Carry This Last afternoon, I was lucky to chance upon some great customer service. I was at a station in Karnataka, heading back to Bombay with my mom. The indifferent railway staff hadn’t been clear about which platform the train would arrive on. After a long wait, the platform was announced. The person at the info desk…
The A-Z of Consulting I had recently uploaded a new presentation about the A-Team, a Management Strategy & Consulting service for Small & Medium Businesses that I run. Contrary to the general perception most people have about Management Consultants, I for one, try to keep our image informal, friendly and approachable. And we don’t make clients lighter by several lakhs for…
Hope you don’t have a Rolled Model? We all have role models? Well, at least most of us do. And can we ever admire them enough? While it’s great if you have idols or role models, something I suggest to friends and acquaintances is that you should not be amazed by your role models. Instead, find out what it is about…
Are you Sold to the Idea? Here’s a first post under a new category called ‘Management Mumblings’. I recently addressed and interacted with about 70 really smart MBA students, with whom I was sharing experiences from my corporate career, and about starting up and growing, with the objective of encouraging entrepreneurship. In comparison, I’ve always found it easier to interact with people from industry,…
If You’re Gonna Fly Now that’s how one should live their life. For those of you in India, I’m sure you saw the news about the Air India flight that made an emergency landing at Jaipur airport on Sunday night. [link] For those who missed the news, here’s what happened: 173 passengers aboard a plane that has been in…
Your Time Will Come Three days ago, I was rushing to office after a meeting. The day somehow seemed very different. Special, in an inexplicable way. The meeting had gone well too. While waiting at a signal light, lost in the magical voice of the very beautiful Amy MacDonald singing ‘Your time will come’, when…
The Tata Nano, cheapest car in the world today, is arguably one of the biggest milestones in the auto industry in recent times, the world over. A close friend of mine, Sheshank Reddy shared an article which talked about how Mr. Ratan Tata, in hindsight, felt the Nano should not have been positioned as ‘the cheapest car’. Another close friend, Pradeep Shetty,…
Chip Off the Old Block Renaissance artist Michelangelo claimed that his job was to free the human form trapped inside the block. His words, apparently were: “In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and in action. I have only to…
Seasons Greetings Y’all.! Compared to businesses abroad, companies in India have been notorious for having too many public/festival holidays. And employees, of course, have always been grumbling about not having enough. There are numerous and diverse religions and cultures here. And its our collectively celebrating festivals is what makes Indian culture unique and rich in itself. Now…
I Wonder If You Can Think about any random man-made problem that the world faces; financial meltdowns, corruption, greed, poverty. Also, inequalities, ethnic violence, crimes against women and children, “man-made” natural disasters, and so on. Wouldn’t it be easy even to just grasp the magnitude of these problems if they all had just one or a few common causes? And simple causes…
Sell Blankets to Eskimos This post requires you to think a bit. Might be difficult on a Friday night, but do give it a thought over the weekend. We all know how challenging the life of a salesperson can be. Unrealistic sales targets, unwelcoming prospective customers, unending follow-up calls and meetings. And then demoralizing posters outside offices and the crushing…
As High As You Can This post is not an original. It is a really inspiring message that I received recently. And even though some of you might have read it elsewhere, I think it does come in handy every once in a while for that little push we need on our uphill journeys, before we get to where we had planned…
Everything’s What Not It Seems Life Lesson: As we go through life, at any point, if we find that nobody or relatively fewer people are opposing or contradicting our views or opinions, it can only mean one of the following: you’ve stated the obvious (Means you need to grow up) you’re absolutely right (Again, and again? What are the odds?) the topic is too trivial…
Dark Knight Rising, Batpod Skidding You know how we sometimes have a tendency to give our ‘expert’ views on something that already seems perfect, and how, according to us, it could have still been better? Experts will agree that in areas of personal strengths and weaknesses, it is always better to focus on our strengths rather than our weaknesses. But in some other…
Let’s Go Back to the Future Last night, on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi‘s birth anniversary, I came across an article titled ‘Where was Gandhiji born? Only 4 out of 10 gave the correct answer.’ [link] What was the big deal anyway? While my outlook is not even half as non-violent as the Mahatma’s, I have utmost respect for him. But…