What you can learn about Egotism

The minister of The Tang Dynasty was known to be  a great leader and statesman.  However in spite of all this he considered himself humble and devout Buddhist.   He would often spend the weekend visiting the Zen Master to study and learn from him and both seemed to get along well.  The fact that he was minister did not affect his relationship with the Zen Master and they struck it off well like a diligent student and discerning master.

One weekend the minister asked the master "Sir, what is egotism according to you".  The master's fumed an in a very insulting and reverberating tone he sad "What kind of stupid question is that"

This kind of reply shocked the minister and he was angry and annoyed.  The Zen Master then smiled and said "This Your Excellency, is egotism"

This was "learning by real experience". No better way to explain the concept.

The lesson for us is that experience is the father of explanation and you imbibe more by just experience rather than someone telling or showing.  It was however possible that the minister would not have sensed what the master wanted him to experience and that's one key reason why learning fails.  We put our own walls of egotism and scaling those walls is a huge task.

If you want to really achieve then you need to break those walls of egotism and keep the mind open to learning.  This is similar to the "Empty Cup" phenomenon in the other story we discussed.

Leaders too have to shed their obsession of self importance and start thinking about how the others can grow, benefit, learn, improve and so on. Egotistic leaders are only concerned about their own position, how they will grow, how they will move up the pecking order.... without much worry about the larger team.   You will find them organizing "durbars" or "mini courts" with participants singing praises in a sense. 

MBA: Whats ailing the programs

A  field of study which landed students with very lucrative career options this field grew leaps and bounds -  attracted so many investors and several institutions started offering MBA programs and the growth was so rapid that by 2013 we have about 4000 colleges with capacity of over 350,000students each year.   Incidentally it is a vertical zoom upwards from 200+ colleges in 1990's.

Now, the tide has turned and there are large number (over half) where as many as 30 to 40% of students graduating in recent years are unable to get a job placement when they complete their MBA course work.   While the mushrooming of colleges did bring about lot of capacity this came at a cost of quality and big gap in employability.

According to the report on MBA employability by Aspiring Minds shows a dismally low 10% employablity in functional areas.   Employability in Operational roles was over 30%. 

When the first MBA course was launched at Harvard over a 100 years ago (early 1900's)  the objective was to help people who were well trained in their profession to sharpen their understanding of business and therefore run successful businesses.   MBA programs across the globe mirrored this and as the decades unfolded the objective changed.  Today Business Schools aim at building capability in decision making and leadership skills in a Global Environment, Most schools have a spattering of those who come with some prior work experience thereby forcing the learners to attempt a surrogate - try to learn from others experience, whatever value add that may bring about.  

The paradox - when there is over abundance of supply you would expect lot of innovation and improvement in curriculum it is not the case.  Reason for this can be attributed to the ingrained Indian' psyche to earn degrees.   Social pressure pushes students to opt for a PG degree like MBA even if it is not of high quality.  So what could be gaps in ability of the students who come to the corporate world after completing their MBA.  We discuss some of these below both from curriculum perspective as well as from the perspective of skills, knowledge and attitudes.  While all of these may not be equally representative  generalization across all colleges, especially among the top 100 or so colleges in India, it provides some aspects to reflect as some of the those graduating  in the lower ranks in these institutes also reflect these gaps.

a) Quick Fix and BOOM BOOM...Approach:  Business Management Graduates who join the industry afresh are full of ideas.  The problem.. solutions are configured in couple of hours.  What should have followed a set of decision making questions is often done in a jiffy.  Result:  Unworkable and impractical solutions.  Often the risk considerations are missing,  how the decisions impacts other parts of the organization are missing.... Systems Thinking.   Today's Solutions are Tomorrow's Problems.... Remember.  We can attribute this quick fix to the speed at which they are used to results.... Google Your Way in 0.052 seconds... seems to be transposed to real life too.  Look for quick fix.... solutions.  

b) Inference at Cost of Tools & Techniques:  More emphasis is placed on learning tools, techniques and so in straight situations the fresh MBA's seem to be very agile in application, but when it comes to drawing inferences,  there is a big gap.   Taking numbers sorting them into a organized information happens well but drawing inferences and linking the various concepts comes at a premium.

c) Synthesis as a Key Ability:   The ability to synthesize, link knowledge they gained across different areas to their decision and analysis is low.  While they are very fond of marketing,  QM and Operations Management integrating concepts of economics and social and behavioral aspects is much more lower.  Complete analysis and reports are prepared focused on strategy,  marketing concepts, operations parameters,  scenarios etc but economic principles, long term impact,  social and behavioral implications,  down side risks are left aside maybe unknowingly or assuming they are not that important pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.   Therefore the down side is that managers often expect that with new MBA's you need to spend lot of time  coaching them (hand holding) and this period of working along side goes for long duration even stretching 2 to 3 years into their career.  This can cause pressure and frustration among the new entrants as they look for being able to work independently much earlier.

d) Latest Concepts Inducted Late:  New trends in industry and business are slow to get into the curriculum and lag by anything between 6 months to 10 years. So at times it looks like Osmosis of Concepts from practice to class room.   For e.g. if you did a quick scan of the number among the top 100 B' Schools in India which have a full fledged course on Social Media on their MBA curriculum as a compulsory subject it is a very small fraction.   On a sample of 12 of the 100 only 2 had a full fledged compulsory course listed.   Even if they do have it they are not listed or among the electives which are easily avoided by the students who don't want to go through the grind.    This is so when today every industry and every business is faced with reality of  digital and social media strategy being part of the business realities. 

e) Ethics & Temporal effects:    When working on decisions in business it important that one learns to think analytically,  critically,  temporally as well as ethically.   While students are very good at the first two aspects when it comes to ethical considerations there is a big gap.   Similarly the ability to think historically as well as futuristically  is restricted.   This kind of tilt towards analytical and critical thinking leaves solutions less practical and often end up ... at the discussion level.  

f) Communication:  While written and oral communication do get sufficient focus in Business Schools it is a problem when it comes to how...  How does one communicate critical issues with employees,  how do you handle communication around issue management.   Fresh graduates are a a loss when it comes to this  aspect of communication - including those from premier Business Schools.  Communication with employees,  issue management,  strategic negotiation are important.  How communication in virtual and globalized context are different from communication in a factory where people work in one location are very different and need to be clearly understood.

g) Attitudes :  You may have great knowledge and skill repertoire but the attitude you have is often the success factor.   MBA's these days may think that the degree is a short cut from Class Room to The Board Room.  This is far from true.  One really has to go through the grind, get his or her hands dirty,  learn the ropes quickly and you will surely have a faster career, make better decisions or scale new and uncharted heights for the organization.  However today's fresh graduates want to move fast and consider the degree as the propeller for success but that's again a short sighted view.  You can get a foot in the door,  but post that it is your competitiveness, spirit and contribution that sets the MBA apart. 

g) Competitive versus Collaborative Mindset:   You are molded to be very competitive. Relative grading,  competing with others for marks in the presentation, staying ahead of the curve to get shortlisted for the plum jobs on campus, all tend to stoke the individual person and not the collaborative person in the young students.   This is carried forward as they enter the corporate world from their campuses.  The need in MBA curriculum is to design ways to encourage and visibly see how collaboration is rewarded.  Any success in organizations is culmination of efforts by several functions coming together to work on and delivering.

The above are some of the key gaps in graduating MBA students in recent years.   The world of business is changing so rapidly that what we call as gaps today may be dwarfed in next five years by something very different.   Society has many expectations from educational institutions and the curriculum is the best benchmark of the pressures acting on the educational institutes being fulfilled.   One has to be constantly aware of what those pressures are and how they can be addressed.   The way out for those who are graduating in these tough times would be to consider alternative careers.  

The straight line may be the shortest and easiest path between two points but when it comes to careers it is not necessarily so and if we understand how this can work to your advantage when there is an imbalance in demand supply (over supply) we can solve a number of problems with respect to employability.  How?  We will see in a subsequent post.

Tribute to Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick

This is a tribute to Dr. Don Kirkpatrick who passed away on 9 May 2014 at the age of 90.   He had served, most of his active working life, as a Professor at University of Wisconsin Madison.   A thought leader and a pioneer in the field of training he conceptualized a model of training management and the framework which stays relevant even after more than six decades since it was first made known to the managerial profession.  

Every HR professional would have come across this term called "Kirkpatrick's 4 Level of Training Effectiveness" sometime in their careers and many would have used it to delve into aspects of whether the lessons from learning interventions were taken back to the workplace and used in the context for which it was meant.   Kirkpatrick model of measuring learning effectiveness at four levels.  Put a trained person or a changed person (in our case) into the same context and the chances are there is a reversible reaction and he or she goes back to the old ways.  Therefore learning becomes ineffective.    So the model of 4 levels of learning evaluation goes into looking at down stream impact and that was the major shift in assessment of training delivered.

Today the world of work is not longer what it was in the 1950's and a far cry from what it was even in the 1990's.   But the relevance of the model still remains.   Whether it was class room learning or self learning or group learning techniques the stages model still remains a primary way of looking at application of the learning. 


Normally most people associate ROI with Kirkpatrick's model but this was not what he proposed.  The concept of ROI came from other proponents and is generally something like water on ducks back for those who are not numerically inclined.  Also when the scale of change is large and difficult to measure the concept of ROI beats people to a corner.  To overcome this I have used something called the VOI (Value of Investment) concept which is all about what value you expect the change to bring to your organization and as long as you are able to articulate that and check out whether it is bearing fruit you are good on your judgment for the investment.  More on this in a later post.

Busiess Process Services: Myth Busters

There are lot of myths about working in the Business Process Services industry (aka as BPO / ITeS industry) 

For the BPS industry has been a story of rapid growth in India having grown  from less than a Billion US Dollars in  revenues around 2001 to about 20 times that revenue by 2013. Truly with the forecast for 2020 being 50 Billion US Dollars the industry is in a sweet spot.

Some popular  myths about this industry:

Myth 1:  It is an industry where work is low end and run of the mill.


Reality:  BPS industry is a very diverse spread of work ranging from F&A,  Supply Chain Management,  Analytics & Insights spread across several industry verticals ranging from Pharma, Manufacturing, Banking, Insurance etc.  Also the industry offerings include managing various business processes of client organizations e.g.  reorder in a store or manufacturing facility; or improving the cash flow management in a business and so on.   Remember Cash flow is a major problem faced in many industries and several organizations are willing to put their money where the mouth is.


Myth 2: Educational Qualification, Degree's not very important.  Anyone can join.

Reality:  This is one of the most diverse industries in terms of skill and educational background.  Employees come with background ranging from Graduate to Post Graduate to Advanced Doctoral Studies ranging from Commerce,  Finance,  Marketing, Pharma,  Economics, Statistics,  Business Management,  Arts, Literature,  Medicine, Law and So on.   The industry has a very good ratio on gender diversity also.  While many companies may have about 30 to 40% women employees overall the industry has over 40% women working. Every industry will have jobs where qualification is not very important and you just need to have a school or pre-college certificate.  This industry is no different.  So Remember: Opportunity in Diversity is what this industry is all about.   

Myth 3: Not safe place to work;  Not good for women

Reality:  Absolutely misplaced understanding. The industry has over 40% women as part of the workforce.   Companies in this industry serve to work for customers in different time zones and so we have employees working in various time slots.   So almost every one gets a pick up and drop facility to their homes,  there is enough emphasis on safe commute with companies playing a very active role in security provided to employees both at work and to and from home to work.   Also being an industry which works on client data there is a highly secure and safe environment with very little scope for unsafe conditions.    Women employees being a big constituent companies have given lot of emphasis on policies that are women friendly and have made it a matter of ease, comfort and convenience for empowering women.

Myth 4:  Industry will not survive long.

Reality:  The industry which grew rapidly from about < 1 Billion USD in 2001 has now clocked nearly 20 Billion USD in revenues and slated to grow to over 50 Billion USD by 2013.  Moreover every country, every industry and every business needs to have better, smarter and newer ways of managing their processes and this industry will find opportunities even in the times of down turn.  Remember when growth was stunted across industries in recent years BPS grew in double digits.

Myth 5:  Low Growth, Low Attractiveness

Reality:  The industry has enormous opportunities,  serving clients across two dozen or more industry verticals.   Given the forecast and nature of work this industry can only expand with more and more industries seeking opportunities for bettering their processes.   With rapid growth comes opportunities. The industry has a matrix of opportunities in a combination of domains and functional areas which span from sales, marketing, operations, transitions, quality,  customer engagement,  risk and compliance and a host of other business enabler functions 

Myth 6:  Bad for Health due to Night Shifts

Reality:  The difference is no more than for e.g. what Bangalore was in the 1980's and early 1990's.  Most of the large companies in Bangalore, Mumbai (textiles) ,  Chennai etc worked round the clock and a host of people worked in the night shifts and rotating shifts.    A range of industries like hospitality, medical care,  transport, airline,  telecom, petrochemicals and other manufacturing all had night shifts and a whole lot of people working in different shifts.  The problem is not about night shift or rotating shifts making you fall ill, rather it is the change in lifestyle in general today that has made people prone to some of the hazards of low sleep levels,  poor diet and exercise regimes,  lack of  revival through breaks and holidays, etc not because they work in shifts but because the world in general has become fast paced.   Imagine you want to do your work, spend hours on Facebook,  Hangout in chat rooms,  celebrate at eateries, coffee shops and do all this in 24 hours -- the victim is sleep.   This is a problem all round not just for those in shifts but a society's challenge.


Myth 7: Strange people,  Work There

Reality:   Thanks to Chetan Bhagat's novel One Night At A Call Center which is a story woven around lives of a few strange people working in a call center and their complex ways and lives, this perception was created.  Reality is that the people in this industry are from diverse segments,  diverse backgrounds and are as good or as bad as people in any other industry.   It's the lens you wear that counts.

finally

Myth 8:   It is a call center. / Telemarketing space

Reality:   The spread of work done by BPS companies ranges from transaction processing to analytics and insights to legal process services to providing inputs on pricing decisions to global retail companies, to helping companies improve their cash flow, to allowing pharma companies launch drugs, vaccines faster and so on.  Today the BPS industry also involves call centers but that is one aspect of the industry and surely one where people enjoy varied opportunities.

You may also like to read.

Some Sectoral Challenges: BPS

Robotic Automation in BPS

BPS Industry in India

BPS Industry: Need for Mainstream Curriculum

BPS Industry: Myth Busters

Leadership Perspectives Series: 1 Vision, Leadership & Direction

There are several dozens of theories on leadership.   Understanding them needs deliberate effort and time.   There are also other ways to build perspectives on something like this.  One simple way is to build perspectives through quotes which are powerful in communicating the message and simple elaboration which gives examples of "action" or "grounded understanding"   In the Leadership perspective series we shall try to understand some simple facets of leadership and we have about a dozen such perspectives coming up in next few months.

We shall start with two simple quotes on Vision and Meaning that are critical elements that leaders should focus on.  Having a shared vision is something that we always speak of when it comes to fulfilling objectives as a team.   Then you would have heard about putting your heart and soul into it once you have a clarity on vision, purpose, goal etc.   Here are three simple quotes.

"We are more in need of a vision / destination and a compass rather than a road map." Stephen Covey

This quote really captures the fact that it is more important to have a destination and then chart a course for our selves.  Anyone who has used Google Maps today understands that there are many paths between two points and while Google does it without emotional upheavals involved.  However human beings are different, they have a high need for deciding their own path.  It is highly motivating to involve people in the decisions and let them be part of the core decision process and this is what drives them to perform.  So a good leader should avoid providing the solution but rather help build a perspective and let the people working in the organization decide the way to reach there.    

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leaders are one side of the coin.  Followers make up the other.   For a leader it is most important to understand what each one is good at, what they excel in,  what drives their passion and then ensure they dwell on that.   Realizing ones potential is what every leader would thrive on.    Egg Them on their strengths and they would never have to work a single day.... rather they never feel they are working. At the same time a good leader will surely want to give a chance to people to make mistakes and not get bogged down by failures. 

Sample this...

"A leader is one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation and yells "Wrong Tree".  Stephen Covey

It is about owning up and accepting that mistakes can be made... however most importantly it is about not repeating the same mistake.  A good leader surely does not deny the fact that you should learn from your mistakes as well as from that of others and then transfer that learning across situations.   That is why we often hear that the constellation of experiences is what makes a person a leader

Finally from the Holy Bible

When there is no vision, the people perish.  Proverbs, 29:18

It is about not understanding the right word that leads to moral chaos.  Although it may not directly be an attribution to leadership vision it is about having a understanding.


More on leadership perspectives in subsequent posts.  Adieu !!!

Quotes To Think Aloud; Realizing Your Potential

Ten Nice one's to reflect on....  This is a collection of  quotes that you will find are related to concept of "Realizing Your Potential".


"POTENTIAL" means nothing if you don't do anything with it.


“It’s hard to soar with eagles when you hang out with turkeys”


"The obsession with instant gratification blinds us from our long term potential" - Michael Dooley.


"You are only confined by the walls you Build Yourself"


"The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives"  - Albert Schweitzer


"If we did all the things that we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. - Thomas A Edison


"There is no man living who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can do" - Henry Ford.


Potential has a shelf life - Margaret Atwood


With realization of one's potential and self-confidence on one's ability one can build a better world.  Dalai Lama


If you limit your choice only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.  - Robert Fritz