideas and basically how to take credit. The women take down action items, delegate all the work to themselves and mentally prepare to call their mothers over to baby sit the kids for the next 2 weeks.

Over the next week, the men hurl abuses at each other over the program agenda, some walk out in protest because the employee engagement event dates were confirmed without seeking their opinion. The women look like they haven’t slapped on under eye makeup or combed their hair. Most of them are on notebook two for recording the action items. No one seems to care that the other is wearing the same shoes three days in a row.

Come D Day and what have we? A Bollywood style entertainment program and celebrity guests. Three hours of song, dance is followed by prize distribution for the best handwriting, best potluck dish, Antakshari victors, and several other activities you thought people stopped participating in when you left middle school.

The outcome - ‘happy employees’ which equals ‘engaged employees’. (After all they sat in the auditorium for 3 full hours didn’t they? If this is not engagement, what is?).

Everyone agrees and silently hopes no one will ask ‘why are employees disengaged at work?’

Office: Office – Creativity

2014-02-05T14:45:00.000+05:30

One of the harsh realities of life when you work for a support function like Marketing is when you are asked to come up with “creative” solutions for in-house publicity (because we believe in crowd sourcing and we may not have money to hire agencies to do this job).

Creative? Sure, I can be creative, you say. Didn’t I just write food reviews about that new restaurant and pass it off as ‘client testimonial’ in the company’s recent pitch deck? We earned a “wow” from the customer (That the restaurant was so happy with the publicity that they refrained from pressing charges is another matter). And how about the time I came up with the breast cancer awareness campaign? (PS: Does it matter that I was drunk and needed to vent and that only pink color highlighters were available for me to scribble on the reception walls?)

I live CREATIVE man, bring on the brief, you metaphorically yell.

Ok. How about “fresh and vibrant”?, says the boss with a wide smile that indicates he had spinach at last night’s party.

You: Fresh? Like soapy fresh or perfume fresh?

Boss: Umm. You know, fresh. Like FRESH.

You: Umm.. Ok. Vibrant like multi color? Gujarati tribal clothes type?

Boss: No. that’s bright. I want bright. Bright that is vibrant. You know like nice colors. Punchy tagline.

You: Huh? Tagline? What tagline?

Boss: I want every picture to have a tagline.

You: Picture? You mean the entire imagery we create? Like an Ad?

Boss: Yes. You nailed it! I want an Ad Bro!. That will be put up in our reception area.

Seven iterations and as many cups of black coffee later….

Boss: Umm. This is kind of not resonating the message Bro.

You: Didn’t you say fresh and vibrant?

Boss: Yes. And that is exactly what this is not. I want fresh and vibrant. This is like something done in a hurry.

Even as you want to tell him “YES, IT WAS DONE IN A HURRY, since you came up with this just this morning,” your brain tells you something else and you end up saying

You: Fresh and Vibrant. Like how?

Boss: I know you can do better. (give fake sympathetic look). Why don’t you have lunch and then try?

Seventeen iterations, two coffee machine malfunctions, and three green teas later…..

You: What are the timelines on this thing?

Boss: Leave that to me. Just do your job.

You: Yes, but we have had 17 iterations. Are we getting anywhere close to your idea?

Boss: No. This picture is not telling me anything. This is not calling out to me. Sorry. But I don’t like this.

You: But I stuck to the brief. What more do you want?

Boss: I want fresh and vibrant! Colors! Green yellow, pink, white, red! Well, not red, I don’t like red. But you get me right?

You: But that will hide our message and the colors will take precedence.

Boss: I get what you are trying to say.. Hmm. Um… You know what? Forget about the message.

You: Huh? But why? Without a message the graphic will become plain art.

Boss: What’s bad about that? I like art. Art is fresh and vibrant.

You: You can commission an artist and use him/her to create something. I am not the one with those skills?

Boss: You are not an artist? What kind of a designer are you then?

You: I am not a designer either.

Tail piece: You copied something you saw on Google because the boss “loved it.” He loved it so much that he insisted on signing the ‘master piece’ with his fake signature. He also gave you a 500 rupee dinner voucher to dine at the Taj. You know the voucher will not cover event the cost of coffee.

Office: Office – Leadership Development programme

2014-01-24T15:25:00.000+05:30

Sun, sand, the sea and two days of bliss. Well, not exactly. It’s more is like Five star hotel pool, business center, good looking chicks and food cooked by a real chef (not a cook pretending otherwise). Of course, all of this plus your travel paid for by the company. That in a few words summarizes what leadership development programmes mean for the majority of corporate junta. No wonder everyone wants to get nominated for such a programme.

(Image Courtesy: www.dilbert.com)

So how do you get a ticket to attend this? You earn it. Or at least pretend to have earned it.

Start by having a career discussion with your manager and mention how you are an aspiring leader. Ask him/her is there is anything specific you can do from your side to build on those skills. Most managers will ask you to do one of three things, which you should ignore for obvious reasons:

a) Observe them at work (to pick up their non-existent leadership skills? hah!);

b) Read books on leadership (didn’t you try to do that to show off to your MBA classmates and then realized you had read only the foreword online and mistook it for the whole book?); and

c) Take greater responsibility at work (yeah right! Ever seen a leader do any work??).

Instead you can pretend to have considered all the options by doing all of this:

a) Send weekly mails to your boss about how you observed the fact that he doesn’t say much during presentations and wondered if that was a leadership skill? Less cheeky your tone, the better chances you have at that paid trip (programme, I mean).

b) Raid the second hand bookshop near your house and stock up your work desk with leadership books. If you are Gen Y, then do the equivalent on your smart phone. Do up your cubicle with post-it notes having “famous leadership quotes”. (Yeah, about time you took down those Goa and McLeodganj photos from your softboard).

c) Volunteer to “support” all projects your team is working on (but do not define how you will actually do that). Send your boss a monthly summary of how you influenced the outcomes of several team meetings (obviously refrain from getting into details like how you got the team to agree with your idea because you bought them cupcakes and coffee, or the time you fixed the projector or printed handouts for the 1:1 meeting..).

Once you have done this for a quarter, ask your boss if this is helping shape your “skills” and would a leadership development programme help you better? If your boss doesn’t choke on his saliva, then you stand a chance. Else, go and befriend that balding uncle in the learning and development team to find out if there is any way you can get nominated. Of course, you will pay for drinks at Madhuloka for a month, along with chips and “snakes” (snacks. Like you didn’t know!) and maybe drop him home after these “enlightening” sessions.

Result Day: The Boss’ bum chum has been "carefully" picked to attend the leadership development programme. He heads two divisions in the company and attended last year’s programme too, you find out.

How do you cope? Well, you may not be able to have Five Star amenities, but who says you can’t have the Madhuloka experience?

Office: Office – Interview

2014-01-10T14:30:00.000+05:30

Tis’ the season when companies loosen their belts and spend that last bit of budget available to them. The dumber ones will focus on splurging it on booze parties, team jackets, bags and other goodies. The smarter ones will focus on getting good candidates inducted into the company (so that the cocky team members fear for their existence in the next quarter and don’t care about their appraisal or bonus).

The most important part of candidate selection is the interview. The more important part, of course, is the feeling of security (some would mistakenly assume this is “power”) that you are on the other side of the table. In my limited experience, there are several types of interviews that are prevalent in the corporate world today. For those wanting to give interviews, what you see below could be like seeing a copy of the question paper the night before the exam.

(Image Courtesy: www.dilbert.com)

a) “Know who’s the boss” interview - If you have ever faced an interviewer who had no time for scrutinizing your outfit, your resume or anything remotely concerned with you, then you have faced this monster. The type will only have ears, eyes and a voice for talking about his/her role in the company. He/she will ration out exactly 5 minutes for you to speak and that too only ask close ended questions. As you leave the interview you will have only one question on your mind - who was being interviewed? The only way to tackle this is to chip in at the third minute from the start and ask those questions whose answers will be meaningful to you. Try taming the monster and you will realize how wasted your appearance and attitude is.

b) “Errr…Ummm. Hmmm” interview – While you might mistake this interviewer for a case of ‘I’m substituting for you interviewer because he got sick,’ it is far from the truth. Ever knew a chap whose idea of communication was giving confused looks and saying nothing more than “Hmmm”? Now, imagine if he was forced to interview candidates. How would he behave? Exactly like what your candidate-phobic interviewer is behaving. Chances are you might mistake the company for being filled with duffers and ruin that suit you wore to the interview in rage. Instead, do a role reversal. Ask questions and seek answers – preferably do both yourself. If nothing, you would have completed one mock interview session to boost confidence.

c) The pessimistic interview – These are the times you seek the ray of sunshine through the cold AC room. This is less of an interview and more of an audition for scary movie 14. Everything that you say will be used to position the role as unsuitable for you. It’s worse if you don’t say anything. Hygiene factors in the office are the some of the commonly exaggerated claims made by the interviewer – you will have to work 14 hours a day seven days a week, our canteen has watery dal that gives loose motions, forget work-life balance, you’ll have no life, officially you will be made assistant manager, but practically your role would be that of a Group Head. What the interviewer is desperately hoping for is that you ask him/her– “Oh! Wow. How do you manage all this? You must be awesome.” Once you ask that question, you have cracked the interview (and the interviewer).

If the interviews you have experienced fall in none of these categories, then you either have a boring role or work for a boring industry. After all what’s the fun in attending serious, predictable interviews?

Office:Office – Corporate New Year Resolution

2014-01-03T11:25:00.001+05:30

If you have overcome the holiday hangover, you will realize that a brand new year lies ahead of you. Happy New Year! So what’s your resolution for this year?

(Image courtesy - The Evil Twin)

“Resolutions are so Generation X,” you say. Your friends and family probably know of your history with resolutions. But how do you tell your colleagues that, when your boss’ last email encouraged everyone “to introspect and set personal goals for the New Year”? (Never mind that the line was a rip off of a popular speech and came packaged as an e-Card featuring shiny golden balls lying on the snow. It’s the sentiment that matters, you know, even borrowed sentiments).

Hmm.. how does walking 2 km everyday sound? Or eating healthy meals? Okay, Okay, you will add “alcohol-only-over-the –weekend” to that. Sounds like a good resolution to flaunt to colleagues? Wrong. What the boss wants is not a “personal” personal goal. His email actually translates to “take up a goal that can’t be included in your performance management system, yet will remain key to your performance”. Much like BB cream, push-up-bras, and the BMW bike in Dhoom 3, you need a corporate New Year resolution that will make you look good.

To help you pick one that most closely addresses your need, I have identified some common types.

a) Resolutions the boss will like: A resolution in this category can project you as a sycophant, but who cares? It is better to be a sycophant than pretend to be one. Anything that reduces the boss’ work load is a good resolution. If you can take over the job of the house keeping person and the secretary at no extra salary, then you have nailed it. You have not only demonstrated ambition (by offering to multi-task) but also ensured that you are highly visible to the boss. If that is too ambitious, try these options that have a much lesser success rate though –read the newspaper your boss reads and send him an email summary of select news at 6:00 am every day; ensure your boss’ car is bird-shit proof by bribing the parking lot helper to clean it every 2 hours; move your seat close to the boss’ where he can’t miss you; play the sport your boss loves and bribe your friends to lose (after all boss needs to look no further for a great player on his team).

b) Resolutions the boss will hate, but the colleagues will like: This is a tricky area because you can’t satisfy all the people all the time. And boss will get that message sooner or later. For starters organize a secret banta (its actually “banter” with an accent) focused on your colleagues’ sentiments about your boss. Since it is secret, no one will know who wrote the nasty stuff. Your job is to collect all the banta, sugar coat it and deliver it to the boss in an office event. Between feeling overwhelmed and grateful, he/she won’t have the time to actually read what you have shared. Less interesting options include – Volunteer to become the employee engagement champion and have fortnightly booze sessions over lunch that is billed to the company or your boss (if he holds that budget). Of course, the bill should say “45 Deluxe Rajasthani Thalis”- two per employee, because it was a limited menu, you know. You can also call for ethnic day celebrations every quarter, followed by an antakshari contest that makes it mandatory for all bosses to participate. The twist in the show is that the guy who comes last is the winner – just to ensure your boss doesn’t see this as revenge or insult.

c) Resolutions that will help you find a new boss: You really want to do this? Okay. Start with doing your job better than the best colleague. Think, speak, execute and project “excellence” in everything you do. Remember Karate Kid? The Mr. Miyagi version where he says “Karate – here, here, here” and points to his head, heart and stomach (or was it his gut?). Excellence should be your karate. Make elaborate project management lists and display them in and around your seat. Use Macro-filled documents. That way if your boss doesn’t know how to open them, you can show him/her. Set alarms for everything, including pee breaks and make sure you let others hear it ring. Subscribe to magazines and have them delivered at your seat. Same goes for management books bought on Flipkart at 67% discount. Never admit to liking Dilbert or Facebook. At the end of the year one of two things will happen: Your boss will be happy to recommend you for a bigger role. Or you will be happy to recommend your replacement to the boss.

Still can’t find the corporate resolution for this year? Good for you, the weekend is here. Before you know, most people would have outgrown their resolutions.

Office: Office – Decision making

2013-10-18T10:33:00.001+05:30

It is the only thing that decides the culture of your organization, irrespective of what brand managers, HR, or employees have to say. Touted as a key managerial trait, its absence is pronounced among the manager community. The more senior the person, the better his decision making abilities, one would assume. That isn't always the case, secretaries will tell you. In my limited experience, I have seen five types of decision makers.

1. The slasher – This person hates accumulating things – in his inbox or on his table. He takes the clean desk/ desktop policy to the next level – clean decision making. Remember the Japanese Manga series where the guy with the sword, goes "Khachak! Khachak!" slicing through people like watermelons? This category of manager does the same with approvals. By the end of the day, he likes to keep his mail box devoid of any requests for approval.

2. The pig – This type of manager loves to hoard and not respond to any requests – be it an expense claim or the budget for the next quarter's plan. The most you can get from him/her is a breezy "Hi. How are things?" before vanishing into his/her cabinet. Upon confronting this person, you can expect one of two responses "I haven't received that email" or "I will look into it." And the cycle will go on until either you or the manager quits. By the way, the odds of quitting favor you.

3. The cat – This variety cares only for himself/herself. Obviously only those decisions that are important to him/her would be made. Everything else can rot in the mail box, including something as petty as your career. The only way to motivate this animal is by showing him a mirror and telling him how he can like a lion. And of course, he will decide what type of mirror he wants to seem himself in.

4. The Lion – This one takes pride in delegating decision making. He takes few decisions, but those would be the ones he would truly be valued for. While he may not bother with your mobile phone bill reimbursement, he will decide on you promotion. He may not care about what tie you wear to work, but will chide you when you don't turn up for meetings on time. Nothing puts him off more than realizing he has been forced into making a penny's worth of decision.

5. The teenager – Loves freedom but wants no responsibility. This type of decision maker is the first to clear his name from any potential repercussions of decision making. He will refute any claims made previously and will avoid leaving a trace of any decision making. If your performance manager is like this, you will receive a new performance rating every second day until the deadline ends. Whatever was the rating last saved, would be the one awarded to you. If you question him on it, he'll say "The system only saved that version. Next time, I promise to save it earlier".

So what type of a decision maker are you?

Office-Office : Leadership

2013-07-30T12:18:00.001+05:30

Even as I hear some virtual sniggers, I am not going to be discouraged. Leadership is the one thing everyone expects in a potential hire knowing fully well that they don’t have what it takes. Yet, it is the singular most popular catch phrase used by recruiters to lure unsuspecting candidates to run of the mill jobs. Add the ‘L’ word and everything turns rosy with the added illusion of a palanquin with four beefed up guys carrying your not-so-deserving self. Of course those illusions are dismissed the day you see your desk and talk to your ‘team mates’. No knowledge transfer or transition, no proper job scope, no separate bathroom, no views from the desk (well, it’s a cubicle really) and an unending trail of e-mess waiting for your attention. That, is pretty much enough to get the leader out of anyone.

(Image Courtesy: Dilbert.com)

So, are you a leader? (of course, you are! I just asked the question again to see if you were paying attention to the post.) I have known four types of leaders in my professional experience.

a) The Superstar: This leader likes to believe the world revolves around him/her and they can’t think beyond “I”. This type hates the word “We” and chances are he/she will crush the rise of any other ‘leader’ or quit trying. More megalomaniac and less leader, the way into his good books is through ego massage. Think life size corporate standees, the company logo replaced with his initials/ signature, movie style presentations where he is the only speaker, and of course ‘unprecendented’ media coverage (even if you paid for it).

b) I am my team: Literally. This leader cannot work without his team. He mentally segregates his team into two – The professional assistants and the personal assistants. Everything from his chai to his business plan is outsourced. So what does he do himself, you ask? Well, he keeps his junta suitably enthusiastic without realizing they are actually working for him and not for the company. What rubbish! You cannot fool all of the people all of the time! That is why he always poaches his people by making them offers they cannot refuse (doubling of salaries for starters). Danny Ocean is living proof.

c) I like ‘leader’ in my designation, whether I am one or not: This is fast becoming the new norm thanks to social networking. Everyone wants to be friends with a leader, not a loser. And so, the distinction is clear – you either have ‘leader’ in your designation or you don’t. Isn’t that fooling people? Of course. But then who’s looking for reality? Would you really want to be friends with a leader if you knew what they were doing in reality?

d) The invisible leader: If you haven’t seen one yet, then you have something to look forward to. You never see this leader, only his work. You hear about his magnanimity with praise and his restraint with criticism. You see the respect and gratitude that his team has for him. Nah! It’s too good to be true. Yeah, because it takes efforts to do real work and motivate people the right way. If such a leader was everywhere, everyone would be a top performer. Even the office boy.

I have heard of other leaders too like the leader who promptly falls ill when a presentation is due in 30 minutes; or the leader who is constantly trying to jump ship when his shoddiness at work stands to be exposed; or the leader who simply prefers travelling to satisfy his wanderlust burning company money; or even the leader who prefers working from the connectivity–free zone.

So is being a leader a bad thing? Nah. How else can you get people to notice you?

IPL 6 shame gate – Do we need a cricket governance model with a bite?

2013-05-27T15:48:00.000+05:30

The sixth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has fizzled out as fast as Pepsi’s new drink Atom (apparently it tastes like a mix of Chyavanprash and Jal Jeera with a shot of cola), thanks to the spot fixing scandal that has engulfed many IPL franchisees. This is the second time the league has been caught in such activity, the first being in 2010 that led to the ouster of Lalit Modi, then chairperson of the league. But we don’t seem to learn from the past, do we? As a nation we are used to reacting with shock/ anger at such incidents followed by apathy and amnesia. Sports governing bodies in India are no different.

(Image Courtesy - CNN IBN)

Post IPL gate (that is what the 2010 scandals were collectively referred to in the media), few provisions have been made to prevent issues like match fixing, money laundering and betting. At best, franchisees were asked to indicate their sources of funding. Knowing well that there is no mechanism to validate the information provided, it makes no sense to disclose this information. Complaints on team funding were taken up by the governing body only after court cases were filed and not suo motu.

Players are allowed to use their discretion outside of the game and one practically has no guidelines on how to conduct their lives off the field. The minute a player starts playing in a major league/ match, he leaves no stone unturned to get himself to endorse any brand that can pay him. I would assume sportspersons would like to endorse brands associated with sports like playing gear, cosmetics, shoes, permitted food supplements, apparel etc. But No. A couple of years ago four leading cricketers including the Indian’s team’s captain endorsed an alcohol brand. Is there any association between sports and alcohol? Ceiling fans, chocolates, cameras, pens, cars, fairness creams, men’s fashion, are all endorsed by sportsmen.

This brings me to a fundamental question – Do players today play for money or the love of the game? Looking at former tainted players like Ajay Jadeja and Mohammed Azharuddin, one cannot help but notice that their lifestyles today are reflective of the riches garnered during their playing days. Little wonder then that players want to grab endorsements because the money earned lets them tide through poor performance and/or scandals. They can perhaps use this money to buy a place in the team to sustain the pipeline of endorsement deals so that they have enough money to last a lifetime.

The very fact that none of this has been discussed so far is an indication that cricket’s governing body wields no real control on ethics and principles. This needs to be fixed so the game restores the dignity with which it started out in India. I feel the following measures can help.

1) Curbing the value of endorsements – Players as well as those associated with the game in any capacity (umpiring, commentary, administration etc) need to have their endorsements curbed to not exceed 20 percent of the salaries they earn from the Board. This measure would be effective in preventing gold diggers to seek places on the team. Consider this – Players over the age of 22 earn a minimum of USD 50,000 (around Rs 25 Lakh) per IPL season. Winning teams earn as much as Rs 7.5 Crore on an average and players in these teams get a minimum of Rs 15 Lakh. Add to this perks from sponsors like cars, lifetime membership/ supply of certain goods, gold etc, in recognition of performance. Most cricketers are employed by private and public sector enterprises and earn a salary, no matter how insignificant compared to the lakhs made on the field. A salary of Rs 40-50 Lakhs a year for a few months of performance is adequate to live a reasonably luxurious life by Indian standards, what with most players stretching their playing years to ten. (Marketers define luxury as having a family income upwards of Rs 20 Lakh a year).

2) Guidelines for conducting oneself off the field during a season – A night of post match partying and debauchery is a distraction from the game. It takes double the effort from the support staff to prep a player post such sessions. Little wonder then that leading sports clubs in countries like UK (football clubs Manchester United and Manchester City) and US have strict guidelines of what players can and cannot do during a game season. The list of banned activities includes partying, drugs, one night stands, wives and girlfriends, car racing/ speeding, meeting/ talking to persons not approved by the management, cell phones, and, food from unauthorized eateries, among others. Anyone caught indulging in such activity is usually not allowed to play and can be banned from the team. This is helpful for younger players who often grapple with new found fame and attention.

3) Compulsory listing for franchisees – IPL franchisees should be listed on Indian stock exchanges and 50 per cent of share holding must be with retail investors. This will accomplish two things: force franchisees to declare their funding and toe the guidelines set forth by various legislations and be governed by SEBI; create a sense of loyalty / community ownership among the public who move from being mere viewers to part owners of the franchisee. Football clubs in the UK follow this model where franchisees are usually homegrown and hence enjoy loyalty from the communities. Considering IPL does not endorse that model, there is less loyalty between franchisees and the crowd. What complicates matters is that in many cases neither players not franchisee owners belong to the cities where these franchisees are based.

Cricket in India has long been a club of sorts run by patrons. The BCCI follows this archaic model where members are often heirs of the erstwhile patrons or political appointees, aspiring for control. But today the game has outgrown itself and taking strong measures can help run it professionally with dignity.

Office-Office: Resignation

2013-05-06T16:55:00.001+05:30

It’s the panacea for all ills. At least for the office variety of ills that one puts up with for so long. Bad ass boss (the ‘darling do my work please but don’t expect anything in return’ type), no increments (because the bell curve has to be maintained and someone needs to be screwed and that someone is you), slog house environment (welcome to professional life) , reimbursements (from the finance team to your account) missing credit dates, PPTs peppered with mindless masala about what you can offer (never mind what you commit to), no free lunch, yawn, and no AC after official office hours (The ‘we like you to sweat and since we won’t let you go to the gym, isn’t this better?’ motto), and more such intellectual atyaachaar.

(Image courtesy: www.Dilbert.com)

Once you throw in the towel, you have pretty much said ENOUGH. Instead of congratulating you on this monumental effort at your sanity preservation, people grow hostile. Some with a vivid imagination propagate the grape vine that you are joining the competition, when all you are doing is realizing you will be penniless for the next three months (did you expect they would pay you a salary during your notice period? You need to be shot for your naiveté!).

Why do people do this? I have three theories.

1. They are jealous – Because you kicked the system in the gut and are supposedly moving on to a better place. They too want to move on to this better place but don’t have the gumption to repeat your act.

2. They are bored and need a career change but then, no one wants to hire them – Perhaps they want to become fiction writers. Of the torrid romance variety, replete with love, sex, dhoka and glycerin tears. They are just using your situation to see if the novel can be based on you. This is creative license, not malevolence, they will claim when confronted.

3. They are afraid – Surf’s out and you caught them without their pants. Your leaving spells doom because they would actually have to work now. No more forwarding your work as theirs, which means they need to know how to animate slides and how to change the font size and color and aligning textboxes and inserting pictures and providing the content for the deck as well. They don’t have a choice but to work fast towards getting your replacement. Imagine doing all that work themselves!.

4. They are angry – This is technically not an original theory but it could be an outcome of any of the three theories above. In a rare occasion this theory could prove to be original - when you may have, in drunken stupor or plain childish enthusiasm, agreed to a pact with some fellow co-workers saying “we’ll all quit together.” Now, you’ve quit and they haven’t. And they are coming at you with that beer bottle to fulfill their side of the deal.

Ok. Now what? Well, best to be armed with a good answer for every attempt the management makes to keep you on board (assuming they actually care for you). While serving notice period at least you can dream of walking in the greener pastures of the future. If you take back your resignation, you won’t have the time to dream.

The retro connection - Norah Ephron and our lives

2013-04-09T15:41:00.001+05:30

Bangalore is hot these days. So hot that all you can enjoy doing is alternate between reading a book and sipping on water/juice in a cool corner at your home. With no such luck favoring me, I managed to read an eBook slumped across my desk at office when everyone else was taking two hour lunch breaks followed by an hour of smoke break. (I suspect they go home and rest in that cool corner). Of course, no one suspects me because I had my eyes on the computer screen all the time.

Norah Ephron’s I feel bad about my neck and other thoughts on being a woman isn’t what I would call my ideal read. Hell no. After all, who wants to read about one’s obsession with one’s neck? So after parking this book for a week on my desktop, I finally managed to read it. For those who did not know (and that included me before I read the last page of the book), Norah Ephron wrote the screenplays for some of the films I like - When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail.

What I discovered in her memoirs was profound.

The book details Norah’s experiences in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Forty years on, there is a strange sense of déjà vu as many of my friends seem to be experiencing life the way she did.

1. The obsession with foreign/ exotic cooking: Norah’s obsession (and probably that of other women in that era) with French cooking is reflective of India’s current obsession with cooking Italian food and baking. The rising number Nigella Lawson and Master Chef Australia fans, plus the rising TRPs of food shows is testament to this. I find some of my friends cooking seven course meals for friends “who just dropped by.” Seeing them I am tempted to throw in the towel right away and settle for the good old curd rice. Just like Norah settling with the Lee Bailey style of cooking – whatever one is comfortable with.

2. Maintenance woes: I am not talking about the money that we shell out every month to ensure that running water, power backed up electricity and clean corridors are a reality in our apartment complexes. I am talking about personal grooming and care (what most husbands will call “waste of time” or “Shoo-shah”). It makes me mad that I don’t look like the Fair n Lovely before and after images whenever I am done with whatever I do. Blame it on outsourcing, cheap prices, and plain laziness. I think our mothers did good with their use of homemade beauty products and no, they did not know about manicure.

In recent times the only youngish woman who I have seen with less than perfect hands is my domestic help (apart from me that is). Even my baby sitter has a 30 minute routine every Saturday morning for doing up her nails. I am dreading the day my two year old daughter asks me to do up hers. No, it’s not the money and time that will be spent on this. I just don’t know how to do them!

3. Renting houses: Norah rationalizes her whopping rental amount as “the price paid for one cappuccino every day for 10 years.” We do it by saying “it’s only half my salary and I need I decent place to live.” An acquaintance recently bought a 3300 sqft house from an upmarket builder for at least Rs 3 Crores. I don’t know what her rationale could have possibly been, but I don’t have the heart to tell her that she won’t be able to clean the house when the maid won’t show up. Perhaps it’s better to live amidst filth, especially if there is 3300 sqft of it. I will never know.

There are many other parallels one can draw from the book but this is not a book review. What amazes me is that our lives are no different from those of people a few decades ago, despite the whole lot of advancements that have come our way. It signifies that the human spirit is indomitable and irrespective of socio-economic-cultural statuses our desires are similar.

Moving away from populist politics

2013-03-01T12:42:00.001+05:30

Narendra Modi has faced considerable criticism of his leadership and vision (or the supposed lack of one), in recent times. (He is likely to contest for the Prime Minister’s post in the 2014 elections). While Justice Katju’s is the most vitriolic criticism of the lot, other critiques have predictably focused on issues such as education and health standards in the state and of course, the marginalization of muslims. Modi’s defenders have been quick to point fingers at the Congress lead UPA government’s misdeeds in its reign. Media has given ample space for this war of words and at times has even taken sides. In this melee, what no one seems to have highlighted is a fundamental shift in the way Indian politics is likely to play out in the near future - with possibly Modi at the forefront (Modi, because I have not heard of anyone else working on this model in their constituencies/states).

For a country whose political class has long survived in power doling out subsidies and freebies by the dozen, Modi’s transformation of Gujarat seems unbelievable and even threatening. For he has managed to match (and outgrow) most states on many parameters with little subsidy or freebies. Given our burgeoning fiscal deficit, India has little option but to stop giving freebies sooner or later. (If India were a company, it would be shut down even before it started doing business, is what one chartered accountant friend told me). But to do that, one needs to create a culture where people want to work towards their sustenance and freebies and other entitlements are looked upon as charity and not one’s birth right. How do you do that?

Through needs assessment. In marketing parlance, needs assessment refers to understanding customer aspirations. This can further be broken down into stated needs, real needs, unstated need, delight need, secret need etc. Let us apply this to the existing set of voter aspirations in a relatively under developed state. Assuming the voter is a man aged 30-35, these are roughly what his needs could be.

• Stated need – More income (possibly to buy TV/ fridge/ car and other items)

• Real need – Better/ additional opportunities for employment and wealth creation

• Unstated need – A steady source of income that helps beat inflation to some extent and allows him to save money

• Delight need – Infrastructure provided by the government to support him in achieving this objective. Eg: assuring public safety, better transportation, emergency healthcare support, skills up-gradation through subsidized programmes and courses etc.

• Secret need - To be respected by his family/ community as a successful/ prosperous individual who has not employed dubious means for growth.

I am aware that it is not that simple to segregate voters and their needs, but that is what political think tanks and governments should be doing. A poor man cares less for religion and politics and more for his next meal. But what he will respect a political leader/ state for is providing him a with a means to earn that meal. This is perhaps the reason why Nitish Kumar has been more successful than most other Chief Ministers of Bihar.

An economy that grows through job creation is less volatile than one that runs on freebies. Such an economy is also able to ensure relatively equitable distribution of wealth among its people over time. Developed countries around the world follow this principle of limited subsidy and reservation, allowing them to bounce back from adverse economic conditions. The US offered dole money of $1000 a month for upto 18 months to citizens who had lost jobs during the recession. After 18 months, not a penny more was offered and those who lived off the money without looking for jobs had to fend for themselves in the job market. In Europe, everyone earning an income (irrespective of the income level, age, religion or community) is taxed and in return many facilities such as healthcare and education are subsidized heavily. Technically, you still have to contribute something to become eligible for a range of government provided subsidies.

Narendra Modi is subtly trying to encourage such a model to enable growth. Perhaps we should give this model a chance. After all, Robinhood economics has not benefittted the country in the last 60 years that it has been subtly practiced.

Is private-public-partnership in income taxation the way to development?

2013-02-05T11:30:00.002+05:30

Recently I wrote a an article criticizing the Indian media’s shallow coverage of the Maha Kumbh Mela, where the event was reduced to yet another congregation of weirdos. In contrast, blogs, pictures and videos put up by pilgrims and visitors provided a better perspective of what the mela is to different people. A popular reporter also said in her column that events like the Kumbh mela succeeded without much government supervision because pilgrims/ visitors shared similar emotional sentiments (of piety, devotion and spiritualism) and felt responsible to ensure that nothing unpleasant happened.

(Image Courtesy: www.newsleaks.in)

My friend’s brother wrote an article on police apathy and how policing can be improved through private-public partnership. This was in the background of the recent unfortunate incident in Delhi and subsequent protests by people that highlighted the police attitude towards victims (particularly women) and their unwillingness to register an FIR. The article spoke about how greater private sector participation can improve things.

Both articles indicate the decreasing clout the government is likely to enjoy in the coming years as the public starts expecting results. The primary reason the public depends on the government is for its low prices of goods and services, followed by law and order. But as the taxpaying public is increasingly witnessing, the government is unable to deliver on basic needs like water, infrastructure, health care and education for them and their families.

Taxpayer money today is mostly spent giving out subsidies to the poor without encouraging them to move towards self-sustenance. This would have been relatively understandable if tax payers were extended special privileges such as immediate issue of ration card (irrespective of the number of years of domicile), faster processing of documents at government offices, preference in allotment of land etc. This was indeed the process followed in the days of Kings so as to ensure that the rich did not rebel and the poor aspired to grow out of poverty. (I am discounting the ills and prejudices brought upon the poor due to the caste system here, just to keep the argument theoretically focused.)

Considering the government is unlikely to extend any such privileges nor improve the way it delivers on basic amenities, would it help if one split the income tax paid between the government and private parties who can bring in the much needed efficiency to deliver the goods?

Consider this example. If residents of a particular street/ area took special interest in maintaining that street/ area well and paid the larger portion of their income tax to a community based entity that could help them maintain the street well, would the model work? At least people would have the satisfaction of knowing that their money was used for visible results. Imagine if the same situation was extended to various spheres such as healthcare, education etc. The costs could be kept low by clubbing 1-2 areas to have a hospital or school. Because the community has a sense of responsibility (not unjustified entitlement as is the case today with some segments of society), they would also have low tolerance to corruption, theft and other social ills. Also depending on the improvements necessary, the income tax collected from people could vary each year, similar to what happens in a private housing society that manages the property by charging a fixed maintenance fee to all owners for efficient functioning.

In such a scenario the government’s role would be reduced to that of a facilitator and for that the public can pay it a small share of the income tax. That way the government too gets encouraged to keep its overheads low.

This model can be extended to corporations also who can support the development of their respective regions thereby avoiding skewed growth patterns across the country.

Knowing the politicians and bureaucrats who have grown fat and powerful ruling this country on public money, they would never allow something like this. But who said one is not allowed some wishful thinking?

What are your views on such a model?

Keeping up with the 6:30 pm deadline

2013-01-10T16:43:00.003+05:30

It is not the best way to start a new year with such a post. But perhaps I should feel good knowing that my grey cells don’t seem to have degenerated and I still have a perspective on life. So here goes.

Recently, I received two guidance emails from our administration team pertaining to women’s safety. One of them contained a presentation about how women can defend themselves when faced with potentially dangerous situations, and the other provided a list of phone numbers and other measures (details on cabs, escorts etc) provided by the company to ensure women’s safety.

While I appreciated the content of these emails (although partially plagiarized and in poor English, the information was useful), I was apprehensive about the seriousness of their intent. I have three fundamental issues-

1. Why single out women? – While acknowledging that crime against women has risen in the last decade thanks to poor conviction rates for the accused, one also needs to look at the big picture. Among various urban crime, incidence of rape (as a percentage of crime) features significantly lower that other crimes under the IPC such as theft, murder, burglary, kidnapping, robbery and trade of counterfeit/ illegal (Source: National Crime Records Bureau). At the very least, it indicates that men are perhaps as susceptible to crime as women, and perhaps more ill equipped to deal with it. If that is the case, why not extend these facilities for safe travel and tips on self defense to men as well? Why should anyone stay in office after 6:30 pm, if human life (male and female) can be at risk?

If circumstances warrant that employees have to work odd hours (such as in BPO), companies must provide alternate options for work to continue, besides providing a secure commute and work place environment in case they wish to work from office. I know offices where coffee machines and air conditioning are switched off after 6:00 pm and choices for dinner are restricted to Maggi noodles and Kurkure.

2. Is there a choice? – A friend facing a personal emergency had to wait for one week before she was approved to work from home. It took two more days for her to get the necessary devices for connectivity. I have also heard of male friends complaining about putting in extra time on projects because women on the team leave by 6:30 pm, and have no means to connect to the project from home because clients don’t approve such requests fearing rise in project costs. While that seems a lot like baloney, it most likely is true. Most organisations don’t provide alternatives for women (or men) to work odd hours because it is much simpler that way (for the organization).

However, by doing so, they wrongly position safety as an exclusive privilege for women, and find other ways to penalize them for their limited absence from work. Their names do not figure in any appreciation emails, nor do they get salary hikes and promotions on par with someone who was present post 6:30 pm. “It is unfair to the person who has stayed beyond 6:30”, was what an HR professional told me.

How about tweaking the performance evaluation system in a way that does not place emphasis on physical presence? Further, why not educate the client that working remotely would not impact the project cost or quality?

As a mother of a toddler I often ask myself this question – Will working from home a few days in a month impact my career progression? I don’t have a clear answer but I usually tend to go with a mental “Yes” and pack my bags to leave for office.

3. How reliable are these measures? – About a year ago, I heard of an incident where a female employee was dragged by strangers in her office parking lot as she approached her car, about 300 m from the main building. She managed to shout, and get the attention of the security guard, and eventually escaped an attempt on her life and dignity. This organization had drafted safety measures for women employees, owing to a recent spate in rapes against working women in that city. Unfortunately their efforts seemed stuck there– in the draft stage. The parking lot was ill lit and when she requested the security to walk her some distance to the car, he apparently asked her “Are you sure? Why?”. That left her with little choice but to make the journey herself. A year on, I heard that this organization has floated similar guidelines owing to the recent Delhi rape case. Only upon testing some of those frameworks can one know how effective they are.

Most offices are no different. They provide hotlines with recorded messages, give mobile numbers that people cannot reach, and do not conduct mock drills or sensitize employees (male and female) to the risks they can face. In most cases the women’s safety initiative is the responsibility of the general administration team, who are already burdened with various other routine work. Can we expect them to be reasonably equipped to deal with any distress calls? Little wonder then that many employees rarely read these safety measures before trashing them from their inbox.

It is important that companies take cognizance of recent developments in the country and take relevant action. But these actions, if taken for cosmetic purposes, will not yield long term results and create a positive work environment.

NRIs: Above scrutiny by everyone, including the Media

2012-12-17T15:21:00.001+05:30

It’s the season for getting hitched. The number of invitations I have received to weddings and engagements of friends in the last two months far exceeds what I have heard of in the last two years. Hardly surprising, one can say, considering winter is usually the preferred time for such activities in India. Neither is it surprising to see that many of these friends are NRI men marrying Indian women (arranged by parents, of course).

What is surprising is the extent to which everyone (including the society watchman) will go to keep the NRIs in good humor. The house is spruced up to a point that it resembles a poor cousin of the 2 bed room apartment in Houston (referred to as “big house”). The 12 year old scooter is hidden away and the equally old car is given for urgent servicing (“make sure it works for 2 weeks”, is what people like my father would usually tell the mechanic). The kitchen is cleaned and fridge stocked to the brim to ensure the poor child (ahem, the NRI himself) is fed well, even as you know that he/she has been eating better quality/ variety of food overseas.

Toiler paper makes its debut on the shopping list and so does bottled water and hand sanitizer. Mothers learn to understand the meaning of “cookie” so that they can thrust the Marie biscuit on cue and fathers will usually talk less. (Better than getting your ego shattered because you displayed ignorance). The watchman and maids get tipped by the NRI if they as much say hello.

(Image Courtesy: TimesContent.com)
If the NRI failed, it must be the fault of the place he lives in. After all how can an Indian be held guilty for wrongdoing? We are morally good people.

It is no surprise that the common man’s sentiments are reflected by the media as well. Mainstream media’s treatment of NRI issues is often one-sided, portraying them in sympathetic light, while conveniently masking flaws. In short, the NRI is above scrutiny in the media. My piece for the Hoot deliberates on this through three well known examples. The text is reproduced below.

Recently, around 45,000 illegal immigrants with Indian citizenship staying in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were asked to leave the country or regularize their visas within two months. World over, this would be considered the right thing to do. But not so by the Indian media that was quick to report the plight of such immigrants and the measures taken by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs.

An article by FirstPost (and many other publications), originally sourced from the PTI, seems to make it clear that illegal immigrants enjoy bargaining rights. The letter written by Mr. Vayalar Ravi, Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs, to various authorities in the UAE is quoted, asking the authorities to pay for the air tickets of those immigrants who are unable to afford them. Why should such a request be made in the first place? Rich or poor, everyone is aware of their visa status and when it is due for renewal. In most cases, the over staying (for several months at that) seems to be deliberate, as the report mentions past cases of similar amnesty programmes that helped 3.4 Lakh illegal immigrants in 2007, another 3 Lakh in 2002 and around 2 Lakh in 1996. Clearly routine over staying followed by intervention by the Ministry of External / Overseas Indian Affairs seems to be the norm. No mainstream Indian media discussed this point.

The Gulf News highlighted this in a report mentioning a 62 year old Pakistani who had over stayed for 10 months because he claimed he was involved in a court case relating to a bank loan. Another report by the same publication indicated that people overstayed because they liked the country and felt it offered better prospects for them. It also underlined how people waited for such amnesty drives in order to not pay the large overstaying fees. While none of these stories have quoted Indians, the sentiments of our brethren cannot be very different.

Another instance of the media keeping mum is in the child abuse case in Norway involving a couple from Andhra Pradesh. The couple has been charged with ‘gross and repeated mistreatment and abuse’ of their seven year old son and sentenced to a jail term. Yet, India media chose to highlight the shock faced by the family’s relatives in Hyderabad upon hearing this news. NDTV specifically mentioned how both grandparents of the child fell ill, and one had to be hospitalized, upon hearing the news of the sentence. The report further tried to evoke sympathy be saying the couple’s second child, a two year old, was missing his mother very much. The report concluded by questioning the nature of care the children would get now with their parents away? But what do the relatives think of the abuse of the child? Are they not shocked at the treatment meted out to him? The report conveniently fails to discuss this.

The Economic Times towed a similar line by mentioning how the seven year old was suffering from a psychological condition that could get worse if he was away from the parents. It also mentioned how the child’s health had deteriorated due to poor eating habits in the absence of his parents. No where did the report ask the doctors quoted as to how the child could cope with the situation, considering reversing/ reducing the parents’ sentence term was likely to be a lengthy process? It is hard to believe that the future is so bleak for a child who has escaped mistreatment in the form of body burns and beating with hot, pointed metallic objects.

Quick on the heels of this, were a set of reports from various publications that mentioned the Andhra Pradesh State Human Rights Commission directing the State government to put out a petition to release the couple. No where does the report mention whether such a petition was justified and whether it would get any results. Talking to a lawyer might have helped give better insights to the legalities of the case and possible recourse. The Times of India was the only publication that put out a story about how counseling could help parents and children improve their relationship. It also highlighted the cultural differences in Indian and Norwegian parenting that could result in such incidents.

The third example of covering NRIs in sympathetic light is the Norway custody case over the Bhattacharya children. When the children were taken away by foster care, media reports said that it was because they were fed by hand (a common Indian practice, but supposedly uncommon for Norwegian authorities). Later it was reported that the mother of the children was suffering from some mental ailment and was dubbed unsuitable to care for the children. Next, it was reported that the couple in question were seeking divorce over a matter of domestic violence. Eventually the children were handed over to the paternal uncle with visitation rights by the mother. All through the reporting, the media seemed to sympathize with one or the other parties involved – the children, the mother or the uncle. It also reported potshots being taken by each side on the other to win the custody of the children. Should the media have at all covered this issue once the Norwegian courts had reached a settlement? I don’t think so because what is emerging now is just personal bad mouthing.

The nature of issues faced by Indian immigrants in other countries may be complex. But that should not deter journalists from pursuing all sides to a story, even if that means taking an unsympathetic tone towards immigrants. Immigrants usually are aware of their status in these countries and should take the efforts to be equally aware of local laws. Asking the Indian government to intervene, as has been the case in many of these issues, dilutes the diplomatic status we enjoy with these countries for greater economic relations and reports should point this out.

Examples of such reporting are far and few. One such instance is the work done by Times of India in covering the Savita Halappanavar death case. It not only highlighted the details of the complicated medical matter but also how termination of pregnancy was tough not only in Ireland but many other countries. It’s editorial also noted out how the issue was being played out as India vs Ireland and recommended against it.

The next time you meet an NRI, do everyone a favor and behave normally. I will, and hopefully without offending my friends.

Hypocrisy

2012-11-26T18:39:00.001+05:30

A few weeks ago I attended a child’s birthday party. I found my eyeballs accosted by several brands, starting with Disney. The child was fan of the Disney film Cars and according to his parents, wore only clothes branded with images from the movie. “Even his underwear is not spared,” said the father sighing to himself. I was not surprised considering the birthday cake, napkins, paper plates, plastic cups, return gift wrappers and some of the balloons were all “Cars” branded. Many other children in the party had similar preferences – Barbie, Little Mermaid, Dora, some Japanese Manga-like characters many more I was unfamiliar with.

(Image Courtesy: http://www.123rf.com/)

While I was assimilating this information, I looked around to see if there were other brands on display. Sure enough, I spotted the child’s parents, like many others, sporting clothes from a leading sportswear brand. The men in the party almost unanimously sported a Polo Tee. The women were seen comparing bags and shoes, admiring each others’ clothes, picking on food, and discussing why a certain brand of olive oil was better than the others in the market.

The irony was not lost on me.

Why complain about a brand obsessed child when adults are no different? Why give in to the child’s demands, when you supposedly feel otherwise? Is it because we find it hard to practice what we would preach about? Or is it just fashionable to complain?

As the evening progressed, I heard some parents say they were “helpless” in controlling their child’s desire for branded things. Is this the same “helplessness” that we are confronted with when we overspend on our credit cards and blame the shop’s display for luring us and manipulating our weakness?

Why not just admit it is convenient to buy your peace at home by giving the little devils what they need? Naah. That will be betraying the Cult of Super Honest Parents. How about saying you want your child to be an all-rounder and hence the exposure to various brands? Hmm. That will betray the Society of Parents Wanting Normal Kids (Of course, bizarre is the new normal). What about – I have some money to spare and don’t mind indulging the child? Huh! You know how the Hate Vijay Mallya Camp will react to that. (On the other hand the trustees of Being Sid and Loving It might extend an invitation to your child).

The adult ability to be influenced by peer pressure far exceeds that of a child. Maybe it is time to simply say “Well, blame me”.

In defence of Siddhartha Mallya

2012-10-30T10:42:00.000+05:30

I read an interesting piece in the Economic Times yesterday figuring out if Siddhartha Mallya was just a lucky inheritor or whether he really had what it took to run a business. The sole reason for this quest seems to be Mallya Jr.’s activity on social media. Many people including yours truly have shuddered reading his tweets about playing volleyball with bikini clad models on the sets of the Kingfisher Calendar shoot, when around 4,000 employees of Kingfisher Airlines haven’t got their salaries for the last seven months.

(Image courtesy: http://reviews.in.88db.com/)

What surprises me however, is that people who do not pay their domestic help on time and engage on social media pursuits for at least 3 hours in a working day have problems with Mallya Jr.’s behavior. (I know this is not entirely an accurate correlation. Mallya Jr. has little or nothing to do with the airline, except that it was launched on his birthday seven years ago.) Would it help if one did not know how he was spending his time? Would it help if he just became incommunicado like his father?
A decade ago, when social media use was not as compulsively used as it is now, many crooks just vamoosed over night. That included infamous chit fund owners, fly by night operators who made their money duping clients based on false stock market promises, politicians who had jumped camp, couples who had eloped etc. It was a while before they resurfaced in a new avatar and most people believed these folks had changed for the better. And that time spent incommunicado was actually time spent repenting their deeds. How terribly wrong these assumptions turned out to be.

What Mallya Jr. is doing is living his life – like he always has. Somehow it was ok watching him go from fat to fab, coochie-cooing with former girlfriend Deepika Padukone at the IPL, or seeing him make a mean cocktail on Simi Garewal’s show India’s Most Desirable – even as the airline wasn’t at the pink of its health then. He seems to seek no greater publicity now than what he sought then. He tweeted as much about his observations on life as he does now. Women, nightlife, entertainment, politics and London continue to be a part of his social media life. I’d say the man has at least remained consistent and transparent about his doings!

It has been made amply clear that Kingfisher Airlines is faced with bankruptcy, not the Mallyas’ personal fortune or for that matter any of their other businesses. Technically, the Mallyas do not have an obligation to pay anyone in their present condition. Morally, they might. But since when did we start caring about morality among the rich and powerful?

Update: Apparently, Siddhartha has stopped tweeting his observations on life. Does that now make him a better businessman?

Dislaimer: I have never had any professional or personal interactions with Kingfisher Airlines or the Mallya family. I do not own any stock in any of the companies floated by the Mallya family. I am as much of a spectator on this issue as most readers would be.

Should media do more of its own investigations?

2012-10-10T15:45:00.000+05:30

My recent visit to google news revealed yet another scam, this time in my home state of Tamil Nadu - Granite scam. The issue made me think about what our society has evolved into. Research shows that over 80 scams came to light in the last two years - most of them revealed with the help of whistleblowers. I wrote a piece on how this impacts journalism and society at large. It was published by the The Hoot. I am reproducing it here for your convenience. I look forward to your comments.

(Image Courtesty: http://sushantskoltey.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/scams-scandals/)

In the last one year, India has seen several scams – Coal gate (over misallocation of coal blocks), NRHM land scam (Uttar Pradesh), Toilet scam (All India), Irrigation scam (Maharashtra), mining scam (Goa) and the most recent being the granite scam (Tamil Nadu). Popular media has broken these stories primarily based on whistleblower information and done a fair bit of reporting on developments around them. What the media has not done is help detect these scams in advance before they ballooned into several thousand crores, denting the economy. This reflects the state of investigative journalism in the country and the unwillingness of leading media houses to encourage such stories.

In the recent past only a handful of scams have truly been unearthed by the media – the 2G scam involving Nira Radia, some journalists and former Ministers Kanimozhi and A. Raja (broken by Open Magazine), ISRO – Devas scam (The Hindu), Defence Equipment procurement scam (The Week) and Adarsh Housing society scam (broken by Indian Express in 2003, with little follow up until 2010 though). This comprises only four of the 80 plus major scams that have been reported by the media since 2010. (The list referred to here is by no means exhaustive; it points to scam stories that most leading media houses carried). The rest were revealed by whistleblowers (whatever their reasons) and reported by the media. This is unlike the past where large corruption was often exposed by the media taking the lead. The Securities scam 1992 (unearthed by Sucheta Dalal, then with Times of India), the 2004 expose showing the involvement of key BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders in the Godhra riots, cash for votes scam 2008 and the bribery and corruption in the Ministry of Defense (both unearthed by Tehelha magazine) are some popular stories that were carried by all media outlets. Such caliber of journalism made the media reprise its role as watchdogs of society, and made the establishment wary.

Today, however, such journalism has been more or less relegated to niche publications, with popular media by and large relying on third parties to unearth scandals. This needs to change and leading media organizations should take their role of watchdogs seriously and encourage investigative journalism.

Investigative journalism has one objective – discovery of truth. While this should form the core of journalism itself, it seldom does. Most media organizations and reporters are happy merely reporting what they see as long as there are some facts and figures backing their reports. Few bother questioning these facts and figures at first glance or go beyond them to see if something is amiss. This is why Indian media in recent times has relied on whistleblower sources to detect most scams. Over time, such reporting has made even journalists complacent, where one is merely interested in getting the story aired/ published “first”, before the rest of the gang catches up. Not only does this produce shallow content where the journalist merely reproduces the whistleblower’s version of the story followed by versions of other sources, it takes focus away from the larger issue thus defeating the purpose of such an expose’.

Take the case of the irrigation scam. Times of India, cleverly claimed that they had unearthed the scam over a period of six months by showing various seemingly disjointed reports that they had published over the last six months. Two reports in April 2012 focused on the Balganga and Kondhane dam project costs being hiked by over 100 percent and 500 percent respectively. A subsequent report in June said that one of contracts had been terminated, but provided no other information. Four months later in August the newspaper published a story on why these costs were hiked. While this qualifies for an expose’ on the health of specific projects, by no means does the report indicate a wider scam in the making.

Further, when Times of India did break the irrigation scam story it quoted sources who not only said the state had spent Rs 70,000 crore in irrigation projects, but also shared various other information that the journalist should have ideally researched on. The facts quoted in the report were attributed to the Maharashtra Economy Survey Report and the Central Water Commission. Surprisingly, both these reports are released every year and copies of reports dating as far back as 2006-2007 are available on their respective websites. Why is it that the newspaper waited this long to expose the scam, considering the dam project costs were hiked frequently? Is it because a hike of say 20% cannot be considered important enough to report, vis’-a-vis’ a hike of say 150%? Why did the reporter not go beyond investigating three irrigation projects in Maharastra, when there was data available to indicate that the health of other projects could be no better?

Had the reporter on this beat noticed and questioned these issues earlier, the scam could have been nipped in the bud. It may not have got the required level of attention on front page but the lives of people affected could have been improved.

Perhaps this is the reason why the toilet scam received step brotherly treatment from media houses. News broke on April 18th,2012 when Telegraph broke the story of disparity in figures of the Union Rural Development Ministry and the Census pertaining to the number of latrines built. A gap of 3.5 crore latrines was indicated. Despite the first mover advantage, the newspaper stayed away from doing any follow up stories that could give a more definite shape to this scam. Times of India followed it up a week later putting a figure of Rs 2,900 crore as the value of the scam in Uttar Pradesh where most toilets had gone missing. Beyond that the report did not probe the reasons for such a scam, nor did it mention the contractors responsible for these latrines or why such data was over reported. The next story on August 16th, was generic in nature and reported that gram Panchayats would be held responsible for ensuring that requisite number of toilets were built in their respective jurisdictions. Where is the investigation in any of these reports? At best, all these stories are examples of clever statistic-play and numeric calculations.

The most recent granite scam in August this year, was revealed when former district collector of Madurai U. Sagayam’s letter to the Principal Secretary of the State Industries Department was leaked. The letter alleged a loss of around Rs 16,000 crore to the state exchequer due to illegal mining along with suggestions of how the scam was being perpetrated. Considering the amount of information already available on the case, most newspapers seem to have taken a stand of merely reporting developments. A report in the Frontline summed up the situation well. It says “The issue [of illegal mining] has for long been highlighted by environmentalists, social activists, functionaries of non-governmental organisations and leaders of Left parties. Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, while campaigning for the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) during the Assembly elections last year, referred to the revenue loss suffered by the State owing to illegal granite quarrying.” The piece indicates that the government chose not to act on this issue until the letter found its way into the public domain. Why did newspapers too remain silent, if information on illegal mining was already available? Could their expose’ on the issue not spur the government into action much earlier?

A good case in point is The Week’s investigative report on the aftermath of the Rs 35,000 crore Goa mining scam (originally exposed by FirstPost). The report details how the region’s ecological balance has been disturbed due to mining, severely impacting agriculture and economy in those regions. It also provides information on the mining scam which was hitherto unreported, such as who was responsible for the mining activity, the modus operandi and tell tale signs that authorities chose to ignore. However, it is seldom that one sees leading media organizations carrying a blend of investigative and popular news stories.

Niche publications like Tehelka (which perhaps pioneered sting operations and revived the culture of investigative journalism in India), Open Magazine and FirstPost still manage to focus on investigative stories, no matter how small or large the scale of wrongdoing. Open recently exposed a smuggling and sex racket involving Uzbeki women and Indian customs officials where an estimated Rs 5 Crore was paid in bribe money to evade duty of around Rs 50 crore. FirstPost exposed the Goa mining scam.

Tehelka recently exposed the PDS food grain scam in UP (estimated to be worth Rs 2 Lakh crore) involving Food and Supplies Minister Raja Bhaiya. The Minister built a personal fortune of Rs 100 crore in four years stealing and diverting food grain meant for the poor, during his former term as Food Minister. It also published a shocking expose of the attitude of senior policemen in the NCR-Delhi region (which incidentally has reported the highest number of rape cases) towards rape. The piece showed apathy, prejudice and misogynist attitude towards women who filed rape cases, and indicated how they never believed rape could occur because “the woman is at fault” and “asked for it”. The Raman Singh expose highlighting corruption, nepotism and questionable business dealings in Chhattisgarh , was yet another investigation by Tehelka.

Magazines like the Outlook also come up with investigative stories occasionally. The publication unearthed the Rs 2500 crore rice scam in 2010 based on a RTI query pertaining to ban of Basmati rice, which in reality was not enforced. It exposed the NTRO’s dubious practice of tapping the phones of senior political leaders. It also published a brief report indicating land grabbing by past President Pratibha Patil’s son in Amravati. Although brief, it indicated the questionable manner under which land was being allocated to an educational society managed by then President’s son on the mere basis of a letter to the government with little or no scrutiny. Rare for a TV channel in recent times, CNN-IBN exposed the Odisha mining scam valued at Rs 3 lakh crore.

What is perhaps worrying is that many of these stories were not carried by other media publications and hence did not get the required visibility for readers or got the government to act. In an age of scams, social media and citizen journalism, it would greatly benefit society at large if TRP/ readership focused media organizations can develop the stomach for investigative journalism. If nothing, it would cure them of the one issue they have perennially faced - surviving the clutter of news.

Does Corporate India understand social media? – Part 2

2012-09-25T17:52:00.000+05:30

(Image Courtesy: http://www.themarketingpill.com/how-to-spot-a-social-media-fake)

My last blog post talked about this headline by contrasting the fundamental nature of business with that of social media. It attempted to explain why corporate India seemed to have several “misunderstandings” while dealing with people on social media. At the time, it seemed fair to assume that corporates did not completely understand these differences (given the maturity of social media networks in India) and plunged into this medium simply because it was touted at the next big thing or the competition was on it. However, a recent report by Gartner, could suggest otherwise.

Titled “The Consequences of Fake Fans, ‘Likes’, and Reviews on Social Networks”, the report predicts that by 2014, upto 15 percent of all reviews on social media will be fake and paid for by corporates. This could mean one of two things. That corporates fully understand the challenges in harnessing social media to their advantage and want to take shortcuts to meet their goals by seeking paid/ fake reviews. Or, that corporates continue to be ignorant of how this platform works and are trying to foist business models that have worked while dealing with mainstream media. (Paid placement of articles (infomercials) in mainstream media publications is common practice and is used by companies to launch high-involvement products as well to communicate crisis management and brand revitalization activities. Paid news recently created a controversy when it was discovered that journalists/ managements adopted unethical practices to pass of infomercials as news).

Either way, this could be harmful for brands.

At the core of this issue is the need to “get more” - of followers, space, mind share, downloads, conversations and everything else that is possibly quantifiable. But what does 10 million ‘likes’ on a corporate Facebook page indicate? Do people like the way the page looks? Do they like one or all the services/ products the company provides? Do they like other fans of the company page? One can never say because we are impulsive in our like or dislike of many things. To make matters worse social networking platforms are engineered to thrive on breadth and not depth of content. This means, the more ‘likes’ you have the more active you are perceived to be.

I am a vegetarian but like watching Masterchef Australia, (where most dishes are non-vegetarian) because of the show’s presentation. I may therefore ‘like’ the social media pages created by Masterchef Australia. Can Masterchef Australia sell me anything from their show? Except for aprons, maybe not. Can they engage with me by sharing some recipes? Unlikely, because their vegetarian recipes are bland to my taste buds. What kind of a fan does that make me? A pretty useless one.

Companies that genuinely want to engage on social media don’t like to be saddled with fans paying them lip service. They would rather have fewer fans engaging deeply and willing to collaborate with them on various aspects of their product/ service. Indian corporates must understand this. India has the world’s largest population and getting numbers (of people) to like/ dislike something has never been an issue. Whether it is world peace, municipality woes or Rajnikanth, Indians always have an opinion on everything under the sun. The tougher job for corporates is to figure out whose opinion is transient and whose isn’t. If companies stop chasing numbers and embrace engagement, customer advocacy will oust paid / fake reviews.

Does corporate India understand social media?

2012-09-13T14:07:00.000+05:30

Here comes another corporate gaffe on social media. Volkswagen India posted an offensive tweet in reply to one if its followers’ comments and then promptly took it off without any apology. The company recently put an Ad in a newspaper with a motorized vibrator in the back page that went off automatically if one opened the newspaper. The vibrations were meant to inspire people to head to the Volkswagen showroom to check out the new range of Polo and Vento cars. Instead it elicited ridicule and embarrassment on twitter.

(Image courtesy: http://www.technologyreview.com/files/84102/diffusion-cascade.jpg)

Some women followers of the brand on social media gently admonished it for a failed attempt to create a catchy campaign, not to mention the underlying sexual innuendo. The brand retorted by tweeting “Women would be dumb to call it a vibrator. Or maybe they do not understand real driving experience,” and set off heavy criticism including being labeled sexist.

It was only last week that social media in India ignited over Samsung leaving two Indian bloggers stranded in Germany, after they refused to succumb to threats by Samsung forcing them to promote their products at an event. Subsequently the company issued a hasty response blaming “miscommunication” for the incident.

These incidents prompt one to ask if corporates understand social media. It is most likely that they do not. This is because the fundamental principles of business and social media differ.

1. Control – Business and all business communication thrives on control by the management. When negotiating with business partners or clients, businesses often ensure that the terms are favorable to them first and then to the third parties. A similar degree of control is exercised in dealing with traditional media (eg: presenting an official version of a situation) and this is now extended to social media. Corporates see social media as yet another channel to increase their publicity. They expect corporate announcements and positive reactions to these announcements to float around on social media, not noises of protest or admonishment. Unfortunately social media thrives on self regulation or mere guidelines of regulation. Criticism is doubly quicker than praise. Those who take to social media, view it as a channel free of biases, unlike traditional media where there is still some influence of one’s media house or political leanings. It is naïve for companies to seek only public endorsement for their products/ services on social media.

2. Profit – The objective of most businesses is to make profits and rightly so. Without profit, there is no future. Employees can be laid off, research divisions can be dissolved, collaboration can be sacrificed, customer feedback can be ignored, and budgets can be cut to achieve the end objective - profit. In contrast, social media has one objective – engagement. There are no boundaries to define engagement and no limit on the number of metrics to measure it. There is no “point taken, now shut up” kind of control to exercise, whether 10 tweets criticize a company or 10,000 tweets do. The greater the public participation, greater the engagement. In that sense social media can be equated to a virtual mob. To influence the mob, companies have to be a part of the mob and gain trust. Making the mob do your bidding is a long way off.

3. Code of conduct – Businesses define and follow (at least on paper) a code of conduct to govern their relationships with employees, business partners and third parties. Any communication as part of this code is largely impersonal, even though the motivations for such communication are likely personal. Apologies and values often take a back seat in most corporate communications that tend to get defensive. Social media, on the other hand, is all about the individual – as personal as that can be. People faking their personalities are not taken to kindly on social media. People connect only with those they feel are genuine (with likes and dislikes) and not corporate mouthpieces. If one makes a mistake, one is expected to apologise and only then allowed to move on – just like in kindergarten. Not being sincere in one’s apology or being tolerant of others’ views, will earn corporates social media detention.

As more corporates take to social media marketing, they must realize the trade-offs that come with the medium. Else social media will soon turn into an anti-corporate channel for people to voice their criticism.